The West Wing, Season 2, Episode 15, Ellie 

as i start titus andronicus i’m thinking about how shakespeare was familiar with the aeneid based on how much he references it so there’s a nonzero chance lavinia is named after the woman who’s promised to two different men like a war prize but who never speaks a word in the poem herself

unfortunately i'm wildly picky about lear productions because i have very specific takes on almost every character and i've never seen a prod that i think gets all of them right. the anthony hopkins movie starts off well but gets VERY rushed and weirdly paced towards the end. i like the 2015 one with simon russell beale for the goneril and the edgar but sadly i'm not a fan of the edmund. the 2016 rsc one is also fun. and of course christmas lear is utterly flawless.

seconding the simon russell beale lear for good goneril takes! also volunteering the st. louis shakespeare in the park lear with andre de shields, which i do have a video of, you know, somewhere (that's the production i made a very long and crazy post about, if anyone remembers). i don't love every aspect of it (why does EVERYONE cut yet edmund was beloved.) but it is extremely fucking rad and it has my favorite edgar of all time

having thoughts about the use of the word “mere” (meaning “utter,” but also, unless i’m reading wrong, sometimes meaning “only/nothing more than”) in antony and cleopatra. i feel like it comes up in every single scene and maybe i’m losing it but it compels me, as in

1. mere meaning utter/absolute is apt because it’s how every character acts about everything. the titular characters of this play are never moderate about anything; every passion and every action is felt and done at absolute extremes, in part because of their personalities but in part because of how consciously aware they are that they are making history. their legacies are going to exist long after they’re gone and so they have a vested interest in shaping those legacies and so nothing is ever done halfway. but also

2. mere meaning only/nothing more than is also apt, because a lot of this play is breaking DOWN the idea that antony and cleopatra are these towering immortal historical figures. like, 50% if not 75% of this play is antony and cleopatra being passive-aggressive petty-as-fuck adult children throwing tantrums and having fits of jealousy and bothering each other. it’s possible to look at them as shakespeare presents them and think, “really? is this all they are? only this?” they are merely (only) antony and cleopatra; they are merely (utterly) antony and cleopatra.

just opened open source shakespeare. four (4) uses of the word mere. nobody talk to me

40 Flu Game - Fall Out Boy

50 The Draw - Bastille

made a uquiz

here it is! it’s romeo and juliet themed lol

“Jesus christ man what the FUCK” - my brother

glad you all enjoy it :3

WELL THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY

OP understood Romeo and Juliet better in this 30-question quiz than several academic scholars I know understood it in a 30-page paper

this quiz says "unreality warning" at the beginning — for those who need that to be more specific, there are questions that encourage you to think of your life as a story, questions that reference an ambiguous situation you have to escape or fight back against and a nebulous "they", and questions that deny the idea of free will and/or force your answer

horatio is a final girl and hamlet is the haunted house he gets trapped in

okay GENUINELY romeo and juliet should have been at the club

#isnt juliet too young to be at the club? (via @notyouiguess)

I believe in nothing more than juliet capulet's ability to coerce friar laurence into making her a fake id

listen up chucklefucks, i just gotta say. I'm not defending zir, but I'm sad zie deactivated. Like, i get that trauma lasts a long time and the good stuff is maybe easy to forget?? so maybe it's just like that. And my beloved mutual @/pompeyspuppygirl made a post about zir clout chasing behavior, which is pretty shitty behavior if it's true (and if we're canceling someone it had better be pretty severe). anyways now that zie's gone pompeyspuppygirl said it was okay to make this post (again, thanks ppg everyone go follow her --really everyone in this whole drama is worth a follow)

ANYways yeah zie was my mutual and like, reblogged a lot my smaller posts. (that isn't to discredit what my mutual pompeyspuppygirl is saying about zie clout chasing ofc). AND idk zie was always reblogging art from new and undiscovered artists and reblogging donation posts (which if you don't know is really bad if you're trying to clout chase...) (again, though, ppg is my mutual i believe her.) and like, remember on valentines day i tried to blaze zir posts and zie told me to stop because zie didn't want the posts to go viral? (but again ppg is my mutual and has a lot of proof in the Google doc I'm not trying to disprove that I'm just saying what else I know)

