#its just weird but fascinating

[proxycrit]

LINKTOBER DAY 20: ZORA WELLSPRING

Sidon plays packhorse. Link and Zelda play with electricity and water. Everybody leaves happy except for the fried aerocuda.

(Something’s in the water temple.)

This is a self indulgent totk au called Familiar Familiar where link and zelda travel through upheaval hyrule! Masterpost can be found here:

Patreon here too, if you wanna feed me a slice of bread like a duck

[starry-bi-sky]

fast food is the best course of action after causing a scene. ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀɴʏᴀʟ ᴀʟ ɢʜᴜʟ ᴀᴜ

(First Post Here and Second Post Here

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Danny finds Sam easily.

She's right where she said she was over the phone: standing outside on a balcony, in Gotham, at Father's many charity functions. 

("Would you still be willing to fly over to Gotham, Danny?" She asks, her voice ringing clear through the speakers. Danny is already climbing out his window before she even finishes her sentence. He was just about to settle down for the night, his ghosts would know better by now than to disturb him at this time. The Box Ghost not included.)

("Of course." He says, sounding more confident than he feels. Sam was one of his best— closest friends, he would do anything she or Tucker asked. Even if it means stepping foot into his Father's city. He drops down silently, and walks through the house's ghost shield. "Would you like me to bring you anything?")

(Sam sighs through the phone, relief leaking through. "One of the veggie burgers from Nasty Burgers would be great, with their new ecto-fries. Extra salt. I'm sick of all this rich people food.")

(A small smile pulls across Danny's face, tilting at the corner as his living form falls away to his ghost self. "Alright," he says, and kicks himself off the ground, "I'll be there in a few minutes.")

("Thanks, Danny.")

He had the bag of food with him, stored in a container he had to run back to the house to get that would prevent the food from cooling during his flight over. Clutching it in hand, he floats down behind Sam and sheds his invisibility.

Being visible and being invisible always felt different, but in a way Danny can never describe, no matter how many times he tries to think about it. It's like a gut-feeling, a sixth sense, he always knows when he's visible and when he is not.

His ghost form burns away like steel wool being lit, and Danny drops the last foot to the ground silently. In his other hand lies his thermos, but filled with plain ectoplasm — lazarus water. "I have your food." 

(He brought the thermos for himself — his side was still healing from his last fight with Technus. The ghost impaled him with a broken pipe, and Danny returned the favor by wedging his sword into his chest. Technus had been quite offended by him ruining his favorite coat.)

Sam jumps a foot into the air, and her hand slams across her mouth to muffle the shriek she lets out as she whirls around. "Danny!" She hisses, her voice rising in pitch, and her eyes narrow at him into a glare. "Freaking-- Tucker's right, we seriously need to put a bell on you."

"You have been saying that for years," Danny grins, sharp-toothed and jack-knifed, and passes the container over to her. "And yet I've yet to see any kind of bell." He was going to start getting disappointed at this rate.

As Sam takes the container, Danny hops up onto the railing and looks around. He hadn't seen any of Father's other children lurking around the building before he revealed himself, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. He wasn't going to fool himself into thinking that their stealth skills were poor.

He wasn't that arrogant.

...Anymore.

"Oh you will." Sam threatens, unzipping the container and grabbing the takeout bag. "I'll get you a collar and everything, we can start calling you Catwoman." When she pulls out her fries, Danny snaps forward and steals one from the box, ignoring her indignant yell as he pops it into his mouth.

"I spent my own money on these fries, Sam." He sniffs, leaning away from her with a stifled huff of laughter as she swats at him. "So they are technically my fries. And also, Catwoman would be a poor thief if she wore a bell."

Sam grumbles at him, and takes a bite out of a handful of fries. "I'll venmo you money." She says past a mouthful of food, Danny would have been disgusted in the past, when he was still new. But he's gotten used to this... normality. So he makes no reaction to it. "How does three hundred bucks sound?"

Danny immediately frowns.

"Did you have a fight with your parents?" He asks, eyes glancing to the doors. Doors that are covered heavily by curtains and blurred heavily, decadent music passing through in muffled sounds. He shifts himself away from the light. "You only spend that much money when they've pissed you off."

Sam's chewing stops, and her annoyed expression falters into one Danny knows well -- hurt, furrowed brows, a small frown, disappointment -- and she turns her head away from him. She swallows. "Yeah." she says, quiet.

Oh.

Danny knows that tone too.

