Quarantine entry #80 - May 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, what about the police?

Here is the crux of the matter. Many people claim that the modern police force is outdated and flawed and corrupt and so forth, so it needs to be defunded and/or changed. Pause.

What is the issue with that? (Not a problem, an issue). ‘Tis that the police is a representation of a country as a political state, aka entity. Any country, political-wise, consists of a government and a society, among other things, but we are focusing on those two, for when a country’s government and society do not get along, bad things happen. Cough.

…Yes, the U.S.’ current troubles have partially occurred because of COVID-19, (real life sucks, see the disclaimer), but COVID-19 only exacerbated them, made them worse, but did not create them outright. Yes, on a personal level, many lives got changed because of COVID-19, but it can be noticed that many countries, and governments, in the Old World do not appear to be as bad as the U.S., or even Canada.

Canada, it should be noted, has its’ own problems with POCs and WASPs and the rest, but somehow the issue there of defunding or changing the police system does not appear to be surfacing in the news very often, unlike the U.S., where it is for real. This makes suspect that whatever is going on in Canada right now is just an imitation of the American issue, and a rather superficial one instead. And, since we’re back talking about the United States of America, let’s get back to that political entity, which has to deal with at least two other issues that became influenced by its’ ‘civil unrest’: COVID-19. And the matter of voting.

COVID-19 is obvious: no one can, or even willing, to guess, as to how many people got sick by the coronavirus during the protest process, as the self-isolation was dismantled and discarded by the protesters and the police. How many of them got sick, will recover, will die? Somehow, no one is talking about that, let alone raising an issue – and it is sad, for should you really defund the police if its’ officers will catch the COVID-19 virus for real and start to die-off or at least be hospitalized? One of a pandemic’s consequences is a population crash, and if American population crashes, then abruptly the issues of police just may not be as important anymore.

This brings us to the matter of voting. Right now, the RF is having its’ own political issues – Putin and his cabinet are being accused of messing with the RF’s, and especially Moscow’s, quarantine, so that people could vote and annul the Constitution, or Putin’s previous reigns, or whatever. The issue of how people will be able to vote and not get sick is one of the central ones.

Well, back in the U.S., the Americans have a ‘voting by mail’ option, and it is controversial, because of course it is. Many people have many issues with this…and then the public protests began, which brings us back to the probable resurgence of COVID-19 in the States and the potential population crash that can follow that resurgence.

Right now, the Donald is standing to lose the elections because of public protests at last, but after over a week of them, those protests are starting to transform into a call for governmental reform, or rather – its’ police aspect, (though as the toppled Confederation-related statues show, not only that, maybe). Fair enough, but, again, if the COVID-19 pandemic reboots and people once again begin to get sick for real, (and on all of the social strata, too), then the entire hullaballoo might vanish, as people would no longer be able to sustain the pressure through the sheer lack of healthy populace…and the changed priorities too. Pause.

Now, ironically, today, I wanted to revisit rabbits, (insert an appropriate populace joke here, see the ‘Zootopia’ movie for reference), but after this today’s rant of mine, even I find it crude. Ergo, for now, this is it. I will see you all soon instead!

Quarantine entry #74 - June 3

Obligatory disclaimer: lately, the current political events in the U.S. are giving a strong feeling of déjà vu, and not necessarily of the good kind.

Let me elaborate. Does anyone remember the immediate period post the elections-2016? The country of USA was feverish as various social groups – you know, the antifa, the skinheads, the Neo-Nazis, the BLM, the ALM, and who else have you, were apparently duking it out on the streets, and the rest of the American society was hiding in the basements, attics, cellars, backyards and etc., while this was going on, and the Donald was just making it worse by being himself. Now… we got WASPs, POCs, the abovementioned social groups, other social groups duking it out on the streets, and the rest of the American society is in the background… only not?

No, they are, as the entire kneeling situation isn’t participation or control – it’s appeasement. America’s finest are trying to appease the protesters by signs of submission and not everyone agrees with it, not even all of the Yankees themselves. The Donald, in particular, is tweeting a storm…, which actually brings us to the other side of the situation: the elections. This year they will be done by mail at least in part, and plenty of people are not happy about it, and they are venting about that as well. And-?

And nothing. Not unless you want to cancel the elections-2020 altogether, at least until the next year, or until all the paranoia and the COVID-19-related deaths, well, die down, and people do not sound as if they want that either. More precisely, they sound as if they do not know what they want – they want several contradictory (for the moment) things – for people to be safe and for them to vote at the same time… and for all of that to be possible with minimum of effort.

…There is a short story going around in the West, with the punchline being that of the contractor telling his employer: “You want it done fast, and well, and cheap. That is not possible. Choose two out of three.” What did the employer choose remains up for grabs, but the point is that the U.S. politicians, (who are some of the main voices of dissent for the entire ‘voting by mail’ concept), are trying to have just that – fast, and well, and cheap, and screw reality. Have your cake and eat it too! The French Revolution, everyone! It says hello! Pause!

…No, I do not think that the U.S. is in danger of falling apart straight away, but if it continues like this, who knows what can happen? The Donald might lose his presidential chair, for example, and-

-And that bring us back to the elections-2016, when the U.S. mass media did its’ best to achieve just that, as it and the Donald hate each other, (just look at the latter’s latest feud with Twitter). It instigated, or helped to instigate, the riots back then, and it seems to be doing something similar right now, only right now the riots aren’t about the Donald – they were about George Floyd, and are becoming about themselves instead. It is not any longer about George Floyd; it is about racism in general, (and does anyone know as to who Desmond Tutu is supposed to be?!), and soon might be becoming a pogrom that is proceeding for its’ own worth instead.

…The Russians are mocking the U.S., but that is because they had their own pogroms at the turn of the 20^th century and have largely outgrown them by now, because reasons, because the U.S.S.R. was supposed to be free of anti-Semitism; in reality, the situation was more complex, but officially, this is how it was, and woe betide anyone who gets caught breaking the official rules!.. No wonder that the RF is currently mocking the US – it can afford to.

Now, today I wanted to talk about the woodpeckers. They are fascinating birds. Aside from the ‘true’ woodpeckers, (including flickers), this group of birds also includes two species of wrynecks, which are fascinating birds, as they are snake mimics, and 20+ species of piculets, which are similar to woodpeckers, but are smaller and weaker than they are, in general.

The biggest woodpecker species are the size of a jackdaw, or even a hooded crow; the smallest bird is sparrow-sized, (remember sparrows? We talked about them recently already). All of the woodpeckers, including their wryneck cousins, can peck wood and have evolved in this direction, making them some of the most specialized birds of the modern times.

Male and female woodpeckers look differently from each other, but only slightly, (with some exceptions), and practically all of the woodpeckers look like each other, with some minor variations, (mostly in coloration and size) – their way of life is practically similar… Pause.

...I cannot do it. Not while real life is so weird. Woodpeckers are a fun way to escape from real life, but real life is inescapable for the moment, it seems. Ergo, let us put the woodpeckers on hold and I will see you soon instead!

Cheers!

Quarantine entry #73 - June 2

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. At least the protests are dying down, at last.

Why? Because their initial reason – the death of Mr. Floyd – were only partially powering the entire process and the rest of it was inflamed by aggravation of self-isolation; plus, the various politicians and who else have you that’ve tried to benefit from this.

Let me elaborate. Just as in case of COVID-19, the protests of Mr. Floyd’s deaths sparked numerous opportunities for all sorts of things aimed at benefits. I.e., some people benefitted from toning the protests down, while some others – from inflaming them instead. The result? About a week long mess from Miami to Seattle of lockdowns, public apologies and humiliation, of various statements, crimes, and what else have you – but primarily on chaos. Chaos is USA’s trademark statement, after all.

