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checkoutmybookshelf · 1 year

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Sometimes Graduate Coursework Gets Weird

My PhD is in Shakespeare and Disability studies. But because gtraduate school is an absolute clusterfuck and there was exactly one course in early modern literature offered and exactly zero courses in disability studies, my coursework year ended up being a mishmash of stuff that was kinda fun, but absolutely irrelevant to my primary focus. I didn't even come out with any papers that I could publish--although I came out with a couple that were VERY fun and that I am proud of. So what you're getting in this post is possibly my favorite paper on theory I've ever written, and it's on Clarice Starling, Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal. Enjoy!

A Structural Examination of Clarice Starling in Thomas Harris’s The Silence of the Lambs and Hannibal

As a female detective written by a male author, I would expect Clarice Starling to come under heavy critical scrutiny. However, the majority of critical focus on Starling has been on Jodie Foster’s portrayal of the character in Johnathan Demme’s 1991 film adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs (Staiger, Cragin, Szumskyj 7). Starling’s character in Hannibal, Harris’s third novel dealing with the titular cannibal, has been largely rejected by fans and ignored by critics (Szumskyj 200-201). Thanks to Foster’s portrayal, Starling entered the public consciousness as a female detective icon in a filmic context, and her larger structural arc in the novels has been little commented upon.

The structure of Harris’s novels deserve scrutiny because the structure largely informs the process which leads to Starling becoming Lecter’s lover—a relationship decried by fans as being largely unbelievable and disappointing (Szumskyj 200-201). Early detective novels featured a clear triangular structure, placing the detective, villain and victim squarely in their own categories with little to no overlap, and Stephen Fuller argues that Harris works to maintain these distinctions in Silence before fully collapsing them in Hannibal (822). This essay argues that rather than completely collapsing the traditional structure, Harris creates a structure for his characters that is based in two non-generic, non-permeable binary structures which are then overlaid by a permeable, disputative super-binary over which Starling and Lecter’s character arcs chiasmus. A structural examination of Starling’s character throughout Silence and Hannibal is revealing because it allows readers to distance themselves from the prevailing psychoanalytic critical trend of pathologizing Starling’s character and her relationship with Lecter, demonstrating a reading of Starling that offers an alternative explanation of her strengths as a female detective and relationship with Lecter, absent of Freudian pathologizing.

As I have previously alluded, Starling has been primarily viewed in terms of Freudian psychoanalysis. Fuller dismisses both Lecter and Starling as suffering from “a crippling neurosis” (822), while Robert Benton’s analysis of Starling examines psychoanalyzing not only a serial killer, but also what is unresolved in Clarice’s analysis (457). Even critics who argue that Demme’s film is ultimately feminist do so through a Freudian lens. Diane Dubois, arguing that Starling appropriates and ultimately reverses the idea of the male gaze in order to ask the audience to reevaluate their role as viewer (300), is engaging heavily with Laura Mulvey, and the idea of the male gaze as a Freudian (and therefore male-dominated) method of filming (306). Dubois and Janet Staiger also take up the conflation of Jodie Foster’s Star Persona with Starling’s character and the portrayal of homosexuality in Demme’s film, arguing that Foster—whose sexuality was questioned by the gay community in response to the portrayal of Jame Gumb (Staiger 282-83)—created the iconic images that popular culture ties to Starling (Dubois 302-303). Because this essay is focusing on Harris’s novels rather than Demme’s films, Foster’s star persona has little bearing on the main thrust of my argument, except to acknowledge that the critical trends created by Demme’s film—the use of psychoanalysis, pathologizing Starling and her sexuality as well as her relationships with other male characters—have also impacted the little extant criticism focused on Harris’s novels.

The 2008 collection, Dissecting Hannibal Lecter, focuses primarily (though not exclusively) on Harris’s novels. As the title suggests, this collection focuses primarily on Lecter himself, although his relationship with Starling in Hannibal is an overarching focus. Within these parameters, however, Dissecting Hannibal Lecter follows the critical trends established by articles relating to Demme’s film with one major exception: the collection spends quite a bit of time focusing on generic conventions which explain Starling and Lecter’s relationship at the end of Hannibal. These arguments focus primarily around ideas of genre and psychoanalysis, from Peter Messent’s argument that positioning Hannibal as an American Gothic novel and reading Lecter’s relationship with Starling through the loss of Mischa (24-25) to Robert Waugh’s focus on the imago imagery, drawing parallels between Starling and Lolita as well as Lecter and Humbert Humbert (77). In addition to these essays never quite satisfactorily explaining Lecter’s relationship to Starling, Starling as a character is dismissed by Freudian pathology at best and relegated to Lecter’s equally neurotic, antagonistic sidekick at worst. It is here that I diverge from the major critical trends to focus on a structural reading of Starling in order to reclaim for the novels some of the strength and iconic status that fans found in Foster’s film portrayal of the character.

I previously stated that, rather than completely collapsing the boundaries between the detective, villain and victim in his novels, Harris creates a structure based on two non-generic, non-permeable binaries. The structural foundation of Hannibal and Silence are based on the typical male/female and teacher/student binaries, where male and teacher are dominant and female and student are non-dominant. These binaries are more widely applicable than generic structural binaries, and form the base of Starling’s world. She is a trainee in Silence, and even in Hannibal she views both Brigham and Crawford as teacher figures; after Brigham’s death Starling is arguably at sea with Crawford as her only socially (or personally) acceptable anchor. After Crawford’s heart attack (Hannibal 408) and death (Hannibal 543), extrapolating from John Goodrich’s argument that Lecter also functions as a teacher figure for Starling (43), Starling still has not moved on from her position as a student because she has come completely under Dr. Lecter’s tutelage in Hannibal. I will spend no time explaining this second foundational binary; living in a patriarchal society serves as all the explanation needed. Obviously these two foundational binaries alone are too simplistic to support the structure of two novels as dynamic as Silence and Hannibal; using these binaries alone does not permit Starling any character evolution. She is always female, and always a student in these two texts, and so in order to create complexity in her character via structure, Harris uses a more complex, genre-based super-binary.

In diminishing the separation of the detective-villain-victim structure, Harris creates a binary based on traditional generic classifications, but a binary that also allows for movement and argument. Both the dominant and non-dominant sides of this super-binary are composed of binaries themselves. The dominant side of the super-binary contains a detective/villain binary, and then non-dominant side is constructed by a villain/victim binary. I argue that this super-binary is created from a traditional generic convention, but also that the sub-binaries on the dominant and non-dominant sides of the super-binary are both permeable and disputative. By permeable, I mean that there is the ability to cross the bar both in the sub-binaries, but also in the super-binary structure; this is where we see character movement as well as Harris’s conflation of detective and villain as well as villain and victim roles. So in this structure, not only can a character’s place in the super-binary change, but the dominant side of the sub-binaries can also change. It is this permeability that leads to the disputative properties of the super-binary; depending on where in the text you place the binary and where Starling is in her chiasmus at that point in the text, the dominant side of a given binary (be it a sub-binary or the super-binary itself) can be argued as being either side.

The logical question to ask, given that I argue for a binary structure that can be manipulated to the point of total inversion, is how this structure is still a binary one. This is why the character chiasmus of Starling and Lecter is so critical to this structural model: the chiasmus serves to stabilize the entire structure, by maintaining oppositional movement in terms of character. The three elements of this structure can be visualized thus: The two foundational binaries (male/female, teacher/student) are the table that the hourglass of the super-binary rests on, and the chiasmus creates the bulbs of the hourglass, stabilizing the structure and maintaining distance even when the entire structure is inverted. Visually, the structure might look like this:

Figure 1

Such a structure takes into account not only genre, but the deconstruction of a traditional detective narrative structure, as well as the underlying assumptions of a patriarchal society without allowing for a lens that dismisses Starling as a pathologized woman in need of a “cure.”

Starling positions herself within this structure during her first and third meetings with Lecter. Prior to the meeting, Crawford asks if Starling’s counselor’s license is current, and she replies that it is (Silence 3). While Starling is still arguably a new counselor, she has experience (Silence 3) and therefore could talk to Lecter as a peer in terms of the field of psychology. Starling had the opportunity to split herself along lines of expertise in her fields and place her relationship with Lecter outside of generic conventions of Detective/Villain. Instead, Starling replicates with Lecter her first move with Jack Crawford: she opens communication by presenting herself as an available student. She sends Crawford a note on her qualification for the academy (Silence 2), and she challenges Lecter to literally test her qualifications in psychology (Silence 17). Starling’s third meeting with Lecter opens in a similar fashion. Starling tells Lecter, “It was strange going in there. Something I’d like to talk to you about,” (Silence 58), which positions Starling even more firmly in her role as student in the foundational binary, while simultaneously inverting the super-binary—albeit briefly—to place Starling as detective in a non-dominant position of non-knowing in direct contrast to Lecter’s dominant position as teacher and person of knowledge. Starling and Lecter cement this inverted super-binary as well as the student/teacher foundational binary during this second meeting when Lecter asks Starling if he can address her by her first name, and immediately upon Starling’s consent, dictating that she refer to him formally, by his title (Silence 60).

John Goodrich, in his essay “Hannibal at the Lectern,” examines these first two encounters between Starling and Lecter, characterizing the first meeting as “something of a seminar” (40), and the second as “straight business” (42), while using fencing metaphors to communicate the feel of these scenes to the reader. I agree with Goodrich in his characterization of Lecter and Starling as a student/teacher relationship, however the fundamental assumption made is that Lecter assumes a role as a teacher in order to help Starling, whether that be help on her case, psychological help, or simply helping her overcome her own perceived limitations (45). Goodrich’s assumption—that Starling needs help, and that Lecter provides it for a paternalistic reason—demonstrates the necessity for the male/female binary to underpin the super-binary structure. Starling, like contemporary female readers, lives in a patriarchal system, and critics show a tendency to assign all the agency in initiating the student/teacher binary to Lecter. If Harris had written a patient-psychiatrist novel where the only structural binary involved were the student/teacher binary, then perhaps Lecter could justifiably be credited for the initiation. However, because we are working with a super-binary structure based on genre as well as the student/teacher binary, we must give Starling—who, as demonstrated, has a history of making herself available to teachers she deems worthy—credit for the agency she shows in dictating the type of relationship she and Lecter have. Starling is consistently reminded that she is on the non-dominant side of the male/female foundational binary, but at least with Lecter, Starling makes a choice to place herself on the student side of the binary, and allow her generic place in the super-binary (detective, even if she is a trainee) to confer on her extra authority when she needs it. We see her actively take that authority when she keeps the press out of Rapsail’s storage unit (Silence 54-56).

With the super-binary beginning as inverted, Starling’s chiasmus with Lecter seems to be inverted as well. Because this essays reads Silence and Hannibal as a complete narrative, however, Starling’s point of beginning for her character arc must always be on the detective side of the super-binary. Starling’s journey in Silence is indisputably one in which she moves from a place of not-knowledge to knowledge, which, on first viewing, would seem to directly contradict the established structural framework. At this point it is important to keep in mind that Starling’s character arc crosses Lecter’s at a nonlinear point in narrative time. Starling ends The Silence of the Lambs on a high note; she has stopped Buffalo Bill, she’s a rising star with the FBI, and her personal life is going quite well. Lecter’s life is also on the upswing at the end of Silence, because he has managed to escape custody, change his face and prepare to go spend his life in freedom. The moment where Lecter’s arc crosses over has to be just after his escape (Silence 364-367), and for Starling the chiasmus moment has to be early in Hannibal, when she returns to the old shell of the asylum where she first met Lecter and she realizes just how disparate her dreams have become from her reality (Hannibal 84). To fully explain this chiasmus’s stabilizing effect on the super-binary, we have to back up briefly and discuss Starling’s effectiveness as a female detective. Critics of both the film and novels have argued persuasively that Starling’s effectiveness as a female detective is—in frequent contrast to Will Graham’s methodology—her ability to empathize with the female victims rather than the serial killer victimizing them (Garret 7-8, Hawkins 262, Dubois 300, Messent 23-24, etc.). I will spend little time on Starling’s female detective skills in Silence, that ground is well-trod. What I wish to draw attention to is how those same skills affect Starling’s position structurally in Hannibal.

In Silence, Starling functions as a female detective by inhabiting the gray space in the separator bars of the binary structures. She uses both the traditionally masculine forensic and weapon skills learned at Quantico in conjunction with her distinctly feminine ability to empathize with female victims to occupy both dominant and non-dominant mindsets in order to solve the crime in front of her. Starling both maintains and collapses the super-binary structure in Silence. Ordinarily this would be cause for a deconstructionist argument, however once again, Lecter and generic conventions maintain the integrity if the binary structure even while Starling is testing the permeability of the separator bars. At no point does Lecter claim an institutionalized label of “detective,” the closest Lecter gets to being a detective is as an armchair sleuth, and even then he is more psychiatrist than sleuth, particularly when he deals with Margot Verger (Hannibal 458-461). So the distinction between Lecter’s particular brand of villainy and Starling’s admittedly deconstructionist construction of her own personal style of detection causes sufficient tension and distance to maintain the permeable structure of the binary.

In Hannibal, however, Starling consciously steps away from the more masculine detective strategies. In deciding on her strategy to find Lecter, Harris writes of Starling, “Starling was weary of technique. Faith in technique was the religion of dangerous trades,” (Hannibal 255), while at the same time she “began to credit her own visceral reactions to things, without quantifying them or restricting them to words” (Hannibal 255). Starling is rejecting the institutionalized, quantifiable, masculine way of detecting in favor of a more traditionally feminine, intuitive manner of detecting. This functions in a number of different ways in our super-binary structure. First, this section of the text is a nice literary parallel to the first time Starling had to command feminine power in a male-dominated environment: removing extraneous personnel from the coroner’s office when she was called to print a floater (Silence 82). In both these instances, Starling inverts the generic binary; women are frequently the victims of serial killers and so are frequently seen by patriarchal forces as either victims all the time, or potential victims. By inverting the binary, Starling is highlighting situations in which women possess power or intuition that men do not. Krendler actually acknowledges this inversion of power dynamics, as well as the implied threat to him when he decides that Starling has to be discredited before she uncovers his role in giving Lecter to Mason Verger (Hannibal 381). What is slightly different in Hannibal is that at this point in the novel, Starling seems to be changing her focus from victim to killer.

