I have a headcanon that Paul Matthews was raised to be very aware of his bluntness and social inept behaviours as a kid and teenager (and constantly corrected and scrutinised for that by the people in his environment). To the point where he was basically performing his whole childhood. But, deciding when he grew up and went to college that 'no fuck it, im done catering to people's perception of me' and became weirdly secure in himself. Now he's not afraid to set boundaries and be blunt sometimes. Growth.
And then comes Pokey basically becoming the placeholder of all that Paul heard growing up (ex. Lived an awful grinch named Paul -- "why aren't you smiling more, Paul! You must be miserable" , And the words will come to you/We swear we will teach you -- "learn all the social cues! Act like us!", Is your heart so damp and bleak/That you won’t give us a peek of your soul?, -- let it out!
Differences in Paul that I noticed rewatching the og and remount
The remount Paul seems nicer even though he's clear about his boundaries. Still trying to use a polite tone and be supportive. In the og he's very blunt and doesn't bother trying to soften his tone and kind of an asshole.
Based on Mr. Davidson's tone when he asked for the weekly reports from Paul, in the og Paul is probably very reliable and turns things in on time but in the remount Paul is probably bad at his job and turns things in late a lot. Probably not extremely late but still not on time.
In the og he absolutely hates Ted but in the remount he doesn't seem to have much of an opinion on him but is uncomfortable with Ted trapping him on Ted's legs.
He's more earnest in wanting to talk to Emma and get to know her verses in the og he's still earnest but he's comfortable with her so he shares his opinion.
With his relationship with Greenpeace girl he genuinely seems to have beef with her and not like her meanwhile in the original he was just annoyed with her.
In the og he's confused and weirded out and hates musicals but in the remount he's terrified and his dislike of musicals is more of a phobia.
In the remount he seems very reliant on routine, if everything follows his routine no matter how bad or weird of a day he is having he can hold himself but if it doesn't he crumbles with Paul going to Beanies for the second time in the musical. In the original he hasn't processed anything fully yet and is losing his mind.
Paul was more protective over Charlotte in the og, Paul does care about her in the remount but in the og Paul got between Charlotte and a gun and he didn't in the remount.
Remount Paul was such a good listener and og Paul was so starstruck by Emma that he was happy to learn more about her and not being as grumpy with her while remount was really taking in what she was saying and empathizing with her and being quiet.
Remount Paul made the decision to go with Bill to the school a lot quicker. It was during the silence after Ted was saying that Bill was going to get lost. In the og Paul didn't make the decision until right before he outright says that he was going to. Not because of his lack of caring but because he's being analytical.
When the og Paul says that he wants something more than friendship with Emma he's more certain about it but with the remount it's like he's realizing that's what he wants but trying to mask that it's a realization so he doesn't get shot.
Og Paul tried to suck it up when Emma grabbed him by his tie to kiss him after she coughed up blood on him but he chickened out at the last second but for remount Paul he was like "moments ruined, not doing that" immediately after she got blood on him.
With the line "God help me out" during Let it Out in the og it feels like Paul is and always has been a atheist (I wouldn't say he's anti religion but just not something that he believes in) but this is where it fully sets in for the first time that there's supernatural beings so there might actually be a higher power but in the remount with what he does with his hands I don't know, I got the vibe that he grew up in a Christian household but left and abandoned his faith (maybe religious trauma) and while he's in a very stressful situation, losing his autonomy, knowing that he wasn't going to survive this his brain went back to familiarity for comfort which was his abandoned faith.
I haven't seen anyone point this out anywhere yet, but the move Paul does during his new lines in Let It Out directly references Max being pulled by the Lords in Black's "invisible tentacles" in NPMD
ever since the finale dropped I’ve been seeing a lot of people wondering what benjamin/agent7 meant by “half alive,” and a lot of people hoping that it means that soren will be able to recover or function in some capacity. and i REALLY hate to be the pessimist because i LOVE soren, but also because i love soren, i have to say that i don’t think that’s true. walk with me.
The big thing to me is something revealed to us very early: The Gravediggress is not a necromancer. Sydney says as much in File4 (The Prophecy of Reversal).
In fact, he says it again.
Later in the same episode, he goes on to emphasize another important point: True necromancy is impossible. This is a point that Sydney brings up repeatedly throughout Season 1, chiefly to foreshadow his own undeath. I’m not going to find every time he says it, but here it is again in File13 (The Mother of Stones). We’ll be coming back to that episode.
Sydney’s pretty sure of it— though that leaves the elephant in the room (not that one) of his own revival. Obviously, necromancy is possible, right? Jedidiah did it. It’s dramatic irony, once you realize. The problem is, Jedidiah had to break reality over his knee to get the results he wanted.