Let me see if I can elaborate further. For comparison, the Russian Federation is still largely an Asiatic country, especially politics-wise, and as such, its’ politics are marked by ‘stability’, (if positive), and ‘stagnation’, (if negative). Here the problem is that the RF really should rebrand its’ politics are ‘enduring’ and/or other words derived from ‘endurance’, (well, from its’ Russian analogue). Unfortunately, its’ politics are really resistant to change – hence the various problems that arose in Russian history since this state appeared on the map about twelve hundred years ago or so, whereas the U.S. …

…Whereas the U.S. has the opposite problem – yes, it thrives on change, but…

…But it is still country in the old-fashioned political meaning of the world, though since the end of the Cold War, even D.C. itself became increasingly chaotic and unstable. That is not too bad, save that if D.C. goes, who has to say that U.S. will remain as a country? The concept of a ‘Balkanized’ North America had been a dystopian sci-fi/AH trope for a long time now, especially in the West, and even in the East the RF isn’t too enthusiastic about it, (or at least it wasn’t in the recent past).

Can the ‘Balkanization’ of the North American continent occur in the immediate future? Frankly, I have no idea, but as for the non-immediate future? Well, yes. Anything can be taken to the extreme by humans – communism, monarchism, tyranny, democracy, and so on. The Ancient Greeks invented the modern western politics, the very first prototype, which included democracy, but unlike the modern West, they did not consider democracy to be honestly superior to monarchy, or aristocracy, (think the Roman republic, as we know it). Hence, once the barbarian Macedonians came from the North (of the Balkans, but still) and conquered Greece before proceeding to do the same with Egypt, Middle East and Central Asia, (to a lesser extent), the Greeks adapted to this situation just as easily as the Egyptians or the Persians did.

The modern U.S., of course, is a very different country from the ancient Greece with its’ numerous city-states… right? Maybe, but that is not to say that if the Washington D.C. were to implode, the rest of the U.S. would endure, especially in the incarnation that we knew it as. What is next?

…I have no idea, actually. Canada is trying to distance itself from the U.S., at least politically, (cough, Justin Trudeau’s poignant pause, cough), but in real life? USA is Canada’s only neighbour, both geopolitical and otherwise, and if the former begins to fall apart, it is anyone’s guess as to how Canada will endure. Ditto for Mexico, of course, at least to a point, but that is another story.

…Well, this is it for now, and boy, was not that depressing. See you all soon on a less pessimistic note, I hope! Cheers!

Quarantine entry #52 - May 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Today is May 12, 2020, and so far, neither U.S. nor Canada are making much noise about ending the lockdown/self-isolation/etc. The RF might’ve ended its’ period, for various reasons, but now that Putin’s press-secretary got the COVID-19, I’ve no idea as to what this country will do next, or rather – what this country’s president, aka Vladimir Putin, will do.

…On the other side of the ocean, the Donald is escaping female journalists – remind me, as to why he was not impeached before? Oh, because no one in D.C. really wants it: not the Republicans, and not the Democratic leadership in the person of Ms. Pelosi and co. USA! USA! …When will the lockdown end?

On the other hand, let us talk about something else. How about the koala, since we have talked about the kangaroos previously?

Now, the former is just as much a symbol of Australia as the kangaroos are, but it is very different from them, and I am not just talking about the obvious.

Take, for example, classification. By most conservative standards, there are at least 4 to 6 species of ‘true’ kangaroos, and with all of their cousins, there is a lot more. By contrast, there is only one koala species; it is the last member of a dynasty of specialized eucalyptus leaf-eaters and even by the marsupial standards, this beast is a rather dim bulb. Undoubtedly, it makes up in part for its’ dimwittedness by being so adorably cute, (not unlike Leo Fitz from AoS), but still. Leo Fitz is also a genius, you know!..

Putting AoS aside for now, does the koala have any relatives? Aye, they are called the wombats, and you can see one of them in one of ‘Brave Wilderness’ YouTube videos. The wombats, (I believe that currently there are two or three species of them), don’t look too similar to the koala; in fact, they’re its’ opposites in several important areas – the koala lives in trees, the wombats on the ground, and in burrows; the koalas are very noticeable, while the wombats aren’t so much; the koala hides a nasty temper behind its’ plush toy looks, while the wombat is more placid and can be tamed fairly easily, especially by marsupial standards; but! Their lifestyles are similar, as both the koala and the wombats are solitary, asocial herbivores, whereas the kangaroos small and especially big usually live in family herds instead. Why?

One of the explanations is that the kangaroos are only very distant relatives of the koala and the wombats; the koala might be the very basic model of the marsupial evolution that would eventually lead to the modern wombats, while the kangaroos belong to the second, completely separate branch of the Diprotodont order, and their closest relatives are the possums.

No, you have read it correctly: the opossums are the shy, mostly nocturnal, primarily arboreal marsupials of the American tropics, with just the Virginian opossum living in the North America. The possums that have no ‘o’ before the ‘p’ are their Australian counterparts – small to smallish arboreal marsupials that often are active at night rather than during the day. They do not really look like kangaroos-

-There are tree kangaroos, which look generally like the rest of the kangaroos, but are usually discussed separately from the rest of the roo family. Looks like the kangaroos’ evolution also involved an arboreal stage sometime in the past. Why ‘also’? Because we are coming back to the koala, which is the most arboreal member of its’ family branch of all the members there, living and extinct. The latter includes the marsupial lions, (the Thylacoleo group), and also the Diprotodonts and their relatives – the extinct rhino-sized wombats. Put otherwise, the wombats, the koala and their extinct relatives were the ‘robust’ herbivores, while the kangaroos and their relatives, (including their own extinct giants, such as the Procoptodon), were the speedy ‘gracile’ ones.

…The marsupial lions, of course, are a group apart, and not just because they were the koalas’ closest relatives, (in the past, when there were marsupial lions in Australia, there were also several species of the koalas as well). They were the most efficient and the largest of carnivorous marsupials, much more formidable than the Thylacine, (now also extinct, sadly – at least in the canon), and the Tasmanian devil, (still existing, but clearly needing human help to survive), and that was during the time when Australia’s top carnivores were all giant reptiles – Megalania, (self-explanatory by now), Wonambi, (a giant constrictor snake), Quinkana, (the last of the truly terrestrial crocodiles of Earth), and so on. Put otherwise, unlike the placental mammals, who got rid of their competition fairly quickly, by the end of Eocene or so, the Australian marsupials, (and to a lesser extent – their South American cousins), had to deal with both the giant flightless birds and the last of truly giant reptiles; they are now gone for good, but there are gaps in the Australian ecosystem, and not even the new, introduced, placental species can repair it, (and as the Thylacine situation shows, it can very easily backfire instead)…

Well, this is it for now. It’s due to those gaps and extinctions at the end of the last Ice Age why we have only the kangaroos as authentically large marsupial herbivores – the koala is too specialized a leaf-eater to evolve further, (probably), and the wombats aren’t much larger than the modern badgers are – their giant cousins did all the heavy eating. Ah well, time and tide wait for no man or beast… See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #51 - May 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. At least the Asian giant hornet threat has been semi-debunked, as people are beginning to realize that these insects probably will not be invading North America any time soon. Pause. I mean, that they are invading, in a manner of speaking, but not uncontrollably – people have handled them back in 2019, and they can handle them now. What next?

Well, I tried to catch up onto my ‘fiction’, in order to escape reality, and it was a mixed bag. First, I got to watch the SW: CW finale and all I can say is how ‘Solo’ the 2018 movie fits with all of that? As we remember from that Disney/SW flop, amongst other things, it showed that Darth Maul was relatively alive and well at that point in time of SW-verse, and that point in time was closer to the original trilogy than to the Clone Wars series, so hah? What gives? Is Disney/SW no longer in control of their expanded universe? Oh dear, and what with COVID-19 this might CW/’Solo’ be harder to fix than it would be ordinarily.

