#whiskerwick

(the following is a petz-based adaptation of a midsummer night's dream that I created and posted to whiskerwick in 2016. it was never finished, but I will preserve what I completed here)

note: for those of you who have trouble with Shakespearean English, No Fear Shakespeare has a version which updates the test to modern English available here. I also highly recommend listening to an audio recording of the play as you read along; it really enhances the experience. There are a ton of versions available on YouTube (just search for Midsummer's Night's Dream audiobook). skissors' theater co. presents  in association with DG Films a Checkerboard production:

William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Act 1, Scene 1

Athens. The palace of THESEUS.

THESEUS: Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in Another moon. But oh, methinks how slow This old moon wanes! She lingers my desires, Like to a stepdame or a dowager Long withering out a young man’s revenue.

HIPPOLYTA: Four days will quickly steep themselves in night. Four nights will quickly dream away the time. And then the moon, like to a silver bow New bent in heaven, shall behold the night Of our solemnities.

THESEUS: Go, Philostrate, Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments. Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth. Turn melancholy forth to funerals. The pale companion is not for our pomp.

THESEUS: Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword And won thy love doing thee injuries. But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.

EGEUS: Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke!

THESEUS: Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?

EGEUS: Full of vexation come I, with complaint Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

EGEUS: Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord, This man hath my consent to marry her.

EGEUS: Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke, This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child; Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes, And interchanged love-tokens with my child: Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung, With feigning voice verses of feigning love, And stolen the impression of her fantasy With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gawds, conceits, Knacks, trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats, messengers Of strong prevailment in unharden'd youth: With cunning hast thou filch'd my daughter's heart, Turn'd her obedience, which is due to me, To stubborn harshness: and, my gracious duke, Be it so she; will not here before your grace Consent to marry with Demetrius, I beg the ancient privilege of Athens, As she is mine, I may dispose of her: Which shall be either to this gentleman Or to her death, according to our law Immediately provided in that case.

THESEUS: What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid: To you your father should be as a god; One that composed your beauties, yea, and one To whom you are but as a form in wax By him imprinted and within his power To leave the figure or disfigure it. Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIA: So is Lysander.

THESEUS: In himself he is; But in this kind, wanting your father's voice, The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIA: I would my father look'd but with my eyes.

THESEUS: Rather your eyes must with his judgment look.

HERMIA: I do entreat your grace to pardon me. I know not by what power I am made bold, Nor how it may concern my modesty, In such a presence here to plead my thoughts; But I beseech your grace that I may know The worst that may befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THESEUS: Either to die the death or to abjure For ever the society of men. Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires; Know of your youth, examine well your blood, Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice, You can endure the livery of a nun, For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd, To live a barren sister all your life, Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon. Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood, To undergo such maiden pilgrimage; But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd, Than that which withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness. HERMIA: So will I grow, so live, so die, my lord, Ere I will my virgin patent up Unto his lordship, whose unwished yoke My soul consents not to give sovereignty. THESEUS: Take time to pause; and, by the next new moon-- The sealing-day betwixt my love and me, For everlasting bond of fellowship-- Upon that day either prepare to die For disobedience to your father's will, Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would; Or on Diana's altar to protest For aye austerity and single life.

DEMETRIUS: Relent, sweet Hermia: and, Lysander, yield Thy crazed title to my certain right.

LYSANDER: You have her father's love, Demetrius; Let me have Hermia's: do you marry him.

EGEUS: Scornful Lysander! true, he hath my love, And what is mine my love shall render him. And she is mine, and all my right of her I do estate unto Demetrius LYSANDER: I am, my lord, as well derived as he, As well possess'd; my love is more than his; My fortunes every way as fairly rank'd, If not with vantage, as Demetrius'; And, which is more than all these boasts can be, I am beloved of beauteous Hermia: Why should not I then prosecute my right? Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head, Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena, And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes, Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry, Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

THESEUS: I must confess that I have heard so much, And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof; But, being over-full of self-affairs, My mind did lose it. But, Demetrius, come; And come, Egeus; you shall go with me, I have some private schooling for you both. For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself To fit your fancies to your father's will; Or else the law of Athens yields you up-- Which by no means we may extenuate-- To death, or to a vow of single life.

