#and i just know all you thots would be crawling all over him like weevils | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sometimes-love-is-enough · 4 years

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I MEAN IT GAVE ME CHILLS IN A GOOD WAY. and also it would be hilarious to write imo; just these 6 dudes that all look the same and just made up A Guy.

“Thomas,” Roman announces quite suddenly, with a triumphant gesture that manages to inadvertently sweep half of the script drafts off the couch in the process.

“I still can not believe we’re doing this,” Virgil says.

“Oh, you’d better believe it, Way Down Gay-destown, ‘cause I just got the perfect name for him. Thomas. That’s his name – Thomas Sanders.” Roman pauses, and wiggles his fingers a bit. “Thoughts?”

Remus perks up. “Oh, our fictional character has thots now?”

“Crawling all over him like weevils,” Virgil nods.

“I thought we were calling ourselves ‘Sides’,” says Janus.

“Guys, please,” Roman begs.

“Thomas sounds good to me,” is Patton’s opinion. “It’s nice and friendly, and also it has two syllables, like the rest of us! It kind of fits in like that.”

“It is a surprisingly apt name, especially when you take into consideration that Roman most likely did not know of the linguistic root when picking it,” Logan muses.

Remus waves a hand lazily from where he’s draped backwards over the couch, writing Transformers inflation porn on the notes app of his shitty phone. “Uh, noparoni, falsehood, all that jazz. I was watching. He went on babynames dot com and everything for this.”

“...What he said, yeah.”

“Ah, yes, babynames dot com, the internet’s premier and leading source for all accurate name derivations,” comes the dry response.

“Thomas means twin,” Roman says. “It means twin, and it’s funny because we all look identical! It’s like another layer of meaning! A fun little injoke, just for us.”

“Yes,” says Virgil, “you’re right. We need many, many deep layers of meaning and in-jokes woven into the shared identity we’re crafting as part of Roman and Remus’s wild, spur-of-the-moment internet scam.”

“How dare you,” Roman objects loudly, flailing so suddenly that he nearly falls off the couch. “This is polar opposite of a scam, we’re – we are merely taking advantage of our uncanny shared appearance to... share joy amongst the humble Youtube vlogging community! And perhaps show off. Just a little. But to say that it’s a scam – ”

“No, this is definitely a scam,” Janus says. “I mean, look at us. We’re inventing an entire person for internet clout.”

Patton looks like he’s having second thoughts about this whole thing. “I’m having second thoughts,” he says. “Like, on an ethical, moral sort of level, is any of this... really a good idea?”

“People invent other people for shittier reasons all the time, I think we’re fine,” Virgil says. “I mean, look at internet catfishes. Or every male fiction writer with a very obvious and creepy fetish. Or J.K. Rowling.”

“J.K. Rowling doesn’t exist?” Janus says. “Excellent. We won, boys.”

Roman grabs a pen and scribbles it into the notebook, next to a hasty little stickman doodle of an average-looking guy and a list of qualities and attributes and skills. “Well, all that aside, nobody seems to have an objection to this, so Thomas it is! Thomas Sanders. Thomas I’ve-Just-Realized-He-Needs-A-Middle-Name Sanders.”

“Thomas F Sanders,” Remus suggests.

“The F stands for ‘Fucking’, doesn’t it,” sighs Patton.

“Well, yeah.”

“Way to go for the low-hanging fruit, dude,” Virgil says. “Okay, put a pin in the middle name for now. Our collective brainchild has a name, so... that’s something. I guess.” He grabs the notebook from Roman and squints down at the short-ish list they have so far. “Any more character traits we wanna give this guy?”

“Intense love of Disney films,” Roman says.

“We’ve already got that; you suggested it about five times already.”

“Maybe he can play the ukulele!” Patton suggests.

Virgil nods, and starts to write it down before stopping abruptly. “Wait. Can any of us play the ukulele?”

Silence.

“He can only have traits that we already have,” Virgil reminds them. “That’s the whole idea. We’re derivatives of him.”

“Well, I’ll work on the ukulele thing,” Roman says decisively. “Put it down anyway. Anyone else?”

“He can’t cook to save his life,” Janus says.

“Catholic guilt,” Logan provides, with a little wince and a slight adjustment of his glasses. “It provides a good base for many of the plotlines we wish to include in this, I believe.”

“Give him a huge dick,” Remus says.

“Remus,” Roman growls.

“Just a humungous badonker of a penis. He beats his meat and the entire earth rumbles.”

“Remus,” Patton groans.

Remus grins. "He’s packing some real chunky meat down there. As in, his drill is a five star excavator. A proper manmade wonder. It's the kind of meal you get a prize for finishing. A bridge between two warring nations. And the girth! God had to resize the Earth so the radii wouldn't match. You can use his cast iron pelvic greatsword as a radiation shield in Chernobyl. His – "

“Remus, weren’t you listening? We’re only giving him traits that we already have,” Virgil says, looking Remus dead in the eyes. “I’m not going to let you misrepresent yourself like this.”

The room almost immediately erupts into a loud chorus of enthusiastic oohs. Quite a few people throw things at Virgil, who lets out a snort of amusement and ducks to avoid getting nailed in the eye by a stray television remote control. Remus just cackles.

“We’re going to have to tone back the dick jokes, probably,” says Janus with some regret, once everybody calms down a bit. “Don’t want to get demonetized within the first few weeks.”

“Well, Remus already broke the Youtube demonetization speedrun last week, so at least we know what not to do,” Patton says absently. “The real question is, though – who’s going to actually play this Thomas person?

“Don’t look at me,” says Janus. “I’m looking forward to getting the play the villain for once.”

Patton points at him, mock-glaring. “Hey, don’t think you’re missing out on a redemption arc just because you like the evil aesthetic!”

Janus lets out a little affronted hissing noise at that, but doesn’t actually object.

“Well, I’m not shaving my moustache for any of you fuckers, no matter how much internet clout we’re gonna get for it,” Remus declares.

A quick, meaningful glance is exchanged between the four remaining people in the room.

“Leave me out of it,” Virgil decides.

“I don’t really mind, either way,” Patton says.

“In that case, I shall arm-wrestle you for the honor of portraying our glorious, talented and entirely fictional centre of being on our upcoming Grammy-award-winning sixty-part webseries,” Roman declares, flexing dramatically.

“Which may or may not be a scam,” Logan says.

“...Look, are we doing this or what?”

“Absolutely.” Logan places down his book, and shrugs off his jacket. “I should warn you, however – I am what I believe is colloquially referred to as ‘absolutely fucking ripped’.” He breaks out into a surprisingly wicked smile. “Roman, let me be clear. I am going to be the one to portray Thomas Fucking Sanders, our beloved nonexistent media superstar culmination-of-our-collective-selves. And I am about to flat-out destroy you. Let’s go.”

There’s a beat of silence as everybody stares at Logan. The stares range from impressed to terrified to obviously horny. All of these are equally valid emotions to be feeling, because Logan is ripped, and somehow none of them have ever realized this before.

“Well, before we do that, give me five minutes to make popcorn,” says Janus. “Because I have a feeling we’re going to need it.”

#storytime #asks #this got out of hand and is extremely stupid #also warning for Remus and his dumbass dick jokes #Anonymous

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notcatherinemorland · 2 years

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it’s that time of year again: annual Hamlet posting Session

Production: Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe. Marketed to me as: Post-pandemic theatre revival, Generic Globe Production of Good Quality, Candle-lit and intimate. Expectations: Will do something a littol edgy and thematic, will have at least 1 (one) theme, it will be of overall good quality considering that it’s the globe and the ticket price.

So.

ive got some thots

i always have Thots on hamlet. crawling over me like weevils

Literally i do not think i’ve heard shakespeare in any regional accent beyond the a level lit class reading aloud. hamlet had a black country accent (i am copying that identification from reviews of the actor, i could not place it for the life of me; i speak like stephen fry.)

it absolutely slapped.

it changed the rhythm, it changed the stresses, it therefore changed the meaning. it was so, so interesting. Gertrude had Generic Shakespeare RP accent, but Claudius had a bit of london accent mixed with his RP. Ophelia i will come to later.

they had a very diverse cast! diverse in race, actor’s gender and accent. and every single actor was so good. ophelia and laertes especially were outstanding.