Guilt settles like a rock in his chest. He leans forward, "Was it about me again?" He wasn't blind to the disdain Sam's parents had for him, far from it. This wasn't the first time Sam had gotten into a fight with them over her friendship with him and Tucker. But especially him. He unsettled people, even after years of observing his age-mates and trying to mimic their behavior, and anyone who knew him in middle school knew it was an act.  

Sam's silence gives him all the confirmation he needs, and the guilt heavies itself with the weight of the sky. Danny's never much cared about others' opinions of him -- he is (was?) an Al Ghul, they never heed to mind what the weight of a simpleton's thoughts.

But.. he cares a little a lot when it hurts his friends like this. He presses his lips together into a thin line, and forces the words out through his teeth. It sounds robotic. Al Ghul's do not apologize. "I... am sorry." But this one does. It doesn’t come easy. 

Sam sighs through her nose, and turns to roll her eyes at him. "Don't apologize on their behalf when you won't even apologize for your own; their assholes." She says, and goes reaching for more fries.

It's a sign, a signal. A silent word for the conversation to move on, to change. A distraction. Danny grasps it with both hands, and makes an offended noise in the back of his throat. And like he has learned, puts a hand to his chest like a scandalized American southern lady. "I apologize! I apologize plenty."

She snorts. "Only when you think it matters." And pokes him in the ribs sharply with her fry. He withholds a wince and snatches it out of her hands. "You're about as unapologetic as they come, Danny J. Fenton. I've seen you look more sincere when you're trying to drive your sword between Vlad's ribs."

"Stabbing Masters is a very important task for me, Sam." Danny says in only partially faux-seriousness. Masters has yet to realize that Danny had no interest in becoming his son, but he had to (reluctantly) admire his persistence. "Of course I will apply myself to it as best as I can."

He grins triumphantly when Sam laughs, and she reaches over to shove him square in the chest. He barks out a laugh of his own as he grips onto the balcony railing and catches himself at an angle.

"Quit with your method actor talk," Sam retorts, grinning sharply while Danny twists himself back up elegantly. "I know you can talk like a normal person, I've literally seen you do it."

Danny sniffs, and snatches more fries from the carton as revenge. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Miss Sam." He says, grin-twisting when Sam rolls her eyes. "My speech has always been this way. This 'normal' you speak of, I do not know it."

She waves her hand dismissively at him. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. But if you keep talking like that, I'm pushing you off the balcony."

"Such violence, Sam."

He gets a laugh again, full of disbelief without any of the annoyance. "I'm gonna be the one that stabs you, oh my god. Pot meet kettle." She looks at him again, smiling.

Danny smiles back, and with a flick of his wrist pulls out a kunai from his sleeve. It was one of the few weapons Mother was able to pass on to him whenever she made her scarce visits. He cherishes it well, along with anything else she was capable of giving him. 

He holds the handle out to her, and watches her face shift from disbelief to shock, then back to disbelief. "Then you're gonna need a weapon to do that." 

"Of course you have a pointy object on you." She mutters, and takes the kunai and puts it in her purse. Danny makes a pleased hum, it resonates low in his core, and drops his hand. "When do you not have a pointy object on you?"

As if to make her point, Danny's hands twist near his side, and he holds his palms up to her, revealing the shobo he had also hidden on him. He gives her a shit-eating grin. "Never." He lowers his hand, and pockets the small weapon once again. 

Sam huffs, "Of course," she repeats, "thanks. I was gonna bring a knife but..."

Danny finishes the sentence for her, kicking his feet idly and knowingly. "The security at the door?" He'd seen them on his flight over the building. It wouldn't do much in the face of the Rogues, but at least they were good at keeping appearances and keeping out the smaller threats.

He rolls his eyes and turns his head away, looking up to the ugly, smog-covered skies. There was no bat signal in the air, and while that was a good thing, Danny almost wished there was. He wanted to see it. "I saw, and I would’ve called Father foolish if he hadn’t hired help. He attracts trouble almost as badly as I do."

"Maybe it's hereditary," Sam jokes, laughing under her breath. With her fries finished, she started on her veggie burger. "At least your dad isn't a vigilante like you are."

Danny smiles wryly. It felt nice to be able to talk more freely about this. That he didn't have to hide the fact that his father was Bruce Wayne, now that Sam knew it from her own accord. Maybe he could have conversations like these more often. Even if it was limited to Bruce Wayne only.

(Even if it felt a little terrifying to know that his father was so close by, close enough that Danny could reach out and touch him. To speak to him. But how would he explain that? And with an audience?)

