#i am so in love with raúl esparza

[asherdefect]

I CANT STOP LISTENING TO RAÚL SINGING 30/90 SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME I AM FALLING IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN.

[damned-juggernaut]

[callixton]

ALSO the director using that quote abt fagin being a queer old auntie was SO real i can’t stop thinking about it like that is what he is & that is what raúl played

[nbchannibalheritageposts]

Not a submission but this reblog of yours got me so excited😆 cus, like, i just found out through his Franklin Shepard, Inc. performance on Youtube a week before this that Raul's been in musicals for decades, OF COURSE he can hold a tune

(i'm kinda in a musical rabbit hole rn, so when hannibal [my ingrained obsession] was brought up in the same breath, i'm so unreasonably happy about it)

https://www.tumblr.com/nbchannibalheritageposts/753850963389038593/hannibalmorelikecannibalhannibal-the-musical-at?source=share

Hell yeah i love raúl ‼️‼️‼️ He is lowkey the reason why i watched hannibal in the first place. Like i am Notoriously Bad at watching stuff when i mean to, i was saying that i should get into hannibal for YEARS before i actually did and in the end all it took was catching a glimpse of raúl esparzas beautiful face on my tv during those eternal law and order svu reruns for me to a. become obsessed with him in svu, b. google him -> find out that he has a long history of working on broadway/musicals, c. watch company because of him -> become obsessed with company the musical and finally d. watch hannibal. This man single-handedly revived my middle school musical theater obsession AND turned me into a hannibal enthusiast. I literally watched 6 seasons of law and order for his sake.

[babymadeofbones]

some hyperfixation-related updates since i havent posted here in a while:

- definitely out of my extremely normal raúl esparza hyperfixation (still love him but i think i am genuinely normal about him now)

- idk if the x files ever got to hyperfixation level but i still have not watched season 9 and idk if i can make myself do it lol

- rewatched the owl house and had a whole like month maybe where i consumed as much fanfiction of that as i could

- i think if we're talking true hyperfixation smosh probably took raúl's place tbh. i've been watching smosh for YEARS now but in recent months (truly golden/platinum era) i've just been getting increasingly less normal about them!!! i fucking love smosh so much they are like 90% of my youtube history.

- also been getting back into anime bc my sister's roommate let me mooch on her crunchyroll premium. most recently i caught up on my hero academia (i stopped watching like halfway thru s5) and currently i'm working on black butler (book of murders & onward)

- i have been reading so much my hero academia fanfiction. if anyone has any erasermic fics lmk 👀

[supernovaodessa]

Who are your celeb crushes?

Uh oh, I have a few of them! 🙈 But it's because of the roles and characters they play, with the exception of one.

-Tom Felton (my 20's was spent here on tumblr drooling over him as Draco Malfoy in fanfics. It's how I met my tumblr mama, @dewitty1 🥹) Comes to think of it...might explain why I'm now so interested in Ewan Mitchell as Aemond Targaryen in House of the Dragon. It's the blond hair, I tell you.

-Hugh Laurie as House. This is pretty personal to me, but that character has helped me through the worst times in my life.

-Raúl Esparza as Rafael Barba in Law and Order SVU. Intelligent and cunning men in suits. Need I say more?

-Emilia Clarke. I love her as a person and am always enamored by the way she connects with people. She's someone I'd love to sit down and have a cuppa with.

-Angelina Jolie. My ride or die. I'll always be in love with her. When she said in an interview that women are more likely to get a date when it comes to her fans I almost flatlined.

