#You know… like the “mines” that Penny got trapped in during that one episode with what’s his face

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Actually scratch the wobble stool; they’re too expensive. Instead, consider: yoga ball.

[bentforkent]

to the moon and to saturn - chapter two

spencer reid x fem!reader

navigation and summary

there is a version of this story featuring my oc sara on my wattpad and ao3!

word count: 3,559

content warnings: alcohol mentions

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betty 

spencer has a recurring dream about her. in this dream, it’s y/n’s 18th birthday. his brain doesn’t know what she looks like past age seven, so dream-y/n has her youthful face on an adult body. her eyes crinkle at the edges when she smiles. she’s holding a birthday cake that’s covered in lit candles. there’s no indication that spencer baked the pink, sloppily-frosted cake, but in his dream, he knows he did. 

she holds the cake out towards him. “make a wish, spencer,” she says, her voice sounding far away and warbled. “it’s not my birthday, love,” he insists, swiping some of the frosting and brushing it across her cheek.

she grins and sets the cake down on the round table in front of her. “sure, but i want to share mine with you.” she pulls out a box, gift wrapped in bright yellow paper with a large blue bow on top. he always wakes up before he can ever open it. 

 he gets this dream once a month without fail. it’s pathetic, he thinks. he hasn’t even seen y/n in twenty years. he’s doesn’t even know her, to be frank. and yet he thinks about her constantly. he---and his therapist, of course---chalk this up to the abandonment he felt when she never came back. she didn’t even say goodbye. spencer thinks about this often, wondering if it was his fault. he wonders if any or all of the horrible things he’s been through have been his fault. his sick brain tells him yes, yes they are. 

 often, when spencer thinks of y/n, he imagines her in some incredible life. a spy, maybe. he knows it’s unlikely that she’s a princess or bank robber now, but he doesn’t put it past her. he doesn’t have enough memories of her, so every play-pretend game they played as children supplements what he knows about her, creating at least some whole adult person for him to fantasize about. she’s become almost a fictional character in the movie of his life. he wishes that they weren’t estranged, wishes that he could know the real y/n instead of whatever caricature of her he’s created. even if she actually was a bank robber. he just wants to know.

wait. he just wants to know. 

spencer is lounged on his couch, cardigan long tossed aside, tie long undone. he’s been home from work for a few hours now, an easy paperwork day cutting his day short. he takes half of a second to make his decision, then pulls out his phone.

 ------

“i need you to look someone up for me,” y/n says nonchalantly, flicking through a cheesy magazine. they’re laying on penelope’s bed, tv in the other room playing a rerun episode of “the office” just loud enough for them to hear. penelope has one hand in a bowl of popcorn, and one on her laptop scrolling mindlessly through some geeky website y/n can’t comprehend.

 y/n had seen spencer that evening on her way to penelope’s house. at least she thought she did. y/n was stopped at a red light, staring straight ahead at the crosswalk before her. living in a decently populated city, there were always fun characters crossing the street, and while y/n had once been in awe of the medley of people living in dc, she’d become used to it, and stopped paying attention. at red lights, she usually takes time to relax, letting her eyes glaze over before the switch to green and the restart of traffic. but before she could check out for her 15 seconds of a mental break, she saw a long haired figure hunched over a book, crossing the street directly in front of her car. 

granted, y/n hasn’t seen spencer in twenty years. she has no clue what he looks like nowadays, but everything from his ray bradbury book to his lanky frame to his beat up converse was familiar. her eyes clung to him, desperate to catch a glimpse of his face, but it never came. and y/n felt like she was going crazy. of all the places in the world, there’s no way that spencer reid’s life path had taken him all the way from nevada to the exact same city she lived in. 

but she didn’t have to wonder, or anxiously await the next time she saw the man by chance, because her best friend was a techy genius and no one could hide from her. y/n decided then, at that red light, that she’d ask penelope to find spencer, something she couldn’t even picture herself wanting just thirty seconds earlier.

y/n’s attempt at casually bringing the topic up is futile, because a.) penelope garcia is a very nosy woman, and b.)....penelope garcia is a very nosy woman. in all of the best ways. “who?” she inquires excitedly, halting all motion that could distract her from this very important conversation. 

