Swords And Shakespeare

It’s Shakespeare and it’s swords and it’s also hot ladies with swords

[velvetacademia-deactivated20210]

BEE DAGGER !!

[helloitsbees]

[butchhamlet]

macbeth is shakespeare’s funniest tragedy and mr. macbeth is the funniest character in macbeth. he listens to these creepy old women tell him he’s gonna be king and IMMEDIATELY decides the only thing he can POSSIBLY do is kill a guy and then he waffles about it for a full act and finally comes to the conclusion that it’s morally wrong and then HE DOES IT ANYWAY and his entire fucking life falls apart with an inevitability that is genuinely hilarious

[butchhamlet]

the other exceedingly funny thing is that he doesn’t even cover his ass that well like??? sure the morning right after the murder he gets away with it but even then he almost straight fucks it by killing the guys he framed. and then within a few months everyone in scotland independently comes to the conclusion that he did it ANYWAY because like. WHO else would it have been

[butchhamlet]

funniest moments in macbeth:

“o? by whom?” (a classic)

“what, you egg” (also a classic)

“twas a rough night”

macduff telling lady macbeth he can’t say what happened because she’s a woman and then spinning around and IMMEDIATELY telling banquo within FULL earshot of ladymac

“that i did… kill them… 👉👈”

macbeth giving the whole “blood will have blood” speech and then going “…….what time is it”

the witches, whom we’ve just seen making a potion of baby parts, saying “something wicked” about macbeth. your king steps onto the scene and these literal actual witches go “oh, bitch? a bitch?”

malcolm’s I Fuck Too Much Speech

and then. when he takes it back. he says “why are you silent?” which implies macduff is just. sitting there.

“take thy face hence”

macbeth absolutely wrecking young siward’s shit and then just going “thou wast born of woman” to his corpse

[butchhamlet]

in honor of this post getting an absurd and terrifying amount of notes here are my favorite tags

also, for those of you asking to see macbeth as a dark comedy: i haven’t seen a production specifically billed as such but definitely the funniest macbeth i’ve seen is the folger 2008 one which, by the way, is free on youtube! it definitely leans into the horror aspect but it also is just. laugh-out-loud funny sometimes like these actors know how to punctuate their lines to get at that absurd humor! and i’ve watched it twice in like two months

[antique-scarecrow]

was anyone gonna tell me Macbeth was a comedy or was i supposed to read that here myself?

[jenniferrpovey]

Okay, look. There’s something modern readers don’t understand, because definitions have changed.

To us, a comedy is a funny play and a tragedy is a cathartic one.

In Shakespeare’s time, a comedy was a play with a happy ending.

A tragedy was a play with a sad ending.

That is it.

Shakespeare was a comedic writer. All of his plays are funny to some degree and I suspect the man couldn’t write seriously if he tried.

A lot of the time modern troupes miss this and play the tragedies straight. They aren’t supposed to be. They are supposed to be darkly, ironically funny.

Because after all, these plays were written to be performed in inn yards where everyone was drunk. That did not necessarily exclude the actors.

A performance of Macbeth that makes you laugh is an authentic, correct performance. One that understands the basic fact that Shakespeare is more like Taika Waititi than Quentin Tarantino.

[what-hos-there]

@watertightvines?

[watertightvines]

All of this is correct! The production I was in last year purposefully went for laughs on all of those lines. The other two major sources of comedic gold in the play are:

-Lady Macbeth’s deeply extra “Woe, alas! What? In our house???” when she’s trying to play it cool after Duncan’s death. (Honestly, playing Lady Macbeth as Moira Rose for the entirety of 2.4 would be INSPIRED.)

-The Murderers that Macbeth hires both being total dunces and Macbeth just dissing them constantly.

-THE ENTIRE BANQUET SCENE IS STRAIGHT OUT OF A SITCOM. Yes, even the “it will have blood, they say” is darkly hilarious if you time it right. The thanes are all sitting there awkwardly while their king screams at the air and has a deeply Surburban White Couple argument with his wife, and neither he nor she will let them acknowledge that it’s weird, and it’s GREAT.

I remember being told in high school that Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s darkest texts because the Porter is the only comic relief. The Porter scene is the only bit of clowning (which is why I detest the Porter as an audience member no matter how well he’s played—the Clown characters bore me!), but I love situational dark humor, and the text of Macbeth is rife with it.

