Tell Them Stories

actor, reblogger, writer of poems and fics

[akajustmerry]

friend sent me an Instagram reel yesterday with 1000s of likes that was basically like "pride and prejudice is timeless actually because it's about an autism4autism romance 🥰" and then the creator proceeded to cite moments in the book and film where Lizzie and Darcy are "socially awkward" and....listen. I'm far from an Austen scholar, but I have taught Austen novels as an educator and this kind of psycho-pop analysis that views characters as individuals with autonomy over their actions, rather than tools in a story written at a particular time to say something about that time, pisses me off more than I can say without sounding like an asshole. I'm sorry but Darcy isn't rude and awkward and even cruel to Lizzie because he has autism, he says and does those things because he's a wealthy upper class land owning man raised to see a middle class woman from a large family with no male heirs like Elizabeth as inherently beneath him which he expresses to her multiple times because it is socially acceptable for him to do so in a society where someone like him is privileged above almost all others. He is "socially awkward" around her because of misogyny and classism (PREJUDICE) and she is "socially awkward" around him because a woman of her standing at that time simply wouldn't have had much to do with the gentry but to actually push back against the shit that Darcy says would be social suicide for her whole family so she protests the only way she can which is refusing his advances (PRIDE). not to be the "context collapse is the death of media literacy" guy. But this is the problem with the kind of head empty, let people enjoy things, if I can't relate to it what's the point type crowd. Youse think you're being so quirky justifying incoherent and anachronistic interpretations with your rampant individualism, ensuring that other people never confront anything that challenges them in these stories like patriarchal misogyny and classism. Pride and Prejudice becomes an "autism4autism romance", completely undermining the historical context of its status as one of the great social satires about the class and gender politics that Austen so expertly observed around her. This attitude is why we have nonsensical historical dramas that actively hate history like fucking edgy bdsm "Wuthering Heights", Bridgerton, The Buccaneers, and even a 2025 Frankenstein movie where the monster is just misunderstood and does no wrong uwu etc. because individual relatability and catharsis is king over anything actually saying anything about anything now. Everything is relatable and nothing is meaningful.

[daily-like-a-prayer]

[wulfhalls]

im like. outside of my body. im not here. im GONE

[daily-like-a-prayer]

[sweetaprilbutterfly]

SOPHIE TURNER and KIT HARINGTON

as Anne and Jago in THE DREADFUL

[impossiblyizzy]

every episode of Call the Midwife

Sister Julienne: I'm worried about Sister Monica Joan, she's barely eating and she keeps talking about her mother

Sister Monica Joan: I am undoubtedly dying!

random woman: I'm eight months pregnant and decades of family drama is coming to a head! Also my husband/mother/sister is ill.

*nuns singing montage*

*Fred pops up out of nowhere* Does anyone want a pork pie? I'm selling pork pies now.

Dr Turner, lighting a cigarette: I'm fine with gay people and I love vaccines

Timothy, smugly: if only they could invent a vaccine for homophobia.

Shelagh, rifling through medical paperwork: I think there's something wrong with random woman's husband/mother/sister. Please don't ask how I ever have time to raise my children.

*sixties pop music montage!*

*random woman gives birth, it's either a girl or a boy*

*family drama is resolved*

*random woman's husband/mother/sister dies/is cured*

*Trixie gets a new haircut*

Old Jenny: and that was how I came to deeper understand the fragility and beauty of life in the East End (she literally wasn't there)

*Sister Monica Joan lives for another ten years*

[dailyflicks]

CAROL (2015) dir. Todd Haynes

[visenyaism]

Honestly fuck AI for making me have to go on and on defending the dignity of toil like I’m some kind of protestant

[nymphoutofwater]

Here's remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)

Anthony and Cleopatra: ~ Josette Simon, Antony Byrne & Ben Allen - 2017

As You Like It: ~ At Wolfe Park - 2013 ~ Kenneth Brannagh's - 2006

Coriolanus: ~ NYET Alumni - 2016 ~ Tom Hiddleston - 2014 ~ Ralph Fiennes - 2011

Cymbelline: ~ Michael Almereyda's - 2014

Hamlet: ~ David Tennant - 2009 ~ Ethan Hawke & Diane Venora - 2000 ~ Kenneth Branagh's - 1989 ~ BCC's Part One & Two - 1990 ~ Broadway - 1964 ~ Christopher Plummer - 1964 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1948

Henry IV: ~ BBC's Part One & Two - 1989 ~ The Brussel's Shakespeare Society's - 2017

Henry V: ~ The BBC's - 1990 ~ Laurence Olivier's - 1944

Julius Caesar: ~ Phyllida Lloyd's - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1979 ~ John Gielgud - 1970

King Lear: ~ The RSC's - 2008 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1983 ~ The BBC's - 1975 ~ James Earl Jones - 1974 ~ Orson Wells - 1953

Love's Labour's Lost: ~ Calvin University - 2016

Macbeth: ~ Antoni Cimolino & Shelagh O'Brien's - 2017 ~ Ian McKellen & Judi Dench - 1969 ~ Sean Connery - 1961

Measure for Measure: ~ Hugo Weaving - 2019 ~ The BBC's - 1990

The Merchant of Venice: ~ Al Pacino - 2004 ~ Trevor Nunn & Chris Hunt - 2001 ~ The BBC's - 1980 ~ Lawrence Olivier - 1973

The Merry Wives of Windsor: ~ The Royal Shakespeare Company's - 1982

A Midsummer Night's Dream: ~ Oliver Chris & Gwendoline Christie - 2019 ~ City of Columbus's - 2018 ~ The Globe's - 2013 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Lindsay Duncan & Alex Jennings - 1986

