Quarantine entry #40 - April 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, COVID-19 or not. It’s raining today, so we got to stay inside, and on the DA – which itself is supposed to end at the end of May, aka within four to five weeks – I found a comic about a South Andean deer named Awka and her friends.

…From what I could understand, the South Andean deer are disorganized and scattered, at a disadvantage from the introduced red deer, (better known in North America as the wapiti), who are staying together and who have blocked-off some of the South Andean deer migratory routes and don’t let them pass. Balrog and Gandalf the Grey so understand – been there, done that, ripped the mountains of Moria asunder – where were we?

Ah yes, the deer wars. Some of Awka’s family are trapped on the other side of the red deer blockade and cannot get through – supposedly, because we are never introduced to them at all. Instead, we get flashbacks and the like, as Awka messes with the red deer herd by being the absolute worst. Pause.

Here is the thing. In AoS, (especially the initial seasons), in ‘Frozen 2’, in ‘Trolls 2’ and the like we are introduced to the idea that there are few to none deliberate villains, mostly people that misunderstand and the like. That is nothing new, even the Old Norse, (and I am not talking MCU here), had a saying that amounted to, like, ‘Even a hero had their flaw and a villain isn’t all bad’. That is realistic enough, but when we are dealing with a movie that has a magical snowman (on top of many Norse mythical monsters), or a comic that features talking deer, realism isn’t up there, is it? Tolkien’s LotR trilogy, in particular, was really clear-cut – there are the bad guys, and here are the good guys, no one is in the middle…and there are racist overtones, even though his fanbase, (such as David Day), try to deny it.

By contrast, Mr. Martin’s ASOIAF series never really has purely good or evil characters, (let us leave Brienne out of it). As a result, both in GoT and in the novels, ASOIAF became something of a morass to wade through, as alliances are made and broken, everyone is soldering on – and the unquestionably evil Night King, a fusion of Sauron and the Witch-King of Angmar, (aka the Nazgul #1), is leading an army of White Walkers and the Walking Death onto the living. To Mr. Martin, it seems, humanity is a morass – but we’ll have to hope that in his final books, he’ll show how Westeros defeats the Night King – if they defeat him; plus the GoT version was extremely dissatisfying to its’ fanbase, but we’ve talked about this before… Back to Awka?

…With Awka and the rest of her South American comic, it is the same thing – the author/illustrator is doing their best to depict everyone as well-rounded characters, and as a result, it is extremely hard to root for Awka sometimes, and she is still the main character.

Pause. Modern mass media, such as comics, TV series and movies may try to get rid of outright evil (and outright good?) characters, but that will never happen, because not all characters are equal and because conflict, (outright or otherwise) is still the main plot motor, so good & evil are still a part of media world, and for main characters in any fictional plot, they are especially important; I’m not sure if I’ll be rooting for Awka to succeed or even continuing to follow the comic, but I felt that the above had to be said. What else?

…I confess that I wanted to talk to you about bison today. Why? Because of yaks. You see, there are two species in the bison genus – the American bison that most people know, and the European bison, aka the wisent. The two species of bison are related to each other, naturally, but they look quite different from each other, and the scientists have established that proportionally, the American bison is more closely related to the yaks than to their European relatives.

To elaborate, the ancestral bison species were Eurasian rather than American animals. Then, as they began to go west during the Pliocene-Pleistocene period, they interbred with the yak ancestors and split, eventually, into two species, the American and the European. The American bison consists of several subspecies; the European bison – of only one, (the rest were killed off by humans), but this is how the cookie crumbles; the American bison is more closely related to the yak than to the European bison. Bet you that MLP: FiM, which featured both the American bison, (wrongly called buffalo – both bison and buffalo may be bovine mammals, but they are not closely related to each other within the group), and yaks, did not tell you this!..

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

Quarantine entry #38 - April 28

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just look at the PM Trudeau, whose wife may have recovered from COVID-19 by now, and whose mother has just been diagnosed with it. Harsh, man! Real life is never pleasant, but, still, on the other hand, more people in the news are talking about the middle of May, (aka the next month) as the end of the lockdown/quarantine/self-isolation/etc. Will be interesting to see as to what will come down then. (In some news, the state of Texas intends to its’ self-isolation next week, aka the first week of May, but we will see if anything will come out of it.)

…In other news, no one is still certain if anything has happened to the great steersman, comrade Kim, the leader of North Korea, and no one is more worried than the south Koreans, since if anything goes wrong in the north, it will reach them first, whether it’s COVID-19, some sort of a North Korean civil war, or what else have you. The Chinese have already sent a medical team to North Korea, but so far there’s no information as to what has happened to them, because of course not.

Back in the U.S., people are continuing to fight with each other – see above, so everything is as usual. Ergo, here is a piece of my original fiction, this time – a MLP: FiM fic, because of yesterday’s discussion about the wild bovids, (maybe we will return to them later).

