A Midsummer Night's Meme

AO3: ShakespeareanLizard This is my side blog, you can check out my main at @julianthenecromancer if you want a glimpse of my madness.

[birdplushie]

"it's not that deep" START DIGGING!!

[fuckyeahcomicsbaby]

Different Stories Resonate with Different People

[lovingmyselfishard]

I will always reblog this.

[brightwanderer]

I once spent three hours scouring the internet to find this comic again, I will not let that be repeated.

[creepertrainz]

Updated my speculative Trojan War timeline, hope you like it!

To start, here's my condensed version that shows the age of most of the major characters at the start of the Trojan War, and the chronology of key dates:

Preface

This nearly century-long timeline is meant to show the key dates of the Trojan War cycle as well as the Argonautica and other nearby myths, and key events in the lives of many of its characters.

Year 0 is denoted as the year that the Achaeans set sail for Troy, with year 1 starting the moment they land at Troy. Due to the greater degree of uncertainty, all events before the birth of Helen will be rounded to the nearest five years. Information is primarily taken from the poems of the Epic Cycle (mostly the Iliad and Odyssey) as well as Apollodorus's library. Note that all of these dates are speculative (and often can be moved by several years) and I've had to ignore certain details that utterly mess up the timeline. May reblog later with my (very long) explanations of some of the decisions. Otherwise enjoy and feel free to ask any questions!

