#I feel like it would be so entertaining

[confused-disaster32]

Perhaps it's just cause I'm back in a DEH phase and love Challengers, but I need like, a crossover or smth.

Like, I don't care if it's fanart, fanfiction, or even like a meme about their characters, someone PLEASE combine some of the media that Mike Faist has been in.

[hinamie]

itakugi sillies fr the soul

[andy-888]

I'm so used to bad queerbaiting etc. That whenever I see a gay ship in Star Trek I'm like "jajaja silly ship probably doesn't have much base or support in the subtext but its probably fun" AND THEN. I WATCH THE ACTUAL SHOW. "Captain, there's a definite pleasurable expirience connected to the hearing of your voice" "The Spy talked to me! :D" "You are not another electronic" "Even Gods have favorites Jean-Luc and you've always been one of mine" I SEE INTERVIEWS. I SEE GARAK ACTOR SAYING "Oh yeah I wanted to fuck him and that's what I acted on" I SEE WILLIAM SHATNER BEING LIKE "Kirk favorite conquest is Spock!" AND IT FEELS SO INSANE???? IN FUCKING 2023?????

Star trek fr was so ahead of its time in all topics that now I actually expect good representation of any type from today's TV shows and I just disappoint myself

[rin-hanarin]

He's got that irresistible Mysterious Italian Attachment Style(c) with social awkwardness sprinkled on top.

[suja-janee]

The only way he can get her to listen

[kagoutiss]

green beetle black beetle

[woahjo]

BOKUTO IS SO SCARRYYYY WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKK

yes, you want him, but he wants you more and he’s convinced himself that you already belong to him. the way he gets jealous when you’re not even dating him yet…. the glint he gets in his eye when his certainty of your infatuation with him is in doubt. CHILLS.

[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

[doodlebloo]

Top 5 Hermitcraft* Members Who Could Survive On The DSMP:

*plus Martyn

5. Etho

I honestly think he'd end up joining Snowchester and defending his builds based on sheer force of will. People either like him or fear him too much to mess with his stuff

4. ZombieCleo

She could also hold her own and get people to actually leave her builds the hell alone for fear of retribution. I feel like she wouldn't join a faction but would definitely play a huge role in killing The Egg

3. Joel

He would be bullied and would be running around the server with nothing in his inventory but he'd be exceedingly open to role-playing. Would join Technoblade and Phil's Arctic Commune and be their loser cringe fail apprentice who hates cRanboo for no good reason /funny

2. Grian

It would take him a bit to adjust to there being absolutely 0 rules and etiquette about like cleaning up pranks and not causing lasting damage but once he got that taste for blood he'd be a major player in Doomsday I just know it. Double-crossing people and shit

1. Martyn

He would've fully immersed himself as a member of L'Manberg but aided King Eret in the betrayal I know this to be true in my heart of hearts. He would have RULED as a dsmp member it would've blown us all away

Top 5 DSMP Alumni Who Would Thrive On Hermitcraft:

5. Niki

If she had the chance to actually be fucking listened to and cared about she could do such great things and would love being a part of the lore

4. AweSamDude

They would love him over at Hermitcraft. The prison is incredibly impressive and he's amazing at role-playing an evil guy but still being a nice dude

3. Philza

Anyone who has seen his hardcore world knows this. He isn't ranked higher on my list because people have been saying this for years so it isn't a hot take

2. Tubbo

He's a bit chaotic yes but he'd be overjoyed to learn from everyone and make cool little contraptions, he is admittedly hellbent on chaos and destruction but i think they could keep him in line for the most part

1. Foolish

This man was made for Hermitcraft. He's an amazing builder and he's so silly and he gets along so well with everyone he's ever met. They would love him there I mean it

[horrorshow]

Can you talk about why you think blocking and moving on is a bad thing? I thought it was a way to curate your space and avoid drama

idk maybe i'm too idealistic but fandom is a much more friendlier, welcoming, supportive, creative, engaging, active, diverse and interesting space when it's treated like a community where people are encouraged to participate and talk about their interests and where there's space for niche or more unpopular opinions without these people having to worry about being blocked and feel unwelcome by the majority of the fandom they are in. i can't stand how blocking everyone you disagree with has become the first thing to do.

you say its 'to curate your experience'. but blocking people does not only curate YOUR experience. you're also forcefully curating other users' experiences. and not for the better.

people say 'i will block you for literally anything' and then those same people wonder why engagement is down, why no one sends asks, why no one reblogs, why rarely anyone talks in the tags anymore and why this place feels so dead and boring and quiet. i wonder why!!!!

people treat real people as annoying ads they can dispose of at their whim. but that's not how a fandom or a site like tumblr works. (besides, if you really care about people curating their own experience you wouldn't block people. you can filter and blacklist and never see them again while still granting them the same freedom instead of actively making their experience worse.)

you say its to avoid drama. but seeing a post you dont agree with is not 'drama'. and blocking is not solving anything except for you personally. fandom was more fun when we remembered that every user is a real person you share a space with, and probably some mutuals as well, so you find a way to live with each other. starting with a restraining order seems a bit excessive and is not contributing to anything. it's not that hard to be respectful and tolerate others and acknowledge people have different opinions and interests and still co-exist in peace. its not that hard to be nice to people and try to find common ground with them and interact with the stuff you DO like. you do this in every aspect of your real life, so why not online?

i hear you say: 'but that requires WORK and i don't NEED to do any of that bc i can just block them'.

