#re: romeo montague.

[capuletragedy]

@montaguetragedy

NATHAN SCOTT & HALEY JAMES SCOTT — 1.04, “Crash Into You”

[strawberryclementine]

Franco Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968)

[theex1t]

.

[conflictofthemind]

Your recent post about electromagnetism was great, but I want to know your theories on how time travel will play into the plot of season 5. I hope they won't use time travel to "fix the past" and rewrite the timeline (although I doubt that will happen).

Oh man I have so many thoughts. This is a whole can of worms to open up (which I will be doing eventually). But yes I agree with you 100%, I don’t think it will end in them rewriting the timeline. Or if they do, it will be through a creation of a new one and all of the characters will still be able to retain their previous memories. There still needs to be lasting consequences for every action, and the impacts of each characters’ decisions plus the entire story should stay with them.

Right now the main pet project that I’ve been working on gradually is something I’ve been calling the “play theory” (kind of a shit title); basically that Melvin is what’s dooming the narrative and causing the main characters to be trapped inside of a time loop. I’ll explain it condensed here but the post I have cooking is already 6 pages at least.

It first came from that whole Melvin “star-crossed lovers” “Romeo and Juliet” thing, and lines within the TFS play that is… also inspired itself by another “star-crossed doomed” lovers play. There are so many weird meta layers to it all.

There’s multiple 4th wall breaks in TFS where Henry tries to escape the theatre and seems to be aware he is performing on a stage. There’s also a very pointed dialogue which is where I finally started making this into a fully fledged theory:

“It’s a sad song, I like the gay ones best”.

“It doesn’t have to be sad, you never know the ending until it’s sung all the way through”.

“Then let’s make it a gay one”.

“Sing your own ending”.

And what a weird theme to choose, because the answer “in the play” is actually no, it can’t. TFS is a sad song, a continuation of the time loop. A play. But that surely won’t be the case for Stranger Things, because we’ve been told that Will’s superpower is his heart and he gets a happy ending.

As Mike performs his “love” for the audience, the name Montague (for Romeo Montague) appears behind him.

Basically, the characters are conforming to the pre-written roles they have already been assigned to (by society) and are forced to enact, and re-enact, a tragedy of two doomed lovers. The curtain on a play closes but the next night the story begins all over again, to a new audience, always with the same ending. Like a time loop. Like a never ending story.

Mike’s decision to keep playing the role of Romeo to El’s Juliet will result in Will beginning the time loop. So Will starts the time loop, and I expect Mike will be the one to finally break them out of it.

[idylliclament]

The Course of Love: Professor D./Reader (Resident Lover) [Snippet]

When one misstep from Cassandra leads to her opting out of the school play to you preforming as the lover for the world of theatre, you find yourself dressed beside Professor Dimitrescu, awaiting the curtains to reveal the light. OR: You are Romeo. She is Juliet—and your professor.

You know all too well that Cassandra, daughter of the Professor Dimitrescu and star of Mother Miranda All Girls' University, can be quite the—

"Yea, noise? Then I'll be brief. O happy dagger!" Juliet's finger curls over the pommel, releasing the weapon from the deceased Romeo's belt; the first for a fair girl. "This is thy sheath;" She lifts the dagger and points the blade to her chest, thrusting in with the carry of a sharp gasp. "there rust, and let me die." She mutters her final words to the audience, dramatically so for the effect, before joining the body that lays beside her. The death marks the end of a young love that how so appealing, would so too be pronounced guilty on six charges (With one manslaughter.) of murder.

Woe, Juliet, by a miracle come true, walks the day once more and converses with Romeo on stage, rolling up his sleeve to write her phone number on.

"ENOUGH!"

—clutter, one you cannot pinpoint a singular word to ascribe to it.

Cassandra, the actress posing as Juliet, sheepishly winks at the director before bringing herself up, dusting off her dress as the backstage crew steps in, beginning to re-arrange the equipment for a restart of the scene.

"The rest is silence, as Hamlet said. I advise the same to you all." Cassandra declares elegantly, holding up a hand in honour.

She stretches her arms out, standing tall for her upcoming soliloquy, that of which is but a ramble. She has always been one to become her character in act.

"We all know he's the best Shakespearean hero to take advice from." Estera reacts scornfully, mocking Cassandra, who discards her response nonetheless.

"Well, the play should have ended here, the perfect moment. People come to watch Romeo and Juliet for Romeo and Juliet. I bet you no one buying our tickets knows any of the other characters' names or even the plot itself." Cassandra raises fair points, receiving differing answers to her words, with a 'Don't steal my thunder after stealing the whole show.' from Prince Escalus and two 'The final lines have meaning even if they're not said by you, attention whore.' from Lord Montague and Lord Capulet, respectively. 

