#been binging the office while on lockdown

[dimpledpran]

8 Shows to Get to Know Me

I was tagged by the lovely @talays-portkey and @i-got-the-feels​ !

1. Ghost Whisperer (2005-2010) I think this was the first show that i actually tried to watch as it was airing. I still remember waiting for 10pm every Friday, whether everyone else was awake or not. I think I watched all the way from Season 1-4, until it stopped airing on our local channel. 

2. Glee (2009-2015)  Honestly this was my introduction to the English music scene. I did not grow up listening to English songs, so my initial playlist was basically Disney Channel artists and Glee covers. As a music lover, I just enjoyed listening to their takes of the songs. I think I stopped watching somewhere during Season 3, and only did the Cory tribute episode after that.

3. Teen Wolf (2011-2017)  This was the first show that I started reading fanfics for. Well I started reading before I watched it, but Sterek stole my heart. I was very into the series, to the point that I watched Season 3B in one night because I had to find out what happened. Dumb me thought it was a good idea to start a new season at 8pm at night. I stayed up through the night, and texted my friend at 6am to yell about the whole thing. And they replied that it is too early to be awake to scream about it. “What do you mean wake up and watch it. I haven’t slept yet” So yeah. Stiles is my baby, and I will protect him with my life.

4. The Untamed (2019)  My friend recommended this to a few of us during covid lockdown, and I am very glad she did. It really opened me up to a whole new world. This show had such a grip on me. To the point that I started a new side blog for it, and learnt how to make edits for it. I got to know so many incredible people through the network cos of this show. It was such a brilliant show! The plot is so intricate! It has angst and heartache and amazing costumes and stunning sets and a cast who honestly killed it. Definitely a show that I would recommend to everyone. 

5. Bad Buddy (2021-2022)  Obviously I can’t go without talking about BB here. Have you seen my blog URL? Till BB, I never watched a show as it was airing. I usually wait for it to end and then binge, or start watching it just in time for the finale. But I kept seeing gifs on tumblr and it made me want to check it out. And boy am I glad I did it. It was such a fun experience to watch it live and scream on a weekly basis. For some reason the hold that this show has on me seems to be lifelong? I have no complaints though. I am still enjoying all the BB brainrot. Pran is my baby. I have never related to a character as much as I relate to him. He is so precious to me. And this show just blends angst with humour and a touch of reality so well. I am making it my personal mission to read through every Patpran fic on AO3. This show made me want to try writing. I cannot explain how much this show means to me. A definite must-watch as well!

6. Arivaan (2019-2020)  So my sister told me that this is my kind of show and made me watch it. I started it while she was halfway through, and finished it way before her. It was right up my alley. The whole premise is about trying to identify a serial killer who has been murdering women, and leaves an origami paper crane behind. There is a police officer who manages to find these clues and tries to identify him, but the killer disappears and due to personal issues he end up leaving the force. Years later the killer is back and he somehow gets roped into it again, but his partner is now leading the case, and is finding out things that he doesn’t really want to. And I really enjoyed the way it was taken, and the I am really hoping that there will be a Season 2 for this. 

7. Paava Kadhaigal (2020)  Honestly no show has made me as mad as this has, and that is totally the point. (Although I am totally gonna be ignoring the second episode. That does not exist to me) It is an anthrological series, with 4 3 episodes touching on different hard topics/issues prevalent in society. The way it was taken , the music, THE CAST, EVERYTHING WAS BRILLIANT!! I had to pause it and just scream on twitter to release all the frustration that this brought up. Which means it really did its job well. I have not watched this series  since the first time, but trust me when I say I remember every detail because it has such a lasting impact. Especially the first and the last. I was bawling.  NOTE: This can be very highly triggering, so please do check out the synopsis before you watch it. Or feel free to hit me up with any questions, or just scream about it if you do check it out. 

8. 3 Will Be Free (2019)  Insane plot with amazing characters with so much depth. Loved that each character was so complex. There is no character that is purely good or bad, like it was so real, and you feel for them all equally. This really set a standard that no other show has reached so far. I need another series like this. And of course anyone who put Tay Tawan in funky suits gets a plus from me. Also more female characters need to have guns!!

Honorary Mentions: Mindhunter: This would have been number 8, if it wasnt cancelled!! The casting directors for this deserve all the bonuses for how creepily identical the actors look to the actual serial killers! It was so interesting to try and get into the head of the serial killers and understand why they did what they did. LOVED IT!!! Until We Meet Again: This used to be my favourite BL series until Bad Buddy took over. I loved Fluke’s effortless acting. He is brilliant. And I love the whole concept of reincarnation and finding you soulmate. And this did it so well with the angst and touch of humour and romance. And of course TeamWin stole my heart. 

Theory Of Love: Honestly, wasn’t that much of a fan the first time I watched it. But the redemption arc is so goood, that I felt so much for Khai the second time I watched it. That train station scene just lives in my head. So for rewatch factor, this deserves a honorary mention.

The Good Place, Word Of Honor, We Best Love, Stranger Things, RE:Mind

Tagging: @highwarlockkareena , @eohachu , @markpakin , @fangrui , @fuujiikaze , @gege @seawherethesunsets @gaiamochi (no pressure)

#tag game

[cchilyoja]

The building was on lockdown, and the hallways were engulfed in a red hue from the emergency lights. It had been pandemonium at first, with people scrambling to try and find the nearest exit, and then the panic when they realized that they had been locked in. You could hear the police outside the building, but the sound of someone speaking on a megaphone felt distorted and distant. She was the target, who else would be as important? There was a procedure for these types of situations, but it would seem that whoever had infiltrated the headquarters knew the ins and outs of her staff and security. 

This attack had been planned for a while. Jung-hoo escorted her from her office, while relatively safe, it would not be ideal if she ended up surrounded, and how things were happening the best course of action was to get her to the garages and keep her there. With a gun in his hand, two other security guards flanked her, they started moving towards the silver shimmer of the elevator doors. It was eerily quiet as they waited for that familiar BING and then the smooth sliding of doors. 

Each second was precious. She entered inside, the two other men by her side and then it was his turn, as soon as he stepped in, he heard it first as if it were happening somewhere else, and then the doors closed behind him. As he turned to look at her, he noticed red drops over her right side, more so visible as they soaked into her white blouse. Jung-hoo looked down, noticing the wet stain spreading against his black suit, the red becoming visible on the white shirt underneath. It wasn’t his first time being shot, so he recognized the immediate shock that he was going in. “ It’s fine, it’s my left shoulder, I’m righhanded. ” That made the most sense to say at the moment as he looked at her, unable to move an inch.

chrysaelis asked: “your shirt..”  from yoojin :eyes: / still accepting.

#chrysaelis #v: obedient soldier #missed them so much!!!!

[galaxystarsglitter]

Post 0 - 03/09/2022

A few years ago, I lost a lot of weight and I maintained it for over 4 years. After lockdowns were lifted, I had set myself so many barriers in terms of food and workouts, etc that I gained so much weight when facing social gatherings (which led to heavy restrictions and even heavier bing*ng afterwards). I gained so much weight and didn't recognize myself anymore.

Back in April/May 2022, I was in a job I hated. I felt useless and wasn't inspired by my team. At that time, I had hit my lowest. I had been depressed for a few months now. I was seeing a therapist to help with my BED and my depression. I wasn't going out of the house, binging constantly, wasn't interested in seeing friends, and gained more than 13 kgs in a few months. After being advised against it by most (not everyone, thanks mom <3), I quit my job. Took a few weeks off and went to a retreat on the 1st of June 2022. I lost a big chunk of water weight there. Went from high 67s kgs to about 60 kgs.

After this retreat, I came back and with truly a piece of amazing luck found a job when I wasn't actively searching for one. I feel like I am being challenged (in a positive way) on the daily, I love going to the office, I look up to the people I work with and I interact socially for a living. The combination of setting a new mindset, going to the retreat, and finding a job that makes me feel smart truly changed my life. I am the happiest I have been in a long time. I get dressed up, see friends and go out. This summer I went back home and lived by saying YES instead of no and boy, did I have the most fun in a while.

Now, why did I start this blog? Although I feel better in my body, I still want to get back in shape. I want to get to my fittest self. I want to challenge myself to reach a goal I have been longing for so long. My goal is to reach 50 kgs. I want to wear low-rise jeans, feel sexy again in underwear around my boyfriend, and feel fit and proud of the hard work I put into my body.

But this has failed in the past. I always tried extreme methods (from not eating to overexercising to googling how to lose 20 kgs in 1 month, or doing what most of my friends who all have EDs do). I am not falling into this again. I am not doing a crash diet again.

I am going to do this sustainably. It is going to take a while and I want it to take a while. I want to learn from every day, week and month. I want to feel like I have been putting hard work. I want to be consistent and adopt a lifestyle that is sustainable in the long run. I want to do it for me. I want it take it step by step. I prefer reaching my goal in a year than looking back 12 months from now wishing I had taken it slowly. I want this to come from a place of love for myself.

I am not sure if I want to blog weekly or daily, we will see but you'll get updates from me!

[doona-baes]

coronavirus preparedness starter pack

#the office #coronavirus #bbelcher #humorgifs #dwight schrute #michael scott #pam beesly #been binging the office while on lockdown #all made in good fun #mygif #m: misc #1k #5k #10k

[innocentbi-stander]

I've been thinking about Modern Witcher and lockdown. I feel like Geralt would be immune so would help where he could, Yen would try find a cure and Ciri and Jaskier will be ordered to stay at home, imagine the mischief?!?

@thebeckybear you might be onto something here.....

the literal SECOND geralt and yennefer hear about going into lockdown, they prepare themselves for absolute Hell

a half elf jaskier may be, but an overprotective yen and geralt are in no way willing to test his immunity, no matter how pro this idea jaskier is

and of course ciri staying home is 100% The Rule

due to his witcher mutagens geralt is immune, and a few decades ago during a fit of boredom he had gotten his nursing degree, so, Extreme Sense of Duty witcher that he is, he immediately starts helping at a hospital

yen meanwhile is determined that all of these scientists are just idiots, and by proxy she is the best suited person to cure covid

these are both stellar plans, but what they fail to realize at first is that this leaves jaskier and ciri stuck at home, alone and unsupervised

cue the insufferable amount of mischief that a bored ciri and jaskier get into during lockdown (spoiler: it’s a lot)

geralt couldn’t count on two hands the number of times he’s come home to at least one bedroom door plastered over with ciri and jask pretending there was never anything there

there was one time he came home to find them sealing THEMSELVES into a bedroom and almost turned around and went back to work

ciri and jaskier’s bread making phase was LEGENDARY (and by legendary, I mean they amount of loaves of bread they managed to burn to a crisp because neither of them know how to fucking bake)

just as neither of them can bake, neither ciri or jaskier have any idea how to cook, which resulted in a solid diet of ramen, tea, and microwave popcorn until yen found out and flipped her shit

there was also the time ciri and jaskier filled the entire bathtub with orbies and proceeded to get them all over the house

the time they dedicated weeks to slowly moving every piece of furniture in the house to the left, centimeter by centimeter

their sneaky redecoration of every room in the house, including one day where they painted the kitchen a rather violent shade of orange

their slow collection of plants until the living room resembled more of a greenhouse than a place for human beings

when geralt had to threaten to disconnect the house phone because of the sheer number of prank calls being sent a day

the time yen and geralt came back to find ciri’s head shaved and jaskier’s hair purple (that same day Roach the Cat was discovered to have been turned a lovely puke green color)

the time they topped Spotify charts by making extensive playlists of nothing but geralt’s snores

the time they became tik tok famous because they were overwhelmingly bored

their long standing fort in the tv room, expertly crafted out of sheets, books, blankets, every pillow in the house and propped up with geralt’s swords (don’t tell geralt)

the time they had a sword-fight with geralt’s swords in the living room and stabbed a hole in the wall now covered by the couch (don’t tell geralt)

the time they mixed up a few potions made of random ingredients they stole from yen and woke up five hours later having switched outfits, painted each other’s faces blue, and apparently baked the most delicious loaf of bread known to man 

the day they did nothing but binge watch the office and order an obscene amount of take out food

the time they scaled the side of the house and then promptly got stuck on the roof until geralt had to rescue them

geralt begins to wish he didn’t decide to be so noble because he’s never been more afraid to come home than when there’s infinite possibilities of what jaskier and ciri have done now

hopefully yennefer will have the cure figured out before these two idiots kill themselves

___________

I hope you enjoyed! I love ciri and jask up to no good while the responsible ones are off saving the world!

#jaskier #geraskier #the witcher #geralt #bamf jaskier #geralt of rivia #the witcher jaskier #witcher geralt #witcher jaskier #immortal jaskier #elf jaskier #the witcher ciri #ciri #yennefer #yennefer of vengerberg #modern jaskier #modern witcher au #jaskier and ciri up to no good #feral jaskier #chaotic jaskier

[p-artsypants]

I’ll Handle This (7)

I really just want to say thanks. I love this fandom, and I love this story…just the overwhelming excitement for this fic makes me so so happy. Everything that happens is really just me saying ‘whatever, I want to see this’. Does it make sense? Not always. Is everyone completely in character? Maybe. Am I having a blast? Absolutely! 

Thank you for all the comments and kudos! 

And sorry for the wait. Wedding planning! 

In Which Gabriel is Serenaded

(Ao3 | FF.net)

—

Day three, Adrien awoke on the pillow. He was used to it now, officially. How scary a thought! 

Plagg had laid out his outfit, thankfully so Adrien could approve, or at least warm up to the idea. 

It was one of the shirts that Marinette had Frankensteined together from the pieces they had found. Absolutely gaudy, atrocious, and a pain to look at. Stripes, polka dots, plaid, little patterns of flowers, all saturated as far top right of the Hue/Sat scale as possible. 

It would make his father cry. It would set the media into a frenzy. It was glorious, and that scared Adrien. 

It scared him that he was starting to come around. He was starting to enjoy this reckless abandon. It was cathartic to watch his world shift and change into something more chaotic, and yet somehow pleasant. Organized Chaos. 

Plagg came out of the bathroom, devoid of mohawks or any other bizarre hairstyle he could have done. His hair was just swept to the side, combed, but not gelled, into place. 

The perfect amount of wild. 

“You don’t have to wake up when I do.” Plagg stated. “I’ll just drop you in my pocket.” 

“It’s alright,” Adrien assured, yawning. “I’m used to waking up this early.”

Plagg dressed quickly, and just as he slid into his moccasins, the room glowed red, and heavy bars slammed shut over the windows. 

Both Adrien and Plagg jolted in surprise, Adrien falling into panic.

Plagg just scooped him up, and held him to his chest. “Hey kid, it’s alright. You can phase through things. You can escape if you need too.” 

This helped calm him down slightly, if ever so minutely. Plagg tucked him into his pocket, and confidently walked downstairs. 

Gabriel and Nathalie were waiting for him in the foyer. 

“What's the deal, old man?” Plagg asked, bluntly. “Akuma attack?”

“No,” replied Gabriel, his head held high. “You’re grounded. No school. No friends. Nothing.” 

Plagg scoffed. “I’m under literal house arrest?! Come on! I have a sleepover at Nino’s tonight!”

“Did you ask if you could attend this sleepover?” 

“No. You were going to say no anyways. Better to beg forgiveness then ask permission and all that.”

“Well, that really solidifies my decision to ground you then. You clearly show a clear lack of critical and mature thinking.” 

“Ah, a pompous way of calling me stupid, hmm?”

Gabriel frowned harder, a line forming at the corner of his mouth. “I am not calling you stupid. I just don’t see you making good decisions.” 

“Gabriel, before this, I wasn’t making any decisions. Everything I did was according to your will. How can you be mad at me at being bad at something I have no practice doing?” 

Gabriel’s eye twitched. “First, do not call me by my first name. Second, I have already made up my mind. If I say you’re grounded, then you’re grounded. Deal with it.” 

Oh that was not a good answer. He may have well just said, ‘because I say so.’ 

And Plagg would not stand for it. He wasn’t standing for it anyway, but he’d at least be willing to bargain with Gabriel if he was offering some excuse about safety for his well being or something.

This was just a power trip.

“Fine,” Plagg smiled maliciously. “Lock me in. But you’re locked in with me. And you’re going to hate it.” 

“I don’t have time to entertain you, Adrien, go to your room.” 

As a kwami who spent most days in Adrien’s bag, Plagg consumed a lot of media. A pair of headphones, an external battery, and a phone that connected to the school’s wifi, Plagg had days to binge all the things that Adrien was interested in. 

And some things that Adrien didn’t care about, like historical dramas, documentaries, and recently, musicals. Especially for time periods that he had witnessed and experienced. He wasn’t omnipotent, so seeing what the humans had thought was important during these periods was fascinating.

But I digress.

The point was that Plagg had a song stuck in his head from a musical and the perfect opportunity to use it had just presented itself.

Gabriel had deemed the conversation over and started to walk back to his office.

“Close every door to me,” Plagg sang, in Adrien’s sweet voice.

Gabriel halted, but did not turn around.

“Hide all the world from me.” Plagg took a step towards him, still singing softly. “Bar all the windows and shut out the light.”

Gabriel turned, raising an eyebrow. “If you think serenading me is going to make me change my—“ 

But Plagg cut him off, raising his voice slightly, “Do what you want with me, hate me and laugh at me.”

Gabriel just stared, and listened.

“Darken my daytime and torture my night…” Plagg came closer, singing with feeling, trying to convey, even for an instance, a flicker of the emotions that Adrien had.

“If my life were important I would ask ‘will I live or die?’ but I know the answers lie far from this world.”

This was horrifying to Gabriel, apparently, as he protested. “Of course your life is important! Why do you think I—“

“Close every door to me, keep those I love from me. Children of Israel are never alone.”

“Children of—what? We’re not even Jewish. What are you singing about?��

“For I know I shall find my own peace of mind. For I have been promised a land of my own.”

Confused, Gabriel just scoffed and started back to his office. Plagg stayed hot on his heels.

“Close every door to me, hide all the world from me.”

Even Gabriel saw the irony of slamming the office door in Adrien’s face, so he resisted, and let his son continue to serenade him into his office. 

“Bar all the windows and shut out the light.”

Gabriel stood at his workstation, determined to ignore his son’s weird emotional outburst, and opened his recent project. 

“Just give me a number instead of my name. Forget all about me and let me decay.”

Plagg fought the smile of victory when Gabriel hunched his shoulders. Was that guilt on his face? Perhaps Gabriel wasn’t as shallow as Plagg had thought and lyrics like this would get through to him. 

“I do not matter, I'm only one person. Destroy me completely, then throw me away.”

And Gabriel sat, staring with his wide gray eyes. His full attention on his son. 

“If my life were important I would ask ‘will I live or die?’ But I know the answers lie far from this world.”

Plagg pounded his fists on the workspace, crying out the words with passion, actually making Gabriel jump. 

“Close every door to me! Keep those I love from me!” He leapt up on a coffee table, putting his entire body, his very soul into this performance. “Children of Israel are never alone!”

