#I have. a weird range.

[mcmissileproof]

I think I have such complicated feelings about my voice bc like. I've had significant dysphoria about it since long before I knew what dysphoria even was, but that also means I've been (knowingly or not) trying to sound masculine for about that long and I haven't completely failed at it. so I hate hearing my own voice but it's a point of pride at the same time. and I want it to change but I don't want to lose what I've taught myself to do with it. and I want to show it off sometimes but it makes me die a little bit. yknow?

[queerdraws]

it's zoro's birthday!! happy birthday big guy, may you say many more insane things to your enemies in the coming years

[sergle]

crocheting a temperature blanket for the year is good, it's standard, we know about it, we love it- the more Creative option is when people opt for a ✨mood blanket✨ instead. which is a great idea, until i think about it for more than 10 seconds, when i inevitably come to the conclusion that i'll have to pick the "feeling suicidal" color. and then i laugh

[shopwitchvamp]

An interesting observation I need to report to you all from when I was out touching grass last month (hiking/camping): People in the real world seem to consistently react to me saying that tumblr is my primary social media by going "Isn't that a dating app????"

[welcometogrouchland]

my Stephanie Brown hot take is that she should get mad bitches now that she's single in comics. Yes yes shipping BUT the one time she had sex she was punished by the narrative via teen pregnancy. I think she should be allowed to have as much sex as she wants with zero consequences. Could be a lot of sex, could be a little. Point is she should get to do it without getting narratively baby trapped this time. she should get them pregnant, actually.

[meltedmush]

Keep making the Binghorse. We gotta ward off people from entering this fandom. We need to keep it pure. I fr don't want this fandom to become famous. I'm scared that there will be toxic fans left and right.

HAHA I absolutely understand the sentiment. I feel a bit contradictory since I want more people to appreciate SVSSS, but the at the same time I like small tight knit communities and I personally can’t handle large fandoms whatsoever. 😭

Although I do feel as though describing the SVSSS as pure is very funny for how lawless this fandom is. But behavior wise, it is definitely a very positive and supportive space!! I haven’t met anyone or seen anything unpleasant since I’ve entered the fandom. Albeit, it’s only been a few months since I’ve started interacting with the fandom, and over half a year since I first read SVSSS, so I have no clue what horror stories the SVSSS fandom has. (I honestly haven’t interacted with that many SVSSS fans tbh…. Even though I want to.)

In addition, funny enough, I feel as though the book almost acts as its own barrier of entry. SVSSS isn’t the type of book you can read once unless you’re good at reading against the grain and noticing all the nuances and subtext. I know the first time I read SVSSS, SVSSS disturbed and confused me so badly. I talked to a few other people who read SVSSS once, who said that LBH and SQQ’s relationship felt like Stockholm syndrome. But people who’ve read SVSSS several times will know, that is not the case, and that SQQ is an INSANELY UNRELIABLE narrator.

I honestly find it funny how effective Binghorse or all the other skin creatures is at filtering toxic fans.😂

There’s always a general reaction to the skin creatures: “Omg, cute!!”, “wtf, but I like it”, “wtf”. Or getting blocked, or death threats. (I haven’t received any…? I don’t think…? One message I received is definitely debatable since I can’t tell if it’s sarcastic or not….😭)

But regardless, I’ll definitely keep drawing Binghorse!!! It’s actually really enjoyable!

[clockworkreapers]

We don't talk about what happened in part 4...

[lavender-iced-coffee]

I've held this in for such a long time, and I have to say this. The way people on here talk about the children in this fandom is so WEIRD. You can hide behind calling them the "Pinterest" or "Instagram" fans, but these posts are actually just making fun of the 12-year-olds who like this book. And I don't mean to be that person, but the kotlc fandom should theoretically be their space not ours anyways. Idk but it gives me a bad taste to see people make fun of the childish takes that CHILDREN make in fandom spaces that should be for THEM. To call them attractions or say they have bad reading comprehension is just odd. Like you are an adult, what are you doing. And it's one thing to poke fun of them on Tumblr since not a lot of young kids are on here anyways, but its another thing to make accounts on Pinterest specifically to invade their space and lowkey taunt them. Which is why I made this post in the first place. Get any other hobby. Engage with takes by people your own age. You sound like the "I challenged a 9-year-old kid to a basketball game and won" guy.

