#Shakespeare always gets me

[lowcallyfruity]

Idk if I posted abt this before but we’re reading Macbeth in class and OHHHH MY GOD I LOVE ITVSOOO MUCH….. I can’t stop doodling the scenes LOL it’s super interesting LIKE AOUFJFFH I LOVE THE CHARACTERS SO MUCH????

[g4rdens0fb4bylon]

still cannot fathom how Oliver said like the most romantic thing ever to Meredith and then went to jail for James 5 minutes later

[just-an-enby-lemon]

Nothing will be more hilarious to me than the party's - specially Ben's - outrage about Alex's sneaky reference to William Shakespeare slowly fading as they remember that half of the NPCs are actually historical figures. Like they are genuinally going "what's this assassin's creed? You put Shakespeare in the gift Augusta Leight gave to our honorary party member Oscar Wilde while waiting for Ada Lovelace and Nikola Tesla to see if we can talk to the brain of Charles Babbage about the mission Albert Einstein teleported us to? Shakespeare a whole historical person? We are here thanks to flying with Emilia Earhart btw."

[javierduffy]

random sleep headcanon time let's go

when the boys aren't sleeping with Javi's head laying on Kieran's chest (yep, that was me!), they're spooning. Javier is the little spoon. Kieran will never admit it was almost entirely a bid to stop falling off the bed in the middle of the night (they both shift around a lot)

Kieran picked up a bit of Spanish while he was in the army, so when he and Javier are both a little bit sleep deprived and a bit more drunk they're giggling and gossiping about the rest of the gang

Javier is NOT a morning person and it's only when he gets older does he somewhat begin to tolerate them. if only to get more cuddle time with his hubby and see the sunrise splash across Kieran's face

Kieran is a bit of a blanket hog which is fine most of the time bc Javi runs warm and it's only in the winter that it becomes a problem because Javier hates the cold

(slaps roof of car) these bad boys can fit SO many nightmares in them. it's very rare they wake up thrashing and screaming tho. mostly their eyes shoot open and they tense up for a few moments, and many times one has woken up to the other staring at them, checking their pulse. bone-crushing cuddles and tea ensue.

(good ending/modern) have fun getting out of bed in the morning when your cats have found the exact locations and positions to make slipping out of bed impossible without waking someone up. Kieran spends about an extra 10 minutes in bed every morning trying to escape when Javier is wrapped around him, one cat is loafed on his chest, another one is curled up between his legs, and his arm has gone numb under the third. he wouldn't change a thing <3

FALLS TO MY KNEES YOURE SO RIGHT THESE ARE SO CUTE WAAAAHHHH 💔💔💔💔☹️☹️☹️☹️

personally i do believe that they swap back and forth on who’s the big spoon and who’s the little spoon but most of the time javier is indeed the little spoon. mostly because their height difference makes it the most comfortable but also because javi will prop his leg up on kieran like this in his sleep and sometimes it will make him wake up with terrible back pain so to avoid it, kieran gets big spoon privileges

also i think javier would really begin to enjoy being the little spoon after ch4 because while he can’t directly listen to kieran’s heartbeat, he can squeeze in tight and feel it on his back, and combining that with the warmth of kieran’s body and the heat of his breathing on his scalp, it’s just as comforting.

on the spanish note, i’ve been becoming more and more fond of the idea of kieran having a baseline understanding of spanish … at first i was leaning towards him not knowing a lick, just so javi can have language privacy for when he has his dramatic moments, but now it’s almost canon to me that kieran could at the very least navigate himself through a situation in which spanish is the only language the people around him could speak. though i think most of his gossip is going to be spanglish LOL which is even cuter to me 💔 (insert toby fox “toho project” accent changes) javier teaches him more and more words and they get more and more mean girl-y the more “privacy” they have in those conversations. they’re so cute 💔💔💔

“many times one has woken up to the other staring at them, checking their pulse” i have to d*e that makes me SO MISERAVLE BECAUSE YOURE RIGHT especially javier, not only because he’s almost explicitly lost kieran once, but also because he’s literally lived his entire life up until now dedicated to protecting the lives of those he loves (ie; fleeing to america to protect his family, not himself). so of course the first thing he’s going to do when he wakes up in fight or flight is to make sure the reason he is living is still alive. if kieran is still breathing, then javier is too. i can see javier curling up tight with his head on kieran’s chest, letting the rhythm of his heart ground him. kieran wakes up from nightmares cold and alone and he can’t see the world around him. he’ll gasp like he can’t breathe and sit up and pull his knees to his chest and, without fail, javier will reach out to his warmth and touch him- more often than not still in his sleep. it’s usually enough to snap kieran out of the flashback, at least to the point where he can grab javi’s hand and pull it up to his face, where he closes his eyes and treads his partners fingertips along his neck and cheeks to ensure to himself that he’s okay and safe. even if javier wakes up (which, as a man on the run, there’s no way he’d sleep through it), he’ll stay slack, watching kieran’s face slowly soften and his breathing slow enough that he won’t at least pass out. you’re entirely correct that following this, they hold each other tight, make sure they’re both warm as can be, and they’ll make/get some sort of tea or snack for the other. they don’t talk much, maybe a question here or there about a preference for the comfort but otherwise they just do things that remind the other that they’re both still alive enough to love.

