silmarillion au, where the sons of fëanor are some kind of automaton
oath written into their very being
collab between fëanor and nerdanel! nerdanel gives them very lifelike bodies
celebrimbor as either another automaton OR an elven child curufin got off the side of the road because i feel like that's something he would do
also curufin being like. made perfect in fëanor's image.
maedhros being the 'defective' one and the least like fëanor. maybe a prototype.
amrod and amras being built completely identically
sauron having a fascination with dissecting maedhros to see his inner workings
do they have a fëa? if they didnt that would give cool blasphemy vibes
them being the only ones of their kind, strange and alien to everyone else. no technology like them has been seen before.
nobody knows how to fix them except each other. operating on each other. donating spare parts.
maglor doing his own repairs to his sea-weathered body after throwing away the silmaril. before he loses the dexterity and is slowly weathered away, still and alone on the beach
their bodies getting increasingly patchwork over the course of the first age
just. them <3
feel free to add on and/or adopt this au i have too many mouths to feed (existing projects)
So youâve seen that clip of David Tennant with long hair tenderly kissing another man from that one production of Richard II, and youâve found yourself wonderingâwait, was that real?
This is one of Shakespeareâs historical plays, after all; Richard II was a real guy. Did that actually happen? Was he actually queer?
It certainly seems to be a pattern in the theatre. Productions loves to lean in to Richardâs queerness, whether that be with hair extensions and gold nail polish, or by casting a nonbinary Richard while setting the play in the midst of the AIDS epidemic. Theyâll literally make the character slip his cousins tongue to get the point across. So, is there any actual historical basis to it, or did some director just go balls to the walls with artistic interpretation and everyone else took notes?
In other words:
Is it just a queercoded tragedy, or did a queer code this tragedy??
Those of you who have some historical background are probably expecting me to shove Robert de Vere in your face and come out (no pun intended) with a resounding YESâand donât worry, weâll get to himâbut first, I need to establish some things.
(This is gonna be a long one. Hereâs your cut.)
Firstly: No, Richardâs perceived queerness does not originate from the theatre. It doesnât even originate from Shakespeare. His legacy has been almost inextricably linked with queerness for⊠approximately⊠hold on, let me check my watch⊠oh yes, 625 years. In the cultural zeitgeist, Richard has always been queer, so this is a matter that goes way beyond the whims and artistic interpretations of a modern, progressive society.
Secondly: letâs talk about what it even meant to be âqueerâ in the Middle Ages (14th century England, specifically).
Hereâs the thing. The concept of sexuality as part of someoneâs inherent identity is kind of new. The idea of an individual being âgayâ or âstraightâ didnât really exist; it was more so a matter of whether or not you engaged in âunnaturalâ behaviours. I also think itâs important to mention that the concept of homosexuality was considered in a purely sexual context in the public consciousness, rather than a romantic one. Today, weâve come to see queerness as an expression of love; back then, and for a long while afterward, it was considered more of a sex crime than anything.
And speaking of sex, youâre probably unsurprised to hear that the 14th century fostered a predominantly sex-negative society; one which extended far beyond condemnations of homosexuality. With the large influence of the church on every day life, the societally acceptable morals and values extensively promoted chastity and virginity. But, to quote the bard, âthe world must be peopled,â and so sex was only acceptable for the purpose of procreation, and within strict boundaries. It could only occur between a husband and wife, in the marriage bed, in missionary.Â
Well, okayâitâs important to mention that, just because those were the rules, it didnât necessarily mean people followed them. Social norms can only do so much to stop people from bumping uglies, so regular everyday medieval folks werenât all puritanical by any means, regardless of what their society preached. But I digress.Â
Iâve genuinely seen people argue that, because the concept of âsexualityâ didnât quite exist back then, identifying historical figures with âqueernessâ is meaningless. I, for one, find that fucking ridiculous.
I mean, sure, forego the modern labels and terminology. But there very much is a way to talk about queerness from the Middle Ages within its historical context⊠because queerness is not a modern invention!
It doesnât matter that the word for it didnât exist yet, or that society at large thought it inconceivable or unnatural. At the end of the day, there have always been people that, no matter how much they may have wished it wasnât so, felt attraction towards others of the same gender; people that fell in love with others of the same gender, people that had sex with others of the same gender. In addition, there have always been people who felt restricted by gender roles imposed on them, and felt that in order to express their true selves, they would have to bend those lines and boundaries.Â
I mean, just look at the Ancient Greeks. Enough said.
Queerness has always existed. And hereâs the thing: people back then knew it too!
