#again character named Laura which could be irrelevant but I like to think of it as a call to that because of the actress they have as Eliza

[bklynmusicnerd]

GH Catch Up Part Three:

- Laura getting all giddy trying to get the sociopathic mooch to play family with her. Just tragic and embarrassing.

Finally, some Trina and Portia interaction! Wish it was longer but I'll take it. Trina thanking Portia for her tentative olive branch to Spencer and Portia admitting she's "not sold" yet was interesting. It's never not gonna amuse me how Portia can never just take the win. Trina has forgiven for her paternity disaster and doesn't know the full extent of her plotting against her happiness.

She should be making every effort to stay on Trina's good side, but control is too important for her, so even an olive branch to Trina's boyfriend is issued with a caveat. I also think it's important to peep BK's acting choices during that hug with Trina.

She's still very bothered by the idea of Trina and Spencer, which puts an asterisk over whatever alleged progress Portia is making on the "be less controlling" front. We'll see but I fear her toxic mom tendencies might doom her again. She can say she's letting go but actually doing it is another thing.

- Joss coming through with Adam and Dumb Dex is cracking me up. And Carly already knows Adam's name too. This is what Dex deserves is all I have to say.

- Of course Kristina is going to be the egg donor because this is the Maxie story all over again. Riveting stuff.

- God, Amnesia Esme is insufferable. Fuck her and her cheap shot at Trina denying her an absolution she didn't earn. Crying about not being afforded "grace" as if it's something she's entitled to. This is why this character will never work as a longterm one. If she's not scheming, all she provides are tears and whining. No capacity for self-reflection quickly makes for a dull character if they're not being played as the antagonist they're meant to be.

- Marshall is going straight to hell for using the memory of the dead woman he ghosted to cover up for his weirdness with Stella.

- Spencer's brain synapses are functioning again since he's the only who picked up on how completely fucking bizarre it is for a first time mother to abandon her baby for "me time" on Christmas Eve. Pour one out for Kevin who has officially joined the useful idiots brigade and thinks his sociopathic mooch of a niece was being "sincere". Starting to think Laura's hell house could be explained by an unknown mold issue because brain cells are not lasting for long in that house.

- If Nina has reached Catholic levels of guilt and wants to participate in confession then she might as well just tell Sonny. I don't know why she'd be married to someone she doesn't believe would be on her side through thick and thin.

- I'm not here for Trina being compared to that long suffering woman that Curtis called a mother. No thank you.

- Do not care about the "anguish" of Amnesia Esme getting her memories back and having it confirmed that she's a sociopath. Tired of the wide-eyed weepy bullshit with this character. It's not convincing. It's just played out. The very fact that her immediate next steps upon getting her first memory were to abandon her demon spawn to go break into Wyndemere prove that Trina was right about her memory being irrelevant. Her "redemption" was bullshit. She successfully weaponized her demon spawn like she was always going to pre-amnesia, what's so redemptive about that? She was always going to be a sociopath and do sociopathic shit, no matter what, because she doesn't have the capacity for genuine remorse or to think about anything or anyone beyond herself, not even her own demon spawn.

- Trina and Spencer (and demon spawn) meeting up at the hospital was cute, and I appreciated the subtle acknowledgment of their improved communication because Trina already knew Spencer was gonna be on his domestic crap on Christmas Eve before sociopathic mooch switched up the plan. Essentially, their big fight/almost breakup wasn't meaningless and has had a lasting effect on their relationship.

- Bonus: Even though no one has talked more shit about demon spawn existing on the canvas than me, I would be lying if I didn't admit that one of the funniest ongoing bits of the year was demon spawn being the number one fan of his mom's enemy.

- Finn has no business reading the Night Before Christmas, it should've been Kevin with Laura. Even if Finn wasn't one of the most hated characters this year, he's not a patriarch or respected member of PC like that. He's definitely not on par with Laura. A bizarre decision to end a bizarrely scripted episode.

[americangodstalk]

Notes about S2E2: The Beguiling Man

# During his interrogation, Shadow has electrodes put on him, as well as a serum injected (maybe a truth serum?). We get to see the first appearance of Mr. Town, from the novel - and just like in the book the scene takes place in a train, except here it is still active and moving, and filled with shining... stuff. 

# Many have tried to read in Shadow’s peculiar interrogation device a symbolism, from the Christ on the cross to the Vitruvian man.

# Czernobog mentions all the old European traditions related to the death of someone : ringing a bell, opening the windows, covering mirrors and sprinkling salt. While Wednesday is confident that a “newborn star” will rise, Czernobog thinks that Zorya Vechernyaya is definitively dead due to the lack of faith and belief in the Slavic gods. He also uses the “Nine Hells” to curse - I honestly don’t know if it is a Slavic or Russian concept. 

# The Jinn is more precisely referred to as an Ifrit.

# As usual, Mr. Wednesday is also called Votan and Grimnir, two of the alternative names of Odin. More precisely, Votan/Wotan (Odin’s name in Old German) is used by Czernobog and Grimnir (the “hidden one”, “the masked one”) by Mama-Ji. 

# Mama-Ji mentions she needs to swap her “week-end shift” with Arjun. Arjun, or Arjuna, is the mythical hero of the Hindu epic Mahabharata. 

# While the serum is what I assume to be a truth serum (which is something around which numerous myths and legends were centered, and that fed popular culture, media and is part of the “classic tropes” or shadowy organizations), the electrodes are visibly to give Shadow electrochocs if he refuses to answer. Mr. Town is visibly aware of the Old Gods and the New Gods, and refer to them as deities (contrary to his book version who believed the gods were simply aliens). Mr. Town refers to Odin as “Cargo” also known as “All-Father, Grimm, Wednesday”. 

# Shadow’s mother refers to the Statue of Liberty as Libertas, the Roman goddess - which is a foreshadowing of her later mention. Many fans like to reinterpret the words of Shadow’s mother about “spreading her messages” as her being a priestress or even the goddess Libertas herself. But I think that’s a bit too far-fetched.

# Mr. Town (who refers to the New Gods as the “gods of progress”) explains that Mr. World sent him to kidnap Shadow because Mr. World wants to know why a simple guy like him, a random mortal man, would be chosen and treasured by Wednesday. 

# Mr. World explains that he allowed the Old Gods to gather together merely because as a result it was much easier to “chop all of their heads at once” like an hydra - the monster from the Greek mythology which could be defeated only if all of its heads were permanently destroyed. 

# The walls of the train are so weird... what are they?

# Mad Sweeney says he knows a “devil” in New-Orleans. Everyone theorized (and were right) that he meant the Baron Samedi. 

