#chekhov begs

[thechekhov]

Hey.

please vote.

In ANY country, but specifically if you live in the US, are of age, and are capable of it in any shape or form. Even though it’s not presidential elections. Even though you might think it won’t matter. 

Please vote. 

I understand it’s not easy all the time. I realize that saying ‘your workplace is legally required to let you go vote’ doesn’t do squat if your boss doesn’t care about the law. I am familiar with how difficult it is to have to slog through campaigns full of catchy, nice-looking words that, upon closer inspection, reveal a much more sinister and selfish political goal. 

I was able to vote by mail in my state - by ordering an absentee ballot online, having it sent to me, filling it out, and sending it in by mail again. It was great because I had the time to sit with it and read through all the options presented before me. 

There are MANY states which require NO-EXCUSE-NEEDED absentee voting. (As in, they’ll simply send you a ballot in the mail if you ask.)

Please, if you find it difficult to vote in person on the day of, check and see if it’s possible for you to vote by mail. In many cases, your state site may have an easy online application for you to order your ballot and receive it as quick as 2-4 days. 

Many states also allow you to vote early, on a day that you actually have off!

https://www.vote.org/early-voting-calendar/

And as for the ballot itself - tons of websites now offer you on-demand lists of people on your ballot, with explanations on their states and what they’re about - and the only thing you need is your zipcode! I typically use the one my state provides, but you can also get them for basically anywhere by going to this website:

www.vote411.org

And look...

I know it isn’t a walk in the park, and I know politicians disappoint many of us, and it’s A) difficult to trust them and B) difficult to know you’re voting for a person who will make good choices. But we live in an age of information where we can look up what people’s stances are, what they’ve done in the past, and this is MUCH EASIER than it once was!

Don’t let people persuade you that voting does nothing! Look at Brazil!

 People who tell you that voting is useless are trying to stop you from voting - BECAUSE THEY, THEMSELVES, ARE OFTEN VOTING.

I come from an actual country where our votes haven’t meant SHIT for 20 years in a row. This shit built up slow and steady - boiling the frog, as it were. The US is far from perfect. But it’s far from pointless to vote, and KEEP voting. 

#chekhov begs #chekhov irl #politics #us politics #vote #voting #2022 elections

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Can you please give us an update on the comic?

#i have literally explained the fact that my motherboard is fried #two posts down #please i am begging you #if you have time to send me this many asks #you have time to scroll down and READ THE THINGS I POSTED ON MY BLOG #this panel is from a comic that was posted on patreon several months ago #so if you wanna read that you should check out patreon ig uess #when i get my computer back i will fire that up #chekhov answers

[thesherrinfordfacility]

it was about the coffee

edit 24/11: rip miracle blocker theory, my love

but possibly not the way we thought it was. this is going to sound so convoluted but bear with me here (and big thanks to the anon that precipitated this theory, and major apologies that writing this theory is only going to delay my answer to your ask even further💕)

a major plot-point for me in s2 was this bad boy:

which i think we can safely say is a very op power for demons to possess for it not to come up again later on in the show? it's almost like a parallel to the book of life on that front - which is mentioned in the bookshop in ep6, but we've all agreed is pretty much going to be a major chekhov's gun in s3, right? well, what about the miracle blocker?

why wouldn't shax think of getting one either from furfur or from beelzebub when storming the bookshop? well, could be that shax didn't think of it. true - but i do wonder if something iffy was in fact going on in ep5/ep6 showdown, right up into the Final Fifteen.

let's start here: aziraphale has got some reality-bending bullshit going on, which i think is possibly just naturally emanating from aziraphale himself (im not wholly convinced it's entirely in-character for him to purposefully fuck with people's heads and autonomy) and perhaps the dancing/outfits/emotions etc is just the image he wanted for the dance, and his magic (?) essentially made it happen, so much so that he was potentially taken in by it too... hence why he was so readily resistant to crowley's pleas to listen to him about the danger? idk, getting sidetracked.

but anyway, then the demons come, and we see the below where... randomly, aziraphale's miracles/magic doesn't work. and there's no given reason for it:

soon after this, aziraphale opens the portal; one thing on reflection? that portal opens damn fucking fast. sure, the peril is high, certainly higher than s1 when he had to pray and practically beg to speak to someone... but if the portal is more or less for metatron's direct use, and the metatron is so damn busy, being the voice of god... why would he be sat there waiting for a call?

s1, the time between aziraphale starting to pray/dial 9-1-heaven, and the portal opening (excluding where he shouts to shadwell that the shop is closed) is just over 31 seconds. s2, from "hello, is there anybody there" to portal opening is just over 5. a very short cut-down for a retired, traitorous angel, regardless of whether they're under attack (which, tbh, would be in heaven's interests, right? for aziraphale to get Got?). the explanation for that can only be, in my book, that metatron has been watching... and possibly has been since the first time the portal opened.

anyway, we then move on to metatron arriving at the bookshop, and offering aziraphale the coffee. others have reported a miracle chime, and tbh i too can hear at least a faint, high strong, that sounds out of place in the ambient sound of the scene. video below, where ive marked out where i can hear it:

we know that aziraphale doesn't drink coffee. tea, hot chocolate, wine... but he's never, as far as we've seen, canonically drunk coffee. he must have tried it at some point, crowley likes it/drinks it, so why wouldn't aziraphale have tried it at some point? well, i think he probably has, and didn't like it. i think he tried to change it, in front of the metatron, so he could take a sip and not be offensive. but... it doesn't work. aziraphale's reaction is awkward. and metatron's reaction is smug. i think metatron has a miracle blocker.

aziraphale is not stupid. i think he knows possibly from that moment, or very soon after, that metatron has been up to something. i think he knows that metatron might have eyes and ears everywhere. i think aziraphale has worked out that metatron is not in fact A Nice Old Man, and knows it right through until he gets in the lift (which im going to talk about more in the aforementioned anon ask). i don't think aziraphale has been overtly threatened, because the metatron has worked so hard in this scene to be non-threatening. but he has underestimated how smart aziraphale actually is.

making the offer to reform heaven appeals to aziraphale, there is no doubt on that. and aziraphale is desperate for crowley to be with him - not only on the layer of wanting to be together, or another layer of crowley deserving to have heaven make amends to him, or even the layer wanting to protect crowley under his status as supreme archangel... but because if aziraphale walks away, without crowley, crowley has nowhere safe to go. the bookshop has been compromised, and it is no longer safe. metatron with his almond syrup has Eyes and Ears everywhere. when crowley refuses, aziraphale has to get to heaven, and to metatron, before they get to him.

i do completely believe that aziraphale wants to help heaven, and possibly seek any way in which he can return it to what he thinks or believes was god's original purpose for it - to return or make it into the place that was always meant to stand for good and justice and love. but i also believe that now, more than ever, aziraphale teeters on the edge of giving heaven a chance - or being burnt to ashes, literally or figuratively. idk about you, but i have a gut feeling on what option he, in this moment, would be inclined to take.

