What's a Good Title?

Just a Girl Nerd and her thoughts

[theconcealedweapon]

[theconcealedweapon]

[prokopetz]

Things fanfic is reputed for inserting into the source material:

Sex

Things fanfic actually inserts into the source material:

Sex

Holding hands

Bizarre misunderstandings

Meticulous descriptions of food and clothing

The author’s unaddressed traumas

Found family

Plausible explanations for existing plot holes

Additional plot holes

Exciting new frontiers in speculative physics, economics, chemistry, biology, zoology, psychology, theology, and/or ontology

Tax evasion

Gender

Very bad puns

[apparentlynotreallyfinnish]

What fanfic often removes from the source material:

All beds except one

[banilikesfictionalpeople]

“How do you know you ship them?”

When I see them together, a noise comes out of my mouth and it sounds like a dying horse.

[soberscientistlife]

Capitalism at its finest.

[xbirdthenerd-deactivated2019091]

Visit Original Link

[halfbloodhiccup]

I have never reblogged something so fast in my life

[apupcalypse]

it’s exactly what you think it is

[cassandrajean]

it’s exactly what I thought it was.

[tea-rexasaurus-deactivated20220]

[worddevourer]

It has been, 500 years.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

THIS IS MY JAM

[i-am-darth-feanor]

TELL ME WHERE IS GANDALF

[mostlysignssomeportents]

"When you want to take their books away, they're children. When you want them to work, they're adults."

"When you want to take their books away, they're children. When you want them to work, they're adults." -/u/xFurorCelticax/ on /r/LateStageCapitalismhttps://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/194g10g/when_you_want_to_take_their_books_away_theyre/

[tinygreenlight]

My brain is melting, exactly what is happening here?? Unreal…

[drst]

Innocent children cannot be allowed to know homosexuality exists but they can die working without safety equipment on a roof. (In case you think I'm exaggerating: )

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article285204887.html

[odinsblog]

[brightlotusmoon]

[beggars-opera]

The tailors at Colonial Williamsburg made a suit for their cat

[vinceaddams]

The best part is that they were inspired by a diary entry from 1775, written by a 12 year old tailor’s apprentice who had been left unsupervised all day and decided to make a suit for a cat. Here’s a link to the blog post about it, but I’ll just paste the whole diary entry here:

“I had been at work about two months when Christmas came on – and here I must relate a little anecdote. The principal [the tailor] and his lady were invited to a party among their friends…while it devolved on me to stay at home and keep house. There was nothing left me in charge to do, only to take care of the house. There was a large cat that generally lay about the fire. In order to try my mechanical powers, I concluded to make a suit of clothing for puss, and for my purpose gathered some scraps of cloth that lay about the shop-board, and went to work as hard as I could. Late in the evening I got my suit of clothes finished; I caught the cat, put on the whole suit – coat, vest, and small-clothes [breeches] – buttoned all on tight, and set down my cat to inspect the fit. 

“Unfortunately for me there was a hole through the floor close to the fireplace, just large enough for the cat to pass down; after making some efforts to get rid of the clothes, and failing, pussy descended through the hole and disappeared; the floor was tight and the house underpinned with brick, so there was no chance of pursuit. I consoled myself with a hope that the cat would extricate itself from its incumbrance, but not so; night came and I had made on a good fire and seated myself for some two or three hours after dark, when who should make their appearance but my master and mistress and two young men, all in good humor, with two or three bottles of rum. After all were seated around the fire, who should appear amongst us but the cat in his uniform. I was struck speechless, the secret was out and had no chance of concealing; the cat was caught, the whole work inspected and the question asked, is this your day’s work? I was obliged to answer in the affirmative; I would then have been willing to take a good whipping, and let it stop there, but no, to complete my mortification the clothes were carefully taken off the cat and hung up in the shop for the inspection of all customers that came in.”

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

“I was hoping they’d beat me and forget about it but to my horror they stuck my work up on the fridge”

[zackbuildit]

Not just any fridge-

The public fridge

[curieklei]

[epoxyconfetti]

[datasoong47]

We're no strangers to that mike. You know the song and so do I ...

[musdomus]

We know this mic better than any other mic.

[robotsandfrippary]

I just want to sing to it with feeling.

[anexperimentallife]

One thing about being autistic is so many things are either Very Texture (MMMMM...) or Very Texture (AAAGGGGHHH!)

[anexperimentallife]

Also, smells and sounds can sometimes have textures that fall into the above categories. No, i don't know how to explain that.

[brightlotusmoon]

The Interesting Connection Between Autism and Synesthesia

Learn about the connections between Autism and Synesthesia.

[princess-jaya-addy]

Wait, wait, wait! Are you implying that it's not normal for sounds/scents to have textures or colours?

[brightlotusmoon]

Technically? No, it's not normal. The typical average "regular" brain can't do synesthesia, not without doing drugs or having hallucinations.

Synesthesia is actually pretty rare on its own. There are documentaries!

And there are several kinds!

[princess-jaya-addy]

Huh. I knew I was neurodivergent, but I didn't realize how neurodivergent my friends back in high school were. We once spent an afternoon discussing the colours of various scents. (Hospitals smell a pale greenish yellow, with a hint of orange-brown.) There was an intense debate on whether sharp cheddar smells/tastes green. (It does.)

