#➤ re: burke devlin. ┊ I am stranded in a hungerland of great prosperity.

[widowshill]

dark shadows 1966 + the metaphoric supernatural

[widowshill]

ask and receive, #30!

do you have any favorite headcanons about Burke you'd wanna share? :3c

I don't think I've gone very far off the beaten path; he's got a well-established past (well. maybe not the last five years.) in-show that works, I think? There's not a lot of gaps that need filling in - this is more like some light embroidery on information that's already in the show? Also - I think he's really interesting as a character that others react to - that forces other characters to adjust, or to reveal something to the audience about themselves in how they react to him - that Joe Haskell, who hates Burke's guts, can still draw a straight line in between what happened with Roger, Burke, and Laura and what's happening with Burke, him, and Carolyn now? Or that he and Vicki are in no small ways mirrors of each other - Vicki representing his past as a poor kid working for the Collinses; Burke representing a bad possible future for her of what happens when the Collinses throw someone under the bus to protect themselves? If that makes sense? But! In order of most-to-least textually supported!

He dropped out in high school: he reminds Bill Malloy that he (Bill) paid him a man's wages working for him when he was just a boy, but later mentions physics class. Given his father abandoned the family when he was nine, and Burke doesn't mention his mother ever (I know there's a cut line of dialogue that says she worked in the cannery, but.), or any siblings, or close relatives, I tend to assume he did it for money? Besides. He's a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Collinsport: he was always going to end up working for the Collinses one way or another. Senior year English wasn't going to change that.

He's not touchy about doing what he had to to survive and get ahead as a teenager, but he's nowhere near as educated as most people he's socializing with now, and that is a sore spot with him - buying and bullying only gets someone so far, I think. He may be richer than the Collinses but it's a little hard to buy respect or belonging outright.

There's cut dialogue (I can't remember which episode, maybe @widowshill does) that implies at least one of the times he ran away from home as a kid was because his mother died - the dialogue itself doesn't quite square with what he says about when his dad walked out on "us", but I buy it in broad strokes - Burke talks mostly fondly about recreational fishing with his father, but even so, his dad beat the hell out of him at least once. On the whole, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here, I think he had a much better relationship with his mother - while she was alive.

(I think, too, that's backed up by his past good relationship with the Evanses? Maggie says he was always around when she was younger; Sam says he was so used to him being around that if they didn't see him for a few days he'd send Maggie to look for him? The implication being there wasn't much keeping him at home.)

(Which makes the revelation that it was *Sam* whose testimony was the clincher devastating. Absolutely maddening to me that they dropped that in one scene and it never got revisited. but that's not a headcanon.)

Absolutely hilarious to me that apparently everyone but him seems to think that David's his son, not Roger's. I go back and forth on whether I think David is, biologically, his - on the one hand, it makes everything worse for Burke - that he's become an absent father just like his; on the other hand, it makes it a matter of biological determination that he and David get along like a house on fire, and not that Burke's one of the few people who treat David like a person and not The Last Heir To The Collins Line or a whipping boy?

speaking of David: I tend to read what happened ten years ago less as a love triangle and more as he, Roger, and Laura were all involved simultaneously.

Lastly, and strictly because it amuses the hell out of me, not because I think it's remotely likely: as far as I can tell, Burke's never been an amazingly popular first name for men, and certainly didn't crack the top 200 names in the 1920s or 1930s. Either it's a family name - his mother's maiden name, maybe? - or, I argue, his parents were weird about 18th century English political philosophers: his full name is Edmund Burke Devlin, he'll just never admit it. not even Laura or Roger know.

Thank you for the ask! I'm not sure what it is about my brain, but the minute this hit my inbox I suddenly had never thought about Burke at all. ever. head empty.

[widowshill]

1966 PARALLEL TIME.

In another version of Collinsport, Maine, where the road diverged in 1956: or, rather, Roger Collins swerved from it. devised with @tortoisesshells <3

DRAMATIS PERSONAE: 

BURKE DEVLIN: husband to LAURA, father to DAVID, and chief financial officer for Collins Enterprises. ELIZABETH'S friend and personal advisor; ROGER'S friend, adversary, fixation, and supervisor.

ROGER COLLINS: part-shareholder and glorified office boy at the Collins cannery. uncle and father-figure to CAROLYN; soon-to-be divorcé; the last Collins.

ELIZABETH COLLINS STODDARD: has majority control of the business and the household, depending steadily on her brother. facilitated ROGER'S engagement with family friends in London, but the marriage produced no children.

CAROLYN STODDARD: sole heiress to Collinwood, the business, and fortune. student at Bryn Mawr college. sometimes-girlfriend of JOE HASKELL on school holidays.

VICTORIA WINTERS: secretary, companion, and all other duties as assigned. MRS. STODDARD'S primary liaison between Collinwood and the cannery.

SAM EVANS: artist and part-time illustrator for Rumson Publishing Company. father to MAGGIE EVANS, whom he helps put through night classes.

BILL MALLOY: ELIZABETH'S fleet manager: oversees daily operations and management of the boats, leaving BURKE to the finances. safe harbor for Collinsport strays.

[widowshill]

DARK SHADOWS AND THE TELEVISION CODE, part one.

[widowshill]

inspired by a real vanity plate i saw

[widowshill]

We aim to please. Especially when it only costs a quarter.

BURKE DEVLIN IN DARK SHADOWS, EPISODE 16.

[widowshill]

BURKE DEVLIN & ROGER COLLINS. — It isn't really amazing if you know what love is about. — Well, yes, I suppose I don't know anything about love. I guess that's why she married you ten years ago and not me. — I'll go one step further. I think you've gone beyond the point of even knowing what it is.

[widowshill]

the child does nothing but lie

[widowshill]

[widowshill]

71.

[widowshill]

— Are you sure Burke wants to buy Collinwood? — Yes, he said so. I'm just afraid it's only the beginning of what he wants.

[widowshill]

i can't believe this man has haters ... look at him

[widowshill]

102.

[widowshill]

No matter how I do it, Vicki, you better pull your pretty little neck in before it gets snapped off along with the rest of them. [ 91. ]

[widowshill]

he's just a silly guy ur honor

[widowshill]

125 / 126 / 71