This is like, a whole other point, so I’m going to make it as brief as I can, but it’s clear that “the limn” shattered reality, and “the limn” appears to be Jedidiah’s ritual on Sydney. Go through the episodes and read the agents’ notes, and you’ll find them regularly referring to a “pre-limnal” world that was normal.
To be brief, here’s the summary of File29 (The Eggs of a Basket Case), where Elijah tells Sydney the story of his resurrection.
And here’s File54 (Swallow the Bite), where Rowan has a breakdown about remembering the world before it changed. Note the agents calling this “pre-limnal memory” and Jedidiah repeatedly apologizing, almost like it’s his fault.
So, Jedidiah broke reality to revive Sydney. We knew that. This is consistent with Sydney calling necromancy “impossible”. Clearly it is if the world has gone to hell because of it.
Which means, just like Sydney said, necromancy is impossible, so the Gravediggress is not a necromancer, and neither is Soren. If we look back at our first screenshot, Sydney calls the Gravediggress’ powers “reanimation”.
Four things here:
Reanimation is an “imitation of life,” controlled by the Gravediggress.
Reanimated bodies go back to being normal corpses after the Gravediggress leaves.
To attain “a more permanent state of reanimation,” a body has to be surrounded by the magic of the Death Fields.
They’ll still rot.
Soren isn’t going to learn real necromancy from the Gravediggress, they’re going to learn reanimation. That much is clear in File13 (The Mother of Stones), where they successfully reanimate a rabbit.
Once again we see that word, and we understand more about what it means. The rabbit has no basic needs or even desires, nor does it seem to feel pain or even be aware of its own body.
Sydney goes so far as to call it an inanimate object. Granted, Sydney displays an obvious bias of the “when you die, you will rot” disposition, but it’s true that the rabbit shows no signs of life besides movement, not even a heartbeat. The only thing the rabbit ever “reacts” to (assuming it isn’t coincidence, which it could very well be) is to look at Sydney when he picks it up, and even then, it doesn’t struggle, even when Jedidiah begins ripping it limb from limb. Any living creature would struggle, express pain, or both, in reaction to such mutilation.
This was performed with the Gravediggress’ magic. If this is the level to which her power can revive things… I fear it means the same for Soren. The only things we know about Soren’s death are that it was via lightning strike, and that they “succeeded” and are now “half-alive”. We can only decipher what state they’re in by comparing it to past instances of the Gravediggress’ magic. Which are not only not true necromancy and rather invoke movement alone, but still leave the subject to decompose.
“But wait,” My sock puppet representation of you says. “What about Episode 23? The one with the death mold? Doesn’t Soren accomplish something more advanced in that? And the kids even recovered from it!”
Great point, sock puppet representation. File23 (The Wood of the Caskets). Let’s take a closer look.
Talking Point 1: The deathcreep mold is more advanced than normal reanimation.
Not really! What Soren achieved that was so impressive was spreading the magic of the death fields.
Soren moved the magic. They didn’t change it. Going back to File4, Sydney mentions that setting foot in the Death Fields is extremely dangerous — presumably, you’ll end up as shambling, rotting, and unkillable as the campers that touched the deathcreep mold. It’s portable now, not improved upon.
Talking Point 2: The children did, in fact, recover from the deathcreep mold.
This is true! With enough fresh air, the children were returned to their fully living states. But the thing here is that none of the children ever died. Sydney estimates that the mold will eventually cause “complete biological collapse and decay”, effective death, were it not for the powers of reanimation. Their bodies never reached this point of no return.
Soren, on the other hand, “did not survive” the lightning strike, in Benjamin’s exact words. He follows this up with the half-alive comment, but I take this to mean that Soren’s body and mind fully shut down and ceased function before being reanimated. After all, if they showed signs of recovery like the kids did, Benjamin would mention that, no? He surely wouldn’t say they “succeeded” if they didn’t truly die and come back.
And if that’s true… Then there’s no coming back from that. Because as all the kids learned in school, necromancy is impossible. Soren was brought back with the Gravediggress’ power, and that power is inherently limited. I believe that this will leave Soren in a state much similar to the rabbit in File13– capable of movement, but lacking any apparent conscious thought or awareness, even of pain. Lacking basic needs, desires, or so much as a heartbeat. One is tempted to draw the comparison to a zombie, but I believe their state is somewhere in a middle ground between zombified and comatose.
The zombie description is obvious. Dead and brought back, little to no remnant of their former self, but still walking around. Rotting, as well. Let’s not forget that the reanimated still rot. But many zombie stories depict them as still having desires and some ability to verbalize — even if it’s just in the pursuit of eating people. This is where I think the comatose aspect comes in. Soren in this theoretical state bears similarities to a comatose state — complete lack of consciousness or awareness, with no reaction to stimuli.