What about you, nonny? Thank you so much for the question and helping me get through a rough day. I'd love to know the answers from some of my frens, as well! (if you'd be so willing 🤓) @dewitty1 @big-lonely-idjit @send-her-to-heaven @l0stgirl123 @redandredder789 @sapiens-dominus @silv3rclouds-with-graylining @noncensitive 🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤

[sidleyparkhermit]

fanfic director's cut: talk about what went into your characterization of Chilton in interrupted stitch because i'm still amazed that you managed to capture a version of him that feels in-character without making me want to dropkick him. also tell the people about interrupted stitch

Thank you for the lovely ask and always being such an encouraging reader. I'll try to fulfill both requests as best I can, in reverse order, without wandering off to complain too many times

So: Interrupted Stitch originated as NBC Hannibal hiatusfic, though early in the outlining the second season premiered and the story officially became a canon-divergent AU. It had many elements that might seem in retrospect to be dunking on seasons 2-3 of Hannibal but simply came from looking at the plot and characters of season 1 and thinking about things that would make sense to happen.

It involves... how do I explain this. It exists because one time Aaron Abrams tweeted about Raúl Esparza being cute. It was supposed to be a PWP. It quickly grew a plot, wherein some traumatized secondary characters eventually solve the Chesapeake Ripper murders with the powers of gay S&M and friendship. It's my first foray into what I would call genuine crime fiction. My joke logline for it is "PTSD, BDSM, and some FUBAR MDs." Also, Beverly lives, of course.

I worked hard on it for a long time, but it's only really been seen by @stellerssong, partly because of [real life redacted] and partly because, as longtime readers will know, I hate the Hannibal fandom.

As to the Chilton question!

So, I think the most important thing to begin with was to take him as he is (or was at that point in canon). He's annoying, he's arrogant, he's not qualified for his job -- those are just facts on the ground. They don't have to be explained away.

What else is he? Well, despite the fact that he clearly should not have been in his position at what my old friend gamesiplay dubbed CrazyJail™️, he advanced this far as such a relatively young age somehow. He and Zeller have in common the quality of being overachievers in high-stress and high-risk occupations. I figured right away that he would be continuing to work as much as he could after the Gideon kidnapping, not just to take his mind off things but because that's his personality.

What does he want? In some cases he wants what everyone else can see is the wrong thing; he cannot help trying to get back to the BSHCI despite all his disastrous mistakes. But since we're seeing him outside that frame as well, we also see the quite ordinary human things he wants that were taken away, in some cases permanently, by Gideon (and Lecter): to enjoy food and sex, to hang out with normal people, to have one goddamn night of good sleep. To drink a cup of coffee.

What Chilton endures in "Rôti" is so extreme, from the point of view of the real world, that I feel like simply exploring its effects is more than enough to make the reader sympathize. Because Chilton is annoying, but he's not evil, and he lives in a world deeply infected with true evil. Hannibal Lecter thinks being evil is superior to being annoying, and I guess Bryan Fuller does too, but they're both wrong.

So, I think part of the answer is vulnerability, and mainly just the vulnerabilities already opened up by the text. (I guess the text didn't inherently suggest the humanizing effect of discovering a character's embarrassing sexual fantasies, but I think I ripped off that trick from Terrence McNally [Love! Valor! Compassion!, 1995].)

I think Zeller's POV, and Zeller being himself someone who alternates between brilliant overachiever and human disaster, also helps kinda equalize them. Like, yeah, here's a dude that makes bad decisions, I too am making bad decisions, who the hell would even be making good decisions at a time like this.

They -- and the others in that story -- aren't normal people, obviously. But what they are is people with normal kinds of flaws. And when you are just regular messed up, when you may have thought you were ready for the worst because you're very clever and you've done so much research, how do you deal after your own life is changed by extreme evil? That was the kind of question that interested me.

[moonchildreads]

Comfort Movie Tag 🎥

Rules: post 10 of your favorite comfort movies and then tag 10 people!

