the wild look in mike’s eyes and his expression of pure something and the way his voice sounds absolutely lovesick when he says “did you paint this?” haunts me.

Anton Chekhov, from The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov; "The Proposal,"

About Love

(Mostly learned from discovering what love isn’t)

Love does not leave you guessing or anxious. It’s calming, steadying. It is showing up in whatever way that means. It’s small kindness and big ones, arguing over the important stuff, but purposefully—never meanly. It’s saying you’re sorry and realizing that we are going to screw up at some point. It’s not about perfection. Never is.

It’s about sticking together. Soup when you’re sick—homemade, if you’re extra lucky. Hugs and kisses always. Being silly together. Being honest, even when it’s hard. Because no matter what, you’ve got each other’s back.

Love is comfy sweatpants and stolen T-shirts. It’s slow dancing in the kitchen for no reason. Curling up on the couch to read together. Quiet nights in. Supporting each other’s wins and being a balm when the losses happen. There will be losses and difficult parts, but muddling through those together is everything.

More than anything, love is care/caring. Even when you’re mad at someone. Maybe especially then. It’s dropping everything when you’re needed and getting the same in return. It’s also snuggles. Lots of snuggles.

Love isn’t about being completed by someone. It’s not about fixing or being fixed. It’s about being who you are, good and the bad, and being thoroughly adored for it. It’s sending sweet texts, silly videos, funny little things—because joy that is shared is everything. It’s this made me think of you. It’s seeing someone as they are—and letting yourself be seen just as nakedly. It’s vulnerable, yes. But it’s vulnerability with warmth underneath it, because you know it’s safe. Because your heart is safe. It’s being the keeper of all the secrets and sharing yours in return. It’s not waiting a day to text back or call. It’s being wholly and utterly sincere and dorky, because you cannot keep that smile off your face.

Chase who lights you up, especially on your bad days. Don’t worry about how it might look or what anyone else might think. Bet on yourself, too. And don’t ever settle for less than you deserve. You are worth loving. Promise.

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.” ~Ted Hughes in a letter to his son, Nicholas

IM IN A []

cage au going off (basically; its an au where whole is in a labyrinth and he witnesses the events of cccc and remembers every loop. theyre aware hes watching but soul doesnt know he remembers)

losers playing ttrpgs... losers playing ttrpgs save me...

mike is running a multi-year homebrew ttrpg campaign that is basically just a combination of any rulebook the losers can get their hands on + anything they come up with. i know it to be true. the campaign started as a call of cuthulu campaign but it is now a terrifying mix of call of cuthulu, dungeons & dragons, and cyberpunk with elements from a dozen other games including star wars: the roleplaying game, warhammer, harnmaster and somehow alma mater(??? idk how. but i know this happened). richie was like. "mike man, i love you forever, you're great at this. but why don't i have magic powers?" and he pointed at ben's collection of d&d rulebooks he'd been browsing through and he sounded so earnest and excited that mike knew in that moment he was going to sacrifice the integrity of his cool mystery campaign so richie could cast vicious mockery (99% sure vicious mockery didn't exist yet... don't quote me on that but it doesn't matter because the idea of richie using it constantly is hilarious)

they've all been playing the same characters for years and they keep convincing mike to add more stuff so they're all like super powerful and mike keeps having to come up with more and more powerful enemies.

mike's dice collection is so so so cool he has so many dice, and whenever he introduces a new important character he goes out and gets dice that fit their theme and it is such a moneysink but it's worth it because ooooh pretty dice

after four occasions where the losers decided to adopt a random npc mike hadn't planned anything for, mike has started planning every single npc out down to the specifics of their childhood education. he has endless character sheets hanging out in his room with characters he's created that populate his game world.

okay hanbrough agenda time: bill is the most oblivious guy in the entire world. i know this. (he is the guy who looks at brokeback mountain and goes "what do you mean it was gay? why can't men be friends anymore?" this is based on that one passage at the beginning of the book where he goes on one of those "why can't the curtains just be blue because they're fucking blue" rants lol. he does not know what media literacy is. to me) and mike is. increasingly frustrated and feels like he's losing his mind. he is like head in hands because he asked bill to go to prom with him and bill was like "yeah sure man! sounds great, you're my bestie forever!", and he has no idea what to do, because how is this man this dense, so he just starts having all of his NPCs fall head over heels for bill's character and flirt like madmen. it is painful for everyone involved. except bill. who still has no idea what is going on. that is a very unfortunate month.

