#but i had a lot of feelings and wanted to articulate them

[double-u-qed]

for me personally, what strengthens my autistic prowl headcanon is that he's rather good on the principles of body language, taking stock of minute movements and understanding what it could mean. he overanalyzes and tries to predict the meaning behind it. but he doesn't have the full grasp on social matters, thus making people unpredictable because he doesn't truly understand or even just 'go with the flow' when it comes to people. he needs a script of sort to interact, and in a way, body language is that.

he can have all the data on someone he wants, preferring to think of people in numbers because numbers are safe and predictable (not as in, oh, Prowl is willing to let people die. when i say numbers here i mean it literally, as in his calculations that he can't help himself from running). the individuality of people, however.... he can't actually put his knowledge into practice when he's thinking too hard on how he should react to said body language.

im not necessarily applying this to idw1 specifically, btw (all prowls are autistic to me). because the thing about idw1 prowl, i do like seeing him in an autistic lens but he is also Just An Asshole. he can in fact be both (though there's something to be said on how certain characters are a touch unreliable in how they talk about him because they believe the worst of him (i.e., Fort Max feeling he was left for dead when Prowl was led to believe that he had died), as well as how the writers just wanted to make Prowl Always in the wrong, even though he very much had a point in saying the Autobots were hypocrites, even if Prowl is still a bad guy despite being a victim). that's a lot of words to say that i hate people looking at Prowl's worst traits and trying to justify them simply with 'he's autistic' lol. there can be a genuinely interesting conversation on how the way his processor works can be an allegory for being neurodivergent/autistic specifically, but alas.. prowl is extremely flawed, and that's okay! he can be flawed and still exist within the realm of your headcanon.

really i just mean it's a bit Interesting when that's all people go with. you can say it's a mix of both, and that's still better than painting a rather harmful picture of autism/autistic traits. they don't make you into an asshole, they make certain areas of life harder to navigate. in Prowl's case, i think you can definitely say that both his good and bad traits can be used for the headcanon, it's just that he also doesn't do himself any favors when it comes to people liking him, and he's well aware of that. he doesn't pretend to be a good person, but he still gets frustrated when people don't see things the way he does.

it's difficult even trying to articulate my thoughts here because i don't want to be misunderstood oughhh i just relate to him because i tend to answer rhetorical questions because i can't pick up on whether or not someone is being genuine in asking, but im really fucking good at reading body languages. it's like a game of life or death to me. i took classes for something that seems to come easier to people, building up the skill. all just to still not get people on a fundamental level. Oh well

[laswells-ashtray]

Imagine the 141 getting to meet Sergeant Price?? Like, Time Machine type shit or they were around when he was still young. Either way, they got to see how chaotic and truly reckless their captain was in his younger days(as well as how in love he and Nik were)

I went for a slightly different route and I hope you don't mind, I just couldn't get my mind to cooperate with time travel so I went with a weird chemical that de-ages you and boom, young John. [I wanna add because I don't like how I worded something here, I'm not saying Sergeant Price is 18, I'm saying he likes it I just can't articulate this one sentence the way I want to.]

Pushing himself up into a sitting position with a groan, Ghost tries to take in his surroundings. His eyes feel like they've been glued shut and then ripped open, his left shoulder aches and the hilt of one of his knives is digging into his hip. He watches Soap and Gaz do the same as him, glancing around their surroundings with a look of questioning.

They'd been fine until one lone man had sprung round a corner and launched something at them. It'd moved too fast for Ghost to get a glimpse of what it was before it smacked against Price's chest and then there had been a bang before he'd woken up in his arse. Nothing around them was destroyed so it couldn't have been an explosion, what the fuck was it?

He jolts up suddenly, ignoring the throbbing pain in his shoulder as he looks over to where John had been standing. He's still unconscious but he seems relatively unharmed until Ghost's eyes drift up to his face.

He rubs a hand over his eyes, smearing them with eyeblack and catching his hands on a rough edge of his mask that he's yet to file down and fix. It changes nothing. He remains the same as he had before, clean-shaven. He not so gracefully shifts across the floor closer to the captain, gaining the two attention of the two sergeants.

