ghosts

Had a dream last night (yes, one of those again).

Actually it wasn't really scary, and it didn't make much sense, unlike some of my other dreams *cough*

It seemed to be some sort of story, because it jumped between the present and the past. It started off the day after a gruelling magic duel in which neither side won. The first (as in, main) general of the "bad side" met up with a few people on the good side, and they were all putting on the "I'm-so-righteous-I'll-even-be-nice-to-my-enemy, for-now" act. Someone on the good side was in the team fighting against the enemy king the previous day, but apparently the first general was also very strong, and they were laughing and handing out compliments etc...except then the first general said something very insightful and important and I'm annoyed because I can't remember what it was.

It then flashed back to a while earlier, to a man on the good side who was some sort of soldier/magician, one of those grim-faced stoic (and invariably middle-aged) ones. There was also another much younger guy on his team, who was a strange kind of healer, in that he absorbed other people's injuries, and as long as it is below a certain threshold, he can heal them (okay...I admit the name I immediately attached at this point was...Vivant). The stoic guy and the healer didn't get along very well, but one day he got in a fight against the "bad side" and was very badly injured even though he was a very strong magician. When the healer got to him, he told the healer to take his remaining life - and hence adding to the healer's threshold so that he can use it in the future to heal others - instead of trying to heal him.

Cut forward to a few months later, on some significant day for his death, and apparently I'm in this as some sort of onmyouji type person =__=;; I walked into this little Japan-esque garden, with lots of rocks and shrubbery. There's this space where a number of random items are arranged, stuff like small plants or lanterns or some sort of memento. There was a silver box that folded out, and as I unfolded it, I said to someone who was waiting nearby that we'll need to set the stoic guy's spirit to rest now, in case he's become a 怨鬼 (vengeful spirit), and to myself in the dream I thought that it's because he died in circumstances where he would have plenty of reason to hate the enemy side and hence turn vengeful.

As I opened the box and prayed or whatever it is I did, I said that he wasn't there any more. I remember tipping the box over in alarm, and saying to the mysterious someone standing beside me that even if he did not turn into a vengeful spirit, he should still be there - and here I pointed to the other mementos around the box where other people's spirits could be called through them - but his presence was completely gone. Then someone - or maybe it's me ==; - said that this probably means he's moved on to a better life, and in my dream I agreed, and yet still felt incredibly saddened by the absence of a ghost of some guy I've never seen before =__=;;;;

I'm going to emphasise that he's old and not good looking and in fact the sort of guy I generally find annoying =_=;;

And before you ask, I've been reading a rather unremarkable fantasy book with heroes so drab that I find myself cheering the bad guy on. Seriously. I just want him to conquer the world ="= I don't care if he kills the heroes or if he should have died 200 years ago and his true form looks like a rotted corpse. Benevolent dictatorship has potential, e.g. in Ankh-Morpork =D

ncis / los angeles

It's not often that I actually review an American series except to squee in fangirl high over them for two minutes without saying anything useful. LOL.

But it's also not often that a spinoff would generate its own spinoff, and NCIS went into its 7th season shouldering a lot of expectations.

The 2-part special last season as a prep for NCIS: LA was interesting, although I got rather bummered to have my only favourite character out of the LA team gunned down in the last two minutes. Fortunately Gibbs said Callen was still alive one episode later and now he's back at work...although how he survived being shot in the chest at close range by a machine gun is still beyond me, but hey...this is NCIS, where Gibbs can teleport.

I've actually seen the first two episodes of both series, even though only one has been screened in Australia *cough* I have to say...I hope the scriptwriting lifts up over the course of this season, or both series will lose fans. Yes, including the original.

It's true that NCIS has never been the cream of the crop as a forensics procedural. I like it - and I think most of its fans like it - because of its team. But while character-focused episodes are therefore playing to its strengths, 7.01 and 7.02 were so full of...I don't know how to describe it...fanwanking? It's full of moments that make the sentimental side of you go all gooey while the tiny little rational voice at the back of your head screeches "WTF?!" Albeit not very loudly, as it's drowned out by the giant "awwww".

That said, Tony and McGee have been growing quite a bit on me in the last two episodes. This is amazing progress considering I used to find Tony mostly annoying and McGee mostly...dull. I've never been a Tiva fan, but the Tiva moments these two episodes oozes of chemistry. I'm even finding Tony's jock antics kind of endearing after watching NCIS: LA, but I'm not sure what that says.

Moving on to the LA spinoff, the first and most glaring problem is it doesn't have an authoritative figure. I'm not saying it needs Gibbs, or even "a Gibbs", but if the original NCIS team was a family headed by Gibbs as the strict yet indulgent dad, the LA spinoff seems like a band camp with a bunch of ill-defined but invariably juvenile personalities.

There are also too many nerds. I know the original team has three as well, but at least Abby is a goth specialising in everything forensics and McGee is a computer nerd, while Palmer is a pure nerd who doesn't have much screen time. Nate, Dom and Eric are mostly indistinguishable from each other except in their manner of ineptitude.

The only charm that the LA team has over the original is a good comaraderie between the two male leads, but it's treading so precariously on the homoerotic line that sometimes it's just plain...cringeworthy.

I'm going to give it time to grow into its shape, but I think the first remedy it needs is someone to give them the Gibbs glare when the smartass quips run out of hand.