#so tomorrow's going to be interesting >:(

[hamletthedane]

Hamlet’s Age

Not to bring up an age-old debate that doesn’t even matter, but I have been thinking recently how interesting Hamlet’s age is both in-text and as meta-text.

To summarize a whole lot of discussion, we basically only have the following clues as to Hamlet’s age:

Hamlet and Horatio are both college students at Wittenberg. In Early Modern/Late Renaissance Europe, noble boys typically began their university education at 14 and usually completed at their Bachelor’s degree by 18 or 19. However, they may have been studying for their Master’s degrees, which was typically awarded by age 25 at the latest. For reference, contemporary Kit Marlowe was a pretty late bloomer who received a bachelor’s degree at 20 and a master’s degree at 23.

Hamlet is AGGRESSIVELY described as a “youth” by many different characters - I believe more than any other male shakespeare character (other than 16yo Romeo). While usage could vary, Shakespeare tended to use “youth” to mean a man in his late teens/very early 20s (actually, he mostly uses it to describe beardless ‘men’ who are actually crossdressing women - likely literally played by young men in their late teens)

King Hamlet is old enough to be grey-haired, but Queen Gertrude is young enough to have additional children (or so Hamlet strongly implies)

Hamlet talks about plucking out the hairs of his beard, so he is old enough to at least theoretically have a beard

In the folio version, the gravedigger says he became a gravedigger the day of Hamlet’s birth, and that he’s be “sixteene here, man and boy, thirty years.” However, it’s unclear if “sixteene” means “sixteen” or “sexton” (ie has he worked here for 16 years but is 30 years old, or has he been sexton there for thirty years?)

Hamlet knew Yorick as a young child, and the gravedigger says Yorick was buried 23 years ago. However, the first quarto version version of Hamlet says “dozen years” instead of “three and twenty.” This suggests the line changed over time. (Or that the bad quarto sucks - I really need to make that post about it, huh…)

Yorick is a skull, and according to the gravedigger’s expertise, he has thus been dead for at least 7-8 years - implying Hamlet is at least ~15yo if he remembers Yorick from his childhood

One important thing sometimes overlooked - Claudius takes the throne at King Hamlet’s death, not Prince Hamlet. That is mostly a commentary on English and French monarchist politics at the time, but it is strange within the internal text. A thirty year old Hamlet presumably would have become the new monarch, not the married-in uncle (unless Gertrude is the vehicle through which the crown passes a la Mary I/Phillip II - certainly food for thought)

Honestly, Hamlet is SO aggressively described as being very young that I’m fairly confident the in-text intention is to have him be around 18-23yo. Placing his age at 30yo simply does not make much sense in the context of his descriptors, his narrative role, and his status as a university student.

However, it doesn’t really matter what the “right” answer is, because the confusion itself is what makes the gravedigger scene so interesting and metatextual. We can basically assume one of the following, given the folio text:

Hamlet really is meant to be 30yo, and that was supposed to surprise or imply something to the contemporary audience that is now lost to us

Older actors were playing Hamlet by the time the folio was written down, and the gravedigger’s description was an in-text justification of the seeming disconnect between age of actor and description of “youth”

Older actors were playing Hamlet by the time the folio was set down, and the gravedigger’s description was an in-text JOKE making fun of the fact that a 30-something year old is playing a high-school aged boy. This makes sense, as the gravedigger is a clown and Hamlet is a play that constantly pokes fun at its own tropes and breaks the fourth wall for its audience

The gravedigger cannot count or remember how old he is, and that’s the joke (this is the most common modern interpretation whenever the line isn’t otherwise played straight). If the clown was, for example, particularly old, those lines would be very funny

Any way you look at it, I believe something is echoing there. It seems like this is one of the many moments in Hamlet where you catch a glimpse of some contemporary in-joke about theater and theater culture* that we can only try to parse out from limited context 430 years later. And honestly, that’s so interesting and cool.

*(My other favorite example of this is when Hamlet asks Polonius about what it was like to play Julius Caesar in an exchange that pokes fun of Polonius’ actor a little. This is clearly an inside-joke directed at Globe regulars - the actor who played Polonius must have also played Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play, and been very well reviewed. Hamlet’s joke about Brutus also implies the actor who played Brutus is one of the main cast in Hamlet - possibly even the prince himself, depending on how the line is read).

