#and charlie just did the opposite and regressed???

[gaffney]

✨i’m losing it, all i get is jealousy, jealousy ✨

[thanks--for--listening]

it was easier to feel nothing (than it was to make sense of it all)

throwback to august when i promised my cousins I would write them heartstopper fluff. I am months late and have come up with something a little too depressing to be properly called fluff but idk what I expected when I made tori spring the main character.

set during season 2 right after tori finds out they're gonna tell people, and its kind of like a prequel to solitaire but you don't have to have read solitaire to understand the fic. you just have to love tori spring. and don't we all?

(also on ao3).

~

Tori Spring had every intention of spending the entire night in her bedroom. Alone. While her brother socialized like a well-adjusted teenager, she’d have her headphones on, the door closed, with the only light coming from the moon outside her window and the computer screen in front of her. It was how she spent most nights. It was how she spent most days, as well.

How she found herself sitting on the top of the stairs, then, remained a mystery. 

She couldn’t quite make out their conversations from her perch, but she could hear the ease with which his friends spoke. The laughter was loud and infectious, made up of more voices than she could distinguish. Their joy was collaborative.

In spite of her general opposition to clamor and commotion, it wasn’t the noise that kept her up. Drowning out the world was her specialty. It was perhaps the one thing she did better than anybody else. 

No. What was keeping her up were all of these fucking feelings. 

Her brother was happy. That should have been the only feeling. Charlie was downstairs, with his friends, and his boyfriend, and he was happy, and he was okay, and that should have been enough. That should have been everything. 

But she remembered the quiet nights. The ones when no one came over. When she used to lean against their shared wall and search desperately for any break of silence, any proof that he hadn’t simply faded away. Tori hardly slept back then; she couldn’t risk missing something important. She couldn’t miss him needing her.

The loud ones weren’t much better. Drumsticks hitting practice pads over and over and over again, barely hanging onto anything that could remotely resemble a rhythm. The sound haunted her. There were nights where she swore she could still hear it, the constant thud on repeat, and relief wouldn’t come until she’d carefully pushed open his door and confirmed that no music was being made in the early hours of the morning. 

Even now, when the increased volume was proof of improvement rather than regression, she couldn’t help but hold her breath. Couldn’t fight the urge to double check. 

Maybe that was why she’d come out here. Maybe she had to make sure the tide wouldn’t turn again. 

Except that was ridiculous. Charlie had friends. Friends who knew him. Friends who had watched darkness envelop him, who witnessed the battles he fought every day, the ones he tried to hide behind a smile and quiet demeanor. They had seen it all, and every time, they held him closer rather than run away. They were not afraid of the dark.

Tori wondered what that felt like. What it cost. 

He also had Nick Nelson. Nick Nelson, who he was madly in love with. Nick Nelson, who was one of the most popular boys at his school. Nick Nelson, who was going to start telling people. 

She didn’t hate Nick. Truly. It was actually absurd how happy he was making Charlie in the short amount of time they’d spent together. But he wasn’t there last year. He didn’t understand the scope of how utterly horrendous school was for him when everybody found out. 

Tori had a feeling she only knew a portion of it. The thought of it having been worse than it appeared, of him keeping the depth of his torment from her, made her stomach twist and her skin crawl. Every second she spent speculating brought the walls tighter and tighter, until there was no air left to breathe, until the only images she saw when she closed her eyes were every possible way he could be hurting. 

She had nightmares. Vivid, vicious dreams of him bleeding out from wounds she couldn’t see. He would look up at her, begging for salvation, and she was never fast enough to fix it. Never strong enough to help. 

Tori woke in cold sweats every time. It was like her body couldn’t understand that what she’d seen was not her reality. She’d spend days after the fact just watching him, searching for red flags, for reasons to sound the alarm. It required all of her attention, all of her energy. The simple act of existing became entirely unimportant when he may have been suffering. 

So yes, she was happy her brother was happy. She was thrilled. But she was also terrified. And perhaps a bit irritated that, of all the boys he could have possibly fallen for, Charlie chose the one who would inadvertently put him directly into the social spotlight once again. 

And then there was the envy. 

Not toward Nick and Charlie. She didn’t care much either way for relationships. But sitting up here, it reminded her how easy it was for other people to be happy. How effortless it all seemed. 

Her own friends hadn’t been over in ages. She couldn’t remember when she’d stopped inviting them. Now that she had, starting up again was too daunting of a prospect. She wouldn’t know what to do with them. How to keep them entertained. How to explain why her bedroom walls were bare, or why she spent all of her free time being miserable on the internet, or why she couldn’t finish a movie in one sitting even though all she ever did was sit in her bedroom and watch movies. 

Listening was simpler. At lunch, she could let them talk around her instead of to her, and take her adjacency to conversation as a win. Nobody expected anything from her that way. The logic was a little dramatic, perhaps, but it was sound: if she never tried, she never failed. 

Even now, with his lot instead of hers, this was still the best she could do. She could sit up here, out of sight but not quite out of earshot, and pretend that observing joy was the same as feeling it. That it was enough.

The guilt hit her again. She was so selfish. Charlie finally had things going his way, and she managed to make it all about her. It was probably best if she just stayed upstairs all night. She didn’t deserve to bear witness to his successful social life, let alone reap the benefits of it.

Tori raised the volume on her computer, until the movie she had playing was loud enough to hurt. Only then could it drown out the thoughts running rampant in her mind. Only then could she properly exhale. 

It was easier to feel nothing than it was to make sense of it all. 

“Tori!”

Charlie came barreling up the stairs, as if thinking about him had been a kind of summoning. She wasn’t sure how many times he’d called her name, only that she hadn’t heard him until he was nearly on top of her. 

Tori pulled her headphones out. “Yes?”

“What are you doing out here?”

“Keeping track of which one of your friends is the loudest,” she lied. “Darcy is winning.”

His face fell slightly. “Are we being too noisy? I can tell everyone to quiet down if you’re trying to watch something.”

“I’m not very invested in it. Feel free to yell to your heart's content.”

“In that case,” he said, mischievous smile replacing his look of concern. “You’ll be happy to know we’re getting ready to play Taboo.”

She gave him her own wicked grin back. Game nights weren’t the most frequent occurrence in the Spring household anymore, but back in their heyday, she and Charlie had been unstoppable at Taboo. Her parents had considered banning the game altogether, or forcing them to play on different teams, but they never followed through on their threats. 

Tori suspected that was on her account. They hadn’t given up the fight to keep her out of her bedroom back then. They’d been willing to suffer defeat after defeat if it kept her at the kitchen table. Lose battles to win wars, and whatnot.

Although, she supposed they’d still lost that war in the end. Not that they seemed to care.

“I’m sure you and Nick will do your best. He’s got that competitive rugby spirit.”

“I’m not playing with Nick.”

“Oh. Tao, then?”

Charlie shook his head. “Tao’s a horrible partner. He can’t get his thoughts out fast enough, and when he does, they’re all obscure references to things only he knows.”

“Then who—“

“I want to play with you.”

He said it with a different kind of smile. Gentle and eager. It made him look young, much younger than her. 

She forgot, sometimes, that they were peers. That her baby brother was just a grade below her. He’d told her once, ages ago, when they were still in primary school, how much he loved his birthday. It wasn’t because of the presents, or the party — it was because it meant he had caught up. He liked when they were only a year apart. Said she was too far away during the few weeks in April between her celebration and his, when she was technically an extra year older than him.

Tori had hated her own birthday ever since. 

The rest of the world didn’t seem to notice the gap. People used to think they were twins when they were little. There seemed to be nothing they loved more than to see if their assumptions were correct. The two of them got stopped all the time: in grocery stores, at the park, at school events. Sometimes in their own neighborhood.

They didn’t even look all that similar. He’d always been tanner than her, his hair wavier even before it properly curled, and she’d been taller back then by at least an inch or two. But something about them flagged random adults to stop, and stare, and sometimes coo, and constantly, incessantly ask. 

Charlie had never been a very good liar. It wasn’t in his nature. But he always said yes.

Fooling a stranger used to be her favorite feeling in the world. She’d spend the rest of the day walking around with the kind of pep that was ridiculously uncharacteristic. Not because they were getting away with a lie, but because, for a few blissful seconds, it was true. Or, at least, it felt true. She could embrace the act of pretending they were the same. Imagining the world where they were actually twins, going through every part of their lives side by side, hand in hand. Where they were never alone. Most of her daydreams used to be dedicated to that reality.

Sometime during the last few years, she’d stopped. They say twins understand each other on a level that’s hard to describe. That when one of them hurt, the other could feel it. She was pretty sure that wasn’t true. But, just in case, she decided it was good that they had a buffer year between them. That way, she could protect him from her insufferable morbidity. She could keep him out of her head. Even if it meant she had to be kept out of his.

“What about the others?” She finally asked.

“Everyone’s partnering up. We’re going to change every round to see which pairings are the best. But I already know it’s going to be us.”

“No, I mean — wouldn’t you rather play with one of them? They’re your friends.”

“So are you.”

His voice was steady, brimming with a quiet kind of confidence. It was one she’d only recently started to notice. His hands weren’t fidgeting, and his eyes were making direct contact with hers, and he wasn’t shifting his weight back and forth. 

It dawned on her that she was wrong. She blinked and the youth she’d seen earlier vanished, replaced with a bravery and certainty that felt much beyond both of their years. It wasn’t his birthday, but nonetheless, here he was, catching up. Growing up. 

She knew it wasn’t just a consequence of having a proper boyfriend. It wasn’t even due to his friends downstairs, although both played a part. No, something inside Charlie had shifted. Gone was the paralyzing doubt and self-hatred. For the first time, her brother was walking headfirst into a life he wanted. There was no more waiting for permission or hiding in shadows; he was moving forward without an ounce of hesitation.

And she was standing completely still.

“Alright. I’ll play.” 

Charlie beamed and held his hands out. She let him pull her up and drag her down the stairs. 

When they walked into the family room, his friends all excitedly said her name. Like they were genuinely happy to see her. Tori didn’t fully believe them— her attendance anywhere was no cause for celebration— but they didn’t sound fake, either. It made it very difficult to draw a logical conclusion about them and their intentions.  

Everyone was already sitting in pairs. She’d expected a certain kind of coupling, but instead it was all jumbled up. Tara was with Isaac, Darcy was with Elle, and Nick was with the newer girl, Imogen. Tao, hovering near the end, kept giving Elle and Darcy weird looks. Or maybe it was just Elle. She wasn’t entirely sure, nor did she really care. 

It took her a second to realize that he was the only one without a partner. Tori wondered why Charlie would bring her down here, would purposefully mess up their nice even number, just so they could play together. It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t that competitive. 

She scanned the crowd again, looking for something specific this time. But nobody gave her that pitiful look. The isn’t it sad she doesn’t have any friends? look. The being alone couldn’t possibly be a choice look. The something must be very wrong with her look. Nobody focused on her long enough to, except Charlie, and he was the only person who had never seen her the way the rest of the world did. 

“Elle and I will go first!” Darcy said much louder than necessary. Tori sat and watched the two of them try and make their way through the deck of words that required guessing, with Tara looking over Darcy’s shoulder to make sure she didn’t use any of the forbidden hints. 

They got three. It was a pitiful showing. The group applauded anyway.

Tara and Isaac went next. They got a respectable six. Tori quietly clapped with the rest of the group.

Nick and Imogen got four, sneaking the last one in as the final grains of sand spilled down their plastic hourglass timer. They celebrated as if it was a game-winning buzzer beater, which would have been more appropriate had they actually gotten a higher score than Tara and Isaac. 

And then it was their turn. 

They sat on opposite sides of the coffee table. Tori held the cards, Charlie awaiting her clues. He had always been the better guesser. He knew what she meant, even when she was speaking nonsense. 

Tori looked at him before they started, just to see if there was one thing he hadn’t outgrown yet. She was both pleased and slightly distressed to find that there was. He still stared at her with stars in his eyes; she still did her best to earn them.

Imogen flipped the timer over, and Tori grabbed her first card. 

They didn’t miss a beat. It had been at least two years since they’d played, but they picked up right where they left off. She spoke quickly, and he read her mind, and soon she had amassed a pile of cards to her right.

By the time Nick told them time was up, the pile was up to nine. Not their record, but a solid start considering they were incredibly out of practice. 

His friends acted as if they’d literally won an Olympic medal. Darcy was screaming, and Nick was playfully shaking Charlie’s shoulders. Tao was loudly claiming that whoever teamed up with him had better bring their A game, but Tori knew it would be a wasted effort. 

