With the Coronavirus going on and the wildfires in California and Oregon not really helping things out, it was easy to get cynical and depressive about life. But fortunately, at least in Animalia and its colonies , there was plenty of things going on that prevented things from becoming completely boring.
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First off there were the newest members of Animalia. While the two Iraq war veterans and their unofficially "rescued" Arabian mare held a good deal of the attention, mainly due to the fact that they didn't have enough paperwork to confirm that she had been rescued, there was also the third Iraq war veteran, who held the rank of Major, and decided to become a bull Animalian.
While the first military man was dogmatically patriotic, and the second noticeably less so, the third was found to be somewhere in the middle in terms of patriotism. While most of his information was withheld (and thus was nicknamed "Major Black", partly because of his black fur after his conversion), he did confirm that the two newest stallion Animalians were his subordinates, and had brought the mare from Iraq during the war. None of that was considered amusing, though.
The amusing thing was when Miles came to do an interview with the three of them was greeted by the mare Animalian in only a set of lingerie. Both his reaction and what he had recorded (with the inappropriate bits pixeled out, much to the disappointment of several later viewers).
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Another amusing thing came from Dino city, when its first "super-rich" member joined. Unofficially called "Mister Diamond" because of his successful diamond and jewelry business, he had immediately been attacked by the new "hippie" members. Fortunately, these attacks were nothing more than petty insults that blamed him for the death of the whales and depletion of the rain forests, or similar things. But when he left the Horizon Offices as a new Tyrannotitan Dinotopian, he was able to scare them away with one "well-placed" roar, even giving Sophie and Roland, who were supposed to be interviewing him, an "instinctive" scare, but were able to get the interview they were after. Part of what made it funny was the simple fact that some of those "Mister Diamond" had scared complained later that they needed to change their pants later, much to the hilarity of some on the internet. But what was the most surprising was the fact that he had also paid for his daughter's conversion, much to everyone else's surprise.
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A few funny things actually came from Nicole and Joanne's mansion. After Melody got her "Geico Gecko" (as she unofficially called it) conversion, which was actually a Gold Dust Day Gecko conversion, she got contacted by Geico over doing advertisements with them. While it wasn't unheard of for businesses to come to Animalia seeking Animalians for their advertising, with the most noteworthy case being Warner Bros.' Tasmanian Devil meeting a Tasmanian Devil Animalian and being confused about it, especially since it was a female, this one was the most unexpected. While she didn't turn it down completely, she did tell them she would consider it before actually committing.
Joanne herself, meanwhile, was dealing with some rather unexpected news. Both before and after her falling out with her daughter, she was dealing with an "upstart" fashion design company who had recently attained the same rank that Joanne's company had. The press certainly hadn't helped the competition between the two businesses, calling it "a showdown between an aging fashion superpower and an up-and-coming fashion newcomer.". Joanne clearly knew who 'the aging fashion superpower' clearly was and wasn't too happy about it, her only comment to the press being, "I'm not that old.". But what was also clear was that the owner of the "upstart" fashion company was also an old high school rival of hers, Vera.
But it wasn't until later that some more details were "cleared for release" so to speak. Not long before Joanne's suicide attempt, Vera had "stolen" (Joanne's word for it) one potential new employee from her business, a business protégé named Harvey. After her suicide attempt, but before her conversion, Harvey got arrested for charges of arson and first-degree murder. Supposedly, he had knocked Vera out, tinkered with her phone and a nearby toaster oven, and caused Vera's whole mansion to go up in flames. But halfway through the trial, the police received one of the infamous "anonymous tips". While the finer details of who sent the call in weren't clear because they were using a cheap voice disguising toy to hide their identity, the tip they provided helped set the case on the right track.
Vera was known for her lavish parties at the mansion. Such parties would require a large food freezer.
Suspicious, the police investigated, and found just such a freezer in the basement. Inside were frozen hair strands that matched Vera's. As it turned out, the fire had been part of a conspiracy between Vera's personal assistant, Manny, and her secretary, Ms. Rose, to hide the fact that Vera had died from a lightning strike hitting a nearby beach umbrella four days before the fire. They had tried to postpone it because Vera's death had occurred before her company could make its public stock offering, so if they could postpone news of her death, the two of them could sell their shares and be rich. Harvey had just been caught in the middle because he had been reported to have been in a foul mood with her before the fire broke out.
After having a good laugh, Joanne made her offer to buy Vera's old company after the official report of her death was released. No one really knew how to classify the purchase since Vera had died, whether as a merger, a hostile takeover, or something else. Eventually it was decided to allow it, and label it as a technicality, since Joanne had offered to allow Vera's old employees to keep their old jobs.
At a later "acquisition party", Joanne would joke that "Zeus finally got tired of Vera's corporate backstabbing and decided to strike her down with a thunderbolt.". But Zeus (the swan Animalian) would reply to that, "No I didn't. Why would I do that?". This would lead to a long, awkward explanation that was considered hilarious to those who saw it. But the most surprising thing was that Nicole and Harvey had started dating each other, leading to all kinds of rumors, many of them false but spanning the spectrum from Nicole being the source of the anonymous tip, to forbidden 'workplace relationships' (which were more like workplace fantasies). These would inevitably make their way to the Animalia website, where they would be debunked by either Nicole or the PR-MD offices.