#anyway I am not tagging this with the fandom tag bc I don't want it to show up there sorry 🙏

[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

[hellogoodbyeitsme]

DCU fandom is so funny because everyone is always mad. Feels like living with my parents again 🥰 home sweet home 🥰

[zukkaoru]

so then talk about them instead of whining that other people are having fun with what they like. if those other ones are so interesting than make that content in place of behaving like a child because someone else is actually enjoying themselves.

omg guys look my first bsd fandom anon hate ask 🥰🥰🥰

[complete-gay-chaos]

gonna be so for real I don't get the genshin community on this one. mavuika is not hot and I actually think that her design is really boring but oh well :/

[kindafooey]

man. like. I don't mean this as a vaguepost or anything, this is just me expressing frustration with my own tendencies to get hung up on stupid shit and take things too seriously. but two days into mingling with the fandom it seems that I'm already reaching the point where I start increasingly feeling the strain between my fandom ideals of letting a thousand flowers bloom, respecting people's interpretative freedom etc and simultaneously noticing how wildly a section of the fandom is misinterpreting my favorite character, and electing to take it personally to a ridiculous extent

[aromanticannibal]

The pattern is that people straight up do not read™. or they read a 3-5 tweet summary of what happened and treat it as if they did. or because shonen expectations based on "the classics" is bullshit and significantly rotted people's brains when deciding wether an ending is good or not.

Which could be nothing right

yeahhh. i will forever regret reading the last chapter through leaks because it was a dreadful experience, and watching everyone ever shit on it for like a week after genuinely made me want to just get off the internet forever or something because i felt like an idiot for liking the ending (all this is my fault for getting too invested in both tumblr and mha etc etc).

All the "it's rushed" and pacing complaints barely matter to me at this point because you just cannot feel the pacing of something correctly when you're reading it exclusively through leaks. you can't absorb info like that. And don't get me started on the number of complaints and criticisms I've seen of the last chapter that are just provably bullshit (I saw someone say Izuku didn't get a statue lmao. yes he did, you just read the fucking leaks and watched twitter drama unfold instead of reading the actual chapter i fear).

[arosnowflake]

[Timmy Turner voice] I wish every Links Meet AU that uses Marin as a phantom to haunt and traumatize Link goes to hell no matter what

[welcometogrouchland]

Decided to spontaneously watch three seasons of Craig of the Creek in like. A couple days and the first thing I'll say is it's a very good show. The second thing I'll say is that Craig Williams could defeat the Collector in 2 minutes of screentime if he were there

[zoekrystall]

Ik I barely post anything personal but anyways I should go to bed but that wallpaper post made me go hey I should finally change to obey me and then I found smth and am now here configuring my whole phone w new apps bc lucifer help. I still feel so sorry for just leaving him I'm sorry babygirl. (played it at the beginning and then stopped until nightbringer)

Shut up I know 😭

It is only for android if anyone sees it and wants it here

I own this person my life this is so neat already. Also ngl partially hoping the night lines will make me go to bed. I listen to fictional chars way more no wonder our main caretaker is a fictive sjsks

[wereh0gz]

If I have to hear that being queer in any way is a sin one more time I'll show you an actual sin by beating your skull in with this brick I found 😊

[fabcreature]

i know like. no one will see this reblog since the post has already made its rounds (8k notes in 3 days....) but i just wanna compile some thoughts and responses to stuff people have said on this post.

yes, in the great muppet caper kermit and fozzie are meant to be twin brothers, and there's a photo of their father who seems like basically a hybrid between kermit and fozzie. THIS IS NOT CANON, kermit and fozzie are NOT brothers or related in any way. they're playing characters in the great muppet caper, which the movie makes clear. however i do think the photo is worth examining and taking into consideration in the conversation, but seen as it's not canon, i wouldn't take it as gospel, just another possible angle.

muppets most wanted has miss piggy fantasizing about growing old with kermit, including having children. they are pictured as a pink frog and a green pig. once again, this isn't something that actually happens in canon, but it is something worth noting.

and those who said that while the kids in christmas carol aren't their actual kids, they probably would do the casting to be accurate to how their children would look. i like your thinking! but i think you (and literally everyone else) are overlooking one thing...

