#richard rambles

[rhapsodyinviridescentgold]

I had a horrible thought the other day:

Did Cyrlinnaril ever tell anyone just HOW long she was alone in the forest for? Because I think it would be both relieving for Erestor to know that she wasn’t in the forest since she was like 5 equivalent, and also horrifying for him to find out that she was alone, in a forest, for five years.

She 100% did not tell anyone. Not even out of a desire to keep it secret but bc she's a silly goose who doesn't see why it matters. Her life is split into Before Erestor and After Erestor and the Before stuff is boring and gross and doesn't matter. who cares????

(everyone else. everyone else cares.)

[foldingfittedsheets]

Our friend Richard is staying with us and I was reminded of one of his dating escapades that always made me laugh.

He’d met this girl online, and they’d been chatting for days. She was cautious but he didn’t mind as online dating does have some risks. Finally, though, they set an in person date to meet up.

It seemed to be going okay until about midway through the date when she said, “I have an important question, I ask it on every first date.”

He sat up attentively.

“If you were asleep in your bed and woke up to see two small purple aliens going through your laundry what would you do?”

He was briefly stunned by the question but gave it some thought. Finally he said, “I’d pretend to still be sleeping and observe them. If they weren’t doing anything more I’d try to greet them.”

She gave a hmm and the subject moved on. Later, when she was driving him home she informed him, “I don’t think this is gonna work out. You don’t show a healthy sense of fear.”

He bore this pronouncement with grace and wondered what the right answer would have been.

The car sailed through the night which was made darker by the extremely thick forest towering over the road. No moonlight or stars could penetrate the thick canopy.

They rode in silence until she finally remarked, “Wow, this would be the perfect place to hide a body.”

Richard, a man lacking a healthy sense of fear, could recognize that her sense of fear was well honed. Therefore, he held his tongue on the fact that his good friend had in fact stumbled across a dead body in those woods a month prior.

[spicy-apple-pie]

Bruce says that his "true self" is his disguise. But Dick doesn't believe him.

Bruce keeps saying how important it is to notice the little details. And Dick does. He notices how Bruce's shoulders relax when they make it home after patrol, the slight change in tone as he tells Dick to wash up and head to bed. He notices how Bruce rolls his eyes at his puns, with a slight smirk that he tries to hide. How he ruffles Dick's hair and calls him "chum". Whatever the hell that means.

Most damning of all, Dick knows how Bruce peaks in on him after he's done in the Batcave. It scared Dick at first, for this... stranger to watch him while he slept. But one night, Dick decided to stay up a bit longer to finish a chapter in his psychology textbook Bruce made him read. If he finished it tonight, then he would have the next day free from Bruce's homework.

He startled a bit when the door creaked open. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Bruce whispered. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Bruce shrugged. "I just... saw the light on and wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I'm fine." Dick reassured.

"Okay. Not too much longer though." Bruce quietly shut the door behind him.

"Batman's the mask, huh?" Dick thought to himself, turning back to the last paragraph. "Yeah, right."

[akuma-tenshi]

something beautiful is happening in the discord dm's tonight

[ashennflame]

I decided to make playlists for each of the Greek students in The Secret History.

A few things to note about each playlist:

I purposefully made it so that each playlist has exactly 100 songs in it so that I can force myself to discover new music in order to fill out the playlists as well as properly capture an exact vibe while still having diversity in each playlist.

I wanted each playlist to be completely unique, therefore there are no exact overlapping songs in any of them, with the exception of different covers of the same song being in multiple playlists.

This is how I personally interpret each student to an extent, and it may be a bit different compared to others.

The playlists are mostly based off of vibes. There are songs whose lyrics as well as vibe fit the character (in my mind), but there are also songs that are based solely off of the vibe even if the lyrics don't fit.

The songs in each playlist may change over time as I find new music that I feel better fits over another.

I hope that these playlists can be thoroughly enjoyed!

[Characters associated with each playlist in order]

Richard Papen

Henry Winter

Bunny Corcoran

Francis Abernathy

Charles Macaulay

Camilla Macaulay

[que3rduckling]

Hey ever think about how Nightwing is Batman’s greatest success and how Dick Grayson is Bruce Wayne worst failure? About how crazy that is? No? Just me? Okay…

[kittieshauntedourfantasy]

Hi I'm Constance and this is my girlfriend Ocean and Ocean's girlfriend Penny and Penny's partner Ricky and Ricky's boyfriend Noel and Noel's boyfriend Mischa and Mischa's fiancée Talia

[hatchetings]

i honestly agree with the idea that pete wasn’t really friends with ruth or richie, and it’s not because of his reactions to their deaths or anything.

i say this because he is the most reactive to ruth’s death compared to grace & steph. also far more reactive to richie’s death compared to grace & stephanie too, but ruth on the other hand is like? majorly more anxious compared to rest of them hearing that richie was murdered, which will play into my take later but anyways.