I got tagged by the wonderfully funny and lovely @munsonology and as a film school alumni, I went bonkers on this one lmao I am so sorry I'm gonna add a breakline now before the list starts

School of Rock (2023) Dir. by Richard Linklater my fave movie of all time. no questions asked. saw it as a kid and it rewired my brain completely. my dad and i quote bits of the latin dub constantly ("porque soy sexy! y pachoncito!"). jack black my beloved 💙

Company (2008) Dir. by Lonny Price i am a sondheim stan through and through and company is my fave musical of all time. this specific revival is my fave musical of all time. do not question why i'm obsessed with it, i just am. raúl esparza gave the performance of a lifetime as bobby and i will never not be upset that he lost the tony!!!! 😡

Mulan (1998) Dir. by Tony Bancroft & Barry Cook mulan is the best disney princess, you cannot change my mind. best soundtrack, best characters, shang having a bisexual awakening, what more could you want? this one is also heavy on the quotes back at my burrow (get it? because i'm bunny? i'll see myself out) the original is great and the latin dub is fantastic too, every time i do something stupid my dad breaks out the "deshonor! deshonor sobre toda tu familia! deshonrada tú! deshonrada tu vaca!"

Whiplash (2014) Dir. by Damien Chazelle look. i recognise this soundtrack playing on the telly when i'm in a different room with headphones on. it's THAT embedded into my mind. this movie came at a time where i was really doubting if film school was the right choice for me and single-handedly reignited my passion for filmmaking. i owe everything to it.

Four Brothers (2005) Dir. by John Singleton no shame in admitting jack mercer was my eddie munson before eddie munson existed. is this movie problematic? yes. does it hold a special place in my heart because it was always playing on the telly when i came home from school? also yes.

Pride & Prejudice (2005) Dir. by Joe Wright if you see someone telling joseph quinn that he has bewitched them body and soul, and they love, they love, they love him, and wish from that day forth to never be parted from him, it's probably me. 🤷‍♀️

Accepted (2006) Dir. by Steve Pink tied with four brothers as the stupidest movie on this list, this one is also very nostalgia based. truthfully, when i got to film school i realised i was kinda attending south harmon institute of technology and that sealed the deal for me lol

The House Bunny (2008) Dir. by Fred Wolf so dumb! so charming! huge cast of wonderful women who learn to accept each other as they are! love love LOVE this one, i used to have it in my laptop while i was away at college (this one, 21 jump street, and maze runner, odd collection, i know) and i watched it a lot when i was sad and lonely and missed my home 💕

Back to the Future (1985) Dir. by Robert Zemeckis there is only one rule in my family regarding movies: if you catch this one, you leave it on. you drop everything you're doing and you sit and watch. my eldest cousin has already shown this one to his son multiple times, and he's barely 4 💀

Monsters Inc. (2001) Dir. by Pete Docter we scare because we care!!!! my dad says boo reminds him of me because i was always in pigtails as a kid (still am, you'll have to pry them from my cold dead hands) and my mum keeps calling sully "osito" instead of "gatito" so this is a running gag in my house, we love monsters inc!!!!

Honorable Mentions: Legally Blonde (1&2, and the musical), Kinky Boots: The Musical, Now You See Me 2, tick, tick... BOOM!, Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé, The Devil Wears Prada, The Mummy (all) and the LOTR trilogy.

tagging: @so-inlove-with-the-wrongworld, @gutterratt, @justahappycloud and @duquesademiel (you do not have to explain why you like each movie, i'm just insane, you know this by now)

[knight-of-the-doctor]

Okay, I just have to say, seeing pictures of Raúl like this made me fall in love with theater all over again again, after several years of not being able to indulge in seeing shows and losing the desire to listen to the soundtracks. It made me fall in love with my hobbies and passions again. Because despite being told for 20+ years that I can "grow and expand and enjoy my hobbies, but I need a 'real job' because you can't do anything in the 'real world' with hobbies", I see pictures and videos of Raúl singing and dancing and still doing what he loves, what he is meant to do, and he is just so happy about it, and it gives me hope, and even a little bit of courage to continue doing what I love and am inspired to do, even when I'm tired or run down.

Sorry, Raúl Esparza feels hit hard at 11:30 pm 😊😴

source: clowchan via X

[daggersandarrows]

11, 18, and 23 for the song ask! I know you already did 23, but do another?

