#davidtennantgenderenvy

[sbarrysncream]

Ey yo, not to get cheesy on my blog, but in the spirit of the Baftas, I wanted to genuinely thank a few of the blogs I follow here for keeping me wrapped in the GO and DT fandom, and subsequently, having my art improve a TON because of it.

(this is gonna be a long one, so strap in, or scroll if you don't wanna read my ramblings, lol)

Tw: mentions of depression, art block, and unmotivation

For a bit of background, up until October of 2024, I was in a nearly seven month long (honestly, probably more like 1 year) stretch of unending art block. I was feeling really bad about my art style, and I started doubting my future as an artist. I was barely putting any effort into any of my college projects, and I stayed up late crying and panicking because I just didn't enjoy making art anymore, and I was afraid I'd end up with a job I hated because I don't have any other skills. The only source of comfort I had at the time was David Tennant media. I was teased a lot about my special interest by my family (it was all good natured, don't worry), but I was the only one that I knew personally who liked David as much as I did. Which brings us to the first person I wanna mention: @davidtennantgenderenvy

I can't pinpoint when or how I discovered their Youtube channel, but when I did, I honestly felt more seen than I ever had about my insane special interest with this actor. And she was a musical theater nerd who maladaptive daydreamed all his characters to different musical songs??!? It was genuinely like finding my twin, and made me feel just a bit more normal about my love for David's projects. I then clicked on her Tumblr link and began looking around the website (without an account, mind you, I was just browsing), but when I did, I eventually stumbled across the art blog @hg-aneh, and fell in love with his style and how he drew Aziraphale and Crowley.

His art was so cute and simple and it just made me sadder that I was stuck in this never ending artist's block. However, one day, I was looking at one of his works (I can't remember which one it was, im sorry), and I was like, "You know what? Just to humor myself, I'll make a quick sketch in his style. Cuz its cute! And it won't be too detailed. So I did. Sure, I quickly erased the sketch, but that was the first time in MONTHS that I had made my own art outside of school work. It must have kicked something off, because I started sketching on my iPad again, slowly but surely making more and more little pieces. Which again, isn't much, but it was such a huge step for me. Yeah, I started focusing more time on my personal art than my school work, and my grades suffered because of it, but I was SO happy that I was finding some joy in making art again.

I finally got Tumblr around the middle of October, thanks to some persuading by davidtennantgenderenvy when I told them I wanted to show them some Macbeth fan art I made, but I didn't have any social media. I asked them if Tumblr would be worth getting, and they assured me it was, so I made an account and almost immediately started getting likes. It honestly made me want to cry because I always thought my art was boring and uninteresting. It doesn't help that around this time, I was barely getting any feedback from my peers during class critiques, so I just assumed my art wasn't anything anyone wanted to look at. But then the first Macbeth piece I posted on here got so many notes, that I was like "eh, I'll post my Good Omens fan art too. What could go wrong?" Nothing went wrong, and I continued getting notes on the pieces that I posted, and I was almost confused by it? I can't really explain it but I was like "wait, so is my art good, or are these people just taking pity on me?" (I have a huge complex about pity, but we don't need to get into that LOL)

Anyways, I started making art primarily just to post on Tumblr, but I guess the practice was beginning to pay off, because when I would barely get any feedback on my classwork pieces, people in class started speaking up a bit about my work. Giving compliments and critiques, which helped so much. Wanted to cry when it happened again lol.

Can't really write out a good segue between these two points, but another person I wanted to thank was @depraveddame . If you don't know who she is, she is an insanely talented writer who, I think I discovered back when I was just browsing Tumblr without an account. I started reading her ao3 story Vine Slips of a Strange God, which is a human AU Good Omens fanfic, for those who have not read her work yet. First off, I am NOT a reader. Like, you could not pay me to read a book in my spare time, so idk what drew me to this fanfic (it was probably the mention of 'hurt/comfort' in the tags, ngl.) But I ATE THAT SHIT UP OH MY GOD IT WAS SO GOOD. It took me a bit to click with the story, but when I DID?!?! It genuinely took over my life in the best way. There was also BEAUTIFUL art in the chapters, made by the very talented @zivilzz .The way they colored and shaded their pieces made me want to practice on my coloring and shading, and it has improved so much because of it. I ended up reading all of her works in the span of like, a week or two. I also made a small sketch of her gardener Crowley around the time I started slowly getting back into making my own art. I ended up loving Vine Slips so much, that I'm currently planning on making a comic of one of my favorite scenes in the story. Also, while depraveddame is an amazing writer, she also informed me a TON about the BDSM community. (btw, if you don't support the bdsm community, and you think its morally wrong, or that it should be illegal, unfollow me rn.) But anyways, I used to be a bit judgy about the idea of bdsm. I knew of it, and I never thought it should be illegal, but I would just ask myself "why? why would you do that to another person, or why would you just let that happen to you?" Luckily, I don't think that way anymore, and it is very much thanks to her insane writing.

