Series Review: Being Human (US)

Did you watch it?

Series review: Being Human (US)

So guess what I found! There is a US version of ‘Being Human’! Thank God for that! Don’t get me wrong, I love the UK. But I love me a US production. I mean Americans can take anything mediocre and make it SPECTACULAR!

 

So you know, I am a huge series fan. I’ve watched like 100 series so far and reviews of every single one are coming up. Recently I came across ‘Being Human (UK)’ and to be honest I didn’t really like it. I thought it looked kind of low budget. The storyline was very interesting but I didn’t like the settings. Three days later I found the US version by accident. I’m so glad I did.

The story is about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost living in the same house. Each one of them has to overcome their own personal demons and find themselves in numerous dangerous situations. The characters are well portrayed and after watching a couple of episodes I feel like I know them well enough. 

I know what you are going to say. Vampires and werewolves? Again? The answer is YES. Come on. Admit it. You can’t be tired of hot supernatural being battling against evil. The plot is different, the characters are well portrayed and the scenes seem expensive. 

I highly recommend the US version over the UK one. After a couple of episodes you won’t seem to be able to stop watching. I personally won’t stop and I’ll probably watch all three seasons in a heartbeat. I would say it deserves 7.5 hearts/10 and the UK version 3,5. Sorry England (not!).

So tell me…Did you watch it?

A Pkmn Story: Chapter 6 - Togekiss

A Pokemon Story

Chapter 6
Togekiss

Screens were showing replays of the two battles before. The scene where his Metagross fainted due to the repetitive waterfalls was stopped and the screens started showing a live streaming of the battlefield for the audience to experience from a nearer angle. He was frustrated to say the least and didn’t give any attention to Irene wishing him good luck.

‘Togekiss use Air Slash!’
‘Gengar, dogde it and use hypnosis!’ Irene shouted. The ghost vanished into the ground while the air torrents didn’t hit and left a confused Togekiss on the battlefield.
‘Where is it gonna appear?’ Chris whispered and looked around nervously. He couldn’t lose this one too. Togekiss floated around and stopped abruptly. It tried moving its wings but they were like frozen in midair. It gave off a scream as it realized Gengar was emerging out of its shadow on the ground.
‘Togekiss!’ Chris felt cold sweat running down his spine. Gengar had gotten control of Togekiss through its shadow and made it unable to move around.
‘Hypnosis!’ Irene nodded to her pokemon. Gengar smiled, showing of his sharp shark like teeth. His eyes started glowing and met the frightened Togekiss’ eyes which opened up for a second and closed again. It feel to the ground and started sleeping.

‘Are you serious?’ Chris shouted anxiously. He started running out of options already. The scene where his Metagross was defeated run through his mind over and over again.
‘Gengar, use Nightmare.’ Irene said in a creepy happy way.
The Gengar went over to the Togekiss and touched its face. Its hand lighted up and Togekiss started shaking and trembling. ‘Now it is gonna lose health with every round that passes by while it sleeps. Won’t you do anything about it?’ Chris just stared at his pokemon suffering. Irene shrugged her shoulders. ‘Gengar, Dreameater!’ The Gengar looked over to its trainer, never losing his demonic smile and then got sucked into the Togekiss’ head through some point between its eyes. The pokemon shaked again and gave away scared noises. Its wings had got hard and the whole process just looked painful. Gengar emerged from the same spot and walked over to its trainer. Togekiss kept on shaking severely. 

Chris tried to hold a tear back. ‘Togekiss return. Metagross go!’
The red light sucked the suffering Togekiss into its pokeball and a second lightbeam send the metallic giant out.
‘At last you changed! Gengar use Curse!’
Gengar made several black needles appear out of nowhere and pointed them to itself. The needles struck it mercilessly and dug into its skin till they disappeared completely. It must have been painful since it shut its eyes and kneeled down, but never lost its smile. 

‘Why would you do that, your pokemon lost half of its health with this move.’ Chris gasped.
‘That’s true, but now your Metagross is cursed and is going to lose a quarter of its health with every turn.’ she said and smiled like a five year old.
‘You won’t last that long. Metagross, Thunder Punch!’ Metagross raised its arm in the sky and charged it then flew over to its foe and hit it with an electrical punch. The Gengar was unable to move and popped out of the battle field.
‘GENGAR CANNOT BATTLE ANYMORE. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEXT POKEMON.’ the speaker said.

