[cxnfiscated]

this year i will see the arctic monkeys, hozier and THE Queen Bey live

[beingharsh]

hi [<- haunted by "Someone has to leave first. This is a very old story. There is no other version of this story."]

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[play-doh-slut]

what do you mean normal people don’t get physically sick when they’re stressed out or when someone is mad at them

[goodsirs]

Jean Jacket. Call him Jean Jacket.

[sambeckdraws]

july in the park

[thoodleoo]

ever wanted to know what your epithet would be if you were a character in greek mythology? now you can! you could be the next wine-dark sea, or maybe you’ll be unlucky and end up as the phallic gecko, because everything is possible in greek mythology

[happyheidi]

[dreamarie0414]

The subtle flex of fresh living foods

[tiktoksthataregood-ish]

[shakespeaker]

Who are the Anti-Stratfordians?

People who think Shakespeare wasn’t actually Shakespeare, but that ‘Shakespeare’ was a secret pseudonym for someone more important and better educated, like the Earl of Oxford. 

See also: imbeciles.

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

This

[thebookishgurl]

Not to piss anyone off, but why does this matter? The author is literally (and possibly metaphorically) dead.

[dukeofbookingham-deactivated202]

I feel like I have to address this. I tried not to, but I actually think it’s really important. Most of the people who make the argument that ‘Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare’ are doing so on the basis that the real William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon simply didn’t have the literary wherewithal to have written what are now the most famous plays in the English (or possibly any) language. They like to argue that because Shakespeare’s family wasn’t particularly wealthy or influential, and that he never got more than the Elizabethan equivalent of a grade school education, he couldn’t possibly be as well-read or as eloquent as the person who wrote Hamlet, or Macbeth, or what have you. 

The reason Stratfordians are so vehemently defensive of Shakespeare as himself is because (a) there’s literally no proof that he wasn’t exactly who we think he was and (b) we believe that it’s entirely possible that a man who was nominally ordinary became the world’s most famous playwright. If you take that away from him, you are doing the world a huge disservice, by reinforcing the idea that in order to have a significant impact on the course of history, you have to be wealthy or politically powerful or socially superior. I for one want to be able to tell any struggling middle school kid with average grades not to give up, because passion is more important than money or power, and he or she could be the next Shakespeare. 

So, that’s why it matters. 

[engrprof]

^^^This^^^

[melusineloriginale]

Yes. All of this. The Oxfordian authorship theory is rooted in classist, elitist attitudes that insist that a glovemaker’s son from Stratford-on-Avon who never left England couldn’t possibly have written 37 plays based simply on extensive reading and a great deal of imagination.

Also they have no conception of what “grammar school” actually means. A grammar school education in the sixteenth century usually included extensive study of rhetoric, philosophy, and history. Ben Jonson claimed that Shakespeare’s Latin was mediocre and his Greek nonexistent, but there were a wide variety of classical texts available in English translation during his lifetime and we can clearly see echoes of those translations in Shakespeare’s works.

Lastly, the Oxfordian theory is rooted in an 18th century forgery popularized by a man named Looney (pronounced Loh-ney, but WHATEVER). The best book I’ve seen on the subject is Contested Will by James Shapiro, which is marvellous and snarky and everyone should read it.

[gnimmish]

It’s the exact same logic that tries to discredit Mary Shelley as the author of Frankentstein, because a particular school of (white, upper class, male) critical thought can’t stand the idea that an eighteen year old girl could have written something so profound that it founded an entirely new literary genre. 

They don’t like being confronted with the fact that great art is not the preserve of the ruling class.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Also, here’s another reason it matters: Shakespeare populated his plays with characters from all the social strata, from prostitutes to monarchs, and everyone in between.

The view of such people, their attitudes and foibles looks a lot different when you’re looking at them from the same level than if you’re looking down at them from above, with only a vague, abstract, view of what their lives are like.

Therefore, knowing that Shakespeare had come from “common” origins and worked his way into the patronage of King James by the time he retired, gives us a different understanding of his plays, and the history of the time and place in which he wrote them.

[orpheuslament]

what emotion do you guys write from? like sikens is panic. mary olivers hope. what is yours?

[opheliashes]

On Childhood Nostalgia & Growing Up 

Stoned at the Nail Salon, Lorde // Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery // Landslide, Fleetwood Mac // Seven, Taylor Swift // Little Women, Dir. Greta Gerwig // Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë 

[softepilogue]

right now you might be in a situation that you think you won’t survive but six months ago you were in a situation that you didn’t think you’d survive and two years before that you were in a situation you didn’t think you’d survive and the point is you will always surprise yourself and you will always make it through

[twshitlord]

Pro-tip to young trans guys:

If a stranger misgenders you, please please please do not ever utter the phrase, “I’m a man.” It sounds very unnatural and immediately sounds overly defensive.