THE LAST ONE OOUGGH YOUR EMAKING ME YHINK ABOUT ME AND JJ’S (rip jj my beloved (they’re not dead just inactive)) CENTURIES OLD MODERN JAVIERAN CAT SANCTUARY AU LOL in every life, javieran have cats. i don’t even think kieran can avoid attracting animals, and javier WILL cause a 10 car pileup on the highway if he sees a cat in need of rescuing. anyway, you’re completely right 😭💔 kieran always gets up first, even on the days that javier has work in the morning, so he’s the one who has to peel himself out of bed away from his fluffy, warm cell. he also has to try to shush two of the cats that begin their loud objections to his abhorrent behavior (of getting up to make coffee) so that they don’t wake javier up. he has to hush them all the way out of the room and into the kitchen, there in which the meowing becomes louder, as they’ve now become demands of compensation via food for waking them up so early. pepita, javier’s cat, always stays in bed with him until he wakes up, no matter what she is enticed with.

oh i love them im going to be sick thank you for sharing your thoughts with me they’re always so sweet 😭💔 u and i we’re the soft, fluffy javieran cavalry

[vaguely-concerned]

you can rightfully accuse richard of many things but he's nothing if not service-minded

[averlym]

some very very quick costume shorthands!

[the-storyteller78]

Guys I read Julius Caesar for my Shakespeare class and why do I like it so much and why is my favorite character Cassius

[drfaustus]

Just finished coriolanus and I.....hngngng something about violence as a metaphor for queer love and the way that this play is so focused on masculine identity through violence.....

yeah, yeah. i feel you. on returning to the play for a seminar paper, i was so struck by how in some ways, coriolanus himself is a figure of that ideal of masculinity-as-defined-by-violence taken too far. so far that it completely disfigures him. i was fascinated by how often he is imagined by others as disjointed wounded body parts. menenius and volumnia meticulously recount each of his wounds and where they sit on him—one on the shoulder, the left arm, on the neck, two on the thigh. twenty-seven in total following the taking of corioles. cominius calls him "a thing of blood" (2.2.104), whatever the hell that means. menenius even claims "the wounds become him" (2.1.120). he's engulfed by wounds—unique in the sense that they represent something physical—the literal scarred tissue on the body—but also something lacking. a cut is an empty space. i don't even know what to say about the citizen who claims they should stick their tongue in his wounds and speak for them—a weirdly specific violation. god and when he's told to sit put in the senate to hear the stories of his wounds recounted once again for political points, and has to plead to be let leave to try to heal, to become whole again. and all this because he's so good at being the pinnacle of violent masculinity—but really, it's that he's not allowed to be anything more than that at all. and it's all good until it's a threat to rome!

and the queer intimacy. the homoeroticism present is almost so weirdly blatant that it feels like there isn't much to say about it. i remember reading it last year for class and we all just laughed through my professor reading aufidius recounting his gay ass dreams about coriolanus because like. what the hell. shakespeare's most marlowe moment of all time honestly. and i mean, soldiers on the battlefield enter into a space where they're surrounded only by other men with the unique peril of the threat of violence that brings them together in comradery, and like, yeah, sometimes also gay sex i guess. certainly, violence is a part of it here too. coriolanus's use of the wedding bed metaphor comes with the elation of seeing comunius on the battlefield. but the moment with aufidius in 4.5 feels different to me because it's almost like a moment where the homoeroticism is off the battlefield, i am always struck by how coriolanus is essentially like "you can slit my throat and i'd completely understand." he expects aufidius to enact violence on him. but aufidius embraces him ("here i clip the anvil of my sword." clip means to embrace. but the anvil and sword kinda problematize my point here i guess, they're image of war, too). maybe the violence can never be escaped actually, wait maybe that's why their intimacy fails too. anyway. literally had that revelation while rereading this to post it.

[good-in-space]

I’m going to a see friends and a play tonight for the second consecutive Friday evening. It’s almost like I have a social life again. Almost.

