PJ Masks & FH - June 18

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us briefly talk about the new FH development instead.

Ok, no, first I need to address the issue of why I am not talking about the current PJ Masks’ development. To this, I reply: real life sucks already, so why should I talk more of the same? In greater detail, listen: here, Disney Junior is trying to softly and slyly reboot the PJ franchise, just as Disney/Marvel is rebooting AoS via the upcoming ‘Secret Invasion’ series, and Disney itself is rebooting its’ animated movies as well – just look at the TLM-2023 version and compare it with the original 1989 one. However, in the case of PJ Masks, the soft reboot ran into a specific problem – the lack of continuation. Seriously, look at the previous seasons, as I’ve written before – there’s no consistent character development either among heroes or villains; neither side seems to learn anything from their repeated clashes, or they do, but never utilize it – and thus, all of them are caught in an endless loop of fights, night after night. You could really write a dark story here, about several children who are caught into some sort of a crazy Groundhog Day – pardon, night-like – scenario and cannot escape it unless they do something drastic…

Ok, this will not happen because the titular characters – the PJ Masks – have daytime/civilian identities and their nightly emergencies have something to do with their daytime issues. That is fair, but sadly, the series reboot seems to have gotten rid of this, now there is even more nighttime action and even less daytime, making the cartoon series even less realistic than it was before… Yes, I do understand that ‘PJ Masks’ was never about realism, but still, this is depressing, so I’m ignoring the series for the moment, and am not commenting on it either.

As for Ubisoft’s FH property… yes, they seem to be going Mesoamerica now, and are introducing a new named character Vela the conquistador. Yes, the conquistadors were the initial conquerors of Mesoamerica for the Spanish empire. For me, though, they strike closer to home: one of their most famous members, Hernan Cortez, appeared in the third and final season of DW, where he faced-off against Ivan the Terrible.

I have written before that the match-up didn’t make historical sense: like many eastern despots, Ivan IV the Terrible stayed safely behind the front lines… of course, so did the king of Spain during Cortes’ times… so the point here is that in this episode, DW had a Russian/Eastern villain defeated by a Western/European anti-hero! How novel… not. Still, DW is done and gone now, and what is left is… FH, for as we talked before, the creative team behind FH has plundered DW for ideas a lot, and the new conquistador character is yet the latest example – with one difference.

For the melee weapons, Hernan Cortes used a halberd, (which became a trademark weapon of one of the original team knight characters – the Lawbringer), as well as the ‘espada rapera’ – the Spanish rapier. However, since FH’s new character is based on their previous Warmonger character, their weapon is the Warmonger’s old weapon – the flamberge sword. Essentially, this is a rapier/sword combo, with a wavy, stylized blade, a la a tongue of flame. Put otherwise, the FH team also seems to be running dry, Mesoamerican styles or not.

…So, what we got here is the ‘PJ Masks’ show, which has transformed from a relatively decent pre-teen superhero fable show into its’ flawed imitation, where style is more important than substance, and conversely, we got the latest FH update, which has delivered – so far, but still – another update, also on style, nothing more. That is flat-out depressing. Have I mentioned that real life sucks? It does, and one can always count on oneself and one’s family to make it worse.

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

Elemental - June 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. This is all I want to say about it right now, so let us move onto the ‘Elemental’ movie instead. Regrettably, ‘Elemental’ is much of an improvement, topic-wise – it also sucks, not unlike how ‘Doolittle’-2020 sucked, only moreso.

Let us elaborate. Superficially, ‘Elemental’ isn’t too different from Disney’s ‘Zootopia’ film (2016), save that in place of anthropomorphic mammals we got anthropomorphic elements instead – air, earth, fire and water. No, the ‘Avatar/Korra’ franchise had people who could control such elements instead, (and they had people who had no such powers too). The world of ‘Elemental’ is more restrictive than the world of Aang and Korra is, as well as the world of ‘Zootopia’ – there are only four main elements, (any ‘crossbreads’ such as mud or steam embodiments don’t appear in this film), and nothing else. In fact, at least some critics are asking why are there sentient/self-aware elementals, of water, for example, and then there is just plain water, which is neither sentient nor self-aware.