Second, I watched the last DC animated, straight-to-video, film, and all I can say is ‘hah’? The JLD: A film feels like a reboot/stand alone, rather than a conclusion of a series – it had nothing in common with the initial ‘Justice League Dark’ film, and on the other hand – everyone died. No, not because Darkseid was able to kill them all, (he almost did, with his new Parademon/Doomsday hybrids), but because the Justice League itself did. To wit, this DC universe seems to have been created by the Flash in the animated ‘Flashpoint Paradox’ film, in which the superhero in question tried to save his mother or something, and as a result, an entire new DC-universe was created. Yes, it is also a comicbook adaptation, but the point is that this entire DC animated universe was an ‘Elseworld’, an experiment in ‘what if’/’what could’ve been’, put otherwise. Must admit that is pretty clever – wonder as to what team DC will do next, now that this exercise is over…

Back in the real world, president Putin declared that the RF will begin to return to normal starting tomorrow, May 12, 2020. I knew that the world was going to begin to return normal on this date, but still, given that it is RF, aka Mother Russia, it is only a question of ‘how’ the country will screw it up. It is not a question of intent, it is a matter of consistency – everything in Russia, (especially everything important), is done through the ass. By contrast, the U.S. have only started to utilize this maneuver recently, around 2016 or so, and already, in just 4 short years, they managed to undo many of their achievements in the 1990-2014 time period. Some sort of an anti-record this is, and the RF have been doing it far longer…

…No, it will not be the opposition’s doing – most of them can only criticize Putin’s government and often their styles of doing so are either unimpressive or pitiful. No, it will be the Russian spirit itself that will rise against Putin and make a mockery out of him. Anything else?

Hard to say. On one hand, I wanted to revisit the kangaroos, the real-life alien-looking mammals of Australia, but on the other? I do not know if we have talked about Boba Fett coming to the second season of ‘The Mandalorian’, but apparently, returning to SW he is. Yes, initially he had survived the Sarlacc pit from the SW6 film, cough, but then it all was declared a part of SW: Legends instead, and the SW fandom split… and we have talked about it in the past. In the present, Boba Fett returns to the galaxy far, far away after his Sarlacc-related misadventure after all, so this means that the entire schism of the SW fanbase by the ‘Legends’-related decision had been completely unnecessary and fully avoidable, but Disney wanted to part with the Lucas-connected time period of Lucasfilm™… and it achieved that – hence, the schism. Frankly, real life sucks, and real life humans, (myself included), are hardly any better…

…You know what? For now, this is it. We will talk more about them kangaroos later. See you all soon instead!

Quarantine entry #50 - May 10

Obligatory disclaimer: happy Mother’s day! May it be fruitful and satisfactory for all the mothers involved, for better or for worse, COVID-19 or not! …That said, real life sucks, and I am no prize either, I do not deny it. The lockdown has made it all worse, more acute, as everyone is cramped together and everyone is making an effort to get along, and as time goes along, the effort becomes more extreme. Our family actually has it easy, as we have time away from each other, and so the effects of the lockdown are not as extreme, but they are still felt, and we fight, but we usually have space to get away from each other, and that is important, because otherwise we would have killed each other instead. What next?

The head of the Russian space program is dead from COVID-19, which is kind of bad news for team Putin and the latter’s plans for the Russian domination. Pre-COVID-19, he was supposed to annul his old presidential experience and start everything anew, but now everything is falling apart instead; his new PM got COVID-19 already, (but he is not dead), and now this.

…Plus the windmills of God mill slowly, but exceedingly small; the patience of the Russian proletariat may be long, but it isn’t infinite, and when it ends, it’s explosive – just look at 1917, for example. In addition, Lenin is not gone either – he is right there, in the Mausoleum, next to the Kremlin. Yeltsin, the person (putting it mildly) that made it possible for Putin to become a president at the end, made plans to inter the first Soviet general-secretary ever in a proper grave, but somehow it never amounted to anything and in the end, Yeltsin was the one buried, because he died first. Well, when you were as bad an alcoholic as he had been, it was only a matter of time until he was dead for real – and so he is. The rest of his family and entourage lived on, and Putin was a part of it, at least until 2014-5, when the entire mess with the Crimean peninsula began, as Putin began to push his new, independent politics, and you can see as to where it had led the Russian Federation – in the past. In the present, with COVID-19 running rampant in the RF, Putin’s plans became derailed, and it is anyone’s guess as to where RF will go from there; Putin’s regime will endure for a while, because his opposition is hardly any better than he and his supporters are, but it will end. What will happen next is anyone’s guess, so what else?

A brief return to the jaguar – we have talked about the biggest cat of New World repeatedly in the past, so I decided to talk about it again, because why not? Let us begin.

…Neither lions nor tigers live in the Americas, but it has big cats of its own – the jaguar and the puma. Not everyone can distinguish a jaguar from a leopard, for the two cats are similar, and so are their spots, but the jaguar’s spots are bigger than a leopard’s are, and they are different – not plain spots, but rosettes with a smaller spot in the middle. In addition, a jaguar’s head is proportionally bigger, and this feline itself is taller but shorter than a leopard is. Pause.

…The jaguar is a natural climber, swimmer, and runner; it loves the water almost as much as a tiger does. Of all the big cats, only the tiger and the jaguar willingly go into water – even into such great rivers as the Ganges and the Amazon – on a regular basis. Sometimes a jaguar will feel so comfortable sleeping in the water that the current, supposedly, carries the cat out into the ocean… but I am not so sure about that.

In addition, a jaguar is an avid fisher, stalking fish from the shoreline for hours. As footage has proved, the jaguar also attacks caimans, (distant relatives of the crocodiles, close kin to the alligators), and turtles, including sea turtles, which it encounters on the seashore. It ambushes the reptiles as they come ashore to lay eggs and it flips them upside down to make a food cache. The turtles do not die, and their meat is not spoiled, but neither can they right themselves and escape back to the water…

Finally, the jaguar can be found almost anywhere, from the wet jungles, (where it is always possible to catch something nasty, like rickets), to the prairies and open ground in the rest of South America; they used to come into North America as well, but by now, most people admit that they are gone from it in the wild state; they may return, but the Donald’s wall might ruin that – but the Donald’s wall is another story…

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #36 - April 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. At least April is almost over, and, hopefully, the lockdown will not last for the entirety of May as well. People are getting fed-up with the lockdown/quarantine/(self-)isolation/etc. all over the world, and things are changing, because humans are political animals, and a civil uprising, (cough, Russia in 1917, cough), is disliked by everyone. No one knows what will go on during the rest of April, let alone next month, just look at comrade Kim-

Pause. No one knows still what has happened to North Korea’s leader – is he still alive or is he dead? By ‘alive’ I mean ‘alive, but comatose’. His sister is set to inherit, (unless China interferes or something), the North Korean throne, (or whatever it is called), and the rest of North Korea’s leadership isn’t too thrilled about it, but what can you do? Surrender to China, or to U.S. (via one of its local proxies)? Yeah, there is a proverb about choosing between rotting apples for a reason-

Pause. Yes, the Donald has also done his share, by messing the relationship between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea in the first four years of his presidency, and that was before the COVID-19. Now, with everything on the lockdown, now so is not the time for risky political overtures at all. Not even the Donald himself is doing them, and speaking of him…

Well, rather, I am speaking of the election-2020. By everything proper, Sanders should have won, but, a), not even Democrats themselves want Sanders to win (because reasons), and b), they do not want to win elections-2020 period, especially now, with COVID-19 on the loose. Therefore, instead, they got Biden to be their leader, and he is going to safely lose to the Donald, because the Republicans do not want Biden to win; they do not want the Democrats to win because obvious reasons, and unless the Donald does something exceptionally stupid, he is going to win.

