#i too think about hamlet and horatio a lot

[horatiompreg]

horatio CEO here to serve my people ❤️❤️

by removing horatio from any adaptation, you not only brutalise hamlet’s character, but you brutalise the foundations of the whole play!

In any play the characters are built to serve certain roles, but I think this is very significant in Hamlet, given the meta theatrical layers and the themes of identity in the play. The characters are forced to play roles that contradict themselves, ie. Hamlet, a gentle soul, is forced to take on the role as revenger, Claudius clumsily takes on the role as the king and antagonist. Etcetera.

This is where Horatio comes in. His role is to be the main character’s best friend and a witness to events, but these roles do not run contradictory to his character. Horatio is shown to be loyal, grounded and honest. He is simply just himself all throughout, and this contrasts just about every other character. The significance of this contrast is to show that Denmark has grown rotten from lies and deceit, and by the end this is purged through the deaths of our beloved main characters. Horatio is representative of a hope that morality and straight up honesty will prevail over everything. Him living to the end represents a new status quo for Denmark.

Also by removing Horatio you remove a genuinely unique character from the mix. While (sadly) scarce, his skeptical and dry commentary provides a nice break from the otherworldly theatrics of the other characters. The scene with Osric comes to mind here, as well as the very first scene with the ghost

Another thing. The renaissance is a very significant backdrop for the play, so I think it’d be a waste to remove a character so centred around being a scholar. I think Horatio is sort of the ideal scholar here. When obtaining information, he is curious but logical, only deriving conclusions from empirical evidence (a1 s1) But when the time calls for it he can be sensitive and thoughtful for a loved one. Humanism yadayada. There are a lot of other characters that Hamlet yearns to be like, but I think Horatio is the most significant. Especially since Horatio is so detached from the politics in Elsinore. You can understand a lot about Hamlet’s desires through Horatio, as well as Hamlet’s other companions. Which is why it’s dumb to remove him

I’ve posted about this before but Horatio is also the reason why Hamlet remains sane. He’s obviously depressed but I think most of his sanity is intact by the end. If Hamlet didn’t have someone in his corner who listened to him, he would have nothing to ground himself with and would lose it. I think. It would also just feel too cruel to leave Hamlet without an ally, and I think it would have the effect of making him too sympathetic. This could be a reach but I think having Hamlet be too sad could make it difficult to view some of his actions more critically. From a writer’s perspective.

I understand viewing Horatio as an extension of Hamlet, they are sorta written like that. But I think Horatio very much holds up as his own character and his part in the play is integral!! Thank you for the tag I love to yap nonsensically about Horatio 🫶

There is definitely a lot more but I have probably posted about it before or I am lazy.

hate it then hamlet adaptations completely cut out the whole character of horatio:( why would you take away hamlet's only friend do you hate him do you want him to be alone with his secret... :((

[isan0rt]

I feel like I haven't really seen the fe3h fandom talk too much about how clearly Azure Moon is an adaptation of Hamlet. Like not even subtly Hamlet (like, see, he's the lion king, get it, haha, because... It's Hamlet).

Dimitri is obvious; he's the prince whose uncle has become king, due to a conspiracy he's trying to uncover, spurred on by his murdered father's restless ghost. Pursuing this vengeance drives him mad, and he becomes increasingly erratic as vengeance continues to escape him.

Dedue is Horatio; Hamlet's best friend (but one he met more recently than his other friends), always at his side and loyal no matter how far Hamlet falls, but formal with him right up until Hamlet dies for his revenge. Crimson Flower Dedue practically delivers the "Goodnight, sweet prince" line in the game if you defeat him before he can transform himself.

The rest spends a lot of effort making subversions; Rufus is Claudius, and this is played straight in Three Hopes, where Dimitri gets justice before he loses his mind and so he never reaches the depths of despair he does in Azure Moon. But in Three Houses this gets subverted; Rufus is still actually the Claudius, but Dimitri has miscast Edelgard in the role. This also allows Patricia to serve as Gertrude, forcing Dimitri to grapple with whether his (step)mother was complicit in his father's murder and whether she has more loyalty to the murderer than to him. Rufus then shifts into the Polonius role, as it's after his death (allegedly at the hand of Dimitri himself) that everything starts going to shit.

Felix, meanwhile, I think is Laertes (with Glenn and Rodrigue serving as Ophelia and Polonius for him (side side note I personally think Glenn was one of Dimitri's first crushes but that's neither here nor there)). The death of one curdles Laertes's positive childhood friendship feelings towards Hamlet (and Felix towards Dimitri) and then the death of the second fully solidifies Laertes's feeling that Hamlet must be stopped.

In Azure Moon, this gets subverted, in that Dimitri reverses course here, where Hamlet doubles down. As a result, Laertes turns his sword against Hamlet, while Felix returns to a shaky companionship with Dimitri. But crucially, if Felix does get recruited to other routes and turns his sword against Dimitri, he basically cannot have a happy ending - the same way Laertes dies for turning against Hamlet.

I don't have a snappy conclusion or anything (are Ingrid and Sylvain Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Unclear) but I think it's fascinating.

[hamliet]

what do you think of hamlet and juilet as characters? what is their purpose and role in the story?

Oh boy, two of my favorites! In case my usename wasn't a tell haha. Here's something I wrote in the past.

Apparently they both have "whiney teen" reputations now? They're both not. At all.  

Juliet is a teenage girl who has grown up in a war zone and comes alive with love. She, like Romeo, chooses to focus on love when they've only known bloodshed. Like, they are brave kids, not whiney cowards. 

I've written a lot on her; she's one of my favorite characters in all of literature. She's a deliberate deconstruction of the idealized woman of the literary day, the character who changes the most in the play, and her faithfulness and loyalty are stated over and over again, including in the play's closing lines, to be her defining characteristics. That she's reduced to a flighty, insecure needs-a-man, hysterical image is textually wrong. Juliet is That Girl. 

Also, unlike every other Shakespearean tragedy, Romeo and especially Juliet die as the best versions of themselves, not as a parody of what they started out as like, say, Othello or Hamlet...

Ah, Hamlet. I love him for how tragic his arc is--to go from someone who is trying his best in horrible circumstances to still be a good person and honor those he loves to being someone who has unwittingly helped destroy everyone he loves, and become the murderer he desperately didn't want to be.

Hamlet is a college-aged kid who comes back over break to find his dad is dead and his mom married his uncle. Idk about you but I think that'd give anyone a complex. Not to mention his source of comforts all turn on him (except Horatio); two of his school friends spy on him, and his girlfriend is ordered by her dad to play it cool instead of, you know, be there for him. He wouldn't have needed a ghost to end up in a mental health crisis contemplating "to be or not to be."

Despite it all, he still wants to slow down and think. He doesn't want to do the wrong thing. Problem is he delays too long--because he does not want to be a murderer--and when he does act, it's sloppy and he murders the father of the girl he loves by mistake.  

But lest you think I'm throwing anyone under the bus, I'm not... well, besides Claudius, Polonius who is a bad dad, and Rozencrantz and Guildenstern who were bad friends. Hamlet's mom and girlfriend though? 

Gertrude's decision to marry Claudius--while Shakespeare never gets into her interior world, there are a few possibilities and they mostly looks terrible and contradictory. The Ghost accuses Gertrude of adultery before his murder thanks to the hasty elopement, but never accuses her of murder and even tells Hamlet to "leave her to Heaven." If Gertrude really was cheating, then she willingly marries someone she has to know is a murderer (unless she's beyond dumb).

Or, let's think pragmatically according to the day. If Gertrude had not married Claudius instantly (most probably she seduced him), how long do we think she and Hamlet would stay alive? Because Hamlet's existence is a threat to Claudius's reign even by Denmark's elective monarchy of the day (plus he was abroad when the murder happens). By marrying Claudius Gertrude may be literally trying to save herself and her son--only issue is, no one sees it like that, and how to explain that to her son, who's been raised in a patriarchal society? 

Ophelia doesn't have much choice, either. Women's sexuality being considered "property" of a man is very much at play as a motif in the play, and given the implications (pretty strong, I'd say) that Hamlet and Ophelia were indeed sleeping together, their hands were pretty tied. Ophelia pulling back (essentially ghosting him, heh) confuses him especially when he's at his most vulnerable, and then he hits her where she's most vulnerable: all his insults to her are sexually charged, essentially accusing her of not being a virgin, when in reality she probably isn't because of him. And that's before he kills her father by mistake. Once Hamlet murders Polonius, Ophelia also has to deal with the fact that she's probably never getting married to anyone, ever. No wonder she also goes insane.

Hamlet laments that Denmark is all corrupted at the start of the play, and the royal court of Elsinore most of all. Which it is, and unfortunately he cannot escape this corruption.

[hamletthedane]

I’m a big Hamlet fan and I am curious as to what your favorite movie/for screen rendition is? I’ve been working my way through a lot of them, gone through about 7, so far Hamlet at Elsinore with Christopher Plummer is my favorite. I was just curious what yours is !

What a great question!!

Hamlet at Elsinore is definitely my favorite filmed version of the play. I feel that Christopher Plummer does a fantastic - and frankly critically underappreciated - job of portraying the more nuanced and complicated aspects of Hamlet's character while still giving a straightforward performance that's highly accessible to any audience. Notably, he doesn't treat the performance as his ~*~epic, defining role of a lifetime~*~ or ~high artistic theater~ (*cough* Branagh and Jacobi), but instead focuses on telling a deeply compelling, very moving story about the complex nature of grief and revenge. I also like that this version embraces the more "postmodern" elements that exist in the written text of Hamlet: the complicity of the audience, the inevitability of the outcome, Hamlet's genre-awareness and genre-defiance, etc.

[Not to keep hating on Branagh, but in contrast: Branagh's Hamlet in particular seems to go out of its way to avoid including the more interesting proto-postmodern thematic elements of the play - at times not seeming to recognize that they're even there. He instead focuses his time and energy on inserting new cinematography-based visual themes that go nowhere and at times stand in OPPOSITION to the actual tone and themes of the original text. Because apparently Hamlet the play is too boring and instead of lame elements like "themes" and "compelling characterization," we need a swinging chandelier sword fight scenes and Freudian weirdness. Truly the Joel Schumacher Phantom of the Opera adaptation of Shakespeare films. But I DIGRESS-)

Plus it doesn't hurt that everybody aside from Plummer in Hamlet at Elsinore is also fabulous. Obviously, Michael Caine's Horatio is the single best and most definitive version of the character in film, but I also love Robert Shaw's Claudius and Muller's Ophelia.

If we're talking favorite filmed versions of the STORY of Hamlet though, that's Asta Nielsen's silent film from 1921. It's so beautifully filmed and wonderfully told. She's what I picture when I picture Hamlet.

