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silverwhittlingknife · 4 months

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hi Silver! o/ because that fanart made me wonder - would you happen to know when/where Dick's stuffed elephant plush Zitka turns up in the comics?

GREETINGS CAM <3333 THAT ART WAS SO CUTE

Yeah, I think your instincts are right - it's a truly adorable bit of transformative fandom, but I'm 95% percent sure it's not comics canon. Barbara has canon plushies, but I don't think anyone else does.

I got kinda invested in the investigation (it's hard to prove a negative!) and I ended up typing out an entire History of Elinore/Zitka, so, uh, if you're curious, meet me below the cut for:

Where does Elinore / Zitka - the animal - appear in comics?

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

Where does Elinore / Zitka appear in comics?

We're gonna go in chronological order!

Dick's circus elephant friend was first created for practical reasons: in Batman 436, Marv Wolfman does a big expanded flashback to Dick's circus backstory as a way to subtly show us Tim before officially introducing him (so that we can have a technically-solvable mystery-of-Tim's-identity in LPoD). In this comic, there's an elephant named Elinore who loves Dick:

Aww. Such a cute elephant!

Batman 436 comes out in August 1989. New Titans 60 comes out a few months later, in November, and guess what? When Dick visits the circus, he is suddenly surprised by an unexpected blast from the past! It turns out that even though it's been years, Elinore still remembers him!

Here's the part where Elinore remembers Dick:

SUCH a cute elephant. I love her.

(Guess who else still remembers Dick even though it was so long ago. Guess which other character is about to be an unexpected blast from the past. Guess which character Elinore is directly paralleling guess guess guess sorry everything is about Dick and Tim in my mind but I can focus I swear)

Four years later, in 1993, Batman: The Animated Series retells Dick's origin story. They like and keep Wolfman's elephant, but they change her name to Zitka:

Wolfman doesn't return to the elephant beyond those two appearances, and a few years down the line, New Titans gets cancelled and Wolfman's not writing Dick anymore anyway. So the animal gets abandoned for a while, until Devin Grayson, a fan of both Wolfman and B:tAS, revives the Wolfman-era Titans team in JLA/Titans and then the ongoing series Titans 1999.

Grayson then brings back the elephant in a flashback to Dick's past in Titans 16 (Jun 2000), where she imports the B:tAS name. Sometimes I'm skeptical of TV-to-comics imports, but honestly, I endorse this one. You lose the alliteration, which is a shame, but IMO Zitka is a better elephant name than Elinore.

Here's Dick with the newly-christened Zitka in Titans 16:

Grayson also briefly references the elephant in Gotham Knights 20 and - in a final angsty callback - in Nightwing 88 (Feb 2004), where Zitka tries futilely to comfort Dick in the midst of his trauma conga line:

... And... honestly, I think that's it for comic appearances? The two Wolfman comics plus the three Grayson comics.

Both Wolfman and Grayson are writing multiple titles - Batman, New Titans, Titans, Gotham Knights, and Nightwing between the two of them, spanning a big chunk of Dick's post-Crisis canon - and both writers use the elephant for heartwarming moments of nostalgia, which means if you're doing a post-Crisis readthrough for Dick, Elinore/Zitka feels memorable. But I don't think she actually shows up that much.

For post-2011, I am not as well-informed - throwing this out to the dash? anyone know? - but I feel like Zitka the heartwarming symbol of Dick's heartwarming circus past is, uh, thematically very at odds with the Court of Owls evil!circus vibes, so my instinct is that this story element was almost certainly dropped in the reboot.

Did Dick ever have a stuffed elephant toy in comics?

In WFA, yes; in main comics continuity, no. Technically, I have not read every comic ever published, so I could be wrong!! But I don't think so.

Below, find my rambling reasoning on the tonal vibes of pre-Crisis, post-Crisis, and post-2011, and why this particular story element doesn't seem right to me for the first two.

Pre-Crisis (...okay, mostly the Silver Age): stuffed animal, yes or no?

tl;dr no, requires too much background knowledge on the part of the reader, plus the elephant wasn't a thing until later

Elinore doesn't get created until post-Crisis, but also just generally, pre-Crisis callbacks are more along the lines of this reference in Batman 129 (published in 1960), where, wow, Batman and Robin are hunting jewel thieves - and it turns out Robin recognized this strongman! BUT HOW?!