THESEUS: Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love? Demetrius and Egeus, go along: I must employ you in some business Against our nuptial and confer with you Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS: With duty and desire we follow you.

LYSANDER: How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale? How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIA: Belike for want of rain, which I could well Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.

LYSANDER: Ay me! for aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth; But, either it was different in blood,--

HERMIA: O cross! too high to be enthrall'd to low. LYSANDER: Or else misgraffed in respect of years,--

HERMIA: O spite! too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDER: Or else it stood upon the choice of friends,--

HERMIA: O hell! to choose love by another's eyes.

LYSANDER: Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentany as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the collied night, That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth, And ere a man hath power to say 'Behold!' The jaws of darkness do devour it up: So quick bright things come to confusion.

HERMIA: If then true lovers have been ever cross'd, It stands as an edict in destiny: Then let us teach our trial patience, Because it is a customary cross, As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs, Wishes and tears, poor fancy's followers.

LYSANDER: A good persuasion: therefore, hear me, Hermia. I have a widow aunt, a dowager Of great revenue, and she hath no child: From Athens is her house remote seven leagues; And she respects me as her only son. There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee; And to that place the sharp Athenian law Cannot pursue us. If thou lovest me then, Steal forth thy father's house to-morrow night; And in the wood, a league without the town, Where I did meet thee once with Helena, To do observance to a morn of May, There will I stay for thee.

HERMIA: My good Lysander! I swear to thee, by Cupid's strongest bow, By his best arrow with the golden head, By the simplicity of Venus' doves, By that which knitteth souls and prospers loves, And by that fire which burn'd the Carthage queen, When the false Troyan under sail was seen, By all the vows that ever men have broke, In number more than ever women spoke, In that same place thou hast appointed me, To-morrow truly will I meet with thee.

LYSANDER: Keep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

HELENA: Call you me fair? that fair again unsay. Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair! Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear, When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear. Sickness is catching: O, were favour so, Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go; My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye, My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody. Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated, The rest I'd give to be to you translated. O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

HERMIA: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

HELENA: O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HERMIA: I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

HELENA: O that my prayers could such affection move!

HERMIA: The more I hate, the more he follows me.

HELENA: The more I love, the more he hateth me.

HERMIA: His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

HELENA: None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

HERMIA: Take comfort: he no more shall see my face; Lysander and myself will fly this place. Before the time I did Lysander see, Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me: O, then, what graces in my love do dwell, That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell! LYSANDER: Helen, to you our minds we will unfold: To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold Her silver visage in the watery glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass, A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal, Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal. HERMIA: And in the wood, where often you and I Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie, Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet, There my Lysander and myself shall meet; And thence from Athens turn away our eyes, To seek new friends and stranger companies.

HERMIA: Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us; And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.

LYSANDER: I will, my Hermia.

LYSANDER: Helena, adieu: As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

HELENA: How happy some o'er other some can be! Through Athens I am thought as fair as she. But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so; He will not know what all but he do know: And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes, So I, admiring of his qualities: Things base and vile, folding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity: Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind: Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste; Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste: And therefore is Love said to be a child, Because in choice he is so oft beguiled. As waggish boys in game themselves forswear, So the boy Love is perjured every where: For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne, He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine; And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt, So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

I accidentally deleted all my notes for this day, so instead of the usual witty commentary, I decided to try something different: The world's longest petz pics collage!* Are you ready? Here we go!

(the following was copied from my entry in a petz gameplay contest held on whiskerwick in 2015)

The time has come to introduce Beau and Fitz to some of my other catz. I fear the worst.

First up is my favoritest cat in the world, Jack.

Surprisingly, Beau and Jack got along pretty well. Beau had his moments, but for the most part they seemed to be able to play together just fine, without any fighting.

Fitz and Jack also got along, as I suspected they would.

Next was my second favorite cat, Derpy Paws.

She and Beau also get along! Maybe Beau doesn't hate everyone…

Derpy actually looked sad when I put Beau away.

Derpy and Fitz also had a fun time hanging out.

