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[jay-ell]

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/11/shadow-unit-awardwin.html

Shadow Unit is, more or less, the website for a serial drama in internet form. Or possibly it's a fan site for a TV show that doesn't exist.

Over the next couple of months, the site will be updated on a weekly or biweekly basis with new information, vignettes, character sketches, character bios, a community message board, and other exciting things.

And starting in mid-February, there will be a series of novellas and novellettes, and one complete novel. Approximately one story every two weeks for sixteen weeks (though we are still tweaking the schedule), comprising the first season (of hopefully many) of a television show that doesn't exist.

Some of the content will be free. Some will be by subscription. (Subscriptions will be extremely reasonable.) There will be DVD extras, deleted scenes, background information, character-based digressions, and I dunno what all else.

Sometimes I feel like this is what we're all doing here.  I mean -- is it really about Achewood any more? 

[wombat]

What's Achewood?

[littlefallsmets]

Well, we are a rogue board, after all.

Now, I'm still a relative newbie compared to you people who founded the place after all but... I sorta dig how this is less of a board about Achewood and more of a board where Achewood is simply an organizing principle.

Like, oh, people end up here because they are likeminded in Acheness but it is implicit that Acheness is full-on only the starting point for conversation. Commenting on the continuing strip provides a spine for conversations to spin out of, pushes things forward, prevents "bed death" as it were but...

It is definitely only the organizing principle and nothing more. It is just a way to get people together and to start the talking.

There are message boards for things where there is a... push... to keep only talking about things related to talking near to the main topic and, moreover, to keep talking positively and non-critically about that main topic or else you're a traitor and...

That shit gets dull. That shit gets dull, really quick.

On a rogue board, if that day's strip wasn't the best, you can say it and no one gets treated like a schmuck for it and... it's just one five-minutes of reading a strip a day, most of the time talking about our own crap is a lot more talkable-at-length.

A non-rogue board, an "official" board or a quasi-official board where it is clear that the people behind the topic have indirect control and want it to serve as a mouthpiece to the topic with the implicit promise of access for the people who run the place...

That shit gets dull quick.

I dig this rogue little place.

I consider it A+++, Fast Delivery, Would Read Again.

[Doc]

Look's like a cool concept JL, I have to admit I'm skeptical about how they can pull it off, but I'm rooting for them.

[littlefallsmets]

To be honest, though, it sounds like what... literally DOZENS of people have been doing in fan-fiction on the internet since, like, the invention of the internet... except instead of trying to create a new season of a cancelled show or comic book, it is an entirely new concept which... seems to limit them even more not less.

I mean, I wish 'em luck and all but... I dunno. Sounds like one of those ideas that sounds great at first but unless EVERYONE involved is a talented writer AND everyone is well-organized AND everyone is on the same page, it'll fall apart very very quickly.

Also, "Shadow Unit" is a comically vague name for a story concept.

Like... how many shows and stories have there been about the secret "willing to get their hands dirty" division of a police department/interstellar empire/superhero team/grocery store/etc?

It is basically THE generic grim and gritty story for all genre writers.

Unless its about a cop deep undercover as a porn star. Then I'm definitely on board.

But seriously, "Shadow Unit" sounds either like a purposely tepid working title or one of those "by-committee/sounds cool and makes no sense titles like"...

Lethal Intent! Basic Victims! Special Weapons Unit! Dark Meaning! Angry Exposure! Deep Cover! Secret Instinct! Crisis on Infinite Secret Wars!

It sounds like something that would star Kevin Sorbo and Shannen Doherty is basically what I'm saying. Direct-to-DVD or SciFi network spacefiller stuff.

[jay-ell]

There are message boards for things where there is a... push... to keep only talking about things related to talking near to the main topic and, moreover, to keep talking positively and non-critically about that main topic or else you're a traitor and...

Oh, man, gee, do places like that exist?  I certainly have never been in one...or kicked out of one...or been part of watching a board implode because the person generating the content couldn't handle any kind of side conversation, and then been involved in moving the community to a less restrictive forum which was then disavowed by the aforementioned content creator and forced to go rogue, only to be replaced four years later by assbar. 

No idea what you're talking about, there. 

[littlefallsmets]

Well, no wonder this place is so awesome, then.

It learned its lessons and evolved.

Years and years and years ago, when I was a teenager, I was myself one of the on-topic barkers on a board like that. I reiterate... I don't really like the person I was when I was a teenager. I would definitely punch him in the face many times.

[AugustWest]

Lethal Intent! Basic Victims! Special Weapons Unit! Dark Meaning! Angry Exposure! Deep Cover! Secret Instinct! Crisis on Infinite Secret Wars!

Area Wipes!