#as for the B plot it could be monkey king also trying to be very relaxed abt selling 4000 years worth of stuff and tang getting all huffy

[puppyeared]

fake ep idea + doodles

[sketching-shark]

If you could reboot LMK how would you do it

WAUGH I could go on at length about this but I guess my main changes would be

A) LOWER THE GOSH DERN STAKES/ LET SUN WUKONG SHOULDER MORE OF THE BURDEN IN A COMPETENT MANNER

Said before that my favorite season of Monkie Kid was the first one mainly because its lower stakes and lighter tone meant that an episode's concern could be wrapped up in a satisfying manner in a 10-minute time period. But given Everything that's happened since then, the now routine world-exploding stakes of the past few seasons seasons are really starting to grate not just because it means one horrific trauma after another for MK and his allies but because the reasons that they happen end up re-enforcing the idea that Sun Wukong--even though he does obviously run around like mad trying to do everything he can to make things better once things have gotten to a really bad point and even though he doesn't ever intend for things to get as horrible as they do--is a genuinely terrible mentor, leader, and friend and an overall bad influence in MK's life. As such, I think that doing a more low-stakes monster-of-the-week formula with a focus on MK & co. with Sun Wukong mostly in the background doing other things but with a decent presence in the foreground to sincerely help when things got tougher for the Monkie Kid could create a good balance between keeping the spotlight on Qi Xiaotian and his allies in their adventures while still letting Sun Wukong be a caring and competent shifu.

B) LESS MYSTERY-MONGERING PLEASE

There's been much fun made of those who act like a plot not revealing all of its mysteries from the first makes for a bad story, and for very good reason. HOWEVER, in Monkie Kid's case I think that it could really benefit from answering some of its big questions earlier on so that characters could deal with them and move forward in their development. For example, I'd love to see an arc that's all about why the Demon Bull King and Sun Wukong had their big battle in the first place and what the ongoing consequences of it are. This could give them a real chance to confront how it's still negatively affecting them and their relationships in the present (Sun Wukong with his refusal to even try to forge new friendships & tendency to push people away, the Demon Bull King with taking out his anger on everyone and everything, even his own son) and maybe even let them ultimately move forward knowing that they can't be sworn brothers again but they can be better and happier people. I'd also love to see an arc that's focused on Sun Wukong telling Qi Xiaotian flat-out what happened to the other pilgrims that resulted in their deaths and the failure of the westward journey, and also that if he doesn't want to be the Monkie Kid any more with that information then he doesn't have to. tbh I think it would be great if MK's hero worship was shattered BUT ALSO came with the reality that if he didn't want to fight yaoguai any more then it wouldn't mean all of reality would explode because he actually could depend on Sun Wukong to keep the situation from getting that bad. So then Qi Xiaotian does go back to his normal life for awhile, but is still irrevocably changed by the knowledge that there's all this danger out there that the Monkey King is confronting alone. I think this kind of arc could conclude with a really neat reflection of the "we are all capable of being Sun Wukong" idea with MK, the whole monkie crew, and others ultimately coming together to help save the Monkey King and each other with some issue in a refutation of the idea that you have to suffer and die to atone and also be a "it takes the world to save the world" sort of story.

C) MORE MONKEYS. MORE ALLIES. MORE FRIENDS.

Fore sure I'd make at least some members of the og classic's Mt. Huaguoshan troop along with Sun Wukong's og sworn brotherhood be characters in legoland. There's a number of really cool things you could do with them, but personally I'd make it so that their presence and role in the narrative acts as something of a response to the yaoguai battles in the og classic. I think it would be cool if for at least a few episodes an issue isn't solved by beating the yaoguai in question but by finding some creative alternative to the issue at hand that would also show the moral grayness of other characters as well as let MK & Sun Wukong himself flex some of the Monkey King's less utilized abilities and powers. For example, maybe the monkie crew responds to a call for help about ferocious storms at a sea port. And when they get there, they discover that this is the work of the Dragon Flood King, one of the Monkey King's former sworn brothers. And once this is revealed, then we have to deal with the situation where one of the big reasons the Dragon Flood King is doing this is because back before he met Sun Wukong he was kicked out of the dragon king family for being "ugly"/deformed in some way (I did see a post suggesting that this is a headcanon in China), and now that the warlord days are over he's been surviving by doing a version of what Ao Guang did for centuries in creating a weather-based protection racket where humans are forced to give him offerings or else he causes floods. And besides the interesting issues this could open up with Long Xiaojiao and her own family, then we ultimately don't solve this by beating the Dragon Flood King until he disintegrates, but by Sun Wukong and MK acting as mediators between the dragon and a few rain and storm gods so that the Dragon Flood King ultimately finds a new home in a desert oasis that the monkie crew helps him create.

Also I think it would be cool if MK got more friends in the form of some of the youngsters from the Mt. Huaguoshan monkey yaoguai troop.

Just a few sketchy thoughts! I honestly do think that there's so many cool and interesting things one could do with Monkie Kid's premise.

[danglovely]

Kim Possible Episode Tiers: The B-Tier

Don't overthink it. These are all pretty good episodes.

Pain King vs. Cleopatra: The introduction of Monique! I have a weird affection for this episode because I can distinctly remember watching it when it was released (and then playing the stupid flash game associated with it). One-off villain and meh plot makes it okay.

Number One: It's funny to know that Will was introduced as Ron's romantic rival. Obviously the show is much better for them not pursuing that storyline. This episode successfully introduces Duff and has one of my favorite lines of the series.

The Truth Hurts: The half-episodes are about laughs. I don't think this one does amazing at it (apart from the initial Drakken/Shego confrontation), but it's sort of a fun high concept episode that probably would have benefitted from a full length expansion.

The Big Job: The Jr. and Shego relationship is actually pretty fun and could have used a few more episodes. This one is highlighted by how good the fight while trying to park in San Francisco is.

Ron the Man: The introduction of the Pandimensional Vortex Inducer and Dementor is a bit of a drag, mostly because I'm not sure how poigniant this episode is anymore by analyzing Ron's masculinity. It may be dated, but there's a lot of good here (including Shego asking Drakken how many men he can handle in a fight).

Mentor of Our Discontent: I have previously expressed my love for Lucre, but this episode detracts from that. I want to describe it as "diluted" because there's too much stuff going on.

Downhill: I think this is a really solid episode and maybe the only one where the high school plotline outshines the spy plotline. I don't have any particular fondness for DNAmy as a villain, but the theme of recognizing your parents as actual people does hit true for me.

Sink or Swim: Good episode and the first instance of "Ron is actually valuable." MORE RON AND TARA.

Naked Genius: I think this marks the point where Shego's respect for Drakken begins to deteriorate. It's a good high concept episode and I love that Ron is successful at making some fashion of doomsday device.

October 31st: It's a solid episode, almost in spite of the "Kim lies to everyone" plot.

Job Unfair: Honestly, this might deserve to be higher. All of Shego and Drakken's weather machine manual talk is brilliant and Janitor Joe is a really likeable character. It's a real success at merging the A and B plots.

The Golden Years: Kim's nanna successfully completes the dance of going from annoying to awesome. It's also refreshing to see Drakken be such a proponent for the aged community. I also like the hint at his business sense from running the ice cream truck.

Motor Ed: Successful introduction of two good characters. It's a legitimately compelling problem that Kim doesn't know how to speak to someone that's paralyzed!

Showdown at the Crooked D: I enjoy that Shego takes interest in Drakken's high school bitterness. I could listen to Ron and Joss forever . . . it would be nicer if Joss liked Ron better.

Triple S: It's a very fun expansion of Senior's backstory.

Big Bother: I really enjoy the seemingly main story about Monkey Fist taking place in the background. I'm less into Kim being jealous of Yori and Ron hating his little sister.

The Cupid Effect: I am ignoring the real world implications of the existence of a "love ray." It's a fun Senior plot and I liked Ron giving Wade romantic advice (like, the dude landed Kim . . . he's doing something right).

Ill-Suited: I have nothing to say outside of Dementor attempting to convince Kim and Ron by wearing a house dress.

Grudge Match: There's a lot going on here with Zita, Larry, etc. It's just a decent episode.

Gorilla Fist: I think this is the first episode meant to make you realize that Kim is actually in on Ron. If I talked about it more, I could probably get sentimental enough to bump it up a few tiers (also the Monkey Fist/DNAmy plot line is hilarious).

All the News: Ron makes Kim suffer in high school and AdrenaLynn isn't the best villain. Should I have had this lower?

[theydeservedasoftepilogue]

If you're a Braime shipper, you should check out Y The Last Man

So @hulu has a new show called Y The Last Man, based on a comic series. If you are unfamiliar with the premise, a disease hits the earth that wipes out every animal with a Y chromosome, with the exception of Yorick Brown (the main character) and his pet monkey Ampersand.

In some ways it is a traditional post-apocalyptic TV show (Walking Dead, Battlestar Gallactica, The 100, Jericho), with a heavy dose of explicit gender politics.

(Side note: I really have to complement the show for being smart and nuanced about the way it discusses and frames the issue of biological sex and social gender. The plight of trans men is explored early on, as is the fact that many groups of women have Y chromosomes, and were victims of the disease)

BUT, I wanted to say that one of the main plot lines of the show has a LOT of parallels to Jaime/Brienne's storyline, particularly their journey from the North to King's Landing.

~*~

So the show has basically 3 plot lines that follow different members of the Brown family - Yorick, his sister Hero, and his mother Jennifer (a US congresswoman who gets promoted to being president after virtually everyone in the line of succession is killed).

Yorick's plot line essentially consists of a road trip through apocalyptic America with a genetic scientist, Allison Mann (who is going to do research on him to figure out why he survived the plague) and Agent 355, a member of an elite militarized intelligence force who gets put in charge of guarding Yorick and keeping him safe, so he can be studied.

Allison Mann is a lesbian, but Yorick has a romantic and sexual dynamic with Agent 355, who is charged with protecting him as they go on this hazardous, harrowing journey.

Agent 355 has a lot of Brienne in her. She is an incredibly skilled and competent warrior, and would lay down her life for this mission. She is very serious, and treats the mission with deadly seriousness. She also has a troubled past that the show is clearly going to explore more as time goes on. She is VERY closed-off and secretive at the beginning, but it is clear that Yorick is going to slowly break down her emotional barriers as they bond along their journey. (Sound familiar?)

Yorick is less like Jaime than Agent 355 is like Brienne. He is not a warrior of any variety. However, he does cause Agent 355 a great deal of trouble along the way, more through incompetence than through any deliberate effort. Her effort to try to keep him in line reminds me more than a little of Brienne's efforts to stop Jaime from causing problems early on in their journey.

But the strongest parallels between Jaime and Yorick actually have more to do with their circumstances than their character traits. Yorick is the son of a powerful political figure who has a lot of enemies, and a lot of people plotting against her (one of the other main plot threads of the show). He is an important asset, but he's also in danger partly because of who his mother is, and his connection her. Hiding that Yorick is a cis man is important, but hiding his familial connection to Jennifer Brown is debatably even more important in keeping him alive.

Additionally, Yorick in the beginning is most concerned with trying to track down his girlfriend, whom he was separated from just before the plague struck. He still holds a lingering attachment to her in early episodes. However, it is pretty obvious he is starting to develop feelings for Agent 355, and I suspect one of the conflicts he's going to have to wrestle with as the series continues is his feelings for the woman he was in love with before, and the woman he is growing more attached to as she protects him through their treacherous journey.

~*~

Obviously, it's not an exact parallel. There are significant differences, for sure. But I realized recently as I was watching the show that it was starting to fill that same gap for me that Braime does/did. So i thought I would share that with you all, if you are looking for something new in that same broad vein.

(Also, just generally, I think the show is well written and well-done. Not perfect, but solid B+ work most of the time. And it has occasional glimmers of greatness that I think could be expanded if the show is allowed to continue and really find its footing)

[cornerstonc]

Songs for the Cat King?

Character/Ship Themes | Accepting

oh b OY do i have some claps hands together granted, most of them are more comedic bc that's just the kinda character he is, but i hope they're still. uh. Revealing, ig? jfieoa

1 One Way or Another

i just. the entire Vibe and Energy this song has immediately makes me think of him it's kinda crazy laughs side note but i had no idea this song was that old holy crap

i mean listen to this song while looking at that icon i used up there it’s a perfect fit lmao

2 Tacky

i mean with a name like that do i need to explain any further-- i'll admit the line 'can't nothing bring me shame, it's pointless to try' is a big draw lmao

3 Skullcrusher Mountain

i mean ok the cat king is less of your run-of-the-mill card-carrying villain but i feel, considering the plot of the movie, the Plot of this song is very him lmao

also there's this part: 'i made this half-pony, half-monkey monster to please you, but i get the feeling you don't like it. what's with all the screaming? you like monkeys, you like ponies'

4 Sunrise, Sunset

listen. i know but the cat king genuinely loving his son will have to be pried from my cold dead hands hhh. it also has the added bonus of being a Crowd Song, so i can add in natori and natoru too and get myself in the heart Real Good

also ngl the idea of the cat king being like 'what words of wisdom can i give them?' in regards to lune and yuki and natori immediately putting a paw on his shoulder like 'please don't'

5 Pinch Me

and ig we can end it on a more serious note. kinda encapsulates how i imagine the cat king post-canon, after retiring, and especially once he feels lune has a good handle on everything and he doesn't have to hang around anymore. and now what? it's especially so in the enduring ember verse, for. Reasons

honestly it's mostly for that one line that's like 'i could leave, but i'll just stay. all my stuff's here anyway'

[bestworstcase]

What would you have thought if Madam Canardist was designed and characterized without the racially negative stereotypes against the Romani people and voiced without an accent?

she’d be a completely different character in that case. 

her basic role in the story, as a character accompanied by a disguised/shapeshifted demanitus, who ends up facilitating the important exposition in lost and found, is completely fine on its own. so, i wouldn’t have a problem with a different, hypothetical non-racist character filling that role

in the context of... sticking with canon and the episodic cartoon format and trying not to deviate too much from the canon plot, here’s how i’d design that character:

1. obviously just... completely scrap her canon visual design. i think she should still be a woman of color, because there aren’t enough women of color in tangled. actually you know what this is all hypothetical so let’s get real self indulgent with it and say she’s voiced by and modeled after ciara renée, Because Reasons.

2. she’s still named canardist, but to lean more into the pun, demanitus’s shapeshifted form is a duck, not a monkey. [in english, a “canard” is an unfounded rumor, story, or hoax, and in french, a “canard” is a duck. :P]

3. she’s a village bard and team corona first encounters her in her hometown of fortuna. rapunzel and eugene are on a date, rapunzel sees this woman chilling with her lute and her slightly deranged looking duck by a fountain or something and is like !!!, and canardist not-very-begrudgingly agrees to perform, like, the epic ballad she’s composed about the town’s history. 