# As I mentionned in another post, all the “jumbo screens of Time Square” seen in TB’s quest for Media hint of her future transformation: advertisements, news channel, pop-art colorful ads and “animesque” like slogans for “Kawaii Media”. There are also advertisements for Xie Com and references to the future appearance of Argus. Technical Boy clearly expresses his arrogance and self-centeredness: he calls Media “retro”, says that art is “irrelevant”, he claims that he is “mankind’s greatest achievement”, “the compass rose” and “fucking binary”. At the opposite, Media claims that “Art is the most valuable means of insight into the direction of our collective purpose.” She  explains that she isn’t hiding but merely learning and observing, adapting and learning to survive. She also presents her own tactics and methods when dealing with humans as such: “The appetite for distraction is infinite. I can choke them with trivia, drown them with passive pleasure and devastate their spirituality with baby talk.” And that “there is no distinction between education and entertainment”. 

# We are presented with “The Hoard” of Mad Sweeney, which he calls “like the Backstage, but smaller” and that apparently only Sweeney can control. It is visibly where he keeps all the gold coins he keeps pulling out of his hands - and visibly a reference to the famous “treasures under the hill” of the leprechauns and fairies, which is equaled with the “burial treasures” of ancient kings and the “secret palaces” of the Tuatha dé Danaan. The hoard apparently is made mostly of the colors green and gold - there are flashes of gold, and the sound of coins dropping. During their travel through it, at one point Sweeney and Laura appear both naked, and in another shot Laura looks alive again. 

# Mr. Town lists that the New Gods offered humanity “penicillin, streaming porn and aircraft carriers that circle the globe”. He openly explains he works for those New Gods, and he strangely keeps insisting that Shadow is “unworthy” of the gods attention and time. 

# In the rest of the train, outside of the other “spooks”, we find jeeps and missiles and other military equipment. The other spooks visibly have electricity-generating weapons. In the credits, four men are merely referred to as “Mr. Town’s agent”, but two are identified as Wood and Stone from the novel: Eric Daniel plays “Mr. Wood” and Chris Mark plays “Mr. Stone”. It is unknown if this Mr. Wood is intended to be the same as the Mr. Wood from the first season, though it seems impossible - season 1 Mr. Wood being a monstrous abomination, entirely tree-like, and season 2 Mr. Wood being a mere human easily killed. 

# The coin the “mystery character”( that is of course Wednesday) holds in his hand during Shadow’s childhood first appears as a gold coin with a buffalo printed on it - before turning into a regular quarter.

# Many have tried to find what kind of flowers were the blue ones in the field Laura rests in. Some ask if they are a form of blue lotus, or waterlillies - due to a field of waterlillies (referred to as the “lake of flowers”) is one of the steps to access the Egyptian afterlife. Others have suggested they were myosotis (aka “forget me not”), flowers used a lot when it comes to memorating the deads - mostly soldiers fallen at war or victims of a genocide. 

# “Betty” is revealed to actually be the “modern” form of Odin’s steed, Sleipnir the eight-legged horse.

# A final thing some have spotted: the container Shadow stands onto when plugged to the “interrogation machine” is actually from the Vulcan factory. Many had theorized that the “Deus mortuorum” bullets used by the snipers in the previous episode had been crafted by Vulcan - and it seems that indeed Vulcan was the main weapon provider for the New Gods (or at least for the Spooks). 

[johnnydeppfuckyeah]

Abuse a Man Unjustly, and You Will Make Friends for Him

“Tell the world Johnny, tell them, I Johnny Depp, a man, I’m a victim too of domestic violence… And see how many people believe or side with you.”

A survivor of hellacious abuse, who was falsely accused of being the abuser, has gone above and beyond to prove his innocence. Despite the profuse amount of evidence in his favor he still is not being believed in the court of public opinion. He did everything and more that one would expect from an abused party. Detailed notes in the form of gruesome photographs, video footage, medical records, audio confessions from his abuser, fleeing the area when violence would erupt, sinking into the bowels of depression as those around watched and could do almost nothing to help or stop it.

This man begged for there to be no more violence. He pleaded with his abuser, “there can be no physical violence..” in the audio tape. “Don’t tell me what it feels like to be punched”, as she tried to redefine his words and experience for him. “I lost a finger man..” He reminds her as she chastises him wildly for insinuating he is a victim of anything at all. The first tape is the result of couples therapy according to the accompanying documentation. We also know he was seeking professional help for his addiction issues. He was trying to change and do better for her. Little did he know at the time it would never be enough. There is nothing he could have done that would ever satisfy her lust for violence, nothing that would have made her stop abusing him. In fact he’s lucky to have gotten out when he did because in all likelihood it would have only continued to get worse for him. Amber Heard is a sick individual who lacks self control and thrives on brutality and combativeness. She is only truly living when she is sucking the life out of someone.

She managed to insert her tortuous ways into his opioid detox by withholding medication from him that would send him into spasms. This is an act that easily could have killed him by triggering him to go into cardiac arrest, not that she likely would have cared much if it had. She sought vengeance on him at all times. Her jealousy and envy of him and everything that he’s accomplished, everything that he has, and everything that he is are unmatched. Certainly by anything I’ve ever encountered anyhow. She didn’t just want what he had but I believe she truly want to be him. Right down to the cheekbones. She dressed like him, she mimicked him, she pretended to be interested in his interests. She tried to turn herself into a female version of him and lured him into her villainous talons. A literal siren.

Johnny Depp has several very impactful witness statements but the one that stands out most to me is from Tara Roberts in the Bahamas. She is his property manager there and has known him and his family for over a decade. She talks about watching a man that she knew as jovial, active, and family oriented suddenly resort to sleeping all day and becoming more reclusive. She goes on to describe several events which took place with Amber on the island, one of which sees Johnny fleeing his home on his ATV just to get away from her monstrous behavior. It proves futile as she catches up with him anyhow, continuing to attack and berate him at length. This man was fleeing his own homes to escape her on a regular basis. His security guards attest to this, having to pick him up from the Eastern Building on multiple occasions after a Heard rampage and taking him back to his West Hollywood home. Heard wanted him to stay and take her abuse because it only made her more angry for him to leave. She became enraged because he refused to stay and be her personal punching bag. It’s vomitous that anyone holds this woman up as a pillar of justice for women when in truth she is the voice of abusers everywhere.

