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silverwhittlingknife · 8 months ago

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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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womenaremypriority · 9 months ago

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I can understand transmasc people who seem to mostly have an issue with simply being called women, tbh. I can perfectly understand why it would mostly be a linguistic issue for some. From a young age, I was jealous of men and aware they were considered less cool than women. This is even worse now because of the internet- I’ll show you one example.

Why is it gendered? Why are men the people who would understand this? This type of joke has always been on the internet, and it’s probably taken on a different form in the past ~5 years or so, but the assumption that the listener/reader is male and that men are the cool, fun sex are a constant. There are small pockets more oriented towards women but most isn’t. It’s always, always bothered me, and I can absolutely see some women just having better connotations with the word ‘man’ than ‘woman’.

Even though a part of you understands it’s misogyny, and it’s not a reflection of actual women, you eventually start to feel like it’s you that’s the problem. I truly feel like if I had kept going down the same route, I would have eventually identified as a trans man, and not nonbinary like I had a first. My brain started to interpret the anguish at seeing things like this and wanting to belong with men as proof I’ve always been one. Even if you have women you care about and don’t consciously think all women fit a certain mold, it still doesn’t feel right. This is made even worse by the trans community acting like ‘cis women’ is a boring thing to be. It sucks. I’m not going to deny that for some individuals sex dysphoria is very real, and not every one shares this experience, but this has existed in my life for a long time, and it felt very real to me at the time. So I do think for plenty of women, it’s not our female body, it’s not feminine clothing, it’s simply being referred to as a women.

#I’ve also been desperate for male approval on this front too #I don’t give a shit about them thinking I’m hot I want them to think I’m HUMAN #When people would say things like women have more fun!! It’d always be centered around beauty rituals and male attention #Also crack conspiracy theory but the “crackin open a cold one with the boys” meme really contributed to this feeling tbh #This type of misogyny very much exists outside the internet. It’s usually more subtle and unspoken though in my experience

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abyssembraced · 27 days ago

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so for that meme. ghost reaching the abyss for the first time.

Send me a quote/scene from my muse’s canon, and I'll explain what went through their head during it! (Accepting!)

The door before them crumbled into particles of light. With the mark of King seared into them, no secrets could remain sealed.

A platform ahead, ending in open air. They stepped onto it. Cold metal, unlike the fossils and stone that preceded it. They looked down.

Dark. Their pale shell the only illumination offered. Deep. Couldn't see the bottom.

A calling, below.

They descended.

Platform to platform. Into the depths. Pits of spikes. Broken shells of fallen bugs. Shadow Creepers crawling about (harmless. Source of SOUL if necessary). Corpses increasing in number.

...Familiar.

They've been here before. But when? They didn't know. Yet the calling in their core persisted. They continued on.

Misjudged distance. Missed the next platform. Desperate flutter of wings. Reaching out with claw. Missed. Falling. Familiar.

Impact with ground. Floor of shells. Rise. Careful not to stumble. Familiar.

A shadow emerged from the depths. Living darkness took shape into a creature.

Familiar. Familiar.

So, so familiar. They knew this being, this darkness. Why this was, they did not know (could not recall?), yet it was an undeniable fact, the truth of which they felt with utmost certainty. This being and them, they were... Alike.

There was a word to be used. They did not know it.

They had felt like this once before, had they not? That broken, Infected vessel of Lightseeds had evoked a similar sensation of Alikeness. Albeit lesser, far lesser, than what they felt toward the shadow before them now. Obscured by the Infection back then, perhaps, or for some other reason.

They stood still, watching, as the other, in turn, took proper notice of them. As it floated toward them, drawing ever closer.

PAIN.

An explosion upon their shell, their insides, their mind. Emotions transferred to them from the Alike. Feelings of... Bad. They did not know the words.

Enemy. Danger. Fight back.

The fighting stopped. The being's form split apart by their blade, curling into an orb of shadow once more. Returning to the earth.

Silence.

...

Their nail is returned to their back.

A calling, below. Deeper. Yet there was no distance left to fall. Perhaps, if they pressed onward, some tunnels would lead them further down.

