Hello folks! It’s time once again for the Weekend Wrap-Up, in which I blather on at length about whatever I’ve been writing, reading, and doing. It’s not really a complicated or a novel concept.

Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we?

What I’ve Been Writing

I’m still making my way through “Gosling Gardens.” I got the initial outline mostly completed, but then looking back through it, I felt like it was missing some pretty vital character motivations — they didn’t feel like real people to me. Now I’ve gone through and added better motivations for both of the main characters, and I’ve started fleshing out the plot just a tad more, including developing a side character a little more that’ll tie back into the events of the story. Since a lot of the outline is staying the same, just with a few tweaks and a bit extra added in places, I’m hoping to have the outline done by the end of the week. If I’m feeling REALLY good, maybe I can get the draft done, too, but I’m not holding my breath.

In the meantime, I’m also working on the next bit of my D&D game. We had to cancel our last session 2 weeks ago due to some conflicting schedules, but this week it still looks like we’re all game. I have a rough idea of a plan, but it hasn’t been explicitly laid out yet. I need to get on that — I’ve just been overwhelmed with so many other things, I haven’t felt like doing it. Which is silly because I love the game we’ve started, and I love D&D. I’m just really tired. So that’s the plan for the next few days.

What I’ve Been Reading

Nothing. I didn’t read anything last week except Twitter sometimes because last week was a dumpster fire, and I was too exhausted to understand anything I read. I’m hoping that will change this week, but I’m not holding my breath as there’s quite on my plate at the moment. Still, if I can steal a few moments at night to read more Necrotech, I’ll be all the happier for it.

What I’ve Been Watching

Two big things, really. The first, is Star Trek: Discovery. Since The Twilight Zone is coming out very soon, we decided to get CBS All Access again after letting it drop previously, and I’m making my way through season 1 of Discovery.

I love it a lot. I watched the first few episodes when they first aired a couple years ago, but I quickly fell behind, and then we cancelled CBS for money reasons. I remember thinking it was very odd — good, but very different from other Star Trek. And while that’s held true to a point, I just finished episodes 7 and 8, and they have both felt very much like old school Trek.

Episode 7 involved a time loop that I could easily see playing out in the old 60s show — it felt very high concept in a way that a lot of those episodes did.

Episode 8 involved a ground mission, a classic Trek formula, along with semi-sentient beings that don’t conform to our typical understanding of life.

I loved both of them, and I love the show. And it’s nice to have another show to binge since we’ve caught up on Brooklyn 99.

The other thing we watched? CAPTAIN MARVEL.

In short, I loved it. In fact, I loved it even more the second time, and the more I think about it, the more my appreciation for it grows. It reminds me of a host of 90s movies and entertainment, it’s funny, smart, and full of heart, and manages to give me echoes of Captain America: The First Avenger, which is my favorite movie in the MCU.

The movie manages to feel like a highlight reel of 90s tropes in the best way possible. Carol’s arrival on earth gave me strong Suburban Commando and Terminator 1 & 2. At one point she steals some clothes and a motorcycle to blend in, and in my head I heard, “I need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle.”

I got Top Gun vibes from the pilot stuff, the Skrulls gave me T-1000 vibes, some of the fight scenes gave me Dragonball Z vibes (in a good way, not in a protracted screaming way). The soundtrack was everything I wanted it to be. And there’s a brief sequence late in the film that gave me strong early Steve Rogers vibes, and I felt my heart exploding with rainbows.

I want it to make all of the money.

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT – SKIP TO NEXT SECTION TO AVOID

I thought that making the Kree the stealth bad guys was very clever and gave Carol a similar moral shake up in the way that Steve Rogers got in Winter Soldier, and of course the fact that Carol is a woman and women are treated like trash historically pretty much everywhere certainly plays into the story well. There’s a sequence where an artificial intelligence tries to wear Carol down by harping on how fragile humans are and how easy they are to knock down. Then, there’s a powerful montage of Carol getting back on her feet all throughout her life, and in that moment I got strong “I could do this all day” vibes.

Carol, much like Steve, is a capital G “Good Guy,” and those are the types of folks that are my favorite stories to see. Steve being a morally upstanding guy that just wants to do the right thing — jumping on that grenade to save his platoon — is exactly the energy I got from Carol, too. She’s more confident than Steve, which I loved, but ultimately, they seem to have the same morality driving them. Case in point: when Nick Fury is attempting to arrest Carol and take her in for questioning, a Skrull sniper tries to take him and her out, and her first instinct is to push Fury out of the way. Later, when Lawson, her mentor, tries to go on a solo mission mentioning lives were at stake, Carol volunteers without hesitation because saving lives is what they do.

Loved. It. More please.

What I’ve Been Doing

This past week has been a huge. We had some good financial fortune, and have been working to make things a little better for ourselves. On the somewhat selfish side, that involved getting a Chromebook, which I love very much. My HP Stream has reached a point where it’s pretty much unusable for me, and this little guy, on which I’m writing right now, does everything I need. I can even write in bed, which is pretty wonderful when I’m exhausted like I am this week.

Beyond that, the big thing we accomplished is putting in an application for a new apartment. We are now on the wait list for our dream apartments. The rent will be almost the same as where we’re living now, but it will be almost twice as big as our current place, and have not only 2 bedrooms, but 1.5 bathrooms.

There are some things you don’t think about until you don’t have them. A coat closet in the living room is one of those things. I’m over the moon about the amount of storage space we’ll have.

There’s a few other things we’re taking care of, but that’s honestly the big one. They said we probably won’t move until June, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed for sooner than that.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I’ve lost a decent amount of weight this year so far, and I’m hoping to keep up that momentum, starting by getting back on track with my diet. I took the weekend off from eating healthy to celebrate a bit, but I need to get back on the wagon, and now that it seems like warmer weather might finally be moving in, hopefully I can get back to exercising as well. Fingers crossed that holds true. I’ve been tricked more than once lately by Mother Nature.

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And that’s the wrap up for this week. How has your week been? Done anything your proud of and want to share? Watched or read anything you want to chat about? Comment below! Or, if you’d prefer, you can drop me an email or hit me up on Twitter. I’d love to hear from y’all.

‘Til next time!