Timeline

Year -70: Nestor, Priam and Theseus are born

Year -60: Laertes and Peleus are born

Year -55: Hecuba and Anticlea are born

Theseus slays the Minotaur and becomes king of Athens

Year -50: Telamon is born

Year -45: Heracles is born

Year -40: Agamemnon, Odysseus, and Jason are born

Year -35: Menelaus, Hector, Paris, Medea, and Atalanta are born

Year -30: Clytemnestra, Helen, Castor, Pollux, and Cassandra are born

Atreus is killed by Thyestes

Agamemnon and Menelaus are displaced from Mycenae

Year -27: Odysseus gets his leg scar

Year -26: Penelope and Aeneas are born

Year -25: Diomedes is born

Year -24: Patroclus and Telamonian Ajax are born

Year -22: Heracles begins his Twelve Labours

Teucer is born

Year -21: War of Seven against Thebes

Diomedes’s father Tydeus is killed

Patroclus is banished from Opus and is taken in by Peleus

Year -19: Helen is kidnapped by Theseus and Pirithous

Year -18: Events of the Argonautica

Achilles, Antilochus, and Deidamia are born

Helen is rescued by Castor and Pollux

Dozens of heroes join Jason’s expedition to find the Golden Fleece

Year -16: Calydonian boat hunt

Clytemnestra marries Tantalus

Year -15: Agamemnon retakes Mycenae from Thyestes with the aid of Tyndareus

Agamemnon kills Tantalus and marries Clytemnestra

Atalanta marries Hippomenes

Cassandra is cursed by Apollo

Year -14: Iphigenia is born

Year -12: Oath of Tyndareus

Dozens of suitors travel to Sparta to compete for Helen’s hand

Menelaus wins or is chosen and marries Helen

Odysseus is betrothed to Penelope

Year -11: Judgement of Paris

Hermione is born

War of the Epigoni

Diomedes becomes king of Argos

Year -10: Abduction of Helen

Theseus is rescued from the underworld

Heracles finished his Twelve Labours

Year -9: The Oath of Tyndareus is called

Achilles prophesied to die in a war with Troy

Achilles sent to Skyros by Thetis and later falls in love with Deidamia

Year -8: Mysian Campaign

Initial attempt to attack Troy fails, instead razing the city of Mysia

Odysseus marries Penelope

Events of Medea

Year -5: Achilles marries Deidamia

Year -4: Neoptolemus is born

Year -3: Orestes is born

Year -2: Odysseus’s dog Argos is born

Year -1: Telemachus is born

Year 0: Achaeans set off for war

Odyssues forced to leave Ithaca by Palamedes

Achaean fleet sails to Aulis and is stranded

Iphigenia is brought to Aulis and is sacrificed

Year 1: Trojan War begins

Achaeans land in Troy

Siege of the city of Troy begins

Surrounding towns start to be pillaged

Year 2-8: Trojan War stalemate

Andromache is sent to Troy and marries Hector

Palamedes is killed by Odysseus causing Nauplius to plan revenge

Astyanax is born

Year 9: Events of the Iliad

Patroclus, Hector, Antilochus, Achilles, and Paris are killed

Telamonian Ajax goes mad and commits suicide

Neoptolemus is brought to Troy

Year 10: Fall of Troy

Using the Trojan Horse, the Achaeans enter and destroy Troy

Most Trojans are killed or enslaved

Many more Achaeans die on the journey home

Agamemnon is murdered by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus

Diomedes is exiled from Argos

Menelaus and Helen voyage around the sea

Year 11: Odysseus travels around the sea

Most of Odysseus’s men die from Polyphemus and the Laestrygonians

Odysseus takes refuge on Aeaea with Circe

Year 12: Odysseus leaves Aeaea and faces more obstacles

The rest of Odysseus’s men die

Odysseus is trapped on Ogygia by Calypso

Year 13: Telegonus is born

Year 16: Suitors start vying for the hand of Penelope

Year 17: Events of the Oresteia

Orestes kills Aegisthus and Clytemnestra to avenge his father

Orestes is found innocent by Athena and becomes king of Mycenae

Menelaus and Helen return home to Sparta

Year 19: Events of the Odyssey

Telemachus travels to Pylos and Sparta

Odysseus is freed from Ogygia makes it home to Ithaca

Neoptolemus marries Hermione

Year 20: Orestes kills Neoptolemus

Peleus dies in grief

Orestes marries Hermione

Year 30: Events of the Telegony

Telegonus travels to Ithaca and accidentally kills his father

Penelope and Telemachus travel to Aeaea with him and are immortalised

Telegonus marries Penelope, and Telemachus marries Circe

[rotteddesires]

i need more adult paranormal romance novels injected into my system.

[mythmagicetc]

it baffles me when people say “i got tricked into watching this show for a ship that isn’t even canon” bro if those men had kissed, you would’ve SEEN it. i’ve seen gifs of men making out in shows i have no desire to watch. i’ve seen sex scenes from movies that nobody has ever heard of. when men kiss on screen, i am notified

[rodrickheffeley]

they finally have a superman and a batman in the dcu I can actually root for. James Gunn give me a superbat yaoi movie and my life is yours

[wellsbering]

m*a*s*h screenshot i've been getting a lot of use out of since january 20th of this year. in case anyone needs it

[image description: a screenshot of hawkeye pierce from mash. he is sitting in the post-surgery recovery room, wearing a white doctor's coat, looking down at someone offscreen. he looks tired. the subtitles at the bottom read: "Joking about it is the only way of opening my mouth without screaming." end description]

[onevii]

[luisonte]

Yo como profe de historia

[la-femmex-deactivated20220305]

love this

[thetuberculosisgay]

Mutuals do this

[sioltach]

this is exactly what I envision everytime I read that some ancient civilization trained their little kids for battle

[silly-jellyghoty]

That battle cry at the end! 😂🥰

[jackkdaniels]

I respect an "I can fix him" villainfucker 50x more than a "he didn't do anything wrong, he's just misunderstood!" villainfucker. like yeah they both get the cute domestic happily ever after, but man the first guy has depth they have nuance and most importantly they are actually aware they're a villainfucker

[jackkdaniels]

but the guy i respect MOST is the unapologetic villainfucker. "yeah he did that shit and it was sexy" fuckers. "was the wanton murder fun babe it looked fun" fuckers. these guys know where it's at

[charlesoberonn]

[charlesoberonn]

[regulus-leonis]

AO3 👏 TAGS 👏 ARE 👏 NOT 👏 SPOILERS 👏

i’m so tired of authors not tagging correctly because they don’t want to “spoil the fic”

correctly tagging your fic allows readers who DON’T want to read things like major character death, gore, mpreg or whatever may be their squick to filter your fic out from the main ship/fandom tag. not including the correct tags on your fic is harmful to readers and i’m tired of pretending it’s not.

“don’t like don’t read” great! i won’t! tag your fic correctly next time ffs

[missfangirll]

if you fear a tag will ruin the plot or reveal a twist write that in the notes at the beginning and a detailed warning in the end notes!