...Yes, it is not too out there to presume that he might just decide to quit and not participate in the elections-2020, saying that he had 4 years of being on the very top of the U.S. society is enough for him. Pause.

Yes, this is possible, (and might be the best way out of this way for him, and for the rest of the U.S.A., cough), but not very likely because the Donald is clearly expecting to extract everything from his presidency to the max. What this will amount to in real life, to the American society and beyond, is anyone’s guess. Anything else?

Well, I wanted to talk about something different after my latest original story, regarding the whales and co., but so far, I got nothing. I mean, there is the so-called X-ray tetra, a semi-obscure semi-familiar aquarium fish from South America, but it is too specialized a topic to talk about – my blog is not about the aquarium fishes, sadly.

On the other hand, what else there is to talk about? How COVID-19 will destroy globalization? It will not. It just will not be as utopic as it was during the late 1990s and the early 2000s at best, but that is the U.S. fault. It tried its’ best to make a utopia, and it has failed, as all utopias do, once they pass the bonds of realism. COVID-19 put everything on hold, metaphorically speaking, on the international level, and within the national level everything is breaking down and everyone is dying-

Okay, this is my bad. Not everyone is dying, thank God, but the internal infrastructures of many countries is also in trouble and as such, any international overtures are not very likely, alas. The proverbs say – since we have mentioned them earlier – that nothing is eternal under the sun, everything must end, and so the American World, Pax Americana, must end us well, no matter how good it promised to be, and how promising its’ run had been. The American Dream will endure, though, because dreams always do, and they always come back. That is why they are dreams.

…Well, this is it for now, I reckon. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #1 - March 22

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something else – DW, for exactly. Why DW? Because I’m currently in the New York State, which is on lockdown at least for the next couple of weeks, and everything is closed, (well, almost everything), and there’s limited material to go on, so let’s pull out something out of the old dusty closet; might as well be DW.

So, what to talk about in DW? Let us try with another old chestnut – the Roman Centurion vs. the Rajput Warrior. After all of those years that had gone by after this episode was first aired, is there anything new about this episode?

Sadly, no. It is still a well written and an exciting episode, but nothing more. The only notable thing about RCRW is that it is also an honest and a non-prejudiced episode, but we have talked about this problem of the late DW a long, long time ago, so what there is left?

Firstly, yes, the Rajput had the advantage here – the ancient Roman, (as well as the Greek), army often had had problems with one on one fight. Yes, there are all of those one on one battles in the Iliad, aka, one of the first two authentic Western novels, but I must confess I have my own doubts about the novels’ authenticity, some things just don’t add up – but that is another story altogether.

Anyhow, the Rajput here has the advantage because his weapons are not so much advanced as better designed for a one on one fight – in a team fight, the situation would have been reversed. Of course, there is also the question as to why DW had the Centurion team (hey, remember his FH incarnation, incidentally?), bring forth a Scorpion – a stationary oversized crossbow, essentially, but, hey, they had something similar in an earlier S2 episode, when Alexander the Great’s ballista took on Attila the Hun’s Scythian battle-axe. It ended badly for Alexander – Attila won that showdown. What next?

The movies are being postponed, which is good – I was beginning to feel as if my blog is turning into a list of reviews, and I do not want that. I do not know what I am going to do with my blog yet, but it will be more than just a smattering of reviews – of movies, TV shows, Netflix shows, no! There will be something else! Maybe even discussions about something!

…For now, though, the best part of my day so far was that I saw a blue jay through the window in the yard outside. None of us is willing to leave because of the lockdown, unless it is for the grocery shopping or something similar, and the animals know it, somehow. Will they take over the world back from the humans? Probably not, simply because fear fades, and humans get tired of being scared all the time, COVID-19 or not.

To make matters worse, people are taking advantage of COVID-19, and usually for the worse. That is a part of real life, and especially of the American dream, with its’ individuality and entrepreneurship – both direct descendants of the Protestant, (especially the Anglo-Saxon version) way of life. Fair enough, but it means that there isn’t only good things stemming from this root, but bad ones too – and the same could be said about communism, as the Chinese seem to be having their COVID-19 issues well under control…no matter the cost. The Russians, of course, are a different story, but that is because they are a different story – they always tried to be a part of the West, culturally and politically speaking, but because the Russian proletariat and the elite were almost two different cultures throughout most of Russian history…things got muddled, and the West didn’t do anything to help either. The 1990s were just the latest example of that – the missed opportunity for the West to fix the Russian issue for good…instead the West got whatever it got in the person of Putin, and it can’t be fixed; maybe the West doesn’t want it to be fixed, but then all its’ those fiery speeches about the virtues of Democracy begin to seem fixed. What next?

Well, real life still sucks. The COVID-19 is still going strong, but because people are taking advantage of it in different ways, or just reacting to it differently, it is hard to differentiate truth from fiction; in this case, truth may not be subjective, but with everything that is going on around here, it is getting hard to figure out just what truth here actually is, and that is just as bad. Hopefully though, real life will get its’ head out of its’ ass and sort it all out, or else it’s going to be Italy all over again, (and Spain isn’t doing much better either), that’s all.

…And by that I mean that we’re done for now – see you all soon!

Superman: Red Son - Feb 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks for all sorts of reasons. For a more specific explanation, see the previous entry. Now, about the latest animated Superman movie – the Red Son, (as opposed to the Red Sun and the Rad Son labels that I have seen on YouTube since yesterday).

…Ok, what about it?

It is one of the more depressing Superman and DC stories ever, one where Superman grows up in the U.S.S.R., (as opposed to the U.K. or in the darkest Africa, which are also DC comic stories, incidentally), has interactions with Bizarro, a variant Barman, Wonder Woman, a Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) and so on, and mows down the opposition, no sweat. Pause?

Yeah, the live action Justice League movie had something similar, only it was so bad, that it was actually funny, (when it was not being so lackluster that it was insipid instead. Cough Infinity War rip-off cough). SRS, on the other hand, is none of those things, it is actually well put together, and it is somewhat sad. Violent too, for an animated movie, even more so than the actual comic was.

True, I am not the biggest fan of DC and it has been a long time since I have read the SRS comic, but there are some differences between it and the movie. More importantly, reading the comic is not important to watching the movie, and the movie is…depressing, straightforward, simple and well made, from the technical side of things. And-?

And it is the simplicity that is the defining point of SRS – usually DC can do convoluted about as well as Marvel does, Disney baking or not. Here, conversely, everything is going from point A to point B, which concludes with Superman apparently finding a possible ‘redemption’ after his stunt as the flagman of communism. What?

…Here is the thing. SRS is not exactly a propaganda piece, because for any propaganda piece to work, the state/country in which it is released needs consistency, and right now, the US is in the state of flux, because of the upcoming elections. Nobody knows as to who will win, but the safe bet is the Donald, in no small part because the Democrats, a), can’t get their shit together, and b), now that it is coming together, the forerunner will be either Bloomberg, a variant of the Donald, or Sanders, a social-democrat, and neither man is very popular with the rest of the Democratic party’s leaders. Will they opt to instead give the U.S. to the Donald for another 4 years while they try to find someone better? Odds are very good on this one too. Will they continue to bitch about the Donald, even though they aren’t all that better than he is, (as surprising as that sounds)? Yes. Did I mention that real life sucks? Do bears shit in the woods?

Getting back to SRS, again, it isn’t intended to be propaganda, but you have to admit that its’ timing isn’t very good, and given that we’re talking about the Western society here, at least someone there will think so and act accordingly with unpredictable results – but for the majority, SRS will be just another DC animated movie and as such it will fade into obscurity, either becoming a classic or not. Go, team DC! Another solid hit for you, really. Anything else?

