Friday, 1 May 2020

Quarantine entry #41 - May 1


Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but at least the province of Ontario is beginning to show signs of recovery, as at least some businesses are going to reopen next week, since it’s the first of May people, yay! April is over, and life is changing again. …So, what is my point?

Ah, yes, to further progress my escapism, I have rewatched the 2004 ‘Catwoman’ movie, and…

…And it is not that bad. Oh, sure, the depiction of the titular heroine is problematic and doesn’t really mesh with the entire underlying ‘girl power’ message that the C-2004 movie seems to push forwards, but on the other end, it’s not a horrifying mess that ‘Cats-2019’ have been, you know? The movie feels kind amateurish, the villains are not very impressive, but the same can be said for the first ‘Venom’ film, and now we are getting a second one and everyone is excited already, and not just because of cabin fever… where were we?

Ah yes, the Marvel movies of the early 2000s aren’t all that popular – ‘Daredevil’ was rather reminiscent of the ‘Batman’ films, (and yes, the Catwoman version in ‘Batman returns’ was better than the 2004 one, no argument), and as for ‘Electra’… it was really more style than substance, flashy to watch rather than fun, but… since then Marvel got itself together, (cough, Disney, cough), while DC didn’t. It is still a tangled mess, as the repeatedly delayed film about Batman, (the latest one) indicates. ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation of Harley Quinn’ is itself something of a ‘Suicide Squad’ reboot, (even if it is getting a ‘proper’ reboot now), and the underlying ‘girl power’ message… pause. Didn’t we already mention it in the subtext of C-2004?

…Yes, yes we did, and it looks like as if everything old is new again; Selina Kyle has apparently appeared on S2 of the ‘Harley Quinn’ cartoon series, which in itself is something of a reboot of the ‘Batman Animated Series’ of 1990s, which went through several transformations of its own, before it ended, (I’ve seen it personally). Put otherwise, of all the DC aspects, ‘Batman’ is one of the more enduring and versatile, even moreso than ‘Superman’, so to have it struggle is…disheartening to say the least. I have no idea where DC will go in the future, now that ‘The Fantabulous Emancipation’ is over, and everything is suspended by COVID-19, where everything is falling apart.

…Yes, now that it is May, things are coming to life once more, but still. DC had problems before COVID-19, so during and after… who knows?

In other news, I have also rewatched a DW S1 episode – ‘Knight vs. Pirate’. The pirate won, of course, but the knight had him working for it. Was it a fair episode? Yes, as the entire DW team were busy establishing if the basic firearms, (a flintlock pistol and the like) could penetrate the Medieval plate armor…and the answer is yes, it could and it can, but it was much dicier than in case of the more modern weapons, (19th century onwards, I suppose). This episode of DW was all about the weapons and the warriors, and as such, it was one of the better ones. Anything else?

Here is another piece of my original fiction – hope that you will like it:

Once upon a time, there was a dog, who lived in the kennel. Though the kennel had no furnace, the dog's fur kept him warm, and since he did a good job of keeping various thieves and blackguards out, he was well fed as well...

"Screw this!" said the dog as he looked over the author's drabble take of him. "I'm a dog! Man's oldest companion and best friend! Surely, I could get something bigger than just a drabble - a story, maybe, or a sequence of them..." He looked around, as he scratched himself behind an ear in a thoughtful way. "Maybe I could do some sort of a crossover, even..."

The dog looked around; he sniffed around and he walked around the enclosure of his drabble, which was supposed to be a yard. He tested the borders of his drabble, examining the entire fourth wall concept, until he got the idea of the lay of the land, so to speak, and he also tried to figure out as to where his story was going to go, because he also felt kind of lonely, (domestic dogs are social animals, as is their close cousin the grey wolf, and don't like to be by themselves, period), until he finally made a decision.


///

Once upon a time, there was a cat, who lived in the house. She caught a mouse in the cellar and was rewarded with milk, while her kitten, who was too young to appreciate milk properly - her mother could always give it to her fresh - was busy playing around the house, being a nuisance to everyone else, but a lovable one...

