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silverwhittlingknife · 10 days

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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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bbdoll · 7 months

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2023 Fall Fashion

credits: @belaloallure3 @rimings, @eunosims, @nolan-sims, @bustedpixels, @shannanisim, @mlyssimblr, @kouzeesim, @laeska, @saartje77, @darte77, @jius-sims, @madlensims, @candysims4, @ssiat, @syaovu & @simancholy.

Thank you, xoxo [b.]

#ts4 #ts4 lookbook #styledlooks #wardrobe #guysss...i came back...and then cov*d bit me in the arse #first time catching and i am NOT well #anyways it's my birthday and felt like posting #this my new chic that i'm absolutely in love with from a fresh save bc i reinstalled ts4 #i've had nothing BUT time being ill and i've downloaded a crap ton of cc #...i don't even know who i am anymore

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front-facing-pokemon · 7 months

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#MR FUCKIN PLANES HIMSELF FROM GTI!!!! OUR BEST FRIEND #emolga #i dunno if anyone is gonna get that reference but this one time i saw like. a paradise crew askblog on here randomly and the post i happene #to see was someone asking emolga what thing he thought was coolest to hear about from the human world. and he said like #fuckin planes dude how do they work #and i thought that was the most emolga quote ever and i loved it. and it's been bouncing around in my head ever since even though #i don't even know who wrote it. i dunno the askblog or if it even exists anymore #but either way. this is still like the only pmd character with a canon blush sprite besides watchog i think from psmd #everyone knows he eventually rejects virizion for dunsparce. his very obvious crush on dunsparce throughout the whole game #i have so many thoughts about gti it really is the best pmd game. in some senses. gti and also eotds and also smd are all my favorite pmds #that's three out of four of them and no i am not cheating

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captain-astors · 9 months

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Creature. (The rendered ones are referenced from manga panels)

#mediocre art #tokyo ghoul #On some level I think I should like Kaneki more than I do but there's this weird sense of detachment #I have not only from him but being able to perceive him as a character?#I don't even dislike him it's just that I can't feel any which way about him at all. He's a catalyst for events #feels more like the conch from Lord of the Flies or something rather than a fictional person.#He doesn't suffer and learn from the consequences #he just suffers and does what got him there again. It's arguable that the lack of punishment denies him the satisfaction #but if that's the case why does he end the story with everything working out perfectly for him?#Why do his friends oblige his flaws and accept his lack of change?#Is the problem my lack of understanding or his lack of good writing?#Is he well written?#Why do I like a certain character from a different anime who's a very similar person with very similar dynamics #but with a goal and acceptance by himself and those around him that his actions really are reprehensible and cannot truly be atoned for #not only more but to the point that he's actually one of my favorites?#Am I just sitting upon a throne of entitlement #because his thought process and experiences are not catered to be applicable to and understood by myself?#GOD IF I KNOW ANYMORE #I'm not pressuring myself to like him or anything I just don't understand anything about kaneki these days and I don't know why

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stromer · 1 year

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connor & dylan / YOU KNOW, YOU’LL ALWAYS KNOW ME 🌱

#maybe being those bright-eyed kids in erie isn't enough anymore… but you know what? you'll always know me!!!!#you'll always know who i WAS even if you don't know who i AM anymore. like whatever #connor mcdavid #dylan strome #and i've got nothing but well wishes for ya (even if i cannot look you in the eyes during a handshake line…)#the divorcees and i'm the child left behind with psychological trauma 👍🏼#making mcstrome edit in the year 2023 because WHO is gonna stop me….#my edits :3

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thaliagrayce · 1 year

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y'know what we don't talk about enough? Hazel died. We talk about how she grew up in the 30's and 40's and we talk about how out of place she feels in the modern world, but! She died! She was dead! She has spent more time dead than alive, and not by a close margin!

