#wtnv 87

[go-to-the-mirror]

Every Time Mirrors are Mentioned in Welcome to Night Vale that is Halfway Relevant

[Plain text: "Every Time Mirrors are Mentioned in Welcome to Night Vale that is Halfway Relevant"]

Unabridged

Episodes featured: 19A, 26, 30, 33, 67, 87, 106, 108, 120, 122, 137, 148, 149, 160, 171, 209

Liveshows featured: "The Librarian," "The Investigators,"

CECIL: And now, a look at financial news. A fallow wheat field, grey sky, cut by black Vs of black birds. There is a child dragging a hatchet. His eyes cast down. His eyes tight. His eyes white and red and superfluous. He know not what he sees, but he knows what is there. A single black-wingéd beast, beak cracked, feathers rotting, alights roughly on the child's shoulder. They stop. The bird picks at the cartilage of the boy's ear, as if biting secrets into it. The boy groans, not unpleasantly. Heavy, slow clouds roll and rise, starkly contrasted against the flickering daguerreotype hills, which stoically keep the poisonous rains at bay. A sudden little river, partially walled by palsied shafts of grain, rolls by. The boy walks to it. He bends forward. His blank eyes stare into his reflection. Neither he nor his mirror knows the other is there. But the bird. The bird knows. The bird cackles. Or perhaps cries. Even the bird is uncertain. The boy takes a palm full of the dark water. Most of it runs out through his long, zig-zagging fingers. He licks the remainder from his dusty skin. A sound. Like thunder. Like drums. Like steps. The boy turns and hurls his hatchet behind him. The bird flies up and away. There is a hideous thump. The boy knows not what he has hit, but that it has been wounded. He waits for its retort. This has been financial news.

(Episode 19A - The Sandstorm)

CECIL: Maybe you should try paying more attention when you're at home. Or better yet, destroy all of your mirrors. As my mother used to tell me: "Someone's going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror. Mark my words, child." and then she would stare absently through my eyes until I giggled. I miss her so much. 

(Episode 26 - Faceless Old Woman)

CECIL: McDonald’s wants to remind you that the most important meal of the day is Breakfast. So why would you let a morning go by without staring deeply into the mirror until you no longer recognize the face staring back at you, mimicking your every gesture, mocking your every movement.

(Episode 30 - Dana)

TEENAGE CECIL: My mom seems really proud of me too. She hid from me for three days, the longest ever! And she’s covered all the mirrors in my house. I’m not sure why, but I think it must be because of pride. Being proud does all sorts of things to a...person. Uh, sorry, got distracted. That weird movement is back. It’s closer now.

TEENAGE CECIL: Interning is going great! Mom is gone. Leonard is super nice to me. My brother is gone too. Family, right? I think I’m learning a lot at the station. All of the mirrors in my house are uncovered now. Not sure who did that. I’m standing in front of the hall mirror right now. Am I changed? Am I becoming an adult? I look more grown, I think, more professional. Leonard said if I work hard, maybe I’ll be a radio presenter myself some day. Leonard said he once was smaller too, but that he is larger now, that everything is larger, that everything in the universe is growing to towering sizes, but all at once, all in unison, so no one notices and it is all the same relative to itself. Leonard lolls his tongue out of his thick purple lips. Leonard hisses. Being an intern is great. That flickering movement is everywhere now. Especially looking in this mirror. I see the flickering movement and I know. I know it. I think the radio station is fun. I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet, lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be. I’m looking in a mirror. The mirror is not covered. The flickering movement is just behind me. I- [He screams. There is gurgling. A body falls to the floor. Tape hiss continues. The tape shuts off. End teenage voice]

CECIL: No matter! I’m taking the tape, just now and I’m [GRUNTS] crushing it into little pieces. None of us have to think about it again. I’ll just double check that the mirror in the station bathroom is covered as usual and then that will be that. Done. Forgotten. 