4. it turns out that the history of fortuna’s founding is absolutely fucking bizarre, like this town is a total weirdness magnet and all kinds of utterly bonkers stuff has happened and when canardist finishes the tale eugene is like hahaha, yeah right. canardist, put out by his skepticism, is like “look my duck is psychic fortuna is just Like This okay” and eugene loses it. 

5. rapunzel is intrigued by the psychic duck and wants to pay for a fortune, but canardist is like no way, your boyfriend is a jerk, get lost, so they go. they stop in the market to pick up supplies on their way back to the caravan, discuss eugene’s cynicism, hear some rumors about the thieves who’ve been terrorizing the town lately. rapunzel persuades eugene that they should loop past the fountain again and apologize to canardist for him, you know, laughing in her face and insulting her pet, and when they get there the duck is gone and she’s distraught because two kids grabbed him and ran off. cue the rest of the canon plot of vigor the visionary, with the girls and everything. except vigor is a duck. 

6. in the end, they bring vigor the duck back to canardist, and to thank them, she offers rapunzel one of vigor’s fortunes. it’s vague and confusing and won’t come into play until, let’s say happiness is—when we (and rapunzel) realize that it was warning her not to fall for the illusory happiness offered by the lorb idol. eugene is still skeptical, insisting that the “fortune” was vague and it only lined up with the events on the island by coincidence. 

7. now—fundamentally, bards were chroniclers. they recorded history. and canardist, being a rather good bard, figured out pretty quickly just who rapunzel is and, after team corona left fortuna, decided “you know what? that’s history in the making. i’m going to follow them and write down what happens.” 

8. so she hops a ferry across the sea and waits for them on the other side. rather than the whole lombard’s pass / telescope theft / nonsense with the curse, the episode after peril on the high seas is shenanigans with canardist being all, “i want to join your group and chronicle you” while team corona is like um. there’s a b plot with vigor the duck kind of terrorizing eugene/following eugene around and refusing to be shooed away; the a plot maybe has to do with a clash between canardist, who’s accustomed to nobility paying her for the privilege of having her chronicle their lives, and rapunzel, who has Uncomfortable Feelings about being important enough for a professional bard to be wanting to travel with her and write about it; maybe they still have to cross lombard’s pass, canardist helps (she’s a bard, she’s well traveled, she probably knows a trick or two), and at the end of the episode it’s like—okay, rapunzel’s not comfortable traveling with what’s essentially a biographer, but she and canardist come to some sort of agreement to go their separate ways but with the understanding that canardist is going to trail after them and interview people about what they did and at some point, when she’s ready, rapunzel’s going to give her side of the story.

9. canardist gets tied back into the narrative in brothers hook. this time it’s not because she’s following them, but because hook hand’s a friend of hers and she, completely independently of team corona, decided to show up and support him at his big gig for king trevor. it’s a much more amiable meeting and, after hook foot leaves, rapunzel decides to invite canardist along. because she’s doubling down on her decisions in the great tree, she feels more secure than she did the last time they met and letting canardist chronicle their journey no longer seems as scary. so canardist takes hook foot’s place in the party.

10. her presence then becomes yet another thing putting pressure on cass, because the thing is... it’s clear that cass is just a footnote in the story canardist is chronicling. she’s not important, in the context of the history they are making. rapunzel is. cass is on track to end up as rapunzel’s nameless bodyguard in this ballad canardist is writing and she tries not to let that bother her but it really really does. 

11. i think it’s sort of funny if canardist gets just, completely skipped over by all the whacky evil shenanigans in the shell house. because tromus recognizes that vigor the duck is demanitus and he’s like okay, that’s a grenade i’m not going to touch with a ten foot pole, and zhan tiri is like yeah good call, so canardist ends up just like, sipping tea and casually strumming her lute and making small talk with tromus while the rest of team corona gets terrorized by mirror demons and time-twisting tops and lotus dreams. 

12. so lost and found. there’s some tension in the group because canardist wasn’t harmed by anything in the shell house and that has eugene feeling just a mite suspicious, and maybe cass is backing him up too to distract attention away from what she went through and her “do i take the moonstone or not” dilemma; and partly to smooth it over canardist is like look, rapunzel, eugene, take vigor, he has something he wants to show you.

13. by this point everyone is sort of used to canardist talking about vigor like this even though he is, to all appearances, a slightly deranged duck, and rapunzel is insistent that canardist is completely trustworthy so she’s like okay!! sounds great!! and drags eugene along. the maze stuff happens. vigor reveals himself to be demanitus. it’s basically canon except he’s, you know, a duck. also it just occurred to me that i never specified what kind of duck i’m imagining when i say duck so i feel the need to do that now: 

one of these guys, but like, a little bedraggled and crazed-looking. it’s the red eyes that really sells it. 

14. anyway vigor also reveals that, yes, canardist knew he was demanitus the whole time; turns out she comes from a long, long line of bards stretching back to an ancestor of hers who knew demanitus and agreed to protect his undying birdbrained duck vessel until such time as he was ready to emerge. eugene feels bad about distrusting her, they make up at the end of the episode, she slips him vigor’s fortune about one of the group turning traitor in the dark kingdom. he’s like, fuck.

15. destinies collides happen, cass gets the moonstone and fucks off, for the rest of s3 canardist’s role is like... she and vigor stick with the group, she’s still chronicling them, but she also, because of her own history with demanitus, is able to help fill in some of the gaps; she reveals to rapunzel that gothel was once a servant of demanitus—and betrayed him for zhan tiri, and then betrayed zhan tiri for the sundrop. basically she’s how we get more of the the gothel+zhan tiri lore we were all craving in s3

16. other s3 stuff—maybe with her help team corona starts sketching out a plan for dealing with zhan tiri immediately after race to the spire, rather than putting it off until plus est en vous. maybe she gets to be a kind of foil to cass; as a bard, she’s always the one telling the story—never participating in it directly—and perhaps she has some complicated feelings about that that could parallel cassandra’s feelings about always being in the shadows, just a footnote, just a bit player, never someone the story is about. maybe she can have a cute bonding moment or two with varian the demanitus fanboy or xavier the legends buff. also whacky vigor and canardist shenanigans during lost treasure are mandatory. anyway the point here is, she’s not just yeeted out of the story 

[whats-rambled-rambled]

Stuck in reverse - playlist

You can find it on Spotify here. 

Okay, let’s talk about it! 

Sam Smith – Fix you

I remember crying to the original song (by Coldplay) back in 2005. Whoo boy, lots of teenage feelings!

I’m not the biggest fan of Sam Smith’s music, but one day I was just driving home from work and this song began playing on the radio and by the end of it I could barely see the road.

// When you try your best, but you don’t succeed When you get what you want, but not what you need When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep Stuck in reverse And the tears come streaming down your face When you lose something you can’t replace When you love someone, but it goes to waste Could it be worse? //

That one line – stuck in reverse – felt just so perfect for a story set in the universe where people invert themselves back and forth.

It became one of the three main songs that inspired me to write the whole damn thing, and also the only title in the story that is not a title of a song as well.

Chapter 1: Ben Platt – Ease my mind 

This is one of the songs I have on my daily playlist, I just love it, and the lyrics are so fitting:

//Most days I wake up with a pit in my chest There are thoughts that I can’t put to rest There’s a worry that I can’t place

Most nights, I am restless and quiet won’t come So I lay there and wait for the sun There’s a trouble that won’t show its face

You came out of nowhere and you cut through all the noise I make sense to the madness when I listen to your voice//

We learn more about the nightmares in the next chapters, but it all starts here. That melancholic vibe stuck with me for the rest of the story I guess.

Bonus song: Lewis Capaldi - Before you go

The combat scene in one song, or at least what I imagined was going through Reader’s mind at that point.

//I fell by the wayside like everyone else I hate you, I hate you, I hate you but I was just kidding myself Our every moment, I start to replace ‘Cause now that they’re gone, all I hear are the words that I needed to say When you hurt under the surface Like troubled water running cold Well, time can heal but this won’t//

Have you ever felt that way? Trying to hide your broken heart under anger? I don’t know, it just resonated deeply.

The second part of the song kinda seeped into the next chapter:

//Was there something I could’ve said To make your heart beat better? If only I’d have known you had a storm to weather

//Would we be better off by now If I’d have let my walls come down? Maybe, I guess we’ll never know//

Chapter 2: Kaleo - I can’t go on without you

Another song from my daily playlists (side note – I saw Kaleo once live on a music festival and they were mind-blowing, you should really check out more of their work).

It worked with the story because of its desperate and painful mood.

Bonus: Calum Scott - Dancing on my own

Holy shit, I FELT this one. (Been there, done that). Of course I had to write it into Reader’s past. Actually, I wrote it first and then found the song, but it doesn’t matter, that’s the flashback scene right here:

//Somebody said you got a new friend Does she love you better than I can? And there’s a big black sky over my town I know where you’re at, I bet she’s around And yeah, I know it’s stupid But I just gotta see it for myself I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her, I’m right over here, why can’t you see me? And I’m giving it my all //

Chapter 3: Billie Eilish – Bad guy

No feels, pure bop. This song is so BADASS, I really needed to get that vibe into the undercover mission, I didn’t want Reader to be an emotional mess and nothing else, you know?

Bonus: Tones and I – Dance Monkey

I shit you not, I’ve had that one on repeat for the dance scene. There is something incredibly seductive in that beat, I just couldn’t get it out of my head.

Bonus: Kings of Leon – Closer

It just makes my heart clench and leaves me breathless.

Chapter 4: Ben Platt – Bad habit

Ah, that was the moment when I cursed at myself for using Ease my mind for chapter 1, but we already talked about it.

Even though this song is very emotional, it’s not that heartbreaking, you can hear a faint smile here and there and it just makes my heart sing.

And oh my god, those lyrics:

//You always said that I’d come back to you again ‘Cause everybody needs a friend, it’s true Someone to quiet the voices in my head Make ‘em sing to me instead, it’s you Hate to say that I love you Hate to say that I need you Hate to say that I want you But I do Bad habit, I know But I’m needin’ you right now Can you help me out? Can I lean on you? Been one of those days Sun don’t wanna come out Can you help me out? Can I lean on you?//

They just work with that plot, you know?

Bonus: Dodie – Sick of losing soulmates

Another song that just resonates with the story.

//What a strange being you are, God knows where I would be If you hadn’t found me, sitting all alone in the dark A dumb screenshot of youth Watch how a cold broken teen Will desperately lean on a superglued human of proof

What the hell would I be, without you (what the hell would I be) Brave face talk so lightly, hide the truth (hide the truth)

'Cause I’m sick of losing soulmates, so where do we begin I can finally see, you’re as fucked up as me So how do we win?//

Chapter 5: Adele – Someone like you

The whole damn sunset scene + this song on repeat = feels

The pain in her voice? God, it just reduces me to a puddle of tears.

Reader could just sing it at some point to Neil almost word for word.

Bonus: Passenger – Let her go

Okay, the case of that one is quite funny, because I kinda needed to figure out how to get from point A to point B of the chapter, and I was browsing Spotify looking for „campfire songs” or something like that. Of course I’ve heard this one before, but I’ve never actually focused on the lyrics.

And oh boy, suddenly it all became clear.

Headcanon time – in my head, Wheeler and Neil are close friends, she treats him a bit like a younger brother, I just can imagine they know each other very well at that point. Of course she knows hows about his past. Of course she heard about Reader. And she thinks they are both silly babies and they should just kiss, right? That’s why she chooses that song.

Those lyrics – they fit Neil’s backstory so damn well.

//Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go//

And he was stupid enough to let her go. Because his timing was off.

Those lyrics are also perfect to make Reader think about his ex-girlfriend, because of course that is what you’re gonna it’s all about.

Bonus: Del Amitri – Tell her this

Ahh, there it is – the second out of three main songs for Stuck in Reverse.

I remember the moment I found out that Rob Pattinson sings and writes music, then I listened to some of the songs and my heart went whoooosh. So I just had to make Neil play a guitar, I just needed to find out what song would be The One.

Do you remember that flashback about them both watching a tv show on his couch? Here, you’re welcome. 

I recently started rewatching Scrubs and when I got to that episode – ding, ding, ding!

This is the ultimate “hey, I fucked up, I shouldn’t have let you go, I’m an idiot and I love you.”

Chapter 6: Imagine Dragons – Next to me

I adore that song. It warms my heart. I think it fits Neil and Reader’s relationship.

And I needed all the fluffy feelings to switch the tone of the story to something lighter.

Bonus: Michelle Branch – Everywhere

This one is a silly bop, and it always puts me in a good mood. A nice song to listen to when you are happy, in love, and you are making breakfast.

Bonus: Ashlee Simpson – Pieces of me

This one (same as the one before) came to me from Zach Braff’s workout playlist, haha. I mean I almost forgot about it, but it makes me smile every time I hear it, and the lyrics work nicely:

//On a Monday I am waiting Tuesday I am fading And By Wednesday I can’t sleep Then the phone rings I hear you And the darkness is a clear view Cause you’ve come to rescue me

Fall, with you I fall so fast I can hardly catch my breath I hope it lasts

It seems like I can finally Rest my head on something real I like the way that feels It’s as if you know me better Than I ever knew myself I love how you can tell All the pieces, pieces, pieces of me//

Bonus: Kaleo – I want more

Is there such a thing as a warm melancholy? Because that is a vibe I get from that song.

//Turn back, leave all you had Forgive, I’ll forget 'Cause what we need is what we once had Time won’t stand still Just say you will 'Cause I need you there and now

If you leap, I’ll come falling too Running deep 'til that rivers through I don’t mind what you have to do 'Cause I won’t think less, less of you

Yes, I want more, more Looking for more I want more, more 'Cause I want more

Old grounds Feels like the weight has been lifted away So don’t you leave me there wanting more//

Chapter 7: Ben Platt – In case you don’t live forever

I mean it’s not my fault that Ben’s songs make me FEEL things, damn it.

The whole damn song = utter heartbreak when you think about Neil coming back to Reader before he goes back to Stalsk-12 to open that damn lock.

//I, I’ve carried this song in my mind Listen, it’s echoing in me But I haven’t helped you to hear it We, we’ve only got so much time I’m pretty sure it would kill me If you didn’t know the pieces of me are pieces of you

I’ve waited way too long to say Everything you mean to me

In case you don’t live forever, let me tell you now I love you more than you’ll ever wrap your head around In case you don’t live forever, let me tell you the truth I’m everything that I am because of you//

Bonus: Charlene Soraia – Wherever you will go

Why am I doing this to you? Because we all like pain.

This one is for the scene on the deck:

//So lately, been wondering Who will be there to take my place When I’m gone you’ll need love to light the shadows on your face If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all Then between the sand and stone, could you make it on your own

If I could, then I would I’ll go wherever you will go Way up high or down low, I’ll go wherever you will go

And maybe, I’ll find out A way to make it back someday To watch you, to guide you through the darkest of your days If a great wave shall fall and fall upon us all Then I hope there’s someone out there who can bring me back to you//

Bonus: Rhys Lewis – No right to love you

No light, only pain and suffering.

