(spoilers~)

This sex god aka Kimblee, a man of many titles. Whether it's the Mad Bomber or the Crimson Alchemist, his reputation is well deserved for his specialty.

Between the sounds of explosions, the act of creating said explosions and people screaming, Kimblee can be considered a conductor. He derives pleasure from hearing these sounds, saying they are practically a lullaby for him. Bear in mind, this is all information gathered within the first conversation we witness with him.

There's something completely intriguing about a character who's so passionate about something like causing destruction, who takes such pride with his craft, who wishes for nothing more than to make "beautiful" music. You can just look at his face and KNOW that this will be an interesting character even without knowing him.

He challenges the "good" characters in the series by dropping bombs of truth. Kimblee, a man who gets his kicks off of doing his civic duty in Ishval, confronts soldiers like Mustang & Hawkeye, even Hughes, by saying they were the ones who chose this path when they are feeling guilty for senselessly killing Ishvalans. Kimblee goes further to say that the least they can do is remember the faces of those they've killed, because those people will never forget them. And Kimblee ACTUALLY remembers each person he's killed or attempted to kill, as evidenced by the fact he remembers Scar ("his handiwork"), even years after the war.

Whether you prefer him in FMA or Brotherhood, the fact remains that this guy strictly follows his own code and favors those who stand by their convictions/beliefs. He doesn't put up with hypocrisy - in fact, he will call you out on it and make you rue the day you decided to be hypocritical - case in point, in Brotherhood, when he gives Ed the opportunity to defeat Pride, because Pride was attempting to use a human to save his life after Pride claimed to be a superior being.

And ever since Ashley mentioned it, I agree that Kimblee would have been the PERFECT Pride. Seriously. He does things for his own benefit and he does so with all this confidence in the world, because he KNOWS he can. He's so sadistic and twisted with a dark sense of humor. What's not to love? He's just such an interesting villain/antagonist, although I suppose in comparison to who the actual villains are, he's more like a sub-villain.

Even his death is satisfying, at least in FMA, where we come full circle and Scar gets the revenge he's been seeking the entire time and Kimblee's basically the reason why Al even becomes the Philosopher's Stone in the first place. Without Al's involvement in the fight, who knows how the series could have ended. But Kimblee's last and final moments were spent creating a bomb out of Al's armor that would be his most beautiful yet - he's saying as he's rubbing his face on Al's leg, but I digress.

And then in Brotherhood when he provides Ed a distraction so he could defeat Pride and the last we see of Kimblee is him tipping his hat like the badass he is.

You never know where you stand with him or where his true loyalties lie, but you're guaranteed for one hell of a show if he's anywhere in the vicinity, because he will make his presence known and he will have your attention.

What's there to say about Roy Mustang?

SPOILERS - he's the best. (But seriously, spoilers are throughout, especially towards the end)

He's been a favorite for about 10 years now and when it comes down to WHY he's a favorite, I'm at a loss as to where to begin or even which verse I should talk about, because while it's the same character in both series + manga, he goes through different experiences, which thus, forms his character in different aspects.

Ultimately, what I love most about Roy is his unwavering loyalty for his friends. He has one of my favorite friendships with the ever amazing Maes Hughes, who also makes the list for a post about him somewhere down the line, but he also has a great team behind him to help support him to get him to the top.

I love how ambitious he is. Starting out as a soldier, even though soldiers who specialize in alchemy, especially the sort of alchemy this guy can do, doesn't necessarily mean he has no rank... I'm pretty sure state alchemists are granted a much higher starting rank than regular soldiers, but I don't know for sure what level they start as. Regardless, he starts out in Ishbal/Ishval and things go to hell - Roy gets what appears to be his first taste of what war really means. This comes in the shape of following difficult orders and augmenting the war by his own hands.

This affects Roy in two ways, depending on which series you watch, but Roy decides that he's going to work his way up the chain of command in order to change the country, so that orders like the ones he had to carry out in Ishbal/Ishval never happen again. So that people like Ed, who join the military at such a young age, never have to stain their hands the way he's had to. Roy has such great vision for the country and the determination to see it through.

You can tell a lot about a character by their relationships and how they treat those relationships. Roy has complete faith in his team and treats each of them as the important people they are. As awesome as Roy is, you can't play a game of chess with only a king and expect to win or get anywhere. The camaraderie within Team Mustang is one of my absolute favorite things about FMA - there aren't enough words to fully describe how perfect it is, unless you see it, which is why in FMA, my favorite episodes are usually centered around Team Mustang or Roy/Ed - a surprise to absolutely no one.

Sometimes Roy's actions are misinterpreted - he acts as the bad guy in order to get things done. An example being in Brotherhood when he scorches Maria Ross after learning she murdered someone important to him and Ed finds her corpse + Roy standing over it and Ed yells at him, because how could he do this when it's obvious she didn't do anything. To which Roy responds by saying, "he's just following orders," which obviously upsets Ed even more. You learn later on that he didn't actually kill Maria, but rather provided her the means to disappear, so she wouldn't HAVE to be killed.