mike and ben hang out a lot and ben helps mike brainstorm for the campaign so ben has all this insider knowledge and mike will just look at him before something insane happens in the campaign. they'll like make eye contact and ben will be like holy shit holy shit holy shit :0 and mike just drops some insane new lore. it's very special to me.

i’m not even super into tcoaal anymore (that’s gonna change when the next chapter comes out) but i’m keeping the profile picture because 1. that’s my profile picture now. it would be wrong to change it after all we’ve been through 2. a bunch of the people who i don’t ever wanna talk to will see me with an andy pfp and block me on sight which saves us both the trouble. like how animals will avoid eating tree frogs bc of their bright ass hallucinogenic colors

The Best Trope Ever Showdown: Round 3, Side B

Hitman with a Heart

Propaganda:

Cold character meets warmth. Instant heart.

Chekhov's Gunman

No propaganda was submitted.

'I almost knock into Andrew Scott before I see him. He’s just dashed out of the Tate Modern, frantic and slightly late: “There’s just so many entrances!” he exclaims. His patrician forehead crinkles, and the brown eyes charmingly plead: Forgive me! He was just inside, picking up his membership card. Surely he can get in for free? “Excuse me,” he huffs, “I’m a fully paid-up member.” Then he flashes the broad grin that seduced a legion of Fleabag viewers, and we’re off.

The plan today is to meander in a loop along the Thames. On a midafternoon Friday in London, this involves much ducking and diving through crowds, which suits Scott just fine. The weather is one of those bright, springlike days that convinces you that winter is over—except the rain-swollen river is now sloshing ominously onto the pavement. We slow down to regard an underwater section of our route. “I don’t think we’re gonna get through there,” he says. “I’ve probably got a hole in my trainers.”

We head for the road instead, words pouring out of the 47-year-old actor in that mellifluous Irish lilt, peppered with “you knows” and interrupted frequently by his laugh. It’s no surprise that his colleagues quickly become friends: “It was clear from the moment that I met and worked with Andrew that he was an exceptionally gifted actor,” says Julianne Moore, who starred alongside Scott on Broadway in 2006’s The Vertical Hour. It was both actors’ Broadway debuts, though Scott has juggled screen and theater from the start. “I’ve always done both,” he says, though he acknowledges modestly: “I used to do maybe a few plays a year and one television show. Now maybe it’s kind of the opposite.” That’s somewhat underselling his dramatic accomplishments. Scott has won two Olivier Awards, for the experimental A Girl in a Car With a Man in 2005 and Noël Coward’s Present Laughter in 2020. He has performed in productions of Eugene O’Neill, Oscar Wilde—he’s played Hamlet, too, and was nominated for an Olivier for that as well. “Scott gives carefully controlled, thrillingly virtuoso physical performances,” wrote The Guardian last year, when he performed eight roles from Uncle Vanya by himself, in a much-lauded West End solo adaptation of the Chekhov play. (A New York transfer could not be confirmed when this piece went to press, but seems highly likely.) “He wore his talent so lightly and modestly,” Moore says. “He was joyful and fun and an amazing partner to have onstage and off.”

Scott was born in Dublin, sandwiched between two sisters; his mother is a teacher and an artist, and his father works at an employment agency. As a child, he was brought to art galleries and theaters. A performance by the great Irish actor Donal McCann in Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock when he was 11 or 12 made a lasting impression: “There was just something about the power in his stillness—people think that, in theater, it’s all about the grand gesture, but stillness onstage is absolutely mesmerizing.”

An eerie stillness characterizes all of Scott’s performances as well. As Moriarty in Sherlock, the BBC One show that catapulted him to fame in Britain in the 2010s, he requested fewer lines to play up the villain’s spookiness. And then there is that agonizing stretch of silence in Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag right after its titular protagonist confesses her love. Has the line “It’ll pass” ever been delivered with so much pathos? Scott’s acting is all submerged passion; when he does speak, his words have depth. “Andrew has an intensity and a precision in his work,” Moore tells me. “I love his vulnerability, the way his eyes glitter onscreen.”

