i also think some of my hamlet takes/interpretations are somewhat inseparable from the fact that i read hamlet as at least fairly young, regardless of exactly how old he is, because the way the older characters in the play treat him resonates very deeply with my experience of being a mentally ill teenager. like, you know something is wrong, you know this thing you're experiencing (in hamlet's case, grief, but also the knowledge of the murder) is real and it's unimaginably painful and it might actually kill you, and yet not ONLY are the people around you telling you to just Be Normal and Get Over It, they are ALSO?? acting like everything is FINE?? they're walking around and living their lives like everything is perfectly normal and the same it's always been, and they're interacting with you like they expect you to live that way too, and at some point you inevitably hear the siren song of "just how much do i have to act out before they're FORCED to acknowledge it?" and then you put on an antic disposition and kill your situationship's dad, you know how it is.
this doesn't mean hamlet has to literally be a teenager. like, hell, you could have your thirtysomething hamlet and still lean into this reading, because it would be really compelling to highlight that a thirty-year-old hamlet is a fully grown adult being shoved into the role of a teenager/youth because the generation above him refuses to treat him like an adult or allow him autonomy. but i do think this is why hamlet as, like, Traditional Handsome Brooding Protagonist man almost always falls flat for me, because your average traditional handsome brooding protagonist man isn't being constantly infantilized, denied, ignored, told his emotions are meaningless, told he can't possibly be an authority on his own experience, etc. obviously some of this is stated in the text (particularly claudius's get-over-it speech), but in performance it falls flat for me if he's just stalking thirtyfiveishly around the castle as Some Guy Who Also Lives Here. no!!! they put that prince in the INCONVENIENT TEENAGER WE DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH box and you're gonna ACT LIKE IT
IN WHICH LESBIANISM IRRADIATES ME SO HARD MY MOLECULES ARE WOBBLED INTO A HIGHER STATE OF EXISTENCE
OR: ESTRO JUNKIES - A SPOILER-LESS (ISH) REVIEW
*taking the fattest fuckin’ whiff of my bubblegum cigar* bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you tunglr? Heh heh…well let’s just say…holy shit this book,
(YOU CAN PRE-ORDER ESTRO JUNKIES HERE. IT COMES OUT MAY 24TH!!!)
I think if I had to pick one way to describe this book, it would be this: There’s a lot of love in Estro Junkies. It’s not the type of love that unconditionally puts up with your bullshit, nor is it the type of love that will therapy-speak you; it’s the kind of love that bonks you over the head with a paper towel tube and goes, “hey, get your shit together.” But it’s sincere; it’s the kind of love that sincerely, truly cares about you, about the characters, about the story being told and the very real issues being talked about in the story. It’s a love that actually shines a light on the vibrancy of the human experience, on the complexity of it, without flinching.
This is not just a compilation of the serial it’s inspired by (Ranked Competitive Breast Growth); it’s, dare I say, genuinely a lot better than the serial. The humor is still there, but in a far more mature way. The arcs are different in ways that help make the story more cohesive, the major plot beats that are preserved from the serial have been integrated into the story in ways to make them hit infinitely harder, this book is serious. It’s taken what I enjoyed most about RCBG, and grounded it, refined it, and made it into something I can picture on a shelf in a bookstore.
Like, one thing that’s always hit me about representation is that after a while, you want to see trans and queer characters who are genuinely crashing the fuck out. You start craving the ugly, the messy, the evil; it’s just a really hard thing for most writers to pull off. This book pulls it off. I loved this version of these characters so much. I could feel their pain, their motivations for why they act the way they do, but the book pulled absolutely no punches. These girls are toxic. Chernobyl nuclear reactor level toxic. And it’s treated in a way where I still feel that they’re human. The text doesn’t treat them like caricatures or stereotypes, nor does it sanitize their behavior. This isn’t a book about making fun of cringe, or stoking up flames; this is a book about actual, genuine, feeling. Also the messiest lesbian drama you’ve ever seen in your fucking life, which is totally awesome.