(Episode 33 - Cassette)

CECIL: The City Council warned that the mess left from Leonard Burton’s death is likely to draw Street Cleaners and that we should all take shelter. Cover your mirrors. Shade your eyes. Stay indoors and mourn. Stay indoors and mourn.

(Episode 67 - [Best Of?])

CECIL: Item: Big Ricos Pizza is looking for a new cashier. Must have retail experience and be good at not talking if they know what’s good for them. No funny business. No secret wheat speakeasies. Why would you even bring that up? Who have you been talking to? To apply, look at yourself in the mirror for a long time, until your face no longer seems to be your own.

(Episode 87 - The Trial of Hiram McDaniels)

CECIL: I was so frightened, but still I looked into the washroom. He was standing in front of a mirror, looking right at himself. I never look into those things. Or at least I haven't in a long long time.  "I think the radio station is fun," he said. "I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet, lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be," he said.  I wanted to cry out to warn him. My mother told me to stay away from mirrors. And I knew he was in danger. I opened my mouth and tried to step into the room, but I could not speak, could not move forward.  "I’m looking in a mirror," he said.  "The mirror is not covered," he said. "Stop. Don't look into the mirror," I tried to say. But nothing came out of my mouth, only spit and inaudible wheeze. Tears stung my eyes. I waved frantically, trying to catch his attention. "The flickering movement is just behind me," he said. And then he looked right at me in the mirror. His eyes grew wide and wet. He said "I-. He said again "I-" and then he choked. Then he screamed. Then I screamed, only again no sound came out. He fell to the floor, and for a moment I remembered. I remembered blue lights and blood in my throat and a dark planet lit by no sun. And then I forgot it, or at least what it looked like, only that it was. Or never was. Or still is. His wallet was no longer in my studio. His...my driver’s license was no longer in my hand. My familiar teenage intern was no longer lying on the ground. The mirror he was looking into is now shattered into thousands of intersecting cracks like parched desert dirt. I approached the mirror, hoping to see a face I knew. A young man's face I just barely remember. But I only saw a multiplicity of me, a man divided, unrecognizably, under razor sharp lines. And behind me a glowing slash in the bathroom wall.

(Episode 106 - Filings)

CECIL: "Better not look in the mirror," Cal said as he nervously simulated the sound of laughter. A dribble of blood ran down his chin and onto his chest.

(Episode 108 - Cal)

KEVIN: Jason and Falisha wanted their friends to know they were happy, so they began to practice smiling in the mirror, but even they couldn't see a change in their faces. Plus, mirrors were upsetting because of all the people who would gather behind them in the reflection but that weren't actually there when they turned around to face them.

KEVIN: Their long house was a long pit. And every single mirror in their home was gone, along with the ghastly figures who gathered in the reflections. 

(Episode 120 - All Smiles' Eve)

CECIL: Nazr did not see Barks Ennui. But he was not without his own troubles. He would find, some evenings, that when he looked in the mirror there were two of him. One of him sitting behind the other. He would stand and the second reflection would stand too. It would follow all of his movements from behind his primary reflection. This went on for days. Then, one night, he looked in the mirror and there was only one of him. He sighed, feeling some relief to the tension that had been with him so long as to become his new normal. And that is when, in the mirror, his second reflection stepped into the room, followed by Frances Donaldson. Nazr whirled. The room he was in was empty. He looked back in the mirror. There was his own face, terrified. And behind that, on the bed, there was himself again, with Frances. The two of them were kissing, passionately. He watched himself kiss. And then his reflection and the Frances in the mirror stopped kissing and looked up at him, with startled faces. They stayed frozen that way, and he stayed frozen too. After several moments, the mirror couple smiled. Their smiles got wider and wider, and then they were both dead, blood covered and sprawling at irregular angles. And then they were alive again and smiling at him. He shouted and stumbled back from the mirror. From then on, he took to covering his mirrors, and that worked for a few days, but then one day he came home to find himself in his bedroom, already sitting in front of the covered bedroom mirror. The him that was in his bedroom looked up at him who had just entered with wide eyes and a yawning mouth, and Nazr (who believed himself to be the real Nazr) turned and walked out his house. He checked into a motel and decided to stay there for awhile.