#good omens #metatron spec #s3 narrative spec #sanctuary/bentley theory #feral domestic/final fifteen meta #s2 meta

[cellarspider]

6/?? The road to hell

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We return to the movie equivalent of an incompletely-assembled Ikea PAX / BERGSBO wardrobe surrounded by chips of particle board and eight thousand extra screws, Prometheus.

If that analogy made sense to anybody, congratulations! You too are succumbing to The Madness.

Content warnings for terrible archaeology, terrible chemistry, and blunt force trauma to the audience with a piece of exposition.

Increasingly extensive alt-text ramblings include the logistics of securing items in moving craft, linguistics, atmospheric science, colorblind-friendly diagram design, swearing about orology, and cursing the crew for their fictional crimes against archaeology.

Many on Tumblr are familiar with Chekhov’s Gun, a piece of writing advice that calls for economy of storytelling: if you mention a loaded gun in your story, it should go off at some point. Sergius Shchukin phrased it this way: “Remove everything that has no relevance to the story. If you say in the first act that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third act it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there." 

So Prometheus takes the rifle down off the wall and smashes you over the head with it, just to make sure you saw it.

CH: “Wow, nice place.”

D: “It's actually a separate module with its own self-contained life support. Air, food. Anything Miss Vickers would need to survive a hostile environment.”

CH: “Okay, so she lives on a lifeboat.”

MV: “Yes. I do. I like to minimize risk.”

Gee. I wonder if Vickers’ lifeboat living quarters will become relevant later.

Then, Chekhov’s rifle hits us with its next flurry of blows.

“Charlie, look. It's a Pauling Med-Pod. They only made a dozen of these.”

Gee. I wonder if the Pauling Med-Pod–-yes of course it’s going to be relevant later

You want a movie where a literal Chekhov’s gun gets fired off, along with Chekov’s crossword puzzle, Chekov’s ketchup packet, Chekhov’s swan, and Chekhov’s farmer’s mum, Chekhov’s everything all weaving back together again in a beautiful symphony of hilarious violence? Watch Hot Fuzz! Do it! Just watch Hot Fuzz! Not Prometheus!

I have said it before and I say it now, this movie is TERRIBLE at providing the audience with plot-relevant information. It hits you like head trauma. It bellows at you like Hans Zimmer has his entire orchestra hiding behind your chair, ready to let loose with an Inception Noise.

Vickers is here to make David mix drinks and to be a Corpo Ice Queen who demands that the team not make any direct contact with any alien life they find while they’re here. She doesn’t think they will, though. She thinks Weyland was delusional. But she’s the one in charge of the company money, so she’s the boss here.

Which begs the question of why she’s here at all, rather than back on Earth. This is actually a plot point, but because it’s not explicitly called out like the LIFEBOAT with the PAULING MED-POD, and everyone else has acted like loons anyway, it does not stand out. It just seems like another dollop of irrational behavior in the unpalatable stew of these characters.

However, Vicker’s demand that no direct contact be made? Very sensible! In fact, this was the point in the movie where I distinctly remember thinking in the theater “wait, they don’t have a first contact protocol already?” 

Like, Vickers doesn’t think that anything’s going to happen, but there’s enough of a chance that she’s giving orders not to engage. The sum total of their formal first contact attempt was yeeting a cultural message packet at the planet while in-transit to see if they got any response. The only one who appears to have been preparing was David–he basically spent the last two years learning comparative linguistics, with the aim of acting as a translator, should they get that far. That’s a sound choice, though its actual implementation is going to leave me incensed later.

But that still doesn’t answer the question of what they’re planning to do. Weyland certainly believed that they were going to meet aliens here. He’s arrogant enough to have demanded this whole project happen, and he didn’t have anything to say about what should be said if they made contact without him? 

This is, possibly, a plot point. But everything else that happens around this in the next five minutes is pure, howling madness.

Because they’re immediately descending into the atmosphere of this alien world.

This is too fast. In Alien, they landed on-planet to check out a possible distress signal, and it was a goddamn pain in their collective ass that they were only doing out of legal responsibility. In Aliens, they were a bunch of hopped-up marines ready to go shoot bugs. 

These are, again, scientists. The team leads are archaeologists! Aerial archaeology is a thriving field today that’s only going to get more useful as technology improves! There is no sense that they’ve done any scans, they don’t even know what the atmosphere is made out of, something we, right now, can already determine about exoplanets. Really! We can! 

We are explicitly told, in fact, that all this is happening within the same day as everyone waking up. The events of this movie appear to happen over two days, maybe three at the max.

And now, Spider yells at cloud. Or rather, the atmosphere.

The movie claims that if you spend two minutes on the surface without an oxygen supply, you’re dead. Why? Atmospheric CO₂ is over 3%.

Now, 3% CO₂ is not a fun time, and you will definitely experience weird physical and cognitive effects. But if you hang out in 3-5% CO₂, you’re going to be pretty okay for anywhere from four hours to over a month. 

What I've heard consistently is speculation that the movie meant carbon monoxide levels at 3%, which, yeah, that'll kill ya. In fact 2-3 breaths of 1.28% CO makes people pass out and die within under three minutes. 0.01% CO is enough to result in headaches and memory problems, as one redditor demonstrated to the internet back in 2015. 

But no. For whatever reason, the movie script says “CO₂”. Consistently.

And now, we get to the bit that had me screeching under my breath in the theater. Most people who saw Prometheus lost their sympathy for the human characters about 5-20 minutes after this point. I was ahead of the curve. I hated these characters before it was cool. Because they see a structure. They see what looks like roads.

