Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2019-09-23 10:51 am
rionaleonhart) wrote2019-09-23 10:51 am
Entry tags:
Act Natural.
A long time ago, I posted here to say 'should I watch The Mentalist?' and half the comments said 'NO, WATCH PSYCH INSTEAD' and I went 'screw you, I'm watching The Mentalist.' One might wonder why I bothered asking the opinion of my flist if I was just going to ignore it.
I don't regret my decision to watch The Mentalist at all, but all the enthusiastic recommendations for Psych stuck in my mind, so I'm checking it out at last. Only took me a decade.
Riona: I'm not sure about Shawn. I think he's a bit too much of an arsehole for me.
Rei: He acts exactly like Patrick Jane. You love Patrick Jane.
Riona: Maybe I just don't like Shawn because he's not traumatised enough.
I've heard the character dynamics of Psych compared to Scrubs, and it was slightly weird to go in with the set of expectations that that creates. I wanted Shawn and Gus to love each other as much as JD and Turk do, and of course I was inevitably to be disappointed, because nobody has ever loved anyone as much as JD and Turk love each other.
'Turk, we're not married.'
'Dude, we're a little married.'
'I know. I love it.'
(There's a late Scrubs episode where JD says 'I love you more than Turk' to Elliot and I yelled 'NO YOU FUCKING DON'T' at the screen. While I do enjoy the implication that 'I love you more than Turk' is the most romantic thing JD could possibly say, that was absolutely, one hundred percent a lie. No question about it. I defy anyone to watch Scrubs and try to claim it was true.)
Given the JD-and-Turk comparisons I'd heard, it was a bit of a surprise that Gus plays the longsuffering straight man to Shawn's wackiness, whereas JD and Turk are both ridiculous and cheerfully enable each other in their ridiculousness (and JD would never delight in Turk's suffering the way Shawn does in Gus's). I am sort of shipping Shawn with poor longsuffering Gus, though.
Shawn and Lassiter's dynamic is also very different to JD and Dr Cox's. Lassiter genuinely seems to dislike Shawn; JD is important to Dr Cox, although Dr Cox would never admit it. Shawn enjoys pushing Lassiter's buttons; meanwhile, JD adores Dr Cox, craves his approval and pushes his buttons without intent, because Dr Cox is a man made entirely of buttons.
A cat features prominently in the fifth episode of Psych, and Zuko watched the episode in fascination for twenty solid minutes. Then the episode froze and he wandered off while I was restarting it, and I genuinely felt bad. He'd been enjoying the episode so much, and now he wasn't going to find out how it ended! Riona, Zuko is a kitten and he's not that invested in following procedural plots.
To be honest, I'm disappointed that the episode didn't end with Shawn deciding to keep the cat. I'm enjoying the show so far, but it was improved immeasurably by Shawn carrying a cat into all the crime scenes.
I don't regret my decision to watch The Mentalist at all, but all the enthusiastic recommendations for Psych stuck in my mind, so I'm checking it out at last. Only took me a decade.
Riona: I'm not sure about Shawn. I think he's a bit too much of an arsehole for me.
Rei: He acts exactly like Patrick Jane. You love Patrick Jane.
Riona: Maybe I just don't like Shawn because he's not traumatised enough.
I've heard the character dynamics of Psych compared to Scrubs, and it was slightly weird to go in with the set of expectations that that creates. I wanted Shawn and Gus to love each other as much as JD and Turk do, and of course I was inevitably to be disappointed, because nobody has ever loved anyone as much as JD and Turk love each other.
'Turk, we're not married.'
'Dude, we're a little married.'
'I know. I love it.'
(There's a late Scrubs episode where JD says 'I love you more than Turk' to Elliot and I yelled 'NO YOU FUCKING DON'T' at the screen. While I do enjoy the implication that 'I love you more than Turk' is the most romantic thing JD could possibly say, that was absolutely, one hundred percent a lie. No question about it. I defy anyone to watch Scrubs and try to claim it was true.)
Given the JD-and-Turk comparisons I'd heard, it was a bit of a surprise that Gus plays the longsuffering straight man to Shawn's wackiness, whereas JD and Turk are both ridiculous and cheerfully enable each other in their ridiculousness (and JD would never delight in Turk's suffering the way Shawn does in Gus's). I am sort of shipping Shawn with poor longsuffering Gus, though.
Shawn and Lassiter's dynamic is also very different to JD and Dr Cox's. Lassiter genuinely seems to dislike Shawn; JD is important to Dr Cox, although Dr Cox would never admit it. Shawn enjoys pushing Lassiter's buttons; meanwhile, JD adores Dr Cox, craves his approval and pushes his buttons without intent, because Dr Cox is a man made entirely of buttons.
A cat features prominently in the fifth episode of Psych, and Zuko watched the episode in fascination for twenty solid minutes. Then the episode froze and he wandered off while I was restarting it, and I genuinely felt bad. He'd been enjoying the episode so much, and now he wasn't going to find out how it ended! Riona, Zuko is a kitten and he's not that invested in following procedural plots.
