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seals-cats-and-random-stuff:

counting-sinful-stars:

seals-cats-and-random-stuff:

How did I miss this before?! 

I never understood this part, someone explain please?

When Shakespeare is flirting with Martha, the doctor says “We can all have a good flirt later”, and Shakespeare takes this to mean all three of them. He seems pleased at the prospect of flirting with the Doctor, suggesting he’s Bi As Heck™, and the Doctor picks up on this, mentioning the 57 academics thing, which is referring to academics who argue that Shakespeare was bisexual.

It’s a good scene. 😀

I mean yes, it’s definitely that, i.e. Shakespeare being bisexual, but it’s ALSO because Martha is black, and each and every time an academic argues that the dark lady was a black woman – most likely Black Luce, an African woman who ran a brothel in London back in the days – half of the ivory tower has a hissy-fit, and the other half, which only barely survived being shown multiple proofs of him having been bisexual, goes into cardiac arrest, because “not our precious Shakespeare”. 

I once wrote the following line in an essay during my BA studies in English;  

Shakespeare also lets the reader know that his
mistress […] presumably is a black woman, 

and followed it up with seven footnotes, quoting some of the world’s foremost Shakespeareans, and my marker still had the audacity to write “is this really plausible” next to it, but I digress.