Holloway, who I remind you all, claims to be an archaeologist, demands they set the ship down on one of those roads.

Let me tell you all a story. A few years before this movie first blighted me, I signed up for an archaeological field course. The university offering it didn’t have a dig permit lined up for the year I went, but their campus was in an area that had seen continuous human habitation for at least 15,000 years. They scouted out a bit of lawn, we cut the turf, and started digging. 

A week or two into the dig, we realized that the top layers were probably modern infill, dirt that had been trucked in from somewhere and completely jumbled. We started hacking away at it with mattocks to get down to the actual archaeology, which was delayed by a day or two when I struck 1940s asphalt. 

Like, literally struck it with my mattock. It felt like biting down on aluminum foil, but spread out over my hands to my shoulders. The professors rented a small mechanical digger to tear up the old car park, and also some of the plywood on the sides of our trench by accident. I have never seen a bunch of professors so gleeful about being turned loose on heavy machinery.

But finally, we got to what we were there for. A bunch of 13th century houses, and a Roman road.

I remember we made sure there was photo documentation that captured every fucking pebble on the medieval surface of that road, before we dug in. We were encouraged to sketch it, too. We took precise GPS coordinates of where the edge of the road started. We sifted through the road surface as we dug it up, finding dozens of tiny artifacts, because centuries of people had tossed little bits of trash onto the road, lost things out of their pockets and pouches, all the random little events that might happen on a stretch of road two minute’s walk from the parish church. 

I remember one student found the metal tag off of a horse’s bridle, that would’ve been used to identify it with its owner’s mark. Another found an 800 year old silver coin, tarnished on one side and perfectly, shiningly pristine on the other. It was beautiful.

And over and over, we were told: “A road is a find.” A road itself is history. A road is a place shaped by human hands, where humans have lived their lives. We can learn a lot from roads.

And that was what I was whispering at the screen in the theater, increasingly incensed. “A road is a find. A road is a find. A road is a find!!”

I was ready to reach through the screen and strangle that motherfucker Holloway from this moment on. The movie had lost me fully. Not because of this moment in isolation–if the rest of it had been consistently competent, I would have sighed and done my best to hold onto suspension of disbelief. But the drip feed of problem after problem had taken me from open and interested in the movie to actively spiteful in about 30 minutes or less.

So, fine. The movie seemed determined to make me watch a bunch of unprepared morons stumble to their deaths. Usually, this sort of movie doesn’t appeal to me. I don’t find much use for the kind of movie where you’re supposed to feel antipathy toward the main cast, as a free pass to watch them suffer. It’s why I still haven’t seen Alien Covenant. But I had been unexpectedly ambushed by just such a movie, and I was rooting for whatever horrors awaited them.

⛬

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Citations for alt text rambling:

1. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bane-vs-pink-guy--2 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_bronze_inscriptions  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumulonimbus_incus  4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line 5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Everest 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Mons

#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012) #hot tip for anyone exploring alien ruins: do none of this #I am still somewhat perplexed that this got me so angry #I am a parody of myself sometimes #Youtube

[sakebytheriver]

Community is a Chekhov play and the gun that foreshadows the ultimate tragedy of the Greendale study group is in the Dean's first speech with his missing card,

"Many of you are halfway through your first week here at Greendale, and as your dean, I thought I would share a few thoughts of wisdom and inspiration. What is community college? Well, you've heard all kinds of things. You've heard it's a loser college for remedial teens, 20-something dropouts, middle-aged divorcees, and old people keeping their minds active as they circle the drain of eternity. That's what you heard... However, I wish you luck! ... Okay, you know... Oh-oh. Okay, there's more to this speech. There's actually a middle card that is missing."

That middle card is Community's equivalent of Chekhov having a character hold a gun in the first act. The card is never found just the same way the study group never really escapes Greendale as anything but what the dean describes them as in his speech, the missing card is their potential, lost to time, lost to incompetence, lost on the Greendale campus never to be found again. Troy never really graduates instead becoming the epitome of remedial teens running from the world by literally floating through it on a boat, Britta remains stuck at Greendale a twenty something dropout unable to get a degree but also unable to leave and in the original draft of the pilot the dean even adds an aside that the dropouts are "crawling their way back to society" an acomplishment Britta never reaches by the end of the series, Shirley never becomes more than a middle aged divorcee with a husband that came crawling back only to leave her once again losing herself in Louisiana to play nursemaid to a man she just met, and Pierce dies the same way he lived depressed, gross, broken, and alone. Jeff, Annie, and Abed don't have equivalencies in the speech that appears in the pilot, but Annie is given an aside in the original draft in the same moment as Troy, being labeled "a young person who couldn't get into a university" and she never does make it to a real university. In the end, Annie and Abed are the only two given endings that can be read as happy, she leaving for the FBI Academy and he leaving for film school in Los Angeles, the only two able to escape the Greendale purgatory for supposedly greener pastures, but Annie's ending is to become a cog in the system, a cog that would have happily sent her younger self to jail for the rest of her life for an addiction beyond her control finally reaching the lofty goal she thought she must reach as the small overachiever Annie came to Greendale as, finally able to grow up and be a big girl. Maybe her ending was happy or maybe it was just another form of corruption. Perhaps Abed Nadir is the only one whose ending is truly everything he ever wanted, but he goes to film school alone, he reaches his dream far away from all of the people who loved him, the only people who ever loved him, Abed Nadir ends the series the same way he entered it, the same way they all entered it, alone. And of course, Jeff Winger, the man who wanted to stay at Greendale for the shortest timeframe he could possibly achieve is now stuck there, dedicated his life to teaching there, to fixing the broken school that somehow fixed him and broke him even more left watching everyone else leave him behind.

The missing card, the one that could have told them all what they could be, what they could have acheived at Greendale is never found, but it comes back in the third act in the form of Season 7, the cutaways the group comes up with in the finale of what their season 7 could look like, the missing potential that notecard used to have now inside they're own minds and as Jeff pulls the trigger, fires the only bullet left in the chamber and begs the others to please just stay with him, to stick around and make the idealic season 7 he has created in his own imagination, the gun backfires and explodes in his own hand as reality comes crashing down to steal that last bit of hope he had left

"The plays that Chekhov wrote were not complex, but easy to follow, and created a somewhat haunting atmosphere for the audience."