To be honest, I'm disappointed that the episode didn't end with Shawn deciding to keep the cat. I'm enjoying the show so far, but it was improved immeasurably by Shawn carrying a cat into all the crime scenes.
no subject
I keep getting the beginning of a fic idea where Patrick Jane mets Shawn, and 1) they insist they're nothing alike, and 2) Jane is absolutely furious about how Shawn is catching criminals by pretending to be psychic, but like furious in a concerned "This destroyed my life and everyone I cared about, this will happen to you, too!"
They get more shippy as the show goes on. (I started out of order, with "Gus Walks Into a Bank")
Yeah, it wouldn't have even occurred to me to compare them, they're totally different.
Aw!
no subject
I think you mentioned this before, and I loved the concept then, and I love it twice as much now that I've actually started watching Psych. I enthusiastically encourage writing this.
They get more shippy as the show goes on.
Excellent news!
In the episode I just watched ('9 Lives'), Shawn and Gus tried to get information by pretending to be interested in renting a flat together, and Shawn took great delight in going along with the landlord's assumption that they were a couple. I'll admit that his response being 'I'm fine with this' rather than 'WHAT, NO' make me like him slightly more.
Yeah, it wouldn't have even occurred to me to compare them, they're totally different.
I've definitely seen them discussed together, but maybe the discussions I've seen were more a comparison of the Scrubs and Psych fandoms as fandoms where the protagonist is very close to his black best friend, but 'the protagonist/the aggressive older white guy he works under' is noticeably more popular in the fandom. I might have mistakenly assumed people were saying the Shawn-Lassiter dynamic was similar to the JD-Cox one, rather than just saying that the characters have similar roles and the fandoms display similar patterns.
(My personal opinion on the matter is that there probably is some racial bias influencing the overall numbers, but it's difficult to draw clear conclusions (and impossible to go 'everyone who ships this is shipping it for this specific reason; you should ship this other pairing instead!') when the ships you're comparing have such different dynamics; take Harry Potter fandom, where the antagonistic Harry/Draco and Snape/Harry ships are much more popular than the protagonist/best friend pairing of Harry/Ron.)
no subject
Let me know if you get to the point with a character called Yang.
People assuming they're a couple and Shawn's reaction is something of an interesting theme on the show!
Yeah, I agree. I feel like cross-fandom comparisons of characters with similar dynamics and different racial backgrounds is more enlightening, and the more you get to specific individual preferences, the more other factors play a role.
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I'm not entirely sure I would trust Shawn with a cat for more than an episode, but then again, perhaps the responsibility would be good for him. And having a cat would definitely increase my positive feelings about him. Alas for what could have been!
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I'm not entirely sure I would trust Shawn with a cat for more than an episode
Ha, probably a good point!
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Also, I love Carlton Lassiter with all of my heart and soul and I forgot that until just this moment. Also also, I ship him with literally every person he comes into contact with except Shawn. Lassie/Gus turned out to be surprisingly fun, and would have been an exciting ship to play with if Gus/Shawn didn't own my entire soul.
(I am secretly hoping that's the ship you land on. Shh, don't tell you I said that.)
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I'm definitely leaning Gus/Shawnwards at the moment, and I'd love to read your Silent Hill crossover, if you have it to hand (and it's not too spoilery).
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(Anonymous) 2019-09-23 11:38 pm (UTC)(link)(I am playing AI: The Somnium Files! I am actually really enjoying it, and wow, the production values are noticeably up on the previous efforts, and the story is engaging. It's still noticeably an Uchikoshi story, and I'll let you decide what that means. :P I shall say nothing more so you can be as non-spoiled as possible, beyond this minor complaint:
The only negative is that I'm currently stuck on a puzzle. After an hour of beating my head on a brick wall (and cursing Uchikoshi for deciding time based puzzles are a good idea), I caved and looked up a solution - only to find that the solution still doesn't work, and that this puzzle seems to be entirely luck based depending on what randomly generated help items you get, since the time is so tight on this one. (I've played this segment enough times that I am 100% certain they've changed between every attempt.) Guess I have to just keep plugging away and hoping it'll generate me more useful items.)
-timydamonkey
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I'm pretty sure it means 'there's time travel and alternate realities and murder and ridiculous plot twists involved, there's a good chance it's set in an underwater theme park, and half the characters are enormous perverts'. I'm definitely here for time travel, alternate realities, murder and ridiculous plot twists!
That does sound like some terrible game design, though. I hope you get through the puzzle before long!
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(Anonymous) 2019-09-24 05:31 pm (UTC)(link)I may or may not have got a trophy - my current rarest trophy - for examining an object up to the point of the main character making penis jokes about it. (It was not a particularly phallic object.)
I'll keep you updated on the progress of this puzzle! I regret looking it up in a way, because being told "THIS IS THE ONLY SOLUTION SINCE TIME IS SO TIGHT" and still not managing is demoralising, and while I was changing stuff up a lot earlier looking for any different sequence of events where I could shave some time off I've kind of stopped doing that. Maybe I need to be more flexible again?
no subject
(Anonymous) 2019-09-24 06:24 pm (UTC)(link)