She fought the urge to smile. It was much more difficult than usual.

They went another three rounds, with everyone except her and Charlie switching partners. Tao was, as Charlie had predicted, the worst of the bunch. Isaac and Elle had been a surprisingly successful group, but they’d only managed to get eight. Tara and Darcy kept laughing instead of guessing, but neither seemed to mind walking away with a measly one. 

She and Charlie ended the night with a high score of twelve. He reacted with unusual, exaggerated excitement, likely embracing the chaos of his friends. The others gave her the same treatment — Darcy playfully slapped her on the back, and Elle gushed about how good she was, and it was all so strange that Tori had to constantly fight the urge to run back up to her bedroom where she knew how things worked. 

Eventually, once it became incredibly obvious that no pairing was going to beat the two of them, they switched gears into debating what film to watch. 

Tori took that as her cue. As quickly as she could, she snuck out of the family room and made her way to the kitchen. It was quieter in there. She could hear herself think. 

She wasn’t entirely sure that was a good thing. 

Currently, her thoughts were telling her not to get used to this. That it was easy, when Charlie was holding her hand, carefully walking her through the whole night, to pretend that she was normal. That she was unbroken. But she knew that was all it was: pretend. 

These were good people. Good friends. But they weren’t hers. 

Not that she wished otherwise. His friends were too intense. She wasn’t cut out for this much energy, this constant back and forth conversation. Outside of a few impressive rounds of Taboo, she offered nothing to this group. 

She couldn’t stop from thinking about her own lot, though. Becky and all the other girls she sat with at school. If she offered Charlie’s friends nothing, she knew for certain that she gave her own even less. 

Tori had thought avoiding failure was the ultimate goal. That it would be enough to technically be part of them, even if Becky was the only one she’d ever truly considered a friend. She’d never be loud and rambunctious, never be the one to throw the parties or sleepovers, never be the center of attention. She’d understood that. Hell, she’d embraced that. 

But if tonight had shown her one thing, it was how much she was missing. Her friends weren’t like Charlie’s. They were drastically different, in both the big ways and the small ones. They didn’t watch out for each other. They didn’t laugh like them. They didn’t give each other anything, besides basic conversation and a way to avoid being alone in public.  

Over the course of an hour, every one of Charlie’s friends had their needs met. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t some random coincidence. It was thoughtfulness. A consequence of all of them knowing each other so intensely. So intimately. Tori doubted they were even aware they were doing it.

Darcy got to be loud. Tara got to let go. Elle got to impress, Tao got to entertain, Isaac got to tune in and out as he so pleased. Even Imogen got to be embraced by a crowd. And Nick and Charlie got to be themselves, unabashedly and unequivocally. 

What did she get? What did she give?

They would leave. Her friends would wake up one day and realize how little she mattered to their social ecosystem, and they’d go searching for someone else to take her place. It wouldn’t be difficult, either, because she was nothing more than a glorified shadow: dark and silent and always half a step behind. 

Being left should have scared her. And it did, in a way, but it was like the feeling was muted. She knew what was coming, and some part of her wanted to avoid it, but she couldn’t get herself to care enough to try. She couldn’t act.

If this was a movie, she knew what it would look like. She’d be sitting alone on a runaway train. The audience could see it was going to crash. She could see it was going to crash. The collision was miles away, a blocked tunnel made entirely of brick, but it was inevitable. Her situation looked dire at first glance, except they weren’t moving very fast. In truth, they were hardly moving at all. The doors were wide open, the ground a safe distance below. All she’d have to do to save herself was jump. Nothing and no one was stopping her. But she just sat and stared straight ahead. Perfectly content to be crushed. 

She didn’t know how long she’d been on board this metaphorical train. Maybe forever. Maybe her whole life had been spent sitting still in this pathetic seat, and everyone who’d ever come and gone had simply been taking a ride to their own destination. Maybe they couldn’t see the end. But she could. 

Charlie wouldn’t understand. Neither would his friends. They all felt everything. Each high and low and shade in between, each victory and loss. It was how they’d managed to hold onto all that energy. They were constantly moving, fueled by endless emotion. 

Tori felt absolutely nothing. 

Her friends would probably leave after graduation. Cut their losses and start new. The thought should have upset her. But she’d already accepted it. She’d sit alone. The train would crash. The credits would roll. 

God, she was insufferable. It was a wonder anyone tolerated her at all. 

Reaching for the fridge, Tori grabbed the Diet Lemonade. Maybe if she drank enough of it, she could drown the voice in her head before she went back upstairs. That usually worked. She might even sleep tonight.

When she shut the door and turned around, Isaac was there, sitting at the kitchen table, book in hand. 

“Jesus Christ,” she gasped. 

He looked up. “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Only fair that I learn what that feels like, I suppose.”

“Huh?”

“What are you doing in here?” She asked. “I thought you guys were watching a movie.”

“We are. Or, we will be. It’ll take them at least twenty minutes to decide. I figured I could steal a bit of quiet while they did.”

“You don’t want to help choose?”

He held his book up. She recognized it, but— as was the case with most titles — hadn’t read it. “I probably won’t watch much of it, to be honest.”

Tori, in a feat of considerable strength, held her opinion on books and their secondary nature to films to herself. 

“Will you watch with us?” Again, the way he spoke surprised her. There was no hesitation. No undertone that the answer should absolutely be no. It was just curiosity. Sincere, legitimate curiosity.

“Probably not. Your friends are very loud.”

Isaac chuckled. “Yeah. I don’t blame you for needing a break.”

“How do you manage it?” She wasn’t sure where the question came from, but she regretted asking almost immediately. Hearing it back, she knew it sounded rude, even when she didn't mean it to. 

That happened to her a lot. Maybe she was just a rude person, and had tricked herself into thinking she wasn’t. 

“It’s all about moderation,” he said with a smile. Isaac stood up, walked closer to the doorway. Tori followed, until they could just barely see into the family room. 

Tao was in an impassioned debate with Tara and Darcy. The former wanted to watch an indie film; the latter, Mamma Mia. Imogen sat next to Elle, the two half-heartedly watching the battle play out in front of them. 

Charlie and Nick sat on the couch. Nick leaned in closer, whispered something in his ear, and her brother laughed. His hands were entangled with Nick’s. His shoulders were relaxed. He was truly and genuinely happy. 

Tori couldn’t remember the last time she felt like that. She couldn’t remember ever feeling like that. And she suspected it had nothing to do with her relationship status. 

“Quiet is nice,” Isaac said next to her. “It’s necessary. But it’s also easy to get lost in.”

“What do you mean?” It was a pointless question — she knew exactly what he meant. But she asked anyway. 

“Just that, when you’re stuck in your own world for so long, it becomes hard to remember what you gain from everyone else’s. And there’s a lot to gain. That is, if you can manage to put up with all the noise every once and a while.”

He nodded toward the family room. The debate had greatly intensified, arms flailing in support of arguments they were only half making. They kept getting interrupted by their own laughter. She wondered whether any of them still cared about the films in question. 

“Isaac will agree with me,” Tao said, before loudly yelling out his name. 

“No!” Tara managed to squeak out. “Isaac is literally my best friend in the whole world, he’ll agree with me!”

“Tara!” Darcy yelled. “If Isaac is your best friend, what the fuck am I?”

“…Arm candy?”

The laughter broke out again in full force. She could feel the itch, the desire to join them, in spite of the headache it would give her. Just to prove that she could, if she wanted to. She could have this life. She could make these choices. She could pretend. 

The truth barged in, smothered her doubt before it could grow into something properly delusional. She was not Isaac. They may have both made friends with the quiet, but he’d managed to build a door in it, allowing a funnel of noise to slowly creep in at a pace he could handle. In return, he sent back some of the silence, something this group was sorely missing. They balanced each other out. 

Friendship, she was beginning to understand, was a transaction. Nobody gave all this joy for free. And she, with all her misery and melancholy, her self-destruction and self-isolation, could never afford to give enough. Not if she wanted anyone to stick around. 

Except Charlie. Though he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. And if he did, she was certain he would never have picked her. Taboo skills be damned.

Her silence was useless. It was suffocating, not peaceful. It didn’t offer balance — it overwhelmed. There was nothing for anyone around her to gain. 

Maybe that was the reason she stayed on the train. Better to crash in ignorance than to know for certain that nobody would care if she made it out or not. 

“It’s not that simple,” she finally said, so softly she wasn’t sure he’d hear her. 

“I know.”

“And it’s safer. Keeping quiet.”

“It is.” There was something in his voice. Tori wondered if maybe one of Charlie’s friends would understand after all. “It gets a bit boring, though, doesn’t it?”

Tori couldn’t pull her eyes off the crowd. The thought of spending the night down here with them was exhausting. But the thought of going back to her dark room with her mediocre movie that she wouldn’t even finish didn’t make her feel any better. 

“You’re very wise,” she told him.

“I read a lot of books.” 

Elle finally offered up a third option— a rerun of some Bake Off episode they’d all already seen — and the others appeared to find her suggestion reasonable. Someone called Isaac’s name again, and he exhaled deeply. 

He took a step forward, before pausing and turning back. “Should I tell them you’ll be joining us?”

Tori wasn’t confident that anybody would notice her absence. Not even Charlie. 

“Tell them I was tired.”

She half expected him to look disappointed in her, which would be ridiculous because she hardly knew him. But all he did was nod. 

She lingered in the hallway for another few minutes, before quietly making her way upstairs. Standing in front of her bedroom, she paused. It was so dark in there. The clouds must have shifted over the past hour or so, because there wasn’t any light coming through the window. 

Her laptop lay abandoned on the floor beside her. It beckoned her, persuading her to return to her former state. Usually, with its endless library of movies and blogs, her computer felt familiar. Reliable. A singular comfort in a world that offered her nothing of the sort.

Tonight, it felt much more insidious. Like it knew she was an addict. Like it could see her resolve slipping. She could feel it lurking in the metaphorical and literal shadows, waiting for her inevitable relapse so it could swoop in and supply what it always did: mind-numbing distraction.

It was a very melodramatic way to perceive a piece of technology. That was what she told herself as she opened it back up again. 

But instead of completing her retreat, she sat back down where she’d started, at the top of the stairs. She clicked play on her movie, but she lowered the volume and took one headphone out. 

The sound from downstairs carried, like it had before. In one ear, she heard dialogue from her computer; in the other, she heard her brother and his friends adding commentary to their show. It made it impossible to follow either, and she knew she probably wouldn’t last more than fifteen minutes before she gave up and officially escaped back to her bedroom. 

But for now, she did what she always did: listen. 

It was almost enough.  

[jadelotusflower]

Stargate rewatch: 1x12 Fire and Water

This episode doesn’t count as a Daniel death, but it does count as a Daniel fake out death, which is also pretty prevalent!

It’s kind of amusing comparing everyone being absolutely destroyed over Daniel’s apparent death here, to the later seasons where everyone shrugs and just assumes he’ll turn up somehow.

By this time the US Airforce was consulting in the show, and they sent along actual officers to conduct the funeral ceremony.

Do non-military personnel get military funerals?

“Daniel Jackson made this place happen. As a member of SG-1, he was our voice, our conscience. He was a very courageous man…he was a good man. For those of us lucky enough to have known him, he was also a friend.” 😭

Teal’c being handed the flag as the closest thing to a next of kin is very sweet.

“We commend Daniel Jackson’s spirit to the universe he opened up for us.” 😭 😭

Another Katharyn Powers episode, this is actually one of my favourites.

Where do we think they send the wreath? I would assume the planet where he died, but I suppose it could be Abydos if the gate is buried in such a way that they’re able to establish a wormhole.

Is this standard SGC funeral procedure? We don’t see them send a wreath for Janet even though she dies offworld, but I actually really love the concept.

Nice continuity on Jack’s house from CotG, he walks in carrying the biggest bowl of vegetables I’ve ever seen.

It’s interesting that Jack recounts the story of Sha’re kissing Daniel on Abydos rather than an anecdote from the first mission (getting dragged by the mastadge comes to mind) or from his time on SG-1 - perhaps he wanted to share an amusing memory from a time Daniel was truly happy, but also perhaps Sha’re isn’t far from Jack’s mind, because if Daniel’s gone, who else is going to remember/search for her?

Or maybe it’s also that Jack doesn’t really believe that Daniel really is gone - it almost feels like he’s ribbing a friend for a PDA with his wife like he’s there and not just retelling a story.

A cute outfit for Sam! Teal’c too.