This quote from Chekhov's wikipedia stands out to me in a way that perfectly describes a modern sitcom and I feel it especially fits with the atmosphere Community created. It was funny, it was broken, it was irreverent, and it was goofy, but it's a show that has haunted me for years, has haunted the entire fanbase for seven years demanding a movie until the powers that be finally gave in

E. J. Dillon thought "the effect on the reader of Chekhov's tales was repulsion at the gallery of human waste represented by his fickle, spineless, drifting people" and R. E. C. Long said "Chekhov's characters were repugnant, and that Chekhov revelled in stripping the last rags of dignity from the human soul".

And these quotes, while they were striking at Chekhov's work in a disparaging way, they just make me think of the characters from Community. Is there a better description for the Greendale 7 than a group of fickle, spineless, drifting, repugnant people stripped of their last rags of dignity? Chekhov was known for being able to capture the specific sadness of an ensemble of depressed codependents trapped in the utter monatony of a working class sedentary life and his popularity was credited to his, "unusually complete rejection of what we may call the heroic values." There are no heroic values in any of the Greendale 7, they are a group of flawed indivudals who come together to create a flawed Community. The Greendale 7 don't have a perfect happy ending, the last moments of Community don't fall into place the way you want a feel good sitcom about a group of friends to end. The ending is bittersweet and broken, a show that shambled on for more seasons than anyone ever believed it could hemoraging cast members along the way feeling like it had died many years before it actually ended, but Abed delivers a speech about the nature of TV and you're crying and you're smiling and when they all leave for the last time with a tight hug that feels like the earth is shattering you're launched into one last self aware fourth wall breaking gag that jolts your emotions before credits roll and they're the last credits that play for the entire show and you don't know if that was an ending or if you should wait for something else.

Virginia Woolf mused on the unique quality of a Chekhov story in The Common Reader (1925):

"But is it the end, we ask? We have rather the feeling that we have overrun our signals; or it is as if a tune had stopped short without the expected chords to close it. These stories are inconclusive, we say, and proceed to frame a criticism based upon the assumption that stories ought to conclude in a way that we recognise. In so doing we raise the question of our own fitness as readers. Where the tune is familiar and the end emphatic—lovers united, villains discomfited, intrigues exposed—as it is in most Victorian fiction, we can scarcely go wrong, but where the tune is unfamiliar and the end a note of interrogation or merely the information that they went on talking, as it is in Tchekov, we need a very daring and alert sense of literature to make us hear the tune, and in particular those last notes which complete the harmony."

Community ends not with a bang but a whimper and a broken note that makes you question what happens next, where do they go from there, what scene fits here in the script, is this truly the end or just where the writer put down his pen. It's a Chekhov play written in six seasons and soon to be a movie

In the end, the tragedy of Community is literally written on the cards

#ignore me #community #community nbc #dan harmon #six seasons and a movie #i got carried away and none of you are allowed to judge me

[ribbit9]

so many Chekhov’s guns unfired!

(aka i am frothing at the mouth over fionna and cake’s finale and have things I need to say)

what happened to thing glitching and becoming normal when fionna and cake touch them

what about the show cheers? why was the last episode named after it when it played almost no part

why is prismo glitching?

ASIDE FROM THAT

I both love and feel unsatisfied with the finale

It felt like Simon was spoonfed his revelations

the final episode felt like a rushed attempt at a ‘and they all lived happily ever after’

what happened to the rest of farm world Finn’s family? Did he die? Is he okay with his son leaving to go to another world forever? What about the other children?

why does Simon move on so fast? Not even a year? And he has to get basically spoonfed by a choose your own adventure book to come to the realisation his relationship with Betty was not exactly healthy

Also what happened to Marceline and regular Finn? Did they not notice Simon disappearing for a week? We needed more interaction between them!

HOW WOULD MARCELINE FEEL ABOUT HIM WANTING TO BE ICE KING AGAIN

WE NEEDED THIS INTERACTION

WE WERE STARVED

idk it wasn’t a BAD finale but it wasn’t amazing either

it felt okay

but I am definitely going to ao3 to get that missing angst and feelings

might even write something

(pls excuse any spelling mistakes this was made at 2am full of emotion after the finale with no checking)

but srsly I had tears in my eyes after ‘The Star’ and comparatively the ending feels shallow where everyone gets to live happily ever after and everything is fine with no heartfelt reunions or residual feelings about what just happened

did Simon just not tell anyone he went on a crazy multiverse adventure? Or was he just like lol this happened to me… MOVING ON! It isn’t shown if any of the people close to him know what he went through

pls I needed more Marceline

I am begging there is a season two

these guns need firing

and if hbo won’t do it

then I will

#fionna and cake spoilers #fionna and cake #simon petrikov #adventure time #spoilers #fionna and cake episode 10 spoilers #no but we needed more Marceline and finn screentime #Marceline: hey finn have you seen Simon? he’s been missing for almost a week and won’t pick up his phone #Finn: idk last time I saw him he said he felt like his life had no purpose and he sometimes wishes he was ice king again #Marceline: what #Finn: then I took him into the forest on an adventure to fight monsters #Marceline: YOU WHAT #Finn: afterward she said he felt better and that he was fine #Marceline: he told me that too… oh no #still liked the finale but also it felt a bit meh #fanfic here i come

[bess3714]

Nightwing #111

Comic Series: Nightwing (2016)

Issue Number: 111

Title: Nightwing / The Son of Gray, Part 1 of 2

Writer(s): Tom Taylor

Artist(s): Sami Basri

Inker(s): Vicente Cifuentes

Colorist(s): Adriano Lucas

Letterer(s): Wes Abbott

Taylor’s Batman is a nice guy who doesn’t have control issues and lets Dick take the lead. This Batman isn’t the Batman who lost his mind and went on half a rampage against Catwoman in the Gotham War arc. If you read at least two DC comics with Bruce in it it’s like a whole new character every time. I am on my hands a knees begging for DC to hire more editors so we can at least get a Batman who is at least a little bit consistent.

But I digress! This is supposed to be a comic review, not a complaint of DC overall. Here’s what I thought of this issue: Meh. Like I said, I didn’t care for Bruce’s characterization. The dialogue between Bruce and Dick felt really stilted, and the flashback panels felt like filler. I wasn’t a fan of the pacing and layout either, it just didn’t flow well.