Gabriel couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move?

“For we know we shall find our own peace of mind! For we have been promised a land of our own!” He held out that final note, letting it hang in the air, as Gabriel continued to stare, mouth slightly open. 

Truth me told, Plagg was just intending to annoy him to freedom, but had the song choice done more? Did Gabriel finally understand? 

“Well,” Gabriel adjusted his glasses. “That was...certainly something. If I knew you could sing like that, I would have tried to find a use for it. Never mind, I’ll add it to your resume now.” 

No. It seemed that Gabriel was as stubborn and obtuse as ever. 

“Close every door to me,” Plagg began again. 

“No no no,” Gabriel spoke over him. “One performance is more than enough.” 

“Hide all the world from me.” 

“Adrien!” 

“Darken my daytime, and torture my night.” 

Gabriel groaned, and made an effort to ignore Plagg again. A real effort this time, with no eye contact and no facial expression. When that didn’t work, he moved from his workstation and went to grab Adrien. But Plagg evaded him, continuing to sing, with every grasp.

How many times did he cycle through the song? His throat hurt, as every time he reached the climax, he belted out the notes with passion. 

It would be surprising if no one outside could hear him. 

He climbed up on a table. “If my life were important I would ask will I live or die—“ 

“Enough! Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!” Gabriel shouted. “I can’t take this anymore!” He bolted over to the security control panel, and shut off the lock down. The bars on the windows disappeared. 

“Go...please, just go.” Gabriel said desperately. 

“Cool, thanks dad!” Plagg said cheerfully, skipping out of the room. 

Gabriel collapsed onto his workstation. 

Whatever tricks Adrien had learned, whatever manipulation guru he had visited, he was good. Very very good. It would take a while to get him back under his thumb. And he might need to resort to more drastic measures. 

What was more drastic than putting the house into lockdown? He’d need a little while to contemplate that.

—

Plagg had missed several morning classes thanks to Gabriel’s stunt, but his friends heaved a relaxed sigh when he arrived.  

“Hey hey hey!” He sang, coming in the door. “What’s happening, party people?” 

“Mr. Agreste!” Miss Mendeleev barked. “You better have a good excuse for being tardy!” 

“A great excuse! My dad shut the house down to ground me, and I had to annoy him with Broadway until he opened up. He was a lot more patient than I expected.” 

“Are you serious?” Miss Mendeleev asked. 

“Madam, do you really think that my father, fashion mogul, would allow me to leave the house like this?” He gestured to his mismatched outfit.

“Point taken. You may take your seat.” 

Plagg shot a thumbs up to his friends. 

—

After school, the group of four piled into Nino’s family car and headed over to his house. 

“I’m so excited! My first sleepover!” The excitement was genuine, as this truly was Plagg’s first sleepover. Of course, his whole life had consisted in sleeping in different places that weren’t his home (the Miracle Box) but the concept of going to a friends house to eat food and gossip all night long was novel and exciting. 

“What curfew do you girls have?” Mrs. Lahiffe asked. 

“I have until 11,” beamed Alya. 

“I have to leave at 9,” Marinette pouted. “I have to help my parents in the bakery tomorrow.” 

It was also Ladybug’s solo patrol tonight, Plagg noted to himself. Kind of a saving grace, since Chat certainly wasn’t going to be on it. 

“I’ll be sure to count you both for dinner then!” Mrs. Lahiffe chirped. 

Adrien had been to Nino’s house a handful of times, all under the pretense of working on homework of course. And it wasn’t a house either, it was an apartment, like most residences in Paris. It was warm, not always clean, and the smell of their cat’s litter was just a hint in the air. 

Major Tom was a right good cat. An old gray tabby, who was far too wise for his own good. Plagg had met this family member in person, since the cat was still pretty curious in his age. 

As soon as the group of friends entered the apartment, Major Tom stretched and trotted toward them, toward Plagg, and rubbed against his leg. 

“Hi Tommy,” Plagg smiled, an inside joke passing between them. 

“I swear,” said Nino with defeat. “Major Tom likes you more than anyone else in this house...and you’ve barely met him.” 

Plagg just shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a pussy magnet.” 

“DUDE! My mom is right there!” 

Mrs. Lahiffe was not amused, but the furious giggling from behind him made it all worth it, he supposed.

“Sorry mom, Adrien’s going through a rebellious streak. He doesn’t usually make jokes like that.” 

“Yeah, sorry, Uh...I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.” 

Mrs. Lahiffe shook her head. “I noticed your outfit was rather...daring. Is that from your father’s new collection?” 

“Nope! This is a Marinette original!” 

Marinette smacked him in the arm. “I told you not to associate me with that abomination!” She turned to Mrs. Lahiffe and quickly clarified, “He designed it and I carried out the deed.” 

“Oh you kids are so funny!” She laughed. “Well, you didn’t come over to entertain me! Go have fun, I’ll get pizza around 6?” 

“Thanks mom!” 

“Thanks Mrs. Lahiffe!” 

On the way to Nino’s room, he asked. “What movie do you guys want to watch tonight?”

Plagg grinned, “Have you ever seen Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat?” 

—

Chapter is kind of short, but I have delayed it long enough, and sleepover shenanigans need their own chapter.

The song Plagg sang was ‘Close Every Door’ from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.

#ml #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #adrienette #chat noir #I'll handle this #fanfiction

[gotham-rat]

pandemic headcanon time!

dick

by the sixth day, dick was starting to lose his mind in his apartment, and thought, “fuck it, I’m quarantining at the manor” so he showed up, in the same ratty t shirt and board shorts he’d been wearing for a week. alfred just sighed and opened the door for him to come in. he managed to dig up his robin themed fidget spinner he’d bought years ago, and constantly flicks it around. he’ll do anything to avoid the slightest boredom: walks on his hands, flips over anything he can, the smaller the space the better. he hasn’t had a vacation or break in years. he’s not used to do doing nothing. he hates it. every fiber of his being wants to punch someone in the face just to feel something. he decides the best way to quell the boredom is to pester his siblings. it’s gotten so bad that now, if he enters a room full of them, they’ll all scatter faster than he can blink.

damian

he’s an animal crossing quarantiner. you can fight me on this. and he has a weird obsession with red’s fake art. in fact, he’s picked up painting as something to fill time and will replicate the fake famous paintings. bruce thinks it’s the cutest thing in the world, and when damian throws his paintings away after finishing (he doesn’t care about them that much) bruce always swipes them and hangs them up and tweets about it. damian also is a little bit on the germ-freak side. not a lot, but the situation makes him uncomfortable. if anyone has to go outside he insists on masks and bringing hand sanitizer and staying at least seven feet apart. otherwise he’s been pretty chill.

bruce

bruce, like dick, doesn’t like being cooped up but can at least function. his kids have noticed that he spends just a little too much time on twitter nowadays though. he likes playing games at dinner like “would you rather”, but always takes it so seriously that no one else can really enjoy them. he’s slowly falling out of his work out routine. he ate cheese puffs for the first time because of jason. he hasn’t had time to read a book for fun in years, and now he’s going through stacks of them. he takes them out of tim’s room or orders them online. he’ll sit outside or in his office and read for hours. the cutest thing is when tim and bruce have both read the same one and they talk about. they’ll have full discourse about characters and plot points and arcs and sometimes even get into arguments. it’s pretty entertaining to watch.

tim

tim is, well, he’s definitely found a way to spend his time. if you walk into his room you’ll find three different boards tacked up on the walls. newpaper cutouts and prints and pictures pinned with red string on each of them. he hacked into the gcpd database and is pulling out a whole bunch of cold cases. he’s literally already solved one and called the victim’s family about it. out of all of them he’s probably broken the lockdown rules the most because his cases have required him to sometimes go out and look for people, places, etc. but he does most of it remotely. he stays in his room when he’s not working on a case, only emerging for coffee or a seriously needed melatonin. he’s trying to fix up his sleep schedule a little bit, but it’s not really working. he’s resolved to having at least one randomly placed nap in the day, which is better than constantly staying up.

steph

steph got the fuck out of gotham. as soon as word was spreading about a possible lockdown, she hugged them all goodbye and booked a cheap flight to california. she knows some people there and is currently quarantining with them. they have a beach house and everyday she’s outside: swimming, tanning, surfing, snorkeling. she’s embraced it fully as a well deserved break. and lord knows she needed it. she’s constantly facetiming the others, and making fun of them for being stuck in bleary gotham.

cassie

no one sees her, except when she comes out to swipe some snacks. at this point bruce isn’t really sure if she’s actually staying at manor. in reality, she is, she just sleeps a lot, or climbs out the window and onto the roof to chill. she sketches and sketches, having already filled up three notebooks since quarantine started. alfred is the only one who knows she sneaks out onto the roof. he doesn’t say anything. sometimes she’ll sleep up there and take pictures of the moon and stars and sunrise cause she likes something pretty to look at when she’s sad. her current thing is binge watching shows. she’s pretty obsessed with a few ones on netflix. she tends to hyperfixate on a few characters for a while before moving to others.

barbara

barbara is not at the manor. she’s staying in her own apartment but is rarely there. she volunteers anywhere she can. she sets up signs at the gotham hospital to thank workers, she lends a hand to the gcpd a lot when they’re short on staff and need help. she shuts lockdown protests tf down on social media. because of how big her platform is on twitter, she uses it to post updates and information and just keep everyone well informed. she’s the only batfam member who contracted corona with serious symptoms, but that was in march and she’s tested negative for it now. recently she ordered specific masks for everyone in the family, including alfred ofc, and sent it to them as gifts. when she’s not out volunteering or helping, she stress bakes. a lot. it’s all recipes she actually learned from bruce and she safely hands out her sweets to essential workers.

alfred

he has abandoned all responsibilities. the waynes can clean up their own damn messes. he literally just chills, checks on cassie, plays the occasional board game with dick. sometimes he does leave just to drive around fairly empty gotham. he doesn’t get out of the car and still wears a mask so it’s all safe but it’s just to relax for a bit. he’s also invested pretty heavily into some podcasts.

jason

jason is having a breakdown. he keeps spray sunscreen by his bedside, so when he’s sad he can spray it into the air and get a whiff of it for seratonin, softly whispering “beach” to himself when he does. he has stubble climbing over his face, mismatched socks, and is in the most need of a haircut. he’s always falling asleep on the couch, the kitchen floor, by the pool. he keeps trying to make food (and he sucks at cooking) and has almost cut off his fingers everytime. now he has three bandaids on his right hand and two on his left. one’s normal, another is pokémon, there’s a lightning mcqueen one, a bright pink one, and another is batman themed. now he just tosses something, anything into the microwave and consumes it mindlessly. he doesn’t know the time, or what day it is. he likes to float face down in the pool until someone comes out and says “jason, it’s time to get out before you die” and he grudgingly does so, only to go and lie face down in the living room for a while.

#batfamily headcanons #batfam headcanons #batfam #batman #dick grayson #jason todd #batfamily #bruce wayne #damian wayne #dc universe #incorrect batfamily quotes #gotham #stephanie brown #cassandra cain #barbara gordon #catwoman #joker #harley quinn

[mrs-hatake]

train station shenanigans (1)

A/N: Helloooooo everyone!

As promised, here’s the first chapter/intro of the aizawa x reader fic based on my work life! This is 90% Self Indulgent so just a heads up!

Anyways, enjoy! :D

Ps, not proof read!

Se no!

Demo sonnan ja dame mou sonnan ja hora.

You groaned in protest at the sound of your alarm that blared under your pillow. With your eyes still closed, you slid your hand under your pillow and fished out your phone to quickly tap the stop function. The white numbers of the clock read half past seven in the morning. You let out a whine and cursed the day you applied for a job.

Once you had convinced yourself to stay awake and ignore the sweet calls of slumber, you unlocked your phone and checked your notifications. After spending about fifteen minutes on twitter, you chucked your phone behind on your bed and pushed yourself upwards. You yawned loudly as you stretched your limbs. Lazily, you exited your bedroom and slowly went down the stairs so as to not awaken your mother and baby brother.

Today was your first day back to work after the mandatory lockdown due to the spread of the new virus. Having a break from work was wonderful as you were able to spend more time with your family. It sucked that everything was closed and you weren’t going to lie, it was stressful seeing the death tolls on the news, but you had fun at home. And now that things had finally calmed down in Japan, it was time to return to work.

Despite your whines from earlier, you were honestly looking forward to work. It was fun being at home, especially when you had so much free time to binge watch all of your favorite shows, but that could be entertaining for so long before it lost its charm.

With a soft hum of some random song, you worked on making yourself breakfast. Nothing too fancy, just some frozen waffles that you shoved down the toaster and then later drizzled caramel on top. You moaned at the fluffy texture in your mouth, and briefly, you were reminded of your days in school. When it was the first day and your mother would be up early and making breakfast for you. You missed those days. Life was much simpler back then. You wondered if your baby brother missed the lively atmosphere while getting for school or not. When you swallowed the last piece of waffle, you washed the dish and utensils that you’ve used before heading back upstairs to shower and get ready for work.

You decided to wear a simple yellow sundress for work. The best thing about the company you worked in wasn't being strict with the clothes you wore. As long as they were modest and family friendly, they found no reason to implement a strict dress code. Your senior coworkers decided to stick with the traditional attire of dark colored business suits. As much as you loved black, you didn’t want to wear the dark color every single day.

After you finished dressing up, you applied light mascara and let your dark green, almost black, curly locks gently rest on your shoulders. Spraying some lavender scented perfume, you texted your mother that you were off to work. But not before you snuck into your brother’s room, brushed back his dark green curls and pecked his forehead.

It was strange seeing the normally crowded streets of Musutafu be so desolate. The vast streets that were once filled with cars, almost resembling a parade with its colors and soft purrs of the motors, only had four or five cars on each lane. It was almost unnerving how quiet the streets of Musutafu were. But no matter, at least now you didn’t have to worry about traffic. Sure, you took the bus to work, though it was still frustrating to be trapped in the middle of traffic while freaking out over being on work on time. Not that you ever had been late. You always managed to show up at least twenty minutes earlier than the intended time.

The smell of bleach and lemon wafted through your nose once you stepped foot into the modestly sized train station. Just like the streets of Musutafu, the train station was just as desolate. The buzz of passengers sizzled out to soft mummers. The sea of people shrunk to a puddle. And the cheery atmosphere became somber. It was depressing. Though that didn’t deter you. With your head held high, you went straight to your office that you would normally share with five other people. Due to the new government rule, however, employees who weren’t supervisors, managers or ceos will take shifts and return to work every other day. Meaning you only had to work with three other people today.

“Good morning, Y/N.” Was the first thing that greeted your ears when you opened your office door.

Your boss was...unorthodox. He had long wavy hair that he would put up in a messy bun. Grey circles could be seen under his eyes and a soft stubble peppered his chin and upper lip. If you could describe your boss, then you would use the adjectives: grumpy and sleep deprived.

“Good morning, Aizawa-san.” You replied with a smile. Though, at the remembrance of wearing a mask that was way too big for you and covered most of your face, you dropped the smile. Aizawa said nothing, only nodded his head and continued to type away on his computer.

As you sanitize your workstation and logged into your computer, your supervisor Yamada Hizashi, walked in and bellowed “Gooooooood morning my little ducklings!” You heard Aizawa groan under his breath and tried not to chuckle at his misery.

Aizawa and Yamada were childhood friends and coworkers. It baffled you at first when Nemuri, your co-supervisor, had mentioned it in passing. The two were extremely different. While Yamada was the bright sun on a summer’s day that humans longed for after a long and miserable winter, Aizawa was the moon that people sung praises to with his mysterious aura and charming personality. After working with them for a month, however, you could see how the two were best friends. They balanced each other out perfectly and would always bring out the best side of the other person.

“Must you be so loud so early in the morning.” It wasn’t meant to be a question but Yamada answered anyway.

“Yes, I must bless everyone with my beautiful voice.”

If he wasn’t in a work environment, you were certain that Aizawa would have smacked his head on his desk to end his misery.

A peaceful silence settled upon you and you awkwardly shifted in your seat. Neither Aizawa nor Yamada had instructed you with anything to do and you were starting to feel antsy. Just as you were about to excuse yourself to walk around the station, maybe get some fresh air, Aizawa cleared his throat and called your name. You sat up straighter in your chair and locked your eyes with his.

“Write a letter to the Council of Train Stations to approve the extension of payment fees deadline.” Instructed Aizawa before returning to face his computer.

Blinking twice, You wrote down what he said in your notebook and began working on the letter.

You worked in the administrative department of the train station. The company you worked with, All Might Train Station Management, was infamous in maintaining and developing the station. From managing stores, adding holiday decorations to conducting safety measures and promoting the best image of the station, those were among the many things that you will deal with for the next eight months.

Once you have submitted your letter, you inform Aizawa. Who just hummed at you in return, too absorbed in his own work.

This went on for two hours. Aizawa would ask you to write a letter, you wrote it down on your note and then typed it on your computer and submitted it. Sometimes, you would have to contact other employees from other departments to forward you files that you had to attach to your letters. It was stressful, but not unmanageable.

It was around twelve in the afternoon when Aizawa excused himself to meet with the president of the company, Toshinori Yagi. Shortly afterwards, Yamada also left the office to God knows where. A habit of his that you envied but would never actually do. Yamada had been working two years at the company so he had the privilege to take a break from work and wander around. Maybe someday you could do it too, but for now, You’re stuck in your office.

Noticing that none of them were returning any time soon, You took your wallet and made your way to the mini market for a cold beverage and some snacks. You didn’t want to eat lunch at work - not that you can anyways since the staff room was under maintenance - but you were starting to get hungry and you couldn’t work to the best of your potential with an empty stomach.

When you returned to your office, you spotted Aizawa back at his desk. Yamada was nowhere in sight. Quietly, so as to not disrupt your workaholic of a boss, you sat down on your chair and opened your bag of chocolate animal crackers and stabbed the straw into your mango juice box.

“You look like you’re in elementary school.”

Your head shot upwards at Aizawa’s comment and could feel your cheeks flushing with warmth and you were positive that they had turned a bright red color.

“Would you like some?” You blurted and instantly winced. It was no secret that you were an awkward person by nature and tended to blurt things out or ramble on when nervous. You tried improving that aspect of yourself at work, not wanting to embarrass yourself at work like you did in college. You wanted to be professional and taken seriously. But it was proving to be a challenge.

Aizawa appeared to be contemplating your offer, half distracted by whatever it was displayed in front of him on his computer. “Sure, why not.” He eventually replied with a shrug of his shoulders.

Your heart beat in anticipation as you stood up and crossed the short distance between your desk and his. Your hand held out the yellow bag of animal shaped chocolate crackers and watched as Aizawa dipped his hand and fish out two crackers; a panda and an elephant. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Your reply was soft, almost a squeak. Aizawa just hummed in response and returned to type away at his keyboard. You briefly toyed with the idea of being as busy Aizawa, to the point of being unaware of your surroundings.