Other than that....I like Tennant and Stewarts' RSC filmed version well enough. It has a number of very strange choices and I don't love the re-ordering of the scenes, but Tennant does a great job with the character and I think it's a very approachable performance. A few other filmed stage versions are also excellent, though with a few similarly weird elements - I'd put Maxine Peake's version on the same tier as the RSC version. I do NOT like Branagh's version at all (if you couldn't already tell...). Jacobi's and Gibson's are slightly better, but they're still too focused on the prestige of the performance rather than the actual story being told imo. I think they fall under the same criticism as Holden Caulfield's scathing review of Laurence Olivier: "more like a general than a sad, screwed-up type guy." (Yes I know this line is an in-text authorial critique of Holden himself but also: he's right and he should say it.)

If you haven't already, I do highly recommend listening to the BBC Radio 4 audiodrama version of Hamlet, starring Jamie Parker. Despite being a audio version of a stage play, it somehow blows every filmed version of Hamlet (except maybe HAE) out of the water. I listen to it at least once a year.

Finally, my actual favorite versions of Hamlet have ALWAYS been those I've seen live (or seen bootleg filmed stage performances of lmao). If it's ever playing live near you, definitely go and see it. The play was meant to be seen on a live stage in front of you, and many of the jokes and themes only make sense in that context. In my opinion, the medium of live theater elevates the play so far beyond what a movie could ever achieve.

...sorry this answer is so long 😅 Really, it doesn't matter what my opinions on Hamlet films are. If any version of the play really speaks to you - even if it's the accursed Branagh version - that is so awesome and makes me really happy people are engaging with the play in that way! (But since you're saying that HAE is your favorite so far, I will add that you have excellent, discerning taste ;))

[thehamletdiaries]

Thinking more about the irony of the idea that Hamlet's flaw is inaction when - within the context of the play itself - whenever stuff really goes wrong, with the exception of the King's death and Claudius's usurpment of Hamlet, which happens before the play anyway...it's really when Hamlet does do something.

When the play starts out, we don't really have any reason to think that Hamlet is in any particular degree of danger (there is of course an argument that that would change if Claudius and Gertrude had a kid but the implications are all that she is too old for that)...with the exception of the impending threat of Fortinbras, which is a whole separate conversation but also really should be Claudius's problem to solve, not Hamlet's (in terms of where blame lies, not ignoring the material danger).

When stuff starts to go wrong is when Hamlet starts doing things...even the antic disposition and the pushing away of Ophelia is an action, which alienates the one person who might have been able to help him (I was about to write "other than Horatio" but the reality is that Horatio is a massive enabler and when Hamlet does stuff Horatio just sort of...goes along with it the whole time, until the deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, which I'll come to).

There is of course the argument that if, after the play, Hamlet had killed Claudius straight away things would have been....better? But there isn't really much evidence for that; we have no idea what would have happened, ultimately, but given the entire situation and set up the idea Hamlet would not be suspected of the murder and then what happens? He's just committed regicide...maybe it would have worked out but also maybe absolute chaos would break out.

And then ultimately, he doesn't kill Claudius....but then he really starts acting and he is impulsive as heck. He kills Polonius because he doesn't think to *pull back a curtain to check who's there first* and he kills Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on what basically seems to be an impulse (and is certainly not needed; he could have replaced that letter with literally any instruction other than "kill them"; this is also the first moment we see Horatio pause and not just act like "whatever Hamlet thinks is a good idea probably is a good idea" and realise that...no, this guy is losing it and this guy, when he acts, acts in a way that is unhinged, impulsive and dangerous)...and then ultimately he goes ahead with a dual that he obviously should have avoided and gets himself and two innocent (assuming we assume Gertrude is innocent or at least somewhat innocent here) people killed in the process.

And a lot of the idea that inaction is his flaw is based on the idea that killing Claudius would have fixed all of this but a. the chances that killing Claudius would have caused a whole load of problems of it's own is really high and b. the fact he didn't kill Claudius doesn't mean he inevitably was going to kill Polonius and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern...he could have still just looked behind the damn curtain and not sent the letter and even with the dual, whilst Claudius is manipulating the situation and is absolutely the person responsible for the deaths that happen...Hamlet still could have chosen inaction, which Horatio finally does push him to do - far too late in the day, but none the less Horatio becomes the person going "please, stop".

And that's essentially how I feel about Hamlet through really all of this play, when he is doing stuff, is that it's like "please just stop doing things! Every time you do anything you fuck it up! Please just go sit in the corner and don't touch anything!".

I don't really think the idea of a "fatal flaw" applies to Hamlet - it's not that kind of tragedy - but in as far as Hamlet has one, it's not his inaction...it's literally his drive to action and his inability to do that in a way that is tactical or well thought through (which is also something that stands in contrast to Fortinbras who is able to bide his time, take it slow, not rush into anything and ultimately comes out of all of this King).

[sparklyshakespeare]

Do you have any Shakespeare opinions (popular or unpopular) that you would like to share? I would love to hear them!!

OOOO GOSH hm well overall i think people need to be a lot less precious about shakespeare and take it a lot less seriously not in a like “maybe the wallpaper is just yellow” way but in a “no form of theatre is inherently more meaningful or sophisticated than any other” way!! so tired of people acting like “shakespeare acting” is somehow more difficult or brilliant or valid than “musical theatre acting” babe acting is acting!!!

1. i think brutalism and minimalism in terms of set design is FAR too overdone and honestly it’s a really uninteresting choice. it’s getting to the point where it feels like the nudist theatre movement of the 90s. like your show isn’t ✨✨super subversive and groundbreaking✨✨ just because you don’t have a set same way your play, 90s playwrights, was not super subversive and groundbreaking just because you had people get naked onstage

2. written lyrics should always be set to modern/easily recognizable songs

3. this is a GIVEN but like EVERYYYYY single one of Shakespeare’s works should be played as an IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE. if you’re doing Shakespeare and there’s a fourth wall you’re doing it wrong

4. this is more of a general complaint but i HAAAAATEEEE method acting/directing!! ew ew ew!!

5. more sapphics in Shakespeare always.

6. national theatre’s 2019 midsummer is like the only version of midsummer forever to me. it’s brilliant. PLEASE watch it!!!!

7. STOP trying to justify why don john is Like That. i’ve seen productions that make him a woman to try and explain it away with like all the other characters being misogynistic to him?? i’ve seen productions that have his actor play him as very very gay (which like he is but anyways) to try and explain it away with like all the other characters being homophobic to him???? you’re just making EVERY OTHER character unlikable!! the point of don john is he is a messy messy person who lives for drama and is just kind of awful. as is his right. you don’t need to try and other him to justify that

8. role doubling as a plot device always

9. i think it’s time to start reinterpreting the way that we view horatio. i am NOT saying that hamlet and horatio aren’t in love that is a well established fact that is fabulous and sparkly!! i AM saying that i’m tired of seeing the exact same version of horatio in every single production of hamlet i see. we all have SUCH a set view of who that characters is that i think it’s become a little bit tooooo set in stone - i want to see a different interpretation of horatio!! make him mean!! make him dumb!! make him angry!! make him fabulous!!

10. more fem edmunds (🏳️‍🌈)

11. if you are going to do guns in shakespeare…you need to be really careful about the way you do it or else it’s going to look incredibly stupid

12. cast all of the hamlet teens as actual teenage actors.

[whoslaurapalmer]

been going through some old wips so behold!! some scene sketches i have done for various sugar bowl gen fics and stuff, bc i will probably never make them more than these few sentences (or they will transform into something else) and that is not terrible. sometimes you just have little snippets that exist as they are, and that's cool ⭐

wait hold on first. that time i wanted to crossover hades and hamlet but i have read hamlet too few times and need to really bite into it to make this work right. also wasn't sure if they should talk in iambic pentameter

[ "i dream of ophelia," hamlet says, suddenly. he is wiping the blood off his knife with the hem of his jacket, and horatio watches the movement, still. "i dream of her in such a dreadful state -- she has old flowers in her hair, and when she comes at last close enough to touch, she is the softest and the saddest thing i have ever seen, as if all a rotting petal. she smiles at me, with tears on her face." he pauses. "a hideous sight." ]

[ "my lord," horatio says, "perhaps it is not death."

hamlet looks away. "if not to death," he murmurs, "then to what end, horatio?" ]

that time i wanted to well i guess crossover hades with lemony but just in the sense that lemony dies and comes back repeatedly and it wasn't a time loop. just needed a lot of words about death and living i didn't always wanna pull out

the first time it happened, bertrand had dragged lemony out of the water, and lemony was coughing out lungfulls of water in the dark shadows on the pier, his whole body cold and wet and trembling, and bertrand was trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, and lemony said, in a harsh whisper –

“i’m going to die.” he coughed again and looked petulant, closing his eyes. “don’t tell kit.”

"i'm sorry?" bertrand said. 

then he was holding a dead lemony snicket in his arms, and before the absurd horror of it could really sink in, lemony opened his eyes again with a sharp, clear breath. 

because lemony snicket is sometimes the kindest, most aware person bertrand knows, lemony takes him out for lunch. 

"does this happen often?" bertrand asks.

lemony makes a face. "no," he says. "not often. i'd rather it didn't at all." 

It was a lot to take in. But lemony was trusting him -- lemony, who, Bertrand knew, trusted less than three people on any given day. bertrand was touched. 

bernadette and lemony go out for ice cream

her mother had told her to cause uncle lemony a reasonable amount of trouble, and bernadette, being six, was good at causing a reasonable amount of trouble. if only uncle lemony wasn’t equally good at causing a reasonable amount of trouble back. she’d kept changing her ice cream choice all the way to the ice cream parlor down the street from the movie theater, to keep him on his toes, and he had retaliated by buying one little cup of each of the ten flavors, for them to share.

they sat at a table outside the parlor, under the awning of the shop and so in the shade and out of the hot summer sun, and taste-tested them all, bernadette writing the results in the notebook from her pocket.

“what did you think of the mint chocolate chip?” uncle lemony asked.

“it needed more chips,” bernadette said. she held her pencil very tight and wrote slowly so all the letters looked like they were supposed to. her penmanship was not quite up to her troublemaking skills, but bernadette was determined to fix that as quickly as possible. “what did you think of the salted caramel?”

“less salt,” uncle lemony said, and paused while bernadette crossed a still-too-big t with neat precision. “the smores?”

bernadette smiled, because the smores ice cream was always her favorite. “perfect.”

that time i was testing out ideas for college au and wound up nearly writing the basic eight and went 'well that is NOT the tone i want'

This, thing has been happening lately. (beatrice can just see lemony, where he usually sits in the basement of the library with her, gently circling thing in her literary analysis and telling her the word is too vague. Since when does lemony police her thoughts? She flexes her grip on the steering wheel and taps her nails against it. anyway.) when she’s with olaf, she almost doesn’t feel real. She looks at him out of the corner of her eye, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, sticking his hand out the window as beatrice drives down center street. It’s like she has to remind herself who he is. Because the second she sees him she thinks of kit all over again, in the backyard of olaf’s parent’s house, punching olaf in the face, blood on her knuckles when she pulled back. And again, and again, with a coiled rage in her eyes, because he was laughing at her around the blood he was spitting into the grass, that wheezing laugh beatrice had always loved rising to a frenzied pitch, and kit didn’t stop until olaf was on his knees and jacques grabbed her around the waist. Kit twisted in his grip like she could’ve hit him, too – and it’s the stupidest fucking thing, beatrice thinks, the only reason kit stopped was because jacques was still wearing the party hat beatrice had snapped onto his head when the snickets had all arrived. Because it was beatrice’s birthday, and kit and olaf had ended an eight year relationship in one five minute fight between lemony and bertrand pulling the cake out and josephine cutting it. Jacques had pulled kit into the house, and olaf got to his feet, dragging his forearm over his mouth. 