Next, we got the actual plot. In ‘Zootopia’, we got a love story between a red fox and a bunny rabbit, an unintentional and flattering parody of Harry and Megan. They have to solve a mystery of the night howlers, figure out who is trying to set carnivores and herbivores, (well, ‘predators’ and ‘prey’) against each other, as well as deal with prejudices, biases, preconceptions and superstitions against each other. In ‘Elemental’, we got a female fire elemental named Ember and a male water elemental named Wade who… pause.

The main conflict in ‘Elemental’ is that Ember had blown stuff up, and Wade has to report her to the city hall. Since that would put the kibosh on Ember’s entire family and their dream, done in the ‘Straight-off-the-boat’ style, Ember has to persuade Wade that she isn’t so bad and he shouldn’t report her – and when she does achieve it, in a manner of speaking, (among other things), she loses her temper shortly afterwards once more, and creates another explosion that she and Wade have to solve together. Fair enough, but the plot of ‘Zootopia’ is simply better and more complex out of the two.

Then we come to romance. As it was said above, in ‘Zootopia’, romance is only a part of the movie; the mystery of the night howlers is just as big a part. In ‘Elemental’, there is only romance… wait, what do I hear? It is an interracial romance and therefore it is more important? Right, once again, from the topic.

As TLM-2023 showed, racial issues are still big and thorny in the U.S. society: after TLM-2023 aired, I saw many videos and read fan reviews that – while claiming that they were not racist, certainly made a lot of noise about H.B. and her race. The fact that TLM-2023 is a bad movie on its’ own merit does not help the situation either. However, what matters is that TLM-2023 is one side of a coin – a film that brings out a lot of race-based critique in a manner that helps no one.

…Meanwhile, ‘Elemental’ is the other side of the same coin: it is supposed to be a responsa to the interracial relationships’ critique, but it does so smoothly and glibly that it helps no one.

Again, the U.S. society, or at least its’ elite, don’t deal with interracial relationships very well. Look at Disney/Marvel, for example: in AoS, there were no WASP/POC relationships; in ‘Avengers’ – ditto, and SW did not do any better. TLM-2023 handled this sort of thing very, well, heavy-handedly, pardon the pun, but at least they tried – and ‘Elemental’ doesn’t do the interracial relationship any better, certainly worse than how ‘Zootopia’ did it.

Put otherwise, ‘Elemental’ is ‘Zootopia’, not only simplified to just four races/species, but with all the rough edges sanded and smoothed out, which only hurt the film. In ‘Zootopia’, characters had to deal with real prejudices and outright segregation – tall, small and short characters were often treated differently from each other and without any political correctness either. ‘Elemental’ does not really have that; yes, Ember and Wade come from different social classes, but ‘Elemental’ does not explore that either; the main conflict here is that Ember and Wade are fire and ice…I mean, fire and water, ha-ha. Couldn’t they make them earth and air instead? Are earth and fire, for example, all that compatible?.. Never mind, where were we?

Flat-out, by smoothing out any controversies and conflicts, the creative team behind ‘Elemental’ has decreased its’ value, has decreased the value of Wade and Ember’s relationship… period. Tom Holland’s Peter Parker and MJ have value as a couple; Sony’s Miles Morales and Gwen, (as well as Peter B. and MJ Watson) – ditto. Ember and Wade – not so much. You want to see a fictional interracial couple that works as a team, defeating enemies and overpower obstacles? Go and re-watch ‘Zootopia’ once again. ‘Elemental’ is just a faded copy of it.

Anything else? Yes, Ubisoft’s FH franchise seems ready to go Mesoamerica soon – already there is a conquistador-like character in the works. There was a conquistador – Hernan Cortez himself – in the third and final season of DW, but that is another story…

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

Miles Morales Spider-Verse movie - June 2

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about the ‘Across the Spider-verse’ movie instead. To put it concisely: it works. Why?