The rest of the day went uneventful. Aizawa didn’t ask you to write any letters and Yamada didn’t return to the office until half an hour before work ended. The loud blonde asked Aizawa if he wanted to join him for lunch later and you held your breath at what your boss was going to reply, the thought of him living a normal life outside of these four walls was almost unimaginable. “Yeah, sure.” Ah, to see Aizawa in a casual setting, a privilege that you have to work very hard for.

When it was two in the afternoon, you turned off your computer, signed your name on the attendance sheet and bid farewell to your colleagues.

“Goodbye, my little duckling!” You heard Yamada say behind you while Aizawa grunted a quiet ‘bye’.

#aizawa x reader #aizawa imagine #aizawa scenario #aizawa x you #bnha imagine #bnha x reader

[englandsgray]

Sherlolly Self-Interviews 2020

Well hi 👋

Ignoring the internal image of Gilderoy Lockheart smiling smugly while flashbulbs pop and saying ‘In my autobiography, Magical Me...’ 🙈😆 I shall take the opportunity of this lovely event to introduce myself as a writer of Sherlolly fanfiction on AO3...

I am English and somewhere over 30.  I watched the show as it aired, and lost my heart as quickly to Molly Hooper as to Sherlock Holmes.  The kiss is British television history.  Series 4 is my favourite.  Moriarty on the beach is life.  The Holmes brothers break my heart every time.

I am extremely lucky to have been provided some questions to answer here by @ohaine and @mybrainrots - huge, huge love and thanks to these two lovelies, and not just for this.  I admire you both so much as writers, and your support means the world to me ❤️ Thanks too, to @sherlollyappreciationweek!

Where did you begin to write, and have you written for other fandoms?  I wrote my first fanfic when I was eleven years old - a 100 page ramble about The Monkees.  Oh yes.  Then in 2018, I fell for the characters of the Disney Pixar film Cars and began writing and publishing.  So far so random!  Writing in this fandom sprang from binge-watching all four series of Sherlock during lockdown.  I remembered reading Louise Brealey talking about being disappointed Molly didn’t get chance to ‘roundly kick Sherlock’s arse’ and agreeing with her wholeheartedly.  That, over a few weeks, turned into my first fic - Who You Really Are.  

You’re a recent (and welcome!) arrival to the Sherlolly ship, and I was wondering if writing in an established, less active than it used to be fandom has been a challenge?   Thank you, firstly.  My experience of this fandom has been incredibly positive - the sense of welcome has been wonderful.  I will admit I was terrified posting the first fic - there are hundreds of times more stories posted daily in the Sherlock fandom as in the one I had some experience of.  But I needn’t have worried, it’s been a blast.  I will also admit, that it’s no small thing to be surrounded by such brilliant writing and the long-standing passion which goes with it.  But I find that inspiring in itself, and I’m very glad to be here - how supportive the fandom are makes me feel like I always have been!       

What’s your favourite place and way to write?  My aesthetic is Lin-Manuel Miranda in his in-law’s laundry room 🤣 I wrote my first ten-thousand words on the notes app on my phone before my other half told me to stop being ridiculous!  I switch between the laptop, my phone and longhand (I’m a sucker for a nice notepad and a Uni-Ball Eye) and, more often than not, not sat up properly at a table.   

Since you’ve (done something I’ve never managed successfully and) written a novella length fic... how did you organise/keep track of all the details and where you wanted the story to go?  Did you outline/plot in advance?  First of all - I would love to see a novella length fic from you @mybrainrots!  The final scene of Who You Really Are came to me very early on and I knew I wanted the fic to fit within TFP - a lot of it takes place in the timeframe of the final montage.  At first, it was going to be much more about Sherlock’s relationship with the ideas of sentiment and love (the phrase ‘I’m not sentimental about you, I love you,’ haunted me for a while) and I spent some time researching the psychology and playing with scenes from throughout the series - one of my favourites I didn’t go on to use was inspired by the final scene of THoB.  Using scenes from the canon gave an automatic structure, and I was always aiming for the final one I wrote early on - the two of them on the beach (everything is about the beach, with me!)  As I went along and started, inevitably, to slow down, I mapped out the chapters with a short note of what I wanted to be in each, then would add notes or phrases as they came to me - often emailed from my phone!  I had to force myself through a tricky section set in Baker Street at one point, but it came together in the end.  I did plot The Pathologist’s Skeletons on paper first, as I found with a casefic which remains a WIP, that I can get confused and lose focus when it comes to details and how to reveal them in a way which stays paced and interesting.  I’ll certainly do that from now on with longer stories and cases.  How did you keep up enthusiasm for the work?  I want to write an original novel, so I am forcing myself to work through the knotty bits and blocks as a learning experience.  Not everything is destined to be finished or finessed, of course, but I’m finding this process is building my confidence that I can overcome problems and slow periods.  I also find I know when I need some external inspiration - some of my favourite scenes have come to me while out walking the dog or sitting on the beach.  I’ve also been inspired by books or other series or things going on in the world, as we all are, and sometimes that’s pushed me on.  Plus, of course, I’m a newbie - I’m very much in the honeymoon period of my writing, even though I’ve loved Sherlock for ten years! (Ten years! Bonkers.) 

You’ve got a knack for writing Sherlock’s thoughts and capturing his voice.  That said, which character do you find easiest to write?  Which is the hardest?  Thank you so much.  I absolutely love writing Sherlock and Mycroft, and I’m sure that’s because they suit my somewhat over-the-top writing style!  I find Molly and her POV really difficult.  I want the scenes I write from her perspective to sound completely different to Sherlock, but that means writing in a style which doesn’t come as naturally to me.  I’m a long way off happy with that at the moment, but I’m enjoying the challenge.

Is there a scene or character that specifically inspired you to start writing Sherlolly?  The whole of TFP, but especially from the moment Sherlock arrives at Musgrave onwards.  I am desperate to see what a Sherlock Holmes who has been reacquainted with his own heart would look like.  I find his emotionality in those final scenes hugely compelling (Mycroft’s office is one of my favourite moments from across all four series) and, as I have always believed in him and Molly, I practically jumped up back in May after watching it and said ‘right, where’s my notebook?!’.

There’s a lovely peaceful, quiet feeling to your fic ‘We’re All Right At The Moment’.  Can you tell us what inspired it and if you’ve thought of doing the backstory that goes with it?  Thank you!  Like everyone, I would go back to January of this year and start again in a heartbeat, but I am hugely fortunate to be able to say that I have a lot to be grateful to the UK lockdowns for.  I might never have begun writing in this fandom otherwise, for one, and I have had a brilliant time so far and met some lovely people. Honestly, I don’t feel able to do any sort of justice in my writing to what has happened in the world in any broader sense than drawing on my own experiences of staying at home and enjoying my family.  This particular super-short fic sees Molly cutting Sherlock’s hair at home in Baker Street.  I wrote it in the evening after I had cut my other half’s hair and had been reminding myself that despite how horribly worried I was - and still am - about everything, we were all right in that moment, and to focus on that as much as possible.  I wanted to try to capture that, if for no reason other than to look back on this entire experience and remember something lovely, so I am so pleased to hear you felt the fic did that.  It was only after I finished it and reread it, that I realised it is ambiguous as to whether Molly is worried about Sherlock contracting the virus, or whether she is remembering him being treated for it... As I say, I don’t think I could write more about these extraordinary circumstances - perhaps it’s just too close at the moment - so I don’t plan on extending it.  But you know how it is, the plot bunnies hop where they will... 

Do you have a Sherlolly music playlist?  What are your top five favs from the list? Here’s a run down of (6 🙊) songs I have been getting emotional over in the last little while, leading my brain to assign their significance to my favourite couple...

Kissing You - Des’Ree - It’s so 90′s, it’s a bit cheesy, it’s oddly disturbing.  It helped me write A Request, Made Properly, and that gave me an excuse to have Sherlock kiss Molly in the snow.

How Long Will I Love You? - Ellie Goulding - part of the playlist, but also in remembrance of a friend who passed away recently.  Life is very short, love is forever.

High and Dry - Jamie Cullum - It’s made me emotional for a very long time.  The original is my partner’s version of choice, this is mine.  

Think About You - Delta Goodrem - Okay, this one isn’t emotional, and it’s not my usual vibe!  Blame the zoom exercise class I do!  But oh my goodness, it’s Molly.  Bless her.

Blinded By Your Grace (P.T.2. F.T. MNEK) - Stormzy - One of the best ever, I reckon.  Spent an awful lot of time thinking about angels and demons, grace and what it takes to save someone, while writing my latest - The Pathologist’s Skeletons.  This has been in my head most of the (blimmin’) time!

Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding - I didn’t know I was a fan of Ellie until I wrote this list... I don’t subscribe to the theory that the love Molly wants or that which Sherlock has to offer is any lesser because it isn’t ‘normal’ or expected. I don’t think romantic entanglement would come easy to either of them. But it’s still love and it would be beautiful.

Thank you so much for reading.  Thanks and love to @ohaine and @mybrainrots. And thank you @sherlollyappreciationweek for the event and for everything you do ❤️

Feel like I should sign off with a quote from the show...

“You’re not a puzzle-solver, you never have been. You’re a drama queen!” Dr John Watson (Moffat & Gatiss) 2014 😜

X

A fav fic of mine by @mybrainrots

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7563193

A fav fic of mine by @ohaine

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10562904

My stuff:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglandsGray/works

#sherlolly #sherlollyselfinterview20 #sherlock #sherlockbbc #writing #fanfic #ao3 #ao3 author #read on ao3

[mmheadcanons]

Mysmes boys in quarantine/ lockdown!!:

(I will do one with an xreader typa thing after ^^)

Saeyoung/ Seven: Didn’t notice the difference in the beginning, as he only ever went outside to get some measly microwave meals or more Dr. Pepper, or getting Honey Buddha Chips from his warehouse. Now has a strong urge to go outside more regularly, but is staying safe and telling everyone to wear masks in the messenger. (He definitely has rewash-able ones with cool fucking designs on them) Feels down every so often but is glad to know that the RFA is there for him. (They’ve been watching out for Seven as much as they can, although try to make it as unobvious as they possible.) Has made a few different robot companions, and usually spends most of his day watching conspiracy theories and discussing them with Yoosung.

Yoosung: Has been shut inside for longer than ever. Barely goes out, although every so often his mum comes over with some groceries, to make sure he’s okay. He’s been missing his family a lot, which surprised him. Is almost top of the world leaderboard in LoLoL, and barely gets any sleep. Has coped better than anyone else in the RFA, and has been watching out for them and telling everyone to look after themselves. Has been eating better, however, as he had to use the groceries he had been sent somehow. He is getting better at cooking.

Jumin: Has been really busy at the office trying to deal with C&R’s profit loss, and has reassured everybody that nobody will be losing their jobs, and that rent will decrease- not stop altogether, as they still need to be making some money, but the company is being very generous with this, too, giving extended amounts of time to get money, sometimes stopping from asking for rent, in special cases. Has been really worried about Elizabeth, as there was news about a cat in another country getting the virus. Has been making sure she’s extra safe, healthy, and comfortable. Lockdown took a bit of a toll on his mental health but going for a walk in his private garden helps sometimes. Always reminds the members to wear a mask and wash their hands.

Zen: Has been using social media more often, and social media interactions seem to have increased due to more people staying in and staying safe. Is upset about not being able to film and act as much, and is trying his best to maintain a healthy lifestyle while staying in as much as he can, although he finds it hard. He and Jumin have been bickering more often in the chat, and Seven once threatened to block them from using the messenger until they calmed down.

Jaehee: Has never wanted to work more in her life. She found it as a time to relax at the start, but would now do anything to start work again, even if it was something to do with a cat project. Has been helping Jumin out a lot with the company affairs, and has been making sure that the people living in the apartments have enough food and are feeling okay. She has picked up baking as a hobby, and has been binge-watching Zen’s DVDs- and, believe it or not- actually got bored while watching one, which caused her to feel rather odd.

V: Has used the time alone to reflect on his life, and has taken more photos in lockdown than in the past few months before it combined. Is able to log into the messenger more often and has grown closer to all of the members because of it. Has decided to be grateful for this time, and for the RFA, although he has had some really difficult days when he has been completely left to his thoughts.

Saeran: &&@£££”;””””::,,,,,’cxmmmmmmsmsmdmxxjjxjssjsjsjssjsdyysu222222222/&&&&&3&3””@

#mm #mysmes #mystic messenger #mysmess #jumin #jumin han #707 #seven zero seven #luciel choi #saeyoung choi #saeyoung #zen #zen ryu #hyun #hyun ryu #V #yoosung #yoosung kim #jaehee #jaehee kang #saeran choi #saeran #elizabeth the 3rd #elizabeth 3rd

[the-archlich]

I have opinions.

If we’re all being honest, there’s virtually no chance that the next Dynasty Warriors game will actually include anything after the fall of Shu (Zhong Hui’s revolt being a bit of an exception.) Since the story is often framed as the plucky heroes of Shu fighting the evil armies of Wei, most fiction doesn’t really care about the outcome after Shu has been defeated. But this war had another 15 years in the tank. What would that look like, and how might it be adapted for a DW style game?

As always, I have opinions.

You can read my articles about the conflict between Jin and Wu on my other blog. I planned to write more, but then the ZZTJ translations went on lockdown so we’ll stop with Wu’s end.

The Two Emperors: https://classicalamateur.wordpress.com/2019/11/09/the-two-emperors/

The War Against the North: https://classicalamateur.wordpress.com/2019/11/24/war-against-the-north/

The End of the Era: https://classicalamateur.wordpress.com/2020/02/08/end-of-the-era/

BATTLES

These are the major battles between Wu and Jin (and certain rebels), the ones that would be needed to finish the story of the era.

The Siege of Yong’an (264)

By spring of 264, Wei conquered Shu and Zhong Hui’s rebellion had been put down. The Sima had no more opposition within Wei, but Wu was still a danger. The Wu emperor Sun Xiu knew that if Wei (later Jin) controlled all of Shu, Wu’s chances of survival grew dramatically slimmer. So he sent an army under Bu Xie (later reinforced by Lu Kang) to capture whatever he could in Shu.

Yong’an controlled the passage between Jing and Yi. Although most of the military was led away from the city during Shu’s downfall, a small garrison remained under the command of a minor local officer named Luo Xian. Having just sworn loyalty to Wei he refused to let the Wu army pass. For six months he held off Bu Xie and Lu Kang. Eventually, Hu Lie led a flanking attack against Xiling (Bu Xie’s headquarters), which forced the Wu army to retreat. With the victory at Yong’an, Wei’s control over all of Shu was secured.

Over the next few months, things changed dramatically in Wei and Wu. Sun Xiu passed away and, after some complex maneuvers, was replaced by Sun  Hao as the new emperor. Sima Zhao passed away, leaving Sima Yan in charge of Wei. He soon dethroned Cao Huan and officially founded the Jin dynasty. For a short time, Sun Hao and Sima Yan made peace with each other, exchanging envoys and making diplomatic overtures.

The Battle of Niutun (266)

While Sun Hao was initially popular with his ministers, this popularity faded quickly due to his cruelty, superstition, and other undesirable traits. In winter of 266, a mountain bandit named Shi Dan kidnapped Sun Hao’s brother Sun Qian and marched on Jianye, intending to enthrone Sun Qian as the new emperor. At the time, Sun Hao had relocated the capital to Wuchang and left Zhuge Ding and Ding Gu in charge of Jianye. These two intercepted Shi Dan at Niutun, where they defeated him. This was a minor rebellion but an excellent way to introduce Zhuge Jing and show resentment building against Sun Hao.

Sun Hao’s Campaign (268)

Although Sun Hao and Sima Yan conducted diplomatic relations with each other, this peace broke apart in winter of 268, when Sun Hao launched a large invasion of Jin. He sent Shi Ji (son of Zhu Ran) to attack Jiangxia (likely the city of Shiyang) while Chancellor of the Righ Wan Yu marched on Xiangyang. Meanwhile, Ding Feng was sent to besiege Hefei while Sun Hao personally led an army against Shouchun. Sima Wang was sent to reinforce Hu Lie in Jing while Shi Bao commanded the defenses in Yang along with Sima Jun.

Sima Wang and Hu Lie defeated Wan Yu easily enough, forcing Shi Ji’s retreat as well. Ding Feng met with no success at Hefei and conducted relatively peaceful negotiations with Shi Bao to arrange a border instead. Having won in Jing, Sima Wang then marched east to intercept Sun Hao, who was quickly forced to retreat.

This was a significant campaign. It was broad in scope and was the last significant offensive Wu ever initiated.

The Jiao War (268-271)

During this time, a second war raged in the far south. This conflict began in 264, when Wu’s executor of Jianzhi was killed by a subordinate who defected to Wei. The neighboring commanderies of Jiuzhen and Ji’nan also submitted to Wei. Sima Zhao appointed the former Shu official Huo Yi over these territories. Shortly after this Sima Yan and Sun Hao made peace, so Jin (at the time Wei) temporarily held these territories. But when peace broke down, war over the  southern regions resumed.

Initially the campaign went poorly for Wu. The commander of Wu’s southern armies, Xiu Ze, was unsuccessful in his attempts to retake the lost territories and was killed in battle at Gucheng late in 268. Jin was able to expand its sphere of control, claiming Yulin as well as a foothold in Hepu. Additional armies were sent under one Xue Xu to reestablish control throughout 269 and 270 but these efforts met with no success.

This changed in 271 when Xue Xu’s subordinate Tao Huang defeated and killed Jin’s commander in Jiuzhen. He then defeated Jin’s largest army in Jiaozhi (probably at Longbian). On the back of this momentum, Tao Huang quickly overcome the remaining Jin forces and secured the submission of local leaders, bringing the south once again under Wu’s control.

The Tufa Rebellion (270)

In 269, Sim Yan created Qin province in the northwest and appointed Hu Lie as its inspector. In 270, a Xianbei leader named Tufa Shujineng led a rebellion against Jin in the province. At the time, all of the northwest was under the command of Sima Liang, an uncle of Sima Yan. He sent Hu Lie to defeat the rebels and ordered a subordinate named Liu Qi to advance as well. However Liu Qi refused to advance, leaving Hu Lie isolated. He was subsequently killed in battle with Shujineng.

Sima Liang was blamed for this failure and stripped of office. Du Yu was appointed as the new inspector to replace Hu Lie but ran into conflict with Sima Liang’s replacement. He was accused of false charges and sent to the capital for trial; meanwhile Sima Liang’s replacement attacked the Tufa and was defeated. Sima Jun replaced him.

The rebellion spread in the next year. The tribes in Beidi (Liang province) joined the Tufa rebellion. The local inspector led an army against them but was defeated and killed at Mount Qing. Meanwhile, a large group of Xiongnu revolted as well, under the leadership of one Liu Meng. He was less successful than the Tufa and suffered a loss in Bing province in winter of 271. In spring of the next year, he was defeated again, this time by Hu Fen - Hu Lie’s brother. One of Liu Meng’s subordinates assassinated him and surrendered. Although the Xianbei remained in revolt, the Xiongnu were temporarily suppressed.