“Didn’t think she had it in her,” he said, and how was he still laughing? Something cold and hard was curling up inside beatrice – it was her hand, gripping the cake fork so tight it was going to leave a perfect mark on her palm. She let it drop under the table, into the grass. 

Beatrice got the details from kit later. And she couldn’t look olaf in the eye, now. 

that time i was trying to work something out about olaf and esme and just tried rewriting the same idea over to see if i could make it work

you don’t love anything, olaf told her, like it was supposed to hurt. and if esme was anyone else, maybe it would have – if she was olaf, perhaps, who thought baiting for a rise, an argument, a power play the height of appreciation, who thought hate as intoxicating as love. maybe. as it was, esme rolled her shoulders, said, mmm, no, put her heels back on, and left olaf alone. he could come back to her when he was being less exhausting. she had absolutely no patience for his shit moods.

and it was a lie, anyway, esme thought, taking the elevator down to the lobby, fur coat hooked in her fingers and dangling just enough above the floor not to touch. she loved lots of things. rumors. gossip. attention. a very nice pair of hands. good food, in clothing, being looked at. when all eyes were on you, it didn’t matter why. you could get anything you wanted, just because you got people’s attention if only for a moment. just because you played your cards right.

“you don’t love anything,” olaf told her, like it was supposed to hurt. like if he said it all right, he could cause pain in someone else. he liked doing it. pain in someone else meant power.

esme, however, was not just someone else. she raised an eyebrow at him, bending over to do the clasp on the side of her heels. “I love lots of things,” she said. “just because you aren’t one of them doesn’t mean you have to have an attitude about it.”

and it was a lie, anyway. Esmé loved lots of things. rumors; gossip; attention; a nice pair of hands; good food, in clothing, being looked at. admired was better, but just having eyes on her was pleasing enough. being special. and it wasn’t hard, really. she was very good at being special.

that time i was thinking about ernest and lemony and bertrand but wasn't quite sure where it would go and also i can never get them all in the same damn room

“This is lemony snicket,” said lemony snicket.

Ernest paused. “Well, that’s a neat trick,” he said, digging his elbow against the glass of the phone booth. “Dialing bertrand’s number and getting you, instead. Do you do weddings? We’ve missed dewey’s bar mitzvah, of course, so that’s out – how about funerals?”

“How would that work?” lemony asked immediately. “Would i be doing card tricks over the deceased? Isn’t that inappropriate?” 

“Depends on the funeral,” ernest said. “Please do it at mine. Is bertrand there?” 

“He’s supposed to be,” lemony said. “I believe he’s been detained.” 

It figured, of course. When ernest was actually calling in an emergency, bertrand was out somewhere being a good person to someone else. Well, it wasn’t – really an emergency. That was genuinely too dramatic, and the last thing ernest was was dramatic. Bertrand had just given ernest the number for his office at the theater and told ernest to call if he wanted to. If he needed to. He’d smiled when he’d said it, the way bertrand always smiled, one cheek dimpled and a sunshine kindness pouring out of him. And there was no time like the present, ernest thought. The present being, jammed in a phone booth blocks away from the hotel, which was still not enough distance, because – 

It didn’t matter. It was fine. Ernest would be fine. 

“Is there anything i can help you with?” lemony asked, because of course he was still on the other end. In bertrand’s office. 

Ernest closed his eyes, his jaw working. “No,” he said. 

that time lemonberry ice were supposed to be playing like some absurd hide and seek game but i could not quite work out exactly how they were playing and went well! too bad, gang

Beatrice is luminous in the lights above Ramona’s garden; they hang halos in her dark hair, in her eyes, catch on her ruby-red smile. There are the tiniest sequins sewn in her mask, Bertrand realizes, glittering like diamonds in the shape of a crescent moon curved over half her face. She’d shown him her costume before, of course, but here, at the party, it looks different than it did in the apartment. Beatrice glows even in private, but out where people can see her, she shimmers, flashes, beams, like the whole world bends around her and into her hands (balanced on his shoulders, tapping out something that feels like Magalenha). It is dizzying. He could kiss her, if he just tilted his head – they’re pressed that close in the sliver of space between the bushes at the pond. He could absolutely, definitely kiss her, and she’s grinning like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. 

But! This is supposed to be professional. They have rules. Bertrand holds himself very still, raising an eyebrow at her, and Beatrice bites her bottom lip hard around a giggle.

“Shhh,” Bertrand says, trying to sound stern. Does he look stern? Probably not, not at all. 

“I’m sorry,” Beatrice whispers, still giggling, “you just look so – ” 

“Shhhh,” he insists. Now he’s trying not to laugh. “We have to be quiet, Bea.”

She schools her expression into the perfect patient look. And just in time – there are footsteps behind them, quiet on the patio. Dress shoes, not heels, moving slowly from one corner to the next. Someone is taking their time. 

that time i idly considered a sugar bowl gen groupchat fic, but i could never figure out the right circumstances to put them in where the groupchat mattered enough to be the main focus of the fic, bc the nature of a groupchat means you are getting things secondhand, which can cut down on actual story content. but i did come up with usernames, of course. and of COURSE lemonberry ice shenanigans went down in the background.

itstheduchess has renamed the chat ‘don’t tell lemony anything we’re about to say, part 5’

itsthecount: tell me every single detail of the juicy gossip itsthecount: I demand answers and I demand them now itstheduchess: where’s kit itsthecount: do not. sidetrack this conversation. itsthecount: but she’s in the shower itstheduchess: ugggggg itsthecount: who do I have to kill to get the hot take on snicket’s latest fuckup itstheduchess: THIS IS WHY WE DON’T TALK, OLAF itsthecount: and yet here I am, in the fucking group chat theretheir: ????? Did something happen? theretheir: I tried to call Beatrice earlier but she didn’t pick up plainspoken: ramona I respect your desire to respect their privacy but if something has happened it might be better to tell us now itsthecount: yes, so I can plan my funeral outfit accordingly itsthecount: this bright green suit has been dying to be worn theretheir: Olaf, I want you to know that I saw every single thing wrong with that sentence and that I’m going to give you hell for it at a later date kitsnicket: he doesn’t even have a green suit. kitsnicket: what happened? itstheduchess: from what I can tell I think they ran into bertrand plainspoken: oh, no. theretheir: I thought he was out of town? I thought he was in Boston? kitsnicket: do not tell me l and b are in boston itstheduchess: he came back for the summer, they ran into him at the diner on route 9 and I don’t know what happened because beatrice won’t tell me but i’m ASSUMING something did not go well from her tone theretheir: Well, tone is notoriously hard to tell in the written word. itsthecount: josephine have you ever read anything by lemony snicket because I think that will change your opinion on tone kitsnicket: o has a point.

itstheduchess: do you ever get the feeling that since we’re, for lack of a better word, spies, that we maybe shouldn’t have a written record of all our conversations?? kitsnicket: frequently. but that’s never stopped us before. theretheir: I often wonder where I’d be without the ability to personally call you all out on your grammar. itstheduchess: josephine. itstheduchess: you do that outside the group chat.

itsthecount: can’t we just do a murder mystery for snicker’s birthday and call it a day itsthecount: we’re all used to that itsthecount: I will supply the bodies kitsnicket: we’re going to have a conversation later about how that was not the wisest thing to say, next to trying to say ‘flammable’ was a compliment. itsthecount: I will NOT rehash that argument but I will say again that i’m RIGHT kitsnicket: regardless. we are not putting my brother through a murder mystery.

the original incarnation of all phone, no sex, which was instead more about the newspaper

when lemony came home that evening, he took off his hat, looking thoughtfully off into the distance. “apparently,” he announced to beatrice and bertrand, who were bent over a newspaper crossword puzzle in the kitchen and sharing one pen, pressed together from shoulder to hip, “i’m having a torrid love affair with you, bertrand.”

beatrice gasped, her head jerking up. “you are? and no one told me?”

“torrid?” bertrand echoed, taking the pen from beatrice and filling in another answer. “bit of a strong word, don’t you think?”

“i do,” lemony said. he crossed to the kitchen, loosening his tie as he went, and sat down beside beatrice. “i prefer something like passionate.”

beatrice rolled her eyes. honestly, the two of them were lucky they had her, otherwise they’d go around calling their magnificent relationship something boring like passionate. but torrid certainly wasn’t the word either. “you two have no imagination,” she sniffed. “how about steamy?”

bertrand and lemony shared an intrigued glance. beatrice pulled the pen back and contemplated 45 down, smiling to herself.

“i don’t think we’re particularly steamy,” lemony said.

“barely any steam,” bertrand agreed.

“sensuous, then,” beatrice suggested absently. out of the corner of her eye, she saw lemony’s face flush red to the tips of his ears, and her smile grew.

bertrand cleared his throat for a solid five seconds. “you can’t say words like that with a straight face, bea.”

the two of them were so cute when they were flustered. “how is sensuous any worse than torrid?” beatrice asked.

“now is not the time to argue the semantics of language,” lemony said, with all the wisdom of someone who has done that very thing for hours at a time and once drove josephine anwhistle to tears over his opinion on metaphors. “but it has to do with the sound, I think.”

“what about ardent?” bertrand said. “it’s sort of sophisticated.”

“it is sophisticated,” lemony said, “but does it have quite the enthusiasm?”

“you two are going to make me bring out the dictionary, aren’t you,” beatrice muttered.

“nothing would please me more,” bertrand said. he even batted his eyelashes at her for emphasis, which did nothing to sway beatrice’s opinion, although she had to admit he was cute when he did that.

“how about heartfelt?” bertrand suggested behind her.

goodness, he was sentimental. grinning at her coat, she told him, trying to be firm, “affairs aren’t heartfelt.”

sigh. for many years now i have toyed with doing a lemony pov of my babybea fic, but it has just never panned out. but moxie got the bulk of the good lines in the scenes i considered. oh i did have a title though! it was 'but all folks are damaged goods' to continue pulling lyrics from the crooked kind

moxie swings her office door open, grinning wide. “you,” she says brightly, “look like hell.”

“That’s very kind of you,” lemony snicket says, leaning against the doorjamb.

“have you found your niece yet?” moxie asked.

“no,” I said.

“have you been looking?”

“have you?”

moxie sighed. “no. and that’s because you asked me to look for the baudelaires. I thought you’d personally want to find your niece. she is your niece, you know.”

“i am well aware who she is, moxie.”

“are you?” moxie snapped. “because i’d think a man who cared about his family wouldn’t be slumped in my office, asking to be forgiven by a woman who’s already done that, many times over. and begrudgingly, I might add.”