Also one more person I want to thank, that doesn't really have anything to do with my art improvement was @aq2003 for prayer circling for me to be able to watch Macbeth at my nearest cinema *cough* 50 minutes away during a snow storm *cough*. Genuinely, thank you, dude, that recording changed my life

OOH!! and also, thank you, @davidtennan-t for chubby Fourteen 🥹

Damn, this was a long post, sorry y'all, but basically, the point of this post is, while I have many things to thank for my latest improvement of art, I really dont think it would have been able to happen as quickly as it did without these blogs, so thank you guys so much, you'll never know how much it meant to me.

yes, I cried while typing this, shhhhhhhh

[aq2003]

[nastasya--filippovna]

Achilles Come Down, Gang of Youths || Arcane

The parts in French with the translation (in the order that they appear):

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous: On the souvenirs of mortality life, the aching desire to end it, existentialism, death, tragedy, happiness and hope.

Achilles Come Down, Gang of Youths // Tumblruser @starpeace // Kafka's Selected Stories: A Norton Critical Edition, Franz Kafka // The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky // The End of the World As We Know It: Scenes from a Life, Robert Goolrick // The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus // Greif Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides, Anne Carson // Being and Nothingness, Jean-Paul Sartre // ..., Albert Camus // The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus // Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky // Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka // Hope is the Thing With Feathers, Emily Dickinson // Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky // Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus // On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong // Unknown //... Thorton Wilder // On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong // Notes From Underground. Fyodor Dostoevsky // Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche // The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller // The Painted Drum, Louise Erdrich // Iliad, Homer.    

had we but world enough and time........ @davidtennantgenderenvy

@sentientsky @spiteful-summer-of-sixteen

[1lostone]

welp.

She’s a ten but she can’t go more than two minutes without talking about David Tennant

[inezrable]

SIGN THIS PETITION TO FIRE NEIL GAIMAN

@crowleysgirl56 @phoen1xr0se @doomsday-fae @fuckyeahgoodomens @gleafer @hopelessly-aziraphale @odysseus-s-sword @good-omens-gallery @turtleneck-crowley @princeloww @davidtennantgenderenvy @davidtennan-t @david--tennant--fan @shmichaelmeen @lemonic-whimssyy @alien-with-headphones @effervescent-lesbian @lizineffable @lemon-tart-221 @yourpaceangel @dtmsrpfcringe @goodomenswarning @badaziraphaletakes

[grimmbunny24]

Reblog with the song that is stuck in your head

Mine is Pierre from Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.

FR my brain keeps going

“oooOoooh PiEerrE, our merry feasting crank~” like get out of my head please I did not invite you in. Reblog and tag someone.

@fweens-clone , @feral-ass-raccoon , @ineffablyat221bboilingisles , @sunlit-mess , @davidtennantgenderenvy (tagging YOU cuz it’s your fault this song is stuck in my head now lol.), and @sbarrysncream.

[dtmsrpfcringe]

if season three of Good Omens goes ahead and Neil gaiman is still involved, I’m boycotting and I would advise others in this fandom to stand with me too.

you know why? Because we are a beautiful fandom. We stick together and fight the sexism and vile hatred that David and Michaels partners face every day. We have a beautiful story and a diverse cast of poc, gender identities, sexualities, disabilities and more. The people have made this story our own. This is not Neil’s. Terry Pratchett deserves his satisfying ending, Aziraphale and Crowley deserve their satisfying ending. If Neil continues to be involved it won’t be a satisfying ending for our fandom. Do you know why? Because we are better than this. We are better than sitting by and letting a rich rapist lord continue to be involved. This show is better than that. The characters are better than that

please join me in putting the pressure on Amazon today. Tag them, make posts, repost this post please, share and speak out!!! We are better than this! We deserve better! Good Omens deserves better!

@amazon @primevideo

(tagging people I think could help)

———

@davidtennantgenderenvy @nastasya--filippovna @sakuranova07 @aq2003 @goodomenswarning @fuckyeahgoodomens @fellshish @do-angels-dream-of-starry-seas

@badaziraphaletakes

[trashboatprince]

I pity you, I pity me, I pity you...