Idk, like i feel like a lot of people loved zir's blog a while back, bc like zie DID make some good posts?? So idk why everybody's acting like they aren't even a little bit sad.,. like ngl this feels like maybe all the reasonable people left to Twitter and all the Twitter refugees who love drama came here??? shdfhhdhdhdhdh haha but idk...look idk, i just, julie i do miss you. idk. more thoughts later sorry I'm getting worked up shshs

ANYWAY woman brutus is the only thing that matters goodbye. like the progression throughout the play from cassius saying that hesitation is womanly weakness –> the other conspirators saying it –> brutus saying it as an act of joining the other conspirators –> portia’s speech about how she’s equal to brutus and wants to know the truth –> the scene in the tent where cassius loses his fuck and brutus COMPLETELY calls him out on it –> THESE AS ANTONY’S LAST WORDS ABOUT BRUTUS… like the concept of woman brutus who is the only woman in this group of men who remains the noblest of them all even as she’s forced to become something brutal and terrifying to win their respect, who loses her WIFE for her honor code because she’s trying to do what’s best for rome and it ruins portia, who dies on the point of her own sword like every noble roman hero, and for antony’s last words about her to be that this was a man, THIS was a man… and is it a win or a loss, is “this was a man” a way to recognize at last that brutus was twice the “man” anyone else ever was despite being a woman & always deserved their respect, or is it a complete condemnation of everything she’s become because it strips her of a womanhood she can’t defend anymore! this is the only thing that matters at all. goodbye

[ID: One of Antony’s lines from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar that reads “This was the noblest Roman of them all: / All the conspirators save only he / Did that they did in envy of great Caesar; / He only, in a general honest thought, / And common good to all, made one of them. / His life was gentle, and the elements / So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up / And say to all the world ‘This was a man!’” End ID.]

I don’t know why I made this

ATTENTION TUMBLR

CHOCOLATE GUY'S BIRTHDAY IS IDES OF MARCH

LOOK ALIVE, SUNSHINE

I was going to skip doing an Ides illustration this year, but I decided to pull out something from my illustrations vault at the last minute after watching the news in the Philippines the other night. the first Ides illustration was prompted by feelings of frustration and grief seeing the Marcos family come back into power and also that ballot substitution bullshit. and. well!!! you know how it is! we're on year 3 of making these illustrations, baby!

so let’s get into it: fuck Brutus, my man Cassius is getting center stage this time! after all, it’s Cassius who typically initiates the conspiracy while Brutus steals the spotlight. Brutus is here, though, he’s the one with blood on his hand, in reference to the account where Cassius accidentally stabs him in the hand trying to get another hit on Caesar.

it’s thematically compelling if you take into account that Cassius is mentioned at the start of Brutus’ biography as someone who finds tyranny intolerable (in addition: that dinner scene with Mark Antony)

Cassius and Brutus: The Memory of the Liberators, Elizabeth Rawson

Brutus, the Noble Conspirator, Kathryn Tempest

Cassius Dio 44.34

and Brutus is later mentioned to have taken part of Caesar’s power only to be dissuaded from people from fully embracing all of that

Plutarch, Brutus 7 (trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert)

and Cassius, by accident, wounds Brutus in the act of assassinating Caesar. It’s like….he’s being compelled…..to act as a hand of Justice on behalf of the Republic……a little bit…..

Life of Augustus, Nicolaus of Damascus (trans. Toher)

and to preemptively cut off people from doing Caesar apologia in my inbox: we are engaging in a long and established tradition of using the Ides of March and the people who participated in it to discuss other stuff. you know. allegory and allusion and all of that. also ancient Roman conspiracies are fun. thank you & goodnight.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!