It certainly looks like John, he's sure of that but there appears to be a slight problem. It might be the fact that he looks around 18, that could be it. Ghost knows that he might be hallucinating but it feels too real. He's seen pictures of a young, Sergeant Price before. Bit of a baby face until he'd committed to the beard, went from looking like a teenager to Robert Shaw in Jaws. And this looks exactly like Price pre-beard.

He can feel Gaz's hand on his shoulder as they peer down at the body in front of them and Soap's soft, barely audible "wit the fuck". So, they're all seeing it.

There's a grumble before Price? throws himself into a sitting position and scans the room, eyes stopping on the three of them. Watching the scowl form on his face as he eyes them all with confusion is almost comical.

"Who the fuck are you lot?"

Well, he has the same amount of tact that John typically has.

"Who are you?" Gaz blurts out, looking the younger man up and down.

The man seems to quickly identify them as British and SAS but it does little to quell the obvious suspicion he regards them with. "Sergeant John Price, now are you gonna tell me who you are or keep standing there like a spare prick at a whore's wedding?"

Bloody hell.

Soap's snort is obnoxious in the quiet atmosphere of the room but Ghost can't bring himself to feel annoyed about it, if he wasn't used to half of the bullshit they do then he'd probably be in fits of hysterical laughter by now.

"You sure about that?" Ghost asks him, watching the man through narrowed eyes. It'd be no good to let him know that Ghost was equally confused as he was.

Maybe John rolls his eyes, glaring at Ghost as he takes in the view of the masked man in front of him before letting out a soft, amused huff.

"You're a fuckin big lad, int ye, Skeletor? Yes, I'm sure. I know who I bloody well am."

He can't be John, he can't be. But it's so much like him, the abruptness, the demeanour and the look. He's everything like the pictures Ghost has seen and the stories he's heard from Nikolai and Kate.

"Prove it," John had told him the story once while drunk and had completely forgotten about it after, Simon had never brought it up again. He liked to pretend that they'd both forgotten about it. "scar on your shoulder blade, where did it come from?"

He refuses to feel bad about how the younger man's face falls before he can hide it with a look of anger. "Courtesy of a bottle of Johnnie Walker's finest in my old man's clumsy hands. And how the fuck does a cunt like you know that?"

It's John. It's fucking Price. It's his captain, but it isn't.

He ignores the sharp inhale from one of the sergeants behind him as he leans in closer to John, pretending not to notice how the younger man's hands clench into fists.

"You're our captain, or you're supposed to be until someone lopped something at you and now you're a bloody sergeant." There's no proper way to explain it, is there? The younger man will never believe him.

John stares blankly back at him before eventually asking a question, "Is this Mac trying to take the piss because he's annoyed about the dent in his car? The crabbit git."

Soap answers before he has the chance to,

"I'm afraid we don't ken anyhin aboot Mac or his motor, mate. And we're no rippin the piss."

The disbelief is obvious as John snorts and crosses his arms, looking far to amused at Soap's words.

"He even got another Scot to do it. Good on the bastard, I'll finally stop hearing about the amount of "smarmy Englishmen" on base. Tell me, William Wallace, where did he find you?"

The thought strikes Ghost and he's glad the balaclava hides the smirk on his face, it appears that every variation of John Price is a bit of a wanker.

Added thought is just Sergeant Price meeting current-day Nikolai and walking away because he isn't getting caught with a hard-on by the man he'd been shagging two days ago back when said man was almost twenty years younger.

[loycos]

How do you think Ekko feels about Caitlyn and Vi, separately and as a couple? Reed Shannon (Ekko's VA) stated in a post on how Caitlyn found her humanity and grace through her struggles; plus he resposted(?) a meme of Caitlyn alongside Ekko, Jinx, Vi and Isha from that gangster family meme; I don't know if you know the meme, it was the best way I could describe it.

again diving into personal headcanon territory, with a little bit of support from League lore (idk if its still relevant). i feel like i need to explain what my post canon vision for caitvi is to articulate what i think ekko would think of them. ramble incoming:

i think caitlyn and vi are gonna be enforcers again, caitlyn as the sheriff and vi her second-in-command (deputy). caitlyn will try to reform the enforcers with a stricter hand, and a watchful eye. theres a reason she didnt take her seat in the council- caitlyn is all about doing the hard job on location, seeing reality through her own eyes- she doesnt want to help by sitting in a tower and discussing things in theory, shes practical and realistic and she wants to experience the real thing. her job as sheriff will allow her to make that change while still giving her the access to do things on the field.