Jack smashing a car window and contemplating retirement because of Daniel’s death 🥺

We see Jack start to backslide into grief like he did after Charlie which is a neat parallel - Daniel was part of the reason why Jack was able to heal from his son’s death, and with Daniel gone he regresses.

Great performance by RDA this episode.

In the false memory and the later flashback, Daniel is wearing his helmet - guess we aren’t quite done with them yet!

In the debrief Jack also says that Daniel cried out “Colonel, help me,” but in the triggered memory he says “Jack, help.” Perhaps a continuity error, but also perhaps the conditioned response altering/escalating. The beer reminds Jack of the bubbles in Nem’s lab, triggering the vision of Daniel’s in order to distract him - the more emotionally inflicting the memory, the less likely Jack is to question its authenticity.

But it actually has the opposite effect - Nem underestimated the bond between the team, as they cannot accept that Daniel is dead.

Daniel’s missing his glasses, so gets up real close to the cuneiform despite it being quite large.

I realise they had to go with the illogical everyone speaks English because this is a tv show, but I do enjoy when there is a language barrier or attempt to explain the lack of one - like the Nox, Nem’s race are advanced enough to learn English after short exposure.

It’s implied the Nox speaking English were an extension of their telepathic abilities, here Nem makes Daniel translate a Babylonian legal system to learn his language, which is neat.

Kind of swish apartment Daniel has! I’ve read some commentary over on reddit surmising that as an expert civilian contractor he’d actually be on a pretty good salary.

Also that’s a lot of stuff for someone who in the film it’s said that everything he had in the world was in two bags. He probably had stuff in storage inherited from his parents that he got out once he started getting that sweet government money.

“I’ll never get paid” is a nice movie callback.

Daniel has what looks like a painting of Bassin d’Apollon (Apollo’s Basin) at Versailles. The fountain depicts Apollo rising from the sea in a horse-drawn chariot. Apollo is of course the Greek god of light/the sun, keeping in the Fire and Water theme for this episode. Daniel will also rise from the sea at the end of the episode.

Jack is looking at the photo of Daniel in Egypt - this will later end up on the desk in Daniel’s lab at the SGC, together with the photo of Sha’re (which we haven’t seen yet).

The excerpt Sam reads from Daniel’s journal (“Sha’re is gone”) is in the middle of some random notes on Egyptian games. Obviously this show was made before it was expected that fans would pause and take screenshots, but I also kind of like the idea that Daniel writes in a stream of consciousness way, recording his thoughts even when they stray from something he’s working on to the personal.

I love the idea of Teal’c and Daniel having game nights.

“I lost my wife - my mate - because of the Goa’uld. They took her from me and I despise them for that.” This episode is probably the most Sha’re has been mentioned so far - between this and Thor’s Hammer I wonder if it was a Katharyn Powers choice or just that it fit into these particular stories.

Why does Nem believe so strongly that Daniel knows what fate Omoroca? Just because Daniel can read cuneiform doesn’t mean he knows all of Babylonian history.

But his distrust of Daniel being rooted in his belief that Earth is still under Goa’uld control because of Teal’c is neatly done.

“It is the fate of humans - that Omoroca could not prevent.” I like that even though Nem has learned English his speech is still a bit stilted. This is a really well crafted episode, imo.

Nem is played by Gerard Plunkett aka Tuplo from The Broca Divide. He does well acting through the prosthetics.

“I don’t have four thousand years. Maybe you can afford to search all that time but I can’t.” It’s interesting how often Daniel has a mirror character - in Torment of Tantalus it was Ernest, in this episode it’s Nem, but while the former was Daniel learning not to be so consumed by his thirst for knowledge that he’s blind to what really matters, here it’s the reinforcement of his convictions to risk his life if necessary to achieve his goals. They’re almost contradictory lessons, but not quite, because of the differing circumstances.

Here Nem is a cautionary tale - Daniel must be active in his search for Sha’re or he’ll end up like Nem, who out of fear and passivity waited for news of his mate’s death rather than trying to find her himself.

This episode was directed by Allan Eastman, his only Stargate effort. But he knew what’s what!

There’s good continuity on Daniel’s growing stubble too.

Eastman would however go on to direct several episodes of Andromeda, including the one guest starring Michael Shanks and Christopher Judge.

Dr Mackenzie appears for the first time since autopsying the dead Jaffa in CotG.

We get three versions of the false memory - Sam’s was “help, help” while Teal’c’s is a drawn out cry of agony - perhaps because Teal’c has seen so many more brutal things his memory needed to be more visceral to trigger the same reaction.

There is nothing Daniel loves more than drawing in the sand.

“And in time Daniel, you will find what fate Sha’re.” A not so pleasant glimpse into Daniel’s future there.

It’s too bad we never see Nem again, not even when the show gets into other memory searching/creating technology.

“Tell us about it over sushi.” You can tell this was an RDA lib because he, Shanks, and Tapping almost break character.

[thebehindpost]

Season previews: Carlton (8th)

Last season: 5th (13 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw, 113.3%), 4th after finals Notable ins: Elijah Hollands (Gold Coast) Notable outs: Zac Fisher (North Melbourne), Paddy Dow (St Kilda), Ed Curnow (retired)

Which is the real Carlton? The side severely underperforming mid-way through Michael Voss’ second year in charge, languishing in 15th spot on the ladder and feeling the ire of a furious fan base? Or the one taking the competition by storm at season’s end, winning 11 of their last 13 games and only falling short against Brisbane in a preliminary final? Belief is now sky-high again on the back of that fairytale run and the Blues are tipped by many to challenge for the flag. But it is also possible the truth could land somewhere in between Carlton’s split personality of 2023.

The big test is how Carlton this time handle the weight of expectation and it's one they have failed repeatedly in recent times. In 2022, a spot in the eight was theirs to lose and lose it they did. Four straight losses to finish that season saw them miss the finals by a percentage of just 0.6%. And when it was assumed they would be hardened by that experience, the Blues went the other way and looked a shell of themselves to start last year. Yes, they turned it around but only after being completely written off after being so awful and were playing with house money, every win a bonus. Take even that preliminary final - Brisbane were the better side but Carlton kicked the first five goals of the game before coughing up control.

The truth is that they are a significantly better the side than the one that failed to find connection early last season and they should certainly not regress back to that place again. Charlie Curnow is the reigning dual Coleman-medallist, an imposing figure up forward. Patrick Cripps, Sam Walsh and Adam Cerra lead an A-grade midfield. And Jacob Weitering is an elite full-back, skipping the flashy stuff to just get the job done on the opposition’s best forward every week. Any side with all of them up and about will win more games than they lose.

There is more talent than that on the list but not all are quite as dependable. Mitch McGovern, Jack Martin and Zac Williams were all recruited in previous years on big money and all have been massive disappointments relative to their pay packets. Harry McKay partners Curnow in the forward line but since winning a Coleman of his own in 2021, has struggled badly with accuracy. There were moments last year when he seemed to epitomise his entire club’s psychological state, all at sea and completely devoid of confidence. Some of his misses had to be seen to be believed.

Anything is indeed possible at Carlton this season: something remarkable, certainly, but also the unremarkable. In their first 14 scheduled games, Carlton are slated to play seven Thursday or Friday night games. If they pick up where they left off and start well, the Blues will rival Collingwood as the hottest ticket in town. If it goes the other way the AFL will face a scheduling nightmare and the knives, always ready to be sharpened at Carlton, won’t stay stored away for long.

[amarienne]

It’s been two days. My blood still boils when I think of all the lost potential. (ramblings regarding how out of character the finale was)

Never before has an episode of any show, or a chapter of any book, or a scene of any movie has made me so upset. There is rage inside of me and the question of ‘how can a writer betray his own characters like this’.

(huge post following.)

I was not a hardcore destiel shipper. When I first started watching SPN a few years ago I knew of the ship but I thought that there was no chance in Hell a show like this would make it canon. And if we had never gotten 15x18 and some parts of 15x20 maybe I would be a tiny bit happier with how the finale went.

But the biggest mistake they did was give us the confession scene and not only that but echo it in Dean's actions in 15x19.

'That's not who I am'

This line keeps coming back to me because literally two episodes ago we saw Dean willing to sacrifice himself, Jack and even Sam so Chuck would disappear. He was red with rage and he didn't care for anything else apart winning. Let's not forget the thing that made him stop for a minute was Cas questioning Sam on why they should not go ahead with the plan. [Oh, there are plenty to be said for the only angel in all the universes that didn't just 'follow orders' after 'gripping him tight and raising him from perdition' but I won't go into that here.]

And sure, all that was Chuck's writing, but wasn't everything?

So what I am trying to say is that in three consecutive episodes we see:

-Dean full of anger and rage and ready to do anything to win -Dean giving up, losing hope after being cornered -Dean and TFW (minus Cas) finally overpower Chuck and walk away peacefully

So what changed? What made Dean walk away redifining himself as something different than the 'ultimate killer'?

Castiel. Of course, Castiel. The confession was so precious not only because Cas professed his love for Dean. No. It was vital to the plot of the next episode. And that was because before Cas utterred 'I love you' he spoke of how he sees Dean. How the way he sees himself is not the way Cas and the rest of the world sees him. How everything he has ever done, good and bad, was for love. Only for love. Not winning, not gaining power or wealth or recognition. But for love. At that moment Dean sees himself as Cas sees him, and it leaves him struck, speechless. Dean, who always had a snarky line ready is in awe trying to understand the words he is hearing.

And then, after everything is done and dusted we see Dean say 'That's not who I am' mirroring Cas' final words. The words he spent I don't know how much time sitting on the floor against the wall thinking about and crying. Noone else had gotten across to Dean like that, not even Sam. And we see that he started adopting Cas' image of him, believing it to be true. Or starting to.

Dean Winchester overpowered the ultimate villain and chose to stay true to Cas' image of him instead of taking revenge for Chuck screwing him over all his life.

This is poetic and heartbreaking, especially knowing Cas is gone. Not having Dean talk about the confession in 15x19 makes sense. We see glimpses of him numb at the loss, mourning Cas, wanting him back. We see the hope in his face when he thinks he is back. All these things make sense for 15x19, and even though we were sad we had to wait for the next episode hoping to see something tangible (aka the week we all clowned) I was content. The battle was done, the main plot was wrapped up. All was left was to see where all this last minute huge (especially for Dean) character progression and self acceptance would end up.

And then fucking 15x20 happens. It is like the writers threw in a cardboard box all the above points and details and threw it in the ocean. Nothing, absolutely nothing after the first 5 minutes makes sense in this fucking episode!

The montage at the beginning filled me with warmth and happiness. Dean (and Sam) are having a normal morning. Dean looks happy, he is eating, not depicted as overly drinking and most of all he has Miracle. He is focusing his love and affection on another living being. Sweet and warm. He plans to spend the afternoon eating pie with his brother. Goofy and light. The man deserves it for a bit.

But then we get the mention of Cas from Sam and we see how Dean reacts. How can Dean, who was sobbing on the floor and was demanding Cas to be brought back basically an episode ago keep an emotionless face and brush it off. We get the line 'If we don't keep living all that sacrifice was for nothing'. So we are meant to believe that right now Dean is not particularly bothered with Cas' death because it was a sacrifice to save the world. At this point a dread is starting to fill me.

Um, if it was the first time Cas was dying I would understand this. We have seen Dean broken over Cas' death before multiple times under more peaceful circumstances. Dean wouldn't leave Purgatory without Cas and you are trying to convince me after gaining true free will and finally writing his own story Dean would not break every cosmic rule to bring Cas back? Even if he did not reciprocate romantic feelings? This is the textbook definition of out of character in my eyes. Screw the romantic aspect because we ship it. Strip all the glances, touches and sexy lines we enjoy to gif and think back to feed the good ship Destiel, forget about it.

Keep the core of their relationship- the '3rd Winchester brother' who has stuck through thin and thick with them for the past 12 years. You mean to tell me Dean would be happy leaving Cas in the Empty and continue living his life? How is that possible? How is that Dean? How is it possible that we would not see Dean at least trying?

And then 20 minutes later comes the complete opposite of the line Dean wants to stick by. 'If we don't keep living all that sacrifice was for nothing'

But Dean does not keep living, does he? He doesn't grow happy or old. He doesn't start a family or open a bar or learn to dance. He doesn't honour Cas' sacrifice. He dies in the most unimaginitive way. And it is cruel. So cruel.

Dean went from having the strong belief that he would die young on a hunt fighting a monster, saving someone, machete and gun in his hand to starting to accept there is more to him than killing things.

And this fucking episode did a full backtrack and what did it give us?

Dean dying young on a hunt fighting a monster, saving two kids, machete and gun in his hand.