Much Ado About Nothing: ~ Shakespeare in the Park - 2019 ~ Kenneth Branagh - 1993 ~ The BBC's - 1984

Othello: ~ The BBC's Part One & Two - 1990

Richard II: ~ David Tennant - 2013 ~ Deborah Warner's - 1997 ~ The BBC's - 1978

Richard III: ~ Ian McKellen - 1995 ~ Laurence Olivier - 1955

Romeo and Juliet: ~ Simon Godwin's - 2021 ~ The BBC's - 1988 ~ Laurence Harvey & Susan Shentall - 1954

The Taming of the Shrew: ~ Ontario production? ~ American Conservatory Theater - 1976 ~ Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor - 1967 ~ Mary Pickford & Samuel Taylor - 1929

The Tempest: ~ Gregory Doran's - 2017 ~ The BBC's - 1988

Timon of Athens: ~ Barry Avrich's - 2024

Troilus and Cressida: ~ Audio Production ~ This one I found on youtube? - 2016

Titus Andronicus: ~ Anthony Hopkins - 1999

Twelfth night: ~ Texas Shakespeare Festival's - 2015 ~ Alec Guinness, Joan Plowright & Ralph Richardson - 1970

Two Gentlemen of Verona: ~ Katherine Steweart's - 2018 ~ The BBC's

The Winter's Tale: ~ Antony Sher - 1999 (Warning: they don't have a bear...)

Bonuses:

Time Loop Hamlet! (A personal fav of mine)

Rock Opera Hamlet???

Shakespeare animated tales

The Complete Works Of Shakespeare Abridged comedy

From the original post:

A Midwinter's Tale, about a man trying to make Hamlet.

Russian Hamlet here

Here's Scotland, PA, the 2001 modern Hamlet retelling.

Rave Macbeth for anyone interested is here.

This one is the Taming of the Shrew modern retelling.

The french Romeo & Juliet musical with English subtitles is here!

Here's the 1948 one,

the Orson Wells Othello movie with Portuguese subtitles there

A Lego adaptation of Othello here.

Here's commentary on David Tennant's Richard II

[casinthegarden]

Godspeed to all those rescuing their hot elf boyfriends from ritualistic sacrifice on this All Hallow's Eve

[misandriste]

Rita Hayworth as Gilda Mundson in GILDA (1946) dir. Charles Vidor

[milfsisyphus]

Did you guys hear some of Napoleon’s jewelry was stolen from the Louvre this morning by guys dressed as construction workers? They rode a lift basket up to the window and left on the freight elevator WHILE the museum was already open…… in and out in 4 minutes…… chic art heists are so back

[copperbadge]

On Saturday I said to my partner, as I have said for months, "A ten thousand dollar a year raise would solve so many of my problems."

As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don't want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.

As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I'm going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can't even.

May all of you get the $10K raise your soul has yearned for. And whatever level of sex you can be satisfied with for $200.

[vergess]

hey bestie i think ur post might be charmed 'cause you aren't gonna fuckin believe what happened today

[oona81]

Like to charge, reblog to cast

[variousqueerthings]

geoffrey offending the ghost of his ex-best-friend-secretly-in-love-with-him-turned-antagonistic-after-sleeping-with-his-girlfriend-although-oliver-wishes-they'd-been-a-thrupple-died-before-the-three-of-them-could-make-up-it's-complicated by refusing to allow him to be a part of the creative process, because everybody already thinks he's too crazy to work functionally and also because he's mad at him for always being so overbearing

and they're doing macbeth, of course

[clarabosswald]

"i asked chatgpt" "i asked grok" well i asked the alethiometer and it said ☼☼☼, 🍎 🍎, 𝚨𝛀 𝚨𝛀, 🕯🕯🕯, ⚗️⚗️⚗️, 🐜, 🍎, 𓆈𓆈

[zigzagzoom94]

It's been a while since I did this but let's give it a go-

Sun thrice: truth

Apple twice: knowledge

Alpha & Omega: process

Candle thrice: learning

Crucible(?) thrice: achieved wisdom

Ant once: mechanical work

Apple once: sin

Crocodile twice: rapacity

The Alethiometer says there is value in actually learning things for yourself and generative AI is just a vector for unfettered corporate greed

[clarabosswald]

almost bang on, great work! the last symbol is supposed to be the chameleon (for lack of good emoji/unicode symbol for that i went with lizard - lyra thought the chameleon symbol was a lizard after all), and the 2nd level meaning of chameleon is greed, but it still works perfectly with the crocodile somehow

[dataanalyzer]

How did you get those meanings, how did you combine those meanings into that message, and where can I learn this dark art?

[clarabosswald]

there's an official guide! fun fact: the 17th meaning of the sun symbol is homosexual love, after apollo's love for hyacinthus

[mcufam]

GET TO KNOW: eme   — Favorite Character: Margaret "Peggy" Carter (Captain America, Agent Carter)

[postarcadian]

This year the City Dionysia will not be accepting any submissions that contain adult or sexually explicit content; abuse or harming of women or children; incest or implied incest; familial curses; self-destructive behavior; cannibalism; improper burial of corpses; gore for gore's sake; failure to heed prophecy or other disrespect for the gods; or witchcraft. We do not accept any religious or political themes. We do not accept any submissions featuring choral odes which suggest moral complexity or ambiguity; the chorus must explicitly state that any morally improper behavior is wrong. We do not accept fan fiction; this includes use of characters from the Homeric epics. Thank you!