Me and fandom news.

1) I am mildly sad about canceling the Buffy reboot. I am fine with the seven seasons of BtVS and don’t really need more of it. I read some comics, the Spuffy part of it, mostly, and picked some of it for my personal headcanons, but overall I didn’t care about comics as canon continuation.

But I was curious when I learned that SMG was on board, and will appear as older Buffy. Because I love Buffy and I wanted to know how she is doing, and I trust SMG.

Oh, well. I hope SMG gets a project that doesn’t get cancelled.

2) I don’t care about Firefly animated reboot. For one main reason – it is supposed to fit in the canon timeline between the original series and the movie. So it is only going to be a few of missing scenes, basically that will bring us to the story already told, and I am not interested in it. Ditch the movie and go wild! The movie had a very specific purpose, to give a bit of closure and to tell the story to a bigger audience. Now they could concentrate on telling another story. Go to the parallel universe, go after the movie. Bring Wash back (or don’t), kill Jayne instead. Or don’t. Bring Christina Hendricks’ character of many names and many wiles.

As it is announces, it is just not something I want.

3) on the other hand, I am looking forward for the Last Airbender, Adult Aang movie. It seems we are finally getting some information about it, the release was postponed several times, and then they decided to skip the theaters entirely, but I want to see it. And the posters with character designs are in.

4) re-watched Lockwood & Co with my son, and I am still upset about cancellation of it. Could have been an awesome cultural event, if it got a bit more care and attention from the Netflix. Alas. Maybe the story was too anti-capitalist for it?

5) I am also still upset about canceling The Wheel of Time, just as it got really good. I didn’t expect it to run for 12 seasons, but I hoped for more than three. The production was lovely, and casting was amazing, and everyone had just settled in the world and the characters. Amazon had to put its money to better uses, I guess…

6) in things that were not yet canceled I watched half the season of How to Get to Heaven from Belfast, from the Derry Girls creator Lisa McGee. It is same brand of derange fun, but darker and thirty-something friends. Will finish, of course, I loved it, but realized I can’t binge it. Too much. (on a separate note, why won’t they release Derry Girls on Dvd? I would buy some expensive fancy edition gladly!)

I had a feeling someone walk over my grave.

I am alive and well, no worries, my grave is metaphorical so far, and yet, for years, having heard this expression for the first time ever I felt it.

It was this musical video that made it happen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJcG1JXidvU


It is a bit hard to explain. The video has bits and pieces of private lives of various judges in Russia, pulled from their social accounts and their professional ones. Was any privacy laws broken here? Probably.

The judges in question (I didn’t check everyone, but that’s not the point here) were involved in recent political cases in Russian courts, and let’s say it, their judgments were not that just. More like overwhelmingly unjust and cruel, even when technically made according to law. But more often according to political demand.

The song that accompanies the video talks about threads of fate and no guarantees for them when the time comes for another turn of the political wheel. It is set on a melody of a well-known and really old song and has both ear-worming and chilling effect.

AI is heaving used for making the video, but this is exactly the use I find creative.

So why did I feel that way? I’ve been here a long time, and maybe somebody of the old friends remember that I used to be a lawyer. And when I got my law degree, more than 25 years ago, in another century, in another world, I dreamed of being a judge. I wanted to serve my county. I believed in justice and fairness and that the system will work for the people if we have better laws and follow those laws honestly.

I interned at the Moscow city court, and I loved it.

The path from law school to becoming a judge in Russia was a pretty straightforward. I dropped from the shortest path almost immediately for a combination of reasons. I found another job and was quite happy with it, then I found myself living abroad and the dream slowly died. For years I, with some sadness, wondered what if I did fulfilled that dream, what my life would look like. Same as I wondered about my parallel universe life as a historian.

In 2022 all the parallels crossed and all the universes collapsed into one present reality and I was happy that my dreams stayed dreams. Well. Not HAPPY. But I very much not wanted to be a judge in Moscow right now.

And this little video and this catchy song brought afresh the terror – would I be if my dreams came true? Would that young optimistic, justice-minded me become state-minded automaton with rotten soul or a money-driven carefree corrupt sell-out? What case would have become too much?