I'm Back

And I am now caught up on Elementary.

Still over season behind on Supernatural, although now watching it seems like a chore rather than a pleasure. The writers are recycling their bad ideas, and while that's okay for fanserve once, make it a habit and you look uninterested.

Looking forward to Doctor Who.

And of course, Sherlock.

I've been writing but it's been a difficult month. Amazing how a death in the family can knock you sideways for a while. Don't get me wrong, but watching relatives react the way they do is like a master course in character studies. And maybe distancing myself like that to watch them is how I handled part of it. But then there's the sheer overwhelming gaping hole of persondom in the center of your little universe, like a black hole sucked up Saturn, and now the orbits of the remaining planets are all wobbly. Everything has changed but the same stuff has to get done so we're sorting out the new distribution of responsibility.

As our little group got up to do our part of the eulogy, I was thinking-- another chance to step back and watch myself observing others-- that I guess this is official adulthood at this point. Once the generation before you is stripped away, you're it.

That's a little too much reality for me, so I'm filling in the gaps with binge TV viewing.

Observations on Elementary: A little flat this season, not sure why. Also not sure why they chose to give Mycroft and Sherlock a strained relationship since that's not canon. Yes, BBC's Sherlock has a strained relationship at the heart of the brothers, and it works gloriously because of the actors and the scripts, but in Elementary, it feels wrong and only paper deep. Part of my reluctance to embrace it is Sherlock's obsession over Joan's sex life. He's put himself in the role of her duenna but she's a grown up woman, so he should NOT be commenting on, much less trying to manage, her sexuality. Stepping in there between her and his brother is downright creepy and obsessive. Add to that how he refuses to accept her boundaries (putting a turtle on her bed still means you went into her room while she was sleeping and violated her space, dude!), poking her bedding with a stick to both scold her for the possibility of having a sexual partner and for giving into his brother's machinations (so Mycroft would have no interest in her otherwise? huh?), and also meddling with her desire to start dating again (do we see the pattern of control building here? Why is this not setting off alarms? Because we like Sherlock? Still not cool. Joan Watson, call him out on that shit!)

I hope the season gets better. The cases must, or they won't last long.

Oh! Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Now I'm officially bored by agent whats-his-face. Grant? Gary? Who cares? Even he doesn't believe his backstory. And the Wonder Twin scientists? Too. Damn. Perky. I'm tired of reading that you have to give JW time to develop his characters. The time is NOW before you get canceled. Also, stop hinting at an interesting premise as you did in the first episode then wiff on it. You're science fiction - so if you ask the question you have to explore it in detail. Maybe over a whole season. Okay? 

And while I'm at it, what's with the very yucky 'Murica! Fuck Yeah!' attitude toward the ignorant savages, POC,  military of a sovereign country taking possession of something found on THEIR soil? We can't trust them because their skin is browner than ours? Only white Americans can be trusted with great power? And their women are exotic lovers who will stab you in the back in a fiery passionate rage.   See, I'm white and I'm noticing this, so it's REALLY BAD.  REALLY, REALLY BAD. Oh, that's not the message you meant to send, writers? Well guess what?  And you tried rather pathetically to make it up with The Girl in the Flower Dress. (Let us take a moment here to enjoy that an adult female in charge of a scientific group is a GIRL, not a woman. Dear lord, writers, are you really that clueless about your gender issues?) Anyway (Yes) An-y-way... So the local S.H.I.E.L.D people in Hong Kong (see, we hire brown people!) Are on the case but thank goodness the 'Muricans arrive to show them how a real investigation is run. Because the locals are only here to babysit other brown people who have power but Can't Be Trusted to Use It Wisely.   Yeah, I'm tired of it. Hiring Ming-Na Wen to play dragon lady does not get you a 'get out of being called on our bullshit' free card. Okay? We expect more from you, writers. (Strangely enough, not from JW, who while still thumping his chest loudly and proudly about his feminism  is a spectacular fail at race *cough FIREFLY cough*)

It's ALIVE! And It GLOWS!

 What's with all the jelly fish?

I get asked that a lot.

Isn't this amazing? It's Bioluminescent Bay, Viqueues Island, Puerto Rico.

I saw this picture after I wrote Devil's Concubine. Bioluminescence fascinates me. From milky seas to mushrooms to fireflies, if it glows, I want to see it. Most bioluminesecent creatures are unremarkable when they aren't glowing, but jelly fish always amaze me.

In high school, I took an oceanography course at the Museum of Science and Technology in Los Angeles. We took a field trip to the harbor and went out on a fishing boat. One of the creatures caught in the net was a jelly fish. (So, you know, poke it with a stick! For science!) It had tiny (dead) fish in its body, but I never knew if that was a result of being pulled out of the water while entangled in a net with all sorts of other creatures or if that's what it looks like when a jelly fish eats.

By the way, Sea Wasps are real.

AKA Box jelly fish. Found near Australia. They're known as the deadliest creature in the world. Their stings leave horrible scars (I won't post pictures here, but you can find them easily). I don't know if you could really load a water gun with them and shoot chunks of them at people, but let's agree now that there are some things in stories that we should just take on faith and never attempt in real life. Okay?


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For all you Sherlock fans, I wouldn't have added Bluebell,

 

 

the vanishing luminous rabbit, to my list, but then this. Funny, it didn't happen in Baskerville.

His Last Vow

The title of the final show of series 3 of BBC's Sherlock has been revealed as His Last Vow.

And the fandom, which is already in a state over, well, everything else about the series, goes into a piranhas-chowing-on-a-movie-villain froth.

But what does His Last Vow meeeeaaaan??!!??

Oh dear lord. It's like the lonely wail of the banshee, only since the fandom is a multitude, magnified. I don't think there's been this much self-inflicted angst since the Beatles. Or the last New Direction concert. (I have nothing against the fandom. I'm part of it, after all. But in the contingent standing a bit apart looking bemused at the rest of the group and wondering how I got here) I'm beginning to view the fandom as preta - hungry ghosts who are never satisfied with what we have. There's this ravenous need for more information within days of the latest big reveal that everyone was salivating over. There will never be enough. There will never be enough episodes. There will never be enough interviews with Steven Moffat or Mark Gatiss. There will never been enough footage for fanvids or memes.


I'm trying not to speculate, and I don't want to hear any spoilers. I don't want to see pictures. I want to sit down and watch the story unfold without anticipating certain scenes because that would take me out of the moment. So of course I am speculating. And hating myself a bit for it.

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I just finished reading The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker and enjoyed it. I liked the worlds evoked in Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson more, but they're both amazing tales. I'm looking for fantasy fiction that depicts mythology outside the Celtic and Norse, so if you know of one, leave a comment.