#very nostalgic <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[nostalgicfun]

Feel free to share which is your favorite NOW in the tags, but this particular poll is about which you preferred as a child! ⭐ These are being grouped by a vague theme, so in a few days we'll do another one with more options!

Also, same rule as the last poll: REALLY popular choices (ATLA, SpongeBob, Scooby Doo, Pokemon, etc.) are overwhelmingly popular and have been omitted for the sake of seeing the results for other shows.

Notes: These are shows involving live action characters, no cartoons this time! The timeframe for these polls is generally "I was a kid in the mid-to-late 90s or early 2000s." Mister Roger's Neighborhood and Sesame Street are both multi-generational so they were not included to be fair to the show's with shorter runs 💖

[phthalosblues]

POV you read the book of bill and then the 3rd journal and then lost legends and then the great gatsby and rewatched the show twice and are on your third rewatch in the past two months and watched a bajillion animatics and character analysises and actually read fanfic which you never do like ever and you’re starting to feel like you’re running out of content and might need to start drawing more

[violettierre]

Oh wait ykw this whole barbie movie talk makes me remember the barbie centered stuff in my life hold up i gotta rant this.

Honestly i think all my peers or whoever grew up between early 2000s or late 90s knows the absolute power of barbie toys in that era, personally i had a wild history with em when i was like still in elementary school and my parents get me a barbie doll i just feel like a high class coolest kid in town and yet i also had this weird urge where within 24h that barbie or gonna be stripped and cut with scissors all limps cut to cubes and beheaded and i just take her head and clothes and throw the rest near my parents' mirror desk and that place around that time is where you find the gruesome crime scenes i commit on barbie dolls and then have to beg my parents to get me another one but i get yelled at for the wasted money and then cry and rant about the cruel world in my fairy notebook, but then once again wgen we go out and i see barbie dolls i have to male an entire speech and promise to my mom that i won't practice my serial killer career on it and she gets me one and again within 24h the remaining of another victim is found nesr their mirror desk beheaded and stripped and cut into pieces, and repeat the process, but you may wonder, what was i doing with the head and clothes ? First i cut her hair and then diy my very own aesthetic pencils from 2000s if anyone remembers those colorful pebcils with something on top of it like a heart ir a unicorn while i put barbie heads on regular pencils to act cool infront of my classmates who were too weirded out to make a remark and so did the teachers, meanwhile the clothes i collect i just cut them from different colors into cubes that were messy and out of line and then like glue each one into a string yk like these carnival decorations but very ugly and short and cheap version and hang them on top of my bed, cuz i thought i did something, but my childhood room was like really plain it had nothing colourful or toys in it just like a desk with school items and messy clothes and these normie stuff so back then when i added shit like that i thought i just decorated the coolest room you've ever been into, until my mom ripped it off cuz it was ugly and i had a mental breakdown and felt as if she just ruined my very own special career that i had just came up with and was like "YOU'RE JEALOUS OF ME" bit then i got a good beating with the special arab mom silicone slippers for talking back to my mom, so yah then the creativity dyi era was over. Psycho barbie fan era never was tho, cuz in the 2000s if you didn't have barbie or hello kitty or these merchandise stuff on in my school you're a loser and i didn't want anyone else to find out im a loser so i beg my mom once again to buy me any pink shit i see and after begging and crying and getting beaten with slippers for being noisy i just show up at lunch breaks in outdoors time as if im a celebrity trying to impress the crowd with my latest pink hair clip that costed me my dignity infront of my mom, my little brother, and the seller while no one gave a fuck so i got angry and punched my neighbor in the nose for ignoring me showing off my hairclip so she told her mom, and her mom told my mom, and i got another goid beaten.

You'd think i stopped as i got a little older but nooooooo, when i was pre-teen i was more babyish than before about these stuff, why ? Cuz they got a little sister more barbie toys than me cuz she never pull a dr. Frankenstein on them (what a loser) so like the older and more mature child i fool her to watch tv or something so i can play silently with her barbies, and in that time they got her the dreamhouse and all these extra mini barbie stuff that i never got for being such a good kid so i get jealous and lock her out if her room to play with them, then take a doll hostage to threaten her if she tries to snitch on me, like the good older sister i am <3 (she still snitched btw and i deserved the beating that time)

[bumfuzzled-bee]

! Eight !

[cruel-hiraeth]

BETWEEN YOU AND ME (AND THE SEA) RORONOA ZORO X READER

warnings ⟢ suggestive content (i.e. glorified pillow talk). established relationship. slight angst that ends in comfort. mentions of violence. love as religion/love as worship. allusions to buddhism. gn reader.

the word “bokken” denotes a wooden practice sword.

word count ⟢ 1143

notes ⟢ if this looks familiar, it’s because i reworked my old fic! it’s still embarrassingly sappy + full of my personal hcs about zoro’s childhood. please let me know what you think! <3

“I would die for you.”