Firstly, it deals with the multiverse correctly – it is a huge, jumbled complex that can accommodate, well, everything, from myriad of spider-people to a world without shrimp, or something along those lines. (Also, Gwen Stacy as a Spider-Woman? That does not sound quite right). As a result, whereas MCU is struggling to fit the multiverse into itself, Sony’s Spider-Verse does not – the spiders do not control the multiverse and let it flow as it is… or not.

Enter Miguel O’Hara, who is one of the movie’s main protagonists, (especially for Miles): he is not so much evil as orderly – he is a champion for inevitability of fate, (cough, Thanos, cough), and he and his cohorts are doing their best to enforce this P.O.V. across the Spider-verse multiverse. By contrast, Miles, Gwen, and their cohorts are more about freedom of choice – hence their conflict with Miguel and his team.

…The more traditional struggle between good and evil here is embodied in the character of Spot, who, (he is a canon Spider-Man villain, BTW), is trying to demolish the Spider-verse multiverse just because; this version of Spot is chaotic evil, and unapologetically so. …Of course, since this is a good movie, Spot has his own journey to travel before he arrives at this alignment, and so he does. What is next?

The delivery of the movie – there is humor in it, drama, and everything else beyond. The style of the Sony Miles Morales’ films is something else – I found it unnecessarily distracting and overwhelming in the first film, and I consider this the case now. However, given the popularity of these films, I am guessing that the overwhelming art style of theirs’ also works. Anything else?

The film doesn’t have a mid-credits’ scene because it has ended on an open-ended ending, pardon the tautology – the conflict between inevitability of fate and the freedom of choice, (mostly human, though there are sentient pigs, cats and non-avian dinosaurs as well), is still going strong, while the Miles Morales that the audience got to know and love, (cough), is still at large in the Spider-verse multiverse because he can. There are consequences for one’s choices, always, but following/believing in inevitability is one of them, not an exception or an alternative. Also…

Also, the relationship between Miles and Gwen, (throughout this movie at least), is an interracial one, cough. Mind you, it is nothing new – Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and Zendaya’s MJ relationship is an interracial one too, not to mention the actual relationship between the two actors in question – but Hollywood follows its’ own rules when it comes to interracial relationships, it seems.

Yes, I am talking about the upcoming ‘Elemental’ movie, which is a weak rip-off of ‘Zootopia’. The racial history of the U.S. is a messy and a complicated one; these days, (the early 2020-s), there are still people who have issues with race and interracial relationships, but the sort of a vapid response that ‘Elemental’ is offering is no solution but the other side of the problem; not to mention – I suspect – that it is the reason that we didn’t get any sort of a ‘Zootopia’ sequel after the ‘Zootopia+’ mini-series had been released, for otherwise ‘Elemental’ would’ve been blown clear out of the water, (pun intended). What next?

MCU’s ‘Secret Wars’ mini-series, apparently. This is MCU’s latest attempt to fix the whatever hole/damage AoS had inflicted on its’ narrative – but that is another discussion, for another time. (Sony’s Spider-Verse had wisely avoided any but the most basic mentions of MCU. Good for them!)

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

TLM-2023 - May 26

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I would rather talk to you about tigers or some similar creatures, but let us talk about the TLM-2023 movie remake instead.

Basically, it works. It is not the best movie of 2023, but it works. It is not the most remarkable or the most memorable, but neither is it the most horrid film of 2023. Anything else?

Ok, there is the species-changing operation of Scuttle – the bird changed from a male seagull into a female northern gannet. It is the same principle as changing Eric into Ariel or vice versa – these are two different seabird species and they are not really related to each other at all – you could just as easily replace humans with dogs, horses, or elephant in TLM-2023 – the basic principle would be the same.

With geography, it is the same mess as it is with biology – initially, Disney’s TLM franchise was based on Andersen’s fairy tale, which was set in the North Sea – but now Disney is proclaiming that their original TLM movie was set in the Mediterranean instead, and the remake is set either there or in the Caribbean. Yay.

Again, this mess is completely unnecessary, as is changing a bird’s species – does it really matter if Eric and Ariel live in northern Europe, in southern, or across the world in Central America? They are imaginary characters, for crying aloud! …But since the same question could be asked about the film itself – did the TLM really needed to be remade? It had spawned one or two movie sequels, as well as a TV cartoon spinoff already – but that Disney franchise became completely upended as well.