With a quick turn of her heel, Cassandra shifts to face your classmates and instead, shamelessly so, falls behind and into the Capulet tomb, pushing it against Romeo, injuring the actress (You wonder how the poor thing could deserve such luck?).

'A minor sprain', they said, would not mean a new rehearsal nor a hundred so students aligned politely at 8 in the morning with playbooks and mugs in hand, determined to prove themselves a candidate, a suitor even, fit to be the new Juliet's new Romeo. 

Most shocking of all, you had not pictured a goddess ascending down on a rainy Monday of exam week to throw a dice and gamble her chance for a role—Oh, wait, now, that hat does seem most familiar...

"Professor Dimitrescu? What are you doing here?!" A wave of students exclaim at the sight of Cassandra's own mother, here to replace her daughter as the tale's heroine; a dispute between family, to be called the classical soap opera trope you were but swoon over with as a teenager. 'O, traitorous villainy!' shouts the audience, yet in your love would this woman be cherished.

Suddenly, Romeo seems a fate for you to play.

Ignore the low-quality edit. It has become a ritual for me.

The full work will be posted later on ao3. When? Great question...

[margridarnauds]

Re-Tellings of Romeo and Juliet We Haven’t Gotten Yet

- Romeo and Juliet, but we follow it from Escalus’ point of view, where Peepaw just wants to read his book about the rise of the Fall of the Roman Empire but the feud keeps interrupting his reading with some of the most batshit drama imaginable. 

- Romeo and Juliet from Rosaline’s point of view, where she doesn’t fall in love with a guy or have a Not Like Other Girls complex, but where she’s just hearing everything from about five different layers of often conflicting gossip.

- Romeo and Juliet, but it’s filtered from Paris’ point of view, where Juliet is Totally Into Him and the Montagues are trying to get in the way. (Right until he gets stabbed.) 

- Romeo and Juliet from Lady Montague’s POV, where, in an Ophelia (2018)-esqe twist, it turns out that she faked her suicide after Romeo’s death in order to get the hell away from Verona. 

[andalitean]

Rachelcrantz and Tobiastern are dead: the compilation

in the words of @brechtian​, “what if we were two characters trapped in the narrative and spiraling towards an inevitably tragic ending. and we were in love”

aka every time these two took “all the world’s a stage” a little too seriously. inspired by this, where @lorenfangor​ quoted rachel in book 37:

[“So it’s a trap. An inevitability. You are who you are. Character is plot. Character is destiny.”]

#3 (Tobias)

["But part of me kept saying, ‘It's a lie. It's a lie. You are the hawk. The hawk is you. And Tobias is dead.’"]

#7 (Rachel)

["Jake’s voice in my head kept saying, <Rachel, morph out. Morph out. You’re out of control! You are OUT of control! Morph!>. / I was clawing wildly at the air, trying to kill the tiger that was suspended above me in the dropshaft. / Trying to kill Jake. / I felt as if I had snapped awake from a dream. / Slowly, as we rose toward the surface, I left the bear and returned to myself."]

["’I’m so sick of this,’ I said again, a little more softly. ‘What’s the point? What’s the point in anything? we know the future now. We know what happens if we decide to stay and fight.’ / I felt lost. The last ounce of energy just seeped away from me. It was too much. Too many things to deal with. And what was the point? What did it even matter what I did? / I flopped down on the grass and pine needle-covered ground, and rested my head in my hands. I was done. Done trying to make sense of a world where I could be jerked back and forth like a puppet."]

#17 (Rachel)

[“Everyone in a group has a role to play. At least that’s how it always works out. My role was to say, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s go. That’s what we came here for.’ / But I was tired. And I’d had a really, really bad few days digging down to this stupid cave. / So I said, <Let’s do it. That’s what we came here for.> / Sometimes it’s hard to get out of a role once you’ve started playing the part.”]

#22 (Rachel)

[“I tried to remember, but it wasn’t like I was thinking about myself. It was like I was remembering some girl I used to know. Like she was an acquaintance I’d forgotten about until someone reminded me. It was like, ‘Oh, yeah, Rachel. I remember her.’”]

[“Then there he was. Saddler. David. He swaggered in like he owned the world and everything in it. I so wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. But that wasn’t in the script. My role was to seem chastised, beaten down. Defeated and humiliated. That’s what we figured he’d want. That’s what would make him happy.”]

