#feel free to totally ignore

[sillylittlerock]

I will never ever forgive those people on TikTok who fake autism. Ever. Because now I can't tell my friends that I'm in the process of getting diagnosed with autsim, because I'm scared they'll say I'm self diagnosing or faking it. I'm really struggling with it at the moment and wish I could tell them, but TikTok had to harm another community :/

[starryluminary]

Is his stupid chest on backwards

[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

[hoforwonho]

LUNA ☾ MADONNA

[total-drama-brainrot]

Going back to the fandom's roots by redrawing a timeless classic. Original by Maple-Gunman on Deviantart! (Absolutely livid that I forgot the goggles 😡)

[ineffablenlghtingales]

Y'all are so talented here, among the GO family...like seriously, I'm constantly in awe and in love with all the art I see. This is extremely silly, but my birthday is two weeks from now (July 26th) and I was wondering if somebody could just do a drawing of the Ineffable Husbands in 1941 (cuddling or Crowley painting Aziraphale's moustache or whatever, just them in 1941), I'd be so ridiculously happy.

[l3viat8an]

Hi Ro, it's been a hot minute (nope I'm not dead) but my adhd brain is going off on one again.....

I'm guessing that you know Stardew Valley, if not use whatever your fav game is, but I'm just imaging the brother trying to play stardew with MC and just not getting it.

Lucifer's trying really hard to get to grips with the game, Mammon's off somewhere trying to get all the money he can, Levi doesn't understand that you just wanna relax so he's pulling out all the speed run strats, Satan's getting pissed vuz he doesn't know why his character isn't doing what he wants it to do, Asmo's still in character creation, Beel what's all the food Gus is selling and Belphie is just out cold irl. While Mc is sat there going 'this is fine' while just tryna plant strawberries before spring 16th.

Love you Ro -🃏

Hiii 🃏!!! Glad to see you around again ‘n I totally get adhd brain sksjks Okay, but hear me out- I agree mostly just a couple little thoughts

Like how Lucifer is annoyingly good at almost everything so I think he’d catch on pretty quickly and he’d honestly enjoy the farming and planing out crops imo. although he’ll never admit it. He is having fun.

Mammon is absolutely off somewhere trying to make money- but if you point him in the right direction (to The Mines) and show him how he can get gems and even gold- he’ll be hooked! and suddenly he’ll have a full set of gold tools too.

Nothing to add about Levi. He totally would be doing a speed run to show off lolol

What’s Satan doing wrong? Or is his WiFi lagging- Either way, when he finally gets his controls working right he’ll be too busy following his cat around the farm to get anything else done.

Asmo’s going back and forth between the colors and outfits making sure it’s perfect as if his character isn’t just a handful of pixels ksjskjs

Beel is so real for that- he’d totally make sure to give Gus his favorite gift everyday too, while Beel gets more food ofc!!

and Belphie is totally laying across MC’s lap- so not only is he asleep and not playing or being helpful, MC’s legs are going numb and they can’t move or get away!-

and MC is the only one actually paying attention to what day it is and which crops need to go in and stressing out over getting the right seeds.

[vool-zam]

BWBC: THE CONTESTANTS🌹💞

in order of appearance:

stephen underhill by @strangerpixels

anya köhler by @/herbalbrew

bella moth by @sirenteeth-sims

penny souren by @eldritch-sims

solus belgore by @vapidsims

amara woods by @highsandharlows

cthulhu by @literalite

[icedpee]

Several td scene redraws as an apology for not posting for like. A while (and a doodle page)

[enha-stars]

hi <3 i just wanted to come on here and say that thank you so much to all my moots and readers, i love you all. if you’ve sent me an ask, i promise i will get to it. i’m also working three jobs atm so my responses and time on blr will be all over the place 😔 as for my wips, they are coming slowly but surely. again, i love you. thank you !