Getting back to characters… Disney did not really deliver anything good with them either. So, Ursula really is Ariel’s aunt – so, how did she end up with tentacles? Is she a mutant, or has the High Evolutionary, (the MCU version), had a hand in her transformation? Ariel was the one to end her rather than Eric? Great, more gender misbalance in Hollywood – Barbie and Ken are going to go down great!..

No, seriously, have you seen the trailer for the Barbie movie? It is all about girl power, about the titular doll character going into ‘the real world’ (such as it is in the film) and learning… something or other. This is an old trope, one of the first characters to do this sort of thing had been Buddha, the deity behind Buddhism, but Barbie is no deity, and whatever she is going to teach her audience will not be any new modern Buddhism. Rather, the cast and crew behind it are going for a new Pinocchio film, the wooden boy replaced by a plastic girl… and her sidekick, Ken, who – in the trailer at least – seems to be about as helpful and coherent as Ariel’s animal sidekicks are, (and that leaving behind the chemistry either between Diggs and Awkwafina, or between their characters), and can you imagine a modern film, where a male character goes on a true character development, and a female character is a comic relief? Well, I cannot, but we digress.

No, not really – these days the TLM remake is all about Ariel going out and about, learning who she is and embracing herself… just Disney’s Pinocchio remake had been. Del Toro’s take on the wooden puppet is something else entirely, so let us leave it off to the side for now, and we are left with what?

..Aside from a lame-ass excuse that Awkwafina’s character changed species to become a diving bird so that she would take to Ariel and friends underwater – seriously, it is a world with mermaids and who knows what else, why a seagull cannot dive here? – there is the odd reluctant of featuring Ms. J. Alexander, who played Vanessa, Ursula’s alter-ego. For a while I thought that Ms. McCarthy would just play Vanessa herself – Eric was in love with her only through a spell to begin with, who cares if ‘Vanessa’ looked like Ms. McCarthy without CGI and make-up – but no. This might have been too risky; plus Ms. McCarthy, (Ursula), and Ms. Bailey (Ariel) are too different from each other as people, so, again, we get Ms. Alexander as Vanessa and no particular reason as to why she did not appear in the trailers. What is left?

Nothing of any significance. The queen – Eric’s mother – is the same actress who played the grown-up Hermione Granger-Weasley in the original HPCC theater production. That… might’ve been one of the reasons as to why HPCC didn’t succeed – Ms. Dumezweni and her male counterpart, who’d played the adult Ron Weasley didn’t look anything like Hermione and Ron; they just as easily could’ve been a pair of OCs who got caught in the latest Potter and friends’ madness – but that story is over. The story of TLM-2023 also probably is – while it was received better than HPCC was, it is not by much. People may be invested, and investing, into the TLM franchise, moreso than they had into the DnD film – and hah, was not that painful – but not by much. We will just have to wait and see as to what will come out of this in the future, immediate and otherwise, instead.

This is it for now. See you all soon.

GotG Vol 3 - May 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and I apologize for my tardiness. Now let us talk about the GotG, Vol 3. What is it?

A really great film, to put it down concisely. Without getting into details too much, let us point out as to what is absent from GotG Vol 3 – multiverse and Kangs.

No, seriously, let us try again. Throughout the GotG series, aside from the Christmas special that titular characters went from challenge to challenge, growing and developing as a team/family from film to film, including the ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’ movies – only not, as some of them were dusted by Thanos… and Gamora died in a non-reversible way – and got replaced by an earlier copy of herself, who acted quite differently from the previous incarnations. So what?

Therefore, compared to the previous Marvel film, ‘Quantumania’, GotG Vol 3 is more toned down out of the two, it is more restrained, and the stakes for the cast and crew – not the characters – are higher. Put otherwise, the former put a better performance than their counterparts in ‘Quantumania’ did. What next?