She and her supporters try to say his witnesses are unimportant because they’re his employees. Taking into account that there are over forty of them are we really to believe that all these people agreed to be bought off with not a single soul showing conscience? Beyond that not a single soul ratting the others out and turning on them all? To the contrary several of Amber Heard’s friends have pivoted on her. Her interior decorator and friend Laura Divenere submitted a declaration that Amber had never spoken of domestic violence nor did she ever appear injured in Laura’s presence. We have recntly learned that her own personal assistant will be testifying against her in The Sun trial as well. Not one person from Johnny Depp’s camp has flipped sides. Out of all the people he has spent significant time with in his life not one person has stepped up behind Amber’s claims to echo any sentiment of violence. I don’t mean the inaneness that will inevitibly be brought up if I don’t mention — The Mark Hotel incident, the paparazzi incident with Vanessa Paradis, the crew member on City of Lies who was already proven to be a liar multiple times. I’m talking about claims of true personal violence against someone he was romantically involved with. The time was more than ripe after Amber accused him and not one other woman came forward, in fact they all defended him. I find that astonishing in a marvelous way. Character profiles are extremely important here as abusers usually have a pattern over many years. There is one person in this relationship with a pattern of abuse and abusive behavior. Hint: it’s not Johnny Depp. There is also one person here on whom you can easily find distasteful comments about meeting, interacting, and working with. Hint again: it’s not Johnny Depp.

There’s so much here already and I know we, the public, have not even seen a drop in the ocean compared to what Johnny Depp has in his possession and evidence. People aren’t thinking about that though. They see everything that comes out as some kind of diabolical “leak” from his side, designed only to slander Heard in the media. They don’t realize where these leaks come from. In the United States we have the Freedom of Information Act. All of this documentation is available to the public for anyone who cares to go and look. In the UK I understand the laws are a bit different but a member of the press can go and request the records be released to them. Why would he deny it? He has everything to lose by not being 100% open during both of these proceedings. The antithesis to this is anything coming from Heard’s camp. Anything she (or her lawyers) releases is seen as the smoking gun and people seem to forget there are two recordings out where she professes her lunacy to him let alone two trials looming with an exorbitant amount of evidence yet to be revealed. To be clear, what’s come from her side has been feeble attampts at character assassination and pathetic bids to make him a sniveling, mustache twirling, villain more than anything of real value to her case -which she only states she’ll prove, “if necessary.”

Amber Heard has now requested in both the defamation lawsuit in Virginia and The Sun suit in the UK that her evidence be kept private. In the US that request has already been denied along with two attempts to have the case dismissed flat out. She has a third dismissal attempt still pending as of this writing. That just doesn’t sound like someone who wants to prove their claims beyond a reasonable doubt. It sounds like someone who wants to shut the whole thing down by any means necessary because they cannot substantiate what they say. The courts even agreed in 2016, she can never refile these domestic abuse claims against Johnny Depp and she had hired a criminal defense attorney at that time. Does that not sound suspect to anyone else? She’s been subpoenaing irrelevant people, productions, and companies left and right. She also avoided sitting for a deposition like it was the coronavirus. After multiple excuses and delays they finally got her into the room where she threw a nine hour temper tantrum and refused to be questioned under oath. It was ultimately completed and what has come out of it doesn’t look good for her either.

She has contradicted her own stories so many times I don’t even know where to begin. For starters she seems to not remember when she got married or when her honeymoon was. She stated she only ever hit Johnny one time in defense of her “baby sister” whom she suggests he was about to push down the stairs. We now know, thanks to her deposition and audio confessionals, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. She wholly admitted to multiple violent attacks against him along with the throwing of pots, pans, cans, and vases. She admitted to kicking a door into his head while he was hiding from her in a bathroom and proceeding to punch him in the jaw directly after. Other’s have declared they’ve seen her violently assault him, spit on him, throw purses, and heavy TV remotes to name a few. The list is frankly and sadly endless, and when all is said and done I can’t imagine that Amber Heard comes out smelling like anything less than a thousand year old egg. Johnny may never be fully redeemed by all, just look at the reaction to the absurd necromancer text, some genuinely believe a man must be without any fault to be a victim. He will have his day(s) in court and he will prove himself.

Please feel free to look up any of her declarations and filings to verify the information stated here. I don’t often use a ton of citations but that’s because I assume the base of my readers to be people who are intimately familiar with the case already.

Johnny Depp is a very powerful man, just not in the way the media wants you to believe. Although it may not always seem like it, Depp has made friends around the world throughout this ordeal. People who are victims of abuse have flocked to his side after seeing what, to them, seemed like extremely obvious proof that he was the victim. Men have begun speaking up for themselves about violence they have suffered at the hands of their significant others. They no longer feel ashamed or put down because a woman laid hands on them and inflicted injury, sometimes very seriously. If nothing else Johnny should be extremely proud of himself for speaking up. It may well have been the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life and people should take him seriously. He should take pride that he influenced a large number of people to speak out about their own experiences and find catharsis with him in finally letting it out. He should be proud for giving people hope and he should be proud that he survived and continues to thrive and fight for what’s right. I hope that even in his darkest moments, and when he might be feeling most alone, he can find that one little synapse in his mind that reminds him that we are all here for him, and that he has been there for us. Johnny Depp is innocent. Johnny Depp is a survivor. Johnny Depp will have justice and Johnny Depp has already begun to rise from the ashes of this hideous ordeal. May the film offers pour in and the musical fulfilment be never ending. The best is yet to come.

[skippyv20]

Oh Miss Big Movie Star....there seems to be a problem....

So....you were in this movie....but....your name doesn’t even appear...

Ohhhh...look....now this has your name....you hit big time....obviously for your area of “expertise”

And..one review....let’s see...

(Do note that although Meghan Markle was top listed as the character "Dana" here on IMDB--which was one of the reasons I decided to see this, I thought it'd be funny--neither I nor anyone I was watching this with could spot her. We finally decided she might be the narrator, but as the end credits rolled, her name wasn't listed there either. Whatever that means. )

Well!  They couldn’t see you.....and your name didn’t show up on credits......hmmmmm....

Look! Your name and picture! Wait till you see the reviews!

I loved RANDOM ENCOUNTERS and found the leading couple, Abby Wathen and Michael Rady, to be adorable and perfectly cast. Somehow they bring off the virtually impossible feat of creating powerful chemistry while sharing very minimal screen time together. I was rooting wholeheartedly for Laura and Kevin to find each other again after their chance meeting early in the film because these two likable characters seemed so ideally suited. Screenwriters Nate Barlow and Boris Undorf have produced an inspired script that is witty and smart.

Whoops!  Sorry this one doesn’t mention you...hold on....