[“I nodded, meek and afraid. David searched my face through Saddler’s eyes. Was he suspicious? Had I overplayed my part? / Then he reached across and smeared the re-fried beans down the sleeve of my shirt. And laughed. / So I did something I don’t do much. I started to cry.”]

#23 (Tobias)

["I mean, what was I thinking? Rachel’s a human. A real human. I’m a hawk. You think Romeo and Juliet were doomed, just from being from families that didn’t like each other? Well, you can’t get any more doomed than caring for someone who isn’t even the same species."]

#27 (Rachel)

[“If Cassie had said it, Jake wouldn’t have told her she was overreacting. He would have agreed. He would have thought she was being sensibly cautious. / Wasn’t I allowed to be cautious? / No, of course not, I thought bitterly. I’m supposed to be a reckless fighting machine and fighting machines don’t feel caution or fear. And even if they do, they don’t advertise it. / ‘Well, excuse me, I guess I’ll just shut up and follow orders,’ I said.”]

#33 (Tobias)

[”Rachel stared at the wall. I looked at the floor. In an instant, the bulletin board display had thrown our friendship into the harsh light of reality. Rachel was a girl who could, on occasion, become a bird of prey. I was a hawk who could, on occasion, become human. / Several big steps past being Montagues and Capulets like Romeo and Juliet. Remaining hawk meant meals of still-living mice.”]

[”<Guys. Wait a minute,> I interrupted. / ‘What is it?’ Jake asked. / I swooped down from the rafter to the floor. Loose straw swirled in small eddies as I touched down. A ray of light from a crack in the barn wall bathed my feathers in yellow light. It was almost too much. Too theatrical. I half-expected angels to hover up out of the hayloft and break into song. / <It’s me,> I said. <I’m the one who has to go.>”]

[”<Let go,> I mumbled to myself. <Let go of yourself.> / ‘What was that you said?’ Taylor asked. / Irrelevant. She was nothing, I was the hawk. / Deeper into the hawk. Go away, weak human boy. / I seemed to stand outside my body. Hawk, human - everything. My mind began to race, the manic frenzy of madness. Up above it all. / A wave of self-pity, followed by a wave of hatred, followed by the unbearable weight of despair. The pain sped everything up. Faster and faster. Panic, fear, sadness. / But somehow... / Using the half of me that was equipped to process pain, I was enduring it. Close down your human mind! It’s your only hope, I told myself. Focus on the hawk.”]

[“Focus on the part of you where the pain is less subversive. Less destructive. / Sink into your hawk self, Tobias. Deep into your raptor self. / But the images! / Fragments of memory. Random memory. Flashing uncontrollably across my mind’s screen. / Insanity! Madness! / A hyper-speed slide show. / Fleeting, Irrepressible. Dominating my reality and impossible to control. Turn it off. Off!”]

37 (Rachel) (this one is included mainly because she references Hamlet which is really funny to me)

[”’Not likely. I’m the one who does hard and fast. And relentless.’ / ‘And reckless,’ Marco shot back. / ‘While you want to sit around and think every stupid little step to death,’ I spat. ‘You’ve got a Hamlet complex, Marco.’ / ‘Yeah, and there’s a method to my madness. Which is more than I can say about your finer moments.’”]

43 (Tobias)

[”’Hey. No matter what you think, Tobias, Taylor’s not your responsibility. Besides, how often is it possible to see the big picture, really?’ Rachel said. ‘Things happen fast. You just have to make the best decision you can and then go for it. You know what? I’d do the same thing again, if I had to.’ / ‘How can you say that?’ / ‘With me, it’s about instinct. I knew we had to dig that tunnel. Turns out I was right, but for the wrong reasons. If we hadn’t gotten involved with Taylor, Cassie wouldn’t have known about the plan, wouldn’t have talked to Tidwell, wouldn’t have worried about us. But she did. And it opened up a course of events that couldn’t have occurred otherwise. It ended up saving the Yeerk peace faction. It was a good investment.’”]

48 (Rachel)

[”I felt like I was watching everyone from behind a Plexiglass window. / I just wasn’t there. I couldn’t relate, not to the teachers, the boys, the girls. I couldn’t even pretend to relate.”]

53 (Jake!!!) (i think this quote is the most tragic...)

[”’We blew up one Yeerk pool,’ Rachel said cockily. ‘So we blow up another. Badda-boom. Nothing to it.’ / She knew better, of course. She was just playing her part.”]