Next, the movie is more restrained, by Disney/MCU standards. ‘Quantumania’ is supposed to be a leap into the multiverse. Sadly, Disney/MCU hasn’t gotten the hang of the multiverse so far; the best take on it is ‘Loki’, and so far the info about its’ upcoming second season is kept close to the chest: apparently, Disney/MCU is aware that they haven’t figured out as to how to play the multiverse card correctly, and ‘Quantumania’ was supposed to be a test run. Like a test run into something new, it was not a smashing success, even if Elon Musk’s went worse, but that is real life for you – it sucks.

Back to Disney/MCU the fact that the titular characters disband at the end of the film, marking something of an end for the group. This is important, for everything has to end, for otherwise it risks overstaying its’ welcome. Now, this is something that has been harped about in regards to Disney/MCU for a while now, so some elaboration is in order. Let us begin.

Firstly, nothing is set in stone, and as long as MCU continues to make money for Disney, it will continue to run. However, the overall reputation of Disney/MCU will continue to suffer and what will come out of that is another question. Of course, this means that the voices of Disney/MCU’s critics will continue to sound, but by themselves, they are nowhere near enough to end the MCU, for they matter less than they like to. In the elections of 2016, the American mass media did its’ best to ensure that Hillary Clinton would win – and she did not. Since then, the American mass media wasn’t the same, and neither is the rest of the American society – but the Donald is still neither arrested nor affected overmuch; he may’ve lost the election-2020, but he’s still kicking, and the Democrats are trying to stop him from running for the election of 2024, and are mismanaging that strategy…badly, but that is another story.

Back to GotG Vol 3, they have actually ended and kudos to them for this. Disney tends to make its’ series a trilogy, and GotG confirms to this… unlike the Ant-Man franchise, whose third film, ‘Quantumania’, feels more like a beginning instead – but it also leaves the ant-family high and dry. That is a cheap shot, it is, and even Disney (and MCU) admit it… somewhat.

Ah yes, the villain issue of Disney/MCU. Until ‘Quantumania’, the villains of this franchise came and went in a range of a single film – normally. There were exceptions. Thanos was one, obviously. The characters in AoS were another, but AoS itself is buried deeper by Disney/MCU than Thanos is, but where it does leave Kang?

Pretty much in the same place as the rest of the villains, save that now there is a multiverse – as in a nearly limitless supply of Kangs. Now when one Kang dies, another can replace him with little effort, and that is it. It is the same old story, just cheapened even more, since death of any Kang will be almost meaningless on one hand, and on the other, the rest of the villains are now redundant as there’s probably always a Kang who can do their job just as well.

To expand – ‘Quantumania’ differs from Vol 3 is that it has a hero, who was left high and dry, as with ‘Quantumania’ over, there’s no indication as to where the Ant-Man and the rest of his family will go, (i.e. they are all left hanging), and on the other hand, it has a villain that had no meaning in the greater structure of Disney/MCU, no matter how much the latter tried to up-play the multiverse. Sad, but GotG Vol 3 did not have these issues, which is why people like it much better than they had ‘Quantumania’, and that is that.

This is also the end for now. See you all soon!

Skunks and Asteroids part II - April 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks; the initial dead striped skunk was removed from the spot where it’d died on the road, but now there’s a second one, maybe a cub of the first deceased one – I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care, but what affects me is the fact that no one cares to do anything about the dead animals; the remains of the first skunk are still lying close to the curb, and the second skunk is lying not far away from the first – but since it is a public road, they’ll probably lie there until they break down completely – and can you imagine the smell? No, you probably cannot. Where are we?

Well, I’ll be absent from my blog for the next two or three weeks, maybe even more; the skunks will probably be still lying there when – and if – me and mine will get back home; and the PJ Masks?

Again, yes, obviously that the genre of the PJ Masks’ show is such that who cares about realism there – ‘the asteroid of badness’, or whatever it is called, is a plot device almost completely… to do what?

Again. The cartoon aspect of the ‘PJ Masks’ franchise was almost purely fable, with little personal development on the characters’ side, and almost equally little amount of interconnected continuity. The bad guys appeared to be incapable of learning anything from their misadventures and the good guys… would learn from their episode of the week/day/whatever… and that was it, they never implemented that knowledge in the future episodes… especially in the earlier seasons; later on, there would be some references to previous episodes in the more up-to-date ones, but not too much. And now?