How does that effect a person??? We got some of it in the flashbacks, but once those caught up with her present timeline and she shared them, they just kind of... disappeared. And she was a regular girl with some weird past experiences. That's one way of doing it, sure!

I think it would have been a lot cooler if she was just a touch creepier. If she felt a little bit Wrong. Yeah, in general she's more approachable than her brother, she's more sociable and less closed off, but. If you actually spend any time with her, it can be difficult to tell which child of the underworld is actually more unsettling.

Hazel is bright of personality and has a dazzling smile, but sometimes she'll just... shut down. She'll go completely blank for like half an hour and nobody knows what to do with it. Sometimes she forgets she's alive. Sometimes she'll spout the grimmest shit you've ever heard like it's nothing, she won't even notice it's weird until the room goes quiet. She spent decades in Asphodel, which is designed to make people forget about themselves and wander around for eternity, only she didn't have the luxury of forgetting! Wild! After she comes back to life, sometimes she forgets that she's allowed to Do Stuff now. She can spend so long sitting and staring at nothing. Sometimes she'll start crying on cloudless days because it hits her again that she can actually feel the warmth of the sun on her skin and she can hear birdsong. Every little mundane experience is a blessing and she will make you remember that in the most foreboding way possible.

#hazel levesque #hoo #mj talks #like. i am fascinated with characters who die and come back different and it JUST hit me that there was so much potential for hazel there #the idea of how death lingers was not explored At All in heroes of olympus #of course there's the obvious part in that there were what. 3 named character deaths total? 4 if you count leo #which i very much don't because it didn't stick! there were no consequences to this gigantic war!#the first series did well with that because we had plenty of named characters who died #even though some of them were introduced only to die like six chapters later. we still knew them on some level #and more importantly percy knew them. he felt their loss in a way that made consequences seem real #heroes of olympus didn't have any of that. hazel could have been a great way to talk about it a little more!#also i just love characters who have obviously gone through death. that has to change a person! tell me how it changed you!#anyway. i think i'll make hazel creepier from now on in my writing #she deserves it <3 #nico is creepy in an obvious way. he's got power over death and that clings to him like a second skin. he can't hide it #and he's learned that he doesn't have to. there is power in being othered #hazel seems lovely when you first meet her! none of the death power all of the glitter and gold and riches #and then she'll look you dead in the eye and say 'you really don't know how lucky you are to be able to breathe until you can't anymore'#and move on like it's nothing! what!#underworld siblings

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qcomicsy · 26 days

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Lately I've only been wishing to grab a comic about my favorite character and just have a genuinely good time reading it.

#I can't remember the last time I took a Deadpool comic and genuinely had a good time about it #I hate the direction they took with his character and it's so disrespectful that I don't even talk about I don't even think *any* Deadpool #fan genuinely talk about it because were so tired of his kids characterization we all just collectively decided to ignore whatever hell #marvel through at him #but rant aside #it's just–#I am not sure if comic books are fun anymore I don't even know who I am making content for half of the people on my notes haven't touched #comic book and aren't pretending to do so #people who read the comics tend to be so mean or bitter about it that even if you follow most will be angry about something #comic or fan related and I don't know if I can blame them but following that is draining #and as much as I was trying to be a good sport about it you make a post about comic book characters and #and the overwhelming response is 'I don't read the comics but'– following up by a take about them that doesn't even recognize any core #aspect of their personality that you can't even grasp you can't even recognize them #you can't recognize them on tue cannon you can't recognize them on the fannon #and no matter how engaging you try to make content about the fandom people just–*refuse* to read it. And then– they *refuse* to tag fannon #content as fannon #and *refuse* to leave either #Yes we are all having fun but how can a character tag be so so filled with people who have no idea of who they are #how can a character can be properly loved and take care of and have content that respect them if no one makes any attempt to *know them*#and it's disheartening because *comics* are supposed to be fun *fannon are supposed to be fun*#but for aome reason it's really *really* hard to have fun here anymore #I created this page to share my love for the characters I care about and see more content of people who care about them too #but I can't even *find* people who care about them any more and when I do they're all so angry and upset– And I *cant even blame them*#I just... I don't know why I am doing this anymore or for who I am doing this anymore #sorry to vent but it's been a while since I haven't been had a genuinely good time™ enjoying comics #I don't think even people who write those comics enjoy those comics or care about those characters #Sometimes feels like everyone is projecting on those characters rather than *writing about them*. And I can't find them anymore #fanfics used to be about love petters to characters who you love #nowadays seems like a competition to see who makes more funny words with tropes pre-written since 2007 #vent