No one actually knows what Kermit and Piggy's hypothetical children would look like. Not even Kermit or Piggy themselves.

this is something that has come up in a couple of interviews, i'm pretty sure, or at least one. it is a topic of discussion among muppets themselves as well, and kermit and piggy in interviews together have wondered what the children would even be or be called. would they be tadpoles? polliwogs + piggies = piggiwogs? They're Not Sure. implying that frog/pig muppet babies haven't happened before, meaning the casting director of christmas carol for example couldn't be sure what the most accurate child actor would be. we're all confused together!

and also to all of those who said muppets make babies by getting some felt and starting to sew: that's pretty funny. but as kermit has said in an interview before, he is not a puppet, but a muppet, and the difference is that puppets are controlled by humans, while he, a muppet, is a real life talking frog. i personally don't like treating the muppets (in these cases and discussions, it's different if we talk about the media more seriously) as puppets, it kind of takes away from the magic of everyone accepting the muppets as real life celebrities.

and also i don't like the way you guys refuse to accept the muppets fucking. learn about the muppet show: sex and violence, and get some perspective

forever sick and tired of people bringing up the muppet christmas carol when talking about interspecies muppet reproduction

the kids kermit and piggy "have" in that movie are not hypothetical children they could have. they're actors. in all the muppet adaptations of classic literature the point is that the muppets are acting. kermit is acting as bob crachit, piggy is acting as emily crachit, and so on and so forth. it's literally in the opening credits. tiny tim isn't kermit and piggy's child in an alternate universe. it's robin, kermit's nephew, playing the part of tiny tim.

please use actual canon muppet material and muppet interviews in your reseach

[buckleydiazmp4]

do you mind if i ramble in the tags about my weird relationship with making art in fandom for a second

[neganium]

When the number of fics for your obscure fandom ticks up by one but when you go and check you can't see anything new, and so you just know it was by one of the people you blocked, most of whom were in some way or description absolutely fucking nasty more often than they were not 🙃

[chiso]

it’s amazing how I would say I hate all fandoms, really, I do. Including the Naruto one even!! But how many more valid takes and funny posts I see in the Naruto tag compared to other series I’m into T_T I wish I could have at least ONE fun corner to enjoy posts with other stuff I like but newer fandoms lead by kiddies just make me so angry. 

[violetasteracademic]

Why do you think gwyn would be added as a love interest for azriel if they don’t end up as endgame? Why complicate the love triangle between elain/lucien/azriel?

Hello my lovely anon!

It can sometimes be hard to tell where the anonymous asks in my inbox are coming from. It is never my intention to argue or try to convince any other ships why they are wrong. I tag my work very carefully, ask my beloved rebloggers to do the same, and just want to stay in a cozy bubble. I think all ships are allowed, and the time I spend here breaking down the text and providing analysis is only for fun and comfort. I don't ever want or wish for my posts to end up in the wrong tags. Now that I've gotten that disclaimer out of the way, this is an ask where I can't *totally* tell what perspective it is coming from, but I am assuming it is being asked in good faith and I will answer how I typically do.

Point blank, I do not believe G/wyn was introduced as a love interest. Only Elain was.

I don't really know that I have anything else to add to that conversation, because people either think it was romantic or it wasn't. But I will say that I assume we can all agree on all sides that the bonus chapter is what led to the fervor of the G/wynriel ship as G/wyn quite literally replacing Elain as the romantic interest and not just a fun, enjoyable ship for those who don't jive with Elriel and want to carve out a space for themselves in the fandom. And as someone who has read all of SJM's bonus chapters and not just this one, I'm going to provide side by side comparisons using *only* bonus chapters that I can almost guarantee many people have not read- since most people don't read the bonus chapters. I still get comments on old tiktoks every day asking what the Azriel bonus chapter is and where to find it. And not once have I ever been asked about the myriad of other BC's out there.

