#Thankfully I managed to watch through the last 3 episodes of season 1 in one go today. Mostly because of how hooked and excited I was

[wiredalienvampire]

I just finished season 1 of tmnt 2012 today! I have so many thoughts on it and it's making me feel Insane but for now I'll I have to say is this

I am currently adopting these silly little turtles as we speak, they are my sons now

Also splinter is hot as fuck and I want him to be my husband

[sorchathered]

Outer Range spoilers under the cut, you’ve been warned bbs

Ok, I just finished the season, didn’t have a chance to binge after getting back from Japan and hitting the ground running but I managed to avoid spoilers thankfully.

1. Episode one almost felt like a completely different show, I knew from the beginning that a new showrunner meant a direction change but it didn’t seem to have that odd obscure factor to it last season had. Rhett content is mostly what I am here for and thankfully while fleeting he made sure to stand out with his endearing panic over all the cats in the hotel and all the ridiculous faces he pulled. Billy being alive and getting some musical content was exactly what I hoped for, Noah Reid is a scene stealer and I adore him.

2. Helloooo young Royal, I honestly didn’t think I’d find you appealing but something about your arms nearly busting the sleeves of that pearl button up got me going. Perry is almost human in these scenes with his father, I have been a huge member of the fuck Perry Abbott fan club so if I’m giving him a compliment just know it’s shocking me too. Rhett finding out about Amy tore my heart up, he may be done with his family but he loves his niece with all of his heart. Maria once again gives me the ick, she consistently proves time and time again that she doesn’t know anything about Rhett but she enjoys the attention he gives her. I think she is just using him to get out of Wabang and it could really have been anyone who gave her the time of day to sweep her away from that town, Rhett just happened to be mooning over her enough that she finally took notice.

3. While I am still on the fence about this new showrunner and the direction, RHETT’S NAKED ASS 🥵

Lew still wins the battle of the top gun boys in the best ass around battle, I’m sorry but you could bounce quarters off that thing it is perfection.

Luke Tillerson is a weirdo fuck boy, dude you are a pos as a brother and now you think your purpose is to follow autumn around like a puppy. I’d say grow up but I think that you don’t have the ability.

4. Idk that we needed an entire episode about Joy, but I did enjoy this one. It gave us more insight into how the past can change the present through the hole and while it didn’t make much sense in the rules of time travel I did like seeing how it changed things in Royal’s life and joy’s little one finding the picture with her mom in it from the 1880’s.

5. That choking scene finally makes more sense in the context of Cecilia’s dream. Lily Taylor has been crushing it this season, her character development has been phenomenal. I feel like the interpretation of the dream was something I would need to watch a few times to really understand, but I felt so much for her in that moment. Amy and Autumn having a psychic connection during Autumn’s trip with the mineral was crazy, I’m glad she got her memories back but she just continues to puzzle me more and more.

6. This episode was WILD. So much packed into an hour. I agree with everyone else that this Rhett/Dr Nia subplot was fucking weird, I get it though get your bag baby. He didn’t get nearly enough time for us to understand why he wanted to do it or what drove him to do something that felt so out of character for him. Rip Billy, you were far too camp and fabulous for this world and you deserved so much more, Luke and Autumn’s creepy sexual tension strikes again and I haaaattteee it. Royal did the right thing for once sending Perry back, he needs to get his shit together and somehow young Royal seems to be the only level headed person right now (insanity!).

Joy has got some serious PTSD, I am so glad her wife is understanding but she needs to speak to someone, it’s going to boil over soon enough.

7. I meant to discuss everything with Rebecca but now is as good a time as any. When Autumn says that she only took Amy out of spite it really tied it all together. She never loved Perry, she probably never loved Amy, she seems extremely selfish and childish and I feel for Amy because she doesn’t have anyone right now. She thinks she can trust the people she knows from back home and that backfires horribly in her face. When Autumn shows Rebecca the vision and I realized the whole thing is about Amy being a sacrifice for the hole I felt a pit in my stomach. This poor child has been through hell, and now she doesn’t have any choice but to be thrust into becoming the person Autumn is engineering her to be. Perry saving Trevor came at such a weird cost, I audibly gasped when I realized what was about to happen. I can’t imagine how weird that must be, carrying your own corpse home to lay it to rest and realizing that you have a chance to change everything. But again the rules of time travel don’t seem to apply here, because I don’t think Wayne would have thrown himself in the hole if Trevor was still alive in his present, and it would have changed every single circumstance that brought them to this point.

Regardless the season was ok, plot was hard to follow (more than usual) and in some scenes it felt like I was watching a totally different show. I think I like that we can continue to write our fics about Rhett and that the show didn’t alter our perception of him as much, but I also think he should have had more time. His character development was almost non existent, like @delopsia and I were talking about the other day, they should have rustled up a few of us Rhett writers and we could have really crushed this season. I’ll continue to live in delulu fanfic land because as much as I was excited for this season it just wasn’t what I hoped for.

[whovianwatchingstartrek]

A Whovian Watches Star Trek for the First Time: Part 026 - Ravages of a War Across Time

Star Trek: Enterprise - Season 2 Episode 1 - Shockwave Part 2

It felt like an accomplishment changing that Season number. Anyways, I wanna know how that cliff-hanger gets resolved. Onwards!

This episode really had two moving plots. The Situation on the enterprise and Archer and Daniels in the future. There was also the Vulcan Human tensions reaching a boiling point on Earth due to the Enterprise not returning, but that was more background than a plot thread.

The episode opens with T'Pol convincing the Suliban to board enterprise to confirm Archer's absence, instead of just blowing enterprise out of the Sky. With Silik's takeover of the enterprise, the acting is great. You really feel that if any of the Enterprise's crew mess up here, they all could die. Then, we cut back to Silik trying to contact shadow future guy, who is just gone, obviously because the future is dead. The scene where the Suliban are torturing T'Pol was also excellent, the camera not staying still or focussing on anything is a simple cinematic trick, but an effective one. I liked seeing Trip flex his engineering skills by establishing a secret comms system across Enterprise.

Meanwhile in the future, Archer poses an important question: How is Daniels still here if his future and everything in it is gone. Daniels doesn't have an answer. Thankfully, a library with books survived, which means we can get a good read (pun not intended) on how the timeline has shifted. The Two of them trying to fashion together a cross-time communication device out of scraps was very Doctor Who, I loved that. It reminded me of the Junkyard TARDIS from The Doctor's Wife. It was also nice to see Daniel's prevent Archer reading about Earth's future. Not only because I don't want to be spoiled for the future, but also because it's good to see him still abide by whatever time laws there are, even at a time like this.

T'Pol being too broken post-torture to effectively answer Archer's time communications was painful. Like with Part 1, the whole cast's skills are being pushed to their limits with building their small resistance against the Suliban occupying the ship. I remember one of the really early episodes mentioned Hoshi gets claustrophobic, so I'm proud of her for managing to complete that vent crawl. The crew faking the engines exploding to get away was genuis, and then Archer exploiting Silik's inability to act without his orders from the future to get his way back to the present was also really good. I had the biggest smile when Archer came through instead of Shadowy-future guy.

Archer's speech to Starfleet command about how Humans need to make mistakes to learn from them, to convince them allow Enterprise's mission to continue was great.

Comparing my Enjoyment of this Episode with a Doctor Who Universe Story of the Same Title

The War Master: Anti-Genesis Part 3: Shockwave

From one Time War to another, The War Master is a Doctor Who radio play Spin-Off. It functions as a pseudo prequel to the 2007 episode "Utopia", and showcases the Derek Jacobi incarnation of the Master, during the Last Great Time and the events leading up the him running away to hide at the end of the Universe as Professor Yana.

Shockwave is the third part of Anti-Genesis the fourth release of the War Master series. I want to focus on shockwave, so I'll keep the key information from the first 2 parts brief. Basically the plot of Anti-Genesis is The Master stepping into the events of the 1975 serial Genesis of the Daleks in an attempt to alter both Dalek and Time Lord history in his own favour. Instead of the Fourth Doctor's failed attempt to prevent the Dalek's creation, we have The Master infiltrating the Kaled science elite and subverting their creation for his own purposes, while being chased down by Coordinator Narvin (My personal favourite Time Lord btw), and that's the set up going into Shockwave.

As it turns out, The Time War era Daleks don't particularly like having their creation subverted towards a Time Lord's interests. So, they decide to fight fire with fire, and bring a version of The Master from a parallel universe into play. Specifically the Mark Gatiss/Sam Kisgart version of the Master from the Unbound Universe. And happy to be escaping his own collapsing universe, he obliges. Despite it being his series, the Derek Jacobi master isn't the focus in Shockwave, this part was supposed to build up the Unbound Master for the two versions of the Character's conflict in the finale of Anti-Genesis.

The Shockwave the title is about is a result of the actions of the Derek Jacobi Master in the previous part's of Anti-Genesis. Specifically the shockwave of effect on the timeline caused by his interference.

It's interesting hearing things from the perspective of the Unbound Master, as the timelines shift around him. When he arrives on Gallifrey, shifts to the timeline have resulted in the Time Lord's civilisation reduced to medieval technology, then a time shockwave hits, and we're back to regular Gallifreyan technology, but with differences. And this is repeated a few times. A few might be a stretch, according to the Daleks, their time ship visited 713 different Gallifreys.

Picking which of the two Shockwaves I liked more is a difficult choice. I'm going to give the Edge to the War Master's version. It definitely had more fun with it's apocalyptic time shenanigans, and The Unbound Master makes a fun villain-protagonist. His attempts to convince the Time Lords that his interests align with them, and not his main universe's counterparts was fun. The War Master's brief appearances, scheming in preparation for the finale of Anti-Genesis were also fun.

Enterprise's Shockwave Part 2 was still really good though, and I'm looking forward to whatever else Season 2 brings

[bryan360]

Here’s my note before I’ll get started….

(DON’T YOU EVER COPY FROM MINE OR MY FRIEND’S WORK, CHARACTERS, AND STUFF IF ONE OF YOU ARE IMPOSTERS WHO HAD HABITS OF PLAGIARISM! I WILL BLOCK YOU FROM MY BLOG IF I SEE YOUR POST WITH MINE OR MY FRIEND’S ORIGINAL WORK BEING EDITED ALL OVER! I’LL EVEN SHARE IT ONTO MY BLOG SO IF EVERYONE WILL SEE THAT YOU TRYING TO COPY MINE OR MY FRIEND’S THINGS FOR NO GOOD REASON WHATSOEVER! That will be all….I mean it.)

🎃Inktober of 2021 - Day 28: 🧛 Vampire

If there’s any The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror episodes that I could watch online or on television? Well, it’ll be past seasons from what it become so popular to continuing the series; for better or worse sometimes. When making my latest Inktober artwork though, here’s when things goes all “batty!” Its May the Rabbit’s turn that I made a promised to included her amoung other Inktober postings for her other friends, parents, and brothers. This time however, it’ll be another “what if” storyline (and probably the last) to tell like I’ve previously did through Day 4 with Brown the Squirrel and Day 26 on Maxwell and Sam’s Wolf-I-Fied side. For May’s part though, it was unexpected about having to work out my own version of Bart Simpson’s Dracula from an episode of Treehouse of Horror IV. Gonna have inspired Treehouse of Horror during my Inktober postings, right? Anyways, thought it would be scary to bring for nostalgia from watching past Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror episodes like I was. It used to be my favorite segment short story by giving some funny moments while staying true on the horror side; like any episodes I’ve also watched through on past Wednesdays. Now going back to my latest Inktober post, I’ve thankfully made in draft back from early days of October to save. I took this as a recreation from the scene where Bart Simpson is about to bite her sister Lisa after he turning into a vampire by Mr. Burns.

Why not swapped out with Choco as a vampire after he’s bitten by one; with his floppy ears turn to bat wing shaped ears and his eye color changed to match from 🐰🧛‍♂️Bunnicula to mind. Link Here (for an image of 2016’s Bunnicula) Though there’s gonna be questions about what happened to his puppet form in Day 23 posting appearance; especially knowing it’ll need to stay in it for eternity....until this month will come to an end eventually. Nevertheless, this one gonna be bad if he’ll managed to take a bite on May’s neck to forcefully joining the vampire group at darkest night....Also be getting a free small soda at the movies or something.

By the way, for making this up after I forgot to add 🦝⚾️Stripes’ owned Snoozy’s Pajamas while working on his Day 20 appearance in progress, here you can see May is wearing her owned �� Riya Speedster’s pajamas she uses for nighttime rest. Hoping that my P-Pal will be pleased about.

