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I'm back because I had an extraordinarily vivid dream where some person (important to me in some way) was quoting Shakespeare. But because of Dream Logic, I couldn't understand the words or decipher which play/sonnet he was quoting.

This will lead me down a never-ending rabbit hole because now I have to research the use of color, shades of red specifically, in all his works and compile the information into a nonsensical post that goes nowhere. Something something color theory idk

Gonna fixate on Macbeth on my lunch break today

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some fun facts about the production of hamlet i’m in right now:

the ghost never appears physically

ghost scenes take place in complete darkness, lit only by the guards’ flashlights

rosencrantz and guildenstern’s first entrance involves a tango choreographed to beyoncé’s “crazy in love”

other transition music includes “applause” by lady gaga, “loveless” by lorde, “only angel” by harry styles, and “a little party never killed nobody”

gertrude is either drunk or hungover for the entire play

when polonius encounters hamlet to find the cause of his madness, hamlet is reading a copy of “infinite jest”

rosencrantz and guildenstern try to seduce hamlet into a threesome

they also try to seduce claudius

at intermission laertes goes onstage to practice his swordplay and flirt with the audience members in french. osric watches him from behind the curtain and takes notes

the pirates who deliver letters to horatio are dressed in trench coats, sunglasses, and fedoras

fortinbras is a thirteen-year-old boy

and finally:

hamlet doesn’t give the “to be or not to be” speech. horatio does. at the end of the play. over hamlet’s body

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😵‍💫

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if you took Horatio, Razumikhin and Henry Clerval and switched them around barely anything in their respective stories would change

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Claudius in Act 3 Scene 2 of Hamlet:

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Remember when every teen summer romance flick was just a high school au of a Shakespeare play? We really peaked with that let’s bring that back. They never even got to my Much Ado About Nothing prom scandal au script I wrote in tenth grade

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I took a short break from tumblr but I'm back to say

That I had a dream last night where I got in a fist fight in Target because some guy was being a complete jackass

The colors of the dresses in the clothing department were so vivid; the greens as rich and deep as emeralds, the yellows as bright as summer sunlight. The hum of the air conditioning was accompanied by its freezing, corporate-controlled temperature as I passed by the little dollar section.

And this motherfucker decided to act like a jackass, so Dream Me had to beat him up in front of his little party of friends.

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Every time EVERY SINGLE TIME I hear "O, I die, Horatio" my heart slowly sinks

Lower and lower into the pit of my stomach as he continues, and I swear I don't take a breath of air until I hear Horatio say "now cracks a noble heart," I'm not aware that I CAN breathe until he says it. And as the others come on stage, my breathing returns to normal.

And I let myself cry because, to absolutely no one's surprise, Hamlet dies in this play. I wonder if Shakespeare could have imagined a future as distant as ours, with entire productions of his plays being viewed on a tiny box that I keep in my pocket, and that I still cry every time Hamlet dies.

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Moving to a city is terrible

I miss being around snakes

I miss picking up king and corn snakes and just vibing with them in the grass

I miss the joy of encountering the colony of little ring neck snakes that showed up every spring and I'd act surprised every year, but I knew they'd be back because they always come back

Hell, I even miss getting chased by those territorial af cotton mouths

I just wanna be around snakes again

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Anyway, it's been too long since I've re-read The Scarlet Letter so I want to do that again. I need to make a trip to the second-hand bookstore!

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On Demand Streaming of Free Shakespeare in the Park productions

"This summer, throughout May and June everyone will have free access to stream The Public’s Free Shakespeare in the Park productions of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (2019), MERRY WIVES (2021), RICHARD III (2022), and the premiere of HAMLET (2023), captured live from The Delacorte Theater in Central Park by THIRTEEN for Great Performances on PBS.

Streaming Schedule:

May 3-June 30: MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING (Click here to learn more!)

May 10-June 30: HAMLET (Click here to learn more!)

May 17-June 30: MERRY WIVES (Click here to learn more!)

May 24-June 30: RICHARD III (Click here to learn more!)"

[ID: 1: Danielle Brooks as Beatrice and Grantham Coleman as Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing.

2: Ato Blankson-Wood as Hamlet.

3: Pascale Armand, Julian Rozzell Jr., David Ryan Smith, Susan Kelechi Watson, and Phillip James Brannon in Merry Wives.

4: Danai Gurira as Richard III. /end ID]

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The weird thing about working night shift is that your scrubs magically get a size smaller out of nowhere

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Brought to you by my realization that "Yorick" rhymes with "dysphoric"

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denmark? like from hamlet? you know that's not real right

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my Roman Empire is how in Hamlet, we are presented with four characters who were each at one point the person/people Hamlet held most dear, and one of them watches as Hamlet's actions lead the other three to suffer, lose their minds, and/or die.

Horatio is Hamlet's closest friend over the course of the play, the one he comes to again and again, refers to as being in his 'heart of hearts', and who keeps him stable and alive for at least the most part. We follow these two the most explicitly throughout the text.

Ophelia is Hamlet's lover, and their relationship can be read many ways, ranging from never-really-loved-the-other to they-did-it-numerous-times-and-in-fact-she-was-pregnant-(possibly)-(also)-(aborted) but for the sake of this post I'm going to go the middle ground and say they had a wholesome and happy relationship before Hamlet's dad died and he got all sad. Doubt the stars are fire, but never doubt I love.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Hamlet's childhood friends, and Gertrude remembers them as being so loved by him that 'two men there are not living to whom he more adheres'. It's clear that these three were very close during some stage of his life, likely his childhood and potentially teens. The point is, they meant the most to him at some point in his life.