//'Cause I have no right to love you When I chose to walk away I have no right to miss you When I didn’t wanna stay And I have no right to need you And I knew what my heart was gonna lose I have no right to love you But I do, I still do Yeah, I still do//

Bonus: Knox Brown x Gallant – Reignite

This song is just so incredible, it makes my palms sweat and my mind going places. Yep, it was on repeat.

Oh you know which scene this one is for.

Bonus: Freya Ridings – Lost without you

The last dialogue. On repeat. Because this song breaks my heart and leaves me a sobbing mess.

//Strangers rushin’ past Just tryna get home But you were the only Safehaven that I’ve known Hits me at full speed Feel like I can’t breathe And nobody knows This pain inside me My world is crumbling I should never Let you go I think I’m lost without you//

(OI, SPOILERS) 

Chapter 8: Florence + The Machine – Never let me go

I have only one thing to say:

Fuck you, Nolan.

Third out of three.

//And it’s over and I’m going under

But I’m not giving up I’m just giving in

Oh, slipping underneath So cold and so sweet

In the arms of the ocean, so sweet and so cold And all this devotion, well, I never knew at all And the questions I have for a sinner released In the arms of the ocean deliver me

(Never let me go, never let me go Never let me go, never let me go)//

Bonus: Sasha Sloan - Dancing with your ghost

Suffer with me.

//Yelling at the sky Screaming at the world Baby, why’d you go away? I’m still your girl Holding on too tight Head up in the clouds Heaven only knows Where you are now

How do I love How do I love again? How do I trust How do I trust again?

I stay up all night Tell myself I’m alright Baby, you’re just harder to see than most I put the record on Wait 'til I hear our song Every night I’m dancing with your ghost Every night I’m dancing with your ghost//

[writing-in-mermish]

The Romances of Journey to the West

I have not read Journey to the West.

I know the basics of the story and from what I am aware it isn’t really romantic. At all. Sure it’s got some side plots where romance might be an element, but not in the main plot.

So why are there so many stories based off of it that one of the main focuses is Romance???

I do not know the answer to that question, and wont be trying to answer it (sorry????). Instead, I’m going to talk about the media I’ve consumed based of off Journey to the West and their romances. Enjoy!

I thought it might be fun to do them all in order of when I consumed them (especially because I plan to add to this when I realize something new is also a JttW remix), but I don’t actually remember what order I started them in so we’re just going with obviousness. Starting with the most “Well, yeah.” and ending with the most “wait what?”.

first...

The New Legends of Monkey

I actually never finished this one (how many times can I say that in this post, ha ha ha....), and it’s probably the one I’m least likely to finish (but I’ve got a compilationist in me so we’ll see).

It’s basically a straight forward retelling from what I watched, the main difference that I could see being Tripitaka’s characterization and gender. They made him a girl which felt like an excuse to add a romance between the monk and the Monkey King, though it only ever hinted at things as far as I got, so maybe it never happened (the tags on this gif suggest otherwise though). Tell me in the comments if you watched it I guess.

The acting wasn’t great and I dropped it pretty soon in, so I don’t have much else to say. They also made Sandy a girl, so maybe they were just trying to make it more diverse or something. IDK.

The Epic crush of Genie Lo

This book was freaking amazing and I totally recommend it (and the sequel, it’s a dualogy so both books are out, no need to wait!). It’s the only one I’ve finished at the time of making this post.

It’s kinda the outlier because instead of a romance between Tripitaka and the Monkey King it’s a romance between the Monkey King and Genie Lo (who I won’t explain her character because of spoilers). It’s super fun and interesting.

It’s set in modern day after all the events of JttW took place, which also makes it different from all the rest, and definitely not a retelling. It uses all the same characters instead of just the character dynamics and plot.

They could have nixed the romance because it’s not the main thing but it’s really enjoyable so I ain’t mad (but it’s kinda more important in book 2). Also a different take than all the others so, props to the Author.

A Korean Odyssey

This is the only K-Drama in the mix and I had to watch a few episodes to realize what it was. I’m nearly done with this one (started it in October and was zooming through but have slowed down due to NaNo). Another one I’d recommend (in fact, all the rest of them I probably recommend, tNLoM is the outlier here).

Out of the ones that are more obvious and use the same names, this one is the most different since it’s Korean instead of Chinese. Instead of Tripitaka they just use Samjang, and they use the Monkey’s title, The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, a lot more.

This one is also modern, but with the lore that they’ve dropped, is not set after the JttW but is the JttW, without all the traveling though. Also, instead of moving scrolls from point A to point B for The Merciful Goddess Guanyin (who hasn’t seemed to show up at all), they’ve been shoved together by The Devil King (who wasn’t as big of a player in JttW from what I know, but is one of the main characters in this). It’s very funny and emotional, like most K-dramas I’ve watched.

the romance is integral to the plot because instead of being trapped with a circlet that gives him headaches, The Monkey has a bracelet that makes him fall for Samjang and hurts his heart when she’s in danger. This causes much shenanigans which range from annoying to funny to heartbreaking. Good stuff.

Inuyasha

Into the Shojo! You may have heard that this one is Journey to the West-esque (If you run in those kinds of circles) and it’s definitely the most obvious of the ones I’ve encountered. I’ve only watched the anime (still working on it), so if the manga’s different, I didn’t know.

It’s got the five man band, the non magical Trip. character who sets free the Monkey character and the circlet analogue (aka “sit boy!”). Also, we’ve got an actual journey and a magical item that they need to protect and get to a specific place.

It’s both modern and set in the past (portal fantasy!) which is fun. Especially since her family gets to know, and she goes back for school every once in a while.

The romances in this are also semi integral to the plot (it’s shojo, what did you expect), and it’s quite enjoyable. It’s got comedy, action, drama, and cute romance. (Also, it’s randomly getting a squeal after a decade I think.)

Kamisama Kiss

I didn’t realize that this was JttW until after starting the manga, which I picked up after I finished the anime because it ended on a cliff hanger (I have some thoughts about that phenomenon too, but that’s for different and much shorter post). I really liked the anime and am making my sibling read the manga with me now. (they just corrected me and said I offered and they said yes, but saying I made them is funnier so whatever.)

Instead of being a cool monk or having the reincarnated soul of someone special, our Trip. for this one is just a nice girl, down on her luck who is given the divinity of a deadbeat kami who she saved from a tree. And instead of a magical item to bond her with the Monkey character (who is a fox spirit) they are sealed with just a kiss. (Hence the title)

The romance is semi integral, but oddly enough, I’d say less than in Inuyasha. Sure it weighs on their minds a lot, but the main plot is about Nanami trying to be a good kami and take care of her shrine, not her perspective love interests.

Fun show (and manga). Very goofy, cool world building, compelling characters, and good drama when it showed up.

and finally...

Yona of the Dawn

this one might be more believable than the last one, but I realized it later and feel it’s got slightly less similarities with the original source material. Another one that I watched all the anime and now have started reading the manga with my sibling due to the cliff hanger. (I’ve noticed more differences between anime and manga in YotD than KSK, not important, but interesting to me).

The monk is a princess in this one, and her and five man band are mostly reincarnations of dragons, which is why they join her party, to protect her like their counterparts did. They’re all compelled by ancient blood. Strangely, the character I’d ascribe to Monkey king is not a dragon and is only compelled by loyalty (and love).

It’s got the epicness, historical-ish setting, and the journey, but instead of getting a MacGuffin to it’s destination, they’re escaping death and trying to restore a kingdom.

Romance is very complicated in this one. Very compelling and I’d say on the more integral side. Affection and it’s many forms are explored along the journey. There are many dynamics and they all have their own complications. It’s good.

(also, I hope to cosplay Yona some day)

So... yeah. That’s it. If you got all the way through this, thanks.

[brunhiddensmusings]

Tell me more about this conspiracy theory about dragonball as a retelling of journey to the west please

okay, some of this is pretty surface level to the point its just face value but also just more ignored then denied firstly, i must establish ‘journey to the west’ to those not familliar with it- its a 2000+ page long chinese novel from the ming dynasty, like 1600 if i recall, but odd because it focuses on a buddist mindset in a time when china still considered buddism to be a foreign influence. the author uses fairly large sections to critisize the other contemporary options to buddism such as daoism (for being largely unconcerned with helping people or betterment) and confucianism (for being rigid to the point it cant adapt and promote extremely bloated beaurocracies incapable of doing much) as well as to extoll the upsides of budism (namely magic powers) and how badass demons are journey to the west is notable for being the origin of about 80% of all anime tropes and over a dozen anime and videogames are directly based on it son goku, unsurprisingly, is pretty much a dirrect anlouge for son wukong, the magical stone monkey king that was born with laser eyes spends the first 7 chapters becoming about (i lost count) 8+ kinds of immortal, learning how to shapeshift and fly from an old hermit monk, and pissing off most gods of any note and the entire bureaucracies of both heaven AND hell. as i said, this is face value to the point its pretty open

son wukong’s identifying features including a size-changing 8 ton iron staff, being pretty much indestructible even to major gods, being extremely impulsive and moderately arrogant, flight, and pretty much openly admits he has probably eaten some people. this should sound familiar however he is not the main character, Buddha himself buries him under a mountain (which has a magic seal on top because a regular mountain wouldnt be heavy enough to hold him) to try and teach him some humility (which fails) saying he needs to wait untill someone frees him in which case he will be endebted to and be the servant of said free-er. while we progress to the ACTUAL protagonist of the story a bald monk named Tang Sanzang is in fact the central charachter, although his name has been interpereted several ways including Tripiṭaka (also the name of the baskets of scrolls hes supposed to carry). the big B entasks he of the shiny head with the task of journeying from china to india to pick up said sacred scriptures so holy they can redeem anyone and then bring them back to filthy filthy china thats badly in need of these ‘morals’ things people keep talking about. but this is where you start to get a lot of ‘wait, that sounds familiar’ when i describe things like ‘bald monk’ and the adventures cueball the magical is going to go on with his companions of anime

because almost immediately after freeing son wukong from the magic mountain of sityerassdown and putting a magic circlet on his head that causes him great pain when baldy says a prayer to keep him in line (yes this is where inuyasha gets the ‘sit’ necklace) they come across a SHAPESHIFTING PIG DEMON who turns out inst all that bad a guy its just that his new wife is very upset because she thought she was marrying a handsome bishounen despite admitting hes a dilligent worker and treats her well because hes seeking attonement for having eaten people after being kicked out of heaven (where he used to actually be a bishounen in the celestial army) for hitting on women. yet another case of DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR

and i just now realize why he was wearing the chinese military officers uniform or at least would sound familiar to people who watched the original ‘dragonball’ and not just DBZ where oolong and the 50 other characters who were all established to be quite powerful when used cleverly were all relegated soely to be sideline cheer squad and ‘hey, remember these guys, from back when this wasnt the kiss goku’s butt show’- which is the point here following the original journey to the west story you started with the magical monkey shenanigans (check) then he learns from hermit (check) how to fly (check) and shapeshift (i guess they thought he was powerful enough without it despite it being one of his major go-to solutions in the story but i get that they already established thats a power someone else had so i understand leaving it out narratively) battling demons, gods, and pissing off the kings of hell and the emperor of heaven (check) and then gets humiliated by Buddha (absent, again i understand leaving this out for narrative tone and to avoid being overly religious in a kids cartoon despite actively leaving king Yema in the story) teams up with the bald monk who they initially clash but becomes his friend over time (check) who then becomes the main protagonist (major not-check) magical monkey jerk is repeatedly scolded for wantonly killing people and given a magical crown of headaches ( fail) teams up with shapeshifting pig who also becomes close ally with useful powers but has deep character flaws (check) and then team up with a dragon who ate their horse who then apologizes by transforming into a horse and then everyone forgets its a dragon (wait, what) and then team up with a river god named sandy (by this time the dragonball plot has already passed mars and is orbiting Jupiter because i think this is when frankenstein appeared and then king piccolo with his sons drum, tamborine, piano, and cymbal, i think goku kills one eats another and asked a samurai if he could eat the third but this is before they retcon piccolo to be a namek {eg- from the planet ‘slug’} instead of a demon because they keep waffling if demons are real) and is then followed by a long list of falling into traps laid by demons because the monk is naive, the pig is cowardly, the monkey is foolhardy, the dragon is too busy staying in his ponysona, and the river deity is carrying the bags narratively this is confusing for several reasons but i could literally teach a college level class on what DBZ does that no writer should ever, EVER, do and every friday to prevent unkind amounts of homework point at how original dragonball at least had narrative cohesion of purpose when it went off in left field but that's part of the journey- in original dragonball everything is a journey of the human spirit for self improvement, in original journey to the west everything is a journey of the human spirit for a shot at redemption, but in DBZ everything is goku is awesome and nobody else is worth his time unless they go ‘ha-ha, i am the most powerful fight punch guy in universe, we must fight’ because fuck anyone who isnt the most powerful being in the universe and even fuck them because they almost never have a reason for being the most powerful and its irritating how shit they are like some of them are mentally five years old who gave you the power to be this dangerous. whats odd is they specifically set it up several times that goku is supposed to narratively step aside and his son(s) step up to carry on the legacy in a return to the earlier more sensable formula, even presenting them as being less powerful as him as an attempt to move away form the absurd escalation issues the series had where goku can destroy a planet by farting yet every thursday they mysteriously find someone five times stronger then the last strongest person in the universe as that wasnt the point in either original dragonball or journey to the west where being clever was always far more important then being powerful, especially as son wukong was mostly more powerful then goku anyways but still got in monster of the week shenannegans not solvable by impulsive brutality. they knew this was a problem, they understood that the endless escalation had gone to the realm where the audience had lost any investment and nobody other then goku could be useful to the story to the point that they even had a WHOLE SERIES where to try and counteract the power creep they had some weird explanation goku is actually time traveled or cursed or some shit so hes only a kid and roughly as strong as he was in later episodes of the original dragonball..... close, so close to actually addressing the problem but also keeping so many other problems krillin moving into being the protagonist would have alleviated the majority of the problems DBZ had- the power escalation bullshittery and the complete lack of stakes as you know goku is going to punch the thing untill it explodes after six episodes of yelling and anything without ‘planet gonna go boom’ no longer seems like a problem worth caring about. goku being downgraded to being the impulsive muscle on a team that included others that were less overtly powerful but still narratively useful to the adventure would have also alleviated almost all the ‘everybody who isnt goku is a fragile useless  porcelain figurine of a child’ problems that are very counter-intuitive and kind of insulting: in original dragonball, for example, master roshi was the only known human capable of doing the kamehameha which took 50 years to learn (goku learns it by watching it once and that should have been the cap for him being overpowered{a rival teacher had a more powerful version that nobody else learns}), climbed the sacred tower which took 7 years (it took goku about a week, which is well within the realm of where escalation should be), and blew up the fucking moon but in dbz his ‘power level’ is lower then his pet turtle..... despite all of that and being the one who trained goku and krillin allowing them to be absurdly strong in the first place so they apparently forgot their own history.  so taking the actual good story points they aready had and throwing them in the trash is a running problem

they even had the setup for krillin being in peril continually, all the ‘krillin dies’ memes are about on par with how often every demon on the road (which they pass like gas stations) are kidnapping and trying to eat Tripitaka, whcih is framed as despite Tripitaka being powerful he isnt as powerful as his allies but never framed as useless, especially as even goku has to seek help frequently, often from non-martial sources instead of the ‘kung fu solves everything’ mindset im unsure if anyone will want to start a fight about my statements regarding daballz but im okay with an intelectual argument about its writing .... how do i tag this? i forgot replies dont let me do that but i need to learn how to tag my rants one of theese days in hopes they actually get feedback

[dragon-ball-meta]

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they have to do something they dread. For me, that’s typically addressing Dragon Ball articles written by ScreenRant. Bear in mind, this is super stupid. For the most part, I included the complaint’s title in the response, but you may need to click through to read the extent of the stupid. Except for #4, since that was a doozy. So without wasting any more of your dash space, here we go with a Read More and a LONG list of responses to utter stupidity.