Choco (in his vampire form) and May (in her owned Riya Speedster’s pajamas) created by me; BryanVelasquez87 (Bryan360)

Previous Posts

Day 4: 🌈🧟‍♂️🥜Joy Zombie Brown - Link Here #1

Day 5: 🦇Kirby Lucy Loud - Link Here #2

Day 6: ☕️🕷Muffet - Link Here #3

Day 7: 👻 Ghost Pokémon Approaches - Link Here #4

Day 8: Noteson meets Casper - Link Here #5

Day 9: The Jellystone Kids - Link Here #6

Day 10: 🐻🧹Broomstick - Link Here #7

Day 11:🐰The Rabbit Addams in Love - Link Here #8

Day 12: 🍫🍭🍬Candy - Link Here #9

Day 13: 🦛🎃Halloween Town Heffy - Link Here #10

Day 14: 🐶🐻 🦆The Jellystone Kids (Second Redrawn) - Link Here #11

Day 15: 😱🐰Scary Bunny - Link Here #12

Day 16: Tanis - Link Here #13

Day 17: 👽Alien Sightings - Link Here #14

Day 18: 🥜🤡Brown’s Joker - Link Here #15

Day 19: 🦛🍎Apple Bobbing - Link Here #16

Day 20: 😴Nightmares - Link Here #17

Day 21: Pumpkin - Link Here #18

Day 22: Possess - Link Here #19

Day 23: Puppet - Link Here #20

Day 24: Detective - Link Here #21

Day 25: Computer - Link Here #22

Day 26:🐰🦊Wolf-I-Fied Maxwell and Sam - Link Here #23

Day 27: 🎥🎞Movies - Link Here #24

[cg29]

Because of link issues with this site I’ve decided to paste my WIPS onto here as well as AO3 & FFNet. Starting with the 1st 3 chapters of the fic I’m currently working on, and have also most recently updated.

Reflections

Set after Virgil's crash during the original series episode of 'Terror in New York City.' (Season 1 episode 4) Short reflections from each of the family on nearly losing a brother and son.

Thank you to @janetm74 for the Beta on C3.

Chapter 1: Scott.

Italic/Bold speech is not mine and comes from the original episode.

“The wheels have gone; I can’t hold her… I’m… I’m going to crash!”

Scott’s heart lurched at the pure panic emanating from Virgil’s voice, but there was nothing he could do as he watched Thunderbird Two squeal across the runway with dark heavy flames springing forth. Finally, and thankfully she came to a stop and the pure white foam rained down on her distinguishing the blaze… But his little Brother was still inside… “What’s going on,” he yelled over his communicator, “why is no one getting him out?”

‘T…They’re on their way Scott,’ Brains replied, ‘I’m h…here to a…assist you with l…landing.’

‘I don’t need any damn assistance, get the med bay prepped for my brother!’

‘FAB!’

Okay, a bit harsh maybe, but Virg was in there… He’d attended too many fire related incidents, he knew the consequences if someone wasn’t rescued quickly… God damn it, they had to get him out… Finally, bringing Thunderbird One into the hangar, Scott unbuckled and shot out of his chair. The further procedures he was required to run through could wait… Virgil needed him more.

…

“How is he?” He puffed out, racing over to his father just as his two brothers were bringing Virgil out of his singed bird.

“Unresponsive… Head injury, smoke inhalation, possible broken ribs,” Gordon reeled off.

“Let’s get him to the infirmary,” Jeff said, allowing his two youngest to go ahead with Virgil before looking back to Scott, “are you coming?”

Scott heaved out a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’m coming!”

…

A few days later…

He stared down at his sleeping brother, it could have been so much worse, and the words from that moment still danced in his mind…

“Thunderbird Two from Thunderbird One, come in Virgil... Virgil are you okay? Virgil, pull her up… Can you hear me? Come in Thunderbird Two... Virgil, you’re crashing… Pull her up… Virgil, get a grip on yourself, you’ve got to pull out of that dive!”

If his brother hadn’t dragged himself out of that dive at the last second, he wouldn’t be here… And to be honest, he didn’t know if he would be either. He would have dived Thunderbird One in after her sister ship, and tried everything within his power to pull Virgil out, but it wouldn’t have worked, and both of them would have gone down…

“You did good son.”

“Ha?” Scott mumbled, looking to his father who was standing beside him.

“You did a good job. You talked your brother through a very severe situation, and you got him home. You saved his life Scott, and because of that he will be back to himself before we know it. Now, stop thinking about the alternatives.”

“How did you know?”

“I know you,” Jeff nodded towards Virgil who was shifting in his bed, “looks like he’s waking.”

Virgil groggily forced his eyes open.

“How, are you Virgil?” Jeff questioned.

“Welcome back to the land of the living!” Scott added.

Virgil sat himself up. “What happened to Thunderbird Two?”

‘TYPICAL!’ Scott inwardly chuckled while his father went on to answer. If his brother was already worrying about his bird, then his dad was definitely right… Virgil would get better, and soon they would both be out there together again.

Chapters 2 & 3 featuring John & Gordon below the cut.

Chapter 2: John

“Thunderbird 5. My home away from home. I love being here, the solitude suits me and because of that I’m the one who is up here the most. Don’t get me wrong I adore my family and I enjoy spending time with each of them when I’m on leave but being here amongst the stars that I’ve gazed up at in wonder since I was a small boy makes me feel so peaceful. Four days ago, that tranquillity was shattered, and for the first time ever I am finding myself wishing that someone could replace me, someone could come here and take me home.

You see my first younger brother, the one who holds us altogether with his natural calming and added creative abilities was nearly killed while I was sleeping. I know, I know, me sleeping didn’t cause his crash, but if I had been awake then maybe I could have done something to help him, like hacking the Sentinel and stopping them from firing on his bird. Instead, I was on ordered downtime after two back-to-back missions which had kept me awake for over forty-eight hours. The first required Thunderbird fours assistance, the second was in space with Alan. After I called in the third requiring just Scott and Virgil my dad, believing it was a rescue that wouldn’t require my expertise, ordered me to communicate any vital information I had to my brothers, then relay Thunderbird Five’s communications to Tracy Island so I could spend the next ten to twelve hours asleep. I managed the full twelve and after a shower and food I was ready to return to work. Except, the reply I received when contacting base wasn’t the one that I was expecting.

Ten minutes it took for me to make contact, I can’t begin to explain the thoughts that had rampaged through my mind when no one was responding, Alan finally answered looking slightly pale and very tired. Immediately I demanded to know what was going on, the answer drained me completely. The Sentinel had fired missiles at Virgil, thankfully dad had been able to reach Washington and stop the meaningless attack, but the damage that had already been received was great and my little brother was extremely lucky to make it back to the island. Well, I say lucky… Head injury, smoke inhalation, broken ribs, several cuts, and bruises. Yet, it wasn’t until the following day that he regained consciousness… But he was still alive, and that’s what mattered.

After a long chat with the youngest to make sure he was coping I signed off and instantly logged into our islands security feeds so I could see the crash. Yes, I know it sounds a little morbid, but the reality was probably not as dramatic as what was playing through my mind. Thankfully, although extreme, it wasn’t. However, what seeing that crash didn’t do was alleviate the need that I still have now to see and talk to Virgil.  What it did do was produce another need, one that I could do something about, and that was to make sure that the man who recklessly fired at the kindest person you could ever wish to meet receives some sort of justice. Nothing too malicious of course, we are in the business of saving lives and not taking them, but maybe I’ll put my hacking prowess to use and make sure he gets discharged from his position. Whatever I choose though won’t be pretty but will be fully deserved…

…Oh, one moment, I seem to have a call coming through from home - - - - It’s Virgil… Sorry, but I have to go, he still looks really groggy and probably won’t be able to talk for too long, but I’ve desperately been needing this chat… Catch you guys later, Thunderbird Five out.”

Chapter 3: Gordon.

The ocean before him was calm, the turbulent thoughts raging inside his heart were not. All caused by his current location. The Sentinel… Gordon had arrived two hours before and introductions had immediately been made between himself, the crew, and the Captain. The same Captain who had given the damn order to shoot Thunderbird Two down. Yes, they had presumed that an attack was possibly imminent. Nonetheless, they should have done a comprehensive check before going all gung-ho. Then they would have realised that it wasn’t a strike vessel, it was an International Rescue aircraft, and a person was on board. A person who was loved. Loved by a family who had already been torn apart by the loss of a mother and wife. A family that didn’t deserve to lose anyone else.

They had been reckless, and even though most on board had asked after the wellbeing of his teammate, the Captain, the idiot who had ordered them to fire had not made any queries. He had approached him, introduced himself, and then begun immediately filling him in on their trajectory and any further details he might need. After he had contacted Scott, the Captain had ordered one of his officers to assist, then sheepishly made his excuses and left, guilt plastered all over his face. Five minutes later Gordon was being shown to the sleeping quarters where he could get some shut eye in between any updates he needed to make.

He would probably take some downtime soon. For now, he just wanted to gaze at the ocean. The sea made everything better. Here he could switch his attention from the surface to air missile launchers that had taunted him with their sickening capabilities upon arrival, and instead concentrate on his mission. A mission that would normally be routine. Instead, two men who were trapped and injured had to wait just over twenty-four hours. Two lives might be lost because they shot his big brother down. Gordon gripped the rail and slowly breathed out while focussing on the rhythmic pulse from the ocean waves, and the fact that Virgil, although severely injured and definitely needing some time to recuperate, had survived the atrocious crash.

However, it had come so close to being a different outcome and the gut-wrenching, mind-swirling sickness at the thought of ‘what could have been’ had buried itself deeper and deeper into his heart and refused to release its grasp. Needing to go inside to retrieve Virgil had made those feelings more horrific. Sure, he had saved countless lives from fires, but to have to rescue a brother, a member of his own family, ‘that’ he wasn’t used to. His brother had been crumpled over, a deep cut on his head was bleeding, and his eyes were tightly closed. For a horrible moment, both himself and Alan had stood there before moving forwards. He thought he had lost Virgil, that his big brother was already dead. Thankfully, upon reaching him a pulse was discovered. Virgil was alive. Professionalism immediately kicked in, and he and Alan worked together to get him on a stretcher and out of there as quickly as possible.

Since then, Alan had avoided Virgil. Obviously, the kid was still in shock and processing what had happened. Hopefully, by the time he returned his little brother would have gone to see Virgil, otherwise he would need to drag him in there. Of course, he had done the complete opposite and had not wanted to leave his brother’s side. He needed to ease up though. Virgil knew what his game was and had tried to reassure him several times that he wasn’t going to disappear on him. Yes, he would need to step back a little when he returned, after he had once again checked that his kind-hearted, generous brother was still alive and well.

His ever-forgiving brother, who never held a grudge, had even suggested that they use the Sentinel to save lives. Okay, that made sense, the two men were trapped; their lives were what mattered, not how he felt about the Sentinel. Unfortunately, Gordon wasn’t that big of a person, and boy was he stewing over his feelings right now. A yawn emitted from him, and he looked at his watch. There was still just over two hours to go before he needed to check-in with Scott. Plenty of time for a power nap in the quarters. He certainly needed one. During the past week he’d either been helping out with two, doing his usual maintenance checks or sitting by his brothers’ side and he hadn’t managed a lot of downtime.

Tomorrow would bring a tough rescue and he needed his full alertness to save the two men, especially with the lack of time they would have left. There was also Virgil’s ‘big brother’ voice inside his head yelling at him to get some down time. He breathed in the fresh air, allowing the knowledge that he would continue hearing his brother’s nagging to engulf him. A smile formed. That’s what mattered, not his infuriation towards the Captain, or his current location. Virgil was alive. Thunderbird Two would be restored to her former glory. His eyes switched from the azure sea to the vastness overhead. Then, one day soon she would be soaring with her pilot, his best big brother, through those illustrious oceanic blue skies.

chapter 4 Here...

[detectivecarlosreyes]

Only the pure in heart can make a good soup

Ao3

Day 1: “Are you warm enough?” + fluff -  Athena asks Buck to check on May when she stops answering her phone after staying home from school with the stomach flu that had been going around.

@evanbuckleyweek

One thing Buck didn’t expect on his day off was getting a call from Athena. He’d just finished a load of washing and had the now clean pile tipped it out on his bed to be folded when the call came through.

He wedges the phone between his ear and shoulder as he goes about folding each item and stacking them in their specific piles to be put away in the right drawer. “Athena! This is a surprise, to what do I owe the pleasure of this call?”

“Hey there Buckaroo. I was actually wondering if you could do me a favour, if you’re not busy.” He surveys what was left of his clothes.

“Nope not busy at all, what do you need?” Buck moves the phone to his hand as he settles on the end of his bed, giving Athena his undivided attention.

“May stayed home sick from school today and I was going to swing by at lunchtime to check on her, but I’ve been held up with an incident on the other side of town. Would you mind checking on her, she hasn’t answered her phone in the last few hours.”

“Yeah, of course, I can do that.”

