DnD Skeletal monsters - Dec 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and Pathfinder lately does not fare much better…

First, however, a couple of asides. First, the ‘Quiz Lady’ movie. It is vapid. I am not the biggest fan of Awkwafina or of Sandra Oh, but this movie just wastes them and everyone else involved in it: the movie does not go anywhere, there are no real stakes in it, no anything, and it is pointedly aromantic. There is nothing wrong with aromantic films in theory, but in practice, they tend to be forgotten quite quickly, such as another Netflix film, ‘Over the Moon’, which also starred Sandra Oh… as a voice actress because it was an animated film, but again – it was child-friendly in an aromantic way, and so it became quickly forgotten.

On other hand, there is the upcoming ‘Snow White’ Disney remake, which just might be forgotten for the better: Ms. Z’s statements have done more harm than good, and the remake itself seems to be problematic. Of course, there is also a question as to why does Disney needed to remake ‘Snow White’, but the answer is obvious: its’ new movies, such as ‘Wish’ or ‘Strange World’, are just as aromantic, vapid and forgettable as ‘Quiz Lady’ or ‘Over the Moon’ are, so Disney is in the same boat as Netflix is.

This, oddly, brings us over to ‘Pathfinder’. This RPG franchise is handling its’ transference to the second edition… not very well: their paladin class got remade completely, as was their cleric, and now they are going on with their layout – no ‘bestiaries’ (monster manuals) and etc. This is their call, of course, but our crew are keeping away from this franchise now, it just is not comfortable for us any longer.

Meanwhile, their wiki has introduced the ‘article of the week’ concept… several weeks ago. It is not a bad idea, in fact, and this week’s article is the skeleton’s monster entry. Now, again, we are largely done with Pathfinder, but you can find the skeleton monster entry in the original D&D Monster Manual 3.5 edition, and this is exactly what we will be doing in this entry: giving you several skeleton variants of opponents.

First up, is a straightforward ‘monster’ with the skeleton template – the leopard, (selected by a random generator):

Advanced skeleton leopard: CR 2; Medium undead; HD 5d12; hp 72; Init +4; Spd 30 ft., climb 10 ft.; AC 17, touch 14, flat-footed 11; Base Atk +4; Grp +7; Atk +7 melee (1d6+4, bite) and +1 melee (1d4+2, 2 claws); Space/Reach 5 ft./5 ft.; SA Improved grab, pounce, rake 1d3+1; SQ Damage reduction 5/bludgeoning, immunity (cold), low-light vision, scent; AL NE; SV Fort +5, Ref +7, Will +2; Str 20, Dex 17, Con 0, Int 0, Wis 10, Cha 1.

Skills and Feats: Improved Initiative.

Improved Grab (Ex): To use this ability, a leopard must hit with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can rake.

Pounce (Ex): If a leopard charges a foe, it can make a full attack, including two rake attacks.

Rake (Ex): Attack bonus +6 melee, damage 1d3+1.

Skills: Leopards have a +8 racial bonus on Jump checks and a +4 racial bonus on Hide and Move Silently checks. Leopards have a +8 racial bonus on Balance and Climb checks. A leopard can always choose to take 10 on a Climb check, even if rushed or threatened. In areas of tall grass or heavy undergrowth, the Hide bonus improves to +8.

Right. Next up, is a medium-level ranger NPC, who has a bone creature (from the ‘Book of Vile Darknes’) template:

 

Maia Josia, female human ranger 10: Medium undead; HD 10d12; hp 69; Init +7; Spd 20 ft.; AC 19, touch 22, flat-footed 11; Base Atk +10; Grp +15; Atk +13 melee (1d6+6/19-20/x2, +1 short sword) and +8 melee (1d6+3/x3, shortspear) or +13 melee (1d4+6, 2 claws); Space/Reach 5 f./5 ft.; SA Combat style/improved combat style (two-weapon fighting), favored enemy +6 (animals), favored enemy +4 (humanoids), favored enemy +2 (magical beasts), spells; SQ Animal companion (none), damage reduction 5/magic, darkvision 60 ft., evasion, immunity (cold), swift tracker, undead traits, wild empathy +3, woodland stride; AL LE; SV Fort +8, Ref +11, Will +4; Str 17, Dex 21 (25), Con 0, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 8.

Skills and Feats: Concentration +12, Craft (pottery) +9, Craft (weaponsmithing) +14, Craft (woodworking) +9, Handle Animal +12, Hide +12, Knowledge (nature) +14, Listen +1, Move Silently +20, Search +12, Spot +1, Survival +16; Combat Reflexes, Deceitful, Dodge, Endurance (B), Improved Initiative, Improved Two-Weapon Fighting (B), Self Sufficient, Track (B), Two-Weapon Fighting (B), Weapon Finesse (short sword) (B).

Spells Known (2/1; save DC 12 + spell level): 1st - alarm, calm animals; 2nd - barkskin.

Possessions: +1 studded leather, +1 short sword, masterwork shortspear, notebook, spare clothing, obsidian chunks in a bag, spell components, flint and tinder, bedroll, food and water supplies, bull's-eye lantern, other equipment, gloves of Dexterity +2, domain icon, 6200 gp.

And finally, here’s a mature adult black dragon with a skeletal dragon template, (from the 3.5 edition of ‘Draconomicon’):

Female mature adult black dragon; CR 7; Huge undead (water); HD 22d12+22, hp 150; Init +0; Spd 60 ft.; AC 25, touch 4, flat-footed 25; Base Atk +28; Grp +38; Atk +28 melee (2d8+8, bite), +23 melee (2d6+4, 2 claws), +23 melee (1d8+4, 2 wings), +23 melee (2d6+12, tail slap); Space/Reach 15 ft./10 ft. (15 ft. with bite); SA Crush, frightful presence; SQ Blindsense 60 ft., damage reduction 10/magic and 5/bludgeoning, darkvision 120 ft., immunities (acid, cold, sleep, and paralysis), low-light vision, spell resistance 23, undead traits; AL CE; SV Fort +18, Ref +13, Will +15; Str 27, Dex 10, Con 0, Int 0, Wis 10, Cha 14.

Skills and Feats: Improved Initiative.

Crush (Ex): Area 15 ft. by 15 ft.; Small or smaller opponents take 2d8+12 points of bludgeoning damage, and must succeed on a DC 26 Reflex save or be pinned.

Frightful Presence (Ex): 210-ft. radius, HD 21 or fewer, Will DC 23 negates.

 

Well, this is all for now, we are all out of appropriate skeletal monsters. We do hope that you will enjoy using them in your campaigns, however. For now, though, this is it. See you all soon, instead!

 

Dragonfly vs. wasp - Dec 11

A question was asked – who would win in a fight, a dragonfly or a wasp? Here is the short answer – it is a trick question!

As a starting point, the two insects are built quite differently. Both, of course, have the same insect body plan: an abdomen, a thorax with 4 wings and 6 legs, and a head with eyes, jaws, antennae, and whatever else insects have there. Beyond this generalization, however, a dragonfly and a wasp are built differently.

A dragonfly is built for speed. It is the cheetah of the insect world. Unlike the tall cat, however, a dragonfly has endurance as well as speed, as it spends all of its adult life flying around, looking for food and mates. Dragonflies are not territorial… unlike their damselfly cousins, which are: males of those insects have a perch/an established territory, and they keep each other out of it, but damselflies are not as good fliers as dragonflies are. Moreover, we are talking primarily about dragonflies here.

Wasps are more territorial, meanwhile. There are two main wasp types: the solitary and the social, and here we are talking about the social species, such as the paper wasp and the hornet. They are as carnivorous as any dragonfly is, but are also social, while dragonflies are not.

What is more important, though, is that while dragonflies are built for speed, as the cheetahs are, the wasps and hornets are built for strength instead, (as the lions and tigers are). Moreover, not unlike the lions, wasps are known to cooperate with each other, though along different lines than those of the vertebrate lions. To wit: while wasp nests are more numerous than the lion prides, the bonds between the lions are stronger, because, well, the lions live longer – for years, while in temperate climates wasps die at the end of fall/beginning of winter – only the wasp queens survive. (I.e. the wasp analogues of the bee queens).