vi joining tbe enforcers will mainly be done to stay close to caitlyn and protect her if needed. vi never had a big direction in life other than the people she loves- she would jump on the opportunity to spend more time with cait and have the chance to punch people with her big gauntlets. her position as deputy is absolutely unearned in terms of experience or even commitment to the cause- but caitlyn is the sheriff and she put her there, so vi and her can stay close. which other enforcers, and pilties, and zaunites, are extremely aware of. it is corruption, even if relatively unharmful one. having a zaunite as the deputy made a lot of pilties upset, especially when shes so underqualified, and made them question caitlyn's ethics, for good reason. mega especially when vi is known to overall act out of line, cause unnecessary property damage, show overall disrespect to the reformed enforcer protocol and not bind herself to schedules, and yet get absolutely no punishment, let alone acknowledgement of her misdeeds by her boss, who turns a blind eye (wink wink) to her shenanigans.

so yeah, other enforcers are fuming, the pilties arent happy, and zaunites? well, despite caitlyn trying her best to solve the issues that ran years before she was born, there's only so much changing the protocol can do for her. she is harsher on enforcer violence and the prison under her watch has changed to be more humane, but its not like she can control every single enforcer personally. so its not perfect but its slightly better than what it used to be. caitlyn herself has the exact same attitude towards both pilties and zaunites- kind of cold, calculated, no bullshit taken, unapologetic, yet with a layer of empathy underneath the surface. kind of similar to what grayson was. this attitude doesnt win her people's favor on either side, but it does earn her respect- and especially in zaun, where her family status means nothing, that means a lot. she's definitely not a "champion of the people"- i think most people in the city actively dislike her, and the (true) rumors of corruption arent helping.

as for vi, zaunites see her as a traitor. she is known to be kind of a bulldozer that can be quite trigger happy, especially when it involves caitlyn (who we already discussed people dont really like) being in danger or disrespected. she has a dismissive "and what about that" attitude that is very zaun in nature, but since shes now wearing a badge, zaunites get annoyed with. pilties, of course, absolutely hate that attitude. so she isnt seen very favorably either, on either side of the river, just like her girlfriend.

the relationship between them is kind of an open secret. every enforcer in the force knows vi is only in her position cause she "gives caitlyn favors under the table", and those rumors reached topside and bottom as well. and again, they arent untrue, theyre just a relatively mean and shallow reading of the actual relationship between the women. neither caitlyn nor vi ever acknowledges these rumors. they stay at a 6 feet distance from each other while working, but the fact they are so interlinked really leaves no other answer. they know everybody knows, everybody knows that they know, and it's never addressed directly by either of them. their relationship is kind of an anigma to people on both sides- pilties think caitlyn settled for a street rat, zaunites think vi sold her soul to be with a rich pig. no one really knows the history or intimate details about their relationship, for obvious reasons, and thats what it looks like to them on the surface.

righttttt, this ask was about ekko. i got carried away. so ekko. how does he play into all of this? while he's not entirely on the average zaunite camp, he is reluctant to work with caitlyn, but does so anyway because ultimately they share similar goals. while he understands vi better than most people, and knows she always puts her loved ones before any political cause, he can't help but feel a little betrayed by her choice. i think he doesnt really see what vi sees in caitlyn, and since he doesnt "get" that, vi's choice to stay with her at all costs looks odd. especially since caitlyn on the surface just looks like a cold, authoritarian bitch. with good intentions! but still a bitch.

in the end, it all comes down to masks. i imagine post canon caitvi are both sporting masks for protection, and have their walls really high up in public. and can you blame them? they actively wear their weakest spot, their achilles heel- each other- on their sleeve. theyre in public positions, have a lot of eyes on them, and their "professional" relationship is extremely looked down upon. so caitlyn acts colder and harsher, and vi puts on a bravado of "i dont give a shit" and uses violence as a threat to deter people from seeing her as weak. the walls are there to ensure their safety. but like we saw in the series, when its just the two of them, all those walls crumble, and they allow themselves to just be vulnerable.

