#richard discourse

[randomasfuk]

Okay, something that’s been pissing me off recently is the whole “Dick Grayson is a whore” thing. He absolutely is not. He has explicitly said so in the past (see the panels at the bottom of the post), and what pisses me off even more is people dismissing criticism of this as just “fanon mischaracterization.”

Him being portrayed as a whore is becoming canon now. I could be wrong on the timing, but it definitely seems more prevalent since he was canonized as Romani. And, conveniently, that just so happens to align with a massive Romani stereotype. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but it’s annoying as hell, whether it’s fanon or canon.

It’s the same way people reduce Damian to some rabid, violent creature that bites—another stereotype, this time about Arab people. It’s been pissing me off lately.

Tim and Bruce are the family whores, not Dick. In canon, he’s attractive and charismatic, but that doesn’t mean he’s a slut.

Can we please, for the love of whatever the hell you believe in, stop copy-pasting racial stereotypes onto characters? I don’t care if it’s unintentional. Stop it.

[contrarianwitt]

i will not stand for the progaganda of gansey only being serious and condescending!!

adam and ronan (little shits) love gansey for his personality! they all get along because they have the same sense of humour and because they like him

especially adam, because their friendship exists beyond their conflict! i’ve always seen hey tiger as a stupid joke that adam would find funny on a normal day in an attempt to lighten the mood before a serious conversation.

only reading it as gansey being condescending doesn’t give any credit to his humour or his friendship with adam

[frontmansdefender]

please please please please never assume an artist’s work is about something and then shove your theory in their face in hope that they would validate your “headcanon”. there’s a fine line between interpreting an artist’s art, which is fine (it is, after all, what art is about), and making your own assumption that said art might be about something that goes with your narrative or that something must be on the artist’s mind when they made this. it’s rude at best and extremely insensitive / disrespectful at worst. especially when you never know if the art is something that’s personal to the artist, (and so by making your own assumptions that their art is about something you want it to be about, you’re invalidating their feelings / experiences / anything they might’ve held in their heart creating the art; you’re turning their emotions / experiences / possibly trauma into something that’s about you, whether or not it’s your intention).

this goes for every other artist out there. if you appreciate their work or respect them as an artist, don’t do this. even if you’re just “joking”. because trust me, your joke isn’t worth the risk of unknowingly undermining someone’s feelings / experiences / pain in the process.

please respect artists and their art and try to be more considerate.

[brsb4hls]

Ok, but if you wanna circle that Siken quote around, maybe post the whole thing?

The second part is the important one.

Also, for those who still can't seperate fiction from reality and are obvi already pestering him, because he dared to name that ship:

[nqueso-lies]

Wait, what happened with the famous gay poet?

Oh... ya know... dumb of assery, homophobia, ignorance... the usual

[teh-nos]

fandom goes into deep denial about the attempted infanticide of baby loki because the imperialism reading of it works against the text and requires that the baby be stolen not abandoned, and that this theft be for the most nefarious and imperialist purposes we can think of. whereas actually - and i was going to say this is 'the obvious parallel' but no it's not even a parallel it's what's clearly happening there - the baby's been left out to die for being disabled hasn't he?

the word 'runt' gets used but adult loki compared to other frost giants is not just slightly on the small side, he's probably equivalent to a human with dwarfism, which definitely brings this into Infanticiding The Disabled Child territory. which a) laufey cannot be allowed to do because that's a fucked up and horrible thing to do* b) we also can't allow that odin just kept that baby because by asgardian standards there was no obvious disability there. (the social model of disability, but with giants and less-giants**) "why would you be throwing out this baby, laufey? it looks normal-sized. it doesn't even have an unusual number of limbs. yeah, i am taking this baby as a friend for my similarly-sized bio-son. mine now. finders keepers." i point this out because the disabled baby is not saved by someone thinking disability-based infanticide is wrong - at least not necessarily so - but by being found by someone who doesn't recognise the supposed problem. to whom it simply does not exist.

and of course fandom loves sad little feeble loki being weak and pathetic in fic, but i have somehow never seen this tied to the fact that he is canonically undersized for his species and likely has some connected internal fuckery going on with his organs. we have no idea what made him that small or what it'd do and - here's the fun kicker for you angst fans! - probably nobody on asgard would either. when's the last time any of them had to look after even an entirely able-bodied jotun? how likely is it that they can just write off to jotunheim to say "hey what's up with that kid your king tried to murder? how would we fix him if he lived here? yeah, our king kept him. no, we didn't eat the baby! can we borrow a medical textbook? what do you mean you don't have paper there. well how do you write down how the orientalist belly-dancer outfits are to be worn? well then how... no, come back. did you just hang up on a letter???"

