#he was way too fun to write

[sciencelings-writes]

Frightful & Delightful

My Hurricane family secret santa gift for @flustered-flux 

Summary: The chain have to travel in the snow and Hyrule is internally very dramatic about it 

wc:3047

AO3 Link

Hyrule didn’t think he would ever get used to snow. Real snow, the kind that pilled up high and covered everything in a fluffy blanket of white. The snow he was used to was runny, slippery, and miserable, slush that froze the ground and made it difficult to get around. Hearing Wild get excited when he saw snow in the forecast left him bewildered, snow was awful! It made it impossible to travel and would leave them shivering and wet. Even with good snow, this was true, but after the first time he had experienced it, he had to admit that it was, at the very least, incredibly beautiful. 

Puffy snowflakes lazily twirled to the ground, that day hadn’t been too terribly cold or windy, the sun was still shining and the heroes had the privilege of watching as the snow slowly built up on the ground. It made the world so bright and crystalline like it had been covered in glittering clouds. There were only a few inches of it but Wind still required half of everyone else's extra clothes to keep from shivering out of his shoes. Out of all of them with limited experience with the weather, Wind was easily the most affected by it. 

That day, Wild had taught them all how to shield surf on the hills of frozen cotton, Warriors had started a day-long battle with Twilight in which the only weapons were ice and the plot was getting as much of it under each other's clothes as possible. Legend had refused to put on pants but eventually conceded to wear one of Wild’s enchanted circlets that kept the wearer warm with a magic ruby. Most of them had pulled out their old green hats to keep their heads warm, or at least less wet. 

After months of wandering through forests and fields, the change in atmosphere was more than welcomed, their constant movement kept them warm enough, and the snow allowed for different ways for them to pass the time. At the end of the day, they found an inn with a warm fireplace and made a pumpkin soup that tasted extra good after the chilly day. That day, Hyrule had decided that he liked the snow. 

This time, the snow was much less welcoming. The wind howled around the group, sending the grains of ice scraping across any bare skin left exposed. The whiteness covered the air so thoroughly that they all had to stick in a tight group to keep from losing each other, depending entirely on Legend’s map to keep them walking in the right direction. The hero himself had finally accepted wearing tights to keep from getting frostbite, as it became clear that no amount of magic rubies would keep him warm enough. 

The snow had started at a manageable height but had risen so quickly that the smallest of the heroes were forced to share Epona’s saddle, who seemed easily the least bothered by the weather, with Wild in a close second place. It had taken a miracle on Twilight’s part to keep the champion from donating his cloak to one of the others, using the reasoning that if he got sick, the rest of them would follow as he was in control of all their food and they would all rather have him cook with a little cold than allow anyone else to take control of that job. So if he got sick, they were all doomed in more than one way. 

So far, they were only kept from being solid blocks of ice with their extremely limited supply of warming elixirs and an almost excessive amount of clothing layers. Still, even Time couldn’t repress his shivering which was especially evident in his voice when he asked how each of them was doing throughout the day. None of them dared to tell him they were any less than fine because they knew he would give them his boots if they even implied that their toes were cold, leaving himself to walk in the several feet of snow in only his socks. Or at least, that’s what Hyrule’s thought process was. 

Trudging through the relentless storm made the snow seem much less beautiful, the bite of its chill piercing even the most insulated of their clothing, neverending piles of fabric never seemed enough. Any skin left to the mercy of the blizzard had long since gone pink and sensationless, looking as if they had all forgotten to apply a fireproof elixir when scaling Death Mountain. Hyrule now knew what it felt like to be burned without any flames involved. He especially hated the numbing effect of the ice, as far as he knew, his nose had fallen off of his face. 

There was no playful spirit among them, Warriors wasn’t trying to sneak any ice down anyone's tunics, Wind wasn’t trying to chase any of them around, Wild wasn’t pleading to take a break from walking to explore, they all just had to keep moving in the hopes that there was an end to the bombardment of colorlessness, straining their eyes in front for some glimpse of anything other than blinding white. 

At least Hyrule and Legend could stumble in tandem with one of their blankets anchoring them together in an attempt to share body heat. At least it prevented some snow from melting directly into his hair but it failed to keep him truly warm. 

His hands were full from having to maintain his side of the blanket with one hand and using the other to help hold open the veteran's map, though it hardly helped as the storm was too dense to identify any landmarks. Somehow though, Legend seemed confident in their path. 

Strangely enough, it was Legend’s uncharacteristic optimism that kept them from giving up on traveling to wait out the snowstorm. Though after hours of struggling against the barrage of ice, some of their confidence in the pink hero started to wane. Normally walking hours a day was expected, but the strong winds proved to make traveling far more difficult on top of the blizzard. It was only a matter of time before one of them got irritable. 

