A Thought: Good Omens, A Series Of Unfortunate Events, And Welcome To Night Vale Each Give Off Distinct,

In Broadchurch, every shot counts. No detail is unimportant, they all can belong to the law of Chekov’s Gun (the floorboards in episode 4 a prime example). What I find most interesting about these types of shots is the flashback explanation of Alec’s finding Pippa’s body in the river. 

The opening shot of the whole second series is clearly of the morning of Alec’s walk through the woods to the river in Sandbrook. As we can see he walks through bluebells only touched by sunlight.

There’s no rain. There’s not even a raincloud in sight.

And then we arrive at the flashback scene in ep 4, when Alec finally talks about the events of that day and our first look at that is this:

It’s not just raining. It’s pouring. A torrential downpour while the sun’s still brightly shining as our attention falls on Pippa’s body.

So why is it that Alec’s memories of that day is that it was raining when it’s clearly established that it wasn’t? 

Memory plays a fickle game on the mind. Every day we remember and recall things about a particular moment that simply didn’t happen but is a reflection of what we were feeling at the time. When I was eight my dad was in an accident and had to go to the hospital and the only thing I remember is seeing his empty chair in the darkened living room even though everyone has assured me that the house was bright and loud with a lot of people in the rooms. But all I could think of was my dad’s dark empty chair.

The sun may have been shining when Alec found Pippa’s body but to him over time, maybe even built up in nightmares, it’s always raining. Rain is seen as a cleansing thing, yes, but it also brings out the smell of decay and the heady scent of dirt. Alec was probably smelling the decay of water plants and the scent of the river for days afterwards. The memory and his nightmares have bled together so that he can’t distinguish between the two. It’s like in his mind it couldn’t possibly be such a beautiful day to find a young girl’s body in a river and so his memories deliberately try to make it dreary and cold, although the reality never changes.

The sun is always shining in those memories and it mocks him, I think. A last ironic laugh in the whole horrifying experience.

doctor who ladies: donna noble

Have you ever thought about the fact that skulls all look like they’re smiling?

Bernard 33 Horsehead Nebula In Orion Constellation

I refuse to believe that Jedi younglings, before they learned proper shielding, didn't accidentally broadcast an earworm song to the rest of the class and then get it stuck in their heads too.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always loved Ian Holm’s portrayal of Bilbo in the LotR trilogy, but it was really Martin Freeman’s rendition of the character that really made me fall in love with him, and let me finally finish The Hobbit book. I’d read LotR at ten years old and loved it, and despite trying to read The Hobbit, I simply couldn’t do get through it. Martin brought Bilbo to life for me that breathed life into him when I read the book and allowed me to understand the full beauty and fun of the character of Bilbo Baggins as written by the Professor.

This post fascinates me because I love psychology and a few months ago I labelled the Broadchurch characters as to what personality type they were, and when I looked back at the list I’d made, Alec was INTJ.

Broadchurch: Alec Hardy [INTJ]

OFFICIAL TYPING by Charity / the mod.

Introverted Intuition (Ni): Alec is reluctant to draw conclusions on evidence until he has fully explored all the possibilities, but he does so internally without brainstorming with Ellie. He often says that he has “a feeling” about how things will turn out, but no evidence to support his hypothesis. Alec is so out of touch with “how things work” (lacking Si) that he fails at social niceties and customs, and sometimes over-compensates as a result (“I got you flowers… and chocolate… and wine; I didn’t know which to choose, so I got them all”). He is able to read people very well, in a short time, and gauge their abilities.

Extroverted Thinking (Te): He wants to finish the job and doesn’t mind who gets the credit. He demands facts, evidence, and “proof.” When confronted with a dead child, he immediately runs through all the usual procedures as well as makes due with the resources around him (including CCTV cameras). Alec demands a high work ethic from his employees and puts in the same hours himself. He has a frankness when dealing with people, and always points out the logic (or lack thereof) in their decisions. “I don’t care about anything but this case,” he says, inferring they can tell him anything that doesn’t have to do with the murder and it won’t wind up in his police report.