The Battle of Xiling (272)

In autumn of 272, internal conflict in Wu led to one of the last major battles of the period. Bu Chan, who controlled Xiling, defected to Jin. Yang Hu led Jin’s armies to assist him, while Lu Kang commanded Wu’s counter-attack.

Lu Kang quickly moved to surround Bu Chan at his main fortress, but he didn’t lay siege immediately. Instead he built fortifications of his own and prepared to repel the Jin troops. Meanwhile Yang Hu advanced on Jiangling, hoping to force Lu Kang to withdraw to defend it. Lu Kang destroyed a nearby dam to flood the area, slowing Yang Hu’s advance. Meanwhile, Jin’s main force arrived at Xiling but Lu Kang was able to drive them away. Lu Kang was then able to besiege Xiling at will, and he took it quickly. Yang Hu was unable to overcome Jiangling and, with Bu Chan killed and Xiling in Lu Kang’s hands, he retreated.

This was a major victory for Wu, especially when coupled with their success in Jiao and Jin’s losses in the northwest. This was a bleak time for Jin, when it seemed like they suffered losses everywhere despite the strength of their state. However, matters would ultimately turn in their favor. The next several years saw deep political divides in both states, resulting in numerous deaths. However, these events don’t work well in a DW style game and are best discussed elsewhere.

The Battle of Wuwei (276-278)

In 276, Sima Jun was given expanded authority over the northwest to deal with the Tufa revolt. He was assisted by Wen Chu, son of Wen Qin. In 277 they led a series of skirmishes against the Xianbei rebels, earning Jin’s first victories over the Tufa. In 278, however, the Inspector of Liang province led soldiers of his own against the rebels but failed. The local tribes of his army rejected his authority, and he was killed by Tufa Shujineng’s forces in battle at Wuwei. So despite the victories earned by Sima Jun and Wen Chu, the rebellion continued. Tufa Shujineng began plundering Liang, with no one seemingly able to stop him.

In 279, a commander of the palace guards named Ma Long was sent to Liang to do battle with the Tufa. He fought a series of skirmishes against the Xianbei as he marched across Liang, with his superior weaponry generally proving victorious. Ma Long eventually fought his way to Wuwei, where he and Tufa Shujineng fought a climactic final battle. Ma Long was victorious and Shujing was executed. So the rebellion that terrorized the northwest for a decade finally came to an end.

The Fall of Wu (279-280)

In winter of 279, Sima Yan ordered Jin’s armies to conquer Wu. This was a massive campaign best broken into two different phases. First, Jin’s armies secured control over Jing province. This consisted of several armies led by Hu Fen, Du Yu, and one Wang Rong attacking key points in Jing, including Xiakou, Jiangling, and Wuchang. Meanwhile, a man named Wang Jun (who gained fame after defeating a minor rebellion in Yi province) led a large naval force down the Great River, smashing through Wu’s defenses. Many of Wu’s soldiers defected to Jin, and the local commanders were quickly defeated. Only a general named Wu Yan (who gained fame during the battle of Xiling) held out.

In the east, Jin’s armies were led by Sima Zhou and a general named Wang Hun. Sun Hao organized an army under Chancellor Zhang Ti, and the most prominent commander of this force was Zhuge Jing (who defeated the rebels around Jianye in 266 and fought at Hefei with Ding Feng in 268). Despite some initial success, they were defeated by Wang Hun’s subordinate Zhou Jun near Banqiao. Zhang Ti was killed in battle, while Zhuge Jing was able to fight his way free. As Jin’s forces continued to advance on Jianye, Sun Hao sent several more armies against them, but these commanders and soldiers quickly deserted. In the end, Wang Jun sailed into Jianye and Sun Hao surrendered, bringing an end to Wu and reuniting the land.

These eight battles describe the most important campaigns between 264 and 280, the lost years of the story. (Though you could probably get by without Niutun if need be.) While it misses the internal politics that devastated the courts of both states, that sort of thing doesn’t really work very well in Dynasty Warriors anyway.

CHARACTERS

Obviously there are ton of people I’d like to include, but I’m going to focus in on the ones who are a.) absolutely vital to this part of the story and b.) aren’t one-hit wonders (like Ma Long). Those who were important outside of this specific era get precedence.

Jin

Some of the existing Jin characters would still be around for parts of this narrative. Jia Chong and Wen Chu would be present throughout the whole thing, while Wang Yuanji and Sima Zhao would be around for some of the early parts.

Hu Lie. A hero of many battles, particularly prominent during the fighting at Shouchun and the conquest of Shu, as well as several major battles depicted here. It’s frankly strange that he isn’t included already.

Hu Fen. As above, Hu Fen served with distinction in several key battles: In Liaodong, at Didao, at Shouchun, against Liu Meng, and in the conquest of Wu. Again, it’s strange that he’s not already part of the cast.

Du Yu. An in-law of the Sima family, Du Yu was a major court figure. He was also a participant in Shu’s conquest, the fighting against the Tufa, and a primary commander in the conquest of Wu.

Sima Jun. He became an imperial attendant as a child (because he was close in age to Cao Fang) and later held several substantial positions in his family’s regime. He appears to have fought at Lake Chao and against Guanqiu Jian. He definitely fought against Sun Hao in 268 and several campaigns against the Tufa in the northwest.

Sima Wang. A major figure of the family. He held a series of minor appointments in his younger years and probably participated in his family’s operations against Cao Shuang and Guanqiu Jian. He was later transferred to the northwest, where he fought witn Jiang Wei. He helped repel Sun Hao in 268 and passed away not long after that.

Wu

Of the current cast, only Ding Feng would be around for any of this. And while I can’t begin to list every Wu character I’d want to add, the ones most important for this tale would be as follows.

Lu Kang. One of Wu’s last successful commanders. He served with distinction in several battles, especially at Shouchun. He was a major figure in all of Wu’s wars and politics during this last era, and his connection to existing characters like Lu Xun makes him an easy choice. (Plus, one time in ROT3K VIII he and I fought the whole world together and won. That’s my boy.)

Zhuge Jing. In some ways the lone survivor. Son of Zhuge Dan, he was a significant general in Wu, fighting in most of their important conflicts at the end.

Bu Chan. It’s a little hard to pin down his exact career, but we can assume he was involved in all the fighting in Jing. His defection triggered a conflict that was too significant to ignore.

Wu Yan. A hero at Xiling and one of the last Wu commanders left standing. The Wu narrative needs someone like him to help bring it to a close.

Tao Huang. The conqueror of the south. Although he doesn’t have much relevance outside of that, this is Dynasty Warriors so it’s easy enough to justify him in battles in the north before that, and to have him show up in the final campaign. Another survivor of Wu’s end; with Zhuge Jing and Wu Yan he gives the faction enough people to finish the tale.

There are tons of others I could mention but these are the ones I consider the strongest and most important candidates. With these characters and these battles, you can tell the final chapter of the story and actually bring it to a close in a way that makes sense.

#dynasty warriors

[my18thcenturysource]

An Update

I hope everyone is taking care of themselves and their loved ones. Remember to be alert don’t anxious!

Some people are in lock down, some social distancing, and some just being careful while reducing activities to the most necessary ones, depending on where are you all located.

Here in Mexico City, social distancing is barely suggested, the government are doing practically nothing (because we’re going in phases, apparently, but also not testing patients, so who knows how many people are already sick). Several private offices are already sending their employees to work from home, but government ones are not. I’m a little scared for my parents because they’re both over 60 and apparently immortal (in their minds), and of course they’re not following suggestions. I guess they won’t get scared until everything is closed. So, there’s that.

Anyway, for everyone who is in lockdown or working from home, please do not get anxious while isolated. You can always send me asks, or suggestions, etc. But I was thinking, do you wanna watch something together? I guess we can do that? I mean, watch a movie and comment it through chat (does the tumblr-chat-thingy work for this? Or do we need some other tool?), that will very likely be chaotic but fun! I was thinking maybe something like Marie Antoinette or something that’s available on Netflix worldwide? I don’t know.

Let me know if you like that idea and let’s look for options!

Also, here a list of things to watch (mainly on YouTube and available for everyone), from useful information to just random stuff to improve your humour:

Dr Mike on YouTube have been updating about the Coronavirus for a while, and his short and nice videos have key information to be prepared but also not afraid, so here’s that playlist.

Last Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight is a followup of a previous episode about the pandemic, so if you haven’t seen that, you can now: first video, new video.

For all updates about Corvid-19, don’t let fake news pass and take a look at the WHO website. From the last news, to the FAQs.

Enjoy some short live performances from some of (surely) your favs but also discover new music through these playlists: the NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts and La Blogothèque’s A Take Away Show. From Jack White to Lizzo and Natalia Lafourcade and Yo Yo Ma. There’s so much music you’ll enjoy! Play while working, or cleaning, or drawing, or just watch the videos :)

Maybe you enjoy true crime and the supernatural? Have a Buzzfeed Unsolved marathon.

Maybe you’re into science and learning! Check out Vsauce (and 2 and 3 too), Veritasium, and It’s Ok To Be Smart.

Are you into ballet and there are no classes for a while? Joy Womack, Kathryn Morgan, Claudia Dean, Evgeniya Obraztsova, Holistic Ballet, and several others on Instagram, have you covered.

Is this the time for a marathon of Who Do You Think You Are? I think it is.

Have you seen 24 Hours In The Past? Well, take a non romantic view on the Victorian age. 4 episodes, all on YouTube.

All kinds of documentaries! From Jane Austen to Anne Boleyn or the Plantagenets. Please link yuor favourite ones so we all can watch them too!

YouTube is a wild place, so here some of my favourite channels with a lot of great content for all tastes: Watcher, James Veitch, Corridor Crew, Ask a Mortician,  Lessons From The Screenplay, Look Mum No Computer,  The Feels, The Take.

And finally some history-and-fashion-and-DIY: Karolina Zebrowska, Prior Attire, Christine McConnell, Townsends, The Crewel Work Company, Rachel Maksy, the Netherlands Bach Society.

Some comedies you can binge on Netflix or any other platform, that I personally enjoy and think everyone should watch: Brooklyn 99, The Good Place, Parks and Recreation, The Office (UK and US! enjoy both!), Horrible Histories, Ghosts, Limmy’s Show, Black Books...

This was way longer than expected.

Now, do not forget to add your favs, and let me know what do you think about a digital get-together and watch some films!

#youtube #lockdown #social distancing #coronavirus #a LOT of content to watch #so please don't go mad #please take care #long LONG post

[winetae]

:: modern loneliness

⇨ prompt : android!hoseok x reader. 2205 words. drabble with a possible follow-up. it’s been 38 days since you’ve last seen and interacted with a living, breathing person and you’re slowly going insane.

.

[Week 1 of lock down.]

At first, you’re optimistic. 

Working from home comes with its own set of non-negligeable perks. Notably, no more commute time! No more squeezing in between sweaty men on the subway during rush hour just to get home. The new arrangement means that you’re no longer obliged to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to blow-dry your hair or meticulously put on makeup while stuffing a bagel into your mouth because you’re short on time. 

On Day 1 of quarantine, you roll out of bed and don’t even bother to change out of your pajamas. It’s quite the sight. Not that you care whether or not your hair looks like a bird’s nest or if there’s a small hole in your shirt. You’d gladly take your flannel pants and old university sweatshirt with the coffee stain by the collar over the rigid pencil skirt and stupid obligatory heels they force you to wear to the office. Ironing? You don’t know her. 

That’s not to say there aren't any inconveniences but as of now, the pros outweigh the cons. For one, you’re now allowed to add as much sugar into your coffee without susciting your coworkers’ judgement. You can blast angry rap songs while finishing your reports and no one will stop you. The list goes on. 

With all this newfound time on your hands, you have no more valid reasons to procrastinate. You start off by cleaning out the kitchen cabinets you’d been meaning to re-organize for months. Then you rearrange your wardrobe, dust off the top shelves of your bookcase that you usually skip over because no one can see them, and water the potted plants you’d been neglecting. 

It feels great to be so productive. Your friends tell you via FaceConnect that your productivity streak won’t last long, but you’re quick to shake off their doubts. 

“I’m a new me!” You insist when Mia’s laughter echoes around your empty apartment. “My life is back on track. I feel like a proper adult now that I’m not struggling so much to get everything done.”

“Sure,” she humors you. “Just don’t get upset when I tell you I told you so.”

.

[Day 8 of lockdown.]

Now that your apartment is cleaner than it’s ever been, you need to find other means of entertainment. According to the internet, now is the ideal time to learn a new language or acquire a new hobby, like crocheting or playing the guitar. But while it might be technically possible to learn a language, you’re definitely not an overachiever. You’re aware of your own limits. 

Today you try your hand at baking. To some it might not seem like a big deal. But for someone like you who solely uses the kitchen to boil ramyeon packets and chop the occasional vegetable, today’s venture into the world of cooking is the equivalent of a quantum leap. 

The molten lava cakes that come out of the oven 15 minutes later don’t look like the picture advertised in the online recipe. They don’t taste like how you’d expected, either. 

You try not to be too disappointed with your failed attempt. After all, it’s only your first try. Dry cakes aren’t that bad in comparison to the horrors that could have occurred. At least nothing is burnt and your oven is still intact. You’ll try again tomorrow with hopefully a little more success.

.

[Day 16 of lockdown.]

It turns out that baking is not for you. After numerous trials and errors you learn a few days later that you have no vacation to be a baker. You end up abandoning all attempts to acquire a new hobby and instead look for new ways to pass the time. 

Thankfully, your home server is offering free VOD for a limited amount of time, so you’re not short on distractions. You consume around half a dozen cult movies, the kind people always reference and quote without actually watching, before you finally begin crossing TV series off your to-watch list. 

You yawn. It’s 9 PM on a Saturday night and you’ve just finished binging the entire season of Tiger King. It’s the third show you’ve watched from start to finish since quarantine began and now you’re wondering whether you should start a fourth. 

“Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do,” you say before a grimace crosses your face. “Oh great... Now I’m talking to myself.” 

That can’t be a good sign, you think to yourself. How long has it been since you’ve last talked to someone? You used to call your parents every day but when there’s nothing new to report, the conversations become repetitive and dull. 

You should call Mia. Just to see how she’s doing.

.

[Day 24 of lockdown.] 

YOUR WEEKLY BASKET FROM FOODCONNECT HAS ARRIVED. ALL PURCHASES WILL BE ADDED TO YOUR MONTHLY EXPENSES CARD. REMINDER THAT DUE TO THE EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES, CONNECT CARDS ARE ALLOWED A 5000 EXCESS OVER FIXED LIMIT. TOTAL EXCESS HAS NOT YET BEEN REACHED.

.

[Day 38 of lockdown.] 

You’re browsing BH, hoping to restock your vitamins. Lately you’ve been feeling tired and mentally drained, despite your workload not being what it used to be. Why you’re so exhausted is a mystery you’ve yet to solve. In all logic, your energy level should be at an all time high now that you’re working less and spending all your free time lounging on the couch surfing the internet. 

According to the national health guideline, you’re supposed to be exercising an hour a day minimum in order for your body to remain in good condition. Your BODYCONNECT watch monitor beeps every hour to remind you that you haven’t completed the suggested activity. 

Ugh. 

You press the button on the side of the watch to turn the reminder off. It’s the fifth time you’ve had to silence it today but you can’t bring yourself to work up a sweat right this minute. You keep telling yourself that you’ll exercise later but like all things lately, later ends up being never. 

Come to think of it, this isn’t the first time you’ve caught yourself slacking off. Where did all your motivation during week 1 of lockdown go? You don’t even have the strength to do ten jumping jacks anymore; it’s like your bones belong to a person three times your age - feeble and brittle and threatening to break at a moment’s notice. 

LOW ON SEROTONIN? WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED. Flash promo over in 00:32:43! Limited offer while supplies last.

A bright yellow advertisement flashes on the top right corner of your screen. Intrigued, you follow the link without expecting much. The last thing you expect is to be brought directly to BH LAB’s homepage. 

“Um… I don’t think I have the budget for this…” You mutter under your breath and prepare to exit out of the page. 

Androids are usually employed by the government but the ones for sale to the general public are known to be exorbitantly expensive. 

A message reads: EXCLUSIVE 1 HOUR PROMO, 40% OFF YOUR FIRST PURCHASE. Click here for more details. Offer valid for new customers only. 

You pause and decide to click on the link. Looking around won’t hurt anyone, right? It’s not like you’ve decided to buy anything yet. 

The seven Dwellers available for sale are just as good looking as you expected them to be. Their unnaturally good looks and vibrant green eyes are what makes them easy to pick out from the crowd. 

You skim through each Dweller’s description. It seems that apart from the physical differences like their facial features and build, they each have their own specialty and characteristics. One of the best-selling models boasts the cooking ability of a 5-star chef, which you admit sounds very tempting since your skills with a knife are pathetic enough to make Gordon Ramsey cry. 

Another best-selling model specializes in...sex. You blink, your cheeks warming as you read over the model’s description (the “thick, vibrating cock that guarantees an orgasm every time!” comment makes you choke on your saliva). You can understand straight away why this particular model would be so popular. All of the models are pretty, but this one’s face doesn’t look like it’s from this world. Confinement would make anyone horny, and when promised a godly sex bot equipped with a vibrating dick, well…

Too bad you’re too tired these days to even think about having “mind-blowing sex for 5 hours straight.” Having such intense intercourse would probably make you pass out on the Dweller’s artificial cock, and there’s no way in hell you would want someone from CONNECT to intervene after receiving distressed signals from your body monitor. That would just be embarrassing. 

You’re about to exit out of the page, curiosity sated, when the last model catches your eye.

SEROTONIN BOOSTER. Low on energy? Feeling sad or depressed? Need a companion? 

This model is perfect for you! Model JHS is equipped with emotion sensors. They will fulfill your every need even when you’re not able to vocalize them. Stressed? They specialize in massages and are proficient in: Swedish massages, Aromatherapy, Shiatsu massages, Reflexology, among others. 

Personality : This model is energetic. They are very active and therefore requires a minimum 6 hours to recharge. They are extremely tactile and will easily engage in skinship such as hugs or holding hands. They are talkative and will hold passionate conversations with you about almost any subject. 

Likes : cleaning, working out

Dislikes : horror movies, strong smells

When reading the description, it feels they’re talking about a person rather than an android. You’re surprised to see that the Dwellers are programmed to have a certain personality that caters to specific needs because the only androids you’ve ever come across before are the government ones, and they’ve always been stoic and devoid of any distinguishing characteristic. 

It would be nice, you think, to have a companion. Someone you could talk to for real instead of through a pixelated hologram. As much as you enjoy your time alone, each passing day locked in your apartment makes you realize how much you long for a hug. You miss holding someone in your arms, feeling their heartbeat against your cheek and the rise and fall of their chest as they squeeze you back. 

