✏ ( ᴏᴏ2 ) ᴅɪᴄᴛᴀᴛᴇᴅ | ɴᴏʙᴏᴅʏ ʙᴜᴛ ᴍᴇ ɪs ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇ ᴍʏ sᴛᴏʀʏ

[revolter]

Hamlet thought too much.

[ that's the way she chooses to open this. Musing aloud. ]

He thought and he talked and he talked, and he has the most beautiful - soliloquies, I read they are called. He talks about all the things he thinks about but he doesn't do anything and in the end nobody of them does anything but Laertes. It's a sad story but I don't think it has to be. If Hamlet did something instead of all the thinking and the soliloquies maybe it would have had a better end.

[ the things six years old think about these days. ]

He could change it from a tragedy to just...a story. You don't have to make it a tragedy. It can be a sad story at the beginning and some things aren't fair but it doesn't have to be this way.

[ a beat. ]

I'm sorry. I don't really know how to say it, but when something is bad, like brothers or daddies or aunts and principals and evil kings like Claudius, then they're bad but it doesn't have to end badly too. At least that's what I think. I heard this story about a girl who had a wonderful life but then it all changed and became terrible but she changed her story and made it better. I think I like hers more.

Comments

/written

[savethedarkness]

[what a peculiar subject for one so young. M can't help but smile anyway as she writes back]

The Bard never quite did believe in a happy medium. Either everyone was happy, or no one was.

[revolter]

I think that's sad. If people read that everyone are happy it might not seem very believable. But everyone being sad is not very believable either.

[savethedarkness]

It wasn't meant to be believable, it was just meant as theatre, entertainment. People went to see his plays because they were so extreme. It did them good to either see people worse off than themselves, or believe everyone could be happy, even for a few hours.

[revolter]

[ she hums in thought. ]

Because they know the truth already so...they don't want to see it? In a play?

Dictated

[cyan_maid]

[Thank goodness Jane is back to normal! Now she sounds like herself and won't startle the people she knows.]

I like it when people try to change things, too. But sometimes, people don't know how to change them.

I didn't think you read Shakespeare, Matilda.

Dictated

[revolter]

Maybe then they can ask for help. From friends or teachers. Some of my friends helped me change things.

[ though she had made brave attempts even before that. ]

I never read Hamlet before, but I read A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I liked better.

Dictated

[cyan_maid]

But what do you do if even they don't know?

Really? I don't think I read that one. I definitely read Romeo and Juliet in high school, though.

Dictated

[revolter]

Read a book? I think some books helped me understand some things.

I heard about that one. It is sad too, isn't it?

dictated

[eat_me_beat_me]

I like to think that you always have some control in how your story turns out.

dictated

[revolter]

I do too.

If we accept that we have no control at all...I think it will make me sad to think like that. In the books some of the characters have hopes and then they try and sometimes it does work.

dictated forever

[eat_me_beat_me]

exactly! Thinking that we have no control is the same thing as giving up! If you give up how can you ever expect to get out of whatever you're in?

dictated forever

[revolter]

And then you'll always be sad. That's why you have to believe. I think it's hope, isn't it??

written;

[storiestotell]

No one deserves a bad ending.

written;

[revolter]

That is true. So if someone thinks the ending might be bad, they should try and change it, shouldn't they?

written;

[storiestotell]

I should think so. Especially so if it means helping someone else too.

written;

[revolter]

To change their story. I think one of Hamlet's friends tried to help him but he didn't listen.

[songsandstories]

[Oh, to believe in stories still.]

In stories, they end when good wins. But good does not always win. Good people still die. Men and kings are not honorable. Sometimes the only thing one can do is survive.

[revolter]

But you have to try. Even...to survive, if the story is very bad. To try and survive, that's trying too. And perhaps to try and change it.

[songsandstories]

And what if you know you can never have what you once did? That all you loved is destroyed and gone?

[assassino]

Leave the child be, Alayne. She is too young to be thinking of such bitter ends, even if they are true at times.

[revolter]

[ she thinks about it. ]

Maybe -- it drives people mad. Like Captain Ahab from Moby Dick but other characters....like Magwitch in Great Expectations, he tried to do something for someone else. To -- help. Maybe that made him happy. Maybe they need someone new to love. I don't think it's the same as the one that was destroyed but maybe it'll help.

[ she still doesn't know how to explain it properly and it makes her sigh. ]

It makes more sense in my head than when I talk about it.

[kid_apocalypse]

[You're speaking to his soul here, tiny philosopher. Evan's whole life has been about defying the odds, and making of his life what he wants of it.]

Me too, Matilda. I think...everyone's got that chance. To change their story, and make it into what they want. I don't think everyone knows it though. They get so...involved in things, they don't think they can change the ending if they want to.

[revolter]

Maybe if they read about it books. Not Hamlet but maybe other stories where people changed their stories. Like Great Expectations. Pip tried to change his story and he succeeded and even Magwitch tried, even if he was a prisoner.

[kid_apocalypse]

Yeah, maybe. The problem with that is that even inspired, sometimes all it can take is one little reminder of what's been holding them back to make them wanna give up. It's a lot easier to lose faith in yourself than hold onto it, after all.

[revolter]

The people in the stories always succeed, even if it's hard.

But I think maybe, things like that only exist in stories.