[marietheran-archived]

...quite odd that with some older literature that I'm vaguely into, I'm actually more interested in fandom and lit criticism than in the actual text

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

i know theyre spells so theres maybe like an aspect of the gravitas of the ritual or whatever, but if i ever write something with witches i'd make them use the language of the spell like,,,fluently, i guess is the word. casual, intimate, the way agatha uses her hands. evident that every movement could be magic, could become magical, bc it's imbued in everything, it's in your body as with agatha and it's in your language

[bonewyvern]

luke thompson, the man that you are, serving the cunt-ry🫡

but unlike my twt post this doesn’t have a typo😭

electricmoose and i saw the second showing of LLL (friday, april 12) and OMGGGG the best show ever like 10/10 recommend. it was so upbeat and lively and all around felt like time was flying by. i also did not know ANYTHING about the play/original story shakespeare wrote, but the way it’s set out, i walked away completely understanding what happened. i also really really REALLY loved luke in it, like he characterized berowne so well. and even in the scenes where he wasn’t talking but in it, he still carried himself with energy that made me turn my attention to him or maybe i’m just down bad but whatever. also was NOT expecting him to come out from the sides of the theater, and we sat in the stalls next to the aisle, so to start the show and he strides on in was a pleasant surprise☺️

and after the show, we RAN🏃🏻💨to the stage door bc we were like “what are the odds he comes out. and if the odds are high (which we felt they were) we could potentially see him. and if not, at least we tried.” and so we were nervous if there was going to be a crowd, so we very quickly sped walked to the stage door, and there were already the barricades up (those pole and rope thingies) and we were like 🤔. we waited around for about 10 minutes, and then BAM we glimpsed him through the windows that led from inside to out. and we were told a couple minutes beforehand he isn’t allowed to take selfies can could only sign RSC merch (so HIGHLY recommend getting the £6 program so he can sign it!!). and he started with the first person in line, then moved to on to me and electricmoose bc we were second and third. and i held out my program cover up bc i’m used to the broadway playbills being signed on the cover. but he took it and was like “do you want me to sign under my name?” and i was like “oh sure! i’m so sorry, i don’t know where you are😭 (IT WAS DIM AND I WAS FREAKING OUT)”. and i don’t know what happened but he ended up flipping to his page with his headshot and bio, and the first thing out of my mouth was “really nice picture!” and he smiled and was like, “oh really? thanks! my mum hates it” and i laughed while he signed the program. HE WAS SOOOO SWEET like going into it we were nervous he was going to be sign-and-go kinda type, but he totally defied our expectations and really took the time to chat at least 30 seconds per person.

pic rundowns

1. signing the first person’s program

2. after he signed ours, he moved on but realized he had a sharpie he could’ve used and so ran back to get it and i caught him mid-run😭

3. moved onto the signing other ppl’s programs

4. electricmoose’s REALLY shaky hands

5. MY LONG EXPOSURE WAS TURNED ON WHILE HE WAS WALKING AWAY TO LEAVE😭

6. signed program in front of the theater

SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW BC I THINK IT’S SO FUNNY!! NOT IN ORDER!!!

1. HE ATE PAPER???!!!!!! low key still thinking about it to this day bc like his mouth was full, but by the end of the scene, he was talking like normal

2. I WANT IT THAT WAY WAS HILARIOUSSSSSS. like the curtain was down and i didn’t know what i was expecting, but all of them in knight gear (??) SINGING?! that was NOT on my bingo card😭 listening, i heard a high harmony and low key i like to believe that was luke’s doing

3. when he started unbottoning his shirt i was like “OH, we’re doing this??” AND THEN HE UNDID AND TOOK OFF HIS PANTS TOO AND I WAS LIKE “WHATS GOING ONNNNNNN”

4. him climbing the tree to eavesdrop and basically that entire scene had me DYINGGGGGGGG

5. the women SLAYED and i absolutely love all of them😌

[britneyshakespeare]

i finished the merry wives of windsor today btw. 4 shakespeare plays left to go

[kevin-the-bruyne]

don’t tell me I’m going to be reading The Taming of the Shrew because of a Thai BL??? Where my private high school education has failed me you can count on Thai BL to fill in the gaps I guess

[prodigaldaughteralice]

so I’ve always loved Sonnet 116, right, it’s beautiful

(let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments)

it came up last night, quoted in a tv show, and my parents recited it straight through— not uncommon, we’ve all got a good bit of poetry memorized— but then my dad said

that his father, my grandfather, read it at their wedding

they asked a couple people to pick poems to read, and that’s what he chose

I had no idea. I love that sonnet so much. This makes me very happy.

[galacticlamps]

it's 3am, and somehow, in the last ten minutes, I went from being midway through watching a production of 12th night to somehow relistening to one of the most heartbreaking jamie/dr scenes big finish has ever produced (it's a long list, i know) completely by accident, all while trying not to cry over a song from a completely different play I haven't touched in about 8 years