One thing I always talk about when I’m reading RCBG is its depiction of race, so I’d like to dip into that for a moment with Estro Junkies. I’m not sure how much the average white reader will get on first read, but this book has a lot to say about racial dynamics, especially in queer spaces (especially in trans woman majority spaces!). This book really understands the subtle ways in which racism seeps through into all spaces, the subtle ways in which the centering of whiteness can impact day-to-day interactions that go completely ignored, the way racism impacts the very perception that the white characters have of the characters of colour. This is not a cartoonish depiction of racism; there is the more overt depiction, of course (much more fine tuned in my opinion, to keep it grounded), but also the more covert aspects; the expectations placed upon someone when you’re stuck in a white majority space, the subtle dehumanization, the entitlement to your body. I can’t get into details or else I’ll be getting into spoiler territory but this is not just “one racist white girl who acts like a cartoon.” This is, indeed, the Deep Lore.
I really love Rashmi. I really love that she’s got such a heart to her that shines through this book. I don’t know if I could’ve trusted anyone else to write her the way she’s written in Estro Junkies, because she means the world to me here. I really love Rupali here too; I really love her part in this story, and I love the way her personality shines through. I love Tahani, and I hope we see more of her in the next book (if there’s not more Rashmi and Ru in the next book, we, of course, riot). I’m really happy that there’s a book out here with south asian queer characters, specifically south asian lesbians, and south asian lesbian trans women, and that they’re treated like human beings – not just that, but human beings who have grounded struggles, who are complex, who aren’t perfect moral paragons but also aren’t the villains of this story. Who have actual, honest-to-God personalities, who don’t spend every single second on page explaining to you shit that you should be looking up on Wikipedia, and who instead delve right into the heart of who they are and what they’re going through; the book doesn’t flinch at depicting what their lives are like. It’s like…I don’t know about you but I feel like it’s really hard these days to find something that isn’t “Everything Is Fine :)” or “Whiteness = Freedom,” if you know what I mean. Rashmi, Rupali, and Tahani aren’t “liberated” by the white queers, nor do these characters serve the function of teaching the white people in this book any magical life lessons. They’re people. They’re real people. They have their own arcs, their own complex motivations, they don’t exist to be ultra traumatized or Unproblematically Good And Wholesome or inspirations or whatever. This book actually sees them as worthy characters. That’s….it’s just really nice to see. It’s just really, really nice.
But yeah, this book fucked hard and nasty (figuratively) (I won’t spoil about whether or not I mean that literally…hehe). This book is genuinely fucking funny, not in a “haha just a shitpost” way, but in a way where it’s written to actually be funny. This book is not afraid to put the real issues on page, nor is it afraid of its own emotions, nor is it afraid of its characters being flawed. The plot is different from RCBG and better off for it; the character arcs are more cohesive and better planned; this is an actual, genuine, honest to god book, and will rock your shit whether you’ve read the serial or not. Like, I actually genuinely think everyone should read Estro Junkies. It uses the medium of fiction to depict serious topics in a much more easily digestible and visceral way, I think, than an essay might be able to. It’s critical, but not cynical. It’s satirical, but full of heart. It’s got an absurd premise that it makes use of in a very strong way, it’s grounded. It’s got representation that we need in the big 2026. If you really do want to read stories about women who are allowed to just be people – read Estro Junkies. If you really do care about queer stories, about lesbian stories, stories about trans women, stories about what it means to be south asian in these spaces and navigate that on top of lesbophobia/transmisogyny – read Estro Junkies. Read this book. The ending genuinely made me tear up.
With all my heart: Thank you for letting me read this early, and thank you for creating something so wonderful, something that I can share with my friends who have been craving books like this, something that I hope takes the wider reader-y audience by storm. It’s better than cherry vape.
AKA: PREORDER ESTRO JUNKIES! OR ORDER IT IF YOU’RE SEEING THIS WHEN IT’S ALREADY DROPPED (MAY 24TH) GO GO GO!!!