Model JHS looks like he could fill that vacancy. Their smile is blinding, like they’re physically radiating sunshine through their expression alone. You don’t doubt their capacity to bring positive energy into your life. 

Before you can think twice about it you’re adding the model to your shopping cart. The site asks you if you want to pay more in order to customize them. For an additional fee, you’re able to tweak the Dweller’s personality or modify their physical attributes to your liking. You skip over the option. For one, you don’t have the funds to afford a vibrating dick enhancement and two, you’re more than satisfied with your Dweller as they are.

It’s not until you finish supplying all your information including your Connect Card details and shipping address that you realize what a monumental purchase you’re about to make and how empty your account will be by the end of it.

You stare at the price listed at the bottom of the screen and weigh your options. Even with the 40% reduction, it’s not a negligible sum. You could buy several models of the new Birkin bag you’d been saving up for with this money. 

Why purchase designer bags when you can’t even go out and use them? a voice argues. And - uh. Fair point. 

In any case, you’d have to stop shopping, eating out all the time and going on frivolous trips overseas. Not that you really have a choice, given the circumstances. 

You look at the laptop screen again. Are you seriously so touch-deprived that you’re willing to fork over that much money for a live-at-home android? Really? 

Fuck it. 

You click on [VALIDATE PAYMENT] before rationality has time to kick in and you change your mind again. Just as the screen changes and the new page loads, you feel your heart leap to your throat but it’s too late to back out now. 

PROCESSING ORDER …

...

CONGRATULATIONS! 

YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY ORDERED (1) DWELLER - JHS MODEL. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PURCHASE. 

(!) Your order is eligible for Instant Shipping (delivered to your door in 24 hours or less). 

(!!) Due to exception circumstances, your order might encounter delays. We are taking multiple steps to ensure the safety and hygiene of all products and shipments. For more information click here.

(!) All BH products are covered by a limited two-year warranty. Please refer to warranty details regarding your product in the Dweller E-HandBook, free for download here. Please register your product after purchase in order to qualify for future claims, returns, and support.

You expel the breath you’d been holding. Your father will throw a fit once he finds out you’ve blown all your money on a bot. The criticism is warranted.

What are you even supposed to say to defend yourself? You’ve bought a  Dweller on a whim while browsing for Vitamin C supplements.

Quarantine is really making you lose your goddamn mind, huh.

#blurb.txt #idk what to think of this tbh so i guess i'm just testing the waters?? if it's not too weird i'll write the rest #i really hesitated btwn jimin and hoseok dflkdjf it was a hard decision #drabble named after that lauv song

[scribblesandsnark]

“Days Gone Bye” (TWD 1.1)

There’s so much about “Days Gone Bye” that is well done – not least because it operates primarily on silence and visuals rather than the preachy dialogue that takes over down the road. (Yes, season 2, I’m looking at you.) That said, not gonna lie, it took me bloody ages to figure out where the opening scene falls in Rick’s post-hospital, pre-Atlanta adventures. (And when I say ages, what I really mean is it took me about six or eight times watching the episode. Ye gods.)

I feel like Rick might have lucked out in the apocalypse. He’s a cop, so there’s obviously a uniform to wear as he waltzes off into the unknown. What would you opt to put on if you were in his shoes and didn’t have a uniform to default to? (Personally, I’ve realised I have a serious lack of practical apocalypse shoes on hand. Although I’m inclined to think that my high heels would come in handy for breaking dead limbs and stomping in undead brains, so there’s that to consider.)

Burnt out and/or flipped cars are popular for set design in post-apo/dystopian TV and films, as are buildings with blasted out/shattered windows, but until fairly recently I’d always viewed them as sort of abstract decorations without really registering how they might get that way. Indeed, in earlier drafts I spent some time snarking about how the zompocalypse must infect people’s driving abilities (a terrifying thought considering the actual driving ability of your average non-zompocalypse-affected person) and, to quote myself,

Given the amount of fire damaged/cars upturned/miscellaneous damage inflicted on cars, you’d think that fcking flamethrowers and grenades and rocket launchers were being wielded by random Georgian citizens as they frolicked through the streets escaping the dead.

But this year [2020], between the port explosion in Beiruit, which flipped cars with the force of the blast and turned high rises into ghouls with hundreds of gaping mouths, and the fires in California, leaving burnt-out hulks in their wake, it’s really come home to me how easy and careless that kind of destruction can be – and how swiftly it can come to be seen as a norm. No flamethrowers or grenades necessary.

Even the empty streets and the silence we’re greeted with in this opening scene, as Rick drives down a barren street and walks through an abandoned campsite, now has more resonance since the 2020 lockdowns brought that apocalyptic empty street into reality. I don’t think I’d ever really thought to walk down the middle of a street before, because, you know, traffic – and yet for a time, when there were no cars on the road and people were hidden away in their homes, that became a new normal. There was a freedom in knowing you could walk in the middle of the road with almost no risk, because all normal rules had been suspended indefinitely. Why stick to the sidewalk when you know a car’s unlikely to drive through?

I guess apocalyptic fiction only ever seems apocalyptic and unimaginable until the real world catches up.

There are a lot of things I could say about this opening scene, aside from the great visceral pleasure of getting absorbed by the camera work, feeling one with Rick as we witness the destruction, the abandonment, the death… There’s a stillness that I wish we saw more of in the later episodes. The introduction of the little walker girl sets up Rick’s hope and his despair in a wonderful way. Having the first appearance and first death of a walker be a little girl in her jammies really shows us just how much the world has been turned on its head – Rick’s a police officer, whose job is to help people (ideally, at any rate), and the realisation that in this new world the only way to help is to kill those he used to protect sets up a(n albeit inconsistent) through-line for the rest of the series.

So yeah, I could wax lyrical about the excellent beginning of “Days Gone Bye” – but because I’m a snarky arsehole, I’m going to talk about the dead. And I’m going to do so with the caveat that while I’ve read some of the behind-the-scenes commentary etc., I am not actually a Walking Deadhead, and consequently do not have at my fingertips the reasons why certain production decisions were made.

There’s an oddity in the first…two seasons? when it comes to cars and the dead, in that there are a startling number of people who seem to have just…died, while in the driver’s seat of their cars. We see two clear examples in the opening scene, as Rick passes between two cars, facing opposite directions, each with their own definitely dead driver slumped at the wheel. This appears, rather more egregiously, in the traffic snarl at the start of season 2, but for the moment we’ll stick with season 1. The camera’s shown us an abandoned camp, any number of cars that seem to have become part of stationary living. Yet we’ve got two dead people behind the wheel, in cars facing opposite directions. Now, I’m not disputing that people could die at the wheel. As the show later goes on to show us, you can get chomped, die, and resurrect within minutes. The problem is in the fact that a proportionally ridiculous number of people seem to die at the wheel. I suppose the logical conclusion is that said individuals stupidly had their windows down and their arms out, got chomped, and sent away the rest of the car’s occupants or anyone else in the vicinity, and then opted to just hang out in the car until death – at which point zombrain kicks in and any attempt to use a door handle is moot. (See, e.g., the number of zoms hanging out in closed cars.) Combine that with people more likely than this show’s putative heroes to shoot someone who’s been infected in the head before they turn and simply move on… Eh. I suppose it’s plausible. It’s just not very realistic. (Not least because oh my god, there are undead people, roll up your fucking window you fucking idiot. I know it’s hot in Georgia but roll those windows up, babe. You might sweat, but at least a stealth zom won’t use your hand for a snack. Gah.)

…not going to comment on the inconsistent zombehaviour in which a smolzom stops to pick up her teddy (see, later, other zoms climbing ladders, scaling fences, and using rocks to bash through windows – and in one instance, tugging her zip hoodie back up over her arm). Instead, my issue is with smolzom’s slippers. How has she not lost those by now??

(Total aside, but I’ve been bingeing L&O:SVU lately, and boy howdy do a lot of TWD people pop up like daisies there. Daryl, Shane, Noah, Dale, Beth, Lori, Amy, Tyreese, Lizzie, Liza (tbf from FTWD)…)

The fries that Rick and Shane are eating just look sad and wimpy and not worthy of eating. Do better, cops. (Do better, fries.) Really, it’s almost a surprise they’re not nomming doughnuts and coffee. There’s no doubt that the two are meant to be close, though; you have to be close to dab your fry in your partner’s ketchup (oh no, Lori).

Jon Bernthal is a good actor. I just wish they hadn’t given him a character who was so all over the place. (I’ll delve more into this in later episodes.) The first scene he appears in, after the opening credits, clearly sets him up as a chauvinistic dick, in contrast to pauvre Rick, whose relationship with his wife is suffering – and, critically, this is not because of Rick, but because of Lori. Her first introduction as a character is as a woman at odds with her husband – and the fact that her husband is in law enforcement really should not be glossed over here, not given America’s contentious relationship with LEOs. (We’ll get back to Rick and Shane eventually.) It’s no secret that spouses of people in law enforcement, or in the military, often struggle because their partners are always absent. I’m not trying to apply blame, here; law enforcement and military positions require a lot, and there is absolutely a high degree of trauma that can result due to the kind of work in which they engage. That said, the way Lori is set up as the antagonist from the get-go is just…distasteful. Rick is presented as reasonable, as wanting to try to make things right, as trying to do what Lori wants and yet always being the bad guy. The sad thing is that Lori is no one’s favourite character, and yet the character never had a chance. She was fucked over long before she actually turned up on screen, ensuring that our perspective of her is negative from the start.  In a show that takes years to establish strong women, Lori stands out as a particularly egregious example of a woman, wife, and mother who realistically could have been a positive representation of a woman that instead was turned into a caricature everyone loves to hate. (We’ll get to Andrea eventually, I promise.)

I think perhaps, most egregiously, the fact that Rick says something like “It’s like she’s pissed at me and I don’t know why” sets up Lori as being irrational and Rick as being patient and anxious to fix things without knowing why. Lori is fucked in terms of character development from before she ever  appears on screen and never has the opportunity to claw back some of that lost ground. Rick literally labels her as cruel – and cruel in front of their son, to boot. Who doesn’t view a person cruel to their child as a villain? Gah. Lori was absolutely fucked by merit of being Rick’s wife.  And it’s really a shame, because every so often Sarah Wayne Callies absolutely kills it (no pun intended, but leading up to Lori’s death is perhaps the character’s best scene).

Of course, too, the whole convo between Shane and Rick sets up Shane as a “fuck me, women, man” – and yeah, absolutely, this attitude ends up extrapolated to his behaviour towards people in general. Yes, it bonds our two good ol’ boy policemen as lads who love each other and try to jive each other into better moods but are sensitive enough to listen to actual emotional shit… But ultimately it establishes Shane as a dick and Rick as a victim. Shane’s absolute disdain for women’s emotion/women talking about their emotions is in some ways bizarre when you look at his future relationship with Lori – and yet at the same time, that disdain echoes through all of anything he does with Lori, with Carl, and with Rick in future.

Okay, so, let’s move on to the fuckfest in which Rick gets shot. (Twice, Lord help me. These fuckers are alarmingly inept.)

Pro: they fling out the spikey “stop the bad guy” chains.

Con: …well, at least one dude doesn’t know about the safety, so that’s … not ideal. (His death: not surprising.)

Pro: Rick can apparently drive backwards with skill. I can’t even back around a corner.

Con: Leon is a fucking moron.

Pro: Rick and Shane disposed of their hats??

Con: what happens to the Black cop? Why is he the only one we don’t know the fate of? (See TWD’s treatment of Black actors in general…)

Pro: the car does not flip in their general direction.

Con: pretty much everything else in this scene.

I dunno about the average viewer, but I feel like the two apparently competent cops – Shane and Rick – should each be assigned to one of the shitty cops, rather than riding together, because really, do you want cops rolling in to save you when they clearly don’t know the first thing about gun operation? (Yes, as any number of viewers have pointed out, there’s no safety on the gun that Leon is holding, but the fundamental point is to articulate how much of a fuck-up he is as a cop. If you’re out in the field and don’t know how your piece works, should you even be out there? Don’t they give cops gun training? You’d hope so…yikes. Although I guess it does sort of set up the absolute nightmare of season 2’s gun control plot line. (Oh god, season 2. Help.))

Am I the only one amused by the name Leon Basset? He’s a cat and a dog at once!

It takes Rick and Shane and co. an embarrassingly long time to put down the baddies – one of whom manages to hit a cop in a spot not covered by his vest, after having been flipped violently upside down in a car crash. Seriously, the fact these dudes are able to crawl out of the car and start merrily firing away, much less actually hit someone, is fucking insane. Have they trained in post-car crash shooting? I have to conclude they have, because otherwise the fact they have better aim than the multiple cops shooting at them is absurd. (Also hilarious: bad dude #1 crawls out of the completely totalled, upside-down car with, like, a scratch on his cheek. Until bad dude #2 takes a shotgun blast the chest, he appears to have lucked out with almost zero wounds from the crash. Are we sure *they* aren’t actually already dead??) And really, Rick’s an idiot in this scene – his fellow cops are intelligently hanging out by the cop cars, using them for cover, while Rick displays a high degree of absolute idiocy in waltzing straight out into the open; it’s made even worse by the fact that he’s brandishing his cute little Colt Python revolver while at least two of the cops behind him are wielding shotguns.

Bad copping, Rick. Cop better, please.

There are several shots right before Rick gets shot the first time where the camera angle makes it appear that Shane has his shotgun pointed straight at Rick, including the actual frame where he *does* get shot in the vest – when he’s shot in the side closer to Shane than the unnamed assailant. Now, this is probably due to bad blocking, although you’d think Rick would know better than to walk directly between the baddies and his fellow cops when there’s active gunfire, since it makes him a liability (seriously, I doubt the efficacy of the cop training programme in whatever bit of Georgia this is), but with the benefit of hindsight you could also see it as foreshadowing the eventual deterioration of Rick and Shane’s relationship. Think about the scene in “Wildfire,” the penultimate episode of the season, when Shane and Rick are in the woods doing a sweep, and Shane sights down that shotgun at Rick walking through the trees ahead of him for a long moment before Dale turns up. In that later episode (and moving on increasingly through all of Season 2), Shane wants Rick out of the way, but it takes a very long time in terms of screen hours to actually get around to making his final move. Ironically, it’s only ever here in the opening episode, following Shane appearing to be aiming through Rick’s back at the assailants, that Shane ever successfully gets Rick out of the way. Unintentionally, of course, but there is nevertheless an odd parallelism created here due to blocking and weapon of choice.

Dammit, Shane.

You know, on thinking it over, I’m surprised that this police force functions at all. Yes, the dispatcher only noted two individuals in the car, but if I’ve learned anything from watching procedurals it’s that before stopping to chat about anything you clear every possible place an unknown assailant could be hiding. I’d think that would especially be the case for a car chase, because how accurately can you see inside a speeding car? (That’s a legitimate question; I have no idea.) And actually, entirely aside from the possible existence of a third assailant, if you shoot someone with a gun, surely the follow-up after they’ve gone down is to immediately approach, ensure any weapons are out of arms’ reach, ascertain if the individual is dead, and if not, call immediately for medical attention. I know the baddies took several shots to the chest, but come on. They also emerged almost entirely unscathed from a totalled car, so clearly they’re already marked as practically unkillable. And yeah, following procedure wouldn’t have allowed Rick to get dramatically shot for real after the first fake-out, but they could easily have had him get dramatically and unexpectedly shot by the third dude when following procedure and checking to see the other two were dead. Most of the dialogue could have been retained as well. But oh well. I guess the show sets up the failure of authority figures to function effectively from the very start; not following procedure proves to be useful to Rick, considering his future actions as leader of the Merry Undead crew.

Further proof these cops don’t know how to cop: literally no one notices the third dude crawl out of the car, not even to go “hey!” Dude literally has enough time to crawl out on his hands and knees, stand up, point a gun, and actually hit his target before anyone (aka Shane) so much as notices his existence. There are at least three other cop cars in the vicinity – the other car that arrived with Rick and Shane (the “wait what’s a safety” cop and his partner) and the two cars that were chasing the criminals in the first place (four more dudes) – and yet apparently no one noticed a third guy standing up with a gun in his hand. And yeah, I’ll cut some of them a bit of a break on the theory that they probably couldn’t see the guy until he stood up because of the car in the way, but with seven people standing, *someone* should have seen him. Given Shane’s angle when he shoots, the two cops behind him definitely should have noticed something. The fact that someone only shouts to move in after Rick gets shot is just…shoddy copping. Seriously, this is the kind of stupidity that leads you to wish characters would just die. I’m sure someone would miss these people, but the world isn’t likely to notice they’ve gone. (Also, Shane blowing away the third dude on the first shot is pretty much the only time any of these professionals have actually hit their target immediately. Glad to know the safety of the Merry Undead crew is in the hands of people with worse aim than people flung around in a totalled car. Hurray!)

I’ve decided that after Shane goes with Rick to hospital in the ambulance, the rest of the terrible cops get eaten by the reanimated baddie crew. It’s what they deserve, really.

Moving right along…

Rick has a frigging massive hospital room. Either he or Lori is secretly a drug runner, or else the local cops have some pretty sweet health insurance. Lucky for Rick; if he’d been in a shared room or on one of those corridors with multiple beds separated by curtains, he’d have been walker munchies asap. Unforeseen side-effects of the zompocalypse: healthcare edition.

I…am not going to deal with the time issues of Rick being in hospital and then waking up to a hellscape. Suspension of belief, yeah?

I think the weirdest thing in the cut from Shane with the flowers to Rick waking up on the bed is the silence. The background beep of the machines has vanished, telling us the power’s gone off; the off-screen background hospital noise – heard most notably in the undiscernible PA behind Shane talking – has also vanished. Rick’s harsh breathing under Shane’s words also vanishes when the shot does, though I’m not sure if that’s meant to suggest Rick is better, worse, or otherwise. The scene doesn’t show it, but it sounds vaguely like a ventilator is functioning when Shane’s in the room, which would suggest Rick’s still hooked up to breathing support following surgery; if that’s the case, Rick was taken off the ventilator to breathe on his own at some point after that, since he wakes up only with oxygen to his nose. The shift from all that background noise to absolute silence is incredibly effective, because though we can’t register it visually, and may not consciously notice the shift in audible sounds, it nevertheless conveys to the viewer that something has changed before Rick even opens his mouth.

Horrifying thought, though, being stuck in hospital in Georgia without aircon. (I’d melt. Not just in hospital, but in general. Heat and humidity are not my friends.) Frankly, I’m surprised Rick manages to get any words out of his mouth given he’s probably a wee bit on the thirsty side; my mouth goes a bit dry and I might as well be trying to talk through a damn desert for all the words I manage.

It’s kind of amusing that there’s a lingering shot of the clock on the wall. Yeah, it adds to Rick’s confusion and disorientation because dammit, he can’t even tell what time it is – and what is the world without timekeeping?? – but what are the odds it happened to run out of battery in time to inconvenience the last man standing in the zompocalypse? “Oh no! I’ve missed the end of the world! Ah well, better late than never.”