[hypewinter]

What in the cinnamon toast fuck is this?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/02/27/wendys-surge-pricing-menu/

"The changes will only be as small as a quarter"

Shut up. You guys already messed up by changing the prices of your 4 for 4. Now you're telling me I'm gonna have to pay more just because I came through the drive thru 2 mins later than someone else? You guys do realize you got popular by being cheap and convenient right? Emphasis on cheap. What's with these cheap alternatives deciding they're all that now and becoming more expensive than the original thing they were designed to replace? What's it gonna take for these companies to stop screwing over the populace?

At this point what's even the point of fast food anymore? It's the same slop but now it's as expensive as going to the store and buying ingredients for a sandwich. Do you understand how mental that is? The garbage food wrecking your body is now becoming more expensive than fresh produce. You know what? Great! Freaking fantastic. This is probably the kick in the pants our population needs to be healthier anyway. Nothing says eat healthier like not being able to afford the unhealthy stuff anymore right? Not like that's even gonna help either as now people just won't be able to afford either.

[accultant]

❛ you're not as bad as everyone says you are. ❜

Right, I'm so much worse, is their first thought, that is so insufferably dramatic, it makes even Iago roll their eyes. True as it may be, with all the secrets they hold desperately to their chest, the intimate knowledge they have of all they've done, of all they haven't done, of all their unending cowardice and fear. It still sounds needlessly edgy, though, and they'd be caught dead before they utter something so pathetic embarrassing.

"People have been talking about me? I'm flattered," they respond dryly.

That part isn't a surprise in the slightest. Brief moments where they forget themselves, let their walls down, remember to enjoy their company and the world around them, are always caught up with and dashed by their usual anxiety and paranoia. They hardly talk, and when they do, they have the tendency to forget how to hold a 'normal' conversation without a handful of well-crafted layers and guard. They've got a wretched attitude when they aren't playing those around them like a fiddle and donning a persona. Their secrets do little to make them seem welcoming when people try to bond with them. It's worse once the truths start coming out and their companions have started to learn, bit by bit, just how much Iago had been lying about. Whatever progress they had made with becoming slow, unlikely friends, was set back wildly when that bloodline of theirs came to light and questions became accusations of secret-keeping ( which are all perfectly justified, unfortunately ). All that to say, no, Iago is not surprised that people would talk about how bad they are.

Connor disagreeing with such is the surprising part.

But then, maybe he's just being sarcastic. Catty. And Iago is overthinking things again - another reason why they aren't exactly the most favorable conversation partner.

Iago spares them a glance, voice still monotone and unamused, "What makes you say that? Have I finally won you over?"

[isfjmel-phleg]

Rant part 2

At least there was actual faculty agreement with this next batch so we're not exactly being dishonest, but apparently "collection development librarian selects a list of books, sends it to the faculty of a school asking if they're okay with it, and then submits an order request with the first replying faculty member given as the requester of the books he chose" is how we're doing it now, rather than prioritizing requests made by the faculty themselves. There is no possible way that there could be any further slant or imbalance in our collection in this practice, of course.

[exquisitexagony]

a thing for @miidnighters (Bella) that she didn't ask for

"Go away!" The voice that called out from behind the bedroom door was muffled by congestion. The shout alone was enough for a cough to escape Arthur's lips.

Shuddering, he pulled the blankets up tighter around his body, forehead beaded with sweat. How had this happen? He couldn't remember the last time he had felt this awful. And from what? Standing out in the rain for less than a few minutes? It was pathetic. But he was going to act like a baby about it anyway.

"Let me suffer in peace..."

[ask-team-grim]

( @the-abandoned-digital-city @ Dravena)

the weird little cat guy was watching her carefully before asking.

“How are you so cool??”

Dravena: Ya think I’m cool?!

Dravena: Oh man, thank ya! Usually ‘mons think I’m scary, not cool! I’m totally gonna tell Rye!

Dravena: I’m a pretty normal lookin’ Deino though. Or that’s what my Dad tells me. So not really somethin’ special I did. Just suppose ya never saw one of us before. Not many ‘mons have.

Dravena:…

Dravena: Wait, do you have food? Can I have some?

[thecoolertails]

ZOINKS! a ghost!!!

(redraw of this concept art:)