Edmund Schweppe

The platypus was a non-trivial part of Shadow Unit fandom for many years, mainly because "Platypus" was one of the nicknames given to Chaz Villette.

I was reminded of this today, when Firefox's default "Recommended by Pocket" starting page included a link to an article As if the Platypus Couldn't Get Any Weirder. Apparently, according to this paper in the journal Mammalia, platypuses biofluoresce under ultraviolet light - the only monotremes known to do so. Or, as the Gizmodo article puts it:

The platypus is nature’s crazy quilt, as this strange creature looks like about a half-dozen different animals all rolled into one. Turns out that platypuses were hiding yet another conspicuous feature: THEY CAN FREAKIN' GLOW IN THE DARK.

It's not enough to be a mammal who lays eggs, sports a duck-like bill and webbed feet, hunts using electroreception, and wields venomous spurs. The platypus also glows green under ultraviolet light. Because of course it does.

(DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/mammalia-2020-0027)

I do miss Shadow Unit. On the other hand, I'm pretty glad the series (about a subunit of the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit that handles the really weird shit) ended before the Drumpf Administration took office.

Rabbit, rabbit.

(In memory of Daphne Worth, aka trollcatz, whose habit it was to post thusly to open the New Year. Pay no attention to the fact that she was a fictional character.)

I was browsing my Twitter feed (as one does) and came across this from Chelsea Polk (one of the Shadow Unit Powers That Be):

I have an author photo coming up and I should do my nails, but what colour?

— C.L. Polk (@clpolk) July 26, 2017

Which reminded me that, somewhere back in the glory days of Shadow Unit fandom, I'd joked about color-coding one's nails using the old resistor color coding scheme. So I recalculated[1] Pi to ten significant digits and provided this reply:

Left hand: orange, brown, yellow, brown, green
Right hand: white, red, blue, green, orange
Then see who decodes it.

— Edmund Schweppe (@edschweppe) July 26, 2017

Which then led me to try and remember exactly when I'd made that joke.

Which (once my Google-fu failed to locate the joke in question) led me to starting a re-read of the LiveJournals of Chaz Villette, Hafidha Gates and Daphne Worth.

The good news was that I was able to find the reference relatively quickly:

Well, if you want them to think you're getting your sense of humor back, try painting the toenails as follows (left to right): orange, brown, yellow, brown, green, white, red, blue, green, orange. Then see who figures it out first, 0metotchtli or trollcatz

Alas, I discovered that the Shadow Unit forums were down hard. The Wiki has been down for years. Even the CafePress store appears to have gone poof.

Further alas, all too many of the usernames I ran across while searching had the tell-tale strikethroughs of deleted accounts, reminding me of how it was only a few months ago that LiveJournal's Russian ownership changed their Terms of Service in ways that drove many of my friends off their site altogether. (Me, I just stopped crossposting.)

Sigh.

[1] For values of "recalculate" equal to "looked it up online"

So new, in fact, that the main page hasn't caught up yet! Not that that stops our Powers That Be ...

The Kung Fu Master is [IN]

In case you missed the announcement on the main page, Shadow Unit episode 4x11 Due North, by Leah Bobet (leahbobet), is now online at http://www.shadowunit.org/duenorth.html.

Good stuff, as one would expect from the Shadow Unit crew.

In case you missed various and sundry official announcements, Shadow Unit episode 4.10 "Dark Leader" is now available on the WTF Network!

Well, let's see:

1) We finally got a snowstorm to leave some of the white stuff around here (instead of continuing to dump on Baltimore and DC). Much prettier looking than the combination of grimy plow leavings and bare patches that I've had for the last few weeks.

2) Season 3 of Shadow Unit is underway.

3) I've put in my request for this year's Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference. I missed last year's conference due to the unhappy timing of certain events at the Current Paying Gig; however, those events are not going to recur this year. The Great And Powerful Oz Has Spoken.

4) I've also mailed off my registration for the All-Star II conference on Star Island. Between Star and 4th Street Fantasy, the summer should get started with a bang.

...

Hmm. Looks like four things make a post. Or at least this post. Works for me!

Season Three of Shadow Unit officially starts next Sunday, and one of the threads on the Shadow Unit message boards is, appropriately enough, the countdown until episode 3.01 The Unicorn Evils airs.

That thread, in turn, inspired the following filk:

We're waiting together
But still ECR
We're hoping they'll come back
From wherever they are

I hope there will be a Gulfstream
That's leaving ground (leaving ground)
Will things be all right for our team?
It's the S3 countdown

The S3 countdown

Oh we're ready to refresh (refresh)
And set to go "Awww"
When Wabbit in the flesh
Takes Coyote's paw

With so many stories untold
And eggs to be found (to be found)
Oh where is our next episode?
It's the S3 countdown

The S3 countdown (S3 countdown)

Oh ... oh

The S3 countdown (S3 countdown)

Oh ... oh

It's the S3 countdown

The S3 countdown (S3 countdown)

It's the S3 countdown
We're ready to refresh
The S3 countdown
Our next episode
It's the S3 countdown (S3 countdown)
Oh, it's the S3 countdown!

(Links in the filk are to pages in the Shadow Unit Wiki. Any who are woefully confused may find amelioration of such confusion therein.)

(ETA: In case it isn't obvious, the tune is Europe's The Final Countdown.)

In honor of the season, and in particular honor of the highly-anticipated Very Special Holiday Episode of Shadow Unit, scheduled to be aired Christmas Day, I present to you a filk, to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"





( Cut because we care )
(Easter eggs? Would I do that?)

And I have at least some idea, for I have committed ... fanfic in the Shadow Unit universe. (My bit starts here.)

According to these reactions, I appear to have fan-fic'd quite successfully. I'm especially pleased that both Emma Bull (coffeeem) and Elizabeth Bear (matociquala) liked my contribution, as they are the two main writers of Shadow Unit. (Not to mention the collection of Hugo and Nebula nominations that Emma has, or Elizabeth's Campbell and Hugo awards.)

On the other hand, considering how much time it took for me to come up with those few paragraphs, and how crappily-paid most fiction writers are, I think I'll keep the day job...