Crescent City Spoilers ahead:

House of Sky and Breath has three bonus chapters. There is one in particular that is almost a carbon copy of G/wyn and Azriel's portion in his POV bonus, and it is the Tharion POV chapter with Hypaxia:

^^Both men head to a place where they assumed they would be alone, minds heavy and restless and needing to work off some tension before they could sleep- only to find their space already occupied.

^^They both flounder a bit with social niceties, awkwardness, being polite, the other person clearly wanting to be alone, and yet wind up falling into a conversation anyway.

^^ Both pairs experience surprise at being asked questions no one has ever asked them before. They also reveal information about themselves- and notably- both bonus chapters reveal heavy backstory or indications about unique or hidden powers.

^^ Both men experience some sort of lingering sensation that they could have sworn was happening after saying goodnight.

And last but not least:

Both Tharion and Azriel end on a particularly strong emotional note. Tharion is passing notes through Fitz back and forth with Hypaxia. He notes how he has never had such an instant, honest, and deep connection. He won't let anyone interfere with her birthright, and if she was in danger, he would risk everything he had to protect Hypaxia.

Azriel is secretly regifting a necklace to Gwyn, and feels truly happy at the thought that it might make her happy. He likes and respects her and is glad to think of being able to make her smile. (I of course think there is a reason for this, which I've broken down here but I also don't think it's necessary to minimize their friendship for this post.)

If you look at these two bonus chapters side by side, they are literally a copy and paste. Two people needing to be alone and winding up together, talking about things they have never talked about anyone with, and both men really powerfully feeling the strength and depth of a connection. And if you read Tharion's chapter in full, there are actually way more details of him talking about how beautiful and gorgeous she is, and how he has to stop himself from going down that road. But did this set up Hypaxia and Tharion as romantic love interests?

Nope. Hypaxia is queer as queer can be. Kitty only on her menu. But they develop a very genuine and close friendship. Because the thing is, SJM writes an incredible amount of deep and meaningful friendships between men and women. And they are always a blend of emotion, intimacy, a bit fun and flirty, full of banter, and true trust and connection. So as far as BC's, Azriel and G/wyn and Tharion and Hypaxia are the only comparable ones in her catalogue. And they are pretty damn comparable. It's also important to note that the Tharion and Hypaxia bonus chapter was included in the book where she is very much revealed as 100% queer and not even a little bi, so it's not like SJM was trying to create a red herring or a conversation. That's just how she writes her hetero platonic friendships. Take it up with her, man.

Meanwhile, the things that make it clear that a romantic interest is being introduced occurs in the Elain portion, and can be directly compared to the Nessian bonus chapter. Both men being willing to beg on their knees for a taste. Both men absolutely losing their minds over Elain and Nesta's scents. Both men knowing it was wrong, it was stupid, but being unable to stop themselves anyway. Both men having issues of what their family would think if they found out introduced (only Rhys DID find out and laid down that forbidden romance hard.)

Here's the thing- many people read Elain and Azriel as romantic for over four books and there were people out there like, nah, I don't see it, they are more like brother and sister. And then the bonus chapter confirmed, no, actually, they are wildly down bad and desperate for each other. Wanting to taste and touch and kiss each other- romantic interest confirmation. Fun and banter-y conversation occurring because two people needed to be alone but actually wound up in the same vicinity as someone else and had a deep conversation and talked about things they've never spoken about with anyone before-Platonic friendship. You can disagree. But it doesn't change the fact that right now, a group of fans are interpreting G/wyn and Azriel's interactions as romantic, and preferring it to Elain and Azriel's confirmed romantic interactions.

Sarah did not add G/wyn as a love interest and complicate things. The fandom did. Until Azriel is not sleeping, not thinking clearly, down bad desperate to get on his knees for G/wyn- and until G/wyn leans into his touch and says yes, they are actually currently friends. Could that change in the future? Totally. But Sarah literally has not written it yet.

