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flowersforfrancis · 6 months

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shakespearesdaughters · 7 months

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To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

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readsbydes · 2 years

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Some penguin classic covers I made of some of my favorite books.

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droptheguillotineplease · 3 months

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If We Were Villains sketch page

#myart #drawings #sketchbook #if we were villains #m. l. rio #iwwv #james farrow #oliver marks #meredith dardenne #alexander vass #wren stirling

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legendarycollectiveflower · 1 year

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For those who read both

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bozoclowncake · 1 year

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My entire taste in media is "gay people commit murder and are mentally unwell" and i think thats beautiful

#these violent delights #hannibal #iwwv #herbert west #gotham #nygmobblepot #micah nemerever #a lesson in vengeance #if we were villains #the sandman #tsh #mine #kill your darlings

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shakesqueers13 · 5 months

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The biggest clue M. L. Rio gives us to what actually happened at the end of 'If We Were Villains' isn't Pericles, allow me to elaborate:

Spoilers for 'If We Were Villains' by M.L. Rio below, obviously.

So, everyone talks about the Pericles symbolism and that being proof that James is alive, but I think there's stronger proof elsewhere. In the epilogue, when Oliver is told that James is dead, Filippa is said to have "a copy of Winter’s Tale open in her lap" (351).

If you haven't read The Winter's Tale, that's okay, it is a strange play. (Despite it being, in my opinion, Shakespeare's most explicitly sapphic play!!). But anyway, a key aspect of the plot is that a character everyone thinks is dead comes back to life at the end. I'll explain further:

So, in act three, scene two, a character named Hermione is said to have died after being accused of a crime she didn't commit. The audience sees her pass out, and she's carried offstage where it is said she died.

Hermione was accused of adultery and treason, and the person she was accused of cheating with, Polixenes, escapes before he can be killed for this crime with an advisor named CAMILLO — aka the same name as the gang's fight coordinator who knew James well / became Fillippa's fiancé.

Now, in the very last scene of the play, all the remaining characters gather back together including Camillo, as well as Leontes, the man who caused Hermione to "die," and who was consumed by grief and regret for the actions he took that lead to her death. Miraculously, during this scene, a friend of Hermione's named Paulina reveals that through Leontes's remorse and the resolution of this whole plot, Hermione is miraculously able to come back to life. It's unclear if this is through magic or if Hermione was just hiding out with Paulina all this time and now is able to return to her husband (booooo). She falls into Leontes's arms and everyone is happy again. This is a super weird plot point and doesn't make a lot of sense, but it does speak to the possibility of James being alive!

Interestingly, from that scene, there's also this line: "Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him / Dear life redeems you." - Winter's Tale, V.iii.1280129. To me, this line can easily be applied to James's guilt and reason for theoretically committing suicide. Is James able to find redemption through dying and then coming back to life?

I think the name Camillo is the strongest connection here - there's no way it's accidental. Additionally, this might be a reach, but Winter's Tale is only mentioned one other time in the book, on page 94 when present day-Fillipa mentions, "Frederick wants to branch out and try Winter’s Tale, but Gwendolyn’s insisting on Othello.” The comparison of these two plays seems deliberate - they aren't in the same genre, so they're an odd two plays to be choosing between for the fourth years. However, there is a KEY comparison between the two: they both involve husbands becoming convinced that their wives are being unfaithful, and they both involve said husbands killing their wives—the only difference is that in The Winter's Tale, Hermione comes back to life. Desdemona doesn't. Is M. L. Rio making a sneaky reference to the two possible interpretations of her ending here? Sort of presenting the reader with a choice of what interpretation they chose to believe?

I think it's so cool!!!

#if we were villains #m l rio #james farrow #oliver marks #shakespeare #william shakespeare #dark academia #academia #iwwv #meredith dardenne #alexander vass #if we were villains spoilers

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poppletonink · 6 months

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Best Quotes From 'If We Were Villains'

"You can justify anything if you do it poetically enough."

