Personal Note: Two Good Things

[nebroadwe]

So last week, one of the most unpleasant weeks in the history of ever, was also one during which I discovered two truly awesome things.

Thing the First:

Dark Oracle is an Emmy-winning Canadian live-action fantasy television program for young adults that ran for two 13-episode seasons back in the mid-oughts. (It's currently broadcasting on the "This TV" channel on Saturday mornings, which is where I encountered it.) Protagonists Lance and Cally Stone are fifteen-year-old twins: she's pretty, popular and a driving force behind most of her school's fundraisers; he's a quiet gaming-and-comic-books geek. One afternoon a frog (yes, you read that right, but don't worry -- this isn't an anthropomorphized animal tale) inflicts the first issue of a comic book, the eponymous Dark Oracle, on them. The pages are largely blank, but seem to detail the adventures of fifteen-year-old twins Blaze and Violet in a dark, crumbling town filled with unpleasant magic, dangerous gangs, and teen angst turned up to eleven. In the first season, the comic book seems to predict or mirror potentially problematic or disastrous events in Lance and Cally's lives, the panels gradually filling in as the plot in both worlds unfolds. By episode thirteen Blaze and Violet have twigged to the connection between their world and ours and the second season has them attempting to cross over, possibly with extreme prejudice to their counterparts. There's trippy weirdness, adventure, narrow escapes, and enough shipping to fill a port. :-)

In my usual tradition of never starting any serial work at the beginning, I caught the last two parts of the grand finale first, immediately fell in love and ordered a copy of the entire show (which you can get incredibly cheaply on DVD). The scripting is quite intelligent: good plotting, sharp dialogue, and interesting characterizations. One thing I quite enjoyed is the absence of a wise old mentor figure; even the adults who get pulled into the strangeness have to sink or swim, because no one really understands what's going on (not even [spoiler redacted], who set the plot in motion in the first place, but eventually becomes a victim of the law of unintended consequences [spoiler]self). Then, too, while bystanders are protected to some extent by a weirdness censor, the odd behavior into which the protagonists are forced by their adventures does affect their lives and relationships. Friendships crumble, grades drop, detentions are earned and adults become suspicious. Lance and Cally learn to cope with the craziness, but at a logical cost. It helps tremendously that the entire ensemble is top-notch, the quality of the acting better than the average for shows like this. (The geek love subplots in particular are utterly and irresistibly adorkable.) As a final bonus, the showrunners are women, Heather Conkie and Jana Sinyor. Whee! The only downside is that the series cries out for a third season -- the grand finale ties up the second season's issues, but leaves a couple of sequel hooks dangling temptingly. I've already got a few ideas for a fanfic continuation …

Thing the Second:

So my friends and I road-tripped to Washington, D.C., for the Cherry Blossom Festival, but unfortunately missed peak bloom altogether. Thank you, global warming. On the other hand, we did catch the Kite Festival, which was a blast. There's nothing like being on the National Mall with hundreds of other people effectively reenacting the last scene from Mary Poppins. I hadn't put a kite in the air for twenty-five years, but in helping the small children in our group get theirs up, I realized both that I'm still pretty good at it and that I really, really enjoy it. It was hard not to hog the string, actually. As soon as I can manage, I'm buying a kite of my own and taking it over to the park of an evening to play. I had too much fun to let another twenty-five years go by without flying a kite.