(He’s wanted to see him since he was a kid, and he still does. It clings onto him like a cough that doesn’t go away after the cold already has, and while it has faded over the years, it clings. His mother’s words still ring in his ears however; it’s not safe. It’s not safe.)

(And isn’t that why he faked his death in the first place? So that his little brother would be safe? Why he gave up the heirship, his home, his Mother, Damian, and his chance to meet his Father? Going to see Father, even now, would be throwing that all away. He has to stay away.)

(Why is Damian with Father if staying with Father was unsafe?) 

He just needed to tell Tucker. Danny wouldn’t keep him out of the loop, he was just as much as his friend as Sam was. His eyes draw towards the door, where the golden glow of lights was still pouring through, where music was playing loudly. "Yeah, fortunately." 

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, and Danny finally cracks open his thermos. The pipe Technus impaled him with was covered in a goo that Danny didn’t recognize, but whatever it was, his injury was taking its time healing. The ectoplasm was speeding it up. 

He isn’t sure what the difference between the ectoplasm that Drs. Fenton collected and Grandfather’s Lazarus pools is, but there’s a difference. He swirls the thermos slowly, watching as the ectoplasm inside twists into a small whirlpool sluggishly. 

When left alone, it thickens into a consistency similar to egg whites, or perhaps a thick smoothie, but reverts back into a water-like substance when moved and swirled. It was strange; unexplainable. He can understand, to an extent, why the Drs. Fenton are so obsessed with studying it and the dimension it comes from. 

Sam watches him idly as he brings the thermos to his lips and drinks from it. The effect is instantaneous, a sense of relief washing over Danny as if someone had put a soothing balm onto an injury. It buzzes down to his fingertips, and when he lowers the thermos, he licks his lips and watches the tips of his fingers burn green like frostbite. 

“Your hair turned white again.” Sam comments, her hand reaching out and touching the hair on the nape of his neck. While it’s not the first time Sam’s touched his hair, it still makes him tense up with her hand so close to his throat. Instinct. dan

He ignores the urge to bat her hand away, humming thoughtfully. “I’ve noticed it does that.” He says, pulling down his bangs to see if they’ve also turned white. No, still black. He lets go. “Let me guess; my eyes are green too?” He lifts the thermos again and peers into the chrome casing. 

Sam nods, “Yep, but it’s only the, uh.” She makes a circle around her eyes with her finger. “The iris part. Everything else is fine.” 

Danny can see that. The faint reflection on the chrome casts back an intense green. He takes another sip. It chills the back of his teeth, and he can feel his canines warp and sharpen. He runs his tongue over them, and swallows. 

Sam is still watching him, her fingers drumming against the balcony railing. “What’s it taste like?” 

“Carbonated.” He says dryly, before taking a large swig. He couldn’t name a specific flavor if he tried, it changed every time he took a sip. The only thing that stayed consistent was that it tasted carbonated. And slightly sweet. When he pulls the thermos away, Danny twists his body towards her and offers it out, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Want to try?” 

Her reaction is immediate. Sam’s nose scrunches up and her mouth twists into a smile, and she makes a huffing-laugh sound. “No, thank you.” She pushes it away lightly with her fingers, “I don’t know how to explain to my parents why my hair is white.” 

Right. Danny pulls the thermos away and puts it down beside him, straining his eyes to see if the rest of his hair has changed colors. Even just his first sip would take half an hour to fade back to its normal black, and he was a halfa. He had no idea how long it’d take to fade on Sam, who was human. 

There’s movement from the corner of his eye, and Danny snaps his head towards the source. There’s a figure, small, a boy, trying to hide behind one of the curtains at the door. His form just barely peeking out from the angle Danny was sitting at. He wouldn’t have seen him if the boy hadn’t moved. 

His fingers curl tightly into the railing, and he breathes in sharp. Sam’s smile crumbles away and she turns to see what he’s looking at. “I should go.” He says, and reaches for his thermos. “There’s someone spying on us. Don’t say anything, just look at me.” 

Sam’s expression warps, twists. Her eyes widen, her jaw starts to drop before fixing itself into place, and her shoulders curl up and tense. She forces it all to smooth over, and she leans casually against the railing. There’s a tick in her jaw. “I see.” Her voice comes through teeth. “Do you think they saw you?”

“I am not sure.” Danny says. He keeps an eye on the figure as he twists himself over and grabs the Nasty Burger bag and the container. He tries not to look like he’s rushing. He is. How long has that boy been there? How much did he see? Did he hear anything? 