Your words caress the swordsman’s heaving chest, his tawny skin dewy from exertion, glistening under the pearly moonlight. The wind listens with bated breath, air at a standstill in the crow’s nest; the only sound to disturb the lulling midnight is the gentle lap of the wine-dark sea.

It takes Zoro several moments to process your statement, his senses still hazy and pleasure-drunk from the events of your shared watch. One wide palm rests on the soft curve of your lower back—an anchor. The other absentmindedly strokes the arch of your neck.

“Hm?” Zoro belatedly grunts, brows knitting together in confusion.

You raise your head to meet your lover’s steel gaze. The fierceness in your eyes—Zoro knows it well. Beneath the heady cloud of contentment is the crazed glint of worship, shining like an unclaimed blade: honed by another’s will, difficult (if not impossible) to master. It’s a look that both terrifies him in its depth and comforts him in its earnestness.

Will I ever be worthy of your devotion?

“I’m not particularly brave or strong,” you start, a fingertip etching love into his flesh as you trace the jagged edges of the scar that slashes across his torso—the ghost of an injury that almost took him from you.

“But I would do anything for you, Zo. I would die for you. And it should scare me, that I feel so deeply…” Your finger stills, hovering above his heart, beat steadfast as the foamy tide. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. “But when it comes to you? I lose all my inhibitions. I would die for you in an instant.”

Even in the dusky quiet, Zoro’s hands are broad, as warm and reassuring as the sun on a blustery day aboard Sunny. They may be extension of his weapons, instruments of death. Yet he cradles your cheeks with devastating care as he pulls your face to his. When you’re this close, you can map his every feature, from his puckered left eye to the crooked cant of his nose to his barely-there freckles. His jaw flexes resolutely as he grits out, “Don’t say shit like that. Y’know I hate it.”

Draping your hands over his, you rub his rough, calloused skin, murmuring, “Not saying it doesn’t make it any less true.”

Few things scare Zoro. He recognizes Death’s face, having brushed shoulders with the endless ether more times than he cares to admit. On the rare, starless nights when he dreams, he wades through a river of ichor as an asura, violence incarnate. At an early age, he learned that the price of greatness is at the expense of one’s soul. But he continues to shoulder the burden of existence alone, intent on seeing his—Kuina’s—dream to fruition, no matter how foul-tasting the fruit.

Your vulnerability, however, frightens him—how you lay your heart bare and expect nothing in return. The way you live goes against everything Zoro has ever known, against his basest instincts to keep his emotions under lock and key, to fight the inevitability of suffering with blood in his maw, to survive at any cost.

(It’s a bitter January evening. Snow flurries paint the eaves of the run-down dojo white—a portrait of tranquility.

Inside, a boy’s stomach growls, hunger gnawing at his intestines. His young, scrawny limbs ache with overuse. The room is frigid, his feet frozen as they step and slide across the tatami mats. His simple robe does nothing to keep the color in his cheeks.

This dreaded overnight practice is punishment for pilfering onigiri from the kitchen several days prior. Hunger is but a distraction for the weak. He must repent for his wrongdoing with fasting, meditation, and grueling endurance drills. But in the middle of an overhead swing, he loses feeling in his arms; the bokken clatters to his feet.

His sensei tsks in disappointment. “The way of the sword is absolute, Roronoa. You eat and sleep and breathe by the blade. The second you lose focus—the moment you lose sight of your calling—you will cease to be a swordsman.”

Tears of frustration prick Zoro’s eyes, but he bites his tongue, picking up the bokken without sound or complaint. He doesn’t realize that his palms are cracked and that the wooden hilt is stained sanguine. He continues training until dawn.)

“Tch.” He wets his chapped lips, a flash of slick pink. His tongue is always loose when it’s just the two of you and the sea. “I’m not worth it.”

A frown pinches your features. Adorable, he would say if you were talking about anything else in the Grand Line. You wrap your arms around his neck with a huff.

“What makes you think your life is worth any less than Luffy’s? Than Chopper’s? Than mine?”

Zoro assesses you for a moment, feline eye unreadable, then sighs. He measures his words with unusual care. “My role is to protect. It was—it is—the vow I made to our captain.”

Threading your fingers through his mint tresses, you tug, concern rolling off of you in waves. “Then who’s left to protect you, Zo?”

The answer springs to his mind without hesitation: No one.

(The little boy with the bloodstained bokken weeps.)

“Let me protect you,” you entreat, lips grazing his. Your touch is charged yet tender; something within him yields, if only a centimeter.

The Fates, in their divine and impartial wisdom, must have made a grave error: spinning the claret thread of your fate, meting it out, and mistakenly intertwining it with his own. Zoro is certain that it’s a miscarriage of justice—not that the gods have ever been preoccupied with fairness.

Did I do something in a past life to earn your reverence?

“I can’t,” his voice cracks. But his iron resolve is rusting. Fissures compromise the once-gleaming surface, threatening to crumble the pride he has worn as a shield for as long as he can remember.

“You can.”