Readers at this point are aware that Verger want to feed Lecter to his pigs in revenge, and readers are aware that the net is closing around Lecter. So there is a sense of dramatic irony in Starling’s choice of focus and methodology. When Starling sets up her methodology in Hannibal, Donnie Barber has not been discovered as a new Lecter victim, nor is she (or Lecter) aware of Verger’s plot. There is a real sense that Starling and Lecter might view themselves as playing out the dominant side of the super-binary, albeit with Starling focusing on a more feminized version of the detective dominant. The reality of the narrative, however, is that Starling is actually sleuthing out Verger’s plot, while being squarely aligned with the victim and using her strengths as a female detective to once again empathize with a victim in order to solve a crime. At this point in the novel readers have a sense of dual structural vision. Starling sees herself and Lecter structured as the dominant half of our super-binary, fighting it out for control in a move that ideally would end with Starling’s redemption with the Bureau. For readers, however, knowing that both Verger and Krendler are in play, the super-binary looks more like this:

Starling

Lecter/Krendler/Verger

Verger/Lecter/ Krendler

Starling

And the overlaid chiasmus can only send Starling further out of favor with the FBI, while Lecter (assuming he avoids being eaten) is at a very low risk of suddenly being sent into a downward spiral. Once again, we have Starling in a position of being both dominant and non-dominant, based on the strength of the two foundational binaries that she cannot get away from. And also again, the strict categorization of Lecter, Verger and Krendler allow the super-binary structure to maintain its integrity while still being permeable. One critical reason why the binary structure has to be as complex as it is, is to accommodate the shift in narrative in the latter quarter of Hannibal, after the detective sections of the narrative have closed. Before I discuss the last few chapters of Hannibal, I will address Starling’s solo raid of the Verger’s farm.

Harris gives his readers a nice sense of narrative symmetry, in terms of beginning the novel during a botched drug raid and ending the detective sections of the novel with a vigilante rescue of a serial killer by a disgraced FBI agent. Starling in this section of the novel is very much back to the Starling we recognize from Silence, half action-hero and half hostage-negotiator. She has used her feminine detective skills to get here, and once again her masculine skills allow her to subdue the villains. However, we also get a parallel here between Starling and John Brigham at the beginning of Hannibal. Evelda takes a deadly potshot at Brigham from beneath her baby’s blanket (Hannibal 13), foreshadowing the shot Tommaso takes at Starling with the tranquilizer gun in the barn (Hannibal 475). At that moment, Starling is aligned with both Brigham and her trainee self from Silence. This dual alignment is significant because it acknowledges both where Starling the Detective’s character began, as well as where she has come to and how she must necessarily end. Benjamin Szumskyj argues that canny readers should not have expected a “happily ever after” for Starling, and suggests that a less brilliant writer than Harris would have killed Starling (208-209). My counter argument to Szumskyj is that Harris had it both ways in Hannibal; Starling is double-tapped by a tranquilizer gun, which in a world not under Harris’s authorial control should have killed her. The fact that Starling herself conspicuously double-taps one of the hit men in the barn, and the narrative parallel with John Brigham, says that readers witness the symbolic death of Agent Clarice Starling in the Verger’s barn. The body carried away and cared for by Lecter is named Clarice Starling, but the consciousness that emerges is no longer FBI Agent Starling.

The final section of Hannibal sees our long-suffering super-binary structure once again inverted, and Starling in two new places on it. For this section of my argument, I remind readers that this is a structural analysis of Starling; the narrative reminders and critical focus on Lecter recreating Mischa literally in Starling’s place are periphery to an analysis of Starling herself. That being said, critics of the novel are deeply divided on the effectiveness of Starling’s fate. While Szumskyj argues that Starling’s fate is “a stroke of genius,” and fits it into his own binary structure (civilized/barbaric) (209), S.T. Joshi argues that the ending is “really too preposterous,” suggesting that Starling ought to have been able to resist “hypnotic control” (129). Neither critic suggests the idea of Starling experiencing a symbolic death, however. Arguably, the polarization of critics on Starling’s fate comes from the difficulties of trying to reconcile the drastic changes in Starling’s character, even with the influence of the cocktail of drugs Lecter is plying her with. Positing the death of Agent Starling allows Clarice to transition to an entirely new place in our binary structure: She joins Lecter in the villain category, both dominant and non-dominant in the super-binary structure. In permeating that final boundary through her symbolic death, Starling inverts the super-binary structure because she and Lecter together are going to have no trouble evading police—nobody even bothers to search for Starling after the shootout at the Verger barn except Ardelia Mapp (Hannibal 499-500)—and the two of them have similar tastes and minds. Together, they create a place in the text where Villain is dominant in the villain/victim sub-binary, as well as being dominant in the villain/detective sub-binary, which is of course the non-dominant sub-binary by the end of the novel.

The stabilizing chiasmus of course has now come to its logical conclusion; however Lecter’s arc is structurally straighter than Starling’s. Lecter has come to a place of knowledge and complete power by the end of the novel. Arguably, Agent Starling’s arc came to a close at her symbolic death on the Verger farm; she was not in a position of power, her lack of knowledge caused her to be shot, her career was over and her self-identity was on the verge of a crisis. She had moved from a place of confidence, power and potential in Silence to her “death” three quarters of the way through Hannibal. That leaves the new consciousness named Clarice Starling simply on par with Lecter; she goes (very quickly) from a place of powerlessness and not-knowledge to a place of knowledge. This Clarice, however, does not get a separate chiasmic arc because she is still tied to the foundational binaries. At no point in either The Silence of the Lambs or Hannibal does Starling and Lecter’s relationship move past a student/teacher binary. It is a sexual relationship by the end of the novel, however even after the relationship takes on a sexual component, Starling is still positioned as a student to Lecter. We are told that Starling learns to speak Italian, and that she is constructing a memory palace similar to Lecter’s own (Hannibal 542). It is safe to say that Starling is not taking classes at the Sorbonne, so we must assume that the structure of student to teacher still underpins Lecter and Starling’s relationship.

We must also assume that there is still a detective presence in the novel at the end for the super-binary structure to be maintained. Ardelia Mapp fulfills this function as a non-dominant, socially, and institutionally handcuffed sleuth looking for Starling. Mapp’s inclusion as a detective once again positions the detective as a clearly defined category that manages to remain in opposition, however weak, to the dominant forces of the villain/victims.

Early in this essay, I described the super-binary structure as an hourglass on a still table. In practice, it seems to function more as a perpetual motion machine, with characters and binaries constantly changing orientation and position, but still held in their structural motion. This seems a poetic way to explain Clarice Starling’s functionality as a female detective across Hannibal and The Silence of the Lambs, and it also serves to demonstrate a way to connect Starling and Lecter in a relationship without pathologizing one or both characters. By placing them in a complex, multi-layer structure, readers have an alternate manner in which to read a strong female detective, whose polarizing end has not been frequently enough discussed in a critical forum.

Works Cited

Benton, Robert J. “The Silence of the Lambs: Clarice Starling’s Analysis?” Psychoanalytic Review. 79.3 (1992): 457-461. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 23 February 2016.

Cragin, Becca. "Noirish Inversions: Investigation and Victimization in the Silence of the Lambs and Basic Instinct." Americana : The Journal of American Popular Culture, 1900 to Present 8.2 (2009)ProQuest. Web. 12 Feb. 2016.

Dubois, Diane. “Seeing the Female Body Differently: Gender Issues in The Silence of the Lambs.” Journal of Gender Studies. 10.3 (2001): 297-310. MLA International Bibliography. 12 February 2016. Web.

Fuller, Stephen M. “Deposing an American Cultural Totem: Clarice Starling and Postmodern Heroism in Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, and Hannibal.” Journal of Popular Culture. 38.5 (2005): 819-33.

Garret, Greg. “Objecting to Objectification: Re-Viewing the Feminine in The Silence of the Lambs.” Journal of Popular Culture. 27.4 (1994): 1-12. ProQuest. Web. 12 February 2016.

Goodrich, John. “Hannibal at the Lectern: A Textual Analysis of Dr. Hannibal Lecter’s Character and Motivations in Thomas Harris’s Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs.” Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris. Ed. Benjamin Szumskyj. Jefferson: McFarland and Company Inc. 2008. Print.

Harris, Thomas. The Silence of the Lambs. St. Martin’s: New York. 1988.

Harris, Thomas. Hannibal. Random House: New York. 1999. Kindle. 3 March 2015. Ebook.

Hawkins, Harriett. “Maidens and Monsters in Modern Popular Culture: The Silence of the Lambs and Beauty and the Beast, Textual Practice.” Textual Practice. 7:2 (1993): 258-266. MLA International Bibliography. 20 February 2016. Web.

Joshi, S.T. “Suspense vs. Horror: The Case of Thomas Harris.” Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris. Ed. Benjamin Szumskyj. Jefferson: McFarland and Company Inc. 2008. Print.

Messent, Peter. “American Gothic: Liminality and the Gothic in Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter Novels.” Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris. Ed. Benjamin Szumskyj. Jefferson: McFarland and Company Inc. 2008. Print.

Staiger, Janet. “Taboos and Totems: Cultural Meanings of The Silence of the Lambs.” Reception Study: From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies. Ed. James L. Machor and Philip Goldstein. New York: Routledge. 2001. Print.

Szumskyj, Benjamin. “Morbidity of the Soul: An Appreciation of Hannibal.” Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris. Ed. Benjamin Szumskyj. Jefferson: McFarland and Company Inc. 2008. Print.

Waugh, Robert H. “The Butterfly and the Beast: The Imprisoned Soul in Thomas Harris’s Lecter Trilogy.” Dissecting Hannibal Lecter: Essays on the Novels of Thomas Harris. Ed. Benjamin Szumskyj. Jefferson: McFarland and Company Inc. 2008. Print.

#clarice starling #hello clarice #thomas harris #hannibal #hannibal lecter #the silence of the lambs #academic writing

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jaeheewillalwaysbemyfav · 3 years

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helloooooo!! can i request some headcanons for the demon brothers with a MC that is Non Binary but is afab and insecure about being afab and doesnt feel like they are Non Binary. platonic or romantic either one is fine. thank you. also Jaehee is a Queen period.

I haven’t had Mystic Messenger installed on my phone for like a year and this blog is mostly, if not exclusively Obey Me rn, but I refuse to change my url because it remains true. Jaehee is the best and deserves the world <3

Also don’t mind me casually throwing in some Devildom/Celestial Realm gender headcanons as an intro~

Warnings: Mentions of gender dysphoria, internalized transphobia, insecurity gang rise up. I’ll try and keep it more general since this is meant to be a comfort/fluff piece.

The Brothers With an Insecure (AFAB) Nonbinary MC

As a whole, the Devildom doesn’t really do traditional gender. The variety in demons’ and fallen angels’ appearances makes for such a diversity of body types that markers of femininity and masculinity are easier to disregard. It’s commonplace to provide one’s pronouns along with their name when meeting someone new, and any changes in a demon’s presentation are noted with little more fanfare than a new haircut.

Even angels don’t really get preoccupied with gender: in fact, as MC discovered one day while talking with Luke and Simeon, most barely grasp the concept of what a gender is. Simeon had mentioned that this occasionally resulted in him forgetting the genders of his characters, resulting in TSL being extremely popular among transgender and nonbinary fandom communities.

But MC is not from the Devildom, nor are they from the Celestial Realm. They’re from the human world, with its reductive views on bodies, presentation, and identity. A year in the Devildom can’t erase a lifetime of cissexism.

Some days, it wears on them more than others.

Lucifer

Lucifer is always aware when MC’s self image starts wavering

As someone who has fought tooth and nail to remain true to himself, he understands the struggle of facing resistance to this

But the idea of it coming from within is somewhat foreign to him

Nonetheless, he’ll do anything within his power to make MC feel better

Will calmly, but firmly assert that MC is the only one who can determine their identity

It’s not about how they were born or raised, but who they know themself to be deep down

If it’s their gender dysphoria making them feel invalid, he’ll try and minimize it however he can

Need a different RAD uniform? No problem. Worried about being perceived a certain way? Anyone who stares at MC for too long or even dares to make a comment about their presentation is getting the Lucifer Death Glare.

Physical/body dysphoria? The Devildom has tons of temporary and permanent solutions for that, they can try whatever they’d like

It is vital for the success of the exchange program that all the students feel comfortable and well-accommodated

Also MC is very dear to him and he hates to see them suffering

Mammon

As soon as he notices MC is upset, he is READY TO FITE

Who’s been messing with them?!

What? They don’t feel like they’re really nonbinary? Are they questioning again, or—

Oh. Oh…

Well that’s stupid! What do you mean you don’t “look nonbinary”?! What’s there to look like? Humans are so weird about this stuff, look: you want to know what someone’s deal is, you ask! And their answer? That’s it! End of story, there ya go!

It’s not so simple in the human world, MC tries to explain

Mammon huffs and mumbles something about how it should be, but he can see this avenue isn’t making MC feel better

It seems whatever junk ideas the human world has about gender really gets into people’s heads…

Well, whenever Mammon wants to take his mind off of something, he opts for something exciting! Hitting the casino, making new plans that’ll definitely work this time, maybe even try and pull a prank on one of his brothers…?

But if MC just wants to cuddle and watch some mindless TV or play video games he doesn’t mind doing that either…

Leviathan

Levi knows, without fault, every single TSL characters’ pronouns and identities, if and how they change through the series, and between different media adaptations

He can (and will) list all the nonbinary characters like a gender Pokemon Rap, with special attention on those who match MC’s presentation and/or AGAB

(Not that AGAB is essential or even always available information, but dysphoria is not a rational creature, and Levi is very familiar with irrational emotions)

Would MC say that any of these characters aren’t really nonbinary because of how they look or how they started out? Then why are they any different?

But if something about their appearance is really bothering them, he might have a solution

Cosplay

Well, sort of

Crossplayers use all sorts of techniques to masculinize or feminize their appearance when necessary, and Levi’s pretty familiar with most of them

So if MC wants to try some out to see if it makes them feel more comfortable, he wouldn’t mind showing them! You know… if they’re… interested…

Also double-checks to make sure it’s okay that he calls them his “Henry” and assures them that it’s about the character’s role and personality, and not some sort of gender-based comparison

Unless... they like the comparison? andwouldliketocosplayasHenrytohisLordofShadows??

Satan

Who said this to you, MC.

Names. Now.

Boy gets frothing mad when MC explains it’s a societal and cultural problem, not an individual one, that fuels their insecurity.

If they don’t want to hear an hour long rant about the rich history of human gender expression and identity, they need to cut him off fast

If he could maim the concept of transphobia, he would

But alas, this is not a problem that can be solved (entirely) with violence

So he has to find other ways to show his support

Ask him about any notable trans, nonbinary, or otherwise gender nonconforming figures from human or demon history. He’ll happily tell MC all about them.

But, at the end of the day? In his opinion, there’s one person that shines above the rest

Someone who braved the longest odds, who persisted against the fiercest enemies and even turned them into their closest friends

Who saw others at their worst and sought to bring out the best in them…

*stage whispers* He’s talking about you

If there’s anyone who’s going to believe in the right to self determination and the irrelevance of your origins to your present identity, it’s Satan

And if anyone ever does try to tell MC that their doubts about themself are true?

Just give him their name and don’t ask questions

Asmodeus

So they’re worried about being too feminine? Is there such a thing?

If that’s the case, they can be “too feminine” together

Asmo’s gender nonconformity has earned him praise all throughout his life, so the idea of being ashamed of such a thing is alien to him

But he does know what it’s like to have an audience who expects a specific image from you

And the fear of disappointing them

But gender isn’t a performance

Well, it is, sometimes, poor choice of words: but it’s a performance for you

Asmo presents the way he does because it’s what makes him happy, same with the rest of the brothers

MC shouldn’t be any different

If they’re looking for a more masculine wardrobe or just want a change of pace, he’ll happily help them find clothes that make them feel more comfortable, but his main concern is that they know they’re free to wear what they’d like, act how they’d like, and it doesn’t change who they are

Whatever image they want to make of themself, he can get them there, but only if it’s because they want it, not because it’s what they think they’re supposed to be like, okay?