I met moxie’s eyes, and found them cold and grey. they no longer looked as washed and sad as I thought when we were children, instead tempestuous, a word which here means “unwilling to let lemony snicket get away with anything at all.”

I had never forgotten how lucky I really was, to have been forgiven by moxie mallahan.

she was wrong to say it was begrudgingly, though. it was at first. but there is nothing begrudging about exonerating a man from inaccurate accusations.

“what else can I do?”

“well whose fault is that?” moxie shouted. “who’s been hiding, all these years, and not doing a single thing about it? pain isn’t supposed to be comfortable, lemony! it’s not something you get used to! it’s something you drag yourself out of and then never look back at, especially when there’s someone out there who needs you! you don’t lounge around in it and let it eat you alive and forget about your daughter, leave her all alone to deal with everything you were supposed to take care of, all the secrets you never told her! you help her, so she’s not out there running away at sixteen and forcing it all down so she doesn’t think about all the people who were supposed to be there for her!”

it took me a moment to realize that moxie was not talking about my niece.

i have also heavily considered writing a sequel to (the three-part folding mirror) i just wasn't in a great space at the time so it kept getting shuffled to the back of my priorities but it had such TASTY things in it. specifically this was going to reveal that bea and bertrand spent that evening planning the opera

it had taken years to amass the amount of furniture that sat in the green room backstage, and somehow that hadn't turned it into a cultivated bastion (the word of the day in the life section of the punctilio) of good taste. the green room was the ugliest place olaf had ever been in his life. first of all, it was green. not because someone had decided to be funny, which would've been a reason olaf could try and respect, but because it was an organization theater, which meant a majority of the walls were all green outright. olaf had long since stopped lecturing anyone who would listen that it was the most egregious (last tuesday's word of the day in the life section of the punctilio) calling card in the world for an organization that made such a big deal about secrecy, but it was. second, the furniture -- stately little straight-backed chairs one of the snickets had put against the wall that baudelaire always put his jacket on, the most enormous but out of style set of brown chairs sebald had had to take the door off to get in, a coffee table with a permanent slouch from olaf's shoes getting kicked up on it. at least there was his couch, beautifully lurid purple, plush in the right spots, that he'd convinced one of the other snickets to push the six blocks to the theater while he and beatrice lounged on it. old books olaf had read cover to cover more than once, last season's marked-up scripts still piled around, a set of glasses he'd taken piece by piece from his parent's house (taken, not stolen. you could not steal your own family's possessions), excellent wine from esme (definitely stolen). cool in the summer, warm in the winter from the blankets ramona made, a permanent glittering floor from an age of makeup residue. ugly. shit. fucking beautiful. his. 

he wasn't welcome in every space the organization had created, but the theater, above anything else, was a theater, and he was always welcome there. it liked drama. it lived on it. a theater was the place you could break rules, set things right, change the world. no -- not change. change wasn't the right word at all. he wanted to rile it. bite it back. watch the world simmer. let it burn, just a little bit, nice and slow, before anyone noticed, and then it was too late. it was a shame nobody else understood how good it looked when you turned the world on its head just to watch it spin a little differently. not his parents, not the organization, not even beatrice really got it, not like this. nobody but this space, where the theater was one big throne and olaf was its very willing king. 

speaking of beatrice. it was monday, now, and it had been an excellent weekend, and she'd missed the whole damn thing. unforgivable, but olaf was a generous man. he'd tell her. she didn't live in the green room like she'd used to, but he knew he'd still find her there. and when he leaned into the green room door, palm down on the handle and let his weight push it open, there she was, sprawled out in that red sundress that clashed with their couch. ankles crossed over a pillow, her face hidden behind some book, and she hadn't noticed olaf come in. well now, but that just would not do. 

olaf sauntered over and dropped himself into sebald’s chair beside the couch, throwing his legs over the arm, then kicked the sole of beatrice’s heel sharply, grinning. “and where have you been, brat?”

beatrice kicked the bottom of his shoe back with perfect aim. olaf slid farther down into the cushions, his limbs sticking out at stupid odd angles. "rude," he called, waving his hand at her, even if she couldn't see it. "i come, out of the goodness of my heart -- " beatrice snorted, and olaf grinned wider. " -- to fill you in on all the hot drama, and this is the thanks i get?" 

"oh, please." she turned a page of the book. she'd started picking off her nail polish again, he noticed, little pieces of red missing off her nails. "it's been, like, forty-eight hours since i saw you? that's not nearly enough time for hot drama to happen without me, brat." 

“oh, but it did. ernest turned out to be a dirty, dirty traitor who’s been hiding information.” beatrice didn’t need to know that ernest had also given information to olaf, and that olaf had been stacking it away for future use. beatrice got drama, and the theater, and the rush when you did something special and all eyes were on you – but special to her meant noble, not different. she got away with it because she was still beatrice, but she didn’t have to know everything. (and olaf himself wasn’t a dirty, dirty traitor. some people knew how to play the game properly and bide their time, ernest.)

beatrice sat up, the book tumbling out of her hands and onto the floor, looking beautifully scandalized. “ernest did what?”

olaf wriggled himself back into a sitting position to match hers. “as far as I can tell,” he said, leaning forward, “at the party at the hotel, he was supposed to give one of the snickets something important, and pretended to be frank about it, and then he got caught."

olaf grabbed her wrist and pulled her back into the room, her arm bent between them, his knuckles brushing her shoulder. “you okay?” he asked.

beatrice flashed him her bright, stunning smile, the one that almost split her face with her delight. “peachy keen,” she said, and slipped her hand out of his grasp and took off.

beatrice knew the rule – when you were acting, nobody knew, and if you did it right, not even you would know.

but that was the thing, she knew all the time.

if you did it right, then when you were acting, nobody knew. not even you. 

bertrand was asked it over and over again, but he could never come up with a good answer. how could he tell the denouements apart? he just -- could. it wasn't anything as obvious as different facial structure, or the way they talked, or the way they moved, bertrand just looked at them and knew. you spent enough time around the three of them, you didn't learn tells or tricks (which could be imitated, anyway), you learned dewey, and ernest, and frank. 

this wasn't to say it was kit's fault ernest had lied to her. it wasn't. but bertrand also knew that if they didn't want you to know who you were talking to, you wouldn't. ernest had done it to him a few times. 

that time violet experienced The Silliest Childhood Horror, based on my own personal life experience

in her -- ugg, old age, bertrand keeps calling it, although he is a year and a half older than her and they aren't even thirty -- heightened state of mature thinking, beatrice will call it, she no longer makes the impulsive, rash decisions of her youth, like, climbing furniture (she has a stepstool now), or, throwing breakable things (she has pillows), or, launching herself across a rooftop (she has -- well, she hasn't found a replacement for that particular activity yet). she has the wherewithal to stop and think about something before she does it. but this summer is hot, and no matter what she does with her hair it just keeps finding ways to stick to her neck or her shoulders and sits in a thick, heavy weight on her head, so she takes the scissors from the bathroom and gives herself a neat, wavy bob one morning, along the line of her chin. 

and, it's not that beatrice forgot about violet, because violet was just in the other room, making piles of cheerios on the table of her highchair with bertrand instead of eating them for breakfast, it's that beatrice forgot children were just, like that sometimes. because the second violet saw beatrice lacking three-fourths of her hair, her daughter burst into tears. 

"oh no," beatrice said. 

that time i am constantly monitoring the level of Angst i am writing to make sure i do not descend back into high school levels of horrible prosey pushing it WAY too far angst but sometimes you do just write a heartbreaking thing just to see how it looks on the page

[frank says it, one night, very quietly. “You would’ve rathered it was me,” he says. “That i was the one who died, wouldn’t you.” 

Ernest stares at him.] 

that time i wanted to write the events that bring moxie and lemony back together as friends but i just got stuck on the exact vfd assignment details bc i can never find it in me to make them vague, so it progressed no further. but somehow arson was definitely involved and lemony (and r!) were doing it for Reasons. anyway it did have a neat ending of asking moxie to be the editor

"alright, snicket," moxie says, and she sets her typewriter down on the rickety table between them with the gentleness it requires, but there is a hard look in her eyes that she hopes tells lemony that if it was any other item she would've slammed it down. or thrown it on the floor. or thrown it at him. instead, she throws herself into the seat across from him and pushes her hair away from her face. he hasn’t said it, but he looks like he doesn’t have a lot of time to chew the fat on a cloudy thursday evening in her small but neat newspaper office. and moxie mallahan is a busy woman now, anyway. "start talking."

lemony clears his throat. he looks run-down, and moxie feels only the smallest bit satisfied at what this world has done. but it really is a shame, she thinks. he looks so anxious where he used to look so determined.

"where do you want me to begin?" he asks softly.

"why don't you start," moxie says briskly, feeding paper into her typewriter, "with why you're alive, first of all. last i heard you were dead, or at least missing."

lemony leans back in his chair, and he certainly takes his sweet old time in answering her. "i hadn't intended," he says, "for that to come out."

moxie raises an eyebrow. "that you're alive?"

"yes."

"why?"

lemony is silent.

moxie sighs, a hard and angry shot of air. "snicket," she says, "i agreed to this meeting under the condition that you would talk to me. if you aren't going to say anything, i will throw you out of my office, and i'll continue looking on my own for answers. i thought you were finally coming around, but if you're still going to be a secretive stick in the mud, then i don't see—"

"i'm sorry," he says. he meets her eyes this time. the look he gives her is startling in its intensity. "i am sorry, moxie."

moxie frowns. she taps her fingers against the keys. "tell me what happened, snicket."

"there was an incident at mulctuary money management."

“that’s not what I—”

“that’s where this story starts,” lemony says.

moxie stares at him for a considerable amount of time, one that she hopes is enough to make lemony uncomfortable. she stops when he finally shifts in his seat some minutes later. "the papers said it was a filing error," she says. she remembers the headlines from the previous week—mischievous money mismanagement at mulctuary money management! she'd thought it was a little much. she certainly wouldn't have been so alliterative. filing error at local bank would do the trick.

"it was not," lemony says. "it was a robbery that just happened to look like a filing error, that was used to cover up a much larger crime happening nearby.”

"how do you know?"

"i was driving the getaway car."

moxie tilts her head in thought. "which car?"

lemony almost smiles. "the one from the much larger crime."

“when did you leave stain’d-by-the-sea?” lemony asks.

“don’t you know?” moxie replies.

“i do,” he says, “but I wanted to hear it from you.”

“i was eighteen,” moxie says.

moxie stares at him, her fingers frozen on the typewriter keys. "what?" she whispers.

he doesn’t say a word.

“that couldn’t have been the only way,” moxie says.

lemony sighs, his expression blank. "we don’t know any other way. sometimes the only way to stop ten fires is to start one."

moxie can think of a million other ways. "you -- "

"what did you think i was, moxie?

a friend, she'd thought at first. a mystery, she'd thought, one she'd wanted nothing more than to unravel. a detective. a hope that was going to save her town. a best friend. then a liar. a murderer. a thief. a coward. and now --

sad, she thinks. she feels sorry for him, and she can’t even be angry about it now.