[overnightheartbeats]

Isaac listened to his brother and felt a pang of guilt in his chest. The guilt he'd been carrying since those two got back together, though it had been a guilt that had become dull over time. And, maybe at some point, it even felt like the guilt would go away on its own. Wishful thinking. "I understand. You did perfect that, thinking before you speak. I should learn a thing or two from you." But even with his dry joke, Isaac couldn't hide the pain that flashed across his features when he mentioned wanting to shut him out. The weight of his error smacking him in the face. "I'm lucky you're more mature than me. I can't even...fathom the thought of you shutting me out." Truthfully, Isaac still couldn't make sense of that breakup. And, though it was very late, he now understood it was none of his business. Besides, he had spent enough time with both of them, first hand witness to the love they had for each other. He wasn't sure his pride would allow him to admit it to her, but his brother was in good hands. So, he just shook his head. "Nah, you don't need to explain it to me. I mean, past Isaac would want to know, but I'm okay. You guys look happy, stupid break or no. You found your way eventually."

He turned to look at Eli, pursing his lips slightly. "Biased, maybe, but not incorrect. You were a good person back then too." That was one thing he wouldn't allow. To have his brother believe he was ever anything but a good person. "Hey, no. You've always been deserving of love, ours and hers too. You had a lot on your shoulders. A lot of confusing feelings, you were just a kid. You've only become better with time."

The hug was warm, and though Isa couldn't guarantee that it all washed away, it did heal parts of him. The parts that felt resentment and frustration, towards her and the situation that almost took his brother, felt a wave of relief. His brother being a better man than Isaac could be. He hugged him tighter before pulling away and meeting his eyes. Perhaps, for the first time, in months. "You've kind of become like my moral compass, you know that, right? I will let this go, I promise."

It was impossible to hide the smile that formed on his lips at the mention of Nettie. "She knows, and still decided to come. That is definitely an unexpected plus. If I don't stick my foot in my mouth again, sure I'll try it. A lot I have to make up for with her too." A warm smile shot Eli's way, appreciative that he understood the love and care he had for Nettie, even when he couldn't articulate that himself. "Good, I'm glad she still has that protection detail. I agree with you there now. A shower and looking presentable is definitely needed before she throws me out again." Reaching the funnel cake stand, he placed two orders. One to share with his sisters, and for Eli and Laurel. "Since I still owe you one."

"That's why I needed the time to gather my thoughts. I didn't want to say something I'd regret later. It was the first time I actually wanted to shut you out. I hadn't felt like that since that first night I met you. That feeling is another thing I hated." It was no secret that no one understood their break up. What Eli thought of as a pause in their relationship which at the time he thought was beneficial. "Looking back at that break. Yes, it was stupid. But I'm also glad it happened. It made us stronger now. We needed that time to grow and luckily we didn't grow apart."

He shrugged as they walked ahead. "Bias opinion of yours? I don't know about being a good person. I was so different back then. Not someone deserving of love or companionship. That version of myself wasn't the one who deserved Laurel or deserved the family I had in you guys."

The hug was a necessary between the two boys. Eli kissed the top of his head and patted his back. "I will always pull you back. Won't let you get out to the deep waters without a safety net. I promise you. I've let it go. Now your turn."

Nettie's name brought a smile to his face. 'Yup! The girls convinced her to come hang out. She knows you're coming and still decided to come so you've got an in. Use it. It's safe. I wouldn't let anything happen to her. I know how much you love her. There's quite a few agents watching her back. But you've got to shower and look presentable."

[ladyofthebears]

To add this this whole Jace discourse I just want to say this:

I am the result of an affair my grandmother had with a native american man whilst my pappy, who raised me, was in Vietnam during the war.

As a white passing mixed kid, i was not called names often. I was looked down on, i was treated like an outsider in my own family, sneered at with whispers spread behind my and my brother’s backs.

I have been called a mongrel only a few times but i vividly remember the first time it happened.

I was small enough that my brothers could still trick me into thinking i was adopted because of my pale skin and light hair. After a family gathering (of my Pappys side of the family), i asked how everyone in the family knew we were our father’s children immediately.