...And then the window into their room slash house opened wide, and the dog looked inside. "Hello there, neighbor!" he spoke in a particularly dopey way, which was typical of overly enthusiastic canines. "Doing anything currently?"

"Hello!" the kitten called back cheerfully. "Hi there, neighbor! And what are you doing?"

"Young lady!" the mama cat was far more defensive and less enthusiastic. "Behave yourself! And you," she turned to the dog, "what are you doing? The human owners will catch you at any moment-"

"Nuh-uh," the dog did not back down. "There are no humans, not right now - the author didn't put them into their drabbles, not yet! Anyways, I am going to break borders through our original fandom and another one - could you two please come along with me? It'll be lonely on my own-"

The mama cat looked decisively unimpressed by the dog's plea - cats and dogs don't constantly fight, but neither do they always get along, plus unlike dogs, cats are individualist creatures and don't do large social gatherings...unless they want to, (and there's catnip involved. When there's catnip involved, all bets are off).

"I don't know, mister," the kitten spoke up suddenly. "Mama doesn't really like to travel and to have adventures. Maybe you can come in and play with me - I mean, with us, instead?"

The dog thought this over for a bit. "Sure!" he finally agreed, and jumped into the house through the window, right onto the carpet, where he gave himself a good shake, shaking himself clean. Well, cleaner. The kitten giggled and imitated him to an extent; the mama cat just stared.

The dog stared back. For a while, the two grown-ups just looked at each other, clearly trying to establish some sort of a telepathic communication slash argument. The kitten just looked at them, feeling rather worried - she did not like it when the grown-ups fought.

"So where are we going?" the mother cat suddenly changed her tactics.

"Yay! We're going on a trip!" the kitten mewed enthusiastically. "Thank you mama!" and she hugged her mom.

"Yes, well, even a trip is better than having our... neighbor here," the older feline mewed. "Also, where are we going?"

"Oh, I got it all figured out!" the dog replied brightly, as he reached out and pulled the fourth wall between this original fandom and the next one...

///

"...Wow, where are we?" the kitten mewed delightfully as she pranced around the grassland - literally. Well, no - literally speaking they were in a savanna, complete with long grass and trees that were more tropical than the ones that grew in the forest that was located beyond their village...

"In Africa," the dog said brightly, as he sniffed around one of the trees in question. "Smell, or see, this one? It's an acacia tree-!"

"Yay!" said the kitten and immediately began to climb it. Her mother was far less amused.

"You!" she told their new acquaintance. "You! You man! Do you know as to who lives here?"

"Your relatives?" the dog suggested brightly, as he pointed out to a lion in the distance. (So far, the latter was more interested in a herd of zebras and was ignoring the disturbance, not that the smaller mammals minded that, king of the beasts and all).

The mother cat looked at the king of beasts in question and her ears went flat. "You!" she switched her attention back to the dog. "You! You bachelor! You bachelor man! You self-designated bachelor- dog-! You!"

"Mama!" And the kitten (of whom the mother cat had kind of forgotten, cough), fell from an acacia branch - she did not have too much experience at climbing trees yet, and right onto the dog.

There was a pause as the trio tried to get their bearings together, because reasons. "See, mommy? I landed on my feet, as a big cat!" the kitten said brightly, switching her mental gears really easily, and doing her best to sound innocent, too.

The mother cat was not impressed - mothers often are not. That said...

"Right," she spoke finally. "Let's go and walk around here for a while - gently. We can play and all but do so quietly, and without making a commotion. Understood this, both of you did?" she asked, sounding a bit like the older version of Yoda, (not the new baby one).

Instead of commenting on this, however, the other two just nodded in understanding, and this was that: the not exactly dynamic trio went on for a walk through the acacia grove and had many adventures, both here and elsewhere - but that was another story.

End.

Did you like it? All comments and criticisms are welcome! I will see you all soon!


No comments:

Post a Comment