I don't mind that the G/wyn ship exists. I love her. I have real life G/wynriel friends who are not online like we are. They are good people with good hearts who have different taste in Azriel's potential romance than me. They don't ride at dawn for Elain like I do, nor are they violently misogynistic against her or being toxic and hateful towards other women online. They just liked G/wyn's story and want more of her. That's okay. But it is important to pay attention to what has actually been written vs. what is being assumed by a group of people that openly dislike the only female character remaining with a confirmed book and who has been confirmed as a love interest.

Read Sarah's other bonus chapters! They are fun. Azriel's isn't the only one that has ever existed, but it seems like that sometimes (and I'll admit, it's amazing and I love it so fair). And nothing happened in the bonus chapter that is going to change the course or foreshadow to anything new. Not everyone has access to them, and bonus chapters do not create new plot. They are just an incentive to make money and secure pre-orders.

I think that's everything! You guys are awesome for reading these insanely long posts and vibing with me here. ily.

[theminecraftbee]

I'm really glad to have found the Hermitcraft fandom here on Tumblr, I've been a long time fan and it's awesome to discover all this great fanart and content and stuff. Any must-follow MCYT/Hermitcraft/Minecraft blogs?

oh gosh, welcome! in general i am BAD about remembering who i follow and who i don't; a great way to find who you want to follow might be to just go through the #hermitcraft tag and follow people you find funny, or, heck, if i reblog a lot of art from a certain artist you like (or not a lot, like one art even), go follow them!

while we're here, a few additional general etiquette rules (keeping in mind that like, this is tumblr, trying to claim ANYTHING is a whole-community norm is basically impossible i am claiming a norm from my specific circle of guys): do not crosstag, only tag things that are actually in your post. don't use the 'minecraft' tag, that tag is for people who like the actual game. (i mean, you can use it if you are posting about minecraft, but not if you're posting about the youtubers). it's generally considered rude to put your crit in the main tags, especially without tagging 'discourse' somewhere so it can be filtered. shipping should generally have a 'hermitshipping' tag on it for filtering purposes as well, but if something is tagged hermitshipping and you're mad about it just like, block them, they did the important part.

the hermits i know of on tumblr (could be more, idk): @/joehills @/pearlescentmoo @/falsesymmetry @/therealdocm77 (not actually active but has the account) @/geminitayyt. cleo also had an account but it is no longer active. also @/inthelittlewood is here and like very active, as is @/askzloyxp and @/quinnhills. as a general etiquette rule, just... act like they're perfectly ordinary tumblr users and continue your business as usual! and don't send them weird asks or anything.

off the top of my head, a few blogs i like, an EXTREMELY non-exhaustive list, find your own guys out there as well you won't regret it! like, you will find the experience you like best just going out there and looking for it yourself! i've absolutely missed a bunch of guys i love, let alone guys you would love! this is like 10 million percent non-exhaustive, i follow 1,570 blogs apparently, many of which aren't hermitcraft or mcyt related, but many of which are, so i just sorta. went for it. and when i was having trouble remembering if a name was a repeat that's when i stopped. so. non-exhaustive list:

@nightshadeowl, @jestroer, @astronomodome, @kingtheghast, @floweroflaurelin, @roenais, @silverskye13, @wasyago, @rusty-courage, @art-by-fate, @silverskye13, @redstonedust, @betweenlands, @sixteenth-days, @judas-iscaryot, @terracottakore, @cherrifire, @antimony-medusa, @hybbart, @made-nondescript, @luigra, @cuteiemonster, @mawofthemagnetar, @potionofinstantdamage, @concorp, @spiderziege, @salemoleander, @bc-jpeg, @magicalmanhattanproject, @simplydm, @12u3ie, @mishapen-dear, @lunarblazes, @girltimeswithscar, @kishdoodles, @quaranmine, @shadeswift99, @bdoubleowo, @quicksandblock, @beacon-lamp, @kikunai, @sideblague, @applestruda, @ingapotejtoo, @belmarzi, @strifetxt

anyway FEEL FREE TO PROMO GUYS OR YOURSELF ON THIS POST TOO! from what i understand we may be getting some new guys sometime soon here from the twitter lands? so it may be helpful to have that for anyone who's looking for new guys to follow!

and most of all: WELCOME!!!