“Father, fortunately, has privacy films on the glass. Nobody should have seen me unless they’re specifically trying to peep through the door.” He says. The boy seems to realize that Danny was starting to leave. And, his heart beginning to sink, instead of leaving, moves to grab the door handle instead.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Danny’s breath catches in his throat, he’s hoping that isn’t who he think it is. But how else would he have not noticed an eavesdropper on their conversation unless it was someone who was capable of bypassing those skills? He told himself that he wouldn’t fool himself into thinking that his siblings’ had poor stealth. He got distracted. 

Five years, five years. He refuses to let that go down the drain. He zips up the container and throws his legs over the other side of the railing, his back facing the door. He hears the doorknob click, and without a word to Sam, slips off down the side and down to the ground below.

Just in time. The once muffled music now sounds blaring as the door presumably is thrown open and the pull of invisibility washes over him like a second skin. He doesn't stay to see who it is.

[isthatacalzone]

me: *seeing people yell about how they did Glintshore & Percy's death in the show*

also me: ..................anyway

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[al-luviec]

I got so insanely mad while drawing this

+ closeup and normalness

[sideblogdotjpeg]

also also also. i dont know if this is ever gonna get really explicitly explored in the show. but.

like. theyve talked pretty minimally i think? about jovyres motivations as an antagonist. and while the main explanation they have gg on right now is the general "power corrupts universally" i also think. with how prominent this theme of sibling conflict has been ....

jovyre is cirillas younger sister. because of this, while cirilla gets to be the queen of the summer court, jovyre is relegated to being the princess of the "lesser" autumn court. an arbitrarily lower status. she had to use magic & trickery in lieu of cirillas' power and armies. her sister got to be a fairytale princess while she was the pragmatic ruler, with a chip on her shoulder. she has to get her hands dirty, "not all of us can be perfect can we". in spite of this, she was the one who stayed in command while her sister had fallen into her own despair. she negotiated her way into the unseelie crown. why should she have to be the one bending the knee to her sister. "i dont believe any of us should be limited by how we were born.... i only want to be her equal".

so its like. even though we havent met her yet. jovyres rise to power was explicitly via the death of the previous unseelie queen. of course she would be paranoid and defensive of her title. and while jovyre is plotting and planning and carefully amassing the army that she had to build herself to defend the crown she had to earn herself. her sister is in the columns of milfred murmurs and partying, all with the crown that she would have lost if not for her. "well some of us value beauty more than others". jovyres second offer to the band of boobs, "the more pragmatic approach", was to kill queen cirilla and bind her followers to someone else (someone more worthy, someone more fit to rule). at the time, jovyre admits that she would rather not take that option, "i dont wish for any harm to come to her". in the intervening 200 years. how many times did she wonder if she had made the right decision then. shes certainly changed her mind now

(and a minor thing ... because i admittedly might have misremembered. while talking to the band of boobs, she tells them that she wants to unite the seelie & unseelie courts. wouldnt it be nice for unseelie to get to experience spring and summer too? if im not wrong ...... the unseelie courts still only experience dusk and night? i might have totally misremembred this BUT if its true . then queen cirilla was also not as easy to negotiate with as jovyre expected)

anyway! all that to say is. given how this campaign has explored sibling relationships that are based around feelings of inadequacy & insecurity against a perfect older sibling. the way that leads to competition and jealousy, the desperate urge to prove that actually i AM better than my sister and im soo going to rub this into her face! well! maybe the story of jovyre and cirilla is not just entirely "power corrupts" and more also about the. "200 years of growing resentment and jealousy that has clouded all my love and protectiveness towards you into hatred, and envy, and havoc". on parallel planes, callie and cyra forgive each other, while jovyre plots her own sisters assassination.

[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

[audliminal]

It's barely the end of the first day of school, and three faculty members are dead. Nobody knows much yet, but supposedly the six freshman who all managed to get detention on the very first day of school were involved and, if the rumors are to be believed, two of them actually died. In a dumb fight in the cafeteria against some animated corn. Kipperlily rolls her eyes when she hears it. They're clearly a bunch of losers who are going to either drop out or get someone killed before the year is out, but that's not really her problem, is it?

Still, just to be on the safe side, maybe their party should spend some time in the woods behind the school, and get some practice in with rats and things before they find themselves involved in a fight like those dumb detention kids did.