Beelzebub

When MC first confesses to Beel that they feel like they’re not really nonbinary because of their body, he kinda looks around and gestures as if to say “really? Down here?”

Has MC ever noticed that RAD doesn’t have gendered sports teams?

Yeah, if they separated people by something as irrelevant as gender or Diavolo forbid, sex, people would get seriously injured or worse

There are so many ways to be a man or a woman or a nonbinary person, and they’re not always what you’d expect

Some of Beel’s best teammates and scariest opponents look and act nothing like you’d expect them to

If they’re feeling disconnected from their body, Beel is totally down to work out with them, keep them grounded in all the good their body does for them and that they can do for it

And yes, also the good food their body lets them experience

He also definitely reaches out and gives their hand a lil squeeze if he ever notices them feeling down while they’re out together

He cares for them a lot and just wants them to be happy at the end of the day

Belphegor

Oh yeah, that’s one of the stupidest things about the human world

Belphie remembers being mistaken for a woman a lot when he used to visit the human world, and how confused he was when people got into such a tizzy over his gender

Why waste all that energy on something that doesn’t matter? If you must know, just ask the person and be done with it

It doesn’t matter what they look like

MC is MC

If they say they’re nonbinary, that’s good enough for him

If they don’t want to be touched, especially in certain places tiddy pillow naps, he might get pouty, but he’s all bark and no bite, he’ll respect their wishes

His approach to making MC feel better is more geared towards normalizing their identity

If he accepts it as a fact, then maybe they’ll catch on that people will respect them if they know what’s good for them?

Also, if they hear him mumbling about correct pronouns and punching transphobes in his sleep… No they didn’t. He’s not dreaming about them, he swears...

#obey me #obey me imagines #obey me headcanons #obey me shall we date #om:swd #mine #my writing #lucifer #mammon #leviathan #satan #asmodeus #beelzebub #belphegor #tldr; they all love and support you!!!

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the-flying-urayuli · 3 years

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i made a weird post about the little bits in inside that was not put together a while ago so im doing it again out of boredom for the songs

yeah this is not at all put together so this may not be super accurate

content: a great opening song, definetly brings you into the feel of the special. for some reason i get “forced to work into a content factory despite your own issues and cant keep up with it” but eh

comedy: pretty obvious, a satirical song about people praising themselves for doing nothing etc etc with some other parts in it. there is definetly more about this song but i dont know them.

facetime with my mum: tbh i often skip this song? but it could possibly be about people praising themselves for talking and loving there parents but never actually paying attention, helping them or being nice.

how the world works: also obvious, about the corporate corruption and manipulation. also possibly noteable. its framed as a sort of kids puppet show, so possibly could also be refferencing all that corporate almost propaganda to convice children just to buy. this has been referenced a couple times in the special? but this is the first one.

white womans instagram: ive seen plenty of great interpretations of this song and this isnt my own but its that this girl is clearly dealing with a lot of her own problems, i.e her mums death, but she keeps faking herself to be the most perfect person on the internet or something like that. but thats nice

unpaid intern: i believe bo explained this himself-

bezoes 1: i used to love this song but it being used on tiktok so much sorta just made me sick of it. not much to say about this song, kinda obvious and straightfoward its about jeffery bezoes’ horrific acts for his own gain

sexting: not much to say here, if anyone has a good analysis of this song please give it to me

look whos inside again: fucking bop, has to be one of my favourites. also quite straightfoward. bo talks about how as a child he was just a kid stuck in his room, doing what he liked and he actually liked doing it, but now its just a

problematic: could be a couple things, either bo talking about his own problematic past and finally adressing it and coming to terms with it, which is probably it. it could also could be like unpaid intern and it could be a satire on glowup pop songs. instead of talking about how amazing you are and denying any past its facing those things directly and being straightfoward with your emotions? something like that

30: not much to say, about the terrifying feeling of growing older and scared of growing irrelevant. something along those lines

dont wanna know: this song on the omnichord is my ringtone. like content its for right after the intermission and its bo wanting know more about what you think of the show and asking questions to the audience but not wanting to know.

shit: a groovy song about depression

all time low: about a panic attack, is this the shortest song on the album?

welcome to the internet: about the internet and all of just the shit thats on here. possibly ties in to bo’s opinion on not thinking the internet should be free to everyone and as someone who literally never gets of the internet i have to agree. but yeah its a song about how the internet has so many different things right next to each other that anyone can access, and how so many different groups can manipulate it. such as corporations, scams, cyberbulliers, pedos, propaganda and misinformation spreaders etc etc

bezoes 2: pretty quick song, probably more ties into bo just not wanting to stop the special. this song is quite quick, lacks a lot of what other inside songs have and is just a redo of another existing song, which isnt in any other existing song on the album. so possibly its bo slowly getting sloppier with the songs just wanting to keep it going and never finish and no longer worries about things that the rest of the special had? idk

that funny feeling: thank you reddit for telling me what the funny feeling actually is and now that i know like- holy shit this song is amazing and always makes me sad. for other dumbasses like me, this song is about that feeling of we have the materials to improve the world but we just dont, through lazziness and people who dont do anything just cause it doesnt affect them. its that feeling of sitting there, knowing that you want to help save the enviroment but just 15 minutes later you know you wont do anything.

all eyes on me: i honestly dont know? i have plenty of ideas but i sure dont remember them rn and they arent that good, same thing with the ending of the special. but like god this song is an experience

goodbye: this has to be one of my top songs of this special. however i dont have many theories on it? or at least that i can think of rn

any day now: just the outro song, however i have seen some people it has a double meaning of both talking about the credits ending or the lockdown

#inside #bo burnham

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hiddendreamer67 · 4 years

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Mandy in the Multiverse

Summary: Mandy the writer witch doesn’t know what to write for her prompt, so she goes searching back through her plethora of AUs for inspiration and accidentally stumbles into a few others as well.

(Shoutout to @callboxkat, @lefaystrent and @delimeful for letting me reference their works in this!)

October prompt #23: Witchcraft.

Check out more of my writing at @hiddendreamerwriting!

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Mandy sighed, laying on her back and tossing her pen in the air to catch again. It was dull, lacking the usual shine of inspiration. It seemed she was quickly burning through her magic supply this month.

Her eyes traveled over to the portal, humming in the corner. Several portals, actually. An entire wall of infinite portals, each leading into a different dimension she had created. But what did it matter? All the portals in the world wouldn’t help the young witch find a good story idea. She needed a new portal.

Mandy paused, catching her pen one last time. Or…she could always do a sequel. And for that, a quick lil’ inspiration trip wouldn’t hurt anyone, right?

“I’ll just pop in for a second.” Mandy grinned, already grabbing her cloak and sprinting through one at random.

A bright light flashed, forcing her to cover her eyes. She blinked the spots from her vision, peering around to find… a pet shop?

“Oh, tiny mers.” Mandy hummed, walking through the aisle ways. “Not exactly original, but-”

“Can I help you, gurl?” Remy the sales clerk interrupted her musing.

“Oh, hey Remy.” Mandy gave a disinterested wave, not even looking over as she peered into the empty tanks. She sighed. “Man, this is so boring. There’s not even anything happening here. Well, except with the cats.”

“We don’t sell cats.” Remy informed her.

“I know.” Mandy adjusted her cloak. She didn’t feel like walking all the way over to Picani’s place of residence just to see the shredded remains of Logan clinging to life, that’d just be depressing. “Don’t worry about it.” Without another word she twirled on her feet, the scenery swapping once more.

“Alright, where we headed?” Mandy rubbed her hands together, looking around to try and get the lay of the land. It was a wide open field, which didn’t give her many clues- that is, until she saw how dead the grass was and the hole left behind by what must’ve been a beanstalk.

“Aww, I missed it?” Mandy groaned. She looked around, seeing nobody at the bottom of the stalk either. “Well this sucks. I can’t even tell if this is Virgil’s or Patton’s story. Why does the beanstalk have to come down, anyway? Just let it stay up and eventually consume all the water on Earth.”

That was an idea, maybe. But today was not the day for mythical eco-terrorism. Instead with a sigh Mandy twirled again, crossing her fingers. “Please something fun, please something fun-”

Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed when she opened her eyes to see generic apartment number 3. “Darn it, just a borrower story.”

There was a quiet clattering behind her. Mandy turned, seeing a very startled human Logan standing in the kitchen. “I- how- what did you say?”

“Oh dear.” Mandy winced. Logan was always the one with too many questions, no matter the universe. “Um, a borrower? Tiny person about yeigh high?” Mandy held out her hands for scale. “You might have one already in a cage. That, or they’re still in the walls. I don’t really know what stage you’re at.”

Logan’s eyes widened, turning a deadly pale. He glanced back at the living room door anxiously, leaning forwards and lowering his voice. “How much do you know about the little mouse men?”

“The mouse men?” Mandy wrinkled her nose in confusion. Since when did Logan call borrowers ‘mouse men’? That sounded more like Littles, and the only story she knew with Littles was…

Mandy gasped, smacking a hand to her cheek. “This is Kat’s story!” She excitedly whispered. The witch looked down at her own hands in awe, having not been aware she could even do that. “Oh my goodness I could see Littles. Wait should I? What if I break something? No, I shouldn’t, they’re all so depressed right now, and Kat’s Littles are always so skittish.”

“Cat? What’s this about a cat?” Logan was frantically trying to keep up with her logic, to no avail.

“Don’t worry about it.” Mandy said hastily. “Tell them I say hi. Wait don’t, forget you saw anything. Okay. I love you. Bye.”

With these parting words Mandy spun away, eager to get out before she ruined over a year’s worth of careful planning. But this opened a newfound realm of possibilities; what were her limits? How far could she go? She eagerly focused her energy away from her own stories, trying to see if she could breach the wall again.

“...oh great. Another Remy.” Mandy sighed, opening her eyes.

“Gurl you better check yourself before you shrek yourself.” Remy judged her, taking a long sip from his cup.

Mandy glanced around, taking in the house in disarray. There was a strange amount of potato chip bags and binoculars. On a notebook was a list labelled ‘Vampires?’ where Logan’s name had been written, crossed out, rewritten, repeat.

“Is this Lefay’s Welcome to the Neighborhood fic?” Mandy guessed.

“Yup.” Remy nodded. Mandy wasn’t even surprised Remy had that knowledge; he was some sort of demon of the night anyways here. Or something.

“Good.” Mandy nodded as well. “So I can’t break anything.”

“Bold of you to assume you’re worthy enough to derail this plot.” Remy raised an eyebrow. “Where you headed?”

“I dunno.” Mandy shrugged, leaning against the couch. She cringed, feeling something sticky beneath her. “I mean not that you lovable trash raccoons aren’t, er, great… but I was kinda aiming for Delimeful.”

“The tiny dragon one?” Remy asked.

Mandy nodded. “I wanna introduce Puff to my dragon Virgil. Who isn’t really a dragon, just raised by dragons, and-”

“We get it, ya’ basic. First door on your left.” Remy interrupted with a point. Mandy paused, before with a shrug opening the door that was Remy’s haphazardly thrown together portal. There was another flash of familiar light, but this time the walls appeared more hazy. Translucent, even.

“So, this is a mind palace.” Mandy let out a low whistle, because she could do that in fiction. “Weird. I don’t work in canon enough, huh?”

But that wasn’t the focus right now. Instead her attention was drawn to a scuttling in front of her, a little purple dragon caught off guard by her arrival. Mandy grinned, taking the opportunity to lunge and catch him. “Gotcha!”

Puff did not appreciate this gesture, frantically clawing and biting at Mandy and nearly causing the young witch to drop him entirely.

“Geez, stop struggling, Virgil!” Mandy huffed, readjusting her grip.

“...Virgil?”

Mandy paused, looking up to see she had an audience. Roman, Patton, and Logan were giving her looks caught between confusion and horror. The dragon in question had frozen, terrified when she said his name.

For a moment Mandy thought she ruined everything, but no recognition dawned on their faces. “Oh right, you guys are pre-accepting anxiety.” Mandy gave a small sigh of relief, the others tensing further. “Don’t worry, it’s just a, uh, nickname. Totally irrelevant. Definitely not something worth pondering or asking Anxiety about. Okay, toodles!”

But as soon as Mandy attempted to spin on her heel with Puff in tow, a searing hot pain overtook her arms. She yelped, dropping the fledgling and spinning into the other realm alone, collapsing with a grimace.

“Okay, no taking things between realms.” Mandy grit her teeth. “Good to know.”

She looked up, her eyes peering through the darkness to see a sword glinting in the meager light, pointed threateningly at her face. Strangely, she hadn’t even heard the movement. That was suspiciously terrifying.

“State your business.” The not-dragon Virgil threatened.

Mandy looked down the length of the sword. She looked back up at Virgil. “I was just trying to bring you a present.” Mandy huffed, annoyed that her plan had failed. “It was a dragon version of you. A real one.”

Well, that was not the right thing to say. Mandy yelped, rolling out of the way as the sword came slashing down, clanking loudly against the rock wall.

“Lovely seeing you as always!” Mandy waved, turning on her heel to the sound of cursing behind her.

The witch gave a sigh of relief, trying to focus her mind again after getting so jittered. It was difficult whenever her creations got away from her, especially when she was at the wrong end of the sword. The Lord only knew how many times her giants got out of hand, putting Mandy in all sorts of compromising situations.

“Think Mandy.” Mandy told herself, continuing to spin as she began to get dizzy, multiple universes passing by and only offering her glimpses: cages, a butterfly wall, the ocean…. And of course the accompanying cast, but that was a bit harder to decipher considering they all shared the same fate. “If you could go anywhere, do anything, focus on that. Where would you go? What would you do?”

Her focus was shattered as in her dizzy state she took a single step back, breaking the spell and immediately tripping over something alive.

“Mrow!” The white cat hissed, scrambling fearfully up and away from Mandy and into Patton’s lap.

“Oh dear!” Patton gasped, bending down to check on her. “Are you alright?” She took in his light blue robes, recognizing a fellow magic user.

“Yes, I’m fine.” Mandy took his hand, standing up. She looked down at the bristling cat, glaring up at her haughtily. Mandy winced, slowly recognizing this to be her witch AU. “Sorry about your tail, Roman. Also sorry about your allergies, Patton.”

Patton gave her a bewildered look, not so subtly wiping at his nose. The cat hair was clearly getting to him again. “What? It’s just this spring air. Hardly your fault.”

“Right.” Mandy didn’t bother to explain that she was the one who gave him allergies in the first place. She sighed, wishing she could at least cuddle up Roman with his fluffy coat, but Roman looked to be in no mood to accept her apology. “Aristocat.” She muttered. “Are Logan and Virgil around?”

“No, I believe they went out to collect potion ingredients.” Patton explained.

“Ugh why didn’t I just do that?” Mandy smacked herself in the forehead. “I could have just written something about you four doing potion stuff for witchcraft. This is so needlessly complicated.”

“...sorry?” Patton didn’t know how to respond.