sorry, i digressed. what i was aiming for was that there is a very obvious reason why loki might be unusually weak for a lad who looks healthy to us and who doesn't seem any smaller or less able-bodied than the people around him, but i just don't see it being deployed in fic or in meta or whatever. is this because the 'laufey just left his baby out for some fresh air like norwegians do' reading kind of relies on that baby not being seen as a burden to be got rid of and we all kind of agree that... no. no, i shall not finish that thought. it is too depressing. it probably is that though isn't it?

anyway. this is me wondering what is up with that. other than maybe some kind of 'echo-chamber effect' where even the wildest ideas can become commonly-held fanon and where it'd be easy to just straight-up ignore a very obvious implication of baby-murdering because someone leaving you to just fucking die for being disabled is somehow not enough oppression for a blorbo in these enlightened times. or because it breaks a popular fandom interpretation of events. or something like that?

*in fairness i'd say humans from earth are probably within the group that's allowed to just not care about humans from earth getting invaded and killed.

**i say 'less-giants' because look:

look at this literal giant among men. tiny scrawny little thing, so smol and so freakishly tall to the humans. i call this 'the social model of smolness.'

[theriverspath]

Well, it's been 0 days since David Tennant made me ugly cry.

My birthday is coming up, and I've treated myself to a month of Marquee TV as a little gift. I was particularly looking forward to David's Richard II. I've never seen a production of it, nor read it. So, I was going in fairly blind. But, I'd seen clips of The Kiss on youtube, and even an interview or two about it. So I thought I was ready for the level of heartache it would evoke.

I was wrong.

Y'all. That scene within the greater context of the story ripped my queer little heart right out of my chest. First of all, David's delivery of

I live with bread like you, feel want, Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus, How can you say to me, I am a king?

in a previous scene floored me. Here is a individual struggling with the isolation and loneliness that comes with power. They have the natural human need to be seen, to have honest emotional connections, to have a safe space in which to be vulnerable. But, they are at the top of a social structure that does not reward vulnerability with safety. In order to be king, they have had to sacrifice a measure of their humanity.

It's only when Richard comes to accept that the end of his reign will also mean the end of his life, that he affords himself the freedom to reach out to someone he obviously cares deeply for. I mean, he's asking the man if he can lay by his side in death. There's no mention of wanting to be with his wife for all of eternity. It's Aumerle that he trusts to witness his anger and fear about his impending death, and it's Aumerle that he turns to for comfort.

And, The Kiss is lovely. It really is. The longing on Richard's face, the hesitation as he decides whether or not he's really going to go through with it, the tenderness of it all. It's beautiful.

It was what Richard did after The Kiss that opened up the ugly cry flood gates for me, though. It's when he places the crown on Aumerle's head. It's played for a little laugh, to break the tension of The Kiss. And again, I'd seen it done on youtube, but it hadn't made sense to me. It had seemed like an odd gesture, and I didn't understand the motivation behind it. This time, the meaning of it came crashing down on me.

In this play, the crown is the focus of everyone's love, devotion, and desire. The one who wears it is the most powerful, the most precious person in the land. And for one brief moment, Richard crowns Aumerle. Richard cannot say aloud that Aumerle is the king of his heart. But, that almost playful exchange says it for him.

And then Richard begins to fold all of that back inside of himself. The crown returns on his own head. His face starts to set into the stony mask of the divinely appointed ruler. But before it's done, there's The Look. It's all there: pining, hope, confession, regret, grief. A wistful sigh and brief brush of fingers against Aumerle's face and he walks away, not human but king once more. It broke me.

If this isn't an analogy for the closeted experience, then I don't know what is. Historically, if someone wanted financial and social stability, then they had better act straight. Their true feelings were a real danger to themselves and to those they loved.* Add the fact that David has said in an interview that they were going for a "slightly androgynous quality" just piles a whole 'nother layer of gender stuff on top of the sexuality stuff. Like, I could write a paper on this.

*I wrote that in the past tense, but it is still true for the majority of the people on the planet.

I know I'm a million years late to this play, and there's probably already a ton of analysis from the queer perspective floating around out there. But, I just had to get all these feelings out somewhere. Thanks for reading.