“it’s kind of a long story,” y/n says, closing her magazine and sitting up. she crosses her legs, a seating pose that indicates that she’s devoting everything to explaining this to penelope. “so, when i was really little, there was this boy…” 

and the suspense is killing penelope. y/n’s launched into this whole story about blanket forts, and being young, and blah blah blah whatever, but she’s not giving up her male protagonist’s name. penelope has her hands poised at her keyboard, ready to give y/n a location, occupation, and criminal record in less than 30 seconds, but she just needs to know his name. y/n talks, and talks, and talks, and penelope, as the good friend and listener she is, doesn’t interrupt once except to ask a question. 

(“so your mom was sleeping with his dad?”

 “yes! my own mother! i know, right?”)

y/n’s oblivious to the fact that penelope is on the edge of her seat, hanging on her every single word, just waiting, waiting, agonizingly waiting for a name. 

“once, i even put jell-o down a girl’s shirt for this kid,” y/n laughs. “it was cherry flavored, i’ll never forget. my first badass moment.” she stops her story with a shared chuckle, and a silence settles over the two women for a moment. 

“so, did you want me to find this prince charming, or…” penelope waggles her fingers over her keyboard as to emphasize her point.

“oh! yeah! his name is-----” 

penelope’s phone rings, and they let out a frustrated groan in unison. y/n flops back into her laying down position, knowing that when penelope’s phone rings, it almost never bodes well for wine nights.

 ----------

“garcia!” spencer greets as soon as she answers.

“as much as i’m excited to hear from my favorite doctor-profiler-boy-genius, i wonder to what do i owe this pleasure?” penelope glances over at y/n, who has already found her way back into her cosmopolitan magazine. 

 “hey, i was wondering if you could look someone up for me. i know technically it’s not ethical but---”

 “do you have a name for me, wonder boy?” penelope asks. she’s not waiting a second longer for him to spill, lest she gets trapped in yet another long-winded backstory. 

 “uh, yeah. y/n y/l/n. she---,” spencer speaks, and is immediately transferred to hold, with a short and excited “wait!” from garcia. sure, she feels bad for cutting him off twice now during the short span of their phone call, but this? this is major. 

 “y/n, tell me his name is spencer reid,” penelope says, voice coming out rushed and full of eagerness. 

 y/n’s eyes go wide. penelope was really good at her job. she got his name just from her little jell-o story? “yeah, it is, pen!” y/n laughs. “what’s he up to these days?”

 penelope covers the receiver of her phone even though spencer was on hold and couldn’t hear her anyways. “he’s on the phone with me! we work together! we’re like, super close! y/n!” penelope is emphasizing her words with crazy hand gestures, the clinking of her bracelets serving as enthusiastic punctuation.

y/n doesn’t really know how to respond to this information. “he’s FBI?” she asks, stupidly. 

“that is so far beyond the point!” penelope exclaims. “he’s the guy i was texting you about earlier today, the one i wanted to set you up with!”

y/n, with a big goofy grin on her face, tosses a piece of popcorn at her head, watching as it gets stuck in one of her ponytails. “take him off of hold, penny!” excitement courses through her veins. she had seen him earlier. what are the odds?

spencer paces anxiously in his apartment. she’d dead. y/n is dead, and garcia’s trying to find the best way to tell him. that’s why she put him on hold, he knows. there’s a crackle in the phone, and garcia’s voice rings through the speaker. “spencer?” she asks, making sure he’s still on the line. there’s giggling on her end, pulling him to the conclusion that whatever garcia was about to say, at least y/n’s not dead.

 “yeah, garcia?” spencer says, too on edge to say more than a few words at a time. 

 “i’ve got probably a million and one things to tell you about a certain y/n y/l/n,” garcia says, voice mischievous. on her end, there’s a squawk of protest followed by some shuffling. 

spencer waits patiently, and then garcia’s voice is back. “i’ve got her right here with me, actually.” 

 spencer, overwhelmed with nerves, hangs up immediately. 

 “he hung up!” penelope screams, and the two women burst into laughter. penelope’s hunched over at her laptop, cackling.

“i can’t believe he hung up,” y/n says through her fit of giggles.

“you have to come to our work get-together this weekend and see him, y/n. spencer’s hosting!” penelope says.

“he clearly doesn’t want to talk to me,” y/n says jokingly, and they laugh again. not at the boy, but at the scenario. “also, no! no ‘get-togethers.’ you know i don’t do parties.”