“Whatever, I’m getting out of here.” Mandy glanced at the pair one last time. “I suggest inventing magic benadryl. Or getting regular benadryl. I have no idea what time period this actually is because you refuse to go outside.”

With this mystic advice Mandy disappeared, forever on the hunt for that elusive inspiration.

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per-ineptia-ad-astra · 5 years

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Star Trek Gold Key #30: Death Of A Star

Our story begins with an old woman doing something mysterious, which on its own wouldn’t be terribly foreboding, but of course, we can’t possibly start a Gold Key comic with anything less than imminent danger lest the readers feel they haven’t gotten their money’s worth, so she’s also about to explode. Or so Kirk tells us, anyway. How he came to this conclusion I’m not sure.

[ID: A comic splash page titled STAR TREK: DEATH OF A STAR PART 1. A narration box at the top reads, “Trapped on a veritable keg of cosmic dynamite, Captain Kirk and the Star Trek crew become an unwilling captive audience to the most shattering spectacle in all the galaxy: a star going nova! But the natural cataclysm takes on tragic overtones when a mysterious old woman’s life is mystically linked to...a strange cosmic force!” In the foreground Kirk and Chapel are holding their arms out, facing away from the camera and looking toward Spock and an old woman wearing orange and yellow robes, who is touching Spock’s forehead; swirls of red and yellow are spiraling away from the old woman. Chapel is saying, “Captain! What is happening to her?” Kirk is saying, “I’m not sure, Nurse, but I think she is going to explode!”]

Kudos to the narration box up there for its use of the excellent term “a veritable keg of cosmic dynamite” although “But the natural cataclysm takes on tragic overtones when a mysterious old woman’s life is mystically linked to a strange cosmic force!” sounds like a sentence that someone started out saying without knowing quite how it was going to end.

So, what’s the Enterprise crew done now that’s somehow resulted in an old woman spontaneously combusting? It begins, as usual, with a captain’s log. “Our mission,” Kirk tells us, “is to study and record, from a safe distance, the final death throe of the star Isis. According to our calculations, this gem of space has only 48 hours before it explodes, destroying everything for billions upon billions of cubic miles. Fortunately, its solar system is uninhabited!”

So a star is due to go supernova and they’re going to park somewhere at a safe distance and watch the fireworks. Cool. How close is a safe distance? At least billions upon billions of cubic miles away, apparently, since, sure, we definitely measure astronomical distances in cubic miles. I sure don’t know how far back you have to stand from a supernova to avoid getting turned into a cloud of nicely toasted atoms, but apparently the material being ejected from the star can travel at speeds up to 10% lightspeed, or about thirty thousand kilometers per second. Exactly how fast the various warp factors are is all over the place, but we know warp one is lightspeed. So the Enterprise can outrun a supernova, if it gets going in time. Let’s give a generous safety estimate and say it takes a minute to go to warp. At thirty thousand kilometers a second, in the space of that minute the ejecta, or in scientific terms, the Big Hot Cloud of Death, could travel about 1,800,000 kilometers, so theoretically they’ll be safe if they hang farther back than that. For comparison, one Astronomical Unit, defined as the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, is about 150 million kilometers. Astronomically speaking, they could get within spitting distance of this star and call it a safe point. I mean, they probably shouldn’t. But they could.

Anyway, while they’re hanging out waiting for the show to start, Sulu suddenly reports that he’s getting “readings of humanoid life-forms from Isis III!” Spock is dubious.

[ID: Two comic panels. In the first, Kirk is sitting in his captain’s chair saying, “What do you make of that, Mr. Spock?” Spock, standing next to him with his hands on his hips, is saying, “Highly unlikely, captain! Earlier, and much more thorough sensor scans suggest no such signs of life!” In the second panel Kirk is saying, “But you don’t deny that these readings are genuine?” and Spock replies, “Most likely a malfunction in the system, captain! The chances are 87.663125 to 1 in favor of it!”]

love Spock’s pose in the first panel there

Kirk isn’t having it. “When that ‘1’ may be a human life, I consider the odds even!” he declares, somehow jumping to the conclusion that because the life signs are humanoid they must be human, even though practically everybody in this galaxy is humanoid. Point is, he intends to check this out, so he tells Uhuru to get a fix on the sensor readings. Which is not her job, and also, not her name.

[ID: Kirk half-turning to Uhura, who is sitting at her station, and saying, “Lt. Uhuru, get me a fix on those readings!” Uhura says, “Roger!”]

THIS IS THE THIRD TIME, GUYS, COME ON IT’S JUST NOT THAT DIFFICULT

Kirk then orders Sulu to set a course for Isis III. Spock quite sensibly points out that even if the sensors are right and there are people down there, they can’t evacuate a whole planet in the forty-eight hours before the star blows. Kirk isn’t having that either.

[ID: Kirk pointing at Spock, whose ears are drawn abnormally large in profile, and saying, “We can try!” Someone off-panel is saying, “Captain?”]

“Captain, that statement is so ludicrous it made my ears stand up straight!”

So last issue, the scanners reported no life signs, so they sent a landing party down to check. This issue, the scanners are reporting life signs, which Spock says must be a malfunction, so they’re going to send a landing party down to check. I’m starting to wonder why they even bother scanning for life in the first place if they’re so determined to go down and check anyway.

Meanwhile, Uhura has a report on the upcoming planet. I’d question how she got sensor data at the communications station, but as this panel demonstrates, whoever drew this clearly never saw the actual bridge set, so perhaps it’s a bit much to expect whoever wrote it to remember what everyone’s jobs are. Or their ethnicites. Not only is Uhura white once again, they didn’t even color in her earring separately, which results in a somewhat disturbing image.

[ID: Uhura, colored with a pale Caucasian skin tone, looking out over the bridge, where Kirk is sitting in a bright pink chair, and in front of him two helm officers are sitting at a control panel. A viewscreen is visible at the end of the bridge, with several computer screens below it. Uhura is saying, “Class M planet, sir! Capable of supporting human life! Sensors indicate a massive life-force, suggesting a large population! I don’t understand how Federation probes could have missed them!” Her large hoop earring is colored the same as her skin, making it appear to be part of her ear.]

Man, gauges got kinda extreme by the twenty-third century.

Uhura goes on to report that she has a fix on the life signs, but it’s weird, because “All the life-force is emanating from one spot as if the entire population were on the head of a pin!” “Perhaps that’s why your earlier probes missed them, Spock!” Kirk comments. “They’re either midgets...or angels!” Spock then starts to give the odds against this before Kirk cuts him off. Yes. Hilarious.

Kirk tells Uhuru (sigh) to get ready to beam down with him and Spock, and to inform Chapel that she’s coming with too. “She has proven to be of invaluable assistance on past missions!” he explains, and I use the term ‘explains’ loosely.

The unorthodox landing party is soon ready to beam out, although that might prove to be difficult because apparently a terrible transporter accident has fused the bridge and the transporter room together.

[ID: Two panels. In the first, Kirk, Spock, Uhura and Chapel are standing on the transporter pad, with Sulu and Scotty looking at some screens in the foreground. Kirk is saying, “Sulu, how much of a safety factor do we have?” Sulu replies, “24 hours, sir!” In the second panel, Kirk is leaning in and saying, “Scotty, I want you to wait precisely 23 hours, 59 minutes for us and then warp out of her immediately!” Scotty, who is sitting at what looks like one of the bridge stations, says, “Aye, aye, captain!”]

WHERE ARE WE

So...unless it took them twenty-four hours to get that landing party ready, they still have forty-eight hours before the sun goes nova. I’m not sure exactly what Sulu’s ‘safety factor’ means, but I’m guessing he means the buffer of extra time they��ve allotted to make sure they can get out of there before things get really dangerous. Which means Kirk is telling Scotty to leave...one minute before they have twenty-four hours before the sun explodes?

Having left those baffling instructions in their wake, the landing party beams down, and has the perfunctory exchange of comments.

[ID: Chapel, Uhura, Spock and Kirk standing against a dull purplish-gray sky with some foliage creeping into the panel on the right. A narration box says, “Soon…” Chapel is saying, “Wow! I’ll never get used to that sensation!” Uhura says, “Nor to the sight of a new world! Amazing! That sky!” Spock says, “Atmospheric conditions are caused by pre-nova solar activity!” Kirk says, “We’re not here to sight-see!”]

Wow, that sky. Breathtaking. Incredible. I’m in awe.

After reminding everyone that they are not here to sight-see, they’re here to save a WORLD! Kirk asks Chapel where they should be going, since their landing site is mysteriously devoid of all the people they were expecting to find there. Chapel says she doesn’t know because the atmosphere is scrambling her equipment. Dang Federation technology gets scrambled the moment you take it out of the packaging.

Uhura and Spock then have a baffling exchange in which she comments that she “feel[s] like we’d been plopped down on a “Doomsday Earth” movie set!” and Spock replies “For all intents and purposes, we have, Lieutenant!” I’m not sure if Spock understands what a movie set is. Or possibly I don’t understand what a movie set is, or at least what a “Doomsday Earth” movie set is. Ultimately it’s irrelevant though, because the conversation is cut off by Spock getting attacked by a giant cloud of spray cheese.

[ID: A tall panel in which Uhura is yelling, “Look out!” and pushing Spock out of the way of a beam of yellow energy strikes down from the sky in front of him with a “PHFFAZZZ!”]

Kirk declares that “Whatever we do, we better get out of HERE, fast!” and takes off running, but Spock grabs him and pulls him in the other direction; turns out that somehow in the past five seconds or so that Kirk was occupied, the rest of the landing party found a path. Which Kirk is pretty sure wasn’t there before, but there’s no time to deliberate on that, with more spray cheese energy bolts on their tail.

[ID: Kirk, Chapel, Uhura and Spock running through some woods with bolts of energy striking all around them, making “PAHZAZ!” “PHFFFZING!” and “PAHZOWIE!” noises.]

“Don’t ask, captain! Just keep moving!” Spock says. But Kirk, of course, isn’t going to let a little thing like running for his life distract him from asking questions. “I don’t like it, Mr. Spock!” he declares as they charge through the bolts. “This path from nowhere! These bolts just missing! It’s as if someone were herding us somewhere! But where?”

Fortunately we don’t have long to wait for the answer to that question, because in the very next panel Chapel points out a rather attention-grabbing landmark up ahead.

[ID: A full page containing mostly one large panel with two smaller ones, inset at the top and bottom. In the top panel, Chapel is pointing into the distance and saying, “Perhaps there, captain!” while Uhura, behind her, says, “Goodness!” In the main panel, the landing party is looking through a tangle of trees towards a large angular pyramid-like building with two flights of steps leading up to the top and a door inset under an archway in front. A yellow triangle with an eye symbol in the middle is hovering above it. Uhura is saying, “What is it, captain?” Kirk says, “I was just going to ask Spock that!” Spock says, “It appears to be a religious temple!” In the bottom right panel, the group has gathered around the door of the building. Uhura is saying, “It reminds me of ancient temples to the sun!” Chapel is saying, “Captain! My sensor’s going crazy! There must be an army inside there!”]

alright, who summoned Bill Cipher

I appreciate that Kirk’s first reaction to seeing this thing was going to be asking Spock, who has exactly the same amount of information about it as Kirk does, what it is. Which I’m not sure is a great idea in this case, because Spock’s over there leaping to some big ol conclusions. Sure, that could be a religious temple, but it could just as easily be a tomb, a dwelling, a government building, hell it could be an artfully decorated grain silo. There’s no way to know just by looking at the outside of it! Geez, keep this guy away from archaeological sites.

Kirk declares that they’re going inside the temple, since that’s quite obviously the intended way to advance the adventure. Chapel protests that they might be walking into a trap, but Kirk says they don’t have much choice—the path they came by has disappeared again. Oh, so this is definitely a trap, then. Kirk orders them all to put their phasers on stun and aim them at the door, presumably intending to stun the door into submission. But before anyone can fire, the door opens on its own.

[ID: Two panels. In the first, the landing party is gathered around the doors, which appear to be opening on their own, while a voice from within calls, “WELCOME! BEINGS OF EARTH...AND WATER!” Chapel says, “That voice! Like a light in my head!” In the second panel, we see through the doors to where an indistinct robed figure is sitting in a tall chair surrounded by curtains, saying, “Enter the temple of the sun! Home of the sun-god incarnate! Enter crew of the Enterprise!” Someone offscreen says, “Incredible!”]

Huh.

Foregoing all thought of this being a trap, Kirk strolls on in through the door, the better to put his hand to his chest dramatically and say, “You—you know us???”

“You are not the only ones with “eyes,” captain!” the robed woman replies, in a rather disconcerting use of quotation marks. “I saw you out there...watching! You were curious about me, so I, in turn, am curious about you!”

Kirk asks if she’s aware that she and the rest of her people are in some serious danger, but she’s not fazed in the least: “I know that my time grows short! As does everyone’s and every thing’s!” “But you don’t have to die!” Kirk says. “We can save you! We can take you aboard our...boat in the sky! And take you to a safe place!” Smooth, Kirk.

The woman only says that she did not summon them there to save her. “You wished to see me die,” she says, “I give you your chance!” This thoroughly baffles everyone in the landing party, since last time they checked no one summoned them here at all. Evidently they’ve missed something.

[ID: Kirk approaches up the steps towards the woman sitting on the throne, who is draped in a yellow cloak with a red head covering. Kirk is saying, “Look, I don’t know where you got the idea we came to watch you die, but maybe the rest of your people aren’t so eager! Where are they?” The woman says, “Alas, they left but moments before you arrived!”]

Or we could just decide the old woman is the one who’s wrong, that works too.

Kirk asks where all these people left to, and the woman points off somewhere and says, “There! From whence they came!” Helpful. Kirk wonders if this means they’re all dead and buried and the woman is the last of her race, but Chapel says she’s still picking up a huge amount of life-force from around the temple, more than one person could account for. I’m still trying to figure out how the heck their sensors are quantifying ‘life-force.’ I mean life signs, I could understand life signs, I could understand detecting, say, heartbeats or respiration or a thermal signature, but apparently Chapel’s just straight up got some kind of aura reader over there.

Kirk—very dramatically—asks the woman just who she is. She tells him.

[ID: The landing party stand in a line looking at the woman, who is extending her hands upward and saying, “I am the warmth! I am the light! I am the giver! I am the protector! I am Isis, the god of the sun!” Kirk is thinking, “You’re also a warp four loony!”]

Nice, Kirk, very diplomatic thought bubble there. The use of ‘warp four’ there also implies a scale of looniness that goes up to at least seven.

Kirk asks Spock what he thinks of Isis. Spock refrains from giving any rankings of looniness, only speculating that perhaps she was left here as a sacrifice. So we’re just dismissing the god theory out of hand, huh? Ordinarily that would be considered a reasonable enough decision, but you guys have already met several beings who may not necessarily have been divine from a theological standpoint but sure had enough power to make that pretty much a moot point. I’m just saying, if I’d personally encountered folks like the Metrons, the Thasians, Trelane and his parents, etc, I’d at least take a minute to hear out anyone else who told me they were a god, just to save any nasty surprises down the line.