They continued on.

#.🪲#🪲 ghost ic #ask #hymns-across-the-stars #🪲 verse | during the infection #((didn't mean for this to take so long! i'd started writing an ooc answer when i first got the ask))#((but. then i decided that an ic one would be more interesting dgshshf))#((but just. thinking about the siblings....))#((they Hurt! two masks of damage. and part of that is probably because ghost's body isn't fully void yet at that point in the game))#((their outer shell is still that of a pale being. which. as a light-aligned entity is *very* weak to void. just as radi is))#((but also. on top of being void creatures. shades are the culmination of regrets. of sorrow and despair))#((and i think it'd be neat if when you touched one. you'd get blasted with all those negative emotions?))#((they deal both physical *and* psychic damage dgdhsfhf))#((that wouldn't apply to ghost though. both because they've got better control over their body thanks to void heart))#(((same reason why no one around them dies to Void Exposure) but also because they aren't really a shade in that same way))#((but also. thinking about *why* the siblings would attack ghost in the first place...))#((shades are sorrow and regrets given form. and much of that likely does come from the dead vessels themselves))#((the ones conscious enough to feel fear as they fell or starved to death. as they watched their kin suffer the same fate. alone in the dar #((whatever remains of the godlings who were consumed and transformed by the void that surrounded them before even hatching from their eggs)#((but also... perhaps some of that despair came from the pale king himself. unspoken regrets about the things he felt he had to do))#((the abyss felt it. took it. and it took shape.))#((and well... ghost's own shade in-game is only hostile to ghost themself. it's not bothered by any other creatures))#((and the king's brand seems to cause other bugs to mistake ghost for the pale king))#((if only for a moment. before they truly see and recognize who actually stands before them))#((but what of a creature so consumed by the pain and regrets that form them?))#((who can only sense the presence of the sorrow's source and not the true creature simply bearing his mark?))#((and are by nature of their being drawn to it? drawn to harm it? to smother the king in the regrets he left behind?))

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opens-up-4-nobody · 1 year ago

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...

#man ive never seen an eating disorder kill someone else besides a parent infecting a child but my nana is really trying #shes like 1000% orthotexic. will not eat anything not filled with vegetables or fat. and my grandpa is 87yo with a heart condition currentl #in the hospital for covid bc thry went to Christmas church and dont believe in being vaccinated and my dad is so frustrated #bc he knows his mom is not gonna give his dad hearty foods. he needs to eat like protein shakes and meat and ice cream. anything thats not #her cooking which sucks on top of being extremely healthy. except its not healthy bc they dont eat a balanced diet #so its my nanas eating disorder killing her husband and shes so fucking frustrating. im like 99% sure she has obsessive compulsive #personally disorder bc she fits to a T and has zero insight. she may have full on 0cd bc talking to my dad he has more obvious 0cd #compulsions than i do. he used to say phrases before going to bed and would take 2 steps across the floor to prevent bad things from #happening. so like im pretty sure my nana is where i get my perfectionism and 0cd. god. i wish i could express how fucked up she is #like my dad said at least he had a stable home to grow up in but like she has zero sympathy for other people. cannot look past herself. wil #not wear a mask bc she doesnt care enough abt other ppl. my dad was like: u would not have survived in that house. which is fair bc i am #barely keeping it together coming from a stable home with two sympathetic parents who i know love me #and like its sad that they're suffering the effects of buying into the fox news bullshit and its killing them #but also. genuinely. i think theyre not very good ppl. theyre the type of people who think they're better bc they're religious. white. and #thin. and theyre not better thsn anyone. their grandchildren cant stand them. well cant stand her at least. papa is just quite so its hard #to say what hes thinking. apparently he was confused last night and saying something about eating dinner on the golf course. which sounds #nicer thsn being in the hospital lol. ugh. he seems not long for this world tbh. may he pass peacefully to b with his 1st wife who died of #brain cancer at age like 20 or something. so it goes. bleh. how many funerals are intended for me in the next 5 years? hopefully none but #that seems improbable with the unspoken drain circling that seems to b going on in this family. old age and like almost 10 years of cancer #defying the stats but for how much longer?#i dunno. its just so weird to watch these things happen and not talk about it directly to the other ppl who see it #i worry that ill come off as too callose or inappropriate bc i have that tendency when something bad is happening but thats everyone else #excuse? idk i just feel like its better to talk abt things #unrelated #ed mention #i tell u this so i can say these things to someone and also bc if i were u. i would like to hear the drama #bc im nosey and i assume other r too ;-]