The comic goes on to recap Dick's entire origin story in flashback, on the assumption that you may not know it.

(BTW, if you'd like to know more about Haly's Circus throughout the years, nightwingology has a great post here summarizing a lot of fun plotlines and characters!)

Basically: Silver Age comics are very self-consciously episodic and kid-friendly; they're not generally gonna do overly-elaborate callbacks because they don't know what comics their kid readers may have randomly picked up or remember.

By the time of post-Crisis, comic books were being written for an adult audience buying from the direct market, i.e. readers who are collecting whole runs & don't need or want Dick's origin story to be recapped to us in full every time it's referenced. That's why in post-Crisis, we get stuff like "hey, neat, this particular soda brand is getting mentioned in several different books!!" or "in order to understand this story arc, buy SIXTEEN DIFFERENT COMICS in FIVE DIFFERENT RUNS and read them ALL ACCORDING TO A NUMBERED ORDER and also you better be following the individual plotlines and recognize these five minor characters who we don't bother to introduce!! Good luck!!" But the elaborate post-Crisis plotlines - and subtler worldbuilding like a stuffed animal callback to Dick's backstory - don't make a lot of story sense UNLESS you're imagining your readers as completionist adult fans.

So IMO a stuffed animal wouldn't be a pre-Crisis thing unless it was The Episodic Story Of the Week, and I don't think a stuffed animal is action-adventure-y enough for the fast-paced storytelling of the Silver Age. (Unless it, like, came to life and tried to eat you or something.)

Post-Crisis: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr: no, Dick's a manly tough guy, he's not gonna have a stuffed animal, that'd be lame, like something Tim might do

Part of the edgy grimdark adult vibes in 80s/90s comics is that some characters who used to be kinda silly & goofy & lighthearted - like Batman and Robin - get reimagined as Serious and Angsty and Edgy in a Tough Cool Manly Brooding Way. This massively affects characterization for Bruce, Dick, and Bruce and Dick's relationship.

(I obviously love this change & love the tense Bruce-and-Dick interactions, but plenty of fans of the earlier fluffy comics really disliked the edgy retcons of Miller / Wolfman / Starlin / et al.)

The upshot is that post-Crisis is a period when you could have a recurring reference like a stuffed elephant, but you wouldn't have a stuffed elephant, not for Dick. I think a toy like that would be too cutesy / childish / effeminate to give a male character in post-Crisis, unless you were poking fun at him.

Now, you could probably let Tim have a stuffed animal, because Tim is sometimes cool but also sometimes a tryhard loser who is faking being cool and not entirely pulling it off (see e.g. the Robin comic where he practices tough-guy faces in the mirror, or the Teen Titans comic where Conner discovers his cringy Enya CD, or when he's fanboying over Connor and it's awkward, etc etc.). A stuffed animal would be deeply embarrassing, and you'd have to be careful to compensate by having Tim do something cool afterward - but Tim's character concept allows for "he's kind of a loser sometimes."

But Dick isn't!! In post-Crisis, Dick's a tough / impressive / "cool guy" character, the kind of guy anyone would want to be, even in the flashbacks where he's Robin, and even in the stories where he's more lighthearted than angsty. It'd be kinda lame for Dick to have a stuffed elephant, so he wouldn't. I feel like Dick would be more likely to poke fun at it if someone had one, like when he's making fun of Wally for liking the Hardy Boys. Dick could have a Batman action figure, at most, and if he had one he would have it ironically.

Basically: in post-Crisis, a male character hugging a stuffed elephant feels more likely to be a punchline to me, not something poignant. (Even with Tim, Tim could have an embarrassing stuffed animal, but he couldn't hug it when sad - that's too far. Maybe Booster Gold might do this. Probably he wouldn't, but spiritually, he would. Sorry Booster ilu! <3)

Instead, Dick instinctively deals with his inner turmoil like the TORTURED ACTION HERO he is: by punching things and brooding and yelling and joining the mob and sleeping on rooftops and going on obsessive secret missions and acquiring Angsty Stubble!! Just like Batman!