 ------

 y/n’s on her way to the party. it took all of 15 seconds for penelope to convince her to be her plus-one. all she had to do is say the words “casual” and “wine” and y/n was in. she tried to ignore the fact that it would just be penelope’s coworkers, one of them being her estranged best friend, and her. at spencer’s apartment, nonetheless. it was bound to be awkward, but y/n tried to focus less on that and more on how excited penelope was to introduce her to spencer. re-introduce her, rather. 

 penelope offered to drive y/n to alleviate some of her nerves, and y/n accepted graciously. neither one of them had talked about spencer since the phone call, except for penelope casually mentioning that spencer hadn’t brought up y/n to her at work at all. they’d all spent the week in limbo, then. the drive to spencer’s apartment is generally silent, penelope jumping in with words of affirmation every so often, if not to calm y/n then just to make her laugh. y/n’s leg bounces as she looks out of the window of penelope’s car. 

when they arrive, after penelope’s parked, she turns to y/n. “y/n. you are colorful, beautiful, perfect, and every other nice word i can think of. everything will be fine. but if, by some odd, unpredictable chance, everything is not fine, say the word and we will be out of there faster than you can say ‘penny.’” y/n pulls her into a tight hug, and penelope can feel her heart beating.

“what if he just tells me to, like, fuck off?” y/n murmurs.

“reid would never. he could never,” penelope says. with that reassurance, they get out of her car and head up to the party.

 -------

y/n stares at spencer’s front door as penelope knocks. the paint on it is chipping, she notes. spencer swings open the door and hoots erupt through the apartment. 

“garcia’s here!”

“hey, garcia!”

“babygirl!”

everyone’s calling for her, so she snakes past spencer and into his home with a pat on his chest. he’s stuck in the doorway and y/n’s stuck in the hall. neither of them know what to say to each other, so they’re sticking to intense eye contact and nervous foot shuffling. y/n’s here, at his apartment. he’s shocked. she’s real, she’s here, and here is his apartment.

 “you look the same,” they say at the same time, and then, at the absurdity of the situation, they laugh together. y/n, feeling empowered by the diffusion of the tension, wraps her arms around him in a hug. he’s broad, she notes. he hugs her tightly, holding on a second too long as compensation for the fact that he’d never know when their last hug had been their last. 

 “come in, come in,” spencer says. as he’s ushering her inside, hand against her lower back, he speaks again. y/n’s acutely aware of his coworkers eyes on her, but she’s distracted by his voice. “did you know that we begin to forget childhood memories while we’re in childhood still? younger children remember 60 percent of early life events, and that goes down by 20 percent in just a year or two.” 

 “hmm, so it’s weird that you remember me, then?” y/n teases as he hands her a glass of white wine.

“well, i don’t, really,” he admits, and y/n hums in agreement against the rim of her drink. 

penelope calls y/n over to where she’s sitting and introduces her to the team. y/n takes notes. penelope never really combines her work and her play, telling y/n it’s to keep her safe, so y/n revels in this insight into her best friend’s life.

 jj, the pretty blonde, seems to be the glue of the group, y/n judges. emily’s guarded, but fun, and y/n sees a lot of herself in her. derek is penelope’s favorite, y/n knows, and it’s not hard to figure out why. he’s attractive, but more than that, he’s charismatic and intelligent. y/n can’t get a good read on hotch, but she likes him well enough. rossi’s her favorite, though, his laidback, cool demeanor just mysterious enough to pique her curiosity. y/n greets everyone with a warm hello and a short introduction, and finds her place at penelope’s side.

she’s out of place for sure, but the team tries their hardest to include her. they’ve got great chemistry as a group, and y/n wins their favor when she cracks a dry joke that gets everyone laughing. she can feel spencer’s eyes on her the whole night, but she doesn’t indulge him by looking back. she’s too nervous. he keeps her glass filled all night, a gracious host, and when she thanks him each time he gives her a shaky smile. he’s nervous too, she realizes.

 when people start filtering out, y/n realizes she’d hardly spoken to spencer all night, save for some light small talk with others. she’d really like to get him alone, but she doesn’t want to overstep. spencer looks at her intently when she stands to leave with garcia. he wants to get her alone, but he doesn’t want to overstep. be bold, spencer, he thinks. it’s just y/n. but it’s not just y/n anymore. they aren’t kids anymore, blindly bonded to one another out of convenience. there’s nothing tying them together anymore except for some flimsy memories, and this scares spencer. y/n’s also insanely beautiful. this adds to his nerves. it’s not too often he has a pretty girl in his apartment alone.