But instead, Kirk tells Chapel to stay with Isis—not for any particular reason that he feels like explaining—while the rest of the party goes out to look around some more. “The other inhabitants must be around here someplace,” he says as they walk outside, “and we are going to find them!”

Uhura points out that the path is still gone, but this doesn’t bother Kirk. Not because it is usually actually possible to walk through woodland without a path (sometimes unpleasant, but usually possible) but because hey, they’ve got phasers, so they can make a path. He tells the other two to set theirs to ‘heat blasts. I didn’t realize that was an option for phasers.

[ID: Spock, Kirk and Uhura firing their phasers into a copse of trees with a ‘PHFFFIZZZZZLE!’ Kirk is saying, “Fire!” Spock says, “Captain! Nothing! Our phasers don’t fire!” Uhura says, “I think….we’re being….surrounded.”]

And evidently, I was right about that.

I don’t know what Uhura thinks is surrounding them that requires such heavy use of ellipses, but Kirk yells for everyone to get back inside, then throws his phaser at a tree for good measure. But once back inside, they find Chapel passed out on the floor. Uhura, who is not a nurse or doctor, and is using no tricorder or other medical equipment, nevertheless manages to instantly identify the problem as sunstroke. Kirk is so distraught by this that his hand starts mutating.

[ID: Kirk gesturing towards Spock with one arm bent in an unnatural position to put his hand on his head, his thumb inexplicably large and also at a wrong angle. Kirk says, “What’s going on around here??? Has this world gone crazy! Beam us out of here, Spock! Now!” Spock says, “I can’t captain! Solar flares are interfering with communications to our ship!”]

you okay there buddy

“I fear we are trapped here, Captain!” Spock declares. Oh, what a surprise.

[ID: A splash page titled STAR TREK: DEATH OF A STAR: PART 2. It shows the Enterprise orbiting a planet with a bright sun in the distance. A narration box at the top reads, “Captain’s Log, supplemental: While the Enterprise orbits helplessly overhead, due to interference from the near-nova sun, we are trapped on a planet marked for doom! Our desperate search for Isis III’s mysterious inhabitants has only led us to a strange old woman! But now I have a more immediate concern than saving the lives of the inhabitants—namely, saving the lives of the crew and myself!” Below that a smaller narration box reads, “On the Enterprise...” Two speech bubbles are coming from the Enterprise, one reading, “Are you sure about these figures this time, laddie?” and the other one, “I’ve checked and double checked everything, Scotty!”]

Part two begins with Scotty harassing Sulu in an exchange so generic you could probably stick the dialogue into a good half of all TOS episodes with barely any variation. “I hope you reach the captain before it’s too late for all of us!” Scotty says, to which Sulu replies, “I’m trying but something down there is interfering!” Having established this very important bit of information about what the people back on the ship are getting up to, we immediately leave them behind again and get back to the planet.

Kirk helps Chapel up, or at least, he kneels beside her and says, “Are you feeling better, nurse?” Yes, Chapel says, she’s fine now, but she doesn’t know what happened—she just fainted. No worries, low blood sugar happens to the best of us.

But Kirk isn’t satisfied with that. “You!” he shouts at Isis. “You’re behind all this, somehow, aren’t you?!” Unconcerned as ever, Isis replies, “You have come to record my death! So be it! But on my terms!”

Rather than make any effort to engage with her to figure out what she means, Kirk declares that this whole thing is hopeless-- “trapped on a sinking ship with a lunatic!” That’s what I love about Kirk, he’s so sensitive and respectful. But Spock has had an idea. Maybe, he says, when Isis said her people were “down there” she meant it literally. Perhaps they’re underground, in some sort of shelter. Wait...you mean, it’s possible that Isis could actually have meant what she said? I dunno about that, man. I mean, what she said didn’t immediately make sense to us, so I’m pretty sure it must be total nonsense.

But there’s not much else for them to do, so Kirk has Uhuru (sigh) and Chapel stay behind to try and get “some sense out of Isis” while he and Spock go looking for some kind of passage or tunnel around this joint. It takes all of one panel before Spock locates the incredibly obvious switch on the wall that opens a secret door.

[ID: Kirk and Spock standing in a long stone corridor, facing the wall. Spock is pressing on a large panel engraved with a triangle-eye symbol, which makes a CLICK! He says, “Captain! Come quick! I believe I have found a way to our “Lost Isisians!” Between him and Kirk a door is opening in the wall with a ‘HYMMMMMMMM MMMMMM’.]

For an extremely loose definition of ‘secret’, anyway.

While Spock and Kirk are off making their Perception checks, Isis, having finally gotten rid of that annoying guy who keeps shouting at her whenever she tries to say anything, leads Uhura and Chapel out on a walk in the garden, because “There is much yet to say and little time to say it!” As they head outside, some mysterious lights appear.

[ID: Chapel and Uhura flanking Isis, each with a hand on her back, leading her down a path through some greenery. A line of sparkling orbs is snaking around the three women.]

That’s probably fine.

Meanwhile, Spock is showing off his discovery to Kirk, when suddenly...uh, actually, I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here. I guess either the switch opened up the door in the wall and then a second door in the floor underneath them, or else they both just tripped and fell through the first door.

[ID: Three panels. On the top left, Kirk and Spock are looking at the door opening into the wall. A narration box leads, “Suddenly, while Mr. Spock investigates...” Kirk says, “What is it, Mr. Spock? What have you found!” Spock says, “Very simple, Captain. This “eye” seems to operate some kind of…..” On the right, a long panel shows Kirk and Spock falling into an abyss, Spock yelling, “...TRAP DOOOOR!” while Kirk yells, “WE’RE FLOATING! SPOCK!” On the bottom left, Kirk and Spock have landed in a cave. Spock says, “Though the odds were against it, there must have been a second passageway below our feet!” Kirk says, “Odds or no odds…..”]

What do you mean, the odds were against it? Spock, I don’t know if you’ve been playing too much Oblivion lately or what, but the architectural features of most buildings are not randomly generated. People either put doors in places or they don’t, there’s not just like a 30% chance of a trapdoor spawning in any given location.

But regardless of how the passage got there, they’ve clearly happened upon something significant. Or, as Kirk puts it:

[ID: Kirk and Spock look out through the cavern at a large underground city in the distance. Kirk puts his hand on Spock’s shoulder and says, “You’ve hit the jackpot, Mr. Spock!”]

Any hopes of locating a friendly NPC and getting some exposition about this weird place are quickly dashed, though, because closer examination reveals the city to be a thoroughly abandoned ruin. As they explore, Kirk wonders once again where everyone went, and why they left Isis behind. Luckily, Spock happens to stumble upon a room that has exactly what they need.

[ID: Three panels. On the top left, Spock is beckoning Kirk into a room that contains a pile of tapes and other junk in the corner. Spock says, “Perhaps these will tell us, captain!” Kirk says, “What have you got there, Mr. Spock?” In the right panel, Spock and Kirk look towards the tapes, each with a glowing spot on their forehead. Spock says, “They appear to be history tapes, captain!” Kirk says, “I can hear them, see them inside my head!” In the bottom panel, the light on Kirk’s head projects an image of a planet in space with a sun shining in the distance and a triangle with an eye hanging above the planet. A disembodied narrator says, “At first there was only “the eye”, Isis!”]

Well that’s an unorthodox method of data storage.

The tapes go on to explain how Isis—represented here by an Eye of Providence for some reason-- created life on the planet, inasmuch as the word ‘explain’ can be used to mean ‘somehow made things even more confusing than they were to begin with.’

[ID: Four panels. On the top left, a red sun is shining above a jungle, with the pyramid floating above it all. The narrator says, “And ISIS looked down on our world and saw that there was no light!” On the top right, the pyramid floats above the planet with a stream of tiny yellow eyes falling from it onto the planet, while the narrator says, “So Isis seeded the earth with her eyes!” On the bottom left, the eyes fall onto the ground, and a fuzzy red humanoid figure emerges from the earth. “And there-in rose up a people called Isisians!” On the bottom right, the figure looks up at the sun, which now has the pyramid in it. “And when they looked up there was light! For Isis now lived among them!”]

I’m...assuming this is some kind of metaphor, but it might make just as much sense either way.

Anyway, the Isisians (try saying that one three times fast) built the temple to house Isis, who proceeded to stay there to be with her children on the planet. Everything was great for a while, but “all things must pass! Even peoples! Even suns!”

[ID: A panel showing several figures gathered around the temple as the pyramid jumps up into the sky while the narrator says “And thus it came time for Isis to return to the sky, taking with her the gifts of life and light!”]

“alright my children it’s been fun but I gotta bounce byyyeeeeee”

The narrator (do you think they got some famous Isisian VA to do this?) concludes by relating that “in the twilight of our race, we have groped blindly underground to make this our final resting place! Yet we are not bitter! We are sad! For one day Isis too must give up the eye and pass! Thus ends our story! Thus ends our race!” So, what, they recorded their entire history and just left it laying around on a tape in some random room before they all went extinct? Were they intending for someone to come find this someday as a last record of them or did they just do it for kicks?

Well, anyway, Kirk is impressed. “Am I correct in assuming, Spock, that we have heard the legend of a people long since extinct?” he asks. “25 million years extinct, Captain, if my estimate is accurate!” Spock replies. Your...your estimate? Your estimate based on what, exactly? Did you just look around the city and go “hmmm yeah this looks about 25 million years old” or what? Also, that is one hell of a sturdy record tape that’s still fully functional 25 million years later. Can I get one of those anywhere? Cause I’ve had this harddrive for like five years and it’s starting to go on me.

Back up on the ship, Sulu is being pointed at so dramatically he’s having to lean back to get out of the way.

[ID: A panel showing the Enterprise bridge, with a narration box reading “Meanwhile, on board the Enterprise...” Scotty is pointing dramatically at Sulu, saying, “Still no luck, Sulu?” Sulu, only his head visible at an awkward angle in the corner of the panel, is saying, “No sir!”]

Scotty proceeds to explain to Sulu, who presumably already knows all this, that “Ya got tah raise ‘em, laddie! When the captain beamed down we told him he had twenty-four hours! But that was a mistake! That blasted star could go at any minute according to our new figures! If we stay, the whole ship’s in danger! If we go….” That’s all in one panel, by the way—there’s barely room for his head left under the speech bubble.

Having delivered his exposition, there’s not much left for Scotty to do but tell Sulu to keep doing what he’s been doing. Meanwhile, we’re told that Spock and Kirk “returned to the surface via the transport tube.” Ah yes, the transport tube. The transport tube that was definitely clearly established before that panel. That transport tube. Oh, and Uhura tells them she no longer wishes to change Isis’s mind.

[ID: Spock, Kirk, Uhura and Chapel standing in front of some trees and bushes, while Isis stands in the right corner. Kirk is saying, “You what??” Chapel says, “We no longer wish to change her mind, captain! We respect her right to die!” Uhura says, “She has a kind of nobility, sir! A soul! I have a tremendous empathy for her!”]

What, did you not think she had a soul before?

Kirk, apparently, takes quite a hard line on the whole right to die debate, because he immediately accuses Isis of bewitching his crewmembers. “See if you can reason with Isis!” he tells Spock, having made absolutely no attempt to reason with Isis. “I give up!”

Spock says he’ll try, but “logic rarely works on humans!” He then confronts Isis on how she earlier claimed that her people left just moments ago, “Yet there have been no humans on this world for millions of years! How do you explain that?” Which is an odd thing to say, considering that the images of the Isisians we saw were quite clearly not humans, yet Spock’s first statement rules out the idea of him using ‘human’ as a catchall term for sapient lifeforms. Evidently Spock’s definition of ‘human’ is ‘everybody in the galaxy that’s not a Vulcan.’

“So you have heard the legend of Isis?” Isis says, still as unperturbed as ever. “What do you think of it?” “An interesting folk tale!” Spock replies. Evidently this was not the right answer.

[ID: Spock and Isis stand in the background, Isis with one hand on Spock’s forehead, as she says, “Your logic is a cage, Mr. Spock! Come closer and let me set you free!” Red and yellow swirls are extending out from her in all directions. In the foreground, Chapel, Uhura and Kirk are watching. Uhura says, “Captain? What’s happening to her?” Kirk, leaning away in alarm, says, “I don’t know! It looks like...yes! That’s it!”]

What? What is it? What’s happening? Is she...no, she couldn’t be...

[ID: A tall panel showing the pyramid of Isis at the top with red and yellow light/flames emanating from it as the four landing party members float in the air. Isis says, “Farewell! Kirk says, “ISIS IS EXPLO...”]

Hmm, still not sure what’s going on. Could we get that confirmed one more time, please?

[ID: A panel on the Enterprise bridge, with a narration box reading, “On the Enterprise...” Sulu is standing up from his helm panel, saying, “The planet is exploding right now, sir!” Scotty rises from his own chair and says, “Then it’s...”]

cool thanks

Before Scotty can get the bagpipes out for a funeral dirge, our brave heroes are whisked onto the bridge, remarkably unexploded. For another few seconds, at least.

[ID: Three panels. On the top right, a narration box reads “At that exact instant...” above Chapel, Uhura, Kirk and Spock appearing on the bridge in a flash of light. Scotty, in the foreground, exclaims, “Captain Kirk! Spock!! Uhura! Chapel! How??” Someone in the landing party says, “Oooo! What’s happening? Am I dreaming?” On the bottom left, Scotty throws out his hands towards Sulu, saying, “Sulu! Warp eight! Immediately!” while Sulu says, “It’s...too...” On the bottom right, Sulu yells, “...Late! Ugh!” as explosions rock the bridge with ‘OOF!’ and ‘EEEEEEEEE!’ sounds and the helm shorts out with a ‘BZZZZT!’]

well maybe we would’ve had time if Scotty hadn’t stood around shouting the names of every single person in the landing party

And then the planet explodes. Hang on, I thought it was the sun that was exploding? Man, supernovas are confusing.

Luckily for the Enterprise, it turns out supernovas are also remarkably like hurricanes.

[ID: A large panel showing the Enterprise caught in a stream of energy from the pyramid of Isis as rocks and flame explode out from it. A narration box at the top reads, “The Enterprise is buffeted like a paper airplane in a hurricane as the force of a billion atomic bombs washes over it! Yet, like a hurricane, there is a place of calm in the center of the violence and the Enterprise, as though guided by some unseen protector, rides out the storm...in “the eye” of the hurricane!”]

Or, to put things less poetically:

[ID: The Enterprise bridge filled with smoke, a narration box reading “Suddenly...” Scotty, looking up with a stunned expression, says, “It’s a miracle! We’re saved! We’re in some sort of space pocket!”]

is that like a hot pocket

Unconcerned by the smoke now filling the bridge, Scotty asks Kirk what happened down on the planet. “I’m not sure, Scotty!” Kirk says, speaking for the audience. He asks Spock what he saw when Isis touched his forehead. Spock replies that he “felt...er...admiration, captain! And I saw things...inconceivable things! And I saw that a star had taken on human form in its final hours, so that it could talk to us!”

“You mean that Isis really was Isis?” Uhura exclaims. “It does explain a lot of things, lieutenant!” Kirk says. “Like how she could use the planet’s resources against us! And how she was able to block communications!” ...does it explain those things? Can stars usually control planets? Did I miss that episode of Cosmos?

