#the last seven days of laura palmer

[holyghostbelle]

all those vile things

dannyjohnson!ghostface x reader blessed with quick wit and and a long list of medication your beginning to think being obsessed with a stalker couldn't be more healthier

09’

You lie back and smoke a cigarette, a bottle of jack in your hand spilling on the oversized band t-shirt you wore fished out from a thrift store from some tour you never got tickets for. Your eyes are glued to the tv, yet half interested in the House of a 1000 corpses movie rented out from blockbuster 2 months ago, There's ash on your notepad, not that you had taken any notes yourself, you take to sipping and gulping down any intoxicating beverage you can get your hands on these days, you're on the edge from the local killer.

(kind of, but not really you hope he stabs you with his knife and then licks it up, it's more of an excuse to get intoxicated and then pass out to an episode of dateline)

You rip open a pack of m&ms with your teeth and that guy from the office dies, his body is turned into a fish and you laugh maniacally as the dumb girls run into a room with another killer, and then Otis has corpse paint on and as much as his sideburns disgust you but you can't help feeling attracted to the guy, you feel sick at the thought of being oddly aroused but it's okay because its not real! and it's not like you fantasising about ted bundy or anything, but you did stalk the true crime tag on tumblr and find a bunch of fan edits with flower crowns.   You fall asleep on the sofa and then wake up at 3 in the morning. Moving to the comfort of your bed which is only 5 feet away from the small second hand cracked leather sofa, you toss and turn until you're stuck on your back, hands unable to grip the sheets as you watch black oozing from the ceiling, you imagine its sentient and can peer into your brain and witness how sick you truly are, and then you wake up and it's 8am, you go to college  in the clothes from last night, your laces are undone and you trip over them on the street while inhaling a cigarette and drinking a monster energy drink, it spills onto denim and leaves a small sticky wet patch.  

You fell asleep in your film studies class, seven different people had all chosen ‘twin peaks:fire walk with me’ to write an essay on. You laugh as they speak nonsensically about Laura Palmer and how the movie was more about discovering who she was than how she was murdered, it's all the same recycled garbage you said a year ago, back when your professor was that feminist guy. You picture Dale Cooper in a red room, you remember when the constant jokes from the simpsons, you think about Laura Palmer's cold blue body on the beach wrapped in plastic and then how david lynch left the show and it all became fucked up. Someone drones on about American psycho and how the murders were in his head. 

You leave class, smoke a cigarette outside in the parking lot and lean against your beat up car. Your cracked ipod nano plays Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith simultaneously and then some 80s song you used to be so obsessed with and it reminds you of how your ex drove you home after you broke up with him, how his hand gripped yours and you didn't hold it back. You don't sob like usual. You don't think about how he was so angry he held your neck without squeezing, just to look you in the eyes and call you a bitch. 

You fidget with your dungarees and then drive to work. Leaning against the counter as you watch kids flick through comics and then flick though vinyls laughing at covers with girls with their huge tits out, and then looking at the r-rated movies with eyes and needles. Then leaving a mess and stepping out of the shop without buying anything. You steal a pack of gum from the display in front of you and change the cassette to the b side, you repeat this till it's 8pm and dark outside.

Then it's time to close up the shop, shutting the blinds, switching off all the lights, you close and lock the front door with the keys, and shove them deep into your pocket. It's a cold and icy night. You pull the vintage motorcycle jacket you stole from your ex around your shoulders and light a cigarette. Walking around the side of the shop deep into the alleyway to get your car from the employee car park behind all the shops, you stop in your tracks. Gravel kicking against the wall.

Theres a whine and a moan and you almost think someones fucking until you notice the trail of blood that leads exactly to the body in the corner, who ever it is put up a fight. There's a man clambering over him, a camera swinging to the side of his body as you watch him cut deep into his chest,his guts spill intestines falling out into the concrete like confetti, you hear it slap to the floor. You feel sick. 

The body looks at you  pleading and begging with its eyes and he moans, your eyes widen and the man with the camera looks directly at you, his masked face cocking to the side in curiosity, you shake and look over to your car which is and i say this lightly, funnily enough right next to the killer and his victim. Blood coating the exterior. Bloody streaks over the silver paint, you almost feel bad for yourself knowing how much it's gonna cost to clean the blood off your car. It's selfish really. Consider there a man choking on his own blood right in front of you.

You think about backing away and running…but you stand frozen and watch the man bleed out, his blood pouring out like an afterthought. White masked man snaps a photo, and then another he slashes at the victim's throat, the life drains quickly out of his eyes and you watch him take one last ragged breath as his eyes tell you to run as fast as you can. 

Then he turns his black eyes and gaping jaw keeping you in place, his leather gloved hand shushes at you as he approaches like a predator to his prey.

 You.

Your heart thumps against your chest. He pushes you to the brick wall, you whine at how harsh you hit it. He takes the cigarette out of your hand leather brushing against your coldfinger tips and presses it to your mouth. 

‘Go on, smoke it’ His voice is gravely and deep.

You puff on the cancerous stick, you picture him smiling under the mask. He stares at you through mesh eyes. Your hands are scratching at the brick wall behind you. 

How many minutes do you have left? Will he leave you to bleed, or watch?

Suddenly there's a knife against your throat. It's cold and unforgiving and you've forgotten how to breathe. It brushes to just under your chin and then it's tracing against your cheek, you whimper as it catches, a bead of blood rolling down, he catches it with his thumb and smears it on your lips, cigarette falling to the floor, smoke exhaling as your eyes tear up. Your eyebrows furrow, eyes closing ready to meet your demise, cunt throbbing, as you feel the air against your neck, you wait for it to plunge your hands tight around your coat.

“Are you going to kill me?” you whimper, the knife trails deeper, to your sternum and you feel hot breath on your neck, there's a sniff and the zipper of your jacket catches and it pulled down, you don't dare look waiting in anticipation, you feel you him unbuckle your dungarees the denim falling to your crutch and then your t-shirt lifts up there's a pause, cold against your skin, cold air and then the steel slices into you with ease, you feel yourself lean over and his hand pushes your head back into the wall until your upright. It tears through quickly soiling your clothes with red sticky blood.

 “If you're going to kill me, do it already” you whimper at him. His touch leaves you and you await for his hard hand to push the steel metal into you. It never comes.

Your eyes open slowly and he's gone, you stand for a minute and peek your eyes round the corner to stare at the body. Hand clutching at the wound he gave you, spanning four inches. Blood coating your hand.