(Technically I don't know if Bruce ever joined the mob but you know he would.)

Anyway as you know this is my favorite continuity and I am poking fun affectionately, but uh, yeah sdfsfdsfs. No stuffed animals.

Post-2011 / Infinite Frontier / Wayne Family Adventures: stuffed animals, yes or no?

tl;dr it's in WFA! Probably not anywhere else, but it could be.

Post-2011 stuff tends to be cutesier overall, most of all in the current Infinite Frontier era. So I don't feel like this would be tonally out-of-line with IF comics. Taylor tends to go for more meme-y references rather than fanfic references, though.

So the obvious best fit is WFA, which is aiming for a rough approximation of Silver Age family-friendly vibes - wholesome, episodic plots, Teaching Good Moral Lessons For The Youth, etc. - plus lots of Easter eggs for fanfic readers and some comic references.

And look, here we are:

Aww.

Whew - that's everything I could find!

Anyway as you can probably tell, I LOVE the elephant, so this was a very entertaining rabbit hole to go down, thank you <3

#dick grayson #anyone with more info feel free to chime in & we can crowdsource <3 #i do think the toy elephant is awfully cute though <3 #total digression but i was thinking about it as i was writing:#i'm fascinated by the ways that the post-crisis batboys & their stories can intersect with 90s masculinity and all its issues with stoicism #and i'm pro-queering and gender-bending - 90s comics were a total boys' club so i think it's neat that transformative fandom isn't #but i do love 90s masculinity and All Its Issues too & one of the things i find compelling about the dick-tim-bruce trio #& especially dick's place in it - is the unspoken hierarchy whereby bruce is manlier than dick & dick is manlier than tim #and so dick's in the middle as this somewhat softer-character who aspires to be a harsher & more stoic & ultimate manly-man character #caught in the middle between robin & batman & what each role represents #and like. batman is both manhood & the only desirable thing to be AND ALSO it represents this immense narrowing of possibility #because so much of stereotypical masculinity is about reducing the range of emotions you're allowed to have or express #and dick is both incredibly conflicted about bruce AND wants to be just like him & by extension is conflicted about masculinity writ large #so a lot of dick's interactions with tim veer between trying on a frat-boy-ish 'I'm The Manly Guy' persona vs. giving up on it #or trying on imitations of Bruce's Batman persona but also trying to backtrack out of it bc he doesn't like how it feels etc etc #ANYWAY i think what i am trying to say is that if tim had a stuffed animal dick would be entertained & poke mild fun at him #and call him 'teddy' for the next hour or something while tim got increasingly defensive about how the teddy bear was steph's #and/or about how the teddy bear was OLD and tim doesn't even care about it and also WHATEVEr i'm above this #and to an uninformed observer this might look like bullying BUT ACTUALLY #this ritual would IN FACT be very reassuring to both of them + tim would feel WAY better afterward than if dick had ignored it #because by poking fun at him dick shows he still respects tim enough to tease him thus subtextually exorcising the threat of wimpiness #plus allowing tim to defend himself & demonstrate that he can take a joke so they've both reaffirmed their masculinity to each other #& they don't have to be scared of the teddy bear and all it represents anymore #however also afterward dick would have a brief nostalgic flashback to when he was a kid & had a teddy bear & feel weird about the memory #because he would be unable to articulate to himself that what he misses is a past when he allowed himself to be vulnerable #anyway this wouldn't actually happen in comics but it's what would happen in my soul. you know.#ask tag #zitka

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skitskatdacat63 · 1 year

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Fernando 2012 Chair Lore (source: me)

So I've been thinking a lot about Fernando sitting in this particular chair in the Ferrari garage in 2012 for [redacted] reasons:

Originally I just wanted to find more pictures of it for reference, and then went down a rabbit hole of 2012 pictures, trying to figure out when exactly the chair came to be. There's so many pictures of him in it, and it's so funny to me to imagine them hauling this super villain chair all around the world for him. And so now I'm obsessed with the evolution of it:

Pre-Chair - Australia to Bahrain:

He just had this little stool, well I should say big because it somehow still manages makes him look small. Clearly not comfortable; to paraphrase @sweatyflytrap, it's not conducive to his inner Shakespeare villain monologues

The Chair Appears - Spain

He suddenly now has this, aforementioned, super villain chair. Several things, why is it like this. It looks like a sim chair almost ngl. And then the weird plexiglass support is confusing me, like where did they get that. It furthers my narrative they just had this chair that they couldn't put in a car so they put that clear bottom on it. Anyways yes good, now he has somewhere to brood

The Chair Evolves - Silverstone

Look!! They gave him a booster seat!!!

