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onehundredandeleventropicalfish · 1 year

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getting emotional about the last issue of sandman again (cw for major comic spoilers, discussion of suicidal thoughts)

because like. so we learn pretty early on what dream's deal with shakespeare was, allowing him better access to his creative potential in return for two plays, and we know this because we get midsummer night's dream, which was commissioned by dream for the actual titania as a parting gift before the faeries left earth forever

but we don't learn the second play until right at the end, after dream is dead, after the funeral, after sunday mourning and exiles, both of which make really beautiful endings to the story in their own right

the second play is the tempest. and there's a lot of the play that neil gaiman quotes in this issue, but i'll focus on the specific two that shakespeare reads aloud

the first is our obvious one - prospero's address at his daughter's wedding.

Be cheerful, sir. Our revels now are ended. These our actors, as I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air. And like the baseless fabric of this vision, the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, the solemn temples, the great globe itself, ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

it's a beautiful passage, and exactly what to put at the end of this story - prospero is reminding everyone that stories are just stories, they aren't real and can't hurt anyone, but also they are the one thing that lives forever. humans are shaped and formed by our dreams, by our stories, we come from them, and in the end, we return to them.

now, prospero is the character we focus on in this issue. because there's a three-way parallel here between dream and prospero and shakespeare himself.

dream and shakespeare have both lost their sons, were both irreparably changed by that. both regret decisions they've made in their lives, and wish to leave the path they've found for themselves, but don't feel they can - their responsibilities are too great, they have no choice but to be what they were born to be. both wonder what might have happened in a world where things were different, but they know that could never have been

and prospero is the balm to that. prospero has made mistakes in his life, he's in several ways the antagonist of this story, but at the end, he gets to put it all aside. his daughter lives, and is happy. he gives up his magic - the source of his power, but also his suffering - and abandons his role, leaves the island he'd been ruling for decades. and this is his happy ending.

when shakespeare asks dream why this play, why he wanted that ending, instead of some great tragedy or drama, something more fit for a king, dream responds "because i will never leave my island."

and we see throughout the issue that that was personal to shakespeare too, it was a wish fullfilment for both of them.

but then we get to the epilogue, the second quote i'm focusing on. because shakespeare doesn't know how to end the play, until he has that conversation with dream.

this is the tempest's epilogue, in full:

Now my charms are all o'erthrown/And what strength I have’s mine own/Which is most faint. Now, ’tis true/I must be here confined by you/Or sent to Naples. Let me not/Since I have my dukedom got/And pardoned the deceiver, dwell/In this bare island by your spell/But release me from my bands/With the help of your good hands.

Gentle breath of yours my sails/Must fill, or else my project fails/Which was to please. Now I want/Spirits to enforce, art to enchant/And my ending is despair/Unless I be relieved by prayer/Which pierces so that it assaults/Mercy itself and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be/Let your indulgence set me free.

like most shakespeare epilogues, it's a direct address to the audience, talking about the play. prospero is asking forgiveness from the audience for all he did wrong, but then reminding them that he's only human, don't we all want to be forgiven? and after all, all of this was just a story. he only wanted to create something for you. so applaud the ending, tell him it was worth it, and only with your permission can he finish the story, and finally leave.

and that's the thing, about dream's particular brand of suicidal thoughts. being dream of the endless has been weighing on him for centuries, if not millenia, he longs for an escape, but he knows he can't. when they see it's breaking him his siblings try and convince him to leave, like destruction did, but it's not in him to abandon the dreaming like that.

and that amount of responsibility, of staying alive because you owe it to other people - it's a relief, then, when a battle comes along that's too great for you to face, but there's also a lot of guilt in it. because he gave up. and he knows he did. letting the kindly ones win was the most selfish decision he's ever made

and you might say, well, he's dead, he doesn't have to face it, but that's not wholly true. because all three of the last issues deal with some version of dream after death.

there's the dream of him hob has in sunday mourning, which isn't the true dream, he's dead, except of course it is dream, because he was only ever made of dreams anyway, so does it really matter whether it's real or not?

in exiles the protagonist talks to both morpheus and daniel in the desert, and for dream this was two very different time periods, but to the man crossing the desert, they happened simultaneously, so if time can be warped like that in dreams, who's to say that the ripples of morpheus won't continue long into the future?

and then we have the tempest. dream has appeared after death as a dream, as a mirage, and finally, in perhaps his truest form, as a story.

when dream said he will never leave his island, shakespeare reminds him that all men can change. and this is the fatal flaw of dream - he doesn't see himself as a man, as a person, as anything but the entity which must fulfill his function. he tells shakespeare that men have stories, men change - he does not

and when we end this entire 75 issue run with the epilogue from the tempest, dream is prospero. even after death he's still reckoning with the guilt of making that decision. even now, he won't allow himself that freedom.

and that's the reminder, that all of this was just a story - dream's story. the reader is a character in sandman, all of this was created for us. did he manage to create something beautiful enough, despite the pain? can he be forgiven for the decisions he made along the way? if eventually he gave up, does that make all the time he fought so hard for meaningless?

and he can't be free of the story until we answer that all important question - was it worth it?

to which the answer can only be of course it was.