[starfieldcanvas]

Ao3's tag system is a great tool that helps sensitive readers take more educated risks, but if we're jumping all the way to 'if you don't tag my squick then you are HARMING me' then we've gone waaay too far.

(If OP had just been talking about failing to follow Ao3's rules around the major warnings that would be one thing, but they also threw in 'mpreg or whatever may be their squick' so now it's rant time.)

I do think warning your readers about major common squicks outside the archive warnings is a great impulse! I do it myself! And yet it's also true that literally anything can be a squick or trigger. A potential trigger may seem obvious to you while being totally unnoticeable to the author, and vice versa. Maybe you remembered to tag mpreg, but did you tag for needles? Vomiting? Menstruation? Blood? Doctor's offices? Drug use (because the character takes tylenol one time)? Car crashes? Underage drinking (that isn't considered underage in your country of residence or the time period in which your story is set)? Fatphobia? Character skipping meals? Racial slurs (against Vulcans)? Child endangerment? These are all things that might be reasonably expected to squick or trigger readers because they bring to mind real-world awfulness. I see all of these used as content tags sometimes, but waaaaay less than they 'should' be if authors were truly obligated to protect us from being squicked. And that's not even getting into common narrative or sexual squicks that might be a huge deal to some (unprotected sex, unlubed anal sex, rimming, ass to mouth, breeding kink, daddy kink, undernegotiated D/S, etc) but are so entirely within the realm of normal for others it would never occur to them to tag.

I certainly encourage authors to use tags to help readers find what they're looking for and avoid what they don't want, but enthusiasm for Ao3's tagging system can go too far, wherein readers with specific squicks or triggers begin to hold authors more accountable than they hold themselves. Tagging literally everything is impossible, and there is no fandom consensus on what has to be tagged other than the standard archive warnings.

Creating a new fandom consensus on what MUST be tagged beyond the existing consensus of rape, under-18 sex, graphic violence, and major character death would be incredibly fraught. Standardizing a warning is a powerful normative act, one that can easily inflate existing personal feelings into harsher moral judgments. "We all agree this topic is so upsetting it MUST be warned for" is one step down from declaring a topic entirely taboo. And that has consequences. Victims of rape and child abuse talk about how psychologically damaging it can be to have to cordon off a major part of your own life experiences lest they discomfort others; it can easily feel like you yourself are being declared a blight rather than the harm that was done to you.

Awareness of this impact is why I confess I do find it concerning that the untagged sqicks people get most vocal about tend to involve deviation from sex and gender norms. I understand that pregnancy is a horrifying threat to many fanfic readers and that a lot of us have deep discomfort with our sexual traits, which can naturally lead to us only being able to enjoy a narrower slice of available fictional content, but I never see anybody up in arms about undeniably negative shit like untagged car crashes the way I see some people up in arms about having to occasionally encounter neutral things like untagged mpreg or omegaverse or gender-atypical genitalia.

This is always especially unnerving to me when the offending topic is something that is both inherently morally neutral and entirely possible to encounter among real-life strangers in a positive context. Sure, getting hit with a wave of gender dysphoria when you're trying to read erotica is a bad time, and it's entirely logical to want to select your erotica according to your own genital preferences, but the level of moral outrage people occasionally exhibit when they encounter unexpected genital configurations in erotic fanfic tends to be, uh, pretty unmistakably hostile towards trans bodies, even when it's coming from trans people. Like, okay, say mpreg is a trigger for you because you associate it with threats of corrective rape and you don't want to read about it in your escapist fanfic—fair enough. Do you also ask real pregnant trans men in real life to put content warnings on their happy selfies of themselves just existing? Do you get why that would be fucked up? Do you get how it would be extra fucked up to make that request mandatory at an institutional level? Especially if cis pregnancy didn't require any warnings?

Then there's the structural question.

Ao3 content tags were designed to be used positively—the 'exclude' feature did not exist at launch—and as such there was an implied expectation that if you tagged your story as x, you were putting the tag there for people who might want to filter FOR stories with x. That meant a very brief mention of x occurring offscreen wouldn't merit an x tag; nobody came to a fic tagged Arranged Marriage expecting to hear about the main character's cousin having an arranged marriage.