You call the police obviously, you're questioned all night after you're all stitched up. you tell them about him approaching you, but not how he pressed his thumb to your lips and your cunt throbbed, you pretend it never happened. You pretend that you pushed him off and got scared, sparing you. 

They let you go at 12pm, an officer drives you back to your apartment, your crappy silver car is marked as a crime scene. You call up Adam and tell him you're not going to be in the next day due to the whole ‘stabbing incident’ he wishes you well.

You take two sleeping pills and drink the rest of the whiskey from the other night, you throw up at the thought of the body in front of you. The pills come up half dissolved with it. You fall asleep to a rerun of Criminal Minds and dream of Spencer Reid finding you tied up in the basement somewhere, 

He kisses you gently and combs back his horribly long parted greasy hair with his hand. He starts to recite a chapter of wuthering heights “'Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but yours! How can I?”,  it turns to pure gibberish in your mind and you sigh at him as he takes your soft cheeks in his hands tenderly  lips tracing your neck in soft kisses and then he rips out your throat with his teeth, you bleed out all over the basement floor as he kisses your neck and revels with enjoyment in your blood. White pressed shirt soaked in maroon.

Your eyes open and you're stuck to your sofa, your tv flickers over and over, and the masked man appears within the metal box, the tv screen flickers in fuzzy blacks and whites. He's covered in blood and it's blackened with age.cavernous eyes and unhinged jaw. He taps against the screen and waves the knife in his hand. You pant against your leather sofa bare arms suck to the couch with sweat, itchy hot. His hand reaches outwards to pull himself out and then he's on top of you, his knife slicing through the flesh on your bare legs and chest as you're forced to endure it in your frozen state. You close your eyes as his arms lift to plunge the knife in deep, when they open the street lights flicker off through the window. mesh curtains drifting in the wind. 

You awake again a blanket thrown over your body haphazardly, your phone tells you it's 6 in the morning. You smoke a cigarette on your fire exit and watch the sunrise, you remember to not take sleeping pills with alcohol.

You look in the mirror and pick at the scab on your cheek, it drools with blood and you push it into your lips again, imagining it's his hand, you don't scold yourself this time, you tell yourself you'll never see him again. Then you lift your shirt and stare at the gash he left you, blood still smeared around the edges of the huge plaster they gave you at the hospital. You brush your teeth and spit out blood and teeth. When you blink all you see is the foamy toothpaste down the sink, you think you're going mad, its stress you tell yourself it's nothing to worry about. You open your wardrobe and black slime oozes out of it.

Your mom phones you at 8 before class, you tell her you're fine (your not)that you've been going to therapy(you haven't) that you've stopped drinking(likely chance)that that article she read on her phone was correct and you did see that killer that's been going round but your safe you promise( this is true, but your not safe, not even from yourself)

You head to college again and ignore the rumours going around about how you got stabbed by the killer, people ask about the scratch on your face and you tell them it was your cat that you don't own.

You go back home and cry at a video of a rat dancing in the rain, you scratch at the cut on your face until it bleeds again with your hand in between your thighs, stomach aching as you crumble into a shit position,you think about that night until you come over and over in your bed, sheets sticking to your body with sweat. You take a shower and close your eyes under the burning hot water, you catch your knee while using a cheap men’s razor shaving and watch the blood run into the water like psycho, you watch a western movie on tv, James dean rides a horse with a cigarette hanging out his mouth as he smirks in black and white. 

You don't take a sleeping pill that night and stare into the popcorn ceiling until you witness cosmic horror beyond your own belief, you face stares back at you and then its eyes are torn from its head, you watch a body be exsanguinated and then flayed and sewn back together again and blood is pumped back into your body, you see that boys body as a car drives past, the way the blood trailed down his neck like a red scarf.

You fall asleep to sirens and screams.

It is Florida after all

#ghostface #danny johnson x reader #jed olsen #dbd #did fic #ghostface x reader #slasher + you #slasher x reader #jed olson x reader

[haukifangirl]

save meeeee twin peaks stuff from old finnish newspapers!!??!!!!!

translations bc i want to

1. Laura Palmer's last seven days. In a town like Twin Peaks no one is innocent.

2. Laura Palmer is played by Sheryl Lee, who was Laura's cousin in the tv-show

3. Atmospheric music from the omg I have no idea how this translates, it's like it has been talked about a lot and has made an impact? tv-show. including...

#twin peaks #90s #laura palmer #fire walk with me #newspaper #im going down the old magazines and newspapers rabbit hole.. #god bless the helsingin sanomat archives

[inactive-339944]

the last seven days of laura palmer

twin peaks: fire walk with me, dir. david lynch / "helter skelter", siouxie and the banshees

#twin peaks mutuals pleaaaaseee come here<3 #twin peaks #fire walk with me #laura palmer #siouxie and the banshees #📺 #flashing #📼

[fangwhoria]

fangorias caption for their fwwm anniversary post is haunting me and will for the next week. everyone remember that these are the last seven days of laura palmers life

#from the mouth of jane

[inthedarktrees]

Sheryl Lee | Japanese press photo for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

#twin peaks #laura palmer #sheryl lee #fire walk with me #twin peaks fire walk with me #twin peaks: fire walk with me #david lynch #the last seven days of laura palmer #promotional photo #typography #graphic design #twin peaks ads #movie poster #film poster #poster art #twinpeaks

[sadcatgore]

#twin peaks #laura palmer #poster #the last seven days of laura palmer #david lynch #lynch #kyle maclachlan

[fadinghours]

Ya know, Fire Walk with Me apparently being super popular in Japan explains a lot of anime.

#was actually released under the name The Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer

[libbygilbs]

LIBBY GILBERT ( ELLE FANNING ) is an EIGHTEEN year old from BOSTON, MA. SHE is known around the island as THE WILD CHILD because she is CHARISMATIC and INDEPENDENT but can also be RECKLESS and SELF ABSORBED. SHE reminds of makeup that’s the slightest bit smudged, smoking on a fire escape during a party in the middle of the winter , the way that doing something bad can feel so good.