"i've made a lot of mistakes," lemony says.

"you've made more than a lot," moxie murmurs. "you've made a considerable amount."

"and i know i can't apologize for all of them."

"i don't think you can."

[more before this, slumps in his seat, etc] he runs a hand through his hair. “i’m trying,” he says. “i am trying to make up for them.”

“leave, then,” moxie says quietly. “get out of it. start over.”

“where am I going to go?”

"i have no right to ask you," lemony says, "but i think the day may come when i will need the help of an impartial third party to tell the truth. the whole truth, or as much of it as I can bear. can i count on you when that day comes, moxie mallahan?"

moxie sighs. "we'll see," she says. "we'll see, snicket."

he smiles at her, a sharp and fast thing, and then it's gone. he climbs out of the window and drops into the alley below, and when moxie looks down into the alley he’s already disappeared.

every now and then i try and figure out, if i was going to deal with the taxi, which we all know i am not necessarily a fan of, how would i do it

in general, the taxi, much like jacques snicket, was reasonably unseen, always undetected, and often nearby. but that did not mean that jacques snicket liked the taxi. he had tried to return it after the initial assignment with it, one that had taken him through the city and into the hinterlands and back again at, he’ll admit, an even speed with fair gas mileage, but he was told that the taxi was his now, and it would make things much easier for him. he did not see how, but he figured it was easier to keep the taxi.

he asked kit to take a look at it and make sure the car was working properly.

“I can’t believe you get to drive this car,” kit muttered, bent under the hood of the car and getting grease all over her hands. “do you know what I would do to drive this?”

“please don’t tell me, I would rather not be an accomplice,” jacques said. he was sitting in the driver’s seat with the windows down, reading the owner’s manual, in particular the safety recommendations, because someone should. “did you check the – ”

“yes, all fine,” kit said. she waved a dismissive hand at him from around the hood. “start it. I want to hear the engine.”

jacques started the taxi, and he assumed it sounded like it was supposed to. it sounded like a car.

kit closed the hood, wiped her hands off on her handkerchief, and got into the passenger seat, looking pleased. “well, it runs perfectly. start driving.”

“what? kit – ”

“jacques, do you expect me to let my brother go tearing off with a perfect engine without knowing if it runs right?”

bea's letter fic references 'the time bertrand tried to come up with nicknames' which was a wip i had tucked away somewhere

bertrand put his pen down on his notebook. “alright. I think i’ve got it this time.”

“i doubt it,” beatrice said, cross-legged on the floor in front of the record player, “but give it a try anyway.” she looked up expectantly, her hand on her chin, elbow digging into her calf.

before bertrand had a chance to say anything, lemony walked out of the bedroom, took one look at bertrand’s notebook, and said, “bertrand, I don’t think you should say any of those words out loud.”

“okay, how about this one – buttercup?” bertrand offered.

beatrice looked at him, her face almost dangerously blank. “why do you build me up, buttercup, baby,” she intoned.

“just to let me down,” lemony called from the bedroom.

“and mess me around, and then worst of all, you never call – ”

“baby,” lemony shouted.

“when you say you will – ”

“okay, okay, I get it,” bertrand said, laughing as he crossed the word off his list. “not buttercup.”

“you alright, bea?” bertrand asks.

beatrice startles a little, her wide brown eyes fixed on him, and then she smiles, her shoulders relaxing. “just wonderful,” she says, walking past and dropping a kiss on the top of his head as she goes. “i’ll see you later, the shop down the street is having a sale on fruit and I cannot not take advantage of it.”

“don’t let jo hear you use a double negative,” bertrand says. he smooths down his hair, and then eyes the door. “you aren’t following lemony so you two can have outrageous sex in an alleyway without me, are you?”

beatrice laughs, swinging the door open. “you know i’d take you with me if I was!”

more messy lemonberry ice thoughts, where i was trying to eventually write them all dancing and just got caught up in the semantics of How Exactly I'd Get There

number one on bertrand’s list of spring resolutions (he’d forgotten all about new years resolutions, and had taken the next most timely opportunity) was to learn to paint, and so he set up an easel by the floor-to-ceiling balcony window in beatrice’s apartment, to catch the sunset as it filtered in through the glass at the end of the day. the sun moved so quickly now in the evening, and bertrand wanted to capture the way it fell in soft, fuzzy gold patches against lemony reclined back into the couch, with beatrice stretched out at his side, her head pillowed on her arms in his lap. how it sat, warm and inviting on the line of lemony’s collarbone just visible beneath the open neck of his dress shirt, on his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, on the curve of his hand in beatrice’s hair, on the constellation of moles down beatrice’s left shoulder, on the triangle of skin at the top of her knee where her slip folded open a little.

bertrand was not good at faces, or incredibly distinct lines, or, if he was being honest, a great deal of art in the first place, but he was good at shapes and colors, so the painting didn’t necessarily look like beatrice and lemony but it still looked like beatrice and lemony, the shapely smooth strokes of beatrice in the thin black slip, the easy angles of lemony relaxed against the cushions, his feet (with those very beautiful blue flowered socks) propped up on the coffee table. the record player in the corner of the painting did look more defined, though. it looked-looked like a record player. but it was only spring, bertrand reasoned, and maybe by autumn he’d be able to get their faces down. he very much wanted to.

the record player in question hit the end of the b side of one of lemony’s slow jazz albums, and beatrice groaned at the silence and rolled off of lemony, graceful to her feet even when she stumbled, trailing over and removing the record. one of the straps of her dress slipped down her arm as she sorted through the record box. bertrand brought his brush back to the beatrice smudges on the canvas and tried to make the little line of the strap on the sleeping beatrice, but it came out thicker than he wanted. he frowned, looked back at the beatrice fitting a count basie record into the player with one hand, the other pushing her hair back out of her face, sunset orange spilling brightly down her back, and then turned the strap into another sweeping curl instead. that looked better.

"lemony," beatrice said, "do you want to waltz or do you want to two-step."

lemony opened an eye and looked in her direction. "i would like," he says, "a sandwich."

"bertrand, do you want to waltz or do you want to two-step."

“I am painting,” bertrand said, waggling the paintbrush.

beatrice was hunched over the record player on the floor, at the right angle that the orange sunset filtered through the balcony window and spilled down her back, over the constellation of moles along her left shoulderblade and the low v of her black slip. bertrand didn’t think himself much of an artist, not really, but he liked the feel of it, putting lines and shapes on paper and trying to get them to look like what they were supposed to. he had a little sketchbook for that purpose, and he kept it on the table behind the couch – now it was propped up against lemony’s head as bertrand colored.

he’d already drawn a scribbly lemony in the upper left corner, the top of his hair and shoulders highlighted at the edges from the sun, shaded in lightly with the crayons piled atop the rug. bertrand had thought even colored pencils would be too extravagant for the occasional drawing of beatrice or lemony, or the doves in the yard, or the dandelions coming back in the garden. also, they’d already had the crayons. they were beatrice’s.

beatrice takes another critical look around her living room, and then pushes the end table further towards the wall with her foot. she has her hands on her hips, and her hair pinned back from her face, the evening sun gold in the hollow of her collarbone and all the curves of her, resting on her fingertips like it was always meant to be there, bertrand thinks.

was it smart, bertrand wonders, for the millionth time (and he has kept track), to fall in love with beatrice baudelaire? it’s not like he had a great deal of choice in the matter, really. beatrice pulled people towards her like – some very nice simile that doesn’t involve fire he will definitely think of when he is not standing in her kitchen and lemony is not putting away the dinner plates and that’s it, that’s why it isn’t smart, because of lemony. both of them have a magnetism, really. beatrice, loud and uncompromising with a quick laugh and clever eyes, lemony, quiet and stubborn with a stunning, deep-rooted kindness. you just can’t look at either of them without your whole chest trying to rearrange itself.

[like a wave to a shore, maybe? like raindrops pooling together on a window sill. inevitable things.]

and both of them are in love, with each other, not bertrand, and it’s – it’s fine. it’s totally fine. bertrand is honest enough to think that it’s not exceptionally fine, but it’s, regularly fine. it’s decently fine. he’s here, after all. they have a standing saturday dinner and bertrand has gotten very good at not looking too long at either of them.

and – they are teaching him to dance.

[he didn’t know what was more surprising – that lemony looked the most affronted that bertrand couldn’t dance, or that lemony could dance. but bertrand had to keep expecting the unexpected of lemony snicket.]

that time i was ttoally going to rewrite singing in the rain as lemonberry ice. oh clearly it didn't follow the movie it just had Some Vibes. but god i had the best music number in this opening, and also lemony and bertrand hadn't met bea yet and clearly i had a not-concrete idea of where vfd was in the background here. also beatrice was driving by and stopped to fix their car

lemony sighs, his hands dropping from the steering wheel. “when I woke up today,” he says, eyes fixing off somewhere in the distance. “i had a feeling something like this would happen. I should have listened to it.”

“you had a feeling the car was going to break down in the middle of the morning?” bertrand asks. “that’s incredibly specific.”

“we aren’t holding you up, are we?” bertrand asks.

“not at all,” the woman says. “i’m not in a hurry. i’m running early today, anyway.”

“it’s good to be early,” lemony says. “some would call that the mark of a noble person.”

“is there a reason,” beatrice says, hoisting herself up and sliding a foil out from the mess of gears, “that you guys have a sword in your car?”

“i was wondering where that went,” lemony says. “thank you.”

beatrice stares at lemony, and then fixes her eyes on bertrand, a deep, penetrating brown gaze with one raised eyebrow. bertrand has a vague thought that he might be able to get lost in those eyes before beatrice ducks back down under the hood.

“what are you two?” beatrice asks. “actors? spies? extreme hobbyists?”

bertrand and lemony exchange a glance.

“yes,” they say together.

bertrand grins with delight. “you know how I say there’s a song for every occasion?”

“oh no,” lemony says. “bertrand, I cannot handle that, not at this hour.”

“you might have been meant for each other – ”

“you can’t just change the words to make the song work – ”

“to be or not to be, let your hearts discover – ”

“i don’t intend to discover anything, I only met her five minutes ago – ”

“you’ve got a feeling, it’s a feeling you’re concealing, i don’t know why – ”

“this song doesn’t have a narrator, bertrand, and I cannot abide by such flagrant disregard for the lyrics – ”

“oh, come on – it’s just a mental, incidental, sentimental alibi – ”

“jacquelyn will be furious if we get to the studio tomorrow and you’ve done something stupid to your voice, you really shouldn’t – ”

“but you adore her, so strong for her, why go on stalling, you are falling, love is calling, why be shy?” bertrand stops and waits out the pause between the verse and the chorus, staring expectantly at lemony.

lemony stares back at him, stretching out the pause much longer than is musically necessary. he raises an eyebrow.

