#and we just observe each other

[mooifyourecows]

me and the metric paper wasp building a nest on my front door have a deep, emotional bond built from making eye contact multiple times a day through the glass and so naturally i wanted to express my love for him by way of little treat and looked up if paper wasps like sugar water but the search results were all "HERE'S HOW TO LURE WASPS INTO A TRAP TO KILL THEM AS HORRIFICALLY AS POSSIBLE TO ENSURE THEIR LAST MOMENTS ARE PURE TORTURE AND AGONY" and like no, sir, you do not understand, we are in love

[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

[lossisyours]

Spotted at the Palace Hotel: S. and B. having a heart-to-heart.

[junesprince]

just take this

[lexosaurus]

Ok I'm making this its own post because I don't want it to clog up the intended lighthearted post I made yesterday.

But as my friends in the phandom and I have now entered our mid/late 20's and early 30's, and are now entering serious, long term relationships, the conversation of "do we tell our partners we like Danny Phantom/make content for Danny Phantom?" are turning into rather serious and interesting discussions. And from talking to people, it's interesting to see the mix of responses.

Some people I've talked to, especially people who date other creatives, have seemingly no problem opening up about their DP hobby with their partner. Others, myself included, are much more protective of their hobby.

But one trend I've found really interesting, and again this is ENTIRELY anecdotal, is that of the people I've talked to, it seems to be that the writers of the phandom, especially those who have written angst/dissection fics, are especially hesitant to tell their partners that they 1. like Danny Phantom and are into phandom stuff, and 2. that they write fanfiction. On the other hand—again, this is anecdotal—the artists of the phandom that I've spoken to tend to lean more on the side of "yeah my partner knows I draw DP fan art idgaf."

THIS IS JUST MY PERSONAL OPINION, but as a writer who is in a serious adult relationship who also has written some horrific angst and is dating a Straight Dude™️ who when I jokingly said "there was only one bed" looked at me like I had grown two heads, I think that the hesitancy comes from really a place of fear that if your partner ever found your fanfiction, they would think you are deeply mentally disturbed and need therapy.

Because, especially for those who do not write or read, a lot of people don't really associate grimdark or angst or whump or whatever the fuck terminology it is, with purely creative entertainment. They can watch a show like Game of Thrones and see people get tortured, raped, and gutted on screen and not think the writers or directors of that show are weird because it's a TV show, it's just entertainment for the public. But when someone does the same thing but posts it online for free under fanfiction—aka is not making money off of it and is showcasing their personal hobby—then people tend to worry about that writer's mental health because why else would they want to write this dark shit if they weren't mentally ill? It couldn't POSSIBLY be for the same reason I like watching GOT, there MUST be something wrong with them.

So when a dp writer has to explain why they personally enjoy Danny Phantom, it can be really hard to admit because those fears sort of swirl around your brain. Whereas for visual media, admitting you like drawing glowy ghost art for an old cartoon appears to be a bit easier.

Again, this is just my personal anecdotal observation there will always be exceptions to this I am NOT speaking on behalf of everyone thank you 🙏

Also I'm really curious from both writers and artists in the phandom to hear your experiences with this and whether or not you've told partners that you do fan art/write fanfiction for DP.

[jonathanbyersphd]

Jonathan having to work at family video in s5 and that's part of why he and Robin become besties 🙏 (Steve is pouting in the corner with the cardboard cutout of Phoebe Cates)

[straightlightyagami]

crazy how someone can go from “random person on the train” to “love of your life” in just a few months… makes you think like, sometimes you see random people and your lives will go completely separate ways after this moment, but maybe if you knew each other, you’d get along really well, maybe they’d understand you like no one else. maybe by a series of coincidences you will become best friends

[dontwanderoff]

it's interesting looking back on dale's apartment (cozy and warm and filled with SO much personality) and then knowing that when they move in together, you don't see much of a change to helen's house. you don't really see any dale in there.

[disastersteps]

note: so this was in my drafts and i decided to reword it a bit- i do not remember if this was posted in full or not, but i want to write about this.