So I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that once again, Dick’s tragic backstory was the catalyst for someone else’s backstory. This kid is a Chekhov’s gun, right? I’d bet he’s supposed to be the big bad, Heartless, or something, or maybe it’s Gerald who will turn out to be Heartless.

My complaints aside, I do like the copycat murderer story. Those are always fun in procedural dramas! The backup story for this issue was okay. The story had potential, and I liked the art style enough to want to see a conclusion.

Why You Should Read This:

If you’re a fan of supportive Bruce, check it out!

#dick grayson #nightwing #dickey bird #comic thought bubble #nightwing 2016 #nightwing 111 #bruce wayne #batman #flittermouse

[dangermousie]

We are only in ep 1 and ML is already begging for a public punishment on his knees!!!!

2023 is really the year that cdramas embraced bdsm as a flavor.

I am very sad his master thwarted the public whipping in ep 2 but I guess it's too early to really treat us. They do mention some heaven path with heaven whips (!!!???!!!) and I know a Chekhov's Whip when I see one.

#cdrama #the last immortal #wang anyu #i mean it was always a flavor but now it's EVERYWHERE

[qualityfarmprofessorpaper-blog]

Among the most violent things written in Russian literature:

When Chekhov said...

I died two minutes ago.. I found myself here alone with a group of angels, and others I do not know who they are. I begged them to bring me back to life, for the sake of my wife, who is still young, and my son, who has not yet seen the light. My wife was in her third month of pregnancy. Several more minutes passed. One of the angels came carrying something that looked like a television screen. He told me that the timing between this world and the hereafter varies a lot. Minutes here are equivalent to many days there.

"You can check on them from here."

He turned on the screen and my wife immediately appeared carrying a small child! The picture was very fast. Time was changing every minute. My son was getting older and older, and everything was changing. My wife changed the furniture. She was able to get my pension. My son went to school. My brothers got married one after the other. Everyone had their own life. Many incidents happened. And in the crowd of movement and the distorted picture, I noticed something stationary in the background, which looked like a black shadow. Many minutes passed, and the shadow was still the same in all the pictures. Years passed there, and the shadow was getting smaller and fading. I called one of the angels, begging him to come closer to me. This shadow so that I can see it well. It was a compassionate angel. He not only zoomed in on the picture, but also showed the scene at the same time on Earth, and I am still here, sitting in my place, for fifteen years, watching this shadow cry, and I cry. This shadow was none other than “Mother.” "😔

[shortpplfedup]

My School President Episode 10: The real Hot Wave was the friends we made along the way

The Hot Wave final is finally here, but in a strange way the outcome doesn't even matter anymore. That's why they ended the episode without telling us who won, because win or lose, what ended up mattering was the journey and the people they went on that journey with. This was an episode of revelations: of everything hidden coming to light, of everything confusing becoming clear, and of everyone realising what's really important. Everything else mostly falls away to focus on Tinn, Gun and the moms as we move into the series' endgame.

Verse: Life is what happens while you're making other plans

So put your arms around me And then stay there forever Let it always be this way You and me together

Natasha Bedingfield | Put Your Arms Around Me (2007)

Chekhov's gun finally went off in this episode as the source of Gun's mom's fainting spells is finally revealed and...it's rough. It feels so unfair to put Gun through more sadness and worry than he's already lived with, but they didn't shy away for the sake of keeping things light. I understand why they did it and what the story gained from it, but it made my tummy hurt so bad and I'm relieved it's not hanging over our heads anymore. But I guess that was the point right? We don't know who won Hot Wave, but we know Gun's mom is going to be ok, and that's what's actually important. I loved that she refused to make the promises that Gun begged her to make. It's her job to prepare Gun for his life to eventually go on without her, that's the job of every parent. She feels the pain of even the idea of potentially leaving Gun, but she knows intimately that life is entirely unpredictable.

Chorus: The song in the heart

No one else can feel it for you Only you can let it in No one else, no one else Can speak the words on your lips

Natasha Bedingfield | Unwritten (2004)

Gun struggling to write the song, and then struggling to put the emotions he felt while writing it into his performance felt so real. He has been so focused on winning Hot Wave as the goal, he's developed a kind of tunnel vision. The pressure he puts on himself to succeed, everything it could mean not just for him but for his mom...all he can think about is getting it right. But he wrote the song he wrote for a reason. When he looked inside himself, what he felt more than anything else was gratitude. Back in episode 8, he told Tinn what musicians like me want most...it's the audience, especially the one we want to perform for. The song in his heart is the things he wants to say, to his friends, to his mom, to Tinn. He can't win Hot Wave by trying to win Hot Wave, as odd as that sounds. He's got to let it go and just express the things he wants to express to the people he loves.

Bridge: A deeper love

These words are my own From my heart flow I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you

Natasha Bedingfield | These Words (2004)

For all that Gun and Tinn have been clear how they feel, for all that they've been calling each other boyfriend, for all that they've been flirting nonstop...those non-kisses last week were unambiguous. Tinn's still overwhelmed by the enormity of his feelings, and Gun still doesn't quite understand why Tinn keeps sticking around. If you hit on someone else, you'd already have a lover by now, he's said to Tinn over and over. I don't want to hit on anyone else, Tinn's been responding, but Gun doesn't know the devotion behind those words, the lengths to which Tinn's gone for him. So when his mom tells him the things Tinn spilled to her, Gun is awed, he's humbled, he's swept off his goddamn feet. I'm grateful. I'm sorry. I love you. It's my absolute favourite romantic sentiment.

Outro: Truth will out

What are we supposed to do When everyone's afraid of changing?

Natasha Bedingfield | Hey Papa (2019)

So Tinn's mom finally knows. She'd already started putting the pieces together after her run in with Ms. Gim: finding out Tinn has been spending all this time at Gun's, realising he lied to her to go on the beach trip that Gun is clearly also on. Then she starts observing Tinn, testing him: raising the subject of girlfriends, watching him interact with the girls at school. And then she sees that 'Chinzhilla Baby ❤️' caller ID and that photo, that adorable photo that absolutely screams 'cute selfie I sent my boyfriend' and there's no more doubt. And I honestly think her overwhelming emotion is sadness, both that she didn't see it herself, and that Tinn, her baby, felt like he couldn't tell her. That Gun's mom must have known. That Tinn felt open enough with her, essentially a stranger, but not with his own mom. I don't think Ms. Potjanee is a bad person, and I don't think she's a bad mother. But I think she's going to feel like she is. She's in for a mountain of self-reflection, and I think that when she finally has that talk with Tinn there won't be any anger or recrimination about all the lies, she won't be upset about his sexuality, there won't be any animus against Gun. I think the words out of her mouth are going to be 'I'm sorry'.

