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silverwhittlingknife · 7 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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mercymaker · 5 months ago

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i spent quite a bit of time thinking, considering my options and wondering if i should even respond to the 'apology' to begin with, but i feel like i've been here before, in this exact same position (i didn't respond to his original 'apology' because it felt off how he omitted the fact that he pretended to be the victim for a whole week, but even then i decided to not say anything and just let the dust settle and give him a chance to learn and do better) and doing nothing eventually just caused more harm. even if i can't reach the other side and find common understanding, i wanted to at least express what's been on my mind for such a long time.

i always try to approach people and situations with understanding and try to assume ignorance instead of malice when someone says or does something i consider questionable or wrong. but i also know we all have our limits. we are all human. and you can't take the heart out of the equation.

one thing in this 'apology' that really stood out to me was this:

how is it not malice to completely disregard another creator, hell, another person and their wishes and feelings when they have made it very clear that your actions are causing them harm?

how is it not malice to outright lie and misrepresent other people and situations in order to portray yourself in a better light?

how is it not malice to disrespect the people you've stolen from and then, after they (by your own words!) rightfully address it and try to bring your actions to light, you then turn around and vilify them to your friends and followers? portray them as bullies and gatekeepers?

all while repeating again and again how the whole experience made you stop creating? as if your actions didn't force people out of this space, this fandom? have you ever sat down to think how the person that made you a 40 minute video tutorial on gif making, the person that taught you so much, no longer makes anything at all because you turned your back on her and copied her sets? kept doing it after she blocked you? after she made text posts expressing how upsetting your behaviour was? you didn't care and kept doing it anyway. even saying things like 'i always credit where credit is due' in response to copying numerous sets from @minthara, down to the caption without ever crediting her.

and if that wasn't enough harm, you then took it a notch further and straight up lied to the people around you, trying to vilify petra and i by saying how the whole thing should've been dealt with in private. how is it not malice to omit the fact that I DID, in fact, reach out to you privately. that i did it in a civil manner. that i tried to explain to you how your actions were wrong and were rightfully upsetting other creators. how you ignored everything i've said and when i expressed that your response (or lack of it) made me uncomfortable and that because of it i couldn't give you permission to 'recreate' (copy) my work, you then insulted me and told me that it didn't matter what i wanted? that you would do as you please and there was nothing i could do about it? how you then immediately blocked me so i couldn't even respond? how is that not malice?

and then this was from your apology back in march:

and you insist that after this 'apology' you've learnt and were never doing anything wrong again and yet you are saying the same thing again in your new 'apology'. how after the march events you went to @galedekarios anyway, asking for permission, didn't wait for her response and posted your copy of her set anyway. which just makes me think that you've never learnt. it just makes it seem that asking people for permission never stemmed from a place of respect and understanding, but from the need to cover your ass in case someone brings the fact that you're still copying up. which someone did, apparently.

at the end of the day, this is my opinion and i might be wrong, but following all of your words and actions, it just seems like you chose notes and attention instead of people. that you kept lying and misrepresenting things and throwing us under the bus for your own gain. and that you only stopped because enough people eventually found out, not because you suddenly felt remorse. and this 'apology' was just another 'ask for permission from a creator', all just for optics. you couldn't even bother to unblock us before posting the 'apology' which just shows how little you were actually thinking about any of us.

#gah there's honestly a lot i could add but...#i feel like i've said enough to get at least some of this off my chest #i'm not even going to go into detail how he'd ask for my presets and use my tracked tag in every single one of his gif posts #all while pretty much never reblogging from me #and i know that other creators expressed the same sentiment #just weird.. you want to be part of a community but then you only take and take and take and never give back #and then complain that you feel unwelcome #and if anyone reading this even thinks 'omg so you can't get inspired by other people's work? ? ?? ? ????' for one second like #this ain't about it #there's a difference between getting inspired by someone and just endlessly remaking other people's work #and i'm tired of even having to explain it again and again #i genuinely am just tired.. i've been tired for a while #i feel like all these waves just killed my excitement and drive to be part of a community to try and bring people and creators together #i don't even want to make anything anymore because it feels like the whole community was just ripped apart #all after i've spent months trying to bring people together encouraging them to interact and support one another but then this happens #and keeps happening and what's the point anymore

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vulpinesaint · 21 days ago

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Hi! I just went through your quizzes (gorgeous writing, by the way!) and I wonder if you have the results for all of them posted somewhere? I know both saints quizzes have a full results post and the garden one too, but I don't think I've found the others. I'm especially curious about the supervillain one :)

hiya!! thank you so much i'm so glad you liked them <3 as of right now i only have results up for the saints + garden quizzes, but i would be so happy to post more results for you! anytime i post results, they should be linked on the masterpost in my bio :) i think i will. only post the supervillain one for now. the other ones make me feel a little silly. but you are so welcome to the supervillain results <3

for those of you who have taken the supervillain quiz: here's how your story could have ended!

