#neo agent 3 (anarchy)

[blueberry-blast]

@ the GrandFest hanging out with both grandpa's :)

[stupid-puppycat]

pls infodump about ur agents

ok i think im just gonna type everything on my mind rn so this wont have any kind of continuity or shit so im sorry

also i know they talk inklish so idk if there a spanish or birtish version of it but idc!!! im going to ignore that ok so for agent four:

was 15 when marie made him agent 4, then he got hit with my transgender beam and changed his name to Four

sees Marie as a mother to him, and even if Marie thought that four was kinda weird at the start she warmed up to him

didn't talk a lot to marie af the start either, kinda just. looked at her, but as time went by he started to get more and more comfortable and started to get very talkative

met with the other agents at octo canyon-Tentakeel Outpost after octo expansion, so never got to see three without the scar on their face

the only one of the agents who finished school, three dropped out and eight couldn't go anymore after going to the surface

even if he acts really silly and goofy he’s not stupid, especially good at math!

fucking LOVES soda, really really rarely drinks water

bites eight and three out of nowhere, his way to show affection <3

sleeps a lot, likes to go into swimform and sleep in top of three or eight

in swimform, one of his tentacles is shorter than the other

(idc if games and franchises like this wouldn't exist in the splatoon world.... i have to project) LOVES pokemon, like an insane amount, has finished pokemon platinum like 50 times at this point

works at salmon run to earn all of his money, doesn't really do agent stuff like missions anymore

gets """bullied""" by my two neo 3s, they just love to make pranks on him

good relationship with his brother even if they don't talk a lot, relationship with parents.... not so good

The three of the agents live at Four’s house

in a polycule with three and eight, he was the first to confess

used to have a really strong latino/spanish accent, no longer soo noticeable but still there ( bilingual )

teaches Eight bad words in spanish telling her they are cute pet names and stuff

Agent 8:

was 15 when all of the octo expansion stuff happened, 10 when first got in all the octo army stuff

transfem, started to socially transition and do voice training a little before octo expansion, officially started to get hrt at like 17-18

Ptsd and memory issues, gets a lot of nightmares about the deep sea metro so she likes to sleep with four or three for comfort

Still in contact with pearl and marina, really good relationship!!

completely amazed at inkling culture, even tho she doesn’t like that there is almost none octopus stuff

can’t stand some textures or foods, also doesn’t drink stuff with too much gas since she says its " too strong for her "

loves to paint and write poems!!

Four helps her with her estrogen injections since Three is REALLY scared of needles ( octo expansion stuff )

eats peppers as if they were apples, yummy

the one who gets up early ( like at 6am )

also the one who cooks because the other two will probably put the kitchen on fire ( especially three. )

bilingual, knows perfect octarian and a good inklish

has a british accent when talking in inklish, trying to learn spanish (whatever name infish have for spanish ) because three and four keep talking it and she doesn't understand a thing

doesn’t usually participate in turf war or anarchy battles, maybe sometimes she plays splatzones. only plays turf war when in the same team as three and/or four on splatfest

the only one who can actually make both of neo 3s to behave properly ( most of the time...)

LOVES judd and lil’ judd, like absolutely obsessed with them

octoling’s tentacles are prehensile, so when she kisses or hugs the other agents her tentacles try and grab them by the face ( also they move around a lot when happy !! )

also likes to bite as a way to show affection, but does more carefully because she’s venomous ( just a little bit, tho! )

loves LOVES being the small spoon despite being the tallest of the three! ( 172cm tall !! woah.. )

Agent 3:

was 14 when recruited by captain cuttlefish, 16 when octo expansion stuff happened

scar on their face thanks to sanitization ! it kinda burned their skin... ouch !

big fangs that stick out, constantly bites their own tongue accidentally

has this dead/tired face :| but they're actually really silly too, just more chill than Four

cut their tail when they got into the new squidbeak splatoon, but its now growing back

selective mutism, learned sign language at like, 16? at the start Marie had to translate sign language to the neo3s

loves wearing his hero-headgear, they were modified to work like noise cancelers whenever he wants to

likes to sing, but is kinda shy about it

Also loves pokemon ! but more on the competitive side of it more than the casual, completely destroys Four when playing against him

loves when Eight or Four just. lay on top of them, like putting their whole weight on top of them.

can purr, both eight and four are fascinated by it??, no idea how they do it but its cute so its okay

when they and Four were teenagers, they loved to show him stuff he stole from enemy octolings, or just stuff they found cod knows where

has to do trips to alterna that usually last like 1-2 weeks? Four and Eight bake cookies for them <3

THEY ACTUALLY SHOWERS NOW, but forgets to wash their clothes so idk how much of a difference that makes

ALSO knows inklish and spanish! they have little to no spanish accent, their voice get a little more husky when talking in spanish tho

teaches Eight hard to pronounce spanish words because they like hearing her try and say it with her british accent

rubs their face against the other agents face / body to demand attention / show affection

HAS A CAT ALLERGY, you know how bad luck that is? the only mammals alive on your world and you're allergic to them?

also works at salmon run, but not really in the same team as Four or else they both get really distracted being GAY.

kinda tries to ""babysit"" the neo3s, but they always tease them and prank them...

[natikoko]

Marlon (my agent 8)stuff, because why not

Out of my main agents, I feel like I don’t talk about Marlon nearly as much as I should, so, here’s her background and everything else

Marlon (Last name unknown). 21 years old. She/her

- 5’9ft

- A common foot soldier in the Octarian military. Was sent on a scouting mission when she encountered agent 3 (Tilly) and fell into the Deepsea metro.

- Doesn’t remember much from her past, but still retains mentality and muscle memory. Unconsciously remains tense and laser focused oftentimes. Took awhile to shake the mentality of “there’s hundreds of foot soldiers, one loss doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things.”

- Her bond with Tilly is undoubtedly her most important relationship. She loves Adrian (agent 4) so dearly, but it’s something between her and Tilly that can’t be replicated. It’s a tender understanding and influence that Marlon has trouble expressing.

- Doesn’t see much combat in the NSS anymore. Mainly works as the Squidbeak Splatoon’s resident medic

• patched up Tilly’s sprained tentacle in Alterna which led to major flirting and maybe some smooching

- Doesn’t really care for gender norms. Named herself Marlon after watching the Splatoon equivalent of Marlon Brando films after surfacing

- Level-headed but emotionally withdrawn. Her time in the Metro become an unspoken event between her and Tilly, mostly because Tilly doesn’t wanna upset her

• she’s working on it, though!