Time for yet another long-winded reply to yet another clickbait article you guys crapped out about a series you clearly didn't even watch. 19. "THE TIME HE WAS INEXPLICABLY BEATEN BY KEFLA" I see you're ignoring three major factors. a. That Kefla is a Fusion of two female warriors. b. That Super Saiyan levels do not have inherent power levels, they're merely multipliers. So this scenario is still quite possible. c. That Goku, in this instance, was still half drained and recovering from his fight with Jiren. Hence why he wasn't even going all-out. Good golly, did you like, just not watch the ep and pick this one out of the YouTube Comment Section? Also, idk if you know, but.. he kinda does win this fight. 18. "HIS POWER LEVEL ALWAYS BEING HIGHER THAN VEGETA'S" (Yes. They actually tried to use THIS as a complaint.) Goku's power level was not 90K on Namek. He was holding BACK vs Captain Ginyu and his power level hit 180K. Secondly, Zenaki power boosts go proportionately to exactly how near death you were and how extensive the damage you healed from was. In Goku's case, his body not only suffered from having a foreign spirit in it, but was also once again crushed and mangled to the point of being inoperable. He healed from extensively far more damage than Vegeta did, hence his level being boosted to a higher degree. That's also not even factoring how much fighting Freeza pushed him, let alone the inherent boost that comes with unlocking that new form. But I do also note this website seemingly forgetting Vegeta once supposedly surpassed Goku because he got upset his waifu got smacked. Which actually IS an asspull but w/e. 17. "UNDERUTILIZING HIS SUPER SPEED" Goku uses his speed all the time. It was illustrated even back during the Saiyan Saga that even the human characters were fighting and moving at speeds so fast as to be almost imperceptible even to a trained warrior's eyes. They had to use their eyes in tandem with sensing the fighters to figure out what was happening. It's also why, in later fights, those who are stronger or more adept at sensing energies have to sort of play announcer to those who get lost. 16. "THAT TIME HE PASSED AWAY FROM HEART FAILURE" That... that was an alternate timeline and had nothing at all to do with ending the series. Goku contracted a heart disease in Future Trunks' timeline, Androids came and attacked, nearly wiped out the populace, Trunks came forward to prevent Goku's death in THIS timeline and also to hopefully get help in becoming stronger from him and his father, presumably then being able to save his own timeline as well. You are literally the sole person I have ever seen become confused by this. Again, I don't think you read or even watched this series, man. 15. "UNDERUTILZING HIS SOLAR FLARE" Solar Flare became increasingly less useful as the enemies it was being used ON either had a natural immunity to it or simply had the ability to sense ki and work around it, something not fully overcome until Krillin managed to amp it up so intensely as to dull even that sense. That said, it actually HAS been used, fairly effectively, in many fights, by Goku and others. So I'm not really sure how anything's been "forgotten". 14. "HE REGULARLY FORGETS HIS PHILOSOPHY OF ‘NEVER GIVING UP’" Goku... stood down once. One time. The actual hell are you talking about here? The SOLE time he chose to "give up" was vs Cell as he knew Cell was learning from him AND that he couldn't beat him. Their sole shot was in Gohan finally breaking through that all and ascending beyond a Super Saiayn. No other possible outcome. The only other thing you can accuse him of is holding back vs Buu, but that was both because he was stalling and using energy would reduce the time he could stay, and... well, because he was dead and gone, and felt it behooved him to teach new defenders rather than once again solve it himself and keep the Earth reliant on backup from a dead guy. But even then, Goku was guesstimating that he MIGHT have been able to win there. It's not a 100% guarantee. Also I believe the line you're quoting may be a dub-only line, which... would warrant many more paragraphs. 13. "CHILDHOOD GOKU KEPT GETTING SINGLED OUT FOR HAVING A TAIL" Goku was singled out over his tail because he was clearly a boy, yet also clearly had a monkey tail. Were he an anthro monkey, this would not phase people. That he was seemingly human, yet had this appendage, was odd and stood out. No, it was not an attempt to traumatize him as he thought everyone else was weird for not having one, and it didn't phase him one bit. Nor was the storyline about being a "Saiyan" even a concept at the time. You're way overthinking things to invent problems here. 12. "THE LACK OF PHYSICS REGARDING HIS HAIR" Wow, we're already scraping the barrel. This bodes well. His hair stays up when underwater when he has energy flowing up around him too, fyi. 11. "LEARNING MORE FROM KING KAI THAN ANYONE ELSE, DESPITE BEING THERE FOR THE SHORTEST AMOUNT OF TIME" Different. People. Have. Different. Degrees. Of. Potential. And. Skill. Goku's giftedness at being able to manipulate energy as well as the naturally higher healing factors and durability of the Saiyans.is what made him such a great candidate to learn the Kaio-ken and Spirit Bomb, and Goku's aptitiude at the former was only ever really met or matched by Krillin, who actually learned to form, aim, and throw the Spirit Bomb faster than even Goku did. So there's that. 10. "MASTERING ULTRA INSTINCT AFTER ONLY USING IT 3 TIMES" So again, you didn't watch the series, I see. Goku didn't "master" Ultra Instinct at all. He managed to fully tap into the completed form by being pushed far enough and finally taking Whis' instruction to heart, relying on instinct rather than overthinking, becoming one with his movements. BUT... it also kinda took a massive toll on his body, AND he has no idea how to even begin accessing it at will yet. So while that form may be called "Mastered" Ultra Instinct, Goku himself has not mastered it at all, by his own admission. 9. "THE TIME HE LET FRIEZA POWER BACK TO 100% RATHER THAN TAKING HIM OUT" You mean the time he declared he wanted to face Freeza at 100% of his power on an already-dying planet with no one really left to get hurt at a point when he was in a state of mind more savage than his normal self? How horrible. And no, he didn't kill him, and he explained why. NEITHER of these acts were acts of mercy, as this article claims, but of dominance. Humiliation and cruelty. Goku faced Freeza at the peak of his power, and overcame him so handily that killing him would have been almost pathetic. So he chose to let him live with the knowledge that a Saiyan, a Monkey, a being he viewed as lower than the dirt itself, had faced him at full power and deemed him not even worthy of the honor of a warrior's death. It was a sentence to live in shame. Not mercy. 8. "HIS FARMING SKILLS SERIOUSLY DECREASED AS HE AGED" Goku was literally doing manual labor to plow a field as part of Roshi's training vs actual farming done professionally with intent to sell his crops. You kinda need very straight rows to maximize your harvest. This is one of the dumbest complaints in here. 7. "GOKU HAS THE ABILITY TO DESTROY PLANETS, BUT NOT OPEN DOORS" I take it back, they actually dipped into the Legacy of Goku games for this one. It's called a Quest, my guy. Jeebus. 6. "THE TIME HE TELEPORTED HIMSELF AND AN EXPLODING CELL TO KING KAI'S PLANET" OK. Aside from Instant Transmission/Instantaneous Movement (as Goku knows it at least) requiring you to know where you're going OR have a Ki signal to lock onto (meaning no empty planets or random spots in Space), what "Conflict" did Goku start other than mild annoyance from King Kai and his pets as they were the only ones there? And even King Kai conceded he made the best call he could have given the circumstances. So... what? 5. "IGNORING THE PHYSICS OF SPACE" You are literally citing filler that actually makes logical sense in context with the rest of the series which shows that Saiyans can indeed survive for at least a time in Space, to say nothing of upper atmospheres. Lord. HOO boy, they're really picking #4 to get stupid on so Imma actually paste their entire thing before replying here. 4. "HIS HORRIBLE PARENTING TACTICS" "This is one nonsensical part of Goku that the show occasionally touches on, but not nearly enough. Goku is truly a horrible father to his son, Gohan. Not only is he never there for his wife and kid, but when he is there, it feels like he's always pitting his son against some super-powered adult who wants to punch the kid's teeth in." When? Piccolo's the one who forced the kid to fight the Saiyans. Gohan CHOSE to go to Namek, and Goku tried to keep him OUT of the fighting once he arrived. It was one of the chief reasons he was in such a hurry to get to Namek. When exactly was Goku tossing a small child in front of evil enemies? And again, stated for the hundredth time, Goku was there for his family far, FAR more often than when he was gone, and when he WAS, it was for good reason. "While Goku's reasoning is that he's just trying to train and prepare Gohan, the logic of it doesn't make much sense at all." How is training with your son not training your son? The first time Goku ever actively trained Gohan, or trained with him, was during the wait for the Androids, and it was for the very reason that he knew Gohan was actually dead in that other timeline. Best to have the boy able to defend himself as best he can. It also served as a bonding time between father and son. "At what point does Chi-Chi just leave with Gohan in order to keep their son safe from the dangerous whims of her husband? And at what point does Child Protective Services step in? While Goku isn't personally harming his child himself, he's almost always putting Gohan in mortal danger." Hold the hell up, when did Goku EVER hurt Gohan himself in any way other than training him? When? Piccolo hit that kid far, FAR more than Goku EVER did, yet y'all call him "Green Dad: or "Gohan's REAL Dad". If you're gonna make these dumbass comments, back 'em up. "During the Cell Games, even, Goku pitted his son against Cell, who is arguably stronger than Goku himself, and then gave Cell Senzu Beans to make him stronger. It's almost as if Goku hates being a father so much that he wants to end his son's life at any means necessary." ...Cell's not "arguably" stronger than Goku himself, he was. By a good bit. But so was Gohan. So much so that he knew that even though he was pushing himself, Gohan seemed to think his father was moving slowly and holding back because, as he sensed in the ROSAT (Time Chamber), Gohan had surpassed him and was nearly at the level of ascending beyond Super Saiyan. He just needed to push himself, get anrgy. So to facilitate this, thinking the adrenaline rush of a close fight would do it, and to psych Cell out, yes. He gave him a Senzu. And yes, he realized later he made a mistake... and he was actually willing to break the rules, take a Senzu himself, and go back in to try to save Gohan, to fight alongside him. I love how you all overlook that so much, to say nothing of the love and affection he OPENLY shows his boy throughout.  GOD this is so hostile and stupid. 3. "HIS SHIP IS SOMEHOW USABLE, LONG AFTER IT WAS DESTROYED BY A SPECIAL BEAM CANNON" Number one? That's a filler moment. Never happens in the manga. Yes, filler created problems. Been saying it for years. Not a problem with the original story though. Number two? Even then they say Dr. Brief used the PIECES of Goku's pod to build that new ship. Specifically saying "It was in pretty rough shape, but he managed to use what he could salvage as a base". Non-issue. 2. "INEXPLICABLY SURVIVING A SPECIAL BEAM CANNON DRILLING THROUGH HIS CHEST" ... Literally HOW do you get this stupid? Literally how? Serious question, and the ultimate proof that you again neither ever watched nor read the series before making this list. Goku dies from that. Outright. He's wished back to life one year later with the Dragon Balls. This is not something left up to interpretation, or something that's debatable. It's a fact. Yikes, bro. 1. "HE IS GENERALLY WAY TOO OVERPOWERED" Ah yes, the generic "he's too strong and therefore boring" argument. Not sure why that's on this list but uh.. Goku's been in positions where weaker characters could indeed feasibly take him out. nothing nonsensical about it at all. Multiple times during the ToP, he was nearly bested by warriors technically weaker than himself who used tactics, strategy, to get the upper hand. It's not hard to do. Goku's not Silver Age Superman here, he does have limitations and weaknesses. This list was plain embarrassing, man. Seriously, at least Watch/Read Dragon Ball before doing articles on it. Just... seriously. CBR and SR need to find people who’ve actually done research about this instead of crapping it out.

[franthetutor]

Laurel, Yanni and McGurk: Why your life is a lie

Update: I’m not dead! I know I haven’t been posting regularly. I’m sorry. It’s down to two things really: a) I’ve been very busy with the new job and b) I’ve frankly really struggled to find any kind of inspiration lately - I suppose that’s what happens when your life is taken over by your job. And you’re an auditor.

But this week this whole Yanni/Laurel brought about a bit of a brainwave - not least because it’s done nothing but do my nut in. Literally every one of my social media feeds is infected with these words. Apart from Twitter - but only because it contains an option to mute words - but even then I’m still swamped by the overhyped, equally annoying sequel: green needle/brainstorm. 

However, as with most things I hate, I’m going to put my back into this.

A few things are going to happen in the next few minutes: we’re going to unpack the explanations behind these phenomena, and then I’m going to try to shatter your perception of the world.

The Yanni/Laurel thing has now been confirmed as an aural phenomenon: if you were to plot the frequencies present in the recording against time, much like something you’d get on Audacity or any other kind of audio-editing software, you would see that this clip is made up of a mixture of high and low frequency tones. Yanni is formed from the higher frequencies. Laurel is characterised by lower frequencies. It’s like listening to what are essentially two different tracks of music that have been overlaid. If your ear is more attuned to higher frequencies (perhaps the younger among you), or you’re the kind of animal that turns down the bass on your speakers, you’re going to hear Yanni. The vast majority of people however hear Laurel, because, well, we’re older.

Now we come to Laurel’s little sister: green-needle/brainstorm. She’s a little smarter, a tad more interesting and she was allowed to wear makeup from a younger age. What you can hear in this recording can be changed depending on simply the word you’re looking at when you hear it, which is much more than a physical phenomenon - it’s a psychological one. We know something to be true - that we’re hearing the same sound each time, but our perception of it changes. This is interesting for two reasons: firstly, on a psychological level it helps us to dissect how our brains work, and secondly, more importantly, it proves to us that objective truth is a fallacy.