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” Warriors grumbled behind his scarf, only barely audible for Legend to hear. 

“Of course I do! I’ve traveled this way a hundred times!” Their navigator snapped. 

“I’m just saying that we’re kind of blind here and it doesn’t feel like we’ve even moved, are you sure we aren’t going in circles?” The captain deadpanned. 

“Can you get past your trust issues for one day and let me get us out of here you prick? I doubt a bitch boy like you could find your own non-existent ass in this weather!” His frustration prompting him to walk slightly faster, the sudden wave of rage stemming from Warriors doubt in him poured fuel on a flame that the storm had reduced to embers within his chest. Hyrule was just being pulled along for the ride, thankfully, he managed not to fall face-first into the snow so that was a win in his book. 

“Well, that’s a little harsh…” Warriors grinned as he slowed his pace enough to get out of the veteran's peripheral vision, sending a look Time’s way. Unlike Legend, Time knew fully well about the move the captain pulled. They had been slowing down for the last half hour, their navigator just needed a little push, and nothing fueled Legend better than spite and indignant rage. Time rolled his eye at Warriors' smugness about it. 

With the sky swarming with aggressive snowflakes, it was hard to pinpoint the exact position of the sun, so it was hard to say how long it had been before the freezing torture was assumed to end. Hyrule assumed he was about three minutes away from losing his fingers, perhaps less, when they were able to catch sight of something that wasn’t snow. The simple miracle of a color that wasn’t white. 

Elevated, as if sitting on a hill, was a speck of red, soon to be identified as a lawn decoration in the shape of a bird, some brown, from a scarecrow, and the most easily identifiable, a big purple sign in the shape of a familiar bunny hood. Hyrule could’ve cried in relief but having tears freeze on his face didn’t sound pleasant so he decided to avoid doing that. 

“Thank the three,” Legend muttered under his breath before announcing loud enough to be heard over the wind, “We’re almost there! And you dicks were doubting me!”

“I didn’t doubt you,” Hyrule admitted while listening to their tired group's cheers, “Do you think your roommate has a fire going?”

“Ravio gets cold if it’s any less than fifty degrees, there’s no way he hasn’t had a fire going for a month straight. He wears a wool scarf in the summertime Rulie. I would be surprised if we got home and it didn’t feel like the inside of an oven.” He rose his eyebrows at the desperation in Hyrule's voice. Before this point, entering an oven didn’t sound enticing but at the moment, he dreamed of taking a nap in Death Mountains crater, where he was less than a foot away from molten rock at all times. Real warmth seemed like a distant memory. A dream that he knew he had experienced but just couldn’t recall. 

Even though they had all sped up at the first sign of hope, it still felt like it took forever to get to Legend's house. The fact that it was at the top of a hill didn’t help. Most of them had a point where they almost slipped on the bottom layer of ice, but only Warriors had successfully fallen and rolled several feet down the slope. Legend and Twilight were the only ones who were unable to keep from laughing. The rest of them at least tried to have some tact but in Hyrule's case, it was a battle more difficult than facing a Lynel. He managed to prevail in the end though, only letting out a snort and a puff of foggy air to add to the whiteness of the world around them. 

Finally, their refuge lay before them, the dark gray smoke exiting the chimney was a stark contrast to the light of the snow, promising a hint of heat just beyond a single door. Unfortunately, that door was frozen at the hinges and was blocked in by several feet of the cursed pieces of ice. It took a fire rod and some frantic shoveling with fingerless gloved hands before it was able to crack open. Being so close to salvation made the time flow so slowly, it felt like it took hours just to get inside. 

After a wave of heavenly warmth, Hyrules eyes were assaulted with colors and various objects, he didn’t realize how being devoid of visual stimulation slowly tortured him before this point, Even though the room felt so dim, it was active with colors and movement from the raging fire and it took an embarrassingly long moment for him to spot Legends roommate. 

Hidden in violet robes and his classic hood, gripping the handle of a comically large hammer, as if he had been preparing for a break-in. Thankfully the bunnyman lowered his weapon the moment he saw who the snow-covered creatures who had entered his home really were. Hyrule didn’t blame him, even blanketed in ice they didn’t look like the most friendly bunch, even if they all stumbled onto solid ground like newborn deer. 

“Link! Link’s family! Thank Hilda it’s just you guys! I thought I was gonna have to start playing Hylian wack-a-mole!” Ravio set down his hammer and slumped in relief. Now that they weren’t in danger of sustaining blunt-force trauma, they started to remove the soaking layers of clothes and shoes and leaving them by the door.