[ineedhjalp]

tumblr discourse but it’s all just shakespeare

[aubreyplazababy]

💔 MILLY CAMPBELL DESERVED BETTER ╰┈➤ A letter to the most overlooked soul in Revolutionary Road.

Milly Campbell is the kind of character people overlook because she’s not chasing Paris, or existential liberation, or erotic rebellion. But maybe that’s exactly why she matters. In a world full of discontent, where everyone seems to be cheating, spiraling, posturing, or silently screaming, Milly is the only one who doesn’t pretend she’s better than the life she has.

She’s not naive. She knows it’s not glamorous. She’s got a bunch of kids. A husband who’s frustrated and unfaithful. A house that probably smells like milk and fatigue. But still she stays kind. She stays loyal. She doesn’t crumble or retreat into fantasy.

But look again. Milly doesn’t need to run to Paris to prove her depth. She is already surviving the apocalypse of the 1950s suburban ideal with realism, with empathy and human decency.

✧ The Existential Revolution No One Talks About:

April and Frank Wheeler fancy themselves “different.” They talk about being “trapped,” about wanting more, about the death of dreams.

But Milly? Milly lives in the very structure April rails against and she does it with more grace than either of them ever show. he represents the terrifying truth that life isn’t always poetic. Sometimes it’s dishes and diapers and trying not to cry in the pantry, but that doesn’t make her empty. That doesn’t make her stupid.

Let's be honest, her husband, Shep, is the one who failed, not her. And in the book, it’s even clearer. Shep grew up privileged, always chasing some illusion of authenticity by downgrading into a life he now resents. He’s not noble. He’s not tragic. He’s just another man blaming his dissatisfaction on the woman who supports him.

He calls Milly dumb. He punches the wall. He cheats. And still, she mothers their children. Keeps the house running. Smiles when she needs to, because she’s not playing martyr, but she’s surviving.

✧ In conclusion, Milly Is Not the Problem. She’s the Proof:

She is the one who calls the emergency at the end. She is the one who senses something is wrong. She is the only character who responds to April with actual concern, not with a selfish projection or a philosophical rant.

It’s not wrong to want Paris. It’s not wrong to regret your youth or ache for something more. But don’t you dare look down on the Millys of the world, the ones who wake up, every day, and try to make a home in the ruins.

She may not have the lines or the monologues, but Milly Campbell is a revolution in housewife’s clothing and maybe that’s the saddest, truest part of all.

[confessions-sm]

The ship name for Kevin x SM characters who are dads (Skiddad, John, Richard, Aaron, Pump and Susie’s father) should officially be SugarDaddies.

Alright, time to jump off a cliff for making this confession.

HELP.

[randomasfuk]

The grass is always greener

I know this is probably not canon and never will be, but I can’t help thinking about Jason and Dick being so jealous of each other, trapped in this cycle of resentment, admiration, and longing.

To Jason, Dick is the favorite. The golden boy. He’s loved—really loved. He matters to Bruce in a way Jason never felt he did. And as much as Jason would never admit it, that was all he ever wanted. Not the mission. Not the legacy. Just to matter to someone. To Bruce.

But then he died. And in his eyes, Bruce did nothing. Nothing changed. There was no war against crime in his name, no vengeance, no grief loud enough to shake the world, or even just Gotham, or the joker. Not even his killer. Jason had always feared he was disposable, replaceable, and when he came back to find Gotham still standing and Bruce still carrying on, that fear solidified into certainty. He had died screaming for a father who didn’t come for him, and the world just kept turning. But Dick? Dick did matter. Jason had always been compared to him, and no matter what he did, he could never live up to the legend. He wasn’t as skilled, as bright, as good. He was just another stand-in for the real Robin, the one Bruce actually wanted. That feeling festered in him like an open wound.

And maybe that’s why he resented Tim so much. He knew, logically, that someone would take over the Robin mantle just as he had, but it still burned. It felt like proof that he had never been enough, just another name in a long line of children Bruce would use and discard. Tim was just the next in line. The next kid Bruce would care about more than him.

But for all the things Jason ‘hated’ about Dick, he was also jealous of him. Not just of his place in the family, but of what he had accomplished. Dick was the first Robin, the one who changed Bruce, the one who made Batman better. He had an impact that Jason never could. And then he became Nightwing—someone admired, respected, loved. He carved out a place for himself outside of Bruce’s shadow, but he was still part of the family. And he was happy.