(Episode 122 - A Story of Love and Horror, Part 2: "Spire")

LAUREN: These shadows don't even have faces. We cannot discern their intentions or feelings. They move around in quick jerks and starts, flickering in and out of our vision, sometimes standing just behind us while slowly tilting their heads. And unless you're looking in a mirror, there's no way you can even see that. 

(Episode 137 - The Mudstone Abyss, Part 3)

LEONARD BURTON: Let me describe to you the shape of Cecil Palmer. He is a line of leafless mesquite trees. He is a glass factory. He is golf ball-sized hail. He has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes. He wears tight clothing and has never once worked with modeling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors in dark hallways.  You cannot know any of this because Cecil is my vision, not yours. He is real, all the same. He is to be my replacement when I retire. But he does not exist. So I can never retire. I am your permanent host.

(Episode 148 - The Broadcaster)

CECIL: I can see myself in their reflective face. I... I do not like this. I do not like this at all. Please go. Please leave. I cannot. I... I am covering this window with a sheet. I do not like this mirror. I do not like it one bit. No. 

(Episode 149 - The General)

CECIL: ... [somber] and *that* is what I saw in the mirror that day, and why I do not like to go near mirrors ever. 

(Episode 160 - The Weather)

CECIL: Do you ever stare at yourself for so long in the mirror that you no longer understand what you look like? Is this the same effect as thinking about someone you miss so much that you forget the shape of their face? Why would you do that? Why would you refuse to maintain order? Are you refusing? Or are you a victim of your own mind? Do brain cells dictate souls? Is thought matter? Does thought matter? Who can say? Can the person looking back at you from the mirror tell you the answer? Just because you can see a person, does that mean that person exists?  Is it you you are looking at? Or is it someone else?

CECIL: Basically, why do I know I am me? How many times have I seen myself in the mirror? Is it bad that the answer is rarely? Shouldn’t we all be afraid of mirrors? Or is it just me? How many times, in a fit of dissociation, do we see someone else behind us? Are you, too, too afraid to turn around? Do you really want to challenge the veracity of your eyes? Do you think disbelief in death will make it disappear? Are awareness and manifestation one and the same? So, what did I see in the mirror today? Don’t we all see the same thing? Isn’t it a person who looks exactly like ourselves? And weren’t they making the same physical gestures? And behind that person, in the reflection, did you not also see, just over your shoulder, a pair of eyes? The curve of a head? And did you notice how that head was human in shape but maybe only a third the size?

CECIL: Who is behind you in the mirror? Or what is behind you? Should I speak in present or past tense? Is the face there? Or is the face gone now? Are you no longer at the mirror? Do you feel safer? Why do you assume that because you aren’t looking in the mirror right now that the tiny face and spiny digits are not still behind you?

CECIL: Are you thinking about it? Are you starting to forget exactly what it looks like? Do you want to go to the mirror again? Do you want to stare and stare at it until you can comprehend what it is?

CECIL: What if we went to the mirror together? If we don’t feel alone in our feelings, could we conquer our fears? Are we in agreement, you and I? What are you even looking at? Is your focus drifting to your shoulder? Can you not do that? Can you resist the urge? What will staring directly into your terror accomplish?

CECIL: When was the last time you saw your mother? It’s been since childhood, hasn’t it? Didn’t she warn you about mirrors? Didn’t she tell you they would be your demise? Or was that just a popular bedtime story?

CECIL: What did your mother tell you about swing sets? What did she say to you when you yelled to her for help? Did she lean over your sobbing face and ask you: “Why are you crying when you don’t even exist?” Did she tell you again about the mirror?