---

thinking about anita rediscovering the new details of julia's body is [clench fists]- and by that i meant, yeah sure, they were in love with how pretty she is- was- but that was seven years ago. neets remembered her being a much more athlete, lean muscles and all. just a all-round beautiful woman they ever called her, their best friend.

former best friend.

and seven years later, anita get to really see her in full. gone the braids with a short hair and a sidecut that hides behind it. but her body? its. new. different. it wasnt the one they remembered. it wasnt the one they actively tried to forget and now they get to see the new look.

she's even big. bigger than they remembered. anita, after rekindling their barely friendship once more, did they find themself look at her. she's more different. yes, there was the soft look but there was also the confident little shit smirk she throws at them. but most of all. there was this aura that feel more. wide. wilder. and less lean.

it made them feel smaller against her side, it made them want her so bad. but they wouldn't say it. they don't admit they love her. why?

simply, they had fall in love with her all over again. and they would not admit to the very words in their mind. in their heart. they wouldn't.

they used to have a crush on her almost eight years ago, and seven years ago, they could've told her they love her but then they died. and here they are, trying to bury the very love they had for her only to be resurface, a hand that comes out of the grave they buried in the first place and push through their chest, grabbing their very heart.

that they had fall in love with her again. not old julia, the new julia.

and they hate it.

(it hurts. she's bigger than them. she's more older and. cautious, and smart and a fucking asshole.)

and they still fall in love with julia ortega again.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

hey! I love your blog and the things you post. I wanted to say that if you have questions about Halakhah or about anything else that is related to Judaism, I would love to help you! I'm not pretending to be a rabbi or something, but I know alot about Judaism. keep in mind that I'm an ortodox jew and not a conservative)

Orthodox jews 🤝 Every other jews

People I love with all my heart 🩵🩵🩵

(And thank you! 😭)

[someawkwardnerd]

just finished watching Scavengers Reign and am all kinds of stressed and fucked up please watch this show if you have the chance

[aspacewar]

The amount of House x Wilson content tumblr feeds me is making me want to rewatch House MD

[seconddoubt]

for some movies a person's opinions on them can be used as a gauge for if you're gonna have an overall similar taste, some movies it doesn't seem to say a lot whether someone likes them or not, but there are a few movies that are absolutely befuddling bc people you typically have similar tastes to can have the complete opposite feelings to you, and a movie that keeps happening to me is Almost Famous, I cannot believe how many people i regularly share so many opinions with loves that movie while i thought it was absolutely tasteless and was really generous giving it 2.5 stars

[dxxtruction]

VENT - I feel like if there was better education around abuse and violence, and abuse and violence prevention, we'd be able to interrogate more how it is so much a community, cultural, and systemic problem, and arguably less of an individual one. This does not dissuade any fault individuals have in creating violence and perpetrating abuse, just so no one's confused here. We have to see that violence and abuse perpetrators do take the responsibility for their actions. Obviously. But to open this up to wider responsibility would lead to far better discussions about wtf was going on at the anti-black lynch trail wrt Armand's complicity and level of fault in it.

Far too many people are unwilling to see that he was not the one to orchestrate or plan this, because they'd rather pin violence and abuse all onto a single individual. (Which is dehumanizing btw, to us even because it implies we've accepted these terms for ourselves as well).

This is an expectation I'm aware just isn't possible though, and Interview!Fandom certainly is not ready to confront this. Not everyone was when it came to the abuse Lestat perpetrated in S1 (those who watched an entirely different show apparently and deny how race played a role in the violence and abuse, throughout just everything not just Lestat). So it's just gonna be me and the handful of others IG. Shout out.

(more to this in OP tags)

[writhe]

night took a rough turn but i’m thankful for the smell of the dirt & the woods, holy shit

i think i would be a fundamentally different person if it weren’t for this forest

[kyouka-supremacy]

i have ✨mixed feelings✨ towards dazai Like, i like (?) him as a character, but he disgusts me as a person, idk how to explain myself and im so bipolar (j) like i love chuuya with burning passion and dazai is a motherfucker but i ship soukoku why would i ship the character i like with someone like dazai? idk but i do it and i cant stop send help chuuya deserves to be shiped with someone better like aku or sigma but skk have my heart make it stop please i've tried to start shiping dazai with others so i wont ship him with chuuya, i've tried with fyozai but then i see some fyolai shit and like theyre canon bro i cant ship fyodor with someone else, i've tried with kunizai too, it kind of works but not that much i still ship skk more theres SO GOOD skk fanfics and im confused with dazai and idk how i feel about him (basically a text of my random thoughts that I wanted to write down without effort and thats why theyre incomprehensible)

Anon don't worry I checked for you and there's no cops on Tumblr. Stan Dazai ship soukoku live love laugh ♡