BASIC INFORMATION

NAME: Elizabeth (Libby) Stella Gilbert

NICKNAMES: Lib(s)

BIRTHDAY: October 15, 2002

AGE: 18

HOMETOWN: Boston, Massachusetts

BIRTHPLACE: New York City, New York

RELIGION: Non-Practicing Christian (Presbyterian)

ETHNICITY: White

NATIONALITY: American

EDUCATION: High School Senior

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: Single

SOCIAL CLASS: Upper Middle Class (closer to Upper Class rather than Middle Class though)

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

HEIGHT: 5’9

EYES: Blue

HAIR: Blonde

BUILD: Slim

DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Small scar on elbow

NOTABLE FEATURES: Rosy cheeks,

PHYSICAL DISABILITIES: Cut her hand / thumb after accidentally breaking a glass as a little kid and still can’t bend her thumb all the way forward

ALLERGIES: Artificial Orange Flavoring (Oddly enough it’s the only artificial flavor that she has an issue with)

PERSONALITY & BEHAVIOR

HOBBIES: Parties, Watching movies, socializing

LIKES: Nighttime in a big city, drugs, gossip, designer clothing, long painted nails

DISLIKES: Political functions, small talk, following rules, waking up early, acne

QUIRKS: Libby loves rings and has a wide selection of them in order to have a couple that could go with basically any outfit that she could put together. The only ring that she wears with every outfit and practically never takes off is a gold signet style ring with an L engraved on it. Her sisters and mother all have the same one with their respective initials so it holds much more sentimental value than any other piece of jewelry that she owns. Over the years, she has developed a habit of twisting the ring around the tip of her left hand pointer finger when feeling nervous or uncomfortable .

STRENGTHS: From the time that she was a small child, Libby was fiercely independent. When approaching a task, she often takes charge, especially when working in group settings. She also isn’t afraid to speak her mind about her feelings towards things and doesn’t let people take advantage of or walk all over her.

WEAKNESSES: Libby lives for the feeling of an adrenaline rush. She views it as being courageous and spontaneous but the problem with this is that she’s never been good at thinking before doing something. This “courage” and “spontaneity” often turn into recklessness and impulsive behavior which tends to end up putting Libby into situations that are dangerous to herself and to others. She has a pretty bad temper which causes a tendency to get into and to cause arguments.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Independent, Charismatic, Bold, Loyal, Outspoken

NEGATIVE TRAITS:  Reckless, Hotheaded, Impulsive, Hedonistic, Self-Absorbed

MENTAL DISABILITIES: Bipolar 1, ADHD

FIVE FUN FACTS

Libby’s dad is a politician and is in the midst of campaigning for mayor of Boston. So because of that, she and her family are not famous by any means but semi-well known within the city.

Much to the distain of her parents, Libby has seven piercings — three in her earlobes, two in her left ear’s cartilage and one in her right ear’s, a nose ring on her left nostril, and a belly button piercing (which her parents are not aware of.) She also has a small stick and poke tattoo of a lighting bolt on the middle finger of her left hand which she got from a guy who had she met 15 minutes prior at a Boston College frat party. It’s been a year since and she’s been telling her parents that she drew it on with a sharpie the few times that one of them has noticed.

She has a crazy good memory to the point where it borders on being photographic but only about certain things. Most of the things that stick in her mind seem to be weirdly specific facts and details as opposed to useful information.

There’s a two inch long scar in the shape of a half circle on her elbow She got it last fall when her boyfriend at the time tried to teach her how to skateboard.

She has a bad habit of deciding that she wants to learn how to do something, trying it out for a little bit and then forgetting about it. Currently she’s been trying to teach herself to play the bass.

FLIGHT ATTIRE If there’s one thing that Libby can’t stand about travel, particularly while flying, it’s the discomfort. As an attempt to prevent this as much as possible, she opted to dress comfortably rather than to look nice. This is fairly out of character for her as she usually cares a lot about the manner in which she presents herself, especially when she’s going to be meeting new people. That being said, she didn’t even want to be going on the retreat so she felt no desire to put forth any effort into a good first impression. She ended up wearing a pair of navy lululemon Hotty Hot shorts, a light blue tank top, a chunky beige cardigan that was big enough to practically function as a blanket and some rings from her vast collection and pulled her hair into a messy ponytail tied up with a white scrunchie.

PERSONAL ITEMS

A half empty bottle of Glossier You perfume which somehow didn’t shatter during the crash.

A medium large sized makeup bag that Libby filled with various small bottles of alcohol that she stole from her mother before leaving

A pill container with about 85 days worth of a 90 day supply of Lamictal

BONUSES BACKGROUND INFORMATION: These are just the answers to the prompts from the application but they provide a little more insight into who she is as a person, TW for drug use.

CHARACTER INSPO: Audrey Horne (Twin Peaks), Lux Lisbon (The Virgin Suicides), Laura Palmer (Twin Peaks), Effy Stonem (Skins), Evie Zamora (Thirteen), Madison Montgomery (American Horror Story: Coven), Kathryn Merteuil (Cruel Intentions)

PINTEREST BOARD PLAYLIST

#wilds.intro #this is like eight million years late rip #i'll probably add things onto this but! this is what we've got for now! #anyways hi hello im maggie and this is my baby #cant wait to start writing with yall!! #xoxo mwah

[mrs-evadne-cake]

“You shouldn't like things because people tell you you're supposed to.”- Movies And TV

Since we’re about to hit the Stranger Things Doldrums where it’s been a while since S3 and S4 has just started filming and if you’re anything like me you’re gonna start jonesing bad- I thought I’d make a So You Need A Hit survival kit for myself of some Stranger Things-esque media to read/watch/play during the wait and that maybe you guys might be interested too. Not all of them are gonna set the world on fire- but hopefully there’s some stuff that people haven’t seen before Expect a lot of Small Town Nostalgia, a bunch of monsters, and more plucky, dangerously unsupervised kids than you can shake a stick at.

(STRANGER THINGS-ESQUE RECS CON’T) 

It (2019 and 1990): “Set in 1989 (and 1959, respectively) in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, the story begins when a young boy named George "Georgie" Denbrough disappears after the sudden arrival of a mysterious clown named Pennywise. Georgie's older brother, Bill, is left distraught by his disappearance, and after an encounter with Pennywise, looks for the help of six other outcasts who have had similar encounters with the clown and its other forms. The seven work together to examine the behavior of this shapeshifting creature — which they dub "IT" — and see if they can rescue Bill's missing brother at the same time.” -TVTropes (Obviously)

Super 8   “A group of middle schoolers in a small Ohio town in 1979 are dedicated to making a zombie movie to enroll in an upcoming film festival... While filming a scene late at night, they happen upon a freak train crash and barely escape before the authorities show up. Shaken up by the experience, they find that they accidentally filmed something on their Super 8-mm film camera in the aftermath of the crash, and soon they're caught up in strange happenings  with a monster on the lose and a secret military operation.”- TVTropes

(You don’t get closer to ST than Super 8. If this doesn’t fill the Teenagers, Monsters and CIA shaped hole in your life nothing will.)