54 (Rachel)

[”I could see the viewscreen. I could see my best friend Cassie. Jake. Marco, funny Marco. Ax. / Tobias. / He had morphed. He was his human self once more. He’d done that for me. And because he was crying, I understood. Humans cry, hawks don’t. / ‘I love you,’ I said to the screen. / And oh, god, how could so much regret and so much sweetness and so much sadness all be present in that single moment. I was already dead and missing my unlived life. I was already dead and Tobias was mourning. / I tried to smile. For him.”]

[”I wanted to much to live. I wanted so much to stay and not to leave. In a moment no answer would matter to me, but just the same, I wanted to know what I guess any dying person wants to know. / ‘Answer this, Ellimist: Did I... did I make a difference? My life, and my... my death... was I worth it? Did my life really matter?’ / ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You were brave. You were strong. You were good. You mattered.’ / ‘Yeah. Okay, then. Okay, then.’ / I wondered if-”]

[cto10121]

R&J Clown Takes Round ♾️ Part 14

Featuring a lot of recycled clownery, some comments on the recent Jamie Lloyd production, which looks to be a mess of clownery as well, and R&J being such a ~~light-hearted comedy. On nom nom

Tag yourself, I’m “a critic second.”

I like how Clown OP had to act like the Chorus’ very flattering and romantic description of R&J was a literal prophecy. 🤣 Like R&J were some Lord of the Rings-esque fantasy novel.

So “star-crossed lovers” have nothing to do with R&J being destined to fall in love. It literally means “crossed by the stars.” As in, the forces of the universe hate their guts and fucked them over. This idea is repeated with the Friar saying that Death is “enamored” with Romeo’s parts (the French musical as always picked up on that brilliantly) and that he and Juliet are “wedded to calamity.”

You said it, Clown OP! Fuck *checks list* Titanic, Casablanca, Pyramus and Thisbe, The Fault in Our Stars, Brokeback Mountain, Moulin Rouge, The Bridges of Madison County, The Notebook, The English Patient, and all of dem cats. No one on this earth has ever or will ever think of these as love stories!!!!

“The families weren’t paying attention—” The Capulets tried to marry Juliet off because she “wept immoderately” for Tybalt’s death. Because she felt sad for the death of her own cousin. Before that they kept Juliet under almost constant supervision, and Juliet herself is called for at least three times.

The only accusation of neglect that may ring true is the Montagues, who are so hands-off they have to get freakin’ Benvolio, their own nephew, to find out about their own son. Even so, they seem much nicer than the Capulets. Lady M died of heartbreak over Romeo’s banishment and even in his madness Romeo made sure to let his parents know via letter of his intentions.

“R&J Is A Comedy!!1!!1” Round ♾️

So this is what happens in the “light-hearted” first half of the play before Mercutio’s and Tybalt’s deaths that these clowns insist is a comedy:

Sampson and Gregory joke about killing and raping Montague women

Tybalt threatens to murder Benvolio and attacks him

The Prince threatens to execute anyone who disturbs the peace again

Romeo talks about how Rosaline has sworn never to have sex and what an awful waste it is that she won’t open her legs to that sweet golden cum 😔

Capulet thinks Juliet is too young for marriage, but Paris cheerfully says that younger girls than she is (13-14) are already “happy mothers” 🤢

Lady Capulet tells Juliet that she was around her age (13-14) when she had Juliet—so that makes it a-OK to get her married!

The Nurse reminisces fondly about the time her husband joked about two-year-old Juliet having sex eventually when she gets smarter. Not older. Smarter. 🤮Oh, and she also casually drops the fact that the Capulets left Juliet with the Nurse and said husband while they were in Mantua doing fuck knows what

Mercutio’s fantastical Queen Mab speech becomes dark really quickly as he talks about raping virgins

Romeo has a presentiment of his untimely demise…which eventually comes true

Juliet worries that their love will be “like lightning”—here and gone before you know it

The Nurse believes Paris is hotter/better than Romeo for Juliet, which makes Juliet mad, foreshadowing their rupture

The Friar gives a dark warning in his famous “These violent delights” speech about the longevity of too-swift love

I think it’s obvious that there are attempts by Shakespeare to 1) satirize the feud and violent Veronian society and its gender roles and 2) foreshadow Romeo and Juliet’s death and set up the tragedy re: the Nurse’s betrayal of Juliet.