We got Dean dying in a way that gave us a 10 minute speech on how much he loves Sam. We got Dean dying in pain, scared and terrified. We got Dean getting a hunter's funeral with only Sam attending. We saw at Mary's funeral how a hunter's goodbye should look like. Room full of friends, mementos and alcohol. And Dean doesn't get any of that to honour his life.

How can he deserve that? How is it possible?

Even with Heaven 2.0 now being this trully idyllic place how can this be what Dean deserves?

And Sam... Sam gets to grow old in pain and regret. One foot on Earth with his family, one foot ready to follow Dean. Did anyone think Sam looked happy in that montage? Leaving the only home he shared with Dean? Presumably giving up his hunter friends, not even playing a 'Bobby' kind of role? Keeping the Impala in a dusty garage?

Jack... Jack who said he would be hands off, but how am I supposed to believe this would include his family? And even if he didn't heal/save Dean you mean to tell me he wouldn't be there for Sam? I am thinking of Jack appearing after Dean dies, supporting Sam's weight as he collapses, explaining why he can't bring him back. Standing next to Sam as Dean's body is burning.

And Cas... Cas who finally told Dean his truth and then sacrificed himself, content. Cas was saved from the Empty. No longer in eternal sleep sufferring. Working with Jack to rebuild Heaven. And... what? Cas who made Earth his true home, who was talking through tears how he loved the whole world through loving Dean, chose to stay in Heaven? Not stepping in Earth? Not getting in contact with the brothers? Waiting for them to die to talk to them again? And even when Dean dies he is not there to welcome him along with Jack? How is that possible?

We had gotten to know these characters so well over the past 15 seasons. How can the writers give us such a finale, so OOC for all three of them?

How can we not get a scene with Dean and Cas after the last two episodes?

Why have the confession, why have this be Cas' true moment of happines?

Why have the prayer in Purgatory a few episodes back?

Why have Dean break down in a way he has never broken down before?

What is the point of all this if there will be no climax? Even if it is the tiniest nudge, a couple words and a hug.

It makes absolutely no fucking sense. Up until now it felt like all roads, all plot points were converging to one- happiness, peace, love and family.

But no. We got a finale that would make sense 15 years ago. 15 seasons worth of character development and relationship building (not just Destiel, but Sam + Eileen, Jody, Donna and the girls, Charlie and so many others) and we got a finale that basically had Dean die so Sam could have a family.

As others have said here in tumblr Dean and Sam's lives on Earth would end up being exactly the same they ended up being if Dean did not go to get Sam that night.

How can a writer choose this fate for their characters? Why explore everything we watched on our screens, if on the last episode you decide to press delete on 15 seasons and basically deliver episode 1 if something had gone wrong and Dean died?

It makes no sense! It makes no sense regressing your characters 15 years and taking out of them all the experiences, especially those of the past few episodes.

You strip them into their season 1 selves. You strip them from all the layers of friendships, relationships, pain, experience and wisdom they went through and you strip them down to just two broken brothers, sticking together hunting things and saving people til the end. Which yes, they were.

But that was not all they were. Supernatural was a show about the family you make, not the family you get dealt with. Sam and Dean MADE the choice of sticking together. Yes they were brothers, but we know how easy it would have been to lead very different lives which would resulted in never seeing each other. They chose to stick together and they chose to build a family based on love, not blood.

And we got nothing of that legacy.

Is is unfair and it betrays not us, the fans, but the characters.

And that's what's hurting most.

[scarrletmeim]

The Argument

NICOLE: Do you understand why I want to stay in LA?

CHARLIE: No.

NICOLE: Well, that’s not...Charlie, that’s not a useful way for us to start--

CHARLIE: I don’t understand it.

NICOLE: You don’t remember promising that we could do time out here?

CHARLIE: We discussed things. We were married, we said things. We talked about moving to Europe, about getting a sideboard or what do you call it, a credenza, to fill that empty space behind the couch. We never did any of it.

NICOLE: And you turned down that residency at the Geffen that would have brought us here and--

CHARLIE: It wasn’t something I wanted. We had a great theater company and a great life where we were.

NICOLE: You call that a great life？

CHARLIE: You know what I mean.

CHARLIE: I don’t mean we had a greatmarriage. I mean, life in Brooklyn... Professionally. I don’t know. Honestly I never considered anything different.

NICOLE: Well, that’s the problem isn’t it? I was your wife, you should have considered my happiness too.

CHARLIE: Come on! You WERE happy. You’vejust decided you weren’t now--

NICOLE: So, OK, let’s... I work here now. My family is here.

CHARLIE: And I agreed to put Henry in school here because your show went to series. I did that KNOWING that when you were done shooting, he would come back to New York...

NICOLE: Honey, we never said that. That might have been your assumption, but we never expressly said that...

CHARLIE: We did say it.

NICOLE: When did we say it?

CHARLIE: I don’t know when we said it, but we said it!

NICOLE: I thought--

CHARLIE: We said it that time on the phone--

NICOLE: Let me finish. Honey-- Sorry, I keep saying THAT. I thought...that if Henry was happy out here and my show

continued, that we might do LA for a while.

CHARLIE: I was not privy to that thought process.

NICOLE: The only reason we didn’t live here was because you can’t imagine desires other than your own unless they’re forced on you.

CHARLIE: OK, you wish you hadn’t married me, you wish you’d had a different life. But this is what happened.

NICOLE: So what do we do?

CHARLIE: I don’t know.

NICOLE: Nora says there’s no coming back from this.

CHARLIE: Fuck Nora. I hate fucking Nora telling me I always lived in LA even though I never lived in LA. How could you have her say those things about me?

NICOLE: Jay said them about me too! You shouldn’t have fired Bert.

CHARLIE: I needed my own asshole!

NICOLE: Let’s both agree both of our lawyers have said shitty stuff about both of us--

CHARLIE: Nora was worse.

NICOLE: Jay called me an alcoholic!

CHARLIE: You pulled the rug out from under me and you’re putting me through hell--

NICOLE: You put me through hell DURING the marriage!

CHARLIE: Is that what that was? Hell?

NICOLE: And now you're going to put Henry through this horrible thing so you can yet again get what you want.

CHARLIE: It’s not what I want...I mean, it’s what I want, but it’s what was...WAS...what’s best for him.

NICOLE: I was wondering when you’d get around to Henry and what HE actually wants.

CHARLIE: Oh, fuck off--

NICOLE: No, YOU fuck off. If you listened to your son, or anyone, he’d tell you he’d rather live here.

CHARLIE: Stop putting your feelings about me onto Henry.

NICOLE: He tells me he likes it here better.

CHARLIE: He tells you because he knows it’s what you want to HEAR!

NICOLE: He tells me you’re on the phone all the time. You don’t even play with him.

CHARLIE: Because I’m going through a divorce in LA and trying to direct a play in New York.

CHARLIE: Which closed because I wasn’t THERE! That was a HUGE opportunity for me. For the theater. And I let everyone down.

NICOLE: You’re fighting for something you don’t even

WANT.

NICOLE: You’re being so much like your father.

CHARLIE: DO NOT compare me to my father.

NICOLE: I didn’t compare you. I said you were acting like him.

CHARLIE: You’re exactly like your mother! Everything you complain about her, you’re doing. You’re suffocating Henry.

NICOLE: First of all, I love my mother, she was a great

mother!

CHARLIE: I’m just repeating what you’ve told me--

NICOLE: Secondly, how dare you compare my mothering to my mother? I might be like my father, but I’m NOT like my mother.

CHARLIE: You ARE! And you’re like my father. You’re also like MY mother. You’re all the bad things about all of these people. But mostly your mother. When we would lie in bed together, sometimes I would look at you and see HER and

just feel so GROSS.

NICOLE: I felt repulsed when you touched me.

CHARLIE: You’re a slob. I made all the beds, closed all the

cabinets, picked up after you like an infant--

NICOLE: The thought of having sex with you makes me want to

peel my skin off.

CHARLIE: You’ll never be happy. In LA or anywhere. You’ll think you found some better, opposite guy than me and in a few years you’ll rebel against him because you need to have your VOICE. But you don’t WANT a voice. You just want to fucking complain about not having a VOICE.

NICOLE: I think of being married to you and that woman is a stranger to me.

NICOLE: We had a child’s marriage.

CHARLIE: You’ve regressed. You’ve gone back to your life

before you met me. It’s pathetic.

NICOLE: People used to say to me that you were too selfish to be a great artist. I used to defend you. But they’re absolutely right.

CHARLIE: All your best acting is behind you. You’re back to

being a HACK.

NICOLE: You gaslighted me. You’re a fucking villain.

CHARLIE: You want to present yourself as a victim because it’s a good legal strategy, FINE. But you and I both know you CHOSE this life. You wanted it until you didn’t.

CHARLIE: You USED me so you could get out of LA.

NICOLE: I didn’t use you--

CHARLIE: You did and then you BLAMED me for it. You always made me aware of what I was doing wrong, how I was falling

short.

CHARLIE: Life with you was JOYLESS.

NICOLE: So you had to fuck someone else? How could you?

CHARLIE: You shouldn’t be upset that I fucked her, you should be upset that I had a laugh with her.

NICOLE: Do you love her?

CHARLIE: No! But she didn’t hate me. You hated me.

NICOLE: You hated ME. You fucked someone we worked with.

CHARLIE: You stopped having sex with me in the last year. I never cheated on you.

NICOLE: That was cheating on me.

CHARLIE: But there’s so much I could have done. I was a director in my 20’s who came from nothing and was suddenly on the cover of fucking Time Out New York. I was hot shit—-and I wanted to fuck EVERYBODY and I didn’t. And I loved you and didn’t want to lose you...but I’m in my twenties and I didn’t want to lose that too. And you wanted SO much so fast...I didn’t even want to get married...and fuck it, there’s so much I DIDN’T do.

NICOLE: Well, thanks for that.

CHARLIE: You’re welcome. You’re...welcome.

NICOLE: I can’t believe I have to know you FOREVER!

CHARLIE: You’re fucking insane!

CHARLIE: And you’re fucking winning.

NICOLE: Are you kidding? I wanted to be married. I’d ALREADY LOST. You didn’t love me as much as I loved you.

CHARLIE: What does that have to do with LA?

CHARLIE: What?

NICOLE: You’re so merged with your own selfishness that you

don’t even identify it as selfishness anymore. YOU’RE SUCH A DICK.

CHARLIE: Every day I wake up and hope you’re dead-- Dead like-- And then Charlie starts crying.

CHARLIE: If I could guarantee Henry would be OK, I’d hope you get an illness and then get hit by a car and DIE.

CHARLIE: I’m sorry.

NICOLE: Me too.

[elizabethrobertajones]

I've had a couple of requests for an explanation about this Jensen vs scripts thing since JIB, and I think the best way to explain it is to look at the "I read books" flip around... I can't for the life of me find versions where I've explained it before which aren't just messy quotes from my episode notes, so I'm just laying it out :)

In 9x04 we got these lines as filmed and presented to us:

DEAN Wow. That Joffrey's a dick.

CHARLIE Oh, you have no idea. Wait until he --

SAM Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! S-spoilers. I haven't read all the books yet.

DEAN You're gonna read the books?

SAM Yes, Dean. I like to read books -- you know, the ones without pictures.

[DEAN shoots an annoyed look at his brother.]

In conventions etc the boys have been quite happy to tell us how they flipped the lines around as if they had corrected a characterisation error; Sam is the one who reads books! Dean is a jock who will watch a T&A show but not get into the books.

Robbie, a dear fan of nerdy Dean (look no further than his total glee at LARP-ing in 8x11 and the direction of his getting dressed up as Aragorn which totally does not mirror a scene from the LotR movies...) had picked up on the fact that Dean has referenced Vonnegut and other writers before (with multiple references, I believe) and clearly does read for pleasure, though he seems to keep it on the DL most of the time, referencing movies and TV shows far more frequently.

The most egregious example other than this, which I don't know if it was scripted or not, is in 6x21 when Dean complains he has no idea what a Cthulu is because he was too busy having sex with women to read the books that Bobby and Sam know. Anyone who knows Dean's taste in music knows that his favourite bands frequently reference LotR and Lovecraft among other things, so he absolutely would have the cultural context. It's easier to interpret Dean as lying to cover his wounded pride in this situation but in 9x04 it's a mess.

The implication becomes Dean seeming SURPRISED that his nerdy ass brother, who he knows uses obscure Star Wars characters as fake names, wants to read a series of fantasy novels... In an episode by the same writer who once had Sam bond with Charlie over the Harry Potter books. Hrm.