“Normally I wouldn’t ask but Bobby has gone to the station to sort out a backlog of paperwork that he missed while he was sick, and Michael has gone on a 3-day weekend away with his new beau and as you know everyone else is out of commission with the flu.”

Yeah, he did know, it was something that was going around at the moment, a 24- hour stomach bug. It started with one of the guys at the station who passed it onto Bobby who then passed it onto most of the team, except him and Athena, who went down all at once. It wouldn’t surprise him if May was struck down with the same thing.

Hearing the concern in her voice, Buck gets up and plan of action already forming in his head, “Don’t worry about it ‘Thena, I’ll drop by now and I’ll let you know how she is.”

“Thank you Buck, I’ve got to go but I’ll talk to you later,” she was gone after that and Buck was on the move, collecting his shoes from his room before heading to the kitchen.

Pulling open the fridge, he gathers what was left of the chicken soup batch he’d made the night Bobby had fallen ill and thanked his foresight to make a large enough batch to deliver to the rest of the team the morning when they went down too.

It was a patented recipe that his grandmother swore by that was both nourishing and easy on the stomach lest it be unsettled, and in all his years of using it, it hadn’t steered him wrong yet.

Throwing on his shoes, Buck gathers everything, grabbing one last thing from the fridge as an afterthought, and heads out for the nice, short drive that it takes to get to the Grant-Nash household. He easily finds the spare key that he knew was carefully hidden in the front garden.

Stepping inside, Buck heads to the kitchen to drop everything off before seeking out May who he assumed was probably in her bedroom, trying to sleep off the sickness. Finding the bedroom door closed, he knocks gently and announces his presence out of deference to her privacy.

Hearing what he thinks is the sound of her stirring, Buck opens the door a crack, “May? You awake?”

“…Buck? What are you doing here?” Swinging the door wider, he finds her lying on her side buried under her blanket and looking half-awake, squinting at the door in confusion.

“Your mom asked me to check on you when you weren’t answering your phone.”

Seeing a slight flush of her cheeks Buck steps inside and crouches at her bedside, touching the back of his hand to her forehead and frowns when he feels what he thinks might be a low-grade fever radiating from it.

“I’m guessing you probably have what Bobby had the other day, how are you feeling?” He asks as he looks down at the thankfully empty bucket sitting beside the head of the bed. He sits back on his heels, giving her some room as she props herself up on her pillows considering the question.

“I can’t tell if I feel hungry or still feel like my stomach is still upset. Breakfast didn’t stay down for long, it came back up not long after mom left.” She ends up answering with a grimace, wrapping an arm around her belly.

“I brought some soup. How about I just warm up a little bit and we see how we go.” He offers and gets a considering nod in response. Buck gives her a pleased smile and heads back down to the kitchen to warm the soup in a small saucepan.

He puts a slice of bread in the toaster before turning his attention to his phone, letting Athena know how things were. He moves easily around the kitchen, finding what he needs and plates everything up on a tray to take up to May. Before he has the chance to bring to food to her, he’s surprised, however, to hear her coming down the stairs.

“Is that the same soup you made for Bobby? It smells good.” She says, appearing around the corner, looking more alert and dressed snugly in a thick looking hoodie and track pants.

“Yep, grandma’s secret recipe. Why don’t you take a seat on the couch and I’ll bring it over to you,” Buck answers over his shoulder as he picks up the tray.  

He brings it over to the living area and set it down on the coffee table before passing the bowl to May. “Want to watch something together?”

“You’re staying?” she asked, confused.

Buck shrugs and takes a seat next to her on the couch, picking up the remote, “Yeah, I have nowhere else to be today and I don’t see a better way to spend my day than keeping you company.”

He pauses realising that he might be overstepping, “…If you don’t mind that is.”

May smiles at him, “I wouldn’t mind some company.”

Buck grins back at her before turning his attention back to the tv, “So, what would you like to watch.”

They end up settling on The Great British Bake-off which neither of them had watched. While they watch, Buck tries to subtly pay attention to how much May ends up eating, hoping that she gets at least some nutrition after losing her breakfast, and finds himself pleased to find that she managed at least half the bowl and a few bites of toast.

Almost an hour had passed, and they had just started on the next episode when May got up abruptly, rushing out of the room in the direction of the bathroom. He follows in concern and finds her kneeling by the toilet bowl, throwing up what she’d just eaten.

He goes to fetch a glass of water before returning and joining her in the bathroom. He squats beside her and rubs her back comfortingly until the heaving subsides before offering the glass. She takes it gratefully and washes out her mouth before getting up and moving gingerly back to the couch.

Buck diverts to the kitchen, getting the sports drink he remembered last minute to bring before re-joining her on the couch and offers the bottle, gently reminding her to keep up the fluids.

“Thanks,” May says with a small smile before resting her head on his shoulder with a frustrated sigh, “Guess my stomach wasn’t ready for food yet.”

Buck gives her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, “We can always try again later.”

Feeling her shiver against him, Buck pulls the throw from the back of the couch and May tucks her feet up.

“Are you warm enough?” He asks and May nods into his shoulder.

They both fall quiet after that, tuning back into the show even though they’d already missed half the episode but neither really minding. They slowly get back into it by the end of the episode, commenting on what they think the judges will say about the dishes.

And that how the rest of their afternoon went, building up their own running commentary on the show, throwing in their own opinions and laughing at each other’s criticisms. At some point Harry joins them, having been dropped off from school from the neighbouring carpool.

That’s what Athena walks in to find when she gets home from work, the three of them looking at home with each other as her children quietly bickered with Buck as if they were siblings, over who they thought were the better bakers, and she couldn’t help but feel a sense of fondness over it.

Buck sticks around a little longer after Athena’s return, letting her know how the day went and confirming what she assumed May was sick with; And then he heads home, leaving behind the soup that he’d brought over and promising May that he’d try not to watch any more of the show without her.

The next day, however, he wakes to find himself flushed with a fever and with an intense need to throw up. It doesn’t take him much to put two and two together to know how he caught the bug. It doesn’t him bother though, feeling it was worth hanging out with May because it meant that he got to know her better and learned pretty quickly how easily they got along.

May must have found out from Bobby that he had called in sick because she sent him a number of British Bake-off memes which he saw after his second round of vomiting, making his day feel less awful. She explained that she was having another day from school to be sure that the virus had passed. 

The memes ended up sparking a day-long event with the two of them live blogging to each other what was left of the first season from the comfort of their own homes.

It was one of the best sick days he’s had in quite some time probably since he was a kid.

[happymeishappylife]

Prep for the 60th: 2nd Season of Doctor Who

“One day, I shall come back. Yes, I shall come back. Until then, there must be no regrets, no tears, no anxieties. Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine.”

The second season of Doctor Who begins to introduce us to the fundamental concept of Doctor Who and that is change. This season we begin to see why change makes the show work and makes the show last. But of course there are tears, smiles, and memories that established with every departure and yet excitement over the possibilities that can now come with fresh faces and voices. So beginning with the TARDIS team, this is how the season started:

(From left: The Doctor, Ian Chesterton, Susan Foreman, and Barbara Wright)

And this is the TARDIS team jumping into season three:

(From left: Vicki, The Doctor, and Steven Taylor)

With the departures of Susan, Ian, and Barbara, we get a fresh new start to what it means to be a TARDIS team and travel with the Doctor. And one of things Classic Who does really well in my opinion is the blending of teams as people leave and join the team, plus there aren’t catastrophic moments when a companion departs even if you might not like it (like I did with Susan). Still with a fresh TARDIS team, let’s introduce the new companions.

Vicki Pallister is a sixteen year old girl from Earth from the 25th century. She is rescued by the Doctor, Ian, and Barbara after her spacecraft crash lands on the planet Dido and she is lied to by a convict who has killed the rest of the crew, including Vicki’s father, to avoid being locked up again. Thankfully, she gets picked up by the Doctor who fresh off the emotions of leaving his real granddaughter behind, takes Vicki lovingly into his world.

Steven Taylor, is also from the future though its unclear which era exactly he comes from. He is found on the planet Mechanus where after crash landing, he has been held prisoner by the Mechanoids for over two years on his own. Once he meets the Doctor, Barbara, Ian, and Vicki, he gets energized to escape, but its chaotic when the Daleks start battling the Mechanoids. So at first you don’t think he makes it into the TARDIS, but after one serial, I’m glad he stole away because he’s a fun guy to get to know.

The serials:

1. Planet of Giants

This serial introduces the first instance where something wrong can happen to the TARDIS and the team has to deal with it in whatever situation they find themselves in. In this case, something affects the TARDIS’ materialization that causes the TARDIS to not fully materialize at its full size, but instead at a miniature level. So while the Doctor and Susan are climbing sink drains and Ian and Barbara are dealing with giant insects and insecticide, what the team doesn’t realize is they inadvertently help prevent this extremely toxic chemical from going to the market by being present while full size humans are murdering each other over money. Overall Rating: 7/10

2. The Dalek Invasion of Earth

The Daleks have conquered Earth in the year 2164 and are in the process of extracting the core of the planet and replacing it with a machine to allow them to pilot the planet. It’s a crazy plan, but even though they’ve conquered Earth and enslaved humans to force slavery onto other humans, there entire plan falls apart when the TARDIS lands and the team finds ways to stop them and embolden the humans of Earth. But this is the first episode of goodbyes because the Doctor makes the decision to leave Susan behind so that she can explore her wish to belong somewhere and follow her dreams without him. Overall Rating: 8/10

3. The Rescue

The Doctor is surprised when they land on the planet Dido, a place he’s been before, that the inhabitants are gone and in there place is a few monsters and a crashed spaceship. He then helps discover the true reason for this, that Koquillion isn’t a true resident of Dido, but Bennet who has not only killed his crew and some of the Dido people in order to be rescued by Earth and not still be convicted of his previous crimes. Foiling his plan, the Doctor also takes Vicki Pallister into the TARDIS once she tells them she’s been orphaned due to Bennet’s actions. Plus missing his granddaughter, the Doctor immediately latches onto Vicki who is need of care. Overall Rating: 8/10

4. The Romans

After leaving Dido, the team takes a break in ancient Italy enjoying a month’s vacation in an empty house and living life of Romans. But eager for adventure the Doctor and Vicki set off for Rome and quickly get caught up in the affairs of Cesar Nero’s court when the Doctor is mistaken for a famed musician. But instead of continued life in luxury, Ian and Barbara get kidnapped for a slave trader, Ian going to hard labor in a boat and Barbara to the court of Cesar Nero as the Empress’ pretty handmaid. Ian of course breaks few and chases after her and there’s a great sequence of all four being in close proximity and never seeing each other. Plus we learn the Doctor is the reason behind Cesar Nero’s idea for burning down all of Rome. Overall Rating: 10/10

5. The Web Planet

I know this is one of the beloved serial from Classic Who, but I’m sorry, I can’t. Between the constant beeping of the Zarbi, the weird speaking and hand motions of the Menoptra, and the bizarre enemy of the Animus who makes webs but is some ethereal being, I just can’t get on board with it. Plus while the scattering of the companions in other episodes is okay, this one just feels unnecessary and ridiculous when the final scene is all four coming together in the Animus chamber to then defeat it. Plus, how do any of these creatures actually live and breathe on this planet? Overall Rating: 3/10

6. The Crusade

Having just recently read the book novelization of this serial, I was happy to rewatch it again, though it is disappointing that two of the episodes are missing. The show itself tells a good story of how the TARDIS team lands in the middle of the crusades, explores the two factions between Richard the Lionheart and Saladdin, but also was just a good watch this snippet of history and don’t get too involved with the major events. Sure Barbara is captured and the story revolves around Ian rescuing her, but for the most part the TARDIS team takes a backseat as we explore Richard’s weariness to go home and his trials to try and end these long wars. Overall Rating: 8/10

7. The Space Museum

This is the second serial that explores the problem of something weird happening to the TARDIS, when it materializes a few moments ahead of it actually physically materializing and gives the team a glance at a possible future in which the four are turned into exhibits for the space museum they stumble upon. Fearful of accidentally ending up this way, they instead find themselves running from the keepers of the museum and in Vicki’s case, starting a revolution against them to try and prevent the outcome. It’s one of the more suspenseful early stories, mainly because the Doctor almost does get turned into nothing but a model, but also when he does sneak inside an empty Dalek shell to escape his captors, we see that silly side of him come out. Overall Rating: 9/10

8. The Chase

In probably the most confusing Dalek story ever, we go on quite the journey to avoid the Dalek’s chase of the TARDIS team. It starts on the planet Aridius, ends on the planet Mechanus, and somehow manages to go to New York for the first time, the Mary Celeste ship, and a haunted horror house where Frankenstein destroys a Dalek. We do learn some interesting things about the Daleks and the TARDIS in this episode, but its also notable for two reasons. The first is we meet Steven Taylor and though its unclear, we learn in the next episode he steals away on the TARDIS to avoid being stuck on Mechanus. The second is it’s the serial where Barbara and Ian leave the TARDIS once they realize the Daleks’ time machine can get them back to London in their own time. Overall Rating: 6/10