A Pkmn Story: Chapter 5 - Gengar

A Pokemon Story

Chapter 5
Gengar

Chris didn’t hear the speaker at all. The humidity of the stadium by now had gotten to him and he was feeling cold. The Kingdra had almost fainted and he had just one pokemon left. With a weak movement he called his Espeon out for the second time. The enemy Kingdra, being exceptionally faster and with a massively boosted attacking stat, hit it hard and made it faint in a matter of seconds. The speaker shouted the winners name and the crowd cherished Dan with screams and whistles and by chanting his name loudly.

He had proceeded to the finals.

Dan glanced over to his opponent. Chris had kneeled over his Espeon and brushed its wet fur with his fingers. The Espeon was breathing heavily but looked okay. It started purring, feeling the tender touch of its trainer.
‘It’s alright Espeon. We couldn’t beat him. Maybe next time though.’ he murmured and returned it to its pokeball.
‘Good game, Chris!’ Dan shouted from across the field. The rainclouds had scattered and the bright stadium lights lightened up the place. Chris refused to pay him any attention and left to the trainer’s room to wait for the winner announcement. Dan shrugged his shoulders and followed him, waving to the pleased crowd. 

Commercials hit the screens, while the crowd was calming down for the next semifinal-match. 

He hadn’t cried for a while. He needed to get out all this tension building in him from the beginning of the match, all this moments that made him feel weak and uneven with his opponent. And he didn’t even misjudge his foe; he wasn’t arrogant about his skills, just about that Dan guy, and in the end not just lost his title but also his dignity and figure in front of his entire team. What if they now overlooked him because of that devastating loss?
It wasn’t his first one; it was the first one in some time though. And he thought he had acquired a skill level up to par with anyone around. He had to become stronger and gain more knowledge on species from other regions too. He had a lot of work in front of him, he probably should go home. First thing first, he would apologise to his team for that letdown of his part. 

A girl entered the bathrooms and stopped suddenly as she noticed she wasn’t alone. ‘You are the guy who just lost the battle before aren’t you?’
Chris wiped his wet cheeks quickly and left.

Just as he was about to leave the stadium Dan stopped him. ‘Where do you think you are going? You still have to battle for third place, friend.’
‘Your accent starts to get on my nerves, seriously.’
‘I just wanted to tell you-‘
‘Enough. You said enough. I heard enough. From you, that is. Take your stupid accent and go drown yourself in some pond of your goddamn rain!’
He walked past his bemused enemy and ran to the trainer’s room. 

The television screen just announced the rankings, with four pixels for each finalist, each of them whirling around the screen and meeting in the middle. Dan and the girl with the Garchomp continued to the big final and he was grouped with a girl called Irene, obviously the one he hadn’t noticed before. 

And to his surprise and horror she was the girl he ran into at the bathrooms, standing there all smiling and rejoicing even though she had already lost her chance for the title.
Chris was holding more tears in, as Dan’s accent was still echoing in his head. Irene sent her Gengar out on the battlefield and made a good luck sign to Chris which made him rage even more. He knew they were all watching down on him, the referees, the crowd that expected another ‘great’ battle for them to see, the other trainers(most of them knew him) and of course Dan.
‘Togekiss, go!’

A Pkmn Story: Chapter 4 - Kingdra pt.2

A Pokemon Story

Chapter 4
Kingdra pt.2 

It took some time till the collision calmed down, leaving a wounded Togekiss struggling to hold its breath, and a Kingdra almost completely untouched next to Dan.