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transmechanicus · 1 month

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I get a little indignant when i look up the lyrics for a song that has very straightforward and understandable meaning to anyone who has experienced a modicum of emotional pain in their life and there are websites like "Song Lyrics Explained" like ohhh some people have never had their heart broken I see.

#my stuff #if you look me in the eyes and say you don't 'get' Sleep Token's Apparition or Take Me Back To Eden in general...#like what even is there to say. they're about waking up from bittersweet dreams abt ppl you can't see anymore for reasons you didn't choose #and longing to return to experiences that cannot be recreated if the people you love don't make the effort to hold onto it like you do.#i am quite literally sick with longing and grief these past couple days and these are the only songs keeping me halfway sane #this all could have gone so very different. i know where you are. i know how to reach you. but i can't. you asked me not to.#so i have to cope with the knowledge that you're a short walk away almost every day and yet I'll probably never see you again #and it's not because i did anything wrong you're just the sort of person who can't be friends with someone after a romance #and your goodbye was absolute shit and i hate it and i want some fucking shred of acknowledgement that i deserve better!!!!#i want to know you aren't just trying to forget me entirely!! I want to be remembered!! I am remembering you!!

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catkin-morgs-kookaburralover · 30 days

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questioning sexuality is so exhausting

#(edit: sorry for the rant in the tags and i just. i want someone to talk to me)#i keep on doing it for no apparent reason #someone was talking about lust yesterday and i realised today that.#even tho id thought i don't experience it. i possibly do. but exclusively towards women.#i hate it here!#for a multitude of reasons i will never have a relationship with a woman but! i may be incapable of having a relationship with a man!#at some point in the last few months i have abruptly pivoted from definitely wanting marriage and kids to being ambivalent on marriage #and not wanting kids. that's such an outlier in my life that it might just be a mental health thing tho idk #but at the same time i. want to be loved.#i don't know what i want anymore and im tired of questioning myself #i definitely overthink it but idk how to stop it #and i hate hate hate how the moral obsessions have bee lately #this isn't entirely related but it kind of is #like Am i a terrible morally bankrupt person for having certain thoughts or is it just religious ocd go brrrr?? am i overthinking it?#i don't know. i don't know!#for a while labelling myself as arospec ace kinda calmed that down but. i don't know #i do't want to be attracted to women. i don't want to have to look away so often. i don't want any of that.#but i don't know how to stop it.#i don't even know if i'm attracted to men at all.#this is a cry for help and encouragement and prayers no matter what your views on these matters are #queer stuff tag #i nearly fessed up to my friend yesterday about same sex attraction and i might've except that it would have probably outed me as #the person who anonymously sent in a question several months ago about the side b movement to a church thing #ive only told one person at church about any of that sort of stuff and it was very vaguely worded #also see: this friend is the mother of the boy i?? i don't even know how i feel about him #i increasingly think it wasn't romantic at all. but i don't know #i would love any encouragement you got. anything at all.#i don't know how much this stuff is affected by the fact that i consider myself unloveable and think it highly unlikely any boy will ever #care for me #now im rambling. sorry

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sparkly-skies · 5 months

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@reserved-fruit thank you for the link to this video with Kris' heart ring (goes perfectly with Keep Me Grounded, Keep Me Calm, just saying 👀 do you like friends (Bojan and Kris) comforting each other and jokingly proposing while still being deeply serious about how important their friendship is? Go read this!).