Helpful that Rick woke up during the day – can you imagine how disorienting it would have been to wake up in pitch dark with zero sound? Anyone who lives in a vaguely urban or suburban area is almost entirely unaccustomed to the dominance of both anymore; when I moved back to suburbia after living in a sort of downtown-y bit of an offshoot of the nearest city, I had serious issues for months because at night everything was so quiet and so dark, especially during the period when the house next door was unoccupied. Seriously creepy. (Although I’ve also seen raccoons, deer, and a coyote as well as the ubiquitous squirrels and birds and neighbourhood cats, so that’s exciting. Actually, weirdly, there’s a surprising dearth of animals, to say nothing of pets, floating around in the apocalypse. We see dogs occasionally as time goes on, running about the streets of Atlanta, eating the dead, getting eaten when times are desperate; deer pop up every now and then, and crows alight ominously all over the place, but…where are all the dead goldfish? The cats??)

Does Rick just have a super special water faucet in his private bathroom, or are the utilities still working? (Nice to immediately have a way to quench his thirst. It also apparently gives him super strength, since he doesn’t keel over again despite the probable weeks he’s been flopped out in bed not using his muscles.) Alexandria has running water, but if I recall correctly it was also designed as self-sustaining. Hospitals usually have generators, since if the power cuts for whatever reason (earthquake, hurricane, T-rex attack) you want to make sure a bunch of people don’t cut out as well as a result, but as far as I’m aware that…doesn’t affect the water systems? (I am definitely not a water engineer. Are there water engineers?) And since he later goes down stairs to get out of the hospital, is there really a system still functioning that pumps water up several stories when the electricity appears to be dead? Convenient water is convenient.

Obviously there must be a generator or some kind of power still functioning, since there are some lights on in the hall, complete with requisite horror-themed buzzing and flickering. (Help, I’m having flashbacks of my mother’s kitchen.) Useful, in any case, since otherwise Ricky boy would be tripping over the debris in the hall before he got to the nurse’s station. (I guess we’ll put his continued unclothed state down to disorientation, but if I looked out my door and saw that much of a hallway disaster, I think I’d find some shoes first. Yikes.)

The clock at the nurse’s station has also stopped. These are battery-run, guys, they don’t go off when the power does. Speaking of electronics, though – it’s 2010, right? Why doesn’t the nurse’s station have any computers? I mean, I got my first laptop in 2006 and I think we always had a family computer when I was growing up, so it’s not like this predates the computer era. Actually, that’s a point – in all of the places that the Merry Undead crew break into/crash at, I’m struggling to think of instances of computers, laptops, mobile phones, etc. Rick has an mp3 player at the start of season 4, when he’s in his farming phase, and Olivia in…season 6? still carries her long-dead mobile around, but aside from the CDC and actual hospital-related machinery, there’s a startling lack of technology. I dunno, it just seems odd. Like the lack of feral cats.

I know Rick wants to illuminate the situation (hah), but his first thought is RUMMAGE THROUGH SHIT TO FIND MATCHES. Like, seriously, open a drawer or something, there’s probably a flashlight in there somewhere? I suppose we couldn’t spend too much time on finding lighting resources, though, considering that would delay the DRAMATIC DISCOVERY of Rick’s first dead person.

On which point – what are the walker rules for nomming a corpse, and what are the rules for reanimation? If the only way to actually put down a walker is through the brain, why isn’t our eviscerated lady corpse in the hospital undead? Her head appears entirely intact, although we might be missing a wound on the far side. (Although jeez, given how many facial bites and tears we see throughout this series, including the little girl at the beginning of this episode, how has no one snacked on her delicious face??) A single bite will kill and turn you, and some people do manage to get an initial chomp and then remain unconsumed before turning, like Sophia and the little girl at the start of the episode. But is there a maximum limit of flesh that can be consumed before a person is thoroughly dead and won’t reanimate? A severed head sans body will reanimate, as we see later with Hershel and the Whisperers’ victims, so it seems like percentage of bodily consumption can’t factor in. Certainly bike lady later in this episode is missing her entire lower half without it having affected her walkerdom eternity. Yet we have people like hospital lady corpse and T-Dog in season 3 who get more or less entirely consumed without reanimating. And that’s without even talking about all of the dead who appear to have croaked in their cars without becoming undead despite the lack of a head wound. So where’s the boundary?

At least some of this we can probably attribute to early days inconsistencies, since most shows don’t dive in with all of the rules for new worlds and supernatural creatures laid out and set in stone, but the amount of consumption has always bothered me. From the other side, too, actually, because walkers appear to be wholly driven by a single purpose: consume. So when a walker has a nice juicy item in front of them with plenty of flesh left on it, why would they leave it behind to drift off after something else? Walkers are later shown to be drawn by light, by sound, by smell (operating on the suspension of disbelief that undead would retain any of the senses of sight, hearing, or smell, but never mind), but since the underlying drive remains to consume, why would light, sound, or smell be sufficient to draw them away from a meal directly in front of them? I could see it if, for instance, a corpse were being devoured by a whole bunch of walkers and so those who couldn’t easily get to the body went “welp fuck it, Imma go follow that gunshot I just heard,” or if a body has pretty well been picked to the bones, since then there’s not anything left to consume and the drive would push on to the next. But there are plenty of times over the course of the series when walkers abandon a perfectly delicious human with plenty of meat left on the bones in order to go chase something else. I’m not saying walkers are meant to be intelligent hunters or anything, since as Jenner shows us there’s just some sad little sparkles at the brainstem that are still operating, but if you boil it down to the most basic drive, walkers are driven to consume, and it makes little sense that they’d abandon something consumable in front of them that’s a sure thing to chase something else (I could see maybe abandoning an animal to chase a human, like dropping the pigs’ feet to chase after sirloin). But to leave something not completely eaten… Unless they get full? The human stomach can only contain so much at one time, so maybe there’s a default survival code that overrides the consumption drive to stop a walker eating if continuing to do so would explode the stomach. Although that doesn’t really make much sense, either, since any number of walkers are wandering around with their innards more or less exploded without it being a problem. Hmm. No real answers, there, other than that overriding logic of THE PLOT. I guess the only thing I can say with some confidence is that at least part of the walker digestive system seems to still operate, because when Rick and Daryl gut a walker to make sure it hadn’t eaten Sophia, not only is the woodchuck turned from fur and flesh into nasty black goo, the skull of the woodchuck has also been stripped clean. (Then again, I have difficulty envisioning how a walker manages to swallow an entire woodchuck skull, but that’s neither here nor there. Who’s up for woodchuck chilli??)

Anyway, back to Rick and his terrifying exploration of his new world of doom.

I have to laugh when I look at this disaster of a hospital. Did someone, in the last throes of the world ending, just take medical records and fling them everywhere? When is there ever that much paper floating around loose in a medical facility? Ye gods, Rick could learn confidential patient information! Nooooooo…

Ahem.

Like the episode’s opening scene of Rick working his way through the abandoned streets, silence is used to great effect from the time Rick wakes up through to his encounter with Morgan and Duane. The audience takes in everything along with Rick, unfettered by exposition. The silence, the dark, the emptiness, the dead – it all unfolds through Rick’s shocked and bewildered eyes. I mean, what would you do if you wandered down the hall and suddenly discovered a mostly devoured corpse? (I’d probably hurl. Ew.) Alas that so much of the series later gets bogged down by humans who never shut up. (Yes, Rick, I do mean you.)

Of course, in order to do that, the episode also, to quote CinemaSins, conveniently conveniences a bunch of its walkers. Where are they? Where they can’t hurt Rick before he knows what to do. Which is…kind of ridiculous. Logic be damned! I mean, if there’s one thing this show has been consistent about, it’s the inconsistency of its walkers.

Wait.

Man, I would not want to be walking across that floor barefoot. Ew. And ouch.

I’d be a terrible candidate for the apocalypse. I’m afraid of the dark.

I do like the background details of all the blood spattered on the walls. It’s more quiet filling in the blanks of what happened when Rick was in his coma – all that lovely show, don’t tell that later gets left by the wayside. BUT HE’S WALKING BAREFOOT THROUGH GLASS OH MY GOD PLEASE STOP AND FIND SOME SHOES AAAHHHHHHH.

PUT ON SOME DAMN SHOES.

DON’T DEAD OPEN INSIDE.

The fact that the doors are bound with a chain AND with a slat of wood just makes me laugh. I don’t think that wood’s going to do much if the chain breaks.

That’s a shockingly good manicure for a dead person. She might be stuck in a locked room for eternity but at least her nails look fab.

I know Rick is freaked out by the groaning and dead lady manicure and chained up door and blood all over the place, but charging into a pitch-black stairwell armed only with a fold of matches seems really stupid. This is perhaps the most egregious instance in this episode of convenient walker placement. The fact that Rick not only makes it down the stairs and outside without tripping and smashing his pretty face is one thing, but it’s really stunning that there are no walkers who got trapped between the stairwell doors. I guess maybe that was the military exit route so they cleared as they went (and…took the bodies with them, as well)? Then again, I’d rather rappel out a window using bedsheets than make my way through an endless stairwell of night, so…

I’m going to be *extremely* nitpicky here and wonder why Rick hasn’t noticed the smell. Between lady chewy and the not insubstantial blood puddle he walks by, you’d think there’d be at least a whiff of the smell of decomp, especially if the power and thus the aircon are out and humidity reigns supreme. Blood is a biological hazard, and it…is definitely not odourless, especially after it’s been sitting around for days. Rick does grimace when he first goes into the stairwell, implying he’s caught a whiff of the dead, but he doesn’t encounter anything going down the stairs that seems likely to have caused it (maybe the dead laid out that he encounters outside?). Scent’s an ongoing problem with this show, though; it crops up when it’s a useful narrative point, like smearing yourself with guts to escape detection or realising there’s an ocean of the dead nearby, but otherwise, not so much. Okay, yeah, maybe I can buy that after a while of living in close proximity you’d acclimate – humans are stunningly resilient – but given how quickly humans tend to get tetchy when in forced contact with disgusting smells, are you really telling me that Rick just…doesn’t notice? Or is his own “I’ve been in a coma for an indeterminate period of time” smell so bad that it overpowers the death smell? Yikes.

That said, the moments of tension when Rick’s match goes out and he’s left alone breathing in the dark of the stairwell are lovely. It carries the audience along with Rick’s fear and anxiety and confusion, knowing he knows something is hinky without actually knowing what’s happened and what’s going on, while as a viewer conversant with the horror genre you keep expecting something to happen, to lurch up out of the dark. That nothing does actually is a delightful defiance of expectations. And after a silence and darkness punctuated only by the dim, narrow light of a match and Rick’s harsh breathing, the overwhelming brightness of the outdoors combined with the sawing of the cicadas almost begs you to retreat back into the contained, comparative safety of the stairs rather than venturing out into the huge unknown of the world outside the hospital and its endless supply of the dead.

Shame that the hospital’s flickeringly dodgy power doesn’t include the EXIT sign. Aren’t those supposed to work even if nothing else does? Maybe it was crashed with whatever took out the clocks. (Hah.)

Every barefoot step Rick continues to take hurts. Like, there’s all kinds of shit on the ground, and I’m not just talking bits of wire and other stabby pieces of metal. There’s blood and guts – do you really want to be squishing that between your toes?? Also, I’ve let it go this far, but Rick is wearing his hospital gown backwards, and if he’s been in a coma he…really shouldn’t be wearing boxers (and should have been hooked up to a catheter, but I think watching Rick rip that out instead of pulling the IV from his hand might have been a bit too traumatising for the average viewer). So out here in the open air, with all the wrapped rows of the dead, we get our first obvious sign of decomp in the number of flies buzzing around, and some of the limbs look like they might be mottling from decomp (kind of hard to tell, though). I know I said I wasn’t going to get into the time problems, but I promise I’ll try to keep it to this paragraph. The fact that the hospital and town are both almost entirely deserted, as we’ll go on to see, certainly suggests a decent amount of time has passed, since it takes time for that many people to up and leave somewhere. (I’m really surprised that in this show they only ever seem to encounter major traffic pile-ups on freeways or similar; if the people in my town were trying to skedaddle, we’d all get stuck on the road outside my neighbourhood. Hell, until they put in roundabouts it backed up horrendously just for getting to the schools in the morning! You’re telling me everyone was able to get out of their neighbourhoods to get to the freeway in the first place? Bullshit.) The state of the dead half-lady Rick runs into outside also seems to support that, since she’s pretty decomposed (though weirdly looks more mummified than not, which is odd considering Georgia’s on the humid rather than the dry end of the heat spectrum). On the other hand, though, the state of decomp of the lady in the hospital hallway and the corpses outside the hospital point to not much time having passed; they’re still juicy, if you like. As the following episodes will go on to show via characters’ minimal clothing and copious amounts of sweat, Georgia is hot and humid, and I hate to tell you this, guys, but if you keel over in a climate like that, you decompose quickly. You bloat up and your skin slides right off, and it’s all extremely disgusting. But here there’s a stunning amount of intact left on these corpses considering, again, it’s Georgia. (Disclaimer: I am not a medical doctor, so my observations might not be medically valid. Then again, the very idea that dead people are wandering around eating people is … also not medically valid.) In any case, Rick should be walking through a soupy mess of liquefying human tissue seeping through the sheets wrapped around the dead (yum. One more reason to acquire footwear, mate). The bodies piled in the truck should be sliding over each other as decomposing human makes the sheets slippery. I suppose that’s a major flaw in zombie construction in this particular zompocalypse; it forgot to take account of actual decomposition in the specified climate. (The smell also ought to be enough to pretty well bowl Rick over, but again, everyone apparently has the opposite of super smell in this series, so we’ll let it slide). Of course, if corpses actually decayed like normal, they’d be rid of most of the zombies in no time.

There’s a weirdly small amount of damage that’s been done to this hospital, from what little we’re shown. The hospital scene in “TS-19” suggests that bombing of the hospital, or nearby, has commenced, but all we see is a relatively small chunk of building missing, rather oddly in the middle of a wall, a downed ambulance sign, and then a bit more horizontal damage behind the military encampment when Rick gets up the hill. You’d think they’d have kept bombing, not least to eradicate the piles of corpses, but unfortunately we never really get to see much of the early days and the military reaction; we get snippets about bombing Atlanta and see Shane and Lori watch as Atlanta’s struck, and when Daryl and Carol stalk Grady Memorial there’s at least one shot of the city where it’s clearly suffered aerial bombardment. But there’s really not a lot of engagement with the drastic measures taken to try to control the situation, just the idea that those existed. Fear the Walking Dead, from my understanding, doesn’t really do much to deal with this either, despite ostensibly aiming to initially tackle the very period of time that The Walking Dead skipped over. So that’s a shame.

The military encampment is odd. Surely you’d only bail on things like helicopters and Humvees if you absolutely had to, since otherwise they seem to me like the first thing you’d hop into as an escape route (and certainly in season 3, the Governor indicates that military playthings are highly prized). Sure, maybe your random joe couldn’t commandeer a helo, but surely joe schmo could yoink a Humvee. I mean, if I were fleeing a hospital and there were a whole military encampment hanging out in the back yard that no one was minding, I’d be inclined to hijack something and zoom away. Operation Save the Toes! If a herd had passed through, surely we’d see more damage to what remains (for instance, would that nice tent still be standing?). Points, though, for framing of Rick against the broken military might that both visually and metaphorically shows us how small he is. Okay, so I have to ask: how far away from hospital did Rick and his family live? Because he appears to walk for quite a while – with a bullet wound that’s still healing! – and their house looks like it’s firmly in a nice suburban neighbourhood. So did he walk several miles to dead half-lady and steal her bike, or did he literally just walk down the street? Maybe the unhappiness in the soles of his feet is just being overwhelmed by, well, everything. All I can say is that I ran away from home barefoot around age 8 or 9 and ended up with such bruised and blistered feet – after maybe twenty minutes of walking total – that I couldn’t go to school for several days because I couldn’t walk. And I wasn’t even recovering from a gunshot wound!

(Also, can we talk about that hospital wristlet. That sucker should have waaay more info on it. Really, if nothing else I think we can conclude that the hospital Rick was admitted to post-shooting spent all their money on giant rooms and then forgot about actually hospitalling. Do we blame that on Georgia, America, or bad TV writing?)

CORAAAL!!

Further proof of the rapid adaptation of the human species: Rick spots the bike and goes AH YES MINE, sort of clocking the half of a lady ten feet away without really being fussed; maybe an hour (?) into his re-entry into this waking nightmare of a world, he’s already become so numbed to dead bodies hanging about that it barely registers until she moves. And, mind you, while he’s seen plenty of dead people, and seen undead fingers poking through the crack between doors, this is the first undead person he’s actually seen. His reaction to just…flee is very much in line with his general “holy fuck okay moving on” attitude that we’ve seen thus far; each thing is weirder and worse than the last, layering up the horror as a surreal reality that’s made even more bizarre by the utter lack of any living people to ground him. While his collapse and “is this real?” moment at the Grimes household is, I think, a bit misplaced, it’s also really understandable because everything he’s seen is so far out of the normal realm of expectation that the only logical reaction is to question reality. He’s almost certainly both dehydrated and undernourished, on top of which he’s been utilising muscles that haven’t been used in some time; probably the most unrealistic aspect of his first hours after waking up is that he actually manages to get out of hospital and home so easily, rather than keeling over somewhere in the street and becoming Walker O’s (part of a balanced breakfast!). Although I feel like I would have hit the “wake up” whacking yourself in the head point long before getting home and realising my family wasn’t there. I think I’d be more likely to believe I’d walk through the door and my family would be out than to believe that all of the dead or the moving dead were real. Obviously the latter for Rick makes the fact his family isn’t home that much more surreal and distressing, because thus far he appears to have awoken to a world where there are no living people aside from himself, thus leading to the conclusion that if there are only the dead and himself, Lori and Carl must be dead – but I think I’d crack before getting to that point. (Though I sometimes wake up in the morning and literally can’t tell reality from what happened in my dreams, so who am I to judge?)

Weirdly as well, there’s very little in the Grimes household that tells me anything about any of the family. I know Lori and Carly frolicked off with Shane super fast when everything went to hell and took pictures and photo albums, but this house (as excellent as it is) looks very much like a set. There’s nothing really personal. It’s weird. Who are the Grimes, even? It reminds me of my ex-boyfriend’s flat. No pictures, no posters, no books (!!), nothing on the walls, no trinkets or files or any personal touches at all (please don’t be a serial killer eek). No wonder Carl settles into the apocalypse quickly and Lori has no personality other than being a disaster. They had practically no pre-pocalypse life other than “I’m Rick’s child” and “I’m Rick’s bitchy wife.”

As Rick walks back out of his empty house, you can see that the letterbox appears to be full of envelopes. Do you suppose Lori wrote a bunch of letters to people on the off-chance they’d get picked up after she and Carl left town with Shane, or do you think the post carried on even after everything else collapsed? (Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds… Nor zombies either, apparently. Now I really want a series of shorts following a postman as she strives to deliver every letter she can (well, not the bills, obvs) even as the world continues to collapse around her head.)