 “you can stay longer if you want, y/n. i’ll drive you home,” spencer says, his words surprising even himself. his eyebrows furrow and y/n wants to smooth the crease in his forehead with her thumb. 

“okay,” she says softly, turning to penelope. “i’ll see you tomorrow, pen?” they embrace, and penelope says her bright goodbyes. when she leaves, y/n leans against the closed front door, staring at spencer expectantly. 

“do you want another drink?” he asks her, unsure of what to do with his hands. 

“no, i think i’m sufficiently tipsy-adjacent,” y/n jokes, placing her hands decidedly on spencer’s shoulders. “i think you and i should talk.” 

“yeah,” spencer replies, his amber eyes searching hers. “we can sit outside.” he leads her to his balcony, and takes a seat on his outdoor couch. 

“it looks like it might rain,” y/n says lamely, sitting next to him, close enough for their thighs to touch.

“did you know women are more likely to give a man their phone number on a sunny day rather than a cloudy one? there’s only a 14% success rate when it’s rainy, as opposed to a 22% success rate when the sun’s out.”

“that’s interesting, spencer. were you planning on asking for my number?” y/n asks jokingly. spencer flushes at the question, stammering a defense. “just kidding. you sure do know a lot of stuff, don’t you?”

“sure,” he says with a bite of his lip. “i have three phds. what i don’t know, though, is where you went when you left vegas. or why you left vegas. or…”

“or why i didn’t tell you i was leaving?” y/n finishes for him. he gives a small nod, embarrassed to admit how much it affected him, and y/n frowns. she lays the palm of her hand against his face, rubbing her thumb against his cheekbone. spencer’s taken aback by the affectionate action, but leans into her touch anyways. y/n holds that position for a minute, surveying his features. she’s not ready to tell him the story, honestly. it’s humiliating. save from the fact that her mom essentially ruined his parents’ marriage; she didn’t know the nature of spencer’s relationship with his father now. for all she knows, it’d done a complete 180 in the past 20 years, and she’d ruin everything with her anecdote. no, she couldn’t risk this. spencer looked too pretty under the moonlight, was too nice to her tonight.

“would you be mad if i didn’t want to talk about that yet?” she asks, tracing her finger down the bridge of his nose. spencer feels a little relieved by this. he’s prepared for that conversation to be a heavy one, prepared for her to say she left because of him. because he wasn’t good enough for her. he doesn’t think he can handle that confirmation tonight, so he welcomes the change in subject. 

“can we just...start over?” spencer says.

 y/n nods. “hi, i’m y/n,” she holds her hand out to shake, finally removing it from against his face. spencer takes it with a small smile. 

“i’m spencer,” he replies. they sit in silence for a while, watching the stars. the moment is long, but it feels like they’re suspended in time. like the cars and people underneath them have come to a standstill. spencer reckons y/n’s always had that effect on him, but the hustle of the city disappearing around him makes it much more pronounced.  spencer steals a quick glance at her. she looks so serene. he wonders if she’s thinking as much as he is, or if she’s simply appreciating the city sounds and night air. 

“are you thinking as much as i am?” y/n pipes up, breaking the silence. 

spencer shakes his head incredulously with a chuckle. “you took the words right out of my mouth.” 

y/n turns to face him, pulling her knees to her chest. “tell me a story. like you used to.” when spencer’s gaze meets hers, y/n’s hand moves to tuck a piece of his hair behind his ear, the movement nearly involuntary. there’s a low rumble of thunder, but it sounds far away. 

“okay,” spencer says, neither one of them breaking eye contact. he remembers her eyes being much more vibrant, but he likes the true hue better. and whenever she thought of him, y/n had always imagined glasses, like when he was a child, but being able to see his face clearly is so much better. 

“actually,” y/n starts. she finishes her statement by pressing her lips against spencer’s firmly. he threads his hands through her hair and pulls her closer to him, letting out a soft moan. the kiss is passionate, but not lustful. it’s gentle and full of energy. y/n nips at spencer’s bottom lip. he tastes like sangria. his hand travels to the side of her face, thumb rubbing against her cheek slowly. he kisses her like she's oxygen and he’s never had a breath of fresh air in his life. 

after a minute, y/n pulls away slowly, resting her forehead on his. “okay, now you can tell me a story.” 

spencer presses another chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth. “how do you expect me to remember anything right now?” 

y/n grins, pulling away from their intimate position and turning to face the stars. “i can wait. i’ve got all night.” 