“fine, be that way,” bertrand says, still grinning, and he swings the door shut. “let’s fall in love, why shouldn’t you fall in love, your hearts are made of it, go take a chance, why be afraid of it – ”

“are you quite finished?” lemony asks.

bertrand clears his throat and takes a step back, tugging on the hem of his vest. “well, if I have to be,” he says, trying for a smile.

lemony starts humming let’s fall in love while making dinner, and gives bertrand the dirtiest look of all time when bertrand starts laughing.

[abcwordsurge]

Hii!! I read your intro post and you mentioned liking Ninjago and Romeo & Juliet :D Who are your favorite characters in both and why?

Thank you ☺️

oh! this was a delightful surprise. I just updated my intro post today (well, yesterday as of posting this), and I didn't think anyone would notice haha. thank you for reading it ^_^

I absolutely love both Ninjago and Romeo & Juliet, and honestly it's nice to have an excuse to talk about them on my blog. however, since you asked specifically about favorite characters, this will inevitably be a long one. I can never get myself to shut up about characters.

my favorite Ninjago characters are Nya and Jay (and honorary mention Kai). my favorite Romeo & Juliet characters are probably Mercutio and Benvolio (but I could make a good reason for any of them to be the best haha). very long rant under cut

--

so! let's start with Nya. first, I have to point out that she was horribly mistreated in canon. it was sort of inevitable- since she was "the girl," I feel like the creators felt like a lot of her arc had to be... being the girl? I'm just still a bit disappointed at her missed potential of just, y'know, being a ninja.

that being said, she's a flipping icon and I love her with all of my heart, and every time she's on the screen it makes me smile. granted, I totally project onto her (and her brother, our favorite Kai~), but even if you ignore my personal headcanons of her being aromantic and loveless, she's such a smart, stubborn, and creative character, and I love that for her.

also Jay. I love Jay. I feel like, as a fanfic writer, I treat him the exact opposite of how I treat Nya. every time I write about Nya, I write about her experiences with being aromantic, or her desperation to prove herself, things like that. when I write about Jay, it's like Jay's in love with Cole, or Jay's in love with Nya (actually unrequited love my beloved), or Jay's in love with Kai. (side note- I actually headcanon Kai as aromantic, too, but sometimes I put that headcanon on pause so I can ship him. because oh my god he has such cute ships.) anyway all this to say that Jay's an adorable goofy little guy and I like putting him in situations. (he also has massive angst potential but angst isn't really my forte.)

ok. Romeo & Juliet. before I get into specifics, I must say that the characterization in this play is criminally underrated. if it were released today, it would have leagues of fans obsessing over both Romeo and Juliet, and arguing over whether Romeo is a romantic or just an idiot, and getting into shipping wars (especially Benvolio/Mercutio vs Tybalt/Mercutio- though Bencutio is obviously superior). the fact that it only has 2000 fics on AO3 is a tragedy to rival, well, Romeo & Juliet.

(also- for my WttT followers and moots, if any of you have gotten this far, I have to say that we have very nearly surpassed Romeo & Juliet in number of fics on AO3. keep it up)

now if I was forced to pick favorites in Romeo & Juliet, I would have to say the aforementioned Benvolio and Mercutio- both as a duo and as individuals, they are so flipping wonderful. I saw a local production of Romeo & Juliet over the summer, and ever since then, I have been deathly defensive of them. I will fight over the fact that they're both so well written and well characterized. (I also super love them as a ship- in the production I saw, when Romeo and Juliet met for the first time, there were plenty of duos in the background, slow dancing, and Ben and Merc were dancing together, and I just... I have no words. they're perfect.)

anyway. Benvolio first. Ben is such a big cousin sort of character, iykwim. there's something so tragic about the fact that he tried from the very beginning to get everyone to stop fighting, but no matter what he did or said, he couldn't save them- not his cousin, not his best friend. (I've never seen Hamlet, but I'm told that Benvolio is the Horatio of R&J. Shakespeare knew which archetypes work, I guess.) he's so awesome. I love him

and Mercutio! Merc is just a kid you guys. he's a teenage boy. he's so funny and free spirited and every time I watch R&J, all I can think about is "he's here for a good time, not a long time." because it's so true! his recklessness and immaturity leads to his death! (another theme, perhaps- because while he did sort of bring it upon himself, I would never say it's his fault- but that's a rant for another day.) Merc is just so immediately lovable and his death hurts me the most. his death is the turning point between a mostly light hearted play to the tragedy that we associate with it, and that makes it hurt even more. (and Ben holds him when he dies and Ben is left all alone at the end, and oh my god Shakespeare is famous for a reason.)

so, yeah. this is very long and mostly unedited, sorry. you pushed the right buttons to keep me talking for hours. maybe I'll start posting more about my other fandoms, because this was a lot of fun. thank you so much for asking :D

[2nd-mushroom-circle]

okay I’m so sorry I know we just became mutuals but!! I really really love what you said about Laertes actors never fully showing the emotional spectrum this poor man must be feeling :’( what REALLY gets me is that a lot of productions cut out the part where the dude breaks down crying and instead just leave it at the “too much water” line. LET LAERTES CRY. BRO JUST LOST HIS WHOLE ENTIRE FAMILY I JUST. WAUGH.

YES like laertes' reaction is where the emotional weight of ophelia's death comes from cutting it out does them both a disservice! stop making him like. hold in his tears like a man the whole point of the line is he CANT DO THAT

and also the man is ANGRY. from his entrance in 4.v to ophelia's death he's been on the verge of homicide at like the drop of a hat. claudius spends so much time trying to calm him down and BARELY succeeds - and that makes sense, cause his DAD JUST GOT MURDERED AND HIS SISTER WENT INSANE AND HE WASNT EVEN THERE. i just saw a production (that made me mad for many reasons) where it felt like the pace completely flagged when laertes arrived, which is the exact opposite of what should happen. laertes acts with so much urgency at the end of the play. he's such a direct foil to hamlet, in that his father is murdered and he IMMEDIATELY jumps into action without thinking (without, in fact, even bothering to check if the man he's about to kill in retaliation is at fault). actually, i will go so far as to say that at this point in the play, laertes is the emotion to hamlet's logic. everyone else is at some sort of emotional remove, but he bursts onto the stage and has to feel everything and react to it right away. LET HIM FUCKING CRY. hamlet can make grand speeches about eating crocodiles, cause hamlet is a talker, but laertes can cry and scream and jump into his sister's grave and physically attack hamlet, because laertes is an action guy. this started off as a petty grievance but actually now i'm convinced. laertes showing intense emotions is essential to the play.

also the "do you see this oh god?" line? that line goes hard as fuck. there's so much you can do with that line. howl it out in anger, be fully sobbing as ophelia leaves, clutch on to her skirts or stand shellshocked in the center of the stage - i love that line so much and i think you have to do something with it, because laertes gets so little time to directly respond do ophelia's madness. it needs to be immediate and visceral. claudius and gertrude and horatio can respond to ophelia rationally, but laertes is her BROTHER. if you throw away that line, i do not respect you

[greaseonmymouth]

It is not 7 am anymore but top 5 books read this year? 😄

I have read 44 books so far this year and most of them were very good so I don't know how I'm supposed to pick just 5 :'''D

in reverse chronological order

THE DEATH I GAVE HIM - EM X. LIU

this is an utterly unhinged locked room sci-fi murder mystery retelling of Hamlet in which Horatio is an AI and he and Hamlet have a deeply co-dependent and sexual relationship. This book is exactly the kind of thing tumblr would eat up with a spoon, so tumblr pls get on this. The basic plot is: a deeply depressed and suicidal Hamlet (Hayden) is working on a formula that can make one immortal. He is obsessed with beating death. Then his dad is murdered and the labs go on lockdown and more people die because *gestures* Hamlet is Hamlet even when his name is Hayden, and Horatio the AI does his best to keep Hamlet alive and also be a voice of reason except he's too biased. By happenstance I had read this Hamlet/Faust crossover fic (Hemlock & Wine) before reading this book, and in this fic Hamlet is obsessed with necromancy and Horatio is trying to save him. it set the mood nicely. 

You know how in Hamlet everyone dies and at the end Horatio is the only one alive with Hamlet dead in his arms? What if I told you in this book it's reversed?

WILD AND WICKED THINGS - FRANCESCA MAY

Dark, witchy, historical fantasy - set after WW1 on a fictional island off the Yorkshire coast, very 20s glam with a dark undercurrent. Witchcraft is banned, but Annie is a witch. when her father dies she inherits his house on Crow Island and goes over there to sort that out and rents a house next to what turns out to be a Den of Iniquity, not just because of the lavish parties with illegal (magical) substances but because it's queer. Then follows a dark plot involving a blood debt and necromancy and power hungry men (well, one power hungry man) and fragile old and new relationships and dark secrets and also Annie and Emmeline get accidentally magically bonded to each other (but also are in love/lust with each other) and look, I could not stop reading. 

DRAGONFALL - L.R. LAM

listen I LOVE dragon books and I've read and loved everything L.R. Lam has written so when I heard an epic dragon fantasy was coming? I WAS STOKED. this is the first in I think a trilogy and it ticks all my boxes:

sentient dragons with their own history, language, society, etc

sexy dragons?? i didn't realise i needed sexy dragons until I read Aliette de Bodard's Dominion of the Fallen trilogy or the Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman, but hey. SEXY DRAGONS

queernorm world! our second protag Arcady is nonbinary and uses any pronouns, thank u for your service L.R. Lam

very cool world building and magic system 

BETRAYAAAALLL 

I can't wait for book 2

PORTRAIT OF A THIEF - GRACE D. LI

look this post will explain everything. suffice to say: pretentious college students steal priceless art.

THE BEAUTIFUL ONES - SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA

This is a kind of historical romance but it's fantasy and it doesn't follow conventional romance novel structure (I was SO nervous it wouldn't end happily because I didn't know what to expect from the narrative I was being given, but THANK GOD IT DID). it's very fantasy of manners. it makes a lot of pointed commentary about colonialism and colourism. it's absolutely lush. I love this book a lot, it was so engaging and gripping. the characters are allowed to be flawed and assholes and complex and weak and kind - it's very similar to sprawling historical/saga books with a large cast of people with conflicting wants and needs and scheming and tragedy and love and all that, but distilled into a neat compact package focusing on three people. It's not a long book, it's quite a slim volume for what it is, but it's perfectly paced so you don't notice that you're not actually reading a 900 page family saga.

other standalones I read this year that I think are WELL worth reading:

CAMP DAMASCUS - CHUCK TINGLE

YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY - AKWAEKE EMEZI

YELLOWFACE - R.F. KUANG

HONOURABLE MENTIONS GO TO:

two series I read this year that I also absolutely loved

THE SEVEN DEVILS DUOLOGY - ELIZABETH MAY & L.R. LAM

you know this post right?

[image id: post by worflesbian on july 4 saying 'sci fi is when women in tank tops are covered in grease and sweat and are shouting at people and racing against time to save lives' reblogged by leafcrunch on july 13 with a screenshot addition of the tag #half a jumpsuit!!! you forgot half a jumpsuit!!!!']

this is that series. it is rebels in space overthrowing an evil space empire. it's all the worst bits of imperialism and colonialism and patriarchy distilled into one evil empire and all the best bits of firefly and star wars distilled into the rebellion. there are cool scifi science bits. this would be amazing as a two season series by competent tv makers, it's very cinematic in scope, but the characters are what give this life.