Just because a tragedy isn’t all doom and woe for 2 hours doesn’t mean it isn’t a tragedy. There is the danger, yes, of a production being 100% intense 100% of time; the dark comedy/satire is very much necessary from a thematic standpoint. I reckon that was the fault of this Jamie Lloyd one. But I read this shit when I was 10 and Mercutio’s and Tybalt’s deaths didn’t surprise me at ALL. It was an “oh shit” moment, sure. But I definitely understood why it occurred and I was not surprised. A good R&J production should have that same feeling.

[peachmouthwash]

Re-watching the ol' Baz Romeo + Juliet and they really had the audacity

The casting. The gun check outside the party. The iconography. These FACES! Leo! Claire! Everyone talks about Johnny Legz in his Virgin Mary waistcoat but spare a thought for his red sequinned number with the huge starched white collar. The cars! The Montague Boyz. The queerness. Oh my god. Everyone looks so good. No stationary surface was spared a gilding or a touch of glitter. Whatever it is Baz is huffing I hope he has a lifetime supply

[homoirrealis]

Re-listened Miles interview and I wonder...

So I went back to listen to Miles Kane on X-Posure with John Kennedy on RadioX

Thoughts on the topic: 1. He mentions that  in the song The Best Is Yet To Come there is a line “With me, Big Lew and Romeo” He says Big Lew and "one of me best mates who we nkckname Romeo… going to a pub together".  We know who big Lew is - check this video But who can be this Romeo…. Hm…  Quick thoughts: - Alex talking about Romeo and Juliette in I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor "Oh, there ain't no love, no Montagues or Capulets" - "Only Ones Who Know" lyrics being basically a sonnet covering the same ground - Cleveland or this video

2. 14:35 and for like 2 minutes where Miles rambles (which is strange - Miles does not usually ramble), because he is honest. The moment he needs to think what he is saying and how he slows down and this happens... "Looking back on things… Things not working out.. it’s okay… i'm stil in “it would be nice” that was a beautiful little chapter. It doesn't mean it’s bad or wrong, it wasn't right at that time " 3. Firstly, of course the look - it has been mentioned before: Talking about Baggio - men looking a certain way, sexy but powerful, having long hair (mullet ponytail) 

But then he says Baggio being "puppetsy" song, reminiscent for him of Aviation, “godfather-y” guitar    ....

4. Ransom having Richard Hawley vibe… About holding yourself to ransom or the person… 

5. Doubles - “I miss my two player high” being a bit cheesy reference of playing mario kart with his ex 

6. Heal - time is a great healer, rushing decision to take love out of equation   

[dnatalok]

I have to say, re-watching Gnomeo and Juliet after I’ve had to dissect the play with my blood, sweat, and tears, I’m digging into the parallels more than I should.

The obvious Romeo and Juliet

Forbidden love, love at first sight, etc etc etc

Montague and Capulet

They hate each other

We even have a Paris and Nurse parallel

Tybalt

The angry dude that dies fighting Romeo

These two ending the family feud only when their families are in ruin and they think their children are dead.

But the thing that I still can’t figure out is the role of Mercutio and Benvolio.

Sure, his name is Benny, probably short for Benvolio, and he sticks to Gnomeo’s side the whole time.

But honestly?

He’s more of a Mercutio

Because

Mf is an instigator. Always looking for a something to do or to fight

He fights Tybalt, almost gets him and Gnomeo caught when vandalizing, and he was the catalyst for the whole lawnmower situation that nearly killed everyone.

These two, I feel, are more Benvolio material.

They’re kind, patient, and actually helpful. Stark contrast to whatever Benny/Mercutio were.

Anyways, that’s it. Just had to point that out.

[ifyourefree]

Fate, Plummeting and the Eventual Sorrow

Shakespeare emphasizes time in a lot of his work, the notion of being early, being late, most specifically being both early AND late at the same time. 

At first, I couldn’t understand how one can be both late and early at the same time—I kept thinking of the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, his panicked yelps of “I’m late! Oh goodness, I’m late” before scampering off into the rabbit hole of the land. But I guess, the core of the tense is that it is essential to look at it from a multitude of directions. When Romeo dances with Juliet at the masquerade ball, Juliet falls in love with him. After finally realizes his true identity, she says this:

“My only love sprung from my only hate, / Too early seen unknown, and known too late! / That I must love a loathed enemy” (1.5).

And what that means is that it’s too early for these feelings of passion and affection to occur—they had literally just met—, and yet, it’s too late in that the feelings have already engrained themselves into both characters, despite them being enemies. And that’s another division too, that Romeo is her one love, sprouted from her one enemy, the Montagues. And yet, it’s fate for these divisions to occur, and fate yet again when Romeo is too early,,,or at least the letter of their plan of escape is too late, which leads to both lovers’ collective demise: death. 