I saw this beautiful video by @davidtennantgenderenvy and was inspired! Thank you for that~✨️

[likelytowritesomestuff]

Since it's almost a year @davidtennantgenderenvy dropped the iconic 'The Weird and Wonderful Legacy of David Tennant' on YouTube, may I ask if someone wants to do the same type of video for Michael Sheen?

[nastasya--filippovna]

Thank you @abiiii-ineffable for the tag!!

Last song: Casual by Chappel Roan

Favourite colour: Anything on the blue/green spectrum

Last book: First Phone Call from Heaven by Mitc Albom (rated 6/10 but this is just my opinion.)

Last movie: Bones and All dir. Luca Guadagnino

Last tv show: Rivals (wait wHAt! I haven't watched anything else since then!)

Sweet/spicy/savory: all of the above

Relationship status:sad loner loser

Last thing I googled : types of equitable mortgage on legal estate (I'm not buying a house I'm studying property law lol 😆)

Current obsession: My OCs!!!! (like I always say OC brainrot is real you guys! ����)

Looking forward to: Finishing my painting wip!

Tagging: @a-singing-lunatic @davidtennantgenderenvy @aq2003 @sakuranova07 @glitterypin

@paintedpineleaf @pan-bookish-ent @goodoldfashionedlunatic @princeloww @dreamsfrozenincandyland

@mystic-mae @shadesofecclescakes and anyone else who wants to ;P

[sbarrysncream]

Hi, yes, hello, this is my audition for the role of Crowley and aziraphale’s non existent child for the non existent season 4

Qualifications:

-wavy hair that can’t decide between being red, dark blonde, or light brown when the dye washes out

-vintage wardrobe of aziraphale

-pathetic personality of Crowley

-neurospicy

-on the aroace spectrum

-can do a British accent

-have been touch starved for 6000 years

BONUS: rbf of Georgia tennant

I nominate @davidtennantgenderenvy to play my sibling

Thank you for your consideration

[inezrable]

Just in case Tumblr does go down I've made an account on wafrn which seems to be a Tumblr clone

So far it's pretty dead but I reckon the good omens fandom can populate it. My username there is inezrable, same as here

Tagging for reach (and so people know where I am if we sunset here) @lesbianlazyhouse @i-go-like-the-raven @phoen1xr0se @ivycryptid @corwly @davidtennantgenderenvy @princeloww @odysseus-s-sword @mimisempai @nastasya--filippovna

[grimmbunny24]

@sbarrysncream , @davidtennantgenderenvy

Here they are boys, here they are world, here’s the Crowley-Fell siblings (idk their names sorry)

<3 I did my best with the designs, and I hope they’re good. Based Lauren’s character on some of the pictures they posted on YT of them serving you-know-what (the vintage theme kinda spoke to me tbh, and I liked the idea of them both having the vintage aesthetic, but with opposite color schemes. If you had a different idea, let me know and I can do a redraw). I hope i matched the vibes of their personalities, too! If you have any advice on expressing the vibes through their body language, feel free to share! I’m still learning a bit, and that would be appreciated from anyone who sees this.

Thanks for letting me draw you guys! <3

Also, can these kids get six seasons and a movie?

[justagingerwithredhair]

Hmmmm yes, behold my brain rot!

The Owl House: Lilith Clawthorn

Heartstopper: Issac

The Great Ace Attorney: Ryunosuke Naruhodo

Animal Crossing: Brewster

Stardew Valley: Elliott

Spiritfarer: Gustav

Octopath Traveler: Temenos Mistral

Pokémon: Oshawott

Team Fortress 2: Medic

Persona 5: Yusuke Kitagawa

@icarus-icky you know what to do.

10 FANDOMS/10 CHARACTERS/10 TAGS

or... 10 fandoms, but I can't pick just one from some of them

Tagged by @crowleybrekkers thank youu <3

Good Omens - Crowley (& his angel)

Ghosts - Captain

Marauders - Moony (and Regulus)

It - Richie Tozier

Grishaverse - Nikolai (or Zoya) (or Wylan... or Nina)

Stranger Things - Will Byers (+ Robin + Steve)

Doctor Who - Tenth Doctor i just love DT

Heartstopper - Isaac

Takin Over The Assylum - Campbell DT

A Little Life - Jude St. Francis

tagging without pressure: @fakeacademic @dancingcrowley @procrastiel @muffimtv @rainbowcrowley @majortomyourcurcuitsdead @poplinn @ineffablycoin @elnotwoods @capsthorne

[dtmsrpfcringe]

the definitive dictionary and almanac of Tinhattery

hi, this will be a list of the main misogynistic accounts, definitions people have questions about, accounts you should follow and abbreviations— let’s gooo!! If you’re tagged in this I probably put you on the accounts to follow section. Adding a cut here because it’s long and gonna get longer

definitions!!!!