Monster Squad -  “The film follows the exploits of a group of genre-savvy kids who seek to stop Dracula — and a host of other infamous movie monsters — from finding a mystical amulet and bringing about The End of the World as We Know It.” -TVTropes

Midnight Special “Alton Meyer, an 8-year-old boy with supernatural abilities, has been reported missing. In reality, his father Roy, along with Roy's lifelong friend Lucas, have taken the boy from the religious compound where he previously lived and gone on the run. Meanwhile, they are being pursued by members of the religious sect and agents of the FBI and NSA, both of whom are pursuing Alton for their own ends.”-TVTropes

Beyond the Gates Two estranged brothers reunite at their missing father's video store and find a cursed VCR board game dubbed 'Beyond The Gates' that holds a connection to their father's disappearance.” -IMDB

The Hole (Joe Dante 2009) “17-year-old Dane Thompson, his 10-year-old brother Lucas, and their mother, Susan, move from Brooklyn to the quiet town of Bensenville where Dane and Lucas befriend their next door neighbor, Julie. While exploring their new home, Dane and Lucas discover a trapdoor with several locks along each side in the basement. Opening the trapdoor reveals a hole which appears to be bottomless and  leads to the darkest corridors of their fears and nightmares.” -IMDB

The Babysitter “Tells the story of a twelve-year-old boy named Cole Johnson  who is constantly bullied, but is very good friends with his babysitter Bee. One night, while his parents are away in a hotel, Cole stays up to see what Bee does after his bedtime...and things take a turn for the worse.”- TVTropes

The Lost Boys “A recently divorced mother and her two sons move to Santa Carla, CA. The older one, Michael, falls in with a gang of biker vampires; the younger, Sam, befriends a couple of seemingly insane comic store assistants. When Michael begins turning into a vampire it’s up to Sam, with the help of the Frog brothers, to save him.”- TVTropes 

(For the Billy fans out there since Jason Patric and Dacre Montgomery got the same look going.)

Twin Peaks “The plot kicks off with the discovery of a teen cadaver,  one Laura Palmer. Eccentric FBI agent Dale Cooper responds to the matter in Twin Peaks, Washington, where he's teamed with the trusty-if-skeptical Sheriff Harry S. Truman. With the arrival of the Feds, further scandals start to bubble to the surface along with this supposedly unprecedented crime. Cooper, meanwhile, finds himself visited by enigmatic visions and dreams pointing to the real culprit.” -TVTropes

Marianne : “Emma, a famous and successful French horror writer, is forced to return to her hometown after the woman who haunted her dreams fifteen years ago begins to re-appear. The work she writes is apparently a work of fiction, but how much is fact? Joined by her childhood friends she finds herself battling a creature that takes the form of her own creation.” Wiki

(This series is one of the most legitimately frightening things I’ve seen in ages and feels more like a Stephen King adaption than most ACTUAL Stephen King adaptions. Like IT it bounces back and forth between a bunch of childhood friends as kids and adults as they fight a monster- originally French but the English dub is excellent for those who don’t like subs.) No-Creature Features:

Summer of ‘84 - “In the Summer of 1984, in the sleepy suburb of Ipswitch, Oregon, teenager Davey Armstrong is a conspiracy theorist who begins to suspect that a neighbouring police officer is a serial killer. With help from three friends, Davey launches a daring investigation that soon turns dangerous.” -IMDB

The Sandlot   “Follows the summer adventures and misadventures of a group of boys and their ragtag baseball team playing on "The Sandlot," their makeshift baseball field in Los Angeles, during the summer of 1962.” -IMDB

(You’re KILLIN’ me Smalls.)

Stand By Me: Twelve-year-old Gordie  and his friends Chris Chambers ,Teddy Duchamp and Vern Tessio  journey into the woods near their home to look for the body of a boy named Ray Brower, who was struck by a train while picking berries. Through the boys' misadventures and conversations, the viewer learns about each character and their friendships.- Wiki

The Goonies: “A small group of kids living on the "Goon Docks" of Astoria, Oregon are in dire straits: the owners of a local country club have threatened their families' homes with foreclosure so they can finish building a new addition to said country club. On one of their last days in the neighborhood, one of the "Goonies", Mikey discovers a Treasure Map in his attic. The map supposedly reveals where to find the treasure of infamous pirate One-Eyed Willie —but to get it, they must outwit a trio of mobsters and survive numerous death traps designed to keep One-Eyed Willie's treasure safe from outsiders.” -TVTropes

#movies #stranger things #media similar to stranger things recs

[garadinervi]

Twin Peaks: ‘Fire Walk With Me, Teresa Banks and the Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer', Screenplay by David Lynch and Bob Engels, Lynch/Frost Prods. / New Line Cinema, Burbank, CA, [Draft, August 8] 1991

#graphic design #screenplay #script #cover #twin peaks #david lynch #bob engels #mark frost #lynch frost prods. #new line cinema #1990s

[timeagainreviews]

The Doctor with a Thousand Faces

Art by Paul Hanley

When I say the words "Fourteenth Doctor," what springs to mind? Perhaps you may say "Peter Capaldi," if you want to get super technical. Or perhaps, you may be thinking about Jodie Whittaker’s future successor. And to that point, you may already have someone in mind. Whoever he, or she, or they may be, there are key traits that you tend to expect. The Doctor may look and dress different, but they must also possess a certain "Doctoryness," about them.

Doctor Who is unique. Very few live-action shows have the ability to change their lead actor while maintaining the same character. Sure, they did it on "Bewtiched," but it never became part of the narrative. You could argue that Twin Peaks achieves this with characters like Laura Palmer returning in the form of Madeline Ferguson and Carrie Page. Or even more recently, American Gods with Media and New Media. But what about before that? What about a time before foreign Gods came to America, or certain Time Lords came to British television? What if the undying hero is part of our fabric as a species?

Within its title, Doctor Who has dared its viewers to ponder the question- "Who is this mysterious stranger?" I would venture to say the answer lies somewhere within the culture of the era. Our concept for who the Doctor is, and what they represent has changed throughout the years. As we change as a culture, our expectations of the hero change. The new gods of our pop culture mythology are still fallible, and therefore, subject to change.

It's a fairly popular fan theory that every one of the Doctors is a response to his or her predecessor. And there are even real-world moments when you can see the showrunners course-correcting a bit of bad writing. The Sixth Doctor was so loathed within the higher ranks at the BBC, that the Seventh Doctor is clearly a conscious response. Where Six was brash, Seven was quiet. While Mel was a screamer, Ace was fierce and brooding. On an even deeper level, because Doctor Who is so unique, you can also apply these course corrections narratively.