I think about contrast, divisions, chasms in themes a lot these days, not just loving and losing, but early and late, forever and never, how I find myself either plummeting or rising, and how sometimes it all feels the same. Each day is quite eventful and I find it easy to laugh, and yet when I have nothing to do, I am quiet and reflective. I overthink the silence and wonder if I’m doing anything correctly, if it is right for me to plummet, if plummeting will get me anywhere. 

When is the perfect sweet spot? I feel like I keep missing it, and apparently being early and late never means anything good. 

On another note, I’ve been re-reading Human Acts by Han Kang and it’s got me wrapped around its spine. It’s horrifying really, the details and the actual Gwangju Uprising, the murders of people young and old (but especially young teens, college students). The translated version I read in Korea is more rich, I think, but this works well enough. I read the book in 30-minute increments because it’s so hard to put down, but I know that I need to savor it in order for it to fully process it. How it is fate to lose what you have yet to find.

[bencutiostan]

On this blog we love and appreciate a pure innocent soul named Benvolio Montague who always did his best for the sake of his loved ones and didn't deserve to live in such an horrible and cruel world which caused him pain.

[shortpplfedup]

In Fair Verona... Bad Buddy Episode 1

Two households, both alike in dignity, In fair Verona, where we lay our scene, From ancient grudge break to new mutiny, Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

For me to write deep dives on a show, I usually have to find a thematic 'in', something that triggers my 'AH YES HERE WE ARE LET ME GET WAY TOO INVESTED IN WHAT'S HAPPENING HERE' and gives me a structure to think and write within. With Aof pretty clearly leaning into the Romeo and Juliet parallels in his adaptation of the novel, down to the structure and progression of the story (I mean, the play literally starts with a fight between the Montagues and the Capulets in the street over an equally stupid hand gesture), obviously I ended up going down the rabbit hole of the most adapted love story of all time.

Now obviously Bad Buddy isn't a direct analogue of either Romeo and Juliet or its source material, and actually starts out by subverting both tales in some interesting ways, such as making the Juliet stand-in an active participant in the feud. But the parallels are so intentional they cannot go unremarked upon. Therefore, I give you...

OUR CAST OF CHARACTERS

PAT as OUR ROMEO

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

PRAN as THE FAIR JULIET

How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and hard to climb, And the place death, considering who thou art, If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

PAA as FRIAR LAWRENCE

O, then I see that madmen have no ears.

THE HOUSE OF MONTAGUE

Thou villain Capulet,--Hold me not, let me go.

THE HOUSE OF CAPULET

My sword, I say! Old Montague is come, And flourishes his blade in spite of me.

WAI, KORN AND OTHERS as MERCUTIO, TYBALT AND ASSORTED OTHER HANGERS ON

Draw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.

THE PROFESSOR as THE PRINCE

Three civil brawls, bred of an airy word, By thee, old Capulet, and Montague, Have thrice disturb'd the quiet of our streets, And made Verona's ancient citizens Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments, To wield old partisans, in hands as old, Canker'd with peace, to part your canker'd hate: If ever you disturb our streets again, Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace.

AOF DA BASED GAWD as THE APOTHECARY

Who calls so loud?

Looking forward to seeing how it all plays out!

Commentary from the Chorus:

I love the 90s romcom vibe of the whole thing, Aof really is trying something more traditional stylistically here and so far it's paying off.

They seem to have simplified both the story behind the family feud and the conflict between the architects and the engineers significantly, and I think that's for the best. I found it a bit hard to follow in the novel.

Pran is such a smug ass...I love it.

They're backgrounding some conflict Pat and Pran had in high school which led to them being separated and there's nothing like that in the novel so now I'm quite curious.

I don't have a sense of the timeline of the story yet, in the novel the bulk of the action takes place in their final year in university but they seem younger here? I don't know if they've shifted the time setting or they're treating this as prologue.

When Pat and Pran see each other again for the first time it's almost as if they were struck by lightning for a moment.

Pran re-starting the stopped watch feels significant. It's almost like they called a time out back then and now it's time in again.

I go back and forth on why they've decided to spoil the story in the closing credits and whether I like that. It's adorable and gives me all the kilig feelings and it seems like Aof wants to make it clear to the audience that this is a romance, but I wonder if the moments will hit the same since we've already seen them.