My brother smiled very sardonically at me and sprouted something about him and our other brother sticking out like sore thumbs. I was confused, because they knew i was my father’s daughter as well, despite how i looked. I asked why they ignored us and were mean and looked at us like grandma looked at the dead snakes in her garden. He laughed at me and said

“Guess life is just harder for filthy mongrels like us”

I remember that phrase so vividly. And maybe my brother meant it to be joking, but those words stuck with me for years. Stuck with me through puberty when i wore even PALER foundation and put blonde streaks in my hair. Stuck with me as i grew up further in a racist religion that specifically makes indigenous people out to be evil. I remembered it when i finally started interacting with more native people in college to reconnect, remembered it when a white girl told me that “if i wanted to be taken seriously as an Indian i should dye my hair black and start tanning”

Those words have haunted me for a long time and they have only helped to make me despise myself and how I came to be.

I hate being stuck between two things- i hate looking white and having all the unfairly given privilege it grants me over my brother. I hate how i am seen as a pretendian for trying to interact with my culture. I hate knowing i can never get tribal affiliation because of the affair.

I know i have immense privilege because of how i look, but those words still haunt me. Because at the end of the day, thats how i see myself at my lowest moments.

I know that on twitter there is major discourse about Jaces words and actions.

And while yes, this is a fictional show, Jaces struggle is one i am intimately attuned to. I said things and did things i regret looking back out of anger for my own situation, i acted in immature and childish ways. But at the end of the day, i can look back and recognise that because i lived through it, and grew through it. I was constantly confused and hurt and torn between differing worlds and families and peoples and it took me a long long time to come to peace with it.

I am still not fully at peace with it.

So- while you may criticise the writing all you want, please realise that Jaces hurt and anger are feelings that can be very very real for some people. Jace, is obviously a fictional character who doesnt have real world feelings. But your mutuals, the people who see your post on discover page are, and your words about a fictional character can hurt them too.

I am not saying mince your words and center your world around sensitive snowflakes- i am saying, have some empathy- even if it is for a stupid fictional character. Because maybe along the way, you can find empathy for other real world people too.

These were the kids that were made to feel like dirty mongrels.

[glitterghost]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like there is a particular kind of sadness (or loneliness, if you will) that ace/aro folk feel.

[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

[cluescorner]

Tim Drake has a weird fucking function

The thing about Tim that I find unique is that his life became SO MUCH WORSE after joining the heroing thing. Everybody else had a mid-to-shit life before becoming a hero/living with Bruce and mostly everybody (except Jason who LITERALLY DIED) had their life improved by being a hero/being Bruce's kid (or at least it is typically portrayed as such.

Tim had the exact opposite trajectory. His life wasn't perfect before he became Robin, but like...multi-millionaire/billionaire (canon is unclear, but he's within Gotham's upper-strata) kid with both natural intelligence + charisma and a bright future ahead of him and parents who were emotionally neglectful but nothing really beyond that (which is also a form of trauma, but all of the info we have indicates that the Drakes were no Arthur Brown or David Cain) and he still had other people he could rely on outside of them. He went to boarding school, which could be something horrible OR something amazing depending on your own thoughts/experiences. I grew up having a commute where we'd drive past a really pretty and rich af boarding school that literally everybody in our area DREAMED of going to, so to me the idea of going to boarding school sounds incredible but mileage may vary. Tim seems like the type of kid who would thrive in that though. Based on what we know in canon atm, his pre-robin life was fucking amazing.