…The dragonflies, it can be argued, do not fair much different: they also die in winter, and only their eggs, or larvae, survive the winter. Unlike the wasps, however, they do not have a pupa stage: when they are ready to transition from water to air, they crawl out of the water onto a tall cattail or reed, and burst from their back – literally: the skin on their backs bursts, and the adult dragonfly crawls out of its’ last larval skin. Alien xenomorphs, top that.

Getting back to our face-off, the dragonfly can fly, well, rings around a bulkier wasp, but unless it is really bigger than the wasp is, it will not tackle the wasp, and we are talking literal tackling here.

A wasp hunts with its’ sting, (in a manner of speaking): when a wasp finds its’ prey, (a spider, a caterpillar, a honeybee – it is different with different wasp species), it jumps onto its’ prey and paralyses’ it with the stinger. Then the wasp takes its’ prey to its’ nest, where it either feeds the prey to the larva, (as the social wasps do), or puts it into a storage, and lays its egg, so that the larva would eat the spider/caterpillar/etc. later, (as the solitary wasps do).

Meanwhile, dragonflies have no stingers – they just rush at their prey, seize it with their legs and eat it. The legs of dragonflies are hairy and spiky, useless for working, just fine for perching, and when the dragonflies fold them, their legs form a fine net/basket for catching insects such as mosquitoes and butterflies, but against powerful wasps – not so much. Venomous stingers aside, wasps and bees are just too heavy and strong for dragonflies, and the dragonflies do not mess with them.

Robber flies sometimes do. Despite being, well, flies, and as such, related to houseflies and mosquitoes, the robber flies live more like the dragonflies, being active hunters, especially as adults. A scientist once put a robber fly against a bumblebee. For a while, the former seemed to be gaining the upper hand, until the bumblebee unleashed its stinger and went on the counterattack. The robber fly quickly played possum and the bumblebee got away. Considering that the robber flies have a venomous bite of their own, and the dragonflies do not have it, the fight between a dragonfly and a bumblebee – or a wasp, for that matter – would have been over even quicker.

Therefore, getting back to the initial question: who would win, the dragonfly, or the wasp, the answer is the wasp. However, since a dragonfly would never tackle it, this answer is theoretical overall.

Giraffe and its' relatives - Nov 28

 Let us talk about giraffes and their relatives, just because.

The modern giraffe…consists of no one has a definite idea of how many species of the modern giraffes there are: an 8, a 4, and a 3-species family trees are proposed, and so far, not a single one out of them has won, all three theories are equally valid. That said, all of the giraffes are the world’s tallest mammal; they all are browsers, and eat leaves and other parts of trees and shrubs rather than grasses and other herbaceous plants. This is important, as grasses tend to regrow after they had been cropped by such mammals as the zebra, whereas tree leaves… also regrow, eventually, but at a much slower pace than how the grasses do. Therefore, many African savanna trees have evolved… some, as the acacias, have spines and symbiotic relationship with ants, (rather than termites), while the baobabs are flat-out huge and can handle the giraffes through their sheer size and bulk… eventually. Still, we digress.

Regardless of how many species of the modern giraffe there is, the modern okapis are represented by a single species, the, well, modern okapi. It is also called ‘the forest giraffe’, ‘the zebra giraffe’ and the like, but scientifically, it is named Okapia johnstoni. It is smaller, or rather – shorter than the ‘true’ giraffe of the African savanna, which means that it is less specialized than its’ cousin (cousins?) is.

Why? Because – proportionally – the okapi has a more varied diet than the giraffe from the start. It, too, eats foliage rather than grasses, as does the giraffe… but it does so because there is far fewer ‘true’ grasses in the jungle where it lives. The grasses are plants of open spaces, because in enclosed spaces bigger plants – shrubs and trees – block out the sun, and the herbaceous plants that live in forests – whether temperate or tropical – are more shadow loving than their grassland counterparts are. …Yes, this is generalization, but you get the point. Back to the okapi.

Again, it eats foliage and other parts of trees and shrubs, (the non-woody ones), and has many similarities to the giraffe, but because it lives in a proportionally more abundant and varied ecosystem, it is smaller and less derived than the giraffe is. In addition, there are fewer big herbivores in the jungle, as opposed to the savanna, and they tend to be smaller in size – the okapi, the African forest elephant, the forest antelopes, the pygmy hippo, even the non-white rhinos of the world – they all are smaller than their savanna-dwelling relatives are. In part because they’re living in tighter conditions, in part – because there’s less competition between the species, and fewer big predators as well – out of Africa’s ‘big five’, only the leopard enters the jungle, and it doesn’t appear to be attacking okapis regularly, for example, or giraffes for that matter. As such, the okapis do not need to get as big as the giraffe, as the giraffe’s size – or height – protects it from the leopards, lions, etc. (Moreover, the baobab’s size protects it from the giraffes, elephants, etc.). What next?

From the close relatives, to the more distant ones – the American pronghorns, the last members of the giraffes’ sister group. However, it is known as ‘the American antelope’ and ‘the pronghorn antelope’ among other monikers, this mammal – Antilocapra americana – is much less derived than the ‘true’ antelopes of the Old World is, and proportionally, it is much more closely related to the giraffe and the okapi. That said, physically, ‘on the outside’, the pronghorn is reminiscent… of the gazelles of Africa and Asia.

Eh, ok, gazelles are antelopes, in a matter of speaking. However, they are also antelopes that evolved for speed; they are light-bodied, long-legged and gracile, as opposed to something like the eland, which is built more like a cow, quite robust, or even the gnu, which is more of an endurance marathon runner instead. The American pronghorn, however, is also a marathon runner, having evolved in a time period when North America had its’ own cheetah species, (more closely related to the puma than to the modern Old World cheetah), and cheetahs are the ultimate sprinters – but we digress. These days, North America has no cheetahs, but what it does have is an Old World civilization that restricts’ the pronghorns’ (and the bison’s’, the peccaries’, etc.) prairie habitat, causing their populations to plummet regardless, much more efficiently than any cheetah would be able to… However, for us, what is important here and now that while the ‘true’ giraffe is a savanna foliage specialist, and the okapi is a jungle foliage generalist, the pronghorn is a prairie grass generalist instead. Is there anything left?

Actually, yes – the chevrotains or the mouse deer. Contrary to their names, the ‘rest’ of the deer are not close relatives of these mammals; the ‘true’ deer, and the musk deer, are much more evolved than the chevrotains are.

Let us try again. Among the modern ruminants, two groups stand above the rest. One group are the bovids – antelopes and gazelles, wild cattle, sheep and goats. Moreover, the second group are the deer. There are the ‘true’ deer, which consist of two subfamilies – the American deer, (with some exceptions, such as the moose, the caribou and the roe deer), and the Old World deer, (with some exceptions, such as the wapiti). The second family are the musk deer, (6 or 7 species), which are the sister group to the ‘true’ deer. Moreover, the mouse deer/chevrotains?

…They are much less derived than the ‘other’ deer – in fact, the rest of the ruminant artiodactyl mammals – are, and proportionally, they are much more closely related to the giraffe, the okapi and the pronghorn.

What do chevrotains look like? Tiny, vaguely deer-like animals with hooves, but without antlers. Some have also proportionally big canine teeth, superficially like the much bigger musk deer. (Actually, the musk deer are quite smaller than the ‘real’ deer, but they are still quite bigger than the mouse deer). They live in jungles – one in Africa, the rest – in Asia. That is because in Africa, their niche is taken over by the antelopes, i.e. the duikers and the Neotragus species, but that is another story.

