#however brief

[doodlesdreaming]

“Hold on, to the painted sky. Where we will be unified. As I stand inside, where butterflies never die.” ~Broken Iris

[starboundsingularities]

by the way i fucking hate how no one can just say they don't like something anymore. like no one can say "i don't enjoy this" they have to go "here's a call out post on the creator so my little haterisms are morally righteous" no one can say "this is derivative bland and uninspired" it's fucking "omg did ai make this this feels ai generated" like goddddd it's one thing to be a little hater but at least admit that the guy who made it. y'know. MADE the damn thing.

[theinfinitedivides]

anyway what kind of money do you have to have to rent out an entire amusement park and where can i get some of that

[unicronnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom]

It's not as if Oganesson was an element that existed for long enough to have a natural, stable elemental plane by its hand.

But now that most of the universe is old enough to mash atoms together in Very Big Tubes, it has to gain and lose metaphysical organs that these elements represent on repeat.

It sucks.

[magpie-trove]

A ship is good if you can look at them and see them as an old married couple

[han-ban-bam]

F-0C5’ flips and tricks will save the galaxy. Just u wait. They’re HELPING.

[sketchbot9000]

If the Xenos had attacked Earth even 70 years earlier, they would have surely prevailed.

Unfortunately for them, and for Humanity, the Machines had long since taken control.

[pianokantzart]

Okay, so I've compiled a quick list of reasons why Helen Gravely would work really well as the main villain in the next Luigi's Mansion game

Aesthetically??? 11/10. Absolute icon.

King Boo has been the main villain three times now, and his dynamic with Luigi isn't like Bowser vs Mario where they can just rinse and repeat over and over. King Boo shows a clear path of escalation, getting more unhinged and determined each time he's defeated. There's only so far he can go, and having a different main villain for a spell might shake things up a bit.

Hellen has more reason to go after Luigi than just winning the heart of King Boo at this point. Having had her staff defeated and her hotel destroyed, she doesn't strike me as the type of woman to take that sort of blow to her pride lying down. Not to mention the fact that Luigi was the first (and perhaps only) person to get her so riled up that she revealed her true form, so just add that to the list of reasons why she would like to wipe him out of existence.

Polterkitty has a very interesting (and terrifying) gimmick that... while having served its purpose well enough in Luigi's Mansion 3... could be played with and expanded on in future installments.

The way Hellen expresses herself, perceives herself, and interacts with others makes her an anti-Luigi in a way that Waluigi could only dream of, right down to the way that she willingly plays second fiddle to someone who would otherwise be her peer in terms of power and abilities. But while Luigi and Mario have a very respectful and warm relationship built on love and trust, Hellen is a megasimp for someone who coldly uses her affection for his personal gain.

[mochi-kitty]

I remember when Young Justice Dark Crisis first came out and the Bart tag was Flooded with people saying the new comic was awful, it had horrible characterizations and blatantly ignored the lore. Well after a couple of years I’ve read it and I can safely say IT WAS ASS

Truly, truly, I definitely went in with a bias but on god I could not stand this comic. 5 pages in and I was ready to stop reading. At first it feels like it was written by a YJ hater who was forced to write a story for the core 4 for the Dark Crisis event… then the rest of the comic feels like it was written by a Cassie super fan who got hired by DC official to publish their weird justification fanfic. The millennial humor, I wanted to gag. I’m gen z so maybe that’s why but wow it was so cliche written. Just insult after insult after insult to the characters and to me the reader. It almost topped Bart’s “You’re the best Mr. West!” Line from Flash vol.6, almost.

[rottmnt-residuum]

I just realized we haven't seen Raph in a while. Is he okay?

he's fine, physically. ish.

[twipsai]

shouldnt you two be doing homework or something

(not ship)

[starry-bi-sky]

changeling danny has his wretched little claws in me so here's some AU fey lore

Okay so, i've got a lot of ideas for the Fey Lore in this au. But to start out what may become a sling of posts: a simplified set up of the Infinite Realms. I think I mentioned it before in a reblog of the original changeling danny post, but the fey wilds exist in the IR. In most fanon I see the same scale as the rest of the realms, however i have a different idea for it.

In simplified terms, the fey wilds and the ghost zone are two different things. They both exist in the Infinite Realms, however, they exist on different planes of existence. In simplified terms, there are three separate planes in the Infinite Realms.

The Long Far: Highest realm in the infinite realms. Home to most, if not all, the Ancients. Beings that reside in The Long Far are eldritch abominations, gods, personifications of concepts, and other celestial-type beings. The only way to access the Long Far is through the Starflare Currents in the Feywilds. Which are a nebula of stars that work similar to the ocean currents in Finding Nemo. They are a rapid vortex full of stars that pass over the feywilds that can be seen at night. In order to reach the Long Far, one must fly up to the Current and latch onto one of the stars rapidly flying past. And then they must stay on the star until the currents begin to ascend rapidly upwards. This is harder than it sounds. Ever been indoor surfing? Where you lie on your stomach on a small board and try not to get flung off? Exact same concept. It’s basically the world’s most terrifying escalator to the gods.