As the Enterprise flies off, Kirk wonders if this means that stars really are living beings. “From what I glimpsed, captain, they may be more “alive” than we are!” Spock replies.

[ID: The Enterprise flies away with star-filled space on its right and a blue sky with a large sun on its left. A speech bubble from the ship reads, “Mr. Spock, next time we’re in the vicinity, remind me to have a long chat with our “lucky ole sun”, will you?”]

I dunno man, it didn’t go super well when they tried it in that Doctor Who episode.

And so ends another issue, with yet another planet destroyed. There’s not gonna be many planets left by the time this series ends. At least they didn’t start any wars on this one first, although I’m sure if there had been more than one person down there they would have found a way.

#star trek #star trek gold key #recap tag #star trek gold key recaps #GK 30 Death of a Star

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astudyinsarcasm9 · 5 years

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Fantastic Retcons and Where to Find them 2: The Misdoings of Grindelwald

*Sighs* Why, just, why?

Caution, may have spoilers!

I’ll start by saying that while this is by no means an awful movie, it;s still not good.

Visually? Yes it is quite stunning. Except for the beginning where I could barely tell what the hell was going on. Did it really have to be a heavy storm?

Plotwise? It was a mess. If I were to tell someone what this moive is about I could not sum it up in a sentence. And that is bad. The plot should be simple to follow and not a tangled mess of characters and plot threads that go nowhere.

Like, take the plot point of Tina and Newt being awkward with each other. It seemed to so forced, so contrived. Just so that we can have some drama. Same with Jacob and Queenie.

They literally could have resolved the Tina and Newt drama if Newt told her the first time she saw her that he was not marrying Leta. But nooo we have to stretch it.

Characterwise? The same mess.

There were soooo many characters that shouldn’t have been there yet they were.

Nagini? Jus there so people can say ‘Hey isn’t that Voldemort’s snake?’

Nicolas Flamel? He is there so people can remember this film still has some ties with the HP cannon.

Bunty? Just there so we can be told just how popular Newt is with women. I swear she appears out of nowhere, no explanation given as to how the hell Newt decided to get help and why. She swoons over Newt a bit and then disappears as if she were not there in the first place, bearing no significance to the plot whatsoever. And that is the case with a loot of characters.

The woman helping Grindewald? totally irrelevant, he could be working alone but she’s there to be this sort of Bellatrix Lestrange only way less intetesting. Yusuf Kama? useless and added just for creating drama.

Queenie? well she was just plain stupid. We know Jacob loves her so why the hell did she need to enchant him. Just so he can agree to marry her? I swear it s like we lost about an hour of movie in between Part 1 and Part 1 of Fantastic Beasts. She then has a breakdown, I guess? because she can’t find Tina and because she lost Jacob and has a massive headache from hearing everyone s thoughts and then BAM she is picked up and taken to meet Grindelwald, after which she has a change of heart.

That creepy woman at the french Ministry of Magic was just so out of place. She existed just to have this evil grin on her face and sic her evil cats on Newt and Tina. (ok i know they’re not cats but still).

Side note: it was never explained why Queenie could not find Tina at the french Ministry of Magic. Like TIna is an auror so she should be in their records. unless she was lying? Who cares that subplot takes us nowhere.

There were so many problems in this movie that I honestly have no idea where to start.

First, why the hell is McGonagall a teacher at Hogwars during Leta and Newt’s time if we know she was born in 1935? Just how do you mess that up?

Why is casting Avada Kevadra as easy as taking candy from a kid? In the HP canon this spell is supposed to be incredibly hard to cast and it requires a lot of power from the caster, as well as for them to essentially rip a part of their soul every time they cast it. Yet here they’re casting it like it’s nothing. Even an auror goes as far as to cast it. Oh and all of this is done nonverbally even though we know that only extremely powerful wizards and witches can perform nonverbal magic. But whatever.

Why is the Mirror of Erised showing the past as opposed to showing one’s deepest desire like in the current canon? Dumbledore should not be seeing that scene with him and Grindewald making a blood pact. That’s not how the Mirror of Erised works.

How in the everloving fuck do muggles not notice the giant flying carriage at the beginning of the movie? One can assume it was enchanted to not be seen but we’re given no indication of that. And on the same note, how the hell did the muggles not question the GIANT cat like monster that was wrecking havoc on their streets? When Newt and the others come out of the sewers we see the beast doing its thing and I don t think that those scared people were wizards. They had cars, they had to be muggles. Wizards don’t have technology like that.

How, just how can Credence be a Dumbledore? Why retcon what we know about the Dumbledore family like that? Where would a forth sibling even fit in? And why did Credence have to be related to one of the major wizarding families. Credence was already interesting, what with having an obscurial, you did not need this subplot movie. I mean fine he can search for his family but in the end he could have learned that it doesn’t matter where he comes from or who he was but who he is now and that he can still be loved and all that. Tossing him around and making it seem like he is a Lestrange only to just mindfuck us at the end and say he is a Dumbledore is just awful.

Many fans are hoping Grindewald is lying and while I kinda hope too because at least we d get rid of this stupid plot point, I am afraid he is not and that it will just be a permanent thing.

What else? Ah, yes!

Well the acting was ok.

Johnny Depp as Grindewald was nothing noteworthy. The movie tried so hard to convince us he was evil that it was becoming cartoony.

Grindewald got rid of his pet. See? See how bad he is?

Grindewald had a baby killed. See? He is evil.

Grindewald killed one of his followers. He is super evil.

Grindewald killed some strangers to take their apartment and then stood outside as their bodies were being taken away in coffins just so that we can see what an evil motherfucker he is.

Goddammit movie WE GET IT he is evil.

But you see the problem is just this. We know Grindewald is an awful person, we don’t need it hammered in like we’re 5 year olds.

I am still upset over the fact that Collin Farrell could not be Grindewald. He would have been amazing at it.

I fee like, while Jonny Depp was not bad, it just felt like another one of his characters where he gets over the top make up and that s it. I would have loved if he looked more normal. I mean with Voldy it made sense he looked weird as fuck, it was his doing. What s Grindewald’s excuse?

Oh and also Zoë Kravitz can’t act. And her backstory about killing her brother was stupid. She did not want to harm him yet she took her infant brother and put him in another room WHILE THE SHIP THEY WERE ON WAS SINKING. Yeah I’m sure you meant well, dear. And another thing: she said that he was crying all the time but...they have magic. Ok, weak magic cus their caretaker was a half-elf but still. Is there no spell that can shut up a baby?

Jude Law was fantastic. Just fantastic.

Also big points for using the original actors for young Dumbledore and Grindewald. Stroke of genius there. Wish we could see more of them.

And now for the last part: the PANDERING

Oh my god the pandering.

We waste time at Hogwarts because the movie wants to pander to its audience namely the HP fans and their nostalgia. Every shot was thought up like that.

See? It’s Hogwarts. remember that?

See? It’s DADA classes. Neat right?

See? Random classroom. Pretty cool right?

See? Random flashback showing parts of Hogwarts and its grounds. Amazing isn’t it?

It didn’t feel like the story needed us to visit Hogwarts. There was no crucial plot point that demanded that. It was just pure nostalgia.

It’s ok to be nostalgic, it’s ok to be happy to see Hogwarts. I was, but that is not the point of this movie. Yet it is. In fact, that’s what they are counting on to keep selling tickets.

All in all I think it’s a movie who had no idea what it wanted to be so it just was all of it at once.

A lot of characters, a lof of plot threads, a lot of things that just do not add up.

I give it a 5 out of 10.

#harry potter #hp #fantastic beasts #the crimes of grindewald #fantastic beats 2 #fantastic beasts and where to find them 2 #dumbledore #review #spoilers #grindewald

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nanyoky · 6 years

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It has been a week and A HALF and it’s only wednesday i deserve so much food and the drama BETTER BE GOOD this week

of course chic’s not a blossom he’s a whatever-alice’s-maiden-name-is/jones we all know this please let the confrontation be messy with alice and fp PLEASE LORDS OF MELODRAMA

oh my god. as much as i prefer season 1 alice to season 2 alice, this reaction is great. so great. “who’s his dad? who knows! it’s a mystery! highschool was so long ago i don’t even remember everyone i dated! doesn’t matter! no one needs to know who i rode like a pornstar in the back of his pickup after the homecoming game senior year! and no one needs to know i still think about it all the time! especially when he’s talking all sarcastic with his rough hewn charm! It was one time and I definitely don’t have dreams about it ever, okay? IT’S IRRELEVANT BETTY”

oh no you guys i just thought of the fact that alice cooper likely knows where fp’s serpent tattoo is and i don’t and now i’m DISTRAUGHT

okay- like i love it when they remember people i love are friends, but why is kevin sitting in on this register interview?

....i don’t know who this dude is but kevin is excited so i’m excited for him

also why is hal talking like there’s an audience to this interview? i know i bitched about the bad season one dialogue but now it’s just WEIRD

oh noooo.... veronica actually kinda thought her mom let her invite a friend just to be nice and then had to come crashing down to manipulative reality

jughead’s back on his bullshit again *claps hands aggressively in his face* ACTUAL. AT. RISK. KIDS. SUPPORT. THAT. SCHOOL. BEING. SHUT. DOWN. STOP. TRYING. TO. HIJACK. THEIR. LIVES. SO. YOU. CAN. FEEL. MORALLY. SUPERIOR.

god i really want there to be a falling out between jughead and toni where she finally tells him off for acting all martyred when he has essentially been a serpent for a hot five minutes and sees it as a novelty that can excuse his selfish actions when the rest of them live the reality of needing a gang to survive poverty and violence and i want that scene to HURT a lot because we like jughead! we genuinely do! but he’s been such a prime fucking pill this season and he’s not going to learn and grow until he gets hurt a little bit as a direct result of the shit he’s been pulling

um so i was excited that ethel was back..... and then a characterization 180 for zero reason other than they needed someone to throw a milkshake????? why

okay that was dumb but josie’s reaction was great

like- i’m still waiting to figure out how veronica’s long con with her parents is going to shake out. they better give her a great season three subplot to make up for this messy crummy mob malarky

that was a SOLID punch

also YASSS let her snap- give us some indication she’s been holding back and biting her tongue this whole time and now she can’t take it anymore

lol leaning HARD into the crimson peak vibe with that “special tea.” they know what we want.

i. am. so. glad. jughead’s hunger strike is a joke to everyone.

but also lol: jughead: why are you being such a bastard, v? veronica: my parents don’t want me to do the thing but i’m going to do it anyway. jughead: you are my favorite friend and i’ve always supported you.

and he’s back into anti mode because betty is being softcore up for some beronica

and a hard cut to toni killing it for no reason other than that we all forgot the vixens were a thing- and toni is a swell dancer so we’re all glad to see it

THE POMPONS ON HER SNEAKERS??????

“inner circle vixens- you know who you are” PPPFFFTTT

“MANDATORY SLUMBER PARTY” GOD I MISSED YOU HBIC VIXEN CHERYL

“you were only at southside high for like- four days” thank you. and i know jughead is tying it all to growing up in the neighborhood but like- come on. jug. he’s right. you didn’t hang out with toni and sweetpea and fangs and joaquin growing up. you hung out with archie and betty and kevin. you should not be speaking for the former just because you shared a zipcode in the part of your life you won’t even remember as an adult. and if you miss your mom and jellybean so much like- call them?! why are they not brought up more often?!?!?!?!!?!?!?! when am i going to finally see neeve campbell claim her right by combat to divorce skeet ulrich in dramatic fashion when she finds out about his lovechild?????????? she killed him twice in the nineties SHE’S EARNED THIS

HOMO EROTIC BRAID TRAIN

what is cheryl wearing is that a dress? a slip? a nightgown? I DON’T CARE I WANT IT ON MY BODY

also HOLY SHIT DOES SHE HAVE HER “BURN IT TO THE GROUND” DRESS ON DISPLAY ON A DRESSFORM GOD LOVE THAT WOMAN

“wait- is this real or a game?” i stand by the headcanon that not only did joaquin tell the gang about “this is riveting-” but secrets and sins and the whole night so toni like- has tangential second hand knowledge of season 1 cheryl’s bullshit and is trying to reconcile that with the vulnerable but emotionally stunted hottie she’s learned to love

god i’m still FURIOUS that we will never see teen serpents all together i would kill for a flashback of them all hanging out on the night of jughead’s birthday and joaquin bursts through the door at 2am like “I JUST HAD THE WEIRDEST FUCKING NIGHT OF MY LIFE INCLUDING THAT TIME I STUFFED A BODY IN A FREEZER LET ME TELL YOU *EVERYTHING*”

also i just realized toni has primarily male friends so her confusion might be partially due to the fact she’s NEVER BEEN TO A SLEEPOVER?!?!?! she’s just sitting there like “oh shit- ‘i don’t feel safe in my home’ is this a game??? i haven’t seen this in any teen flicks how do you play??? are their pillow fights involved?????”

SHE JUST CALLED HER TT. LIKE JJ. as a messy bitch who loves questionable things in her suburban gothics: FUCK. YES.

there is.... something both HILARIOUSLY implausible, but also HILARIOUSLY realistic about this. “i invited you all here because i fear for my life in my own home.” “omg same let me tell you MY family drama.” sleepovers just be like that.

they just turn in after thiss???? okay THAT i don’t believe. sleepovers are the time for plotting convoluted and dangerous plans to solve your life problems, not vent for 30 seconds and then go to bed

THEY MADE EVERYONE ELSE SLEEP ON THE FLOOR BUT CHERONI IS BATHED IN SEXY RED MOOD LIGHTING I’M CACKLING

i’m trying to picture cheryl announcing the sleeping arrangements and i can’t stop laughing. “as the newest vixen, toni will have the privilege of a mattress. not alone of course. i AM the hostess after all. there is plenty of room.” toni: oh that’s so nice and not weird or suspicious of you cheryl i would love to bone- i mean sleep on the same bed three feet apart from you. everyone else: we’re still here stop being nasty.

cheryl and toni are meant to be because they both don’t remove their makeup before bed like some kind of goblins with naturally perfect skin no matter what hell they put it through

BLOSSOMS! BACK AT IT! THERE’S MY FAM! BRINGIN HOME THE GOLD WITH ATTEMPTED MURDER AND SOME CLAUDIUS/GERTRUDE- I MEAN PENELOPE ACTION

((i can’t tell if this episode is actually better or if i’m just in a better mood tonight. don’t care. having fun.))

molly ringwald!!!! missed you boo

.....who is that boy veronica just snubbed on his cupcake and kiss i only saw the back of his head but i know my TYPE when i see it

“right now i’m only interested in one girl, you.” ethel shifts uncomfortably because no one could resist that gay shit right there no matter how hard we may try

also tho- for the record, i’m with ethel, sexualizing your student body president campaign is tacky and archaic af

oh my god jughead you look like a freshman delivering his first speech at the regional finals

also lol they got like Other Serpents to fill in the club so that it’s not just the snakey core four

AND HE’S BACK USING THE TRIBE FOR HIS OWN NARRATIVE GODDAMMIT JUGHEAD YOU’RE MAKING IT SO HARD TO LIKE YOU RIGHT NOW

KEVIN THE FUCK IS GOING ON WITH THIS NONSENSE I THOUGHT YOU AND I AGREED YOU WORK ON JUST BEING YOU FOR AWHILE AND THEN IF JOQUIN COMES BACK THEN YOU HAVE A LOVE INTEREST?!

oh kev i can’t stay mad at you not when you can’t keep a secret to save your goddamn life. sweet bean. precious pea. too good for this world.

oh i like this. i like betty getting FEROCIOUSLY protective of kevin- even though i’m not even entirely sure chic is as dodgy as they’re trying to make us think

ahhh there she is josie- my ambitious girl.

oh my gooooooddddddddddd. serpents why are you listening to jughead- with that edit away from the scene i thought they were gunna let him have it. why do they suddenly think he’s right????? THEY HATED THAT SCHOOL! THEY WERE HAPPY TO GO TO RHS! THIS IS CANON AND IN THE DIALOGUE! I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS SEASON!