Introverted Feeling (Fi): No one knows he has a daughter; he does not open up about his marriage, his former cases, or his illness, instead preferring to deal with his guilt and pain on his own. Alec’s compassion is not often evident, but does run deep; his method in “protecting people” is to warn them not to talk to journalists and to threaten said journalists in order to get them to back off. He is rarely emotional in public and does not like to discuss his feelings.

Extroverted Sensing (Se): Even though he is very ill, Alec continues to work—pushing his body beyond its limits, into a total collapse. He is so eager for a physical human connection that he propositions a woman, who says no only because she’s “afraid [he will] collapse on top of me.” He has almost no connection to his own inner sensations, and as a result, overdoes it; he is also semi-reluctant to engage in his environment on a regular basis, down to his eating habits.

Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s discussions are interesting in Good Omens simply because their such utterly different approaches to them. Now I really enjoy Crowley’s points but right now I’m focusing on Aziraphale’s side because despite the several years he’s lived on Earth and the books upon books he’s read he falls back on one simple reason for everything that happens.

Ineffability,

And maybe that reason works sometimes. And it certainly does; it leaves just enough wriggle room, just enough doubt, that his opponent can’t definitely say that he’s wrong. After all, in Good Omens God is real even if He hasn’t been seen or heard from in a few millennia. Crowley can’t say that there isn’t a Higher Plan.

But what he does do is learn how to counter-argue the Ineffability reason.

It seems to me that at this point Aziraphale is using the Ineffable Plan as an excuse. It’s like hearing all the churchgoers out there when questioned about God’s existence or why bad things happen to good people they simply reply, ‘You have to take it by faith, that’s all.’ Take it be faith, take it for Ineffability.

Which of course leads to Crowley’s logical rebuttals. That’s the key difference, I think, when looking at their conversations. Aziraphale relies on the possibility of the Ineffable Plan, while Crowley has taken the time to learn how to perceive an argument on all sides and come up with a counter argument for everything the angel says. His reasons make sense, which only highlights how desperate Aziraphale’s Ineffable argument sounds sometimes.

Which just makes it all the more brilliant when he uses the Ineffable argument to run circles around Metatron and Beelzabub later on in the story.

Wriggle room always wins an argument. He must have learned it from Crowley.

This right here is one of my favorite moments for the dynamic between Hardy and Ellie. Throughout the first series he’s the one teaching her the finer points of interviewing suspects, he’s the one who leads. Then things go all to hell the last couple episodes and Ellie has to be the one who leads the questions. (Her talk with Susan Wright is fantastic, and showcases exactly what sort of detective Ellie is-- hard and steely when needs be, but soft and sympathetic when that’s needed too.)

And then here we have the climax of Sandbrook, when they’ve got their suspects in custody. Hardy leads initially, as he’s done throughout so much of the series, but as soon as Ellie finds a way to crack their suspect’s armor there is no moment of hesitation, no glances aside to see if Ellie should take the lead or not. No, he simply sits back and lets her.

He has absolute faith in her abilities as a detective, and this moment right here is where he proves it.

Also that grin on Ellie’s face conveys so much, and I love it. She’s been constantly looked down upon and underestimated in her abilities as the DS and it turns out she’s the secret weapon that breaks Sandbrook’s case wide open. That grin and her sitting forward like that is a hound smelling a hare, and it’s both thrilling and terrifying to see it.

Trying to explain to people that it’s not a problem with your ears (I’m 24 and I’ve passed every hearing test I’ve ever been given with flying colors) and being told it must be all in your head then.

Auditory Processing Problems

• *someone says something* “what?” *repeats themselves* “sorry?” *repeats themselves again* “pardon?”

•"hey, y'see the red thing at the top of the shelf, will you get it?“ “Sorry, what?” “On the sh-” “oh yeah sure, I’ll get it.”

•*doesn’t hear teacher because someone’s pen is making a scratchy sound at the back of the room*

•*replays video 10 ten times to figure out what they’re saying*

•teachers asking, “why do you always stop writing in the middle of a sentence, just write down whatever I’m saying,” followed by the response, “I’m just processing it,” rebuked by, “we’ll stop processing it and just write.”

•*gets really focused on staring out the window and goes through four songs without hearing a single on*