Sam goes on to say the most condescendingly shitty line ever to mock Dean that books exist that don't just have pictures in them.

Now flip the lines back to how they're intended: Dean reacting in a panic when spoilers are about to start flying, and Sam surprised that his brother, who rarely admits to liking nerdy stuff, wants to read a stack of books as tall as Sam is, won over by the TV show. Dean, prickly and defensive of admitting he likes the things he likes - but standing his ground and reminding Sam he DOES like books - you know, even the ones without pictures. Dean's reading level is well beyond A Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Robbie's intent with these lines was clearly to expose new Dean characterisation ground, especially in an episode showing him comfortably at home and flourishing in the Bunker in contrast to Sam's reticence to call it home, that Charlie points out in the same scene. I also remember a line later about books or Charlie or something that would have made more sense if Dean had said the lines this way around, though I can’t recall which moment. Instead the lines sticking to enforcing the established surface level characterisation come across as regressive and unintentionally demeaning to the characters, just because Dean has always previously been the one to mock Sam for liking nerdy things, rather than understanding the nuance of the scene.

In 11x04, though, Robbie decided that it was time to try again and get the exact same line to come out of Dean's mouth, come hell or high water, and so we get this exchange in the iconic BM in the car scene, and I apologise for quoting loads of it, but its context is important:

DEAN: You were singing in your sleep, that song mom loved that dad used to always play for us. I think I've actually still got the tape.

SAM: Hey, Dean, um . . . You said when you saw the Darkness, you weren't sure whether it was, uh . . . the real thing or a vision, right?

DEAN: Mm-hmm

SAM: I think I've been having visions, too, lately. I mean, it's just images. I mean, more of a . . . feeling, really. But I just had one right now, and -- and Dad was in it. But it wasn't dad like -- like . . . The Dad that -- that I grew up with. It was Dad when he was our age. And I-I guess it wasn't even really Dad. It was someone pretending to be Dad and --

DEAN: Okay, what makes you say that?

SAM: For starters, he told me everything I wanted to hear.

DEAN: Yeah, that doesn't sound like dad.

SAM: No. Anyways, whoever it was . . . They had a message to deliver. They said the Darkness is coming, and . . . only you and I can stop it.

DEAN: Did they have him give you any helpful tips on how to do that?

SAM: He said, "God helps those who help themselves." I mean, maybe these visions are coming from God.

DEAN: Whoa. Pump the brakes.

SAM: I mean, Dean, the first one happened after I prayed.

DEAN: You prayed? When was this?

SAM: Back in the hospital.

DEAN: Why?

SAM: Because I was infected. I was infected. I'm not anymore. I-I-I never went full rabid. I . . .

DEAN: You get infected and you didn't even tell me.

SAM: Dean . . .

DEAN: What did you pray about?

SAM: I guess I was just looking for answers, you know?

DEAN: Well, I'm sure whatever is kicking around in your head right now is a side effect from the infection that you failed to tell me about.

SAM: You know, I don't think it's that simple.

DEAN: Come on, man. That quote? "God helps those who help themselves"? God didn't say that. That's not even in the Bible. That's an old proverb that dates way back to Aesop. I read. And more importantly, when was the last time God answered any one of our prayers? It's not a vision, Sam. All right? It's just some . . .Some fever dream. That's all. And as far as Dad goes, I dream about Dad all the time.

SAM: You do?

DEAN: Of course I do. It's usually the same one, too. We're all in the car. I'm sitting in the driver's seat, dad's sitting shotgun. But there aren't any shotguns. There's no monsters. There's no hunting. There's none of that. It's just . . . He's teaching me how to drive. And, uh, and I'm not little like I was when he actually taught me how to drive. I'm 16, and he's helping me get my learner's permit. Of course, you're in the backseat, just begging to take a turn. We pull up to the house -- the family house -- and I park in the driveway, and he looks over and he says, "perfect landing, son." I have that dream every couple of months. Kind of comforting, actually.

SAM: I always, uh . . . I always dream about mom. Usually the same kind of thing, though.

DEAN: Normal life?

SAM: Yeah. Normal life. But, Dean, this wasn't just a dream. I'm telling you.

DEAN: Why would somebody dress up like Dad to give you a message? I mean, Dad. You don't exactly have a history of listening to what he had to say.

SAM: But you said the Darkness is -- is sending messages to you. Maybe whatever is the opposite of the Darkness is sending messages to me.

DEAN: And you think that this thing is God? Come on. How many -- how many opportunities has God had to crack this pinata, and I don't see any candy on the floor, do you?

SAM: Okay, then maybe it's not God. But uh . . .

DEAN: I know what you're trying to do here. You're trying to find some -- some greater meaning to it all. Right? Some . . . Fate to what went down. But I'm telling you, Sam. The Darkness? It's on us. And no one's gonna help us, certainly not God, so we'll have to figure this thing out, like we always do. But until then . . . We hunt. This case for starters, course this case is . . .

The conversation has a couple of threads - that quote and who the mystery person might be, the family stuff and dreams, and the trust they have in each other, and faith in their family, their impressions and ideas about Mary and John. The dialogue wanders back and forth through the themes, starting with talking about visions, and the line about "god helps those who help themselves" is Inceptioned into Sam's brain in the previous dream sequence, the main subject for discussion. 

Sam brings its up while trying to explain what happened and immediately leaps to the conclusion that the vision came from God, and it takes a lot more back and forth before we get around to the quote again as the dialogue drifts into their trust about each other, before Dean uses that as a springboard to question Sam's faith in the quote, that he is taking on surface value. He points out it's not biblical at all, and it's important, thematically, to understand this quote, and Dean is analysing it, knowing it's from Aesop. 

His assessment that God didn't send this turns out to be true, and his explanation of WHY he doesn't trust this line means that explaining he read it in a book is essential to explaining his confidence; Sam's position as unquestioning and full of faith is too vitally plot important to turn it around. Even if Sam had ended up saying, "I know that, I read," defensively, the fact that Dean brings up the provenance of the quote still has to be something that Dean does, to fit the much more important, broader characterisation of the scene. Changing it is non-negotiable in the sense that the flow of the dialogue has firmly established who is on each side on each theme. 

This scene ends with that wonderful shot of Sam and Dean top and tail in the car, in their contrasting red and blue conflict characters. Very much emphasising the two halves of a whole and always utterly oil and water personalities and feelings they have. In this scene, Dean dreams of John, Sam dreams of Mary, Dean is doubting, Sam has faith. Dean's had visions from the Darkness that he doesn't trust, Sam has had visions from "god" that he does.

I love this moment so much because it is completely natural characterisation, but Robbie went out of his way to craft dialogue in such a way that even though he had a spiteful little motive to get that phrase out of Dean's mouth it still worked perfectly easily, and emphasised Dean's intelligence gently, while not making it a focus of the scene, it was still a line that added to what would have been an inarguable nod to Dean's intelligence without it, but with it is the "hey so Dean's gonna have this line come out of his mouth no matter what" comment, which in character is Dean just casually confirming that it SHOULDN'T be weird, the amount of lore books they have lying around, that he might have cracked one open at some point and learned a thing or two. 

(Back in 5x19 we get Dean's POV by the camera, showing us him identifying each and every one of the gods in the room with several photographic memory moments of books and illustrations of them, along with their name tags - the line after this is Sam being baffled about what's going on but Dean knows they're gods and can probably tell you their backstory all around the table. Dean has an excellent memory and recall from books... Even back in 1x16/17 they established his knowledge of symbols and lore with the blood splatters and BOC symbol things.)

So, yeah. It got fixed, but I feel like I don't even know half the things the actors change, and what later little corrections we're getting... :P There's a lot of ad libs I think have been good or funny, and in character, and of course the majority of their emotional choices are spot on for how to act a scene. But when it comes to forward character momentum, if they are missing the clues on why their characters are being written seemingly "backwards" from how they would normally act, and correct course back to the established way, they ARE shifting the nuance of scenes.

What I don't get about this whole ~scriptgate~ thing is that Sam had to absolutely be left alone dead in a hole so that Lucifer could come and get him, and motivate the entire of 13x22 and the direction that went in. I think in a way it's just character bleed that in some ways is good that he can act the raw horror and frustration of being dragged away from Sam, when every part of him is screaming that he doesn't want to do it. But like with the 11x04 scene the story boxes Dean in that he has to behave in the way the script says as the plot weighs too heavily on this scene, that it would require an enormous rewrite rather than a simple flip or something, in order to accommodate a different and more regressive interpretation of Dean's character in these instances. 

With a plot motivation that strong thankfully we seem to have got the scene as intended, and it's immensely powerful to the point that I don't think I can look at Dean's face in the gifs of Cas stopping him running after Sam. It's clear he cares and he's not callously abandoning Sam, but there's more going on at the same time, that he can't throw away all his characterisation to stay with Sam. The Lucifer and Jack storyline from next episode is the thumb pushing down on that pressure point, as much as in 11x04, Sam being wrong about his visions is forcing Dean to be the authority who read a thing in a book, and can not be portrayed as ignorant in this context. So really, if Jensen is saying he wanted Dean to stay with Sam, or go after him, it's a wholly emotional, in-character response, and I love what it brought to the scene, but at the end of the day, it's damaging to the overall story and I'm glad that like Cas restrains Dean, the story restrained Jensen from doing it...

But tbh because the story gets to lock lines into place like this, where actions have too much depending on them (and we see the disparity in Buckleming episodes where they have lines which do NOT depend on having read the other episodes beforehand and accidentally break continuity - yes I am still baffled about why Cas was wondering bloody around the woodland in 13x13) it's really the little characterisation beats which bother me more, because they can seem harmless, when nothing is really depending on them, but at the end of the day the asides and quips and little character jokes are the important place where a huge amount of our character interpretation comes from - small incidents can tell us so much more about what's up with them than huge decisions in moments of high tension, that changing quips around to the wrong characters can be really damaging. Especially when long-term plot things do rest on the characters and how they are coming across. 

People are quick to complain when characters are too cheerful one episode or too depressed the next. In season 9 while Sam was possessed by Gadreel there's a weird misinterpretation where all the other writers write Sam as perky and doing well, but in 9x08 Jenny Klein clearly misread how Dean was trying to convince Sam he was tired and unwell and needed to rest after the angel trials as Sam LITERALLY being this way, and so one episode before Gadreel makes off with Sam and 2 before he has to be freed from him, despite Sam getting up at 5 to go jogging not long after being possessed, he's now miserably sleeping on the kitchen table, like my chronic fatigued ass might. It's a small detail, but it throws Dean's attempt to wrangle Sam into a light where he seems to have a greater case, and generally undermines completely the forward momentum of the narrative about how Sam was doing that all the other writers in that block of episodes had kept up. When the actors are throwing in confusion with how they interpret the lines and swapping motivations etc as well, it becomes even harder for us to keep up and to get a clean read on the characterisation which is informing the major plot events.

Which, basically, as a meta writer who overhauls each episode to explain and interpret it into the narrative as I understand it, based as much as possible on the clues they're giving me, is a REAL HEADACHE when I slam into a wall of "this is literally just improbably backwards to how it was last episode" :P

But it’s not a criticism to point this out, really. After all, Edlund, one of the most beloved writers to have been on the show, wrote in his last episode how Sam and Dean went to the Grand Canyon and Dean rode a farty donkey, and it turned out that past canon had very firmly established that they had never been. Everyone makes character and plot errors, though when it comes on the actor level there is the problem that sometimes it may be they feel they are correcting a farty donkey plot hole (and I think they sometimes HAVE, such as Jared declining to sass and quip with Lucifer) when they’re really missing a cue from high above that their character is going places. 

[elliesrandomessays-blog]

Clickbait Title: How Todd in the Shadows killed Pop Music.

Non-Clickbait title: How the change in the social preconceptions of Pop music as a genre resulted in Pop Music making itself irrelevant.

For around a year now critics of American Pop Music have been lamenting the near complete overtaking of Pop music as the predominant music of choice by Hiphop. It's an unique time to be a fan of Chart Music. If you go on the Billboard Hot 100, the literal definition of what is popular in the USA at any one time you'll find a list that is primarily Rap music, not Pop. The top 20 at the time of writing currently has 13 rap songs amongst its ranks, and it doesn't peter off as you scroll down through the 70's and 80's. It gets worse if you're slightly sharper on your definition of Pop because pure Pop music only has at best 3 songs in the top 20. Hiphop is seeing a dominance of mainstream culture right now and has managed to almost entirely remove Pop music from the cultural zeitgeist and many critics want to know why. Why is Pop music no longer Pop music.