The Chair is Now Here to Stay :)

I downloaded a truly horrible amount of pics him in this chair, so now you all must also look at them >:)

*he still had the chair in 2013, but I think they took it away from him in 2014 :( Is nothing sacred in this world??? I hope he got to take it home hahaha

#i now have a psychosexual relationship with this chair #and im also just obsessed with the range of it???#theres an equal amnt of pics where he looks like a hot evil villain and then also ones where hes all curled up on it cutely #the co-stars to this post are really all his different sunglasses and the sexy button up fireproofs #this was actually like a true derangment post #irdk what came over me and caused me to make this but it is very important lore actually and i care a lot about it #im just curious about the origins still #like theyre suddenly like in spain 'here is a present for your home race'#the upgrade in silverstone is still killing me. ik its to make it more comfy but like...its literally a booster seat im sorry #but yeah fernando is so real in these. i too would sit in this chair all the time #okay now stay with me bcs this is just vettonso pilled BUT #the difference btwn him and seb in their garages is so funny to me #seb was always sitting on the cabinets like curled up on them lounging on them kicking his legs over them like a kid on a counter etc etc #and then fernando just has a fucking bond villain chair #and you wonder why i ship them so heavily. scoff scoff #this is just a ref post to draw him and seb together on the cha- huh what wait who said that? what was that huh that was weird #fernando alonso #f1 #formula 1 #formula one #*would be so fucking funny to tag this as lore #fa14 #we do a little bit of f1 #catie.rambling.txt #normal posts that catie normally makes in a normal fashion

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sesamenom · 5 months

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maglor's first time getting to go to a concert / his favorite singer attending maglor's first big concert

#silm #silmarillion #maglor #i didnt feel like inventing a name for the band so their name is just Band in tengwar #im pretty sure band means something in sindarin anyways (as in angband)#btw i have decided the band guy is named #moredhel #hes a feanorian and later a captain of maglors guard in the Gap #and yes he still dresses up like mandos for the bonus intimidation factor in battle #maglor's horses are the least easily spooked in all of beleriand because his army is half singers and all very screamy #only a few of them do the full feanturian look tho #it's very effective because everyone is scared of mandos #ranging from the people who actually know him being somewhat weirded out by his whole prophecy thing #to people who only know his reputation being absolutely terrified #maybe theres one feanturian warrior who specifically dresses as one of irmo's maia #and who specializes in those weird Songs that make people see the events of the song #ooh maybe moredhel survives to the third age and lives in rivendell #he doesn't normally wear the feanturi makeup anymore and basically nobody born post-darkening remembers feanturian-emo/goth subcultures #so when he does put the feanturian mask and makeup on half the house starts screaming about mandos #elrond unfortunately has to deal with it #at least he's causing less trouble than ''''Lindir''''

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lesbicosmos · 1 year

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me fr

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dykedvonte · 3 months

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I dislike takes that Danse would be just as conservative in modernized aus when it's clearly shown his staunch views of things come from his time in the Brotherhood and his deep-rooted desire to belong to something with a greater purpose.

Not to mention lines that show much more open-mindedness that get overlooked for his harsher sentiments when you first meet him. Like the oppurtunity to be a part of something is why Danse fell so far into Brotherhood dogma and it doesn't negate the offense things he does but I feel like it's just lazy to be like "hmmm he'd def be racist" just so it aligns to his BoS beliefs.