Dick was everything Jason wished he could have been. Kind, honest, and good. The kind of person people wanted around. And whether it was because of Jason’s own actions, his reputation, or the way everything had fallen apart, he knew he could never be that. No matter how much he wanted to be.

But what Jason didn’t see—what he could never understand—was that Dick was just as jealous of him.

Because for all the love and admiration Dick had, he also had expectations. Heavy, suffocating expectations. He had to be perfect. Always. The responsible one. The one who never failed, never faltered, never made a mistake. He had to be the one Bruce could count on, because if he wasn’t, everything would fall apart. He was the first person Bruce turned to when he needed something—whether it was picking Damian up from school or stepping into the Batman mantle without hesitation. And Dick never said no, because he couldn’t. It was his job to hold everything together.

And he hated it.

He hated the weight of it, hated the way everyone expected him to always be smiling, always be strong, always be the light that kept them all from drowning. Because the truth was, he was drowning too. But he had to pretend he wasn’t, because if he let himself slip—if he let himself break—who would be there to pick up the pieces?

Jason was angry—a lot. And Dick envied that.

Jason got to be angry. Jason got to lash out, to rage, to scream at Bruce and tell him how much he hurt him. Even when dick and Bruce did argue things went back to the way they were. Jason got to walk away.

But Dick? He couldn’t. He had to be fine. Because if he wasn’t, then what was he? He wasn’t allowed to be angry, to grieve, to fall apart, because he was the golden child, the one who had it all figured out. The one who couldn’t afford to fail.

Jason was free. Free of the responsibilities, the expectations, the crushing weight of being Bruce’s perfect son. But he was also alone. Cast aside. Rejected. A part of the family that could never quite fit, never quite belong. Like a puzzle piece that was warped by water and could never fit back the way it used to.

And in the end, both of them would go to great lengths to trade places.

Because all Jason had ever wanted was to matter. To be loved the way Dick was.

And all Dick had ever wanted was to breathe.

[anxiouspotatorants]

This whole «Lorelai is evil and so is Rory and Emily is the real MVP of the show» shtick is getting on my nerves.

Like don’t misunderstand me, I love Emily and Richard. They are interesting and complex characters with strengths and weaknesses and a whole lot of baggage (like almost everyone in Gilmore Girls, except maybe the Town Troubador). But they aren’t this perfect well meaning couple with an ungrateful daughter who refuses to accept help and grow up.

Lorelai is not perfect either by any stretch of the imagination. She’s presumptuous, stubborn, used to getting her way and struggles to see things from more than one angle, but she’s also kind, hard working, supportive and able to strike a balance between being open and setting boundaries. She’s a complicated, flawed person, like all good protagonists should be (as opposed to heroes). And she doesn’t fight with Emily or cut her parents out because she’s being immature, she’s doing it because they genuinely hurt her several times.

Imagine if things had gone exactly like Emily and Richard wanted things to go. A 16 year old Lorelai would be married against her will to a guy who would likely then spend the rest of his life under the thumb of his parents for the «mistake» of having Rory. Her social life, her work, her education, all of it would be heavily monitored by Emily and Richard, as they would insist she only engage with what they deem respectable work and social circles. Lorelai in the DAR, Lorelai running charity functions, Lorelai staying married to a Hayden. So much of what makes Lorelai herself would be gone: the inn, her friendships with Sookie and Michel, cooky hobbies and a band of semi-adopted misfits and Luke.

Certain people (not many but still some) seem to forget exactly what it is Emily and Richard ultimately criticize Lorelai for, because it’s not her childish remarks at Friday Night Dinner. They criticize her for her lack of university education. For her lack of a high status job even though she runs a successful inn that she co-owns herself. For her terrible pick of men - not because of how they might be as lovers but because they’re not high society and not the kind of wealthy guys who could let Lorelai retire to the life of an affluent housewife (like did we forget that one of the times Lorelai cut them out was because they refused to accept LUKE?). Hell, they usually don’t criticize Lorelai for reasonable issues with how she raised Rory, they criticize her for not controlling Rory’s love life more.

I do think Emily and Richard love Lorelai and Rory, and that at the end of the day they want them to be happy (otherwise none of these characters would fight so hard to stay in each other’s lives). But time and time again they let their love of status and fear of a bad reputation stand in the way of recognizing their daughter and granddaughter for what they love and for what make them happy. Dislike Lorelai all you want, Rory too, but don’t come here and tell me that Emily is the one in the right.