‘TOGEKISS CANNOT BATTLE ANYMORE. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEXT POKEMON.’
‘Togekiss return.’ Chris brought the pokeball next to his lips and closed his eyes. ‘Metagross. Your turn!’
A gigantic metallic mass appeared out of his next pokeball, looking aggressively over to the foe’s Kingdra.
‘Interesting choice, but still too slow for my Kingdra. Watefall!’
Kingdra rode the rain and hit the Metagross with all of its might, causing the geyser to shoot from underneath it. However it couldn’t proceed and just stopped under it, splashing towards every different direction and making every spot of the arena wet that got away some way in the battle before. Metagross didn’t move an inch, just stood there unresponsive, staring into its enemy’s eyes.
‘Try fighting someone your height, Dan.’ Chris smiled and raised his hand. ‘Metagross, Earthquake!’ Metagross hit its metal limbs into the ground and produced powerful trembles, then started throwing rocks at the Kingdra which managed to avoid some of them but got pushed back in the end. ‘Looks like I will have to get through your defensive powerhouse now. Kingdra use Dragon Dance!’
‘A Dragon Dance won’t boost your attack enough for it to get through Metagross. Try harder. Hammer Arm, Metagross.’ The metallic beast hit its fore limbs into the arena floor and cracked it. The crack wormed its way to Kingdra as it run in circles, making the rain around it spin like a cyclone. It tripped over the distortion and hardly managed to keep on track. ‘Dragon Dance, again!’ Kingdra looked over to its trainer. It looked pretty unsure to if this would work, but obeyed and kept on running. A dim glow appeared around it. ‘Metagross, don’t stop, use Earthquake again!’
The whole stadium started shaking; some of the spectators started screaming and stood up. The instructors who remained next to the audience ensured them that nothing would happen to them, and that the arena was attack-proof. Kingdra got hit by rocks again, and got badly bruised on a lot of places, leaving Dan in a sweating worrying state. ‘Surrender already.’ Chris said. Dan didn’t respond.
The stronger the dim around Kingdra became, the stronger became the rainfall. ‘Kingdra, you’re ready. Waterfall again!’

This time, although the geyser hit Metagross from underneath like before it was more powerful and the pressure of the water had increased massively. Metagross had difficulty standing still, but then buried its arms into the ground and stabilized itself over the pressure. Kingdras’ eyes glowed and another geyser shot out of the ground next to Metagross, and then another one and then another one till he was completely surrounded. 

Water started crashing into its limbs and it had to let go, being pulled up eventually by the current.  ‘Metagross! No!’ Chris screamed as the heavyweight literally shattered into the middle of the stadium.
‘Your Air Slash isn’t the only attack that can make pokemon flinch.’ Dan said from somewhere behind the water streams. Chris gasped. His Metagross moved slowly out of the crater it had created while falling down. Its eyes were shut to a great extent. It obviously wouldn’t be able to finish the Kingdra this turn. Another Waterfall of this power would be devastating though. Chris started shaking.

Kingdra was panting next to Dan. He looked caringly over to it and fondled its back. ‘Good work, Kingra. We are almost done.’ Then he turned over to Chris. ‘Do you want to forfeit or shall we continue?’
Chris couldn’t think of something smart to reply and therefore remained silent.
‘That’s what I thought.’ Dan said. ‘Kingra, use one last Waterfall!’
The geysers started flooding the field for a fourth time, crashing from several points and pulling rocks, sand and mud with them. Metagross couldn’t handle this much power and fainted in the progress of trying ingloriously to escape from the water masses.

‘METAGROSS CANNOT BATTLE ANYMORE. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEXT POKEMON.’