The recent push to use content tags as warnings has led to aggressive overtagging of minor mentions of x, making the x tag less and less useful as a positive filter. This is somewhat mitigated by people using 'minor x' or 'x mention' instead of clogging the 'x' tag (shoutout to people putting background ships in the content tags instead of the ship tags!) which I appreciate. However, this points to a fundamental tension in the practical use of Ao3 tags now that we do have the 'exclude' feature.

If the point is to help readers avoid things, authors will tag very differently than if the point is to help readers find things they might like. And the original structural design of content tags was to help readers find things they might like. Ao3 is firstly for authors to archive their fics and secondarily to help readers find those fics. Only thirdly is it optimized to help readers NOT find fics.

Talking like the 'correct' use of Ao3 tags is to optimize exclusion means you've got your understanding of Ao3 tags backwards.

tl;dr:

there is no standardized list of minor archive warnings; squicks/triggers are so varied it would be impossible to mandate warning for all of them

mandating warnings for x inherently imposes a structural & cultural penalty against x content

ao3 is structured to favor positive content tags (help readers find) over warning tags (help readers avoid)

Authors can be expected to tag the stuff they personally find most relevant about their fic, in much the same way a book in the library has a few major keywords attached. More granular content warnings are a bonus. If you as a reader are highly sensitive to encountering a type of content that falls outside of the major archive warnings, you have to take responsibility for that yourself; it will never be reasonable to 100% conclude that a given fic lacks your squick just because your squick isn't tagged. Unless somebody is blatantly lying about archive warnings or actively mis-tagging, they are not tagging their fic 'incorrectly.'

It's great to encourage people to tag more comprehensively! Explaining why certain tags are of interest to readers would be a good start, or perhaps explaining how to maximize the use of filterable tags that work as both positive and negative simultaneously. But OP's post is neither helpful nor accurate.

[by-ilmater]

YOU'RE A REGULAR WRITER! YOU CAN CRAFT A COMPLETE SENTENCE! YOU'RE A REGULAR WRITER! YOU USE THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF COMMAS! YOU'RE A REGULAR WRITER! YOUR PROSE IS GOOD AND RIGHT! YOU'RE A REGULAR WRITER! EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS YOUR VISION!

[nokstella]

[transformativeworks]

[ID: the above text post screenshotted and put over a still photo of Jacob Wysocki delivering the monologue that inspired the text post /ID]

[lenbryant]

Women in Shakespeare

[orangebitters]

Also like to point out that when her mother says “I was your mother much upon these years that you are now a maid,” (translation: I had you when I was your age) you have to remember her father’s words: “earth hath swallowed all my hopes but she,” (translation: all the other children died.)  The whole plot point of Juliet being an only child is explained by her mother being a Margaret Beaufort type who had her first child too young and it damaged her past the point of being able to bear more children.

[beatrice-otter]

Margaret Beaufort died in 1509. She was a major player in the Wars of the Roses, the swirling on-again-off-again civil wars that consumed England from 1455-1487. Romeo and Juliet was written and first performed in the early 1590s. Your average English person of Shakespeare’s day would probably have had at least a vague understanding of who she was and what happened to her, because she was a key figure in recent history and was still getting passed around as a cautionary tale.

There are two great problems with what happened to Margaret (and that her parents are trying to do to Juliet). One is easy for modern people to spot (but was also a common response back in her own day). And that’s the moral implications of what was done to her. She was too young to be married, and it was horrifying that she was forced into it so young. Every one of the adults around her either acted immorally or failed to protect her. They were wrong. This is what modern people see, and it’s important to remember that people back in her day mostly agreed with it. You’re supposed to think it’s fucked up! When girls were married that young (and it didn’t happen often!) it was a formality 99% of the time. It was for dynastic or financial reasons (the girl has lots of money and/or land and/or a title that her husband wants), but the “couple” don’t consummate their marriage for years. And it’s not just that they would have separate bedrooms. They might not even live in the same country until the girl was in her late teens and physically and mentally mature enough to bear and raise kids. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t even meet until the girl was older! They had this thing called “proxy marriage” where you would have two separate ceremonies, in two separate places, with each party saying their vows separately, one in one city and the other in a different one. So, yeah, sure, the girl was technically married at 12, but she didn’t actually meet her “husband” in person until she was 17 and they didn’t start sleeping together until she was 20. That was a thing they did.