My advice? Just look at the person like they’re an idiot and, in the deepest voice possible, say, “Uh. Alright, then.”

Just act as though they made a huge and obvious mistake, and don’t get flustered. If you’re comfortable with it, handle the situation with humor and say something like, “Man, I know I’ve got a babyface, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

[klaw]

and if someone doesn’t believe u, say you have a hormonal imbalance + are on meds for it. it’s quick, believable, and most ppl are too uncomfortable discussing health problems with strangers to question it.

[absurdjester]

THIS POST, hang on somewhere is the notes is a sentence that changed my whole fucking life! I don’t have time to dig for it right now but 👀

[absurdjester]

Can’t find it, going to just going to explain it. I’ve been out for like 4 and a half years. I saw this post when I was Freshly Out, and this post has been so deep in my fucking rat brain for actual years.

You have to react like you’re not expecting to be misgendered. It’s hard and it’s weird, because I know, you walk out into the world very aware and afraid of how the cis people are going to perceive you. But deadass there is a “Wow, that stranger has made a bold call there” mentality that, yeah it’s a fake it till you make it type of deal. But once I internalized that, I genuinely don’t even hear people misgendering me most of the time.

I’m nonbinary, most of the time my gender presentation priorities are Have Fun and Look Queer.

The first time I noticed that being misgendered slides off my brain like a wet duck I was in a 7/11 and a cashier tried to direct me to the cardboard drink sleeves while I was like 3rd or 4th in line (yeah it was kinda weird, I was holding a large hot coffee in my bare hand and I guess it freaked the dude out, but like my hands are actually really heat resistant I was fine, anyway) He said several variations on “Mam, would you like a cardboard sleeve for your coffee, they’re right there” and I legitimately did not process that he could possibly be talking to me until he tried something like “the one in the red hat” and then I tuned back in and declined the heat protectant sleeve. (I do not know why this human man was so insistent that I needed a heat protection cardboard sleeve, and I’m gathering that me totally zoned the fuck out to his multiple attempts to get my attention holding something that he apparently thought was made out of fucking lava probably had the exact Genderless Eldritch Horror effect that we all know and love)

I accidentally also did this to one of my professors a couple weeks ago, I was given an instruction with she/her pronouns in it, purely by accident, this professor genuinely does right by his trans students as best he can, but I legitimately did not even process that it was for me until he repeated it with they/them.

This compared with a couple years ago a different professor slipped up and used me in an example to the class with she/her pronouns and I literally barely held myself together until the end of the class, made it 4 steps out the door and started silently crying.

It feels fucking powerful in a “that should have hurt, and I didn’t even notice, cis people have no power over me” way. I have a little piece of the security that cis people have in the way that they interact with the world. And that is absolutely precious.

It takes untraining years of social conditioning, and pretending that you can’t fathom that someone would use those words on you, that no one has ever said that to you before and the words are so foreign that they mean nothing to you.

And yeah I started out begging my body not to flinch when a stranger calls out “mam”, and practicing a moment of confusion and unaffected disbelief when cashiers would ask if I found everything I was looking for “young lady” and deliberately ignoring the incorrect gendered terms. And you know op’s “Just look at the person like they’re an idiot, break out the deep voice and say “Um, alright then”” it will feel fake at first.

But fuck at some point it stops being an act, and that feels fucking bulletproof.

[friendlyfrankenstein]

Alllll of this is very important. But honestly you dont even need to go to ‘hormone imbalance’. What I find works well ( for me, bc I am this person) was always a kinda. Haw haw aw hell, don’t worry about it. Happens all the time, shucks, you wouldn’t believe the trouble I have on the phone. Bc you know what?

There are cis people who get misgendered too. It just happens. People do not know you’re trans. Gender signalling is just a dumb mess. There might be people who are actively malicious but if its just like a barista or something they’re prob just rolling the dice all day. 

And as talked out above: Confidence is a muscle.

[greysfields]

-Ask Polly

[engulfes]

x

[opheliashes]

On Childhood Nostalgia & Growing Up 

Stoned at the Nail Salon, Lorde // Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery // Landslide, Fleetwood Mac // Seven, Taylor Swift // Little Women, Dir. Greta Gerwig // Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë