#12n

[gayestshakespearecouples]

THE GRAND FINALE

Who are the gayest Shakespeare couple?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Hamlet)

Olivia and Viola, aka Cesario (Twelfth Night)

Voting ended onJun 27, 2023

Images from:

Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead staged by National Theatre, 2017

The Public Theatre, 2009

[bunny-banana]

three pages into Twelfth Night and I gotta say, my girl Viola is insane

[mukuharakazui]

twelfth night is so funny because despite the fact that all of the final couples are straight, it's IMPOSSIBLE to put on a production of twelfth night where everyone is portrayed as Strictly Heterosexual. you can make viola as straight as you want, but if orsino only has a crush on AND olivia immediately loses her interest in viola when she reveals that she's a woman, then the play doesn't feel right.

[mizzingyou]

twelfth night (1996) really said "if i cannot find homoerotic subtext, i will create it"

[parhelios]

anyways i was listening to gay pirates by cosmo jarvis so have this gay pirate

[shakespearenews]

X is for...

“I protest, I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools' zanies.” (12N) 

“Some carry-tale, some please-man, some slight zany...” (LLL)

While we’re at the end of the alphabet, a shout out to Socrates’ Xanthippe. 

[gayestshakespearecouples]

What should I do with Viola aka Cesario?

Have them x Olivia and them x Orsino as separate entries

Enter Orsino / Viola / Olivia as a throuple

Voting ended onApr 29, 2023

(For context Viola is one of the crossdressing protagonists, known as Cesario while they're in the guise of a man, but they have so much genderqueer energy that their relationships with both Olivia and Orsino are simultaneously very gay coded lmao)

[mukuharakazui]

that last post reminded me. out of all of the takes on viola in regards to gender that i've seen, i like the narrative of her as a trans woman the most for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it seems more fitting to the fact that viola is obviously distressed and feels trapped while pretending to be a man, whereas i would assume that most cis women would feel more exhaustion than distress while playing the role of a man.