Yup, I have nothing original to write about this week, so I am tossing a bunch of random thoughts and some links into a post and calling it good.
Cool Stuff to Read, 1
So Shadow Unit updated recently … if you like Criminal Minds and The X-Files, this is likely something you’d enjoy.
From the website:
Shadow Unit is a science fictional story about a group of unrealistically sexy FBI agents struggling to protect humanity from the worst monsters imaginable. Except some of our heroes may be on the road to becoming monsters themselves….
There are four ‘seasons,’ and all the ‘episodes’ are on the website; there are also various and sundry ways of finding the collected seasons as well, with links on the site. The authors are people like Emma Bull and Elizabeth Bear, among many others, all of them very good.
(For the record, it is massively triggering, in much the same way Criminal Minds is triggering: murder, sexual assault, abuse, and other sorts of situations you’d expect in a story about a BAU-type team of FBI agents.)
Cool Stuff to Read, 2
Speaking of stories that go in seasons …
Because You Left, which is a Lost/Glee crossover fanfic (full disclosure, I beta this. Fuller disclosure: dude, I tripped over myself to volunteer to beta this) and is just getting better and better with each chapter. Time travel, yo. And a completely AU Lost universe that still evokes the feel of the canon universe.
Random Personal Thing That’s Going On
The kid has two loose teeth, bottom front, and grown-up teeth already coming in behind them (the internet assures me this is not unheard of, and I am inclined to believe it, since usually it tells me the exact opposite). I am responding to this with a mixture of maternal pride and oh my god my baby!
Also, it’s his spring break and this has thrown my life into utter chaos.
Hey, I’m Trying Out an App That Isn’t a To-Do List!
I’m also trying to save space on my phone, so I downloaded Flipboard and have linked it to my Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and (quite randomly) Soundcloud. I will say that it loads images way faster than the Tumblr app, and it’s pretty, and it makes scrolling past things easy (this is especially helpful on Facebook when everyone goes inspirational-sayings-on-photos-of-sunsets happy). It can be glitchy, though; you get no notifications through it; you can’t tag people in Facebook posts you make from it; all your FB posts from it seem to default to Public; and it doesn’t show the tags on Tumblr posts (which are half the fun). I dunno, we’ll see if I keep it or not.
TV Observations (With Bonus Music Critique … Kinda)
Speaking of Glee (I was, kind of, back in #2), I actually don’t have a whole lot to say about last week’s–I get the feeling that I might have more to say/think about once it’s got the context of the 100th episode to work with/against/utterly ignore because it’s Glee and why not.
Oh, but I do absolutely hate “More Than a Feeling.” Hate. Even Tina and Blaine could not make it better.
Movie Observations (but Also Kinda TV Observations, As You Will See)
Over the weekend, we went with Jason to see the Veronica Mars movie.
So I started Veronica Mars with the third season, which I understand everyone hated. I actually liked it, myself (I’m a Rob Thomas fan from his YA-novel writing days; Rats Saw God evoked my high school years better than any book, TV show, or movie ever has and you ought to read it), so I bought season 1 on DVD and then binge-watched my way through it and season 2, and … well, I think if I’d watched season 3 in order, I’d have hated it, too.
That said, I don’t think the show is without its flaws (I feel like the rape storyline suffered from “we need to do X for thematic and structural reasons, even though it might not make organic, in-universe sense”), and I was never a VM fan in the same way that I’m a fan of, say, Buffy. Or, actually, you know what? Not Buffy—Firefly.
Because the Veronica Mars movie and Serenity have a lot in common–movies made because fandom demanded it, movies made for the fans, for a certain sense of closure. But I felt, watching the VM movie, that it was made way more for the fans specifically than Serenity was.[1] Lots more in-jokes, way more cameos, and while I think it’s possible that VM actually met or exceeded the series-character body count of Serenity, Rob Thomas is not the rip-your-heart-out-and-stomp-on-it-while-collecting-your-tears-to-bathe-in evil bastard that Joss Whedon tends to be. (I say that with great love. Whedon fans, like Whovians, are bound together by trauma and pain.)
So, I liked it quite a lot. I didn’t love it like some of my friends did (and I may end up in a lot of trouble with them, I’m not sure), but all I really wanted was to see Keith Mars and Logan Echolls again (and Jason Dohring needs to work more, okay?!), and I did, and I am happy.
I Really Mean It; It’s Driving Me Crazy
I swear to god, if I do not get this “Happy” earworm out of my head soon, the husband is going to be in trouble.
1[back]This makes sense, though–Kickstarter.
Laura E. Price 