yeah, you can try to create your own bubble and only hang out with like minded people but you wont EVER fully achieve that (no matter how much you block, social media WILL keep feeding you posts you disagree with bc it makes them money). social media WILL pressure you into an 'us vs. them' mentality where you constantly feel like everything online is a threat or an argument you have to win and where being mean and unnuanced gives you the most notes and where you don't even see, let alone be able to treat, other users as people anymore bc you don't interact with them anymore other than to block or fight them. that's not how i want it to be online. it's not fun to me. and maybe i'm a pessimist but i think it will eventually be the death of online fandom and sites like tumblr. look at the state of twitter right now. DOES blocking give you a better experience in the long run? i doubt that it does. overall, i think it makes people even less tolerable and more vulnerable to hate and fear mongering, and social media an even more hostile place.

it's everything i hate about social media and everything i want to fight against and WILL fight against. i won't pretend my meager contribution will change anything, but i LIKE to just scroll past posts i don't vibe with and not see every argument online as a personal offense. it keeps me curious. most posts aren't that bad when you know the person behind it. i mean, you do you, i'm not gonna say what you should or shouldn't do bc that's up to you, but i recommend it: free yourself of the block button and bring back supportive user communities based on a shared love for the same thing and focus on what you have in common with people, just like you would do in real life. save the block button for the rotten apples who DO keep trying to pick fights and exclude others.

(which is, now that i think about it, probably the main difference: most people see the block button as a neutral way to prevent worse. but. that's only the case on an individual level. and treating everything online as an individual choice to which there are no further consequences, especially if they happen on a larger scale, is already a loss.)

[yes-man-wireplay]

the writers of yellowjackets want me to hate misty so bad but they could never make me hate you misty. youre a weird little freak and i love you misty

[naomistares]

okay which tlt bit should i comic-atize next because i genuinely enjoy doing them

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Jianzhu and Yun: *having tea together and looking out over the yard of the estate* Kyoshi and Rangi: *hustling across the estate field* Yun: *watching them, grinning dumbly* Jianzhu: So, which one is the one you like? Yun: The one with mommy issues. Jianzhu: *narrows his eyes and looks at Kyoshi and Rangi again* Jianzhu: I'm going to need you to be more specific.

[storge]

Tonari no Nurse Aide (2024) 1.06

[spoondoodles]

I blacked out and more Logince HS AU appeared on my canvas idk what happened (also ty @oatmeal-stans-the-trash-rat for some inspiration sorry it took so long to make a post about Them <3)

[batbabydamian]

DC January 2024 Solicitations - Comics Featuring Damian! 🦇

BATMAN AND ROBIN #5 1/9/24

Written by Joshua Williamson

Art and Cover by Simone Di Meo

Variant Covers: Kael Ngu (+B/W 1:50), Jorge Molina, Pete Woods (1:25)

Batman and Robin have been separated! Batman works with White Rabbit to track down the new femme fatale Shush while his son, Damian, hunts down the criminal mastermind who is targeting his father! But Damian won't like who he finds! Don't miss out on the shocking ending!

BATMAN AND ROBIN ANNUAL 2024 1/30/24

Written by Joshua Williamson

Art and Cover by Howard Porter

Variant Covers: Dustin Nguyen, David Nakayama, Gleb Melnikov (1:25)

FATHER-AND-SON ROAD TRIP! Batman and Robin have gone through hell the last few months, so Bruce decides to take Damian on a camping trip to bond. But as they try to enjoy the great outdoors, they find a different kind of hunting ground..one that hunts the most dangerous game! Trapped and cut off from their weapons and backup, Batman and Robin must use their surroundings to hold off and take down some of DC's deadliest mercenaries!

NIGHTWING #110 1/16/24

Written by Tom Taylor

Art and Cover by Sami Basri

Variant Covers: Dan Mora, Travis Moore, Ethan Young (1:25)

Nightwing, Batgirl and the Titans are doing all they can to save a world overrun by Beasts. Heroes have become threats, and one of the biggest threats now stalks the streets of Bludhaven. Where once there was a Robin, now there is a cat. Can Jon Kent and Nightwing save the city from Damian Wayne? Or will the Super Sons be torn apart forever?

TRINITY SPECIAL #1 1/16/24

Written by Tom King

Art by Belén Ortega and Daniel Sampere

Variant Covers: Belén Ortega, Jorge Jimenez, Mitch Gerads (1:25), Evan "Doc" Shaner (1:50)

Featuring DC's brightest new star, Trinity! Discover Lizzie's earliest adventures as she takes the world of heroes by storm! Reprinting the character's first appearance alongside hilarious tales of the little Amazon and her Super Son babysitters, this special will be an instant classic for fans old and new. Plus, a brand-new story from the all-star creative team behind Wonder Woman that will tease the future of Diana's daughter!

WONDER WOMAN #5 1/30/24

Written by Tom King

Art and Cover by Daniel Sampere and Tomeu Morey

Variant Covers: Leirix, Julian Totino Tedesco, Cris Delara (1:25), Daniel Sampere (+B/W 1:50)

If the U.S. government can't stop her, then who can?! As Sargent Steel retreats to gather deadlier forces, the Wonder Girls call on Diana, begging her to lay down her lasso. Will she see the truth before it's too late? Plus, Trinity invites the sons of Batman and Superman to Themvscira for a contest thev'll never forget!