[serpentface]

WARDI TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

emense [ɛmɛnse] (eh-mehn-say)

Has meaning close to 'beloved' or 'darling'. "Ya emense" (meaning 'my beloved'/'my darling') is often contracted "y'mense".

bubuch [bubuk] (boo-bookh)

Somewhat of a nonsense word, basically ‘big-big’. Tends to either be used for small children or flirtatiously between adults (kind in between 'baby' and 'big boy' in functionality, though without gendered implications of the latter). Sometimes instead used as a form of intense condescension.

ya mache mes [ja mɑke mes] (yah mah-kay mace)

Functionally means "my other face", using the figurative word for face describing a concept of fundamental nature rather than anatomy. Very intense term of endearment, expresses the recipient as a core part of one's identity. Kind of equivalent to 'my other half' but not exclusively romantic.

ya tsitsima [ja ͡tsi͡tsimə] (yah tsee-tsee-muh)

Means "my blood". This term is used more broadly to denote familial relations, and is more of a term of endearment when used outside of actual biological relationship (calling your sister 'my blood' is just an intense way of saying 'my [relative]', calling a non-relative 'my blood' is VERY pointedly affectionate).

ya ungande [ja ungɑnde] (yah oon-gahn-day)

Often contracted to y'ungande, dead literally means "my liver" as in the organ. Ungande alone is also used as a food-based term of endearment, similar to 'honey' except instead with delicious organ meat.

anuje [ɑnudʒe] (ah-noo-jay)

Food based term of endearment, referring to a tree sap that is the most commonly used form of sweetener. Functionally identical to 'honey' in usage.

anu tlansekoma [ɑnu tlɑnsekoʊmə] (ah-noo tlahn-say-koh-muh)

This one actually means 'honey' (dead literally 'bee sweet'). Less common than 'anuje' as a term of endearment due to general cultural preference for anuje as a sweetener and the relative rarity of beekeeping.

inyagit [injəgit] (een-yah-geet)

Diminutive form of 'sun'. 'Ya inya' (my sun) occurs as well, but is less common.

y'mit agai [j'mit ɑgaɪ] (yuh-meet ah-gai)

Contraction of 'ya amit agai', 'my blue moon'. This specification is more common than a general 'my moon(s)' and is fairly loaded, given this particular moon is the site of the afterlife for the most honored dead. The phrase both suggests a sort of celestial beauty and a sense of being honored and finding rest in the recipient. This is a VERY intense and almost exclusively romantic term of endearment.

coutomara [koʊtoʊmɑrə] (koh-to-mahr-uh)

Means 'handsome' or 'beautiful', implies masculine attractiveness. (Dead literally closer to 'strong face'/'strong featured').

jaimara [dʒaɪmɑrə] (jaim-mahr-uh)

Means 'pretty' or 'beautiful', implies feminine attractiveness (dead literally close to 'beautiful face'/'beautifully featured').

katsuy [kɑtsui] [kaht-soo'ee]

Sexually charged description of physical attractiveness, basically calling someone 'sexy'.

ya katsuymen [ja kɑtsuimɛn] (yah koht-soo'ee-mehn)

Related and also sexually charged, close in meaning to 'my desire'.

at akmatse yachouy [ɑt ɑkmɑtse jɑtʃɔɪ] (aht ahk-mat-say yah-choi )

Sexually explicit term of endearment. The dead literal translation is "one who makes me flower". The word "flower" here is not as euphemistic in context and is rather the nicest sounding possible way to say "makes me cum (HARD)". Not considered vulgar, rather cloyingly romantic if anything.

gan(ne) ama [gɑn(e) ɑmə] (gah(-nay) ahm-uh)

Means 'bull'. When used affectionately, implies masculine strength. Usually used in conjunction with an adjective (ie 'handsome bull') or more teasingly gannit ama (little/baby bull))

jaimeti [dʒaɪmɛti] (jai-meh-tee)

Means 'gazelle' (the name for the animal itself is close in meaning to 'beautiful horn'), heavily associated with grace and beauty. Also tends to be used with adjectives ('lovely gazelle' 'handsome gazelle' etc) or with a diminutive.

ansiba [ɑnsibɑ] (ahn-see-bah) or ansibit [ɑnsibit] (ahn-see-beet)

Means 'duck' and 'duckling' respectively, specifically refers to the animal and implies cuteness. Ansibit is a very common term of endearment for children.