11: A song that you never get tired of

hmm, i am liable to skip just about anything when the adhd really kicks in, but i don't know that i'd ever complain if you sat me down and said hey you gotta listen to fake your death by my chemical romance on loop.

18: A song from the year that you were born

all star came out the year i was born so i'm VERY tempted to put that, but dive into me by big country holds such personal significance--it's off of the last album ever released by stuart adamson before he died (driving to damascus), one of the first albums i ever bought, and never fails to pull me back to childhood road trips.

23: A song that you think everybody should listen to

sure i'll do another one! not to show my entire ass as a theater kid but being alive from company--i like neil patrick harris's version but raúl esparza's version is also stunning. there is an entire video essay that is a fantastic, and deeply frustrated, queer reading of company, that i watched and have been rotating in my mind ever since. in summary: it's a song about the kind of love story that you're always told will happen but never get, and it definitely awakens both the aro and bi parts of me.

thanks so much tangereen!

[lannister-slings-and-arrows]

#smirk

[callixton]

just found raúl’s miscast performance from a week or so ago…… crying and screaming and pounding the floor i love him so much

[determinedowl23]

Perfect >:)

To set the scene a little: last year I watched the Company 2006 recording at the request of a friend. I loved it a ton and I became really annoying about it which sucked for everybody around me.

Unrelated (for now) is my friend T. We’ve known each other for a while, but I knew his grandma even longer, because she was the Spanish teacher at our elementary school for a while and I had her as a teacher before I met him. Fast forward to last fall, where we start carpooling to school together bc we live in the same neighborhood. Every week I go to his house and we wait for his brother together (he drives us), and his dad is usually there in the kitchen as well.

Now to the point: It’s October, and off book date for my theatre’s production of Fiddler on the Roof has just passed. I tell T’s dad about this because I’m super excited about it and I obviously want all of my friends to see it. T’s dad then tells me about his own theatre experience, which I didn’t know about.

His mom (T’s grandma/the Spanish teacher from earlier) loves theatre, and at his high school she worked in the theatre department- she may have also directed some shows (can’t remember that one exactly), so he was as kinda obligated to do it. I ask him what kind of roles he got, and he tells me he usually got ensemble roles.

Then he tells me about a guy who usually got all of the lead roles. He even tells me that he’s a Broadway actor now! Obviously I think that’s super cool, but with the sheer amount of actors on Broadway I assumed I wouldn’t recognize who he was. Plus, T’s dad did tell me that I may not know who he was. Nevertheless, I ask for his name anyways.

“Do you know Raúl Esparza?”

I don’t think I’d ever dropped my jaw that much before. I doubt I have since.

Turns out that T’s dad went to a high school in Miami called Belen Jesuit, which our boy Raúl also happened to attend around the same time.

Now T himself doesn’t really care about any of this. He just had to listen to me and his dad yap about some middle aged man that he never even met- or so we thought because APPARENTLY when T was a toddler or smth he literally got to MEET RAÚL

I think one of the craziest parts of it all was a few months afterward, when I came home with T and his grandma. I asked her about Raúl and she talked all about him. I mentioned that I knew him from Company, and if I remember correctly, she told me that he INVITED HER TO THE TONYS FOR COMPANY AND SHE WAS ONE OF THE FEW PEOPLE HE INVITED

Literally the moment I could I told my friend who got me to watch Company in the first place and loves it way more than I do and we freaked the fuck out

So I am this close 🤏 to meeting him and if I ever do I’m going to be oh so so annoying about it

did i ever talk about my two degrees of separation from raul esparza. bc that was one of the craziest revelations of my life.