This could be the legit hot 100 or the Hiphop hot 100 and there’d be no difference.

I will quickly acknowledge the unfortunate duality of the term 'pop music'. It functions both as shorthand for music that is popular, regardless of genre or origin; and as an explicit label for the genre of pop music. Much the same way that indie can both mean independent, and the genre of indie. This is unhelpful bit of lexical crossover that's contributing to the general frustration so I'll spell the leading question out explicitly: why is capital-P Pop music no longer pop(ular) music.

There are many small factors that contribute to this such as the changes in the way music is consumed; Hiphop as a genre has been a lot quicker to adapt its method of distribution to the age of streaming than Pop being the big one that most people point to as the root cause, but I think there's a much more substantial change to the way the general media approaches Pop as a genre that has split it's audience down the middle. Essentially dividing and conquering.

I would put the main issue being with the form of Pop music criticism that began to spring up around 2010. The wave of Poptimism that I'm referring to technically began as far back as 2004 with the rabbit hole of Rockism and the philosophical rejection of the idea that disposable is an inherent negative but it picked up the majority of it's momentum around the time the Club Boom began to reach its third act (think: when Ke$ha became a thing). It's hard to ascertain exactly why it happened but the consequences of this change aren't hard to see, with the most tangibly visible effect being the sudden rise of Todd In The Shadows. While I wouldn't call him directly responsible for this shift - Todd moving from a novelty who applied the standard YouTube-Media-Criticism to Chart Music up to one of the largest influencers of the post-TWGTG style ('post-' being used in the same context as 'post-'modern) was largely driven by the sudden proliferation of Poptimism, and he in general serves as good synecdoche for much of the change in attitude that occurred around the time. So while this shift has nothing literally to do with Todd and his content, he's a good symbol of it, on top of him being a large feature of the surface-level of the change. For ease of reference from this point I'm going to refer to this new attitude as Toddian.

After Toddian-Poptimism rose there was a new critical eye being applied to Chart music and it felt like the charts had entered a golden age - unparalleled since the 80's. Pop music from Adele, Jason DeRulo, Carly Rae Jepsen, fun., Meghan Trainor, Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake and many more managed to be in a position where they were both massively commercially successful and given the respect (and occasionally even acclaim) they deserved from critics for being well constructed, enjoyable music that had impact on people. In spite of the assumption that you're old enough to get in to a Club, the Club Boom was seen as a very immature time for music and you could read this Toddian era as being representative of a maturation of Pop Music, and the world responded. Serious, snobby, oldschool music critics weren't afraid anymore to include a Taylor Swift song on their year-end lists when none would've been caught dead doing the same with Flo Rida. And a whole Youtube subgenre of Chart critics grew in the garden Todd had planted. The musical artists of this time were respected for being good Pop Music, not respected for being good in spite of being Pop music: this era spelled the death of the Guilty Pleasure.

So, Question: why did it all stop? The Answer: the devil is in the details of what this new wave of Poptimism was actually doing to Chart Music. If you look at the general trend of what Toddian criticism liked and disliked there's one running theme that even at the time I was skeptical of and has since proven destructive to their own intended goal: Retro.

Remember the time we let a 30 year regression become nearly the most popular song of all time?

The overwhelming trend with Toddian criticism is heaping a majority of the praise on genre-throwbacks and a reporting with a general air of unease newer genres that lack history. Synthpop, R&B, Funk, and Indie-Rock are regular appearances on 'Best songs of X year' lists. House, EDM, and Traprap are regular appearances on the opposite. In retrospect looking at these lists the general impression is not that Toddian criticism exist in order to promote Pop music as a place where legitimate artistic statements can be made and forward movement is being made, but rather to quash any potential movements away from the genres that the vague umbrella of nostalgia is comfortable with. Bar the odd breakthrough from Hiphop, Singer-Songwriter and memeworthy dance songs the charts of this era and especially the hit songs that were regarded as worthwhile can near universally be pinned to a specific retro era they were appealing to. Right across from 60's doo-wop to 90's synth-funk and every possible step inbetween, the critical process turned into "They seem to be going for a [decade]-era [artist] vibe on this new track" with lists ranking them on how much that critic enjoys each of the eras relative to one another.

Even within the context of individual artists careers you can see this. Justin Timberlake in 2014 releases 'Can't Stop the Feeling!', a piece of retro summertime-funk and it becomes one of the most well regarded pieces of popular music of the decade. In 2018 JT releases 'Filthy' a piece of modern Pop music that interpolates elements of modern dance and electronic and he's career is immediately killed. Calvin Harris spends decades regarded as the lowest Chart Music gets. In 2017 he released Funk Wav Bounces and suddenly 'Slide' is a critical darling. The next year he releases the equally quality House song 'One Kiss' and no one cares. Taylor Swift. 80's pop album 1989 is adored. Modern pop Reputation is hailed as an artistic bomb. The Weeknd. Moody PBR&B was rejected. Peppy 'Can't Feel My Face' is a "modern classic". David Guetta, Zedd, Martin Garrix and similar EDM producers are all seemingly ignored when they briefly entered the spotlight with only Avicii and Clean bandit getting acknowledgements because they spliced Electronica with Folk and Classical respectively. Imagine Dragons, one of the few rock bands unironically trying to push forward into modern Pop styles of production and aesthetic when pure Indie were adored yet are now regarded as "worse than Nickleback". Which is a phrase so incredibly toploaded with subtext that I could double the length of this essay just digging into those three words. I could go on longer with these but I'll leave the rest as names for you to think about yourself: Pharrell Williams, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, Fall Out Boy, Jason DeRulo, Bruno Mars, Katy Perry, Charli XCX, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars.

Over the course of half-a-decade, the Pop music industry went from rewarded greatly, to heavily disincentivized to promote modern Pop music. Some would seep through the cracks such as Tove Lo and Julia Michaels but the lukewarm and actively hostile responses they respectively got were just further perpetuating the problem. Why would any rational record label want to invest time and money into artists trying to sound modern when all the Toddian eye is going to do is reject them in favour of someone who's tearing ideas directly out of Billy Joel's playbook. This lead to the inevitable crowding out of newer acts who were experimenting in modern genres. The last truly modern act to break in to the upper echelons of popular culture were probably The Chainsmokers. With Roses, Don't let Me Down and Closer all being incredibly popular with no retro era to support themselves only. And they also served as the Toddian eye's most brutal target. Literally being regarded as the worst album of the year.

(I'm aware that Todd himself actually liked The Chainsmokers. So this a good time for a reminder this isn't about his opinions specifically).

The obvious immediate rebuttal to this was posed to be within minutes when I posted the initial thesis for this essay on Twitter: if modern-Pop was killed by an overpraise of retro-Pop. Why isn't retro-Pop dominating the charts instead then?

The problem there is one that many fans of retro-Pop don't want to hear, retro-Pop was a fad, and that fad has now died. Or rather, retro-Pop was a rare occurrence of a meta-fad. It had a significantly longer lifespan than the 2004 indie-rock fad that gave us Mr.Brightside and the 2017 Spanish fad that gave us Despacito because rather than being one specific gimmick that popular culture was enamored with, it was composed of dozens of smaller fads that when placed one-after-another produce the illusion of a trend. If you actually look at the nitty-gritty no particular subfad of retro survived more than one or two artists releasing an album each. Doo-Wop was only popular long enough to give us Meghan Trainor and Charlie Puth while Michael Jackson was only popular long enough to give us The Weeknd and Jason Derulo. ect. ect. So the reason that Run Away With Me by Carly Rae Jepsen and Bills by LunchMoney Lewis weren't commercial successes in spite of seemingly being exactly the kind of retro hit that was at-the-time popular was because neither song were released when that specific era's fad was the in thing. Sure they were retro, but we already had Taylor Swift snap up dreamy 80's pop and DNCE had already filled the quota of glistening-pop-Funk so why would they need another?

There was no way that this essay was going to exist without a nod to E• MO•TION at some point.

By early 2017 we had already essentially run out of genres to co-opt without going into music that's so old it's nearly measured in centuries. So that put the music industry into a Catch-22. They can't invest their promotional time and money into retro-Pop anymore because the fad is well and truly dead (you can't make another Uptown Funk because Uptown Funk already exists) and the general public is going to reject it as a late-to-the-party grasp of desperation. But they can't invest into modern-Pop because Toddian critics are going to reject it outright because it doesn't appeal to the core aesthetics that they like and are going to heap tepid reviews on it which will seriously damage any attempts to market the thing, you can't advertise a 3-star review. The retro-Pop well dried up, and now in the final quarter of 2018 everyone regrets cementing up the old well. Eventually all fads die.

Now it's time to bring Justin Beiber in, who I imagine so far has been the biggest ? lying under this whole argument. Beiber was huge around the same time of the final years of the retro-Pop fad and wasn't making anything remotely retro. He was making incredibly forward-pushing, futuristic sounding dance-pop that had yet to really have an era before now. But he's the final piece of this puzzle: the fad that overtook retro. Justin Beiber was riding the next wave: Tropical. Major Lazer started it, Beiber rode it to the top, Sia and Ed Sheeran followed behind him. That fad had the lifespan of a normal fad - around 14 months. Then that naturally morphed into Spanish music. Then that fad died and nothing came in to replace it so Pop music was left with a hole and nothing to fill it. Once again that left the pop music industry with the more general formulation of the Catch-22. Fad has died so can't promote that without looking desperate, can't promote new Pop music because no one wants to swim in a lukewarm pool where the lifeguard secretly wishes you were someone else.

Hiphop itself is pretty much irrelevant to the story. There's nothing special about Rap as a genre apart from the fact it just happened to be the 2nd place racer when 1st place's tires blew-out. That's not to say that Rap wasn't doing some legitimately incredible things and isn't worthy of success. But all I'm saying is Post Malone, Cardi B, and Kendrick Lamar would've been top-40-popular anyway and there was simply no one else in the way to stop them *not* going to number 1.

This has all had the consequence of turning Pop music, in both forms, into niche genres. Now that the general public isn't consuming Pop because it's what the miasma of popular culture tells them to like Pop has to start appealing to people who're actual Popheads, and when your audience becomes niche-sized they're small enough to make the critical decisions themselves. No one wants to listen to retro-Pop stars that the big labels are offering anymore because their audience now is so small that the audience is cutting out the middlemen and just listening to old music (it's no surprise this has all been at the same time as Africa by Toto's sudden rebirth) while on the other end no one wants to listen to the modern-Pop that labels offer anymore because their audience is making active decisions and is instead listening to Alison Wonderland and Virtual Self. Some like myself have even defected as far as Bill Wurtz.

Seriously, if you’re a person who considers yourself ‘in to’ music and only think of Bill Wurtz as that weird guy who made the history videos then you’re missing out.

I'm not even going to pretend that there's a solution to this problem. Even if I had one I'm an insignificant enough cog in the machine that I couldn't enact it. But I can give my perspective on where the future of the Charts lie.

The main thing to keep in mind is that this is all cyclical. Eventually the general consuming public will get sick of Hiphop and whomever is in 2nd place when that happens is going to capitalize on the exact same sort of collapse that got us in the current situation. Arguably this will happen a lot faster since Toddian was a relatively large shift in critical style compared to 2009 but Hiphop has always had a higher degree of scrutiny applied to it for both fair and unfair reasons. And Pop music isn't totally dead either, arguably the nadir has passed and it’s on the way up not down at the current moment. As much as I dislike it, Weezer's cover of Africa shows there's at least a way back in to mainstream consciousness for Pop music if it decides to go down that route. And acts such as LSD, Bazzi and Halsey are still managing to claw their way into high listen counts through sheer force of quality.

So for now, I'd say enjoy the ride. And enjoy the brief time that Toddian Criticism has put us in where the radio not giving you Pop to listen to puts you in a place where you hear Tessa Violet for the first time instead

[imhoangg]

NICOLE:

You’re being so much like your father.

CHARLIE:

DO NOT compare me to my father.

NICOLE:

I didn’t compare you. I said you were acting like him.

CHARLIE:

You’re exactly like your mother! Everything you complain about her, you’re doing. You’re suffocating Henry.

NICOLE:

First of all, I love my mother, she was a wonderful mother!

CHARLIE:

I’m just repeating what you’ve told me.

NICOLE:

Secondly, how dare you compare my mothering to my mother? I might be like my father, but I’m NOT like my mother.

CHARLIE:

You ARE! And you’re like my father. You’re also like MY mother. You’re all the bad things about all of these people. But mostly your mother. When we would lie in bed together, sometimes I would look at you and see HER and just feel so GROSS.