#like i genuinely think he would like not fall into the military if he was in modern times because of all the other things he could do #he clearly has a passion for tech and mods and likely would find himself more useful as like a mechanic like at most hes one of those range #types or something but I feel like people equate his seriousness and him being a military man to closemindedness when its like having to ge #a new view point like we really dont know what he believed in before the BoS if he believed in anything at all outside of selling scrap to #survive before basically having an army recruiter have him join one of the scariest factions like why is the BoS so fucking violent???#like the BoS operates in such a way cause there is no civilian population like everyone is something or training to be so they arent really #fighting for anything but themselves at this point which is just a feedback loop of gaining more power and is not equatable to real #military people due to the fact most of the recruits are really born and bred to be soliders while say irl you have a family and country to #fight for and return to outside the military which is def grounding as Danse wouldn't be in the army 24/7 like in canon #idk its odd to me when a character that is has fantastic racism ergo the trope of bigotry to fake races people try to translate it to real #life especially when those races have not equivalent like tell me what is the irl equal to a fucking ghoul or super mutant like????#racism is not like a funny headcanon like making him a defrosting prude or by the book is whatever but he would not be a bigot just like a #narc or some shit hed tell on me for loitering but I know hed tear apart each voting party and likely the military for being self serving #and like knows all about it and it makes him sound like a politics nut but its more annoyance like I have such strong feelings about #characters who would be marginially better if they were not victums to the military like yes I believe we can fix Danse he just needs to #be around not war/the military for like a week and see people be happy existing like he doesnt know how to do that but this is a weird take #ive seen mostly from white fans that makes me super uncomfy like ur weird #anyway still fuck the brotherhood everyone is so rude like damn i know its the east coast but can we get a little hospitality fuck you #maccready was right brotherhood of squeal more like it dont worry porky we'll get you out (danse is porky btw)#fallout #fallout 4 #fo4 #paladin danse

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brainrotcharacters · 1 month

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I think I finally know why this shot was a religious awakening for me

more in tags because you fuckers seem to enjoy that

#deadpool and wolverine #deadpool 3 #deadpool 2024 #logan howlett #wade wilson #wolverine #deadpool #hugh jackman #ryan reynolds #*inhales* god adhd brain don't fail me now #IT'S A POWER PLAY.#wade is physically tired at this point #his emotions are running high and he's tired and aching and bleeding all over #same as logan #and yet somewhere through all that spandex and all that cancer and all that fourth wall breaking he decides #“Oh I'm not coming to you motherfucker. I decide the pace of this. You come to me.”#and he could have #i'm choking #he could have used his left hand the one on the other car seat to go “come get it”#it still would have been hot #me personally it's so much fucking hotter that he used the same hand holding his knife #which looks like is that a survival knife?#as if we need any more nails in the coffin of the fact that logan is a wild partner to have #and wade absolutely THRIVES with him #it's so much hotter that wade used his right hand holding the knife to dare // DARE // logan to attack him #practically saying “Bite the bait you son of a bitch. I'm ready to cut you when you're in range.”#AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #is it weird if i say i want to scream into the void because they have an actual void in this movie #fuck lmao

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clonehub · 7 months

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clones' independence from the Republic and the Empire would have stood on its own as a series, but the writers for YEARS have been hesitant to have any singular clone go "too far" because they either don't understand or don't want to go into the implications of having a member of a slave army call a spade a spade. then they'd have to admit that the CIS is shit but also the Republic is worse than previously presented. that's why they keep acting like the clones have as much and as equal a choice in what they do as any other character in star wars. Any decision they make is stifled by their upbringing and the violent consequences of going against the grain. this isn't to undermine characters that do make difficult choices, good or bad, but come on.

ive seen random people in this fandom make the most poignant and beautiful analyses and arguments about the clones, how they're written, how they should be written. never shying away from the moral dilemmas of the Jedi helping to run a slave army but also being the only option that wouldn't dehumanize them entirely. the moral dilemmas in honor, duty, pride, loyalty, but also individuality and inner peace and autonomy. not wanting to be used. not just following orders.

but what happens time and again when a clone is given the opportunity? they choose to fight. every single time. they say "this is what i was made for!" as they die in battle or rebellion. and i understand that choosing to fight for the rebellion is leagues different from choosing to fight for the republic, i understand that fighting for the rebellion is a noble cause regardless, but at the same time...the only clone who doesn't want a life of warfare is cut? and then before that, slick? who killed his brothers?