Anything else? Right, the water chevrotain – the outsider that lives in Africa, rather than in Asia – is omnivorous, the others are less so, and all are found close to water. Put otherwise, not unlike the giraffe, the mouse deer are specialized – they have a very specific econiche in which they live, and this enables them to survive, avoiding competition with more derived herbivores. Only not, for in Africa that same econiche is taken over by those more derived herbivores – small jungle antelopes, such as duiker, and so only the water chevrotain Hyemoschus aquaticus is able to survive there, by being the most aquatic and most omnivorous out of them all. As Po the giant panda told the snow leopard villain of the first ‘Kung Fu Panda’ movie, “there’s no ultimate secret”, there is no ultimate solution to anything.

Let us conclude. On our narrative about the giraffe, we met four very different types of even-toed mammals. As we look at them, we see the giraffe, browsing from the treetops of the African savanna, the pronghorn, grazing on the grasses of the American prairie, the okapi, who is eating the leaves in the African jungle, and the mouse deer, which are scurrying through the undergrowth of Asian, but also African jungles, eating various general plant matter. They all look different from each other, but all are also more closely related to each other – proportionally – than to any other plant-eating mammal. This, then, is the wonder of evolution.

Wish - Nov 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Wish’ movie instead.

Where to begin here? Good question, for the ‘Wish’ feels all over the place. One spot is the ‘star-stuff’ angle: it looks as if Disney took it from Pamela Travers’ ‘Mary Poppins’ novels. See, in one of the storylines, the children that Mary Poppins nurses/raises/takes care off, learn that everyone and everything – birds, beasts, people, flowers, stars themselves, and et cetera – are made from ‘the same stuff’, i.e. everyone is connected. In another storyline – or maybe the same one, I am not the biggest expert on MP – the children and Mary Poppins meet two sisters and their elderly mother, who run a store during the day, and stick the stars to the sky at night. Pause.

No, the ‘Wish’ has quite different takes on both of those concepts, but the idea might have been lifted from Pamela Travers’ books. What next?

Um, the female lead looks like a variant of Isabel Madrigal from ‘Encanto’? Perhaps, but the overall feel of the films is quite different. See, ‘Encanto’ runs most of its’ time in isolation, but at the end of the movie that isolation ends, the titular place is ready to be re-connected with the rest of the world… something that also raises a premise of a sequel, (and how it will go, at least at the start). ‘Frozen’ has already done something similar: Arendelle is not isolated, not exactly, and both movies have done some world building, albeit to varied extent and so on. ‘Wish’, on the other hand, does not do that: it begins on an isolated setting and ends in the same manner, but, hey, the villain is defeated, that is good, right?

Hard to say. On one hand, the people of the island learn that by mastering their power, they can defeat any single individual, no matter how powerful the latter is, individually. That is very democratic… but the endgame in the ‘Wish’ is that while the king got captured in a magical mirror and looked in the dungeon, his wife, (or ex-wife), continues to rein as the island’s queen, making this development less of a revolution and more of a palace coup. European society and history knew plenty of both, so they should not have problems differentiating between the two. The U.S. society and history, conversely, do not have too much experience… but still. After the Donald’s mess during 2020, you would think that they began to learn the differences and all. Anything else?

The ‘girl power’ angle. Regretfully, this was done in the ‘Wish’ so clumsily, that all the ‘witty’ critics, who make puns such as ‘M-She-U’ regarding MCU, will have a field day here, since this is the late 2023, and making all the movie’s villains male doesn’t really fly anymore; it is less progressive and more retrograde these days.

In addition, speaking of MCU… my apologies in telling that CD the captain Marvel perished at the end of ‘The Marvels’. She has not. She has merely retired, it seems, leaving MR stranded in a parallel universe on one hand, and KK jump-starting the next Avengers on the next. Again, the entire ‘Miss Marvel’ mini-series got ignored, and it’s anyone’s guess where ‘The Marvels’ will take MCU next, but still, it is a more inspiring and upbeat movie than the ‘Wish’ is, which feels rather flat and uninspired instead. The ‘Wish’ just does not look right, it does not feel right, and its’ message does not really come out right either. Overall, it feels inferior to both ‘Encanto’ and ‘Frozen’. C’est la vie.

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon.

Loki & The Marvels - Nov 10

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Loki’ S2 finale instead – or not. How about we talk about ‘The Marvels’ movie in its’ place.

First, ‘The Marvels’ work. They work because the film is part of MCU’s current transition theme, and ‘The Marvels’ executes it on the level of AoS’ S4, which is to say, very well. ‘The Marvels’ movie has three main leads, (not counting Nick Fury), and all of them share the Marvel name. This is one of the reasons as to why MCU used all three of them together – to simplify the Marvel-ous situation, and to resolve several of the problems that had haunted this aspect of the MCU franchise.

Moreover, what did MCU do with them next? Carol Danvers, who was played by the problematic Ms. Brie Larson, (remember the commotion around the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film?), seems to have heroically sacrificed herself so that the Karee new home planet could have its’ own sun. She is off the board, at least for now.

Then, there is Ms. Photon, who is associated with S.W.O.R.D., which is not a part of MCU anymore, apparently, since there was neither hide nor hair of it since ‘WandaVision’, (WV), but that didn’t stop ‘The Marvels’: S.W.O.R.D. had a brief (re)-appearance, amounted to nothing, and now that Photon is in a parallel/alternate universe, odds are that S.W.O.R.D. will never appear in MCU ever again. (Not that the new S.A.B.E.R. was any more important to ‘The Marvels’, yeah). This way, a knot is quietly resolved in the ‘old’ MCU, and we get another shy introduction into the multiverse…

Speaking of the multiverse, what about Loki, ‘Loki’, and the TVA? This resolution was less satisfactory: Loki ended up taking over HWR’s old job, while Sylvie and agent MMM are running/not-running TVA. Pause.

In the ‘Loki’ S1 finale, Sylvie was in HWR’s old digs, doing his job, (maybe), while Loki was trying to get all of the TVA armed and armored against the new Kang, (and we got a Kang in the ‘Ant-Man 3’ movie, remember?). Well, ‘Loki’ S2 arrived, we had Sylvie back out in the wild again, we barely had any Kang in the person of Victor Timely, and the (ex)-judge RR became a mini-villain, who got sent into the Void. Agent MMM, Loki and Sylvie can attest that that is not as permanent as it might appear. Where is the multiverse, though?

Nowhere in sight, unlike ‘The Marvels’. Somehow, despite all of its’ talks about the ‘sacred timeline’ and what else have you, we never got to see any alternate timelines, aside from an occasional glimpse and all. Fair enough, but back to ‘The Marvels’?

Back at ‘The Marvels’, we got Carol Danvers safely taken off the board, (with enough wiggle room to bring her back, if needed), and Photon equally safely re-positioned in such, well, position, to introduce the multiverse, and the X-Men, into MCU if necessary. Finally, we have KK, the youngest Marvel, in a position to re-start the Avengers with Kate Bishop and a few others – but keep in mind that MCU’s Avengers are a mess since the ‘Endgame’ movie, so our heroines would need to re-start from almost a blank slate, and, in addition…

In addition, ‘The Marvels’ had no characters from the KK previous TV show at all, (aside from KK’s immediate family)? Obviously, no characters from overseas would appear, given how Pakistan has backed the Taliban in the real life to drive the U.S. from Afghanistan, but you would think that Bruno or some other Kamala’s classmates would make an appearance, however briefly – but they don’t, so the odds of the KK series having an S2 is unlikely. What else?

Ah yes, ‘The Marvels’ primary villain, Dar-Benn, whose motive was to… restore a Kree home planet, so that they would be able to live now that the Supreme Intelligence died, and their planet is dying. Hell, by dying herself, Dar-Benn was able to launch a process that caused Carol Danvers to complete the process and save the Kree. Hooray? Hooray. This makes Dar-Benn better – a better leader than Fury is, whose attempts to help the Skrulls failed epically on one hand, and on the other, no one is mentioning the events of SI either. There is no mention of Gravik, or Giyah, or Ms. Sonya, etc. Somehow, the Skrull separatists of SI transformed from MCU’s potential big bad into nothing – there’s no mention of them in the greater MCU anymore, just as there’s no sign of Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ anymore either. What else?