NICOLE:

I felt repulsed when you touched me.

CHARLIE:

You’re a slob. I made all the beds, closed all the cabinets, picked up after you like an infant.

NICOLE:

The thought of having sex with you makes me want to peel my skin off.

CHARLIE:

You’ll never be happy. In LA or anywhere. You’ll think you found some better, opposite guy than me and in a few years you’ll rebel against him because you need to have your VOICE. But you don’t WANT a voice. You just want to fucking complain about not having a VOICE.

NICOLE:

I think of being married to you and that woman is a stranger to me.

CHARLIE:

You’ve regressed. You’ve gone back to your life before you met me. It’s pathetic.

NICOLE:

We had a child’s marriage.

NICOLE:

People used to say to me that you were too selfish to be a great artist. I used to defend you. But they’re absolutely right.

CHARLIE:

All your best acting is behind you. You’re back to being a HACK.

NICOLE:

You gaslighted me. You’re a fucking villain.

CHARLIE:

You want to present yourself as victim because it’s a good legal strategy, FINE. But you and I both know you CHOSE this life. You wanted it until you didn’t. Nicole is silent.

CHARLIE:

You USED me so you could get out of LA.

NICOLE:

I didn’t use you.

CHARLIE:

You did and then you BLAMED me for it. You always made me aware of what I was doing wrong, how I was falling short.

CHARLIE:

Life with you was JOYLESS.

NICOLE:

So you had to fuck someone else? How could you?

CHARLIE:

You shouldn’t be upset that I fucked her, you should be upset that I had a laugh with her.

NICOLE:

Do you love her?

CHARLIE:

No! But she didn’t hate me. You hated me.

NICOLE:

You hated ME. You fucked someone we worked with.

CHARLIE:

You stopped having sex with me in the last year. I never cheated on you.

NICOLE:

That was cheating on me.

CHARLIE:

But there’s so much I could have done. I was a director in my 20’s who came from nothing and was suddenly on the cover of fucking Time Out New York. I was hot shit and I wanted to fuck EVERYBODY and I didn’t. And I loved you and didn’t want to lose you...and I’m in my twenties and I didn’t want to lose that too. And you wanted SO much so fast...I didn’t even want to get married...and fuck it, there’s so much I DIDN’T do.

NICOLE:

Well, thanks for that.

CHARLIE:

You’re welcome. You’re...welcome.

Nicole stamps her feet and shakes her fists like a child having a tantrum.

NICOLE:

I can’t believe I have to know you FOREVER!

CHARLIE:

You’re fucking insane!

Charlie raises his arm and punches the wall. The cheap drywall cracks and chips.

CHARLIE:

And you’re fucking winning.

NICOLE:

Are you kidding? I wanted to be married. I’d ALREADY LOST. (Sadly) You didn’t love me as much as I loved you.

CHARLIE:

(Pause) What does that have to do with LA?

Nicole stares at him, incredulous.

CHARLIE:

What?

NICOLE:

You’re so merged with your own selfishness that you don’t even identify it as selfishness anymore. YOU’RE SUCH A DICK.

CHARLIE:

Every day I wake up and hope you’re dead - Dead like –

And then Charlie starts crying.

(Through tears)

If I could guarantee Henry would be OK, I’d hope you get an illness and then get hit by a car and DIE. He sinks down, weeping. All this vitriol has taken its toll. Nicole watches, taken aback. She walks over and gently puts her hand on his shoulder. He shakes and cries.

NICOLE:

I know.

Finally, he looks up at her.

CHARLIE:

I’m sorry.

NICOLE:

Me too.

Marriage Story(2019)

Dir. Noah Baumbach

[flauntpage]

This Roster is Broken: Thoughts after Flames 6, Flyers 5

Flyers General Manager Chuck Fletcher is only in his second week on the job and one thing has likely become abundantly clear to him – he needs to break up the way his team is constructed.

Quite simply, the Flyers are broken.

Repeated and excessive inconsistency is a fundamental flaw that likely has more to do with the makeup of the roster and how those pieces fit together than the systems they are playing.

That’s not to absolve the coaching staff for the sins of their players, or their former general manager. No, they need to own the fact that they can’t find a way to maximize what potential there is on the roster.

But these players need to take ownership for themselves. They can’t be fragile. They can’t “play scared” as Jake Voracek said after a recent game. They can’t crack under pressure. They can’t lose track of their fundamentals and have it blow up on them game after game after game.

There was no reason the Flyers should have lost to Calgary Wednesday, and yet they did, 6-5 in overtime, allowing two goals in the final 1:08 of regulation and the game-winner in the first minute of the extra session.

The frustration for fans is understandable. The Flyers are a team who is equally adept at overcoming a two-goal deficit as it is blowing a two-goal lead.

There is skill and talent on this team; it just doesn’t mesh. Maybe it’s because despite that skill, this team is not collectively smart.

How so?

I’ll explain after the jump:

The third period

Here’s where the microcosm of the Flyers construct for 2018-19 was on display. The Flyers entered the period up a goal at 4-3. They had played pretty well over the first two periods. The first period they got off to a quick start, but then got a little sluggish in the second half of it. Still, they were able to enter the first intermission trailing only 1-0.

However, in the second period, the Flyers took off. They were able to really open the game up and use their skill to their advantage. They got behind 2-1 after giving up a shorthanded goal, but then scored on the power play for the first time in almost a month and added two more quick scores to go up 4-2.

Calgary got one back, but the Flyers are a good team – usually – when taking a lead into the third period. They were 9-1-1 in such instances heading into last night.

But that’s when the dumbness cloud started hanging over them. The Flyers took four minor penalties in the third period that led to shorthanded situations. When you have the worst penalty kill in the league, that’s not ideal, but when three of those four penalties are flat out stupid and unnecessary, then that has a negative impact on your team.

Wayne Simmonds took a post-whistle punch at a Flame and ended up in the box. Scott Laughtin clearly grabbed James Neal’s jersey to try and do a roller derby-esque whip around. Not good. Shayne Gostisbehere slashed a stick out of an opponent’s hands in frustration.

And there were more that could have been called that weren’t.

The abundance of bad plays where these players are thinking as individuals in the moment and not for the greater good of the team is indicative of a team that is fractured.

To their credit though, the Flyers did a nice job of killing off all four penalties. The much-maligned penalty kill was good. It was aggressive. It actually finished plus-one as Sean Couturier, back in the lineup after missing the last two games, scored his second goal of the night shorthanded:

Welcome back, Coots!

#PHIvsCGY | #LetsGoFlyers pic.twitter.com/alOCcMlzJR

— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) December 13, 2018

The PK really didn’t allow Calgary a lot of room to operate, and when the Flames did get chances, goalie Anthony Stolarz was there to make a big stop.

But those little victories were Pyrrhic because it allowed Calgary to get a lot of offensive momentum and it also tired out the Flyers’ best players while rooting many others to the bench for an extended period of time in the third period.

So, in the final minutes of the game, tired players are being used and Hakstol is forced to go to other players probably not expected to play in these situations.

And not to mention, Calgary pulls their goalie, going into a six-on-five situation. But, rather than play like they did when they were killing penalties earlier in the period – aggressive, pressuring the puck, forcing Calgary to make decisions earlier that it would like – the Flyers sat back and let the Flames take the game to them.

No Bueno.

First, there was the fourth goal:

What a massive slap shot by Rasmus Andersson for his first NHL goal!! pic.twitter.com/VjUrFvjATf

— Ryan McArthur (@ryanpmcarthur) December 13, 2018

The Flyers couldn’t get a clear here, but it’s notable that Voracek, who had fresh legs in the third because he doesn’t kill penalties, is on the ice and doesn’t get the clear or the blocked shot. Not that the goal is his fault, but you probably want a more defensive minded forward on the ice at this point.

Couturier is out there, almost because he has to be – he played 26 minutes in the game. And take note that Raffl is out there as well – actually he puts a big hit on Rasmus Andersson seconds before Andersson scores the goal.

Raffl too has to be a bit spent considering all of his ice time in on the PK.

But notice too how there is no challenging the puck. The Flyers are just trying to take away passing and shooting lanes. That’s too conservative in this instance – especially up by two goals. You can afford to force the action more there, and they didn’t.

Then comes the tying goal:

(video courtesy Charlie O’Connor of The Athletic)

In this goal, the playrs on the ice for the Flyers are Claude Giroux, Dale Weise, Couturier, Ivan Provorov and Andrew MacDonald.

Remember, Raffl had just come off and Couturier stays on. Weise may seem like an odd choice here, but considering the options, there aren’t many guys who are left to use on the bench who you would want in this defensive role.

Wayne Simmonds is maybe the only other choice, but you aren’t going to go to Travis Konecny here, nor Nolan Patrick, nor James van Riemsdyk. None are defensive-minded.

The only other options are Phil Varone and Oskar Lindblom, and they had barely played at all. A lot of fans would have screamed for Lindblom, but the reality is Lindblom is barely hanging on to his spot in the lineup. He struggled mightily in a larger role this season. Used in limited action against the opposition’s depth forwards he’s proving serviceable, but dragging him on the ice cold in a key defensive spot is not fair to Lindblom nor is it a good decision coaching-wise.

So the only choice here is between Wiese and Simmonds. Hakstol chose Weise, and likely because his all around game – from a pressure and defensive mindset has been better than Simmonds lately.

Now, everyone on Twitter is all over Weise and MacDonald for this goal. But really, is it their fault?

Go back and watch it again but look for these things:

Weise pressures the puck up ice initially. That’s his job and then he gets back to get into defensive position. He is the high man taking away the shot from the point and does that well.

MacDonald is the right defenseman and he’s in his position until he realizes that Provorov has drifted a little too high in the left circle. Once he does this, MacDonald immediately goes to the net to mark Johnny Gaudreau who has now gotten behind Provorov.

Seeing an opening because of this, Sean Monahan heads to the net, creating a 2-on-1 down low for the Flames.

When it comes to coverage, this is Giroux’s man now, not MacDonald’s because MacDonald went to Gaudreau to cover for Provorov. He makes a flailing attempt to block the pass to Monahan, but he’s gliding a little too much and not quite where he needs to be.

So, the question is, should Provy be playing a zone here, or should he be closer to his net to mark Gaudreau? Should MacDonald stay with Monahan and leave Gaudreau open, or is the right move to rotate to the open man at the side of the net? Should Giroux take away the slot? Or is that perhaps Couturier’s responsibility since he is kind of floating out higher in the slot as well?

In short, there are multiple breakdowns and a lack of communication here. You can’t pin this goal on MacDonald and Weise. Sorry. I know they are Twitter targets, but it’s not their fault this goal went in.

I’m not defending MacDonald. I have in the past, but this season he’s not been good when he’s been in the lineup. He really has regressed, and i’m not sure if this was related to trying to come back too quickly from an injury or what, but he’s been below his level – which is that usually of a 5-6 defenseman.

But in this instance, you can’t blame him. You can’t blame Weise – who has played very well this season and isn’t deserving of criticism. And you can’t blame the coach for having them on the ice. There were other breakdowns on this goal that are far more important than the constant false narrative that Hakstol only trusts bad veteran players.

The Overtime

This was a kick in the teeth, too.

Hakstol is getting criticized for starting OT with Couturier, Konecny and Provorov rather than Giroux, Voracek and Gostisbehere, but can you blame him?

Calgary is a one-line team. And if they’re going to put Gaudreau and Monahan on the ice for the first shift in OT, who do you want out there against them? The answer is Couturier every time. It’s not even a question. And which defenseman do you want out there against them? It’s Provorov. Even with his struggles he’s your best guy.

The strategy is sound. Get through the first shift with your best two-way forward and best two-way defenseman against their most dangerous guys and you’ve now created a serious mismatch for yourself to get your best players on the ice.

This doesn’t happen often on the road, so when Hakstol sees that, he has to like his odds.

The problem is, Provorov doesn’t score on his chance and after a lost board battle on the wall is left chasing the play.

Konecny does cover and gets back as the lone “defender” but after a failed poke check, he takes himself out of the play and starts to think about breaking out the other way. Watch the replay and see what Konecny does:

Tonight's @EASPORTSNHL OT winner from Johnny is straight

#PHIvsCGY | #Flames pic.twitter.com/cCLCEzgfSF

— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 13, 2018

TK has to stay with a man. Couturier does his job in taking Monahan out of the play and continues to box him out. I’m not sure what Provorov is thinking either. OT is a man-to-man defense in the NHL and with Provy skating to the same guy Couturier is covering and TK starting to skate away from the play in hopes of getting a breakaway, it basically leaves Gaudreau and Mark Giordano in a 2-on-none. Stolarz stops the first two shots, but if you don’t defend players, eventually they’re going to score.