Roy takes the fall for the people he cares about. He gets the military off the Elrics' tail when they come looking for them in Risembool after they had ran away from the Liore/Philosopher's Stone incident. Let's think about this for a second. Roy is a significant player in the military - he's the flame alchemist, but he's also high in ranks. He's the one who FOUND Ed right after the whole human transmutation happened and told him to take the state exam, so you would think the military would account for him covering for Ed when Ed & Al are trying to recoup. Roy goes to the train station where the military has just arrived and we're shown a soundless scene with Roy arguing with the military personnel. You can see that he's trying his hardest, but the military doesn't leave until Roy bows in a sign of begging them to turn around/go elsewhere.

Roy. Fucking. Mustang. BOWED to people who were most likely below him in rank in order to protect the Elric brothers.

He bows to no one -  he doesn't even show his fear as he confronts Bradley about him being a homunculus; you can only SEE his fear when he exits the room - but when it comes to people he cares about, he doesn't hold back and will resort to anything in order to protect them - the Lustang scene and the Roy/Envy scene, especially, being great examples of how far he's willing to go in Brotherhood.

This is barely skimming the surface, but his devotion to his country & his friends is my #1 reason for loving him. The only way I would ever serve in the military would be if I was guaranteed to have a leader like Mustang to follow, because I believe he exemplifies all that's necessary to be a good leader.

Also, because his voice and entire being is attractive like whoa ;)

Hello, my name is Jessica and I'm incapable of comparing two characters I love without having a tinge of bias.

Even when I ultimately admire one character more so over the other, I can't deal with people belittling the other's intentions, especially when ignoring the fact that BOTH of the characters, not just one, have been jerks at some point.

sitting in my shame

WHAT I LEARNED IN CLINICAL IS

So, last night was my last critical care clinical (not like we had very many, just two) and it was interesting!

I got to my unit super early and obviously nervous/excited, because it'll be the type of unit I'm on starting March, but the night certainly dragged.

It started feeling like a slow crawl at 8 pm and there was SO much night left.

Lessons learned:

1. 6 beers, rum, + Jager (that looks beyond weird. Germany, why?) = just enough alcohol to be kicked out of somewhere for disorderly conduct. But you shouldn't stop there, yelling at the cops who are flashing their flashlights at you is a much better and smarter alternative. You only turn 40 once! And they'll only have you in jail until you sober up.
2. If my family was in the ICU, I'd hover over the nurses taking care of my loved one too. Can't really blame her for doing that, even though we were doing all we could for someone who's prognosis was really bad.
3. Bring more than one book. Never underestimate the power/longevity of a slow night shift.
4. The cafeteria, at least where I was, is open at 2 am. This does not necessarily mean you should eat there.
5. Always make sure you can go back in the way you came, otherwise, you have five flights of stairs in the sketchy part of the hospital to go up.
6. A "thank you, m'am" or any other sincere form of thanks does the heart good. Manners, in general, make the world a much more tolerable place.
7. When a ventilator gets pulled off while turning a patient, you can have your moment of panic, but you should probably try to set that back up, so your comatose patient can breathe.
8. A hot doctor + a unit full of women = laughter! I'm glad to know things don't change that much :) Especially when factoring in the fact he jogs shirtless around his neighborhood and the many comments/stories about that!
9. Rectal tubes are no joke. 0/10 would not recommend.
10. There is such a thing as fantasy golf.

I did a good deed this morning, which would normally be unrelated, except for the fact that the favor was later returned to me when some kind stranger turned in my phone to the lost and found, because, me being the idiot that I am, left it in the library when I was rushing around to print things.

So, thank you, Universe ♥

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL.

I found out yesterday evening, as the best Valentine’s Day present in my life thus far, that I got an ICU position for my internship/preceptorship and it’s going to be at the hospital that I was born in and it’s a night shift, which is what I wanted, even though day shift would be nice, considering I still have classes to attend during day time, BUT I DON’T EVEN CARE.

Just good news all around and I had to share ♥

So, I was having a really good day prior to some relatively dumb things that happened once my dad got home from work.

First of all, I've been told from the get-go that they would both be working late, later than usual, on their days off, and all that jazz. I've basically been told that during spring break and after I graduate, only my dad could get time off, so any potential plans I had have been shot.

I find all of this out on Tuesday night when I got home. But it's no big deal, because I might have an exam over spring break or something and my program requires us to take a class AFTER we've already graduated, but they won't provide any information about it so you could plan around it.

So, today I decided to wake up at 10, because I deserve to sleep in, because 10am is sleeping in.

Obviously, I'm hungry when I wake up, so because I didn't want to make anything, I had a little bag of chips.

After awhile, I realized that I was still hungry, because, obviously, a snack bag of chips isn't going to satiate me.

I heated up a McChicken that mom brought home for me yesterday. I ate that.

Around 2:30, I was hungry again, so I had a salad that mom made for me.