As a child, Scott was sent to drama classes to get over his shyness. He still remembers his first role, as the Tin Man in a production of The Wizard of Oz. “I felt completely free,” he says, seemingly transported to the moment he launched into “If I Only Had a Heart” onstage. “I felt joy—that’s the word. Not only did I feel it, but I felt that other people felt it when they were looking at me…. Some intuition told me as an 11-year-old: ‘You have to be this expressive, that’s what theater is!’ Nobody taught me that. I just felt it.” Then he swerves to avoid a clutch of tourists on Tower Bridge, and the reverie is lost.

These days, walking around London is something of an ongoing pastime for Scott. During the press rollout for Andrew Haigh’s Golden Globe–nominated romance All of Us Strangers, he and costar Paul Mescal went to their PR engagements on foot. One day, two boys on bikes clocked the pair and started chasing after them in an alarming fashion: “We escaped them—it was quite fun, actually!” Does he ever feel slightly protective of Mescal, two decades his junior? “Not any more than I would with any of my other people in my life. Because he’s got his head screwed on, you know? I absolutely adore Paul,” Scott adds, though he wants to make one thing clear: “Bromance is not the word that we associate with it, because neither of us are very bro-ey.”

Waller-Bridge, who has known Scott for 15 years, describes him as “an absolute pixie of mischief.” When asked to elaborate, she continues: “I could write a novel. But I love how naughty he is. He has the magical ability to make you feel instantly present—no matter what’s going on in your life, you’re suddenly there in the moment and feeling joyful. I think that’s what it’s like to watch him as an actor too…like he can stop time with his honesty.”

Between 2020 and 2021, Scott also traversed the lengths of the Thames, pondering the script from Ripley, his upcoming eight-episode project for Netflix, in which he plays the titular protagonist. “Quite unusually, I got sent all eight scripts at the same time,” he remembers. Steven Zaillian, the screenwriter behind Schindler’s List and Gangs of New York and the director and writer behind All the King’s Men, had written all eight at the outset.

Tom Ripley is crime novelist Patricia Highsmith’s slipperiest literary creation; a pathological liar and murderer with whom she felt a strange kinship—she sometimes signed letters with some variation of “Pat H., alias Ripley.” It is not so much a spoiler as an ongoing feature of the books that Ripley, despite splurging on Venetian palazzi and Gucci suitcases, never gets caught. If anybody comes close, there is always a conveniently located oar or glass paperweight nearby. Ripley, in other words, is the hero of the tale. “That’s why he fascinates so many,” says Scott. “There’s been so many iterations of him. I think it’s because people root for him.” Actors like Alain Delon and Dennis Hopper have tried the role; Matt Damon played him as an obsequious, lower-class naïf; John Malkovich, as a slimy, camp killer. Scott’s Ripley is different; a watchful loner escaping rodent-infested poverty, more at home among art than he is around people. Musician and actor Johnny Flynn plays his first victim—the monied Dickie Greenleaf—and Dakota Fanning is Dickie’s suspicious ex-girlfriend. “I find Tom quite vulnerable,” Scott tells me. “I don’t think he’s necessarily lonely, but I certainly think he’s solitary…. He seems to me by his nature that he just can’t fit in. He’s trying to survive.”

In Ripley, Zaillian extracts maximum Hitchcockian dread from every creaky footstep. But most sinister of all is Scott’s face, which exhibits a sharklike steeliness throughout. It’s a performance that exudes queasy force. Is Ripley a scammer, a psychopath, or both? “There’s so many things lurking beneath him that I’ve been very reluctant to diagnose him with anything. I never thought of him as a sociopath or murderous,” Scott declares. “It’s up to everybody else to characterize him or call him whatever they want.”

As we weave through tourists near the Tower of London, barely anybody notices Scott, save for a faint glimmer of recognition among mainly young women. He seems to draw reassurance from it. “I don’t like to think about it too much, if I’m honest,” he muses of fame. “I find it a little bit, er, frightening.” He is known but not blockbuster-recognizable, although he is in the upcoming Back in Action with Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx. What stunts did he do? “I can’t give that away, I’m afraid, or somebody from Netflix will come and shoot me in the head.”