It's a month into the school year, and Kipperlily's starting to get the hang of things. She's feeling comfortable in a fight now, they've been killing rats and twig gremlins in the Far Haven Woods as often as they can manage, and they're getting really good at it. They even have a name now, the High 5 Heroes, chosen by Kipperlily herself, of course.

Meanwhile, Kipperlily's pretty sure the kids from detention actually killed someone, though nobody seems to be talking about it. Kipperlily doesn't care what anyone says, she's heard multiple people say they saw members of their group talking to Penelope Sam and Johnny spells, and then the day after Johnny Spells gets killed in a fucking car chase, the rich kid, who's literally the son of a pirate, has a mysterious new motorcycle? It's all far too suspicious.

It's the week after winter break, and Kipperlily is stuck in the stupid guidance councilor's office, talking about her dumb feelings. Unlike the Bad Kids (and what kind of stupid name is that), who apparently had an adventure dropped in their lap within minutes of the first school day ending, Kipperlily has been waiting months and still nothing has popped up. Plus Oisin and Ivy keep joking about changing their party name to the Rat Grinders.

It's dumb. Who would want a party name that's based on some joke? Besides, she already chose the name. So why on earth would they change it now? At least Lucy seems to agree with her about it.

It's just days after prom, and Kipperlily is sick of everything. The stupid Bad Kids apparently crashed prom and literally defeated Kalvaxus, Emperor of the Red Waste. It's honestly bullshit. A dumb group of kids that couldn't even make it through one day of school without getting one third of their party killed, and they're being credited with saving the entire continent? Kipperlily's been digging into the Bad Kids' history with every moment of her free time, trying to figure out how a bunch of dumb untrained kids managed something so huge. And she thinks she might have cracked it.

Kristen Applebees is literally Helio's Chosen One, and apparently Adaine Abernant is the new Oracle of the Elves. Kipperlily doesn't know what Fig, Fabian, or Gorgug's deals are yet, but if rumors are to be believed, then Riz Gukgak's dad was eaten by the very same Kalvaxus. Clearly the entire reason the Bad Kids are succeeding is because of their personal histories.

And to make matters worse, Oisin and Ivy managed to get the rest of the party to go along with the stupid Rat Grinders name. and Mary Ann didn't even have a reason for it! The only one who voted with her was Lucy. So now they've got a dumb name and no real adventuring prospects, and all the while, a bunch of kids who skip classes and get arrested are somehow getting perfect grades with no effort.

It's sophomore year and everything is terrible. The Rat Grinders meet every day to kill rats in the woods and it's dumb and boring, and not even a little bit difficult anymore, and she has to go to weekly councilor sessions with Jawbone, who's an ally of her rival adventuring party, which. Aguefort already clearly likes them, and even before he was resurrected they had managed to get two of their allies positions in the school. Which has to be an unfair advantage. And now Fig's dad is the vice principal rather than the lunch lad. It's really no wonder they never seem to get in trouble for skipping classes or any of their other bullshit.

At least she can use their connection with Jawbone to her advantage. Every meeting with him, she mines him for new information on the Bad Kids, who have been doing absolutely nothing so far this year.

It's sophomore year and The Rat Grinders are going to finally get their chance! Porter and Jace have approached her with the opportunity of a lifetime! Porter even said she shows a lot of promise! He doesn't even seem to take issue with his anger, and he says that he's going to help her become an amazing adventurer. All she has to do is accept this weird little rage star thing and start worshipping some dead god of rage. Kipperlily honestly isn't that much into religion, but this is the first interesting thing to happen to her all day. She's already working to convince Lucy to change her god.

It's sophomore year and even as Kipperlily is finally making progress, the Bad Kids are still showing her up. Somehow, they ended up fighting the Nightmare King himself, defeating him and somehow in the process, Kristen Applebees managed to ressurect a dead god of her own. It's bullshit and literally the only reason they manage to get back in time for the end of spring break is the direct intervention of the principal again. Plus now Fig has somehow managed to become an Archdevil and start dating Principal Aguefort's daughter. As if she wasn't already a rockstar.

It's sophomore year and Kipperlily's going to make the Rat Grinders the best adventuring party at Aguefort, even if it kills her.

It's junior year and the Bad Kids seemed determined to ruin her life. It's bullshit. They literally didn't even know who she was before this year, and they seem determined to ruin everything she's working towards. On the first day of school, they all collectively decided that Kristen was going to run for school president, seemingly as a bit, the exact second that they find out she's running. And immediately on meeting her they made fun of her fucking name for literally no reason.