- is remarkably strong. Could crush a watermelon with her arms

- no sense of fashion whatsoever. Wears exclusively professional attire or else she’ll wear a trenchcoat and Hawaiian shirt with wrangler jeans outside

- Works with Sheldon at AmmunoKnights

- Her literal dream job btw

- Lives with Tilly and Adrian (agent 4). Used to live with Off the Hook and consistently visits. She owes her life to them

- Is protective of her friends and caretakers, and sees them as the first (and last) remnants of family she can’t afford to lose

- unnaturally perceptive with a strong sense of right or wrong

- Has chronic pain from the constant explosions in the metro. It’s sometimes debilitating, so she stays in bed stiff and feeling as if she’s being ripped apart. Tilly and Adrian is always there with a heating pack and some comfort food

- Initiated the relationship between Tilly and Adrian because these two are so painful with their emotions I mean it’s so obvious it almost hurts

- hates pictures for some reason

- Doesn’t do Turf War or ranked a lot because of the connotation with the metro. If she did, her anarchy status would be A+

- Has a motherly relationship with Neo Agent 3 (Ian) and is very close with him

- Plays the piano really well

- Drinks socially. Is a very rambunctious drunk. Once joined a crusty seanwich sponsored eating contest and almost died. Adrian has photography evidence

- Has plenty of propane tanks laying around

[sparkys-blog-of-art]

Here are some of my splatoon ocs (they exsited since Splat2)! I redesigned them slightly but they're pretty much the same!

Ophelia (cis + she/her) is my Agent Eight, specifically the one from Octo Expansion! Post-Octo Exansion she got pretty rowdy and hyperactive. She found Carnation a little after she reached the surface and adopted him into her found family. She's a Dualie main and LOVES ANARCHY (specifically Zones and Clam)!!

Carnation (genderfluid + any) is my Neo 3! Carnation is pretty soft spoken and antsy, less so post Splat3 story mode. After meeting Ophelia, Carnation learned how to speak Inklish - becoming almost fluent by post story Splat3! Carnation is a Splatling Main and is a fan of TableTurf Battle and Turf War.

[pinkktdid]

I've been working on my own interpretation of the agents from splatoon and I thought it would be cute if they were on a competitive team together so! Here's their experiences and opinions on turf war/anarchy/competition! (just a warning - it’s very long! Also this is based on my own knowledge of the splatoon competitive community,, which is not a whole lot haha)

April (capt 3)

She used to be very competitive and was really into turf war growing up, even though it wasn't big in her hometown. So she moved to Inkopolis where she quickly rose through the ranks. At this time, she really wanted to do this professionally, so she tried joining a few teams. But none of them ever clicked, and her experiences in the story mode dampened her excitement for competition. She appreciates the challenge other players give her, but she just can't take it as seriously anymore. 

Nowadays, she really just plays anarchy open for fun when she has time. Despite her indifference, she is decently well known by mid-high ranked players (this is a weird way to explain it but she’s kind of a cryptid to them,, like she’s skilled enough to be a top player but you rarely see her and when you do your always in for a tough game. She doesn't really stick around after games either so they never get much of a chance to talk to her). She really only joined the splatoon comp team because Suni and Bea were really excited about it, and she figured it could be good team building practice for future missions.  

I'm not exactly sure on the details yet but she mostly mains shooters and blasters! Her favorite anarchy mode is clam blitz because she thinks it's the most interesting.

Suni (agent 4) 

Her hometown was small enough that they didn't even have turf war. But she was still really familiar with the competitive scene since she would watch a lot of tournaments and debate the meta and tactics with her dad. When she moved to Inkopolis (for unrelated reasons), she finally got to play turf war and anarchy herself. And although she knew a lot about it, she was absolutely terrible. It wasn't until after her experiences in story mode that she had enough skill to start rising the ranks. But she's a very good team player and knows a lot about strategy so most teams were very happy to have her. After lots of practice, she eventually got into higher ranks and joined a team that she really liked. 

Eventually they split (on very good terms) and she ended up playing lots of pickup scrims with Bea. After realizing how well they worked together, she and Bea decided to make a team together, and roped the other agents in as well. 

She likes to play fast and aggressive so she uses a lot of weapons like dualies, brushes, and splatanas. She’s really good at rainmaker, and it’s a close favorite with splat zones.

Bea (agent 8)

For a while after the events of octo expansion, Bea didn't really participate in turf war or anarchy. She really just wanted to get to know Inkopolis and the surface world. But she eventually got restless and was convinced by Pearl and Suni to try out turf war. She ended up really loving it and started playing anarchy for more of a challenge. Because of her past experiences, she quickly jumped through the ranks and joined Suni in scrims. She was really excited when Suni asked her to form a team with her and agreed immediately.

She’s a very strategic player and likes to be able to see the whole battlefield, so she plays anchor weapons. Her main is the E-liter though she also loves other long ranged chargers and splatlings. Her favorite mode is tower control and her least favorite is clam blitz (totally not projecting here). 

 Kipp (neo agent 3) 

Never played turf war or anything like it before meeting the splatoon. They were completely uninterested and only started playing because Bea and Suni asked. But she soon grew to like it and developed a bit of a competitive streak along the way. 

Her thought process is often something close to “no thoughts head empty” but she's still a very reliable teammate. She likes to use a variety of weapons, particularly stringers, rollers, and the nautilus. She thinks splat zones is a bit boring but her favorite is clam blitz (something about collecting shiny clams subconsciously appeals to her scavenger instincts).

Bonus! Squid Sister headcanons!

(I was not around for splatoon 1 or 2 so sorry if this contradicts anything! These are just based off of my interpretation of the two from playing 3’s story mode like 6 months ago and the various pieces of dialogue from older games i've seen)

Callie

Because of her experience in the splatoon she's really good but doesn't take anything seriously. She really only plays for fun, especially since she doesn't bother to hide her identity when playing, which causes all kinds of chaos (which she thrives in). 

She can be a very strategic thinker but since she really only plays for fun she often just jumps in and has a good time. She mains rollers and her favorite game mode is turf war, since its low stakes and people are more inclined to be silly with her there. 

Marie

She’s really competitive and wishes she could play professionally. Unfortunately she's really busy between idol business and the splatoon, and she's worried that people will throw games because of her fame. But when she does have time, she puts on her disguise and plays as many matches as she can fit in. She’s reached a really high level and has a similar cryptid status in the community that April does.

She has a similar playstyle to Bea except she’s a bit more aggressive. She almost exclusively uses long range chargers, and is utterly ruthless with them. She doesn't have a favorite game mode but she doesn't really like turf war since she thinks it’s not competitively viable.

[lunas-world-machine]

I've decided to give some more info about my agents

Captain 3/ Aurora

The eye that was closest to the area of sanitation is very damaged resulting in that eye being pretty much blind.

He enjoys watching over Neo 3's smallfry.

He does a mix of anarchy and turf war when he has free time.

He is 22 years old.

Neo Agent 3/ Cytra S.

Her Smallfry has the pineapple hairstyle and is named Totoro.

She never had a true home, she roamed through the splatlands for most of her life before encountering splatsville.

She does anarchy battles during her free time.