I was hoping for Lovely Writer heat levels (decently grownup but not terribly explicit) especially because there are some scenes in the novel that I feel are important, one in particular, but with the 830 timeslot I think it's more likely we'll get He's Coming To Me levels (romantic, emotional, a bit cheeky but fairly chaste). I think I can live with that.

[fantastic-nonsense]

Semi-serious question: How much should we blame Tybalt for what happens in Romeo & Juliet?

This is a completely out-of-the-blue ask but what do you know...I have Thoughts™ on it anyway lmao. I actually have two answers to this question, and the answer depends on how you view the family feud and what you identify as the actual conflict in R&J (and thus, who the instigators and people responsible for the conflict are).

Answer A: we blame Tybalt as a primary instigator of the actual events that happen within the bounds of the play and as someone who bears quite a bit of responsibility for what happens. This answer is very attractive because it looks at the play directly through the lens of the events readers are directly seeing taking place: Tybalt is the one egging on the Montague-Capulet servant fights in the beginning opposite Benvolio, who (bless him) wants nothing but peace. Tybalt is the one who wants to kill Romeo at the Capulets' masquerade and is told no by Monsieur Capulet, and Tybalt is the one who issues the honor duel challenge to Romeo in response to this denial. Tybalt kills Mercutio, and even though this fight is initiated by Mercutio and is unintentionally instigated (since he was trying to fight Romeo), Tybalt happily accepts, and his murder of Mercutio is what initiates his duel with Romeo and his own eventual murder, resulting in Romeo's banishment...........which leads to Romeo and Juliet's fatal communication mishap later on.

So if you are just looking at the direct events of the play, I think it's not necessarily a bad analysis to say that Tybalt consciously and deliberately inflames inter-familial tensions (even when given direct orders and specific reasons not to do so) in a way that sparks his own murder-homicide, Romeo's banishment, and (eventually) the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. While he himself is not responsible for the family feud, the R+J romance, or Romeo and Juliet's deaths, he directly contributes to the plot in such a way that those events become inevitable through his actions.

Answer B: we blame Tybalt as a product of his environment who is generally acting within the acceptable bounds of the greater Capulet-Montague family feud, but because of Romeo and Juliet's actions (all of which are outside the scope of his knowledge and predicated on the larger family feud rather than Tybalt's actions in particular), what would probably just be duels in courtyards results in the deaths of 6 people; thus, the Capulet and Montague parents bear far more responsibility for R&J's events than Tybalt.

Tybalt has grown up in an environment where familial honor is paramount and fighting to protect that honor with violence is not only expected but at least nominally encouraged. And of course, it's the broader family feud that causes the play's events; after all, if the Montagues and Capulets weren't feuding, Tybalt would have no reason to feel slighted enough by Romeo showing up uninvited to his uncle's ball that issuing a death duel challenge seems like a reasonable response. Romeo and Juliet would have no real reason to hide their clandestine relationship. Juliet wouldn't have felt the need to create a plan to fake her death and be smuggled out of the city in order to reunite with her lawfully wedded husband. The play's direct events largely occur because of choices Romeo and Juliet make that are directly connected to the one thing overshadowing literally everything else: their families hate each other.

Romeo goes to the ball in the first place because he thinks it's a Fun Time to sneak into a party hosted by his enemies that he's not invited to. Tybalt's angry that Romeo's there because his Family Honor™ is being slighted by a Montague waltzing into a Capulet party uninvited (even though it's not even his party and his uncle is explicitly fine with it). Romeo and Juliet get married in secret because their families won't approve. Because their marriage is secret, Tybalt doesn't understand why Romeo refuses to fight him and feels condescended to and brushed off instead of understanding Romeo's genuinely sincere desire not to fight a fellow kinsman. Because Tybalt feels condescended to (and then laughed at/goaded by Mercutio), he gets into the duel which eventually ends his life and results in Romeo's banishment from Verona.

Meanwhile, because Juliet cannot tell her parents that she's married to a Montague, her pleas to delay or end her impending marriage to Paris are unsuccessful. Because her pleas are unsuccessful, she and Friar Lawrence concoct the plan that eventually ends with the deaths of herself, Romeo, and Paris. All of these things are connected to one thing: the reality that Juliet is a Capulet and Romeo is a Montague, which has nothing to do with Tybalt's actions.

