#bc he's still totally cute ^^

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

so i was thinking about how Howdy has eight legs bc he's a caterpillar - those have lots of legs. but butterflies? they only have six

imagine he comes out of his chrysalis and he's down two limbs. mf would have to relearn how to Walk

[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

[khaopybara]

Don't judge a book by its cover. An essay by Mew Pt. 2

Mew in his revenge era went shopping and thought, "you know what screams I'm gonna fuck you up, maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't? Floral/patterned shirts," and proceeded to buy a bunch of those.

BOOK KASIDET as MEW WITSARUT ( ONLY FRIENDS EPS. 7-12 )

Correction: I missed one outfit in ep. 6 and instead of remaking that set, I'll just post it below because it's actually the hottest Mew has looked, so I'm not even upset.

[silusvesuius]

n*loth not being able to bag anyone over the (human term) age of 25-30 at most is the only logical and real conclusion to me because it can be just explained away as him wanting to prove and control everything and anyone (Cus he's a man!) but being stuck in that demographic because his unbearable and vile personality is a force that nobody can look past once they've outgrown the possible fear and idolization period of anyone but also n*loth in particular.

[deus-ex-mona]

when the slowburn makes the ship extra cute~~~

[becca-e-barnes]

I'm not really feeling like myself today so I'm gonna indulge myself a little.

I don't remember the last time I talked about anal on here but more specifically, I'm imagining Lee and his little innocent wife again (I know you've all missed Lee as much as I have 🥵)

I think anal would be something she wouldn't often ask for because I always imagine she's quite shy about asking for what she wants but anal becomes one of their mutual favourites very quickly.

The way Lee would dote on you before anal just makes me melt. He's not nearly as reckless and rough. It's all gentle praises and soft kisses, trailing his thick fingers against your soaked sex until they're well enough coated in your arousal that he can slide two into your ass.

He'd be so mesmerised by the way you enjoy it; watching the sweet, innocent woman he married begin to explore her own sexuality and slowly start to indulge in fantasies she'd never admitted to anyone else just does it for him.

Lee's not a stranger to toys in the bedroom but nothing makes him hard like the memory of the first evening he came home from work to his wife, a couple of days after he'd got you a cute little princess plug.

He's usually greeted with a brief kiss when he comes in the door but that night, you couldn't tear your mouth off his if you tried. He tastes faintly of the toffees he keeps in the car but his mouth is so warm and distinctly his, it's addictive.

"What's gotten into you, sweetie?" You've pressed yourself flush against his body, standing on your tiptoes to kiss him while your fingers hook his belt loops, pulling him closer.

" 'm sorry. I need you." You've been worked up all day, imagining how your husband will touch you when he gets home and now he's here, you don't want to wait. The dinner can burn for all you care.

You notice how warm his hands are as they shift from your waist, reaching down to squeeze your ass and when you whimper against his mouth, it all clicks for him.

"Livin' room, sweetheart." That's exactly where he wants to be right now, instead of cramped in your tiny little hallway and when you don't make a move, he scoops you up and carries you there before sitting down in his armchair.

"Turn around. Bend over." They're clear instructions. Your feet are planted between his as you follow his lead. He pulls the skirt of your dress up and your underwear down your legs.

"God, do y'have any idea how wet you are?" The sparkling end of the plug sits neatly between the cheeks of your ass but it's hard to miss the way your slick arousal seems to almost glisten on your skin in the dim lighting.

Your breath catches in your throat feeling your husband trail his thick fingers from your neglected clit, back to tease your soaked entrance. Your body resists him pressing into you though. Having one hole filled at a time is more than enough for you for now.

"Thought I'd try it this mornin'. Slipped it in before I started the cleaning." You might feel embarrassed at how exposed you are if you weren't so turned on. "Couldn't even think straight by noon."

"Such a good girl for me. Shoulda called, honey. I'd have come straight home" He taps the base of the plug rhythmically and even that's enough to make you squirm. With his other hand, he's palming his own cock through his work trousers but that's not his main focus in that moment.

"Let me take the edge off for you. I'll take real good care of you after dinner, how does that sound?" His fingers circle your clit with the kind of ease that only comes with practice while he taps the base of the plug with the fingers of his other hand. Your body flutters around the metal inside you, offering a pleasant reminder of how full you feel and you're quite sure nothing will compare to the evening you have ahead of you.

[cowbeeboy]

watching silly animals in a silly game about a silly cowboy i care about more than i care abt real people bc i’m silly like that. anyway my horses name is shortcake and him and arthur have matching vests/coats and it’s the cutest thing in the world

[britneyshakespeare]

Yesterday at the high school I was in for this art teacher and they all had like projects they were gonna present to work on in Google classroom, so like many days as a substitute teacher it was quiet and I mostly just sat at the desk and read. But then this one kid in my peripheral vision was looking at me and when I glanced over her laughed a little. And I looked away cuz I was like whatever maybe he was whispering smth w his friends.

But then he says "I have a question"

"Yeah?"

"What two colors make purple?"

"Oh. Red and blue"

"Thank you... I appreciate the no judgment answer"

I didn't even think about it lol

[deadtower]

i have normal, well-adjusted OCs that reflect my normal, well-adjusted life

(it/its)

[chryblossomjjk]

NAUR WHY ARE WE NOT TALKING ABOUT HOW JK CONFESSED THAT HE LIKES BRATS !?!?!?!

[lumpsbumpsandwhumps]

I want to know if the Stranger has tried any cringy pick up lines on Ashley

No but he has traced a bloody heart with his finger over a window pane around her before which also didn't go over well

[exoexid]

the suyeol lore is so crazy

[doodlboy]

Local man has an 8 hour shift 2morrow gn every1

[grandmofftarkinsuggestions]

sometimes...... legends canon star wars..... is worse.

[shatterthefragments]

HELP HES JUST 😍

(It would never happen even if we both wanted to bc he smokes but I went to school with him and have always been enamoured)

Visual Artist, fibre artist, Bassist, harpist(?), clarinetist, makes/produces own music (like do I want to smooch or just BE him?)

[trees-to-meet-you]

Ralsei wore a cloak over his robes and hat??