She is 15 years old.

Agent 4/ Rei Sorra

He had some knowledge of the Squid Sisters before he became an agent, but he didn't listen to their music.

He listens to Off the Hook's music for the most part.

He mostly does turf war in his free time, but he'll sometimes do anarchy battles.

He is 20 years old.

Agent 8 (Though I have her as Agent 5)/ Skylar Ori

She has a hard time using shooters or anything that requires precise aim.

She also doesn't use rollers, but it's largely due to the fact that rollers act much differently compared to brushes.

She does turf war in her free time as she doesn't like ranked.

She is 22 years old.

[dandydeya]

More agent hcs, weapon mains (I hc that they’re all decent with most weapons due to story mode)

Agent/Captain 3: Splattershot/Splattershot Jr., They’ve compiled multiple power point presentations explaining why the Jr is actually one of the best weapons. They also hate the Hero Shot Replica due to the changes Sheldon made to make it compliant with Turf War Standards. They’re S rank in Anarchy but stopped playing to try for EVP 999 at Grizzco

3 doesn’t tend to play Turf War as they feel they bad after destroying new players. The only exception is when teaming with the other agents

Agent 4: Dapple Dualies Nouveau or Aerospray, out of all the agents they play the most turf war and was the one to convince 3 to start playing again. They have the lowest Anarchy Rank, hard-stuck B+

Agent 8: E-Liter 4K, after the metro they played a lot with 4 trying out every weapon but none really stuck until 3 suggested the E-Liter. They got 23 splats in their first game with it and haven’t changed since. They made it to A- in Anarchy but don’t want to leave 4 behind.

Neo Agent 3: Range Blaster or Tri-Stinger, they are actual scum to play against and have the highest Anarchy Rank, they’re S+ but really nervous about playing X battles.

[alterrune]

ALTERNARUNE: MEET THE CHARACTERS

So, since we've finished up with the Grand Festival, I just wanted to tell you guys about the two characters who we'll meet during the Alternarune event in December. They're both characters from the game, but they're quite different from the actual game's representation of them!

NEO AGENT 3 (He/Him)

Male Octoling

Real Name: "Dystopiac"

Age: 21 years old (reflecting my own age!)

Born and raised in Splatsville. His parents are living it up in the desert surrounding the Splatlands in a huge Mad Max-esque castle that his parents have warned him not to go near. He doesn't visit them, they visit him for his own safety.

His Smallfry, named "L'il Buddy", was adopted by him during a Salmon Run shift his parents had taken him to. L'il Buddy had been shunned from the other Smallfries and needed a home, and he's now doing better then ever in Dystopiac's care.

Swears like a sailor. Being exposed to so much chaos made him begin swearing when he was only 5 years old.

Before the Grand Festival, which he now refers to as simply "the big event" due to how sour of a note it ended on for him, he wore the Tinted Shades, the Black Inky Rider and the Punk Nights.

After the results were shown and he got a big slap to the face, he now wears the Manta Mask, the Big Slick and the Big Muds to honor Deep Cut. Big Man made his new getup for him after seeing how bummed out he was during Turf War, to the point he was actually harming his teammates' chances of victory. Needless to say, he's a lot better now.

Is a Blaster-user through-and-through, but specifically uses one Blaster in particular, which he 5-starred: The S-BLAST '91, which he wields with a lot of experience.

Has tried Anarchy Battle once and immediately decided to never do it again afterward. It was way too complicated for him.

Lives with Deep Cut in their apartment building. Living with the chaotic trio is "an experience", as he puts it.

Is a HUUUUGE fan of Chirpy Chips. In fact, he's actually in a romantic relationship with Harmony, the lead singer of the band! Whenever one of their songs plays during a match, he immediately goes into hyperfocus mode and performs MILES better.

Was "Subject Number #333" in the Deepsea Metro. Managed to escape sanitization by vomiting upon seeing the others get blended up. He was deemed "unfit" and was confined to his personal quarters in the Metro, which he believes is the best mistake of his life.

AGENT 8 (He/Him)

Male Octoling

Real name: Eight

Age: 26 years old (21 during the events of Octo Expansion)

Born in a test tube like all "modern" Octolings. (Dystopiac is considered a "classic" Octoling, as he has actual parents, unlike Eight)

Was digitally possessed by Dystopiac during the events of Side Order. Had no idea what was going on after regaining consciousness in the Memverse, but after Dystopiac showed up and explained everything to him, he was fine.

Has no biological parents. Considers Off the Hook to be his mothers.

Lives with Off the Hook in the area above the news studio. The two are lesbians, and no matter what he says to them about the general public already knowing about it, OtH still tries to hide it very poorly.

Avoids swearing at all costs. He prefers to remain as kid-friendly as possible, and often chews out Pearl and Dystopiac for swearing like a sailor in public (which they both often do).

Is a huge fan of DJ Dedf1sh's music, as it played all the time in the Deepsea Metro. About as big a fan as Dystopiac is with Chirpy Chips, actually. Upon learning that she was a huge help in the Memverse, he immediately went full fanboy mode. Thankfully, he eventually calmed down.

Wears a replica of the getup he wore in the Memverse, with the Order Earring Replica, Order Suit Replica, and Order Boot Replicas on him at all times.

Wields the Order Blaster Replica after toppling the Spire of Order with the real version.

[inkfissh]

Lil factoids of my number lot

My Three,for the longest time, mains splattershot, but now took up splatanas. Four mains the nautilus, Eight use Brushes, and Five uses all variety of stringers, and squiffer (they’re the only competent one who uses charger besides Marie)

Eight is a plant mom, she has a little vegetable garden on top of the apartment they all stay at

Five/“neo” is the fastest runner out of the members of NSBS

My Fours a cuttlefish

Eight wears tons of backless style clothing

Three is the chef of the damn household, they learn how to cook in a young age cause of neglectful reasons

Five was assigned ‘the new agent 3’ but captain three would feel very sad cause thats their name thats them. So they simply just title them as agent 5 instead

Three’s eye mask suppose to look like heavy eyebags

Four was a competitive player before meeting the NSBS, but dropped that after a terrible fight broke out amongst their teammates

Eight sleeps on her stomach

Five n Parsley (little buddy) lived in a worn out warehouse in somewhere in the Splatsville desert, they found a bathtub and used it as a bed for good amount of years

Three has selective mutism

Eight still kept her kamabo tag, even wears it as a brace

Five is uncomfortable about the stars

Three wears those circle glasses sometimes

Eight has a motorcycle Marina custom made

Four has a lil birthmark on her face

I dont think they all do much rank up/anarchy, other than Five after meeting some inkfishes they met up

Four works as the de-escalator in the whole group than a field agent

In the events of splatoon 3 n such, she was busy in another job she does, Four works at a research storage unit, where they collect human and mammal bones. Shes like a paleontology illustrator

Three and Eight were paired up together while they recover from the whole Kamado deal, they were very quiet at first with eachother, language barrier and little bit shy, they mostly slept and kept to themselves, was weeks before both started doing some little games wth eachother (by golly theyre hospital mates )

[blueberry-blast]

the most popular guy in my lair + the weird old fae who follows him around

and their army of child soldier grandchildren.