[mistresscitrusslice]

Why is Riot rewriting Viktor and Jayce’s bios to be more in line with Arcane lore? The beauty of them is that there’s two very different versions of them that both make sense, like two sides of a coin. If Riot removes the old versions, I will actually lose interest in Jayvik. This is coming from someone who entered the fandom through Arcane and has never played League, and yet I still treasure this version of them.

[varpusvaras]

The Millennium Falcon was, perhaps, a fast ship for its type, but it was not smooth flying in the slightest.

Things had definitely been thrown around during the fight, but still, Leia had kept herself pressed against one of the windows, and she was staring right at the planet on the other side of it. The Death Star still loomed over it, like a mechanical moon, which was definitely a nerve-wracking sight. Luke couldn't fault her for looking afraid.

Still, he believed that Obi-Wan and Rex were going to succeed. He had to. There were no other options.

"Move, kid." Han pushed past him to the consols. "We need to make the jump before they send out more of them after us."

"There are already more coming", Cody said. He looked nervous too. Well, maybe not nervous, but tense. Luke could understand that, too. It was his partner and his brother that had stayed behind on the Death Star, after all. "We need to go."

"Already on it", Han grunted. He was typing on his consol even faster, decidedly not looking at the approaching swarm of TIE-fighters. "Okay, everybody hold onto something!"

Leia didn't move to hold onto anything. She was still standing at the window, staring at Alderaan. It looked almost like she was trying to see something, but Luke didn't know what. They were too far away to see anything on the surface, anyway.

She must've been just worried in general. It was her home, after all.

"Hey." Luke grabbed her arm. "It's going to be okay, the message said that your parents have already been evacuated. The Viceroy and the Queen are both on the way to the Rebel base-"

She whipped around to look at him.

"The Queen and the Viceroy?" She repeated. She looked more worried now.

"Yes", Luke said. "Commander Organa said that-"

"Where is he?" Leia interrupted him. Her voice had risen a whole lot. The ship shook beneath them as the hyperdrives begun to start up. "Commander Organa, where is he?"

"He said he was on Alderaan-" Luke started, attempting to explain the whole thing since he hadn't had the time earlier, but Leia wasn't listening to him anymore. She had turned around and was lurching towards Han.

"Stop the jump!" Luke had not heard her sounding so panicked before, not even when they had been inside the Death Star, surrounded by Stormtroopers. "Stop it!"

She reached for the consols, but Cody jumped forward as well before she got too close, and wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away.

"Leia, calm down-" Leia struggled in his grasp, glawing at his arms, her eyes wide.

"No!" She tried to push him off of her. "We can't leave him there!"

"We have to-"

"No!" Leia didn't look like she was even listening to anything that Cody was saying. "No! Stop it! Stop it, he's your brother, you cannot leave him there!"

Cody went still.

"What?" He asked, sounding somehow even more confused than what Luke felt. "What did you-"

The ship lurched forward in the way that Luke felt all the way at the bottom of his stomach, and the stars outside the cockpit started to blurr.

"No!" Leia almost managed to push Cody's arms away. "Buir-"

They jumped into hyperspace, Alderaan and the Death Star disappearing from their view all at once.

[bugsoda]

i dig dig dig i lie in the dirt oh so cozy. oh it is like 5 blankets this is beautiful. there are worms here and also little bugs. hello

[wannabemylover]

damn i cant believe we've seen buck start and end two relationships, cheat on his gf, become a sperm donor, get struck by lightning and die, come back to life with temporary math superpowers, deliver his biological child, and discover he was bisexual all before seeing eddie kiss a woman again

[coquelicoq]

the best reason to socialize is so that you will have stories to tell other people while you're socializing with them. it's a racket. a pyramid scheme. it's all built on air

[sallymew4]

i have an 8am tomorrow . goodnight [snore]

[suzirya]

.

[somegrumpynerd]

Time for a new toy!

Camera stayed ahead pretty much all week, so tomorrow there will be a camera in the garden!

So now...

("Nothing" option will still attract a cat!)

[mewkwota]

Curiosity killed the █████

This is meant to stem from the bottom-left shot from this upload. I don't go into much specifics with how it occurs, but if Geo were to follow that curiosity, he may uncover more than he had meant to.

Again, this is totally hypothetical and considered a "bad end". No one is supposed to know about it.