For context, letâs consider the legacy of a much more explicitly âqueerâ king from around this same time: Edward II, Richardâs great grandfather (also a play, but by Marlowe). Edward, like Richard, was heavily criticized for keeping his male âfavouritesâ too close. He was deposed in 1327 and replaced by his son, Edward III, Richardâs grandfather and predecessor.Â
One of the reasons his queerness is more prominently discussed than Richardâs is because of the popularity of a little something called⊠the hot poker myth. Iâm sure a couple of you have already heard of this, but if not⊠uh, hereâs a trigger warning for homophobic sexual violence. After his deposition, it was widely believed that, while his âfavouriteâ and probable lover was castrated, Edward himself was murdered by having a burning metal poker shoved up his ass. Yâknow⊠âpunishment fitting the crime.â
Now, this is probably not true. Probably. But thatâs not the point. The fact that the hot poker myth exists at all is the interesting factor. It doesnât matter whether Edward liked taking it up the ass or not, what matters is that people THOUGHT he did, and also thought that he should be punished for it. Myths like this donât exist to actually cover up the truth, they exist as social regulationâto promote whatever lesson society at the time felt the public needed to learn. In this case the lesson was: Gay bad. Donât do that.
All this to say, you canât say that because queerness wasnât considered as part of a personâs identity in Medieval times, that it didnât exist, that it wasnât present, and that people didnât know about it. Sure, it was seen much differently than it is today, but it existed nonetheless, and people were actually very preoccupied with the whole ordeal.
Now I know Iâve already talked a whole bunch, and we havenât even gotten to the guy this post is about yet. But bear with me, thereâs a third and final thing I have to address: when it comes to identifying historical queerness, what counts as âevidence?â
Because hereâs the thing. A lot of official writings Iâve read on Richard are quick to shut down the notion of him being queer, with their reasoning being along the lines of: âthereâs no explicit evidence that he had sex with men, so he canât be queer, end of discussion.â In my personal opinion, this leans a little towards a heteronormative bias; like theyâve gone in with the explicit goal of shooting down the rumour, instead of giving it its fair share of consideration.
So, for our purposes, what counts as evidence, then? What is considered queer enough to be undeniably queer? What is the definition of queer, anyway? Is it something objective and concrete, or a concept defined by social norms? A mix of both? Are we judging from the historical societal standard, or ours? Presumably, the end of the spectrum is âhave sex with men,â but though there may be allegations, we canât actually poke our heads into his bedroom 600 years ago to have a peak for ourselves.
But then thereâs all the other things, the little, more gender-adjacent thingsâlike how so many texts on the man are so intent on emphasizing how unmanly he was, how feminine he was, and correlating that with how it made him a weak ruler. What about that? Where did all that come from, and is that pattern (and the obvious bias inherent in their narratives) not enough to make queerness significant to the conversation?
I canât answer every single one of those questions, obviously; some of them get a little too into the philosophical nitty-gritty of what queerness is and on what scale you can measure human existence⊠and Iâm not God. Or a philosopher. But this is is the mindset with which I want to go into this discussion:
When talking about queerness in history, we need to leave room for uncertainty, speculationâand the simple acknowledgment of possibility. Queer people have always existed, but they havenât always had the words to say so, or the safety to make it known. And yet, despite that, their stories still trickle down through the cracks of time, begging to be heard. Even if we never know for 100% certain, we owe it to them to entertain the possibility.Â
Alright, with all that out of the way, letâs finally talk Richard II.
Now I know what youâre actually waiting for me to answer here: goddamn it, just tell us whether he was gay or not! List all the reasons he was definitely fucking Robert de Vere!
Well, everything I already established was to prepare you for the reality of the situation. I canât give you a definite answer! Not only was the middle ages what experts call a long ass time ago, but also, if he was queer, he definitely wasnât going around flaunting it, was he? Certainly not with that hot poker myth going around.
But! Thereâs no shortage of accusations, allusions, and possibility. So letâs acknowledge them! (In other words, youâve been very good following my train of thought until now, so you can have some âgay shitâ as a treat)
If youâre unaware of who Robert de Vere is and why I keep mentioning him, he was one of Richardâs closest favourites before the rebellion of the Lords Appellant in 1388 (about ten years before the events of the play). They were very, very close throughout Richardâs youth and early adulthood, and he was granted titles often reserved for princes, such as the Duke of Ireland, which really pissed off the older nobles. In fact, their closeness was believed to be one of the inciting reasons for the rebellion in the first place. When the Lords Appellant came to challenge Richardâs reign, Robert fled the country, and was sentenced to death in his absence, but would die in what was essentially exile in 1392.Â
(If youâve only seen the Shakespeare play and have no idea what the Lords Appellant situation is⊠donât worry about it, just know it was a rebellion much earlier on in Richardâs reign. Surprise surprise! They tried to get rid of that guy more than once. I can make a separate post about it later if anyone wants.)