Enjoy:

"I must say, I must say," Rarity was telling Tempest Shadow now that the entire mess with the Shadow King was practically behind them, "your behavior in relation to that reject Yeti was quite wrong by Equestria's standards-"

"I know, I know," the morally ambiguous unicorn agreed, "it's just that since I found myself - as a filly - to be some sort of a variant Earth pony, I have handled it really badly-"

"Hm, you're rude, but you have a point," Rarity agreed, as she used her own magic to levitate Applejack's hat onto Tempest Shadow's head. "You do look like an Earth pony now under right circumstances-"

"Excuse me, Rarity," Applejack channeled her inner element of Honesty, "but this is my family's hat-"

"Yes, dear, but as the element of Generosity I just have to-"

As the Earth pony and the unicorn's conversation degraded into an argument of some sort, Tempest Shadow sheepishly looked at Rainbow Dash. "This, this, this," she muttered to the Pegasus. "I didn't mean for their discussion to go in this direction-"

"Meh, you're rude, but they're just being Rarity and AJ," Rainbow Dash replied dismissively, as she shoved the elements of Honesty and Generosity into a nearby closet. "This is just their public displays of affection. They are decisively above PG-13 rating, so out of the public eye they go!" She took a deep breath and looked around. Pinkie Pie was sitting alongside Gorthaur, (who should not have been in this story, but somehow snuck into it anyways) and examining the remaining bits and pieces of the Storm King's magics. On the other hoof, (but at the same time), the alicorn princess Twilight Sparkle was talking to a couple of out-of-Equestria tourists, (who got caught in the Storm King's takeover), wild cattle of some sort, (though not bison or yaks). The couple's teenage daughter was talking to Fluttershy about Equestria, and while the buttery-yellow Pegasus was somewhat uncomfortable in talking to a stranger, the other female was slowly winning her over.

"They're gayal, or mithung," Tempest Shadow, who was more travelled than the Mane 6 were, explained to the rainbow-maned (and tailed) Pegasus. "I think that they are related to the buffalo or something."

"Mmm," Rainbow Dash nodded sagely. "Got it. I just still think that we're missing someone-"

"Will someone break the spell upon us already!" the still-petrified princesses Celesia, Luna and Cadence called-out - telepathically - within their prison/display chamber, but no one was within reach...

The end?

…Well, this is it for now – see you all soon. All comments and criticisms are welcome!

Quarantine entry #37 - April 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but people are gradually beginning to shift away from the lockdown/quarantine/isolation/etc. Well, not ‘people’ as in ‘private individuals’, more as in ‘public institutions’ and ‘governments’ and the like. There is a lot of arguing about this, both pro and contra, but the tide is moving, no doubt about it. Even in best of situations, a lockdown is a part-time solution, because no one can hide forever, and, well, not everyone wants to. Things are beginning to come to… something, but what it will be, is anyone’s guess. What next?

Well, today I wanted to talk about the yaks. Yes, we’re talking about the mountain cousins of the common cattle, and-

Taxonomy first. I.e., the domestic and the wild yaks may look similar enough, especially to a layperson, but scientists established that by now they are two different species instead.

The evolution of the yak is rather convoluted as well; it can hybridize with the common cattle; the males are infertile slash sterile, but the females are not. Moreover, the yaks can hybridize with the American bison, gaur and banteng – and the latter two are worth a special notice, because the banteng is a domesticated cousin of the gaur, which might be the biggest species of wild cattle in tropical Asia, a beast big, strong and heavy enough to stand up even to the tiger.

…As for the yak evolution, it seems that the yak – we are talking about the wild yak, the domesticated species came later – is more closely related to the bison rather than to the domestic cattle (and maybe its’ cousin, the now-extinct aurochs), from which it had diverged anywhen from one to five million years ago. What next?

On one hand, there are many colored variations of the domestic yak, as opposed to the well-known black – there are even white yaks, (and you can find their pictures on the Internet). On the other hand, the yaks played an important role in the last few seasons of MLP: FiM, now ended, but that merits a special mention as well.

See, the ‘student 6’ of MLP: FiM embodied racial variety and interracial cooperation, which proved to be important in the series’ finale. Yes, CG (and her cohorts, maybe), embodied racism on the show, (sort of), but it worked. By ‘worked’, I meant that she got to be a good villain, and as for her fate… well, with the conclusion of the series the franchise is getting rebooted and revamped, which includes – the ‘Equestria Girls’ series. In it, the more human counterparts to the mainline little ponies are beginning to aim at teens, whereas the original series – more at prepubescent children, especially of the female gender…at least that was the initial target audience. Somehow, over the years and the seasons, the MLP: FiM franchise grew into something else, and it will continue to grow as years and seasons go by… hopefully, COVID-19 or no. (Cough, Comic-con 2020 cancelled, cough). Is it a good reason to be optimistic? Normally not, but at this day and age, given that real life sucks more than it normally does, any port in a storm and all that.

…As for the yaks… yeah, I do not know why the franchise decided to include them, especially since they had the American bison already… there are also the European bison aka the wisent, and both species consist of several subspecies. Neither species is particularly flourishing, but the American bison is proportionally better off than its’ wisent cousin is; as for the wild yak, right now, its’ status is ‘vulnerable’; I suppose that that’s fair, given how poorly some of the other species of wild cattle have fared, (cough, the aurochs is extinct, cough)…

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