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moonfurthetemmie · 18 days ago

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SPONTANEOUS DS NIGHTMARE TORTURE WEEK, i love that honestly, people should definitely do it more lmaoo I was NOT expecting the rambling in the tags but i am all here for it haha, i love hearing ur thoughts on them, they are sooo unhealthy together it's insane, mostly due to Jet's part because, well, i mean look at him... DS Night definitely think this guy is weird and wonders why he keeps bothering him, and Jet is like, "i'm gonna keep you now :)" Dark is probably not happy with this lol

hehehe

The ‘spontaneous DS Nightmare Torture week’ comment was really just a silly way of saying ‘my brain has been having a fun time tormenting him the past few days’

but I mean. spontaneous character torture weeks could be made an event. If someone who knew how to organize such events decided to do one.

I don’t know how to organize events

Dark is probably fine with what’s up with Jet and Nightmare though. As much as he loves Jet he doesn’t see their relationship as romantic, and Nightmare’s mostly chill. It’s not like he can see that Jet’s being a manipulative bastard

Which is funny because Jet definitely thinks his and dark’s relationship is romantic and. Honestly his reasoning for that isn’t unreasonable. but he still made assumptions without talking to dark about it so Jet almost certainly told Nightmare that Dark is his partner. Which means that Nightmare, especially if he does decide he likes Jet enough to consider dating him, talks to and treats Dark like Jet’s boyfriend. Dark doesn’t process that at all and thinks Nightmare’s acting a little odd, but nightmare is a little odd (positive) so he brushes it off as nothing

For better or worse, should nightmare decide to stay, he’s definitely going to find out what Dark actually thinks his and Jet’s relationship is, discover that Jet made assumptions (and why he made those assumptions), and then push Jet over to Dark and make them talk about it. Because Jesus Christ, dude. Also if he’s getting involved in this mess he’s not gonna deal with them being Like This. They can talk about dating once those two figure their shit out

This means Jet and Dark’s relationship gets better on the surface (whichever way that conversation goes) because they’re both on the same team age, but on a deeper level it gets worse because now that they’re on the same page Dark has unwittingly been pulled into Jet’s bullshit a little further. which is kind of impressive at this point

Under normal circumstances Nightmare would see the red flags and maybe try to talk to Dark about it, but if he’s considering dating Jet then he is incapable of seeing said flags now. Or he just ignores them entirely.

Jet’s going to have to either try really, really hard to get Nightmare away from Cross and Error, or he’s going to have to manipulate them into thinking he’s a chill guy as well. The second option would be much easier, even though all three of them together look out for each other. If one of them doesn’t trust Jet, the other two listen to their concerns and keep their guard up. None of them are used to being able to trust people just Because, and while Jet being a corrupt means that they don’t have to worry about him giving them up to JR, he’s still a stranger. And they sure as hell see the red flags when he decides he wants to keep Nightmare.

The good news for Cross and Error is that Jet will only go far enough to convince them he’s trustworthy. He’s not interested.

actually wait I just remembered most people haven’t defaulted to cross and error being women

ok well they might be fucked if they’re dudes. They’re very cute.

but in my version of DS with Cross and Error being girls, he’s too gay to be interested. Unless Cross is butch enough that he doesn’t even realize she’s a girl at first, and even when he realizes he’s still. A little intrigued. Which is a non-zero possibility. Especially since I usually say Jet has a thing for big strong guys. Big strong butch women might do it for him too. Sometimes.

anyway. I think there was another thought but it’s gone now.