Zoro has never considered himself to be a good man. Selfless to a fault, you are eager to give. And, for once in his life, he wants nothing more than to take advantage of you—to receive. He allows himself this greed.

Drinking in your affection like a man who has never quenched his thirst, he doesn’t notice how his lone eye burns when he claims your lips with his own, heartfelt I love yous swapped between spit and teeth and tongue.

The tears are silent as they dribble down his feverish cheeks; you chase each of them away with a flick of your thumb, dotting kisses across his salty flesh. Zoro has half a mind to be embarrassed. (Swordsmen don’t cry.)

But if there is one absolute truth in this cursed world, it’s this: his heart is safe with you, and you alone.

[sysig]

Let’s Geckin’ Gooooooo! (Patreon)

[stranded-ziggy]

Revolver Ocelot || Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater

I hope The Boss is proud of him.

[silverwhittlingknife]

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

[everythingwasnormalhere]

I hope you throw Kenny and Kyle at the wall like one of those splat balls :3

bold of you to assume thats not the only reason the au exists in the first place<3

[tiffanyelectricity]

Nothing says Minty like a pair of socks!

[puppyreg]

scene kid tween/teen regressor :-3 (very self indulgent oops)

[sopuu]

Whats your favorite soundtrack(s) from seasons 1 and 2 of mcsm? Mine are Sport central and Beacontown freewalk.

hoHH boy there’s actually so many i love-

there’s the most popular ones like Gold Protocol, Just Kids, Bad Luck Alley, Pama, Witherstorm Theme and the two tracks you’ve listed

then there’s the ones that are SO underrated like:

Make It, Milo, Beacontown Outskirts, Victory for Beacontown, Wonderland Theme, Shooting Gallery (Final Stage), Bowie Wallow, the track that plays during the three-headed ghast fight that i Cannot find anywhere for the life of me, Challenge Room, Freewalk Twisted, and ofc Parrot Party Protocol my beloved

[nostalgicfun]

Koosa! 🌈

[chateautae]

hi 🥺

[heffrondriving]

Do you still like big time rush or has James ruined them for you?

i have absolutely no idea how long ago this was from but like. y'all what even is this offhand ask lmao ( ; ⚆ _ ⚆ )

but alright screw it, just to set the record straight: i loved Big Time Rush lots and lots, that much is obvious. the nick show itself was such an integral part of my childhood, and i absolutely have no regrets about rediscovering the band last 2020 and diving in headfirst right into the deep end *Hot Summer by Heffron Drive starts blasting out* of their music and inevitably joining the fandom. i'm especially forever thankful for all the interesting experiences and fun projects and amazing friends i've made along the way, so i'm sincerely always going to have a certain fondness for BTR in the deepest crevices of my vv heart and soul.....

although yes, certainly *that* whole situation and other such related unfortunate controversies had kinda soured it to the point where i got uncomfortable calling myself a rusher—but that ultimately wasn't what made me fall out, it was just plain 'ol ✨burnout✨ idk keeping up with the fandom just got a little bit too hectic and way too toxic for me, so i moved on to other things better for my peace of mind. anyway, i'm mostly into cool J-pop stuff and ofc my most beloved svensk pojkband FO&O nowadays (also for language-learning purposes hehe :^D) and tbh these have been so incredibly wonderful and healing for me.....but i confess, i still kinda miss BTR and check in on them from time to time. hell, i even have a whooole bunch of chaotic BTR ocs that casually live rent-free in my mind now and forever and i'm constantly tempted to return to this rotting blog just so I can endlessly infodump lore abt them but i'm Annoying™ and who'd want that anyway soooo ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

so yes, i do love Big Time Rush. despite everything, i still like the show and the music, i like all the silly wacky unhinged creations and nostalgic memories i have of it, i like the fandom generally and seeing notifs still pop up on this inactive blog as the ever-faithful rushers continue to thrive and be inspired by the band and its legacy (shoutout to all the new-wave tumblrushers hehe i see u guys much love and hugs and i hope y'all keep up all the fun vibes and creativity here mwah xoxo (⁠*⁠＾⁠3⁠＾⁠)⁠/⁠～⁠♡), and i really don't wanna allow anything to ruin all those good feelings i got from them, even if that means being critical and letting go of certain aspects. i don't have to love everything about it, really. just enough for me is hopefully enough ❤️‍🩹

and now, the musical journey continues...?

(p.s. #1: UNRELATED-ISH GIF BUT ALSO I PROMISE THIS GIF IS RELEVANT BC HE'S TECHNICALLY ONE OF MY BTR OCS SO LIKE THAT COUNTS RIGHT??? (⁠ ⁠ꈨຶ⁠ ⁠˙̫̮⁠ ⁠ꈨຶ⁠ ⁠))

(p.s. #2: BTR actually dropped by our country in their world tour last October 2024,,, too little, too late :"))) and apparently there was a whole fucking drama that went down abt it too??? anubayan nakakahiya gagi ahshdjsjdk)

[tenebrous-dream]

the first style boutique/savvy game really didnt do anything to get as much love as it does