The other problem, the one that modern people don’t notice, is dynastic. See, marriage wasn’t generally because you loved someone. It was because you had the resources to support a family, and you or your family wanted to pool those resources with someone. It’s about “our family has these resources, and we want that to continue.” It’s about continuity across generations. It’s about making sure that your children and grandchildren have the best possible resources to survive and thrive, whether those resources are land or a trade or a title or money or whatever. In order for this to work, you have to have kids! The family and the family’s resources depend on the married couple having children. If the couple doesn’t have children, the marriage is a failure. And that failure affects not only the couple, but both families. This is a really big problem. And you can’t have just one kid to pass on the family name, because half of all kids die in early childhood. If you want to be safe, you need several kids, to be sure at least one will survive to adulthood (when they can marry and pass on the family name and resources.

You know what happens when a girl has her first pregnancy too young? She is very likely to either die in childbirth, or have complications that destroy her future fertility. Just like Margaret Beaufort. Just like Juliet’s mother. In other words, the marriage is a failure, not just for her, but also for her family, and her husband (who can’t divorce her, it’s not allowed except in extremely rare circumstances), and her husband’s family. So even the people who didn’t have a moral problem with adult men having sex with pubescent girls had a practical problem with girls married too young because you are very likely to destroy the entire purpose of the marriage by doing it. As Shakespeare reminds us in the play through Juliet’s mother having been married too young and only having one child.

Shakespeare is telling us “yeah, this is fucked up. but even if you’re the kind of awful person who doesn’t think girls marrying too young is morally wrong, it’s also a problem for practical and dynastic reasons, don’t forget that by doing this wrong thing you are very likely to destroy what you most want out of it.”

[stalker-among-the-stars]

Interesting

[i-fear-neither-death-nor-pain]

It bears repeating:

don’t forget that by doing this wrong thing you are very likely to destroy what you most want out of it.”

[sarahthecoat]

yes, excellent discussion!

another thing i noticed, the year my local community shakespeare theater did r&j, and i made the costumes so i got to watch the show every night: part of why capulet is telling paris, take your time, get to know each other, no rush, is that he still has his nephew tybalt as his heir. as long as tybalt is in the picture, there is no pressure on juliet to go further with paris, than get acquainted. once tybalt is killed, then suddenly capulet needs an heir, he needs a husband for juliet, now, this week. (the role of capulet is best given to the actor in the company that can do over the top apoplexy, you need to believe his urgency comes at least in part by how clearly he could drop dead any moment from giving himself a stroke)

i feel like this play is often taught in middle schools as if it was somehow relevant to, or about, teen hormone storms. really it's got more to do with the social structures around family and inheritance. leaving that context out makes it confusing, why is capulet suddenly flipping from nice dad to evil dad?

art history matters.

[rowanhorserider]

I've been thinking about this play a lot lately. I really wanna highlight that Lord Capulet asks Paris to wait and get to know her, and to woo her, while Tybalt lives. While Tybalt is alive, Juliet has something of a reprieve, and her wellbeing as his only child matters more to Capulet. But once Tybalt has died, the gloves come off. Lord Capulet was worried about his daughter's wellbeing when he felt he had the space to care, but as soon as his dynasty is at stake, as soon as this becomes larger than Juliet's happiness, his consideration for her health and mental wellbeing get thrown away. Which also is due in part to the fact that Capulet's family is implicated in a brawl that has left several dead after the Prince's family EXPLICITLY told the Capulets and Montagues to stop fighting or face dire consequences, AND Capulet is trying to align himself with the Prince's family by marrying Juliet off to County Paris, a relative of the Prince. So to Lord Capulet, it is now less important that Juliet is happy, and more important than he reminds the Prince of his loyalty via this marriage and aligns his family with the Prince's before it's too late. And he believes this must be done, at any cost...until Juliet kills herself. And that's when he realises the devastating cost of treating his family as chess pieces. He realises his wrongdoing far too late.

