Timorous.

his voice tight with an anxiety that strummed through the air. his trousers an inch too long, trailing on the wet pavement. his old leather jacket was pulled up against the bitter night, but misbuttoned. she could picture his trembling fingers as he hurried out for this midnight meeting. he glanced around the park, anxiety sharp against rage. beside him, the mastiff panted, filling the silence, tongue lolling as it strained against the short leash.

暗いに対して震え。

Fate/Zero (2011) フェイト/ゼロ

Fate/Zero (2011) is a prequel to Fate/Stay Night (2006). Fate/Zero (2011-2012) will be separated into 2 seasons, taking a break between episode 13 and 14, for animation enhancements. the story took place 10 years before Fate/Stay Night (2006). it focused on the events of the 4th Holy Grail War, from summoning the 7 heroic spirits to battling for their lives and victory. the war was a contest among the 7 spirits to obtain the power of the Holy Grail, which will grant miracles. the Einzbern family was determined to achieve success after the previous 3 failures.

the first few episodes slowly refreshed our memories of who everyone was, though i long forgotten its details. the spirits may seemed vividly familiar, but as for their masters of this generation, was far from being familiar. the biggest difference between the 2 anime, was how the master view their servants. in this anime, the heroic spirits were merely magical tools for its master to achieve victory; where else in Fate/Stay Night (2006), the spirits were considered friends, where master struggled to keep their spirits safe from harm. for having as much as 7 pairs of characters, it was expected to be slightly confusing for some, but still interesting enough to watch despite starting out being slightly slow-paced.

Women of the Otherworld #10: Frostbitten (2009)

after the first (Bitten, 2001) and second (Stolen, 2003) book, the tenth book finally returned its focus to Elena the werewolf. Jeremy their Alpha decided to name her his next successor. with stress building up inside her, Elena ran across the globe chasing down a mutt, which led to the discovering of gruesome killings deep in the Alaska frozen forest. with Clay, they found out that a pair of man-eating rogue were responsible for the missing people, it was calling more than enough attention to itself, threatened to expose the werewolf community. while Elena and Clay chase against time to stop these killers, they came across creatures so ancient that no one knew they existed outside legends.

after struggling to complete reading Living with the Dead (2008), Frostbitten (2009) was absolutely an easy-read. not only was Elena's werewolf hunting intense and life threatening, it challenged her bond with Clay when they, the hunters, became the hunted. it was engaging to see the ghost in Elena's past haunting her, keeping her from giving her best in battles. with the enemy smart enough to separate Elena from Clay, there were so much more going on within her. in some small part of the book, Clay who was seemingly impatient turned out to be a surprisingly great parent! a few short phone-calls home was enough to show what a beautiful family they shared.

The Hunger Games (2012)

in the future where the country was divided into 13 Districts, the Hunger Games was created. it was an annual competition where 2 teenagers were selected from each district, to participate in a television show, where they had to kill everyone else until there were only 1 survivor left. Katniss and Peeta were the selected teens from District 12. they were sent to the Capitol for a 3-days training before the games begun.

the film brought us into a world filled with poverty where violence was an expected part of life. of what was expected of the film, we were disappointed that it was extremely slow-paced and not exactly emotionally captivating. we wanted to experience the game more, but there were actually more introductions than necessary. an unanswered question was why was the game called the "Hunger" game when it has nothing to do with starving? however, once within the game, the story of Katniss' survival was absolutely engaging. her relationship with Peeta though, laid somewhere in between being a betrayer and a lover, neither that made Peeta a lovable character.