Later Hyrule would realize that Twilight wasn’t with them but Wild explained that he went to go put Epona in Legend's little backyard barn, mostly used for storage, specifically for the hero's orchard, but it was big enough to protect a single horse from the elements. And it also had plenty of apples in baskets that were easily accessible for hungry equines. 

With a speed only comparable to transportation, they were all piled in front of the fire, Hyrule was disappointed that just being in the proximity of a heat source didn’t immediately solve all of his problems, in fact as the numbing of the cold wore off, he was starting to feel extremely sore, but at least now he was mostly dry and fully removed from the blizzard. He also wasn’t moving and that definitely helped. 

Wind had settled in closest to the fire, covered in a blanket Ravio had given him and impatiently trying to chug the hot apple cider Ravio had also given him. Recoiling and exclaiming ‘Ow!’ before immediately trying again, only to receive the exact same result. Time had to stop him before he burned his tongue and advised him to simply use the toasty mug as a hand warmer until it was cool enough to drink. Wind was not happy with this compromise but he had accepted that maybe the drink was too scalding to chuck down his throat. 

Wild promised that once he could move his fingers, he would start on dinner, torturing them with the mental images of hearty soups with dumplings inside and fresh buttered rolls, thinking out loud about what he would make for dessert and if they would still require something to keep them warm, like a simmered fruit dish or if a pie was closer to what they would want. As their bodies needed to focus less on keeping them from freezing to death, it became increasingly easy to tell how hungry they had gotten. 

Hyrule could be patient, he had gone without food for far longer with much more difficult trials and the meal he would be able to scrape up at the end was far less rewarding than anything that Wild was able to create. 

At first, he worried that Wild would get cold being so far from the fire before he remembered that the cook would be able to stay warm next to an oven or a stovetop. It seemed like the champion never ran out of energy, at least if cooking was involved. This was unlikely to be the first time he had gotten stuck traveling in a snow storm and he likely still had to eat then. Though the traveler knew that his best explorer buddy would be sleeping hard that night despite acting so unfazed by their journey now. 

He found himself looking out the window, where the storm had slowed only to the point of providing slightly more visibility. Now that they weren’t in the middle of it, the snow had gone back to being beautiful rather than a curse sent by Ganon to turn them into icy statues or bury them in piles of white dust, leaving them to suffocate instead of freeze to death. Whichever one worked faster. 

The snowflakes swirled in the air in an unending dance within a peaceful silence, the wind was no longer howling and the warm room had started to fill with soft conversation as each of their vocal cords began to unfreeze. Hyrule stayed quiet, content with letting the mellow talking and mesmerizing falling snow lull him into a spacy state, floating lazily around his own mind, until he was suddenly interrupted. 

A weight on his shoulder forced him out of his wandering thoughts, fluffy light brown hair tickling his cheek confirming what had slumped against him. It was the well-known and accepted risk of sitting by the skyloftian, anyone was pillow-shaped to him. After a moment of shock over an event that he really should’ve expected, he leaned his own head against his snoozing brothers. Warmth bloomed in his chest and it had nothing to do with the fire. 

Hyrule had spent so many years almost completely alone, in a world that wanted to kill him, although the world still seemed to have the same vitriol towards him, he wasn’t even close to being alone anymore. Sometimes it was hard to adjust, difficult to deviate from the mindsets he had created for his constant solitude, but in moments like this, it felt like a worthwhile trade. 

He had been so used to being alone, long past any bitterness at his situation or longing for someone to be around to listen to any thoughts that he had. He was over being sad about it, it was just what his life was like. He had to constantly be on the move, becoming a target for monsters if he stayed in one place for too long, even if that place was one of his Zelda’s castles. Being lonely had been a reality that he had willingly accepted, at least before he knew anything else. 

Now, for months he had been surrounded by incarnations of his own soul that he would readily admit were as his own brothers. He had smiled and laughed more stumbling through this adventure than he ever had before, feeling truly seen and understood and supported for the first time that he could ever remember. He had once been so numb to the empty space and silence around him, but now that it was filled with eight pseudo-brothers, he was hypersensitive to every fond side-hug, hair ruffle, and encouraging back-pat that was just on the edge of being too hard. Saving kingdoms had nothing on making a joke and hearing his brothers laugh. 

Hyrule took a careful sip of his cider, it had perfectly cooled, just enough to thaw him from the inside while still being able to taste all the spices in harmony with the fruit juice. He took a deep breath of sweet warmth mixed with cinnamon, before letting it out along with the remaining chill that had made a home in his body. 

