#opheliete

[w4shingtons-arc]

you shoulders ached from trying to budge this stubborn door open. the harsh cold blowing against your side , your brain barely registering what the blonde had just said. did jess just-? oh . . oh. a small grin danced against your lips , green eyes looking over at your companion - your side numb from the force of your efforts.

" oh yeah? " you had teased , studying jess for just a moment. your movements halting before you spoke back up. " well , i certainly wouldn't mind going to the bone zone with you. " another push , the frost cold against your numbed shoulder. " ya' know . . maybe if we get out of here- " you fell over abruptly , the door bursting open with a loud crack.

dusting yourself off as you regained your balance , that same goofy grin never leaving your face as you cleared your throat. " ahem. after you , m'lady. "

@opheliete asked : ‘ when i imagined us grunting together ,  this is not what i pictured . ’

[rhysan3]

@opheliete sent : 〝   it’s okay. i don’t need you to help me…but if you wanna stick around while i fix it myself i wouldn’t mind the company. 〞 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗙𝗘𝗬𝗥𝗘

⠀⠀⠀. . .⠀⠀⠀⠀

he was like a child being scolded by its mother. eyes cast downwards as he sat hunched upon the little wooden stool in her studio. the black leather of his jacket shone slightly in the setting sun , head tipped downwards. it was surely a sight to behold , the high lord of the night in what appeared to be a time out. oh if cassian found out he would have a field day. it hadn’t started off like this , rhysand begging mor to come steal feyre from her painting studio so he could gift her a present. everything was going great ( if you counted the high lords painting looking like a child did it ) and yet he lost his footing when cassian appeared , smearing a line of black paint ALL OVER feyre’s colorful unfinished project. the general laughed , telling his brother that feyre was going to have a field day with him before disappearing , leaving rhys alone with the damaged painting. and yet, she completely was calm. almost too calm. rhysand was aware of this tactic females used ( specifically his mother ) , the calm before the storm but her words cause the high lord to look up eyebrows furrowed as he situates himself on the stool hands in his lap. 〝 you’re not mad? feyre darling , i certainly didn’t mean to.. it was never my intention to ruin something of yours. please , allow me to help you. 〞

[m1kaelsons]

❛ i can’t lose you again! ❜

ㅤㅤㅤhe knows the feeling , knows it so desperately . the fear , anger and desperation in his daughter's voice mimic the tenor his own thoughts had taken countless times over the last few years . ❛ you won't . ❜ it's a promise he can't truly make , and they likely both know that . but when faced with his daughter , he can do no other than attempt to comfort her . an instinct he's still rather unfamiliar with , as it had been born in tandem with @opheliete . he takes her hands in his , grounding himself in the process . ❛ i'll always be with you , even if we cannot actually be together . you have my word . ❜

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That is, until Hamlet recounts his journey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He wonders.

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

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

[whiskerwheat]

shakespeare is bad opheliet is good

[spencer-thunderstrike]

TEXT 🔪 OPHELIET

Harriet: Sometimes I hate this stupid place but then I remember how awful that place was and I hate it less but... I still hate it.

[m1kaelsons]

❛ i hate the way that i don’t hate you. ❜ from hayley / @opheliete .

ㅤㅤㅤtruly  ,  the  feeling  is  rather  mutual  .  their  relationship  is  anything  but  typical  ,  but  as  a  mikaelson,  he  would  be  foolish  to  expect  anything  else  .  they  rarely  see  eye  to  eye  ,  but  despite  all  the  odds  ,  hayley  is  just  a  part of  his  life  .  for  their  daughter  ,  of  course  ,  but  also  simply  because  they  had  formed  an  atypical  bond  along  the  way  .  friends  ?  frenemies  ,  perhaps  ?  regardless  ,  their  fates  are  irrevocably  entwined  .  '  it  would  make  things  a  lot  easier  if  you  did  ,  wouldn't  it  ,  love  ?  ' the teasing note lightens the mood , though the matching sentiment is reflected in his own gaze .