A Pkmn Story: Chapter 3 - Kingdra pt.1

A Pokemon Story

Chapter 3
Kingdra pt.1

The crowd had gotten very silent, as the anxiety was building mercilessly.
‘Espeon, come back.’ Chris pulled out another pokeball and lifted it up. A bright red light flashed through the arena and a big white bird appeared.
‘Togekiss, show him your Air Slash.’
‘A flying type to abuse your type advantage over my grass type pokemon, huh? But what if you get hit by a devastating Ice Beam?’ He was right. Devastating was just the right word for him to use. ‘Ludicolo, Ice Beam!’
The Togekiss flew up high in the air and hit the air with its fluffy wings. Currents formed themselves and hit the enemy hard on its chest, pushing it back as massive sand clouds got wiped up due to the collision. The rain quickly made the sand and dust disappear, leaving a paralyzed Ludicolo with and open beak, ready to fire its attack that would never occur. ‘Ludicolo! I said use Ice Beam!’ The pokemon looked terrified to its trainer. Its breath was frozen, but no Ice Beam happened.
‘Air Slash can make your pokemon flinch, you know, making it unable to fight for a little.’ Chris said without changing his facial expression. ‘Looks like I’m lucky with this, aren’t I?’ A dim smile appeared on the end of his lips. ‘Togekiss, keep on spamming Air Slash!’
Togekiss let a very high-pitched noise out of its mouth and flapped its wings continuously, producing laminated air currents that hit Ludicolo directly everywhere. It was again pushed back until it fell to the ground and the Slashes didn’t let it stand up. ‘Ludicolo, Ice Beam! Use Ice Beam!’ Dan shouted anxiously, while having to witness how his pokemon was going down. The curing effects of the rain clouds weren’t enough to make up for the super effective damage that was dealt. Suddenly an Ice Beam was emitted out of the dust cloud of Air Slashes and hit Togekiss directly on its right wing. ‘Yes! At last a hit! Yes!’ The Ludicolo got a second to catch its breath. It looked extremely harmed and probably had very little health left. Togekiss fell out of the sky but got itself together right before the crash and opened its wings to regain momentum and height.
Dan lost his breath. ‘But wasn’t that supposed to make it faint? It doesn’t even look damaged at all!’
‘Well,’ Chris replied calmly, ‘my Togekiss has exceptional special defense. Your attack probably didn’t even get it to half its health. Nevertheless, watch this. Roost!’
Togekiss landed on the ground and closed its eyes. A light shimmer covered it and disappeared again.
‘Now my health’s full again! ‘, he smiled. Dan cursed something in his own language and looked at its Ludicolo that tried to regain health with its ability. There was no point in even calling it back, since it would easily be defeated at some other point without any health.
‘Togekiss, Aura Sphere.’ Togekiss opened its eyes and spread its wings. A white sphere of light appeared over its head and flew over to the wounded Ludicolo. Total silence.

‘Did your father buy you these pokemon?’ he smiled delighted, as the Ludicolo crashed into the ground.
‘LUDICOLO CANNOT BATTLE ANYMORE. PLEASE PROCEED TO YOUR NEXT POKEMON.’ The voice filled the stadium and echoed, and the crowd jumped in excitement.  

 
‘My Togekiss has the ability Serene Grace, which makes secondary effects of any attack more likely to happen. It’s a wonder you even got to attack in the first place. Did I get some sand on your designer-jeans? Sorry about that.’ Chris mocked his opponent.

Dan looked seriously over to him, then started laughing. Chris' smile vanished.
‘Finally I get to battle someone up to par with me. Want to get going? I have more to show you than just designer clothes!’
That was enough to get the crowd and Chris fired up for anything.
‘Kingdra, show him what we’re made of!’  He threw his third pokeball in the air and a big blue seahorse appeared on the battlefield. The rain got stronger.
‘A dragon type. Good choice,’ Chris responded, ‘but as long as my Togekiss is faster, which it is, you will struggle even dreaming of attacking me.’
‘Don’t underestimate me my friend.’ He said with that weird accent of his. ‘Seedraking, go!’
The Kingdra moved forward and reached vertiginous speed in a matter of nanoseconds. It was almost like it rode the rain.
Chris gasped in horror. ‘Don’t tell me...’
‘Indeed.’ Dan smiled. ‘Swift Swim doubles Kingdras speed in rain! Waterfall attack!’
The Kingdra appeared behind Togekiss from nowhere which was still grounded due to its use of Roost some time before. A giant geyser of water emitted from the ground and drifted the bird up in the sky where the Kingdra followed and hit it with adjacent powerful hits.
‘You may have amazing special defense, but your regular defense will be good in the best of situations. How many Waterfalls will you be able to resist?’
‘I can’t beat you if you’re faster. But what if you aren’t?’
Togekiss crashed into the ground and a dust cloud filled the arena. ‘Well, try it.’ Dan answered.
Chris winked. ‘Togekiss Extremespeed!’

The Togekiss appeared out of the cloud and rocketed towards its enemy. Dan started trembling as the foe accelerated seemingly endlessly. ‘Waterfall-full power, NOW!’ The geyser appeared again from underneath Kingdra and pushed itself up till over the rainclouds, making both pokemon disappear under the heavy masses of both water and dust.

