lmao

I love offgun in this new show, the dynamic is great and it's cartoony but in just the right way *coughmiddlemanslovecough* but what has been your favorite and least favorite elements so far and do you think it will get deeper or stay sweet and candy-coated? (I'm down bad for either!)

yessssss, the cartoonish aspect is so fun! ngl I haven't watched middleman's love when they decided to replace mii2 but apart from that I always feel like no other country can do silly like thai dramas lol. like idk they just can push the boundaries of comedy while still making their show good in a way most other tv shows I've seen can't!

anyways, my favorite elements are the chemistry, of course, which is just so... offgun. even though I usually prefer offgun in shows where they're more upset (lmao I love my men crying leave me alone), it's really nice to see them in this kind of show & their natural chemistry is so perfect you can tell they barely have to put any effort for it to look amazing. apart from that, I truly love ten & prem as characters SO FUCKING MUCH. I'll try to keep it short bc I legit could write a whole essay about them but I truly love how they're both genuinely good people who should be bland & boring, but instead are not AT ALL. also, despite the cartoonish-ness of the show, they genuinely feel like real people. we have ten who is both a hot, rich, smart & perfect love interest (which are usually boring ngl) but is also very dramatic & silly & has that nerdy loser quality to him (and it's not just the glasses I promise) which is such a paradoxical combo yet works SO SO well??? as for prem, I wasn't as sold to him before the show aired but I FUCKING LOVE HIM??? he's again, kind of the cliche main character good guy that the viewer is meant to see themselves reflected in, but they made him sassy and feisty, and proud but also insecure and I just... root for him so hard ngl. these two are such strong characters they're really carrying the show, but another element I love is the acting bc I didn't think gun could slay a comedic role this well & I'm sorry I ever doubted him! as for off, it's incredible to see that he once again managed to make one of his characters absolutely unrecognizable from his others, idk if anyone else noticed or if I'm just that one completely unhinged off stan but he kinda changed his way of speaking for this role??? he speaks way softer & more proper which is a very drastic change from who off is usually lol. also another element I love are the locations & especially prem's house/restaurant... it looks so cozy & beautiful 🥺

the element I don't like is gmmtv not putting up the uncut version of the episodes on their channel. the cut version can stay on tv who fucking cares but them not putting out the uncut version for inter fans is ACTIVELY hurting the show. first of all, the cut scenes should NEVER have been cut in the first place, they are not superfluous at all & develop the relationships (especially firedynamite's one) further. second of all, the cutting of the scenes just make the editing look SO weird bruh, the cut eps look unprofessional. and lastly, it hurts the views of the show, of course, bc most people are not gonna watch it on gmmtv's channel & are just gonna wait for it to leak on kissasian & dramacool, which is simply horrible. the whole thing about gmmtv releasing their shows on youtube is bc it profits them greatly in terms of viewerships & marketing. so yeah, that's my least favorite thing about cooking crush. there's some other things but they're nowhere near that bad lol so I'll wait for more episodes or for my official 'axelle judges bl shows' review to put everything out at once.

lastly, I do think the show will stay just sweet & quit surface-level. from the original mock trailer, we know there will likely be one crying scene but that's kinda it I imagine. personally, for a show to become my favorite I need more angst & more depth, but I never really went into cooking crush thinking it would give me that. I've rarely encountered a comedy that doesn't stay quite surface-level. do I wish the show would explore the characters' sexualities, ten's daddy issues, fire's mommy issues & tenprem's social inequality more in order to make it more deep? yeah, I'm ngl. do I think that's what they're going for? absolutely not. that being said they might surprise me bc girl next room: richy rich (with off as lead & by the same director and screenwriter) did explore the mindset of an ex-poor person become suddenly rich as well as social inequality with quite a bit of nuance, so we never know!

xxx

for the prompt - how about when nine regenerates, and rose is looking back at their lives together (the song last kiss by ts may be good inspo)

Hello, dear you! Thank you for inspiring me!

I'm sorry if it is too strange or not something that you've envisioned while prompting me but...oh well. I tried to choose the lyrics carefully (and they fit the Doctor and Rose so much!)

Here you go, darling @doctorwhobts <3

Read on AO3 or below the cut.

So I'll go

Sit on the floor wearing your clothes

All that I know is I don't know

How to be something you miss

Never thought we'd have a last kiss

Never imagined we'd end like this

Your name, forever the name on my lips

Just like our last kiss

It was unfair, Rose thought as she rifled through the contents of the boxes in the wardrobe room. It was bloody well cruel of fate to make Rose mentally absent both times the Doctor and she kissed.