Ad Libs

I'm really glad Ms. Potjanee didn't actually snoop in Tinn's phone, and I'm equally glad she hasn't confronted Tinn about what she now knows. It makes me confident that she's going to do right by her son here.

I had a feeling they'd have new credits for these final three eps and I was hoping the song from the trailer which I think is the final OST would be part of them, so when the closing credits started I started weeping. It's really almost over folks.

I understand from a storytelling perspective why they made Ms. Gim so seriously ill, I really do, but I'm still very upset about it.

They're following the Bad Buddy structure again of episodes 10 and 11 being revelation/climax and fallout and it's honestly such a comforting rhythm, way better than the 'episode 11 curse' structure.

How did Tinn become the guardian of the Holy Chinchilla?🤣

#my school president #chinzhilla rocks! #Spotify #this one was hard to see through the tears #bl meta series

[karkatmybeloved]

Question for the Critical Role and shadowgast fandom. I’m rereading @the-kaedageist’s delightful fic More Things in Heaven and Earth for like the third time, and I desperately need recs for shadowgast fic that strike a similar tone—happy, devoted, still aching but in a way that’s deeply glad for where they are now—within stories that aren’t JUST fluff. A sprinkling of plot required. Bonus points if they get kinda silly with it. (Like, say, tossing them into Tusk Love — if you haven’t read MTiHaE I am begging you to do so now — or handing them feral children like Chekhov’s similarly excellent Whistle Song). Any help is appreciated.

#critical role #shadowgast #cr2 #caleb widogast #essek thelyss

[thechekhov]

I’ve had some comments on my ‘please vote’ post, asking me to tell them who to vote FOR. Because you’re correct - I did not offer any strategy on specifics. (Because right now, we’re all voting within our own states, and I cannot possibly give you the rundown on EVERY SINGLE PERSON within your county/district.) 

But as someone who probably has at least a few younger people following me who may not have heard this yet, I will say: 

Vote for yourself. 

Don’t simply vote for who your parents praise the most, even if you think you agree politically. Go to https://www.vote411.org/ and look up candidates and read their websites and stances. 

Vote for others. 

Vote not for what would be best only for your well-off parents, but what would also be good for others in your community. You might think ‘why would I care about This Thing, I’m not personally affected by it. I don’t need public transportation, my family has 2 cars!’ Think about who might need that affordable railway. Think about why changes in the law are trying to be made and by whom. 

And last - vote godlessly. 

I know, I know, I’m a withered, jaded old atheist. But listen - I have no issue with faith. If it helps you, if it heals you, or sustains you, that’s swell. 

But remember that you share this country with people who are of various other faiths, and those who are faithless, and that this land was never meant to be a ‘Christian’ nation. 

No single religion owns the USA. Separating church and state is integral to fairness and equity. What you believe in, and how you conduct your personal life is your own business. But pushing the bible, or any other religious doctrine into government never ends well. 

Your relationship between you and your god is private, and should have no effect on how you vote. Voting is about building together a community that works for everyone, not just you. Laws are built not to signal your virtue to a deity, but to help bring about fairness and due process, to balance inevitable harm with available justice. 

#chekhov begs #us politics #usa #religion #idk man i just think that like #based on non religious and very factual statistical evidence #banning abortion is not actually pro life #because it actually ends in more death #literally there are studies and graphs about this #abortion is often a heavy topic and i will not make fun of it or lighten the weight of that decision #but that decision can only be made by a woman who is informed by a neutral and truthful healthcare provider #so lets not leave it up to some random dude who thinks he knows better

[brookheimer]

PLEASE tell us your last chap predictions im begging you're always on point 😭

SOOO many asks like these and i do not think i can do y’all justice but i will do my best 🫡🫡🫡

honestly have not had much time to think succession the past two weeks (the timing of my irl shitstorm is horrendous like why NOW wait two weeks hit me when the show’s ov*r!!!) so i’ll just pop out a few thoughts here and definitely add/update/correct over the next few days as i actually like think ab it more! these r just some immediate first impressions ya know — nothing i feel confident on but i owe it to the dozen asks like this in my inbox to #break #my #silence <3

don’t know if ppl have already said this but matsson’s US CEO will not be shiv. he never actually said shiv, only she did, and it just doesn’t make sense - mencken wouldn’t agree to work with a prominent democrat no matter what she says, and matsson is very deeply uncomfortable with the thought of giving shiv that much agency as she’s someone he can’t puppet the way he’d like (and also someone with no experience in the business world who is not only a woman but pregn*nt). neither mencken nor matsson respect roman anymore, even though they both liked him over ken on a personal level, but ken…. ken they could work with. and ken would 100% be down. he’d fuck rome, fuck shiv, fuck his fucking of the deal, and end up endorsing the deal as the US CEO. he wins, but it’s lonely at the top. pyrrhic victory etc. that’s the most obvious way i can see it going, but i’m hoping they’ll surprise me bc it feels just way Too obvious (classic last minute ken flip-n-fuck tactic, classic classic pyrrhic victory ending, etc)

greg fires tom. just seems like the way his whole arc this szn has been going

hoping there will be something ab ken’s shit-on-dad plan from e4 — would be kinda disappointed if nothing came from that except for the one mention in e5 bc it just doesn’t seem super plausible to me that articles exposing logan’s abuse, the connor’s mon situation, etc. would fall by the wayside and not make a splash. like, unless they just took a super soft shit-on-dad approach that was basically j ‘his sons did his work for him at the end’ etc, it’s hard for me to imagine it realistically not having some impact and typically succession tries to stay pretty faithful to the media cycle etc

seen a lot of stuff ab how all these past skeletons (cater waiter, roman harassment, shiv silencing the cruise victim, etc) are going to be released from their closets but i’m hoping that’s not the case — succession just doesn’t seem like that kind of show. like yeah it’d be nice on a narrative, karmic justice, character arc etc level, but that’s not how life works. rich people get away with the shit they do and it does not come back to bite them. real life doesn’t have, like, a chekhov’s trauma that ends up coming back at precisely the right moment to be the most narratively satisfying — shit just… happens. logan dies offscreen on a plane in episode 3. there’s no arc, there’s no closure. that’s how it goes. so unless they find a way to work in those things subtly enough that it doesn’t feel forced or Dramatic TM, it’s hard to imagine it happening

ok that’s all for now i will post more thoughts as they pop up and will also answer more asks tmrw! got a lot of catching up to do :):)