Personally, I put a lot of blame for the events of the play's final three acts on Monsieur Capulet, since the entire R+J marriage and reunion plot is directly instigated by M. Capulet refusing to allow Juliet any freedom of choice or temporal leeway re: marriage (especially to Montagues). Romeo marrying Juliet but being unable to publicly acknowledge it (and thus being unable to justify refusing to fight Tybalt in a way Tybalt will accept) instigates Tybalt's and Romeo's disagreement in Act 3. And while Juliet's marriage to Romeo was technically unconnected to her impending marriage to Paris, she wouldn't have felt such a huge rush to get out of the city and reunite with Romeo post-the Act 3 slaughter event if her father wasn't literally going to force her into an immediate marriage with Paris (even after telling him to wait another two years, until Juliet was 16 and of official marriagable age, at the beginning of the play).

Depending on the results of dealing with the larger parental feud, Mercutio and Tybalt may or may not still fight (I feel like being called the 'king of cats' and Mercutio saying that he would have 'one of [Tybalt's] nine lives' is more than enough to justify that fight independent of the larger feud, especially since Mercutio isn't actually a Montague; he's just Romeo's friend), but the bloodshed would probably be limited to them instead of the 6 deaths that eventually ensued. M. Capulet's actions in the aftermath of that fight might not have saved Mercutio or Tybalt (who both got caught up in and subsequently fell victim to family feuds that ultimately weren't even theirs to fight as a family friend and cousin, respectively), but they would have saved Paris, Romeo, and Juliet.

tl;dr: Tybalt does a lot of shit that directly contributes to the 6-person slaughter event that R+J becomes, and thus definitely bears some responsibility, but is ultimately himself a victim of the plot's Big Villain (the larger Montague-Capulet family feud, which the adults are responsible for) and thus cannot bear sole or even the majority of the responsibility for responding the way he does to events that occur because of larger family systems issues and beyond the scope of his knowledge.

[lastoneout]

Like yes trying to explain this show is a fucking nightmare bcs you have to be like

"Okay so it's set in this fantasy version of Verona that is an island floating through the sky called, I shit you not, Neo Verona, and basically the Capulets were the ruling family until Lord Montague staged a coup and killed them all EXCEPT Juliet who was a toddler and managed to get away, and then she goes into hiding pretending to be a boy named Odin and is living with like the last few surviving people who are loyal to her family in a house behind a theater that, I shit you not, William Shakespeare owns, bcs yes he IS a character in this and is also aggressively queer-coded, BUT that's not all!!

Juliet, in addition to pretending to be Odin, goes around being A Fucking Wannabe Zoro(only she calls herself The Red Whirlwind and I would do anything to cosplay her) and saving citizens left and right cuz ofc Lord Montague is a shithead who runs a hell government, however, she also is kinda sick of pretending to be a boy, and through some shenanigans get roped into going to a royal ball dressed as a girl despite pretending to be a commoner and an outlaw AND the last heir to a family the king wants dead(you know the king who's like RIGHT THERE), but that's where she meets Romeo who is a dumbass with a heart of pure gold and they fall in love, but ofc HE'S the heir to the family that killed hers so if she's honest about who she is that's gonna cause Issues, and on top of that SHE doesn't even KNOW she's the last heir to the Capulets until AFTER she falls in love with him at which point she kinda has to swear to pull a reverse?? coup?? Because despite loving him she knows the current gov is evil and she wants to do something about it. So like she'll basically have to kill Romeo which oof

And anyway they spend a solid portion of the show being so in love it's DISGUSTING but knowing they can't be together and meeting up even though they shouldn't and they run away together at one point but the country is falling apart and thus keeps dragging them apart and it's dramatic and there's so much YEARNING but also Juliet is kicking ass and Romeo is like "wow my father is Evil huh" and that's not even getting into the huge tree holding the world together that's dying and fucking everything up or Romeo's other self-appointed love interest(who he isn't a fan of) who kinda tries to kill Juliet and the episode about how prison is fucked and Lord Montague's bastard son who's got ISSUES like there is SO MUCH BULLSHIT GOING ON oh my god

AND to top it all off the english dub actors decided to do their damnedest to SPEAK IN SHAKESPEAREIAN ENGLISH FOR BASICALLY THE ENTIRE SHOW which sounds dumb but is actually kinda the best part??? Like it really grows on you! And also all of the references to OTHER Shakespere plays and the ENDING which re-wired my BRAIN like it's weird and cheesy and earnest and beautiful and I love it!!"

Like how am I supposed to get people to watch this show when THAT'S what it's about??? I sound insane rn!! BUT IT'S SO GOOD!!

going into Romeo x Juliet is like "oh this is gonna be cheesy as hell lmao hate watch time" but then you realize very, VERY quickly that everyone working on it, INCLUDING the dub actors, were genuinely giving one hundred fucking percent and that's how they get you