LCB- Used to stand for letscoffeebreak, she has since changed her username to dejadestalkearmeloser.

NGO- Nightgoodomens

Ingrav, Amy- Ingravinoveritas.

tardisrose- thetardisisblueandroseistoo

Tinhatters- A group of (mostly) tumblr users who think everything in these two relationships are fake and the women are abusive and the men want to run away.

Queeranoners- same as above, my favourite way to refer to them, coined by the amazing @theeminentlyimpractical

sheenbergs- Mix for Michael and Anna’s name

sheenbergnant- the amalgamation of the four bad bitches we love

sheenant- ship name for David and Michael. (Remember kids: shipping is cool but it’s fictional!!)

DT- David Tennant (Georgias husband)

MS- Michael Sheen (Anna’s boyfriend)

GT- Georgia Tennant

AL- Anna Lundberg

PR- public relations

GM- a…delegitimising way of referring to Georgia by refusing to use her last name. Instead use her maiden name. Note how they don’t refer to David as David McDonald

APAT- usually used by tinhatters (stands for Anna Plain And Tall) to refer to Anna Lundberg

PR (Tinhatter definition) - an omnipresent being forcing two rich white men who constantly champion human rights and lgbtq acceptance into a hetero relationship because they just are so oppressed and abused and not because they love their partners!

PR (actual definition) -the professional activities of an agency hired by a person, company, or other entity to shape, create, and manipulate that person/company’s public image. A public relations firm is often useful in helping a company manage its media reputation when a crisis happens, in order to attempt to minimize false information or slanderous statements which could damage reputations.

Shipping- Shipping (derived from the word relationship) is the desire by followers of a fandom for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters (in film, literature, television series, etc.), to be in a romanticrelationship. Shipping often takes the form of unofficial creative works, including fanfictionand fan art.

Shipping (Tinhat definition) - NO THEY HATE THEIR PARTNERS AND WANT TO FUCK EACH OTHER LOOK HE BLINKED IN HIS VICINITY THEIR PARTNERS ARE ABUSIVE I SWEAR

GREATEST HITS (posts that killed Tinhatters, feel free to submit your favourites in my inbox)

The breakdown of an anon

tassel jokes

backstreet cringe

Ingravinoveritas admitting it

Laurens amazing fuck off post that snowballed into half the fandom straight up saying fuck you to these people

HALL OF SHAME (Worst of tinhatters, again feel free to submit more)

• Taraiha’s rivals meltdown

NGO hates this fandom for…calling her out

it’s not a choice to be weird and creepy about people’s lives! (Again shipping is fine. This shit is not!!!)

it’s okay if you attack women just don’t criticise Michael Sheen (no idea what she was talking about with David) this same lady had another absolutely dog shit post I guess she removed?!

How dare women…have fun at their birthday parties?? (Part 1)

for a group constantly sexualizing David and Michaels every movement we can’t stand when a woman shows a little chest and has fun

Accounts you should follow!!!!:

@goodomenswarning - same purpose as this account, hilarious, an amazing friend

@badaziraphaletakes - calls out shitty takes in good omens as well, so much more level headed about toxicity than I am but I love talking shit with them. @thegeorgiatennantblog - best Georgia content

@fightingalgth8rs -bad bitches calling out extreme sexism

@phoen1xr0se - one of the best and I devour everything she posts

@davidtennantgenderenvy stands up for what’s right in the fandom, one of my idols and stuck up for me during a vulnerable time.

lmk more I need to add because I’m definitely missing some

THE REPEAT OFFENDERS (booo 🍅🍅):

Ingravinoveritas- one of the bigger ones, refuses to believe Georgia does anything nice for David, or that any of them actually like their partners. Can’t stop fetishizing gay male relationships to save her life. If David blinks he apparently wants to be bent over. Likes to pretend she’s not as bad as the others but has some of the wildest takes and said she felt threatened and scared for her life at someone making a Shakespearean reference. Professional victim

Nightgoodomens- a particularly nasty motherfucker. So toxic she’s quarantined. Misogynistic, ableist, um…yeah not much to say there except for the fact that apparently anything that David does that involves his wife means he’s forced into it. Would rather see them as abused puppies than accept they love their partners. Heavy on the homophobia and bi erasure since yes, fetishization isn’t allyship, it is homophobia. Everything is PR. She doesn’t know what PR means nor that David and Michael are not nearly important enough to have a 24/7 team controlling all social media and personal aspects of their lives. Neil gaiman apologist who blamed his sexual assault revelations on David’s support of trans people. Denies women flirting with each other and boils it to PR friendships??!?