9. The Time Meddler

We meet another Gallifreyan and the first besides the Doctor and Susan when the Doctor lands just before the Battle of Hastings. We also learn more about the Doctor’s people (though not their species or planet yet) and that there are principles to Time Travel which the Monk has no issue exploiting for his own amusement, but the Doctor is strict about. This leads to the Doctor finding ways to prevent the Monk’s plan of destroying the invading Viking fleet while also removing a key component in the Monk’s TARDIS so he can’t meddle through time anymore. Overall Rating: 9/10

Adding to our previous lists, items in bold are things we learned in Season 2:

Historical Figures:

Marco Polo

Kublai Khan

Maximillen Robespierre

Napoleon Bonaparte

Ceasar Nero

King Richard the Lionheart

Things we learn about the Doctor:

Pioneer among gallifreyans

Ian only refers to one heart being okay “his heart is okay”

Knows three dimensional graph geometry

Things I’ve learned about the TARDIS:

It has a computer that reads and feed data to compute information about where to go next

It has a food generator where you pick flavors to be added to a nutrient bar

The lock comes away from the door and has 27 different mechanisms, getting one wrong might melt the lock

Field dimensions can be damaged by breaking down doors

The TARDIS is made of material that is impervious to Dalek shots

The Doctor does not have a Mark 4

Things we learn about Gallifrey:

It’s quite like Earth, but at night the sky burns orange and the leaves on the trees are a bright silver

Timelords we meet:

The Monk

People the Doctor has supposedly met before:

Pyrrho

Henry VIII

James Watt

[peterstanslizzie]

Reacting To: Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Season 3 Episode 4)

Ughhhhh :’(

Episode Title: Don’t You Forget a Meow Me

Spoiler Warning: Kindly proceed if you’ve already seen the episode or are able to handle spoilers

1. First of all, what a cute episode title! LOL. The episode opens with Yumyan, Asher and Dahlia trying to catch a butterfly mute from the tree tops but the butterfly has a brain and is able to flee lol. And he has such a bro voice. Cool! We get to see a close-up of Asher; They look so good with short hair.

2. Dahlia spots Zane, who is about to fire his crossbow at someone but Yumyan and the others took care of him:

3. Back inside, everybody is having pancakes for dinner but they’re interrupted by Zane’s presence. He has a message for Kipo from Emilia and she wants Kipo to meet her at the water treatment facility in 3 hours to get cured. Kipo doesn’t seem to have a choice but to follow her instruction because Wolf, Benson and Dave have been captured by Emilia all thanks to that spineless backstabber, Margot. But I’m so pumped now because I feel like things are gonna get epic and serious from this point onwards. 

4. Kipo immediately runs off to get to Emilia but is thankfully stopped by Song before she makes another bad decision. Kipo is frustrated that Emilia still has power even though she thinks she has already completely destroyed the research journal, which we know it wasn’t completely disintegrated.

5. They head back to the village to discuss a new game plan. Song tries to give her input and it sounds pretty legit but it’s a shame nobody is understanding her. I have a feeling this is where Mulholland is gonna come in. 

I actually think Zane’s lowkey fine....don’t judge lol

6. But what’s even better is that they know Zane is aware of Emilia’s secret plan and Kipo brilliantly comes up with the idea to trick him into drinking water with Mulholland in it in order to get inside his thoughts. Mulholland is such a useful ally to have. 

Poor Scarlemagne is getting tossed around in that glass cell, ouch!

7. We switch things over to Scarlemagne, who is having a conversation with Song! Song looks like she’s expressing her worries to him but Scarlemagne, too, doesn’t get what she’s trying to say. Sometimes I find myself forgetting that these two had somewhat of a mother-son relationship. 

8. Mulholland manages to retrieve the info from Zane’s brain and he tells the others that Emilia only has 2 doses of the cure, thanks to the fur Kipo left back in episode 2. Also, he reveals (or mentally shows) to them that Wolf, Benson and Dave are tied up with a bomb nearby so that in case anyone tries to rescue them, Emilia and her crew will cause the bomb to explode. Yikes!

9. Kipo wonders if Mulholland could get into Emilia’s head to turn her good but he says it’s too risky because if he gets mixed in with the cure, there is a possibility he would de-mute everyone. Double yikes! But I think it’s a plan worth considering if none of their other plans work because at least Dr. Emilia hasn’t been introduced to Mulholland, I think. 

Mandu is literally me if I were watching over a bad guy

10. Side note: Where is Troy throughout all of this? His boyfriend is captured and threatened by the bad guys. I want to know his reaction. Anyways, with the help of Mulholland, Kipo, Lio and Yumyan then go through an imaginary test-run of their rescue mission but they quickly fail because Kipo is too fearful. Why though? Is it because her friends are in danger? But that didn’t stop her in episode 2 when Jamack was captured. Weird, right? 

11. Yumyan and Lio try to advise Kipo on how to stay calm and not be too afraid when facing Emilia. Yumyan definitely got through to Kipo a little more because he reminds her of the time in Season 1 when she pushed him to take charge. Afterwards, Kipo seems to feel a lot better and she then tries another simulation....and another...and I guess another but she’s always failing. Really, Kipo?

12. Awww, the way those Timberkittens call Scarlemagne’s name was so adorable!  Also, are their names really Scrumples and Snugglemuffin? Or are those nicknames given to them by Scarlemagne. If so, omg that’s so precious! So now, Scarlemagne is trying to teach Song to speak using alphabet blocks just like how she taught him when he was just a child and when she was still a human. 

13. Back to Kipo’s test-runs; She’s still failing miserably in them. She can’t seem to avoid Emilia’s darts for some reason, specifically the second dart she shoots at her. Well, she better figure out a strategy quick because the deadline to respond to Emilia is almost here.

14. Next, we see Song and Scarlemagne playing charades with the latter trying to guess what’s she’s gesturing. It’s funny that Song doesn’t know how to read or write but she sure does know how to listen to the others almost perfectly lol. Eventually, he manages to guess a word that is similar to “feeling” so far. Hmm...

15. It’s times up and Mulholland decides to bid his farewell for the good of the mutes. He feels like him being around them would be dangerous in the event Emilia got to him. Ugh, I don’t want him too leave. He’s too much of a valuable asset to the group. Not to mention, he’s hilarious. 

I love soft Scarlemagne. I have a feeling that he still has that family bond with the Oaks. 

16. Kipo feels like she has no choice now but to give in to Emilia’s demands but before they could leave, Scarlemagne and Song stop them because Song has a message she wants to give to Kipo through Scarlemagne. She basically wants Kipo to know that she shouldn’t let Emilia use her feelings against her and instead, she should dish it back to Emilia. Scarlemagne further explains that she should let Emilia think she won this round so that she would put her guard down. Great thinking!

17. We fast forward to Kipo barging into Emilia’s hideout without hesitation. Emilia shoots a cure dart and it apparently gets her but she probably didn’t. I predict Kipo has some protective covering for her chest. Emilia goes back on her deal and now wants to take all of them back to her ship. And she wants Kipo to tell the rest of the humans that she didn’t want to be a mute anymore. 

18. It turns out that she’s just distracting her so that Lio and Yumyan could go forward with their rescue plan with Lio stealing Emilia’s second and only other dart left and Yumyan stopping Greta from triggering the nectar bomb. And as predicted, Kipo had that piece of wood Scarlemagne used to write on to protect her. And the battle begins with Yumyan taking on Greta and Kipo taking on Emilia.

19. But why are they struggling against the humans? Kipo should’ve transformed into her full Mega Jaguar form. Because of that, both Emilia and Greta manage to best them and escape. What the!? This fight should’ve been one-sided with the odds favoring the mutes. 

20. And look what happened! OMG! I think Yumyan got hit by the dart that was meant for Kipo. Again, why was Kipo so slow at avoiding those darts all of a sudden?! Ughh, she’s so frustrating. Technically, Wolf made the dart go to Yumyan but this wouldn’t happen if Kipo had reacted faster. Kipo and the rest think that they escaped without any harm...we’ll see about that...

21. Yeap, my fears came true because Yumyan did get hit by the cure dart and he has turned into regular cat. Nooooo!!!! And it’s kinda low key Kipo’s fault. She went through like 10 test runs, so she should’ve learned to avoid them but no, she didn’t! *sniffs. Kipo better find a way to turn him back into a mute pronto. And I’m pretty sure Lio would be able to help. Damn...and the episode has to end with his last words being “Yumyan owns you...meow”...CRIESSSS

22. Well, that’s the end of my review of episode 4. Stay tuned tomorrow for my review of episode 5. Thanks for reading everybody!

[rosedavid]

Another Tyrus HC: Can you write a fic/ HC about season 1 episode 1 SMOL BEAN Cyrus bumping into Season 2 episode 3 MEAN AF Tj where TJ shows a lil bit of softness.

sure!! decided to do a quick fic for this one :) hope you enjoy!!

…

The first day of middle school brings a barrage of emotions swirling through Cyrus’s head. Excitement because he’s finally out of elementary school, onto bigger and better things. Anxiety, of course, because he can’t really go anywhere without it. Fear is inevitable, as well. After all, it’s his very first day in a school with twice as many people than his last. Despite his preparedness and timeliness (two of his best qualities, his mother says), Cyrus feels anything but ready for his first day. Although his best friends Andi and Buffy provide a familiar sense of comfort, the second they step away, Cyrus is right back to his overwhelmed feelings. 

The hallways are long and confusing, with multiple staircases leading to who knows where. Although the room numbers seemed simple enough, when Cyrus actually searches for his classroom, he can’t find it anywhere. Other students are pushing through the crowded halls, laughing and screaming in an unattended manner that would not be tolerated in his last school. 

The chaos only seems to get worse as he rounds the next corner to a main hallway lined with lockers. He can barely squeeze past the swarm of other kids. Despite the noise bouncing across the narrow passage, Cyrus can hear his heart fluttering in his chest. The first bell rings, which according to Cyrus’s reading means he has exactly three minutes to get to class with absolutely no clue where his class is located. 

Like parting seas, the others begin to retreat reluctantly into their classrooms. While this frees up space for Cyrus to hurry in the hallways, it doesn’t do much to relieve his anxiety that he’ll never find his classroom. He’s never been late to anything before, at least not of his own volition. He refuses to start out his middle school career by being tardy. Hopefully Buffy and Andi had an easier time getting to their classes. 

The hallways are emptying out, causing Cyrus to get more worried. He turns yet another corner in the maze of the school, not paying attention to his surroundings. Too caught up in thoughts about dropping out now, he doesn’t notice the other boy turning. They crash into each other, the books in Cyrus’s arms spilling to the floor. Cyrus clumsily trips, as well, finding himself alongside the books. The embarrassment only gets worse when he manages a glance up at the person he just ran into. 

Because this boy is terrifying. First of all, he’s ridiculously tall with actual muscles instead of twigs for arms like Cyrus. His green eyes are cold and calculating as he glares at Cyrus with folded arms. He’s wearing a basketball shirt, which immediately indicates jock. Cyrus has never felt so intimidated by a fellow student before. He scrambles to his feet, attempting to blurt out an apology.

“I-I’m s-sorry,” he stutters, still clamoring to pick up his books. “I didn’t watch where I was going because I was trying to find my classroom which is nowhere, and I don’t want to be late to my first middle school class ever, and I wasn’t thinking and I’m so sorry–” 

During his whole rambling speech, Cyrus’s face grows redder while the other boy’s expression stays the same. For a second, as the boy moves toward him, Cyrus worries that he’s about to get beat up; however, the jock simply goes for a piece of paper still clutched in Cyrus’s hand. His schedule. Cyrus bites his lip, foot tapping as he looks at the clock. 

“End of the hall, make a left, then go down the stairs to the first class on the right,” the boy says, expression still not wavering. Although his looks remain intimidating, his words are soft-spoken and almost gentle. Cyrus offers him a relieved smile, one which the boy returns for a split second before hardening again. 

“Better hurry up,” the boy snaps in a completely different tone. This jolts Cyrus into awareness, and he scampers off in the other direction before the boy changes his mind. 

Thankfully, the advice was genuine; Cyrus finds his first class just in time, racing through the doorway right as the bell rings. He leaps into the closest open seat with a sigh of relief, books dropping down on his desk with a thud. 

“Welcome to Introduction to Algebra. I’m your teacher, Mr. Thompson…”

[losingitinjersey]

Didja miss my face, ‘cause here it is in excess!  

I’ve been oh so happily living life at home with little erp.  I’m on day four of being solo with her  during the days before Kevin comes home at night (since my mom flew out from California the morning I went into labor 12/20 and stayed until Saturday 1/4, then Kevin went back to school Monday 1/6) and I’m absolutely positively loving it.  I always knew I wanted to be a stay at home mom because work, ugh, and home, yay, but actually getting to be responsible for a little one and cultivate my day around her needs has been both more demanding than expected but also more fulfilling than anticipated.  

The downside?  I don’t get to live this life for too much longer :(  My in-laws are arriving in eight days and staying for ten days then I only have six precious more days at home before I have to go back to work.  Insert all the grieving.  Thankfully, even though I’m going back to work it’ll only be in the office 2-3 days a week for six weeks and working from home the other days.  So it should be an easier transition back while still getting to indulge in more snuggle time.  

Amazingly, we found a woman to watch her out of her home with other children.  Erp will be one of the only infants so hopefully that means she’ll be focused on more than if there were a lot?  I don’t know, I’m extremely conflicted about the entire thing.  I don’t want to have to leave her, especially with a stranger.  Prior to finding this woman (thanks to a friend of a friend’s referral) we have been on five daycare waitlists with no openings projected until maaaaybe late summer so she’s literally my only option right now.  Thankfully, this lady is ridiculously cheap (cue suspicion) but she’s also 30 minutes away so that adds an extra two hours of commuting to my work day.  Uggghhhhh.  But, we do what we have to do, right?  All in all I’m glad we found a place we can afford and I asked for references which came back glowing, so that’s encouraging.  Hopefully it will just be temporary until a spot opens up much closer to home that’s actually a licensed, official facility (even though it’ll be double the cost).  The whole thing sucks and I just want to stay home with erp, but I’m the sole provider until we move for residency so I have no other choice.  (and even when we move, I won’t be allowed to stay home until maaaaybe he’s an attending physician which is still 6-8 years away. Boooooo)

My days consist of breastfeeding (30 minutes), feeding her a bottle (15 minutes), pumping (15 minutes) then putting her down for two hours while I either do productive things around the house or rest/nap.  Then doing it again and again and again.  She’s currently three weeks old today (and today is her due date!!) and she’s already been to the pediatrician five times to continue to check on her weight since she was dropping so much post birth.  As of two days ago she’s finaaaally back up to birth weight so at night instead of waking up every three hours to feed her (three hours from the start of her feeding so only like an hour and a half to two hours of sleep) we’re now allowed to go for five hour stretches!  Although, of course, that is if she’ll sleep that long.  Last night she decided she wanted to revert back to every three hours.  But still, progress!  

I’ve been spending my nursing time keeping very current with all your Tumblr happenings while also speeding through almost the entire six seasons of BoJack Horseman.  I’m enjoying it far more than anticipated since I usually don’t do cartoons, but also finding it waaaaay darker than imagined given its cartoon status.  I’m already sad I’ll soon be out of episodes but apparently the end of season six will drop at the end of January which I’m looking forward to even if I’m not looking forward to the end of January because it means I’ll be going back to work.  

Another thing I’ve been greatly enjoying while being at home is making myself breakfast every day.  Getting to spend the time making eggs, egg sandwiches, breakfast burritos, and anything else I can make over easy eggs on (since I was prohibited from eating runny yolk for nine months during pregnancy).  I haven’t started focusing on weight loss yet since I only recently have been allowed to do anything more than just rest.  The recovery process from this has been longer than anticipated since I expected once I got my body back to myself everything would be back to normal but that has not been the case.  I’ve been on two half hour walks so far and the first one, using a stroller for the first time, wiped me out for the entire rest of the day.  The second one, this morning where I used a baby carrier, went much better!  Hopefully I’ll continue to have energy to do even more things today.  I’m definitely encouraged that today’s walk was more manageable so hopefully I can start integrating these into my days even more and start getting back to longer walks.  I think I like using the carrier more than the stroller, but we’ll see what I end up using more.  Not having to worry about navigating the broken sidewalks with the stroller is definitely a plus.  I’m looking forward to when I’m healed enough to get back to weight lifting but for now, I’m glad I at least have the energy to walk and do all the things around the house. 

Thanks to @81welsh and @healthyontheinside for tagging me for SDS!  Here’s all the pics of my face for your viewing enjoyment.  Tagging @fitness-my-way, @abcd-adventures, and @dungeonsndiapers for your faces should you care to share!  

Also, huge news, I finally booked a haircut appointment for the first time in over two years.  I’ll probably only end up cutting off like two inches, but it’ll be exciting to have less dead ends, especially since I’m rarely taking the time to curl my hair (which hides the split ends) let alone shower and change my clothes.  Definitely living the scrub life up in here.  Although, every day is better and I’m feeling more able to integrate a self care routine into my days which include regularly showering and taking care of myself instead of just erp, Kevin and Saki.  

[vedj-f-bekuesu]

Hey, I’ve finally gotten another step in my Ninjago watch!

Before I go through the season, there are some reasons why it’s taken so long to get to Possession.

1. Mum’s course I mentioned before is due to be handed in by tomorrow, so it’s been a bit hands on deck for her. Naturally, this means I’m being pulled in more to help.  2. The reason I started this was because I wasn’t able do my own work so had a lot of time to use up. Well, in the past week, it went from “oh you can’t work from home” to “you could but your smart card is at work and we won’t let you in so you’ll have to reject it” to “actually we can totally Indiana Jones it, here’s some WARs”, so I’m actually working again, so this will probably be a lot slower to go through. 3. Honestly, Tournament of Elements took a bit of wind out the sails. I mean, it was such a slog to go through, I was hesitant to do that again in a hurry if Possession ended up being a rinse and repeat of that.

But today, I’ve finally gotten through the season and...it’s serendipitous that this features the Elemental Master of Wind because this really was a second wind. I said that perhaps with it parring down the cast to a central focus that it would improve the quality over Tournament of Elements and that seems to have been the case. Let’s go through the points.

-I have barely anything bad to say about the characterisation of any character, main or side. Like, this season was mostly on point. I guess the main ninja were a touch on the mean-spirited side at the start, but this get smoothed out by the plot advancing. Jay could also get a little obnoxious at the start, but this was balanced out by him sassing out Wu for his absolute failure to disclose Morro’s existence anyway. -Of course the standout character is Nya, what with her whole sideplot and ending up a water-based BAMF in the ending. -The events of the Dark Island part of season 2 makes Kai’s fear of water and inability to swim jarring at first (because he swims just fine there), but I guess this was a change brought on by Rebooted’s soft reboot.  -Even Lloyd has his moments even though at this point his character feels fairly weak since the show is pretty much just interested in his status as this really powerful hero. But his moment to reconcile his grief with his dad is done nicely, and makes a better sendoff than season 4′s.  -Ronin’s good but that one moment was pretty uncomfortable. Thankfully due to circumstances it didn’t actually happen which prevents it from pushing it over. -But can I talk about the fact the show seems to expect you to have seen media outside of the show to understand his debut? When the ninja talk about Ronin as an old annoyance, I was like “man, you really think I played Shadow of Ronin, huh”. It would have been a shaky assumption in 2015 because the 3DS wasn’t exactly a big hit. But five years later, when the 3DS is nigh obsolete and I haven’t used mine in ages? It doesn’t help that the game is actually technically non-canon, only happening in vague.  -Morro is probably the best villain of the old stuff so far. I don’t care if he’s this edgy teenage bad boy that younger fans tend to veer to, his biggest strength is that despite him being another conqueror and having a lot of power, he still comes off as very human. He still has attitude quirks (like being a bit casual in places), he treats his minions different to any other villain so far, he makes mistakes and has slip-ups, and the conflict felt more like an actual to-and-fro as opposed to one side completely dominating over the other requiring some deus-ex to balance it (even season 1 had this issue, lest we forget how the ninja failed to secure a single thing in their fetch quest). Thus, when Morro is faced with his mortality and finally sees what Wu was trying to teach him, it feels like that would be a natural conclusion to his arc. -So Kai and LLoyd’s dynamic is good, it’s a callback to Kai’s development from season 1 where he got over himself and dedicated himself to looking after Lloyd (I mean, the episode itself fell a bit like an asspull, but S2 and S3 stuck it as a recurring theme), but what surprised me is that there’s actually relatively little of it in the season. There’s a bit at the beginning, then it tapers off until like the third to last episode. The way people talked about it made it seem like this big recurring arc but it’s not.  -Kai and Nya get surprisingly little throughout Nya’s actual training arc. You’d think Nya training to be the water ninja would be a bigger deal for Kai. They remember to give us a good dollop of it in the finale though.  -Can I take an aside to talk about Kai and Cole’s dynamic again? After S1 had such a good thing between them, I thought it was going to drop off entirely. S2 seemed to make good on that...but then S3 brought it back, albeit a bit more reserved. Even S4 had the same level. Why bring it up now? Because S5 turns it up to the point where it was one of the dominating dynamics outside of all four ninja together. And yet I have never heard this referred to by anyone. What, if two characters aren’t explicitly honed in on for interaction (ie Cole and Jay’s whole drama thing, Cole and Zane in S4/S8...I can’t think of any I’ve seen that don’t involve Cole yet), then it’s just pushed to the wayside? No wonder S13 seems to have decided that it finally needs to be addressed after the last two joint seasons focused on Jay and Nya then Kai and Nya.  -Speaking of, Jay and Zane actually get a cute dynamic going, albeit not as pronounced. Jay and Nya is surprising neglected, only getting some visual cues in the ending. Then again, I guess that’s what the next season is for.  -This season is not actually dark to be honest. There’s a couple of points where it drifts into that territory, but one moment is the climax which is typical for a kids show, and the other I guess is Cole’s thing (although the next episode took the edge out of that). That being said, kudos to them for sticking out the change to the status quo so it isn’t just a one season gimmick.  -Season 5 really said “That green ninja jealousy from S4 was shit so we’re just going to ignore it”. While I still have an issue with it as above, this is a relief. -Pacing here is fine, I have no issues with for once. 

So overall, Possession is a pretty good season, I can see why so many consider it one of, if not, the best. My only real beef with it is that the secondary dynamics (outside of the four ninja but within the general team) end up surprisingly underutilised. Otherwise, the only other barrier it has with me is just my preference for more light-hearted affair than this season’s fairly middling (but not dark) tone, but it’s so competently done that it still manages to outpace seasons that do hit that tone.

I would have to see S11 again to see how I’d stack it up to this, but my current season ranks are as follows;

S12>S11>=S5>S1>S2>S4>S3

So, next time I watch again, it’ll be one of the more marmite seasons in the pack; Skybound. One of the coolest season names, but can it continue Possession’s quality?

For now though, I have a whole thing lined up gushing about Prime Empire’s thematic roots because Prime Empire is amazing. And also I’ll have a (probable) season finale to watch and S13 leaks to look for. 

[pluviophile-bookworm]

AWAE 2x1 rewatch: thoughts and reactions

At long last, it’s time to rewatch the first episode of season 2. With a suspenseful open ending, season 1 left us waiting for the continuation of Anne’s story, and here it is now. It’s been literal years since I first saw this episode, so of course I’m going in with very little memory of what happens in it. I can’t wait any more, so let’s dive in.

The episode, and with it the season, opens with a beautiful shot of Anne reaching of her window, and then there are more lovely shots of her in nature. i just love the visuals of this show so much. And Anne talking to trees is just on another level. I actually see things from her perspective for a moment and it’s like nature is talking back, and it’s all so magical. This is one of many reasons why I’m so in love with this show. This is one of those “gold opens”, as I call them. But why do I feel like it won’t be the same after the cold open?

Ok, thankfully it’s not as dark as I’d thought - at least for now. But I’m still on my toes. For the moment, however, Anne’s biggest concern is how little scope for the imagination needlepoint provides. Here’s to hoping it remains so for as long as possible.

A delinquent saying grace, how ironic. And he indulges Anne by saying “Gracious Heavenly Father” at her request. He’s playing his role well, that you’ve got to hand to him.

Ah, and here’s Bash’s first appearance. A tough and grim job, being addressed by his nationality, and just overall hardship is what he’s putting up with for the moment - probably has for most of his life. Thankfully, Gilbert stands for none of that stuff. #blacklivesmatter

Good as Nate may be at keeping up his facade, Anne’s curiosity is not making that any easier for him. I love her curiosity and her desire to learn as much as possible about everything (wait, isn’t that the same as curiosity?) and her fascination with science. This is a woman of the future, that’s for sure. She did nothing to deserve getting her story cut short without a warning. #renewannewithane

Poor Anne, still haunted by her trauma... I guess this kind of stuff never really goes away. 

What is Nate trying to pull with Marilla? That guy creeps me out so much.