But again, by the time the acts of Hamlet come to pass, Hamlet has chosen Horatio to be his sole compatriot. Whether or not this is prior to his actual arrival in Elsinore is largely irrelevant- Hamlet makes sure he spends a lot of the first half of the play flustered in the face of a prince who won't stop finding nice things to say about him. Hamlet butters him up with honeyed words, and tells him the truth about everything, or what he thinks, anyway.

Horatio is touched but one specific line does stick out to him a bit- when Hamlet assured him it was not an attempt at flattery, and went on to clarify that he feels free to love Horatio as Horatio doesn't want anything from him, and doesn't have anything to hide. If what the ghost said about Claudius were true, it makes sense for Hamlet to be paranoid and hold others at a distance, but Horatio can't help but think about the underlying implication that if Hamlet had any reason to be suspicious of Horatio, he'd be just as cold to him as everyone else. Which, again, makes sense, but something about it rubs him a strange way.

Horatio tries to relate his experiences with the others he knows were close to Hamlet. He doesn't know much about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but Hamlet has mentioned suspicion of them, but despite that, seems to have been cordial enough. As for Ophelia... She seems to have seen the worst of his feigned madness, so he doesn't really know about her. He also heard something about an argument, but he doesn't know to what extent.

After the play, and an odd interaction with R&G, Hamlet heads upstairs to speak to his mother and Horatio thinks about it some more.

He words the question properly to himself: would Hamlet still love me if I were in their position? And he doubts for a moment, but then he remembers what Hamlet told him, the look in his eyes as he proclaimed his sincerity, and even the rare laughter he'd indulged in after the play, in only his presence, and Hamlet has convinced him.

Up until he hears the news of Polonius's murder. And until he hears the recount of Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's intervention with the seemingly mad prince, and he begins to doubt him.

And when he's left to take care of Ophelia, driven mad by the death of her father and the wrath of her lover, and in her delirium she tells him things, tells him everything, and there's a strange sense of familiarity in her words. She shows him her letters, throwing them at him and laughing, tears running from her eyes, and Horatio recognises the poetic style, the sweet wording that always seems to know how to strike your heart closest, and he realises that she had once been where he had, received Hamlet's love in the same way. And it's strange, in a way he's not sure what to do with.

His fear is alleviated slightly when Hamlet sends him a letter, and he seems back to his usual sense of self, the one Horatio knows. Horatio is glad for the normalcy, and it does a part to clear his worry that he had been deceived in any nature, after his time with Ophelia.

Even further when he finally returns to Denmark, and while the two talk, they stumble upon Ophelia's funeral, and Hamlet takes no time to jump into her grave and proclaim his grief loudly. Horatio feels a bit sick at feeling any sort of relief at this, but the proof that Hamlet may have truly loved her and hadn't intended for this to happen does something to quell the fear again.

That is, until Hamlet recounts his journey.

And with a strange sort of expression that looks sort of like... pride, recounts how he sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths.

Horatio is a little shocked by this, as he can't recall the two having done anything particularly wrong, and this was clearly not accidental. Hamlet brushes him off by saying the two knew what they were getting into, showing strangely little remorse.

Horatio thinks, about how they were his childhood friends, and then again about Ophelia, and then again about his earlier question.

would Hamlet still love me if I were in their position?

And he realises, in a way that makes him nauseous, that the answer is no. And not only that, but for all Hamlet's laughter and flattering words, it wouldn't have saved him.

But still, he doesn't leave his side. Hamlet loves him now, and he's the lucky one. Nothing can be done anymore, and he feels they draw close to the end.

And he does still love him. And Hamlet loves him back.

Horatio reaches for the poisoned cup as Hamlet dies. It feels right that it should end this way, and he doesn't really want to go on.

But Hamlet wrestles the cup out of his hand with an intensity that catches him off guard, begging him to stay alive, to tell his story

and so he does, cradling the prince as he slips into a deeper dream.

Sometime after, Horatio will again think about it all. The four of them. Three dead by his hand, one alive by it.

He wonders.

Did Hamlet ever think about it too? About how his actions hurt the ones closest to him, and in his final moments, chose to break the pattern and save the only life he could?

Or did Hamlet only save him because he still loved him? Not out of guilt, or reflection on his previous actions necessarily, but because Horatio still hadn't done him wrong?

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At some point, I tried to flirt with the prince. I was rejected. The prince later tried to flirt with me while we decorated the library

There was no conclusion, but I'd like to think we stayed friends after it all

One time I had this dream where I was sneaking around a fantasy castle in space

And I wandered into the library where the Space Librarian Wizard Robe Man was lamenting the way all creatures across the Universe never celebrated his holiday about Proper Grammar

I had to recruit the Space Prince and his Diverse band of Lifelong FriendsTM to restore the divine event of Galactic Grammaticus

And I'm fairly certain that the Librarian was Twilight Sparkle in disguise

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One time I had this dream where I was sneaking around a fantasy castle in space

And I wandered into the library where the Space Librarian Wizard Robe Man was lamenting the way all creatures across the Universe never celebrated his holiday about Proper Grammar

I had to recruit the Space Prince and his Diverse band of Lifelong FriendsTM to restore the divine event of Galactic Grammaticus

And I'm fairly certain that the Librarian was Twilight Sparkle in disguise