Chronicler Thomas Walsingham (most of the information we have about events that occurred in history is due to the work of chroniclers like him) accused Richard and Robertâs relationship of being queer, using words such as âobscene familiarityâ and âpolitical sodomyâ to describe them. He also recounted how, when Robertâs body was returned to England for burial, Richard asked for the coffin to be opened so he could gaze upon his face and hold his hand one last time.
And historians will call themâŠ
Well, whatever historians called them, the artists of yore did not agree! Rumours of their relationship werenât exactly stamped out or ignored in the coming years. We, in our modern society, are not the first people to seriously consider the possibility that they were fucking. There was another historical play from 1595 by the name âThomas of Woodstockâ (sometimes even attributed to Shakespeare, though itâs probably not his) that features Robertâs wife as a character, saying the lines:
âMy husband Ireland, that unloving lord
God pardon his amiss, he now is dead;
King Richard was the cause he left my bed.â
Which is really funny to me, I donât know why.
Now, there is one big issue with all of this supposed âevidence,â and itâs Thomas Walsingham himself. See, the guy isnât exactly... an unbiased messenger. In fact, most chroniclers arenât, which is what makes things tricky. Walsingham really didnât like Richardâor Robert, for that matterâso itâs not unlikely that he would kind of just make shit up out of anger and distaste. We kind of have to take everything he says with a grain of salt.
Let me clarify something, though. Throughout this entire post, you may have noticed that Iâve been using the word âqueerâ to refer to Richard, instead of more specific terms like gay or bisexual. This is intentional.
For one, Richard had a wife. Not only that, he really fucking loved his wife. He met and married Anne of Bohemia when they were both around 15 years old, and even though it was an arranged marriage, they were very much in love and rarely spent time apart. The marriage lasted for 12 years until Anne died very suddenly in 1394, likely of plague, leaving Richard absolutely inconsolable and utterly hysterical. He ordered the building she died in to be destroyed, and also threw hands with the Earl of Arundel for having shown up late to her funeral. Itâs likely he never truly recovered from her loss. He planned to be buried next to her when he died, a wish which actually wasn't respected until the reign of Henry V, who had him reburied where he wished. The two lie together in Westminster Abbey to this day.
So, obviously, I am being purposefully vague with my usage of âqueer.â Richard evidently was not exclusively homosexual, but his relationship with Anne doesnât fully discount the queerness of his legacy either. At the end of the day, I am not just debating whether or not Richard liked dick. I am talking about queernessâmeaning not only sexual or gender identity that deviates from the cishet ânorm,â but also just strangeness, oddness, otherness, particularly in sexual and gender presentation.
It doesnât matter that I think Richard was probably fucking Robert, and it doesnât matter that others think he wasnâtâwhat matters is that, to society at the time, Richard was seen as queer. And thatâs enough to make queerness relevant to the conversation!
People described him as being very fair (almost excessively so itâs kinda weird) and having a âfeminine faceâ (whatever tf that means).
Many people described him as boyish and childish, compared to the âstrong masculine manly menâ like Henry and his uncles.
He was often vaguely accused of letting âperversionâ run through court. I didnât find specific elaborations but it feels relevant.
He was extravagant in spending and ceremony.
More than anything, though, he tried very vehemently to put an end to the hundred years war by compromising with France. Think of how unmanly this is; that instead of doing the super noble masculine thing and fighting, he would rather [gasp] compromise.
In place of war, he prioritized the arts in his court. He commissioned many extravagant pieces of art. You can attribute to this time the internal architecture of Westminster Hall, or the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.
To (most) of us, today, you can see how attributing such traits to someone liking dick is honestly kind of fucked up and problematic. But back then, it was deviant enough to be queer, andâwith what you have to assume was the aftertaste of Edward II still lingering in everyoneâs mouthsâpeople just werenât very tolerant of queer.
Truth be told, Richard really wasnât that bad of a king, at least compared to other kings. He was honestly just kind of⊠meh. His biggest efforts was spent in trying to end the Hundred Years War, which was rendered meaningless when it kind of charged right back up again after he was gone. In fact, he didnât even have full power for most of his reign, initially due to his young age but then because of the Lords Appellant. He really only got his power back for the last two years of his reign, when he proceeded to go on a bit of a revenge spree, and was promptly deposed.