Of course, Anne is enchanted by Nate and his science and his books, but Jerry’s got him all figured out. It seems he doesn’t really remember how they first met, otherwise I’m certain he’d tell Anne if not anyone else, but even without the clear memory of what Nate and Dunlop are really like, he just knows it. Memory fails sometimes, but instinct almost never does. Poor Jerry has his own trauma now. My boy does not deserve this.

Ok, I love Anne so much, but she can be awfully insensitive sometimes. I mean, I understand that she’s very young, but still. She seems to often forget that not everyone has the same experience as her. Now she’s forgotten that Jerry can’t even read. Of course, she immediately offers to fix this. It’s heartwarming that she’s teaching him to read, but she managed to sound both too patronising and too complicated, all in one sentence. But hey, she’s not a certified teacher, she’s a kid. I’ll cut her some slack here because her intentions are nothing but good.

Oh there it is, Nate has released the gold bug, and now he’s getting Mr. Barry wrapped around his little finger. I just can’t watch this...

I love the Shirbert parallel of working to the same tune. Even miles away, they’re connected in a way. 

I’m sensing another parallel here - Bash is to Gilbert what Jerry is to Anne: the poorer, less educated honorary brother who is also a member of a minority against which many are bigoted. And just like Jerry does to Anne, Bash reminds Gilbert in no uncertain terms of his white man’s privilege. And both Anne and Gilbert learn along the way to be less insensitive to those less privileged than them, and to fight for this privilege to be evened out. This is beautiful and important, and I love this show for presenting it so eloquently.

Another beautiful visual of Anne in nature, this is a very popular one - at least I’ve seen it going around quite a lot. It’s this one: [image credit: kissthemgoodbye.net]

I too, like Anne, love living in a world where there are Octobers - especially because that is the month I get to go back to uni, and I happen to love it there. What would the world be like without Octobers?

As someone whose hometown is extremely close to the beach, I sort of understand Matthew and Marilla’s lack of thrill at the thought of going there, but also Anne’s fascination and excitement as someone who hasn’t had the chance to go. A friend from the capital (which is almost as far from the sea as my country goes) once told me when she came to visit that she found it weird how people actually live in a city that she and her other friends view as just a holiday destination. I, on the other hand, hadn’t lived anywhere else at that point and was way beyond any fascination with the beach. It’s good to see a different point of view. Someone like Anne can make you rediscover the beauty of every little mundane thing.

Wait, this is Anne’s spot, isn’t it? The spot by the sea where she’d later go when she’s upset, and where Gilbert would pass by on his journey of Anne-memories in season 3? It is, I’m fairly certain of it.

And once again, as Anne looks out into the sea, so does Gilbert. Those two share a brain, don’t they?

I don’t really know what Nate’s deal is. Sure, I know he’s a scoundrel at best, but... can one fake this fascination with gold? Of course, this bit might just be true - he could really be fascinated with gold - with getting it for himself at other people’s expense. That would be in character for the person who gave poor Jerry one extra kick in the face after he was already on the ground. And when Anne asks about it, little detective that she is, his true self shows for an instant. And then the mask is back on and he’s all like “do the right thing” and “moral quandary”... as if he has any morals. This guy disgusts me.

Sweet summer child Ruby is so see-through... Albert, Herbert, Rupert - she reminds me of my younger self. I love her so much.

Oh, great. Just great. Nate’s got into Anne’s head. She has this unfortunate tendency to trust people whether they deserve it or not. And now she’s fallen into a trap.

Oh Jerry, trust me, you do need to know how to read. You do. Although I wonder if his desire to talk and to discuss books wasn’t at the core of his eventual falling out with Diana in season 3 - I mean, the incompatibility between that and her own wishes about their relationship. Either way, reading can’t be a bad thing, can it?

What does Dunlop mean by “She’s just a girl”. What? Does he see her as somehow inferior because she’s a girl? As if I needed more persuading that these two are, to put it very mildly, no good.

Anne is too good for this world, empathising with Dunlop’s sob story (how true is it? I might be falling too) and even offering to be his little sister in her own desperate longing to be someone’s sister. No, Anne, your only brother should be the one Nate is taunting in the barn at this very moment.

Oh gosh, Anne is there, and another memory of her traumatic past is triggered by Nate’s taunting. I can’t watch, I just can’t watch a book being torn up so devilishly, and it seems that this is just the tip of the iceberg. 

Does Jerry remember? I think he might be starting to remember. He’d better speak up soon if he does.

“I’d offer a penny for your thoughts but I haven’t any money.” Wait, does Eliza Barry not own any money at all? Is she that much of a submissive wife? I see now why she raises her daughters the way she does. I feel bad for her, truly. But I wonder what’s eating her husband. Is he thinking of what Nate told him?

Speaking of Nate - how vile of him to make fun of Jerry, calling him a little frog and all that, and taking advantage of the fact that he doesn’t remember who he and Dunlop are. You know, I’m thinking of a song - Little People from Les Mis, and specifically this line: So never kick a dog because it’s just a pup - you better run for cover when the pup grows up. In other words right now, Nate had better hope Jerry doesn’t remember, because I bet he’s not just going to sit around once he does. Nate’s got everyone fooled - everyone but him. And I don’t want to say Jerry was lucky, but in a way he was - to have met those two before everyone else. 

That’s it - once Anne tells the town gossip, it’s all in the bag. She’ll tell everyone and get their attention for Nate. Sweet summer child Anne has done the con man’s job for him. Now he’s getting up everybody’s hopes just to get their money. I can’t even.

Sure, Anne, write to Gilbert, get him into this disaster waiting to happen, too. As if he hasn’t got enough on his plate right now. At least, being away, he might have missed out on that drama that will lead to no good, but nay, we just have to worry him, don’t we? And thus the bumpy road of Shirbert’s correspondence continues.

To sum up this episode: beautiful, magical scenery; Nate’s smooth acting has got everyone fooled - especially Anne;  gold in Avonlea?; the similarities between Bash and Jerry; Shirbert share a brain; Anne teaches Jerry to read and write; Anne’s spot by the sea; Jerry doesn’t remember Nate and Dunlop - yet; the gold rush begins.

[baseballbitch116]

Sweetheart - part 6

He continues absentmindedly poking the skin on the ground, thinking of Y/N, hoping that she made it out of there. He tried so hard to find her, he stayed as long as he could. The place was falling down before his eyes, towers crashing to the ground with the fences and parts of the building. He couldn’t find anyone, it was a horrible mess. He could only manage to get Beth out of there. Daryl was hoping that you were on the bus and had escaped, that you were with Rick and Carl. More than anything, he wished he was with you guys. He felt all alone again, like he was going to lose himself. Thankfully he had Beth, even if he wasn’t close to her, because he couldn’t bare to be all alone right now.

His eyes leave the guts of his kill, wandering up the trees and landing on the stars. He remembers the couple of nights that he spent outside talking to Y/N after everyone had gone to bed. A sigh escapes his lips as he feels heart aching again, missing all of people he had come to care for. He watches the sky, wondering if you were out there, and if he would ever see you again…

---

* Takes place in season 4 episode 16/season 5 episode 1

** Does not entirely follow the plot of the episode, I put my own spin on a few scenes

Word Count: 1185

Warnings: Violence, angst

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Masterlist

Prompt List | Submit A Request

The trip to get to Terminus took a few days, and you were in no rush, to be honest. You were afraid that you were going to get there and it will have been overrun, or that nobody else will go there. You are too afraid to let yourself have any sort of hope, the one thing that Maggie is clinging to. You know that Daryl is a strong ass man, and so are many of your friends, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll get lucky enough for them to stumble across the signs.

You absentmindedly followed the three of them wherever they went, not caring much for anything. You guys haven’t been eating much, only some berries here and there or one tiny rabbit that had to be split between four people. You couldn’t find a whole lot of drinkable water either, so you were very low on energy, just trudging on.

When you finally arrived to Terminus, everything went downhill. They took you guys hostage and locked you away in a train cart. You were in there for two days straight, and both nights, men came in and tried to take you women, but you put up a hell of a fight. The four of you managed to keep them from succeeding, but you didn’t think it would last much longer. You needed to find a way to escape.

And then the day came that they took you all out. You couldn’t manage to fight them all off, heavily outnumbered. They tied and blind folded you up, leading you guys into a room. When your blindfolds were removed, you were kneeling in front of a drain-pipe sort of thing, multiple men surrounding you guys. They discussed something in hushed voices, then all of them left except for two. One aimed a gun at you guys, and the other held a bat, standing behind you’s. And just when you thought it was all over, and the man started to swing the bat toward Bob... A huge explosion shook the building, stopping everyone in their place.

You took that as your opportunity and quickly threw yourself on top of the man with the gun, stomping on his head until he no longer moved. Maggie and Sasha took out the other man with the bat, and after a little struggle, you managed to use their knife to free yourself, then the others. The four of you ran out of there, shooting down men as you went, shocked when you heard other firing as well. The place was being attacked.

The four of you managed to escape the complex before it became too overrun with walkers, and you watched from the woods as you saw people running around, some getting shot down, some doing the shooting. And then you saw it...

A woman with dreads wielding a katana. “Michonne!” You exclaimed, pointing toward the courtyard where she was taking down walkers and men. The four of you begin making your way back down toward them, trying to catch up to where they were heading out of the fence. You ran after them as fast as your weak legs would allow you, desperate to reunite with your friends, praying that Daryl was with them. 

Sasha and Maggie managed to get to them first, you trailing behind about a minute later - and that was it. You froze where you stood, out of breath, and stared in shock, face to face with everyone you loved. Maggie ran into Glenn’s arms sobbing, Michonne hugged Sasha... And you stared at Daryl. He stared right back, an expression as if he’d seen a ghost. Your eyes burn with tears as your vision blurs. You start taking steps toward him, and to your surprise, he runs at you and throws his arms around you in a bone-crushing hug, lifting you off the ground a little as he embraces you. You hug him tighter than you’ve ever hugged someone, fearing if you let go that you would lose him.

Tears dripped down your face as you hid your face in his chest, the smell of him bringing a wave of comfort over your exhausted body. No words were spoken, none needed to be. He pulled away for a moment, looking at you like a heartbroken child, and catches you off guard again, leaning his face on your shoulder, his arms hanging limp at your sides, and a small quiet sob escapes his lips. You rub his back and hold him, your heart breaking and swelling at the unashamed affection he is showing.

Eventually, he steps back and you laugh sadly at him, wiping away a stray tear from his cheek lovingly, and he smiles sadly. He takes another step back to allow Michonne to hug you and everyone else to reunite together. And then after everyone is out of shock, you agree that you need to get out of there before a hoarde of walkers invade the place. The group starts heading into the woods, and you don’t leave Daryl’s side even for a moment. He surprises you yet again when he interlocks his fingers with your’s and hold’s your hand, giving you a shy sad look as you walk beside him. You smile and bring his hand up to your mouth, giving it a kiss. You catch him blushing as he tries to hide his embarrassment and you let out a little laugh, following him and the others through the woods, your heart feeling whole again.

---

Being on the road again was tough on you all, but you were stronger together. For the entire first day, you didn’t stray more than five feet from Daryl. He constantly checked over his shoulder to look at you, and when you would get more than a few feet behind him, he would stop and wait for you to get beside him, walking slower to stay beside you. It warmed you heart how much he was showing you he cared, nothing else in the world compared.

When nighttime came, you guys gathered in the road, some of the new people making a fire that everyone sat around. Daryl and Rick did a little perimeter walk for a few minutes, making sure nothing was around, then rejoined you guys. Daryl sat right beside you, bringing his legs up and resting his elbows on his knees. You rested your head on his shoulder as you stared into the fire, a much different feeling now than you had been feeling just a few nights ago. You couldn’t ask for anything more - you had your family back.

Daryl interrupted your thoughts by taking your hand from your lap and holding it in his own, toying with your fingertips, sending shivers up your arms. He looks at you as he does so, a neutral expression on his face, but you can tell how content he is. You place a small kiss on his bare bicep, leaning your head on his arm once more and closing your eyes, allowing yourself to feel hope once again, something that only Daryl was able to make you feel.

---

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[aion-rsa]

How Psych Evolved Through the Character of Carlton Lassiter

https://ift.tt/2ZONt8A

Early on in the Psych pilot, Shawn Spencer’s (James Roday Rodriguez) ludicrous plot to impersonate a psychic in order to solve crime suddenly takes on grave stakes: Chief Vick (Kirsten Nelson) informs him that if he’s lying, he’ll be prosecuted for hindering a police investigation. Just like that, he’s locked into his lie, and has no choice but to let it snowball—into a private eye business with his best friend Burton Guster (Dulé Hill), but also into a lucrative consultancy gig for the Santa Barbara Police Department that, psychic antics be damned, legitimately saves lives.

