#especially if I missed something

[jojo-schmo]

child of chaos,

grown from the seeds of nature

[grimfantas]

10 years in the future for Nanako-chan

[chalkrub]

ralsei deltarune by request <:^)

[rockingtheorange]

Planning on moving on from these scenes in the year "never"

[ohnoitsz1m]

Halflife ponies. Btw.

A warning to any MLP enjoyers: if this ends up on derpibooru or any similar site I'll gnaw you into splinters like a cheap plastic dog toy. I'm on the DNP lists under animatorfun and I'll request a new link for this blog specifically if I havw to. Please stop reuploading my shit 💀

Edit: i forgot to reenable the layer with Gordon's glasses it's so over. I was wondering why she looked weird oughhgggh

Edit2: fixed gordon <3

[asleepinawell]

Irem, the Pillared City: Futures

[youphoriaot7]

"But if all the eggs were there, where was Techno?"

See that small house up on the top of the Wall? That's the one; surrounded by vines and crows and field after field of potatoes.

What, didn't you wonder where Philza was today?

Old friends have a lot of catching up to do. And it's best done over some farmwork.

[lbhslefttiddie]

youve heard of sex flowers get ready for the flower that makes you into a celestial shoujo herione complete with particle effects you cannot turn the fuck off and creates a wifebeam so powerful it can incapacitate and maim and keeps making you burst into tears and fall on your ass which makes the wifebeam More Powerful and you also cannot turn this off either. and is also still, sort of, a sex flower

from one of my favorite fanfictions, Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam, a fic that defies description in the best possible way

[razzek]

One thing that's starting to really get to me with the James Somerton stuff is a real strong undercurrent of disdain toward his fans. And yeah, I was one of them. A good scam artist isn't as easy to spot as y'all seem to think. You forget that you have all the information right now. Two days ago most of you had never heard of him and it would have kept going. Anyone can fall for a scam, nobody is immune. I would love to have had whatever resources you guys think we all should magically know about so I could have kept my sad $5 a month I really needed but thought was going to something worthwhile. Some of us can only devote so much energy into things and when you have no idea whatsoever that something is amiss of course you're not going to go digging for sources, why would you when everything is fine as far as you know? I really wish I could have seen the dissenting opinions on him but for many, many reasons that aren't just that the dissenting voices weren't widely circulating at the time all I had was the thought every now and again that "huh that doesn't seem right" and then go on with my day. And I think that happened to a lot of us. So yeah. Say what you gotta say about Somerton, he has more than earned it with the damage he's caused, but maybe don't shit so hard on his former fans because that is going to be you someday with something, it happens to everyone sooner or later.

[starduststorm-art]

One last drawing of 2023!

16 years of Kagamine and 15 years of Daughter of Evil 🧡💛🌹

[cerise-on-top]

Ooh, what if Price/Ghost/Gaz/Laswell came across their childhood best friend? Reuniting with reader who was there for them through thick and thin, until they joined the military and lost contact 🙏

I've been reading/re-reading some of your works!! They're so good! Also, I'm sorry those teenagers were pricks to you, hope you have some better days soon!

Hello! I have to say, I'm genuinely surprised anyone reads my rambles in the tags, I didn't think anyone would, but thank you! You don't know how much I appreciate it! Today was already a much better day, which is why I decided to write and post two requests today! This is a lovely request, very nice! Love me some platonic stuff as well! Sometimes all you need is a good friend by your side!