There was a scene where Meghan was in her car talking to her friend that I swear sounded like it was recorded in a hallway or something. It was confusing because there was a lot of emotion going on in her face, but the ADR dialogue didn't match her facial expressions. Cringe. Would not recommend. Burn every copy of this film. and hope it never is seen again.

Yeah.....I don’t think they were as impressed as the screenwriters family was....

So...not a stretch from your movie career to ending up like this.....

Just shows us all....you have always been irrelevant..... Whoops!😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[olympivnshq]

congratulations laura !  MEGARA is a figure who beyond disney, has not been given much of a voice, nor appreciation. you gave her a real story, something to work towards, her unique way of thinking. your attention to detail in your app was incredible and adheres deeply to your character in a way that invigorates us for our own, so we’re pleased to welcome you with your first faceclaim choice: BENEDETTA GARGARI

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ  OOC INFO.

Hi I’m Laura, I’m 22 and live in GMT+10 timezone (Australia). Honestly there isn’t much more to tell.

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ  DEITY  —  GENDER. AGE RANGE.

Megara, Female, 20-25

☆ﾟ*・ﾟ MORTAL NAME. JOB/OCCUPATION. BOROUGH/NEIGHBORHOOD.

Megan Jones, Waitress (Former Student), Greenwich Village, Manhattan

☆ﾟ*・ HOW WOULD YOU PLAY THEM?

The climax of Megara’s life, the moment that forced her to face who she was, and who she had been, was the day she arrived in Hades. Everyone in Hades has a bag, a bag filled to the brim with words. Words you have said, words you have heard, words other people have said about you. Megara’s bag contained very little of herself, most of its contents concerned her husband – Heracles.

It was to such an extent that she wondered if she had existed before her husband.

More shocking than the contents of her own bag, her own life, was the thought of what her husbands would contain once he joined her… If he joined her. Would she be more than a footnote in his tale?

Who was Megara? Often even she does not know. She gave up everything, her identity, her independence, her choices, to ensure that she did right by the people she loved. The father who needed her, the husband she always wished needed her more, and the children she would inevitably fail.

The earlier you die the longer you have to reflect in Hades, to consider your choices, and your mistakes. To reflect on all of the potential that was stripped away.

Megara had never been good at looking back, she didn’t like to regret, and she certainly didn’t like to dwell on the things she could not change. Looking forwards, however, was her specialty, she knew how to dream, how to plan. She knew how to weigh the choices, and the possibilities, how to craft a path that would lead to the greatest outcome for all. It was why she sacrificed, and it was how she realised, in Hades, just how much she would have done, had she been given the choice.

Perhaps that was what she was. Wasted potential.  A thousand lifetimes unlived.

For Megan everything was different – and yet everything was very much the same. Some may say she grew up with a very different father to Creon. He certainly was not a wealthy King, yet when he was winning big, he acted like one. He was a man who indulged in all the opulence that he could not afford. For Megan he played the same role.  

Megan’s childhood was one of extremes. Her father gambled and gambled often with little regard for the consequences. One day he would win big, would be high on the grand scheme he had planned, a scheme that would set the family up for life, and make up for every mistake her father had made in the past. These times Megan would be showered in gifts, expensive toys, new furniture, and trips to all of her favourite places. Her father treated her like a princess, and her mother like a Queen.

Within a few weeks, however, the men her father had borrowed from would arrive. Stripping everything they had gained, and then some, to ensure her father paid his debts. From there the spiral would be unbearable, until, of course, her father won and the cycle started all over again.

During this time Megan lost herself in stories. Books were one of the few things unlikely to be taken from her, and she cherished them. She chose to live in the dreams her books provided, to protect herself from the reality that waited outside.

Megan became the opposite of her father in every way. Where he spent, she saved. Where he was selfish, she became sacrificing, where he was ruled by indulgence she was led, at all times, by her duty.

It was hard to keep any money or wealth from her father, but as a teenager she managed it, putting money away, little by little, in places he could not access it. A teacher who opened a secret bank account in her name and a hole in her wall where she hid the profits from the gifts she had sold, before the all too familiar loan sharks could do the same.

It was all towards one goal. To leave her hometown for a big city, the biggest city, where she could disappear amongst a mass of people to whom she owed nothing. New York University provided every opportunity she craved.

For a while everything was perfect. She had independence for the first time in her life. Her father knew she was studying at NYU but knew nothing more about her location. She was free to live her life however she saw fit.

She worked part time as a waitress, socialising with other like-minded students and losing herself in her English Literature studies.

She was stupid to think it would last.

It was on the last day of her exams that the men turned up at her door. She did not know them, had never met them before, but she knew the look of them. In a moment everything she had built was torn away from her.

Her choice was simple, give up everything she had to work of her father’s debt, or let her father suffer. It was never really a choice.

Now Megan works full time waitressing, most of the money she earns goes back to the thugs her father owes his life to. It’s never enough, it never will be enough, Megan now watches as every dream she had disappears into dust.

answer these questions:

would you like your character to be entering the roleplay at this stage in the plot, with or without their memories?

I would prefer she enters without her memories, as I think the realisation of who she is, and her place in the universe, will be fun to play with from the beginning.

are they more likely to stand with the pantheon or against it?  ( if you are choosing a god they may endeavour to dismantle it for whatever reason )

Megan would snort at this question. What would it matter?  She would think, behind her silent sneer. What good would my choice provide to either side?

It would be a hard choice. Duty rules her, duty to those she is affiliated. Now, however, Megan has led a whole life without the pantheon, a whole life in which she felt no loyalty to any of the people asking for her help. Who are the Gods to her? Why should she stand with them, when they would not stand with her if their roles were reversed?

Of course, all of this is just talk, a feeble attempt to regain agency after all she had lost. Megan can pretend all she wants that the pantheon is meaningless to her. Megan stands by her own, even if doing so means giving up everything she has ever wanted. In the end she will stand with the closest thing Megara has to family.

what is their stand on mortals?

I found as I answered this question I was writing from Megan’s perspective, so I have written it in the form of a sample.

“Mortals. Such a dismissive word” Megan wasn’t sure if she was going to laugh or cry. The way the question was asked, it was so typical of the Gods. One word, one turn of phrase, could reduce everything other than themselves to nothing. “What am I? In this thought experiment.” She picked her nails as she leant back, eyes caught somewhere in the distance, unable to meet the gaze of her companion. “Am I mortal? I am no God. I am not divine – nor am I special, I just���” She paused there, despite all the knowledge she had gained it still felt unnatural to consider herself and Megara the same person. “She just… Heracles was the special one. Not me.”