This would also bring us back around to Soren’s many, many parallels with Sydney. The two have very similar experiences with suicidal feelings and behavior, and with autonomy, and Soren is clearly a tragic echo of Sydney coming so very close to killing himself in Season 2. Sydney found reason within himself to live, where Soren remained sure that they had nothing to live for, and that only death could save them— even if for them, death meant a rebirth.
(File66, The Monster Tries to Summon)
As File68 (101 Ways to Kill Your Lover) reveals, Sydney’s coma was the result of a suicide attempt. A coma that he was deeply unlikely to come back from, had Jedidiah not taken the extreme route.
(File33, The Muse of the Elephant)
Is this not, then, another parallel? Soren goes from reflecting Sydney’s current suicidal episode to one in the past. Sydney hoped Jedidiah would save him. Soren believed the Gravedigress would save them. But I don’t think she did.
Of course, this isn’t a 1-to-1 comparison. Chiefly, comatose patients do not walk around or decompose. That’s why I think the best way to describe them is, like I said, somewhere between zombified and comatose. But that’s a mouthful. So, “half-alive” works. Regardless, I don’t think there is very much left of Soren, and I don’t think they’re going to get better. Dead, half-alive, comatose — it’s a tragic incident that leaves grief in its wake all the same. Soren is gone, all the same.
I miss when ads were a single click and then they’re gone. Now every ad has a minimum of three phases where you watch a video, exit the still frame of fake gameplay, and then exit the app download. That doesn’t even touch on the ones that forcibly take you to another app after opening a tab in safari without you ever touching the screen.
I hate advertising. I hate that you can’t do anything without companies jumping down your throat with mostly bullshit ads. I hate that billboards exist. I hate that every company unanimously decided to make their ads longer and longer. I hate that ad blockers try to charge you money and there are in app purchases to remove ads. I hate that my attention has become commodified. I hate that there’s nothing I can do about it.
(and a bit of the garbage trio bc this is one of my fav moment haha)
I'm such a big starkid fan, the pro shot was so cool omggg can we talk about the improvement of these guys ??? Like AH the new lines for ''Let it out'' ???? NOT YOUR SEED ??? THE LIGHTNING????????? I think I will always prefer the og version but that was such an epic remaster , loved it 💫
Let's say I really wanted to reduce the number of children who die in car accidents. Car accidents are really bad, right? Nobody disagrees about that. And it would be much better for both the environment and the kids' health if they spent more time walking, or taking the bus. Perfectly reasonable. More cars off the road, safer roads, fewer kids getting hurt, healthier kids. A win-win!
Therefore, let's ban children from traveling by car and require all cars to have a scanner on the door that scans the government ID of everyone who gets in the car to make sure no kids are in there. After all, kids get hurt in car accidents all the time! We need to ban this right away!
"If you don't believe that illegals are voting, you'd have no problem with ICE at voting locations."
There's no magical force that compels ICE to leave citizens alone. They've literally been kidnapping people without due process, and their supporters have literally been saying that they're okay with that. They've also murdered people while knowing they're on camera with zero fear whatsoever. ICE are a terrorist organization with a free pass to do whatever they want.
If ICE are at voting locations, those who believe that ICE are dangerous monsters will be afraid to go, while those who bootlick ICE will be more likely to go. This will skew the voters in favor of ICE.
Seeing people I know and like using AI is making me understand the protagonists of those old time sci fi dystopia's.
"Oh I don't normally use AI, I just wanted it to plan my trip"
You lived on this planet for decades, you know what you like, there are hundreds of websites where you can type into any search engine " things to do in [area]" and have at least a hundred different options.
"Oh I only use it so I can figure out what to make during the week with what I have"
The most popular website as you type in "recipes" into google have sections where you click dinner- quick and easy and those usually rely on staples + 1 or 2 items. I found 30 recipes on chicken alone.
"I had a writing idea, so I typed a few sentences into Chat GPT and I was able to write 20 pages with it."
I feel like I should be alright to post these now. I had the privilege of making some merch for Team Starkid's reprised run of The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals! These were all made into stickers that you could grab if you happened to catch the show at the El Portal Theatre. It was SO much fun getting to make these for the fine folks over at Starkid. I love the Hatchetfield universe so much and being trusted to design these in an official capacity was truly such a joy!
I can't add it as a video, because of tumblr being weird. i'll upload it on a different post-- but that to say. joey addressed this back in october for a cameo that i got. i don't ever share my cameos so this is exclusive, but he puts clarity on this! sorry to break that bubble! 😬