[multishippingtrashfire]

I watched four episodes of Law & Order: SVU from 2015 and I am officially Barisi trash. I already love Raúl Esparza so this is very on brand for me. So naturally I have started SVU from the very beginning

[tryinghardtobeoptimistic]

Maybe~ Raúl will be our always

[anatolypilled]

a little pity the child analysis

having a Pity the Child moment and have been listening to my fav 3 versions (head/casnoff/esparza) on repeat for a couple hours and have been analyzing the differences between them... lemme Discuss

murray head's ptc

i always thought head's freddie was very disassociated from his childhood/just detached up until we get to pity the child. you can't really tell that he had issues growing up, because other than being an arrogant asshole .... he copes with it okay.

that is ... until florence leaves him and he's all alone, and it's like he's just coming to terms with what happened when he was younger. like her leaving just triggered all the memories that he kept buried... just flowing out of him and him being overwhelmed by all of it. he numbed it all with work and chess and florence but now, all of it's gone and he's forced to come to terms with everything.

he's very cold, very shocked, very "why am i still being affected by this? i thought i buried it? why's it coming back now?" him curling up on his bed during pity the child (like... a child) is kind of like a parallel to him a child, curling up on his bed whenever he heard yelling and arguing. or when his mother would bring home someone new and he had to drown out the noise. a lot of his ptc is his abandonment issues just... making their way up after being buried for so long.

he just thought florence would be there forever, and due to his own actions, he pushed her away. just as his mother did to him.

philip casnoff's (bway) ptc

there is so much i love abt casnoff's version of ptc... but what i really love is his anger. all in all his portrayal of freddie differs SO MUCH from both head/esparza in so many ways. he's arrogant, immature, impulsive, constantly angry but deep down you can truly tell that he hasn't recovered from his childhood and he hasn't let anything go.

he's really angry at everyone during this—his mother, his father, as well as himself. like it all pisses him off so much bc he knows that this bothers him and he's so angry that it still does. the conditions of this moment make all of it much worse too—florence leaving, the match falling to pieces, the reporter basically forcing him to talk about his childhood.

this is something that has been plaguing him for so long, and that no matter what he does or what he wins, he can't seem to get rid of it/forget about it. he harbors so much anger that all he can do is take it out on the people who are closest to him. he just doesn't know what to do but be angry at his circumstances + himself.

raúl esparza's ptc

once again... i think raúl was the perfect freddie. but with his ptc, you can tell that he's just tired. of everything. that's all.

it's more of a buildup of what happens to freddie throughout the show, and also the things he lives with. i love how kc chess canonly makes him paranoid schizophrenic, and the way he's affected by his paranoia. it's genuinely a thing he suffers from and even he knows how tired everyone around him is but he can't control it. he's tired of hearing voices through the television, brushing his teeth and thinking that someone bugged him through his teeth, or that someone was about to hypnotize him in the first row. and he's also tired of no one taking him seriously, other than florence. but by pity the child... she's gone.

he's just exhausted by the time pity the child rolls around. tired of everything and he wishes for it all to stop. near the end of pity the child, he falls to his knees and just sits there absolutely exhausted by everything that has happened to him... not only recently but in his past. because yes, actually, it's tiring trying to win a fucking world championship with all his trauma on his back. and once again, he tries coping in the worst ways—taking it out on florence, being an asshole. it's not right at all and he knows, but he's trying to figure out how to fix it. he's just tired.

and finally, at the end of pity the child, he lets out this scream/cry "who?" and it's so broken.

in conclusion,

pity the child is/was never about freddie asking for pity or him just being whiny ... it's so much more than that and it's why ptc is so, so important to freddie's development. it's a reflection of his childhood and how all of that shaped him into who he is and how it affects him now. ptc is sung when he's at his lowest, when everyone in his life has abandoned him and all he can do now is entrap himself in his hotel room and think about what the fuck got him here.

though, i like to think that this moment makes freddie want to change. it's about him realizing the abuse/neglect he went through and realizing that he is actually participating in that cycle of abuse but wants it to stop. and he doesn't really think he'll fully be able to let all of it go—but if he tries... he can learn to cope with it and treat others (and himself) better.