But what can be seen as just plain mediocrity actually turned out to be Henry Bolingbrokeâs biggest weapon, used to paint Richard as weak and girly and queer. He used all the previous things I mentioned to build a narrative, to fear-mongerâto prop himself up as the big, proud masculine hero in comparison to his twinky mctwink-face cousin. Itâs not a far stretch to say Richardâs insistence on ending the war had also struck a nerve with other nobles who benefitted from it, and so they joined Henry to further perpetuate this narrative. A narrative that literally stuck for-fucking-ever.
You can even see traces of this narrative-building in the Shakespeare play, when Bolingbroke reads out the charges against Bushy and Green, making it sound like heâs accusing them of sleeping with Richard.
âYou have in manner with your sinful hours
Made a divorce betwixt [Richardâs] queen and him,
Broke the possession of a royal bed,
And stained the beauty of a fair queenâs cheeks
With tears drawn from her eyes by your foul wrongs.â (3.1.11-15)
(There arenât any real accusations of the real Bushy and Green having a relationship with Richard, but you can see the point that was being made.)
All this to say, Richard has been boiled down to two things throughout history: queer, and a villain. And if you recall with Edward II, itâs not uncommon for people to equate queerness with perceived villainy and punishment as a form of social regulation.
Iâd argue that Shakespeareâs play, if anything, was kind of an exception in this regard, given that Richard is not an outright villain but more of an anti-hero than anything. Thatâs probably why itâs remained such fertile ground for playing with and exploring Richardâs queerness without outright villainizing him (or toeing that line, at least).
So, whatâs our conclusion?
In my own humble opinionâgranted, I am not a scholar, but a gay shit with an internet connection, so keep that in mindâI donât think âwere they, werenât theyâ should be our main concern. Itâs worth having a discussion about queerness in the context of Richard II simply because, like Edward II, people perceived him as queer, and used it as an excuse to hate him. Itâs been inextricably linked to his legacy for more than half a millennia and only in the last few years has it been in even a remotely positive light.
Essentially, queerness became the scapegoat on which peopleâs political and social vitriol was placed⊠and thatâs not exactly something weâve left in the past, is it? In this context, the topic of conversation becomes less about Richard himself, and more about the way queerness as a subject is treated in the social and political consciousness. The more aware we are of our past and how itâs shaped our present, we become more equipped to guide our future in the right direction.
âŠor something. Thatâs what I took away from it. Iâm sure there are people smarter than me with contradicting thoughts.
When it comes to Richard specifically, the fact that he has been associated with queerness, judged for said queerness (whether or not he actually was), and defamed on the basis of said queerness, is enough to say: yes, his queer depictions have basis in actual history. While we canât definitively say whether he was schtupping Robert de Vere, itâs possible enough that no one can blame you for having that opinion.
Congratulations, folks:
âš a queer did code this tragedy âš
âââââââââââââââ
I know this was a long one, so if you made it to this point, thank you! I know I teased this post LITERALLY TWO MONTHS AGO and a couple people have been looking forward to it, so sorry it took so long! My long posts are usually analyses of fiction which are a lot easier because I donât have to worry as much about FACTS and RESEARCH. So this took a hot minute. Either way I hope it lived up to expectations, and if you have any additions or corrections, feel free to add! Once again, I am not an expert, but an asshole with an internet connection. I jolted out of bed at 5 am and wrote the first draft of this post in my notes app like a man possessed, and now Iâm making that your problem.
Anyway, I will answer any questions and concerns to the best of my ability but if you want someone who actually knows what theyâre talking about, give @shredsandpatches a visit.
Tags: @skeleton-richard @kneelbeforeclefairy @l3monivy @len-tilsoup @masnadies @greyycey (lmk if you'd like the tag removed)
Edit: Small spelling mistakes
Edit 2: Included the segment further discussing Anne. I was so focused on the queer shit that I completely skimmed over her, which was really stupid in hindsight, given how relevant she is to the discussion on Richard's sexuality. Also, I removed the segment about Isabella of Valois. After some discussion I decided that situation's a bit too complicated to just tack on at the bottom of an otherwise irrelevant post, so if I want to start discussion about her, I'll make a separate post dedicated to her. Thanks to @skeleton-richard for pointing both things out!
Version # 1: itâs definitely them in the endâand itâs wonderful.
Version # 2: itâs definitely NOT them in the endâand itâs awful.