CECIL: Did you figure it out? Could you see past your own mental inventions? Who out there looked beyond the long, gape-jawed figure and its inexplicable whines? Did you see the table? There in the mirror image of your house, did you see the table? You hadn’t noticed the table before, had you?

CECIL: Why was the table only in the mirror? Why isn’t it real?

CECIL: What’s inside the drawer of the rickety table in the mirror? What other uncanny discoveries await you if you could just break through? Is it as simple as breaking through?

CECIL: Do you want to know what’s in the drawer below the table? Shouldn’t it be as easy to obtain as a lightweight, wool button up coat, all black? But nothing easy ever is, is it? How do you get to a table that’s right in front of you, but only visible in a mirror?

CECIL: Are you only concentrating on the table now? And you’re sure it only exists in the mirror? You double checked? Do you want to know what’s inside the drawer on the front of that table? Are you willing to break something? Are you willing to break the mirror, yes, but so much more? Are you willing to go to a place from which you cannot return? Are you willing to learn things you cannot unlearn? Do you have a hammer? Or if not, can you find something heavy that you can lift? Will you smash the mirror? Will you do it quickly? Why are you hesitating? Have you let your comfortability lapse into carelessness? Why did you take your eyes off the creature on your neck? Did you see the blood or feel the pain first? Is it tearing into your flesh? Is that why you’re screaming? Can you still break the mirror? Are you losing consciousness? Are you? Are you? Are you?

CECIL: If you look into the mirror you just smashed do you see that the creature is gone? Cool, right? But isn’t it strange that all about you on the floor are shards of the mirror you shattered, yet in front of you, the mirror remains, fully intact? Strange? Or scary? Wouldn’t you think that the mirror being simultaneously broken and unbroken is strange, while the fact that you have no reflection is scary? Is that true though? Do you have a reflection? Do you see yourself? On the floor of the mirror’s world? Is your body crumpled on the floor like a wet towel? Is your lower jaw hanging open because you died screaming, or because of gravity? Do you have a blanket of some sort? Why don’t you cover that mirror up? Why don’t you cover all the mirrors, in fact? While you are walking about your home, do you notice the antique table by the door, with its tarnished, yet ornate, brass bulb knob? Was that table always there? Did you enter the mirror world? Or were you always in the mirror world? What else is different around you?

CECIL: Now what? Will you cover the mirrors and sweep the floor and pretend it never happened? Will this prevent it from happening again? Are awareness and manifestation one and the same?

(Episode 171 - Go to the Mirror?)

CECIL: Whatever the Distant Prince keeps behind the Narrow Place has left me hollow and shambling. Less and less of me. This time quite literally. When I looked again, I did not have a nose. It is quite upsetting to see your own face but without a nose. Think about this now. Think about looking in the mirror and seeing your face, but the nose is gone. So you will understand why I vomited in the street. And this other me, he vomited too, for exactly the same amount of time, stopping precisely when I did.

(Episode 209 - The Black Coat)

FACELESS OLD WOMAN: I am less good at being seen, but I am working on that using a system of whistles and mirrors. CECIL: Huh. Mirrors.

("The Librarian")

EARL HARLAN: Oh yes! Yes, I will wake up that morning, and I will stare at myself in the mirror repeating, “You can do this, Earl. You can do this, Earl. You can do this, Earl.” Until my reflection says, “You’re right.” And then we’ll brush each others’ teeth, and trim each others’ mustaches, and comb each others’ hair… CECIL: Awwww! EARL HARLAN: ��and then step through the mirror and once again switch places in each others’ mirrored world for the day.

("The Investigators")

JEFFREY: Yeah, yeah. Yeah turns out most people are afraid of what they are, so now I’m also terrified of mirrors and reflective surfaces, so…

("ALL HAIL")

[annabelle--cane]

HIRAM NO

[joskippy]

Finknor putting holiday out publicly i need them to make condos free next

[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

WTNV quick rundown - 87 - The Trial of Hiram McDaniels

Realised I haven't put a direct link to all of these on a post for a while, so here it is!

Numbers don’t lie. But humans using numbers lie all the time. Welcome to Night Vale.

We finally get to see Hiram's fate at the hands of the newly created NV judicial system. He is deemed guilty on all accounts and Judge Azdak sentences him to death. This is a sentence which surprises both lawyers (both Troy Walsh) and even Cecil seems upset that law works this way, especially the Violet head who was technically innocent.

Halfway through the trial, the human jury members are replaced with Strangers.

Dana is a witness, but tells 'everything' as in, all the secrets she as mayor is obliged to keep. Many watching the trial flee in horror so they don't learn anything and even Judge Azdak puts on noise cancelling headphones (that all judges have so they don't have to hear anything too uncomfortable). Only Hiram listens with interest.

 Weather: "Cocaine" by Holy Moly

The classfieds: Big Rico's is hiring a new cashier. The classified advertising such hints at a 'wheat speakeasy'. A man called Richard has lost his wife, but is also mad at the idea of people seeing strange things. Someone has lost a cat which might actually be the sun or the moon. The Woman from Italy leaves a classified suggesting that next time she won't be so merciful.

The Night Vale Parks Department, after a multi-year, 5 million dollar repair and renovation project re-opens the pyramid destroyed Beatrix Lohman Memorial Meditation Zone. It has state of the art equipment now. It was funded by a tax against school children for each day they attended, and was three years and 4.9 million dollars overbudget.

The NV airport is going to start trying to make international flights (despite being exceedingly tiny), including to plays like Svitz, Mexico and Double Mexico. Cecil mentions how he would like to go on holiday, possibly somewhere tropical.

Martin McCaffry, local TSA rep, shakes his head and rolls his eyes at the questions. He then shows that he has hundreds/thousands, of hand drawn sketches depicting a strange elongated dark figure crawling out of a kitchen refrigerator. He asks who had been leaving one of these on his pillow every morning.

Stay tuned next for the awful void of your own doubts and feelings. Good night. I guess.

Proverb: "Them’s the brakes, kid,” said the most annoying driving instructor ever.

[embodiment-of-fear-oz]

I never thought I'd say this but... oh fuck they made me feel bad for the literal 5 headed fire-breathing dragon, huh?

[raspberryimps]

…is this what gets me to listen to welcome to nightvale again? Probably

[kerink]

wtnv content in (approximate) order

hi guys! if you're getting into wtnv for the first time, or getting back into it after a brief enjoyment, you may not know wntv is more than just the podcast. here's a rough list of where the other media fits into the timeline. liveshows can be purchased here but are not necessarily required listening. iirc "the debate" is the only one that had plot relevant information in it

Episodes 1-31 Liveshow: The Debate Episodes: 32-36 Liveshow: Condos Episode: 37-39 Liveshow: The Librarian Episodes: 40-50 Liveshow: The Thrilling Adventure Hour & WTNV crossover Episodes: 51-75 Book: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes: 76-87 Liveshow: The Investigators Episodes: 88-107 Liveshow: Ghost Stories Episodes: 108-115 Book: It Devours! Episodes: 116-132 Liveshow: All Hail Episodes: 133-160 Liveshow: A Spy in the Desert Episodes: 161-164 Book: The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home Episodes: 165-Present

there's one more liveshow that isn't available yet (The Haunting of Night Vale) and there's patreon exclusive episodes and in-character Q&As which aren't plot relevant but are very fun

[townesorsomething]

Midnight Burger & Young Leif characters as WTNV intros…

Caspar: Regret nothing, until it is too late. Then regret everything. (10)

Leif: I fought the law and the law won. I ignored the law and the law won. I abided by the law and the law won. (80)

Gloria: A lonely heart. A wandering eye. An empty stomach. A shoulder to cry on. This is what makes us us. (32)

Ava: The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. It is only the truth seeker who wonders: why is the glass there? Why is there water all over the floor? Why is it covering every other surface of the house? Who, or what, is doing this to us? (18)

Effie: Our God is an awesome god, much better than that ridiculous god that Desert Bluffs has. (31)

Zebulon: Close your eyes. Let my words wash over you. You are safe now. (5)

Shel: Act natural. Act like all of nature. Act like the entire cycle of life and death and change and rebirth. (46)

Ex: The secret to a long life lies in how acutely you perceive time. (54)

Ted: Numbers don’t lie. But humans using numbers lie all the time. (87)

Läfftrax: Now is your chance. Well, that was it. It’s over. Did you do it? Have you achieved what you wanted? No? Ah well. (52)

Clementine: Those who remember history are also doomed to repeat it. (98)

Terric: We make money the old fashioned way. We chemically convert lead into gold. (103)

Tamara: But don’t you see? You never needed anything else. The weird was within you the whole time. (69)

Frank: Cook a feast no family could fully eat. Recite prayers no family could fully believe. And acknowledge a frightful history no family could fully comprehend. (78)

June: The arctic is lit by the midnight sun. The surface of the moon is lit by the face of the Earth. Our little town is lit too, by lights just above we cannot explain. (3)

Chuck: In just a few days the whole story will be known. This is what happens after. (76)

Verge: It takes heart. It takes guts. It also takes cash. It just needs your payment immediately. (30)

Bertiluna: What’s past is prologue. What’s future is epilogue. This right here is maybe chapter 4 or 5. (73)

Dez: Which came first? The chicken, the egg, or airplanes? (92)

Alice: To err is human. But to err is also computer. We’ll have to find another test to reveal which of us are secretly bots. (81)

[desertbluffs3]

WTNV 224: The Bite of '87, Explained

[mochapanda]

im on ep 87 of wtnv and theres 220

[mingus-archives]

I posted 10,979 times in 2022

That's 9,288 more posts than 2021!

11 posts created (0%)

10,968 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@spooksier

@bulkhummus

@written-in-starlight

@coffee-and-manslaughter

@revanchxst

I tagged 7,107 of my posts in 2022

Only 35% of my posts had no tags

#adrian - 4,857 posts

#tma - 874 posts

#giglia - 399 posts

#wtnv - 198 posts

#puppet history - 172 posts

#the sandman - 122 posts

#reference - 115 posts

#nope movie - 105 posts

#jom - 87 posts

#nope - 85 posts

Longest Tag: 107 characters

#a schoolgirl writing an essay while slowly being beaten over the head with a hammer and theres a time limit

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Ahhh I hope all this renewed hype toward Goncharov inspires Shane and the Watcher team to feature it in an ep of puppet history! Can you imagine the Professor explaining the behind the scenes affair, the unsolved death of the assistant director? Picture cut-outs of Andrey and Goncharov making out like the oars? A song performed by Katya’s fur coat? I mean come on the ep writes itself.

46 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

#4

Even More Nope (2022) Thoughts

The specificity of the vortex. In the desert, in the plains, the vortex is a singular tragedy. Floods, storms, fires, they hit everything. They touch everyone. But a tornado is specific. A tornado can take down a single house, a single horse, a single person. One building can be brought to its foundations and its neighbor left with just a broken window. And in the same way, a tornado can spare a single man.

Jean Jacket’s mouth is not a tractor beam. It’s a vortex. It’s a tornado. It’s choice of victim is specific. When JJ eats the TMZ reporter OJ makes it out unscathed, despite the fact that the two were mere feet apart. And that’s what makes it horrible.

But what makes it worse, you can see a tornado coming from miles away.