XOXO Okay now for the funnie bit, here are some actual (completely contextless) spoilers below the cut:
sorry i died for a month. my father banished me so i had to run into the woods and become a madman
[first] [previous]
2.1
1. edmund and the servant class
welcome to another episode of "thinking too much about how edmund talks." first up: he's really familiar with curan. i mean, curan calls him "sir" and "you," but edmund calls him "thee," knows his name, and greets him first. goneril is this close with oswald, but oswald seems to be her personal servant (and curan doesn't show up again, if i remember right), and the later servants (like the ones who help gloucester) don't get names. from this, it's possible to assume that edmund is a lot more familiar with the servants in his household than anyone else in the play. thinking again about gloucester’s pun on “his breeding hath been at my charge,” edmund’s expenses being his—to what degree could you make an argument for edmund, as a bastard/illegitimate son, straddling the line between nobleman and member of the working household? i don’t know enough about the class strata of the time to really vouch for that, but it compels me! he gets his info and some of his power from the very position thrust upon him as a curse! (much like he sees his "naturalness," as opposed to lawfully-birthed tribes of fops, as giving him more vitality and proving that moral codes are stupid. i'm paraphrasing.)
anyway, you could 100% play this scene post-coital. the ear-kissing choreo's right there
2. edmund talkin'
what's with his verse, seriously? “the duke / be here / tonight / the bet/ter best” is iambic pentameter, but “this weaves / itself / perforce / into / my bus (/iness)” isn’t, unless you really mangle “business,” and the next few lines all stretch outside the meter by at least a syllable. (often with that one hanging syllable, which is called a feminine ending, which doesn't actually mean anything but also—hey—🏳️⚧️.)
i’m not smart enough about verse to make sweeping statements about what this means, but to me it really adds to the way edmund is winging this shit start to finish. he is NOT a long-term schemer like iago. he’s making this up as he goes along. oh, the duke’s coming? sure, hell yeah, i can work with that, probably! playing it by ear the whole way. and he almost wins! power of improv and total amorality <3
3. let's all be sickos about the gloucester brothers again
i've already talked about how they fundamentally don't understand each other, but additional evidence: edmund tries to hint that edgar has pissed off albany, and edgar is like, "what? no, i am one hundred percent certain i did not do that." not so credulous as edmund thinks!
also: edmund in this scene keeps referring to gloucester as "my father," not our father.
also ALSO: edmund "you"s both gloucester and edgar, which either says something crazy about class (see point 1) or something crazy about the level of warmth in this family, or, as always, both <3
4. look, sir, i bleed / gloucester, you motherfucker
i get that the situation is tense right now. but why is he always an ASSHOLE
because he just steamrolls right over edmund, right? edmund tries to tell a detailed story and demonstrate an injury that, yes, he gave himself, but which is also a genuine injury. we know this because regan and cornwall see it in a few lines. and gloucester just keeps asking: where is he? where IS he? as soon as he gets an answer, he interrupts edmund again to tell his servants to go after him. and only THEN does he let edmund tell the story. and edmund mentions his arm again!
to no result except gloucester going right back to ranting about edgar. again: i will give it to him that the situation is tense. but, uh, presumably also pretty tense for your other son, who just had to bodily fight the one you think is evil? edmund keeps repeating i here. i did this. i tried to save you. and gloucester's eventual concession is basically an afterthought:
"he did WHAT? what a fucking evil worm. oh shit the duke's coming uhhhhh i mean sure i guess you're my new favorite son or whatever." obviously you can play this however on stage, but i also think you can read it less as real thankfulness toward edmund—if he were actually concerned with edmund’s heroism, he would have said so earlier—and more as another way of running damage control: the son who was supposed to manage the land is a villain, so thank god i’ve got this other one, or this would be so inconvenient (“shame would have it hid”).
and then. and then.
THIS CUNT! not a damn WORD about edmund's wound until gloucester sees a chance to show off his family. this is the main reason i take issue with people who argue that edmund is doing all this for no reason, that his father doesn't actually treat him badly. like, obviously edmund doesn't get the treatment of a legitimate son! or, even if gloucester treats him as well as edgar, it's because gloucester treats them both like shit. this is another moment of a father using his children as capital, social or otherwise: edmund exists to farm the land if edgar becomes unsuitable, to win his family praise with his body. it's all about the image.