If he relished the comfortable weight of Sky on his side, leaning into his brother's mass, not one of the many witnesses felt the need to call it out. 

[spiritsong]

wyll.y.am ravengard, I love you so

everyone loves to put him in gold (rightly so) but my personal style is lots of silver jewelry + heavy eyeliner so that's what I gave him. also roses because he's so damn venusian

[gammija]

tiefling jon's first day at the Archives

[willowser]

not to be so disgusting and gross about gojo on the dash but i think he's such a flirty, teasing idiot that, when you show him genuine and true affection, he goes all somber and quiet.

like you come up to him after dinner and stand on your tip-toes and hug him for no reason, give him a fat kiss on the cheek for no reason, and he just — lets you. doesn't say anything, just kind of hums and lightly places his hands on your hips, so gently you might not even know they're there. you tell him, "i love you, thank you for eating with me," and he presses his mouth to the top of your head, lips squished, and says it back, but there's no jokes, no teasing remarks. he just allows himself to be weak and to bask in it, for as long as he can.

[sorunort]

i said in another post i was rping loop in a multifandom rp group and i'm having a lot of fun! so much fun that i made a giant doodle sheet of loop's glitch....that i haven't even gotten to rp yet but am so excited to im getting carried away. whoops

(in the context of the group, think of glitching like in spiderverse, they don't belong in this new world/dimension so their existence rejects it. we can do whatever we want for glitches so i just made loop's that they get their humanity back. yknow. for misery whenever they unglitch and go back to being a star [thumbs up])

i think my favorite here might just be the Go there Go Into the Dark catcrumb edit lmao

[grzybjek]

A collage I made for one of the characters from my newest story. His name is Kundel by the way hes an absolute manfail and a menace

[sysig]

Blood sugar levels (Patreon)

[l3viat8an]

Love the new layout my heart. <3

And I’ve been thinking of Cockwarming Diavolo

Thoughts 🎤

Thank you Skyy <3 And I have a little thot~ Nsfw

Hear me out!! He would love to do it right after you two have sex~

Diavolo would be fucking into you from behind and rather than pulling out, he just pulls you closer and let his cock rest inside of you, insisting that you simply feel too good to pull out just yet.

One of his big hands trailing over the marks he left earlier and his other arm wrapped around your waist, keeping you still.

Whispering sweet nothings mixed with dirty praise in your ear, telling you how good it felt and how well you milked his cock.

His teeth nipping playfully at your shoulder ‘n neck, enjoying the soft whimpers you make from the over stimulation.

And!!! And! Teasing him just a bit, grinding yourself back on his cock and getting him hard again.

He won’t bother wasting time by starting to slowly thrust into you, instead simply whispering “Such a naughty little human, you just can’t get enough my cock can you?” before going another round~

[mstormcloud]

I think applying tropes commonly found in Sonadow fics to other sonic ships is very funny

Like today I saw the cute posts by Blu-ish about how hedgehogs circle and headbutt eachother when courting and how Sonic and Shadow would do that and I agree.

However I think the implication that mobian hedgehogs do this is HILARIOUS when applied to ships that only involve one hedgehog.

Like Silver starts circling around Espio one day and lightly shoving him with his hip or his shoulder and Espio is like: ???? What are you doing??

Or even Blazamy like- Amy keeps circling Blaze and the less Blaze reciprocates Amy does it more to try to get Blaze to react. Blaze eventually just tries to politely tell Amy to stop cause it’s hard to hold conversation while she’s moving all around.

But later Blaze talks to Silver and is like: “I have no idea what she is trying to do…perhaps she is finding a weakness in my stance? Should I fear her hunting me for sport???”

And Silver is like: uh. Well. I think she’s hitting on you? It’s a hedgehog thing.

And Blaze just freaks out because WHAT DO YOU MEAN AMY WAS FLIRTING WITH HER

[miusato]

Honestly the main attraction for Shinjiham is how contrast their personality is and it is always funny for me to think about how people around them would react if they found out they're dating in this AU lol

[deoidesign]

I was gonna do a pinup but he kept posing cute idk what happened

[cerise-on-top]

Hugging, Kissing and Cuddling HCs for König

I'm trying to see him in another light again after everything I've seen about him, so I decided I'd write something fluffy and nice for him. And then came the realization I never wrote some HCs like these for him in my original posts, so I decided I'd change that! He's Austrian, so naturally I have to love him!