Dejadestalkearmeloser- pretty much the same as nightgoodimens, flips shit when you call her out on it, I mean look at her pinned post about me and you’ll see. Also apparently I’m every account that doesn’t like her. Seems to have a problem with lesbians not liking her (wonder why lesbians don’t like the misogynistic people who only talk about the lgbtq community when it comes to fetishising mlm relationships)

Thetardisisbluesndroseistoo- flips shit at Georgia getting credit for anything, lost her shit on someone saying that Georgia has educated David on lgbtq allyship (he quite literally said himself that she does) later deleted posts when I called her out. Can’t stop laughing at that

invisibleicewands- really, really creepy about Anna, delving into her past and family to try and find…something. Body shaming. Mom shaming. The usual misogyny.

dtmsrpf- I guess a spoof on my name, belongs to one of the others on this list. The usual misogyny with a particular axe to grind against their looks and other things. Definitely a little salty.

georgiatennantunofficial (instagram)- extremely fucking gross. Body shaming and misogyny. Usual. You guys see a pattern yet?

[santacoppelia]

Of fandom, age, and David Tennant being our own personal Time Lord

I read the fantastic post that @davidtennantgenderenvy wrote about David Tennant and aging (if you haven’t yet read it, go for it!) and, as a fan who is closer to DT's age range than to what seems to be the rest of the fan base's age (yeah, being well over 40 is A THING), I had an interesting mix of ideas and emotions. I was going to just reblog her post with some of these musings, but when this started getting longer (and I started searching for bibliography, ha), I decided that I was not going to hijack her post, but rather cite it (and reblog it on its own right, really, read it). I should say that this is a long essay, and it comes peppered with references to one of my preferred fields of study (but I make it light and fun, promise).

Becoming an “old geek”

The first time I came into the idea was when I found a thirst TikTok with that very nice audio that goes “I think I need someone older…” and clearly, the thirst was there, but also… David is 8 years older than me, and when you are 45, thirsting over someone who is 53 doesn’t feel as “edgy” (and thinking about “needing someone older” starts verging on thirsting over people well over 65, which is absolutely fine, but a very different category over all for the rest of TikTok). So yeah, it was weird. You see someone who you feel is "in your range" and everyone is calling them "old"… And you start thinking about aging, inevitably.

Of course, I "don't feel old", but most of my friends are younger than me, and I'm the oldest person in many of my "fun activities". Take, for example, my lightsaber combat team, where every sponsorship is pitched to people under 30, and you should be training at least twice a week and following a strict diet to reach the expected “competitive or exhibition” level (enter the “old lady” who is taking this training just for fun, who needs to take care of her joints and who is not going to be invested in becoming Jedi Master General or anything of the sorts in the near future). Or we can talk about the expectation about fandom in general being a “teenage phase”, and thinking about everyone who still is into it actively after certain age as “immature” or “quirky” at best (hi, mom! Hi, work colleagues! Hi, students!).

Society, aging and social constructs

Of course, this has a lot to do with societal expectations. For almost 80 years, popular culture has been built around "youth" and "young people": before rock & roll, most things (music, clothes, movies, art in general) were targeted to “adults”, and you were expected to be “a functional adult” since a younger age. There was a seismic shift in the way popular culture was built when consumer culture decided to see and cater young people: trends became shorter, being “hip” was desirable, staying younger for a longer period was a nice aspiration (a good, light reading to get a deeper view around this is “Hit Makers” by Derek Thompson. It is written for marketers, but that makes it an easy historic overview and I like that). This has a lot to do with the change of our view about old people, too: while being old 100 years ago (yup, 1924 still fits the bill) made you “a respected elder” and you were expected to be wise, to know best, to be the voice of reason and an expert, nowadays not even us older people like being seen as “old” or “older”.

Frequently, culture becomes entrenched in binary oppositions. The binary opposition between “young” and “old” is… well, old! And while the opposition is sustained, the meanings around it change over time (that’s what the past paragraph was about, really). If in the 1940’s being old meant “mature, respectable, wise, responsible” and being young meant “inexperienced, immature, foolish”, after the 1950’s those meanings shifted a lot: being young became “fun, interesting, in the now and in the know, attractive”, while being old was about being “boring, dusty, passé, uninteresting, dull”.