#succession #succession speculation #succession spoilers #these r literally just the first things that came to mind — i wld list more but i gtg rn #asks #anon #long post #OH WILL ALSO HOPEFUPPY POST THE ROMAN EMPATHY THING FINALLY LOLLLL SEE YA TMRW

[hikennosabo]

trimax vol 13 random thoughts (ch 5-9)

part 1 here!

chapter 5:

okay, it took me way longer than it should have to figure out what happened in this scene, lol. razlo gets behind elendira and blocks her nail gun with the nail that's already in his body which jams her gun and pushes the nail further into his torso which takes them both by surprise.

"some dumbasses"?? do you mean wolfwood and vash?? LOL

come on, come on, come on!!! he's so cute, lol. he's like a dog who wants to play.

i love watching razlo fight!!! it's so fun seeing him fight a different way due to not having his punishers/third arm anymore. he's having so much fun too, it's infectious~

UNTIL ELENDIRA USES A PSYCHIC ATTACK ON HIM. JESUS CHRIST. THAT ONE ALMOST HAD ME.

chapter 6:

ma'am could you please stop serving cunt for a second i'm trying to read manga and you are distracting me

AAAAAGH AND THEN SHE BLASTS HIS LEG OFF. THAT ONE WASN'T FAKE THAT ONE WAS REAL. he'll be okay but :(

CHEKHOV'S VIAL?!

uuuueeee... wolfwood... just seeing the little panel of him... i miss him so much... and the reminder of wolfwood brings livio back out. ueee... waaahhhh...

i'm sitting here trying to articulate my feelings about livio and razlo and i can't, really... :') livio feeling so bad and apologizing that he has to rely on razlo so much, razlo doing his best to encourage livio... they really care about each other a lot. it's very sweet. i care them. :(((

oh this is so very much not how DID works but it's both cool and important to their character arcs so it's FINE!!!! it's fine

huuuhhhmmmmm something something symbolism in livio's guns being reversible and livio and razlo working together, two as one... is this anything? am i connecting any dots here?

they were able to bring elendira to her knees with their teamwork!!!!

chapter 7:

uwaaahhh! young livio flashback!! this is where his twinky stampede self came from i guess. i hope season 2 gives us a beefier version-

...wait. wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait. hold on. speaking of stampede. give me a second.

*returns 30 minutes later* HUH. INTERESTING. so stampede shows us livio working hard in EoM to catch up with wolfwood, but in the manga, it's all but outright stated that he's trying to catch up with razlo.

sorry i'm just fascinated by the tristamp/manga differences and seeing younger livio doing pushups reminded me (stamp!livio does pushups the same way!!)

we're not supposed to know that razlo exists yet in tristamp; i wonder if or how season 2 is going to reframe any of this. it's not like i dislike livio and wolfwood's relationship in stampede!! i think it's really sweet, introducing livio into ww's story earlier is a good move, and livio joining EoM to catch up with ww makes everything in the relevant episodes more emotional. but the relationship between livio and razlo is just as important!!

razlo encouraging livio is SO cute, uwaaaahhh...

WAAAHHHHH!!!! I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH!!!!!

babygirl, please, i am begging. why are you so sad. tell me who hurt you. i am on my hands and knees.

to him... while drinking wolfwood's last vial... i am going to fucking throw up i feel so normal about this

chapter 8:

elendira, killed by her own nail... oh girl... my beloved... i did not expect her to live but i'm still sad she's gone. what a fantastic fight though. might be my favorite fight in this manga.

also livio's gonna have an interesting time trying to get up and get her off of him once his limbs regenerate... uh... if they can regenerate? i'm assuming they can...

i am gonna fucking CRYYYY... calling him by name... wwwaaaaahhhhh...

he would be so proud of you, livio!!!! WAAAAHHH!!!

okay, time to cut back to my other faves having their own battle.

it's so funny that legato thinks this. dude, she hates your guts. if she knew she was gonna see you in the afterlife soon she WOULD worry.

huh? that's her name? like the painting?

also i've been wondering this whole time why she looks like that. like why is she designed to look like a woman. did legato design her himself?? is this his aesthetic sense??

haha ouch! thanks for spelling out the metaphor so plainly!

ahhhh, july flashback... this was uhhh... *checks* ten years ago. supposedly. i'm not sure how much i trust the timeline anymore.

actually i do wonder how measuring time works on this planet. like, everything seems to be measured the same way it is on earth, so does noman's land also have 365 days in a year and 24 hour days?

he's so cute, i am holding him gently in my hands.

knives is so mean... to be just a tiny little bit fair to him, i too would be low on patience if my brother just blasted me with a death beam and someone suddenly started handling my guts that were hanging out. but he's so mean!! i feel bad for legato!!

i AM surprised that knives is still conscious... and that he's still mostly intact. like his guts are hanging out but it looks like his legs and arms (or at least one arm) are still attached, and he's still got. y'know. most of his skin. certainly more intact than his stampede self, lmao.

vash, honey, what on earth makes you think he plans on living through this fight any more than you are. :')

i just like this spread.

chapter 9:

OH BOY, HE'S FERAL!!! truly, he is going out in a blaze of glory just like he wanted. i wouldn't expect anything else from him at this point.

ahhh... stampede!legato talks a lot about discarding emotion in favor of devotion. but emotion and devotion are intrinsically linked. legato is a pretty emotional person, he cries a lot and yells a lot... as long as he can express his devotion to knives, he feels like he's fulfilling his purpose, so he's happy... i'm glad he's having fun at least... :')

WAAAAHHH VASH IS REMEMBERING WOLFWOOD NOW... his face is not quite visible but... vash is remembering wolfwood's words because he's thinking he really is going to have to kill legato to end this fight... killing legato just like in the 98 anime...

i get caught up in the action, but every time they bring wolfwood up i realize how much i miss him...

this panel fucks.

i love watching legato go fucking crazy fighting. i wanna see this fight animated so bad :''')

when i read the top panel, i was like, "because of knives, right?" then i read the bottom panel... ahhh... not just knives... every plant... it's a good thing tristamp established this relatively early because we don't really see vash doing this in the story lol

i'm remembering "do you think we can become friends with them?" "yeah... it might take a lot of effort though..." :'''')

chronica, girl, i know you're very angry with knives, but as far as revenge goes, you need to get in line. you got here like five minutes ago, there are other people with much longer-lasting beef than you who deserve a shot at him before you.

the smallest meryl u can imagine...