And then he starts being the sidekick and working towards becoming Robin. His parents immediately get kidnapped and poison themselves through drinking tainted water; his mom dies and his dad is in a coma. This is not the fault of Robin, but Tim himself muses about the idea that Robin and dead parents are linked: to become Robin completely, you must lose your parents. And with how fate/destiny/canon events can operate in comics universes, maybe he isn't that far off. Once his dad wakes up, their relationship becomes strained as the man grieves the loss of his wife and realizes that his son has been doing vigilantism as a hobby. It is unclear exactly how good of a parent Jack was before the incident, but the results of Tim's involvement with the Robin mantle has definitely made things worse between father and son. Jack will also die within quick succession of 2 of Tim's best friends, his girlfriend, and his other father. He will also effectively lose like 1/2 his loved ones in the fallout of all of that mess including: his older brother, his other friends (both civilian and superhero), and the stepmother with whom he shared what I would argue is his best parent-child relationship (Dana also may have died, but it's left unclear). He has stopped pursuing higher education (the moment he even applied for college he 'died', and it seems he hasn't made another attempt since) and if he wasn’t a major focus of the media before he sure is now. He tries to quit briefly (in fact he initially was planning on quitting once someone more suited came along) and cannot bring himself to do so. Even when he does manage to get away for a while, his superhero life impacts the pre-robin life he is trying to go back to. Leaving is an impossibility, this is all there is for him now. He also isn’t allowed to make mistakes anymore, not when lives hang in the balance. The one who enforces that impossible standard the most (besides Bruce depending on who's writing) is himself. He’s got TRAUMA now and people want to hurt him constantly. He is constantly questioning his own sanity and morality and place in the world. He almost dies like every month. Tim grows colder and less grounded, he is becoming both a better and a worse version of himself at the same time. He’s saving lives in the same few issues as he’s setting up a Saw movie plot for the man who killed his father. He is haunted by the ghosts of his past and the looming figure of his future. His life becomes SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE after he becomes Robin. Some of it is the fault of others, some is the fault of circumstance, and some of it is due to his own actions. But basically all of Tim's worst traumas and life-changing moments are either tied to or caused by Robin. Dick's parents would still be dead, Jason would still be living on the streets, Stephanie would still have Arthur Brown for a father and a lot of other things that deserve their own posts/IDK if they've been retconned, and Damian would still have been raised in the eco-cult where death is a constant. Those are life circumstances that occur without the involvement of Robin, the only one who even needs Bruce involved at all in their series of events is Damian. But Tim? All of what is considered his 'worst' moments occur after he assumes the role.

This idea is what I find the coolest and most fascinating about Tim as a character. Being a hero is usually portrayed as either an outright awesome thing or a righteous duty that one must fulfill or (maybe in a grimmer and/or more grounded story) a sacrifice to your interpersonal relationships/mental health that is made for the greater good. For Tim, being a superhero actively ruined his life (both because of the general circumstances surrounding being a kid vigilante and the choices he made as part of that role). It's never portrayed that way in canon because we need to come out of issues going 'wow being a superhero is so cool! I'm gonna buy the next issue!', but when you just look at Tim's life literally everything really bad that we know of occurred after he became Robin.

[jingledbells]

there’s been a big increase of ford hate posts around here hasn’t there

[oh-katsuki]

im gonna say something corny but... the profound effect that living in a women-only house had on me was and is insane. it was (almost) completely by chance that only women ended up living there, but i think moving in with my housemates was possibly the best decision i've ever made. i genuinely wish i could describe that kind of love and community, but i don't have the vocabulary. all that i know is that it's such a privilege to have gotten to live in that house and to love those women and to get to keep loving them. they're my most precious friends and i owe that feeling of safety and community to them. there was just something very special about that house. i was very lucky, i think. i don't think people get to love like this every day.

[persicipen]

managing both star rail and genshin when one receives a brand new update and the other hosts the main event is extremely tiring for me nowadays. i love meeting old characters, but ever since genshin stopped adding important lore to the events, i don’t feel like i’m missing out on anything if i just skim through the dialogues — it’s just characters interacting in wholesome ways, but barely anything new.

the abundance of text that isn’t really necessary takes just so much time to digest, and i feel like it used to be easier to complete the quests in one go in the past… or at least it used to be more engaging if contained lore drops. i don’t have any opinions on star rail quest yet, it’s not bad, but also i’m not particularly interested in characters involved. i have never been too fond of the cringe comedy part of penacony, anyway, but that is just my personal take.

[llycaons]

I'm starting to reread unstrictly ballroom and I do really like this one for the finale but I maintain making wwx a stripper in the backstory as the reason for his disgrace and banishment from the world of professional dance doesn't actually make any sense when compared against his canon reasons for his exile from the cultivation world...like it IS unconventional and harshly punished by conservative/conventional society but ultimately it's something he's individually doing for fun/artistry, not something he's butting heads with authority figures in order to save people's lives for. or in a lower-stakes setting like this, it could be saving people's livelihoods.

like the moral aspect of his alienation from the mainstream isn't rly an aspect and the author seemingly just wanted to write him as a stripper for fun. which is fine but it's missing. the THEMES

[good-beanswrites]

Just wanted to plant an idea if you wanted a bit of fuel: Mahiru asking Yuno to come to her cell before everything goes down.