But while it’s the Chief who put the fear of God into Shawn, the true threat to his secret was always one Carlton Jebediah Lassiter (Timothy Omundson). In the early seasons, Lassiter was the perfect foil: a by-the-book detective obsessed with proper procedure and with hypermasculinity, who had patience for neither Gus’ high-pitched squeals nor Shawn’s supernatural “hunches.” The fake psychic’s obnoxious theatrics were nothing without an exasperated reaction from Carlton… especially as those hunches kept paying off and making this old dog all the more self-conscious about his own inability to learn new tricks.

Even moreso than their eventual tango duet in Psych: The Musical, Shawn and Lassie’s song has always been the Psych theme:

I know, you know, that I’m not telling the truth

I know, you know, they just don’t have any proof

Embrace the deception, learn how to bend

Your worst inhibitions tend to psych you out in the end

Yet even as Lassiter delighted in watching Shawn get shown up by other fake psychics and even threatened to be the one to someday catch him in the act, over the course of the series this seeming antagonist shifted into a comic relief role and eventually a truly sympathetic figure. As Carlton became Lassie, so too did Psych grow beyond its cheeky premise, from a potentially one-note episodic show to a serialized dramedy about a found family solving crimes in all manner of unconventional ways—a connection that was cemented in Psych: The Movie and now in Psych 2: Lassie Come Home.

It started with Shawn noticing that Lassie needed help, even if he would never say so outright—when he encountered the detective, drunk and loose-lipped and off his game, in “From the Earth to Starbucks.” Not only was he confounded by Shawn’s skills, Lassiter confessed, but it made him feel worse about the fact that he couldn’t solve what he believed was the murder of a local astronomer who seemingly died of natural causes. Shawn, Gus, and Juliet (Maggie Lawson) spent the rest of that episode surreptitiously helping Lassiter solve what was indeed a murder, all while throwing him clues without him realizing. There was a noticeable absence of Shawn’s psychic shtick in that season 1 episode, since the point was to give Lassiter all the credit, which meant making it look like Lassiter’s way of working. Shawn didn’t have to perform, aside from moments of conspiring with Jules, because it was very much a case of What Would Lassie Do?

Read more

Movies

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Easter Egg and Reference Guide

By Natalie Zutter

Movies

Psych 2: Lassie Come Home Review

By Natalie Zutter

By the time “Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing” in season 3 and was the prime suspect in a criminal’s death, he knew he had no choice but to bring Psych in where the SBPD wouldn’t investigate. And in the case of “Last Night Gus” in season 6—well, it was in everyone’s best interests to solve the mystery of that Hangover-esque night. Over the years, viewers discovered along with Shawn, Gus, and Jules various Lassie quirks: He works out his daddy issues by dressing up as his Civil War ancestor and an archetypal cowboy. He enjoys tap dancing with Gus because it helps him sort through his thoughts. He falls in love with Marlowe (Kristy Swanson) despite her criminal record. He shares more and more of himself with these colleagues who become friends and then family. In turn, he comes to, if not actually believe in, then at least accept the idiosyncrasies of Psych—because like it or not, it makes his professional and personal lives better. At the same time, Shawn’s lie quietly explodes his relationship with Juliet, as it makes her doubt that he was telling her the truth about anything. Even after they reconcile, the ramifications of almost losing her cause Shawn to pull back from automatically playing the psychic card.

And then Lassiter winds up shot and recovering in a hospital bed, helpless in the most Hitchcockian fashion at the start of Psych 2, and there’s no question about who he’ll call.

Clearly creator Steve Franks and the other writers made the decision that if they were to have Lassiter as a presence in Psych’s present, they had no choice but to draw from Omundson’s personal experience recovering from a debilitating stroke. Yet it’s eerie how well this dramatic arc fits Lassiter’s character—Lassie, who may have become a big teddy bear by the end of the series, but who is still obsessed with (heterosexual, able-bodied) notions of supposed manliness. Carlton “Danger” Lassiter, who once said he would go out “in a hailstorm of bullets” if it meant catching a criminal. Now he has to face the knowledge that he may never walk again.

Interestingly, Juliet is not the one whose help Lassiter specifically requests, despite their history as partners. In fact, it’s likely their shared experience that makes him reluctant to put her in that position; if there’s someone that Carlton would be afraid to be exposed in front of, it’s his former mentee. How can he reconcile asking the one-time junior detective whom he showed the ropes to adapt to a situation where he’s still getting his bearings? To wit, he puts her off with a to-do list of errands—a throwback to their early days together, when he frequently invited her to “shut it” or otherwise stay in her lane.

Thankfully, one of the many lessons Juliet took from their time together in the field was to not obey orders when she knows she’s on to something. And so she returns to the scene of the crime where Lassiter was shot, follows up on ballistics, and locates the missing puzzle piece of the second bullet. Shawn and Gus get the ghosts, but Jules gets the shooter. Between being confined to his hospital room, and in the face of Jules’ own stubborn tenacity, Lassiter couldn’t have stopped her if he tried. In many ways, accepting help not asked for demands even more vulnerability from him.

What’s most fascinating about Shawn and Gus’ investigation in Lassie Come Home is that not for a moment do they bullshit Lassiter. This isn’t a case for Psych, it’s an act of love from two close friends—absolutely no psychic spectacle necessary. Now, one could argue that Shawn wouldn’t have even thought to make up a vision because, as far as he knows, Lassiter watched his goodbye video (in the series finale) all the way to the end, where he confessed the truth behind how he manages to solve so many crimes.

Instead, right before Shawn could give Lassiter the answer he’d dreamed of hearing for eight seasons, the detective popped out the DVD and broke it in half. At the time, this moment in the Psych canon, arguably more than his relationship with Marlowe or his identity as a father, was when Lassiter experienced his greatest character growth: He would rather pause time, to focus on all the good that Shawn had accomplished through his lie, than be right.

But time can’t stay paused forever; and if Lassiter is being clear-eyed about how Shawn solves his baffling hospital sightings in Lassie Come Home, then he also has no illusions about his inability to solve his own mystery alone. He can contribute his observations—credible and not—and draw his own conclusions, but he has to trust Shawn, Gus, and Juliet to be his eyes, ears, and legs outside of the prison of his room. He also has to accept that he’s not always present in the crime-solving; there’s a recurring theme in which Lassiter, drifting on his meds, opens his eyes to Shawn and Gus, or Juliet, waiting expectantly for him to wake up and catch up. In one scene where Shawn goes to ask his advice about fatherhood, Lassie is completely asleep, an incredible display of vulnerability from both Lassiter and Omundson.

Yet as we learn in his final showdown with the murderous nurse Dolores (Sarah Chalke), just because Lassiter closes his eyes doesn’t mean he’s out for the count. The way he outwits her is Lassiter to a tee: Even while slipping away from the fatal morphine drip, he has enough wherewithal to grab one of three (three!) guns he had stashed in his hospital room—just like in “Lassie Did a Bad, Bad Thing.”

But this time, instead of being all cool and flipping the bullet into his hand, this Lassiter is babbling to the morphine-induced hallucination of his dead father (Joel McHale) about how much it hurt to lose him, about how he’s afraid he’ll leave his daughter to grow up without a father just like he did.

The moment is played for laughs, with Dolores’ face screwing up into incredulity—this guy has a gun pulled on her, and he’s still mumbling closure to his ghost dad? But for fans, it’s tantamount to the DVD moment: Lassiter has finally found the way to be unguarded, to embrace the ridiculousness of the present moment without self-consciousness, without losing sight of the perp. Even though he has the upper hand, he’s still scared about what he’s going to do when he gets out of this room. He can put away a killer, but he can’t predict his own future beyond the hospital.

Which makes his reunion with Marlowe—witnessed only by Jules and Henry (Corbin Bernsen)—all the more moving. Another character in another narrative wouldn’t have cared if he returned to his wife in a wheelchair, wouldn’t have agonized over mustering enough strength to stand face-to-face with her. But it’s Lassiter, with specific ideas about what it means to be a man, and for him that means looking Marlowe in the eye so they can press their hands together—this time not glass between them, nor either of their pasts, but this new challenge—in solidarity.

Lassiter’s not perfect: He has a lot of toxic masculinity left to unlearn, and he owns an appalling number of guns. He’s still more conservative than not. Because he’s a cop who becomes more sympathetic, his narrative contributes to the larger cultural trend of “copaganda” on television. It’s the same problematic issue that faces the characters on Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Even if he’s lovable, and especially because of this fact, his identity as a police officer complicates the conversation around his character growth.

But within the world of Psych, he’s a character with a worthwhile arc. Like Lassiter, the series started out following a strict formula, and only after it had relaxed into something stronger than its premise—its talented ensemble, ‘80s riffs, and library of delightful in-jokes and callbacks—could it grow beyond its initial form.

Speaking of in-jokes… For the 100-plus teases, hints, and outright cameos the series gave us of its signature symbol, we all failed to spot Psych’s most important pineapple appearance. Lassiter is the pineapple! Prickly on the outside, sweet (but still tart) on the inside. Often difficult to spot, but so rewarding to find. Case closed.

The post How Psych Evolved Through the Character of Carlton Lassiter appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[sailormurkury]

History3: MODC review I guess?

Word Count: around 2,080

Warning: Potential Spoiler for POSE Season 2. I’m not sure if it’s been streaming globally yet, but I mention the death of a character.

I fell in love with the BL drama HIStory this past August. It was after coming across a video on twitter of two men embracing, kissing and both breaking down in tears on the floor of a lavish, minimalistic, bedroom. After a bit of digging in the replies, I learned the name of the show, History3: Trapped. One google later, I’m on VIKI and I find the entire first half-season which had just wrapped up two months prior. The rest of that month was spent binging it and the first 2 seasons (and The Untamed). This week the second half of the beloved drama’s third season which has been hailed the best BL drama of 2019, possibly all-time, ended with a thud on the 18th. Prior to this week it had a solid score of 9.5 on MyDramaLive where it now sits at 8.5. (Rating seems to be falling slightly every 2-3 days, now sits at 8.4.) This season’s love story focused on the story between Yu Xi Gu, an orphan, loner, and presumptive valedictorian of Zenren High and Xiang Hao Ting, the carefree Mr. popular of the school. The show also follows a side couple, HaoTing’s best friend Sun Bo Xiang and Xi Gu’s boss, Lu Zhi Gang. This season focused on the blossoming of these two couples’ relationships in such a way that most of us thought “Oh wow they’re going for full on happy go lucky in love” and while they met challenges like HaoTing’s homophobic parents and entrance exams they managed to fight for each other with their relationship getting stronger every time. That was until this week’s finale when we were served with a plate of Deadly Distant Finale with a side of Bury Your Gays and a glass Gay for You.

I initially thought that I was okay with the finale in a similar way to how I was with the finale of HIStory3: Trapped. That was bittersweet yet common sense. Shao Fei was a cop, Tang Yi a mob boss who shot an officer, he “had” to go to jail. Yet the more I thought about it I felt grieved, insulted rather by MODCs finale. So, like everyone else is doing on social media, I’m going to nitpick the hell out of it as part of my “healing process.” Also, while all of us are upset, unfortunately as in the summer, some fans are attacking the cast and crew. In the words of the master heart crusher, Shonda Rhimes, “Don’t tweet them your crazy,” or...whatever the weibo equivalent is. So, before the nitpicking, a caveat. My beef is with the lazy writing of episode 10, this entire cast was outstanding from Wayne and ChuanChih to the ZENREN homies to The Xiang Family just outstanding. Possibly the best History ensemble since H2:Crossing The Line. Thankfully, this season was not written the same writer of H3: Trapped that would have been way too much for me. (Although, word in the fandom is that MODCs screenwriter wasn’t fond of Trapped’s screenwriter, or rather her treatment for the finale? Alexa, Play Ironic by Alanis Morrisette.) Also in this review, I’m going to be using the VIKI episode count when referring to episodes so just 1-9. *wink*

 On to the picking apart, if you watched all of episode 9 last week, you probably had the same horrified realization as I that our first intimate moment in episode 2 where HT saves XG from getting run over by a moped was foreshadowing for the finale. I don’t want to dissuade anyone from watching the series again, I will, but with the ending we got? It’s going to be difficult to revisit that scene again without resentment. It’s bad enough that XiGu, the main character up to this point, dies off screen in a way that nearly renders him worthless. Especially in the way that this story said “meet this soft, pitiful, malnourished and overworked boy; fall in love with him as he allows himself to fall in love and watch as that love makes him bloom.” I haven’t been this upset over a needless character death since, well, I can’t even say that I have made peace with Candy’s death in season 2 of POSE and that was 5 months ago.