Gordy was a time bomb, an amalgamation of instincts placed into a setting made only to exacerbate them. In retrospect, it seems so obvious. Of course a chimpanzee, a species prone to violence, known to have man-killing strength, would cause a tragedy. But when Gordy does, all you can do is watch. All you can do is see the devastation approach and hope you’re not in its way. This is Jupe, caught in the wake of a tornado, in a singular act of havoc.

Em and potentially OJ’s survival can be attributed to their bond, their knowledge and expertise handling animals. But along with that is the tragedy, especially given that OJ may not have actually made it, that their survival was a stroke of luck. After all, when a tornado builds, there is no path or mercy, no story to tell, no motive. There is just those who survived and those who didn’t.

121 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

#3

More Nope (2022) Thoughts

Nope is about the uncontrolled. The idea that you can conquer it, the reality of circumstance.

A balloon pops. A chimpanzee is riled into violence. Jupe survives the chimpanzee’s attack. A shoe sits on its heel.  These are all by chance, a random collection of events, the creation of trauma. The media fanatacizes it, obsesses over it, feeds on it. Makes it so Jupe can’t escape it. Years later, Jupe cannot escape it, lives in that single trauma. But by profiting off of it, by telling the story, he thinks he controls what happened to him. What the world did to him and that moment. He thinks he’s conquered the chaos.

He treats Jean Jacket the same. This creature comes to his ranch, by chance, and this time Jupe tries to own the narrative immediately. He thinks if he gives the voyeur the horses, attention, care, he has bonded with it. He has gained its favor. He can make it his. But the same chaos that let him survive lets him die this time. And in that last moment he stares at the beast and he is bewildered. He doesn’t understand why that happened to him, why that chimpanzee went wild. And he doesn’t understand why Jean Jacket eats him now. He is in the eye of the storm, wondering why it would rain.

375 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

#2

One More Nope (2022) Thought

The almost fist bump between Ricky and Gordy as subversion of ET, as inverse of an act of healing. Gordy reaches under the table, eyes obscured from Ricky, hand sticky with blood from the person he’s brutally beaten. Ricky, confused and terrified, reaches out to meet Gordy as if to perform a fist bump, an act the two had likely done many times during production of the sitcom. It’s an act of connection, Ricky desperately reaching out in hopes to calm the well-behaved chimp with whom he’d thought he’d bonded.

The scene horrifyingly echoes the iconic moment of connection in ET where ET touches Elliot and heals him. In Nope, this moment of touch is the opposite, leading to Gordy freezing long enough to be shot and killed and leading to the lifelong trauma or Ricky being witness to this violence. More than that, it shows how naive Ricky’s hope for connection is, the idea that this bloodied chimpanzee can be mollified with a gesture. How naive Ricky is for even thinking he understands Gordy at all. This is made even clearer by the fact that Gordy was not Gordy; he was a nameless chimpanzee, one of many used to play the role. Ricky is bonded with the idea of Gordy, but in reality he is just mimicking at friendship with a whole slew of chimpanzees it’s unclear if he can even tell apart.

In ET, the touch between ET and Elliot is a moment of humanity. Nope shows us how foolish that idea is in practice, and how dangerous it can be to superimpose human behaviors onto creatures we can never fully understand. Is Gordy actually connecting with Ricky? Is he reaching under to try to grab and beat him? Is there any motive to Gordy’s movement? There is no answer, and there will never be. Just like Ricky, we can’t see into the chimpanzee who played Gordy’s mind.

See the full post

949 notes - Posted September 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Another Nope (2022) Thought

What does it mean to be consumed? I am thinking of the moment after Jupe and the tourists are swept into the maw of Jean Jacket. When they are screaming, confused, trapped. As Jean Jacket hovers over the Haywood house, someone shouts and begs to be let out. Of what? Do they know that they are in Jean Jacket, the beast? That they are being digested? When Jean Jacket silences them, do they understand finally? There is something so horrifying, so visceral, about being in the maws of something and not even knowing it. Having your fate known by everyone but you.