Version # 3: itâs probably themâand itâs actually creepy. Because no way they could have randomly become people with similar names and similar appearances, and also gather the same crowd around themselves. Which means: fate. Which means: predestination. Which means: the system is still rigged, but they are blissfully unaware of it and won't meddle anymore.
I think thereâs a difference between the existence of fate and the existence of a god. There can be order in the universe without a divine organizer.
So we all talk about being in fandoms for things that are charmingly bad, and being able to acknowledge that theyâre charmingly bad. But of course some people are in fandoms for things that are Actually Amazing. There are people out there who write fanfiction for The Best Science Fiction Novel Of The Twentieth Century. Or who draw fanart exclusively of The Best Movie of All Time. And there are even more people who are in fandoms for things that are Actually Pretty Good, which is not quite amazing but is closer to it than to Charmingly Bad.
And sometimes, you have a string of fandoms that are Actually Pretty Good. And the danger of thisâthe very great dangerâis that when you have a string of Actually Pretty Good and even Actually Amazing obsessions, you start to believe that maybe you have taste. Perhaps you are now immune to the indignities of losing it over something mostly bad.
And then it is shattering to discover that no, bad things can still stick a fork in your brain. đ
So I understand why the âtransformative fandom gathers around things that are not good because there being a problem makes people desire to fix itâ model is popular. I even agree that itâs accurate in many if not most cases. However it is not what this post is about. Plenty of people do transformative and creative fandom activities for things that are very, very good. Simplified models do not encompass everything.
And frankly, itâs starting to really get on my nerves when people read âI think this thing is good. I wouldnât change a thing about it and frankly I donât even think there should be more canon added to it, but I am still going to write thousands of words of fic, make a cosplay, and draw fanartâ and then completely misunderstand and respond with âyes I agreeâI like things that are good too. But I never feel the transformative/creative fandom instinct for them because they are too good.â
Some people do not feel it. Other people do. Stop misreading me to avoid having to adjust your mental model of how fandom works.
one of the ways a Canon work can be fandom bait is by missing something that fans want to fix, i.e. "it's bad", but i think this is only one way out of multiple that something can be fandom bait.
compelling worldbuilding (invites interaction with the setting)
interesting gimmick (see: daemons, drift compatibility. subcategory of compelling worldbuilding)
shipping bait (duh)
original character bait (in-universe categories/factions and design elements that make it fun for people to create their own characters)
compelling narrative (invites interaction and tweaks to the storyline: AUs and fixits and so on)
basically anything that invites interaction and recombination. but fandom also has a sort of multiplying effect: the larger the interactive audience of fandom is, the more likely it is to generate ideas and works that draw in more participants. so:
network effect (the larger the established fandom, the more likely it has subfandoms and infrastructure that appeals to niche audiences)
2 hours of bad sleep will have you thinking things like 'i am a stranded whale and i need to be covered in dynamite in an ill-advised attempt to clear the beach'
On the South Downs, at the bottom of the Devilâs Dyke, there are two humps known as the Devilâs Graves â or, more accurately, the Devilâs Grave and the Devilâs Wifeâs Grave â under which a couple is believed to be resting side by side, keeping watch for trespassers.
Local folklorists claim that the Devil was buried there after a local saint (or a regular, but very wise old woman) caused him to stop his work and perish with a fake light imitating the rising sun and a cockerelâs crow misguiding him about the dawn and his allotted time on Earth being prematurely over.
Legend has it that if a person runs backwards seven times around the humps â their resting place on Earth â whilst holding their breath, the Devil himself will appear. Probably with cocoa or a gardening tool in hand, angry about being disturbed to save the world once again.
This is another theory that came to my mind. In the trailer, we see an unknown man who is browsing (looking through?) books in Aziraphaleâs bookshop. He looks at Azi quite coldly, and Azi responds with a confused look. Itâs unlikely that he is a demon â he physically wouldnât be able to enter the shop. Most likely, he is human. From the film description, we know they will have to deal with local gangs or something like that. Itâs very possible that Crowley is living on the streets for a reason. We also have a shot where Crowley is being held by two men in suits, and he is looking at someone in front of him with a very aggressive expression. Maybe he is looking like that specifically at the same man Aziraphale meets in the shop.
Itâs possible that Crowley is trying to protect the bookshop from people who are trying to take it for themselves, but he fails, and now he is living on the streets (maybe they somehow even took his Bentley. But I think he will somehow take it back because we see it in the trailer). But why is Muriel in Heavenâwhy aren't they looking after the shop?