Green needle/brainstorm is a slightly more evolved example of the McGurk effect, which is a widely known and studied phenomenon where your brain can interpret the same audio/visual recording as two different sounds depending on the context it’s given. This context often comes in the form of a visual cue, which is much better explained by the folks at Horizon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lN8vWm3m0. Ultimately it comes about because of the top-down processing in our brains. What does this mean? Well, effectively our brains process a whole load of information all at once, and uses its analysis of this to work out the most probable explanation of our current circumstances to make sense of the world. For example, imagine you’re on safari. There’s not a cloud in the sky, you’ve got the sunroof down and you’re driving through a woody looking area. You hear a dense flock of startled birds swiftly fly out of the branches above you as your jeep slams through the undergrowth. They’re so close you can feel the beat of their wings in the air around you, and suddenly you feel something cold drip onto your hair and down your neck.

You’ve surely been shat on.

You look up and see a monkey peering down at you from the sunroof, drooling.

But for a second, you believed you’d been shat on, well, because you hadn’t noticed the monkey. Hey, we’re not perfect.

Additionally your analysis often relies on the outcomes of events that it’s seen before and it projects these probabilities on the current situation in order to work out what’s going on. For example, if you’ve had a horrid cough before and went to the GP, who told you it was pneumonia, the next time you get a cough you’re more likely to think it’s pneumonia again, even though that’s actually quite unlikely. The McGurk effect combines these two analytical phenomena. Most of the time you hear a hard “k” sound and seen a particular mouth shape, it’s turned out to be a word starting with that letter. But if that same exact sound is accompanied by a “g” mouth shape, your brain goes “Well, based on past experience, that word must begin with a G”.

TLDR: we can easily trick ourselves, and others based on the subset and quality of information we allow ourselves to see.

As well as being a fun illusion, like all other illusions it highlights something more insidious: we’re all primed for bias - it’s inherently how our brain deals with the mound of information it receives every single millisecond of every day. If we didn’t skip straight to conclusions we’d end up overthinking everything and ultimately not taking any action. Evolutionarily speaking, our ancestors would have died if they didn’t spring into action on hearing twigs breaking, assuming it was indicative of an imminent attack. The benefit of catching our predators pre-arrack vastly outweighed the excess energy expended on false alarms. Out of our ancestors, those who were the quickest to leap into action on hearing the quietest of sounds lived the longest. However, in modern day terms this kind of cranial processing doesn’t work as well. Sure, based on he gait of the person in front of you at Kings Cross, you might predict they’re going to take a hard swerve left to the Victoria line and you can use that information to prevent an embarrassing collision. I’m not saying this fundamental system of processing doesn’t have its merits - I’m just saying it has fewer: we don’t spend every waking moment fending off predators any more, because we’ve built infrastructure, terraformed land, driven predators out of their natural habitats and evolved societies that provide you with security against dangerous individuals in return for a cut of your income.

So we find ourselves in conflict. We have brains that are used to using whatever information is conveniently available and pre-existing knowledge to judge, but vastly reduced the need for that judgement. We’ve also reduced the benefits of this judgement - if anything it’s often frowned upon. We’ve developed a new term for unnecessary judgement: prejudice. And we often think we’re well aware of our own prejudices and can therefore escape them - but I’m here to tell you that the vast majority of us can’t. Take this for example:

Try to memorise these words: Adventure, curious, sun, brave, clean, friendly, ocean, white, fruit, learn, free, wholesome, holiday, talented.

Now read this: Alan is making plans for his gap year. He wants to visit the South America but is struggling to fit that in with his plans to take part in a motorcross rally. He missed it the year before because he broke his leg in the practice round. He needs to find his passport, which he lost on his last trip back from Bali and hopes his friend accidentally picked up. He also wants to visit India and needs to find time to move into his flat in Camden before he starts at his London uni.

What do you think of Alan?

What would you have thought had you memorised these words instead: Jealous, green, selfish, cocaine, petty, reckless, red, corrupt, idiot, lad, careless, clown, rude.

Go back and read the paragraph again - see what you think.

He might have seemed a bit of a gap yah wanker that time, methinks.

This is something called priming, which is an extension of the broken thinking we discussed earlier. It’s exactly how advertising works - we can’t help but associate things together when they’re close together, either spatially or temporally. You judged Alan because those lists of words made you linger on different sets of details in the narrative each time. If you start to form an opinion, you’re more likely to see details that reinforce them.

So what’s my point? I’ve just shown you that this kind of thinking is inescapable: you knew where this article was going and yet you likely painted a picture of two different Alans. I’ve told you that our brains are hard-wired for bias. That our perception of the world is inherently, inescapably warped. That we all have our blind spots. That we can convince ourselves of anything depending on what details we choose to notice. And that our choices of details are rooted in past experience. The logical conclusion of this is that as we get older, we get more biased. Something happens, we learn from it, maybe even form a slight opinion, we stumble across varied details in the subsequent hours, days, weeks of our lives, and out of these details our brains are primed to pick out those that are familiar, opinions and beliefs are justified and strengthened, our filter for details gets narrower, our opinion gets stronger, our blinkers come down even more, so on and so forth. Incidentally it’s eerily similar to how evolution works.

We’re built from bias.

This means that in order to even be able to grasp at objective truth, you have to work. Really work. Hard. And I think this is something that is totally overlooked in our current political climate. We all think that facts are facts - they’re not, simply by virtue of being beheld by us. We, these flawed, inherently biased networks of synapses in cages of bone and bags of skin. But we need to guard against this. No man is an island, and as a society we need to believe in the concept of objective truth, even if we accept we’ll never achieve it. If we don’t, we lose our baseline for discussion, leading to a society which is unable to sort opinion from fact: one in which radical, absurd and harmful ideas could propagate at the same speed as those more closely aligned with common sense, driven by whimsy. Truth is the tare weight for any battle of wits - without it, there could be no consensus.

So if we must believe in an objective truth, but can only ever see it through a glass, darkly, so to speak, how can we polish the lens?

This brings us full circle to audit, my bread and butter, and perhaps why the question of truth is at the front of my mind. Audit is fully preoccupied with objectivity and truth - firms drop clients and lose money because of it all the time. This is because our job is to take the draft financial statements a company prepares before they’re published and ensure that the figures in them haven’t just been made up, or tweaked. We need to assess whether the numbers show an adequately “true and fair” view of what’s happened to that company during the year. As with everything, we can never be 100% certain of the truth, or fairness of accounts, so we test the numbers to a reasonable level of assurance.

Believe it or not, there are a couple of aspects that are quite interesting about it:

Firstly, sampling. Much like biologists attempting to study animals in a large habitat, the feat of fully auditing every single transaction a company makes during the year is nigh on impossible. Instead we choose a representative sample of transactions and look at those in more detail to work out if they were recorded correctly. We’re always terrified of choosing the wrong number of transactions - if we audit too few, we might miss one large one which was fraudulent or recorded wrongly - one typo could change an overall profit to a loss. If I wasn’t thorough enough, I could lose my job over that.

Secondly, we rely heavily on the people running the audited company to tell us what happened during the year. If for example they failed to tell us that they underwent a huge merger, we might audit them against the wrong set of financial standards. We might think it’s all fine by those standards - but that’s a false positive. We used the wrong measure of truth, because we didn’t have all of the facts.

So why did I bother to tell you all this?

Because auditors measure truth for a living, and you might learn something from the highly discussed and regulated procedures we use day in, day out. The next time you find yourself judging something - anything, for that matter, however small - ask yourself these questions:

How much detail can I subtract from the situation before I change my view of it?

Is there a detail or perspective I’m missing because I’m being primed by my prior beliefs, assumptions or experiences?

If you find the threshold for Q1 and an example for Q2, you’ll be much closer to the truth than you were before.

You never know, you might end up finding truth in the most unlikely of places, and applying measured skepticism can lead to some of the most - sometimes surprising - eye-opening revelations. Those “MY LIFE HAS BEEN A LIE” moments. Never be afraid of disagreeing with your past opinions - it’s a sign of learning.

Some great resources:

On the illusion of pain, and how the perception of context guides belief: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3NmTE-fJSo

On humans as slightly wonky bipedal brain machines: Kluge - The haphazard evolution of the human mind, Gary Marcus

[mercydreaming]

okay okay can I just say this without sounding like an asshole?? Rant about Godzilla vs Kong (2021) so spoilers.

I watched the King Kong vs Godzilla movie, right? didn’t think much of it, just that my family had been hearing about it and were interested in watching it.

the lights were off, the popcorn was popped, the pizza was cheesy, the website my sister’s boyfriend found it on was sketch. Life was pretty good. And like, I’ve seen the original King Kong movie, and the 2014 Godzilla movie (the first one was my sister’s favorite years ago, and I still have nightmares about the fucking insect pit scene; the latter being one of my favorite empty head movies to watch) but I hadn't seen the other recent movies that came before this one. the like 2019? 2020? Godzilla or Kong ones (I know they killed the original surviver with the watch in the Godzilla movie, and the skull island kong movie was all over the place) but I figured it wasn’t going to be a movie I really needed to know plot/backstory for right?? if it needed to know stuff, I'd get a brief heads up and maybe a flashback or throw away line to contextualize a scene. but I mean I didn’t think much cause it’s a movie advertising itself as a fucking fight between a lizard and a monkey; you're just watching to see who wins right? who really cares about plot or backstory?

but bruh, that being said, I was so fucking lost the first 20 minutes. It’s a pretty long movie. I don’t know how long necessarily but like a bitch’s leg fell asleep under her several times. and like, it felt long at times? and then weirdly short at other points? it just kinda felt off?

I mean, the fight scenes were good, I definitely thought they were super cool and well done (fight scenes can be done really awkwardly, so I was happy about the way these turned out), so from that standpoint I was satisfied. They (kong and Godzilla) had fights, they were in their own world or whatever, the eons of rivalry was gay but good for them. the ocean scene was super cool cause these bitches were just throwing their weight around with no regard for the lives in the boats and the explosions, the fires, the drama of will he drown!! (he dont) are all very !!! Edge of your seat worthy babyyyy, See who the first round of the fight goes to type of thing, Then the city fights between the two were like oh shit cause now kong’s got a fucking super powered hammer/axe thing?? that’s funky, I don’t fuck with it from like a “yeah that makes sense” perspective, but I liked it anyways. And then them teaming up to go against the Mechagodzilla?? that’s what’s up. (though, I like Godzilla so I was a bit annoyed by how almost weak they were making him seem?? sister liked kong though; she was pretty cool bout his strength level).

Overall, liked the fights. Round 1-ocean cruise, round 2-sightseeing around the city, round 3-teamwork makes the dream work. Very nice. was the teamwork a cop out so that the writers didn’t have to say who the actual victor was? oh yeah absolutely, but eh can’t fault them. love to leave room for viewer interpretation. (and cash grab sequels). but not really my issue with the movie,,

My issue was with the piss poor characters,,,like bruh I take back everything about “how important is plot/backstory to a lizard vs monkey movie?” bc turns out, really fucking important if the fights are gonna be super fucking spaced out and 2 min each.

Like gosh the humans in this movie were all so fucking annoying??? I mean, bruh, y'all do realize these being aren’t your friends, right? maybe they understand what some of y'all are trying to do, but like also dont overinflate your importance in their lives, you know? (forming alliances with a Titan, only to be shocked or “broken” when the alliance doesn’t work??) I understand that the thought it supposed to be “look at how these being are higher intelligence and how they can help us human against these other much more evil beings of higher intelligence. THeyre the good guys who like us!!” etc etc bullshit but ughhh it just was too fucking annoying in this movie.

Give me characters that I want to care about. give me a story where I will feel something for the characters when they're on the verge of death. make me wonder if they'll make it, make me wonder if they'll be happy. Im not really asking for much, even for a monster clash movie. Don’t try to fit so many characters and so much stuff into a action film, to the point where you just use stereotypes and character archetypes to fill in the main cast.

Don’t just give me Kong Dr: cares for gorilla, expert and owner of him; research dr: the guy who has to go take gorilla from a to b for research reasons; conspiracy theory guy, conspiracy theory teen who is empathetic to titan; rich man want power, etc.

I didn’t give a fuck about any of them, and neither did anyone in my family. I dont mean to be rude or mean or anything like that, but why were they all made so boring and cut/dry?? nothing urged me to care, and that sucked. maybe watching the other movies I would’ve cared but I also think a movie should make me give a fuck about characters, even if its the first in a franchise that im watching. I love movies where i can see a good character with a compelling story to tell. I like movies where I find myself going “huh, I hope they have their goals reached” (this can pertain to an antagonist too; make me satisfied with their defeat or eager for their impending victory; either works)

and yeah, I know the main characters are Godzilla and kong but they’re made to feel pretty much like accessories almost? just things to keep in the back of your mind (until they're fighting I guess) which also sucked cause I want to know more about them!!! give me good character scenes!!

Plot itself was also all over the place: the easy deciding on transferring kong made my family go ???? cause home girl acted like she owned him and made the final decision for what to do with him, as If one single person could have that kinda power. and then the entire point of moving him from a to b was so confusing cause like bruh, huh?? im still confused about what the boat to helicopter to going underground trip was even about? yeah sure it “made sense” for “keep the story going” reasons, but like if you knew Godzilla was gonna find him, why not just fly him the whole way?? Godzillas is in the fucking water, what made you think the fight was even remotely possible to work? and then the rich bad guy plot? and the flipping between the kong group and the “Godzilla is good” group sooo didn't work at all.

it was just too much going on and very little of it worked.

all that being said, I mean its not a horrible movie, the visuals are appealing at least. but yeah, dont rush to watch it, aint really worth it. watch it if you want, cant fault you for that. but really, just Watch the 2005 King Kong movie and the 2014 Godzilla movies instead, they’re a cheaper and a better use of your time.

[metawitches]

  (My quick review of Castle Rock episode 10: Romans and Season 1 is HERE.)

That was an enlightening exciting disappointing season finale.

Later in this post I’ll give my favorite explanation of events, which tries to incorporate everything that happened and didn’t happen, because I can never resist a little pseudo-fan fiction writing of my own. I could tell you at least half a dozen others that I’ve made up since the episode was released. Every viewer has their own versions, just like we all had theories through out the season. It’s part of the fun of a mystery.

But I didn’t watch this show as a choose your own adventure/write your own ending show. I resent writers who try to pass off lazy writing and an unfinished story as an artistic choice. And make no mistake, that’s what creators Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason have done. They thought it would be cool to leave the ending up to the viewer, and didn’t even decide on an ending between themselves.

This show was set up as a mystery, and the payoff at the end of a mystery is discovering answers to the bulk of the questions the series has posed. That way, viewers who are matching wits with the characters and writers have closure and satisfaction. This would have been an acceptable, but still disappointing, season finale for the first season of a 3-5 season mystery series that was going to explore a complex science fiction/supernatural mystery, like Orphan Black or 12 Monkeys.