Price, Gaz, Ghost and Laswell Come Across their Childhood Best Friend

Price: He actually thinks about you from time to time, more often than he’d like to admit. You were a good person in his eyes, always there for him no matter what he went through, which is something he could appreciate. His childhood wasn’t particularly bad, but he had some days where he would have loved to simply throw in the towel, which is normal, though. Price was a rowdy guy when he was young, so you likely either went along with some of his ideas or were kind enough to talk him out of them. Either way, he appreciated having you around, so seeing you again would be quite the surprise, he didn’t think he ever would again. If he’s on a mission, then the talk will be kept short, but afterwards he’ll make sure to seek you out again, catch up a bit and ask you how you’ve been. Price didn’t expect to have missed you this much, but he only realized that once he saw you. You’ll either be going to one of the cafes you used to visit nearby, or maybe sit down on a park bench and maybe eat some sandwiches together, just like you used to during the good old times. Since you’d likely be around his age, so roughly 37-38, you’d have a lot to tell. Roughly 22 years you need to catch up on. He’s willing to talk to you, tell you about his career, how he's been doing, about the people he’s met and how he’s feeling. Considering this much time has passed, there’s a good chance you’ve both mellowed out quite a bit, but it isn’t unpleasant, you’re both mature people now. He likes hearing about everything you’ve accomplished, it’s like you became a new person during all those years. It’s so lovely to him, he sort of can’t believe it. Whether it’s a coincidence, or maybe you sought him out, it doesn’t matter, spending time with you again brings back all those memories he thought he had since forgotten about. He laughs, he smiles, he frowns. He’s a bit more expressive with you, but really wants to reminisce about the good old times. Even so, he hopes to be able to see you again more often, so you’ll likely exchange numbers. This time he tries to make sure to not lose contact with you and will text you every once in a while.

Gaz: When he was a child, Gaz was a lot calmer than he is today, a very quiet kid. He had always been a good boy, a gift in the eyes of many, but he wasn’t as active a child as one would imagine. Ergo he didn’t have very many friends until he became older either, but he was loyal to the few he did have. You were one of them. As you slowly started to grow apart, he started to miss you, but didn’t want to bother you either, as much as he would have loved to do so. So I’m sure you can imagine the surprise on his face when he found you at the mall the two of you would hang out in during rainy days. Gaz has become more confident, so he’d immediately walk up to you once he recognises you and start talking. Like Price, he’d be pleasantly surprised to just see you in such a mundane place, but won’t question it. Or complain about it either. In fact, if you’re not carrying anything heavy, he’d be the one to suggest going out to eat or drink something. Again, either a small and quiet cafe or a small restaurant. Maybe you’d go to a place you liked when you were kids, if it’s still open. Regardless, it’d be hard to get him to shut up with how excited he is to have you around. It’s a calm kind of excitement, but he’s happy, and that’s what’s important. It’s very likely that he’ll pay for your food, even if you insist he shouldn’t, but it’s not like he has any other use for his money. Chatting with him about the good old times is very sweet, he likes to bring up all the good things. But eventually, he’ll thank you for everything you’ve done for him and how happy he was to have you as a friend. Considering there were very few people who tried to get to know him, he was quite lonely, but you fixed that. You made everything better. From the pain on his knee when he fell as you gave him a band-aid, to the pain in his heart when the other children ridiculed him. Like Price, he’ll ask you if you want his number so you could continue to keep in contact with each other. He knows it’ll likely never be the same again, but he can pretend everything is as good as it used to be back when he was young. He’d love to spend time with you again.

Ghost: This man has had one of the worst childhoods imaginable. He was abused by his father, and the only friends he had aside from you were his mother and his brother. Barely anyone was kind towards him or accepted him considering he had always been the weird kid. No one but you wanted to spend time with him. Needless to say, Ghost had taken a liking to you when he was younger. You spent your time with him, you even defended him when some of the other kids ridiculed him. And now, 12 years later, he finds you running after a coin you accidentally dropped on the ground, bumping into him as you did so. He’d be wide eyed at first, a bit quiet as well. Once you left he never would have thought he’d ever find someone like you again, but here you were, just as quiet and surprised to see him. Ghost would pick up the coin for you and ask you how you’ve been. It had been a while. Although he’s not usually one to smile, especially not in public, you could see him faintly do so. He’s become a quiet man, so he won’t be talking too much about everything, especially not everything that happened after he joined the military, but he’s more than willing to talk to you about other matters. His life has become better over the past few years, but that doesn’t mean he isn't scarred still. He’ll offer you a walk to just about anywhere, really, even if the final destination will always end up being one of the places you used to hang out in as children. An abandoned house, a park, a mall. Manchester is a fairly large city, so there’s much to see. It would be a bit rough to catch up with him entirely, but he loves to hear about everything you’ve accomplished. You’ve become such a mature person, it warms his heart to see how far you’ve come in life. Back then, when everything was so bleak, when neither of you thought you’d see your 28th birthdays, everything was different. But now, you’re smiling at him as you’re drinking your milkshake. You seem to be better off, and so is he. It makes him nostalgic to see all of this, but he’s happy. Ghost will offer you to come to his home if you want. Even now, he still loves you dearly as a friend and couldn’t be happier about the fact he’s found you again by chance.