#you did good kiddo. take your rest. it's okay #interestingly enough the tempest isn't the only play that refers to the afterlife as a dream #hamlet does too (which you know is the piece inspired by shakespeare's dead son)#but that's just me and my shakespeare nerd #i've won literal monetary awards for my writing on shakespeare but here i am rereading sandman and crying #so you all get to cry too #neil gaiman you madman give me your writing talents #the sandman #sandman comic spoilers #dream of the endless #....it feels weird to tag shakespeare in this #wake #mine #meta #suicide tw

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fake-married-my-dead-fiance · 5 months

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I can't get over this moment in EP 11 where Ri-ta wakes up and is distressed by the blood all over her gown.

She tries to rub it off, which is futile. It clearly bothers her, in a way that we never really see it bothering Do-ha. He is, at this point, way past being bothered by murder.

Ri-ta has never killed anyone before and even though she's murdered probably the worst person she's ever met, she doesn't like that she's done it. She killed So Ri-bu thinking she would be killed for it, she never wanted to have to deal with the aftermath and the guilt and the knowledge that she took a life.

#moon in the day spoilers #moon in the day #ep 11 #tw: blood #always pack a change of clothes when you go out murdering #very Lady Macbeth #we already had Hamlet vibes

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pipskippy · 6 months

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in hxh when gon said "killua, you have it easy...since it means nothing to you" and when antigone said to her sister ismene "you will not die, not with me you won't. you had nothing to do with this" amnd in code ge ass when suzaku said to lelouch "nothing that happens now is any of your concern! your very existence is a mistake! you need to be erased from this earth!" collecting many such phrases

#another one is chu2's “you're of no use to me alone” to pareo #rereading antigone is crazy for me because something about the themes and dialogue are so cg to me.#code geassis a beautiful classic tragedy NOT well if you really pick and choose. i dont mean to endorse cg but anyways lelouch was reading #antigone for inspiration for zero requiem this is perfectly logical a claim to make because he was reading hamlet in the first episode or w #atever. like “unmourned friendless i am led away. the path is ready. they sing no wedding song” “to my tomb #my wedding my home/the eternal vigil of the grave....i am the last and lesat. before my time #i am descending to that world; but i am returning home as well #from an exile" for the interpretation that zero requiem was a wedding and a lovers suicide and all. well there are some parallels #<- guy who keeps forgetting you cant put commas in the tags #antigone is kind of like if suzaku successfully killed himself and nunnally tried to die with lelouch right at the end. also if the emperor #was still alive and had lelouch killed etc #...among other many things. among? 📮#suicide mention #tw suicide #code geass spoilers #pip speaks

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kaidynsarell · 6 months

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Unpopular Opinion time: Sebastian

* Also Spoilers!*

And TW: long, rambling, possibly incoherent thoughts. Because there are too many of them in my brain 😅

Okay, maybe it’s not actually an unpopular opinion. Im not actually sure. Buuuut….

I absolutely love that Sebastian gets SO mad when we tell him about Lodgok.

Now, before anyone says anything….

I have reasons.

1. His reaction 100% makes sense for his character. I’m not saying his views aren’t problematic. They definitely are. Boy needs some lessons. But we also have to remember literally every interaction we have seen or heard of Sebastian having with a goblin has been completely negative. Goblins cursed Anne (It was Rookwood, but Seb doesn’t know that), Sebastian and MC are attacked by goblins multiple times, Goblins raid Feldcroft and nearby hamlets, AND a Goblin tries to kill Anne with an Axe in front of Sebastian. For him to have reacted to MC working with a Goblin in any other way would have felt disingenuous.

2. You could argue that he’s only angry because he cares about Anne, but I think you could also argue that In his own dumb 15-year-old boy way, he’s worried about MC, too. As stated previously, every interaction he’s had with Goblins has been negative. This kid is stressed to the nines, and now his new friend (MC) is galavanting off with some Goblin. Of course, he’s going to react negatively. In Sebastian’s mind, we’re doing something stupid and dangerous, and he’s scared. His reaction is definitely painful, but it’s also human. People don’t always react appropriately or how we’d like them too in those situations. Plus, like I said….. He’s a dumb boy

3. Let’s also not forget that since losing his parents. Sebastian has been taught, (via Solomon’s example) to react to things he fears/doesn’t understand with anger and hostility. Which is exactly what he does.

Look,I’m not saying I don’t want to drop kick him sometimes.

But…there’s just a special little place in my heart for our moody angsty little Seb. 💚🐍

*also if you actually made it through that. Thank You and I’m sorry. I hope your brain is okay after that….😬

#I love moody seb #hogwarts legacy #sebastian sallow #hogwarts legacy sebastian #not my art #anne sallow #ominis gaunt #moody Sebastian #hogwarts legacy sebastian sallow #angst #angsty Sebastian sallow #Sebby #avada kedavra #too many thoughts #what even is my brain

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lookismstuff · 8 months

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Reaction to Ep 463

SPOILERS ALERT

TW: trauma, possible sexual assault

This is an episode dedicated to friendships. In one friendship, a character promised a friend to kill a common enemy, while in another, a character was faced with the bitter reality of a friend's changed self.

Before the D-Day of the Grimm Asylum attack, Vin (Hobin) came to see Mary (Miru). Since he cryptically said that he had to say something to her face, she was mortified that he'd probably confess his feelings for her or something. But he laughed it off (I always drift in between shipping and not shipping them but I just love LOVE this banter).

Vin proceeded to tell Mary that Taejin was still alive. Mary was enraged, so much that she insisted on killing Taejin.

But Vin told her that she didn't need to kill people. Vin's hands were already dirtied by murdering another person before, so he said that he'd be the one who killed Taejin this time. (So he did take a life? Who was the victim? Was it an accident? Was it a righteous murder? Was it a moment of rage?)