In reality, being young can be a mix of all of these things (inexperienced and fun and foolish and attractive), and being old can be, at the same time, being responsible and wise and a little dusty and dull, because that’s life *shrugs*, and the wonder of lived experience is that, even if we simplify it, it is complex and rich and sometimes contradictory in itself: we can be old and foolish and interesting and boring, or young and dull and inexperienced and attractive. But, as we need to make “social sense” of things, simplifying them is… easier. That’s why we build stereotypes, and why we use them! We need to have a “base” of signifiers to build upon, so we usually take what we have on our environment and run with it. If you find this idea interesting, welcome to the world of cultural semiotics! *takes her Iuri Lotman picture out of her pocket and puts it on the desk*

(Iuri Lotman, people. He is my "patron saint").

Pop culture versus “real culture”

Another cultural opposition that piques my interest in this area is the notion of “pop culture”, of course. It is opposed to “real, serious culture”, the sort of thing that everyone expects "older, mature people" to enjoy. In the sixties and seventies, there were a lot of studies and writing about "high brow" and "low brow" culture, trying to keep this distinction between "things that make you familiar with the now, but have no intrinsic value" and "eternal things that cultivate your mind, soul and spirit".

Evidently, if you ask me, this is a whole load of horse manure: probably useful to fertilize other things, but with little intrinsic value on its own. My main point is not dolphins, but the idea of culture: historically, it has used to mean a lot of things; from the notion of (exactly) fertilizing something and making it grow to make it come to fruition, to the hodgepodge of practices that a social group creates when they are together and are trying to make common sense of things.

I like the latter better (that is the one I’d ascribe to if this was The Academia TM, but this is tumblr!), but another popular definition, which comes from the Illustration and has been quite prevalent, is the notion of culture as the set of cultural practices that make you a better, more intelligent, far more educated person. For example: if you want to have real culture, you have to read Shakespeare and know what a iambic pentameter is, rather than watching “10 Things I Hate About You”. You must read real books, not listen to audiobooks, and “real books” should be written by “serious authors” like (insert old white Western European or American cis men, preferably born before 1960).

Here comes the notion of “cultural canon”, grinning widely. Yup, that set of practices becomes an expectation of what and how you should experience any area of the human experience, and they become a sort of “nucleus” of the whole experience, with people playing “defense” around them and culture shifting all around and sometimes across them. This is not exclusive to “high culture”: Have you ever heard about “gatekeeping���? Yeah, same fenomenomenon (Shadwell, of course). Whenever something gets this “shape”, it becomes a “norm”, the “common” thing, the “rule” if you participate in that set of cultural practices.

As every cultural set of practices tends to generate its own “canon”, they also have a lot of practices surrounding it, which are ever changing, shifting, learning from new and old practices, and redefining what everything means in their common/shared space. For example: Neil Gaiman, my beloved, was part of the “comics” frontier when Sandman first appeared, but as he and Alan Moore (yeah, I know he did it first, but Gaiman is my study focus right now, so let me be) and other very talented and interesting people started creating fascinating stuff that hadn’t been done, and they found people who loved it, they not only redefined the world of comics, but became part of the new canon themselves. And then, Neil’s presence in the world of literature and fantasy became widespread and recognized and then revered… And then he is doing it again by adapting his own work to a streaming platform in a serialized way… I hope this explains why I’m growing an obsession with studying Neil Gaiman as an author who crosses through different media: a transmedial auteur, an anomaly in his own right. But that is not an essay for tumblr, but a thesis, one that I don’t know if I’d ever have the time or mental resources to write (being a runaway ex academic with ADHD who works on their own is hard, people). Besides, this was about aging and David Tennant, so let’s cut this tangent short and start talking about our Time Lord and Savior: David Tennant, the king of frontiers.

David Tennant as a Frontier Lord

David Tennant is another fascinating case in this sense, mostly because he is an actor who has been able to build a whole very impressive career through crossing symbolic frontiers. Through his massive filmography (161 roles just for screens, as registered in IMDb) and his stage career (I love this gifset for this exact reason), he has acted his way through almost everything, from classical Shakespeare to improvisational comedy, from procedural police drama to wacky fantasy sci-fi. This has a lot to do with his personality (he loves acting, he decided to pursue acting as a career thanks to his love for Doctor Who, but he is also smart and inquisitive) but, as it happens with a lot of “frontier figures”, it also has a lot to do with “unpredictable” circumstances: less of a strategy, more of an instinct.

David has talked many times about how his impostor syndrome made him feel, for the longest time, that he had to keep accepting roles, because you never know if there is going to be another one after. He is talented and open and curious (this is quite a good interview about his perspective), but this… anxiety? meant that he had also lower quandaries about saying “yes” to roles and projects that were “less consistent” with a typecast (which has been, for the longest time, one of the main strategies to build an acting career). Yeah, he has some defining characteristics that make a role “tennantish” (I’m not starting that tirade here, but yeah, you know that almost fixed set of quirks and bits), but he has also worked his way through many different genres, budgets, styles and complexities. And he has usually been as committed and as professional in a big budget-high stakes-great script sort of situation, as he has been in a highly chaotic-let’s see what sticks-small scale project.