i believe that pete isn’t really close with the two because of his reactions to the shit they do and say. like every possible moment, he is fidgeting nervously around them, spacing off, correcting them, or ridiculing them. and when he’s not doing that, he’s… trying to be nice, but good god does he seem so damn anxious about it. not to mention when he calls ruth and richie, “fucking nerds” they don’t laugh it off like… friends would? they roll their eyes and become offended. also! also also!!! gosh i love pointing out details, but pete seeming semi-confused at richie’s statements about the body-pillows. if they’ve been friends for years, pete would be used to it by now, completely ignoring it.

also, the lin manuel miranda thing, why is pete going up to richie and saying that? wouldn’t he have gotten a better reaction of ruth, the theatre kid? or is he getting ruth and richie’s interests confused?

they aren’t friends to pete, they’re just people pete decides to hang around with because he has no choice. why doesn’t have a choice? because of the system the school runs on. max, every other popular & cool kid at school, and then, the nerds.

that’s who he’s limited to.

it’s the way they talk and interact with one another that makes me think pete is just not as close to richie and ruth as we think he is.

but you know what, ruth and richie? oh, they’re incredibly close and you can tell. the jabs at one another with no reaction (ex. “who are you trying to impress…? ruth?” and ruth continuing on the joke). the overdramatic faces made toward one another?? also, the fact they tend to stand closer to one another than to pete? there are multiple scenes like that… almost every interaction these two have, you can tell they’re best friends. going back to my point with ruth’s reaction to richie’s death above, she is visibly more anxious hearing that richie is dead compared to every single one of the people being questioned. it’s heartbreaking actually, because this is a person she’s known for, likely, years and it’s just!

it’s so obvious how close they are.

they can joke around with each other because they know they’re joking when they insult one another.

there’s probably reason why pete gets somewhat defensive of richie’s comments about his outfit, or how the idea of him & steph together is ridiculous.

pete cannot tell they’re joking because they’re not as close.

but i do want to throw in. i think ruth and richie consider pete far more of a friend than he does them. they actively seek pete out, they feel like they can make jabs at him because they think they’re close enough pete can take it as joke. they worry about him, and pete just doesn’t think about them the same way (and he doesn’t realize they consider him a friend).

which is… kind of sad to think about!

anyways, that’s my ramble for today

forgive me for any misspellings and grammar mistakes

it’s like 1am rn

[rhapsodyinviridescentgold]

Popping in to ask if you're still alive and how is school?

hiiiiiii🤹 i'm alive, i've graduated, i'm working three jobs to stay afloat so despite writing being on my mind 25/7, finding the time to sit down is impossible :') i'm hopeful things will change soon but for now i'm just clownin around. thanks for checking in 💗💗💗💗 how are you???

[foldingfittedsheets]

Our friend Richard is our DM for DnD. Sometimes when it’s funny he’ll call himself Dick. It’s silly to all of us that Dick is the shortened form of Richard but also penis funny.

For dnd nights it’s Richard, another guy, and three nonbinary folks.

One day Richard was gone and while we waited we joked, “There’s no Dick on the call! We’re Dickless!”

The other guy was like ???? “I’m here…?”

And we belatedly realized he thought we were ragging on his masculinity instead of joking about Richards name. It turns out that in years of friendship our other male player had never heard Richard make a Dick joke.

[spicy-apple-pie]

Swearing is weird in Wayne Manor. Especially before Jason dies.

Alfred was taught that swearing is impolite and implies that you have a small vocabulary or are dumb. So when he’s in charge of Bruce he, of course, applies those same principles. Once Bruce hits the age where he knows what swears are and how to use him, he introduces a swear jar. Which he thinks is very lenient because he used to get a wooden spoon to the butt at Bruce’s age. Bruce, being a tween, is pretty upset with this, but accepts it as he grows older.

Fast forward and Dick is adopted. Dick’s parents (and the circus in general) swore like sailors, so they didn’t really see the need to limit his use when it’s just them. But when interacting with children, they teach him not to use those words. When he asks why, they shrug and say that some times people don’t like those words, and you can’t tell who’s okay with it and who’s not. So make sure you use those words when you’re with someone who is comfortable with them.

And Dick thinks to himself how much it would suck to have to watch your language with someone 24/7.

Cut to Alfred bringing the swear jar back because Dick is swearing too much for his taste. And Dick is pissed. Because he wants to say whatever he wants, and his parents always let him swear. Alfred allows him a little grace, but for the most part, he will ask that Dick put a dollar in the jar for anything worse than crap or hell.

But Bruce remembers how frustrating it was, so he lets Dick swear as much as he wants when Alfred wasn't around. Even though the swear jar isn't for him, he still doesn't want to risk Alfred going off on him. So long as Dick isn't swearing in school or in front of Alfred, he can say whatever he wants.