WUT THE FUCK BETTY. i kinda love it tho

oh lordy- heavy handed girl power political twisting- COMPLETE WITH SONG

i mean- i know that ethel has always been a very minor side character, but i’m still disappointed they’re using her for this plot when the last we saw of her in season one was her being very mature and understanding that veronica does not control her parents actions and now she’s the exact opposite with like- no new personal story to back this change up. you either get put on a bus at the end of season one or you stick around long enough to be handed a sloppily put together new personality that no one wants.

JOSIE?! honestly i know i keep saying it but this is so messy what even is this show anymore

((sorry i’m whining again- i really liked the sleepover bring that bit back))

that was a well done breakdown from mendes good job girl that built really nice

also was that a spark of season one hermione i saw???? please?????

“she wears it when she has sex with jughead” oh my. oh dearie me. this is. goodness.

betty you fell into one of the classic blunders- never admit anything you’re accused of until they have proof lol even chic is surprised that worked

alice needs a system reboot at the thought of jughead and betty boning for various reasons- not least of all the generational echo of her life

JUGHEAD AND FP SCENE. these are the only times this season that remind me of my love for that skinny little twerp. their interactions remain golden and heartbreaking and i love themboth to bits.

boys- wake up and smell the custody papers. jellybean aint comin back. good or bad idea. also jug- you’re sixteen? two years you’ll be out of here on a scholarship anyway- stop acting like people don’t move out of small towns anymore

OH GOD THEY’RE GENTLE SNUGGLING HLEP ME just bury me in scenes of these boys bonding over their pigheaded natures

like this annoys me that they’re couching this in archie drinking hiram’s koolaid because “i don’t think jughead’s fighting FOR anything.” is the smartest thing archie’s said all season

archie deserved that now go after jughead, molly ringwald i trust you to dress anyone and everyone down as you see fit

“i’m.... very well acquainted with how alluring the jones men are” yes.... yeeesssss..... yaassssss YASSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“woah- wait-” keep up betty we all knew this from alice and fp’s first interaction in season one

there she goes- puttin it together. “absolutely not” my lumpy ass

“don’t forget what he did.” “i will never forget” ......i’mma confess i honestly forgot about the murder that’s how fucking messy this season has been.

jesus christ this mutual blackmailing but also gaslighting between chic and betty is just nightmarishly stressful

YASS BACK ON CHERYL BEING THE TRADITIONAL GOTHIC HEROINE OF EVERY MOOR-SET PAPERBACK EVER PRINTED i missed this. i missed the trational gothic heroine trapped in an american/suburban gothic.

*sigh* i’ve spent all season holding out hope- giving varchie the benefit of the doubt that they were both playing close to the chest and pulling long cons on mama and papa lodge, but i don’t know. i think it’s just bad writing now.

yeah hiram like anyone would ever believe that the bulldogs would go to disband a protest of their peers with wire cutters completely of their own volition. NO ONE is going to think the developer who is essentially the only one with a personal stake in the demolition of the school might have twisted their arms. solid plan. no one will suspect you’re pulling the strings of these teens.

god they’re making this so dramatic but i hate this plotline and the lack of consistency with the serpents plot so it’s just laughable

omg omg- can we just forget the unfortunateness of this episode’s plot for jughead and instead get fucking PUMPED to see him try to get votes for student council i am READY FOR THIS TRAINWRECK

lol- if this was anyone but jughead i’d be laughing at him agreeing that she stay in the trailer without consulting- you know- the adult who owns the trailer and is his legal guardian, but this is fp we’re talking about he’s gunna be so stoked. he’s gunna buy like all new pillows and sheets and curtains and like a “welcome home” teddybear and stock the fridge full of healthy things he imagines people like betty eat. like smoothies. fp needs all the strawberry smoothies as jughead’s dowery to seal the deal

MORE MOLLY RINGWALD?! YAYYYY!!!

HOLY SHIT???? i mean- i was all for cheryl being the typical gothic heroine trapped away and called mad once she wised up to her shady family but this is... hmmm. wow. that’s..... a lot. nto sure how i feel about it.

#nell liveblogs #riverdale spoilers #not fully tagging cuz i got whiney again #sorry guys

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myhahnestopinion · 6 years

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The Night A CANDID SEXUALLY-LIBERATING CLOCK Came Home: AMITYVILLE 1992 - IT’S ABOUT TIME (1992)

Happy Halloween, everybody! As we reach the end of another October, we also reach the end of this second installment of The Night X Came Home. This year, to celebrate the big day, I want to introduce a film that is truly special. I think I’ve done it, guys. I hereby present my nominee for the dumbest movie title in all of film history. Yes, you can forget your Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo’s and your 2 Fast 2 Furious’s. There is no movie title more groan-worthy, more baffling, more laughably bizarre, more beautifully blunt than this one. I present to you: Amityville 1992: It’s About Time.

Amityville 1992: It’s About Time is, indeed, about time. It revolves around a family being haunted by an ancient clock. There’s something charming about how upfront this movie is about this premise. Not since 1977’s Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, another delightfully inept horror gem, has a movie title felt so compelled to just lay out its central conflict for its audience. Just imagine, if you will, the producers’ meeting surrounding the naming of this film:

“Gentlemen, it’s about time for another entry in the profitable Amityville Horror series,” says the chairman. “Now, how do we convey to our audience that this film has something new to offer compared to the prior entries?”

As the rest of the board members mumble among themselves, one fresh-faced executive sits in the back of the room, his mind overcome by a single thought. He stands up suddenly, startling the rest of the board. “Say that again,” he says to the chairman.

“Say what again?” the chairman responds, confused.

“What you just said.”

“How do we convey…”

“No! The other part!”

“Gentlemen, it’s about time for…”

“Guys, I’ve got the perfect idea,” the young executive says, as a smug smile creeps onto his face.

And so, Amityville 1992: It’s About Time was born. And yes, this was definitely a case in which the title was designed first, and the plot crafted to fit into its absolute marketing genius. Now, of course, the true genius of this title stems from the fact that it can be read in multiple ways. One can of course read it as a blunt declaration of the film’s subject matter, but it also works as an exclamation that “It’s about time!”, as in something is finally happening that should have happened a long time ago. See, it works because it’s about time… for another Amityville movie…?

Wait, no, that doesn’t work on two levels. It had only been 2 years since the franchise’s last installment, and no one was really clamoring for a fifth entry. And by throwing the year of release in the title, for unknown reasons, it actually makes it look like you’ve already made one thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-one of these Amityville movies, in which case it would most definitely not be about time for another one! To top it all off, the film doesn’t even take place in Amityville. Not a single element of this perplexing title works, outside of the embarrassingly proud declaration that this movie is, in the most general sense, about time. But even then, just barely.

The film opens on a house. No, not the iconic 112 Ocean Avenue Amityville house, with the gambrel roof and the quarter-round windows that almost look like eyes. No, we are left with that house’s stouter, blockier cousin, with two small square windows and an arched doorway. In a bewilderingly miraculous bit of incompetent production design, the attempts to make the construction of this house resemble a face, mirroring the original’s structure, is both extremely obvious and entirely unconvincing. But, hey, the “face” of this house is still more expressive than half of the actors in this crap.

Jacob Sterling, an architect, returns to this half-faced house, a package in his arms. He is greeted by his teenage children, Lisa, an agreeable teen dressed in overalls, and Rusty, whose attempt at edgy attire is as flagrant as the title of this movie. Also there is Jacob’s ex-girlfriend, Andrea, an art student who was looking after these children while he was away on a business trip. Jacob enters the house and opens the package to reveal an antique clock. “It’s what our house has been missing,” he says as he places it on the fireplace mantel. Yes, Jacob, some would say… IT’S ABOUT TIME this house had a clock on its mantelpiece! Ha ha ha ha!

Guys, these aren’t going to stop, so if you can’t handle it, better stop reading now.

Anyway, Jacob talks with Andrea about their past romantic relationship. Despite having broken up and Andrea dating another man, Jacob invites her to spend the night. “I don’t know,” she replies. “I hate having regret for breakfast.” Well, hey now, regret ain’t so bad! Just add a little sugar, pair that with your toast and orange juice, you got yourself a well-rounded breakfast! Pack up the leftovers, send it with your kids to school!

“What did your mom have for you today?”

“Oh, just regret.”

“Yeah, same. Wanna trade anyway?”

Well, turns out Andrea doesn’t mind the taste of regret after all, because she ends up sleeping with Jacob. During the night, the clock drills into the mantelpiece, firmly cementing itself. This is both an relevant and irrelevant plot point.

The next morning, Jacob goes for a run around the suburban neighborhood. While passing an undeveloped section, his watch breaks, because remember people, it’s about time. Suddenly, he spots an old woman and a dog. The dog lunges at him, tearing into his flesh with his sharp teeth and ripping his legs to shred. Cut to the hospital. The doctor comes up to Andrea and says, “He’ll be okay. He’s just suffered some discomfort.” Some discomfort? That dog completely eviscerated him! Well, I suppose that given the state of health care in this country, probably is best to downplay a dog shredding your legs apart to some mild discomfort.

So, Jacob becomes confined to house rest, and begins obsessing over his new architecture project. He starts building a model of a suburban neighborhood, with tiny model houses that resemble the Sterling home. “I’m thinking too small,” he mutters to himself when evaluating his model work. He violently pushes all the model homes off onto the floor, shouting, “It’s too small!” Yes, the suburb needs to be at least… three times bigger than this!

While Jacob works on his neighborhood, his edgy son Rusty is just too cool for school, so he skips to go… hang out with an old woman…? Huh, didn’t expect that. I guess he is kinda edgy!

Rusty tells this woman, Iris, about a weird event he experienced in the house last night. He flipped a lightswitch, and the room with the clock in it was transformed into a torture chamber from the 1800s. Both Iris and Rusty obviously conclude that there is something evil going on in the house. “It’s like that Skull Crusher song,” Rusty says, quite edgily. “Evil rules, it has it rules, and the world’s your oyster, grab her and hoist her.” Um, sure, yeah, the situation is exactly like those lyrics. There’s evil… and oysters… and hoisting…

Unfortunately, before Rusty is able to hoist his oyster, he is questioned by the police after a swastika is painting on a neighbor’s house. Amityville 1992: It’s About Hate Crimes!

Andrea begins staying at the house in order to care for Jacob as he recovers, but, while there, strange things start happening. Black sludge starts forming on the floors. Hours to some are minutes to others. Her boyfriend starts hanging out around the house, taking baths, and wearing a bathrobe about. …Okay, the strange element of that boyfriend subplot is supposed to be a scene where the boyfriend hallucinates Jacob confronting him at gunpoint, but, let’s be honest, this man wandering around his lover’s ex-boyfriend’s house all alone in his bathrobe is weirder than an evil clock hallucination. Amityville 1992: It’s About Taking Baths In A Stranger’s Home!

The most dangerous aspect of this haunted clock has yet to be revealed though! Because Andrea is now using her bedroom, wholesome daughter Lisa is sleeping in the living room with the clock. The clock ticks too loud for her to sleep, so she gets up and walks over to examine herself in the mirror. She blows her reflection a kiss, but suddenly the reflection begins to run its hands over its body in ways that Lisa never did and never would dare dream of, being the well-behaved daughter that she is! Reflection Lisa reaches its hands out, through the mirror, and begins caressing regular Lisa’s breasts, before sliding its hand down lower on her body. Amityville 1992: It’s About… well, you know. Lisa is seduced by this reflection’s power, but, come on, let’s be honest, who among us would go for a little mirror reflection action if given the chance? I mean, let’s be honest!

So, having been awaken to the wonders of the clock’s powers, Lisa becomes a full-blown sexual deviant, replacing her wholesome overalls with a short dress and suit jacket combo. Wow, this clock truly is an evil foe! Like Hello Mary Lou! Prom Night II before it, Amityville 1992: It’s About Time shows a profound understanding of the most terrifying thing that can ever exist. Say it with me now, everybody! Women… in… control… of… their… sexuality! Quickly, we must stop this clock before it gives autonomy to more of our daughters! Won’t somebody think of the children?!!

Having now seen the true extent of the powers infecting his house, Rusty returns to Iris to pinpoint the source of the evil. Recalling the details of the red torture room he saw to Iris, they are able to discover that the clock once belonged to a schoolteacher who wished to become immortal. “He had a habit of choosing the best and brightest of his students and eating them,” Iris reveals. Eating the best and brightest of the class? Now, I don’t know much about rituals to become immortal, but based on all the schoolteachers I’ve known in my life, I feel like they would be much more prone to eating the unruly troublemakers of the class instead.

While Rusty learns of the clock’s origins, Lisa is putting her newfound sexual liberation to evil use, seducing her boyfriend Andy. Following a trail of removed articles of clothing back to her garage, Andy discovers Lisa dressed only in his varsity jacket, lying in the middle of a train set. Yes, she’s seductively laying in the middle of a model trainset. “Choo, choo. All aboard,” she says in a suggestive tone. Hey, give her a break! It is her first attempt at seducing someone ever!

And, as it turns out, this horrible punny line works on Andy, who walks over to her, only to find his food stuck on some black sludge on the floor. The sludge melts his body into goo, and he goes down the drain, in what is a perfect metaphor for the quality of the Amityville franchise.

Lisa and Jacob are completely under the control of the clock’s dastardly influence, and so now it is up to Rusty and Andrea to stop them. Rusty heads up to his bedroom and finds Lisa on the floor, covered in blood. “It’s so horrible,” she stutters.

“What is?” inquires Rusty, as he picks her up off the floor.

“That your my brother,” she responds, as she licks the side of his face.

Amityville 1992: It’s About Incest!

The bedroom door slams shut behind him. “Open it!” he shouts angrily, and Lisa begins to slowly take off the varsity jacket she’s wearing. “No, I mean the door!” Rusty responds.

I don’t even have words for that moment. I’m just going to present it to you, make of it what you will.

As his sister pins him down and attempts to kiss him, Rusty grabs the plug for his electric guitar amp and jams it into Lisa’s nose, electrocuting and killing her. Sure, whatever. That’s not how electricity works, but this film isn’t about electricity, it’s about time, dagnabbit! Plus, there’s some phallic/penetration symbolism that could be gleened from this amp-plug-into-nose bit, but analyzing this movie in depth for symbolism wouldn’t really be worth my… time… Man, this film really is all about time! I’m wasting my time on it! Argh! You got me, evil clock!