…Well, a ‘Mean Girl’ reboot is coming in 2024, and it might be a musical; ‘Cats-2019’ say hi from their distant past and remind people that musicals belong on stage, not on the big screen – but we digress from MCU.

If ‘The Marvels’ work overall, ‘Loki’ S2 feels more like a reset that MCU tried to do subtly, but failed – something that MCU is infamous for. We have discussed this before, (especially in AoS), so let us focus here on the fact that the final resolution has a feeling of being final – Loki’s (this Loki’s) journey is at an end; he found friends and love…and lost them, for good, it looks like. Sad, but MCU has been known to pull twists like this, and if this is so, then good luck to ‘Loki’, (and Loki), and a happy send-off to their respective stories!

…This is it for now, though. See you all soon!

Loki, Science/Fiction - Nov 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about ‘Loki’ S2 instead. Here, in this week’s episode – ‘Science/Fiction’ – it is actually hard to figure out where to start.

Therefore, let us widen our discussion a bit. In the 2010s, there was a franchise called ‘The Librarians’, where the titular characters saved the world from various threats utilizing their intellect, rather than muscles, (though there was enough physical action as well). It ran for 4 or 5 seasons, had 3 or 4 independent films, and ended on a whimper, rather than a bang. So what?

In one of their earlier episodes, the librarians’ enemy of the season cast a spell that caused the librarians to assume that they were living their dream life doing their dream job… Fair enough, and in ‘Science/Fiction’ Loki’s friends seem to be doing something similar: their TVA personas were destroyed, (for a lack of a better term/idea), and they are back being civilians – and Loki has to fix it, or else the world is doomed. Pause.

In AoS’ S4 MCU did something similar: their villain of the season trapped them in a VR world where they were living… different lives, and were happy, (relatively speaking), at least for a while, until a) that world began to break down, and b) the villains began to take over the real world, (in a manner of speaking). In the episode 2x05 of ‘Loki’, we have something similar: Loki’s crew are out of action, and Loki has to fix the situation, just as how Flynn had to do it in ‘The Librarians’, and Daisy with Jemma in AoS. Repetition and recycling of plots/subjects isn’t anything new in MCU, here the main twist is that Sylvie (who’s less out of it as the rest of TVA team was) turns the tables on Loki, in a manner of speaking, and causes him to admit some harsh truths about himself – something that he’s really good at avoiding of doing, in fact. Good for the show!

What is not so good, however, is the absence of the multiverse: what gives? ‘Loki’ and TVA were all about the multiverse; in fact, the whole of MCU from Phase 4 onwards was supposed to be all about the multiverse, and the TVA – as shown, however poorly, in ‘Loki’ S1 was right in the middle of it. Now, however, Loki is almost at the end of S2, there is no sign of the multiverse per se, and the state of the TVA itself is in flux…

…One might argue that there are various secondary signs that the state of the TVA is affecting the multiverse in ‘Loki’ S2, but those signs are so secondary, that they’re easily ignored; at a glance, the world of ‘Loki’ appears in to be existing in a vacuum/separately from the rest of MCU…which might be Disney/MCU’s plan, given how MCU is struggling/redefining itself lately, from KK and ‘She-Hulk’ mini-series onwards. Given that it is Disney/MCU, the odds of them trying to be subtle and failing at it are quite good. Otherwise…

Otherwise, the script of ‘Science/Fiction’ was very good, as was the action, and the special effects. Overall, the impact of ‘Loki’ episode 2x05 was a favorable one. If only there was actually any multiverse and implications of the stakes for the greater MCU…

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon.

Loki, Heart - Oct 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and most of the time you cannot control it, as it just goes on as it has intended to, and all of your attempts to interfere in it result in cosmetic, secondary, (at best), changes – now onto ‘Loki’ S2.

Here, unfortunately, the situation isn’t any better – this week’s episode, ‘Heart of the TVA’ brings us back to the ‘Breaking Brad’ mess, where it was all about destruction; this week it is all about killing – pardon me, pruning – of the various characters. General Dox and her people – gone. Timely – gone. The ex-judge RR – gone. Even Miss Minutes and a variant Loki are gone, (temporarily or not). What gives?

No, seriously, what gives? MCU has not treated its’ characters so badly since AoS’ S2 finale, (and no, that is just a coincidence, the two shows barely interconnected at all). Back then, AoS S2 resulted in a massive killing-off of characters, (some of whom were quite interesting, and who weren’t Kara Lynn Palamas, who is another story completely), and now, ‘Loki’ S2 is doing the same thing: we barely get to know people (ok, characters), before they’re gone. The ex-judge RR and Victor Timely, for example, could have been just as important in ‘Loki’ as agent 33/Kara had been in AoS, and now, they are just gone.

…Right, some people are pointing out to me that within MCU ‘killing’ and ‘pruning’ are two different things, (however superficially similar): the show’s titular character, (as well as Sylvie and agent MMM), was pruned in S1, and it revealed that the ‘pruned’ characters (and things) go into some sort of a subspace wasteland where they stay forever, (or until a giant fog dragon eats them). To this, I reply: small consolation, not to mention it looks as if general Dox and most of her minions were killed, rather than pruned. I.e.: was it worth to introduce us to Dox and co. in the ‘Loki’ episode 2x02 only to get rid of them two episodes later? This sort of ill-treatment of characters is reminiscent of AoS at its’ worst, again.

…In addition, ‘Loki’ is all about the multiverse – or it is supposed to. The episode 2x03, ‘1893’, has kind of embraced this – at last, but now, in ‘Heart’, we’re back in the TVA proper, where various factions are fighting for its’ control, never showing openly just what are the stakes they’re fighting for. In S1, ‘Loki’ did show bits and pieces of multiverse, but in S2, the multiverse is being downplayed even more. Why? Is MCU being rebooted, some fans are wondering? To this, I respond: yes. Look, for example, at the information about ‘The Marvels’, the MCU movie coming out in Nov 2023: it features Carol, Monica and Kamala, and-

No Skrulls. The Skrulls were a big deal in the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film, and they played a minor, but an important role, in WV, in which Monica got her powers. Since then, the Skrulls virtually vanished from MCU, and SI was an immediately forgettable show. It was also an insipid show… and it introduced Ms. Sonya, who took over from Countess Val with nary a comment. Put otherwise, MCU took time and effort in building countess Val, (Ms. Ross), as a character, only to replace her with Sonya when it really mattered. SI was supposed to be a milestone in MCU’s development and progress, and instead it became a forgettable side note – another sign that MCU is rebooting itself in mid-stride, not unlike how the SW sequel trilogy did do it. Moreover, there is no sign of Skrulls in the trailers and teasers for ‘The Marvels’, which further indicates a shift in the canon. What next?

Well, it is anyone’s guess, really. People are beginning to discuss for real that MCU is rebooting itself a-la SW. Of course, this reboot cost SW plenty of fans, but that does not matter: ever since ‘The Mandalorian’ S3, SW moved in the direction of the aforementioned sequel trilogy – that is the end game, to show how the SW world of the episode VI became the world of the episode VII and beyond. The SW fans did not like the world of the SW episode VII and beyond, but Disney/SW does not care, apparently, since it is returning its’ viewers there, albeit this time by a roundabout route. Will it succeed this time is an open question. What will this ‘rebooting in mid-stride’ approach/attitude do for Disney/MCU as well is another. ‘Loki’ S2 is already suffering from this, however, and that is not a good sign, for Disney/MCU or otherwise.

Well, this is it for now, though. See you all soon!

Loki, 1893 - Oct 20

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Therefore, let us talk about the ‘Loki’ S2 instead. In this week’s episode, ’1893’, it seems that the S2 has found its’ wings at last. This episode worked.

No, really, it did. It kept alongside the main plotline of S2, and this time it even introduced the season’s main (?) antagonist – Victor Timely, yet another Kang variant that has fallen by the wayside of the council of Kangs. No, indeed – Victor, HWR, and the Kang from ‘Quantumania’ were three very different characters, but they were all Kangs, and outsider Kangs at that, it seems. Given how the show does not appear to be entirely done with HWR either, this can get interesting!