Sadly, no, not this time. See you all soon instead!

WW1984 trailer 1 - Dec 9

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In addition, no, I am not talking about the Donald and his impeachment, which goes nowhere fast – Ms. Pelosi was able to use the hoopla surrounding it to prevent the Democratic party from breaking apart into several new parties, (all of which just as hostile to each other as they are towards the Republican party), so that’s it. She did the best of a bad job, but it was still bad. North Korea is still mocking USA, whereas Russia…

Well, the Russian bear had been insulted badly by WADA’s decision, and if it did want to abide by the Western rules, now would be the perfect time for it to start to come to its’ senses – but the problem that the RF’s president Putin doesn’t care about this at all – he just wants to bring the West down, and so he’ll continue to drive his country in this direction until he dies of his own causes, i.e. old age or he is offed. There had been variations of this chiaroscuro conclusion of the Russian rulers’ life, but not many and very rarely, so it is safe to say Putin will rule until he dies himself, or he is killed by someone else who’ll succeed after him… or not, because there’s always the Revolution. Contemporary Russian government is deathly afraid of the Revolution of 1905 and 1917, which is why they lost their shit over Ukraine when it experienced its’ own… hybrid of Revolution and Perestroika… but what does the West do?

Begin to dismantle NATO, that is what. Somehow, in all the excitement of the Russian bear getting punched in the face – hard, and the Donald being insulted by Korea’s great steersman of the state – comrade Kim – also hard, it was overseen as to what happened in Denmark. Something is rotten there, it looks like…but it is the U.S., again. An American critic of the Donald and his regime was supposed to participate in the NATO summit there, so the U.S. Ambassador to Denmark told him (it was a man), that no, you are no longer invited, period. Harsh! Moreover, the government of Denmark told Mr. Ambassador this, on top of ‘if this is how you’re behaving, then we’re done with NATO for now’ – and now there is not a peep about this piece of news on news’ channels and websites. What gives?

…EU has achieved the next stage of its’ being self-sufficient and independence from the U.S., that is what. NATO, just like UN, is still largely an American organization; EU is not. While WADA was punching the Russian bear in the muzzle, the leaders of France and Germany talked to Putin of RF and Zelensky of Ukraine with nary an interest in WADA. WADA is not impotent, but it is limited, it looks like. Now what?

Well, firstly, Putin fears EU the way that he does not the U.S. He has no interest in instigating WWIII – yet and so he is willing cooperate with EU at least to a point in a way that he is not willing to with the U.S. The problem that on the other side of the coin EU is not a big fan of the U.S. anymore – just read the news. While they have little to no in common with the regimes of North Korea or Iran, (China is different, let’s be fair here), again, they are also fed up with the way that the American government was doing things… since the infamous 9/11, while the U.S. sent its’ troops into Afghanistan and beyond. Surprisingly, cough, the only other major Western power that supported them properly was Great Britain. (Again, let us keep Israel out of the equation – but yes, it makes the situation more complex). These days, not surprisingly, Great Britain actually wants to leave the EU, (and remind me as to why did they want to do that in the first place, since obviously that isn’t Russia’s fault, even the Brits themselves admit it), and they got problems, again. I.e. Epstein was very much an American, not a Russian double agent or anything, and also? Prince Andrew of the U.K. was a good friend of his, apparently. The Royal family and co are denying everything, of course, but his highness was kicked out of the family regardless, his children – princess Beatrice and princess Eugenie – aren’t keeping the stiff proverbial upper lip either and the clouds are gathering over the fair isle of England and co. all the same. What is next?

As above as below, as in big things, so in the small – the actor who played the husband in the Peloton ad, (we have talked about it earlier this month) has received death threats, and his female counterpart, who played the wife, (aka Grace from Boston), did not fair too well either. The Hell? Yes, the ad was insensitive, stupid and vapid, but nothing more, and – death threats? People have time for this sort of thing. On with the show?

Yes, since the ad brings us back onto the other side of the silver screen, and to the upcoming ‘WW84’ movie trailer. What can be said about it?

It is funky, it is DC’s response to MCU’s ‘Captain Marvel’ film (set in the 1990s, remember?), and it got content. Most important, it got two new villains for WW to defeat – one is her archnemesis, Cheetah, aka Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva. The second is not as clear-cut: he’s Maxwell Lord, sort of a rip-off Lex Luthor in the original DC comics.

…Yes, there was a Maxwell Lord character in the first seasons of ‘Supergirl’, maybe there still is one, but by now it’s obvious that whereas Marvel is bringing all of its’ depictions to one source, DC doesn’t. There is a Maxwell Lord from ‘Supergirl’, there was a Maxwell Lord in the ‘Smallville’ TV series, there’s going to be a Maxwell Lord in DCEU, and so on… but he may not be the final big bad of the movie. Why?

Because this is how it went down in the first WW movie, where the final villain was Ares, the god of war, aka a male deity. Yeah, deities have a different relationship with gender than us mortals do, but in the first WW movie, Ares was very much male. And, since in this movie’s trailer we already see WW riding lightning, maybe we will get a visit from the old Zeus himself? First WW film – Dr. Poison, her German handler, Ares. Second film – Cheetah, Maxwell Lord, Zeus? And keep in mind, that as far as villains go, Maxwell Lord is usually a telepath/mental controller of some sort. Bring on Orwell’s 1984 dystopia!

No, seriously, one of George Orwell’s best novels is ‘1984’, and it was a Stalinist dystopia. These days’ people do not differentiate between communism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and socialism on top of it…plus they are beginning to thaw towards Russians again, so we probably will not get any Cold War vibes from the second WW movie. That said, we do see her destroy a camera as she is fighting, cough, a couple of robbers in a 1980s’ shopping mall, and later on she’s fighting more people in the White House, so – ‘big brother is watching you’, maybe? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark… and this brings us back to real life. It sucks, unless you are Bianca Andreescu, who had won another tennis trophy. You go, girl! Show the world what Canadians and Canada have!

…Apparently, it is just the right scenery for the upcoming ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ film, which was shot, in part, in southern Alberta. Already it is shaping up to be a different film from the previous ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, which it ignores, at least in this trailer. It will be interesting to see as to how this particular film will unveil itself… especially since Warner Brothers’ ‘Kong vs. Godzilla’ movie has hit yet another snafu – some photos were leaked, (mostly of Kong fighting Godzilla on a ship), so now team WB is doing its’ best to bring them all doing, citing copyright and what else have you. How great for them. Did I mention that real life sucks?

…This is it for now – see you all soon.

Black Widow trailer 1 - Dec 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So we look onto the TV and what do we see there? The ‘Vikings’ season premiere! And-?

And I was wrong – it will not be the Turco-Mongols that the titular characters will be fighting, but the Russians. Oh, for fuck’s sake!

Let me elaborate. These days, the Russia that the West knows is associated with Moscow, or as the Slavic people acknowledge it, (sometimes) – the Moscow Rus. Reasonable enough, right? The problem – the first one – that during the Viking era – the Rus that existed in the world was the so-called Kiev Rus, it existed primarily on the territory of modern Ukraine and the Balkans, Eastern Europe, really – and Moscow was only its’ north-east periphery at best.

…Real life carefully point-out to me that the Donald decided to replace the Democrats fictional Russian interference – the Russian threat to the U.S. regime is quite real, but meddle in the election-2016 it did not – but equally fictional Ukrainian one. Democrats firmly rejected it, Republicans are just as firmly pro-Donald, so now what?

Nobody knows. At least since the year 2016 the West figured out by now that using fictional Russian threats to distract from real-life problems – the Epstein fallout, for example, or the Brexit – just makes it works and have stopped using them. Substituting them with just as fictional Ukrainian threats is worse, since Ukraine is trying to be the part of the Western culture for real, for what reasons, is another thing, but for real. They do not deserve this sort of a backstab… but they are getting it anyways.