And that makes the tragedy of it hit much harder! When we see Macbeth be a himbo who is Trying His Best, and Ross and Lennox exchanging Pointed Looks, and Macduff get emails every day, and Lady Macbeth snark at her husband… then it hurts much, much more when Macbeth’ is forsaken in his vulnerability again and again, and Ross and Lennox bring news of atrocities they’re powerless to stop, and Macduff grieves, and Lady Macbeth unravels. Grimdark productions fall flat for me because they deny the characters the humanity the text enables.

The comparison of Shakespeare with Taika Waititi is spot-on, especially for the tragedies and histories. I’ve railed plenty of times about how The Hollow Crown tries so hard to be Dramatic™ that it sucks all the fun and humanity out of the history plays, which in turn sucks out all the pathos because we have literally no reason to care about anybody. Shakespeare’s a delight for actors and directors who bother to put in the work because he gives you a lot to play around with, without the constraint of the lengthy descriptions you find in screenplays and modern stage plays. Macbeth and Richard III are both bloodbaths that will make you upset for the character. They are also morbidly hilarious. Embrace it!

[laissezferre]

catherine tate and david tennant performing genders (plural) in much ado about nothing (2011)

[what-even-is-thiss]

What and who is included in the lgbt/queer/gay(general) communities aren’t always super clear cut actually and like... that’s fine.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Like a cishet man that likes doing drag likely doesn’t consider himself queer and neither would any of his queer/lgbt friends but he might still be super active in the community and mostly hang out with gay guys and bring his girlfriend to pride and maybe even perform at pride. And maybe the queer community is where he feels most at home because he’s kind of feminine, and doing drag is a big part of his life.

Irl probably almost nobody would kick this guy out. A lot of internet discourse would. But that kind of makes no sense.

I grew up in the theatre community, and after I learned what being gay was I discovered that gay people were everywhere in theatre. But so were straight people that just kind of fell outside of societal norms a bit. Straight people that often just felt more comfortable around gay people because they could just be themselves.

And yeah that’s an obvious example of people that aren’t queer hanging out in queer spaces but there’s also a ton of gray area. Straight polyamorous people for example. People that identify as cis that “crossdress” or even do some things that might be considered to be part of “transitioning”. Or some intersex people that don’t id with the lgbt community. Or people that id as non binary but not as trans.

At some point you need to stop trying to figure out who definitively belongs in the club because like... there is no club. Irl queer spaces tend to cover huge swaths of people. There’s a lot of gray area. And also you’ll also tend to find a lot of cishet gender conforming people in these spaces too. Because their significant other or a family member or a good friend is lgbt+ or because they’re poly or because they just feel more comfortable around queer people or they just feel like fighting for gay rights is something that they’re supposed to be doing. And if they’re respectful and the space isn’t explicitly “no cishet right now” then like, them being there isn’t that much of an issue usually.

All of this internet discourse that tries to exclude or bully people just isn’t grounded in reality.

[tam--lin]

Matching shirts that read “You seem a decent fellow, I hate to kill you” and “You seem a decent fellow, I hate to die”.

[artsybookworms]

Do people who think Shakespeare is pretentious and hate his plays honestly think someone who makes that many dick jokes wants to be taken seriously?? Y’all are missing out on some hilarious stuff

[renthony]

Okay so we all know that it’s hot and homoerotic to duel your lover with swords and kiss at the end

but consider!

the inherent charged intimacy of helping your lover don their armor, making sure every piece is buckled into place before you send them off into danger

and the soft relief you both feel when you undo the fastenings and help them out of it again

[heavenslittlemachine-deactivate]

u think she's hot now, just wait til she draws her longsword

[mayticks-art]

WITCH and SWORD

[roses--and--rue]

If you liked that enviable Victorian sword perfume bottle I posted a few years ago, you’ll LOVE this late Victorian miniature sword. Like the perfume bottle, this is also fitted to hang on a chatelaine, and would have been used as a letter opener. Sold by The Eden Collective.

[roses--and--rue]

If you liked that enviable Victorian sword perfume bottle I posted a few years ago, you’ll LOVE this late Victorian miniature sword. Like the perfume bottle, this is also fitted to hang on a chatelaine, and would have been used as a letter opener. Sold by The Eden Collective.