Since season 1 was advertised as a self-contained story, I call BS. They can leave questions about the nature of their universe open, but this season’s mysteries needed to be solved. They could have left us with an amazingly ambiguous but thought-provoking ending, like the best anthology series often do. But this wasn’t thought provoking. It was just flat. We’re left going in the same circles we’ve been running in all season, not contemplating some deeper philosophical truth.

For the showrunners, this isn’t a show that’s about something. This is a show that wants to stump the viewer with unsolvable, unpredictable mysteries and dazzle them with cool ideas.  I think of it as the Legion syndrome. You could just as easily call it the Lost syndrome. The creators were so busy showing off how talented they are and what huge Stephen King fans they are, that they forgot to tell a coherent, compelling season long story with a consistent through line, an earned conclusion for each character and a satisfying ending. You can’t solve the mystery because the clues purposely don’t add up.

The creators of shows like this justify the current trend in lazy, self-indulgent writing by telling fans that they aren’t going to answer every question and tie up every plot thread so that viewers have to think about the show afterwards and answer their own questions. Because we’re lazy viewers if we want our entertainment to tell us a complete story that makes sense.

There were so many tangental episodes and tangental plot lines this season, that it almost feels like the season itself was an anthology. Too many episodes were Stephen King fan fiction chapters loosely tied together by the writers’ favorite characters. It was cool fan fiction, sure. But it really was fan fiction, nothing more.

The characters were great on paper, and so many were portrayed by amazing actors that you couldn’t help but care about them. But very few were given the courtesy of a complete story arc. It’s hard to even justify the existence of many of the featured players, much as we all love to see their portrayers. What was the point of Josef Desjardins, Odin Branch, or Young Willie? Or even Jackie Torrance? The three men added nothing that couldn’t have been given to other characters, or condensed into one character. If Desjardins was a set up for season 2, then he should have been left for season 2.

And what, in the end, did the Gordon, Lillith and the B&B subplot add to the story of Henry, Kid, Ruth and Molly? It seems like the ultimate purpose of the B&B was to allow Jackie to bury an ax in someone’s head. Since Jackie herself is an extraneous character with no impact on the larger plot, that was a lot of wasted time. Sure, it was a fun Stephen King rip off, but what was it doing in the story of Henry vs Kid? They even had to make Henry act out of character and break into a house in order to shoehorn it into the main plot. We didn’t need an entire episode of bloody mayhem to prove that bad people move to Castle Rock to do bad things. Zalewski’s words were born out throughout the entire season.

The creators say that the big question of the season is, “What would it take to turn a death row lawyer like Henry into the jailor of a prisoner for life?” But that’s what they didn’t show us. We never see inside Henry. Through others we learn about his past, but Henry never deeply questions his own past or beliefs. We don’t get to see any of his moral or physical struggle over whether to lock Kid up again, or if there even was one. He’s been suspicious of Kid from the start, and he never wavers from that position. He never really gives anyone a chance to change his opinion, and seizes on any evidence that validates his own feelings.

It took nothing to convince him to become the jailer, because locking Kid up again was already his inclination. It just took time to convince him that he was the man for the job. Since he had a shell of a life and almost nothing to lose before the season started, jailing Kid gave him purpose and redemption.

Like Lacy and Matthew before him, he seized on the opportunity to do the right thing and didn’t ask too many questions. Unlike Lacy and Matthew, he has a different religion, the religion of the Law, and he feels the conditions of his religion have been met. He heard the Kid’s case, and made a judgement. He decided where the line of judgement fell on Kid’s truth. Henry’s been living with doubt his whole life. It’s unlikely to swallow him now.

That also means the Kid will eventually become someone else’s problem, probably Wendell’s, and that Henry’s saddled with him for the foreseeable future. Even though Henry can hear the schisma when he decides to lock Kid up again, he doesn’t call it the Voice of God. He accepts the responsibility of keeping a person in a cage forever, and what it says about him that he’s capable of doing this.

As they say in the Inside the Episode: Romans video, the season comes full circle. Henry still doesn’t remember much, and he’s still alone most of the time. But he’s returned to his hometown to live, and accepted that he is the monster and murderer that he always thought he was. But he accepts that he has to do these things to keep the town safe. To keep his son safe.

The end of Dale Lacy’s letter from episode 2 reads:

Never again let him see the light of day, that’s what God told me. He told me where to find him, how his prison should be built, how to put an end to all the horrors we’ve seen in this town. What he didn’t tell me was how full of doubt I would be about what we did, or where I’d wind up in the end. I fear for this place. I fear what’s to come, Alan. But I also know Castle Rock still has a defender, even in the dead of night.

That part was read out loud right after Henry and Kid see each other for the first time, through fences across the prison yard. Something about it made me wonder if Henry was the defender Lacy meant, but I thought I was crazy for suggesting it. Guess not. Alan burns the letter as soon as he reads it, so Henry will never know that Kid asked for him because he’s Lacy’s chosen successor. Why did Lacy choose Henry? Well, obviously God told him to, because God knew what Henry was capable of. 😇

The Actual Episode Recap:

As stated earlier, the episode begins with Henry’s final argument from the murder case in episode 1, where he tries to impress upon the jury the importance of the reasonable doubt standard. Henry’s own personal philosophy is revealed in his statements:

“How much doubt is reasonable? Well, folks, if I had to choose whether or not to take someone’s life, and that is the choice before you today, make no mistake, I don’t think any amount would seem reasonable. Now me, if I had to kill someone? I’d need it etched in gold and signed by God himself. So I ask… How much doubt are you folks comfortable with?”

Then we go to the Previously on…

Henry’s philosophy on reasonable doubt and murder lives outside of normal space and time. It’s one of his unalterable Platonic Ideals, a core belief.

In flashback, Lacy brings Kid a meal and says a brief Grace. He tells Kid that the prison repainted his parking spot, turning it into a handicapped spot with a man in a wheelchair in the center. Lacy appreciated the irony.

Then he laments everything he gave up because he was Kid’s jailer, including having kids. He was waiting to hear from God again with further instructions, but he never did. Lacy pulls out a handgun and points it at Kid’s head. Kid pushes his head between the bars to give Lacy a better target. Lacy still hasn’t heard back from his boss, God, and lowers the gun.

The truth is that Lacy didn’t have kids because Kid is his surrogate son. Or, rather, Lacy is Kid’s replacement father, since the Matthew in this timeline died and couldn’t cage him in a basement for 27 years. The other two jailers, Alt Matthew and our Henry, each already have a son when they take on the role, as did the Matthew in this timeline. The time loop was interrupted by the loss of Matthew from this timeline, so Lacy was tapped to replace him, and took on Kid as his surrogate son.

Warden Porter is supervising the relocation of the residents of the prison. The scandals from the combination of Kid’s captivity, the cover up of Kid’s captivity, and Zalewski’s shooting spree forced the parent corporation to shut it down.

Ruth contemplates jumping from Pangborn Bridge into the river.

Molly asks Kid why he told his story to her. He explains that he trusts her because he’s known the other her his entire life. He can’t find or open the portal on his own, and Henry won’t listen to him. He’s hoping she can convince Henry.

Molly is still feeling the effects of the drugs she took to stop seeing hallucinations. She’s a little confused and wants to know how he knows the portal will be there at all. He says that it just has to be, and asks her to tell Henry to meet him at Harmony Hill.

Molly asks what she was like in the other timeline. Kid softly responds, “Happier.” Molly leaves a message for Henry, responding to his message that asked if she’d seen Ruth. Molly says that she hasn’t, and asks Henry to call her back.

Henry has just left the scene of Gordon and Lillith’s murders because he got a phone call from the new pastor telling him that Ruth is disoriented and wandering around town. A flock of birds does strange things in front of his car, causing him to crash into a load of building supplies that’s stacked in the road. He passes out on the steering wheel.

Molly goes out to look for Henry but finds Ruth, proving my point that she sometimes mistakes one for the other when using her powers. Molly attempts to talk Ruth down off the bridge, but Ruth is distraught over Alan’s death. She wants to jump into the river again, skip back into an earlier point in the timeline the way she did at the end of episode 7, and redo the events that led to his death.

That was a very stealth answer to the question, “Why did Ruth jump off the bridge at Alan’s ceremony?” She jumped because her timewalking skills give her precog abilities, and she wanted to prevent him from going to Syracuse and leaving her alone with Kid. That would prevent the situation where she shot him from ever happening. She wanted Alan to stay by her side in the hospital for a few extra days instead, but she misjudged the timing.

She’s stuck in this time loop with her two sons, reliving Alan’s death again and again, trying to find the right conditions to keep him alive. Maybe she even helped create the loop. Ruth tells Molly that she’s heard everything Molly has to say, in previous versions of the loop.

Molly tries a different tactic. She says, “One of those other times, you left Matthew. You went away, with Alan. You already had a bag packed.”

Ruth looks like she’s been punched in the gut, remembering one of the few happy timelines where she didn’t lose her baby or her soulmate. She says it’s the first time Molly’s said that. After a few minutes she decides to go home with Molly.

A CO brings Porter the next day’s relocation cases. The warden has the TV news playing, which shows a report that the manhunt continues for Kid. The CO muses that all it takes is a few people losing their heads to shut down a 100 year old institution. Porter looks ill.

When Porter gets home, she finds a soap bar figurine waiting in her apartment. She’s the next name on Kid’s list. She’s already exhausted and depressed from the loss of her successful career in incarceration. The figure spooks her terribly.

Next up is a flashback to our Henry and Matthew in the woods in 1991. Why is this flashback at this point in the episode, with no transition? Because we’re supposed to be confused and disoriented throughout the episode. Because a jury is presented with confusing, contradictory evidence and needs to sift through it to create a narrative that makes sense beyond a reasonable doubt. We are the jury, we need to make this mess make sense. But it’s jarring, after the elegance of episode 7, to watch an episode with such bad transitions and no narrative flow.

Matthew wants to know which way the schisma is leading Henry. Henry does what Ruth suggested and pretends he hears it. Matthew recognizes the lie, and that Ruth gave Henry the idea. He tells Henry that Ruth is polluting their spiritual space, because of her affair with Alan and all of the lies she tells in relation to it. But he has a plan that will take care of Ruth, soon. When she’s gone, Matthew and Henry can live in spiritual purity.

When Henry asks where Ruth is going, Matthew answers with the bible verse that gives the episode its title. Romans 6:23- “For the wages of sin is death.” Henry recognizes the verse, and Matthew expresses his pride in his son. But Henry rejects Matthew’s conclusion that Ruth has left him with no choice but to kill her. He runs away from his father, with Matthew calling after him. This is the sequence we’ve been chasing for the entire season.

Matthew must be haunting Henry’s dreams, because the next place we go is back to Henry, still passed out on the stearing wheel of his car after his accident. It’s morning, but he shows no signs of hypothermia, because Stephen King didn’t bother to explain to the writers and directors what happens when you spend the night in the Maine cold without proper winter gear. There’s a good chance he also has a concussion, after being unconscious for so long. Consider Henry an unreliable narrator for the rest of the day.

There are dead birds all over the street, from the schisma’s fun with bird designs. A guy walks down the street, picks up a bird, wakes up Henry, and shows him it. He says there are dead birds all over town.The schisma must have reached its peak.

Why does the schisma like to mess with innocent ravens, but leave other birds and animals alone? Who knows. Insert your own supernatural electromagnetism theory here.

Wendell has walked all night in the snow (in a hoodie, but of course he’s not cold either), apparently following the sound of the schisma. He finds Odin Branch’s RV, where Odin’s body has been discovered and the police are investigating. Young Willie notices Wendell and gets a look on his face like he’s just had a clever idea.

Henry goes straight home. When he sees that Ruth is there, he gives her a big hug. Ever the charmer, he doesn’t thank Molly for taking care of his mother. He asks her what she’s doing at his house. Meanwhile Ruth is looking for the Queen from her chess set and mistaking the salt and pepper shakers for chess pieces. Molly says she’s talked to Jackie, who’ll be over later to look after Ruth.

Henry’s distance from his own life really gets on my nerves. His inability to see and understand the situations and people around him is maddening.

Molly explains that she stopped Ruth from jumping off the bridge again. Then she reacts to his fight with Gordon and Lillith. Oh, right, that was a thing. Henry says he doesn’t know what’s happening. Molly tells Henry that “he” came to her. Henry asks who came to her, because he lives on another planet, where obvious clues don’t add up.

Kid makes his way to Harmony Hill Cemetery, the place where he asked Henry to meet him, because he wants to remind Henry of something. Y’all can guess who’s buried there, right?

Molly lists the deaths and tragedies that have occurred since Kid was discovered in his cage. It’s like he’s a magnet for terrible things. Like our Henry was on Kid’s side of the portal (and sometimes seems to be here). Molly says that he knew everything about all of them. Henry, always the Doubting Thomas, points out that he was in the shed for two days going through everything, researching their lives.

Did they have their full autobiographies in the shed? He knows things that were unlikely to be found there, like the combination to the safe and where the Elvis album came from. But Henry’s not going to ask enough questions or listen to enough answers to discover that.

Molly relays that Kid just wants Henry to help him get home through the portal in the woods. Henry thinks they need to turn him in to the police. Molly realizes that Henry isn’t going to help Kid. Henry correctly points out that every time the portal has been used, someone he cares about has ended up dead. It is a pretty strong argument to get past. He asks again where Kid is, but Molly won’t tell him.

The CRPD calls to say that they have Wendell down at the station and need Henry to come pick him up. He’s committed the crime of being Henry’s son and walking in the woods.

Henry rushes right there. He asks why Wendell got off the bus. Wendell says that he was following the sound in the woods. He had to get closer. Henry’s heart drops through the floor. He tries to hustle Wendell out of the station, but Officer Reese, the friendly officer from the investigation into Alan’s death, detains him. The professional one who called him “The Black Death”. She’s got some new evidence on Henry that she can’t wait to share.

The other officers crowd around the door, making it clear that Henry’s not leaving. Wendell was bait to get Henry into the station where he couldn’t get away from them. Henry sends Wendell outside. Then Reese shows him a photo of Odin Branch and tells him that an eye-witness has reported that Henry had an argument with Odin the night that Odin died. Willie can be seen sitting in the office behind her.

Willie probably forgot to mention Odin’s side of the conversation, or what Odin was going to do to him that night. The police probably forgot to even ask. As soon as the name Henry Deaver came up, the investigation was all over.

Warden Porter knocks on Molly’s office door, looking for Kid, but he’s not there. Porter shows Molly the soap figurine he left her and says that Lacy was right about him. Molly asks if Porter’s okay. Without a word, Porter turns around and walks in front of a bus. No, really. She steps straight out into Main St., where one of the buses from Shawshank is driving through, as it takes the relocated prisoners to their new home.

I’m going to say that Kid understands the use of the power of suggestion on people who are already very depressed, especially when people around them have recently committed suicide. I don’t think this one requires a supernatural explanation at all. Believing you’ve been cursed does half the work of the curse.