 I don’t know why the writer chose this ending that says “fighting tooth and nail for love is meaningless, yet the memories make it worthwhile?” I’m being petty, we know for HaoTing this love was not meaningless, XiGu’s death is not meaningless. If XiGu’s death was meaningless he wouldn’t have thrown himself into his undergrad studies and gotten into Stanford grad to continue XiGu’s dre…hold the hell on. Wait a damn minute, isn’t that…the dead love interest trope? So, in the POV of this finale, XiGu’s existence was to get HaoTing to mature and become a physicist? Remember, high school HaoTing didn’t really have a dream outside of being with XG 24/7. He became a better student and chose to become a Physics major solely to be with XG. During the show, this particular plot point had some fans noting, while sweet in theory, pinning your hopes and dreams on teenage love can be costly in real life.  

  Six years on, it seems the only people that have been affected by XiGu’s death are HaoTing and Lin Cai Chu, his ex-girlfriend?  I understand in real life we tend to be moved on after this much time. Yet, there was no mention of Xi Gu from the crew or the family, even when he was visibly upset around them. You could count Mrs. Xiang when she spoke to Hao Ting while he was packing, but she never names him, only implies, and,  I feel we had to dive for that meaning. Also, there was no significant interaction from Sun Bo or his sister Yong Ching, who were the closest with HT during this whole relationship. Yong Ching listens to her brother cry after their father tears XiGu and HaoTing apart and she plays messenger between them during their parting. However, in episode 10 she’s enamored with Phoebe’s style? Sun Bo is HaoTing’s brother in the battle for love they share everything about how their hearts feel about their guys. But when HT drunkenly pours out his grief after six years, and he kinda gives a “damn bro, that sucks” vibe for a good part of the talk? (Sidenote: Wayne acted his whole ass off in this episode, do you hear me?) In Trapped, ShaoFei knew everything about TangYi. When Chen Wen Hao and Sister Lizhen were revealed as TangYi’s parents he grieves with and comforts him back at home. (Bonus: if you watch that scene again you can see Jake break down with Chris when they pull apart.)  

  I’m not touching that damn doppleganger moment, why even do it? These decisions have been made, yet the way both XiGu’s death and HaoTing’s potential girlfriend Phoebe are hinted and implied at, yet never really engaged with or seen. Which, to me, signals fear on part of the writer. These are the decisions you felt comfortable making so why not go ahead and give it to us full out. Show us XiGu dying in HaoTing’s arms, HaoTing visiting his grave a la Trapped episode 10, or show us the moment when Phoebe meets the family. We could have gotten more thought or effort put into these plot twists on the part of the writer. We see the way HaoTing weeps over XiGu and how he just shrugs off the mention of Phoebe from his family. XiGu and HaoTing lined and called each other daily, Phoebe can’t even email to let him know where she is? Worse yet, HaoTing does not even attempt checking up on her? Is on a 13-hour flight or about to get on one? Don’t really know, damn sure don’t care.

 I “got” that he doesn’t think the love of his life can ever be replaced, but we also know through his actions that he doesn’t love her either. Even though he’s introducing her to his family, I ask, does he even like her? Where’d they meet? How old is she? Why bring her up if you aren’t going to flesh the concept of Phoebe out? If you really wanted to give a love story closure “well” you should have done all of this several episodes ago by breaking them up or even condensing the love story and killing XG earlier on rather than handing us this death/new gf cocktail in ONE EPISODE. So many HIStorians thought that the boys would split because of HaoTing lying about the rent, and this makes perfect sense as it’s a clear violation of XiGu’s desire to be as self-reliant as possible, even in a relationship. That could have given rise to the first big argument and potential breakup.

 At first, I thought that the most insulting thing about this finale was that we didn’t get a happy ever after, or at least a happy for now like Trapped. Happy endings are an unofficial mission statement of the series. However, the most insulting thing about this finale, for me, was that death became final. Three years in a series, where death has NEVER been final, or even an option for its leads at least since season 1. (Which HIStorians like, but don’t really talk about for good reason.) Now, you could argue about Trapped because Shao Fei does get shot twice and if any storyline was primed for death it was theirs. However, even with the action element, the Brooklyn Nine-Nine type comedy never gave it the gravity that MODC unknowingly had. We were presented the stakes, the murders of Old Tang/LiZhen, and knew the threat, Chen WenHao. In MODC, there was a quiet unease I had for most of my watch along the lines of, “this is perfect. I love it, but it’s too perfect.” The “challenges” XG/HT faced they pretty much steamrolled every time so I assumed they were in the clear until the last 5 minutes of episode 9.

 H1: My Hero and H1: Obsessed both had plots that dealt with the boundary of death, making it impermanent “because love.”  While we’re at it, let’s talk about Obsessed shall we. Even abusive ass, stalker ass Jiang Jing Teng, a man who by logic and common sense shouldn’t have, got a chance to love again. He got to say goodbye to, spread the ashes of, and reunite with Shao Yi Chen. After his beard, who it just so happened was also a witch/sorceress, brought back SYC from the dead, not once BUT TWICE?!? (First, from rebirth. Second, it was all a dream.) Yet YXG/SHT, the most loved couple since CTL, can’t get a similar twist of fate? Make it make sense, especially given that this is likely the final season for HIStory.

 That hurt to type, but, it looks like History3 is going to be the final season for the series. Since we haven’t had any official announcement from CHOCO. And with 2 major backlashes, the first based on misunderstanding with Trapped and the second due to MODC lazy finale, it’s looking like a done deal until the CTL movie comes out at the end of 2020. In which case, everyone involved is going to have to be on their very best behavior from now on. In the hearts of some HIStorians, this finale has done irreparable damage to MODC itself and the HIStory franchise. Which is sad, considering that up to this point HIStory was getting better and better with each season only to decimate that growth in one episode.

  *cue Mariah* I still believe that MODC is the best BL drama of 2019. It’s the best to come out of Taiwan since CTL. Most of that is due to the phenomenal work of the cast, and… yes, the initial episodes written by our screenwriter. Even with my frustrations with the finale, I was conflicted as I said on Wednesday night. I was very disappointed, but the performances I did get, specifically from Wayne, kept me engaged to the point that I still enjoyed it. Does it make up for the cruelty to Yu Xi Gu not at all, but the previous 9 episodes pretty much put it in my top 5 all-time early on. What now? I’m waiting for the dvd drop next year and reliving every blissful moment. Oh, and I’m rewatching episodes 5/6 for Christmas. 

If you made it this far, thank you HIStorians, you all have made this surprise journey most certainly worth it.  

Merry Christmas and Best Wishes to all of you in 2020,

 Jo

 PS: word from Mandarin speaking fans is that the novelization of this series has 2 endings. One happy and the one we saw on Wednesday which…*sigh* at least there’s a universe where the boys are happy. I also have some notes on issues I had with HaoTing’s family in episode 10 that I’ll likely touch on after Christmas.

PPS: I can’t believe we got blessed with multiple Duke Wu appearances!!!

[k-odyssey]

Dramas I’ve Been Watching in April

It’s that time again when I tell you what I’ve been watching and if I liked it (without spoilers). As always it’s a long post so everything’s under the cut.

I was struggling to find the other ones so now they’re all tagged monthly posts. (I don’t know that anyone else needs to find them, but I do. It’s like the index page on my blog.)

When the Weather Is Fine (finished)

Seoul music teacher leaves the city and her unfulfilling job for the countryside, reconnects with adorable highschool classmate. They heal from the past together.

Mentioned in the last post and all other my blog. I said it was feel-good and having finished it, I stand by that. The great thing is, even when what’s happening with the leads isn’t great, there’s always another storyline to balance things out.

It looks so good. I love the fashion, which is almost exclusively thick jumpers and warm coats and gloves.

There’s two readings of the ending, one more positive than the other. But either way the finale is worth watching for Jang Woo’s little speech about happiness and mundane things.

Meow, the Secret Boy (ep18 of 24)

Cat adopted by unwilling new owner discovers he can turn into a human around her.

Started this one last month with hopes of cute romcom but it’s too weird to ship at this point. For me anyway.

It is, however, ridiculously funny. But I can’t watch more than one ep at a time due to the aforementioned weirdness. So I haven’t caught up yet.

Cute second couple, though.

Skate into Love (finished)

Star hockey player is reunited with the girl he hated in primary school at age 18, decides to take revenge.

It becomes more about how to navigate a relationship when you have an entire childhood of history and Olympic dreams. Also meddling parents and manipulative admirers.

Did I fast forward a bit? Yes. It’s 40 episodes after all, and the drama is edited to be a bit slow I think. You can easily watch it at the 1.25x speed. There’s plenty of supporting characters with their own stories, some more interesting than others. But I still found it worth watching.

I love the leads! And they actually grow, individually and as a couple. They both make mistakes and apologize and move on together.

While I’m here, let me mention that there are decent kisses!

Here’s what I wrote about the drama in the beginning.

If you don’t mind spoilers, here’s more thoughts.

Joy of Life (finished)

21st century character is sort of reborn in what looks like ancient china, with memories from his past life intact.

It’s been a long time coming, but I finished it!

By a long time coming I mean I started this drama in... December? Which might as well be a century ago at this point. I mentioned it here in January if you missed that.

46 episodes is a lot for me, especially if the drama is no longer airing. If I don’t watch it as it comes out, I 100% will end up taking up to 6 months to finish it. That’s just my brain.

The drama itself is a delight! Both funny and heartbreaking. Lots of intrigues and politics, but not in a boring way. It definitely keeps you on your toes.

Wan’er being one my faves (I don’t care if some find her plain), I was sad to see her character fade in the background as the drama progressed. The lack of romance from ep35 or so might be why it took so long for me to finish it. I love my romance ok?

Also this is season 1 of at least 2, so the ending is... an interesting and shocking one.

A Piece of Your Mind (finished)

Two people dealing with the loss of loved ones help each other through the darkness. Also there’s artificial intelligence involved.

I thought the fact that there was AI would mean the plot would inevitably end up where it usually does for this genre of kdrama: some evil person or entity trying to acquire the technology through legal or illegal means. Thankfully, that never happens. It’s not that kind of drama but a sweet melo.

Did you know I love Jung Hae In? I have that one post about him where I say exactly that but in more words and I’m always happy when it gets notes. The thing is, I don’t mind that he’s been playing similar characters lately. On an emotional level, his portrayals always work. I can’t look away from his eyes. Especially if he’s about to cry. He plays “overwhelmed with emotion” so well whether it’s anger or sadness or love. Plus, I’m all for kinder and softer male leads.

I know Chae Soo Bin from 3 other dramas and they were all comedy I think. I didn’t know she had the range! It was a good surprise to find that she could play a more poised character. I love her in this.

Is it because I’ve been re-watching One Spring Night but this drama looks so bright! In a good way. I love the light and colours. Especially at sunset. Plus all of the snow in the beginning, and Soon Ho’s plants!!! Also I love how they film through windows and play with reflections.

I’m sad they had to cut 4 episodes but they managed to wrap things up pretty well.

So many great characters. And I love that there’s several very strong non-romantic relationships. Soon Ho and Ha Won for example. As someone who wants to scream anytime I hear “men and women can’t be friends”, I love that these two are best friends. Also the boarding house scenes were great. Especially once Min Jung and the medical student moved in.

More thoughts about the AI.

Hyena (finished)

How do I describe Hyena?

It’s an unusual love-to-hate-to-love. Two resourceful, rich-people’s lawyers cross paths and well, sparks fly.

It’s not cute and fluffy. They defend the worst people and with questionable means. They have ethics but they’re different from mine.

As I have mentioned here, it was Hee Jae that grabbed my attention. Joo Ji Hoon is a brilliant actor.

The drama is fast-paced and I watched it in like a week.

Read this post I wrote at the end if you want to know more and don’t mind mild spoilers.

The King: Eternal Monarch (ep2 of 16)

King with a tragic family history finds the door to a parallel universe.

Technically I’ve watched 2 eps and like 15 min of the 3rd ep.

I’ve decided to give it at least 4 episodes. I still haven’t caught up.

Main appeal for me: Woo Do Hwan. He’s not the lead though so there’s that.

I don’t usually pay much attention to that but since I edit them for this... the posters aren’t great? And none of the ones I’ve found have the standard format so I had to choose between cutting the title and cutting off half of Lee Min Ho’s face.

Love is All (ep4 of 26)

Historical romcom. I kinda didn’t pay attention to ep1 so I’m not super clear on why the male lead is hiding his identity but he is. He’s left the capital to become a county magistrate in a small (?) town. There he meets a romance writer who becomes his adviser.

They fight all the time.

Also she keeps unknowingly declaring her love for him because she knows him by name and has a crush on him, but he’s living under a false identity. So she’s annoying him a lot but also complimenting him all the time and he’s not indifferent.

Fun supporting characters.

Is it kinda cheesy? Yes, but that’s what I typically watch cdramas for.