And now, again, ‘PJ Masks’ seem to be stuck between genres; aware or not, but they’re moving away from their fable origins into a more generic superhero show; there are already clips showing all of the show’s villains getting new looks, and the heroes probably won’t be too far behind. Ergo?

Ergo, it is a soft reboot, not unlike the ones AoS went through in the latter seasons, (around their S4 and S5). On one hand, the old cast is present, on the other, this does not mean anything, as there is no character development, again. We have talked about how Luna Girl (and Mothsuki) had been all over the place, alignment-wise, but the same now can be said about other characters, such as the Ninjalinos, Pirate Robot and his mate Sally, and the Speedy twins. They used to be allies of the PJ Masks, but now they are back to being villains with nary a regret – but it is not their fault, it is the asteroid’s fault. Right. I did not do it, the robber sock did it. That sort of thing. The ‘PJ Masks’ is aimed – supposedly – at educating children (and their parents?), how to be good and proper, but…

…But the show itself is caught on a cultural crossroads that is affecting the entire USA, (and maybe the rest of the Western world) – whether they will stay monotheistic, (officially – Christian), or polytheistic, (aka pagan, by the modern terminology). The ‘PJ Masks’ cartoon is trying to teach its’ audience ‘the good old-fashioned Christian values’ (or whatever they’re called), but-

…But any ideology is costly, and the current American culture hates paying, as simple as that. Earlier in spring 2023, the team behind the Budweiser beer got an LGBTQ+ spokesperson to represent them. Immediately, some straight celebrities went hostile and proclaimed that they will never have to do anything with Budweiser again. Now what?

Now everything comes down to money, whether or not it is better financially to associate with the sexual minorities or not. I am certainly not saying that faith and religion are good, they are not – they are as flawed as the rest of humanity’s inventions, money included, but without them, there is no ideology, no actual reason to decide anything, and nothing that you do matters. In RF, the local cultural elite – some of them – tried to defy Putin’s government in relation to ‘the special military operation’ on the Ukrainian soil. Because the West did not support them, this defiance came to nothing. Go West!

Getting back to mass media, does anyone here remember ‘The 10 Commandments’ film, since Easter-2023 has been only recently as of this moment. No, not the sanitized Disney-tired ‘Prince of Egypt’ film, which wisely stopped just after the Hebrews finally came from of the Egyptian yoke – the much older version, with live actors? There, the final act went down as follows: Moses goes up the mountain and receives the titular commandments from the Lord. Meanwhile, some of the film’s last villains stage a coup and create ‘a Golden Calf’ complete with a good old-fashioned pagan cult, complete with free booze and free sex. When Moses comes back, he goes berserk, smashing the tablets with the commandments on the ground and sending the last of the movie’s villains into – a fiery pit. Impressive, but in the actual Bible Moses rather summoned the Levite tribe, the tribe of which he was a member, (the Bible presumes so), and they slaughter the opposition, several hundred people – and then Moses keeps the Hebrew people isolated in a desert for several decades, for the rest of his life, to keep them isolated from the temptations of the decadent pagans. It… works, sort of, for even now, centuries, (if not more), after those events the Jewish faith has kept its’ identity and allowed the Jewish people to endure centuries of prosecution, including the atrocities of WWII. That said, that faith and those people turned out quite different from how Moses intended them to be, so Moses’ way is not a panacea either, no matter how much Putin seems to be trying to imitate him those days. Back to the West?

Now, ‘PJ Masks’ do have a pharaoh-style villain among their number, true, but the monotheistic world isn’t Jewish, rather it is Protestant Christian, meaning that the ‘Moses incident’ doesn’t apply. See, whereas in Judaism it is admitted that ‘you can’t serve both God and Mammon’, (aka greed and money and the Golden Calf from the previous paragraph), Protestantism increasingly tried to do both; especially once the Europeans arrived in North America and began to colonize it. Unlike other versions of Monotheism, Protestantism is much more individualistic and de-centralized… not unlike the country of the U.S. itself. The result?

