#manly guys doing manly things

[couldtheycatchkira]

[too-many-blorbos]

I reread Manly Guys (again) and realized Commander never got to sucker punch the Admiral. And that's how this ended up in my sketchbook.

[hairychestloversblog]

When you wake up next to this handsome and hairy chested man …… 🤔🤔🤔 ……Woof 🐶 🐶🐶💜💜

[seagull-scribbles]

And you think that makes you unique?

[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

[dunsbar]

[wis-art]

If you're a trans guy and you feel like you're not manly enough and are ashamed of the what is considered "girly" traits, toxic masculinity isn't exclusive to cis guys, and it can and will have devastating effects on your mental health, you're perfect the way you are and you don't need to prove your masculinity to anyone, and that includes yourself, because you're not just a floating consciousness in the earthly soup you're also someone and anyone.

[somewhatgayerthanistypicalfurina]

Tbh the way people on this website(/presumably other websites too but this is the one on which I see strangers opinions most often) talk about twinks soooooo derogatorily really Does make me super uncomfortable. It feels really homophobic in a way I haven't been able to nail down precisely

But just like. Always using twink as a derogatory thing and undesirable both to be or to want. Not really outright saying twinks aren't real men but IMPLYING it through comparisons to Real Men that are Big and Strong And Hairy. Like okay? You want big muscle men? You and every mainstream media in existence...? Why are people pretending that hating twinks is subversive. Why are people pretending that twinks are widely seen as the best sort of man.

And like it's EXPECTED for men to be able to grow lots of body hair and to get lots of muscle and be thick and sturdy and strong. And men are shamed for not being hairy enough and they are shamed for being twiggy and WHY are you doing it MORE but using gay words. Saying bears are sooooooo great but twinks are sooooo icky doesn't magically make you Not body shaming a group of people for Exactly The Reasons They Are Already Bodyshamed

Idk. Bwah. This isn't even me being firsthand butthurt bc I don't actually think I would be seen as a twink? But I am so tired of feeling like a fake gay and looked down on for not really being very into the typical male beauty standards

[karinyosa]

one realization i’ve had is that a lot of the models for masculinity and/or manhood that i kind of gravitated to when i was younger were not the most typically masculine. it’s weird having things in common with other transmascs but also very clearly going for different things. like i feel a kinship with you but sometimes i think we’re not quite the same. also been a reminder of like what kid me was actually going for when i dressed and acted The Way i Did in middle school

[pumpkinwastaken]

Lill reflection but at the start of the year i gave myself some goals to work towards. Heres what i've achieved of those goals! -Gained weight! I'm so happy to no longer be underweight and have some softness to my body now! -more hair! Yay for hairs! (now to figure out what to do with it) -i wanted to become stronger, which i think i achieved starting my current job, like. I have to lift so many heavy things every day!

[exaltior-a]

Being a lil cray cray about Dirkjake is so fun I'm laying in bed giggling to myself thinking of them beating eachother up. Romantic.

[im-smart-i-swear]

self-indulgent fnin doodles cause existance is Not Fun right now:/

[sins-of-the-sea]

//Giovanni if you show him the fattest pigeon-

[cebwrites]

reconnecting to my cringe roots, nature is healing <33 (mashing my two biggest hyperfixations together like barbiedolls)

[daydreamerdrew]

The Hulk! (1978) #27

[kakusu-shipping]

Neat!!! Tell me more about your reverse selfship w Koro-Sensei!!! What kind of media would you be from? How would the general fandom feel about your character?

Anon I love you mwah mwah this is all I was thinking about while at the eye doctor today and lemme tell you. I still have nothing.

Like Koro-Sensei's the easiest to do a reverse Self Ship for because he is a self shipper, especially with cool characters from anime and manga which is what my default media is buuut

I don't think I'd be his type in a fictional setting. Koro-Sensei has a very prominently big titty girl that could beat your ass type when it comes to anime. He likes Shonen and action and cool main characters with super neat powers. I.. don't and probably wouldn't fit into or be from an anime like that (a sweet slice of life maybe, one of the side characters to the main romance?)

I just don't think I as a character would fall into his range. I mean maybe, we all have our outta left field F/Os here and there. It's just unlikely.

Taking into consideration this Highschool or maybe Office Job Slice of Life Comedy Romance setting, I'd probably be a side character, implied canon queer rep in 2015 manga that got censored for the Anime, or even fully cut because I'm just one of the friend group who didn't get a real episode to himself till book 7 or so, and didn't end up with anyone in the end. The manga readers (like Koro-Sensei) are die hard fans, the Anime Onlys have no idea what they're talking about. I have no official merch and the Mangaka only draws me in the big promotional group images sometimes.

I could see Koro-Sensei being really upset about the lack of content about his favorite character and setting out to make it all on his own. He write the X Readers and draws all the fanart and makes a whole Stan blog and everything. Goes really hard about it for two weeks or so, and ends up burning himself out on it. Then he'd switch hyper focus onto something else and leave it all to rot in the bowels of A03.

That's about all I have for it right now, and probably eve will have? At least for Koro-Sensei. I have some other ideas for other Reverse Self Ships thanks to the Discord bouncing the idea around this morning a lot.

I dunno if I'll continue these into anything but they're fun thought experiments! Thankyou for indulging me!