Okay, so if you get home and discover your family is not there, and everything is topsy turvy and haywire and omg what the hell is even happening – who just goes and plonks outside to think? Surely you’d think “hmm, okay, maybe I should check the neighbours”?

Are overhead fans on the porch a southern thing? I can’t imagine having one here in the Pacific Northwest.

Can we talk again about how absurdly lucky Rick is when it comes to the existence of walkers in this town? The only ones in the hospital are literally chained behind doors with an explicit warning to piss off. The only one he encounters on his journey from hospital to home has no legs, and thus poses minimal threat to a man able to walk (or cycle, as the case may be). The first mobile walker he sees is in the distance and hasn’t noticed him yet, and before he has a chance to shout out and put himself in danger, Morgan and Duane ex machina themselves into position to not only take out the walker but also provide medical support. (I guess Rick’s just been running on…adrenaline? And yes, I know Rick also takes a shovel to the face – we’ll ignore the fact that there’s no apparent lasting damage from a shovel to the face, good grief – but that’s a far cry from the fate of having his flesh ripped from his bones before he even knew what walkers were. Boy, would that suck.) A whole bevy of walkers turn up that evening, ostensibly because Morgan had fired a gun, but then they all vanish by morning aside from a single walker still skulking around for the convenience of whacking practice. (I wonder what would have happened if the single walker still hanging around had been Morgan’s wife. Somehow I doubt he’d have been as willing for Rick to practise his new world survival skills on her.) Quite aside from his dubious hospital survival, Rick Grimes should be dead. I really wish this could be attributed to his cop training (but we know that shit is dubious as fuck), but unfortunately he’s just a dude wandering aimlessly who gets super lucky. Sigh.

(I can’t be the only one who looks at the walker Rick sees and thinks he must be either a mortician or a goth kid. That much black? When it’s apparently warm enough in Georgia that Rick is totally fine in your not-standard-issue hospital gown and boxers? Also, thanks camera for keeping the walker blurred out so we can’t tell he’s dead (did you save on makeup?), but in retrospect it kind of makes you wonder if Rick has eye problems. Now there’s a real problem in the apocalypse.)

Two things about Duane’s first appearance. First, he was inches away from Rick; how did he get enough room to swing a shovel? Second, wtf is Duane doing shrieking for his dad? He’s been living in this world for at least a month and his mum’s a zom: he has to know that walkers are drawn to noise, yet he’s yelping out like a wounded dog here. Apocalypse better, kiddo.

Rather hilariously, it’s when Rick sees Morgan casually shoot the walker through the head that he starts to panic. OMG HE KILLED A DUDE. I feel like with everything Rick’s seen so far he ought not to jump so quickly to the assumption that Morgan killed another living dude. Then again, he did just get whacked in the face with a shovel and should probably have a concussion, so…

Convenient that Rick passes out when Morgan threatens to kill him if he doesn’t answer, since given his current state I’m not sure he could have done coherently. Note to self: when faced with difficult or awkward questions, keel over. It’ll give you time to think.

The first conversation Rick and Morgan have when Rick first wakes up tied to the bed raises far too many questions related to how long Rick’s been in hospital and how bad his wound is. I…am not going to spend much time on this, because it’s a never-ending chase with no real answers. This is the scene that rips us out of the glorious silent exploration of Rick’s new apocalyptic world and thrusts us into exposition, which at least in this case has a reason given Rick’s total ignorance of the current state of the world – but it’s still exposition.

Anyway, briefly – didn’t Rick get hit from behind, under the armpit? Shouldn’t Morgan have had to change two dressings? But there’s only one, and moreover, Rick’s original bandaging didn’t come close to covering where the original gunshot entry wound was. Magical moving bullets! Mystery wounds! Exposition! Hurray!

Ugh, reasons never to work on The Walking Dead: you have to film in Georgia, and it’s hot and disgusting and everyone sweats, even at night. Blech. Thanks but no.

Morgan’s stupid use of the gun to kill the walker provides helpful exposition, but his reason for why he did it – “it all happened so fast, I didn’t think” – doesn’t make much sense. It was one walker, with no others anywhere in the apparent vicinity, and while his son had potentially whacked down another walker, there wasn’t exactly an urgent need to use the gun. And while I’m not sure that Rick would be able to articulate the idea that what Morgan killed was something other than a living human being, the fact that he’s so insistent that it must have been a man speaks to his desperation to cling to anything resembling normalcy, while unfortunately ignoring his experience since waking up in the hospital. What do you do when you don’t have the vocabulary to articulate what you’ve seen?

As an aside, Rick chained up to the headboard wearing his boxers and hospital gown kiiinda looks like he’s ready for someone’s doctor dom fantasy playtime fetish. Good thing Morgan’s not into that, right?

There’s something deliciously hilarious about Morgan warning/threatening Rick with his tiny little knife when the backdrop is such delightfully mundane floral pillowcases. Laura Ashley does not approve!!!

Why couldn’t Morgan have found Rick a snuggie? Or, I don’t know, slippers? Or socks? Or an actual bathrobe? He’s stuck with blankie chic.

I do love that shot though.

Sidebar, your honour, I have a digression to indulge.

Morgan’s “friend, you need glasses” is kind of hilarious given that now they’re into the apocalypse, sucks to be you if you have non-perfect sight or any medical problems requiring medication or other intervention. There’s a surprising lack of your average American with lots of health problems on TWD, perhaps in part as commentary that many of those individuals would have stood no chance against the relentless people-eating horde. While the introduction of Connie offers a welcome insight into how someone with a disability is able to survive in an apocalyptic situation, the show on the whole oddly glosses over that whole issue. America is not a healthy country (we weren’t pre-Covid and we’re certainly not doing well lately). Nearly half of Americans take prescription drugs, according to a survey from the National Center Health Statistics. Some of these are vital, in that without them the person would die sooner rather than later; others treat conditions that won’t kill you immediately if untreated, but will kill you eventually or will cause significant problems as time goes on; and still others treat conditions that, while usually debilitating, you can usually survive and be at least vaguely functional. Some medications can be substituted by herbal remedies (digitalis, marshmallow root), but many can’t. I have chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, and deal with chronic pain and migraines; I take daily meds to counter both pain and migraine, as well as an assortment of supplements (and hayfever tablets, oh god) that I *can* function without, but which to do so would seriously suck. Where are these people in the apocalypse? There are so many people with disabilities or on medication who would be able to keep functioning as potentially beneficial partners in the post-apo world. Where are they? And where are the characters grappling with the choice of whether to sacrifice themselves or let their family and friends deal with an ongoing and worsening condition? The only times we really encounter that sort of thing are Milton’s test subject Michael Coleman, who ultimately dies of prostate cancer, the vatos’ little senior citizen safe haven, and Lilly and Tara’s father, all of whom are elderly. We only ever get a little blip of each of those instances, as well, in what appear to be relatively comfortable and secure locations, so we really don’t get a sense of how their frailties or differing abilities play into the survival of those around them. Hershel’s worst health problem was the leg amputated post-walker bite, and that ultimately was irrelevant to how he lived and died. I might be missing someone – I probably am – but it’s an oddity, one that I suppose arises out of both a narrative need – the elderly and disabled and sick are often viewed as less capable and thus less interesting except as an emotional zinger – and a practical in-world need that wants to focus on the strongest and most active rather than devoting time to people who’ve not only had to adapt emotionally but also physically and psychologically. I’ve got a main character in a post-apo situation who’s not only hauling herself through cities and forests with a bad lower back and weak hip and reliance on a cane but who also is unquestionably the leader of her group, because while her disability is not ideal in this post-civilised world, it doesn’t negate her value. The apocalypse doesn’t eradicate every non-fit, medicated adult, and leaving them out or using them as plot conveniences isn’t ideal. To get back to Morgan’s glasses comment – a quick google search suggests that around 61 percent of the population is reported to wear reading or visual aids at least occasionally. This probably isn’t nearly as many once you wipe out the need for reading glasses among the older population (and, you know, people in their 30s like me… *sob*), but nevertheless there’s a significant portion of the population who can’t see very well without glasses (and let me tell you, good luck getting contacts during the apocalypse). My sister is pretty well blind as a bat without glasses and has been since she was in middle school. Imagine how differently things might have played out if Carl’s vision had been super shitty.

Sidebar complete.

I like the all-male hand-holding over the meal prayer. There’s something sweet about it, a clinging to old habits even in chaos.

It’s interesting that Morgan asks Rick if he even knows what’s going on, because by this point it must be at least a month into apocalypse (per Morgan’s line later in the episode that the gas mains have been down a month or so) – what are the odds you’d run into a random person so utterly clueless a whole month in? I guess maybe the hospital gown, boxers, and bare feet clued him in.

I’ve been thinking this all episode: Rick’s beard is beautifully trimmed for a dude who’s been in a coma.

Rick’s response to Morgan’s “yep, the undead, they’ll try to eat you” line is so blasé it’s funny. Like he’s just so overwhelmed by everything of the day that zombie cannibals or whatever are hardly worth getting fussed over. He jumps right from sort of reacting “oh dead people” to going “so they’re out there? Okey-day then”. Meanwhile, Morgan’s cool air comment about drawing zoms never occurs again, and there’s such a time gap between the firing of the gun and the walkers skulking around outside the house that it’s odd they’re still hanging around. Actually, you see this too at the end of season 2, when the herd of walkers wanders out of Atlanta and eventually ends up on Hershel’s farm – they turn when they hear the gunshot, but how good are their powers of perception? Like, they’re attracted to sound – fine, whatever, I can buy that, fine – but a gunshot, for instance, is a single instance of noise that then dies away. If you’re not in the immediate vicinity, as a walker, how do you continue knowing where to go? The show suggests that when zoms are drawn by noise it’s like a magnet, pulling them in unerringly to the source of the sound, but how do they continue to know which is the right direction for ages after the sound has ceased? It’s not like they have a compass or GPS.

Aww, we’re still early enough in the apocalypse that car alarms still work.

Morgan’s wife makes me sad in a lot of ways. Obviously she’s undead and roaming around looking for her next snack and her son and husband love and miss her and find her undead state to be traumatic, but it’s not that specifically so much as the consequences down the line. Morgan and Duane stayed in the same house where Mama Morgan died, meaning they’re regularly within eyeshot, thus inflicting pain and anguish, or suffering the threat thereof, long after her actual death. (Yes, of course, they had a secure and safe base in the house and didn’t want to move, but still.) Morgan couldn’t kill his wife when she dies, the first time around (although that makes me wonder at what point she was booted outside, considering she died in the house; did they chuck her dead body out the front door before she turned, or wait until she was ambulatory and forcibly eject her?). This – I guess you could call it weakness – proves tragic. When Rick gives him a rifle, he sets out deliberately to kill her and still can’t. And then, because Morgan repeatedly failed to put her down, she ultimately causes the death of Duane – and Morgan takes the blame, flipping into a state of madness that operates until he meets the cheesemaker. (I’ll come back to Morgan in later posts. I have *thoughts* about him as both killer and pacifist.)

How do you grieve loss or try to move on if you can’t actually lay the dead to rest? It’s a question that I don’t think gets explored enough in the show, because most of the time everyone is so concerned with pressing on and surviving that grieving is set aside. I’m not going to go into this here, because there’s ample opportunity to do so in later episodes without needing to jump seasons ahead.

Early days: walkers attempting to work doorknobs are a thing, rather than just pawing at the door.

Man, I miss having a bat. I have a wok and a kitchen knife to protect against the undead these days…and assorted high heels, should it come to that. (Oh god the humanity. My shoes would be ruined!!)

There’s something adorable about Rick wearing a damn headshield mask as he waltzes out the door in the morning with his wooden baseball bat and WHITE T-SHIRT to whack the undead dude on the front walk to death. Where did the headshield mask come from? Did the Drakes just happen to have one in the back closet in case of a pandemic? (*sad hollow 2020 laughter*) In any case, it’s a laughable contrast with rest of the show; by the end of the season, no one gives a shit about facial protection or protecting the skin. Potential backsplatter? Eh, give it here, I bathe in zomgoo for the health benefits daily.

Lori appears to keep a glass jar of pinecones on a shelf. She also apparently took framed photos from the wall in addition to the photo albums. At least one photo album makes an appearance in this season, but unless Morgan repurposed the empty frames for defensive purposes, there’s no indication ever of what Lori did with those framed photos. (Sadly, the photo album is lost when they flee Hershel’s farm. One assumes, anyway, since Carl later gets hold of a single photo for Judith because there are no others.)

Atlanta as a safe haven/refugee centre is…well, it’s a plot point to get Rick where he needs to go. Realistically, you don’t want to go into an urban centre when there’s a pandemic. In America, Covid is now hitting rural areas with force, but pretty much all of the early outbreaks and spread were in urban areas. And that’s without the added complication of the dead getting back up again! Cities obviously have more resources, but… I dunno. Although, to be fair, unlike Covid or the flu or the common head cold, zombieism appears only to transmit through bites (since we don’t yet know that everyone is infected!), like rabies, rather than being so contagious that if someone breathes on you, you’re sick. But even then – even accepting that people think that it’s passed solely through bites and not any other way – being bitten doesn’t necessarily mean instant death (Carl is perhaps the most obvious example of this, I think, but Jim and Deanna both also survive for a time after being chomped), so you could conceivably be bitten in a non-obvious area (your side, for instance), waltz into a populated area with only minor symptoms or hop on a plane and then be released into the population of another country, only to then actually die and start to nom people. Eh.

How many sets of keys do the Grimeses have??

I’d suck in the apocalypse because without showers I’d be so sad.

Ah, bonding is always best when undertaken half-naked and wrapped in a pristine white towel.

Duane is adorable. Why couldn’t we get a show following Duane and his sass?

This episode is almost entirely about following Rick in his discovery and acceptance of this new, batshit life, but in some ways I wish we’d got a snippet of flashback with Morgan and Duane and Lady Morgan. It wouldn’t really have fit into the episode, but I can dream.

Rick showers and puts his uniform on rather than civvies. The implication here is that the uniform retains a certain power – protect and serve – so anyone living who sees him would know that here’s a person whose job is to help. Contrasts sharply with the police officer in the second episode of Fear the Walking Dead who’s stockpiling water and clearly has already shifted over to an every-man-for-himself mindset. In light of America’s current epidemic of problematic police officers, it’s interesting to contemplate differences had TWD first aired in 2020. Or had it aired, for instance, in the Pacific Northwest or Northeast, which generally tend to have a more left-skewing and police-condemning attitude.

I mentioned guns briefly earlier, but seasons 1 and 2 have this cute “must respect guns” thread underlying any use of a firearm. Here Duane wants to learn to shoot, but both Morgan and Rick make sure to emphasise that he has to respect the weapon – “Yeah, it’s not a toy, son, when you pull the trigger you gotta mean it.” Season 2 has Shane (and Andrea) flouncing about articulating THOUGHTS about gun ownership and use and training. After that? Welp, fuck it. You get a gun! And you get a gun! And you get a gun! To be clear, I do think if you’re going to handle a gun you should know how to do so properly and safely, but in the context of the Walking Dead it’s an early seasons thing that’s totally dropped by season 3 as the zompocalypse marches on and nobody got time for that shit anymore. (I’ll get around to discussing the shooting practice in season 2 later…)

I don’t know if it’s just the camera angles, but when Rick remarks that a lot of the armoury is gone, it seems like a massive understatement – from what we see, almost all of the guns are gone. Which might be a prop issue (although given the number of guns floating around on this show you wouldn’t think that would be a problem), but does sort of make season 3’s trip to the ol’ hometown with Michonne and Carl kind of funny given that all the guns are gone if there were never really any left to begin with. (And, thinking about it, when Rick is trying to justify going back into Atlanta to get Merle, he comments that he cleaned out the armoury, which makes it even odder that Rick decides to go back for weapons against the Governor et al.

“Conserve your ammo. It goes faster than you think, especially at target practice.” Unless you’re in season 2 on Hershel’s farm, in which case everyone has so much ammo that they’ll never run out.

I know Rick is still in early days of understanding the apocalypse, but it’s still sweet, and ridiculous, that he gives Morgan a radio with the expectation they’d continue chatting and catch up with each other. It also highlights Morgan’s downfall: the unwillingness to get involved in others’ business. He could go with Rick and probably be safer, not least because there’s two grown men to protect one boy, but he instead waits – ostensibly to up his and Duane’s shooting proficiency, but ultimately we see that it’s very much about the unfinished business with his wife.

As an aside, it seems the police station was useful for (1) hot showers and (2) guns and ammo. I’ve never been in a police station, but weirdly I’d have thought they’d have supplies stashed away. Rick and co. didn’t even have a gander at what might be there. But again, early days, I suppose!

RIP Leon Basset.

I love how Morgan hammers the shit out of the wood he’s using to barricade the door. I guess the zoms are conveniently faffing about elsewhere. Especially funny given that he then goes upstairs to snipe walkers, none of whom seem to have noticed the hammering. Are hammers just soundproof??

Christ Morgan’s wife is beautiful.

There’s something…poignant about Rick tracking down the first living dead person he ever knew in order to put her to rest. It’s the same kind of early apocalypse care that we see in “Guts,” when he stops to look through the walker’s wallet so they know the life of the undead man they’ve killed. His sorrow and tendency towards mercy are both here clearly indicated and provide a sharp contrast with the man he becomes. The mercy and drive to do what’s right is what results in him feeling he has to go back to Atlanta to get Merle, what makes him so adamant that they don’t kill the living and should strive to go where there might be a cure, what drives him to hop off the road and go after Sophia and to keep optimistically searching for her. There’s a sweet innocence there that still exists because he came to the zompocalypse after the fact and still retains a strong need to do what’s right that time living in zombieland will beat out of him. The parallelism in this section of the episode, which switches between Rick and Morgan’s actions after leaving the police station, also highlights the difference between having to kill someone you love vs. killing someone you don’t know (or, rather, have no personal attachment to; Rick kills Leon Basset with few qualms, but also frames it as mercy).

Rural Georgia looks hot. And sticky. Thank God my sister didn’t end up moving to the south.

Are the cracks in the windshield and the dirty appearance of the glass supposed to be the result of the apocalypse, or just their police department being a bit short on funds? (Also, it’s Rick’s face in a cracked mirror! Premonitions of mad Rick??) At least Rick’s got his windows rolled up like a sensible person.

Initial observations of Camp Outside Atlanta:

Dale is wearing glasses that I *think* never appear again.

Amy is carrying an armful of kind of hilariously long twigs.

WHY IS AMY WEARING WHITE TROUSERS IN THE APOCALYPSE THIS IS A TERRIBLE DECISION.

Who on earth is on watch on the RV? From a distance it looks, frame-wise, like either Shane or Daryl, but Shane makes his appearance to the side and Daryl is off on a hunt, so who’s this? Actually, in general, it’s kind of amusing that there’s a whole slew of other people in this camp (mostly older/heavier people, based on visibility) that are just sort of vaguely there until the walker attack. It’s actually a shame, really that they didn’t do anything other than plonk some irrelevant extras in the background; it means that when they all die, it means pretty much nothing as a viewer. (I’ll come back to this.)