5. all of that said,
:(
6. edmund is still good at lying even if his audience isn't listening
the move he pulls here is genuinely great, except for how it's evil. "i tried to stop him, and he told me you'd never believe he was the evil one, because i'm the bastard and have everything to gain from this! ignore how i have everything to gain from this." king of DARVO. i saw your chanel boots mr. gloucester
7. i have yet to get over the one-line mention of edgar being lear's godson
makes it kind of crazy when you think about lear and poor tom bonding later. but also, what? what. also regan is then like "oh, edgar hung out with my dad's frat boy knights, right? that makes sense, because those guys suck too" and edmund is like "oh yeah he definitely did" and i really hope that's a lie. i hope it's a blaringly obvious lie. i want them to say this line and for the text to somehow visually cut to edgar wearing a pocket protector and getting shoved into a locker
8. now there is no damn way regan and gloucester are tight like this
i mean, it could be a crazy dynamic to emphasize, considering what's coming down the pipe in an act, but also: huh whuh
9. sight/vision/blindness tracker
other than "look, sir, i bleed," in this scene it's mostly about light and darkness. edmund emphasizes that edgar should flee at night because his father "watches," ie, stays awake, but also surveils. he then calls for light when he's ready to play the hero, and uses "here stood he in the dark" to cast edgar as a sinister figure—edgar remains in shadow; edmund gets illumination. (see also "threading dark-eyed night;" regan is using night in the same way as edgar, sort of, to flee her father. or something. i'm throwing spaghetti at the wall.)
10. textual trivia
pretty much all typographical stuff. the semi-interesting one is that gloucester's "i never [be]got him" (about edgar) is only in the quarto text
2.2
1.what the fuck is kent's fucking problem for real
if you forgot, this scene is host to the nuclear-button mother of all shakespearean insults:
in the past, my opinion on this has mostly been that it's hysterically over-the-top. which it is. he really didn’t need to do all that. but rereading, i’ve realized what maybe should have been obvious: literally all of kent’s insults toward oswald are either class-based or gender-based. everything boils down to either "you have no money" (eater of broken meats—leftover food; three-suited—fewer suits than a gentleman; hundred-pound—not paid well; worsted-stocking—ie, not silk-stockinged) or "you're a girrrrrrrrl" (proud, shallow, lily-livered, glass-gazing; even action-taking implies not wanting to fight). later, he'll call oswald "neat" (prissy, delicate). he'll call him a "wagtail," glossed as a "nervous or effeminate person," and rag on him for allying with goneril over lear. he'll call him a "barbermonger," which one of my copies footnotes as meaning “a pimp for barbers… hence who caters to the needs of effeminate men." tl;dr: jesus christ, kent, just say faggot.
i think this is the answer to the question of this scene, which is: why the fuck does kent do all this? there is literally no reason to do all this. there's no reason to start this fight! and he does start it—he’s standoffish and rude from the beginning, and he says “ay” when oswald asks if he’s of the house, which he definitely is not, because he’s not gloucester’s servant. why are we doing all this?
the best i can surmise is... well, kent hates goneril, to whom oswald is attached (at least in kent's mind) like a male anglerfish. more importantly, kent has a lot of strict ideas about how the world should work, and he's watching those ideas fail. he’s witnessing lear losing social power, being supplanted by people kent thinks are inferior (because of their gender and because they’re disrespecting the natural hierarchy of the monarchy). so oswald becomes a personification of everything kent hates the most: conniving, effeminate, gender-disobedient people trying to move above their station. (it’s notable that he calls edmund “goodman boy,” too—also insults based on class and masculinity! “goodman,” not “gentleman,” and “boy,” not “man.”)
but still, like… why? why are we starting fights for no reason? “anger has a privilege,” kent says, and it sounds like something that could come from lear’s mouth: come not between the dragon and his wrath, a wrath that takes on some sort of sacred power to elbow aside social rules, that must be respected no matter the mess it makes. when cornwall asks what his problem is, kent decries servants who flatter and enable their rulers:
you know, the exact thing kent didn’t do in 1.1. and yet here is this person who does bow and flatter to his employer (allegedly—i think oswald and goneril are being perfectly reasonable, lmfao), and oswald is being rewarded for it and kent is being punished for refusing to do so. oswald is his antithesis; oswald must be destroyed.