Taejin was proven to be too strong for Vin, however, and he taunted Vin that pinning Vin down made him remember the "good memories" of Cheonliang and "that bitch who I also caught like this"... And we got the panel of a dead young girl, said to be Hobin's little sister (Her clothes were loosened? Was it both a sexual and a physical assault? OMG NO NO NOOO) .

Vin was in shocked disbelief to realize that Taejin had grown monstrously strong. Apparently Taejin was the sole survivor of the Endless Hell experiment era of the asylum. Aw hell nah.

(No you're not gonna cosplay as Gun (Jonggun) or D.G. in that red panel, Taejin. Dream on.)

Zack (Jinsung) wasn't held back much by Yisoo, who baited him to open a door that led to...

....Johan. (Welcome back, Johan!!)

As predicted, Johan came back, but came back all wrong. Jinyoung and Hangyeol had tweaked his brain to only dwell on rage. (Is he some kind of Frankenstein's creature now? Is this it?)

And it seems that there was "method in Taejin's madness", to quote a line in Shakespeare's Hamlet, since he seemed to be calm enough to be in the know of the nefarious plan to let Allied members met their own separate matches.

My guess is Daniel (Hyungseok) will have to fight his other self (*shudders*), maybe either together with Jay or alone, while Jake (Gimyung) will have to fight Sammy (Seongeun)...

#lookism #lookism webtoon #lookism manhwa #lookism spoilers #vin jin #jin hobin #song yohan #johan seong #lee jinsung #zack lee #seong yohan

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andromedaexists · 3 months

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The Death I Gave Him || Em X. Liu

★★★★★

TW: SELF HARM (ON PAGE, WARNED), SUICIDAL IDEATION, SUICIDE (PAST, MENTIONED), MAJOR + SIDE CHARACTER DEATH

I feel like I need to mention how this book was recommended to me

Now that we know this very relevant background: The Death I Gave Him is one of the most mind meltingly fucked up thing I've read in a while, and I've gotten into erotic horror as of late

It is a queer and sci-fi retelling of hamlet that managed to be even more fucked up than the original, something I didn't think possible. Did it hit the sci-fi mark? Yes absolutely as soon as Horatio was introduced that was a yes. Is it queer? 100% it is because idk how else to describe what happens with Hayden and Horatio. Is it Hamlet??? Absolutely it is Hamlet may not be present by name but good fucking lord is the story interwoven into the very fabric of this book.

This book is also very unique in it's presentation, which I fucking love omg. It starts with a prologue that's less of a prologue and more of an academic introduction into the rest of the book. You see, this book and the recounting of what happened that night in Elsinore Labs is a recreation by a student a hundred years later based on what remaining evidence they have of the events. This is really fucking cool!!! Please give me more books like this!!! Learning about the student and their motivations through footnotes in the book is so fucking awesome!! Seeing where they had evidence for what happened versus where they created a fictional account based on personality, probability, and remaining dialog…. Stunning. Truly.

I also quite loved the interspersing of mediums in this book. We have traditional fictionalized prose mixed in with excerpts from Felicia's article after the events mixed in with readings from Horatio's systems and message logs from Felicia's pager!

It's all just so brilliant.

I'm making the call here to add the spoiler warning because I want to get into the characters a bit, so just be warned [SPOILERS AHEAD]

So, as per Hamlet, the first thing to happen is the death of the King. This time, our King is Dr. Graham Lichfield. A renowned scientist and researcher working on the Sisyphus Formula.

His son is Hamlet, of course. He's known as Hayden in this book and we get to see his descent into madness mostly through other people's (or other AI's) eyes. He is a pathetic man with no spine, just the way Hamlet should be.

Hayden's Uncle is Charles, of course. He didn't work on research with Graham and Hayden, but he does run the labs more or less.

Then we have the security guard: Rasmussen. I think he's supposed to be a stand in for Rosencrantz & Gildenstern, but honestly I read Hamlet back in high school and though I watch it at least once a year (David Tennant is the best Hamlet, I will die on this hill), I don't really ever remember Rosencrantz & Gildenstern. So this is just an educated guess.

From here, we have the Xia's. Felicia Xia and her father, Paul Xia. They are security and they are our Ophelia and Polonius. The brother exists as well in Arthur Xia, however he is not physically in the building and does not show up until literally the last chapter.

That leaves one. Horatio. Also knows as the Elsinore Labs Operating System. He is the AI of the building that has slowly gained consciousness over Hayden's life. He is also intrinsically linked to Hayden after the man turns on his NeuralLink so we know a lot about what's going on in Hayden's head because that's where Horatio resides.

Of course another key player in Hamlet was his mother, and while she is present as a character, she is not physically in the building.

And why do I keep saying physically in the building? Well that's because after the death of Graham; Hayden, Charles, Rasmussen, Paul and Felicia Xia, and Horatio are locked into Elsinore Labs. That's right, this is a locked door thriller.

This book is everything to me, like I am genuinely just so…. god I can't even think of the words for it and I am writing this the day after I finished it!!!

I was on the edge of my seat the entire way through the book, especially when we get lines like these:

It was Hayden Lichfield who I remembered. Not because he was brilliant (though he was), but because he was afraid.

Hayden Lichfield was afraid of death, because he was afraid of failure, and he spent his whole life trying to reverse it.

Hayden was not like me, but he was afraid of the same things that I was, and his fear changed the world.

What we understand of Horatio is inextricably entangled in what we understand of Hayden.