And now we return to the ‘Vikings’, where the Vikings will be fighting the Russo-Ukrainians, even though…

…Even though in reality they were the ones to establish the state slash kingdom of Rus – the Russians themselves accept it. The first Russian dynasty were the Ruriks, whose founder, Rurik, alongside with his brother, Sinehus and Truvore, was a Variag/Varangian – a Viking. The Russian name ‘Oleg’, and its’ female counterpart, ‘Olga’, are Russified versions of the Norse ‘Helgi’ (male) and ‘Helga’ (female). Far from fighting with the Rus, the real-life Vikings colonized and began to civilize them. …Yes, they were still Vikings. …Yes, in real life their version of colonizing meant that for about half a year they would plunder – but increasingly systematically – their Slavic subjects – and the rest of the year was spent by their journeys back and forth, as well as by other interactions, with the Byzantine Empire. These days, the geographic West took the place of the Byzantines, but otherwise? The ethnically Russian spiritual heirs of Russia, Ukraine and probably Belarus too follow the same model: they plunder, however systematically, their subjects and live-off on their spoils in the West, literally a distance away from their subjects – and the West largely has no problem with that. The 90s could have been a literal new leaf in the Russian history as the pro-Western faction of its’ society assumed that it would – instead this period became known as ‘The Big Grab’ and ‘The Cut-Throat Nineties’: neither name is particularly positive either in English or in Russian… where were we?

Ah yes, for a show that is a part of a History channel, the ‘Vikings’ are a great big pile of pseudo-history crap, as it was pointed out in the past seasons. They also discard a potentially very positive propaganda piece by having them arrive on the Rus territory and bringing to the latter the light of the true Western civilization – instead, we got some sort of a ‘cold war’ that we know that they are going to win; in reality, of course, the Kiev Rus actually became superior to the Viking Scandinavia by the XI century and it was only after the Scandinavian Vikings converted to Christianity and became a part of the European culture properly did they begin to catch up. But until the Kiev Rus succumbed to the Turco-Mongol yoke, it and Scandinavia were very close to each other – politically, socially, dynastically and so on. To see the ‘Vikings’ go the way it went is just sad. What next?

Next is the new ‘Black Widow’ trailer that came out recently, (Dec 3, 2019). Supposedly, it will take place in Budapest, Hungary, because in the very first ‘Avengers’ film, (the one where Loki’s loaned alien army invaded NYC, remember it?), Nat and Clint mentioned some sort of a Budapest incident in their past. Maybe we will see it; yes, Jeremy Renner, who plays Hawkeye in MCU, has had his own #MeToo moment, but maybe we will still see him and Samuel Jackson’s Nick Fury star against ScarJo’s Black Widow in her 2020 film. What next?

I cannot shake the feeling that this movie include plenty of time jumps, simply because it will take place in the past, as in the ‘present’, aka the ‘Endgame’ film, the Black Widow is dead and probably won’t be coming back. Since even the trailer already introduces us to Yelena Belova, who is one of the ‘other’ Black Widows of Marvel comics, the odds of her becoming the next Black Widow of MCU is quite high.

Next, the trailer introduces us to the Red Guardian, in his Alexi Shostakov avatar, (because there was many Red Guardian characters in the Marvel comics). In the Marvel comics, Shostakov is Ronin these days, but in MCU, it was Renner’s Hawkeye who got to be Ronin, while a much older Shostakov version is the Red Guardian. ‘Much older’ because in the comics he is actually Natasha’s ex-husband; here, he seems to be more of a funny crazy old drunken uncle figure to Nat and the girls. ‘The girls’, because it brings us to the final new character introduced in this trailer – Melina Vostokoff. In the comics, she became the Iron Maiden… who is a Black Widow villain, not an Iron Man one, connotations be damned. In Marvel’s Mangaverse, (Earth-2301, I have no life, sue me), this is the superhero name of Tony Stark’s twin sister, but so far there is no evidence of such character in MCU, so let’s assume that the Iron Maiden will be the superhero or supervillain alias of Vostokoff…or she can become the new Task Master. In Marvel comics, the Task Master is an ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. agent named Tony Masters – aka a man. This is also how the Task Master has appeared in Marvel cartoons, but as people pointed out, it is always possible that MCU will do a gender bender on this character instead. What next?

Well, let us give a shout-out to the new ‘James Bond’ movie trailer that came out today, (Dec 4, 2019), and move onto ‘Kings of Pain’. Why? Because the double-oh trailer reveals that the titular character of this film will just be running around, hitting and gunning down people, while saving either the world or his own skin in the process. Fun! – but nothing to discuss, however; even ‘Kings of Pain’ have more context, so let’s talk about them instead. Seriously, double-oh movies are pure suspense/action/adventure flicks with some romance and porn thrown in, so let’s give credit to ‘Kings’ – whatever they are, this isn’t them.

…No, actually, let us talk about the ‘Kings’ credit in this week’s episode – how does it fall?

In the neutral field, we got the velvet ant portion of the episode: this week, the not so dynamic duo went to Africa because of the Nile monitor. (Think a much smaller version of the better-known Komodo dragon). Why Nile monitor? Because ‘Brave Wilderness’ had a Nile monitor episode, as well as a velvet ant episode and a hippopotamus one.

…Getting back to the velvet ant, listen: there are 400 species of these insects living in the U.S., so there was no need for the ‘Kings’ cast and crew go to Africa to catch a couple of them. However, the velvet ants, (who really are wasps, whose females are wingless), probably live in Africa, so it evens out.

Next – the bad: the hippopotamus encounter. It was completely unconvincing: the duo’s boat was shaken around in the dark supposedly by a hippo…that is it. The camera stayed mostly on the show’s leads, we never got a glimpse of the hippo, and everyone made it to shore safely.

Listen: the hippopotamus is one of Africa’s Big Five, i.e. it is one of Africa’s biggest animals. It is also one of Africa’s most dangerous and ornery animals. Why? Because the first modern humans appeared in Africa, and they stayed in Africa, and the modern African animals evolved in co-existence with humans and human civilizations, and they know that humans aren’t their friends, but are dangerous, and tend to attack them – to attack us – with the slightest provocation because this knowledge is almost instinctual by now. The hippos’ twist – we are talking about the common hippopotamus here, not its’ pygmy sibling – is that it is an amphibious animal: like its’ cousins whales, dolphins and porpoises its’ skin does not endure well the sun, but unlike whales, dolphins and porpoises hippos can move on land just fine. Indeed, they do not really swim – more like walk along the bottoms of rivers and lakes, surfacing for air. Did not prevent them from colonizing Madagascar in the past, yes, (they are extinct there now, though)… where were we?

Ah, yes – hippos have explosive tempers and know how to use it. They are not as fast on land as rhinos and elephants are, but they still can run, and they can trample, and their jaws with tusk-like teeth are huge and strong enough to tear apart canoes and smaller rowboats, as well as lions and Nile crocodiles, so if the cast and crew of ‘Kings’ have encountered a genuinely upset hippo, odds would be that this ‘river horse’ would not only took bites out of some boats and what else have you, it could’ve also followed them to dry land, (actually, at night hippos prefer dry land to water – they forage there) and had a rematch. Nothing of this sort happened, so excuse me for being sceptical.