They ad-libbed swearing. i would recommend you get thee to the globe theatre just for Laertes alone yelling ‘Where the FUCK is my father’, covered in blood. Unparalleled shakespeare experience. it was scattered throughout the play but god it was so much fun. it changed the energy of the scene every time someone swore, it brought so much life and depth to the playtext we have probably memorised as a nation like fucking f.451.

music! they had music! it was interesting! i thought it would be a bit crunchy for me, but the way the characters interacted with the musician (who was the grave digger) and the new layer it brought was really good! it helped that a) all those who had to sing could carry a tune b) the music was from the smiths but im uncultured and had to learn that from reviews. i liked it though.

audience participation!!!! hamlet had to ask if he was a coward 5 times before we got the hint to tell him. this one guy down in the pit seats had a whole nonverbal conversation with hamlet about his cowardice of nod, shake head, shrug shoulders. i loved that bit unironically. hamlet started the play off stage by leaning into the window frame next to my head and then looking head dead in the eyes to lament he couldn’t top himself. i gave him a little nod. but like what the fuck!!! i was complicit in the play!! i cannot sleep at night any more i peaked right there.

ophelia. literally this production revolved around her. she started off as Your Typical Ophelia with such a lightness and youth about her, giggling with laertes. and then was on stage for every single court scene bar the ones she logically couldn’t know about. they really went in on not letting ophelia talk, and the nonverbal communication with gertrude, but they also gave her the inserted players monologue! she was part of the play! god! im obsessed with that one! the actress has my full kudos for absolutely nailing ophelia the character being an actress. her madness.. i do not feel qualified to talk about the reception of it at all, but it was an interesting choice. Ophelia’s madness was in sweats and a hoodie and a protective hair wrap and she lost all her linguistic and behavior and costume’s structure to yell, and bounce up and down the stage and sing (an elsinore version of that ‘everywhere we go’ chant), and my god it really struck me. The inclusion of the actor’s race into Ophelia’s character moved it firmly away from the previous globe hamlet i saw (2017? clown!hamlet michelle terry) which had a more ‘blind’ approach to casting (barring R&G). It was such a comment on the marginalisation of Ophelia’s voice in the play. She was just loaded with meaning and themes. On the flip side, because she was a loadbearing pillar for the play, it can be quite the negative.

you will notice my language does not separate ophelia from her actor! this is intentional. mostly because i am talking about this hamlet production, not hamlet As a production - i am not qualified to talk about the theatre industry in terms greater than some hamlets.

literally no hamlet production has ever made me understand the utter, heartbreaking tragedy that is watching 2 families disintegrate before your eyes. it fucking broke me. so many productions get caught up in the Hamletiness of hamlet; the madness, the self-absorption, the internal struggle and action vs inaction. this production was much more about the utter devastation hamlet leaves in his wake, and my god, they made it hurt.

music again! they had all the dead characters sing in the final scene (with ophelia and polonius holding hands at the back) and then when hamlet said the rest is silence, they stopped. the play ended. the silence was harrowing and it echoed of the small enclosed theatre space and the lights snapped off at the exact moment the singing stopped and it literally broke me as a person. :)

they had like. a pool of water built into the middle of the stage and it was Nice and Thematic and they used it to douse the candle chandeliers! fun and interesting and leant some very nice ideas about light and water to a play very concerned with both of those (give me some light! vs hamlet sent to sea, thaw, melt, resolve itself into a dew, the ever-cut fortinbras scene on the cliff). but literally by the end the play it had ashes and blood and a hoodie floating about and it all looked so dirty that i could not think about much else. it looked so grim...

Light! GOD. they started off with a whole Moment^TM of lighting the candles and then putting out the candles, and then as the play progressed (sig. after play within play) they used artificial light more and more. i loved it, but i like that kind of thing. everyone’s costumes and the setting had a shine on it, so i think like 90% of the place was inflammable. i find this very funny.

polonius was hilariously good. he had this fucking Geralt the Witcher looking ass wig on his head (lacefront clockable in the candlelight lol) and he was like. over 6ft. any Polonii worth their salt will make me laugh in the historical-pastoral-comical lines and he was very very funny. he took the humour with him when he died :(

Claudius had a proper energy and youth to him, which was a very nice change from the norm of conniving bastard politician. he was very much like laertes; hot headed, opportunistic, but still conniving and politically savvy. i Really liked him. someone sneezed in the claudius - hamlet ‘kill him when he’s praying’ scene, and claudius and ham turned, claudius said ‘bless you’ and i nearly lost the fucking plot. you could not buy timing so perfect.