The Doctor's incarnations act more as avatars of an overarching hero of great power and intelligence. It would seem as though every regeneration is an opportunity for the Doctor, and us as an audience to ponder the identity of the Doctor. Christianity has God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all aspects of the same one God. What does each of them imply about the other? Is each Doctor informed by an overarching consciousness? Is every aspect made in its image, or is the Doctor the sum of their parts? After all, the Doctor is still alive. We are actively watching the Doctor’s lifetime, which as of yet, is still ongoing.

In the Hindu pantheon, we get gods like Vishnu and Shiva who also take up corporeal form as avatars on earth. Much like the Doctor, these avatars are usually direct responses to their predecessor. Take Vishnu, for example. Vishnu incarnates in several different eras, usually as a response to some great imbalance in the world. But often times, their personalities explore a different aspect of Vishnu overall. As the avatar Rama, he lived so lawfully that, depending on which version of the Ramayana you prefer, cost him the love of his life. In his next incarnation as Krishna, he corrects this by being more anarchic, more bohemian, and much more free-loving. On the other hand, he was also more authoritative, as compared to Rama's gentler nature.

You could compare these two characterisations to the Third and Fourth Doctors. The Third Doctor literally worked with the military while the Fourth Doctor flew in the face of the Brigadier, hanging his feet out of the Jeep like a petulant teenager. While both Doctors have the same authoritarian streak, they're usually found in opposite directions. The Third Doctor's officiousness melts away into warmth, while the Fourth Doctor's charm burns away with his fury. All the while, each of them demands we as viewers continue to ponder the nature of our terrifying friend.

We’ll spend the entirety of the show pondering that nature. Because, as I stated before, the Doctor’s life is ongoing. Much like Vishnu sustaining the universe, Shiva’s dance has not yet ended, Brahma has not yet awakened. The dance of life continues. We can live in the past or the future, but we can never escape the present. Each Doctor stares down the barrel of their own demise. Even we as an audience see each successive Doctor as temporary. Their days are numbered, and no matter how many times you change your hair, your wardrobe, your gender, we all fear the reaper. So we focus on the now, when we’re alive. We focus on our own unique challenges.

Every son of God, it would seem, has their own cross to bear. Each hero meets a greater burden that speaks to the culture of a time. As Jodie Whittaker's Doctor is yoked with the incumbrance of sexism, so too was Colin Baker yoked with censorship. Conservative backlash has often times landed Doctor Who in the hot seat. "The Trial of a Time Lord," is a story arc that directly addressed the real-world accusations of the show's violence. In "Rosa," the Doctor goes toe-to-toe with the embodiment of a nasty internet troll in the form of Krasko.  

It's funny then, to view how this response to popular culture has changed throughout the years. Ben and Polly were practically Bible thumpers compared to the real world culture of hippies that were capturing the hearts and minds of people everywhere in the '60s. In their own way, they're a couple of squares that fly in the face of what was actually "cool," at the time. Even this goes against the mercurial trickster that was the First Doctor, who bit his thumb at your fuddy-duddy schoolmaster in the form of Ian Chesterton. Doctor Who of the '80s seemed like more of a "2000 AD" comic book world, which makes sense when you consider who was Prime Minister at the time.

Not only is the Doctor's personality explored throughout these incarnations, but the symbolism surrounding the Doctor as well. The name "Doctor," itself has been explored to some depth within the show. What does being a doctor mean to the Doctor? A doctor is a person who can bring us hope. They can also bring us dreadful news. Some of us don't like seeing the doctor because death seems to follow them around. The Doctor also carries a tool as opposed to a weapon. We're given the impression that the Doctor is a person who wants to fix things. Even psychic paper is a symbol for the Doctor's anarchic streak. "Badges? Badges? We don't need no stinking badges!" Psychic paper plays to that devilish side in all of us that wants backstage access and lies on our résumé.  The symbolism of the TARDIS has also changed over the years. Modern perceptions of the police may taint the image of a police box in the same way modern perceptions of America may taint the image of Captain America. However, I would like to think that both Cap and the Doctor represent the potential of what these things could become. The Doctor is what a good cop should be.

People say Doctor Who shouldn't be political, but from a historical standpoint, that's impossible. It's always had the same character, fighting for freedom from unjust capitalism, to totalitarianism, to unimaginable callousness. The Doctor has never asked what a person's sexuality was before saving their life because the Doctor is an actual hero. The Doctor doesn't have to agree with your lifestyle to agree that life is precious. What kind of Doctor would they be if they went around allowing someone to die? That's no kind of Doctor at all. This is why Doctors sometimes need people around to kick them in the ass when they're being total kumquats.

Whether we call them assistants, or companions, or friends, the Doctor's fellow travellers remain cyphers for the audience, though some more than others. While on the other hand, it would seem as though the Doctor represents something deeper, something more conceptual. Like a doctrine passed from leader to leader. "Never cowardly, never cruel." Keeping humans around to keep the leader in check. We the viewer have this abstraction of our greater self, playing companion to the strangeness that is this existence. We love these stories because they’re our history, our world, and our trajectory. Past, present, and future. They're embedded in our religions and in our myths. So we keep the tradition of storytelling alive so that we might never forget these elements within ourselves. And to remember that no matter how bad things get, to appreciate being alive now.

Hello friends! For those of you who may be wondering, yes I have posted this article already. However, I wasn't completely happy with it, so I retooled it a bit. Sometimes you gotta do that! I've been up to rather a lot since we last talked. I went to see Andrew Cartmell speak in Leeds a few weeks ago, and that was great fun. He had so many wonderful insights into his era. We're still working on K9, but things have been a bit slow because of my pal's schedule. I've still got plans to write an Eighth Doctor article, but I decided to put it off for the time being. I'd like to go a little deeper into his audios and books now that I've finished his comics. I've also got articles planned for Doctor Who in video games, Doctor Who canon, and I might start doing profiles for villains I love.Speaking of profiles, I may also start interviewing some of my favourite Whovians. I know so many avid fans of the show with their own wonderful perspectives, that I wanted to incorporate them somehow! On the Twin Peaks front, I was thinking about sharing a series of comics I've been working on. Each comic explores a different theme in the show. I've also been toying with the idea of writing about other shows. Speaking of which, who all watched Good Omens? I loved it. What did you think?

#doctor who #vishnu #rama #krishna #bbc #tardis #Thirteenth Doctor #seventh doctor #sixth doctor #trial of a timelord #rosa #third doctor #fourth doctor

[rosalyn51]

BOOKS NEWS

All Souls Trilogy: Harry Potter for Grown-Ups?