[knightofbalance-13]

https://sokumotanaka.tumblr.com/post/177509479149/back-on-my-bullshit

Welp, guess you can take mine then.

Let’s tweak the lore a bit.

*slaps five bucks on the table* I’m betting you fundamentally break the lore until it doesn’t work anymore.

During a discussion with a friend of mine I was going on about inconsistencies in rwby cause she never watched it but was aware of some of the flaws and was curious. The conversation soon turned from my disdain for the series flaws (really I’m so tired guys) to fixing certain flaws in the narrative, and during our swapping she asked me how if yang had aura did adam cut through yang’s aura.

You know, I’d bet that all those ‘flaws’ are just bullshit you told her.

Also: If you hate the series, why the fuck are you supporting it? or are you pirating it in which case, you don’t get to complain.

I told her want miles told us and I can tell you the look on her face was priceless, she then asked why his blade was pure red and frankly after 5 seasons we don’t know shit about adam but one can assume it could be made from metal that cut around aura.

Did you tell her about that time Monty literally fucked up one of his own twists by putting oin Penny in a fight where she wasn’t needed?

because knowing Monty kind of helps understand most of the decisions of early RWBY.

One would argue why everyone doesn’t have this metal then but that’s a different subject altogether, Point is We fixed the lore and it was a long ways back we had to go to do so.

Grab the popcorn everyone, he’s gonna fuck it so badly.

(If you watched Celtic phoenix’s lore video on the grimm this makes a lot more sense.)Suffice to say: Grimm leave behind the white bone like armor when they die.)

*ducks as a gear flies over his head*

Literally the very first statement you said broke the lore. Grimm don’t leave ANYTHING behind. That is CANON. And if they do leave the white armor behind when they die, that REALLY defangs a lot of their horror since, if they can leave things behind they7 can be studied, weaknesses can be found and it takes away from the unusual horror they exude as they solely attack humans and leave nothing behind, defying two things that the animals they emulate do.

So adam’s sword is an expensive and rare type of metal obtained by one grimm. The elephant grimm, see as we see them in the series they seems to stand far off from cities and we never seen any fight so like real elephants there’s something spectacular about their bone plating, they eat precious gems and metal unlike other grimm and hunters during the graduation into full time hunters have the option to go kill these grimm for some incredibly powerful metals stored in the bone plating on the grimm.

A. It is expressly SAID and SHOWN they will fight if they think they can win.

B. Grimm have never shown any other biological functions like eating or sleeping. That helps make them scary because it drives a FURTHER disconnect between what we as pattern seeking beings we are would assume of them.

C. These Grimm are shown to be bigger than skyscrapers and have hides that shrug off bullets. They are some of the strongest Grimm in the series and now you make them look like slightly tougher Ursas.

D. Their PLATING is not special, THEY are. 

And E. HOW is it that consuming gem stones and rare metals makes them grow this strong metal? How? Rare metals are NOT strong weapons, they are in fact pretty damn fragile when it comes down to it. Gold is actually pretty soft you know?

If it’s magic...HOW does the magic work? And why is magic not universally accepted in RWBY then?

Oh and F. You ripped this off from Sableye from Pokémon. For a guy who screeches about RWBY barely holding a resemblance to anything, your ideas seem heavily reliant on others.

Problem is these grimm have a high kill count, cause they’re elephant like and they’re smart so they stick in groups deep in forest with traps and the aid of less intelligent grimm that they can command.

A. HOW can a fucking elephant make traps that aren’t super obvious?

B. WHY would other Grimm hang around these creatures? They are not pack creatures nor would other Grimm be smart enough to listen to them.

C. If these Grimm are so intelligent as to make traps and command less Grimm why have they NOT killed off humanity long before this setting? 

C2. If not THAT, why haven’t these intelligent Grimm that can apparently command other Grimm not command their underlings to eat rare gem stones and rare metals in order to have this super metal too?

Occasionally you’ll find a really good Titanium like metal made from grimm that seems to bypass aura like they do (recently that’s changed but we actually seen grimm cut and bite despite aura existing) and that’s why adam’s blade ignored yang’s aura instead of “Well it’s awesome heheh.” This way besides just killing grimm it makes the world feel a little more alive, people can kill certain grimm for certain metals (students at signal start out with more down to earth metals and when they graduate they can go hunt a grimm as graduation form their more fantasy like materials to make new or improve their weapon.)