Finally, she was able to meet their gaze. The thread of assertiveness that had always lurked under the surface of her passivity rearing its head. “But when you talk of Mortals you don’t mean me do you? You mean all those we are surrounded by, real and free and so completely oblivious of the truth. You want to know my stand on mortals? I envy them.”

She envied the choices that lay ahead of them; she envied their lives, so self-centred, concerned only with the reality within their own heads. She envied their certainty in their own identity, and their absolute irrelevance to most of the Gods. How she craved that, to disappear amongst the crowd, to be just another mortal.

To be anything other than what she was, both relevant, and yet nothing at the same time.

Megan had studied English Literature. She knew the difference between a character and a plot device.

☆ﾟ*・ GIVE US A SAMPLE OF YOUR WRITING!

The rich black leather of her purse met the top of a corner table roughly, practically mimicking the way she fell into the booth behind it. Hers was a frustration that could not be confined by her form. Hell, she practically emanated it, changing the energy of the otherwise peaceful room. The little cup before her spilled a few drops on the table from such jostling, and she paid them no mind.

“I should become a psychiatrist,” she sneered to herself. “Everyone tells me their problems anyway. Might as well make a little extra money for it.”

—

Leave it alone, the little voice in Megan’s head, the little voice that had an all too annoying habit of being right, was screaming at her right now. Just leave it alone and get on with your work. She never had been good at listening to it, even when she knew she should.

The truth was Megan was bored. She was bored of her late-night shifts at the café. She was bored of the same faces, every day, of eyes that looked right through her, eyes that dismissed her, eyes that treated her as if she were nothing more than a simpleton. She thought she could feel her brains turning to mush the longer she stayed in this café.

So, the woman who had just entered, the woman who seemed to be carrying so much weight, who communicated so much simply in the way she fell into her seat, that was a woman with so much potential that Megan could not let her escape.

Rather than listening to her little voice, therefore, Megan instead found herself approaching the woman’s table, her pot of coffee ready in her hand, the perfect excuse for some form of engaging conversation.

“You might have some competition on that front.” Megan told her, a shy laugh upon her lips. “People seem to think waitresses are a lot like psychiatrists, except, of course, they don’t have to respect us. I’m pretty sure people have told me things they wouldn’t dream of telling their shrink.”

She filled up her coffee nervously, her weight shifting between her feet. Please, she thought, please just give me something interesting. “Of course, until we actually become psychiatrists, we’re under no obligation to keep their secrets. Terrifying thought for everyone else. Fun for us.”

[popculturespiritwow]

THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #33: YOUR DERIVATIVE SHIT (AKA TWIST AND SHOUT)

This cover. Black to me signals death, or something awful. And I was certain that we get all-black pages somewhat regularly in WicDiv, but you know, it’s not true. Both when Luci gets “killed” and Laura herself “dies”, we get pages that are black but for two tiny almost exactly duplicated comments.

The Underworld is obviously a land of darkness, and there are two moments – during Laura’s first trip down there and then when Persephone first gets her hands on Woden – where we get a splash page of endless black into which the character is falling.

But the only time in WicDiv that we’re given a non-dialogue-y black page is when Sakhmet takes out her dad in issue 17, and again in issue 28 when she massacres her party people after coming to believe they’re all laughing at her. That last one does give one tiny little glimpse of her, though.

So if there is a “language” to the all-blacks (non haka version) (love you Kiwis), it would seem to be something to do with violence and lost time.

But we’ve already done all the blood and nightmares in this arc, and this issue is instead filled with twists and reveals and honest soul-rending conversation and reunions and new friends and overall kind of a lot of reader satisfaction.  So a very different thing.

Another take on the all-black is this is what you put on your cover when you’re terrified anything else will give something away. But for as much anxiety as Kieron talks about in his notes about “keeping the secrets” of this issue (and also his sense of what nonsense that fear is), he and Jamie have never had any trouble obscuring  reveals before.

So here’s my thought: Maybe it’s like Disneyland. Disney theme parks are built in such a way that on the way in you have to go through a tunnel of some kind, and before you do you can’t really see inside to all the happy happy joy joy good stuff.

The idea is, Disney wants you to feel like you’re entering into a whole different world than the one you left behind, a better world where you can be happy and spend money and want to take the same picture in front of the castle that everyone else does and still feel like it’s special.  And part of that is creating a clear sense of boundary; there was where you were and there’s where you’re going, and the tunnel stands as passage in between.

Maybe that’s why you do a black cover: Not to hide anything or signal violence but to create a boundary, a sense of a passage into something new. 

PHALLUCIES

So we begin with the Vibrator as key. I want to say it might be the perfect Gillen/McKelvie image – it’s naughty and seems like a joke and has been sitting there for so long that we no longer think much of it when in fact it is absolutely essential.

Nothing in WicDiv is superfluous, minor or irrelevant. Everything is trying to express something important. (TELL US ABOUT THE VEILS KIERON.)

A bigger question: does the fact that Jon (and not only Jon but the truth about Laura) is released into the story via a phallic device that vibrates have even more to say? Is pleasure or self-care in a sense the key in WicDiv, a path to freedom and life?

Have I not mentioned already I was an English major?

READ ONLY MIMIRY (#SorryNotSorry)

After an arc that seems very caught up in how the characters are all caught up in/pinned down by stories, suddenly out of nowhere we have Jon, this breath of fresh air who sees that path for the garbage it is and refuses it. He will not fit the options Ananke poses, or any duality, thanks very much.

He is the one who builds.

Of course he is then force-wrapped into stories – the Pantheon (I love the horror of his reaction to his ascent), this weird Odin/Thor thing (complete with the nod to Thor’s alter ego Donald Blake) and also the biblical Abraham and Isaac story, the father sacrificing his son to God (now comes with beheading!).

And if I understand the father/son dynamic, as much as Jon sees the Mimir thing for the lie or trap it is, he still can’t quite help himself from being a builder. There are rules he can bend (see: vibrator) but he can’t quite enact a full break.

His call is really quite beautiful. “You walked among your foes for the sake of love,” the spooky Ananke heads say. “Struck down you are raised up, the Sky King’s grandest treasure.” It’s pretty much the absolute opposite of his Dad’s call.

How crazy is it that we’re 2/3rds done with the series, we’ve just been introduced to a major new character (okay we saw him once before but still), and he fits in so well?

Probably we’re being set up for betrayal and heartbreak, but for now I love it with all the loves. 

MACK THAT KNIFE

Can we just talk about the knife for a second? Like, how exactly does it work? Clearly it somehow enables the user to disengage the head from the body while keeping the head alive. But whereas with Jon that might have happened literally – put your elbow into it, David! – in the case of Luci, Tara and Inanna Ananke used her signature head pop. So what’s the deal? It’s enough to have the knife in your possession when doing with the murdering, or something else?