except, ironically, kent is doing exactly what oswald is doing, too: enabling lear to make a bigger and bigger mess. he's taking lear’s side against anyone who defies him, no matter what. sure, kent stood up for cordelia, but cordelia is a princess and a polite modest woman. oswald is lower-class and uppity; goneril and regan are bitches; edmund’s a bastard and a “boy.” kent’s regard for cordelia doesn’t stretch to any of them.
anyway, once again, “is kent a reactionary” longest thread in the history of king lear, closed after 3243458974357 posts,
2. speaking of, is this cornwall's opinion of cordelia, too?
is this cordelia reflected and distorted by cornwall's allegiance to regan? i mean, you could argue he wouldn't be entirely wrong. (i say this with the utmost love for cordelia in my heart.)
3. even gloucester agrees kent is being insane, btw.
at least, in the quarto he does:
unless he's lying to appease cornwall, but i think the argumentative tack here is interesting: it's not that caius-as-kent did nothing wrong; it's that you can't treat a servant of the king's like a p-p-p-POOR person! which, you know. you could argue that punishing a royal servant like they're nobody is exactly what kent is doing to oswald, also. anyway, gloucester status quo defender 4ever
4. cornwall and regan are such a great couple
and by "great," i mean they have perfected the art of the evil yes-and.
all they do is enable each other to be worse and it's fucking awesome. it's notable to me, too, that cornwall calls goneril "our sister" (as regan does earlier). obviously he means sister-in-law, but the our makes he and regan into one unit, both allied to goneril, both taking goneril's opinion seriously (which pretty much no man in this play does). when gloucester warns cornwall that the king will be upset, cornwall says he can take it, and regan backs him up instantly: well, what about how goneril will be upset? what then? they are so in-tune. they have each other’s backs so profoundly and they are going to use this drift compatibility to do torture later and i think that’s beautiful <3
5. sight/vision/blindness tracker
kent refers to the "epileptic visage" of lords who follow flattering servants, meaning distorted vision and judgment. once again... kent, i fear the call is coming from inside the house. inside your particular lord. (gee, kent, i bet you'd love to be inside your particular lord, etc, etc)
also, later, he asks his eyes to not even SEE the disrespectful house regan and cornwall are in, and references his "obscured" course of action. which remains obscured to me as well, buddy </3 what is the plan here </3
6. textual trivia
again, mostly tiny phrasing things, but only the quarto has gloucester's lines as printed in my third point here; in the folio, he goes right to, "well, uhhhhhh, the king will be REALLY MAD."
anyway, once again, more of this to come soon. hopefully
Join us for the Folger Institute’s annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Lecture with Dr. Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford Uni
the folger library posted emma smith's lecture at the shakespeare's birthday celebration last month! it is, as all of dr. smith's stuff is, fantastic. she discusses immigration and shakespeare with attention to 1. shakespeare's movement (as literature) to the americas, 2. shakespeare's potential real-life knowledge of immigrants and how he wrote about them, and 3. a potential reading of twelfth night in which viola and sebastian are undocumented immigrants in illyria, which maybe sounds like just words but actually made so much of the plot click in my head in a way it never has. very recommended :3
Join us for the Folger Institute’s annual Shakespeare’s Birthday Lecture with Dr. Emma Smith, Professor of Shakespeare Studies at Oxford Uni
the folger library posted emma smith's lecture at the shakespeare's birthday celebration last month! it is, as all of dr. smith's stuff is, fantastic. she discusses immigration and shakespeare with attention to 1. shakespeare's movement (as literature) to the americas, 2. shakespeare's potential real-life knowledge of immigrants and how he wrote about them, and 3. a potential reading of twelfth night in which viola and sebastian are undocumented immigrants in illyria, which maybe sounds like just words but actually made so much of the plot click in my head in a way it never has. very recommended :3
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