…The fact that Renslayer/Rebecca has teamed-up with Miss Minutes is also unexpected, since at the end of S1 the former has left – just left, and the latter did not appear to be too interested in working with anyone, so when exactly did they team-up? Of course, it might be an entirely different Renslayer/Rebecca from S1, as Victor is an entirely different Kang from HWR, but, still, Miss Minutes doesn’t appear to have too many variants, and-

-and ‘1893’ shows a break in the narrative from the first two episodes, as unlike them, Loki and Mobius actually get to go out of TVA, and not deal with its’ internal arcana, (I don’t care if it’s an appropriate term here, I’m using it), but rather with an external issue, (Victor Timely and everyone else who’s chasing him), and it is a variant timeline altogether, so score one for ‘Loki’ S2 here!

No, seriously, this is what ‘Loki’ is supposed to be all about – the Marvel multiverse! The titular character and his cohorts are gone out there and fix problems all over it! In addition, indeed, they did do something similar in S1…except that a Kang, the HWR one, had hijacked the agency and (in a different way) the show, making it all about him vs. Loki. Here, in S2, we have more variety, as general Dox, (who was the main antagonist in ‘Breaking Brad’), hasn’t gone away, but is rather biding time to continue destroying the multiverse, and right now Loki, Mobius, and the rest of their allies need to handle both her and VT, so another score for ‘Loki’ S2 – a more complex plot than the S1 one again!

…I’m also aware that since the real life sucks, some of the elements of the ‘Loki’ S2 plot will not go down well, given the new conflict in Middle East. But this isn’t Disney/MCU’s fault, for a change, (I hope not), so let’s cut them a break and hope that they won’t leave us hanging in the air just as ‘Loki’ S2 is beginning to get good with action and excitement balancing out all the lore and the knowledge (and the time loom). Given that it is Disney/MCU – who knows?

…In other news, the ‘PJ Masks’ franchise has released a new big bad – a reptiloid alien named Gloop and his minions. Sigh. So what? Yes, the showrunners are trying to make him a big deal, but these days the ‘PJ Masks’ franchise isn’t a big deal, so that’s the end of that… though it should be noted that Gloop seems to be falling in the previously-established ‘official new character’ category, one where he won’t just fade away, but rather continue on, meeting the rest of the established cast until the end of the season, after which either the next new character will come around, or the show itself might end, you know? So much for the ‘PJ Masks’ ‘upgrade’, it looks like! Anything else?

In fact – no. Rather, this is it for now, see you all soon!

 

Loki, Breaking Brad - Octo 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now what about ‘Loki’?

Good question. In the second episode of the second season, (‘Breaking Brad’), we have general Dox, (played by Kate Dickie, apparently), destroy a large part of the multiverse. Pause.

Here’s the thing: we never saw this character in the first season off ‘Loki’, so they’re brand new, which is good, but they also may be the villain of the season, nothing more, the overall villain is Kang, or Kangs, but…

…But without the multiverse, can there be multiple Kangs? The ‘Quantumania’ movie established that the latter is true, but, again, this was before Dox destroyed a large part of the Multiverse, correct? If not, can we have some time framing here, please? In the first three-four phases of MCU, we had a good timeline where each portion of each phase goes, and how it correlates with each other; in phase 5, (ok, from the end of the phase 4 onwards), this is no longer the case. Instead, we got nothing, save for a question: what – literally – has happened to the Multiverse? Is it gone or not?

Obviously, the answer to the question has some large ripples and connotations as well: if the Multiverse is destroyed, (being destroyed), in ‘Loki’, does it mean that it is being destroyed for the rest of the MCU? And if so, was it sanctioned by Disney and the rest of the RL jazz?

No, seriously, ever since it was launched in the first season of ‘Loki’, the Multiverse was nothing but trouble in MCU. The 1^st season of ‘What If?’ went down well enough, but nothing fancy, and in its’ live-action incarnations the Multiverse was nothing but trouble. As the ‘Sequel Trilogy’ of the SW-franchise showed, Disney and its’ affiliates do not need to be too gentle to reboot themselves, and this may be what is happening here and now in MCU: the Multiverse is on its’ way out!

Speaking of SW, here is a theory as to what is going on over there: the Disney/SW franchise are quietly using its’ various films, comics, and especially TV series, to bridge the gap between the original trilogy (the 4^th-6^th movies) and the sequel trilogy (the 7^th-9^th movies). Since most people did not like the sequel trilogy, they are becoming unamused/disillusioned by Disney/SW’s current tactics and are beginning to be vocal about it. What next?

Anyone’s guess. Disney/SW’s original handling of the sequel trilogy broke the SW fandom, as we have discussed it way back when, and since then Disney/SW has done its’ best to undo this breaking, because it harms the entire franchise. However… First, you cannot please everyone, and second, the original issues – the original reasons as to why some people did not like the sequel trilogy – have never left. Disney/SW is trying to just re-sell it in a different package/wrapping, nothing more, and people are not fooled. They are not fooled and they are getting angry – and what the fallout will be this time, remains to be seen…

Back to Disney/MCU? There is not much remains to be said. Unlike the situation with SW, here things are less obvious: it has healed its’ rifts regarding AoS, (by removing it completely from itself), as well as the captain Rogers/Tony Stark rivalry, (ditto). Sadly, since ‘Kamala Khan’, the MCU branch of Disney is trying to reimagine itself for no good reason, and as a result, it suffers… without any obvious reason. The fallout from that has already manifested itself in SI; ‘Loki’ S2 so far is avoiding this fate, but this does not guarantee that it will be a smashing success either; more time – and data – is needed to make this judgement…

This is it for now. See you all soon!

Loki, S2 premiere - Oct 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, which is why I’ll try to talk about ‘Loki’ S2 instead, now that it’d premiered, and-

And nothing. It is not as bad as SI was, for example, but-

-But the two shows were quite different, and not just on the obvious level. Namely, SI was supposed to be MCU’s live-action version of the comic storyline – and it was not. The two ‘invasions’ were quite different, pardon the pun. ‘Loki’, on the other hand, was completely original, and it showed through the S1, period. Now, it still does that – it retains its’ originality, but…

Let us talk about villains – they are one of MCU’s greater problems. Initially, they tended to die at the end of each film; now, with the appearance of the multiverse since the premiere of Phase 4, MCU has instead nullified the value of their deaths – one can almost count on them popping up and out, one version or another, out of the multiverse whenever the people in charge of it need them to do so; the same thing goes for the ‘good guys’ too, with the same results… So, what does ‘Loki’ do?

In the S2 premiere, ‘Ouroboros’, it is not about villains, and more about problems: Loki is being affected by the time stream itself, and agent MMM and his new cohorts, (well, new to the audience), having to rescue him using new gadgets and thingamabobs to do this. Again, there is nothing wrong with lore; in fact, ‘Loki’ S2 is doing things right, developing and expanding itself within the greater MCU field; it is just that something feels missing here, or maybe it’s just the fatigue that has settled in MCU for real, since SI has aired, (come and gone) – in any case…

In any case, ‘Loki’ S2 was quite more restrained, and still is, than the first season has been; I was only able to watch it quite recently, and I am not certain that the secrecy was worth the wait. The dialogue was spiffing, and the plot is not bad, but the secrecy surrounding the S2 premiere (and onwards) was, and is, uncalled for. Of course, there’s also the fact that so far ‘Loki’ is self-contained, and there’s nothing specific to discuss about it, but, hey, this is just the first episode out of six, there’ll be more to come – just look, Sylvie is in McDonald’s’, and she’s worried that she’ll be served rat or squirrel instead! Hilarious, really! Maybe she had eaten a variant Rocket Raccoon, who knows?! What is known is that she has ended up in yet another universe, where humans are the dominant species, at least on Earth. Where the dimension that is ran by the Yetis? We want to see the Yetis, darn it!.. Just kidding, what we really want is to know as to why Biden is continuing to build Trump’s wall? Ah yes, because while the Democrats are more apologetic than the Republicans are, there is little more to them than that, sadly – but that is real life, it sucks, and it is another story.