Also, post-beheading, we see Ananke referring to Jon as “it”.

Is this because he’s now “just” a living head? Or is this how she actually honestly sees all the gods?  It’s um, upsetting to say the least. 

Of course so is Woden’s take on things: Jon stole my life (by being born, you horrible human looking meat puppet), so now I get to steal his.

I don’t know how it would have been possible Woden could sink lower in my estimation than he has (#Dio4Vr), but in fact it is and he has.

CASSANDRA VS. THE DESTROYER ROUND II

As much as I love the Jon reveal, the thing that really rocked my world was actually not that but Laura explaining what she’s been going through. I just – this poor girl. And though we still have two arcs to go, in a way this moment is the heart of the series. Kieron seems to say as much in the notes, talking about how the artist lives in this awful reality of getting what they dreamed of, but it involves awful stuff happening to oneself and others. 

“I’ve talked about having mixed feelings about WicDiv’s success. Laura’s arc is it writ large. I hate that the definitive work of my career is this. If my Dad was not dead I would not have written this book. There is a guilt and anger that is hard to articulate directly there, and is the material I was mining for this.”

Art is built on suffering and loss—and that means on the back of horror done to others. To wish to be an artist is in a sense to sacrifice those relationships in a fundamental and sometimes literal way, in fact that seems a necessity to one’s success. Being a storyteller may be incredibly nourishing for others, but it’s built on harm done to those you love.

Jesus Christ this is dark. And we haven’t even gotten to the point yet of facing the question that society’s survival is supposedly built on those artists’, those children’s destruction. We love you so much, you inspire us, but what cements that for the century is your deaths.

What do you make of this follow-up moment where Laura suddenly turns it to 11 with Cass?

It only happens after Cassandra calls Laura Persephone for the first time, which seems like it’s meant as a kind of respect. Knowing what she’s been through, she is now worthy of her name in Cassandra’s eyes. She is an equal.

Except it seems to set Laura on the path of what – connection, for sure. But through sex, which is actually more escape than intimacy.

What is “The Destroyer”, in the end? Less a malevolence associated with Laura, it seems to me, than the character of all the gods when they get lost in their stories about themselves.  

(More to the point: What the heck is the Machine? Jon says it does nothing. Whuhhh?)

A STEP A HEAD/STOP MAKING SENSE

So, after quite some issues away from it, in the end we return to the heads. Lots and lots of heads. Jon’s head (god that’s a delightful reveal), then Sakhmet’s slice of head – and Minerva – and then finally, the big finish.

I would say my head exploded except I feel like that gag has already been played.

As he has mentioned often in his notes, Kieron loves to hide much bigger reveals within the reveal we know that’s coming. In this case, we knew there was this other Daft Punk member hiding in the darkness somewhere, and we knew there was something up with Laura we needed to hear about.

So we get that and say thank you, and then there’s still four incredible jaw dropping can we please do a happy dance for Luci pages.

Kieron goes into a ton more detail on this writing strategy here, and the particular nightmare challenges posed by this issue. I’ll post excerpts below, but you should read them in full. They are fantastic.

But if I can just ask one question: What the hell happened with Minerva? Am I to believe she did not feel bad about Sakhmet, that she’s that good an actor? Je refuse! And also isn’t the point of the Sakhead reveal that still-Minerva blew it with her fearfulness and lack of skill?

#CRAFTSERVICE: ON TWISTS

Okay… twists.

In reality, for me, it’s a case of once you’ve decided that this is the plot, the only way to do it is dovetail towards an issue like this. Any of these individual beats provide too much connective tissue to the other ones, meaning all must be revealed or none.

(You could argue about Minerva, I suspect. Maybe.)

It’s been strange writing a book like this – when so much is there early on. Seeing who got what and who didn’t, and how people reinforced people has been interesting. That the core WicDiv tumblr community has never really suspected Minerva was off is in some way a surprise – though I’ve had people talk about that directly and personally. Blake/Jon and Minerva-is-Off-In-Some-Way were the two twists I would guard, but their primary importance was in how they led to the Heads.

When Ray Fawkes told me “There’s a reason you’re doing all the decapitations, right?” circa issue 2, I suspected that I’d overplayed the hand by having a literal talking head in issue 3… but it turned out fine.

“Played the hand” is interesting phrasing, and telling. Writing something as intricate as this is like doing a slow-motion card trick, in public, constantly. It is a form of constant stress. I have been paranoid of fucking it up in stupid ways, and it’s impacted every single conversation I’ve ever had about WicDiv. Like just writing one name when I mean another or something. There was a hilarious panic when I added ‘Killer Queen’ to the playlist, just thinking of it as a quite funny Ananke song… and then realised there was only one character in the cast with a connection to the band Queen, and that was Minerva. Should I take it off the playlist? No, someone may notice that, and it’s against my rules anyway. I quickly added a few other things to camouflage it.

As if anyone is watching that closely, y'know?

That’s an extreme example, but an entirely characteristic one. I have lost sleep over it. Even a year ago, I wished I could just get to 33 and not worry about it. When 33 dropped, it was simultaneously excellent (the response was basically what we expected) and an anticlimax (The amount of emotional and intellectual effort you put into doing this is not worth it. It could never be worth it.) I’ve been telling friends that I’ll never write a story that operates like this again. Partially that is because I wouldn’t want to repeat myself, and partially because – as I said above – I think twists are less effective in long-form serialised work in 2017, but mainly as I don’t think I want to do this to myself again. I’ll find some other way to torture myself.

 So apparently Mini has been off all this time. I’m stunned by that.

#CRAFTSERVICE: MORE ON TWISTS!

I’d note that setting up twists that *are* easily guessable by the hardcore is part of the methodology. Having a nice big twist foreshadowed heavily is a good way to hide another twist behind it. “Hey – pay attention to this less subtle sleight of hand while I perform the actual sleight of hand over here.”

Oh you’re expecting a big reveal are you, cool cool cool here it is and also SURPRISE.

He talks about this again later, in response to the reveal that Mimir is just a talking head.

When thinking of plot structure, I talk about a few ways to disguise twists. Earlier, I mentioned a Big Twist can make people suspect the twists are over. This is something I tend to think of as a revealed move. As in, you create a machine of logic with a missing part. You add the missing part as late as possible, and then immediately move to what has been concealed before the audience is able to process the new information.

Oh you’re blown away by Mimir are you? SURPRISE, there are three other heads.  And also Minerva is not Minerva.