And then I am thinking of the Haywood ranch. Of OJ and the horses, him slowly selling them away to Jupe, and thinking he can just buy them back. But the horses are already gone; Jean Jacket eats every single one of them. Jupe knows this, but lets OJ make his plan. He doesn’t tell OJ that his ranch is half-eaten, bleeding out in front of him. That he and Jean Jacket have been chewing on the Haywoods the whole time.

I am thinking about that horror, of being someone else’s meal, profit, plan, and of not knowing.

1,532 notes - Posted September 4, 2022

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[candyheartdoe]

I posted 5,770 times in 2022

That's 4,690 more posts than 2021!

215 posts created (4%)

5,555 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@clueingforbeggs

@cosmicdeviant

@readytospock

@crystal-mouse

@kingofthepossums

I tagged 3,616 of my posts in 2022

Only 37% of my posts had no tags

#star trek - 2,025 posts

#spirk - 377 posts

#the owl house - 216 posts

#st tos - 198 posts

#conversation hearts original - 162 posts

#wwdits - 92 posts

#st tng - 87 posts

#laugh tag - 85 posts

#wtnv - 81 posts

#dee watches disco trek - 63 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i’m also not actually trying to pretend it’s the greatest most nuanced thing ever- it’s not- it’s a fanfiction that’s at least 40 years old

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Never in my life would I feel inclined to call my ✨Friend’s✨ heartbeat “Lovely.” I can’t with this fucking book 💚

419 notes - Posted August 5, 2022

#4

I can’t believe I almost chose not to drink/ apparently do shrooms with these guys. I can’t believe I almost missed the fucking TROJAN HORSE APPARENTLY

I should’ve expected a Trojan Horse joke in this game but this is absolutely incredible

544 notes - Posted September 11, 2022

#3

Scotty keeps this around to remind himself why he puts up with it all

1,176 notes - Posted May 8, 2022

#2

I love the tos trope of Kirk just saying stuff to the antagonist, just full on rambling, sometimes it’s nonsense even! to steal their attention and get Spock behind them to do a nerve pinch, no plotting necessary, this has just become their Thing and Spock always knows his cue. It’s so great I love it every time

2,639 notes - Posted May 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Bitches be like “this is my comfort video game!” And the game is the most depressing thing ever and doesn’t even have a happy ending

10,232 notes - Posted April 15, 2022

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[wt-nv-quotes]

Numbers don’t lie. But humans using numbers lie all the time.

[bismuth-209]

Numbers don't lie, but humans using numbers lie all the time

~Welcome to Night Vale

[kerink]

I posted 8,639 times in 2022

That's 6,030 more posts than 2021!

1,103 posts created (13%)

7,536 posts reblogged (87%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@damazcuz

@dantesinfernwhore

@sm0kebreaks

@kerink

@bulkhummus

I tagged 4,017 of my posts in 2022

#wtnv - 943 posts

#tma - 808 posts

#disco elysium - 382 posts

#wtse - 210 posts

#half life - 148 posts

#gif / - 116 posts

#by me - 101 posts

#wtnv spoilers / - 90 posts

#long post / - 80 posts

#mp100 - 74 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#im in love with youim in love with youim in love with youim in love with youim in love with youim in love with youim in love with youim in l

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

all the times cecil says “uh huh” cause i think its cute

1,049 notes - Posted March 31, 2022

#4

the debate

[original post]

1,108 notes - Posted July 24, 2022

#3

wtse by me, @sm0kebreaks, and @game-warden

1,688 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

#2

this is what happened in MAG92 right?

2,603 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

28,464 notes - Posted November 15, 2022

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[firsttimelisteningtowtnvrants]

WAIT NO YOU CANT KILL HIRAM WHAT

NO THATS NOT JUSTICE

YOURE NOT ALLOWED TO DO THAT

NO