#you can have the moomin ones if you ask nicely haha. the other ones are extremely From High School and they embarrass me 😭#anyway. someone get the tiktok girlies doing the 'the hero and the villain' thing over here. they'd love this #they want what i had in. uh. lemme check #JESUS. 2020???????#happy almost five year fucking birthday to this quiz. it's like not even a toddler anymore that's a whole kindergartener #OLDER THAN SOME OF THE CHILDREN THAT I WORK WITH. sorry this is a little insane to me #man /i/ was a baby in 2020 practically. so silly....#assigning you a catholic saint quiz is 2022 so. also a trip that it's that old. but. y'know.#not as bad as THIS. my initial silly little uquiz era was long as hell ago...#this is like looking back through my ao3. what do you mean i was doing all of that an entire college career ago #wild #OH FUCK I FORGOT TO DO IMAGE DESCRIPTIONS. I CLOSED ALL THE TABS ALREADY I HATE IT HERE #image descriptions done. i am god's strongest boy alive #my quizzes #uquiz #uquiz results #my uquizzes #my toxic trait is i can never fucking remember which tag i use for these #anyway fun thing anon! this post will now appear in the original post of all my quizzes <3 #ask

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b4kuch1n · 2 years ago

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hahaha wheee haha

#sk8 the infinity #kyan reki #hasegawa langa #renga #continuing to tag ship instead of answering any of the reporters' questions #as you can see. I am still on my Reki Speaks English Pretty Fluently But Can Not Read It For Shit bullshit #and also. teen shenanigans. which can also be grown up shenanigans if ur not a square #man. todays been a Whole thing. how was it really the case that every art supply store I went to ran out of black ink #three! I went to three stores! literally a triangle in the city!#still have some of the devils tar left but I'm not enthusiastic about it #well! that's for future baku to care about and for me to ignore babeyy #tbh this is like. Im just glad I can still scribble a funny comic when it strikes me it's been too long #I don't do that a lot anymore... even tho its such a good measure of like. ur sense of timing #if u can draw a funny comic ur powerful enough to do anything. u can eat the sun u can kick its ass. u can draw a sad comic too #I realized I missed that...#also accidentally sent this from draft without adding tags lol. and tried adding tags on mobile and it spit in my face and called me a bitch #got enough of that. one must never forget one's currently on tumblr #now I sleep. gods. gods do I need a bit of that #have a good night lads. bring a worm onto a rollercoaster. see what happens

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mustasekittens · 7 months ago

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congratulations christopher!

self indulgent near-future in which when christopher graduates high school buck n eddie take hiim to hawaii to celebrate and they all have a nice vacation over here. friend n i were brainrotting it a bit and we decided buck definitely hyperfixated on hawaii and stuff (history, nature, geography, mythology, etc)

#buddie #christopher diaz #eddie diaz #evan buckley #911 abc #mustasekittens #i still struggle drawing all 3 of them its a nightmare #anyways gavin is getting really tall and i thought it would be kinda funny if he was almost taller than eddie once he's an adult #my friend and i expanded on buck's hawaii hyperfixation so there's def gonna be a short comic to follow this up LOL #the lei christopher is wearing is called a maile lei #theyre usually worn by men but anyone can wear a maile :]#maile lei are usually worn at grads/proms/weddings or just cuz!#buddie are married at this point. (wink wink. bucks ring. wink)#i shouldve made buck more sunburned #idk if people even read tags this far but anyways more little details #also idk smth smth buck wearing yellow eddie wearing blue n chris wearing green (although not exactly) bc theyre a weird blended family #the brand of shirts the 3 of them r wearing is called sig zane and its a local (fancy) aloha wear brand here! its based in hilo!!#my local friend who's from big island brought it up to me and i remembered it existed #i see people wear sig zane all the time here on oahu but i am so shit at remembering names. that is extended to clothing brands LMFAO #what i mean by fancy aloha wear i mean these fucking shirts cost upwards of $130-145 EACH.#and they are fucking BEAUTIFUL.#i did take some liberties with the designs for the 3 of them tho #buck and christopher's are almost directly referencing existing designs from their catalogue while i smplified one for eddie's #christopher's is an ulu (breadfruit) pattern and i kinda ate that ngl #i was originally gonna just use some stamp brushes i found on the csp asset store but they looked so tacky i just decided to draw them LOL #anyways enjoy this self indulgent stupid stuff who cares anymore