Around 3, my mom texts me asking if I want dad to bring home Chinese food. I told her yes and that I already ate, so I'll be saving a lot of it for tomorrow.

Dad gets home around 3:45 and within 10 minutes of him being home, he asks me when we are decorating the tree, which by the way, is a new tree, because dad threw our other one away and replaced it with a tree that I'm taller than. So, I said, "why not on Sunday, so mom can decorate it too?" To which, he responds by telling me that he's working on Sundays, so that's not an option. So, I say, "well... I guess I'll just decorate the tree alone then," because when dad gets home he wants to watch Netflix/TV and when mom gets home she wants to relax and watch TV.

Dad says, "well, let me get you the decorations then." He goes into the garage and is out there for a long time. I ask him what's  taking so long and he says, "I can't find them. I think I threw them away."

Cue segway.

This wouldn't be the first time he's thrown them away. We used to have a lot of home-made decorations that me and my brother made when we were little. We used to have our hand-prints as ornaments and art we drew/painted in school. But, because he keeps the decorations in a trash-bag AND in the garage, they were thrown away about 5 years ago.

Back to the discussion.

"You threw them away, again? You'd think after the first time you wouldn't put them in a trash-bag..." At this point, I'm already upset, because how dumb do you have to be to repeat that mistake again.

He searches my brother's room and then demands to search in my room, which would never be used for storage, because it's as messy as when I left for college. Doesn't matter. Goes into my room and starts digging through my stuff while I'm standing at the door saying, "those are mom's Christmas presents. I put them there yesterday..." and he questions if they are, so he decides to LOOK just to make sure.

Good thing I haven't bought him anything, because he would have seen them.

So, he's just like, "welp, I'm sorry. I'm gonna get a shower and we can watch Netflix."

So we sit down to watch Vampire Diaries and Netflix won't work. He starts freaking out but he won't actually read what the error was for Netflix or process that maybe Netflix streaming doesn't work 100% of the time.

So I say, "let's just watch something on TV". He suggests watching a Christmas movie and I say no, because frankly I'm not in the mood to watch anything. He says, "okay. Put what we want on." I put Fairly Odd Parents on, because Spongebob comes on afterwards.

I end up changing it to Suite Life of Zack and Cody, because I was looking through the guide. He sees the episode and says, "I think I remember watching this." I change the channel back to Fairly Odd Parents and a Christmas commercial comes on with kids playing with their toys around the tree with their parents there. I leave to go to the bathroom, because I started tearing up.

As I'm in the bathroom for all of 2 minutes, dad changes the channel to a Christmas movie. I walk back out and pack up my Chinese food, because not only am I not hungry, I'm just not in the mood. Don't tell me to put what I want on if you're just going to change it yourself.

So, he changes the channel back. He looks at me and says, "are you crying" and I say "no." He's talking during the show and I just "hm" every now and then.

He gets up to throw away the trash and gets another drink, when he opens the fridge he sees my Chinese food. He says, "you didn't finish your Chinese food. Are you THAT disappointed?" I say, "no. I've already ate. I told mom."

So, he says, "well, why did you do that?" and I said, "because I've been up since 10??? am I supposed to just starve while I wait for you to get home???" and he says, "you could have just had a snack or something rather than a meal..."

I don't say anything.

He goes to look for the ornaments in my brother's room again and ends up remembering they were in a bin in that room. He brings the bin and puts it next to the tree.

Spongebob's on at this point and I'm not happy, but I'm not AS upset.

Dad asks if I want to try watching Netflix again. I say no. As if watching Spongebob was not the way he wanted to spend his family time with me.

Another episode of Spongebob comes on and in an effort to make conversation, I say, "this is one of the best episodes" because it was the F.U.N. episode and it's one of my favorites *shocker*

Before F.U.N. even starts, dad says, "I'm gonna take a nap." and I say, "okay."

After the episode is over, I turn the TV off and go on the computer. He says, "you didn't have to turn the TV off." and I say, "well, there's no point in it being on if I'm on the computer and you're taking a nap."

And mom gets home at like 6 or so, my mood is no better than it was.

Dad tries to go on Netflix and picks a random show in the instant queue, which happens to be HIMYM, which I've been watching in order since I've only ever watched random episodes. He starts playing an episode and then goes to try to find another HIMYM episode to watch. I say, "can you not? I'm watching that." he continues. "I'm watching that." Mom has to repeat that I'm watching the show and he gets all snippy.

So, when he goes to bed, he stops at the computer and says, "well, I hope you're in a better mood tomorrow." Nice. So he says, "are you upset because of some bullshit online or something?" I say no.

When he leaves the room, mom starts asking what's wrong and what's bothering me.

And I'm just really done. My lacrimal glands are certainly working to their best capacity.

I just don't like the connotations that I shouldn't eat when I'm by myself, which was already a problem I used to have.

In between the thought that the replacement decorations could be thrown away again, the food issue, the fact what I wanted to watch wasn't good enough after I was already told I could watch whatever I wanted, the HIMYM... I'm just not in a good mood. At all. :/