[8bitsupervillain]

The Disappointments of 2017: Danganronpa 3 (Side Future, Side Despair, and Side Hope)

I know that Danganronpa 3 (the anime) came out in late 2016, but I didn’t experience it until September 2017. Be forewarned: There will be spoilers

Side Future:

Of course there would be repercussions for Makoto Naegi absconding with the Remnants of Despair. Of course he would have to face the consequences for stealing them away and taking them to a facility that could rewrite their memories so they forgot their time as Despair. But the fact that a group dedicated to the restoration of Hope, and bringing back order to a world in anarchy would decide that the person WHO KILLED THE LEADER  OF DESPAIR had to be executed was one of the more ridiculous notions Side Future suggested. Who within the Future Foundation was working with Tengan to take the Branch Leaders to the secret Future Foundation headquarters? If his goal was to force Mitarai into completing his brainwashing anime (don't worry I'll get to that) why did he make there be a forbidden action that would kill him if he used his talent? Was this somehow due to Yukizome being a Remnant of Despair? Was Yukizome pulling a fast one on Munakata and making him believe for some reason Naegi is in fact a secret despair agent even though he killed Junko Enoshima? How did Kimura somehow create a drug that causes you to Hulk-out? Why was she allowed to keep those drugs when they were taken to the facility?

Why did Munakata think Naegi was a secret Despair agent when he's been fighting against people who are on the side of Despair and knows they act in a very specific way? How did Tengan get a copy of Mitarai's brainwashing anime so he could play it during the times when everyone else was knocked out? Did he just always have it since he used to be a higher-up at Hope's Peak Academy? More to that point was Tengan using his people's deaths as a way to try to spur Mitarai into action when he should know that Mitarai considers himself responsible for Junko et al. becoming Despair thus driving him to not do his anime anymore? I know that he didn't plan for Mitarai to be there when he enacted his plan to kidnap the Future Foundation high command, but he was able to set all the other parts of his plan into motion without a hitch? Why and how did Monaca get into space? Did the rest of the Towa group get away with what they did in Ultra Despair Girls without a hitch? Did Haiji Towa get away with his plan to kill EVERY CHILD IN TOWA CITY scot-free? So they killed a bunch of random nobodies no one knows or cares about, why didn't they have the guts to actually kill Kirigiri? So who exactly is funding the Future Foundation that they're able to have a fleet of warships, and soldiers to boot? Is it like a global military type of thing? A special-forces multinational force? Are they team Rainbow? Do they have any sort of oversight since you can just send off your random fleet of ships to go attack a random island chain? Did Togami point his megaphone out the window and just call everyone a bunch of punk-asses to get em to not blow up the island?

So if Sonja Nevermind is able to incite a inter-country war how was she able to just leave to join the other Remnants of Despair for the events of Danganronpa 2? More to that point, if the world is in complete anarchy as the games and flashbacks in this very show suggest why didn't Munakata or whatever head of Future Foundation just line them up against the wall and shoot em? How would the brainwashing anime work in this anarchic hellhole world? I also don't understand the whole every two hours you get injected with sleeping drugs thing. At least with Battle Royale it's just a bomb in the necklace.

Although I like Hagakure there was really no reason for him to be in the show whatsoever. His story was neat in the post game novel in Ultra Despair Girls though. Were Fukawa and Komaru trying to just help rebuild Towa City? I know they were basically just there for fanservice, but I never really understood why they were there post Ultra Despair Girls. How did Monaca manage to get her android version of that Future Foundation branch leader into the building in the first place? I know they reveal that they found the real body, but when and how did she get her android in there? Was the person she replaced also wheel-chair bound? If not, how come no one brought up the fact that their comrade is now suddenly in a wheelchair they'd never seen her in before?

Or did they just sort of shrug their shoulders at the fact that someone they know, and presumably worked with many times in the past is now suddenly in a wheelchair and speaking exclusively through a laptop that just so happens to have an avatar based on something from the Neo World Program, that kind of looks like Monokuma? Why did Tengan bother bringing her chair to the killing game he'd set up? Why not make her be the first person to fall to the suicide brainwashing video? I'm pretty sure I recall that since she's an android she wasn't susceptible to the drugs that put everyone else to sleep. Did Tengan not notice this? Or did Monaca decide to act like the android was asleep... just cause?

Side Despair:

My problems with Side Despair though mainly are due to what I think are just some really odd pacing issues. For the first few episodes it tries to play it as some type of slice-of-life thing with the class that would become the Remnant of Despairs. But it would also try to show Hinata's by comparison crappy life as a reserve course student. Then it would try to shoehorn in the plot point about Yukizome, Munakata, and eventually Sakakura trying to find out the secret truths behind Hope's Peak. They advertised that the rest of the cast of Danganronpa 2 would be characters in it but then hardly get any screen-time. This might also just be a personal thing, but when I played Danganronpa 2 back when it came out for the Vita I never really thought that Nanami was an actual person. I thought she was just an AI construct that Naegi or whoever made to try to help control the simulation with Monomi. So when the show has her appear I was like "oh! Okay, fair enough." But then the show decides to shove it down your throat that everyone loves this pure and perfect angel and you will too damn it!

Then in episode five they bring out Junko Enoshima, and gets the despair train rolling, when really she should have been there since episode one, and the story should have been about her seducing the class to Despair. When the show decides to get dark, does it ever decide to get dark. Episode seven when she forces the student council to take part in the killing game has to be one of the most dire and unsettling things I've seen in a good long while.

However there's the rest of it, Enoshima and Ikusaba kidnap Yukizome to force her into becoming their agent for despair (as a means to kidnap Nanami?), and it's one of the biggest eye-rolling moments. Somehow, without rhyme or reason, Enoshima and Ikusaba just happen to know how and where to insert needles into her brain to fully bring her to Despair (this is also tied in to making her watch the video of the student council killing each other). Around episode six or so Enoshima meets up with the real Mitarai and uses his talents for anime(?) to create a video that is so filled with despair it brainwashes people into committing suicide. In what realm or reality would that even remotely be possible? Sure anime can manipulate your emotions, but enough to cause the mass suicides of the entire Reserve Course (I may be mis-remembering, but weren't there well over five-hundred in the Reserve Course? I wanted to say the deaths of thousands, but that seems dramatic).