It’s a great insight, too – if you fear one bit of new information is going to naturally lead to others, drop it all right now before they even have time to think about it.

#CRAFTSERVICE: ON WHAT WRITING IS FOR

I know this is a lot of quoting the author, but hey it’s a big issue and the author has some great stuff to say and it is helping me. 

How do I actually feel when someone guesses something that’s going to happen? Well, this is long enough already. Let’s put the personal stuff beneath a cut…

I’d say you sigh “Oh, poop” and shrug.

And then you get over your ass, because you know all the above is true. Writers are often megalomaniacs who think they can control everyone’s response to their work. We don’t. We can’t control everything. We can barely control anything. We really have to let go. I’ve said WicDiv is a device to help me improve as a person, yes? It would include in this area. I have to learn to let it go, and internalise all of the above. If I can make most of my readership have the vague emotional response I’m looking for, I’m winning.

Certainly I’ve heard many writers talk about their writing as coming from a personal place. And as a writer myself I’ve had to learn (again and again) that having a sparkly fun idea is not going to be enough to get me up and writing every day, even if people like it. That I need what I’m writing to come from something more specific in me.

But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard an artist talk about their work as well, their work. The journey they’re taking to try and deal with something or figure something out or to let go and get free and be a better version of them. It makes so much sense, and man does it challenge me to have another think about my own work. Because I think most of the time I almost think of the journey as the thing that has to come before the work, the thing that prevents the work – Ima just get my act together and then write this script in fifteen years or so. And reading this it strikes me  oh wait, that’s just the thing I tell myself so I don’t have to do the work.

 There’s so much more to say about this issue. But it’s taken me the better part of a week to say this much already so maybe I’ll just leave it there. Suffice to say, it’s a giant of story.

(And yes, that’s my exhausted end of words attempt at a Mimir pun.)

I’ll be back next week with the two specials. And then, Mothering Invention!

[ilvermourn]

Next time you think jeff priorities women and people of colour as well as his favourite whites, remember these;

- he gave the "first beta to gain control quickly" stance to a white man so he could come back and tame the black man and woman (isaac; boyd and erica)

- He let a white prick who abused his girlfriend back on the show yet refuses to bring back her close friend of colour. (Jackson; Lydia and Kira)

- He let an abusive white man hurt his best friend and justified it with father-son issues and never let the white man apologise yet implied that it's really the abused friend of colour that should do the apologising. (Stiles; Scott)

- He had four women and a black man killed to increase the man pain of a white male (derek; boyd, Laura, Talia, paige and erica)

- He gave little to no development to a black man but was so upset when he couldn't give a white man a parental figure (another white man) even though he could've had a strong brown woman be his parental figure. (Isaac, chris; boyd and melissa)

- He made one of his strong female characters forcefully call a killer, the reason her friends have suffered- someone who doesn't even care about her, her dad when the man that actually gave a damn about her and missed her the years she was gone was completely written off whilst the white male abuser got to stay in the show. (Peter; malia TATE and Henry)

- He let go a Hawaiian character with so much potential in being part of the reoccurring characters with his very relevant last name and connection with members of the pack yet was so eager to bring back multiple white serial killing men. (Danny; Theo, Peter)

- He made multiple season and episodes that were female centric revolve around an irrelevant white male in which the fandom soon gave credit to the males instead of the females who survived tons of shit. (Stiles, theo; malia and lydia s5)

- He pulled a stupid storyline out of his ass where he practically kicked off a woman of colour yet used her powers and weapon to bring back a (white) man. (Theo; kira) yes i understand cody is a POC but he's playing a white boy, seeing his parents and sister were white - if i'm wrong about them please do correct me.

- He reduced the growth and development of a strong woman to the lap dog of white man even without the knowledge of his existence. (Stiles; lydia)

- He let an irrelevant white man survive almost deaths too many times yet is planning on killing a brown woman who is the heart behind the soul and head of the show. (Sheriff; Melissa and Scott)

- Sidelined a hispanic male for the likes of his white male friend (does this need to be further distinguished?Stiles; scott)

- Sidelined a black male for the likes of his white male friend (again does it need to be distinguished? isaac; boyd)

- Reduced a brown girl to the love interest of a white man and refused to give her any development with her new found powers for two whole seasons yet had more than enough time to have her kiss and have sex with said white male. (Liam; hayden)

- Put a black boy and a woman in danger then had the pack (the leads of colour) save them then gave all credit to the white boy who had two seconds of screen time during the actual saving (Mason, malia, scott and kira; stiles and his stupid ass father)

- Had the fucking sheriff of the town vow to burn every evidence against his white son being a murderer but in the same breath had said white son's friend of colour arrested for a murder she had no knowledge of. (Sheriff, stiles; kira)

- Brings back a white man who's storyline is complete to save the day but rejected the likes of a black woman coming to save the day with her mercenary skills that are well needed in the season of hunting. (Derek; Braeden)

- Is bringing back two abusive white ex girlfriends in a season the male mentioned above is returning yet not his black girlfriends who's literally the reason he's happier nowadays. (Kate, jennifer; derek and braedon)

- Finally added another black woman (we've only seen about three) but gave her a villainous storyline where she's vicious and cold blood with her students. (Tamara Monroe)

- He continuously is willing to bring back an old white man who just so conveniently has knowledge of anything yet not the black woman who relevantly has knowledge of the supernatural world (gerard; morrell)

- Disrespectfully implies the Magical Niger trope into a black man's storyline and then never really mentions it again (deaton)

- Has the two black siblings (mentioned above) be loyal lap dogs (or druids) for white people without hesitation or hatred of their stance (basically slaves??) yet has a whole season revolving around the white ex druid who was so disrespected and walked on (jennifer; deaton and morrell)

- Is a gay man that fetishises white young boys and has hetero ships as his centre relationships where the male is more pronounced in the relationship, hardly has any gay relationships, never represents the community he's part of yet wants to praised for no homophobes in bh. Has never explored a lesbian relationship between main characters.

- Fetishises the small amount gay (interracial)couples by only having them make out, never giving them as much development as the white hetero-relationships but also never gives them a proper sex scene or ever implies it. (Dathan and Morey; Jeff D)

- Kicks out a woman of colour, never implies that her relationship with the main is over then has her boyfriend hook up with her bestfriend. (Kira; scalia)

- Doesn't understand the true meaning of friendship especially the friendship between girls and has them snaking on each other for the sake of ships (malia and Lydia; kira and malia and allison)

- Continuously mentions a dead white girl and implies she saves the day even though she's literally dead whilst refusing to credit the woman of colour who ACTUALLY saved the day (allison; kira)

- SIDELINES HIS FUCKING MAIN CHARACTER OF COLOUR FOR HIS WHITE MALE FAVE (scott; stiles)

- FETISHISES THE CRAP OUT OF WHITE MEN AND TREATS WOMEN AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR VERY POORLY! (Trash wolf; teen wolf)

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

carlwritesbadsmut replied to your post:I’m hearing about all the extra stuff in Twin...