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hplonesomeart · 1 month ago

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Hey. Sorry about the inactivity, but pretty sure no one cared that much anyways lol. Been a looooong time since I kept that distant from Tumblr…at least now I know I’m able to survive without checking posts every day/being chronically online! I’ve got an intense love-hate relationship with this lifestyle I’ve dug myself into. Think I’m getting a little bit better with the balance even if school isn’t really giving me an option. Got a load of work I need to keep catching up on if I don’t want to disappoint my professors. We’ll survive somehow. Here take a quick batch of Puzzle doodles k bye

#the hell am I so anxious about? maybe it’s just overstimulation stuff #hoping it’ll die down because I can’t keep enjoying myself when I’m like this #seriously is starting to mess with my flight responses over the tiniest things #like yea obviously I needed to stay logged out of Tumblr so I would focus more on schoolwork #but uhhhh gonna be transparent and say a huge part of it is the jolts of anxiety :(#like even the thought of logging back here has caused me to feel like sweating #my brain kept saying ‘no I don’t want to I can’t do that’ even when I felt bad for missing out on others posts #like I want to be here so I can support my mutuals dammit!!!#I’m a mess. I’m such a broken mess oh great lovely spectacular #maybe the culminating stress of final exam deadlines is worsening stuff as well #I can’t tell you why I’m like this I just am 🙃#anyways thinking I’ll start adapting to the distance. Sorry but being a shut-in is more appealing right now #I just need time to be with myself and not be so invested in the lives of others #anyways what’s something mildly positive I can wrap this up with so I don’t seem pathetic….#ah yes the final Puzzle sketch here was drawn today before a class period #one of my fellow classmates noticed and audibly asked me ‘is that Mr. Puzzles?’#IT TOOK EVERTHING IN MY WILLPOWER TO NOT LET OUT A GIDDY SHRIEK #Felt like my eyes bulged and I jolted in enthusiasm jskjsksp spontaneous happiness?? actally experiencing the feeling of fitting in??#anyways I responded with a very normal ‘WAIT YOU KNOW ABOUT HIM???’ while trying to suppress grinning or going ‘teehee’#anyways now it’s my personal mission to keep initiating conversations with her because AUUUUUGH SHE KNOWS WHO HE IS I’M LOSING IT #proceeded to talk about Murder Drones & TADC like holy SHIT I didn’t think I would ever find animation peeps in my psychology class auuu 😭💜#it’s a MIRACLE man this may be a sign that college won’t be isolating anymore yaaaaayyy #PUZZLE IS SINGLE HANDILY HELPING ME TALK TO PEOPLE BOTH ONLINE AND IRL THIS IS WILD #all hail the best comfort character seriously holy shit—like imagine she never noticed me drawing Puzzles!! I’D STILL BE LONELY AS HELL #okay sorry I’ll stop typing like a teenager and go back to pretending to be well-versed in speech & conducting myself ‘normally’ :3 #doodles #sketches #hplonesome art #not tagging with Puzzles because hahaaaaa don’t look at me

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devis-nonsense-n-shitposting · 1 year ago

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I am still thinking about Castlevania Nocturne, I am so not normal about this show. Fucking ALUCARD showing up at the end still has me reeling. Fuck. Adrien Fahrenheit freaking Tepes, son of FUCKING DRACULA himself, just shows up and kills the most gaslight girlboss gatekeep vampire and is like "Heyy guys so sowwy I'm late" and then season one just ends. Also everyone in this show was serving, and I hope we either get to see a flashback of young Juste OR see Grandpa Juste put on his Iconic red outfit, I would literally scream. Well, I'm already screaming but still.

Anywho I'm going to go pray to the Writers on hopes that Tera is going to end up okay by the end of the show

#devi thoughts #castlevania spoilers #Castlevania nocturne spoilers #castlevania #castlevania nocturne #I am so #something #I dont even know anymore #this show has had me ruined #You cant just put Alucard at the end #without telling me #YOU CANT #im so obsessed #with him #Not me rambling about alucard on my tumblr #girl what am i doing #i need to lay down #i need to jump into a frozen lake #Devis special tag hell

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sidneycarter · 8 months ago

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love the idea that post The Situation thomas is just increasingly obtuse when it comes to jimmy's feelings.

so when one day mrs hughes mentions in passing at how much easier it is to handle james now he's settled down, thomas is incredibly confused. and a little bit heartbroken too of course.

it gets even stranger when on valentine's day alfred sulkily asks jimmy how many cards he's sent that year and jimmy merely shrugs and smirks. mrs patmore chastises them for gossiping and announces that surely, jimmy's only got one to be sending.

then one night, most of the staff are enjoying a rare night off in the pub. as usual, a host of pretty girls surround jimmy, and one particularly brave one asks jimmy if he's got any plans on one of his half days. jimmy throws her a cheeky wink and says "sorry, darling, but i'm spoken for."