You know, that Titanium comment really goes to show your double standard about RWBY.

Titanium ,as you are thinking of, RARELY occurs in nature and instead is found mostly in sand as numerous different types of minerals. To get pure Titanium, you’d need to REFINE it. And Titanium, in and of itself, isn’t actually very durable. As a natural metal yes it is for how light weight it is as well as how resistant it is to extreme tempetures. But it’s still only equal to common low grade steel and like many metals, it’s true strength lies in being mixed into alloys where it becomes a component of the metal.

AKA Titanium as we know it, made from it’s pure state along with being mixed with certain metals, CANNOT BE FOUND IN NATURE. So such a metal WOULDN’T EXIST in a Grimm due to eating NATURALLY MADE metals.

You could explain it away with “magic!” but A. that defeats the entire purpose of you making all these details just to end it with “magic!” and B. We both know you’d be attempting murder on Miles and Kerry if they tried anything remotely similar.

And there lies the hypocrisy: your explanation has the EXACT SAME ISSUES you have with Adam’s original explanation (in which it makes no sense) except it takes far bigger leaps in logic, breaks several rules of canon to the point of needing NUMEROUS retcons to fix it and being over complicated as FUCK. And yet you have the audacity to claim you fixed anything.

Same thing with the Shade Academy thing: It’s same shit you bitch about with the Fanaus except you have set ZERO foundation for the culture of the area to support such an idea unlike the Fanaus.

You BROKE canon.

And worst of all: there was a MUCH simpler explanation.

It’s just a tweak but what do you think? got better ideas? Or addtions?

Yeah:

Adam’s sword had Dust.

Or his Semblance lets him cut through people’s Auras.

The original explanation of “He just hit her hard enough” makes more sense AND is much simpler to understand.

There’s a saying Sokumotanaka:

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it.

You gave a giant convoluted bullshit explanation that sounds like M. Night Shamalyan wrote a WOR episode when much simpler and more effective answers stared you in the fucking face. Ergo, you don’t know how to actually WRITE RWBY.

Because god knows what you’d do to the main conflict.

[chicagoindiecritics]

New from Jeff York on The Establishing Shot: FIVE REASONS “PALM SPRINGS” IS THE YEAR’S BEST COMEDY

Original caricature by Jeff York of Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti in PALM SPRINGS (copyright 2020)

PALM SPRINGS made quite a splash when it debuted at Sundance this past January. The film was snatched up by Neon and Hulu for a cool deal reaching beyond 22 million. The transaction was worth every penny. Not only is the movie tremendously clever, but its story about a time loop is eminently relatable to a citizenry stuck in its own monotonous quarantine routine. Perhaps even more ironic is the fact that PALM SPRINGS is so incredibly watchable over and over and over again. (I’ve watched it three times in under two weeks.) You’ll see more with each viewing and likely laugh even more.

The sharp script by Andy Siara, a sure Oscar contender for Best Original Screenplay, starts on November 9 when main character Nyles (Andy Samberg) wakes up next to his girlfriend Misty (Meredith Hagner) in a Palm Springs villa. They’ve gathered there for the wedding of her BFF Tala (Camila Mendes) and fiancé Abe (Tyler Hoechlin). Nyles, however, is less than enthused about any of it. In fact, he’s positively bored, distracted, and even brazenly cynical about the whole shebang.

After bonding with an equally inebriated and sarcastic Sarah (Cristin Milioti) at the evening’s reception, Nyles takes the bride’s sister out into the desert to tryst. They’ve barely begun to disrobe when a surly guy named Roy (JK Simmons) shows up and shoots Nyles twice with a cross-bow. To escape, the wounded Nyles crawls towards a mysterious cave emanating a glowing light and warns Sarah not to follow him. Her curiosity gets the better of her though and both young people are sucked into the cave’s vortex.

That vortex turns out to be some sort of time warp and all who enter are then doomed to live the same day they entered over and over and over again. No matter how they change the events during those 24 hours, the outcome will remain the same. If you’ve ever seen GROUNDHOG DAY or EDGE OF TOMORROW, you’ll realize that these portals are quite unforgiving and unsolvable. The fun for the viewer is in watching those stuck in it try to change their lots. Nyles keeps trying to mix up the elements, but after months or even years in the maze, he’s become a hardened cynic.

