#genrefuck

The great problem with Friar Lawrence is that he’s genre-savvy up until that moment. He thinks he’s the benevolently machiavellian friar in a romantic comedy, so his schemes will definitely work however desperate things get, and up until that point he was right. He perhaps rather likes the idea of punishing the Capulet parents for how they’ve treated Juliet, knowing that eventually all will turn out well. It’s exactly the same trick that Friar Francis would later use in Much Ado About Nothing and it works great (you know, for a given value of “great” that still involves Hero marrying Claudio...).

But Friar Francis really is in a romantic comedy. Friar Lawrence was, but he isn’t any more.

So basically Romeo and Juliet is the play that goes wrong, and I love it so so much for that and every time I watch it it breaks me. <3

When I watch Macbeth I viscerally know the ending that will come. Hamlet, Lear, Julius Caesar... same. When I watch R&J some part of me is still expecting that THIS TIME it’s going to get the romantic comedy ending after all. Fucking devastating. Well-played, Will, you sadistic git. Well played.

Two figures, one sleeping, one sitting, dissolving into dust. Illustration by Reiko Murakami.

The latest from Daniel José Older, "Dust", at Lightspeed Magazine.

Very late at night, when the buzz of drill dozers has died out, I can hear her breathing. I know that sounds crazy. I don’t care.

Tonight, I have to concentrate extra hard because there’s a man lying beside me; he’s snoring with the contented abandon of the well-fucked and all that panting has heavied up the air in my quarters. Still, I can hear her, hear her like she’s right behind my ear or curled up inside my heart. She’s not of course. If anything, I’m curled up in hers.