I would haunt you very cautiously. Leave some vague messages alluding to my existential dread in your shower every morning. Nothing special.

The Sisyphus Formula wasn't enough. It was never enough.

Do you want to live because you want to live, or because you're afraid to die?

Then be afraid. I will take you afraid and alive over anything else.

He splits himself open, willing or not, digs fingers into himself, thinks maybe the edges of death are pressing in at the edges, maybe finally he will find repentance here at the end of all things.

Just because you've been a jackass doesn't mean you've messed everything up irrevocably. You'll have good days and shit days and eventually there'll just be days, you know?

I am feral for this book, I am foaming at the mouth. I need to be buried with this book when I die. This book is intrinsically a part of who I am not in the same way that The Teras Trials and Bloom are. It speaks to something in my very soul

Anyways! I think that's really all I can say on this book without writing a whole ass analysis of it (which I would gladly do if people wanted that), so I will leave it here!

#andi reads #book reviews #booklr #bookblr #lgbt books #queer books #queer book directory #the death i gave him #em x. liu #em dash liu

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olliethescribe · 1 year

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Technically Propaganda - Major ‘Only Brooches’ Spoilers Ahead!

Here’s the beginning of our next major chapter: ‘Hamlet’! - @tmntausummit

Warning: it contains massive spoilers! Highly recommend reading this after ‘Blitz’ if you can. Tw// self-harm mention, public embarrassment, ableism, public breakdown

“It’s career suicide.”

Things weren’t exactly specular after taking to the airwaves in an all black suit, blond hair with purple streaks, nails painted dark, and amethyst eyeshadow on. His co-host questioned his new look and Warren explained it away with tales of makeovers and self-discovery. It should’ve ended there. But even four weeks later it continued, worse since he helped take on the Foot Clan with Ron. His patience was beginning to wear thin.

Still, he had help. Donatello had made Warren a pronoun pin that zapped people if they misgendered him, pinned proudly on his lapel. Ron told him he looked amazing and he knew for a fact that the magician wouldn’t lie. Still, no matter how good he was fabled to have looked it didn’t deter negative attention.

His co-workers, nice enough up close, were a nasty bunch in ‘private’ spaces. The sheer volume of indirects online were beginning to pile up, a cruel and bitter mocking edge from accounts that had only been set-up for the sole purpose of knocking him down. In person was somehow worse, unable to block people in real-life as they shit-talked his appearance by the water cooler or coffee maker, snickering as he passed them by on the way to his scheduled recordings.

It hadn’t occurred to Warren that taking control of his life would lead to so much animosity from those that once considered him a friend. Then again, given that ‘his massive ego won’t fit through the fire door’ comment a few months back, he should’ve seen this coming. It didn’t hurt, not in the ways he thought it would, more so forcing him to consider his options. He could stay and take it, or he could take the wheel on his life yet again.

Being a theater kid growing up wasn’t all for show. The newscaster had always enjoyed acting, forced himself to take those skills into social masking for work as he realized early on that being himself weren’t enough. To play a character and be rid of it rather than continue to keep up the charade? Promising. A siren song. He had the credentials, all he had to do was take the first step and audition. Ron had also offered Warren a spot as an additional magical assistant when Leo couldn’t make it to the weekend show. The options were there, he could do it. He could move on.

Especially after what had occurred that morning…

“Hey, Ron?” Warren walked unassuredly into their apartment, pamphlet in hand only slightly crushed in his death grip. His heart was pounding, having dodged plenty of sympathetic and terrible people alike on the way home. The theater he ducked into for escape was a saving grace, his mind attempting to keep its focus on that.

“Yes, darling?” Ron called out from the living room, flipping through a copy of Vogue and taking notes on all the outfits he’d try to recreate (as well as what would work well with both of his forms), and extra notes on what worked well with shorter hair. Fast fashion was never his thing, however, getting ready to peruse an online queer fashion blog instead.

He set the magazine down by the paper shredder, smiling as he heard his fiancé’s footsteps approach, a touch surprised to see Warren home so early for once. “Slow day at work?”

Warren shuffled into the room, expression crestfallen as he thought of ways to broach the subject. His legs shook. Oh god, his legs... He could bring up the play afterwards.

“Something like that.” He took his seat next to Ron, putting the pamphlet aside, a stabbing twist of metaphorical knives in his gut making their presence known. There wasn’t any getting around this, not as long as his finacé had internet access. “So I’ll be on an immediate month long vacation!”

Warren knew his face betrayed the false joy intoned in his voice, eyes distressed with the thought of letting Ron in. So it didn’t surprise him when Ron asked: “Why?”

“Well, it’s because of what happened earlier.”

The magician gave Warren his full attention, aware that there’d been some back lash at the station but not the full extent. “What happened earlier?”

“Well…” Warren trailed off until remembering that Ron had each episode of the show recorded so the magician would be able to watch it back later. He picked the remote up, turning the TV on. “Let me show you.”

Earlier

The teasing had raised to a fever pitch at that point, an irritating whine and buzz of less than charitable words. Warren felt himself begin to grind his teeth, holding back any comments on his co-workers’ conduct until…

The newscaster had sat down on set and straightened his tie as he waited for the cameras to start rolling, his other co-host, a relatively new guy named Rodney, taking his place on the right next to him. Their first segment of the day was one that focused on the Paralympics, a feel-good piece about those overcoming adversity to kick ass and win gold.