"Wannaukoma such datse anmo" [wɑnaʊkoʊmə suk dɑtse ɑnmoʊ] (wahn-now-koh-muh sookh daht-say ahn-moh)

Means 'an ant could swallow you', implies cuteness (ie the recipient is so small and tiny an Ant could devour them whole). Usually used on children, occasionally used on adult women (in a way that feels intensely patronizing to many). 'Datse' (you) may be replaced by the recipients surname or honorific in the rare case that someone would dare calling someone this without being on first name basis with them.

wannaukomit [wɑnaʊkoʊmit] (wahn-now-koh-meet)

Means 'little ant', a term of endearment that borders on insulting even to babies.

OTHER:

-it [it] (eet)

This is a diminutive modifier, which can be added to a name or other word/term of endearment to denote affection (can also be condescending). It lacks internal meaning in everyday use and is closer to the English -y or -ie (billy johnny rosie susie puppy kitty ducky etc).

hippe [hipɛ] (heep-peh) (some dialects drop the h sound entirely)

Means 'small' or 'little', can be spoken with other words/names as an affectionate diminutive.

Other epithets-

Various epithets used in the language are not exclusively used as terms of endearment, but can be contextually. Most commonly, this will be the -machen epithet of the recipients zodiac birthsign (particularly those considered auspicious). Someone with the lion birthsign could be respectfully and/or affectionately called 'odomachen', or VERY affectionately called 'ya odo' ('my lion'). There's also a good variety of poetic epithets that have worked their way into common language as affectionate compliments/descriptors- ie ganatoche (dead literally 'cow-eye', more prettily 'ox-eyed') is a complimentary descriptor for brown eyes, anaemaitsa (dead literally 'river-haired', more prettily 'flowing-haired') compliments wavy hair.

Given name basis-

In Wardi culture, full names are spoken with the family name preceding the given name. When respectfully speaking to a stranger, peer, or authority figure, you refer to them by their family name, title, and/or an honorific. Being on an accepted given name basis with someone is generally indicative of closeness and affection.

datse [dɑtse] (dah-tsay)

This is the word for "you". Similarly to the use of a given name, actually referring to someone as 'you' (rather than a surname, title, or honorific in place of the pronoun) expresses familiarity and intimacy.

[galedekarios]

a bioware game tradition datv def carries on for me personally is that i just don't vibe with any of the comp/comp or comp/npc ship they cooked up.

[defiantinsect]

eight cruelly forces two losers to socialize

[uncanny-tranny]

I think one of the most surprising parts of transition, specifically going on testosterone, is just how... normal it felt to me. When I was watching other people go on testosterone and describe how they felt, I anticipated that I'd feel the huge emotions, the spark, I guess. But I didn't. If anything, I went from being a neurotic mess to being... normal. Almost painfully normal. It's like I've gotten a cloth and dusted off this thing I call my body.

I honestly think it's interesting how natural I feel on testosterone. I never really thought I could feel this normal, but I do. It's like I can stand in a crowd and not feel like eyes are watching me, like ants crawling on a log.

[sendmyresignation]

starting to get frustrated that any time a person online expresses justified frustration about the current state of stadium ticket prices the response is some shit like "just see a local band for 10 bucks". yes you should see more local bands but, critically, big spectacle events are cool and being able to see a cherished live act or legacy band/artist you grew up with is too and these things used to be much more affordable!! like that was the whole fucking point is you could see someone in the nosebleeds and make a trade-off.

[sesamenom]

maglor's first time getting to go to a concert / his favorite singer attending maglor's first big concert

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) trips and falls and three more stephanie brown redesigns spill out from my pockets. Oopsie!

[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