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

lrt been thinking again about a Hamlet Swap AU, this time about the logistics of Laertes and Ophelia sharing the Hamlet and Horatio roles of the original play. Slightly more emphasis on an Ophelia/Hamlet parallel, but both get to play the part.

Haven’t really worked things out, but the basic gist is that it’s likelier to be set in a more modern era, with both having lost their mother at a young age and having varying relationships with Polonius. But one day, Polonius dies of seemingly natural causes, and both are left in shock and grief.

Ophelia finds out, somehow, and quite probably in a non-ghost more actual-evidence manner that Polonius’s death was murder, more specifically murder via Claudius (that might have actually been an attempt to murder Hamlet Sr that went wrong). However, the evidence she finds is possibly coincidental and not conclusive enough to immediately jump to capital vengeance, so after telling Laertes of her discovery, the two agree that they must find some way to properly prove it.

Ophelia hasn’t been in a particularly good state of mind after the death of her father, but she decides she’s going to pretend to be perfectly fine and that she doesn’t need help in order to get people off her back so she can explore her theories further.

All the while, Ophelia’s boyfriend Hamlet notices that she’s putting up an emotional wall and tries to talk to her. His dad’s alive and well, and besides the fact that his girlfriend’s been in a spot of misery lately and he’s only just gotten back from Wittenberg to be able to comfort her, he’s doing otherwise just fine. He’d come prepared, having asked his good friend Horatio for advice on how to empathise with those who’d lost loved ones, and Horatio had warned him that she might act different and could counter-intuitively, possibly need space. Also Horatio is totally in love with Hamlet. So Hamlet does give her some space eventually, but he’s really concerned.

Gertrude also tries to talk to Ophelia, but she brushes her off. Laertes, who’s been less present in the story so far because he’s been off trying to figure out how to gather evidence, comes back with news of something new that might help them.

This is where I start to have less details figured out.

Hamlet eventually confronts Ophelia, desperate to try and help her, and she’s alllllmost contemplating telling him the truth and asking for his help when she realises they’re being watched, by she assumes either Claudius, Gertrude, Hamlet Sr, or some combination, and so she decides not to. Instead, she yells at him, accusing him of being a terrible person and not being there for her and then not leaving her alone when she asks, for only wanting to get in her pants (i’ll totally explore her objectification in this one too and this will be relevant even if it’s not really true I prommy), and almost insinuating that she’s seeing someone else in order to break his heart and get him to move on, hopefully leave, because she knows things are about to get messy. It looks like it might work, and he’s super sad about it.

Blah blah blah, equivalent of the Mousetrap, Ophelia and someone else (possibly Laertes, probably Hamlet, possibly someone else from around the castle) talk, and Hamlet Sr, hiding in the curtains, gets stabbed. Hamlet finds the body (if he wasn’t the one to talk to Ophelia in the previous scene) with Ophelia, freaks out, goes to find someone to tell them about it and walks in on his mother and his uncles totes having an affair (yikes). It’s no wonder he goes mad.

Ophelia is sent away, and Hamlet is forced to stay. He does sort of lose his marbles a little bit, but instead of singing and giving out flowers like Ophelia, he rambles about death and talks nonsensically to himself in the court. And by ‘talks nonsensically’, I mean reverts to speaking in only direct quotes from the original Shakespearean play in this modern adaptation. see Gertrude or someone remarking on how he’s clearly lost his mind and is speaking nonsense all while Hamlet is clearly and obviously reciting the ‘to be or not to be’ speech to himself.

Horatio comes quickly from England, but the very night he gets there, he’s pulled aside by Marcellus to deal with something on the roof. That something is Hamlet, shivering and wide-eyed, talking about the ghost of his father. Horatio can’t stop the prince as he follows, slips, and falls off to his death.

Meanwhile Ophelia doesn’t have a Royal Sigil on her, but she does have a brother, and Laertes comes and helps bust her out during her transport, takes care of the messengers, and brings her back to the castle. The two seal their fates together, and vow revenge.

That’s pretty much where I’ve thought up to (there WILL be a fistfight in the grave between Horatio and Ophelia about who loved Hamlet more) but yeah it’s just for the sillies