Next up, I decide to introduce them to some petz of their own breed. Beau met Columbidae…

Spider…

and Velvet <3

He liked them all! I guess Beau is not the hateful demon we all thought. He just doesn't like Fitz.

Fitz meanwhile met Midnight…

and Tomfoolery.

They were also all friends!

Fitz even looked sad when I put them away.

So, it turns out neither Beau nor Fitz are especially hateful, it's just that Arie happened to send me two petz that despise each other. Great :| We just have to make it through the week, then they'll never have to play together again,

~~~

Next up, it was time to find their favorite food. I started with treats. I lined up one of each treat in a row, then saw which treat they went for first.

Beua went straight for the bone. Huh, I had pegged him as more of the steak type.

Fitz went straight for the cotton candy, which makes sense, as they match his pink eyes.

Then, I did the same with the food dishes.

Beau had a fun time playing wit the silver dish, but ultimately chose to eat out of the red one.

Fitz also played with the dishes for a bit, before settling down and eating out of the green one.

~~~

Considering the dismal weather I've actually had outside lately, I decide to take part in a bit of petz-y escapism by planting a lush garden in the backyard, and Beau and Fitz came along for the ride.

I started by just throwing seeds randomly. The kitties seemed to have a fun time batting the seeds around and playing with them.

However, as the seeds began to set root, the kitties quickly degenerated into their favorite hobby: fighting each other.

(the following was copied from my entry in a petz gameplay contest held on whiskerwick in 2015)

WOO! SPRING BREAK! Grab your sunglasses and swim trunks, kitties, and cue the calypso.wav, cause we're going to the BEACH!

Surprisingly, Beau did not immediately hate it. I know, I'm as shocked as you are.

I assumed Beau's torturing of Fitz would begin shortly, but fortunately, Beau quickly discovered something he hated even more than Fitz: the hermit crab.

Fitz, meanwhile, was having a great time just chilling out.

Beau's interest in the hermit crab faded after a bit, though, and he started to turn his attention towards Fitz, until he discovered another great enemy: the green frisbee.

Unfortunately, peace could only last so long, and the inevitable cat fight happened.

After I broke up the fight, I put both the catz away in order to take a breather and record my thoughts.

~~~

Once I let both the catz out again, they seemed to be on amicable terms with each other. They even conspired together to bring down felinekind's greatest scourge: the hermit crab.

Everything seemed to be going swimmingly, until Beau accidentally bumped into the incoming tide.

I have to admit, it was a teensy bit satisfying watching him run in fear from the water.

Things settle back down though, and I through everything would be ok, till both the catz got splashed with the water. Beau again ran in terror, but Fitz seemed to take it in stride, boldly prancing around the screen.

Until he ran into the beach ball.

Fitz snapped, and began running wildly in circles, terrified out of his mind.

This is the scene I'd like to leave you on: one cat, frightened out of his wits by a beach ball, running around in circles. The other, shooting death glares at a green plastic disc.

God these guys are weird.

~~~

Time to find these guys' favorite toys! I decided to use the ultra-scientific method of lining up a bunch of toys and seeing which one they decided to play with.

First up is Beauregard.

He immediately went for the white chew toy. I guess he likes cuddly things.

Fitzroy went next.

At first her wasn't very interested in any of the toys, but eventually, he started playing with the green Frisbee.

~~~

Next, I decided to play the paint can game. To play, you pull out a paint brush of every color, then toss out a couple auto-rolling balls and let your petz run around and paint themselves.

~~~

Finally, it was time to go on a mouse hunt.

Or at least try to. Beauregard kept eating the cheese.

Eventually, I was able to lure a mouse out of the hole by putting the catz away and waiting till a mouse crawled out of the hole to let them out. Surprisingly, Fitz seemed to be the hunter of the pair; Beau was still more interested in eating the cheese.

Derpy "Santa" Paws

Jack

Jack from Heather It's no secret that I love this cat. He is without question my favorite pet. Everything about him is perfect, at least in my eyes. His coat is gorgeous. His personality is amazing. Heck, even his birthday is special - it's October 17, the same as my own. I think I could adopt a million catz, and never come across another one that is as perfect to me as Jack is.