It was unfair that her first kiss with her beloved blue-eyed Doctor was her last kiss. Their last kiss. She never thought she’d have a kiss to be last with him, her leather-jacketed hero. Oh, he’d tell her he was no hero, he’d tell her to stop watching stupid soapy dramas and to never compare him with empty-minded male protagonists.

But they shared their only and last kiss, they shared the sweet seconds of requited love, they sang in unison with the Time, and she forgot about it.

Until now.

Until after the new first kiss with the New New Doctor.

Oh, yes, Rose remembered the golden-hued kiss on the Game Station with her Doctor. The one she wanted to be safe and protected from the atrocities of the Dalek reign. She remembered the kiss that changed her life drastically after Cassandra poked around her memories and discovered the forbidden ones the Tardis wanted Rose to forget. That the New Doctor wanted Rose to forget.

But how could Rose forget something as precious as this? The distilled adoration in his usually reserved eyes. The absolute love he poured over her being in those golden moments when the Time itself stood still. The feeling of unadulterated tenderness that filled her through the tips of his fingers. The heavenly song that Rose has ever heard in her short, sheltered life before meeting the Doctor. These were the memories to be kept carefully, cherished, loved and often revisited.

Not to be forgotten and tucked away to be covered in many layers of unimportant, empty events.

Rose sighed shakily and tried to work herself out of the state she found herself in. Why was she even rooting through the endless drawers and boxes of the Tardis? Something she needed to find, something the Doctor asked her to fetch while he was busy mending the immediately unattended damage from the encounter with Bad Wolf.

He was yet to know that Rose had remembered the kiss. Both of them, actually. The pinstriped Doctor suspected that something was amiss after visiting New Earth but he supposed that it was the residual tiredness and the died-down adrenaline that left Rose subdued that evening (if there were even evenings on the Tardis). Rose wasn’t sure if she wanted the Doctor to know that she had retained the almost lost memories of the kiss.

She stopped looking through the box of water-polished glass shards (Rose couldn’t vouch for them not being hand-picked from the seashore by the Doctor himself because, well, he was the kind of man to do something crazy like that) and stood up to stretch the strained muscles of her back.

Running for your life and climbing multiple sets of stairs did that to a person.

It’s when she rubs the back of her sore neck that Rose notices a splash of black on the hanger to her right.

Her breath stops momentarily, her heart stutters, falls down to her feet and jumps back only to start beating at neck-breaking pace again.

The golden song hums in her mind and Rose is not her own person as her palms outstretch to the leather jacket she knows oh so well.

Rose doesn’t know that the natural brown colour of her eyes is dimmed by the yellowish gleam of the unearthly origin.

Rose doesn’t know how long she spends on the floor of the wardrobe room, hiding behind the misplaced boxes of rarely used stuff, tucked neatly into the well-loved and battle-battered leather jacket of the man she was ready to die for. She’s yet to know that she’ll love him still, she’ll love the man the Doctor is now, after the golden song is sung by the Vortex. How can Rose know that these lips, her lips will repeat the Doctor’s name time after time, that there will be another kiss remembered by them both. The kiss given and taken willingly, like a gift that was expected passionately by a child. The kiss symbolising the joy of being alive (and in Ancient Rome no less!). How is Rose to know that she will be missed forever by the man she’s yet to truly accept and to see as her Doctor, real Doctor. The steely-eyed, reserved in his feelings, Northern-talking Doctor, hidden beneath the layers of warm chocolate, soft speech and loud, contagious happiness.

Rose is yet to know that the kiss in Rome won’t be the last kiss she shares with the Doctor.

Only it won’t be exactly him that time.

Only the very last kiss will be set far, far too long into the future.

Only it will be accepted readily by both parties at the end of the taxing journey.

Rose is yet to know.

It certainly would be asking too much of the show (since, apparently, a canon Liz, even as a certified profiler she is, just has to fall for Tom's manipulations time after time again, ugh), but, please, consider this as an AU scenario that would get rid of Tom once and for good and improve relationship between Liz and Red:

In the 2.19, if Liz somehow came back to Tom's warehouse earlier – either with Caul or by agreeing to split with him so he could make a copy of the Fulcrum, just in case – when Red hasn't come to after his surgery yet and, therefore, had an opportunity to have a brief respite from all the turmoil of that day's events and sort through her feelings as she waited anxiously for Red to wake up (because you just know she would be there, not in any other part of the warehouse, not with Tom, but by Red's side, if things went a little differently like that), she would realize whom she truly loves – Tom or Red – because the panic she felt back when Zamani stabbed Tom pales considerably in comparison to the one she felt when she saw Red get shot (that "NO!" of hers will haunt my dreams, I'm telling you... if I didn't know already, when I was watching this episode, that Liz loves Red – Braxton and Kings episodes have good enough evidences of that – this "No!" scream of hers would certainly be that moment that would make me go "Yup, she's in love with him"), the terror she felt in the car and then at the first warehouse – when she saw the surgeon dead – at the though of losing Red, the pang in her heart when Nick updated her on his condition and legitimately told her that there was a bullet-turned-land-mine in his chest, fear and frustration she felt when Nick kept stalling time instead of helping Red and anxiety and bone-deep need to get back to Red's side as soon as possible mixed with fear that she would come back only to find out that he was no longer there she felt while she was away from the warehouse. Having had enough time to come to this startling realization and to calm down (both after this realization and in general) by the time Red comes to, she would tell him, when he tried to explain to her the situation with Tom (because you know he would, as soon as he saw her), that they certainly need to talk about that but later and for now she just wants him to focus on getting better.

And – once she terminated the immediate threat to Red's life by showing the Director the Fulcrum and, as a result, they could finally move him to a proper hospital and didn't need the warehouse anymore – Liz would finally end things with Tom for good and, instead of conspiring with him to find out the answers she seeks, she would spend that time by Red's side, helping him through his recovery in whatever way she can – from keeping him company at the hospital to taking walks with him as a part of his physiotherapy – and strategically avoiding talking about Tom and her mother and anything that has to do with their shared past until she's certain that Red is back to normal.

I can easily imagine her fretting over him more than is necessary simply because she loves him – as she finally admitted to herself but yet to admit to him – and nearly lost him and Red getting a little... overwhelmed because of it – especially, considering the fact that his last clear memory before he woke up after the surgery to her standing over him with genuine concern and breathtaking relief written all over her face is her telling him (or, rather, yelling at him) that she wants it (as in their relationship) to stop right that instant – and wondering quietly as to what could possibly make her change her mind so drastically (not that he minds) but coming up blank because he can't possibly fathom the possibility that she might love him but loving the attention he gets from her nevertheless and trying to enjoy it as much as possible while it lasts because he's certain that she'll eventually go back to how she treated him before.

I can also imagine Liz trying to convince Red to take it easy when he gets discharged from the hospital while he insists that he's right as rain and wants to go straight back to his work as both the Concierge of Crime and FBI's CI as if nothing had happened even though he struggles to catch his breath after as much physical activity as a walk in the park near the hospital and grimaces each time he moves the wrong way or takes too harsh of a breath and tries to sit down or lean against something for support as much as possible and Liz actually sees all that, no matter how good Red thinks he is at keeping his discomfort and clearly far from ideal state of health from her.

Also, Liz freaking out when Dembe informs her – because she made him promise that he would let her know about everything that happens to Red, especially if he makes big or possibly life-threatening decisions, but also because Dembe doesn't like that idea, either, and secretly hopes that Elizabeth will make Red reconsider it – that Red wants to fly to Boston and rushes to reprimand him because "no sane person would get on a plane just five days after being shot in the chest and getting his lung damaged, Red, and frankly I'm surprised I even have to tell you that!" (okay, maybe I'm projecting a little with this last one, because it honestly freaked me out a little when I was watching Quon Zhang, because he certainly shouldn't have been flying for at least a couple of weeks after being shot)

Wow, anon!! 🤯 What a beautiful essay of an ask!! 😍 I love, love, love basically any scenario that involves less T*m & MORE RED & LIZ enjoying a good relationship for once... so this was quite a joy to read!! It's so funny how you can change the one small detail of Liz just having some time to think & - from there - logically spin a much more lovely Lizzington story than anything we ever got on screen... and by "funny", I naturally mean "ridiculous", bc if wonderful fans like you can do it, TPTB should have been more than capable, jfc. BUT I love every detail of this, anon, including but not limited to: Liz analyzing her feelings like the profiler she was supposed to be & realizing both that she cares deeply for Red AND the first second he awakens after life-saving surgery might not be the best time to work through all their drama. Past that, I adore the idea of Liz ignoring their issues while Red gets better, fretting so affectionately over him that Red is thoroughly confused but intensely grateful, vehemently opposing him going back to work, finally opening her eyes enough to observe how Red manages to hide his suffering from her, & - last but not least - absolutely flipping her shit over Red wanting to fly 4 seconds after being shot cause, let's face it, you're right, anon - that shit's just not realistic 😂 Ugh, what a lovely & relatable AU scenario you gave us here, anon, thank you so much for sharing!! 🥰 Much love to you, of course, my friend!! ❤️