#posthumus

[mummer]

just saw asteroid city last night, pls explain the proposed significance of the kiss!!

answering this publicly hope thats ok! cant do a readmore im on mobile *****asteroid city spoilers below beware*****

i dont remember anyones names so this is gonna sound partly unhinged. okay so the edward norton playwright and jason schwartzman actor (not character, in the black and white parts) are lovers right. tbh i thought this was kind of a gag and forgot about it. but later we find out that the playwright died 6 months into the production. i didnt make the connection that THAT’s why the actor-jason has to suddenly leave the stage and freaks out backstage about how he’s not sure he’s Doing it right. hes not talking about acting!! because he himself is literally grieving his lover while he’s playing a character who’s grieving his wife written by his lover so obviously it’s too much!!! actor-jason is trying to find meaning in his death through his writing but there isnt any meaning in death [gerris drinkwater voice] which is what the play is trying to say anyway. he doesnt think he’s performing grief right even in his own life!!! (and tbh it’s the 50s so he wouldnt be able to perform grief publicly anyway!!!!) the play starts with a car accident… anyone would search for some hidden meaning there, some sign…. so when he talks to margot robbie outside it’s not really about finding the CHARACTER’s motivations it’s about the actor himself being able to process the playwright’s death! and adrien brody director was probably also dealing with that too (him and norton seemed to be good buddies) so the whole “sleeping backstage” thing gets a bit sadder maybe? maybe everyone else got this in the theatre and im just stupid lol but crazy making stuff to me!!! the whole story is about sublimated gay grief that cannot be expressed?!?!

the tweet that caught me onto this was here which posits that the playwright’s death was a suicide but i think that’s pretty stupid and unnecessary because the whole thing about the play asteroid city is that death is random and meaningless. im pretty sure that’s what the alien represents— a shocking and absurd event that isnt outright evil or menacing, not something anyone can predict or make sense of, it’s just a thing that happens to you out of nowhere, it doesnt mean anything. he’s a little black figure, he’s death! giving and taking! aagh

[insanityclause]

Cymbeline

'Posthumus/Cloten'

Cheek By Jowl, February - July, 2007

*Won a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Newcomer in a Play

[eastsidemags]

Marleys Ghost Signing w/ Gideon Kendall

Gideon Kendall, the spectacular artist behind some of great reads like WAIT IT GETS WORSE and the all-ages hit MEGAGHOST, returns to East Side Mags with his new-ish book HARVEY KURTZMAN’S MARLEY’S GHOST!

We say “new-ish” because it’s largely a story most people are familiar with however there’s a bit of a twist on ole Charles Dicken’s tale. Here’s the info:

ABLAZE and Comixology Originals are proud to present Harvey Kurtzman's Marley's Ghost. Enjoy this Eisner Award Winning version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol in graphic novel form, in print for the first time! 

Marley's Ghost is the posthumous completion of legendary creator Harvey Kurtzman's adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens' novel―A Christmas Carol. Kurztman's ambitious concept for Marley's Ghost began in the 1950s―as an early "graphic novel"―but was never realized. Now, over 70 years later, writers Josh O'Neill and Shannon Wheeler expand upon Kurtzman's extensive adaptation notes while illustrator Gideon Kendall's outstanding artwork utilizes Kurtzman's breakdowns and stylistic choices to make this long-lost vision a reality!

This great holiday read is ideal for ages 10 and up due to some “spooky stuff and talk of death”!

Join us as we welcome back Gideon on November 16 from 2pm-5pm. We’ll have copies of the book that Gideon will be happy to sign and possibly some other surprises as well!

[the-noisiest-pumpkin]

projecting my feelings onto iachimo like my life fucking depends on it <3

[astronomodome]

siege perilous

[whencartoonsruletheworld]

there's a lot of shakespeare comedy characters who do morally reprehensible things that get written off when they really shouldn't. like the token example is claudio from much ado about nothing but honestly of these characters my absolute favorite is posthumus (yes that's his actual name) from cymbeline. he's given legitimately compelling evidence that his wife is cheating on him (the guy literally describes how she looks naked) so it's reasonable for him to believe it. it is NOT reasonable for him to immediately order her murdered, that was way too far but again, shakespeare comedy, bitches can get away with anything. the reason he's my favorite of this trope is he felt bad about doing so BEFORE finding out she was innocent, meaning he had like. a conscience? but not just that after feeling bad about it he immediately switches to "well you know it's fine if women cheat a little. we shouldn't really care that much" like dude i don't think that's the lesson you should have taken from this but also that's an insanely funny stance to take. "well maybe she cheated but only a little." i'm glad you and your crossdressing wife are happy and that nobody actually cheated on each other and you learned to think before sending assassins

[novasjaneway]

Star Trek: Voyager - Nara (J/7)

[boleynqueenes]

"...the hill on which the Queen and John Dudley stand collapses into the earth... " | Nowe Thus | Chapter 21.