Shane has great hair. Shame he shaves it off later…

It’s difficult to see when you’ve watched the episode multiple times, but we don’t know what either Lori or Carl look like before they appear in the quarry group receiving Rick’s radio call – we only actually realise who they are when Rick flips down his visor. And, actually, despite what I said above, Lori’s first appearance is not that bad. She observes that there are others – Shane sort of dismisses it with “oh well we knew that.” And then she says that they ought to put up warning signs on Highway 85 to warn people away from the city. Which is smart. Yes, it’s potentially dangerous, but as we’ll go on to learn, they’ve sent people to Atlanta with no previous problem, on top of which the road into town is absolutely empty – Glenn’s exit from Atlanta on the same road Rick rode in on tells us that the road Lori is talking about here is the same road Glenn and Rick have been in and out on. And this is the first time that Shane puts forward an argument that’s just plain wrong. He says they’ve had no time. Okay, fair enough – but they have a group of five literally in Atlanta as they speak. And based on Glenn’s exit path on the way back to the quarry, that group of five followed the same route in. Setting aside the question of why the hell their scavenging team apparently couldn’t stop along the road to place a “Stay Away, Walkers Ahead” sign, Shane’s argument is that they can’t spare the time to place the sign, because it’s “a luxury we can’t afford.” This makes no sense. As we’ll go on to see, this isn’t the first time someone from their group has gone into Atlanta (although it turns out that Glenn, their “go to town” man, has previously only gone himself, without anyone else). Everyone else up by the quarry is basically just fucking around doing nothing. The fact of the matter is that putting up a sign to warn people away from the city isn’t a luxury, but rather a helpful, logical, and overwhelmingly safe thing to do. Shane’s objection comes, in the first instance, from a man reluctant to relinquish control; it’s clear that Shane is viewed as a decision maker with practical knowledge the other survivors lack, and as a result of that knowledge is viewed as a leader. It’s an important if subtle moment in which Shane is established as the leader of the camp, a position that he then unwillingly gets shoved out of when Rick turns up. It is interesting, though, that here Lori is gung-ho about leaving their mountain and going down to put up a sign, while she later adamantly vetoes her husband going back to Atlanta. Shane’s argument is that no one goes anywhere alone, but given later events, it seems that Shane’s objection is not that someone wants to go warn people away from Atlanta, or that they want to risk Atlanta itself, as much as it is his desire to not let Lori be in danger. And Lori’s frustration at Shane’s decree is obvious – and yet she relents and gives in once kisses are to be had. Shane following Lori to verbally whack her for even thinking of putting herself in danger just points up Shane’s chauvinism. NOT LEAST BECAUSE, OH MY GOD, HE CALLS HER GIRL. SHE’S A WOMAN, YOU TWAT. If the argument had been made that Lori shouldn’t go because she has a son, and she shouldn’t risk him being an orphan – that I could understand. But Carl is so side-lined here that he’s really just a reason to make Shane and Lori stop kissing. Sigh.

God I wish Lori would have socked Shane in the eye. He does have nice hair, though.

Also, those are some *really* nice giant tents. Although my best friend’s adventures have made clear to me that I have unrealistically small expectations about tents.

I’m a little concerned about the condition of the windows of Rick’s cop car. They’re…disgusting. The driver’s side front and back windows look equally awful – I guess it’s good the apocalypse happened, because good luck seeing traffic out those windows. His windshield doesn’t look much better. Is over-enthusiastic pollen a thing in Georgia??

So, about the dead couple whose farm Rick encounters/steals a horse from. They’re both dead, woe, sadness, etc. What I’m fascinated about is that dude took the time to shoot his wife, and then decided to write a message IN HER BLOOD on the damn wall. I mean, okay, you wanted absolution for killing your wife and being about to kill yourself. But you kill your wife and then use her blood to write on the wall??

Signs that Rick is still in early days acceptance: he doesn’t enter the house with two clearly dead people (and thus likely no walkers) and then has a sit on a bench, throws up, and then goes in search of alternative transportation.

…that poor horse.

Is horse-taming a southern thing? I feel like I’d be terrified enough of the giant heavy horse to…not approach it.

Iconic shot!

It’s stunning that Rick has encountered zero walkers aside from the little girl. Works with the need for the story to move along, but is silly in terms of later walker distribution (ignoring season 2, which is its own special disaster).

Is everything flat in Georgia? Legitimate question. The extent of my knowledge of Georgia is a flight transfer through Atlanta. (Atlanta airport employees are all super nice, though.)

There’s something about the two zomdudes hanging out on a bus that cracks me up. How do walkers decide to just park it somewhere? “Ah yes, I recognise this bus, I’ve taken it to work every day for ten years. Definitely the best place to spend eternity.” It’s also odd but entertaining that the two dudes on the bus are repeatedly seen once Rick is in the horde and then in the tank. Why these two? Yeah, they’re the first Atlanta walkers he passed by, but they’re not exactly presented as special or important enough to appear repeatedly. Rick pops out of the top of the tank and whacks the one across the face, and the other skulks around the base of the tank and makes eye contact.

One of the weirdest and most uncomfortable moments in this episode, for me, is the two crows nomming the dead military officer. Caw caw! There’s a mild horror at the thought of ever being carrion. Though I guess everyone is just food for something else…

I can forgive Rick for a number of odd decisions based on the fact that he’s really only been awake for, what, two days? Maybe three? He’s still adapting to the new world, learning its rules, etc. But he rides a damn horse into a major city and is just generally not concerned. He comments to the horse when they pass the bus with the two walkers that it’s no big deal, they can outrun them – and yet somehow doesn’t think ahead about the existence of the dead in a major city. I guess it can sort of be attributed to the fact that he’s encountered remarkably few dead, plus in his brain Atlanta and its refugee centres are the answer to everything. He just hasn’t actually thought about it.

And, again, I’m stunned at the amount of abandoned military equipment. I guess the moral of the story is “don’t trust the military, don’t trust the government, they can do fuckall to help you.”

So Rick sees a helicopter. When he meets the others after Glenn rescued him, they ridicule the idea that helicopters still exist. Which brings up two instances. Firstly, beginning of season 3, when Andrea and Michonne witness a helicopter crash with military dudes who’ve got others attached to them. Secondly, the helicopter that rescues Rick and has apparently set up Rick Grimes’s future films. I just wish I knew where this particular helicopter was from and where it was going.

For a cop, even one with minimal experience with the world as it is now, Rick is an idiot. He lunges forward as stupidly as he went forward alone in his confrontation with the idiot car guys. Surely you should be thinking ahead? He’s in relatively unknown territory in a relatively new world. I’m not saying he should have anticipated a horde of dead people, but you’d think he’d exercise as least some caution, especially when his nearby décor indicates that the damn military was swamped with the enemy, such that they fucked off elsewhere. But maybe it’s just me.

Ooh, look, an extra drinking water.

I like that the makeup artists decay the walkers more each season. Season 1, most of them are sort of “hai I’m a regular human, I just have some dramatic injuries and some zombie eyes.” They look like people who are mostly dead but haven’t started to decompose. (I’d never be hired as a walker – the longer the show goes, the more they need skinny people so the makeup and prosthetics aren’t so obvious…and I am not skinny.)

That poor horse…

Yet again, Rick seriously lucks out. We see him multiple times with “omg dead people” face, with walkers just sort of lurking/dancing in place because they can’t lunge in or he’d be dead. And then there’s conveniently a tank above him. I’ve never been able to decide whether Rick going “Lori, Carl, I’m sorry” and then putting his gun to his head is a genuine “Oh no, I’m about to die” or if he’d realised the hatch was above him and so it was a “welp if I die, I love you.”

Men have huge feet. Yeek.

It’s stunning how long Rick’s in the tank with a zombot before said zombot wakes up and attempts a menacing growl. Not least because Rick’s so overwhelmed at having been upwardly mobile that he completely fails to take in his surroundings. (Although, as we’ve seen, Rick has never been great at checking his surroundings. Dude should be walkerbait by now.)

Oh no, a walker. Haaalp.

I do appreciate that Rick suffered auditory pain from firing a gun in an enclosed metal space. I also find it funny that one of the buszoms comes into his eyesight, like for some reason he's important.

“Hey, you. Dumbass.” Glenn is fucking amazing and iconic. I wish he'd been the main of this show. No offense to Andrew Lincoln, of course, but Steven Yeun is great, and Glenn's development from a kid into an adult is just lovely.

Anywho, that marks the end of "Days Gone Bye." Good in so many ways, eh in so many others. What's not to love?

love  em

#scribbles and snark #the walking dead #twd #walking dead #review #s1e1 #days gone bye #rick grimes #glenn rhee #andrew lincoln #steven yeun #zombies #walkers #walkerbait #walker bait #zoms #shane walsh #welcome to the apocalypse #hope you enjoy your stay #unfortunately hospitality has been eaten #so good luck filing any complaints #2020 #apocalypse #apocalyptic #apocalyptic fiction #dystopia #dystopian #post-apocalypse #post-apocalyptic #post-apo

[eallisnwndrlnd]

A Year Like No Other

Well this year certainly made quite an impact in history where no matter where one lived in the world, there was no way they were not affected by one if not many surprises 2020 decided throw our way.

I, like many, saw 2020 as a fresh start. A reset button for a new decade.

But alas, 2020 had other plans.

To annihilate all ours.

My plan, after a year of finalizing documents after graduation and marking off moving checklists, was to have us moved back to my hometown of Los Angeles, California.

We delayed the flight to May rather than February due to the sudden eruption of the Taal volcano. We were holed up in our house due to air quality and forced to wear masks to protect ourselves as travel was limited and flights were canceled for weeks.

All the while, knowledge of an unknown virus was already impacting China. We knew it was only a matter of time before it would reach us and the rest of the world. Little did we know how much wreckage Covid19 would leave in its wake as it traveled to every country and wreaked havoc across the world. It disturbed our normal lives. The way we lived daily was forever changed. Some more than others as people lost jobs, homes, family and friends to this pandemic.

As Covid19 barely rose to the forefront of a world crisis, my mother and I were packing for our move back stateside by May. I was aware of the seriousness of the virus in January as Taiwan and other Asian countries prepared for a possible repeat of the the last SARs outbreak. As the travel limits that stemmed from Taal died away and the alert level was lowered, we retained our mask wearing as we moved about metro Manila and back to Batangas.

Eventually Philippines began to see its first cases of Covid19 in February. The number of cases slowly increased but not quite as widespread as how it tore through my home country, the U.S. I watched the news, frustrated, horrified and embarrassed at how poorly my country decided to handle the virus.

By March 15, the Philippines was in full lockdown under level ECQ which stood for Enhanced Community Quarantine. Many strict guidelines went into place to mitigate the growing cases and death toll. Travel bans and limits were given for domestic and foreign travel. Travel within provinces and cities were limited to essential workers only. Transportation was completely shuttered from tricycles, jeepneys, buses, ferries, trains, etc, making commute for essential workers a daily nightmare. Nonessential businesses, schools and churches were forced to shut down for the time being. The only businesses allowed to continue were government offices at limited capacity, grocery stores and pharmacies, as well as wet markets but also limited capacity. Only those between the ages of 21 to 61 were allowed to leave their house. (This led to having a very cranky mother for over two months straight)

To enter any place of business people were expected to wear a face mask at all times. A guideline that difficult for some in the beginning only due to a shortage of face masks that stemmed from the Taal eruption and when the Philippines initially sent their supply to China in the beginning of the pandemic. About a few weeks later the masks were expected to be worn as soon as one left their house with a hefty fine of P5,000 ($100) if caught without one or a punishment of 6 months in prison. At entrances every person was checked for their temperature. As cases climbed and hospitals were heavily burdened, the guidelines became stricter by enforcing a quarantine pass that was given to each household where only one member of the household that met the age restrictions, was allowed to go out for only essentials. (This role of course went to me) For about two months we were assigned only one day out of the week we were allowed to go out for shopping for what we needed. (I was assigned Tuesdays.) If anyone was caught without their quarantine pass or going out on a different day they were assigned they risked the same punishment as not wearing a mask. (This meant heavy lifting of groceries and multiple trips in one day whilst walking for 5-13 miles on a given day.) After a while our province along with other provinces met the requirements to downgrade our ECQ to Modified ECQ, then to GCQ (which level we currently are still in since June or July) The quarantine pass was changed to being needed only during the week to not needed at all. (Although I still carry it just in case due to guidelines changing every two weeks or so.) Under GCQ, all businesses were allowed to open but with strict enforcement of guidelines and social distancing with restaurants at 50% capacity. Most businesses and all transportation require wearing full face shields aside from face masks. (This becomes a frustrating addition when my shield starts to fog and I can't freaking see) Schools have remained shuttered and gone remote. Movie theaters have yet to open at least that I'm aware of. Places of worship have opened at very limited capacity but have been shuttered again from time to time. Liquor bans were given during multiple periods of the pandemic.

Eventually our flight was canceled in May. Even if it hadn't been we would have canceled it ourselves since travel between cities and provinces were limited to essential personnel only for around two months and more in other areas. As well as the fact that by that time, U.S. was the most negatively affected with growing cases and deaths with many people becoming difficult tempermental raging toddlers in defying guidelines and refusing to wear a mask. We just did not feel it was safe to go back home any time soon. So here we are still where we were last year with only a non definite plan to move back stateside set in April. I hesitate to say that with any confidence whatsoever.

This year was a year of losses for many. So many of my friends and family have lost someone they knew and were dear to them. My dad's brother, uncle Rick, passed away mid year. I lost my nearly four year old cat, my fur baby, Gandalf "the Grey Whitewalker" only a month ago.

Every time I walk to the backyard to our outhouse, I am constantly reminded of him following me and keeping me company. Every time I look at my window near my bed, I remember him meowing at me to feed him. And every time I look out the front window, I see his little grave marker in our yard. He was my first real pet out of multiple fishes, a hamster, a duck, chickens, a mouse, and a turtle that I had the longest and the only pet I had in my adult years. I didn't realize how hard his loss was going to hit me until it did. The idea of him moving on to furry heaven left me very little to no comfort as I am not a person of faith. I just had to tell myself that it was his time to go and that I was blessed with the time that allowed him to be with me as my furry friend, companion, and confidant who followed my every move and meowed mama (as I taught him) when he wanted something. I will miss Gandalf very much.

With the pandemic holding its place as the suckiest thing to happen this year (...this century), other memorable events happened that held significant importance here and around the world.

Aside from the Taal eruption in January, Philippines was met with natural disasters one after another from multiple earthquakes to an onslaught of disastrous typhoons. Just recently on the morning of Christmas day, my province was hit with a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Thankfully it didn't cause any damages in our immediate area.

Other disasters hitting other countries and multiple wildfires that took a major toll on my homestate. One fire in particular that threatened the home of my dad, step mom and where my sister was living, drew my attention for weeks. Thankfully them, the house and their area remained safe.

As political issues arose here which created tension and conflict, so did it in the U.S. and other countries.

Since I follow multiple global news media outlets, I was kept abreast of the increasing issues in not only my home country but many others. Some mirroring what was occurring in the states like police brutality, riots, authoritarian tendencies among its leaders.

I awaited with bated breath for the U.S. elections results along with much of the world.

At least for that moment, I, like many others, allowed a heavy sigh of relief when the final result was announced.

One silver lining I could find in an otherwise shity year.

Take all that aside, what else did I manage to accomplish with limited movement, limited funds, and limited access...

My freelance work dried up to nada so I put back my energy to the things I could do.

I studied a bit more of Korean.

Started vlogging again.

Submitted more of my photography into contests which garnered a few live digital exhibitions in a few galleries in different countries.

Began drawing and painting after so many years.

Delved into more current events and became more connected and acquainted with other foreign news outlets that far exceeded the quality of many of my country's national news outlets. (This came from my growing disappointment at how my country's news outlets covered the Taal eruption and the pandemic early on)

Got rid of more of my things and organized what will stay here and what I'm taking with me to the states.

Cooked and baked more and added newly learned menus into my forte.

Found joy and comfort in walking for miles in extremely hot weather.

Kdrama and Cdrama binged watched like never before.

There are of course many more things I didn't accomplish that I would have liked to but either couldn't do or couldn't bring myself to bother to do.

Travel. Cuz pandemic guidelines and pera.

Move. Cuz pandemic, and my home city is doing a piss poor job in dealing with it so we're stuck here where I'm not legally allowed to obtain work until my country and the rest of the world minus a few exceptions (I.e. Taiwan, New Zealand, etc) get their shit together.

Get new job. See above.

Lose weight. Cuz I ate through our pandemic food supply like a starved hippo, baked my fat ass to oblivion, and decided to wait until the possible apocalypse happens before I bother to put any effort into excercise. Cuz if the world's gonna end and the choice is between cookies and ab crunches...I'm gonna choose cookies. And ice cream. And cake. And garlic buttered chicken. Might as well go with a BIG FAT BANG and a smile on my face.

Now 2020 is finally coming to an end.

The world with it. A few hours will tell.

But if 2021 manages to happen in two hours and we're all still alive I'm going into the new year with cautious anticipation.

Do I think that everything will suddenly come up roses once the clock strikes 12?

I'm not delusional.

We're still deeply into a dangerous and deadly pandemic now with a mutated version slowly making its rounds across the globe. Millions are still in hospitals with covid. Millions are jobless. Millions are homeless. Millions have lost that and more.

Sure we have a vaccine but with knowing that less than half the world will have access or being willing participants...it most likely will have little effect on the outcome.

Our politicians and governments are inept, corrupt, greedy, insane, just plain stupid to see any real change any time soon. Significant change takes time and a cohesive willingness to make those changes.

Still awaiting for the inauguration of my country's new president or the fall of its democracy once and for all this coming January. Frankly could go either way the way it's been going over there.

As for me and my plans for 2021.

Try to make the plans I made in 2020 happen.

Again I say this with hesitant confidence that I can make it happen. Frankly life has a way of turning those plans into merely contrived goals on a useless resolution.

I meet this new year with hope but prepared for whatever may come be it good or bad.

There's no use to be anxious about not being able to accomplish a list of goals I may have if life has other plans.

I can just call it detours.

Eventually I know whatever goals I want to accomplish, one way or another depending on my willingness to make it happen even if it doesn't meet a set timeline, I'll get it done.

If it takes me as long as it took me to finally graduate college or longer to check off those goals then so be it as long as I manage to find some little moments of happiness and snippets of accomplishments along the way.

Here's to 2021 being an improvement over the last.

May everyone (minus a few people I think of with detestation) have a Happy, healthy, safe, prosperous New Year.

May the world be allowed to heal.

May this pandemic go away.

May the year 2020 go frak itself.

#new year #new years resolution #life goals #life #goals #2020 #fuck 2020 #2021goals