However, what has happened in real life was the Nile monitor biting the show’s main leads. That certainly was not fake, so kudos to them for this. While nowhere as large enough as the Komodo dragon, let alone the probably extinct Australian Megalania, the Nile monitor is still a very large lizard, with powerful jaws, claws and slapping tail; I don’t know if the duo’s interactions with the lizard took place in Africa or on a set, the monitor did bite them, and for the record? The teeth of the monitor lizards are serrated and sharp, they rip their prey, not crush it as the crocodiles do. Pieces of meat often get caught in their teeth, where they rot, giving the monitors – even the Komodo dragon – a very potent and atypical venom: Komodo dragons kill water buffalos with it, and let us be fair: a water buffalo’s immune system is much more robust than a human’s. True, a Nile monitor is also much smaller than a Komodo dragon is, but it still got powerful jaws and a toxic bite, and it showed. Coyote Petersen on ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t even try to have the Nile monitor bite him. So yes, here ‘Kings of Pain’ certainly broke the mould and showed that they are capable of something real and not staged. This certainly puts them ahead of the ‘Vikings’ and their messed-up world history.

…Yes, it’s kind of dramatic and strange that the official History channel in Canada airs mostly reality shows that don’t really have anything to do with History; the ‘Vikings’ are historical fiction, but at least they’re historical. That is real life for you, though. It sucks. I hope that when the ‘Black Widow’ movie comes out in May 2020 it will be good and a welcome distraction from real life instead.

This is it for now though – see you all soon!

Kings of Pain - Nov 13

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yesterday, (Tuesday, Nov 12, 2019), I went across the entire Toronto for an afternoon doctor’s appointment… only it was not. Somehow, I became bumped to a late Friday morning (Nov 15, 2019), so I am going to do it all over again. I hate this shit. At least, family did not try to make it worse, one way or another. Hallelujah for small mercies is all I can say. Now onto the TV shows.

We are talking about the new live-action show, ‘Kings of Pain’, which has also premiered on Nov 12, 2019, on the History channel, (history-dot-ca on the Internet). We have already discussed a different show from this channel, ‘Forged in fire’, and that is really an AWE me/Man-at-Arms YouTube show meeting some sort of a cooking show, ‘Chopped’, maybe. People forge knives, hatchets, other weapons, using materials provided by the show hosts – some people like it, others don’t, but the show IS original in its’ approach, let’s be honest. ‘Kings of Pain’ – not so much.

Instead, ‘Kings of Pain’ are a clear rip-off of the ‘Brave Wilderness’ YouTube & TV show that stares Coyote Petersen and his cohorts. Just like the latter, the hosts of ‘Kings of Pain’ are getting stung and bitten by various creatures; in the series’ premiere, this went towards the executioner wasp and the warrior wasp. (Admittedly, I am not sure about the goliath birdeater tarantula, but)…

The main difference is that Coyote dedicated an entire episode to each creature – yes, it was only 15 to 20 minutes long on average, but the truth is, the plot of such an episode is actually quite limited: Coyote would capture the insect, it would bite or sting him, he would suffer, the end. Not a lot to proceed on here, and a lot of it was occupied by Coyote’s theatrics – the man is an actor, and the fact that he does gets stung for real does not change it.

By contrast, the hosts of ‘Kings of Pain’ do not do those theatrics as well at all – they get stung or bitten, they yell and flail, the end – and the next shot shows them calmly discussing it at a campfire. Plus, they constantly break the fourth wall by showing their camera crew, medical assistants, and so on – ‘Brave Wilderness’ didn’t do it on such a regular basis. Score another one for ‘Brave Wilderness’.

Am I biased? Well, yes, but the truth is that what ‘Kings of Pain’ are doing? ‘Brave Wilderness’ did it first. The latter show is not without its’ own flaws, and is aimed primarily at children as audience, but grownups can enjoy it too. ‘Kings of Pain’ are trying to aim at the grown-ups instead, but it still comes across as second best – in this week’s episode, (‘Nightmare in a Box’), the show’s hosts were shown to be stung and bitten by two different wasp species and the goliath bird-eating spider, yet somehow it was depicted as a less exciting and a more pompous, (in a pseudoscientific way), version of the ‘Brave Wilderness’ ‘Coyote getting stung’ story arc. That is life for you. Anything else?

In the promo for the upcoming ‘Vikings’ season, we get to see the titular characters face-off against… the Turco-Mongols, (or whatever they are called now). Sigh. In real life, the proper Scandinavian Viking culture vanished quite a while before the Turco-Mongols had reached the lands of Rus and Europe proper, so this ‘clash of East and West’ is historically anachronistic and is about as realistic as GoT’s Dothraki coming to Westeros as part of Dany’s forces – but the ‘Vikings’ historical inaccuracies were discussed at length in the past by much more knowledgeable people than me, so let us drop it. We know that the Vikings are going to win anyhow, simply because it is their show, and not the Turco-Mongols’. Ah well, this is TV for you – whether it sucks or not, it usually is not realistic.

…This is it for now. See you all soon.

FH: Zealot - July 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and your family often makes it worse. Oh, they are trying to make it better, probably, but they make it worse instead, even though it is completely unnecessary.

No, seriously, judge for yourself: in the U.S., Mr. Muller is finally testifying, (or is he testifying again?) and everyone is abuzz, (and is already making new plans in case the testimony doesn’t go the way that they want it to go); in the U.K., Boris Johnson is elected the new PM and plenty of people have ideas as to how this will go – either really bad or really good. He’s rather the Great Britain’s version of the Donald…but USA isn’t calling them out, not after their ‘original Donald’ opted to open his mouth and start a racist mess of things…until today, now that Mr. Muller is testifying in court, and everything previous is apparently put on hold.

RF, of course, is a breed apart from the West. The initially civilized elections in the Moscow municipal council became the 21^st century version of the pre-1905 Russian revolution; there were two Russian revolutions: the 1917 one, which succeeded, and the 1905 one, which failed…if taken by itself, since it was the precursor and something of a test run for the 1917 revolution, it was more successful.

Yet even the 1905 failed revolution forced everyone in the Russian Empire to realize that something was rotten in the state of Denmark…not that it was enough. Whatever it is that is currently going on in Moscow…we will see. RF always has some disaster or another occurring on its’ territory; there had been a fire at another children’s summer camp, and some sisters have killed their family, literally drowned them in blood, apparently…but we digress. Where were we?

Oh yes, FH has revealed its’ new Viking hero/anti-hero, the Hulda. Admittedly, it is hard to pin down just what has inspired her, but, firstly, she is holding a war hammer, and secondly? There is the imagery of Jormungandr. And Ragnarok.

There are several versions of how to say the name of the Norse World Serpent, so let us call it just the World Serpent from now on, and yes, in the Norse myths it was the arch-nemesis of Thor the Thunder God for reasons unknown. It is featured primarily in three myths. In the first, the original Loki, who was more of a fire giant-god than a frost one, met an ogress, or a witch, or some other dark entity named Angrboda, (but yes, there are different version of the name again), and together they had three children. One was Hela, (yes, the Hela from the Thor 3 movie), who was humanoid in shape, but was half and half otherwise – alive on one half and dead on the other… or half black and half white… or half red and half blue… the accounts vary.

The second was Fenrir or Fenris wolf, the biggest, baddest wolf of them all, one who needed an impossible chain to hold him, who bit off the arm of Tyr, another Norse god, who was the son of Odin and a brother of Thor… and who was going to swallow Odin whole during Ragnarok, while yet another son of Odin that wasn’t Thor was going to kill him.

And finally, there was the World Serpent, a sea snake so large that it encircled the world in the Norse cosmology, dwarfing everyone, god and mortal, dragon and giant… you get the picture. It lived on the bottom of the sea and never ventured onto land… supposedly. And then, one day – and here we come to the second story – the giant-god of the sea, Aegir, had a party for the Asgardians, but did not have a cauldron big enough to make mead for all of them. The only cauldron big enough for that belonged to a giant named Hymir, who was Tyr’s maternal grandfather and who was not on the best terms with the Asgardians.