Reese goes through the recent crimes that have occurred in Henry’s vicinity. He hears the schisma and has difficulty focussing on her voice or seeing her clearly. Than she moves on to noting that their were unsolved crimes relating to him in the past. Now there are more “questions.” Reese tries to talk him out of waiting for a lawyer, since he is a lawyer. Because he’s not stupid, Henry refuses to speak, other than 2 words: “Phone call.”

With his one phone call, he calls Molly, who’s just finished giving her statement to the police about Porter’s accident. She still has Kid’s figurine. She tells Henry that the figure is just like the one Kid left for her. Now she doesn’t know what to think about him.

Well, strictly speaking, we’ve seen at least 3 soap figures on this side of the portal that I can recall. Henry came home with one after he was missing. No one died. (Matthew was already dead and the portal killed Alt Molly.) Kid left one for Molly, and it didn’t affect her or Jackie, because they aren’t guilty or suicidal. He left one for the woman who tried to screw him over and in the process got several people killed, and she killed herself. Still going with the figure reminding Porter of her crimes, rather than cursing her.

Henry makes a decision. He asks Molly to do him a favor. He wants her to drive Wendell home to his mother in Boston, then keep driving until she’s someplace warm that she’d like to settle. He wants her to get away from Castle Rock and him, and make a fresh start someplace. Molly says that he doesn’t even live in Castle Rock, and the police can’t possibly believe that he caused these deaths. Resigned to his fate, Henry says that he thinks he’s going to be sticking around for a while. People in Castle Rock have always believed whatever they wanted about him. As Molly leaves, she tells Henry that Kid is at Harmony Hill.

Kid stands in front of a grave and waits. Henry is escorted to a cell and locked in.

The CRPD sends out the entire force to arrest Kid. As they throw him to the ground to cuff him, we can see that he’s looking at the grave of “Deaver Boy- Born to Heaven”, the stillborn baby that Ruth and Matthew lost, Kid’s actual counterpart in this timeline. He doesn’t look surprised that Henry has sent the police after him, and he doesn’t resist arrest.

If you think about it, Kid is the original version of Henry Deaver. Our Henry is a replacement, just like Dale Lacy replaced Matthew Deaver when Matthew was unable to fulfill his role in the time loop. Maybe the time loop began when baby Henry died and Ruth got caught in a grief loop, or when the timeline had to cope with too many replacements.

As she’s driving Wendell to Boston, Molly makes sure that he understands that it’s the town that’s evil, not his father. Wendell asks if the town’s disturbance has anything to do with what’s in the woods? She doesn’t answer.

Kid is placed in the cell across the aisle from our Henry. Two magnets do funny things when they’re placed close together, and these two are no different.

Kid tells Henry that he understands why Henry sent the police to arrest him. He would’ve done the same thing. But if he gets stuck here when the portal closes, more people will die. Kid can’t stop it.

Our Henry asks who Kid is. Kid says he’s a victim, the same as Henry. Henry doesn’t believe that Kid is a victim who has no control over the violence. Kid describes the cage Henry was locked in, which Henry thinks is a dream, but Kid knows is real. Henry has to sit down.

Kid says that it took a while for him to remember everything after he came out of his cage, until he got back to the Deaver house. Then it all came back, and Henry’s will, too. Maybe slowly, maybe all at once.

Henry tries a test. He asks what would have happened to the Ruth in Kid’s world if she hadn’t left Matthew. Without hesitation, Kid says that Ruth would have died, since Matthew knew all about her affair with Alan. She told him later, once they’d run away from Castle Rock. Kid quotes Romans 6:23- “The wages of sin is…”

Henry finishes the verse, “…death.” He stares at Kid in amazement.

I think Henry is a believer now, but that won’t necessarily affect his decisions.

Jackie has been called in to take care of Ruth. It’s so nice to see her gainfully employed. Ruth is fussing over being taken care of. Jackie puts her to bed.

The two Henry’s are combined into one cell. Magnets can attract or repel each other, depending on which ends (poles) meet. So far, we’ve seen the benign reaction, as our Henry believed that he was the opposite of Kid, and opposite poles are peacefully  drawn together. Now, Henry knows they are the same, and they are forced into close physical proximity with no escape. We’re about to see the explosive reaction of like magnet poles in close proximity, repelling each other. Metaphorically speaking.

The Shawshank prisoners from the bus that ran over Porter are brought to the empty cells. They recognize Kid on their way in, and begin to taunt and threaten him. Kid says nothing, just watches them intently. Henry stares at everyone.

Ruth picks up the Knight from her Lewis chess set and thinks of her fondest memories of Alan, who was her knight. She holds the chess piece to her chest. She senses what is happening in the prison, possibly even contributes to it. Or else the editing for this episode is even worse than I thought. I think that on a subconscious level she’s sending energy to free her sons. Until Alan died, the police left our Henry alone out of respect for him. Since Ruth blames herself for his death, she wants to help her boys now. I knew those chess pieces helped her work her magic.

The prisoners turn on each other, first arguing, then breaking out into a fight. One gets stabbed, which brings the guards in. They call the bleeding prisoner up to the bars, and he manages to disarm the guard, then start shooting. The guards and the prisoners riot, all killing each other. The prisoners that are left let themselves out of the cells and take the riot up into the station then out into the street. Finally, a set of the guards’ keys slides across the floor to stop at Kid’s feet.

Throughout the violence, Kid just keeps staring without moving, never showing any fear of the chaos. Henry is alarmed, then scared, and cowers in the corner like a normal person. Once the prisoners are gone, Kid unlocks the cell and tells Henry to come with him.

Remember that time, at the beginning of the episode, when Lacy pointed his gun at Kid’s head? How often do you suppose that happened? Remember how those prisoners treated him in Shawshank? Remember how a guy packed Kid in his trunk and stuck him in a dungeon for 27 years? And how his stepfather/the sheriff, who was in uniform at the time, allowed it to happen?

Kid is no stranger to injustice. Who knows what kind of violent scenarios his mind conjured up during 27 years alone in the dark. He doesn’t lie to himself the way that Henry does. He doesn’t hide from the past. Kid is immune to violence, and it’s not that strange. What we just saw was probably one of his revenge scenarios playing out, whether he caused it or not.

But, as with Porter’s suicide, the elements were in place without him. The prison conditions left the prisoners ready to riot before they even got on the bus, the CRPD cell was overcrowded, the prisoners weren’t searched, the guards didn’t stay in the room to keep them under control, then they let themselves be lured in too close to prisoners who were more dangerous than they were trained to deal with.

I believe that Kid has the power to amplify negative energy within people and take advantage of it. But he can only use what’s already there. That’s why he didn’t affect  Henry, Wendell, Molly and Jackie. It took him longer than usual to crack Ruth and Alan. They all have little to no negative energy, or their powers are stronger than his. But everyone associated with the prison and the police department was steeped in negative energy, so they only required a small push from Kid.

When Kid and Henry get upstairs, there are bodies and blood everywhere. Young Willie is on the floor, dying, but he tries to speak to Henry. He tells Henry not to go out there. Willie trie to say more, but can’t. We’ll never know what he meant or what really happened to Odin or why he was in this story at all. But Henry is very moved by the death of the man who framed him for Odin’s murder.

This deadly riot has taken out many enemies of both Henry’s. There aren’t going to be enough Castle Rock police left to care about Henry and his proximity to crimes, when there’s no real evidence against him. The one charge that they might have made stick was Odin’s murder, since Willie used the town’s prejudice to cover up his own role in Odin’s death. With the combined physical evidence and Willie’s testimony, plus Henry’s past, Henry could have been convicted and gotten a long sentence. Now that Willie’s dead, they’ve lost their star witness and their case. Kid got his revenge against the prisoners and against the police force for their mishandling of Henry’s case on the other side, which led to Alt Molly’s death. Killing the police force was really a two-fer.

Kid has acquired a gun and uses it to hurry Henry along. Henry tries to refuse, on the grounds that Kid caused all of this violence. Kid keeps making the point that the violence will stop when he leaves the timeline, but Henry can’t seem to grasp that. Also, it’s terrible to say, but they’ve got some dying people there. How about grabbing one to use as their blood sacrifice to the portal?

Alas, fictional characters are rarely as practical as me. Kid has only been through the portal once, so he may not know about the blood sacrifice.

The city of Castle Rock is awash in violence, accidents and fires. Putting the 2 Henry’s together was the worst idea ever.

As they walk through the woods, Kid tells Henry that he doesn’t want to hurt him. When they get to the portal, Henry will see that Kid’s story is all true.

This triggers Henry to flashback to 1991, when he ran away from his father after learning his father planned to kill Ruth. These flashbacks remind me a lot of Ruth’s timewalker jumps.

Henry runs through the woods with Matthew chasing him, calling to Henry that he doesn’t want to hurt him. Henry reaches a dead end at the top of the bluff. A flock of birds flies over. Henry backtracks away from the cliff, using his own footprints in the snow, so that Matthew won’t be able to follow him easily.

Matthew follows the footprints to the cliff overlooking the lake. The flock of birds become very thick and distract Matthew. Henry runs out and pushes Matthew off the cliff. Within moments, the schisma gets unbearably loud, and Henry disappears.

In the present time, Henry hears the schisma getting loud again. Kid notices. A helicopter flies overhead, distracting Kid and allowing Henry to jump on him, wrestle him to the ground, and grab the gun.

Henry stands up and points the gun at Kid. Kid is face down in the snow. When he looks up, for a moment his face is revealed to be ancient, and he hisses at Henry. Then he reverts back to the face we’ve seen all along, looking scared and shaking his head no.

The showrunners have confirmed that what we saw was the face of a very aged Bill Skarsgård. Old doesn’t equal demon to me, and I think it’s ageist to automatically make that assumption. We see Kid’s face from Henry’s perspective, meaning through the eyes of an unreliable, biased narrator. That also means that we don’t see what Henry’s true face looks like.

Both Henry and Kid could be ancient because they’ve been stuck in this time loop for so long, but Henry has lost access to his memories and much of his power. Maybe Henry isn’t ancient because he’s the stand in for the real Henry from this timeline. Maybe that’s why Kid was surprised to see him when they met in the prison visitors room.

But the show isn’t interested in asking or answering these questions. Instead, it’s time for a one year time jump, a voiceover that echoes two previous voice overs, and a Henry-style glossing over of the resolution of what just happened.

We jump from Henry holding a gun pointed at Kid’s head to modern train tracks. The camera takes on the perspective of the engine, then flies overhead for a view of the town.

Henry: “Truth doesn’t change; it’s just truth. Pure. But justice? Well, that looks different, depending on what side of the invisible line you’re on.”

This startling reference to purity, so much like his father’s justification for planning to kill his mother, is made to one of Henry’s new clients. Henry is no longer a death row attorney. Now he handles small time disputes between his fellow Castle Rock residents. It’s easier to muster up the spiritual and moral clarity needed to see where the line of judgement falls when there’s a property line in question rather than when you’re deciding whether or not a murder was justified.

Henry: “And Ron, your line is here… See, runs right thru Wilma Jurik’s azaleas. You dug your septic here. Now, Maine property law is a briar patch, but, I got some tricks up my sleeve.”

Henry drives home to the Deaver house, now decorated for Christmas. He finds Wendell inside, having arrived early for their Christmas together. They play chess, using Ruth’s chess set. Henry looks across the street at Molly’s empty house wistfully. He still misses her.

Molly watches TV with her grandmother, the two of them zoned out, side by side. Molly smiles when her commercial comes on the TV, just as she’s getting ready to leave. She’s the #1 new real estate agent in the Florida Keys, and her goal is to help people stay in their own neighborhoods. Still a small town girl.

When Molly left Castle Rock, she kept driving south until she ran out of road.

Henry: “Some folks get away. Spend the rest of their lives trying to forget this place. Maybe they do forget, for a while. Some never leave, no matter how hard they try. Most of us are trapped here for a reason.”

Henry visits the cemetery to put flowers on his mother’s grave. The dates on her tombstone, which she shares with Alan, read April 7, 1950- February 13, 2019. Alan’s dates are July 16, 1945- October 17, 2018. Like many soulmates, they died within 6 months of each other. Henry had a few months of taking care of his mother and getting to know her again, before she passed. Ruth and Alan are buried next to the Deaver Boy headstone. Henry stops for a moment to pay his respects to his brother, then leaves the cemetery.

Henry: “Everyone in this town has some sin or regret, some cage of his own making, and a story, a sad one, about how we got this way. ‘It wasn’t me, it was this place.’ That’s what we say. But that’s a story, too. It doesn’t change a thing. Maybe something turned you into a monster. Or maybe you were one all along. Doesn’t matter. You’re here now. This is who you are. This is where you live. This is where you’re from.”

This is Henry’s judgement of Kid. His background doesn’t matter, his past doesn’t matter, where he might go from here doesn’t matter. Where Kid goes, death follows, so Kid must be contained. Henry finds Kid guilty of Henry’s own crime, being present at the scene of the crime one time too many and looking too different from the expected Castle Rock norm. Henry also sentences himself to life in Castle Rock, above ground, but as a jailer for a monster.

Henry makes his way through a break in the fence, into the abandoned Shawshank Penitentiary, and down into the tank where Dennis Zalewski discovered the Kid in episode 1. Kid is back in his cage, in the dark, lying in the back corner. When Henry turns on the lights, he moves to the front of the cage. Henry has brought him a burger and fries as a Christmas present.

Kid says that he knows Henry still has doubts. He asks, “How long are we gonna do this?” Henry says, “Don’t know.”

Kid: “After a while you forget which side of the bars you’re on. That’s what Warden Lacy used to say.”

Henry: “Merry Christmas.”

Kid: “And look how things turned out for him.”

Henry is climbing up the ladder to leave the tank by the time Kid speaks his parting words. Henry pauses, looks back into the darkness at Kid, and up into the light toward his son and his life. He could go back and engage in a philosophical discussion with Kid, explaining that, unlike Lacy, he already knows that he’s a sinner and a prisoner, too, but what would it matter? It’s Christmas Eve, and he has Wendell waiting at home. So he keeps climbing.

Kid smiles in the darkness. Henry doesn’t have the fire in his belly and moral certainty that hearing the Voice of God gave Lacy. He’s not waiting for another  command from a God that won’t speak for at least 27 years. And Henry knows they’re brothers. Maybe all hope isn’t lost.

Midcredits tag:

Jackie sits in the Mellow Tiger at Christmatime, and reads aloud a quote from her book, describing in detail how it felt to put an ax in Gordon’s head. Dean Merrill stops at the table to ask if it’s a horror novel and to generally be clueless. Jackie calls him reductive. He doesn’t get the title, Overlooked, either. “Who’s been over looked?”

Jackie tells him it refers to her back story. Ancient family history. She’s actually journeying out west soon. “The best place to finish a book is where it started. I heard that somewhere.”

Just make sure you have your escape routes carefully planned, Jackie.

Maybe Jackie is a better storyteller than her creators.

