I saw this post yesterday, and instead of just reblogging it, I ruminated long enough that I decided it deserved its own blog response.
imagine if tumblr existed during shakespeare’s day
imagine the shakespeare fandom
people would be shipping rosencrantz/guildenstern and benvolio/mercutio
and like
hero/don john because fandom likes putting the sweet innocent girl with the “sexy villain” as joss called him
and then everyone would be fawning over benedick/beatrice (OTP 5EVER THEY WOULD SAY)
and there’d be all this theorizing about king lear and whether cordelia is really the fool or not
and everyone would be in love with edmund and would be all “poor bb is just misunderstood”
and half the fandom would hate ophelia and the other half would DEFEND OPHELIA UNTIL THE DAY THEY DIE
it’d be great
why isn’t shakespeare fandom a thing that exists? xD
I own that this might be how some tumblr users would do Shakespeare fandom. (I kind of always figured it was a thing that existed somewhere and I just didn’t know about it because I’m not really “in” a lot of fandoms and am only peripherally aware of a few others.) But this is how I would be doing Shakespeare fandom.
- I do admit that the one only of those above discussions I’d get involved in would be the Ophelia one. Ophelia is and has always been my baby and I have an irrational need to, yes, DEFEND HER UNTIL THE DAY I DIE. For so so so many reasons (also the fact that they attributed that to Ophelia goes to prove a theory of mine that Ophelia and Sansa are really the same person). Also, alt-canon for Ophelia please. Since (again like Sansa) so much of why people would get on her case is to do with her situation and handling thereof.
- The closest to noncanon shipping I would probably get would be along the lines of some Phoebe/Rosalind because pfft, who cares if Rosalind is a lady, why the hell not. And sometimes that’s how I roll.
- Probably also while owning that Rosalind/Orlando was legitimate and not entirely crap as far as ships go.
- One of my favorite dudes would totally be Benvolio. Since he’s all Mr. Gray Area Please Don’t Fight So Much Kthnx and all. (That would also be an example of a character I would be all about inventing alt-canon for.)
- I would be doing feminist critiques of, oh, every romance and lamenting the fact that there aren’t more examples of romanceless women characters (oh wait that could still be done). Not that romance is inherently bad, but, y’know, variety. It’s a good.
- I would definitely want to take apart that monologue in Midsummer where Helena is all
“And even for that do I love you the more.I am your spaniel. And, Demetrius,The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.Use me but as your spaniel—spurn me, strike me,Neglect me, lose me. Only give me leave,Unworthy as I am, to follow you.What worser place can I beg in your love—And yet a place of high respect with me—Than to be usèd as you use your dog?“
Because, maybe barring very remote possibilities that come with consenting and roleplaying subcultural sexual lifestyles, that monologue is gross. - I wouldn’t rain on anyone’s ship parade, but there would definitely be ships I would just scroll past if I saw them touted.
- Oh, and there would be fanmixes. So many fanmixes. (I think I actually had an Ophelia one once, but I lost it when switching computers awhile back.)
–your fangirl heroine.