What’s been on Scott’s mind the most hasn’t been acting at all, in fact, but art. As a 17-year-old, he was offered his first movie role on the same day he was given a scholarship to study painting. He chose acting, but has recently been thinking about Oliver Burkeman’s philosophical self-help tract from 2021, Four Thousand Weeks, which makes the case for focusing on the five things you truly want to accomplish. “For me at the moment, it’s like, What do you want to do? What do you want to say?”

He scrolls through his phone to show me his work. There’s a watercolor of a couple arguing in a restaurant in rich reds and greens, line drawings of friends and people on the beach, and two self-portraits. “It’s a bit weird,” he acknowledges of his depiction of himself, all bulbous forehead and Pan-like tufts of hair. His brisk, nervy lines are reminiscent of Egon Schiele or Francis Bacon, who turns out to be one of his favorite painters. “Well, God, I’ll take that,” he mutters at the comparison. He would like someday to go to art school. “I don’t ever regret it,” he says of acting. “But I suppose you just get to a stage where you think, What else? That’s one of the big painful things in life for me, where you can’t quite live all the lives.” As he gets older, he feels the tug toward revisiting old working relationships, including with Waller-Bridge: “We’ve definitely got things cooking,” he smiles. “I’d love to work with her again. She’s just a singular, wonderful person.” For her part, Waller-Bridge says: “I’d love to see him do a fully unhinged slapstick comedy character. Someone who is outraged at everything, all of the time.”

As we round the pavement and the Tate Modern looms back into sight, he recalls a poster he received in 2017—a monstrously large graphic that detailed every week in a human life span. “It’s your entire life if you live to 80—you have to fill in all the bits that you’ve already lived,” he remembers in awe, “a visually terrifying gift.” What did he do with it? “I didn’t hold on to it for too long.” Easy come, easy go: We finally finish our loop around the Thames and, as Scott disappears back into the throng, anonymous just the way he likes it, it occurs to me that the actor has many lives to live yet.'

Anton Chekhov, from The Complete Plays of Anton Chekhov; "Ivanoff,"

my kaleidoscope thoughts/review

(spoilers under the cut. also im still shocked so this shit makes no sense)

holy shit holy shit HOLY SHIT WHAT TJE FYCK HOLY SHJT OHMFG HOLY SHIT KALEIDOSCOPE IS A FUCKING PRODIGY WHAT THE FYCK THAG SHIT ALTERED MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY WTF WTF WTF HELP OMFG IM IN SHOCK I XANT WHAY BELP MDNSJSJJS NO FUCKING WAY THAY WAS FUCKING INSANE WHAT THE FUCK NUGGETS SHIT BALLS LOLOLAPOOLAZA WAS THAT WHAT THE FUCK IK IN AWE GIANCARLO ESPOSITIO SERVES AS DUCKING ALWAYS GOLY MOLY BAJJSJSJS SOMEONE CALL TJE FUCMING COPS WHAT OMG I NEED TI BREATHE WHAT?????? EBVRLEPQICOJSJSJD

holy shit okay so um Jesus Christ I'm fucking fahahsh that was easily the best experience I've ever had omg that's giving money heist a run for their money holy crap okay um

alright so ngl when i heard the concept of showing episodes in random order I was hyped and i wanted it to be hype but tbh i kinda expected it to be ass and omfg damn this show was so good wtf. that being said, the episodes in random order didn't exactly have much impact on the story but it was a fun idea and i liked it in the end. at first i was worried, especially when i got to the after the heist episodes (which showed right before the white episode for me) bc in my mind i was like okay but like ik the outcome so like what's the point but damn was i wrong bc oml the twists Jesus Christ that shit had me in a damn pretzel.

alright so like my thought process. So i saw the pink episode right before the white one, and first can I just say that even tho i didn't like bob im glad he got to see his pink sand beaches even tho it was technically blood but whatever. anyways omfg tho did judy ditch Stan? I think so idek anyways that's irrelevant rn. okay so i was literally devastated when ava died i love her but also it definitely wasn't as bad as money heist so I'll live. BHT OMFG LEO'S DEATH BRUH I THOUGHT RJ KILLED HIM BUT IT WAS SALAS' SON BRAD?????? WTF THAT SHIT CAME OUT SO OUT OF LEFT FIEKD OMG JSHSJSJS

like i saw the shirt and i was like hmm that's kinda a nerdy shirt it seems like something rj might wear. AND THEN IT WAS BRAD TJE SON WEARING IT IN THE WHITE EPISODE. AND THEN RJ FUCKING DIED AND THEN IT WAS JUDY THAT FUCKING KILLED HIM BUT THEN SHE SORTA KILLED BOB LIKE WHAT THE FUCK OMG MY BRAIN MY JAW WAS LIKE GONE LIKE OMGJSSJJSJS

like ngl in the beginning I wasn't vibing with judy but then she killed rj and i really wasn't vibing BUT THEN SHE KILLED BOB AND MAYBE I WAS VIBING????