When it comes to hugging someone, König is a bit hesitant. Considering he’s not the most physically affectionate person out there, it’s almost an honor to be receiving an unprompted hug from him. Whether his hugs are long or short depends on the occasion: If he’s proud of you for accomplishing something, then the hug will be rather short lived. Though, he might pick you up and spin you around until you’re dizzy. If you’re sad and need some comfort then his hugs could last a while. He’s not the best with words, he prefers to listen to other people, but if he knows a hug is what usually helps you then he’s willing to do so. Despite being a big and strong lad his hugs are surprisingly gentle, he’s worried about crushing you. He could put his all into them, but then you’d likely end up with a few broken ribs and he doesn’t want that to happen. König is also surprisingly warm, so receiving a hug from him is a rare, but nice experience. Although he does go rigid at the beginning, not knowing what to do, but relaxes into the hug eventually.

Again, he’s not a very physically affectionate person, but isn’t opposed to the occasional peck on the cheek or on your lips either. There is some anxiety whether you’d actually want a kiss from him or not, so he doesn’t kiss you very often, even if you do reassure him that it’s quite alright. He’s a bit tense at first when he presses a kiss to your lips, but calms down eventually. It’s especially bad during the beginning of your relationship, but he’s since gotten better at being calm about it. Since there’s a good chance he’s taller than you he loves giving you a kiss on the forehead. It’s a small but sweet gesture. He doesn’t need to bend down entirely to reach you but he still gets to be affectionate with you. However, if you’re on the taller side, or just as tall as he is, then he’d love to receive kisses to his temple from you. It makes him smile every time you do it. If he’s in the mood for receiving a kiss then he’ll lay his head on your shoulder and nudge you a bit. Or try to get his head in your closer vicinity. Kind of like that one bunny video where the bunny stretches to receive some kisses.

Cuddles with him are a bit more common than hugs actually. However, he refuses to lay down on top of you. If you’re shorter and weaker than him then there’s no chance he’ll put his weight on you, he’s just that afraid of hurting you. If you’re taller or just more muscular, then he might, but he’s still a rather heavy lad. Most he’ll do is put his head on your shoulder while you’re cuddling in bed and are both lying down. Although it’d be a lie to say he doesn’t want to be held. König is alright with being the one to hold you, but sometimes he would prefer to be the little spoon as well. That urge gets especially bad if you’re roughly the same size as him. Sometimes just nuzzling into your chest does the trick for him as well, though. Loves it when you run your fingers through his hair as he does so. Another thing he adores is you sleeping on his chest as he holds you. He gets to hold you close, he gets to protect you and he gets to doze off a bit himself, it’s bliss to him. Sometimes he leans down to press a kiss to your head and accidentally wakes you up like that. He feels bad about it and apologizes profusely, but does chuckle a bit when he sees your disheveled hair and your tired expression that shows you just woke up.

[ministarfruit]

having normal thoughts about the demon king today

[tiptoethewordsgo]

hello gravity falls tumblr, someone write a fanfic where the pines family have to break bill out of rehab to help defeat a greater evil and my life is yours

[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

[roomba-mangga]

thoughts on thistle and yaad's dynamic that i vomited in the tags of another post but will now try to articulate here: they're not actually family, or at least they shouldn't be. not in a conventional sense anyway. framing them as uncle and nephew (even in a non-literal, silly fantasy world way) rides more on technicality than anything concrete.

what i mean by this is yaad calls thistle by name and says he and delgal were raised "like" brothers. he talks about thistle like he's an outsider imposing himself into the melinis' space, and it's clear that thistle was never legitimized as a member of the family. for thistle's part, though we don't know how he would treat yaad pre-demon brainrot, it's safe to assume based on the way he punishes him—turning him into a doll—and how little is shown in the way of any sort of relationship between them that thistle only cares* about yaad as an extension of delgal (otherwise i'd expect something like kabru and milsiril, because it's not like another complicated interspecies family dynamic would be out of place, yet there's next to nothing on them even in bonus content, just their scant interactions in the main story).

in essence, they're strangers to one another. thistle's desperation to preserve the illusion of a family, a model where he doesn't even fit, was the snare they were caught in for the past thousand years of stasis. yaad-as-nephew is a prop to uphold that illusion, and thistle is playing a role he's unfit to play. in the context of post-canon interactions, attempting to reconstruct that facade would only be a reenactment of trauma for them both (in a deeply compelling way i'd love to watch unfold, tbh), as that "uncle and nephew" framing places thistle in an implicit position of power over someone he's already traumatized through misuse of authority in the past, a role which also perpetuates his adultification and yaad's infantilization in turn. it'd mostly be an obstacle to any real connection.

best to burn the melini family bridge, i think, and if there's still anything salvageable left in the rubble, let something different supplant it.