That can be correlated by the way he talks about “acting advice”. “Be on time, learn your lines, treat everyone the same, never skip the lunch queue”… Acting is a job, and he treats it as such. Yeah, he looks for interesting projects anytime he can, but the “down to earth” attitude about it is, once again, not-usual, not-common: pure frontier. Then, when David talks about his own self (specially at a young age), he is pretty clear about his “outsider” or “uncool” status (this interview is fantastic), and how strangely disruptive it was to become not only recognizable, but cool and sexy and… everything else, thanks to Doctor Who. He went from living in the frontier to being put in the canon, but he is still, at heart, a person who is more comfortable not defining himself by that “expected” set of rules.

Him being a very private person, who insists on having a family life that seems, form this distance, stable, loving and absolutely un-showbiz just makes the deal (and the parasocial love and respect) easier to sustain; as does his openness to talk about social and political issues that interest him (passionately, again; against the norm for “well liked celebrity”, again). His colleagues also talk wonders about him, mostly because he is this sort of down-to-earth but also passionate about his craft and easy to work with. Again: not the “norm”, not the “rule” of being such a celebrity.

Many of his fans (should I say that I’m one? Or is it obvious at this point?) find this not only endearing, but comforting: he is a massive star, who has acted in a lot of terrific roles in huge productions… But he feels, at heart, as “one of us”. But he is, also, a well-respected thespian, a Shakespearian powerhouse, an international talent. He lives in a very authentic, but very unstereotipical frontier. And he seems happy about that and has made a career from it. Extensive kudos and all the parasocial love and the amateur-actress mad respect for that.

I should mention, just in passing, that a “natural” archetype for this characters that traverse frontiers… are tricksters. Think again about the “tennantish” characteristics. Here goes another essay I’m not writing right now.

Aging: The Next Frontier

This takes me to the original post that inspired the essay: living in a culture where the “norm” is “being young and famous is a desirable aspiration”, we have a fantastic actor, at peak of his craft, who is in the heart of middle age (past 50, nearing 55). Not only that, but he is an actor with whom at least a couple of generations have grown older: from the ones who feel him as “our contemporary” to the ones who grew up looking at him (like Ncuti Gatwa!).

David, being the frontier person he is, has been navigating this transition in a very “unconventional” way: he came back to the role that made him iconic (The Doctor, now with more trauma!), is starring in another fantasy series about middle-aged looking ethereal beings that at times is an adventure thriller, at times is a comedy of errors and at times is a romcom (having another beautiful trickster of a man as his co-star… There goes another tangent that is an essay); he is playing one of the quintessential Shakespeare roles for middle-aged men (Macbeth), and is, seemingly, having a lot of fun doing a lot of voice acting for animation roles (if you haven’t watched Duck Tales, you’re missing a whole lot of fun, really).

Traditionally, middle aged actors navigate that period of their career trying to reinforce their “still young, thus a celebrity” status (for example, doing a lot of action-packed movies and keep doing their own stunts while seducing women 20-30 years younger than them), or strengthening their “prestige thespian, so now a real culture person” position (fighting for more serious roles, going from comedy to drama, or working their way into The Classics©). Sometimes, they face the internalized societal expectation by also becoming a shipwreck in their personal life (yeah… the stereotype of “getting divorced, having an affair with someone half their age, getting another red convertible, getting in trouble…”) because we don’t have a good “map for aging responsibly” yet as a society. We have been so focused on youth, that we have forgotten how to age.

Again, switching to the personal experience. I was raised as a female-shaped person (yeah, being queer is fun), so part of the experience of growing (and then growing old) has been closely related with that concept from the female point of view. I decided, pretty early on (but not so much, probably 25 years ago), that I wasn’t going to conform to the norm… And that included aging naturally. When I found my first white hair, it was a shock (I was 21 or 22), but I had already seen my father fighting his own hair being white since forever. I decided it was a loss of time, money and effort… And the judgement from people in my generation and in the one that preceded me (my mother, my aunts) was stern and strict: “it will age you, and it will date us. You shouldn’t do that”. Men could do it, given the right age (being over 50) but women must not. Same with wrinkles and sagging and gaining weight and getting “pudgy”. But when men grew older, they needed to make a “show off” of their ability to seduce, to “still be a man”. Aging, then, was undesirable by any standard.