The stuff with Enoshima and Kamukura was never particularly interesting to watch, and I feel was a massive missed opportunity. Kamukura was built up so much in Danganronpa 2 and in the scenes he shows up in in Ultra Despair Girls, and the fact they did basically nothing with him is a shame. There was just a bit too much fluff and filler in Side Despair, I'm not saying it should've just been an adaptation of Danganronpa Zero, but they could've used some of the material from that book. Hell they could've made every episode be about the individual students of Class 77 and had them get twisted by Enoshima, you know show them get corrupted and become evil. The way the show tells it, and is the canon way it happened is that Enoshima kidnapped Nanami and forced her to run through a death-maze that led to her getting viciously killed while making Class 77 watch. Seeing this happen, and apparently having the brainwashing anime spliced into the footage(?) causes the class to fall into despair. It was pathetic, and really just annoyed me at how slipshod the writing for this "Side" was.

Side Hope:

In the grand finale Side Hope both plotlines come together, Mitarai is going to use his brainwashing anime to make everyone on earth become slaves to Hope. Except it doesn't happen, Naegi is running to try to stop him from using the anime, and when he gets there Hinata is there instead giving Mitarai a big peptalk about how you don't have to have talents to be happy. A fine message, your personal talents shouldn't define who you are as a person, but why is it Hinata telling him this? The two never met at any point in Side Despair, so why is Mitarai driven to tears and overcome with awe at some random schmo telling him "hey buddy, life's okay." Is it cause the rest of the class was there to basically give him a thumbs-up and say "yeah?" Then after they defuse the situation, all of Class 77 (and Hinata) hop on a boat and head back to Jabberwock Island with Mitarai. To live out their lives as wanted terrorist leaders. And this is a good thing, the anime assures us. They make a video to basically shake their fists at the Future Foundation for besting them at "their new killing game" cause otherwise the world will fall to pieces if it's revealed that the director of Future Foundation tried to brainwash the planet.

Side Hope really exemplifies the problems I have with a lot of the characterization (or lack thereof) in this whole affair. The show would've got by just fine if Asahina, Hagakure, and Togami just straight up weren't even there. They contribute next to nothing to the plot, and except for Kirigiri "dying" and Asahina's death fake-out (which lasted all of three minutes, it's teased at the end of an episode, and revealed to be a misdirect immediately next episode) they have no bearing on Naegi's plot at all. Like the rest of Class 77 I suspect the returning characters are simply there just for fan-service. They survived the games so they must be there for all the fans of the games, it's pointless. Just include some throwaway line about how they would be there, but instead Asahina, Togami and Hagakure are off helping out with some raid on a Despair base or some such. Or they could have had them be actual characters in their show instead of... fucking Bandai. Or the stupid confection girl and her blacksmith boyfriend who contribute fuck-all to the plot. Either have new characters and keep the returning cast to a minimum, or just make a show with the original characters, you can't do both, it just doesn't work.

There's a scene where Mikan is able to take a bit of the drugs that Kimura had and somehow synthesize an antidote to the poison that is killing Kirigiri. In the span of roughly ten minutes the Remnants: 1, got to Future Foundation HQ; 2, subdued however many Future Foundation agents are present on the whole island; 3, found dead Kimura; 4, found dying Kirigiri; 5, fought to the broadcast tower Mitarai plans to use his anime; 6, Bring him over to their side; 7, synthesize an antidote for a poison that has a 100% fatality rating. 8, Make their terrorist video saying that they're still out there. Then, after all is said and done, the cast of Danganronpa 2 have left for their island, and the rest of the gang... re-establishes Hope's Peak Academy. For some reason. Even though the whole rest of the series (including the second game, and some of the novels) go to great pains to explain why the school was basically a shithole that was doomed to fail. But Makoto Naegi is the headmaster so I guess it'll all work out.  Until the next main Danganronpa game that takes everything this anime did and throws it out the window. But they wouldn't do that. Right?

[lynchgirl90]

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KYLE MACLACHLAN FLIRTS WITH THE DARKNESS  #TwinPeaks 

David Lynch's most reliable guide reveals that Twin Peaks will never end, because everything is Twin Peaks.

BY

TYLER COATES

SEP 3, 2017

I am standing outside the Soho House in Manhattan when I get a text from an unknown number. "Hey Tyler. Kyle here. I'm on the sixth floor at the end of the room. (Walk towards the light! 😆) See you soon."

KYLE MACLACHLAN JUST TEXTED ME.

I stand in place for a moment. I take a breath.

Kyle MacLachlan just texted me a joke and he used an emoji.

My reply, which takes entirely too much time to compose, is simply to tell him I'll see him upstairs soon. He writes back: "Cool 👍" And I immediately picture FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, the character he played on Twin Peaks (and is playing—sort of—on Twin Peaks: The Return) giving an ecstatic thumbs-up on the original iteration of the series.

I'm aware that I'm slightly nervous as I walk through the sixth floor restaurant. Meeting a famous person is nerve-racking! And MacLachlan is a big deal in my brain, maybe because I've been consumed all summer with Twin Peaks: The Return, David Lynch's revival of his cult classic TV series on which MacLachlan starred in its two-season run from 1990 to 1991. Maybe it's because MacLachlan is, let's face it, a very handsome man. He's also less foreboding in person than on television. His hair is a little messy rather than perfectly combed in place and shellacked with pomade; the collar on his navy polo shirt slightly popped in a breezily unkempt manner, as if he's on a late-summer vacation. (He lives not far from here in Manhattan.)

And maybe my nervousness is why I immediately bring up Blue Velvet, his second movie ever, and his second collaboration with David Lynch. I mention that I saw the movie when I was 13 or 14, somehow convincing my dad to let me rent it. (My mother's theory: "He probably thought it was about Elizabeth Taylor and a horse.") That's when MacLachlan gives a slightly embarrassed laugh, and he says, "I bet that was...frightening?" There's an iconic scene in which he's completely nude and Isabella Rosselini, clutching a butcher knife, goes down on him after their characters first meet. So yes, I was possibly frightened. But I knew then—as I know now, having seen much of David Lynch's work, with and without MacLachlan—that it was something interesting, peculiar, scary, and absurd, and everyone involved was willing to take a major risk to fulfill this one guy's crazy artistic notions.

I settle in my seat, and I remember that I'm here to talk about David Lynch—and Twin Peaks—with the man who has been the face of those notions for many years. Lynch is big on avatars and doppelgangers, the nature of good and evil, and fucking around with our ideas of the American Dream and the horrors that exist just below the surface, hidden thanks to our willful ignorance. And he's put all of this into the world by telling a large, expansive story with MacLachlan's face—still handsome after all these years—at the forefront.