While this incest thing is going on, Andrea confronts Jacob downstairs. Fully under the influence of the clock, he pins her to the wall. “This is about power!” he tells her. Wait, this is about power? I thought it was about time? Amityville 1992: It’s About Power, I Guess! Grabbing Jacob’s large architecture compass, Andrea stabs him through the legs, immobilizing him. “Time!” he shouts, while withering on the ground. “I need more time!” No, fairly certain you need new legs, dude.

So, with Lisa and Jacob taken care of, attention turns to the clock. “It’s time!” Andrea cries, as she grabs a T-square and charges at the clock! Oh, wow! How riveting! The whole movie has been building towards this conflict! How will our dashing heroes defeat this… inanimate object… Huh. Yeah, why was a clock the villain in this again? Something, something, about time…?

Yes, the climax has all of the riveting action you would expect from a battle against a clock. They can’t just throw the clock on the floor, because it has drilled itself into the mantelpiece. Told you that was a somewhat relevant plot point. So, the clock starts fighting back. It spins its hands, and turns Rusty into a baby. It spins them again, and pushes Andrea away. Andrea swings at the clock with the T-square, hitting a gas pipe instead. She then lights a match, engulfing the clock, and the screen, in flames.

We’ve travelled back in time to the beginning of the movie. Rusty is back to normal age. Jacob is well again. Lisa no longer has any independence as a woman. Everything is back the way things are supposed to be for the Sterling family! Andrea retains all her memories though. Just like in the film’s first scene, Jacob comes in with a package, and opens it to reveal the clock. Andrea instantly picks it up, and smashes it to pieces, storming out of the house. “What the hell was that all about?” Jacob asks, puzzled.

“It’s about time,” Andrea responds.

Just… slow clap, everybody. Slow clap for this movie. Slow. Clap.

This has been Amityville 1992: It’s About Time. I don’t know what more can be said about this film that wasn’t already there in the title. That’s all you need. True, the title doesn’t convey everything. Only by watching this masterpiece can one understand the dangers of unmovable clocks, of taking a bath in a stranger’s home, and of sexually liberated women. This are the things that will forever haunt my dreams now. For those not capable of stomaching the terrifying horrors that await within this movie though, do not despair! For this film has so wisely given us a title that is so candid, so beautifully blunt, that one only needs to read it to feel as though they have had a satisfying experience.

Amityville 1992: It’s About Time. It truly was about time.

And, so, it is also time for this volume to come to an end. I hope you’ve all enjoyed joining me on this strange and often painful journey into the weird world of horrible horror. Despite being exposed to far more incompetent plotting, illiterate scripting, and incest than any person should ever be exposed to, I believe it has been another successful year. Can’t say I’m not ready to take a break though, for the sake of my sanity. But, worry not, for it won’t be long before it’s time for The Night X Came Home to come back yet again.

Amityville 1992: It’s About Time is available on DVD.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, EVERYONE!!

#film #halloween #thenightxcamehome #amityville #itsabouttime #horror film #bad movies #so bad its good

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horrible-monstrosity · 7 years

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go fuck yourself in abyss part 2: the gofuckenning

I’m pretty sure there’s some parts of this i didn’t actually finish watching but hey fuck you

so the last episode opens with this whole "the things we have lost we will never get back" narration, but... nothing's been lost. Heck it barely feels like anything's happened at all. Our main fucking charcter is still in a fucking coma and this show about traversing a hellish hellpit has been doing absolutely no traversing at all for the last third of it.

I've never felt much of anything from these Nanachi flashbacks. Like, to start with, I don't really care about... Nanachi. Just... I just don't. It's something I just can't quite put my finger on... I-i-i-it's like, there's this certain type of character, right? Nanachi and Ozen are both examples. And what you see with this type of character is, the audience tends to latch on to them almost immediately because they're ~awesum~ or whatever but to my eyes they're just... terrible. They're smug assholes. Often they're in a position of power over the main characters if not outright overpowered (and that in a way that feels boring or "because the author says so"-ish, where they can just no-sell everything without either the character of the author putting any thought into it), and they use this power to be dicks and dick the main characters around while assuring us they've got some morally superior reason for being dicks and are totally in the right... and the narrative agrees with them. They roll in being all mysterious an shit but that mystery usually ends up being... poorly revealed or the like, while them revealing their mysterious mystery to the main characters is played as some gracious act of miraculous graciousness when it was some bullshit that only pertains to them and their awesum backstory and no one would need to care if we weren't having this character shoved in our faces, or it was something they had no reason to hold back besides being a smug asshole... Well, that was a fucking tangent. Anyway, people jump onto these characters as awesome and da bestest for being dicks because they do it in an incredibly petty superior way and that's... good... somehow... By the way, another good example would be the witches from Umineko. Especially those two continuity-bait pointless fucking lolis who basically ruin two perfectly good Higurashi characters just by existing. Fuck them. Fuck that sequel.

Yeah, I have no idea what the fuck I'm getting at, but you get the idea. Nanachi's not quite so bad, but quite early on we have her telling Reg she didn't save him and Riko because she could be hunted... in this smugly superior way that makes it seem like she did it to be an asshole because she can get away with it because she's a poor widdle victim and since she's right too she can't be called out on it... no, even that's not quite right. It's just this... weirdly specific type of badly-written character I feel like I've seen a lot of that everyone else seems to love. What is it? So anyway, after this offputting intro we start getting flashbacks that tell us... what exactly? Not much themselves... except that traumatic_backstory.exe excecuted, which no shit of course it did, and we're just supposed to eat it up because it's traumatic.jpeg. ... I don't know, I can't be bothered to do any deep analysis on this, but they're kinda without context. And the fact that they're not conveyed in any way to Reg (or Riko but she's dead right now so) doesn't help. We're given no real reason to care about Nanachi except she's there. Using a main character we already care about as a proxy could have helped, but Reg's busy with his own entirely unrelated flashback issues which makes Nanachi's shtick seem even more irrelevant.

Maybe they coulda contextualized it by having Rika recover faster so the group starts moving downward again, and as they approach wherever all this shit went down the locations themselves trigger Nanachi's flashbacks... which means we go backwards in time with them, revealing effect and hinting at the causes before giving the full story. Now there's a great way to use the shape of the Abyss to literally shape the narrative. And by give the full story I mean actualy tell at least some of it to Riko and Reg so it actually has some point aside from shoving more shit into the viewer's face. The existence of Bonerjew, as long as these flashbacks stay entirely in Nanachi's head, is irrelevant to the narrative... and no, the fact that they're eventually going to encounter Mr. Totally Awesome the Psychopath Mr. Bonerjew doesn't make it relevant because it doesn't change that encounter for anyone besides Nanachi. Unless she tells them later when they get closer, but then that's repeating the same shit twice and why the fuck would you do that unless you're a hack fucking writer? ... Actually, that might be interesting, just have Nanachi's backstory stand alone as another "story of the Abyss", an example of the sort of fucked up shit that goes on in the abyss, not just the monsters and the reality-bending and the bleeding out your asshole but the human "monsters" as well... but not necessarily anything the heroes will encounter themselves. You know, lore, and worldbuilding, and narrative filligree and stuff. Which is actually something the series is sorely lacking in for such a deep... abyss it has. All we seem to have is legends of the white whistles and how ~awesume~ they are. No stories about how "I hear there's this little corner of the 18th layer where the Curse is extra special and turns your eyeballs into insects, but maybe the raider who reported that just hallucinated it" or "I heard this kid snuck out to the first layer at night this one time and some really freaky shit happened" or "I heard these raiders came back from the third layer with this really mindblowing story but the government is covering it up, because if the people knew they'd go absolutely mental". No Riko going "this is the such-and-such part of the fourth layer with these things; if you go south from here you'll find the other place where things are a little bit different and if you go a bit north-left things'll get really weird! Ooh, let's go there!" "Riko we really should be focusing on going down...". The world is actually pretty hollow; everything we learn about is presented directly to our main characters or at least directly to the audience (Nanachi flashbacks). Another thing it's missing out on is theorizing. Just as an example: the absolute masterpiece that is Higurashi, in the course of its various arcs, went through multiple suggestions as to what was behind Hinamizawa syndrome, the disappearances on the night of the festival, etc, all of which were spun off of the facts and details resulting from what was *really* behind everything, which I'm not going to detail here because spoilers and also because I've forgotten most of it. And this is even with the time loop thing that means the characters effectively keep having memories wiped. BUT ANYWAY, once again Abyss has none of this. There's very little thought from the characters as to where the Abyss came from, why it works the way it does, aside from some vague "WoW the abyss so weird man". No one wonders much about it, just rushes in so everything in it can be presented to the audience. Nanachi's "true nature of the curse!!" is just more facts so everyone can see how cool the author is for thinking of things- not a theory that accounts for the observable facts but can't be outright confirmed, that Nanachi thought about while living in the Abyss, nothing interesting like that, just facts because she can see things Reg (and the audience) can't. And yet it's presented like it's some real interesting thing... and also like it's some useful fact, but there's no use to be made of it. It doesn't even hint at where the curse came from. Imagine the impact if, like... Nanachi dragged Reg out to wherever it was promising some real good info, and started with the cloth thing; Reg is interested but a bit disappointed because he was expecting something he could actually make use of outside of some ridiculously specific scenario, and Nanachi is kind of just being smug that she can see things they can't... But then, Nanachi pulls Reg in close (still under the veil of the cloth, for some kind of atmosphere) and begins to whisper conspiratorially about all the unsettling theories going around about where the Curse came from. Things she heard of from other raiders and things she thought of herself- dark secrets, implications of some massive conspiracy towering far over all their heads or of a cruel, uncaring *thing* that defies all their pitiful human logic... Wouldn't that be super engaging and intruiging?

Speaking of which, one of the bigger fan theories seems to be that the Abyss was deliberately created for, or at least somehow designed around, fucking with humans. Which makes a lot of sense, and could be a really cool mindblowing reveal with some deep lore behind it if it's handled right... But, I don't think that's happening. There's shit in the Abyss like the help-cry-mimicking bird, which maybe makes no sense as a natural adaptation for an environment where there's very few humans just passing through- unless it does make sense because that one other sort of bird in that area was a talky social animal. There's the Curse, which of course is the most evil killy thing ever, which seems to only affect human beings... maybe. I honestly can't remember if it was ever confirmed it didn't also affect the Abyss animals or "hollow" humans like Mitty and Nana. But here's the question, does any of this seem like in-story logic, or is it just lazy author suffering-causing logic? It's... hard to tell. Once again the fact that the characters don't seem to think much about the world they live in just does not help anything. Just one scene of someone musing the horrifying implications of the Curse only affecting humans and how it defies all logic would at least cement this setup as deliberate. Honestly I'm just expecting if this reveal ever gets made it'll just be a copout for the complete lack of logic and thought put into everything. Oh, it made no sense and everything warped to facilitate the plot and maximize cheap character suffering because sOmEoNe mAdE iT tHaT wAy!!! Probably for overly complicated and precise reasons because it still makes no sense for someone to do any of this deliberately! Meh. And if it's not a fucking conspiracy and it's just a really lovecraftian natural ecosystem, you'd think there'd be talk of how the creatures in the Abyss have adapted to the Curse, and investigations into how to make humans resist the Curse like the animals do, like how we can extract medicine from some critters. But there's... not. Heck, no one even seems to try and beat the Curse. Even if they failed trying to extract Cure-repelling substances from Abyss creatures, tell us that; it would help to futher establish the Abyss as some crazy enigma. But no, they just... accept it.

Anyway, where the fuck was I? Mitty, right. Mitty has some real big tiddy for a fuckin 12-year old. There, I'm done wow guise guess what mitty was genki and kawaii and SOUPER NICE AND SYMPATHETIC what a fucking shocker wow i feel so fucking bad that she dead now wow who could have predicted w o w

"those chambers are capable of forcing the curse all to one side" BITCH HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS SHIT MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE ON ANY FUCKING LEVEL WITH WHAT WE'VE BEEN TOLD ABOUT HOW THE CURSE WORKS? HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS WORK? WHAT THE FUCK??? also how the fuck does this turn nanachi into a fucking rabbit what the fuck does that have to do with anything Yeah, this flashback just piles absolutely everything into the compressed amount of time we see of it. Nothing at all happened afterwards like it naturally would, I guess, only now. Like, Mitty conveniently said "KILL ME KILL ME" immediately as the Curse set in, because without any reason to understand what was happening to her she immediately assessed the entire situation and came to the conclusion that death was her only option. And this was while her brain was melting. She couldn't have, say, used the last shreds of her humanity to ask Nanachi to kill her after they escaped, had to happen right now. Yeah, okay. And then, and fucking then, we had to throwing in the Curse making her unkillable... BECAUSE NANACHI NOT BEING EMOTIONALLY CAPABLE OF KILLING HER BEST AND ONLY FRIEND JUST WASN'T FUCKIN ENOUGH... Actually, no, she was perfectly fine trying to kill her mutated friend, because she's just a fucking sociopath I guess. But you gotta just shove that in there, just for that extra EDGE. This could really have been an emotional story, if it weren't for all the people not acting like actual people and unnecessary bullshit. ... Actually, why the fuck was Bonerjew calling kids down one by one if the elevator requires two subjects? Did he just decide to start trying two humans at the exact same time as Nanachi came in? Hmm'st've.

I also don't understand the bit with Mitty's eye. Nana namedrops some artifact (I think it's even the exact same compass Riko dropped down the abyss in one of the earlier episodes, because tht's not just monumentally unlikely or anything) and says it vaporised Mitty's eye because it... just happened to fall exactly on Mitty's eyeball... I guess... But then you see, either the artifact immediately fell down out of reach despite Nanachi getting a good enough look at it to know exactly, precicely what it was... or Nanachi had it but instead of just gluing it to Mitty and waiting a while she just threw it out. Good, good

lol and then right before reg blasts her naanshi suddenly changes her mind and then unchanges her mind back again lololololdramalololololololo This seriously doesn't feel like it should be the last episode. It's the conclusion to a massive detour focused on a side character. and then nanachi tells riko and reg to have 12-year-old robot bath sex show's over the end

... naw just kidding i have more complaints. The level of EDGE in the shroom-removing scene was completely unnecessary. There's no ffucking danger at this point but it just has to be made out to be this big old OH WOW LOOK AT HER EYEBALLS ROLLING ABOUT IN HER HEAD GUISE IT'S SO GRUESOME. This is basicaly just fantastic bandage-pulling. This could even have been a comedic scene but it's just... this.

Oh hey, they never explained the birthday death fever thing or did any fucking thing at all with that doctor girl lady they very pointedly introduced a few episodes ago HOW FUCKING SHOCKING "i would very much like to see you again (pls gibes second season funds)" and then there's this random comedic like looney-toons scene in the somber solemn serious credits montage where a blorbdgleue bird gets randomly stuck in a hole in the cliff with whackey-quackey pupil dilation because fuck you i guess the end fuck this show

#anime bitching

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