As me and my peers have grown older, and my hair has gotten increasingly silver, there have been women that come to me saying that “I look great” and “they wish they were as brave as me”. I would like to state in front of this jury of my peers (hi, tumblr!) that the only bravery it took was deciding, somewhere between my twenties and my thirties, that I wanted to be as myself as I possibly could, so no bravery at all, just the same lack of understanding of social rules that took me to become interested in… you guessed it, cultural semiotics. We’ve come full circle with this. Now, let’s finish talking about what it means for an aging fan to have an aging star to look up to, shall we?

David Tennant as a cultural Time Lord

I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t have chosen this role for himself (as he wouldn’t have chosen being a massive star just by playing his favorite character and being so talented and charming), but he is, as Loki would say, burdened by glorious purpose. Being “the actor of his generation”, and him crossing so many frontiers with such ease and grace, without even thinking about it too hard, just because he is a hard worker and likes to try new things and is just so good at what he does put him in the exact cultural crossroad for it.

He is not in a sudden need to “resignify himself” as anything: he has already shown his very flexible acting muscles through his very long career. He is not bounded to “keep his public image relevant”: he likes to have his personal life clearly separated from the spotlight, and being married to the brilliant and funny Georgia, who herself grew up with a famous father, so she is no stranger to staying sane and in control in the eye of media, and who manages their social media presence with a good mix of humor and well-set boundaries.

Therefore, he is in a moment where he can (and probably will) chose to do whatever he likes. And he has the public support to do so: he is prestigious and respected, but likes to make fun of himself and is not self-important; he has a lot of awards, but he is also a very likable person with whom most people in the industry enjoy working. And he is up to do a lot of things: heroes, villains, morally grey characters; romance, drama, thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, procedurals, historical fiction, classic plays, silly parts, voice acting… We are going to see him aging on screen and stage, with no playbook: the playbooks were written for people that certainly are not him. And I have some evidence to prove it.

He is starring in a groundbreaking series (yeah, Good Omens) where the protagonists are two middle-aged looking entities, full of queer relationships, written by another trickster. This series, in an on itself, is a showcase for characters that are rule breaking in many ways: in the narrative, by being hereditary enemies who are inevitably linked to one another by a loving bond that may or may not be romantic, but that has been in the making for 6,000 years; in representation, by having the protagonists being represented by a couple of middle aged actors who are “not serious” and “not action” coded, in a role where they are delivering romance, banter, intrigue, joy and a whole other range of emotions that are “not your stereotypical” middle-aged male-lead coded.

He also delivered the baton on a relay race with Doctor Who: he came back after almost 20 years, to bring back the generation who grew up watching him in the role, and deliver us into the arms of Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor, with the promise of taking a rest and working on getting better from all the trauma The Doctor has endured in 20 years Earth-time (which, as any Doctor Who fan knows, account for centuries of trauma in Doctor’s time). Not your usual Doctor Who Anniversary cameo, but one built to deliver some zeitgeisty emotional health promises that made the specials feel… healing. At least, for some of us.

Even when it wasn’t the hit series it deserved to be, his Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in 80 Days” is also a great delivery of an unconventional middle-aged protagonist, who goes from meek and scared and too worried about societal norms, to a lovely, tender, slightly awkward and daring person, with friends half his age who look at him but are also his peers (another kind of relationship that is not very frequent in media).

And, with all fearlessness, he has played a lively old duck in Duck Tales! Scrooge McDuck has never been a middle-aged character: he is, quite openly, an old gentleman. An adventurer, quirky, with a lot of spunk… but also quite clearly an elder to Huey, Dewey and Louie, and obviously older than Donald Duck (who is also not a young adult himself!). When you watch that series, and if you have the opportunity to catch any glimpse of him behind the scenes while recording the part, you can feel the joy he got from playing the part (and he has said time and again that he IS Scrooge McDuck, so it will become his “recurring bit” for the future).

Hopefully, David (and some other actors and actresses, for sure) will dare to build that new “aging publicly without making an arse of myself” playbook, and I (and I can imagine, many other fans in our middle age, but also fans that are right now leaving behind the “young adult” stage and becoming “adults” fair and square, and others who will arrive to this place at a future time in their lives, so I hope) will be there to bear witness, support, cheer… and learn from the model. Because that’s what fandom is about, but also because that’s how culture itself gets shaped and changes, continuously. And that is exciting and a little scary, and that’s why it is better if we do this together.

And I'd love to imagine diverse (in the full sense of the word) role models for this process and this playbook, too!!!

If you read all the way through this, I'm very grateful, take a cookie, have a gold star and suggest names for our aging interestingly role models on the "non-white-male" side of things!

Class dismissed!!