A Pkmn Story: Chapter 2 - Espeon

 A Pokemon Story

Chapter 2
Espeon

2 days ago

One of the local tourneys took place in the stadium, like they did on every second Wednesday. Chris never participated in all of them, but liked the tension and suspense these battles gave him and his pokemon. The battles were held in one to one elimination style and all the fore rounds led to the top 4 best trainers who fought against each other for the first place. Small money prizes were given to the winner, nothing very enormous, but the city council had to give something to all those people who pulled so many spectators from the region around to the city to watch the games. In the end just one person got rewarded, but the joy of being cheered on was enough for many trainers to try their skills out again and again. 

Chris won most of the times he participated, in fact, and had gotten a little cocky about himself. Not that it mattered at all, but the competition had started to get sparse. New trainers came in from the outskirts and other towns, but his skills stayed unmatched. That wouldn’t mean that he would get bored, but the challenge was missing. 

This time a bigger crowd of people had arrived due to the fact that some new trainers actually got involved from foreign regions. You could say that this event was bound to get more impressive than other ones and Chris couldn’t hide his excitement from the moment he woke. His team was in a top condition and his mood on a sky high level.

The preliminaries were a piece of cake; he didn’t even need to get into a second pokemon during the battles. His Espeon and his Metagross did most of the work effortlessly. Entering the top 4 wasn’t into question. Noise was being made around his name, either ‘Hey this is that Chris guy from the outskirts’ or ‘looks like a promising winner to me’ got him up to par with legends in his mind and left no possibility for him in losing that tourney. The other trainers were as bad as always, though he sensed different tactics and thinking ways during his fights, which was entertaining brain playing. He had made out his favorites from the very first round, a beautiful blonde girl with an impressive Garchomp and a black-haired boy with expensive looking clothes and a massive Seadraking. They both got into the top 4, together with another girl he hadn’t noticed before, red-stained hair, a little shorter than him, about his age. Uninteresting.

The battlers got paired by chance and his first final round battle would be with the other boy, while the girls had to fight each other. The crowd cheered excited and clapped like there was no tomorrow. First on where the boys. The rules were pretty simple, everyone had to use three of his pokemon and the one with no more left to battle would lose and get eliminated. Battles like these tent to get time consuming, but that didn’t matter for Chris, since the only thing he was after was a challenge. And another winner’s cup. 

'MAY BOTH TRAINERS BRING OUT THEIR RESPECTIVE PARTY MEMBER.' said the voice through the megaphone. The crowd got nearly crazy as the names of the enemies lighted up on the giant screen over their heads. Multiple cameras gave glimpses from the battle stadium in high definition videos so that no one from the audience would miss any move. Chris' foe’s name was Dan. He obviously wasn’t from around here as he had never seen him before, just like the other finalists.

‘Espeon, go!’ he said, almost whispering and let his pokemon out of the pokeball.

‘Good luck my friend!’ Dan shouted from across the field with a weird accent and threw a pokeball in the air. A Politoed appeared.
Grey clouds appeared over the battle field and it started drizzling. A rain-team.  
Espeon shrugged down and got into an attacking-stance. ‘Light Screen, Espeon!’ A dim light green and almost invisible wall surrounded Espeon from the ground till over its head.
‘Nice one, trying to cut down my special attacks. It may not make a difference though. Politoed, return!’ The little green toad jumped around the field two times and got sucked back by the pokeball, while Dan already took out his second pokemon.
‘All he wanted was to set up his weather. Probably that will be of some importance to his team.’ Chris thought. He rarely was wrong about his opponent’s movements and tactics, having studied competitive battling styles from all over the world. His second pokemon was a Ludicolo.
As it tried to fire of some Ice Beams and Giga Drains, Chris' Espeon kept on avoiding being hit and fought back with powerful Psychic attacks. The Ludicolo didn’t look harmed at all though; it just kept dancing in the rain, while shooting Ice Beams from its beak.
‘It’s Rain Dish, isn’t it? Ludicolo can use this ability to gain back its HP in rainy weather.’
‘I see you’ve done your homework, fellow Chris. Can you do something against my Ludicolo though? Your Espeon won’t be able to avoid my distance attacks forever, and your Light Screen fades.’

He was right. Light Screen just worked for some rounds and after it disappears his Espeon would be in great danger. He smiled. Finally no pushover-trainer. Time to have fun.