[villain-byteniwoha]

on one side of the war, we have the batfam platonic relationships only. on the other, we have batcest enthusiasts.

and im standing outside of the danger zone, neutral to this whole thing, while i wave a little flag with badly doodled jaydick kissing—in the sense that i like the bats' found family dynamic and harbor a more nuanced take on their relationships that isn't just encapsulated by "they're adopted brothers! they're family!" or "so what? let them make out!" and so on.

in other words, this is exactly like kaeluc all over again. why do i even bother at this point...

[ingravinoveritas]

You are mistaken, I've seen The Holy Crown and DT wasn't there. The first episode was starring Ben as Richard II, and it came out just before David played his Richard II for the RSC.

Thank you for the correction, Anon! I am not sure how I got that mixed up, but from what I had looked into, David and Ben were (erroneously) credited as being Richard II and Bolingbroke (respectively) in Hollow Crown, so I apologize for the confusion. It does seem though that David and Ben were in the sixth episode of the first season of Shakespeare Uncovered back in 2013 that was all about Hamlet (though whether they were interviewed at the same time or separately, I am not sure, as I have not had the opportunity to view this special).

It's also possible that David and Ben's paths have crossed in any number of other ways, with both being working theatre actors who have likely worked in the same or similar circles for many years. Again, thinking of the source that the person in that post mentioned being a theatre usher, it could be someone who worked at the same theatre where plays they'd both done (separately) were staged. It sounds like this was a long time ago as well, so that narrows the window of possibility a little bit.

In any case, I greatly appreciate this new information, and I will go ahead and amend my previous post accordingly. Thanks for writing in! x

[bonesandpoemsandflowers]

I've been thinking about the Richard Siken discourse again, and why exactly, besides the obvious, I've always found it so cringe that people read Crush as if it's actual honest to god intentional fanwork of Supernatural.

Obvious: the timelines don't add up, artists are their own people existing on their own terms, your framework is your framework and you cannot assume other people have worlds just as small, and most people do not write a whole fucking collection of poetry and go to the trouble of getting it published because they like a TV show. you are underestimating the slog of the publishing process.

Less obvious: having not seen SPN, but being culturally SPN-ish because I am on tumblr dot com, as far as I can tell the reason that people think Crush is a fanwork is because a reoccurring motif is Boys In Cars. Hot Guys Being Hot In Cars.

But that's because Hot Guys In Cars is just like, a thing. If you like guys you probably like Guys In Cars. It has nothing to do with if you like cars or not. I am utterly indifferent to cars. Not only did I never learn the breeds of cars: the general classification of cars eludes me, because I am so thoroughly disinterested in cars. The rideshare app says the driver will arrive in a sedan. What does this mean? I do not know. It is a mystery.

But I love Guys In Cars. It's so hot. But it is not about the car. It's about the intimacy of two people crammed into a small space for an indeterminate amount of time. Potentially a very long time, if we're talking American for roads and distances (and probably also guys and cars). It's that a car is a capsule is a hotel room is a shared journey is a getaway is a trap, and those people in there are just stuck together. Temporary, yes, but what isn't?

Shared space (car), shared goal (destination), isolation (limit to how many other people are in the car).

So it's intimate, is what I'm saying here, it's intimate over and over.

"You're in a car with a beautiful boy," Siken writes, and that line does so much work already. It implies that it's just you and the beautiful boy, maybe. Probably. He's trapped in there with you. You're trapped in there with him. He won't tell you he loves you: this is not an ideal place but it is an in-between place. "But he loves you." It is the place you have. Trapped in there with him. Trapped in there with you.

So it's intimate, it's hot. It is general as much as it is specific. It is, I would say, a fucking foundational ingredient. It's like this man wrote an omelet and you guys went "omg that HAS to be about my blorbos" because anything made with eggs is a direct reference to your blorbos.

Stop it. Recognize the universality of the things you read. Why is it relatable? Why is it delicious? Or I mean, you don't have to think about it, actually. You can just enjoy the omelet. But stop going directly to the chef about it, okay?

[ali-ali-al1]

I need to talk to strangers on the internet about The Thursday Murder Club character Chris Hudson and the accurate depiction of a very common and very miserable relationship with food that is not usually given space in media to breathe past being the butt of a joke or an unimportant detail (god fucking bless Richard Osman). I need to talk to strangers on the internet about the Thursday Murder Club. I need a fandom (if that’s still the correct terminology) how am I meant to live like this ⁉️⁉️⁉️