#amethystlight #The only thing better I think is for Jet to try this shit with Pluto #because getting him away from slash and byte is *not* a fucking option. the moment he so much as implies Pluto should leave them behind #Pluto’s mental and emotional walls go up and Jet will not be able to break through for a VERY long time #even if he can convince Pluto that that wasn’t what he meant/he was kidding/whatever #and by ‘better’ I mean ‘oohohohohoh what’s gonna happen hehehe 👀’#Jet would probably enjoy ’befriending’ a trio of unhinged murderers #and honestly it’s probably a good thing for him if he does #Dark’s definitely not happy with THIS though. Even if no one outright tells him he’s almost definitely going to find out what those three do #in their spare time regardless #it would be a little was to manipulate them in that they’re much more forgiving of some of the bullshit Jet might do #*a little easier #but much harder too because they trust even less than their original counterparts #Jet’s under threat of murder for ages though even if he befriends them because something is still off about him #but it’s an unspoken threat. And he forgets about it after a while #it’s not like he’s gonna do anything they’ll want to kill him for hahahaha #he probably also tells Dark that he’s trying to make friends with the horror squad for his own and for Dark’s safety #‘if we’re friends then they won’t kill either of us’#dark does not think this is a good reason but also thinks Jet just got scared and made an unusually thoughtless mistake #he doesn’t question it aside from ‘I can’t believe this.’

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yomiurinikei · 1 month ago

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soooo hard for me to verbalize my thoughts on tsuhara but to me its like. they're not Loving and Affectionate. it's not about someone who makes your heart flutter and causes you to kick your feet. sometimes the best person to have in your life is someone you don't feel strongly about because they just bring a feeling of contentness. it's about safety and stability. tsurugi and kinji are both characters who have the capacity for grand emotional moments, but are very controlled (i chose the word Controlled for a reason. restrained.) when they don't have something pushing on them. i think their relationship is about having someone to bring up those more button pushing issues with, who'll remain calm and unaccusatory while you discuss them.

obviously this lends the best to kinji being the one to work tsurugi through his issues in non despair (wherein i think kinjis skills with conversation helped a lot, letting tsurugi get Upset, but not returning it in kind or icing him out, just letting tsurugi say his piece), but i like to think of how this'd apply to future settings too... smthn ive said before is that i think kinji would end up re-evaluating his relationship with the church and what faith means to him, and while i don't think he'd ever turn away from his beliefs, i do think he'd change how he interacts with religion a bit? broadens his world beyond it... and i can see tsurugi being really helpful there. tsurugis issues were more Pressing because his situation was Explicitly Harmful, and knowing what tsurugis dealth with versus where he ended up helps give kinji a frame work for how he feels about his own experiences, and how he wants to handle them.

anyways. its just about a constant, steady presence. someone who can serve as an anchor point/stay strong when you're losing it. and when you've both kinda rearranged yourself, while using that other person as your shoulder to lean on, there's a sense of familiarity that comes with being around them. safe, content, stable.

#still on mini socmed break but hiiiii. working on posts and this came to mind #dra #kinji uehara #tsurugi kinjo #tsuhara #anyways. tsuhiko is my big ship for the more grand displays of affection/again. heart fluttering feet kicking. yeah.#quiet affection/tenderness with tsuhara. ALSO they're slow burn buuut like i think theres definitely something weird in hpa days #but simultaneously tsurugi is having his weird unspoken thing w yamato. and kinji is still in the throes of priesthood and just kinda goes #ah ok my work here is done then. abt tsurugi. yk ? meanwhile i can honestly see tsurugi being Kind Of embarrassed abt opening up so quick #bc as we know thx to timeline it was like.. a few months? bc tsurugis already opened up by the time the tragedy starts #he's a very. vulnerable person. but not open. do you guys get the difference. anyways.#tsurugis embarrassed but not in the way that he avoids kinji about it. but because kinji hasn't opened up to him in return #when tsurugis back to being content and okay there's not much of a mutual Understanding between him and kinji. bc kinji hasnt given anythin #to be understood. so tsurugis like okay emotions time over im normal again !!! lets be normal around this guy like how hes also normal :)#and then when kinji reaches out like three years after graduation. tsurugi goes ....?#and soon after we get to that mutual understanding and support !!! u know.