[soberscientistlife]

Dolly is so full of love🖤🖤🖤

[anexperimentallife]

One thing about being autistic is so many things are either Very Texture (MMMMM...) or Very Texture (AAAGGGGHHH!)

[anexperimentallife]

Also, smells and sounds can sometimes have textures that fall into the above categories. No, i don't know how to explain that.

[brightlotusmoon]

The Interesting Connection Between Autism and Synesthesia

Learn about the connections between Autism and Synesthesia.

[princess-jaya-addy]

Wait, wait, wait! Are you implying that it's not normal for sounds/scents to have textures or colours?

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

harvey dent but instead of a coin he uses d20 dice

[autisticwolfesbrainisautistic]

“Alright, Batman, do you feel lucky? Do you think Lady Luck is on your side, or mine? Let’s find out.” *awkward silence* “I forgot to put a table near your trap, Bats. Gimme me a minute.” *squats down, rolls d20* “Your INT modifier, it’s like…+3, right?”

[prokopetz]

I am 100% convinced that “exit, pursued by a bear” is a reference to some popular 1590s meme that we’ll never be able to understand because that one play is the only surviving example of it.

[prokopetz]

Seriously, we’ll never figure it out. I’ll wager trying to understand “exit, pursued by a bear” with the text of The Winter’s Tale as our primary source is like trying to understand loss.jpg when all you have access to is a single overcompressed JPEG of a third-generation memetic mutation that mashes it up with YMCA and “gun” - there’s this whole twitching Frankensteinian mass of cultural context we just don’t have any way of getting at.

[sandovers]

no, but this is why people do the boring archival work! because we think we do know why “exit, pursued by a bear” exists, now, and we figured it out by looking at ships manifests of the era -

it’s also why there was a revival of the unattributed and at the time probably rather out of fashion mucedorus at the globe in 1610 (the same year as the winter’s tale), and why ben jonson wrote a chariot pulled by bears into his court masque oberon, performed on new year’s day of 1611.

we think the answer is polar bears.

no, seriously!  in late 1609 the explorer jonas poole captured two polar bear cubs in greenland and brought them home to england, where they were purchased by the beargarden, the go-to place in elizabethan london for bear-baiting and other ‘animal sports.’  it was at the time run by edward alleyn (yes, the actor) and his father-in-law philip henslowe (him of the admiral’s men and that diary we are all so very grateful for), and would have been very close, if not next to, the globe theatre.

of course, polar bear cubs are too little and adorable for baiting, even to the bloodthirsty tudor audience, aren’t they?  so, what to do with the little bundles of fur until they’re too big to be harmless?  well, if there’s anything we know about the playwrights and theatre professionals of the time, it’s that they knew how to make money and draw in audiences.  and the spectacle of a too-small-to-be-dangerous-yet-but-still-real-live-and-totally-WHITE-bear?  what good entertainment businessman is going to turn down that opportunity? 

and, voila, we have a death-by-bear for the unfortunate antigonus, thereby freeing up paulina to be coupled off with camillo in the final scene, just as the comedic conventions of the time would expect.

[scientia-rex]

you’re telling me it was an ACTUAL BEAR

every time I think to myself “history can’t possibly get any more bananas” I realize or am made to realize that I am badly mistaken

[wenamedthedogkylo]

Not just an actual bear. A polar bear cub.

Imagine a fully grown man running offstage to be “killed” by a baby polar bear.

[ghostcat3000]

exit, pursued by bear. i.e. THE BEST STAGE DIRECTION OF ALL FUCKING TIME

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

[Image description: an animated GIF of a tiny baby polar bear and their human keeper. The human places the bear cub on the floor and it waddles, very unsteadily toward the camera. Description ends]

This post has lived in my head since it was first posted almost 5 years ago.

The thing is: for modern audiences and theater producers The Winter’s Tale is something of a mess. Because most of the action immediately after “Exit, Pursued by bear” is a harvest/shepherd’s feast, with the guests breaking into random songs, and then stopping to watch a troupe of dancers perform, rinse and repeat, for a full half hour or so, and doesn’t seem to do much to move the story forward at all.

But Shakespeare wasn’t writing the play for us. He was writing for an audience with a whole bunch of people who didn’t usually go to hear a play, and only showed up to catch a glimpse of this bear everyone’s been talking about. That moment happens in the middle of the story. So how do you keep a whole chunk of the audience from leaving, after the cute white fluff ball has waddled his way across the stage?

You give them a musical concert and acrobat show – get them singing along to favorite songs they already know, get them to feel like they’re actually guests at a real feast, instead of just watching one. And then, at the height of the fun, when everyone’s laughing and having a grand ol’ time, you bring the plot back, and threaten the young heroine and her family with death by hanging.

Brilliant audience wrangling, if you ask me.

If I were going to do a revival/retelling, I might make it a Space Opera, and instead of a polar bear, promise a spectacle of a Jim Henson Workshop monster. And turn the shepherd’s feast scene into a rock concert with wild dancing and songs. I don’t know enough about current music to know who I’d try to get as Autolycus (pickpocket and song-leader at the party) though.

[dduane]

…Theater, amirite? 😏

[shaneplays]

[mevima]

The addition of every item and the passage of every minute has a 5% chance (1 in 20) of the Cat of Holding rejecting all items, spreading them randomly in a 10ft radius burst attack.

[princess-jaya-addy]

May also: - eat combatants - offer untranslatable but clearly disproving commentary on party decisons - demand snackies as tribute