By Peter Haldeman Jan 17, 2019

Deborah Harkness’s best-selling series — brimming with magic, time travel and witches — has spawned an avid fan base, an annual convention, and now, a splashy TV adaptation.

Photo Credit Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times

“What is the book you pick up when you’re done with Harry Potter? I’d like to think you’d pick up a big set of chunky books like All Souls, which similarly talks about real issues, but issues facing adults, not teenagers,” said Deborah Harkness.

PASADENA, Calif. — On the patio of the Langham Huntington hotel here, on a sunny afternoon tinged with smoke from the recent wildfires in the area, Deborah Harkness swirled a glass of Jules Taylor sauvignon blanc, sniffed and sipped, then pronounced the wine “zingy. Really zingy. 2017, if I had to guess.” Not an unusual appraisal from an oenophile who once wrote a blog called “Good Wine Under $20.” But then came a less expected disquisition on the quasi-scientific history of winemaking: “There’s all kinds of lore about alchemists fortifying wines and liquors, boiling them down, evaporating, ending up with something they called the spirit of wine.”

Harkness’s wine blog may have won awards from Food & Wine and Saveur, but she is better known as a historian of science and medicine at the University of Southern California — and far better known as the author of a series of novels brimming with alchemy and magic, witches and vampires. All three of the books in her All Souls trilogy — “‘Twilight’ for the intellectually restless,” as NPR described one of the volumes — as well as her most recent novel, “Time’s Convert,” have landed at the top or second spot on The New York Times Best Sellers list.

The trilogy — “A Discovery of Witches,” “Shadow of Night” and “The Book of Life” — has also spawned a fan wiki, an annual convention attended by hundreds of adults who self-identify as supernatural, and a merchandise line that extends to duvet covers. “The series has great brand recognition and some of the most loyal fans on earth,” said Laura Tisdel, Harkness’s editor at Viking. “The books feel like guilty pleasures, but there’s nothing to feel guilty about, because with Deb you’re in the hands of a real honest to god historian.”

Until recently the All Souls brand lacked one critical asset — the splashy television adaptation. But on Jan. 17, Sundance Now and Shudder air the United States premiere of an eight-part series based on “A Discovery of Witches.” (Two more seasons, corresponding to the other books, have been greenlighted.) The show, produced by Bad Wolf and Sky Productions, stars Teresa Palmer as Diana Bishop, the Yale scholar and “reluctant witch” whose discovery of an enchanted manuscript attracts the attention of an assortment of magical beings, including Matthew Clairmont — a smoldering-eyed vampire scientist with designs on Diana — played by the suitably hunky Matthew Goode.

Photo Credit Robert Viglasky/SKY Productions and Sundance Now

Until recently the All Souls brand lacked one critical asset — the splashy screen adaptation. That’s just changed, with Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer starring in the new series “A Discovery of Witches.”

“It’s a very character-driven story, which is why I’m glad it ended up with Sundance,” Harkness said. “It means we don’t have to blow up so much stuff and have so much fake blood.” As executive producer of the show, Harkness had a hand in everything from the casting to the edits. She has been busy promoting both the show and “Time’s Convert.” Harkness gives a lot of interviews in hotel rooms — which may be why her publicist stipulated that this one take place at the Langham Huntington, even though the author lives less than two miles away. In any case, Harkness, who arrived in jeans and well-worn cowboy boots, her blonde hair staticky from the Santa Ana winds, fairly radiated spontaneity and sincerity. Maybe it was the wine.

She was, for example, expansive on the subject of new projects, a topic many writers would rather submit to a tax return than discuss. All Souls groupies will be happy to hear she is now 200 pages into a book about Matthew grappling with the forces of religious radicalism in 16th-century Europe. She recently returned from a three-week cruise around New Zealand to research another book about Matthew’s nephew, the beloved soldier and mercenary Gallowglass. A deep dive into the history of witchcraft is also in the works.

Harkness is descended from a witch — or at least a woman hanged in Salem for allegedly practicing witchcraft. The supernatural seized her imagination at a young age. “I can still see ‘The Witch of Blackbird Pond’ on the shelves of the Horsham library,” she said. Horsham, a suburb of Philadelphia, is not a bad place to grow up if you’re interested in history, another early passion of hers. There were family picnics at battlefields, tours of historic houses. When she was 8, her father, the manager of a paint store, and her mother, who worked as a secretary, took Harkness and her younger brother on a trip to England — sparking a lifelong interest in Elizabethan history.

She went to college at Mount Holyoke, where she designed her own major, in Renaissance Studies. A class called “Magic, Knowledge and the Pursuit of Power in the Renaissance” was transformative: “It was like somebody had taken a can opener to my brain and peeled off the lid. The teacher opened up the class by asking, ‘How do you know what you think you know?’ I’ve never stopped asking that question.”

Harkness studied the history of magic and science in early modern Europe at Northwestern University, where she received a master’s degree. Her adviser, convinced she was a natural storyteller on the strength of a one-page writing exercise, suggested she try her hand at fiction. Instead she went on to get her doctorate at the University of California, Davis, spending a year at Oxford on a Fulbright scholarship and writing her dissertation on John Dee, the alchemist and mathematician who served as the astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I.

Photo Credit Magdalena Wosinska for The New York Times

Harkness’s trilogy has spawned a fan wiki, an annual convention attended by hundreds, and now a television adaptation.

At Northwestern she also met Karen Halttunen, a professor of American history who has been her partner since 1995: “Nothing happened for seven years, but when I started my first teaching job she was like a mentor to me and within a year it was clear to me, at least, that I was head over heels,” Harkness said. In 2004 the couple moved from Davis to Los Angeles to take jobs at U.S.C., where Halttunen is the head of the history department.

One of the things about natural storytellers is that they can tell a tale over and over and it never gets old. Like this one: In the fall of 2008 Harkness took a vacation in Puerto Vallarta, where, at the airport bookstore, she was surprised to discover racks of books featuring supernatural characters (the Twilight craze was at its peak). “I bought a notebook and began sketching out ideas,” she recalled. “I think I thought I was writing an op-ed piece about why are we today as fascinated by these creatures of myth and legend as my research subjects were in 1550.” Five or six weeks later she had 180 pages — and they contained dialogue.

The three-part narrative she had begun started with a romantic tale that became “A Discovery of Witches,” published in 2011. It was followed by “Shadow of Night” in 2012 (Diana and Matthew time travel to Elizabethan England to unlock the secrets of the ancient manuscript), and “The Book of Life” in 2014 (the quest concludes at Matthew’s ancestral home in Auvergne).

Harkness calls “Time’s Convert,” which came out in September, a “prequelly sequelly book,” spanning the life of Matthew’s son Marcus, from his days on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War to his contemporary romance with Phoebe, a warmblood turned vampire. (Vampires, remember, live forever.)

The author said that her books do not cleave to the conventions of genre fiction. Rather, she sees her writing in the vein of J.K. Rowling’s: “What is the book you pick up when you’re done with Harry Potter? I’d like to think you’d pick up a big set of chunky books like All Souls, which similarly talks about real issues, but issues facing adults, not teenagers.”

The popular novelist Jodi Picoult — herself no stranger to best-seller lists — admires the intellectual heft of Harkness’s books. “Her storytelling may hook you first,” she wrote in an email, “but you’ll learn history, literature and science in the course of reading one of her novels.”

You will also encounter weighty themes. Differentness — the differentness of a daemon with a drug problem, say — is a dominant motif. “That’s sort of what the whole series is about,” Harkness said, washing down some wasabi peas with the last of her wine. “That eternal conflict between on the one hand knowing that difference and diversity is what makes us stronger and on the other being terrified of it.”

She is not a fussy writer. Her primary work space is her home office overlooking the swimming pool in the backyard of the English cottage-like house she shares with Halttunen. But she also writes in hotels and on planes. Playlists are essential — “a lot of period music, but not exclusively, so it’ll be like a loop of 16th century and then Mumford & Sons.” She relies on “a great team of beta readers” to review early drafts.

To clear her head Harkness rides her quarter horse, Blue. A year and a half ago she bought a getaway home, set amid the conifers on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, Wash. But she hasn’t been able to spend as much time there as she would like. In addition to her teaching and writing schedules, there are the demands of running a literary franchise — the TV series, the book tours, the social media.

From the FAQs page on her website: Q: Do you believe in magic? A: Absolutely. When asked about that claim, Harkness dialed it back just a bit. “I believe there’s more in the world that’s happening than we’re able to explain,” she said. “Do I believe that you could do something on the terrace of the Langham and it would have an effect on that tree over there? I’m not sure I do, but I could see why you might believe that.”

Maybe it was the wine again, but a skeptical reporter found himself focusing on the tree in question, a tall, skinny fan palm, and concentrating on movement: swaying trunk, fluttering fronds. The tree didn’t move — but that’s beside the point.

#matthew goode #teresa palmer #a discovery of witches #all souls trilogy #deborah harkness

[robotlit]

“Who Killed Laura Palmer?”

A short story generated in AI Dungeon 2.

[PROMPT: You have discovered a conspiracy that stretches to the highest echelons of society. Your obsession has cost you friends, family, and employment, but the world needs to know the truth. You look at your conspiracy board and] realize it is time for action.

"I will take this to the top! I will expose all of these conspirators and bring them down!" you exclaim. “No, no, no…you can't do that. We need to keep things in perspective here.”

You continue to talk to yourself as if nothing is wrong. "They are just people like us, trying their best to make ends meet." You think.

A few hours pass and you finally get an answer from one of your contacts on the phone.

"Hello?"

The voice comes through loud and clear. It's the same woman who answered you when you called earlier today. She sounds happy to hear from you again. "It's me, Suzy! How may I help you?”

"It's time for action, Suzy. We need to expose all of these conspirators!"

She seems surprised by your request. "Why would we want to do that? They're not even going to believe us.”

"Then this conversation is finished."

"We don't have much time, so what exactly do you want to accomplish?"

You explain how important it is for everyone to see the truth about these conspirators. "And I have a plan."

"Well then let's go! Let's expose all of these people before they do more damage than good!"

You smile. "Yes, yes, yes. That sounds like a great idea."

You sigh heavily. This was such a waste of time. You've wasted too much time already with this stupid game you play with yourself.

Your mind goes back to the conspiracy board. There were many names there, but you couldn't remember most of them. The name that stood out to you was Laura Palmer.

Laura Palmer had been murdered several years ago after being found dead in her home.

You recall something else you'd heard once before: "Laura Palmer is a fictional character created by Stephen King to sell books."

You shake your head. "That doesn't matter. What does matter is that she's real and that someone did kill her."

You look at the person you connected to on the conspiracy board. He or she was named Bobby Briggs. He or she seemed nice enough, though he didn't seem to know anything about the case.

He looked familiar...you remembered him from somewhere...

You decide to send an email to Bobby asking if he knows anything about the murder of Laura Palmer. If he says no, you'll assume that he doesn't know anything and will move on. You click Send and wait for his reply.

You open up your computer and type in Bobby Briggs' email address into the search bar. You find nothing, so you close it down again.

Bobby Briggs replies almost immediately. "Hello? Is this Bobby Briggs?"

"Bobby... when was the first time we met?"

"Oh, yeah. About six months ago. We talked about the book I read to you last night."

"The book? Oh, right. Yeah, that's me."

"I'm glad to hear it. Well, I guess we should be meeting soon since you're still reading the book."

"Yeah, well I have other things to do now..."

"Like what?”

“You said you wanted to meet me, so why are you still doing that?"

"Because I want to see how far you can go with the book. It sounds like a good idea."

"Well, okay then. Let's meet tomorrow night at seven."

"Sounds good.”

You've got another message from Bobby Briggs. This one mentions that he wants to meet you tomorrow night at 7 PM. You wonder if you shouldn't just ignore this one, because it seems too similar to the previous ones.

You think back to the day you found out about the murder of Laura Palmer. You remember that you were really upset about it, but also felt guilty. You thought maybe Bobby had done it, but there was no way to prove it. It occurred to you that maybe Bobby did it. After all, he knew where her body was buried and could easily dig it up. The only problem is, he couldn't even do that without help from someone else. So who would that help come from?

You decide to check out where Laura Palmer's body was buried. You head over to the site and start digging around it. When you reach the bottom, you find a hole in the ground with some old rope tied to it.

You descend into the hole in the ground. You pull out a small metal box and take out a key ring from inside it. Then you put the key ring on your left hand and turn on an old lamp nearby.

After turning on the light, you notice that there is a wooden door leading into the woods behind you. There is also a trail of footprints going down towards the bottom of the hill. You follow the trails of footprints as they lead deeper into the woods. Eventually, you come across a large tree trunk with branches reaching all the way down to the ground.

The tracks continue further into the forest until they stop at a point where there is nothing but trees and dirt. You stand in front of the tree and shout at the top of your lungs: "WHO ARE YOU?! SHOW YOUR FACE RIGHT NOW! I AM NOT A MURDERER'S LITTLE GIRL AND THIS IS MY BODY!"

Suddenly, you feel like something isn't right. Something doesn't seem quite right… You don't know what it is exactly, but something feels very strange. You can still hear the sounds of the wind blowing through the leaves and grasses in the distance. It almost reminds you of when you used to play in the woods with your brother Ben.

Then, something else comes into focus for a moment. You see a figure standing by the tree. Its face looks human, but its eyes seem to be staring straight at you.

You say "Ben? Is that you?" while pointing at him. He turns his head slightly and sees you, but he doesn't answer back. It takes a second before he realizes what you're trying to tell him, so he just continues walking away from you.

You follow your brother Ben into the woods. After a few minutes, you finally get to the spot where Laura's body was found. The area is completely empty now save for several dead leaves and twigs lying all around.

Suddenly, you realize that something isn't quite right. Something doesn't seem quite right...

There is no one around anymore. No one has been here since yesterday morning.

You lie down on the ground and close your eyes. You try to remember if this really happened or not, but you can't find any reason why it would have. In fact, you start thinking that maybe it didn't happen at all. This is a dream afterall...

#ai #ai dungeon 2 #procedural generation #short fiction #twin peaks #david lynch

[inthedarktrees]

Sheryl Lee | Twin Peaks: The Last Seven Days of Laura Palmer

#sheryl lee #twin peaks #fire walk with me #twin peaks: fire walk with me #twin peaks: the last seven days of laura palmer #twin peaks cast #twin peaks ads #photography

[lynchgirl90]

#TwinPeaks Recap: Pretty Hate Machine

David Lynch just unleashed what's arguably television’s WTF-weirdest and most ambitious hour ever

By Sean T. Collins

Sometimes, after witnessing a work of art that truly challenges and moves us, it's easier to be flippant than philosophical. So let's get the flippancy out of our system right away. After all, following an hour of television like last night's episode of Twin Peaks, people are bound to have questions. "What did I just witness?", for example. Or "How did David Lynch and Mark Frost convince Showtime to put that on the air?" Or "Does Trent Reznor have any idea how cool he looks in a pair of sunglasses?"

With the exception of the last bit, which is highly relevant to the future of, per the credits, "The" Nine Inch Nails as an aesthetic entity, the answers matter far less than the experience that raised the questions in the first place. Without fear of contradiction, this was quite possibly the most artistically ambitious hour of narrative fiction in the history of television. You don't even have to be a TV snob to say so; there aren't a lot of films in this league either. Somehow, Showtime – the network that brought you seven seasons of Californication – aired an episode that tried to beat everyone from Stanley Kubrick to Stan Brakhage at their own game.

Plotwise, it's easy enough to summarize. In the present day, we follow Dale Cooper's evil doppelganger and his associate Ray as they make their escape from a South Dakota prison. When his underling starts making noise about withholding vital information from him for a price, the False Coop pulls a gun on the guy, only to discover he's been double-crossed. His traitorous henchman fills him full of lead ... and then a near-silent procession of shaggy-haired, coal-black demon-men from the Black Lodge assembles to perform a bizarre ritual with his body. They coax the demonic Bob from the corpse in a grotesque globule, forcing his horrified killer to flee in their getaway car. He calls his apparent boss, Philip Jeffries (the Lodge-tainted FBI agent played in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me by David Bowie) with the ambiguous news of the evening's events.

We then flash back to July 16, 1945, in White Sands, New Mexico – the time and place when the Manhattan Project reached its grim conclusion by detonating the first atomic bomb. Accompanied by the apocalyptic strings of avant-garde composer Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" – the people who would soon pay the price for this weaponized scientific breakthrough – Lynch takes us on a dizzying, dazzling journey through the fires of creation, or of Hell; the difference is negligible. Starfields and nebulae, liquid and flame, the buzzing of insects and the birth of worlds: they're all there, waiting for us to traverse them.

And so is Bob. We witness the birth of the demon who possessed Leland Palmer and killed his daughter Laura as he's extruded in ectoplasm from a white creature not unlike the one who massacred the couple in the season premiere. We see a gaggle of his blackened, bearded familiars prepare for his coming at a convenience store, an oft-referenced site of Black Lodge activity. Eventually, in 1956, we witness a frog-insect hybrid emerge from a stone-like egg and slither its way down the throat of a swoony teenage girl as she sleeps. The same one, by the way, who's hypnotized by a poem ("This is the water, and this is the well …") broadcast over a radio station that's been commandeered by an ashen-faced, cigarette-toting creature that crushes its victims skulls with a single bare hand.

Against all this horror stands the Giant (or as he's billed this season, "?????"), played by Carl Struycken. In a colossal tower atop an enormous cliff in the purple ocean we saw the real Cooper trapped in several episodes ago, he and a glamorous young woman are alerted to the bomb's detonation and Bob's creation. In response, he levitates into the air, beaming a golden stream of stars out of his head. From this glowing cloud emerges a crystal ball with the face of Laura Palmer inside. His female companion catches the floating orb, kisses it and tosses it upward into an elaborate tubular machine that then shoots the Laura-ball into or black-and-white world. Has Ms. Palmer been created as a counterbalance to Bob? Or is she just the average human chosen by cosmic forces to stand against him?

What is clear is the birth of Bob's bracing message. This disturbing, disorienting episode explicitly ties the demon's creation to the atom bomb's detonation, an act of man that rivals, or betters, the dark deeds of any religion's devil. The connection is no accident. Nor is it without precedent: Ever since the original Twin Peaks introduced supernatural horror into its director's body of work, the link between otherworldly evil and real-world brutality has been a constant. Lynch treats human cruelty like a rupture in the fabric of reality through which demons of every shape and size can enter — think Lost Highway's white-faced Mystery Man, Mulholland Drive's monstrous dumpster-dweller and gibbering old folks, Inland Empire's balloon-faced Phantom and, of course, the dwellers of the Black Lodge. They all  feed on and perpetuate the cycle of violence that enabled their emergence.

Some experiences and emotions are so cataclysmic that our everyday imagery and vocabulary cannot possibly do them justice; monsters give shape to those feelings, the same way an aria in an opera or a song in a musical gives human passion a voice. In crafting creatures like that denim-clad monster and his dark brethren, Lynch is doing what all great horror does. He's taking the agony and fear we already feel and, like Dr. Frankenstein in his lightning-streaked laboratory, bringing it to unholy life. The real question this episode asks, then, is no more or less than the one pilot Robert A. Lewis asked when he dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima: "My God, what have we done?"

link (TP)

#Twin Peaks #David Lynch #Part 8 #Gotta light #Rolling Stone