#ch posts #they never go deep enough they never do #they did a great job of humanizing the clones #and making them varied #but that variation is always within a specific range you know?#they all have different opinions on fighting and the war #but in the end they all still think they should fight #save the two i mentioned #which is why i want to write my thing as much as I do #any group as massive and as diverse in experience as the clones #is going to have different politics/social/what have you opinions #its weird to imply otherwise

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loopdile · 2 months

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transcription under the cut!

The worst ship chart ever.

Ship name: Loopdile

[insert very tiny math] Ages: 43 and 31? Age difference: 8?

Portrait of Odile with an eyebrow raised saying "I'm not telling." Name: Odile. Gender: trans woman (maybe nb but idrc rn). Sexuality: Aro lesbian.

Portrait of Loop with a finger raised saying "I'm not telling~" Name: Loop. Gender: Nonbinary (??? what is identity). Sexuality: Ace bi

General sliders. "Relationship starts quickly vs the slowest burn you can possibly imagine" is marked fairly close to slowly and trails off towards slow burn. "They'll be together forever vs They'll break up after 2 months tops" has two marks, one at 2 months and one really close to forever. "Cute couple vs dear god they're ugly" is marked a quarter slider away from cute. "Reasonably healthy and normal relationship vs They're dying and getting killed and hurt man" has a wide mark all the way from the halfway point to a quarter away from healthy. "Extremely popular ship vs literally no one ships this but me" is marked fairly close to no one.

Specific sliders. "Giddy and happy to be in love vs they just killed themselves 40 times in their head at the idea of being in love" has loop at died and odile fairly close to died. "The madoka vs the homura" has loop at homura and odile a third of the slider away. "Telling anyone who will listen about their partner vs rarely brings up that they're in a relationship" has loop a quarter away from telling anyone and odile fairly close to rarely. "eats and/or encourages a healthy diet vs eats dry instant noodles only" has loop at noodles and odile a third away from healthy. "crazy ass vs truck freak" has loop at crazy ass and odile fairly close to truck freak.

Tell me why your ship is interesting... go!

What draws them together? Odile is the only motherfucker that can handle them; Loop is weird and intriguing.

What stands in the way? Poor communication skills; Loop is clingy but Odile often needs space; Loop lashes out and self-isolates.

What are their good traits? They're both hilarious and dedicated to the bit; they're both devoted to their loved ones.

What makes them hopeless at romance? Odile is aro-spec and uninterested in romance; Loop both hates/fears and craves romance; Luckily they can just be something stranger!

Describe them with one trope: found family, deadpan x emotional, secret third thing, I'll protect you from yourself.

#suicide mention #these are today's headcanons... tomorrow? who knows.....#so. the weird sliders.#siffrin had a low grade crush on odile which. obviously didn't instantly come to fruition but it's not exactly a slow burn situation eithe?#and then during sasasap and isat loop's emotions about everything ever were. not doing great #they come out of canon a total mess #and odile's like ...i could fix them. NO WAIT IM NOT DOING THAT.#so again the thought is there and. a little more slowburn y this time. but only for a specific part of the dynamic #and then there's kinda a slow build of loop's new dynamics w everyone in the group?#and the thing with odile escalates into being a Thing #but again it's hard to call it slow burn bc there's no like. line to tip over into dating.#but it's not *instant* either #it's a snowball gaining speed downhill #ok next weird slider #oh yeah #they 'break up' fairly often as one of loop's 'this is 100% a joke and not my real feelings at all' bits #even though they're not dating and they don't actually want to break off whatever shit they do have going on #it's a way to express a need for change #BUT the whole family is in it for the long haul #and loop and odile's dynamic may shift over time but again. there's no 'breaking up' line #so they won't necessarily be [together?] forever but they will be together forever #and then it's. not an *unhealthy* relationship but it's not normal either lol #with a whole range of behaviors between 'genuinely helpful to each other' and 'lmao what the fuck guys'#ok those r the weird ones! the rest are obvious right. like ofc odile is closer to truck freak 🙄 but not entirely

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