THE WINTERNIGHT TRILOGY - KATHERINE ARDEN

this is a family saga of a kind, set in medieval Russia during a time when Russia was being Christianised. I don't know how to explain this series because it's so complex and so rich. There is a main character - Vasya - but other characters also get POV sections. the first book takes quite a while before we even get to Vasya in 'the present' so to speak, this is a trilogy that isn't afraid of taking its time to tell a story. Vasya is a witch who can see/communicate with Russian 'folklore' spirits, these spirits are fading with the coming of Christianity. There is an unhinged priest, the winter king Morozko whom Vasya has an intense relationship with, Vasya's brother (a monk, based on a real person), Vasya's sister (married to the Tsar, a real person), and just...god, I don't know. I loved everything about this trilogy, the way it humanised historical figures, the way it didn't demonise either the folklore spirits (who are allowed to be non-human beings devoid of human morality! so refreshing) or the Christians, but rather conveyed how a time of upheaval like this had to have been very scary and tumultous. an absolute treat.

I did also read the entire Charm of Magpies series by KJ Charles including the spinoffs, which I really enjoyed.

[lizardrosen]

i just found my notebook from 2011 when i went through the entire text of hamlet line by line and took extensive notes on each scene. do you want me to share the best parts? of course you do.

Unless otherwise noted, this is my own notes verbatim, but I remember having some objectively Incorrect Takes and I'll give my current commentary on my past self

Act I, Scene 1

1.1.14-15 "Friends to this ground" "And liegemen to the Dane" Horatio is loyal to the land itself with all its history; Marcellus cares more about the current king and military leader, Claudius

1.1.46-49 "What art thou that usurp'st this time of night?" like Claudius usurped Papa Hamlet "fair and warlike" either praises war by calling it fair or juxtaposes the adjectives "in which the majesty of buried Denmark" the ghost embodied the spirit of the country but it died with him

1.1.36-37 "If thou hast uphoarded in thy life / Extorted treasure from the womb of earth" Horatio suggests that the ghost might not be perfect? current Will: I think it's more that Horatio is running through any possible reason that there might be a ghost just in case he guesses right and gets a response

Act I, Scene 2

1.2.2-3 "And that it us befitted to bear our hearts in grief" Claudius acts sad because he feels he ought to and it's expected of him current Will: Wow, I gave Claudius a lot more credit than he deserves, this is clearly manipulating the social climate of the court!!

1.2.70-71 "Do not forever with thy veiled lids / seek for thy noble father in the dust" she does not know Papa Hamlet does not stay buried, and wants Hamlet to move on with his life veiled=lack of movement; seek=active

1.2.118 "Let not thy mother lose her prayers" Claudius has Gertrude speak here because he knows that Hamlet will listen to her <3 current Will: this is hilarious! even knowing that Claudius is a murderer, I still treated him like basically a good dude and missed his deliberate control of his image

1.2.150-151 "A beast that wants discourse of reason would have mourned longer" - compare to the princess bride: Did you get engaged to your prince that same hour or did you wait a whole week out of respect for the dead?

1.2.185 "I saw him once, a was a goodly king" How did Horatio see the king and what does that say about his character? current Will: there are actual answers to this question in scene one :D

Act One, Scene Two summary At this point Hamlet s not quite emo and not quite mad. He's a bit sadder than is "manly" but has the presence of mind to talk about gardens, Greeks, and galled eyes. Iago did that too, so if Hamlet is mad here, it is a calculating madness.

Well, I was half right. Little did I know that Hamlet would talk about all of those things no matter what his mental state is.

(to be continued!)

[hamletscalamity]

Hamlet In Analysis: Horatio’s Story - A Trial of Faith is a book I just finished reading and need to yell into no less than five canyons about. Here is my (mostly) spoiler-free breakdown and review.

One of the things I love about this book is that it is a retelling using literary criticism. So it really reads like you are engaging with (psychoanalytical) criticism while also just having a fun (agonizing) time reading a Hamlet retelling. The story places Horatio as Dr. Horacio (42) a psychoanalyst in 1970s England who is conducting Kleinian psychoanalysis on a young Hamlet (19) who is attending Cambridge.

The story uses Kleinian analysis extremely well as Dr. Horacio investigates dreams Hamlet is having to better understand him. Through the story Dr. Horacio goes against his on rules of analysis and finds himself far too consumed in the story of Hamlet’s life. There are a lot of major differences, no killings being a huge one, but it actually keeps you on your toes wondering how a story you have heard before will end. It does an amazing job of making itself a standalone story while still engaging with important literary criticism surrounding Hamlet. It also uses lines from the play in a creative format for extra pain where you didn’t know you needed it!

I found it incredibly useful for my own research purposes as my doctoral work will be leaning into some psychoanalysis. And this novelization proves my theory of consumption with the work. I feel very conflicted about the ending but other than that I really did love this and think it’s a great piece of writing. It even made references to philosophers who has mclost it over Hamlet before and I felt it was incredibly well researched.

[lessnearthesun]

TELL ME ABOUT HAMLET!!! <3

You are also now my bff for asking me about modern Hamlet <3 Okay so I’m not going to rehash everything I said in this ask, which explains the set up so instead here I’m just going to give a bunch of the random ass lore that has accumulated in my head:

Hamlet is blonde and a pisces because you know I’m right. R&G are boy-girl twins who have been childhood friends with Hamlet for years. They are indeed spying on him but are bad at it; Hamlet knows and thinks it’s funny (at least until they reappear after Hamlet Sr. dies) how bad they are at being spies. Horatio can’t stand them.

Laertes and Hamlet slept together while drunk ONCE (1). Laertes can’t STAND Hamlet and thinks he’s just a dumb trust fund fuck boy. He hates that Hamlet and Ophelia have been having a sort of on and off love affair. Speaking of Hamlet and Ophelia, Ophelia does lose her virginity to Hamlet but never tells him. Hamlet also likes to rave to Horatio about Ophelia: how beautiful she is, how lovely, how much he loves her etc. because a part of him likes the knowledge that it gets under Horatio’s skin. However, he is also constantly worried that he’ll push Horatio too far and that he’ll leave, and he needs Horatio, so after these Ophelia-talks, he always sucks up to Horatio after as like a “please don’t be mad at me don’t leave” thing.

Gertrude is the daughter of a big shot movie director and an award winning actress. In the early 90s, she was very popular and everyone said she was going to be the next Great Hollywood Star. She was compared to Marilyn Monroe a lot. So, as it can be imagined, her family and Hollywood were very unhappy when she quit acting to marry a nothing representative from New York who no one knew then. She always had a close friendship with Claudius, who also often acted as a kind of father to Hamlet, since his own father was always busy. Hamlet and his father had a VERY contentious relationship but Hamlet always wanted his dad’s approval more than anything.

Fortinbras here is a journalist who tries to hit on Horatio right after the shit goes down and then offers his card to him if he ever needs help getting this story out. Horatio essentially wallows in his own grief for a year, not even leaving his bed, until his mother gives him an ultimatum that he either get his shit together and see someone or she’ll send him to a psych ward. (He dropped out of his master’s program after Hamlet died.) Horatio chooses the former and calls Fortinbras.

Oh, and Hamlet occasionally calls Horatio “my good angel” because he looks after him and takes care of him. Horatio is really normal about this.

[agentravensong]

post-hamlet thoughts

tl;dr my college did hamlet and i was in it and it was cool

first of all, in case i hadn't made this clear already, this was entirely student-produced. i mean, we got some money from the theater department, but people-wise, it was all students.

i've told the rest of the cast this time and time again, but they're so good. insanely dedicated and humbling in their talent.

our hamlet, horatio, ophelia, and laertes were all freshman, and they were all stellar. ophelia and laertes broke my heart every night in the second half with their anger and their sadness. horatio always brings top energy to scenes and had lots of funny moments (espec counting his doubling as the second gravedigger) but also made me feel things (we staged act 4 scene 6 as him alone on stage reading hamlet's letter to the audience and he killed it every time). and our hamlet was just incredible; a pleasure to act against as guildenstern and a pleasure to watch / listen to in their more emotional scenes.

and everyone else was great too! our polonius was always funny but also had genuine moments of connection with his kids; our cladius brought some great depth to the role (his take on the monologue in act 3 scene 3 was great) while still being despicable, especially in his manipulation of laertes; our gertrude brought our director's take on her to life impeccably; and, of course, i had a wonderful and hilarious partner in our rosencrantz :)

not to mention our quartet of players (who also filled out the other miscellaneous roles) who had a ton of great moments. shout-outs in particular to the guy who doubled as the first gravedigger and sang his sung lines as a sea shanty (honestly, i think he could have been a great guildenstern or rosencrantz in another universe).

the crew, of course, was also amazing. there were like 150 cues? my friend (the writer i mentioned in this post) did a fantastic job with the lights. the people behind the staging and makeup did just as well. and the costumes were so fun! everyone looked great; we had a consistent black-white-red-brown color palette that tied it all together. special shout-out to the player king wearing a white shirt with a black cape while cladius wore a zipped-up leather jacket and a white cape.

oh, and me and ros? we got fedoras :) i may share a photo later. maybe.

we did our show in the college black box theater (inside the fine arts building), which i do not currently have the brain cells to try and explain the layout of. it's a kind of weird space, but i think we made the most of it. for the majority of the show i was off stage left, meaning i was hanging out at the top of the stairs which serve as the main entrance and exit to the theater (sitting/standing where i couldn't be seen by the audience obv). you can't really see the stage at all from there but you sure can hear the actors, and by the time of the show that was (mostly) enough for me.

as far as how the actual shows went?

friday was our most engaged audience. their laughter was greatly appreciated in the early scenes ...slightly less so when everyone was dying in the final scene. i mean, i get it, people start dropping like flies and actually foaming at the mouth and spitting out (fake) blood; it's a lot. i applaud hamlet and horatio for staying in character through it. everyone did a great job that night; it was probably better than all our dress rehearsals as a whole.

saturday, at least from my pov, had kind of weird vibes at the start? i don't know how much of it was people getting to bed late the previous night, how much of it was overconfidence, and how much of it was people getting in their own heads, but it was our lowest energy show. the audience wasn't as audibly engaged either, but they did give us a big applause. i felt more good than bad about it by the end, for sure.

especially in retrospect, because, despite us having a smaller crowd at today's matinee, everyone was back on the ball. the ending in particular i think was the best we've ever done it. it was probably my best performance as well.

to be clear, i wouldn't rate any of our three shows below an 8 out of 10, for what that's worth. everyone gave so much to their performances; the funny bits were funny even when the audience didn't seem to think so, and i was always getting caught up in my feelings in the second act. you can't ask for much more than that.