It's junior year and everything's going to plan. Kristen's been expelled, and the Bad Kids are taking The Last Stand, and they've got the perfect opportunity to get rid of all the Bad Kids for good. And yet somehow Kristen fucking Applebees manages to ruin their fucking plans perfectly, spotting her out before she can succeed in killing the proctor and Buddy. Instead she has to kill Buddy and let Oisin take her away before the Bad Kids can do anything. So of course the Bad Kids get a literal perfect score on The Last Stand, and now they've all aced their classes for the whole year.

It's junior year and they're summoning a dead god. It's junior year and they find out as they're casting the spell, that the name they'd gotten was fucking wrong. It's junior year and despite all their preparations the Bad Kids have managed to get to the gymnasium with all their stupid fucking votes. It's junior year and Kipperlily is at least going to kill Riz. It's junior year and Riz literally dives into lava.

It's junior year and Kipperlily's going to kill Riz. He thinks he's hiding, but she can see him, and she's going to have to close with him, but this is her opportunity, and then she's in the air, and he's got her in a hold person spell, and she's falling, and she's in the lava, and it's so hot, and it burns, and then it's all gone.

It's junior year and Kipperlily is dead. It's junior year and she's in a world of crystal spines and lava, and in the reflections of the crystals, Kipperlily can see everything. She sees herself in those wretched meetings with jawbone, kicking at the leg of the chair, and she can see Jawbone asking her every fucking time, what can she do to become a better adventurer. As if it was ever in her control. As if she ever could have done anything. As if it wasn't all about her backstory the whole time. As if she weren't the boring daughter of two boring people. As if she had ever had a chance.

"Did you ever try?" She hears a voice ask. And then Ankarna is there. The god that she tried so hard to kill. "Did you ever really try to become a better adventurer, or did you just wait for it to happen to you?"

"I did everything I could!" Kipperlily insists. "It's unfair, why should they get all the advantages?"

"Were they really ever advantages? Or did you just decide they were?"

"You think those idiots deserved their success? All they ever do is screw around!"

"That is not what I have seen of them. Nor have I seen any better of you. Of course, you did your schoolwork and you did it to the letter, but when did you ever challenge yourself? When did you ever take a risk? When did you ever seek out a task that was more than what you felt certain you would succeed at? Would you have even have the courage to take part in Porter's plan if he had not personally trained you, ensured that you were all as powerful as possible? You insist that the Bad Kids are only successful because of their tragic history, but what of Gorgug? There is not one thing in his past that drives him and yet he has succeeded at doing things no one else has ever managed." Ankarna stares long and hard at her, and then she is gone and Kipperlily is alone again. With nothing in her death but her own thoughts to keep her company.

[willyhoos]

Q: WHAT TOPS THE FOOD CHAIN? A: HUMANS

[council-of-beetroot]

So after watching the donbei Sephiroth commercial multiple times, today's crack headcanon is that Sephiroth goes to cloud anytime he finds something that intrigues him in order to show it to him.

Naturally Cloud is not as enthused by whatever the fuck Sephiroth has found and wants to show cloud but that doesn't bother Sephiroth because he will just continue to try and find something that piques cloud's interest.

[moeblob]

OC !

[softpine]

i like how we all collectively agreed that covid does not exist in any of our sims stories

[bugisawesomeasf]

you fuckers are really hating on travis when hes literally a he/him lesbian, also the wilderness is literally a metaphor for girlhood do you really think it wouldve let him survive if he wasnt at least a little girl coded ?

[sincerely-sofie]

Assumption: you enjoy seeing the Horrors and refusing to take them seriously.

(Referencing this ask game)

Character development! We love to see it!

[adhd-languages]

I often wonder how English distinguishing between “sentient pronouns” (he/she/they) and “inanimate pronouns” (it/its) affects our perception of the world.

I wonder if languages without this distinction foster more care towards the environment.

Animals and plants are usually referred to as “it”. Would we care for them more if we thought of them as sentient?

[crypt1dcorv1dae]

I love okarun so much cus like we don't know WHY exactly he was bullied as a little kid (there's many possible reasons we can make assumptions but we just dontnknow for a fact yet) but that bullying is what pushed him towards the occult as an interest, wanting to find some solace in aliens and cryptids, and that interest probably became ANOTHER reason people bullied him, in an endless cycle of:

ostracized for who you are => find comfort in unusual interests => ostracized for being "weird" => pushed further towards those unusual interests

On and on until someone gives enough of a damn to show interest in who he is as a person, even just for a moment