Warren had been placed on this segment every year, typically running it with Carly. He knew the motions, what to say and when to say it. Shouldn’t have been too different with Rodney, just a few subtle changes here and there to match the guy’s energy. But something felt off, a feeling of unease settling in as the segment started and Warren’s new co-host began to speak.

“You know, Stone, I see you host this segment every year, and I gotta ask. Why?”

Most would assume the question were asked in earnest. Warren had been questioned on why he’d been on certain segments before, such as the bi-annual fire safety PSA (his photos were often the ones used as warnings, especially after his meet-cute with Ron). But that was easy enough to explain away. This- this was gonna be different. This was something Rodney already knew of, knew not to bring up, especially not while they were rolling.

“Well,” Warren started, smiling at the camera with his typical plasticine expression, calm as he formulated an answer, “I’ve always been a huge fan of the Paralympics! But if you think someone else should take over this segment then I’m open to stepping down.”

“Yeah, maybe an actual disabled person, Stone.”

Warren narrowed his eyes, turning back to face his co-host. “Excuse me?”

“Like, come on, man. Have you seen your legs? Those are wayyyy too real looking to be prosthetics. Everyone’s been talking about them but now it’s getting kinda sad. Just admit that you’ve been lying for clout.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Warren hissed as hands gripped his pants hard under the table, a flurry of insults and expletives barely contained beneath the surface. He took a breath and steadied himself, turning back to the camera as he tried to hide his shaking self. “Get a load’a this guy! Well, moving on, this morning we’ll be focusing on-”

Rodney cut him off, interjecting with opinions that should be shoved far far away from where the sun shone.

“Hey, how about we focus on you? What’s going on with you? Faking a disability for years, thinking this whole ‘emo’ thing is gonna make you hip with the kids, and you really took it upon yourself to go the extra mile with those cuts on your hands. And don’t even get me started on the new pronoun thi-”

Warren got out of his seat, seething. “Don’t get you started? DON’T GET YOU STARTED?!” He steadied himself on the desk’s edge as he tried his absolute best to calm down. But nothing helped. No, no, this was happening whether he wanted it to or not.

“You-” he pointed at Rodney, “-don’t know a thing about me! You have no idea what I’m dealing with.” Warren shot his ring a brief glance. “And if you’re lucky, you’ll never understand!”

“You don’t know how much it takes to keep going, to get of bed in the morning and drag myself to this televised shitshow! I was miserable for years, and there are days where I still am! But breaking news, you son of a bitch, for once in my fucking life I’m making changes for myself, to better myself. That there are people worth changing for! That I’m worth changing for!” Warren felt tears stream down his face as he sneered at his co-worker, the once smug man looking more uncomfortable than anything else.

“But no, I gotta be ‘hip’ with the kids, it’s always gotta be for someone else with you people.” He unwrapped the bandages from one of his hands, palm with the scar on full display. “Also, if you got your head outta your ass for more than five seconds and actually thought about anything you’d realize that no one cuts their fucking hands on purpose!”

The newscaster took a moment to breathe as the camera crew and Rodney simply stared at him, the silence hanging with the fragility of a glass rod waiting to be clipped.

“....I was joking, Warren….”

Warren proceeded to lift one leg up and place it on the desk, rolling up his pant leg to his mid thigh, before feeling for the release button on his prosthesis and pressing it, slowly and carefully pulling the limb off.

“No, you weren’t.”

He saw Rodney reach out to him as if to say something that wouldn’t be an offensive mess. Warren had no desire to hear it.

“Assflash newshole, I’ve been like this the entire time! And I’m reporting your sorry ass to HR, not like they’d do a damn thing.” He chuckled bitterly, feeling the rage and pain begin to subside into numbness. “I know what ya think of me. You all make it obvious, especially now.”

“This isn’t some ‘mid-life’ crisis, but while I’m still here and the topic’s hanging around... Rodney,” he said, looking down at his co-host with a glare, “the only way your ‘bug-mobile’ would be of any value is if you crashed it into the Verrazano. Now do me a favor and fuck off.”

Warren then looked at the camera with a grin, even though they’d stopped rolling minutes prior, hands raised as he flipped off dead lenses. “And fuck you too, New York.”

Present

Warren finished showing Ron the entirety of his breakdown by switching to his phone, an intern having streamed the rest after the cameras stopped rolling.

“Oh… oh my god…” Ron looked back at him dumbfounded, a plethora of thoughts screaming behind those eyes.

“So,” Warren started, putting his phone down before sheepishly tapping two fingers together, “when we said no major secrets I might’ve been, eh, holding back on one? Maybe two?”

“Uh huh.” Ron’s eyes flicked from Warren’s face to his legs and back again. Between that and his boyfriend’s breakdown, he was still processing what he’d just witnessed.

“I- I’ll just be outright and say it.” Warren took a deep breath before letting it go. “Ronny, I have a confession to make. I- oh god damn it, I’ve been shorter than you this entire time!”

“That’s certainly one way to put that.” Ron felt as if his head were spinning, his entire day turned upside down in thirty minutes.

“Yeah… you probably have questions, eugh.” Warren looked away, hands on his legs as he stared at them. Oh boy.

Every thought Ron could have ran through his mind at top speed, but when it came to actually asking more questions, he blanked.

“Sorry, spaced out for a minute there.” He rubbed at his temples with one hand while the other gripped the couch. “Suppose my first question is how. How on Earth did you manage this?”

