We’re reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth in my English class this year, but I’ve always had a special connection with Hamlet. My friends and I have been quoting the play non-stop and every teacher we have gets a huge kick out of it. I made some art based on the “Alas, poor Yorick” soliloquy in 5:1. I hope you all enjoy. :)

the sillies

what were they arrested for? only the lord knows ❗️❗️

side note will’s hand is bugging the fuck out of me but I’m too lazy to fix it😍😍

Hamlet, prince of Denmark, listens to My Chemical Romance ... and you won't change my mind.

listening to feast or famine getting ready for show, trying so hard not to sing out loud rn

my theatre teacher fancasted me as hamlet and now people in my class are saying they want to see me play hamlet and i’m so!!!! this is such a win!!!

anyways u guys i just did the most joshua thing ever in english class today. sat there for the entire hour without saying a word and then during the last 5 minutes said the most out of pocket shit that had everyone crying

Me and my friends were talking about what we do if we were actors and I decided that personally my actor job would be being hot (gender-bent Shakespeare)

(For context I am a 5’9” woman with styled short hair and sharp wing eyeliner)

one of the exec members for the student-run theater club at my college has shared that they're directing a production of hamlet this semester, and it gave me a story idea:

a college where the school theatre department is doing hamlet as their big show for the year, and the small, more casual, fairly new student-run theater group, who had been planning to do an amateur production of hamlet that semester as their first big event but now fear being totally overshadowed, then decide to do rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead instead.

the idea being that the people who decide to do r&g are dead, are, for a variety of reasons, the side characters in the college theater scene who get overlooked and have less influence in comparison to the big players, the same way r&g are side characters in hamlet who spend stoppard's play grappling with that and how their fate is out of their hands :)

'Hamlet was friends with Ophelia' this. 'Hamlet was friends with Laertes' that. Consider:

Hamlet was friends with Polonius.

Hear me out:

1: Both theatre kids. Enough said.

2: Apart from Horatio, Polonius is the character most capable of sustaining conversations with Hamlet. He takes Hamlet's insults in stride. He has not just one, but multiple extended conversations with Hamlet. Hamlet displays aggravation towards Gertrude and Claudius, while Polonius displays aggravation towards Laertes and Ophelia...but the two seem strangely calm, almost exasperated, around each other. Granted, the origins of Polonius's attitude is probably because he is socially inferior to Hamlet and because he wants to appeal to Hamlet to reveal 'secrets'...but Hamlet definitely appreciates a conversation partner that can endure him, if not keep up with him, and why wouldn't Polonius return that sentiment?

3: They also both speak numerous asides. It shows that they have a shared tendency to comment on people behind their backs (which is corroborated by other aspects of the play, of course), and this indicates that there is a nonzero chance that they have gossiped together.

4: Ophelia approached Polonius about Hamlet's madness. Consider:

-Ophelia seems to be distressed and concerned about Hamlet when she approaches Polonius.

-Ophelia knows that Polonius is overprotective, yet still approached Polonius about Hamlet, expressing her concern (as in Hamlet looking 'piteous', 'as if he had been loosed out of Hell') specifically.

The implication here is that Ophelia appears to believe that Polonius won't try to actively harm Hamlet, but might rather help him, or at least prevent Hamlet from getting worse. And why would Polonius want to help Hamlet? You know the drill.

5: We get a lot of ambiguity about Hamlet's madness throughout the play. However, we mostly agree that sending R&G, unwitting coconspirators in a murder plot, to die in his place, was a move no sane person would do. We can also agree that at least some of Hamlet's 'madness' early on was feigned.

Consider that the death of Polonius was what drove Hamlet truly mad. It matches up with the timeline that Hamlet started being truly mad just before the R&G death-sentence while being at least somewhat sane earlier.

And why would killing Polonius drive Hamlet over the edge? Apart from the general shock of murder, finding out you accidentally killed a long-time friend would definitely be enough to drive anyone over the edge.

6. They both like surveillance. One more shared hobby.

7. As I've outlined in my Polonius and Gertrude are foils post, Polonius appears to be too concerned as a parent while Gertrude appears to be too unconcerned, and Hamlet is greatly dissatisfied with Gertrude's attitude. By extension, then, Hamlet would probably respect Polonius's "engagement" better compared to Gertrude's "detachment", and this might draw them together.