One of the great things about PALM SPRINGS is that the plot concerns not one, but three people trying to escape their repetitive fates. Roy followed Nyles into the vortex months ago and is angry about it. Hence, he’s trying to take out his rage on Nyles by finding various ways to kill him each day.  Three times such victims are just one of the film’s brilliant conceits. Here are five others that make this comedy so exceedingly clever. (And yes, beware of spoilers in the coming analysis.)

THE FILM WASTES NO TIME One of the most surprising things about the film is how the film starts with Nyles and Roy already in the time loop. Yes, Sarah becomes a newcomer to it all, and in turn, serves as the audience surrogate, but the film doesn’t take an entire act to get going. Its wheels are already in accelerated motion from the moment the story starts. Siara’s script and Max Barbakow’s deft direction not only ensure the film has plenty of laughs, but a kinetic energy throughout as well.

THE FILM IS RIDICULOUSLY TIMELY Tired of staying indoors during the lockdown, working from home, wearing masks, and rocking the sweat pants for every occasion? (You’re wearing them on your Zoom calls, aren’t you?) If so, join the club, fellow pandemic sufferers! Of course, the makers of PALM SPRINGS had no way of knowing how relatable and timely their film would be in July, but their premiere on the 10th is a timing that would be the envy of Job.

THE YEAR’S BEST COMEDY IS ALSO ITS BEST ROMANTIC COMEDY It’s funny how few comedies stand out in any given film year, let alone one as adroit as this gem. Television took over the realm of comedy decades ago and it’s rare that even the best comedy film in any year can rival television’s superior comedy series. Yet, this comedy not only has an ingenious premise, crackling dialogue, strong characters, and sly production design, it has dozens upon dozens of genuine LOL moments. And they’re smart laughs too. Sure, some are easy, dirty jokes, but many are complex, dirty jokes too. And as if all those guffaws aren’t enough, the film also sneaks up on you with its romantic B story. Nyles and Sarah become friends, co-dependent, co-conspirators, and yes, lovers. You root for them to not only escape the day but cheer for them to stay a couple well beyond it.

IT’S BOTH OUTRAGEOUS AND GROUNDED How many films would know how to mine the sublime talents of JK Simmons by having Roy both curse out Nyles and deliver soulful life advice to him as well? In PALM SPRINGS, Roy utters the absurd phrase, “You gotta find your Irvine” and that quote may very well likely leave a tear in your eye. This film wants you to laugh a lot, but like any fiction about the future, it wants you to think about the present too. How are you managing today to ensure a better tomorrow? Of course, Nyles, Sarah, and Roy all learn to accept both the good days and bad in their predicament. At the very least, being stuck in Palm Springs beats being stuck in say, Gnome, Alaska, right?

IT WAS RELEASED ON VOD AND FOUND A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE Hulu and Netflix, by the nature of their platforms, have benefitted hugely from captive audiences self-isolating at home through the current virus crisis. Thus, PALM SPRINGS, along with films like DA 5 BLOODS and THE OLD GUARD, various VOD horror releases, as well as water-cooler miniseries like NORMAL PEOPLE and THE ALIENIST are smartly taking advantage all of us at home. So why aren’t more Hollywood studios releasing their films on VOD now? Christopher Nolan’s big summer tentpole TENET got pushed off the calendar altogether this past week so you’d think that Tinsel Town moguls would realize that the 2020 movie season is not going to be happening in theaters. Yet, there are plenty of empty spots on the VOD calendar, spots that PALM SPRINGS will all too gladly take advantage of and increase their viewership.

PALM SPRINGS is full of twists that you won’t see coming, is edited tightly with no fat, and has a dozen performances that are all sublime. Hopefully, SAG will remember this stellar ensemble when it’s time for their awards show – – whenever that may happen in 2021.) Indeed, Samberg does his best screen work in PALM SPRINGS, managing the serious as well as the funny. Milioti continues to bloom as one of the brightest young actresses working today. She seems to have a knack too for playing ingenues caught in bizarre portals as evidenced by her sharp portrayal in the USS CALLISTER episode of BLACK MIRROR two seasons ago. Hagner’s a hoot, Hoechlin plays a good cad, and it’s so nice to see a veteran performer like Peter Gallagher make the most of his wonderfully juicy moments as the exasperated father of the bride.

Before your friends telling you too much about it, watch PALM SPRINGS. And if you’ve seen it already, watch it again. And then again. Its treasures, large and small, will help you forget the fact that you’ve spent well over four months now trapped in your own time warp.

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