WAAAAH this is so sweet, they love him so much :(

i said this already but i LOVE seeing legato go all-out, it's cool!! it gets me pumped up!!! this is just... such a good fight!!!

wait, is the earth ship falling because chronica used up so much energy firing the cannon multiple times?? GIRL...

THIS PAGE FUCKS!!!

THIS SPREAD ALSO FUCKS!! the way that the debris fades out above them, they're only focused on each other...!!!

final thoughts... i'm surprised legato survived this volume?! i really thought he would die in this one... he lasted longer than i thought he would, not that i'm complaining... UUAAAAAGHHH i am gnawing on my arm rn, i can't believe there's only one volume left?! i'll be finished *checks day* TOMORROW?!?!? if i don't procrastinate on reading... which i might do because i don't want it to be over... waaaah...

how will knives be defeated? can humanity survive? will livio's limbs regenerate? and most importantly, HOW WILL VASH GET HIS WILL TO LIVE BACK?!?!

#trigunbookclub #every time i reference stampede i worry i'm missing something #because i still haven't finished my most recent rewatch (got too emotional about episode 9) #but i've gone back and watched livio's episode and a half multiple times LOL #trigun talk #june speaks

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

Susan Kay's 'Phantom' Read: Part III (Giovanni)

Now I started out very annoyed that Kay once again chose to hand over the narrative to one of her OC's, proclaiming "this page says 'Giovanni', who the hell is he?"

But actually this section turned out to the the least objectionable episode so far.

Note I say 'least objectionable'.

So for those who haven't read Phantom, Giovanni is one of Kay's composite characters, a master stone mason (and Freemason, which.... dunno how I feel about that) who takes Erik on as an apprentice, slowly building a tentative trust with him, and an almost paternal relationship. Giovanni recognizes Erik true passion for the craft and leaves Erik mostly to his own devices while occasionally providing a steady guiding hand. Giovanni is a foil to the previous dominant male figure in Erik's life, the abusive Javert.

But unfortunately (as I'm given to understand will be a theme in this book) everything goes wonky when a girl enters the picture. The ominously vaunted Luciana, Giovanni's youngest daughter returns from school. She's characterized as spoiled, narcissistic and unstable and develops an immediate infatuation with her father's mysterious and aloof masked apprentice.

I say everything falls apart, not because of the absolutely preventable tragedy that follows, but because that tragedy happens for just... reasons. Giovanni acknowledges that it could have been prevented if he just packed his daughter back off to school as planned but hey-ho.

It all ends with Luciana pestering Erik about his mask until Giovanni finally breaks the tacit bond of trust between Erik and himself by urging Erik to just give in to Luciana's petulant whining. Erik does and Luciana throws herself back into chekhov's terrace balustrade (which Erik had noted shortly prior needed to be replaced) and falls to her death.

While this breach of trust provides a fairly good anecdote for why, even though there have been genuinely compassionate figures in Erik's life, he's still come away with such steadfast trust issues, it is somewhat weakened by the number of times Kay has Giovanni lampshade how this all could have been prevented if he wasn't such a pushover.

And then there's something I noticed in this episode that I've noticed as a growing theme.

Some of you may already have read this in the notes on my previous post on Madeleine's chapters, but I'm starting to think Kay just has serious issues with babies in general.

In Madeleine's narrative we're provided with two extreme ends of a scale regarding the cry of a newborn. The "utterly sexless--piercing, irritating, curiously unattractive" cry of a normal baby, and then Erik's cry which is a "music" that brings tears to her eyes "strangely seduc[es her] body so that [her] breasts ached with a primitive and overwhelming urge to hold him close". This begs the question in my mind: was Erik's cry really so unique, or was this just the phenomenon of a woman not really caring for children until her natural maternal bond with her own baby overrides that, and Kay just has a really twisted way of expressing that?

But then we're introduced to Giovanni and his daughter Luciana.

Giovanni had three daughters before Luciana, and his narrative regarding his daughters is interesting to say the least.

But the moment I parted the covers to look at her I was lost in wonder at the sight that greeted me. She did not look like the wrinkled prune that I had come to believe typified my newborn children. Even then she was beautiful, and her tiny little hand closing around my finger was only a symbol of the tenacity with which she wound herself around my heart in the following years.

Here again we are presented with the ugly image of the normal baby, while the child with attractive, pleasing qualities is characterized as manipulative.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but, idk. As one of my commenters said "Freud would have a field day with this woman."

Masterpost

#commentary on 'phantom' #phantom susan kay #phantom 1990

[neoncityrain]

🎨? and why is that the case?

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it

THERE'S TOO MUCH TO SAY!! Of my own fanart, I think it'd be this one right now. It may not look like much, but I painted each stroke you see there and put a lot of effort into it! Not traditional art, of course, but even so:

of others' art to me, though, i cANNOT choose, so heres some of my faves:

this one by @fungal--wastes based on us playing baldurs gate when i (as polaris) would shittily play violin next to him (as wren) every time he tried to simp for gale, KILLS ME EVERY TIME

This by Toyhou.se's Slug from a secret Krampus. This kills the me. This was drawn knowing the exact abuse Muenos went through and just. MAN. MAN

Dusk, drawn by Loki on PixelCatsEnd! I am SOOO obsessed with the SHAPES of them... This was a commission but I think it still counts

AND SOME STUFF THAT WAS POSTED PUBLICALLY:

theres more but im gonna be here for ACTUAL HOURS IF I DONT STOP

#trojarts #chattering #posted this a month or two ago so i wont re-tag isat