In Closing

The problem with the Flyers right now, aside from their crappy special teams, is not measurable statistically. The Flyers play good stretches of games. Dominant in fact. They were the better team for half the game against Winnipeg Sunday and still lost 7-1.

The problem is, these players don’t stick with their gameplan. They don’t stick with their system. They try to freelance too much and get too cute. They don’t handle pressure well. They don’t respond to adversity well. They are fragile. They are broken.

Chuck Fletcher will make changes – and soon.

From what I’m hearing, I believe one trade could happen in the next week – and it could be a big one.

The Flyers want to add a goalie. They want to add a defenseman. They want to add a forward. They want to change the culture of this locker room right now.

I think the Blackhawks and Maple Leafs are prime trade partners for the Flyers right now. Don’t be surprised if something happens in a deal with one of those two teams before the Flyers return to the Wells Fargo Center next week.

The post This Roster is Broken: Thoughts after Flames 6, Flyers 5 appeared first on Crossing Broad.

This Roster is Broken: Thoughts after Flames 6, Flyers 5 published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[labourpress]

Peter Dowd speech at the close of tonight's Budget debates

Peter Dowd MP, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, speaking at the close of the Budget debates tonight, said:

Mr Speaker, last week the Chancellor painted a rosy picture of the nation’s finances.

He claimed the Conservative Party’s stewardship had been nothing short of miraculous.

A relaxed Chancellor attempted jokes throughout his speech.

The Prime Minister shoulders shook with amusement. 

Many members opposite chuckled away.

Some of the more experienced Members opposite were watching cautiously, as the nose dive gained velocity.

The Chancellor got it wrong – big time.

Within hours he was attacked by many of his own backbenchers.

He was left hung out to dry by the Prime Minister.

Unsurprisingly, he has faced universal criticism over his plans to raise national insurance to 11 per cent for millions of people who are self-employed.

As Sir Michael Caine, playing the character of Charlie Crooker in the iconic Italian Job movie said to his bumbling side kick.

“You’re only supposed to blow the doors off!”

Well, the debris from the explosion is still in descending.

A manifesto pledge broken - pure and simple.

And since last Wednesday No.10 and No. 11 have been in a briefing war with each trying to blame the other for the fine mess.

Ostensibly, No.10 suggests the Chancellor sneaked the NI rise into the Budget.

Apparently, other shocked Cabinet colleagues have indicated that he failed to mention, that it would break their manifesto pledge.

It’s worrying, Mr Speaker, that Cabinet Ministers don’t know what manifesto commitments they made or perhaps they don’t care?

Then again the Government has an insouciant attitude towards its manifesto commitments. 

First, the Government committed to getting rid of the deficit by 2015 – a promise broken.

Second, they said it would be pushed back to 2019/20 - another broken promise.

Third, they vowed the debt would start to come down after 2015 – another broken promise.

The Government will have virtually doubled the debt and doubled the time they’ll have taken to get it down.

And this is what they call success and fiscal credibility? 

They seem to think that they can simply press the reset button when it comes to meeting their own fiscal rules and no one will notice.

The flip side of John Maynard Keynes’ approach, namely when I change my mind the facts change with it.

When the Government’s misses a deadline it's modus operandi is to set a new one and brazenly move on.

The immutable Tory law of economics – make it up as you go along.

What happened to the long term economic plan?

Well, it didn’t last very long? Mr Speaker

The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have their finger prints all over every single financial decision that has been made during the last seven years.

It’s no surprise that they have come under criticism from many in their own party including the former Member for Witney.

Or the former Chancellor, Lord Lamont, who called the NI debacle a “rookie error”.

Otherwise known, in the real world, as gross incompetence.

But regrettably it’s other people who will pay the price for that incompetence.

Mr Speaker, turning to Brexit, I’ll mention it even if the Chancellor doesn’t, it’s the tenth anniversary since the production of

“Freeing Britain to Compete: Equipping the UK for Globalisation”

This publication was a wide ranging policy document authored by the right honourable Member for Wokingham and friends.

It was endorsed by the then Shadow Cabinet which included the current incumbents at numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street.

The publication was hard to track down as it has been removed from the Conservative Party website and for good reason.

But I found a copy.

Its contents were toxic and all the more so in the wake of the subsequent global financial crisis and remain so.

But in the light of Brexit, and the resurgence of the honourable member for Wokingham’s influence, it will soon be getting a second run out.

Mr Speaker, it is worth appraising the House of a few of the nuggets contained in its pages.

It includes policies such as the abolition of inheritance tax.

Charging foreign lorries to use British roads.

The potential abolition of the BBC licence fee, which it refers to as a poll tax.

The watering down of money laundering regulations.

The deregulation of mortgage finance.

Because it’s the:

“lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk.”

Try telling that to someone whose house has been repossessed.

It goes on:

“we need to make it more difficult for ministers to regulate, and we need to give the critics of regulation more opportunity to make their case against specific new proposals.”

Remember this document, dated August 2007, was rubber stamped by the current Prime Minister and Chancellor at the same time Northern Rock was about to go under.

It continues:

“the Government (the Labour Government) claims that this regulation is all necessary. They seem to believe that without it banks could steal our money.”

That is not quite the case but the taxpayer, at its peak, had liabilities for the banking crisis of £1.2 trillion.

But, Mr Speaker, many people did believe the banks were stealing their money.

It refers to wanting:

“reliably low inflation, taking no risks by turning fiscal rules into flexible friends.”

As for Europe, in search of jobs and prosperity, it says:

“An incoming Conservative Government should go to Brussels with proposals to deregulate the whole EU…”

No wonder they wanted to bury the evidence.

It’s the autobiography of the hard line Brexiteers.

It’s the Tory blue print for a post Brexit deregulated Britain.

It’s a race to the bottom.

These policies are a telling narrative of the views of the fundamentalist wing of the Conservative Party.

The Prime Minister is a hostage to the far right of the Tory Party.

She is on the hook.

The stage directions are coming from Wokingham, Haltemprice and Howden, North Somerset and Chingford and Wood Green with occasional guest appearances by the Foreign Secretary.

The forlorn, melancholic Chancellor is briefed against because he may just have a less hard-line outlook as far as Brexit is concerned.

These are the dusted off policies of the hard Brexiteers who will stop at nothing until Britain becomes a low wage, low tax, low regulation economy. 

They want to turn our country into the bargain basement of the western world.

They have the Prime Minister in tow.

Parliamentary scrutiny is a hindrance.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has put Kamikaze pilots in the cockpit.

The Chancellor knows this too well and that is why reportedly he is putting aside £60 billion, equivalent to a year’s worth of borrowing on the national debt to cope with the trauma.

It’s not Brexit proofing the economy but rather proofing the economy from the toxic ideology of the hard Brexiteers.

Mr Speaker, ultimately, it comes down to choices and values.

The Government’s choices in this Budget are informed by their values and they are not the same as the vast majority of people in this country.

The Government propose to increase Insurance Premium Tax from 10 per cent to 12 per cent, a regressive measure which will be a further hit on household finances and act as a deterrent to families wanting to obtain proper insurance cover.

It was a surprise to see this measure in the Autumn Statement, coming as it did from a government which constantly uses the high cost of insurance premiums as an excuse for curbs on victims’ right to claim compensation for their losses, with particularly damaging effects for those injured in accidents at work.

We will oppose this rise.

And while the Government drives up insurance price for millions of families, it has chosen to forego £73 billion of  revenue to give corporations and the wealthy few tax handouts between now and 2021.

A choice we would not make.

Their choice is informed by the value they put on elites and corporations, many of whom readily avoid paying their fair share of tax.  

They plan to loosen the rules on the Business Investment Relief, increasing the scope for non-doms to avoid tax when they bring funds into the UK.

This is straightforwardly a giveaway to non-doms, which we will oppose.

There is little evidence that this relief has had a significant impact on inward investment since it was first introduced in 2012.

And there is little genuine reason to believe that expanding the relief now will do anything but give non-doms even more advantages over millions of UK taxpayers.

These and other tax cuts for elites and corporations come off the backs of public sector employees who have foregone pay rises for years.

Or those in the private sector whose wages and salaries remain in the doldrums and will for another decade or more.

Or the self-employed who are increasingly driving our economy who will see an increase to 11 per cent in National Insurance contributions. 

We would make a different choice. We reject the kick in the teeth to self-employed people.

Not only does it hit many on low to middle income but will it raise anywhere near the £2 billion the Treasury projects?

It may also deter many people from setting up their own businesses, from innovating and excelling.

It’s a moratorium on aspiration.

We would choose not to give tax breaks to those who do not need them.

Mr Speaker, in this Budget the Government claims it’s giving lower and middle earners, the NHS, social care agencies, the self-employed, schools, businesses, pubs, the strivers, the entrepreneurs the thumbs up.

Mr Speaker, in practice, this Budget is not giving a thumbs up to all those people.

On the contrary, it’s two other digits being put up to those people.

That’s another choice that Labour would not make.

[farmerslabseeds2]

Medical Cannabis – First Ever Trial for Brain Cancer Treatment

Good news for those guys who are new in using medical cannabis. Australian researchers are coming up with the first clinical trial to find if medical cannabis can be used for easing Glioblastoma. Also known as GBM, Glioblastoma is Grade IV tumor.

It has a large part making tumor cells rapidly. Glioblastoma can spread to different parts of the brain and destroy the nearby part. It can also spread to the opposite side of the part. Every year, close to a thousand people get diagnosed with the tumor. This scene is in just Australia alone. There are hardly 5% of those suffering front the tumor have been found to have survived. The morbidity of the tumor is frightening and is so lethal that survival is just a year and in some cases, it’s even fewer than six months. The treatment is not easy – some cells are responsive to therapies and others are not. However, under the circumstances of gloom and despair, the potential of medical cannabis for the treatment of severe brain tumors like Glioblastoma is bringing a new ray of hope of for patients.

Research has been executed on animals the effect of cannabis on cancer. Significant studies have also conducted on the effect of cannabis on brain cancer on humans. However, it is for the first time that the effectiveness of THC as a complementary to standard treatment surgery radiation and chemotherapy on patients suffering from Glioblastoma is being studied. The study is being executed by Brisbane based Dr Janet Schloss, a naturopath, and Professor Charlie Teo, a renowned neurosurgeon.

The Australian doctors are going to perform a study on Brain cancer and medical cannabis – the first-ever study of its kind. With the legalization of medical cannabis in Australia in 2017, it has become legal for doctors to advise medical cannabis for treatments. Further, the legalization also did away with the obstacles that were there on research studies on cannabis. Earlier, researchers were entitled to perform trials for studying cannabis’ side effects. Contrary to this, it is legal for researchers to perform clinical trials on cannabis used in medical treatment.

It is exactly this what Naturopath and Nutritionist Dr Janet Schloss, (The Endeavour College of Natural Health) and Neurosurgeon Charlie Teo are going to do. They are going to study if medical cannabis can be of any appreciable use in the usual treatment of brain cancer. They hope, coupled with radiation and chemotherapies, cannabis therapy can aid in reducing the size of a tumor. However, more important than anything else is that in case of Glioblastoma they hope THC can have a regressive effect on the tumor growing again. This is critical because a cutting down regrowth of a tumor improves the prospects of survival, the life period and will lead to a better condition of life with brain cancer.

Two important outcomes for the upcoming trial have been disclosed by Dr Schloss while talking to 4BC. It has been found by the researchers in Spain that cannabis injections cut down the size of a tumor and lead to a longer lifespan. Another minor study performed by GM Pharmaceuticals showed the treatment of cannabis worked, which reduce the size of a tumor and its regrowth.

Researchers on the lookout for more volunteers who can come forward for clinical trials

The researcher duo Prof. Teo and Dr Schloss are going to conduct the clinical trial at the Endeavour College of Natural Health. The study is a randomized trial. Under this plan, each individual participating in the trial will get treatment with medical cannabis coupled with standard treatments for cancer. The researchers are going to estimate the degree which medical cannabis can help and support the standard therapies for cancer.

As per the details disclosed by Schloss, the process of the trial goes thus: Individuals participating in the trails will be required to consume a small quantity of cannabis oil at night before going to bed. The amount of solution that each participating individual needs to drink is not much. It is important to note that the quantity of the dose is 2 ml. It does not contain as much quantity of THC as that can make the user uncomfortable while sleeping – unable to sleep or in waking up.