For the moment, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Paw Patrol Movie 2 - October 4

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, while on the imaginary side of the equation, we got… what?

First, there is Ahsoka, or rather – ‘Ahsoka’ the TV series. As some people have suspected all along, at the S1 (?) finale, the titular character and her cohorts got stranded in another galaxy, away from the main scene, leaving the canon plotline free to develop however, it wants, if the setting of the SW films 7 through 9 is the endgame. Yes, Ezra, Hera and Chopper are still free to confront Thrawn, but given that this series is, or was, about Ahsoka, the fact that the Jedi knight Tano is off the main board at the moment doesn’t inspire optimism that this series will continue, (even if Ahsoka herself will). What is next?

In the SW-universe – anything can go, of course, as for us… well, ‘Loki’ S2 is almost upon us, joy, but we will discuss it when it actually starts, airing, (maybe). For now, though, there is also the ‘Paw Patrol Mighty Movie’, and I can only ask: what?

Here is the thing: while ‘PJ Masks’ went all over the place lately, as the show lost its initial successful identity and tries to acquire something new, (rather than keep the old format – that of superhero fables), ‘Paw Patrol’ hasn’t. It is the same as always: Rider and his six pups, (the core characters), go all over their world, exploring new places, solving new puzzles and obstacles, making new friends, and… that is it, really. Aside from the Humdinger people there are few real opponents for the titular characters; everyone tries to get along, (more or less), and there was little superhero-like shenanigans in the franchise.

Then came the mighty meteor story arc, where the pups acquired a meteor – or rather a meteorite from space that gave them superpowers; them, and various another people as well, and so, for a while, the pups did have other ‘real’ foes aside from the Humdinger people: a human woman named Lady Bird, and a housecat named Copycat. For a while, the paw patrol franchise did feel like a good-natured spoof of the superhero genre… and then the arc was over, and the pups moved on with their lives.

And then, in September 2023, the franchise tried to reboot itself with the mighty meteor – what gives? That arc is officially over, and frankly, the new movie feels the worse take out of the two on the bloody space rock; (we have discussed the difference between meteors, meteorites and asteroids elsewhere, remember?). Moreover, what about continuity? The first PP movie – one that introduced Liberty, (a dachshund), had fit into the main narrative quite neatly, as Liberty was installed into the main PP TV series with nary an issue; now she’s been sidelined and the franchise tried to introduce a new villain – Victoria Vance – who feels like a rebooted (and somewhat upgraded) Lady Bird variant. What gives?

…By that I mean with the PP franchise in question: previously, it worked, and better so than the PJ Masks’ one; now… maybe not so much. Ah well, that is real life for you. Did I mention that it sucks?

For now, however, this is it. See you all soon!

About super-sized sauropods

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so we will talk about a magazine – i.e., ‘Scientific American’ – instead.

There is an article in the ‘Scientific American’ Sep 2023 issue, discussing sauropod dinosaurs and as to why some of them got super-big. The author proclaims that it is a mystery; I am no paleontologist, but I feel that I have a theory, here: it was a number of factors.

Why do animals do anything? Moreover, why do they evolve in the wild? To secure an advantage over competitors and predators/prey; a bigger body size is par de course here.

What are the advantages of being big, (super-big)? You get access to food sources that are unavailable to other herbivores, and predators are not as big of a threat to you, (pun intended). Conversely, though, you also need more food than the other herbivores do, and carnivores will eventually evolve their own adaptations, physical or behavioristic, that will even the score between them and a super-big herbivore. Let us widen the query.

What are the factors that allow the initial growth of super-size? An abundance of food, plant matter in the sauropods’ case. Wait. There is an arms’ race between plants and herbivores, just as there is one between them and the carnivores. In addition, just as some herbivores, (i.e. African [and Asian] elephants), get big to escape predators, (i.e. African lions and tigers), so do some plants get big in an attempt to ‘escape’ the elephants, (such as the baobab trees). The twist? This strategy does not work on all of the levels: under right conditions, elephants can bring down a baobab tree, (literally, topple it over), while a pride of lions can bring down an African elephant, (again under right conditions and circumstances). What is absent here?

Space. The more space there is, the more individual specimens of any given species occupy it. True, it does not necessarily mean getting big: a pine tree in a forest grows tall and thin, with its’ top high above the ground – a pine tree in a clearing grows shorter and squatter, with its’ top spread out wider than its’ crowded counterpart’s… but we digress. The point of this discussion is that just as modern elephants, (and baobab trees), got big because of several factors, so did the prehistoric sauropods…and trees, (or tree-like plants), that they ate. What else?

Right, not all of the sauropods evolved into super-sized plant eaters, some remained smaller. What about it?

First: sauropods evolved as bulk-feeders: their teeth and jaws were not designed for chewing, but for stripping foliage from branches, and for uprooting other plants whole. Another part of the reason as to why sauropods became the largest of the dinosaurs, extinct and modern, was because they had to become big to accommodate large and massive digestive systems that were almost constantly busy, because foliage, (as well as grass), isn’t very nutritious at all, and it has to be consumed in large amounts to satisfy not just hunger, but nutritious requirements of an organism.

Well, yes, but again, not all of the herbivorous dinosaurs got so big: even Jurassic ornithischians, such as Stegosaurus, never got as big as the sauropods did. That is correct, and it is competition again: by becoming big, the sauropods overshadowed their competitors: they could feed in places unavailable to the bird-hipped herbivores, and they were relatively immune to attacks to such theropods as Allosaurus, Torvosaurus, and Saurophaganax. That said, there was differentiation between the Jurassic sauropods themselves: some, like Diplodocus, were longer than they were tall, and their hips were taller than their shoulders – these dinosaurs could sit down on their hind legs alone, (forming a tripod with their tails), and be, well, construction cranes.

Other sauropods, like Brachiosaurus, were taller than they were long, and their shoulders were taller than their hips. They probably could also form a fulcrum tripod, but less well than Diplodocus and its’ relatives could, not that they needed too – they already were tall, taller than Diplodocus normally was.

Finally, there were less specialized sauropods, such as Camarasaurus, which were neither too tall nor too long, but just big, and fed on whatever Diplodocus would feed, but less well, and on whatever Brachiosaurus would feed, but less well. What is the moral?

We move on from the Jurassic to the Cretaceous and the world of the dinosaurs’ changes. The single super-continent of the Triassic and part of the Jurassic is gone, there are now two landmasses, Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south, and they are splitting as well. In the north, sauropods are practically gone, with some singular generalized species, such as Alamosaurus, remaining. In the south, they are flourishing, however…

However, Gondwana would eventually fall apart, as did Laurasia. The latter formed Eurasia and North America; the former – Africa, Australia, Antarctic, and South America, and it is in the last continent that the sauropods would reach their last peak of variety. Why? Because there were fewer bird-hipped dinosaurs in South America than elsewhere. In Africa and Australia, for example, there were such dinosaurs as Ouranosaurus and Muttaburrasaurus, smaller plant-eaters that were intermediate between the earlier iguanodonts and the true hadrosaurs, (like Edmontosaurus). If the sauropods depended on their guts to grind down and digest their food, the bird-hipped dinosaurs, (and especially the hadrosaurs and their kin), had more effective chewing systems than the sauropods did; they were better adapted to digest the new plants, (the first flowering plants appeared in the Early Cretaceous, just as the sauropods began to disappear), and they were able to outcompete the sauropods – just enough for them to die-out first, before the theropods and the bird-hipped herbivores, and before the K/T extinction.