An aside: Odin’s own grandma was a frost giant’s daughter; whereas the Greeks made some sort of a division – here are the Olympian gods, who are not Titans, and here are the Titans who are not the Olympian gods, though the latter are their descendants, but the two groups are separate, the Norse didn’t. Asgardians freely intermarried with frost and stone giants, though the fire giants, led by Surt or Surtr were not a part of it, and so it was really hard to make sense of their feud with the giants – it felt more like a great big family quarrel than some sort of a life-and-death struggle that went down in the Ragnarok proper – but we digress.

Anyhow, Thor and Tyr came to Jotunheim, the land of the giants, and Tyr’s grandfather took Thor fishing, and Thor caught the World Serpent on his hook – intentionally, most versions say. He began to pull it out of the water, when the line snapped, or Tyr’s grandfather intentionally cut it, because, hey, the World Serpent, and so Jormungandr escaped. Thor thrown Mjolnir at it, and the hammer that never missed scored a hit, but the World Serpent survived that experience – this time.

And finally, we have the big Ragnarok face-off, as Thor and his reptilian arch-nemesis went at it, well, hammer and tongs. Eventually, Thor would break the Serpent’s skull with his hammer, and die from its’ venomous breath – in the Norse myths, all dragons are venomous, just as the real-life snakes from which they are derived. Even the most infamous dragon of them all, Fafnir, (or Fafneir), was toxic – but we are not talking about him. The point is that unlike Hela, who was a deity of the Norse, (and so was Loki himself, of course), neither the World Serpent nor Fenrir were – they were monsters. By combining Thor’s war hammer with the World Serpent, the FH team combined the incompatible, and made something of a mess of symbolism, again.

…Yes, FH is a game. Yes, it appears to be more interested in symbols and symbolism and symbolic representations of the samurais, knights, Vikings – and the ancient Chinese, the Wu Ling team. However, Hulda somehow feels especially experimental and strange. Vortiger – we have discussed before – is Vortigern, a controversial – but not necessarily evil – character in the Arthurian legends; he is a Black Prior, which only confuses things further. Sakura is Hitokiri, which is an executioner. Marvel comics aside, in real life executioners were hated in Middle Ages, they wore their hoods to protect their anonymity so that they would not be further boycotted in real life, and they were certainly not fighters or warriors, especially in their depictions. And Hulda? She is a zealot.

No, she is not a minor villain from the Marvel comics, who fought Magneto and died for his trouble; nor is she a part of a different group of Marvel villains, who work for the dread Dormammu and might be really just variant Mindless Ones; FH defines her more as a ‘real life’ religious zealot, so let’s talk about that.

In real life, the zealot movement was established by Jews in the 1^st century A.D.; they sought to incite their fellow Jews to arms, to rebel against the Roman empire and to drive its’ forces out of the Holy Land. That didn’t happen, and actually the Holy Land vanished from the face of Earth until the post-WWII 20^th century…but what does it have to do with the Vikings?

Nothing. FH’s zealot is a completely fictional creation; this character is supposed to cull the weak to reveal the strong in face of the upcoming Ragnarok, and as it was said earlier, the most notable thing about her is the fact that she, (or he, there’s a male version of this character too), seems to be wielding a war hammer.

…Yes, in real life, this is how you write it, to differentiate from Warhammer the game franchise. Unlike games and game-related fiction, the real life war hammer was not widely used; the closest I can remember was in DW S1, where Walter Wallace used it against Shake Zulu’s battle-axe, well – the Zulu Axe, in one of the least satisfying episodes of DW S1 – but again, we digress.

Let us wrap things up. Real life sucks, and your family may make things worse, accidentally or on purpose. In AoS, Lincoln apparently left behind a sister, and Daisy sends her some moneys for some reason or another – to assuage her own conscience, probably. (How big those sums and what is the state of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s finances are one of those things that will be never addressed). And FH continues to haphazardly throw together symbols and images from various aspects of samurai, knight, Viking and ancient Chinese cultures, hoping that they stick.

This is it for now; see you all soon!

S.H.I.E.L.D., The Team - April 19

And so, lo and behold – the revenge of Grant Ward from beyond the grave, bitches! Coulson had killed him – and Hive took over from where he had left off and delivered in style. Last episode, he had Guyerra beat the shite out of everyone, including Mack and May and Coulson; in this episode, he uses Daisy/Skye to do the same thing to S.H.I.E.L.D. Go Hive! The next promo shows him alongside Daisy, while Lincoln is intent on getting her back, so odds are that within the last four episodes of S3 Lincoln will do this – just in time. He has already showed quite a bit of character growth, staying with S.H.I.E.L.D. (though he had zapped the shite out of Coulson, so the two of them may be good because of that too) despite Daisy’s seductions, and-

Moreover, the problem is not that the writers (or so some people think) are trying to assassinate Grant’s character, or to make him into someone like Killgrave from JJ…well, actually, that is the problem. They are unoriginal and are constantly rehashing the material from the first two seasons – anyone who had seen the last few episodes of S1 in particular will recognize the parallels (and John Garrett is laughing his ass off in Hell as he is enjoying the view of Daisy quaking S.H.I.E.L.D.’s HQ from his personal rack or cauldron of tar or whatever), but it doesn’t mean that they’ll enjoy it. They just may want original material, not more rehash of the same old. (Including the Clairvoyance/the sight of the future bit after 2-3 seasons it is getting old, if AoS will return for a 4^th season they will have to come with something original…hopefully).

On the other hand…there is little to no other hand. The show is still limited by the matters of cast (and cash): yes, the Secret Warriors kick ass, but, apparently, their tenure as regulars on the show is still not established: Joey wants officially out of it all, and Elena has her own doubts. Malick, speaking of outs, is dead at last, so Coulson had just shot his mouth to the deceased head of Hydra for nothing.

Well, maybe not for ‘nothing’ – maybe Malick had told him about Hive, something important (and how does Coulson know about Hive to begin with? Randolph from 3x02?), but he was the head of Hydra: WTF Coulson trusted him in the first place? The man believes anyone, it seems, except for Grant Ward – at least he has manned up enough to admit that Hive is the one enemy we had made, but he still gives speeches, like the one that he had given to Daisy in the last quarter of this episode…only Daisy was under Hive’s ‘sway’ this entire time, Coulson’s speech was wasted, just as his time with Malick had been, most likely: here he was, trying to trick Malick into selling Hive out for revenge – and along comes Daisy and kills Malick dead. And then she also blows him up to confuse her teammates, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Secret Warriors. Coulson and his people seem to be reminiscent of Kerensky and his failed democratic regime in the pre-U.S.S.R. Russia.

To elaborate, after the Romanov royal family had resigned from their rule (no, seriously, this is what they have done) and before the Bolsheviks had seized power, the Russian elite, aristocracy and intelligentsia tried to establish a democratic government in Russia. The result was not unlike what happed about 70 years later, during the Perestroika and Yeltsin’s regime: anarchy, but for a shorter chronological period. That democratic regime in Russia lasted for a very short chronological period, and it remains a sign of incompetence, political and otherwise, in the Russian culture to this day. S.H.I.E.L.D., in ‘The Team’ and ‘Spacetime’ seems to have become just as incompetent, with its members liable to turn upon each other easily: the InHuman Secret Warriors may be infected by Hive, according to a Hydra head? Let us hide it from them, make it an unnecessary mess, and turn upon them – with sleeping gas and whatnot. Great teamwork, DC; I hope that Hive beats the shite out of you in Grant’s body the next time you meet.

So: S.H.I.E.L.D.’s feud with Hive (in Grant’s body) seems to be reaching its’ peak, and right now the agents appear to be incompetent hypocrites, and with 4 episodes to go, it gives plenty of time for the writers and similar staff to further assassinate their characters. I can hardly wait. Not.