But Jason is another story. Because Jason swears in almost every sentence, but the swear jar gives him massive anxiety because of his financial insecurity. Alfred tries to get creative and assigns chores for Jason to do. But Jason is like, not too upset by the idea of taking the trash out, or vacuuming. Until he realizes that it takes time away from his reading. But since Dick is an adult now, Alfred has no say in what kind of language he uses, so he's swearing more often. So eventually Alfred gives up but still doesn't approve.

After Jason dies, all sense of normal is thrown out the window. And with Tim and Cassandra, it's hard to discipline them for different reasons. Tim technically isn't Bruce's child, so it feels a little weird to impose a swear jar on him. Luckily, Tim doesn't swear too much to begin with, because when he was little is mom and a few nannies would wash his mouth out with soap when he swore. Alfred is not happy when he hears that, but again, not Bruce's kid. Cass is just learning to talk with them so she doesn't know a lot of swears. When she does learn them, Alfred really can't get made because it just shows him how much progress she's made.

So thanks to Tim and Cass, swearing in the manor is free reign. Dick and Jason are a little jealous of their sibings that didn't have to get lectures about swearing tho...

[akuma-tenshi]

i just need them to be friends

[better-than-sleeping]

A part of Richard's isolation from the group that I would like to put forward is this:

I truly do believe the group care for Richard as a friend, even when their relationships start to spiral out of control near the end. But that care isn't always present throughout their lives, the same way most people aren't constantly obsessing over their friend's feelings 24/7, and he cannot understand it.

It's not just the stuff you would typically think of that proves this to me, like the twins going out of their way to include him, companionable rambles with Bunny, making food with Francis. The most obvious instance of this is Richard being excluded from the Bacchanalia, and yes, this obviously sucks as someone trying so desperately to be included and a part of the group, but also makes so much sense from their perspective.

If Richard had been normal, he would have been so weirded out! This could be a convenient excuse, but it could just as easily be the group showing their own desires to be accepted by HIM, in a kind of reverse of roles that Richard naturally doesn't want to pick up on, because that would be seeing them human, and fallible, and SIMILAR TO HIMSELF. Unthinkable!

Something I've not seen discussed is the little aside when he first falls in with the group proper and relates that they had found him just as aloof as he had found them. Their inviting him to Francis's house was simply an urge to impress him, and I can't see any other way of reading it than that. If they had simply wanted to include him, but didn't care about how he saw them, they could have simply kept inviting him to their houses and out for lunch.

But, it's the moments that also double as little instances of ostracism that really interest me: Camilla saying Henry didn't want to do another pig ritual because he thought it would upset Richard, the group telling him they've already involved him enough and that he shouldn't participate in Bunny's murder. The general reading of this (that I've seen so far) seems to be that Henry did these things purposefully to keep Richard apart from the group, he didn't know him as well as the others, an unknown quantity, someone he didn't care for as much since he hadn't known him as long. But there's a lot of ambiguity there as well, and I think what makes things so compelling is that uncertainty. It could be purposeful, or unintentional, or some inextricable combination of the two.

(As an aside- ironically, I believe Henry may care about Richard the most out of anyone in the group. Helping him while he was sick, worried about seeing Richard drunk during the day, it's all rather sweet, and I don't believe it was entirely some machievellian scheme.)

However, I like to see the isolation as mostly, if not entirely unintentional, because that makes it so much more cutting to me. It's subtle. They don't put any special thought into doing it, they just…don't even think how these things could make him feel.

The worst part is, as far as I remember, Richard never fully engages with his feelings about this, but they are felt so much through the story and his actions within them. They are moments that sunk deep within his psyche like a stone that's dropped into water and swallowed immediately without a trace. It sits very still inside him, unmoveable.

His acceptance of these moments as they are happening to him is likely a result of his history of loneliness and being apart from others. There is nothing unusual to him about this, that it would require further thought from him within his narrative.

A large part of Richard's isolation is due to his glorification of the people he deems worthy, which continues even after he begins to see their flaws. Despite them, he still can't bear to see them torn down to his level, people he can relate to instead of glorify or look down upon. I think there is an element of self destruction to this, not wanting to understand so he has an excuse to punish himself for self perceived deficiencies.

It's very intriguing, this uncertainty of how much of Richard's isolation from the group is imagined, or perhaps even self imposed in a kind of feedback loop, where he feels pushed away and so pulls himself away from them, to anonymous parties with people he professes not to care about, takes pills and sleeps for days, to numb himself from the pain of their rejection.

And in the process, this feeling of isolation is enforced, becomes more a reality through the concrete evidence he has produced by himself. Maybe the group see his behaviour and think he needs space, they give it to him. He feels lonely, he says nothing. Because he would rather freeze to death than ask for help.

[king-magppi]

🐱🎹Ummm I think these are the last of my SML fanarts for now.🎱🥤

(Unedited vers under cut!)

Old wedding photo from when they were somewhat happy. They have problems, but I do like drawing them.

[etirabys]

I felt so much connection to the younger generation upon reading this post that I slightly freaked out

[kittieshauntedourfantasy]

RTC headcanons yayyy