In South America, it was slightly different. There, the sauropods remained dominant herbivores, and they began to compete with each other. As a result, some became extra-large, just as the African bush elephants are today. Others remained small; some, like Amargasaurus developed spiny crests, while others, like Saltasaurus, evolved bony armor, reminiscent of Ankylosaurus and co. These adaptations were defense mechanisms against their predators – carnosaurs, (Giganotosaurus and co.), and abelisaurs, (Abelisaurus and co.). Did they work…technically they did, though most paleontological texts give-off a feeling that the South American sauropods died-out before the K/T Extinction, again. Also, the biggest sauropods of them all, such as Argentinosaurus, never developed any bony armor or spikes or anything – it was too big to need this sort of armor, and not even the biggest South American theropods, (Mapusaurus, Giganotosaurus, etc.) were able to take it down…unless the circumstances were just in their favor.

Pause. We have come full circle. A learned person, a publicator in ‘Scientific American’ proclaimed that there is no idea as to why some sauropods became super-sized. For the same reason that some of the mammals did during the Cenozoic – to get advantage over their competitors, over their carnivores, and over their food source… and at the same time, to keep themselves alive and breeding, because bulk-food feeding comes with its own catches. Not such a mystery after all.

End

 

Tatzelwurm

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now, that that is out of the way, everyone, let’s have a brief word about the tatzelwurm.

…What exactly is a tatzelwurm? That is a good question, as no one has a specific answer, or maybe everyone does. The first tatzelwurm depiction I saw had been from the 19th century or so; it depicted a black cat/snake ‘hybrid’ attacking a hog while some panicked people stood in the background. The swine looked monumental, a pinkish-white block of muscle and fat, and it clearly was the stronger beast out of the two. True, tatzelwurm might be venomous, but in RL, domestic slash feral swine eat… rattlesnakes, among other creatures, and it is doubtful that the tatzelwurm is more toxic than a rattlesnake is, even if it is real… so what the point is?

Well, first, I always felt that in a minute or two the swine would shake-off the cryptid, and launch its’ own counterattack, which would result in the cat/snake hybrid being badly outmatched here. The second, if the tatzelwurm is a cat/snake hybrid, then it isn’t real at all, right? …Yeah, about that. There is no standard depiction of this beast, period.

Leaving aside all the RPGs, which do not care if there is any basis behind a cryptid’s supposed existence; the tatzelwurm’s images go all over the place. There’s a snake with a pair of muscular forelegs, a critter with a body of a skinny lizard (with all four legs) and a head of a cat, albeit one with a crown, there’s a snake with a head of a mouse or a weasel, a fat lizard with a head of a rooster, (the basilisk, take two), and one from 1887, which makes it look like a skink. Wait, what?

That is a good question. Skinks are not cryptids; they are a group of RL lizards that are usually found elsewhere than Europe, though. In addition, the tatzelwurm is supposed to have only one pair of legs – the front one. Think the skullcrawlers from the latest Kaiju-verse, just much smaller, (but possibly venomous). Therefore, what is the point?

First, the venom aspect of the tatzelwurm might be the most suspect of it all – people, especially Europeans and their cultural colonial descendants, tend to associate venom with almost every reptile that isn’t a tortoise or a crocodile, (and there’s some justification, too). Leaving venom aside, the tatzelwurm abruptly looks like a snake-lizard hybrid, and a single pair of legs is quite acceptable. Why?

Because there are legless lizards and lizards with just a single pair of legs, aside from the regular four-legged types. The skinks in particular have short fat legs that can be easily overlooked if a person is frightened enough, and some species of skinks, when cornered, can put on quite a scary show, (though they usually lack the bite to match the bark). Otherwise, well, there are legless lizards, but tatzelwurms usually shown to have the front limbs, so what we are left with?

…There are the sirens, which are mythical monsters, yes, but also a group of North American salamanders that have no hind legs, but have external gills, which can be confused for a crest or a crown if seen suddenly. Still, there is no indication that sirens ever came to the Old World, (and their distribution in North America is quite limited), so we go back to reptiles.

There are lizards, (or lizard cousins, classification can be tricky), that have only front legs – the worm lizards. There are over 200 species of them, and they are found in Europe too, as well as in North America, for example. They are no more venomous than many other lizard species are, but as I said before, fear is a powerful magnifying glass, so it is quite possible that an unassuming reptile, a lizard or a lizard cousin, got transformed into a new version of the medieval basilisk that no one took serious in the 19th century – and that is what the tatzelwurm actually is.

End

 

SI & Eric Flint

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI is no escape.

First, about real life: Eric Flint is dead. The man – the author – died in 2022, last year, and the world has become a poorer place without him. His 1630s series was a fun AH series of books, novels and story anthologies, even if they weren’t the most politically correct – i.e., in the last few novels, the new USE – United States of Europe – and their Swedish allies are fighting the ‘upgraded’ version of the Ottoman Empire. This could have been quite appropriate in the 1990s and especially early 2000s, when the U.S. has invaded, (for a lack of better word), Afghanistan and Middle East, but now, when U.S. has lost all of its’ earlier gains, (especially Afghanistan), not so much. What next?

SI offers little succor, save that it is over, and as people have noticed, the series’ finale redeeming feature is the abrupt change of tone in this particular episode. This is not neither new nor surprising: this has happened already in AoS, ‘Ms. Marvel’, and ‘She-Hulk’, as we have discussed previously, and indicates that regardless of whatever these shows have shown previously, in the future, this information will not be utilized, but be discarded instead, and moreover, MCU is starting anew with them.

…Aye, AoS was rather discarded completely as an alternative, and so far there’s no sign of ‘She-Hulk’, but MM the character is going to be important in the upcoming ‘Marvels’ movie – and so SI concluding shots are tied into it; the rest are just a rip-off of the Sokovian accords, which are done and gone and forgotten by MCU. Anything else?

About SI – not really: it was full of forgettable, surrogate characters, just as MM had been, and just as MM has, it is going to vanish into nowhere. About Eric Flint – I do not know, maybe his novel series will continue, maybe not. Real life sucks, eh?

This is it, then. Talk to you all later.

SI & FH - July 22

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but SI does not fare much better either.

…Now, some of you are raising a point that while AoS was a show about a group of people, (i.e. the titular characters), SI is a show about Nick Fury and his entourage, just as the ‘Hawkeye’ Series had been about Hawkeye… and the other Hawkeye, (you decide which is which). This is reasonable, but, again, if you look at ‘Hawkeye’, it was more than just about Hawkeyes one and two, it was also about their families, (especially about Kate’s), and about Echo, (another Marvel character who may or may not getting their own series in the future). In other words, ‘Hawkeye’ was part of MCU’s zeitgeist of that time, that of transitions: the title of ‘Hawkeye’ passed from Clint to Kate, and the landscape of MCU itself changed: NYC got a new vigilante, Echo, while Fisk was on the out, (supposedly), and Yelena Belova got further established in MCU than compared to her MCU debut in the ‘Black Widow’ film. SI does nothing like that, it is just Nick Fury running around, trying to save the world, while his few allies are just dying, and he’s blithely ignoring them: ‘Jeeves is dead? Thanks for the update, bye!’ There is no hook to capture and hold the audience’s attention, no nothing.

…AoS had the same problem, as a matter of fact, even from the start, but because they had several core characters who didn’t die in the initial episodes, for example, this show began to generate plenty of drama by the second half of the first season, and that was what kept it going, especially in the first three-four seasons. SI doesn’t have that either – the characters are both new and forgettable, and the new ‘Marvels’ trailer only further emphasized that SI is less of a milestone for MCU, and more of an aside, forgotten as quickly as possible. Why? Because that movie is about the Kree, not the Skrulls, as villains.

The fact that SI has evil Skrulls for villains, (rather than plain-mundane Chinese, North Koreans or Russians – thank God for that), is also a problem: by now MCU has established that Kree are the bad guys out of the two, and the Skrulls are allies of Fury and Earth’s humans; to have them suddenly become evil has made things even more convoluted and uncomfortable for MCU and its’ narrative, so the odds of SI being shoved aside and forgotten after its’ run ends is perfect.