omfg and THEN HANNAH CAME IN AND HIT CARLOS AND THEN TOOK ALL THE MONEY LIKE WHAT JSJSJS AND LIKE IK ITS FIR THE BEST BECAUSE THE CREW PROBABLY WOULD HAVE GOTTEN KILLED BY THE TRIPLETS IF SHE DIDN'T BUT GAWD DAMN LIKE I WAS LOW-KEY HIGHKEY SAD LIKE TF

OMG AND THE FUCKING FEDEX GUY BRUHHSHAJS AND HER SISTER BRJSJSJS IM LITERALLY NSJSJSJSN WHAT

also her hair and her black suit in that one outfit remind me of natasha Romanoff so bad omfg

KSJSJJSJS AND THEN BOB USED THE PEN HE STOLE TO SAVE HIMSELF BITCH THIS SHIT WAS LIKE TWNETY BAZILLION CHEKHOV'S GUNS

IT WAS CHEKHOV'S FUCKING GUN RANGE TF LIKE OMG IM ACTUALLY IN LOVE SHOUT OUT TO ERIC GARCIA OR ERIC GARZA MAN I DONT REMEMBER TOJR LASY NAME BUT THIS SHIT SLAPPED GOD DAWM EXPECTATION FUCKING EXCEEDED BEHWJAJSJJSJSJSJS

holy shit holy shit AND WHEN THE FUCKING MACAU AD WENT OFF DAMN KUDOS TO AVA BC I WOJLD HAVE BURST OJT LAUGHING JESUS CHRISR TNO IT WAS SO GOOD

ngl tho idek if it actually randomizes the order u watch it in i started out with the jail episode with stan and ray tho so idk tell me if u guys get anything different

Chapter 26 of AWY, wherein everyone is an asshole, except for Maedhros, who only thinks that he’s being an asshole.

it was a 7.

the Party’s first dnd campaign ends with will telling mike the truth even if it means it won’t benefit him (ie, will would lose the campaign bc the demogorgon got him).

this is making me think hard about how we’re reading the veiled confession.

bc “it was a 7” tells me that he didn’t lie about the painting to benefit or protect himself… he didn’t lie because he was avoiding embarrassment or rejection.

mike makes him feel better for being different; tbh i think he’d gladly tell mike the truth—even if it means he’d have to rip the bandaid off or go through pain and rejection—if mike were single. noah schnapp has even implied this.

aside from the rain fight, will has no reason to believe mike is homophobic. he knows the quality of mike’s character. he just isn’t telling mike how he feels bc he loves mike and el, and doesn’t want to sabotage what they have.

will only lied to protect what he thinks mike wants. he lied to protect m*leven.

(this is key because………if he finds out that mike doesn’t really want m*leven……….something something he’ll finally tell mike the truth in s5 and this is how they’ll win………………..)

You know what I'm planting my flag and I'm calling my shot.

The goth kid from the first episode of season 4 who was in all of Nandor's vacation photos is gonna be some huge important plot point at some point in the show.

I don't think I'll ever be able to properly explain just how utterly, unabashedly cool and awesome Pushkin and Lermontov could be as Ability Users. Just... the confidence. The prowess. The power. The absolutely iconic entrance. Their power as Ability Users would be unmatched, and I think it's a bit of a shame I can't draw to properly show it.

Chekhov’s gun au is really like. Rhetoric is like yeah why are Chekhov and Occam bleeding out and Deus is like HELP ME HELPPP ME HELP and Rhetoric is like yeah uh. Let me uh. Just go get smth from my car. And leaves and never comes back. And then the loop happens and repeat.

all right okay the cannibal movie got me.