Here's some screenshots to look at with me, why? Because I'm a touchstarved bitch and scream and cry at any sighting of physical affection. Thank you Bojan for providing enrichment in my enclosure.

Also this one. Because I see a mention of friends spending time together because they love each other and love spending time together, I scream and screech in missing my friends noises.

#i'm half convinced alistair has saved me on discord as touchstarved fuck or something #anyway. do these fuckers know how LUCKY they are to have their friends this close at any given time?#I spent 2 1/2 weeks at my parents' during christmas and I saw friends I think... three maybe four times #plus a visit at a friend's place across the border for two days #which i was very happy about! i was really happy about the times i did see friends!#but it also sucks that everyone's so busy with their own lives and responsibilites and whatnot that it's this hard to see friends now #plus that one friend who just doesn't answer anyone anymore. just TELL US if you don't want to see us anymore #that's okay. it would still hurt but sometimes a friendship has come to its end and that's okay even if it hurts. but don't just #ghost your entire friend group while still sending snaps and then not answering if we answer there #okay that turned into a rant #because like bojan in the shower with kris i am incapable of shutting the fuck up in the tags #go read that fic!#mine #joker out

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mermaidsirennikita · 5 months

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sometimes it drives me literally insane to see romance requests that are like

--I want a romance wherein it's basically the happy epilogue throughout the book

--I want a romance that has great communication and they never withhold anything from each other ever

--no "miscommunication trope"

The last thing is just a general gripe about how so many of the things people say are tropes are not tropes, and it's pedantic and snobby but like. Miscommunication is so broad. It's not a trope. People are miscommunicating. WHAT are they miscommunicating about? Is one of them keeping a secret identity from their partner? Because a secret identity romance iS a trope. Is one of them withholding their feelings out of fear of rejection?

Because people DO miscommunicate. Often writers do write it clumsily. If people miscommunicate for no reason, sure, whatever. But if they miscommunicate BECAUSE of a REASON--like, often it's not even miscommunication lol. It's the hero keeping his dire supernatural secret from his wife because she'll die if she finds out (honestly, valid to me, but whatever). It's the heroine finding it difficult to trust the hero with her heart because her dad left when she was young (maybe cliche in theory, but actually a very real thing that happens).

If all you want is plotless nothing wherein everyone is happy and nobody makes mistakes, I personally have a hard time thinking of it as a book, because there is no story. It's just vibes. And essentially EVERY time, people have to mess up and make mistakes in order for there to be a plot.

I just don't understand the point.

#romance novel blogging #if all you want is pure vibes what you want is a short form story or fanfic sorry #you don't want a book #and i'm not saying every writer does miscommunication right--romance has a lot of clumsy writers who just shove it in #(lmao)#but miscommunication is often a backbone in its most broad form of conflict #'i cannot tell you this thing because i am scared for you'#'i cannot tell you this thing because i'm scared of what you'll think of me'#'i can't tell you how i really feel bc i frankly need therapy'#these are all forms of miscommunication and the thing is that when a writer does it well you don't even call it 'miscommunication trope'#but you'll still dismiss miscommunication as bad #the long game by rachel reid is a great example #generally a really well-received book!#ilya gets distant with shane and shane doesn't take ilya's feelings as much as he should #bc ilya has depression and is not telling shane about it #and there is NO REASON for ilya to do this other than internalized shame and a tendency to hide his pain to keep others happy #this is miscommunication!!! they are not communicating well!!! and people still like the book bc rachel reid is a good writer #who knows how to convey this in a way that isn't annoying and is relatable #lol ofc all of this is also symptomatic of the fact that people can't read nuance anymore apparently #and 'character behaves badly = book bad'#(for the record ilya and shane miscommunicate a lot in both books but those books are widely loved bc again rachel is a good writer)

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