#propaganda #warren stone #hypno potamus #hypnowarren #hippoworm #hypnopotamus #no crime only brooches au #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #fanfiction #tmntausummit #tmntaucompetition #vote only brooches or i’ll chew ur ligaments #ao3 writer #sneak peek #chapter preview #tw ableist language #tw self harm mention #tw breakdown

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gavelsins · 2 years

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☠ ━━ CHARACTER ANALYSIS: THE INTROSPECTION OF AN OUTLAW

Jax Teller grew up surrounded by outlaw bikers; his father wanted nothing more than for him to avoid the life he lived. The death of his younger brother created a deep-rooted sense of guilt deep within him. He felt guilty that he would get all of his mother's love; this was a time when he wholly and unabashedly loved his mother and saw no faults within her. The death of his father at fifteen made him want to seek a sense of family, a place where he could belong. This tragedy set into motion him throwing himself completely into the Club, and at sixteen, he would drop out of high school to focus his attention on living for and doing for the Club. He would only go on to get his GED because he saw how important education was to his then-girlfriend, Tara.

He is by far the most introspective member of the Sons and does his best to follow and live by a complex set of principles that correspond to his father's ideals of a ❛ perfect ❜ outlaw. There is something within him that longs to be a good man but he comes to the bitter realization that he cannot be a good outlaw and a good man. He has to make a choice and because of his sense of loyalty and responsibility to the Club, his friends and family, he often chooses to be a good outlaw. He tends to think with his brain over brawns, though this changes when tragedy after tragedy impact his life. By every sense of the world he is a brutal anti-hero. However the birth of his first son, Abel and discovering his father's journals causes him to have a sense of restless responsibility both as a family man and to the Club — he wants nothing more than to bring them away from the criminality that is so deeply ingrained into their culture.

At the start, he desired to resolve things peacefully because he wanted to preserve the longevity of his father's Club while also having a way to step out of life and become a family man. However, the life he chose constantly conflicts with his wants and desires, and he slowly begins to lose himself to the more dark and violent aspects of his mind. He is very much an analogy for Hamlet, living the same tragic life and fate of a king destined for a throne and a crown crafted in blood and death.

The death of his best friend and brother Opie first set him down the path of vengeance and audacious resolution. He no longer finds absolution in the gavel once he becomes president because he failed to protect the one man who kept him sane, who always brought him back when he became too angry and violent. The death of Tara absolutely destroyed the rational man that he was, demolishing his moral compass and ambiguity when it came to right and wrong. He wanted nothing more than to make everyone else hurt like he was — in doing so, he very near destroyed his own family and every relation the Club had. He became the one person who vehemently wanted nothing to do with — Clay.

He wanted to turn the Club legit but instead further dragged into crime, violence, and murder, coping with the losses around him with drugs and alcohol. Truthfully, he did not know how to make things legit because he only knew how to get the things he wanted in life through manipulation, intimidation, and violence. Jax had a very skewed moral compass and was morally ambiguous in that he saw nothing wrong with anything that he did so long as it was in service to the Club — protecting the Club. His actions and inability to step away from the Club caused a lot of deaths and hardships for everyone in his life, and the only two that caused any ounce of sympathy and regret were Tara and Opie.

He is a man at war, both within himself, with the leadership of the Club under Clay, and trying to be both the good outlaw and a good man. However, he cannot be both and while he desperately wants to choose to be someone his kids can be proud of he knows that he can't.

#//please do share your thoughts :(#✖character study║i fell like judas grace denied so now i curse that raven's fire you made me hate you made me burn #tw: death #tw: murder #tw: violence #tw: drugs #tw: alcohol

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acekatherineplumber · 2 years

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Mid-year 2022 Five-Star Books!

1. All’s Well by Mona Awad (tw for addiction, college professor puts on a production of All’s Well That Ends Well with mysterious benefactors)

2. We Hunt the Flame and its sequel We Free the Stars by Hafsah Faizal (Arab-inspired fantasy world)

3. The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale (character-driven ballet drama)

4. House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland (perfect balance of creepy and feminine)

5. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (everyone already knows this one, I know, but it’s so good)

6. Neverworld Wake by Marisha Pessl (it’s hard to discuss this one without spoilers, so I won’t, but this author is excellent)

7. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Woman tries to uncover the truth about Vlad the Impaler)

8. The Hate You Give by Angie Thomas (I know I’m late to the party on this, but it’s so good)

9. Unlock Your Storybook Heart by Amanda Lovelace (poetry collection)

10. The Belles by Dhionelle Clayton (What if plastic surgery, but magic?)

11. Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler (retelling of Taming of the Shrew)

12. A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat (Thai-inspired retelling of Les Mis)

13. Great or Nothing by Joy McCullough et al. (retelling of Little Women)

14. The House in the Cerulean Sea by T.J. Klune (reread, but newly rated 5 stars, Think Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, but mostly light and fluffy with a gay romance)

15. Bright Ruined Things by Samantha Cohoe (retelling of The Tempest)

16. The Caretakers by Amanda Bestor-Siegal (tw for death of a minor, a group of au pairs experience Paris)

17. Count Your Lucky Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur (cute lesbian romance, third in a series_

18. Something Fabulous by Alexis Hall (regency gay romance)

19. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden (lesbian romance, quintessential lesbian reading)

20. Sailing by Orion’s Star by Katie Crabb (seriously so good, if you read anything on this list, read this, Les Mis meets Robin Hood set during the Golden Age of Piracy)

21. Gallant by V.E. Schwab (feels similar to Coraline, but less creepy)

22. Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel (retelling of the Ramayana, featuring one of its villains)

23. Ballots and Barricades by Ronald Aminzade (academic text about class politics in France during the 1800s)

24. Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (poetry collection)

25. The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd (woman solves her father’s murder, featuring an old map)

26. Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune (think The Good Place, but gay)

27. Delilah Green Doesn’t Care by Ashley Herring Blake (cute lesbian romance)

28. A Bite-Sized History of France by Stephanie Henaut and Jeni Mitchell

29. King of Infinite Space by Lyndsay Faye (retelling of Hamlet)

30. Portrait of a Thief by Grace Li (Heist with an all-Asian cast)

31. Ship of Theseus by Doug Dorst (basically an epistolary text between two college students trying to uncover the identity of an elusive author)

32. Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (A poisonous princess learns to navigate her world)

33. Macbeth by Jo Nesbo (MAJOR tw for drug use, what if Macbeth was a cop and Hecate was a drug lord?)

34. Guardians of the Louvre by Jiro Taniguchi (translated comic about a man and his experiences in the Louvre and meeting artists)

35. Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf (Scrabble tournament but add murder)

36. Elektra by Jennifer Saint (feminist myth retelling, which is what Jennifer Saint does best)

37. The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner (wildly acclaimed, triple perspective story about an apothecary who helps women)

#elphie reads #sbos #Sailing by Orion's Star

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palukoo · 3 years

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“in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story” (based on @princesshamlet ‘s hamlet and horatio)

#hamlet #hamratio #thats what they call them right? idk #my post #my art #blood tw #this is messy but let me pretend thats just like idk style #i got inspired by listening to the arden s2 soundtrack on repeat so uhh heres my reminder to the world #to pls listen to arden if you like shakespeare and wlw and fun and drama and god its literally so good. like at least half of the eps in s2 #made me cry!! but this isnt an arden post im getting off topic! this isnt what dana and. well saying who horatio is may be spoilers #the point being this goes out to all the depressed wlw who read hamlet in high school or like in general

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waitingforthesunrise · 10 months

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Hamlet doesn’t believe his fate is ordained. He doesn’t know what to believe. He wants to matter, he wants to believe he has a fundamentally just purpose and his sins can be absolved. What bliss, then – to fall towards an inescapable destiny full of power and divinity. He has been a victim of things outside his control – his father’s death, his mother’s remarriage, his uncle’s election – and all along his pain had meaning. It was not for nothing. There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will. He’s terrified that his pain was fundamentally useless. What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure, that he who made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and god-like reason to fust in us unused. He longs to know that his violence and his desires for revenge and his dream of meaning something more than a prince who couldn’t sleep is part of a grand destiny.

And yet he doubts himself – at the core of his being he wants to matter, not to die. To die, to sleep - To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub, For in this sleep of death what dreams may come. He’s so desperately afraid, and relentlessly shames himself for it. He expected death to be peace and yet it is not; he is afraid that he will never find it. There’s a dread of a new unknown; a hatred of the known presence. In my heart there was a kind of fighting that would not let me sleep. What if it was all meaningless, and he was in agony from his own thoughts, in his own mind, for no purpose or reason? He so desperately clings to a destiny he convinces himself to believe in. And he’s still so afraid.

#Ari reads hamlet #hamlet prince of denmark #hamlet analysis #Hamlet #Hamlet spoilers #Tw hamlet spoilers

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hamlet-memes · 4 years

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I read for Polonius in class and I was heartbroken to say the least

#spoilers #spoiler tw #hamlet #shakespeare #memes #Polonius #hamlet Spoilers

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lapinlunaire-games · 2 years

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Definitely interested in your Hamlet character analyses, but for now I'll say these are for H&H :)

🕷📦🖍

Eeeee thanks albie!!! haha oh the character analyses will come there is no stopping them

I am terrible at answering these without taking up a million lines, so more answers below the cut!

🕷️ SPIDER - what is their biggest fear? do they have any irrational / mundane fears?

A is terrified of being abandoned by those they care about, for reasons ;) Their biggest irrational fear is probably burning down their flat - they're the kind of person who triple checks the stove, the oven, and every lock before leaving.

Ailbhe's biggest fear is failure - both being seen as a failure and actually failing. They've based so much of their identity and purpose around their work for the Albion Investigative Council that the idea of somehow being a disappointment is their worst nightmare.

Catherine's biggest fear is a definite spoiler, but her second biggest fear is losing her ability to perform, for whatever reason. She's sacrificed a lot to make the most out of her talent and losing her largest source of joy would be utterly devastating. As for irrational/mundane fears, Catherine is slightly more afraid of the dark than she'd ever admit.

If you ask him, there's nothing that Imric is afraid of. In reality, his biggest fear is taking the plunge and truly baring himself to be loved by someone he's come to care for. He's not afraid of commitment, but rather the vulnerability in being so known. (tw: mild body horror? deals with fingernails) He has an irrational fear of catching a loose clothing seam under his fingernail as he gets dressed and ripping his fingernail off.

Before the London debacle with her former boss, Mina's biggest fear was falling into a river and drowning (she doesn't know how to swim). Now, it's finally restoring her name/status only to find that her former boss pulled strings and had her family tortured/killed. She also has frequent nightmares of waking up one day and being unable to speak/understand Mandarin.

Rosalind's biggest fear is also spoilery, but her second biggest fear is one day being absorbed into the Veil (there's an urban legend that says the Veil sometimes swallows naughty and/or undead Fantastics, never to be seen again).

Sam is pretty much living his worst fear ngl, what with the whole murder accusation thing. He's always tried so hard to make people see beyond bias against werewolves, with his deepest fear being reduced to nothing more than his Fantastic origin.

📦 PACKAGE - what's some "most likely to..." that can apply to them?

A - "most likely to have a secret twitter/tumblr rating mundane items like food"

Ailbhe - "most likely to have hardcore death metal playing in their head at all times"

Catherine - "most likely to impulse dye their hair at 3am"

Imric - "most likely to eat a family-size bag of candy in one sitting"

Mina - "most likely to roast you within an inch of your life"

Rosalind - "most likely to learn every tiktok dance"

Sam - "most likely to accidentally become a meme"

🖍️ CRAYON - what advice would you give to them?

A - stop overthinking and ask yourself what you really want, and why.

Ailbhe - remember that a person's capacity to change is greater than their past's ability to define them. sometimes mistakes are made.

Catherine - love yourself as much as you want others to love you. also for the love of god stop using deadly nightshade eyedrops.

Imric - fix your sleep schedule and stop taking the world onto your shoulders. perhaps consider not risking your ankles for the sake of impressively leaping over iron gates/banisters.

Mina - FIX YOUR SLEEP SCHEDULE TOO. give yourself more time to rest, and stop holding yourself accountable for things that weren't your fault.

Rosalind - if something causes you more pain to hold on to than to release, it's time to let it go.

Sam - it's okay to live well. it's okay to live for yourself. your joy does not detract from that of others.

#this was so fun!! thank you so much for the ask albie!!#h&h #ask #gamesbyalbie

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igarbagecannoteven · 2 years

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hello hello i am late but hi okay 8, 12, 15, 37, 40, 59, 74, 91, 95, 97, and 98 LOVE YOU BYE xoxo bella

hi hi! no such thing as late for ask games my love 💙

8. movies or tv shows? movies! i have a limited attention span so my interest may not last long enough to finish a show, and also there are lots of shows that either get cut off too early (or continue on for too long) while movies know their time constraints and can create an arc accordingly.

12. name of your favorite playlist? trying to make me choose btwn my children i see skdjfskldjf i've been rocking out to my dancing in the kitchen when no one else is home (aka the reason no one will let me dj a party) playlist lately which is pretty bangin' not gonna lie. also idk if i should link it bc ~spoilers~ but one of my fic/au playlists is pretty snazzy now that i've put them in semi-chronological order and it fuels my desire to have the big guy over and done with (the end is so far away *sobs*)

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment? not to be That Person™ but hamlet. i loved making conspiracy theories about queen gertrude being the mastermind and also who doesn't love some emo, questionably mentally ill lads?

37. suitcase or duffel bag? suitcase! duffel bags are so unwieldy and also i have more trouble lifting them bc i am built like uncooked spaghetti as you know

40. weirdest thing to ever happen at your school? like, high school? some of the events at my high school are kind tw heavy so i'll go with the fact that for a prank my senior year this group of kids decided to buy a large purple obelisk (our school color was purple) and just,, put in a random spot on school grounds? it was taller than me and had their initials painted on it and was just very strange.

59. if you were a video game character, what would your catchphrase be? is this like mario going "ha he" or whatever? or more like a "prepare to get sMaShEd" situation? either way it'd probably be something like "snazzy!" or "why are we here? just to suffer?" right before i do my signature move, ‘cry awkwardly until my opponent feels uncomfortable and walks away’

74. at what pain level out of ten (1 through 10) do you have to be at before you take an advil or ibuprofen? probably a 5 or 6? it used to be higher but by now i've realized there's no point to being in pain if there's an easy solution (altho i still to some extent try to tough it out at first for medical reasons lol)

91. boxes or bags? uhhh depends on the context but boxes are fun bc if they're big enough you can hide in them like a cat 😊

95. favorite app on your phone? spotify and tumblr bby, i am nothing if not basic as uwu

97. how many phone numbers do you have memorized? my parents' home phone and my cell phone. i used to have my old home phone from when i was a kid memorized but i lost it. i'm not good at remembering numbers so the moment it's not relevant they tend to fall out of my head lol

98. favorite historical era? oooo this is a tough one! i am partial to the 1920s just bc there is *so* much going on (good and bad) and also the aesthetic is so dreamy,,, but the 80s are also very funky fun and the music is *chef’s kiss*. OR if you want something a little more historical-y then i’ve always thought very early human civilization is so interesting bc there’s so much we don’t know! also a lot of the stuff we do find about them is very in the vein of “wow humans really have been like this forever” but like, in a positive way ya know skdjflksdl

send me weird asks!

#lots of fun q's thanks for sending them in!!#i think the fact that i held out on linking my fic playlist shows a lot of restraint #bc i really want to show it to the world #(i mean it is a public playlist so it's not exactly hidden but u know)#cannot wait to be finished with this fuckin thing #(affectionate)#answering mail #roomie <3

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gavelsins · 1 year

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☠ ━━ CHARACTER ANALYSIS: THE INTROSPECTION OF AN OUTLAW

PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG, PERSONAL BLOGS DNI! TW: SPOILERS, DEATH, MURDER, SUICIDAL IDEATION, VIOLENCE, DRUGS & ALCOHOL

#tw: blood #tw: violence #tw: death #tw: murder #tw: drugs #tw: alcohol #✖character study║i fell like judas grace denied so now i curse that raven's fire you made me hate you made me burn

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