The Fey Wilds: The Fey Wilds isn't exactly strictly home to the Fey, however for convenience sake I'm calling it the Fey Wilds. This is the home to fey and other folklore and mythological creatures that may not want to reside in the Ghost Zone. There are no Fey in the GZ. It's not that they hate being down there, but. well.. they hate being down there. They think the place is ugly. The Fey Wilds has ever shifting, expanding amount of biomes. These biomes range from massive redwood forests, to swamps, to essentially Pandora from Avatar. The place can look almost entirely human one moment, and then like a different planet the next. Fey and other inhabitants know how to navigate this easily -- but ghosts? Not so much. There are currently two known ways to reach the Fey Wilds from the Ghost Zone and vice versa: Lake Portals, and Cave Tunnels. Which I will expand upon in a moment.

Ghost Zone: Exactly how it sounds! The Ghost Zone is, well, the ghost zone! It's essentially the same as canon. Same looks, same everything. This is the home of mortal souls and the occasional mythological creature or two, as well as weaker concept spirits. By that I mean like, ecto-octopi. Concept spirits can manifest in both the GZ and Feywilds. Ghosts tend to stick inside the Ghost Zone and avoid venturing into the Fey Wilds because, well, they're still mortal souls. They're gonna get jumped by a fey looking for a new decoration or a new pet/servant/whatever. Best to honestly avoid the fey wilds as a whole.

Now, I just mentioned that there were two known ways to reach the Fey Wilds from the Ghost Zone: lake portals and cave tunnels. I made goofy little visual aides which I will attach below, and then I will explain how they work.

I'll start with the Lake Portals. They are, well, as the name suggests lake portals. Not every lake in the fey wild is a portal to the ghost zone, and vice versa. They're rather uncommon to find in both planes, but it's not like they're hard to recognize.

In the Fey Wilds, lake portals will have a sheen over the water like an oil spill. But instead of the regular rainbow-y colors, it will instead have the ghost zone's colors swirling in it; green and purple. The water will have that sickly green tint to it, and have a slight glow. The plant life surrounding the water are not typically what you'd find in the Fey Wilds, but might in the Ghost Zone. They look different from the regular noxious swamp bogs in the wilds, so its easy to tell that they're lake portals.

In the Ghost Zone, the lake portals will instead be shimmery and blue like a tropical ocean. And just like how there are GZ plants in the fey wilds surrounding the water, there's fey wild plants on the island where the lake is.

How these portals work is rather simple. You dive in and begin swimming down. It's a long swim down, but that's all you gotta do. It will get dark, as there are no plant life in these portals, and no aquatic life either.

It starts getting complicated when you reach what I like to call the border. The border is as the name implies; its a border between the planes. In the lakes it's not physical, however you will feel when you've reached the border and crossed it. Intense vertigo washes over you as your sense of gravity begins to shift and flip; up is becoming down, down is becoming up.

Your goal at this point is to try and push through that vertigo and discomfort and make it to the other side of the border, without getting flipped upside down and swimming back to the surface you came from. This is harder than it sounds as you become dizzy underwater, and since there's no light anywhere, you will try and instinctively seek it out and follow it. You're down too deep to know where that light is.

Once you've reached the other end of the border successfully, your gravity will have flipped without you needing to do anything. You are now swimming up to the surface, and once you do, boom! You're in the ghost zone! Lake Portals are faster to use than tunnels, but very disorientating.

Now cave tunnels are longer, but simpler. Essentially some caves have tunnels that lead into the ghost zone, similar to how in greek mythology there are random entrances to the underworld in the mortal world. I haven't exactly figured out what the tell is for when you're in a tunnel leading to the Ghost Zone, but I know that when it's the other way around it's rather easy -- as you start to climb up.

It's a less complicated explanation: essentially you are descending into the ghost zone through this tunnel. You are on your way down like Orpheus in search of his wife, or like Heracles doing his twelve labors. It can get claustrophobic and of course there is the border.

Unlike experiencing a shift in gravity, you're instead hit with the intense vertigo and an intrinsic fear to turn around. It's an instinctual response to your surroundings changing on a molecular level, and your body in response is telling you to Flee. Basically, you've taken a rip of the Cave Gasses and you feel like you're losing your mind. Once you exit the border its smooth sailing.

Sometimes you get unlucky and there's a Pit Drop and you're suddenly Alice in Wonderlanding your way down to the Ghost Zone. But hey! At least you're not swimming.

those are currently the only two ways i've come up with for traveling between the GZ and Fey Wilds. But all in all, it's meant to be very disorientating stuff; vertigo and nausea-inducing, with just a dash of Existentially Terrifying. Traveling between planes usually is.

[littlecrittereli]

Life Update

[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

[berrihyo]

youre worth more than what you give btw

[anxiouslowercase]

sas rh: let eoin survive the fall au » the astronomer philosopher, the earth and the moon