now, here's a compilation of things from the production in no real order:

i already posted about this, but having the blood stains on stage where people die from the beginning of every show? *chef's kiss*

i'll also restate the thing i mentioned in the tags of that post: characters who were murderers had symbolic blood makeup after they killed someone. cladius had a bloody ear from the start of the show, the meaning of which becomes clear once you see the player king get poison poured in his ears; hamlet got blood on their face during intermission that's meant to be polonius's blood; and, arguably most significantly, gertrude had bloody handprints around her neck when she entered at the end of act 4, which, in addition to her hair and arms being dripping wet, is meant to suggest that the story she tells about ophelia's death is, in fact, a cover for something less accidental.

as mentioned above, our director's take on gertrude in general was, from my understanding, pretty different from the standard. to quote from his character spines, "you fundamentally want to prepare your son hamlet to be king; you are playing essentially a game of chess to do so." it was really compelling to see in action. the way she performed act 4 scene 7? chilling.

speaking of those character spines, the first line of horatio's is literally just, "You are in love with Hamlet." and boy howdy did that come through

prime example of that (other than just, all of his and hamlet's interactions, which were wonderful): when horatio finished reading the letter from hamlet, he sniffed it, in a very sweet and very not-platonic way

it was an unintentional running gag throughout the whole process that other cast members would forget between ros and me which character we were playing - to the point that every performance, when hamlet first greeted us, even though i would get to them first, they addressed me first, and it's written that they say my name first, they would call me rosencrantz and our ros guildenstern. ...someone should write a play about that.

i might have posted about this already, but in ros and i's first scene with hamlet, when the two of them start talking about child actors, hamlet made us sit in the thrones, and we would make moves to leave of varying boldness that they, of course, never let us follow through on. this then got basically repeated in act 3 scene 2 except that horatio got to join in on the fun of relentlessly mocking us

(the thing where hamlet handed me their copy of william shakespeare's complete works while they dud the "what is a man" mimi monologue got dropped at some point in the dress rehearsals, unfortunately. they did flip through it with the players though)

during the play within a play, polonius would keep falling asleep and ros and i would keep waking him up

(we also got to do some fun silent banter back in act 2 scene 2 while hamlet and the players were doing their thing)

then the bit after that with the recorders, aka guildenstern's defining moment, was just so fun. hamlet and horatio basically sandwiched ros and me between the two of them, and hamlet and i played off each other very well (at least imo), and though i couldn't see what horatio and ros were doing behind me i know that it got some good laughs. and i could tell every night that the scene landed despite the shakespearean language barrier, so i can't help but be satisfied.

my other best moment was when the king told me to go get polonius's body from the stairs and i got to slump and make a "do i have to?" face before my (final) exit. i managed to actually get some chuckles from that tonight, from the crowd that, again, laughed the least in general, and i can't put into words how euphoric i was to have that be my last moment playing guildenstern.

from the rest of the second half of the show, which i am not in, i will highlight a) the gravedigger eventually realizing after shoveling for minutes on end that he's been shoveling literally nothing (love me a good little fourth wall break) and b) when hamlet and laertes come to physical blows over ophelia, horatio, on his line, steps between them, draws laertes's sword, and takes a stance pointing it at laertes to hold him off, all in basically one glorious motion.

oh, and the ending, of course.

as i alluded to way earlier, we had fake blood and alka-seltzer tablets that the people who died in act 5 scene 2 used to great effect (particularly the people who died via poison)

speaking of that scene, the sword fight was very neat! well-choreographed and well-enacted. real foils btw

and the way hamlet and horatio performed the ending? more than anything, the way hamlet said "give me the cup; let go!" - that shit hurt, in the best way, every night. (and though hamlet died in the king's throne (with the king's crown on), horatio held / clung to them the whole damn time)

for a lighter final note: our polonius doubled as fortinbras and came on at the ending in this huge, heavy, vampire-ass cloak, accompanied by our director as the messenger from england who announces my and ros's death :)

thankfully, we did record our last dress rehearsal, so we do have a version of it that we'll get to watch back in the future. i won't be able to share it with any of y'all (we will apparently be in BIG trouble if we post it anywhere online) but it'll be nice to have for me.

funny thing that happened while i was typing this long-ass post out: i kept using present tense and then realizing i had to change it to past tense. and by "funny" here, i mean, uh... oof.

we never got a perfect run-through where no lines were skipped over, but, i mean, it's fucking hamlet. we did this shit in like a month and a half (with a week lost to spring break); it's more than impressive that the show turned out how it did. it was a group labor of love, and one of the best things i've ever gotten to be a part of.

and i miss it already.

...at least there's movie night on tuesday :)

[withasideofshakespeare]

not sure if images work. i am once again asking for thy trans shakespeare headcanons please & thank you. i will Stop entering your ask box and leaving just not tonight

by the way in response to trans tn response (<3 love it) i raise thee t4t seb and ant (tn) (but also tempest) (reasoning: hits you w transgenderification beam)

ALL of my current Shakespeare trans HCs in one post??? I am going to try...

Hamlet:

Hamlet- he/they, transmasc (afab) (I’ve talked about this theory a few times, and I like it a lot for a variety of reasons! See my other posts.)

Ophelia- she/they, ftnb (projection. PROJECTION!!!)

Horatio- either mtnb he/they OR everybody’s token cis friend (Non-binary Horatio makes for 1. a beautiful t4t couple/throuple if Ophelia is here too and 2. a fun story about Horatio’s gender crisis upon meeting Hamlet. Token cis friend Horatio is just funny. Hamlet and Ophelia discuss their shared genderqueer experience and Horatio gives them a thumbs-up like “I don’t understand this but I love you.”)

Laertes- she/him, genderfluid. (I saw Laertes played by a woman the first time I saw this play and now that experience has combined with all the masc Laerteses I have seen to create genderfluid Laertes.)

Rosencrantz- he/they, mtnb (Their name shortens to “Rose”. There is no way he’s cis.)

Macbeth:

Malcolm- they/he or they/them. I cannot decide which direction they’re trans in. (I am generally very attached to Malcolm. Maybe I’ll write a post about this later because there is way too much to say here.)

Lady Macbeth- she/they (Lady Macbeth would insult you for “having pronouns in your bio” but would also hit you for using their pronouns incorrectly.)

I HC like all the minor characters in Macbeth to be trans in one direction or another (not for any good reason, I just think they should be) so trans Macbeth characters speedrun: Caithness- she/they, transfemme; Angus- she/her, transfemme, Ross- he/him, transmasc.

Twelfth Night:

Sebastian- he/him, ftm (Explains identical twins of different genders and I like the complexity it adds to his relationships- see my other post.)

Viola/Cesario/Vi/Visario- they/them, ftnb (Again, this explains the twin thing and I really like the idea of Vi using their identity as Cesario to explore their gender.)

Antonio- he/him, either ftm or token cis man (Similar to Horatio, you either get a great t4t pairing or a slightly confused cis man pulling a guy out of the ocean and inadvertently getting a lesson about trans people.)

Maria- she/her, mtf (Literally no reason, I just think she is transfemme.)

Much Ado:

I haven’t read this one in a hot minute, but Beatrice is a she/they icon.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Puck- they/them (Fairy gender doesn’t work like human gender, but they’re queer even for a fairy.)

Moth- she/they (Fairy gender things. Honestly, this goes for all Titania’s attendants.)

Titania- she/they

Oberon- he/they

Peter Quince- he/they (literally no reason, it just works)

Helena- she/her, transfemme perhaps (maybe he/they Lysander also?)

Romeo & Juliet:

I saw an all-trans/nb production of this play and now pretty much everybody is trans.

Romeo- he/they, ftm (t4t R&J!!!!)

Juliet- she/they, mtf (t4t R&J!!!!)

Mercutio- they/he, probably performs drag shows in his free time (the queerest person in this play, I love them.)

Juliet’s Nurse- she/her, mtf (Transfemme elders deserve love)

And that is all of my trans HCs off the top of my head.

[courfeyracs-swordcane]

teddy, king, beloved, sunbright,

what the fuck are the ballad brothers

Therse guys in my head. I don’t know very much about them but maybe making a masterpost will help? Literally I cannot emphasize enough how much I was just listening to music while I was driving and. now there’s guys in there. With a lot of implied sci-fantasy worldbuilding I don’t understand yet. Anyway!

Kyrie Aleidis Ballad

29, she/her, former sword-for-hire, current fugitive. The older Ballad Brother. Priorities include vibing and keeping things good for her baby brother (before) and trying to fix the world after it broke (metaphorically) while she was gone (after). Diagnosed big fuckoff “microchip sword like that guy from Transistor”

The Horatio to FG!C. The Gojo to Haibara. The Mordred to Gawain (HNOC). Also Guinevere (HNOC). Laertes (Hamlet). If Roddy was a little more serious and had less responsibility. Little bit of Cyclonus aswell but in a Whirl way. Dyker robobs if he was marginally less traumatized.

Alonzo ‘Toro’ Ballad

(Except only Kyrie is allowed to call him that)(Ari tried it once to be obnoxious and he punched them)

25, he/him, former Little Guy, current sword-for-hire. The younger Ballad Brother. Priorities include: being just like his sister when he grows up (before) and do you think he fuckin knows he’s just trying to get from day to day over here (after). Terminal funny bitch (emphasis on the bitch). He’s even asexual.

If Feldspar DM grew up to be FG!C/Underhill Jay Sleepaway. The Haibara to Gojo. Gawain HNOC. Tien Stormlight. Cyrus Planegays. They’re both kind of Zoro also actually. If Miki RGU grew up to be John-or-Benny OSCU. If you combined the entire Ricosquad robobs into one guy.

Ari Basil Finch (Seneca)

25, any pronouns, several jobs best summed up as Mad Scientist. (Weapons tech guy. Intern. Part time front desk in the financial department. Necromancer. Not the order they would put those in.) Priorities include: bringing their [somebody] back from the dead, causing problems on purpose. (No I don’t know who they’re trying to bring back I just know they can’t do it.)(why? good question.) Nepo baby extraordinaire. There’s something wrong with them in the brain <3

Other Things I Know:

there’s an organization

Kyrie fucked off to work there as a sword for hire when Alonzo was like 14 without saying anything (first time they had ever been meaningfully separated)

These bitches don’t have parents (possibly sci-fi shenanigans)

Alonzo found out that’s where she was a couple years later and joined up as soon as he could

Shortly before that she quit and/or got fired very very dramatically and became the organization’s Public Enemy Number One

Alonzo was kind of underground during that and he still doesn’t really know what’s going on. He’s not gonna get her ass tho.

At some point they have a confrontation swordfight on a roof. I don’t know what the deal with that is.

Alonzo and Ari have a weird fucked up gay thing going on best described as Part Time Boyfriends. Kind of dating. Also Ari is 100% milking the sugar daddy angle of Running Front Desk In The Financial Department. And also they’re kind of just coworkers (derogatory). (TLDR. POV you have to wrangle with the financial department at work to get your expenses account in order for your next assassination but you got a little too close to the guy running the front desk over there and now they think it’s funny to fuck with you)

Alonzo doesn’t have any faith in the necromancy. Heehoo!

That’s about it??? Rotations to follow.