"You can't quantify humanity. You can't measure it - not the way you mean to. People are passionate and flawed and fallible. They make mistakes. Their memories fade. Their eyes deceive them."

"I don't know, it's like I look at you and the sonnets make sense. The good ones, anyway."

"Do you blame Shakespeare for any of it?" The question is so unlikely, so nonsensical coming from such a sensible man, that I can't help but suppress a smile. "I blame him for all of it."

'She says, “Were you in love with him?” “Yes,” I say, simply. James and I put each other through the kind of reckless passions Gwendolyn once talked about, joy and anger and desire and despair. After all that, was it really so strange? I am no longer baffled or amazed or embarrassed by it. “Yes, I was.” It’s not the whole truth. The whole truth is, I’m in love with him still.'

'I need language to live like food - lexemes and morphemes and morsels of meaning nourish me with the knowledge that, yes, there is a word for this. Someone else has felt it before.'

'Below was the motto: Per aspera ad astra. I'd heard a variety of translations, but the one I liked best was Through the thorns to the stars.'

"We cracked up. [...] But we didn't really shatter until we were all back together again."

'The clock on the mantel struck twelve, and we stirred, one by one, like seven statues coming to life.'

'Actors are by nature volatile - alchemic creatures composed of incendiary elements, emotion and ego and envy. Heat them up, stir them together, and sometimes you get gold. Sometimes disaster.'

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theotherrichardpapen · 1 year

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#its me im girls #this utterly devastated me at 1:30 pm in the middle of the break room #he's out there okay i refuse to believe otherwise #if we were villains #iwwv #iwwv spoilers #oliver marks #james farrow #m.l. rio #spoilers

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elainiisms · 1 year

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#dark academism #dark academia #dark acamedia #tsh #donna tartt #the secret history #bunny corcoran #henry winter #richard papen #charles macaulay #camila macaulay #francis abernathy #literature #english literature #homoerotism #homoeroticism #if we were villains #iwwv #dead poets society

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catalvarezs · 8 months

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pretentious dark academia bitches (derogatory) is the secret history. pretentious dark academia bitches (affectionate) is if we were villains.

#idk how much clearer i can make it #the secret history #donna tartt #richard papen #henry winter #if we were villains #james farrow #oliver marks #iwwv #ml rio #tsh #books

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shakespearesdaughters · 7 months

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fandomnerd037 · 10 months

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Do you know how frustrating it is to watch a man who is VERY gay for his best friend dance around his feelings for a whole book only to realize them to late, have a sad but beautiful gay moment with him for like five pages (at most), have to leave him, lose him, and get a mysterious letter from him and find out he may be alive only for the book to leave you with the ambiguous ending?

#I wanted to grab Oliver by the neck and shake him #how does he not realize he likes James #especially after James came to his house and the whole morning scene #UGH gay people #jk #oliver marks #james farrow #if we were villains #iwwv #iwwv spoilers

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gooseie · 10 months

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#if we were villains #iwwv #m l rio #meredith dardenne #oliver marks #james farrow #IWWV Memes #iwwv spoilers

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3frogs-in-a-trench-coat · 1 year

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i need a dark academia book revolving around oscar wilde. like okay we've got the secret history- greek literature, dead poet's society- poetry and thoreau, if we were villians- shakespearean lit. so it would make so much sense for a oscar wilde style dark academia book/movie. i want secret seances, gay romance, unhinged sexy as fuck characters and murder

#the secret history #dead poet's society #if we were villains #dark academia #ninth house #text #academia #tsh #dps #iwwv #dark academia aesthetic #dark academia books #books #bookblr

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stillabookworm-ifonlyinspirit · 1 year

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If We Were Villains

Foreshadowing, or something akin to that

#et tu brute #oh how it was so obvious and still gripping #not for the of the murder but for the players and their movements and their hearts #if we were villains #iwwv #oliver marks #james farrow #richard stirling #meredith dardenne #alexander vass #philippa kosta #wren stirling #ml rio #iwwv spoilers #if we were villains spoilers

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