[crowtoed]

Wanted to share my Mourn Watch Rook, Colley (born Melencolia, a proper Nevarran name) Ingellvar: mage, goth, can-doster. His eyebrows don't take dye well, poor dear. He'd probably look older if he grew some facial hair, but he wants to keep tidy while cleaning and laying out the dead (something an IRL friend who's a funeral director bemoans). As it stands though, Emmrich gets so much shit for dating him.

[pumpkinz-art]

have i shared this yet

[mrjonathanmurray]

posthumus? yeah he sure will be when i’m done with him

[britneyshakespeare]

I just finished my rereading and annotating of The Young King by Aphra Behn (in preparation for a paper I'm writing comparing and contrasting it with Shakespeare's Cymbeline, with which it has many significant parallels), and I do have to say. Like Cymbeline, it was a play I read the first time and was absolutely mesmerized by the complexities of it and the excitement, the deceit, the convoluted romance of it all... the wild twists and turns and seemingly unsolvable crises that end in perfect resolution and happiness... and then I just had to reread it myself a few months later to re-experience all that exhilaration, and I discovered it was not just novelty or cheap twists and turns that made me feel so taken in by it, but it really was a perfectly crafted and well-conceived drama, where everything slowly but surely falls entirely into place, against all odds... the settings and characters are rendered so considerately and are just totally charming, sympathetic, and engrossing...

It's a shame that these two plays are so tragically underrated but especially, especially the Young King. Cymbeline has an odd but certain place in the literary canon, if only because it was written by Shakespeare and included in his conceptual body or work upon publication of the First Folio. It has never been as widely lauded as a work like Hamlet or Othello, nearly perfectly-conceived tragedies that brought esteem to the very art of English theater. But even if not classically beyond reproach, much about it has also been the subject of fascination, especially the character of Imogen, who is one of Shakespearean finest characters and most admirable heroines.

The Young King is an obscure, mysterious work from a historically marginalized and excluded author, overlooked for defying the literary and theatrical conventions of its time, which were much less liberal than the Jacobeans... even critics and scholars of Aphra Behn hardly ever touch upon the Young King with much seriousness. It's somewhat notable because it seems to be her first attempt at playwriting, which she only revised and produced many years later when her works had been long successful on the stage. But I've read critical analyses of her works that dismiss the Young King as trite and poor, without much dissection of it other than that it was maybe her first play and she might've written it in Surinam. But it's very unique in her body of work, obviously, but it's not deemed worthy of consideration compared to all her bawdy, excellent, conventionally-Carolean sex and intrigue comedies. It's really such a shame.

[shipcestuous-two]

has Cymbeline (the Shakespeare play) come up before? Princess Imogen secretly marries her love Posthumus Leonatus, an orphan who was adopted and raised within the king's family. meanwhile, her stepmother plots to marry her to the mom's shitty son from a prev relationship, Cloten (I's stepbrother). lots of stuff happens, including Cloten trying to kill Posthumus so he can abduct/marry Imogen (he dies--good). ask 1/2 bc there's more deets

Cymbeline 2/2: Cloten was killed by one of 2 friends Imogen made along the way, Guiderius and Arviragus. Well, it turns out they're long-lost sons of the king, making them Imogen's biological brothers! This is great for Imogen, bc since she isn't the only bio successor to her dad, she's free to be with her true love (and adoptive brother) Posthumus. And her cruel stepmother is outed for being, well, cruel. all's well that ends well? (3/3 bc i'm an idiot) I neglected to mention that there's an undertone with Guiderius and Arviragus's relationship with their sister when they meet her, not knowing they're siblings. Imogen is disguised as a boy named Fidele (bc this is Shakespeare and we can't have Shakespeare without gender fuckery and queer undertones) and her brothers are so intrigued by "him" in a way that's easily read as homoerotic. I lowkey ship them and Posthumus in a weird messy polycule, even if it doesn't make sense

I'm not familiar with Cymbeline. It's really keeping it in the family, isn't?

Thanks for the deets, Anon!

[the-noisiest-pumpkin]

woe, posthumus/iachimo ficlet be upon ye

[lilithsaintcrow]

"Two years later, Piri started making maps that were among the most accurate of their time."