  From Dale Lacy’s letter to Alan Pangborn in episode 2:

People think we’re just one of those dead towns they’ve heard about. A run of bad luck, worse judgement, broken promises. We know different, don’t we? It’s not luck. It’s a plan. And not God’s, either. Remember the dog? The strangler? Sure you do. How about all the others that didn’t make headlines?

1961. It was the fall after they found that boy’s body out by the train tracks. I took a hard hit. Almost didn’t make it home. Turned out, I wasn’t the one people needed to worry about. My younger brother was. That was my first taste of what this town could do to someone.

Take any house in this town. H*ll, take mine. Every inch is stained with someone’s sin. I lie awake at night thinking about all the blood spilled under my roof alone. People say, “It wasn’t me. It was this place.” And the thing is, they’re right.

While both Henry and Lacy make similar statements about the nature of the evil in Castle Rock, Lacy accepts the existence of evil and the devil, and assigns ultimate blame for evil-doing to external forces. Henry either doesn’t believe in anything beyond mundane reality, or doesn’t care. He believes in personal responsibility, and by the end of the season, he won’t even consider extenuating circumstances as acceptable reasons for personal actions. There’s no justifiable homicide in his courtroom.

This puts Henry in the opposite camp from Alt Matthew and Lacy, but the end result isn’t that different. If Henry won’t consider nuances, then he doesn’t have to think about his judgements. His world remains black and white, his conclusions without depth. He might as well be listening to the Voice of God.

Kid uses the power of suggestion for good, not just revenge, when someone is receptive to it. He told Molly her counterpart was happier, which made her believe she could be happier, too. Then Henry gave her permission to give up on him, and she was able to break free of the curse of Castle Rock, despite all of the time she’d spent with Kid and Henry.

Kid tried to help Ruth with his powers, but she was too caught up in her own agenda. Unless you go with my theory that she killed Alan to protect her sons from him. Kid helped her achieve that, then helped her go back to a happier time.

Ruth and Alan had a complicated, truly star-crossed relationship. He was her knight, but he was also the nemesis that, as a timewalker, she had to kill to set the timeline straight. (Wendell in episode 7: “Theoretically, you could kill your nemesis, and fix the whole timeline.”)

Only characters killed by timewalkers stay dead. Alan was the only main character who didn’t come back in some way after he died.  Lacy was replaced by Henry and Warden Porter, plus his head came back; Matthew haunted Molly, was alive for years in the alternate timeline, and his body returned to Castle Rock; Zalewski returned in the alternate timeline; Molly remained alive in this universe after her alternate died. Alan died, and only returned in flashbacks. He was the only one killed by Ruth.

We know too little about Odin’s death and its aftermath to count him either way. His body did reappear on camera when his protegé Willie attempted to frame Henry for Odin’s murder, but that’s not really the same. Maybe Odin possessed Willie and pointed the finger at Henry and Wendell. It’s more likely that Willie killed Odin and saw a way to escape justice by turning Wendell and Henry in the police.

Lillith and Gordon also didn’t come back, but maybe they weren’t important enough to make a third appearance. Or maybe Jackie and Henry, their killers, are also timewalkers.

Instead of the topiary from the book version of The Shining, this season we had living chess pieces.Ruth appears to be the one irreplaceable piece, the queen, in the time loop. Just as there’s only one queen per side in chess, but there are multiples of almost everything else, there was only one Ruth in play.

In the end, it was the Henry’s who were the kings, just as Ruth told Alan. Her sons were what she, the queen, couldn’t leave. The black king captured the white king, and the game was over. Both live to play another day, but they’ll need new queens and some other pieces. I think, in the end, Ruth was Kid’s queen and Molly was Henry’s queen. Matthew was Kid’s bishop and the new pastor was Henry’s. Zalewski was Henry’s rook and Lacy was Kid’s. Alan was Kid’s knight, and got sent off in a strange direction. Wendell was Henry’s knight, and was sent to safety with the queen.

Jackie used her own experience of putting an ax into a man’s skull to start writing a book based on her uncle’s murder spree, aka The Shining. That wasn’t predictable or anything. Still not sure what her character was here for, other than to make it seem like they were attempting gender parity, which actually wasn’t even close, and to add someone with a big name from the King universe.

What will happen to the town of Castle Rock, now that the main employer, Shawshank Prison, has shut down? Molly isn’t there to save it with her redevelopment vision. The town was already poor, with a deteriorating infrastructure and a reputation for violent crime. How can they come back from this?

  Here is my version of What Really Happened in Castle Rock™:

Everyone’s powers are real. Everything supernatural you thought was there, or happened, was real. Ruth is a timewalker and Kid is Henry Deaver from another timeline. When Henry was missing for 11 days, he spent 27 years caged in another timeline after accidentally falling through a portal in the woods.

Dennis Zalewski said bad things happen in Castle Rock because bad people are drawn to the town, because they know they can get away with things and the town will turn the other way. For reasons that haven’t been revealed yet, but are true across timelines, Castle Rock is a pit of negative energy, drawing the criminally insane and the just plain evil to it.

Kid’s alternate timeline origin story was true. Being in the wrong timeline both sends disruptive energy into the world and corrupts the traveler who’s stuck in the alternate world. There are two possible explanations for Kid’s alternate face/ ways for the traveler to be corrupted.

Kid and Henry could have been stuck in this time loop for a very, very long time, as Ruth’s many memories of alternate versions suggest. They would have the faces of very elderly men, but Kid’s would also show the negative energy he’s absorbed through the decades.

While Kid has been trapped in dungeons, he’s developed ways to tap into the negative power that surrounds and flows through him. He’s not evil, but he’s been through a lot and isn’t above using the tools that are available to him. His multicolored eyes are an indication of what kind of power is dominant within him at any given time. They’re like a negative energy mood ring.

The other option for Kid Henry’s alternate face is for him to be possessed by a demon. Dr Henry started out a good man and exactly who he said he was, but a demon attached itself to him on his travels, either on his way through the portal or while he was locked in the dungeon. Maybe he made a pact with the devil to get himself released from Lacy’s imprisonment, but the devil is a trickster and didn’t have good follow through on his end of the bargain.

Sometimes the demon is in charge of Kid Dr Henry, and sometimes Kid is in charge of himself. That’s what the multi-colored eyes seen in some episodes suggest.

Our Henry also has a demon, or has absorbed a substantial amount of negative energy, but he keeps it under control by suppressing his memories and turning his thoughts away from certain subjects. Death and chaos still follow him, but it’s not as noticeable because of his career choice as a death row lawyer.

Our Henry could also be out of his own timeline, since we were never given an origin story for him before his adoption at age 5. He’s more able to suppress his power to create death and chaos, so he can pass in this world. But it’s still there.

The time loop might have been broken this time, by Molly saying something different to Ruth on the bridge, Molly and Wendell leaving town so that neither was available to die when the portal opened, or our Henry locking Kid back up instead of opening up the portal again, which stopped the Henry’s from switching places. In the normal course of events, Henry would open the portal and they’d both be sucked through again, while a bystander died. It’s not clear what fuels the time loop or whether all portals have evil energy or just this one, but death clings to this one on the inside and outside.

It appears to be something akin to souls that are stuck in the time loop, rather than specific identities, since the loop replaces missing pieces at will. It might even actually be Ruth’s time loop, not the Henry’s or Castle Rock’s.

Kid’s sinister smile at the end of the episode was because his Dr Henry persona has given up on getting home to the life he left behind and given over full-time use of the body to the demon/dark side of himself. Whether he’s an ancient man stuck in a time loop or a man sharing his body with a demon, he knows that our Henry is a worthy adversary. Kid’s not getting out for at least another 27 years, maybe more, but he can see chinks in Henry’s armor that will make the stay interesting.

Henry isn’t a soldier for God, he’s a man of reason acting on his convictions. His doubts are not Lacy’s doubts or Matthew Deaver’s doubts. Lacy came to doubt whether he’d truly heard the Voice of God. Henry made the decision to follow the middle path of sentencing Kid to a lifetime without parole because of his reasonable doubts about the Kid’s identity and story. He witnessed how dangerous the Kid is, so he won’t doubt that locking him up is the right thing to do. And he believes in the law, so he’ll come to terms with the ambiguity of a life without parole sentence. It sounds like Kid is the first of his clients to achieve that.

But Henry’s lack of conviction or devotion to his cause could cause his commitment to Kid’s imprisonment to waver, just as Lacy and Alt Matthew’s did. He doesn’t have a strong reason, like religious fervor, to hold Kid hostage. He only has his sense that Kid is dangerous. Kid didn’t even directly kill anyone. So though Henry believes he’s doing the right thing, it may be difficult for him to resist a better offer.

A More Down to Earth Version:

If you want to stick with a more mundane explanation for the season, with as few supernatural elements as possible, consider the main story to be episodes 1-6. If you take out the extraneous subplots and what seems like foreshadowing but isn’t, you’re left with the story we were watching in the first half of the season: The story of a man who was held hostage in Shawshank Prison for 27 years, who may or may not have evil powers, and the lawyer who’s asked to represent him.

The story of young Henry’s 11 day disappearance remains, but is explained by the presence of Josef Desjardins. Josef could have hidden Henry while Henry was afraid of what would happen to him after he pushed his father off a cliff. Then Josef eventually convinced Henry to go home. Henry developed amnesia from the trauma of stopping his father from killing his mother. Who knows what Dejardins’ kid crate was for. Probably one of Ruth’s dogs.

The ending we were given, by the admission of the showrunners, goes back to the beginning of the season and focuses on the prison, Kid and Matthew Deaver. Those are the questions that were answered. In episode 5, Alan makes his speech at the bridge and talks about his magic skills, especially about his ability to misdirect. Basically, almost everything from that point on was a misdirect away from what would be important to the end of the season.

This was a 6 episode miniseries with 3 bonus episodes that were homages to Stephen King. The few plot points from episodes 6-10 that mattered to the resolution of the season could have been edited down into a new episode 6 for a tighter season. While those later episodes were some of the best of the season, they were really almost stand alone homages to Stephen King rather than installments to the story we’d seen in the first half of the season.

In an interview with Variety, showrunners Sam Shaw and Dustin Thomason disclose that the season has been structured as a trial for Kid and Henry, with the audience as the jury who must ultimately decide what the truth is. According to this point of view, the first half of the season is the prosecution presenting its case, then the second half presents the defense.

This would feel much more compelling if the defense’s case had any bearing on the outcome of the season. Since Henry ends up as judge, jury and jailer for Kid, and he rejects everything from episodes 7-9, there doesn’t seem to be much point to including them. Those episodes end up as fake outs for what could have been, if this show decided to actually explore the concepts it introduced.

And the sublime episode 7 serves as Emmy bait for Sissy Spacek. Too bad it can’t be pulled out separately to count as a TV movie, the way Black Mirror does with its best episode each season. (Shoot, I compared something to Black Mirror.)

I discussed the trial aspect of the season in more depth in my quick review of episode 10 and season 1.

Grade for the season: B+

Mainly for the cast, production design, and other individual elements taken out of context. The season long plot deserves a C+.

  Images courtesy of Hulu.

Castle Rock Season 1 Episode 10: Romans Recap and Season 1 Analysis (My quick review of Castle Rock episode 10: Romans and Season 1 is HERE.) That was an…

[profoutofoffice]

San Jose, Costa Rica: 18-28 February 2017

Just a short hop from my hotel to the Gatwick shuttle and sanctuary. Sorry sir the lounge does not open until 7. What! Brother Johnson he caught a plane and he got on it. During the flight I watch “inferno” as a prelude to visiting a Costa Rican volcano as well as inspiration for writing my presentation. A simple plot – professor meets beautiful woman, biodiversity loss, betrayal, seek and find, EBSA descriptions, you decide. It’s an 11 and a half hour flight. Still 5 hours to go. Over the Sargasso Sea the Captain switches on the seatbelt sign. Bumpyness ahead. Toilets out of bounds. The grey bag says ‘if used for air-sickness please hand to cabin crew’. Charming - and anyway I have written a detailed ‘to do’ list all over mine. The time difference means I arrive at the San Jose mid-afternoon.  Then disaster. As I try to pay the taxi it transpires I have been exchanged Colombian pesos instead of Costa Rican Colons. Taxi driver he say no. Fortunately the hotel staff are lovely and I am escorted via the cash point to my room. King Leisure. We like that. And Moneycorp arrange an instant refund – brilliant. Plenty of time for a Spanish stroll. Who with? Sister Sue?

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5LveBIjg3o

So what was achieved?

Crowne Plaza Corobici – the place where great things happen. Like what? Sustainable Ocean Initiative intensive roundtable discussions, many post-its, challenges and solutions, sharing experiences and waking up very early. Plans and more plans, restricted uses, bans, degraded spaces, also rans, time’s against us, many hands, lift to safety, if we can. This workshop had plenty of energy and love in the room. Perhaps it’s the Latin way? This region has so much variety but there is clear ‘value added’ in a sub-regional approach. Strategic Environmental Assessment requires a paradigm shift to consider long-term risks and opportunities – sustainable pathways rather than permissions to proceed.

But what about Costa Rica itself – how was it?

Luxuriant vegetation, friendly people, chaotic traffic, world class coffee, sunshine bouncing off the pavements. I took a cheeky trip to Poas Volcano. An eruption may be building. Could happen anytime. Bet in play now. Not on a Sunday surely. On the path near the crater it says ‘in case of volcanic activity keep calm’. You cannot be serious. ‘People of Pompeii, stay calm, remain in your houses’.  My daily routine of a swim, industrial quantities of fresh fruit, sharing information, beers and good company has taken its toll. To keep up spirits my buddy Erick brought a new gift each day – coffee, a book, fruit, new ideas, a smile, most excellent. Time to escape for the weekend. First we head for the museum de Oro – pre-Columbian beautiful detailed pieces, constellation of symbols and meanings especially frogs and contemporary art; a quick roam around central San Jose and delicious supper in Barrio Escalante near my Spanish-style B&B. at

Sofia restaurant. Next day I cramp the style of my CBD buddies (5’s a crowd!) and we head to scenic Manuel Antonio National Park on the Pacific coast. Monkeys, raccoons and soft warm water to swim in. Sunday’s treat was a walk around my Barrio to photograph graffiti on crumbling walls. Rattle of the early morning train – three poops of the horn. Kick back and enjoy a lingering coffee at Pandeli, calming classical guitar music, lovely simple wooden deck with an orchid on each table and napkins in a coffee tin, fun orange cups, in the back kitchen a hive of activity, small army of staff in blue trousers and white t-shirts and aprons serving a peaceful Sunday clientele. Look harder outside to see metal fences, razor wire, padlocks and metal grilles. The calm belies a subtext of insecurity on the breeze behind the banana leaves. Sparrowfart start and back to Blighty.

[angstandhappiness]

LOVING THE ART AND TAGS, OUCH TOO

fake ep idea + doodles