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here-there-were-dragons · 10 months ago

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as a general rule, on average, if americans consistently complain about a food being conceptually weird, gross, and scary, then it probably tastes amazing. or at least inoffensive.

this is because in my experience americans for the most part (give or take a few exceptions by region) think eating literally anything other than beef, chicken, bread, eggs, peanut butter jelly sandwitches, ketchup, and disgusting cloyingly artificial brown sludge soda is insurmountably weird, gross, and scary.

#a lot of people literally refuse to even eat ham or pork #not even for like religious or health reasons #just because they think eating anything but beef and chicken is 'weird and scary and gross'#every time i hear people going on en masse about how 'weird and an acquired taste' something foreign is i go and try it and i'm just like #what the fuck were all of you smoking. where is the unbearable weirdness i am supposed to be experiencing #shoutout to that time i kept hearing about how bizarre a flavor milkis soda is and how intimidating and acquired of a taste #then when i actually try the stuff. it's just fucking peach soda. it's peach soda with a faint tangy yogurtish taste. it makes good floats.#how in the absolute fuck is anything even remotely weird much less gross about this?#unless your concept of what a 'soda' should be is poisoned by a lifetime of the entire soda aisle being filled with nothing but brown sludg #from the same 3 brands that all taste like what would happen if they could distill the concept of diabetes and artificial flavoring syrup #i don't know if other countries have this but there's this weird cultural like mandatory rejection of any 'unusual' food here #way more intense than i've seen from anyone from any other country (though that might just be inexperience with other cultures talking)#people react to the mere suggestion of any food outside a very narrow range with outright disgust and genuine fear and horror #and there's a huge amount of unspoken peer pressure on everyone to also do the same #like you're expected to agree with them and you've breeched some sort of silent social contract if you don't #it's seen as *immoral* almost it feels like #it's difficult to describe unless you've noticed it yourself #americans react to the mere suggestion of eating anything outside of the same 2 meats and handful of fillers the same way #that pearl-clutching aristocrat grandmas react to hearing that people in foreign countries do.. basically anything #it doesnt matter if you're suggesting eating ube cake or suggesting eating live bugs because people will react the same way #everything that's not chicken/beef/ect is as good as bugs to people here #hate this stupid blandass country and how impossible it is to afford any food other than burgers if you're not rich #or blessed with relatives that have any idea how to cook and are at all willing to teach you #cause nother weird thing i've noticed about food culture-or at least wasp food culture-that i haven't seen anywhere else quite the same way #is that if you DO have any relatives that know how to cook then nine times out of ten they will jealously guard their recipes like a dragon #and refuse to share them with anyone #thus taking whatever little cooking knowledge was in the family to their grave #so the opportunity other people usually have for family bonding via passing on recipes? pffft no.#for some reason we seem to actively go out of our way to prevent these things from being passed on #i don't know what the fuck is up with that but i suspect it has something to do with 50's dinner party oneupmanship

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fappellmoan · 11 months ago

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real life drama moment eye roll sams apparently struggling bc he wants to move out and is touring this building hes been eyeing but his roommates dont want him to but also apparently theres beef and he just 'doesnt want to be friends with those people anymore' and he was really vague about what that was all abt and his friend group and who he wanted to even still talk to. and well. not my circus not my monkeys....... but im gonna go ahead and keep my feet in two lanes here does that make me a shady bitch. girl i literally dk any details and thats fine but like. idk whatever..