8. Speaking about Gertrude! Hamlet and Polonius are the only two characters in the play who have expressed explicit, strong dissent in-person against Gertrude specifically. Combining with point 3, ranting about Gertrude could have been an excellent bonding activity for them.

Of course, I like this headcanon because it makes the story more tragic. But I have an additional reason:

-Were Hamlet once friends with Polonius, Hamlet's killing of Polonius would be a betrayal of that friendship. This adds an additional layer of meaning when Laertes talks about 'honour' in the final scene.

And finally, all this also indicates that Hamlet and Polonius are foils (differences despite similarity). I am too tired to analyse this further but. Yeah I think we get the gist.

William Shakespeare. 📖🖊📚🌟

“Goodnight, sweet prince, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest…”

alright i've got an idea for a stage play, assuming those are still allowed considering how determined they are to extinguish anything authentic enough to live and breathe in the face of the hyperreal future.

ok so it's hamlet: the next chapter and everyone who died is a ghost except hamlet who crossed over bc he was a real one and a badass. there is a bit of shock initially, but the characters quickly adjust to their ghost forms after polonius convinces them to behave sensibly by spouting one-liners and offering unsolicited advice he doesn't follow. ophelia is seriously sick of everyone's bullshit, and ends up going ghost-mad trying to figure out how to escape this stupid planet so she can rest in peace for the first time in her whole miserable existence. eventually good old yorick arrives in angel form to escort her to heaven where she belongs. in the absence of orders to follow, rosencrantz and guildenstern have no idea what to do or what's going on and spend the whole play trying to determine whether they are really dead or just dreaming. eventually they come to the wrong conclusion. in her first ever wise decision, gertrude resolves not to date for a while and proceeds to emotionally unravel and reveal the extent of her codependency issues in a series of escalating mini monologues that seem to be directed at herself. the men are confused by this seemingly unprovoked outpouring of emotion, so decide she must just be on her period bc art imitates life. laertes overhears the new, living nobles at the castle casually talking shit about his family and immediately starts swinging punches, forgetting that he is a ghost. this enrages him further, and polonius spends a whole scene trying to talk him out of a poorly-conceived murder plot that is likely to make things considerably worse for everyone. finally he is persuaded to take a xanax, and after waking up from his nap he acts as though none of it ever happened. horatio doesn't make an appearance, but it is explained that he left the country immediately following hamlet's funeral and is now living happily in a meadow or something with his new boyfriend. this story will be explored in a spin off one-act called 'flights of angels' in which literally nothing bad happens to anyone. horatio and his bf just love each other and have interesting discussions and pick flowers for an hour the end. only the best for literature's #1 homeboy.

i'm gonna call it "more mischance on plots and errors" from horatio's last line of the original play. everyone better be glad i don't have any money bc if i had the means this idea would prolly be realized and you'd all have to listen to me make even more unfunny hamlet jokes than i already do.

Wip Whenever

Thanks for the tag @thevikingwoman! they say you should write the first draft before going back, but that's not going to stop me.

“How dull is that, if there was no love for her? For anyone?” he asked. “Love makes things more interesting. More worthwhile.”

“Yes,” she said, aware of her presence, her body, her ancientness. “I do think love makes things more interesting.”

“Are we in agreement then?”

“Quite.”

tagging @galadrieljones @myreia @agentkatie @fiannans @dismalzelenka

bumping la dee dah dah day in the dressing rooms

“I read Shakespeare like an academic because it’s very refined and elegant and sophisticated-”

Oh yeah? Well I read Shakespeare like how theater kids read Be More Chill. Cordelia is my sweet cinnamon roll. Lady Macbeth is a gaslighting, gatekeeping, girlboss. Hamlet is my problematic fave. Orsino probably has the aesthetic of Lil Nas X. Malvolio is my poor little meow meow (actually, apparently he was also King Charles I’s poor little meow meow). It’s what Shakespeare would have wanted.

(This isn’t really to bash on academics. Ya’ll are just the side of the fandom that does in depth analysis of the plays and their themes)