thomas starts feeling really rather hurt. he's known all along that this would happen eventually - that jimmy would eventually move on and find a nice village lass, but it still stings to hear it. somehow, it hurts even more knowing that clearly jimmy has fallen for someone but he hasn't even told thomas.

thomas puts on a brave face and elbows daisy in the side. "d'ya hear that? jimmy's kept that quiet 'asn't he?"

daisy looks at him with a frown and cocks her head to the side. "well, not really--" but before she can say anything else she's swept up into the rowdy conversation of the table.

a few weeks later, thomas and jimmy are alone in the servants hall, with thomas reading the paper in his rocking chair and jimmy tapping out melodies on the piano. the tune he's playing is sweet and gentle, and thomas finds himself swaying his head along. as the song draws to a close, a gentle round of applause sounds from the doorway.

baxter stands smiling. "let me call you sweetheart is one of my favourites. it was beautiful, jimmy."

jimmy blushes prettily and stands, closing the piano lid. "thank you, mrs baxter. good night."

after he's gone from the room, baxter enters to fill herself a glass of water. she smiles fondly at thomas. "he's so smitten you know. head over heels." she rolls her eyes affectionately.

it takes months until thomas finally figures out the truth of what's going on. well, to say he figures it out is somewhat generous.

he's in the servants hall again, this time feeling a little despondent with a cup of tea. jimmy had gone to the pictures with alfred of all people, their friendship seemingly improved since jimmy's given up on chasing ivy's skirt. thomas is resolutely not waiting up to make sure jimmy gets home safe. anna is the only other person still up, and she sits opposite thomas stitching one of lady mary's hemlines in companionable silence.

thomas dwells on his own thoughts for a while, until anna rests her sewing on the table and fixes him with a worried look. "are you quite alright, mr barrow?"

"hm? oh, yes anna, i'm very well thank you." he takes a sip of his tea to hide his moue.

anna looks unconvinced. "thomas," she says seriously, "is it-- have you and jimmy had a falling out?"

that genuinely surprises thomas. for all his worry and sadness over jimmy's as yet unknown love interest, they'd never fallen out. "no, no, of course not. he's just busy, that's all, which is to be expected now he's, you know," thomas waves his cup vaguely in the air, "courting the mystery lady."

anna chokes on a laugh. "the mystery lady?"

"yes. he's-- he's courting someone, isn't he? everyone keeps saying that he's... or suggesting that he's taken with someone." Thomas adds somewhat bitterly, "seems quite serious if you ask me. not that he's told me anything about it of course."

anna stops giggling and looks at him oddly. "thomas you-- you can't mean--"

"-- do you know who she is, anna?" thomas interrupts a little desperately. he's becoming tired of it all and he just wants to know-- how bad it is, for how long he's going to have to tend to his broken heart.

"thomas. thomas, jimmy's sweetheart is-- well, it's you."

"me?" thomas has a brief, sickening memory of his feelings before, and how miss o'brien toyed with them so badly. but he knows in his gut, that anna would never, and could never do that. he knows she's being honest, as confusing and terrifying as the statement may be.

"yes." anna smiles. "he's like a little puppy when he's with you. surely you've noticed? he gazes at you with stars in his eyes. he wants to do everything you do, and it seems like every other conversation is all about what you've been telling him this week. he only ever plays love songs on the piano when you're in the room. he laughs at all your jokes and he's not even glanced in the direction of a girl since last year." anna shakes her head. "i thought you knew and were just letting him get used to it."

"no i didn't -- i didn't know, i thought," thomas can feel himself blushing, "i don't know what i thought."

anna stands with a stifled yawn. "you make each other very happy. if you really didn't know, i think you ought to talk to him. good night, mr barrow."

"good night anna. and thank you."

thomas is left in the still and quiet of the room, watching the steam spiral up from his cup. a private and hopeful smile spreads across his face. yes, he thinks, nodding his head, perhaps we should talk.

#thommy #thomas barrow #jimmy kent #downton abbey #sorry what even is this #this is completely unproofread written in one sitting in lapslock #my apologies #thank u to freya for listening to me rant about this concept before telling me to actually write it out #just them being cute #them being in love #im so obsessed with the idea of jimmy being obsessed #like totally head over heels smitten down BAD for thomas #and thomas being like :))) we are friends now and i am happy with this situation i will never ask for any more #obviously he's hiding his neverending jimmy feels #but he's just :))) that theyre in cahoots now #meanwhile jimmy is like #crumbling because he's so in love #and everyone else around them is like ummmmmm could u be more obvious #like we're not even shocked anymore #0 people are surprised #fic #im tagging this fic but idk why because it isnt really its wordvom

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