Gertrude. she was a gertrude. she was drunk in the duel scene, which brought such a chaos. she knowingly drank the poison (i always like seeing what productions do with that) but her absolutely outstanding moment was after the Play in a Play.

sidebar: about the theatre. the corridors of the ground floor seating had large, wooden frame open windows/rectangular holes. it opened the space up a lot, but it had specific use for lighting - moved from warm to cold, dim to bright. but it was used for the actors to move around the theatre with intent. Hamlet started off (next to me!!) and leaned in the window monologuing - not even in the stage boundary of elsinore. Themes! they had the guards/ R&G running around looking for Ham post-closet scene, Laertes stormed his way around and burst in yelling for his dad (swearing, covered in blood) but my favourite use was after ‘Give me some light!’ - Gertude and Claudius swept back and forth around the corridor swearing blue at each other about grief and lying to each other. it was such a cacophony over the next scene, they had a whole like 10 mins of scripted arguing, and Gertrude was fantastic. best moment of the play.

costumes! they were generic fake medieval and very pretty. ham wore docs. ophelia had some dirty white trainers. laertes wore sliders and nike shorts. a solid costumed production, i really liked it. unobtrusive and yet brought something new to it. wonderful

i didn’t care too much for the ghost of his dead dad, but it was like, fine. nothing heinous i just prefer it more when they do something weird. having the ghost dressed in nothing but ye olde leather armour with his tits out (tiddies out for elsinore) was tonally dissonant with the rest of the costumes and the following graffiti so i was just a bit unimpressed. it wasn’t BAD, it just didn’t win me over. however i think the best ghost is the mazine peake in manchester’s 360 theatre which is just lights, so make of it what you will.

laertes. one of THEE best laertes i’ve ever seen. absolutely fantastic. and not just because i’m in love with the actor because i am a giant lesbian and she was covered in blood. partially because i am a giant lesbian and she was covered in blood. but also his sibling relationship with ophelia was subtle and wonderfully done, they had a proper intimacy.

R&G doubled up on the 2 court officials and also the players and guards. it was grand. i know every production does it for ease and themes, but they were good actors and it was well done.

setting! they had a whole set change in the first interval to cover the palace in graffiti; which hamlet had supposedly done. i think more hamlets should be given sharpies. i really liked it, honestly, it made it look a) claustrophobic, b) mixing the political nature of graffiti with the personal revenge theme was a++ c) talk about instability in hamlet, they literally dismantled the bloody set twice on a meta level. loved it a lot. also i think there was a mishap with the pool of water, one of the pieces making the tip of it was taken off in the 2nd interval and so it was missing. thematically rich. angela carter moment of everything will disintegrate.

gravedigger was metafictional. boss move to be honest. his bit had nothing to do with anything textual, made pop culture references, and got in a few digs about garden parties and corrupt politicians. very nice experience, would laugh again. he and the vicar (polonius actor with an irish accent) had a little singalong by using the yorricks skulls as percussion which was very funny.

hamlet himself! he was very good indeed. he picked up speed after the 1st interval. to be or not to be was good, but his energy in the monologues kinda tailed off half way through pretty consistently. Loved his accent, loved his energy with the other characters. a solid ham.

honestly it was an absolutely banging production of hamlet to see live. it was a very audio/visual focused production, which felt very refreshing compared to some very stripped back hamlets that focus on the words.

the outstanding part was how it focused on the familial tragedy. it was very like Leer, with 2 sets of 3 being put in opposition to each other and the drama coming from their clashes. it was a surprisingly emotional version of the story because of it.

the theatre was integral to the experience with the use of the corridor. smashed holes in the public/private theme of the textual hamlet. the graffiti and ophelia’s integrated actor attributes bringing class to the idea of decay (very poignant). light and lighting used to full effect throughout. would write page upon page about this for the a level mark scheme.

overall thoughts: see it live if possible. solid cast, only a handful of detractions, brought a lot of interesting things to the forefront, a firmly political production within itself and on a metafictional (metatheatrical?) level. would see it again for the swearing alone. ophelia was outstanding.

#hamlet posting #Words! words! words!#laertes if you are out there i am free on saturday night if you would like to also be free on saturday night when i am free please #im sorry for being a basic bitch i am just like that about hamlet #im just way too into hamlet im so sorry

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