Seriously Romeo and Juliet is HEAVY on the dynastic politics, and I think you can't fully understand the play without understanding how that all works, especially because the impact of dynastic marriages on women and girls is like. THE POINT of the play

[forthegothicheroine]

That Hamlet post reminds me, people blame Romeo and Juliet for "getting everyone killed", but the text itself very specifically blames the lords Capulet and Montague. If you want to get to the nitty gritty:

Mercutio got himself killed. Romeo was very specifically trying to not have a swordfight, and Mercutio decided to start one because he thought Romeo was being a pussy. Tybalt actually killed him, but if you're talking about who "got him killed," that was Mercutio fucking around and finding out.

Romeo killed Tybalt. This is the one death that I think you can reasonably lay at Romeo's feet. If he had run off with Benvolio and got the Prince's men, Tybalt would have been arrested. That said, if my best friend (no matter how stupid) was killed right in front of me and the killer told me that friend sucked and so did I, I cannot guarantee I would do differently.

Lady Capulet said she hired people to kill Romeo. He beat them to the punch on that, but I think it should be pointed out.

Romeo killed Paris in self-defense. There's a lot of different ways you can play this, and Paris did think he'd broken in to vandalize the tomb of his girlfriend, but once again Romeo specifically begged someone not to fight him and that wasn't enough.

Romeo killed himself because he thought Juliet was dead. Friar Lawrence had a stupid idea and Juliet followed through on it because her father was going to force her into bigamy (and arguably marital rape), so if anyone "got" this to happen it was Lord Capulet.

Juliet killed herself because her husband was dead, her cousin was dead, her parents had turned on her, the woman who she thought of as a second mother abandoned her, and she was in a room with one guy stabbed and another guy poisoned right as the law was about to break in. Once again, I don't know what I'd do in her situation.

My Shakespeare professor said that Romeo and Juliet is the only Shakespeare tragedy not caused because of anyone being evil- Lord Capulet and Tybalt (and Mercutio) are dicks, but they're not Iago or Richard III. None of them wanted the play to end in a pile of bodies. You can't even point to one specific act and say 'that was the specific action that caused all of this.' It's a surprisingly modern (as opposed to mythic) play in that regard.

[dichotomous-tastes]

I think this is why Romeo and Juliet tends to be underestimated as a work in general. The message is different from what is usually portrayed in pop culture, and the lack of a clear villain is part of this.

[hudsonwhorenet]

one of the things i really like about Iron Lung is that even though it’s a Dark movie (lighting wise) I could still see. So often in movies if it’s dark for the characters, you have no hope in hell of seeing what’s on your screen unless the brightness is way up and you’re squinting. But Iron Lung is a clear visual even in the dark. Yes there are times it gets crunchy and hard to see but it always read as a thematic choice to represent and immerse the audience in Simon’s experience and didn’t happen often enough that it impacted my enjoyment or understanding of the setting/film.

[currentlycryingaboutlancelot]

benedick’s love confession is so funny. beatrice actively sobbing her eyes out because her best friend and cousin just publicly got disowned by her father, slandered by everyone she knows, her life is presumably ruined forever now because of some insane guy’s claim that she cheated on him which is just obviously not true but no one will believe her and no one will believe beatrice and there is literally nothing beatrice can say to make it better and AS SHE IS CRYING benedick is like heyyy btw…im in love with you. isn’t that crazy haha

[turtleduck-in-mordor]

the holy trinity of proposals

benedick “is this a bad time” lord of padua

fitzwilliam “you’re poor and that’s embarrassing, marry me” darcy

edward “you’re snarky, young, and unprotected and i like that” rochester

[drowningmoonlight]

My favorite thing about #da Pitt is that it’s a heart-wrenching drama centered on a broken healthcare system and the brave hospital workers doing their damndest to get people the help that they need and deserve AND it’s a gory medical show with high-stakes edge-of-your-seat action AND it’s a series of character studies about deeply flawed individuals who go about doing good in all the wrong ways AND it’s a commentary on the lack of care inherent within our capitalist society where we are reduced to our bodies’ capacity for labor AND it’s also about a mentally ill middle-aged man at the center of an increasingly convoluted emotionally constipated coworker polycule. The Pitt contains multitudes.