Pause. Going back to the new ‘Marvels’ trailer, we also see Fury there, but no other member of the SI cast, including Ms. Sonya, who is just a variant of countess Val, of whom there’s no sign, which is proof that SI is about to be done and gone in MCU. True, the first ‘Captain Marvel’ film also starred Phil Coulson, who ended his AoS run being more live than dead, and the ‘Marvels’ trailer ignores that as well, but AoS is apocrypha of MCU on one hand, and on the other, MCU is restructuring itself even regardless of AoS by now. Is that it?

For SI – yes. For FH – not so much. This week the game has released a depiction of a new PC character, the Ocelotl. Succinctly put, this character is based on a RL and fantasy versions of the Aztec Jaguar Knight caste, but because of copyright infringement, or because FH is trying to be fancy, the character is named after the ocelot wildcat instead.

An ocelot is a sizeable feline, true, after the jaguar and the puma it is the biggest cat in the American tropics, but the jaguar could easily have an ocelot for breakfast if the latter got unlucky on one paw, and on the other, the North/Central American bobcat could probably overpower it as well. There is no idea as to why FH ignored the jaguar, the American biggest cat, in the favor of the ocelot, but it still did.

As for the new character’s weapons… He wields a Macahuitl and Tepoztopilli. The first is a wooden sword/baseball bat studded with sharp shards of obsidian. The second is a wooden spear with a wide head, also studded with sharp shards of obsidian. In the original Mesoamerica, which had no metal armor, such weapons were formidable, tearing at a human body, and obsidian shards could and would splinter on impact, further hurting the human. Against metal, (ok, steel), arms and armor, however, as well as firearms, the Aztec weapon proved inefficient, and the Natives would acquire those weapons and armor quickly enough, though it wasn’t sufficient to save their empire from collapsing… from several reasons, actually, but none of them are relevant to FH. What is important, supposedly, is that the Aztec Jaguar was already featured in S2 of Deadliest Warrior, (DW), where he faced a Zande warrior of Africa, and lost. Now, under a new name, he is returning to mass media – it will be interesting to see how the ‘Ocelotl’ will fair in the game.

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI, 'Beloved' - July 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI… continues to underwhelm, ditto. This week’s episode, ‘Beloved’, has Talos, (the male Skrull that impersonated Fury in Tom Holland’s 2^nd ‘Spider-Man’ film), killed, and whoever gives a damn about that? Whereas AoS at least tried to build its’ characters up so that their death would matter and/or impact the audience, SI does not. Pause?

Let us try again. As it was said the last time, AoS appears to overshadow SI in quantity at the very least, but still, as Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man 2’ movie showed, SI has the advantage of having its’ characters appear in the rest of MCU’s franchise; unlike AoS, SI is an official part of MCU and as such it can use this status to ‘pull out’ characters from other corners of MCU to flesh itself other. Indeed, it appears to do so with the character of Rhodes, (War Machine)… who appears to become mostly AWOL himself since the CA: CW film, (the ‘What If?’ cartoon series do not count, as they are more of an alternative to the main MCU plotline)… The point here is that SI is also underwhelming on top of its’ other issues; it has its’ own advantages vs. AoS, which is does not use, or rather does not use them very well… or very much at all. AoS did not have them at all, or at least – not very many, but it still used them…

Ok, to be fair, what AoS also did was cannibalize/assimilate discarded plots of such discarded Marvel shows as ‘InHumans’ and ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Most Wanted’ in order to keep itself going. But, again, both it and SI were TV shows, not RL – Disney/MCU could abort them instead of running them full time, or else get rid of them before they aired – but no. Disney/MCU went through with AoS, even though there were multiple behind the scenes issues in it, and it is going through with SI, even though there are multiple issues with it as well. The result is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone from MCU on one hand, and SI is going to join it too, it looks like on the other. Sad, but that is real world politics for you – like the rest of reality, they suck.

Moreover, speaking of reality… It is only mid-July here, in the southern Canada, (which may sound like an oxymoron, but is a reality fact instead), and already fruits, berries, nuts and seeds are ripening, the leaves are turning red, and the flowers are going away. The insects are still out in force – we are talking pollinators here – but squirrels, grey and red, as well as their cousins the chipmunks and marmots, are already preparing food for winter. Guess living in the north – and not being a human – has its’ restrictions and rules overall. The local cicadas, however, are singing, meaning that it is mid-summer here after all…

(Oh, and the carrion is all gone now, washed away by the heavy summer thunderstorms – the vultures and condors are out of luck after all).

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI and real life - July 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks… but we will be talking about it regardless, it looks like.

Why, you may ask? Because SI continues to… not deliver: whereas AoS was all about ‘pieces solving a puzzle’, to quote Skye, SI is just mostly about Nick Fury, running around the world trying to stop the deviant Skrulls, yet almost never engaging them directly. Meanwhile, both Talos and Ms. Falsworth seem to be doing their own thing and so does G’iyah the Skrull-girl… who seems to be a rip-off of Skye/Daisy Johnson/Quake. Pause.

Let us try again, without going too far into an AoS-rant. Initially, AoS was supposed to be a big deal, as the above-mentioned character of Quake was an important character in the Marvel comics for a while, she even ran S.H.I.E.L.D., in one of the comic universes. Sadly, whatever the show’s intent was, it quickly went off in a completely different direction and from S4 onwards it became an outlier of MCU; now, there is no mention of S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. in MCU – but we have discussed that earlier. Now, let me just stay that it is MCU’s loss, as out of the two shows, SI is the lesser one, and not just because it is 6 episodes long, while AoS had been 7 seasons long instead – both quality and quantity matter here.

AoS issues aside, so far SI seems to be mostly laying a groundwork for the upcoming MCU… elements, making the deviant Skrulls the main villains of MCU to come, as team Fury still doesn’t appear to have gotten their shite together, while the ‘evil Skrulls’ appear to have done just that. Therefore, let us leave them for now, go, and face reality.

What do we have there? As a California condor has proclaimed – “Carrion, of course!” The dead squirrel/skunk is gone from the road, the dead Norway rat/house mouse is… mostly gone from the street walk, but while those remains are few in number, (mostly the tail and some bones), they still fill the streets with the stench of ripe rotten meat… and since we got wild coyotes, (red) foxes and raccoons going around the neighborhood on one hand, and pet dogs, as well as cats, and human children on the other… the locals should really go an extra mile here and get rid of all the carrion, before something bad happens – but that’s just a condor’s perspective.

Done with the dead, onto the living. We have seen a couple of eastern cottontail bunnies feeding around, and they are both adorable and super-fast. However, quite a few people have seen rabbits or hares in their lives, either wild, pet or feral, so let us leave them aside, (for now, maybe). What we have also seen are mergansers.

What are mergansers? They are ducks, just as the mallards are, only not. The mallards are an example of dabbling ducks: they feed on the water’s surface, their bills are long and broad as they filter food from there; the Shoveler duck has a bill that is especially adapted for filtering; maybe not as derived as a flamingo bill, but still there.

A diving duck, on the other hand, dives. A dabbling duck may briefly turn downside up on the water surface before returning into the air, but a diving duck can soundlessly slide beneath the water’s surface just as a loon or a cormorant does. Moreover, just like them, diving ducks, such as mergansers, have long, thin bills designed to catch fish. Unlike loons or cormorants, however, a merganser’s bill, (there are several species, but all look similar enough to each other not to be distinguished without a bird guide), has serrations in it to better grasp and hold onto a slippery fish, while loons and cormorants don’t have them. Moreover, as in all of the ducks, male and female mergansers look different from each other, (though the female mergansers are much more colourful than mallard females are, for example), while loons and cormorants don’t have that. Put otherwise, the mergansers were amazing as they fed in shallow waters, (it was a female with ducklings, though a male was nearby – maybe a father of the family, maybe not), submerging and emerging with ease that a fabricated sub could only dream off. Anything else?

No, not really. The point that is being made here is that while usually real life sucks more and imaginary life sucks less, sometimes the reverse is true.

This is all for now, see you all soon!