#personally me and ur roommate r fine so gonna just chill there and also thank my fellow dyke they went on a trip with #just for being a lesbian hashtag dyke swag (we met once and high fived over this)#again not my business but all i know is that apparently some of them planned trips even to where hes from over break and didnt talk to him #abt it. and i was like well did any of you just talk about spring break at all and he was like no. so. okay.. and then he talked vaguely ab #doing so much for them to try and make them like him again and i was just like well once again #did anybody in this friend group ever just like have a direct conversation about anything ever. lowkey. i said it nicer than that #and the answer is pretty much no #like ok blames not fully on u ig but if we had unspoken beef and u were adjacently doing nice things idk that id. recognize that..?#esp just with. the busy-ness of sams life. not trying 2 be callous #idk in general that group just needs to fall apart once again why have u known each other since freshman year #go to like. therapy. also. ok im sorry to be bitching abt somebody thats kind of my friend i dont like feeling like a two faced bitch #thats the gemini in me i guess. ahaha everyone laugh. but whatever this is tumblr dot com. also like the fact that he approached this with #ugh.... im feeling Complex emotions... and i dont like it... :(. im gonna keep it real idk that thats very complex #ur just gonna have to talk to them. a general them. whoever. 'well whats the end goal of that' idk dude u have to figure that out hello #abby talks

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ruvviks · 4 months ago

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having yancey and stevie from my original story the diner thoughts 💭💭💭

from all the characters of the diner i feel like these two are the most like two puzzle pieces instantly clicking together. just in general the story is very focused on starting over far away from the life you used to know and carrying knowledge with you that you'll never speak about for a variety of reasons (and will remain unspoken of throughout the whole story because you'll never know everything there is to know about a person even if you do end up growing very close to them; this is one of the main themes of the story) but especially yancey and stevie understand this like no one else and that's why they work together so well

from the moment they meet and through the first handful of interactions between them it becomes very clear that they're already very comfortable with each other; they skip the small talk, share cigarettes together in their break behind the diner, know that the other went through some heavy shit and they just kind of immediately offer the other their friendship; a judgment-free zone where they can both be their unfiltered and unmasked selves, no need to keep up appearances because they KNOW they both feel like fucking shit and they allow the other to feel like shit with them

but at the same time they know they can't help each other. which is why all their issues remain untalked about until the end of the story; they can't offer the other the comfort they need and deserve because if they'd try, they know they'd start making mistakes. i've thought briefly about letting them have a romantic relationship instead of yancey ending up with rafiq and teddy, but quickly realized it wouldn't add anything else to the story other than the same cycle of mistakes yancey went through with his ex girlfriend which is specifically the situation he's moving away from. so having a redo of all that with stevie wouldn't tell anything new. they'd make each other worse and end up having to get out of there AGAIN, when the whole point of the story is supposed to be that blightwood crossing ends up as their new home because they MADE it into a home

so instead their friendship is both profoundly strong because of the mutual understanding about each other's issues without even having explained anything about it to the other, as well as kind of stuck on becoming closer than they are on account of how they'll never be able to talk about any of it. they won't ever know about each other's past, they'll never learn what the other was like when they were younger, and when either of them needs to talk about something they know they can't go to the other for it because that's just not possible. but what they CAN do is sit with the other and for a while just be miserable in peace, and they know that no matter how bad it gets they WILL always have each other

something something their misery remains forever their own but no matter how ugly it gets the other will still be there at the end of the day

#personal #like obviously the story is very much also just focused on the fucking diner that ends up like. literally eating people #but the dynamics between all the characters are very important since that's why blightwood crossing ends up becoming their home #all the characters feel some level of alienation to the town and the mimic that is pretending to be the diner is. the main cause of this #but through their friendships and how they stick together and trust each other no matter how strange it all may sound at first #THAT is why no one moves away at the end of it all. when at the beginning of the story everyone is kinda looking for a way to leave #i could honestly also write a whole essay on yancey's ex girlfriend but that kinda defeats the purpose of the story #because i can't really talk about what exactly she did. because that's the unspoken part of yancey's past that's just #not discussed in the book at all. like yeah there's hints towards things but there's no full explanation #everything is left up for own interpretation because at the end of the day you can ask yourself how much of it actually matters #there was an accident there was a breakup there was a funeral. and then a handful of other small details #that are all presented in a non-chronological order to the reader and you're just gonna have to piece something together yourself #who was really at fault? who knows!! yancey believes what happened to him is what he deserves but he's an unreliable narrator #in the sense that circumstances have led him to believe he is fully to blame. in addition to the obviously lost will to live #and then the influence of the mimic in town making everything even worse #anyway hi. original story ramblings from bones it will happen again many times sorry

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