Laswell: When she was young she was a healthy mix of rowdy and good. While she never caused much trouble, she did stand up for herself when she needed to. However, this alone was enough to get the attention of some awful people. People either liked her or hated her, there usually was no inbetween for them. Some people did try to bully her, but it never ended well since she would fight for herself, plus she had some good friends who would do the same for her. However, none of them could compare to you, as you were her best friend. All her joys she would celebrate with you, and all of her sadness she would share with you. Back then, things were simpler, something small meant the end of the world, but you always had each other’s backs. Laswell tries to not think about you too much since you slowly drifting apart is quite painful to her. As she grew older, she learned to live with the pain and it didn’t bother her as much. Still, she was very happy when you were sending her a message after all this time. She may have been at work, but responded to you immediately, having missed you just as much as you missed her. Once you meet up it’s evident you’ve both grown a lot older. Laswell has been working for the CIA since her twenties, so it’s been almost thirty years. You have a lot to catch up on, but you take your time, eating at a fancy restaurant and spending hours there, laughing at everything that’s happened. Laswell would show you photos of all the places she’s visited during her downtime. She’s seen almost the entire world, some of it with her wife, some of it without her. Although she doesn’t usually tell people she’s married, to another woman too, she knows you’re a safe person, you’ve always accepted her as she was. Considering how happy you looked when you saw her wife, she continued to tell you about the world. But you get your chance to tell her about everything that’s happened to you as well. If the conversation goes especially well, Laswell might invite you to a few outings every once in a while, after you’ve met up a few more times. Plus you get to meet her wife eventually as well, which is a real privilege. Considering how much she loves her and wants to protect her, not many know about her. It’ll be fun either way since you get to make more memories together again.

[iridiss]

something something about autism masking and how it relates to Mystreet Garroth’s character development. something about how Mystreet Aphmau “Has Never Masked Her Chaotic Audhd Once In Her Life” McGee influences Garroth to crawl out of his posh boy shell and goof off and run wild

[chirpsythismorning]

This just hit me

"With selfless hearts--" !?!?!?!?

Mike is literally being framed as the heart here, and while that is up to debate for a lot of people, it doesn't change the fact that within the story he is narratively given this role by Will and it is even reinforced at this very moment before his monologue to El.

While I do fully believe this line is meant to hold dual meaning spanning multiple characters in the finale, who are capable of being the heart, having hearts, and having been through similar anguish that revolved around them being selfless i.e. Max, Eddie, etc., it already exists as a verbalized concept for Mike. It's who he is (in Will's eyes), and in this moment, they are choosing to highlight that.

And so does that mean this is a 'selfless heart' moment for Mike? Is Mike here caring more about others wants and needs than his own? Why would telling his girlfriend he loves her be selfless? Unless it's what he thinks she wants and needs, but not what he wants and needs?...

[bikananjarrus]

HAYMITCH BOOK HAYMITCH BOOK HAYMITCH BOOK

(source)

[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

[royalarchivist]

Etoiles: [Reading Richarlyson's sign] "It looks so cute" it's really good. And what's your favorite? It's because my mother is doing- is doing them, like, she's doing crazy mkhabez, and like, when I eat it, I forget all my problems. I think it's like- it's like drug for me. It’s like cocaine. [Laughs] I never did cocaine in my life, but I think mkhabez is the same effect. It’s the same effect for me.

[Note: Mkhabez are a type of Algerian pastry.]