Edit: I forgot the ask didn't say it but this is part of Kyanako's incredible Order Of Attack AU!

Didn't mean for this to become a mini Mappi study but here we are ✨ Thank you for the request! I fully intended to write them hanging out, but it's more right before they hang out lol. Went a bit on-the-nose with foreshadowing, but isn't that the fun part? It has become Emotional Over Mahiru Hour...

I kept things vague, but TW for mentioning her boyfriend's state of potential self-harm

Mahiru tried not to act superstitious, she really did. As much as she loved the idea of little luck charms, or avoided easy signs of misfortune, it was easier to keep quiet about such ridiculous things.

Maybe catching a bride’s bouquet meant no guarantees; maybe there was no real harm in stepping underneath ladders, maybe a coin tossed into a fountain had no real magic to its wish. However, the one thing she knew for sure held power was a lucky presence. Being in the right place at the right time could alter everything. And today was the right time for something. There was this waiting in the air. The prison had been holding its breath. Mahiru knew it was time to release it all.

“You must be so lonely, why don’t you let big sis Mahiru keep you company?” She beamed at Amane.

She often recalled the good fortune that she and a certain young man had crossed paths on the university terrace. She used to laugh with him about the wonderful coincidence of bumping into each other outside of the bakery, then the convenience store. 

Though she’d never spoken about it to him, she was also grateful for many occasions where she walked in on him at the precise moment to talk him out of something reckless. She always told him that they’d do everything together. He didn’t need to be alone anymore. 

“I wish to be alone. I need peace of mind to think.” Amane turned away from the cell door.

It was a good thing, too. Mahiru’s smile wasn’t as convincing as she said, “o-oh. Of course.”

She made her way around the panopticon, hearing Fuuta pace his cell in anticipation. He must have felt it too, this holding of breath. 

Or perhaps not. He turned down her offer for a bit of company, including a few more colorful words than Amane had. Mahiru just apologized for bothering him and headed back to her cell. She wasn’t sure where Mikoto was at this hour, but she didn’t feel like smiling through a third rejection.

She shook her head back and forth. She wished the motion could rattle the voices inside, she wished she could shake them all away. With her arms secured in place she could no longer cover her ears. She used to hum to keep them at bay, but lately they’d been too loud to stifle. They just kept on talking.

Their words told her the two were right. Nobody needed her company. No – nobody wanted it. Being together hadn’t helped her boyfriend. In fact, being together had been the very thing that got him killed. No wonder Amane and Fuuta wanted to avoid her. 

So then, this was for the best. She would rather deal with the brief sting of refusal than stumble in one day to find them hurt… or worse. As much as she tried to avoid the superstition of it all, the voices reminded her that her very presence could mean life or death. 

“Mappi, are you alright?” Mahiru hadn’t realized a tear had slipped down her cheek until she hurried to swipe it away in front of Yuno. 

“Hah, I’m fine! Just fine.” It was impossible to fool her, Mahiru had learned, but that never stopped her from trying. 

At least she always spoke tactfully. “Rough morning?”

Mahiru shifted her arms in her uniform, making a small sound of agreement.

“Can I do anything to help? What if I stay with you for a bit? I can do your hair, and…”

The voices were right. Amane and Fuuta knew it, too. Presences did hold power, and Mahiru’s was cursed.

But she would sound foolish admitting such a fear to Yuno. She'd heard plenty from the voices about how stupid and airheaded she was, there was no use in getting the same lecture from someone as grounded as her.

Mahiru managed a weak protest, unable to explain her real reasoning. Yuno was insistent. She didn’t give much of a choice. Could she feel the strangeness of the prison, as well? 

At last, Mahiru allowed her shoulders to sag. Yuno was lucky. And kind. Having her nearby would do her good. Amane and Fuuta would be alright. Mahiru had tried spending more time with them after verdicts were announced. Now, she made a mental note to pull back. If her love couldn’t save anyone, at least she could spare them from her curse. They would be safe. 

“Yes. Please stay. The truth is... I don't want to be alone.”

[selvepnea]

Been thinking about my body a lot

[kuromi-hoemie]

bleh

[t-u-i-t-c]

what a way to go