[science-lings]

I just realized that the scales of justice in TGAA look like a bow with an arrow nocked to point at where the jury was leaning and the most unique part of Ryunosukes character design is his archery arm guard. My other theory about that was mostly that it was symbolic that Karuma didn't belong to him, to point out specifically that he is not a swordsman but he carries a sword anyway since they're on the same side. It's not the weapon he was trained to use but it's the one he has anyway and that could be a parallel to his entire law career tbh.

for some reason, Ryunosuke's arm guard as an important part of his design despite not having any plot or personal relevance bothered me a little. It's the one thing that he keeps throughout costume changes that he has for both of the games and in his official art but it's not like being an archer is an important part of his identity. There's always so much thought put into AA character designs that it really stuck out to me, but honestly, maybe it's not that deep, and he just likes archery as a hobby even though he probably didn't bring a bow to england and still wears it every day anyway like there has to be something with that

[crabonfiber]

okay just watched the sprint and my main take away is that this was oscars revenge for hungary in a way asdhjjkl

he was told to get lando in drs and dropped back to exactly 0.9 before going back to 1 second

he did the fastest lap like three times over

and then he didn't give up the place until it was absolutely necessary

like he could have easily won that but the team strat was clearly discussed before the race and I do understand the team pov in that they really want this championship both constructors and drivers so that's why things are the way they are rn

oscar probably understands that too, and his time is coming

[icantalk710]

Pushed through sleepies to make arms work better 😌 (🥱)

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Anyone else just not feeling like a real person much lately?

[zeb-z]

It's always so intriguing to watch Foolish from another perspective during lore, because it usually really is just guesswork to his thoughts and motives. Even during the moments he's being entirely honest, he can be hard to pin down.

Watching Foolish there's no question as to how much he knows, or how much he cares. It's always more than you think. You get to watch him choose to play a happy go lucky idiot, and then join in the act in chat. Watching him break down that act today was fun.

First with Fit, his joyful positive attitude starting to crack after looking through Leo's photos. His moment to gather himself before talking, his trailing off and voice cracks when asked if he's okay, only to change the subject immediately.

Then with Bad, talking about their months on the island and just what trust means. Considering how to weed out a federation puppet, going over theories with each other after just having told one another that the best way to find the rat is to give theories out one at a time to find the leak.

I’ll have to watch Fit's perspective of today later, but I know with Bad, the mood change was obvious - and yet somehow, he managed to get away with much more than he let on.

Still, it’s obvious he’s starting to crack, with Leo being gone, with Bad clearly deteriorating - you can’t pretend to be happy and carefree for forever, when the stress is this high.

[seyaryminamoto]

Fic-to-Art #44: Zuko and Katara meet Hotaru

This time around, my Patrons chose these two scenes from the prompt I offered them... and that prompt was "Hotaru", our tiny firefly herself <3 drawing her continues to be a challenge pertaining how to ever make babies look cute, but I hope she looks alright this time!

These two moments take place not too far from the other, but it's worth noting that Katara and Zuko don't get to see Hotaru at the exact same time. Thus, I figured I'd take advantage of the opportunity... and draw Sokka and Azula introducing their little one to their respective siblings. This will be an emotional chapter (lots of those coming up), but I do hope that these moments of happiness will be a good way to soothe the pains caused by our very intense angst from the current chapters... to be specific, this is chapter 378, so we're not that far away!! Just gotta wait a bit longer!

A part of me took joy in this specific prompt... the fandom has an abundance of "uncle Sokka" and "aunt Azula" content, be it with them together or not, while Zuko and Katara (also while together or not) happen to be the ones who become parents first. This often relegates their siblings to a secondary role, and too often there's either implications or outright accusations that these two just aren't fit for parenting. I don't really remember seeing much, if any, content where Zuko and Katara are the uncle and aunt instead... thus, I figured this would be a fun switch-up that, ultimately, doesn't mean any of these four aren't fit for parenting (Zuko's already a dad, Katara will be a mother someday in the future!)! It just means that Zuko and Katara get to bond with little Hotaru and be supportive siblings! And everyone's happy and wholesome in the process!

At any rate! I hope you guys like it, and as ever, if you'd like to be part of the creative process behind these pieces, a $1 pledge makes you eligible for suggesting art prompts and voting for the winner, as well as reading Gladiator snippets 6 days before the next chapter releases!