Well, take a look at ‘PJ Masks’, for example – their morals/lessons are rather Christian in outlook, (rather than of any other faith), but because a good deal of their franchise comes down to them all being sellable, the impact of those morals/lessons is diminished and what the audience gets is a series of toy commercials, where the (pre-teen) heroes and villains battle it out episode after episode, going nowhere… at all. Just as the dead skunks on the road are here to stay, until they decompose completely, that is. But then again, all things, including TV shows, have to end some time or another.

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

Skunks and asteroids - April 6

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks – just ask the poor striped skunk that ended up as roadkill not too far from our home building. …Mind you, the skunk in question was a wild animal, not an escaped pet, so the rest of us are not much better off – we may be alive, but we now get to smell the smell of both decomposing carrion and the smell of the remnants of a skunk’s trademark stench, you know? This is one bouquet of aromas that we all can live without – but because the dead skunk is lying in the middle of the city’s roads, aka public property, no one is doing anything about it, just because… Where were we?

Well, better off than the actual road devil that had ran over the skunk in question – they’d received the most of the skunk’s final blast and now have to clean it off their car one way or another, and that just isn’t fun; not to mention it might not be legal. See, the government of the GTA may not want its’ citizens to become too friendly and familiar with the urban wildlife – raccoons, coyotes, red foxes, etc. – but it doesn’t mean that they want to run them over with cars either. Especially the proverbial skunk, whose means of self-defence are well known, especially in North America.

…Incidentally, did you know that there are species of skunk in South America as well? Genetics aside, they look largely like the northern striped skunk, and probably smell just as bad. In Africa, there are local weasels that look like variant skunks, and they self-defend like variant skunks, but the honey badger is in a league of its’ own and doesn’t like to make a literal smell.

All mustelids, up to the wolverine, the biggest member of this group on land can make a bad smell, but the skunks are mustelid cousins instead, a closely related, but separate group; their only relatives are the so-called stink-badgers of the Asian tropics, but this is neither here nor there – let’s go into space instead.

Why go there? Because of PJ Masks, as a matter of fact. In their upcoming season premiere, the titular characters, and their arch-enemies, are going into space, each group with their respective allies, because of an asteroid that can turn heroes into villains, (and maybe vice versa? Who knows? Who cares)? Fair enough, but I would rather talk about celestial bodies instead.

What is an asteroid? It is a space rock, or, if you want to get professional, a minor planet. That said, they vary in size from a 1-m rock to a dwarf planet almost 1000 m in diameter, so space rocks they are.

Within the Solar System, most of asteroids are found within the so-called asteroid belt, which is located between Mars and Jupiter; there are various origin theories about it and the asteroids, but they’re not important here – the point is that most of asteroids stay within it and don’t crash into Earth.

Then what does crash into Earth? This is where terminology gets tricky, especially if we do not get all scientific. First, we get the shooting/falling stars that do not fall onto Earth, but get burned-up in the atmosphere – they are called meteors. If they do not get burned-up and do crash into Earth, they are called meteorites instead. Both are space rocks, (also called meteoroids), again, just as the asteroids are, but asteroids do not smash into Earth. Conversely, though, we also have comets, that are more like giant ice balls that contain pieces of other substances/materials within their icy bulks, and when they fly close to the Sun, (or any other stars, actually), the ice begins to melt and the other substances burst out, forming the comet’s tail. Meteorites, meteors and most other meteoroids don’t do that… consequently, what is the point?

I honestly have no idea, I confess. The ‘PJ Masks’ are a mess – they started as successful fables, tried to mutate into a variant superhero cartoon and now they seem to be trying to have it all at once – there are villains in the show, true, but apparently most of the episodes will have the heroes solve their own problems rather battling their foes. From what I have heard about the promos for the episodes this is not going to happen, this is standard heroes vs. villains’ scenario instead. Well, more power to them. Maybe the ‘PJ Masks’ will succeed. I am not holding my breath though. Oh, wait; there is still the dead skunk. I guess that I am. We are still better off than it is, though.

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