The Frost books have a different tone to me than the show (although I can see the complaints about the show, especially season 3, as well), and the main difference is they seem to have a big focus on female characters as temptresses out to ruin the lives of men - much of Norma’s mother (stepmother in this new timeline) and her story have been rewritten to suit that narrative. It is unfortunate and sexist. The part about Gersten bothers me quite a bit too.

I haven’t even read the Frost books, just heard about some of what happened in them, particularly the missing pieces of the female character’s stories (I have no idea what you’re referring to about the Gersten Bros., I didn’t hear anything about them and they’re irrelevant to my point). I kinda feel like you read my post and boiled everything I said down to “the book is sexist and thus so is the show,” which isn’t really what I said at all. It erases the nuance of what I was talking about. I’m not dismissing the value of the original Twin Peaks series, I’m talking about a thoughtless, cruel series of choices that were taken in S3 that did serious damage.

The things that I heard (Audrey’s rape at Dopple!Coop’s hands and subsequent shitty marriage, shitty son, and institutionalization, Annie’s probable rape at Dopple!Coop’s hands and her second suicide attempt and the yearly “I’m fine” statement around the anniversary of it) are blatantly present in Show canon, just not elaborated on. On top of this, we an count Diane as another rape victim, and we can count all the VIVID brutalization of the new female characters in S3 as well.

Frankly none of the post had anything to do with anybody’s portrayal of women, it had to do with the utilization of beloved female character’s suffering to make a dark, cynicial point about women’s suffering and men’s failures regarding it. 

Female characters who women audiences loved had their entire futures sacrificed in the name of the ~message~. The integrity of Dale Cooper was sacrificed in the name of the ~message~. The female audience was subjected to vivid, graphic depictions of women being abuse and brutalized, again so the writers could make a statement. 

Presumably all of this was done because Frost/Lynch wanted to make an artistic representation of women’s abuse at the hands of men, and the ways in which “”White Knights”” can do more harm than good. They were ~saying something~ about women’s abuse. 

But they brutally destroyed the lives of half the female characters to do it.  

They could have delicately suggested abuse and violence, in the way that Laura’s abuse and murder was fairly delicately handled in the original Twin Peaks, if they needed more of it. There were plenty of ways to make a story involving those subjects without taking it to the extreme levels they chose to.

What the female audience actually deserved was a sense of hope, a sense that healing can come after the darkness. We didn’t deserve to be subjected to the image of Audrey, Annie, and Diane’s rapist wearing Cooper’s face. We didn’t deserve to be subjected to graphic abuse imagery. We didn’t deserve the suggestion that Laura would be saved, only to be cruelly shown that rescuing cannot come, and that the men who want to take care of us are “”White Knights.””  

Dale Cooper wanting to save hurting women isn’t a bad thing. “White Knighting” is a bad thing when you make saving women about yourself. 

The problem is that it seems to me Frost/Lynch themselves were doing the White Knighting. When they wrote all this brutality and despair, proud of their artistic achievements, did they stop and think whether this level of miserable, grimdark shit was actually a good thing for the women in their audience, who’s cause they were presumably representing?

[jd-jurado]

i’m sorry, but if you actually expected david lynch to tie together all loose ends by the end of episode 18 then you’re deluding yourself. lynch’s filmography has been adamantly against giving viewers straight answers. there are no straight answers. 

why would you want to be forcefed easy explanations at every given opportunity? would mulholland drive be as effective as a movie if (spoilers for mulholland drive inbound) they took screentime to very carefully explain “the big twist” near the end? that everything was a fantasy and that characters were given analogues to bring that fantasy to life? half of the fun is being able to discuss the work, come up with interpretations, connect the dots, and finally reach a consensus on what is even happening. repeat viewings of lynch’s films have always been a treat, and season 3, for me, i’m sure will be no different. 

all of that aside. yeah there are some obvious grievances. i wanted to see more of “red”. i wanted to know what the hell was happening with the zombie kid in the car. i wanted to know the significance of that drunk in the jail cell that repeated everything. i’m sure everyone wants to know what the actual purpose of audrey’s inclusion in the story at all is. 

my interpretation of audrey’s story is that she’s already dead. her last appearance (episode 16) is her sudden realization, literally coming face-to-face with her own mortality. she was caught in the explosion at the end of season 2 but her soul or her conscience or whatever has remained inside this dream reality of hers (note: this doesn’t explain her line “i’m not me” which heavily implies that she might be a tulpa. again all of this could be completely wrong). the roadhouse is, quite literally, a microcosm of “the return” as a whole. some key players are introduced here, and slowly fade into the background over time as irrelevant side characters who do little or nothing at all (shelley comes to mind). musical performances are good. conversations are interesting. neither of these two things actually forward the “plot” in any way, which is something that audrey’s story ends up tying into. from her first appearance and onwards, audrey wants to get to the roadhouse. it’s been a long time since she’s been there, the same way it’s been a long time since dale has been to twin peaks. we want her to get there the same way we want dale to get back to twin peaks. at the same time, dale spends nearly all of season 3 stuck in catatonic dougie mode. he’s quite literally not himself the same way audrey feels like she’s not herself. in all of her appearances, she acts nothing like she does in the original run. all of the conversations in the roadhouse seem like they’re building up to same grandiose payoff, and when audrey finally arrives--it’s a monumental occasion. 

the announcer gives us audrey’s dance. audrey dances. this is a great callback and one of the best fanservice moments during season 3. it’s a great payoff. but much like the actual ending of season 3, it’s cut abruptly short by something that seems entirely unrelated, in this case a drunken barfight between two bystanders that seems inconsequential. audrey’s scared. she wants out. her dream is turning into a nightmare. she wakes up the same way laura does, screaming as her name is called and everything fades to black. 

neither of these stories have happy endings or easy answers. this is something people should have anticipated. i’m sorry if you didn’t. i don’t want to sound like i’m defending all of director david lynch’s decisions. if you’re upset, you have a right to be, but it was intentional. i think it’s still too early to be 100% certain about anything. but i also think that, as time passes and more speculation and theories emerge, all of season 3′s intricacies and deliberate choices might make a lot more sense, and repeat viewings might help fans understand the full picture just a bit more.