[aeschylus-stan-account]

lady macbeth will be like “i know a spot” and then madly try to scour it from her hand while sleepwalking

[skygenders]

“A masterpiece was created in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone today” video by Kyle Kotajarvi

[skygenders]

[smitethestate]

This wasn’t a government stunt to try and avoid doing something meaningful, but a coming together of community artists who did it for free. Which is why it’s the best.

[swordshapedleaves]

And it’s not even finished in that shot!

It really is stunning art. I hope they keep this block closed to vehicles for a long time.

[noping-out-deactivated20241117]

I love how the right wing is all “It’s Anarchy! It’s terrorism! They’re burning everything down! They must be stopped! Send in the military!”

Meanwhile the moment people are allowed to do what they want, the first things they do are…

Make art and plant a garden.

[ID: 1) An overhead video of Black Lives Matter painted down the middle of a public street in Seattle in large letters. Every letter is a separate brightly colored piece of colored art. 2) A Tweet by James Saint-Franc @sirjamesa12 “Every single letter was designed by black artists from the Seattle area.” 3) A still shot of the same street art completed. It is even more brightly colored.]

[vicks-vaporwave]

[senpiecakes]

Person A: ...

Person B: ...

Person A: For the last time, we are NOT going to challenge people to duel at our wedding just because we proposed to each other with swords.

Person B: Then what’s the point???

[whitepeopletwitter]

[mexipika]

“But the local businesses!”

Yes the poor poor multibillion dollar company Target boo hoo :(((

[askr-deactivated20230503]

The local businesses are coming out in support too

[historicalfightingguide]

Found here via  Trans World of Queer Shitposting

Originally from here

Few updates though

Found here

Found here with the video from the pic being here 

Found here 

Found here

Few notes

-While not specifically noted the sword in the first pic seems like a longsword.

Ff you are interested in learning how to use a longsword check out these few links.

And the position is very similar to that of Joachim Meyer’s Zornhut(Wrathguard)

“ The Wrathful Guard is known as such since the stance has a wrathful bearing, as will be shown. Stand with your left foot forward, hold your sword out from your right shoulder, so that the blade hangs behind you to threaten forward strikes, and mark this well, that all strikes out from the Guard of the Ox can be intercepted from the Wrathful stance, indeed leading from this stance shows unequal bearing from which One can entice onward, whereupon one can move quickly against the other as needed, as is shown by the Figure in illustration E (on the left). “

- If you want to learn more about how to use a rapier check out all the videos in Martin Fabians great video series on rapier fencing as well as  Rapierists group on facebook and the Wiktenauer section on rapiers and the rapier tag on this blog.

Also one may argue about her stance with the rapier but it’s basically a third guard according to  Salvator Fabris (and would fit such definition in a variety of sword systems that have overlap with his nomenculture).

-Obviously the image above was a cool omage to the Disney film Mulan but if anyone does want to look into chinese historical martial arts I suggest checking

Brennan Translation and ChineseLongsword.com, which serves a similar function to the Wiktenauer website.

Also useful to check out are  Historical Chinese Combat Arts (Weapon Fighting)/ 中国古代器械格杀术

As well as the related youtube channel and the facebook page  Xinyi-Dao Kung Fu. 

http://steelandcotton.tumblr.com/ may also be useful as well as their website and facebook page https://www.grtc.org/ & https://www.facebook.com/greatriver/

http://chinesemartialstudies.com/ http://greatmingmilitary.blogspot.my/ http://www.chineselongsword.com/ http://wudang-jian.de/ The Fajin Project

And the Chinese Historical Martial Arts tag of this blog

-Katanas are historically japanese weapons and while others did use them if you want to use them you may want to check out any of the following related to japanese fighting arts

Koryū Bujutsu 古流武術  For civilized discussion of any and all matters regarding classical Japanese martial arts

Gekiken: Japanese Historical Kendo Fencing For those interested in Japanese historical fencing A few websites useful to those interested in japanese swordsmanship.

And another great martial arts blog on the topic.

[doingthingsinthedesert]

@lesbianlegbreaker

[systlin]

i for one am glad to have a bisexual sword aunt who will kick a TERF's ass given a moment's notice

My sword, axe, mace, staff, longbow, and backup swords six through twelve are all at your service.

[systlin]

Backup swords two through five are all reserved for people who won’t shut their phones off at the movie theater.