What's the allure of Kyle MacLachlan, anyway? There is the obvious handsomeness, an all-American look that the actor attributes to one feature in particular. "It's the chin," he says with a laugh. "It's hard to get away from that." But there's something about his personality, too, that offsets—and maybe works in tandem—with his looks. He has a kind sensibility, an inherent goofiness that makes one naturally comfortable around him. He seems to have heard this before, from people who have tried to describe him without being able to put their finger on it exactly. Back to his face, just for a second: MacLachlan tells me that it's got an edge to it, so he hears, that has served as a trademark of sorts. "There's something off—that's the thing," he says. "People would always tell me, 'Something about your face is a little bit off.'" (Writer Rich Cohen once described him, in an early '90s profile in Rolling Stone, as "the boy next door, if that boy spent lots of time alone in the basement.") Does he sweat the comments he's received about the indiscernible weirdness of his persona, his face? Not really. "Listen, if it gets me work, that's fine," he says.

Lynch gave MacLachlan his first big break: the starring role in Dune, the anticipated adaptation of Frank Herbert's celebrated sci-fi novel. Most young actors dream of landing such a role, playing the hero in a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster helmed by a buzzy director (Lynch's previous film, The Elephant Man, earned eight Oscar nominations). But Dune was a disaster—both on the production side and once it was released, flopping with critics and audiences alike. It was a hard first lesson for MacLachlan: Expectations could work against you, and it was important to be a practical actor, not to dwell on the losses, and to always keep an eye out for the next thing.

The next thing happened to come not long after, when Lynch came back to him with the script for Blue Velvet and offered him the role of the lead, Jeffrey Beaumont. Blue Velvet was the second big break—the real one, the one that propelled MacLachlan's career forward, and what solidified his connection to his director and friend.

"David is not Hollywood," MacLachlan explains. "My sense of it was that people didn't know what to do with me." He'd done the post-Dune audition rounds, and he wasn't finding other jobs landing in his lap. "Somebody does a movie that makes a zillion dollars, he plays the young hero, and producers can plug him into a million other things," he says. "The smart ones obviously build a construct. Not everyone has that ability."

Blue Velvet introduced a regular theme that Lynch has examined throughout his work since, which MacLachlan describes as "flirting with that dark soul, getting closer and closer to it until you're faced with the ultimate evil." Despite the film's brutality, it has a somewhat happy ending—suggesting that triumph over evil is possible. "Jeffrey barely escapes," MacLachlan says, "but he's changed forever."

With Jeffrey Beaumont, MacLachlan displayed full-on naïveté, playing a young man who realizes that the world in which he finds comfort is hiding sinister forces. His next major role, another created by David Lynch, would be a character who would find himself up against similarly dark factions—although this time of a supernatural quality.

MacLachlan admits that Twin Peaks was a bit of a fluke. The idea of David Lynch working in the realm of network television was absurd in itself. Blue Velvet, while earning Lynch his second Oscar nomination for Best Director, was met with a polarizing critical response. (Roger Ebert's review in particular was a scorcher, and he branded Lynch a misogynist for the way he "degraded" Rossellini on film.) His follow-up, Wild at Heart, which premiered at Cannes a month after Twin Peaks debuted on ABC, was met with equal parts enthusiasm and derision. (It won the Palme d'Or that year, even though the film was met with boos by the notoriously vocal film festival audience.)

Pairing up with writer Mark Frost, who had spent three years as a writer on NBC's police drama Hill Street Blues, Lynch broadened his idea of Americana—specifically, the darkness that lies beneath the surface of a quaint and seemingly wholesome small logging town in Washington—into a series. MacLachlan, bolstered by the critical success of Blue Velvet yet still reticent of how Lynch's next idea would play, didn't have high hopes. "It was completely unexpected that it would be anything more than a Movie of the Week," he tells me. "That's why a lot of us were on board: to watch David Lynch do this—and the anarchy that would reign down. Yeah, okay. Why not?"

But ABC executives loved the two-hour pilot, which introduced the murder of the beautiful homecoming queen Laura Palmer, the FBI agent who was summoned to solve her murder, and the various cast of characters who may very well have had something to do with the crime. "Suddenly we were doing it," MacLachlan says. "They called our bluff and bought the show."

Twin Peaks was a bonafide phenomenon, and its first season—consisting of the pilot and seven subsequent episodes—was a massive hit over the course of its eight-week run in the spring of 1990. Not only did it reunite MacLachlan with the director who introduced him to movie audiences, but it assembled a large ensemble cast of familiar and fresh faces.

The show was a mixture of television neo-noir and classic nighttime soap, but with a certain quirkiness that grabbed the attention of television audiences. There was a central murder mystery plot, yes, but there was also romantic intrigue, whispered secrets, a woman who communicated with a log. It often depicted its protagonist dreaming of a mysterious room, decorated with red drapes and a black-and-white chevron-patterned floor and populated by the kind of grotesque characters straight out of a Flannery O'Connor short story. It blended Lynch's dry humor and his absurdist non-sequiturs with the themes he began exploring in Blue Velvet—but with an entirely new style that filmmakers would spend years trying to replicate.

Laura Palmer's murder was solved in the early part of the second season—she had been raped and killed by her father, Leland, while he was under the influence of a demonic presence known as BOB—and the show began to shift into an unwieldy procedural drama. MacLachlan is honest about the missteps of the show's middling second season.

"I thought the first seven episodes [in Season One] were brilliant," he admits. "We had gone on a crazy tangent [in Season Two], and they were trying to pull it back. But it had already drifted too far off."

The series ended with a massive cliffhanger in a final episode directed by Lynch. Cooper, who had a new love interest in Heather Graham's Annie Blackburn, attempts to save her from an ex-FBI agent who has committed his life to terrorizing Cooper's. The pursuit finds him entering the mysterious red room of his dream through a portal in the woods; caught in what is known as the Black Lodge, he comes face to face with his mortal enemy as well as the evil that is holding the town hostage: BOB himself. BOB overtakes Cooper, creating a doppelganger of our hero and entering our world in disguise—leaving Cooper trapped in this impeccably decorated limbo.

Once again: disappointment. As with Dune, MacLachlan took it in stride. After all, Twin Peaks had earned him two Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe. He had had a steady job and got to work again with Lynch to craft a great role—arguably, in hindsight, the most vital of his career. "There was certainly a disappointment when it was cancelled," he tells me. "But I said to myself, 'Well, that's done. Time to find the next thing.'"

Two things propel actors: Getting work that pays enough to stay afloat between jobs, and finding work that's compelling and challenging—roles that don't leave you typecast and stuck playing the same character over and over again.

Of course, MacLachlan did play Dale Cooper again in Lynch's big-screen prequel to the series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, which was released a year after the show's cancellation. MacLachlan initially passed on playing Cooper again so soon after the show ended, although he eventually joined the production. But his role was small, and the absence of many other Twin Peaks regulars (and its bleak, darker tone) was off-putting for fans. The film was not a commercial success, and the critical response was mixed.

MacLachlan—who tells me that he had to find "a construct" for himself, a certain kind of figure he could play with slight variation—took a few odd roles in the '90s. There are a couple of forgettable indie movies on his résumé, plus Oliver Stone's The Doors, in which he played keyboardist Ray Manzarek. In what would be one of the biggest box-office successes of his career (that is until he leant his voice for a small role in the Pixar film Inside Out), he played Cliff Vandercave in The Flintstones, an insanely successful movie (it earned over $300 million worldwide) that feels like a lost '90s relic. (Do you remember anything about The Flintstones, other than it happened? I saw it twice, and I mostly just remember MacLachlan's biceps.) Yet he still proved he could play a different type: the sexy antagonist—even if that chance involved wearing a sleeveless double-breasted suit and playing the foil to John Goodman's Fred Flintstone.

But that led to his next role in what would be another infamous moment in modern film history: Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls, one of the most notorious movies of all time and the first big-budget NC-17-rated film to get a wide release. MacLachlan has been vocal about how he feels about the film. (He told Esquireearlier this year, "What did I learn from Showgirls? I learned what not to do!") Naturally, he chuckles when I even bring it up. (It's an inevitable topic of conversation. You can't not mention Showgirls in the presence of Kyle MacLachlan.) And he's honest with me about why he took the role. "It was a deliberate attempt to change things up a bit," he says. "All actors do that to varying degrees of success and failure. And, to be honest, I was a big fan of Paul Verhoeven, so I thought, 'Well, this could be fun.' I just happened to pick the wrong one." (Every gay man I know would suggest otherwise, but hey: Everybody's a critic.)

Once again, MacLachlan's career took another oddball turn. But these moments were still high-profile; he was still on the radar. And his early work with David Lynch continued to cast a welcome shadow over him as an actor, particularly as those who appreciated and found influence in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks began to rise in the Hollywood ranks themselves. At least that's MacLachlan's theory for his three major television roles of the last two decades: Trey MacDougal, the impotent Upper East Side mama's boy who served as a frustrating love interest to Charlotte on Sex and the City; Orson Hodge, a devious dentist on Desperate Housewives; and the Mayor of Portland on Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein's hipster satire Portlandia, who could very well be Dale Cooper if he had gone into local politics instead of the Black Lodge.

"These things came to me because of my work with David," MacLachlan says. "Not because they were looking at the roles and saying, 'Oh, he'd be perfect for that.' The creators were people who had in some way been inspired by David, or affected somehow."

Two decades after Twin Peaks, as the show's cult following only grew larger and larger and its influence became more overt as dark, quirky mystery shows about the dangers hidden out of sight in small-town America became more and more popular, MacLachlan couldn't shake the series from his head. He and Lynch remained good friends, and Twin Peaks was often a topic of conversation when they saw each other. "Over the years, we'd get together and sit, chat, have coffee, catch up," MacLachlan tells me. "Occasionally I would bring up the idea of Twin Peaks. I recognized for me, selfishly, it was a great character, a great period of time. I was hungry to revisit that and to have the experience of working with David again."

"OCCASIONALLY I WOULD BRING UP THE IDEA OF TWIN PEAKS. I WAS HUNGRY TO REVISIT THAT AND TO HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING WITH DAVID AGAIN."

Years later, Lynch called MacLachlan on the phone, and his tone was markedly more assertive than normal. "I need to talk to you," Lynch said to him, "but I can't do it over the phone." The two met in New York, and Lynch delivered the news: He and Mark Frost had figured a way back into the world of Twin Peaks. Was MacLachlan interested in joining them? "We've talked about this, David," MacLachlan recalls saying. "But if you need to hear it from me: Yes, I'm in." Nothing was settled yet. Scripts hadn't been written. A precarious deal with Showtime was in the works, and there were stops and starts, which naturally worried MacLachlan. But eventually everything fell into place, Lynch and Frost and MacLachlan signed their deals, members of the cast were coming back, along with some new familiar faces. The network handed the keys over to Lynch to direct a whopping 18 episodes. It was official: Twin Peaks was returning to TV.

Let's rock.

Where the hell do I begin with Twin Peaks: The Return? For one thing, as I write this, I still haven't finished it; Showtime is keeping a close guard on the final two episodes that make up its grand finale, and the network didn't provide journalists screeners throughout the season. Perhaps that's part of why it's been so fun to watch: Not only is every episode completely unexpected, with most of the theories surrounding its complex and meandering plot as indecipherable as the show itself, but no one is getting an early look at this show. We all have to wait to see what David Lynch has in store for us precisely when he's ready to give it away.

I'm chatting with MacLachlan on the Monday afternoon following the 16th episode of the series—the one in which Agent Cooper finally comes out of the catatonic state in which he's been trapped for a very long time (15-plus hours for us, but much longer for him). Before that, he was trapped in the body of Dougie Jones, a Cooper doppelganger who lives in Las Vegas, sells insurance, and presumably has a gambling problem; most of his biography before the events of the season begins is provided by his wife, Janey-E, through one of her regular screaming sessions leveled at her dim man-child of a husband. (Naomi Watts, playing Janey-E, is a master at the David Lynch monologue.) How he got into Dougie Jones is still sort of a complicated mystery. Some people have their ideas of how it works, but for me, well… I've simply watched the show and kept myself from asking too many questions for the sake of my own sanity. I've simply enjoyed the long, twisted ride.

MacLachlan hasn't seen the final two episodes, either, although he knows what happens. From the beginning, he was in possession of what he calls The Bible. "After a little bit of cajoling, they let me have the script," he admits to me, "as long as I absolutely swore never to show anyone." (He keeps that promise with me, despite any effort I make to milk a secret or two out of him. "We all felt an obligation, really," he says. "We wanted to protect this thing so that people could experience it in the proper sequence.")

The world of the new Twin Peaks is massive. It expands beyond the borders of the small Washington town, with scenes taking place in Manhattan, Las Vegas, South Dakota, New Mexico in 1945, and in the Black Lodge. And while it brings with it a return of many of the beloved characters from the original series (with a few noted exceptions), it also introduces a wide variety of new characters in those far-flung locations. It is perhaps the most impressive cast of actors on television in recent history, and that doesn't include the musical guest that shows up every week at the Bang Bang Bar. (Whoever is booking for the Roadhouse is doing one hell of a job.)

"WE ALL FELT AN OBLIGATION, REALLY. WE WANTED TO PROTECT THIS THING SO THAT PEOPLE COULD EXPERIENCE IT IN THE PROPER SEQUENCE."

MacLachlan asked for the complete script almost out of a necessity to understand where his role fit within the larger story. Well, I should say "roles," because at this point he's playing three: there's Special Agent Dale Cooper, trapped in the Black Lodge for 25 years and then released into the world once again; Dougie Jones, the aforementioned dummy who's learning about the world almost like a child (or maybe he's actually Cooper, trying to remember who he actually is); and then there's Mr. C, the Cooper doppelganger who left the Black Lodge behind in 1991 at the end of the original series.

As much as the rest of us wondered how the residents of Twin Peaks would look and act after a 25-year hiatus, MacLachlan himself wondered how to get back into the role of Agent Cooper. But first he had to tackle the two opposite poles of Dougie and Mr. C. For Dougie, he looked to Peter Sellers for inspiration, also remembering Jeff Bridges's performance in Starman; for Mr. C, he thought of Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men. Dougie, he admits, was the easier role to take on, while Mr. C was much tougher.

"It's hard for me to play that," he admits. "I can do it, of course, but I don't know if I really want to."

I bring up the moment when Mr. C murders his son, Richard Horne, steering him on top of a rock formation and watching as he is electrocuted. Mr. C shows no sign of empathy—that's in his nature, of course. But it was hard for MacLachlan to pull off. "Of all the things David had me do, that was the worst. But it's true to the character. As an actor, I want to show some humanity. It's so hard to be absolute." I can tell, through the calm and measured quality of the good-natured man who sits before me, that diving into the depths of his own potential dark side was no easy mission. He had to find that humanity within his director, who he says went along with him on both Dougie and Mr. C's journey. "David almost embodies the qualities of the characters," he says. "I can see it in his face. With Dougie, there's a certain energy. When I'm Mr. C, it's dark and he's in another place. It gave me the confidence to carry the character to its fulfillment."

He tells me another difficult task was to act as Mr. C with David Lynch as his character, FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole. "I didn't like it at all," he says, definitively, and with a look of deep concern. It suggests that MacLachlan felt uneasy breaking out of the kind of figure that Lynch has pushed him to play so many times: the innocent who flirts with danger but ultimately controls it. Dougie, in a way, was his own release from that darkness: all joy and absurdity. When I ask him about his favorite scenes, MacLachlan immediately sports a big Dougie Jones smile. His sex scene with Naomi Watts comes to mind, and he imitates the look of perplexed ecstasy on Dougie's face as he sleeps with his wife. He flails his arms about a bit, not noticing that he's drawing some attention from some of the people sitting near us in the restaurant. But I suppose when you've taken the leaps that he has—flirting with the darkness that David Lynch has created, or even doing something so bold as acting in a sex scene in front of a film crew—you lose some of your inhibitions fairly easily. I'm much less nervous around MacLachlan by now, and much more impressed with the confidence he exudes, something he's learned from the fearlessness that his job requires.

MacLachlan knows Twin Peaks: The Return isn't for everybody. He knew this as soon as he saw the script, realizing that fans of the original show might not embrace the revival with as much enthusiasm. I suggest that there are two different kinds of people: Twin Peaksfans and David Lynch fans. "Twin Peaks: The Return is for the David Lynch fans," I say, and MacLachlan nods.

"It was going to be the Lynch fans who would have the most fun," MacLachlan says. "That was obvious to me as we were traveling on that journey. It was going to be darker, visceral, and have the same kind of surreal elements that David loves to mix in with the ingredients. Who's to say how the Twin Peaks fan base and the David Lynch fan base would find common ground? David Lynch fans were in for it the entire way, and the Twin Peaks fans who made the leap might find something special, too."

As one of David Lynch's regular players, MacLachlan has learned not to parse the material for meaning—just as he's learned not to demand too much explanation from his director. This, he admits, he learned the hard way. "On Dune, I was rabid. I drove David to madness," he says. "And finally he closed the door on me." He offers no detailed analysis of what has transpired over the show's 16 episodes so far, and I get the sense that my intuition—to focus less on the meaning and more on the form—is the best way to experience it.

Instead, he accepts that there's a purpose to everything he's done, simply because Lynch has created it. He offers an explanation for the director's working relationship with Mark Frost, who is certainly more grounded in his craft. "Mark is the kind of writer who says there needs to be reason and process," he explains. Lynch, on the other hand, pays closer attention to theme and ideas—particularly where evil comes from, how it corrupts innocent men and women as it spreads like a virus, and where to put it in order to keep it contained. "I don't think David feels compelled to resolve everything by any means, maybe because of the idea that it's ongoing and we'll pick it back up if we have to," he says, pointing to the differences in the way Lynch and Frost attack the material. "Maybe that's why they get together once every 25 years," he laughs.

At the end of the day, the return of Twin Peaks is almost enough of a treat for MacLachlan as much as, I'd suggest, the people who are tuning in each week. "It's like a weird high school reunion," he says, and I think that the people who either watched it when it first aired or throughout the years on DVD or streaming on Netflix might say the same thing.

"I DON'T THINK DAVID FEELS COMPELLED TO RESOLVE EVERYTHING BY ANY MEANS, MAYBE BECAUSE OF THE IDEA THAT IT'S ONGOING AND WE'LL PICK IT BACK UP IF WE HAVE TO."

Working with Lynch again has been a delight, MacLachlan says, as has acting for the first time with fellow Lynch muse Naomi Watts. And, naturally, he speaks with visible exuberance about seeing Laura Dern on set again 30 years after they starred in Blue Velvet together. Dern plays Diane, the previously unseen assistant to Agent Cooper who would receive his daily briefings in the original series; she steals every scene with a sharp, bitter tongue and a platinum blonde bob wig. "Laura and I have traveled this road together a long time," MacLachlan says. "We love David very much, and we get a real kick out of each other."

But seeing Dern interact with Lynch, who directed her in Wild at Heart and Inland Empire, showed MacLachlan a different side to his friend and director. "They tease each other a lot—David and I don't really tease each other!" he laughs. "I mean, we get along, we have fun, we have a laugh. But I never felt thatcomfortable, you know? I wondered, how does she do that?" MacLachlan says that he and Dern aren't unlike siblings, realizing that their individual relationships to their father is surprisingly different.

Ultimately, MacLachlan is grateful for the opportunity to play this character again, and he's grateful for the fans for keeping the spirit of Twin Peaks alive. ("I think the fans played a big part of this," he says of the revival.) He feels like he's a part of something bigger, a piece of moving art that is ripe for interpretation and inspiration as much as it is entertaining. And, as always, he guides me to understanding how it falls within David Lynch's worldview, as well: "David tells me, 'Everything is Twin Peaks. It's all Twin Peaks,'" he says. "These stories continue—that's the whole thing. Everybody kept living and going on and doing their thing. It never stopped. Now we're picking it up again, 25 years later. Who knows if we'll pick them up again down the road, I don't know."

Before I'm even able to ask the final question—either because he knows it's coming, or simply because his answer is so obvious for him—he gives a sly smile when he responds.

"Would you do it again, down the road?"

"Oh, yes. In a minute."

Link (KM)

[blueberry-blast]

Post GrandFest, someone got a lil too silly & forgot their sunscreen in all the excitement

[blueberry-blast]

For the future!!!

[blueberry-blast]

happy pride the cephalopods are gay!!

[blueberry-blast]

Ready for Splatoween!