#they don't actually bully anyone

[echo-rambles]

why does it look like they're in a highschool gang together? just some pretty boys who are also tough guys.

[lachiennearoo]

Y'know what I hate?

Spideypool shippers who say "Wade would've totally bullied Peter if they went to highschool together" like it's funny or cute

Like... ???

Clearly, you've never been bullied, and never read the comics, because only someone who's super fuckin ignorant would say that shit

- bullying is fucking serious shit. I was bullied as a teen and y'know what? I still have nightmares about these people. I saw one of my old bullies a year ago during an event and I had a fucking panic attack and had to hide in another room to calm down. Last thing I'd ever wanna do is fuck one of my bullies, I don't give a shit how hot they may be, they made me feel like trash for existing, I ain't stupid

- Wade was also bullied as a kid in some comic continuity because he liked girly things. So if you take that canon, he obviously wouldn't then become a bully to some poor kid who's just trying to exist

- Wade kills abusers and assholes for a living, if anything he'd bully the bullies, not the fuckin victims. If he saw highschool Peter Parker, last thing he'd do is bully him. Fuck he'd probably just become his goddamn bodyguard if anything lmao

Like "haha wouldn't it be funny if Peter and Wade's first interaction was Wade shoving Peter into a locker" no actually that'd just be really sad

[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

[s1llycilantro]

Are Shuichi and Kokichi studying in the same school as any other of the drv3 participants in the cinema au? :0

Sorry for such a late response but yeah!! Most do, and it's not limited to drv3 either! Though they don't all go to the same school (drv3 cast haha) they all talk or atleast know of eachother. Doesn't mean they all like eachother though ! :P

[flowerakatsuka]

indirect compliment

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

no i'm not bitter don't worry

[ameiniateria]

consistently I'm a little annoyed about the rift between c!Tommy and c!Dream fans in this fandom. like I like your guy too! I think he's great! actually, I think our guys have a lot in common! I'd love to see your take on this really messy, complicated relationship!

oh wait you think c!Dream is a pure evil, completely heartless villain that exists to do nothing but torment c!Tommy, who is of course a sweet innocent uwu baby who did absolutely nothing wrong, and therefore deserves to be murdered twice, imprisoned, isolated, starved, and tortured with no control over his own autonomy (but prison was actually way better than exile, which was the worst thing that ever happened to anyone on the dsmp. obviously. because c!Tommy tried to kill himself. yeah. don't think about c!Dream walking into a wall of lava and burning himself to death multiple times because he was so incredibly desperate for human connection. that was to escape, right? c!Dream couldn't possibly feel real emotions -- that would mean he's a person that -- oh no -- deserves compassion despite the terrible things he did. oh no -- that would make him -- gasp -- a lot like c!Tommy!) and actually he deserved more than that. he was never actually punished. c!Dream always won (citation needed).

also, c!Tommy was a child. do I have to say that again. well, I will anyway. c!Tommy was a child. c!Tommy was a child. c!Tommy was a child.

great.

[ntj2pj]

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.

I don't have external meltdowns.

I could. I don't let it happen.

I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.

So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.

She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.

Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].

It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.

They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.

I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.

I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.

I couldn't understand what made her like this.

But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.

If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.

And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*

And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?

My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.

Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???

And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.

I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*

She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.

I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.

So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.

But I told her hundreds of times.

I probably should have just screamed at her.

[sunsetzer]

On one hand, I want a final fantasy 6 remake, because the game is criminally underrated and the amount of fan content (which is all absolutely fantastic btw) is Not Enough for my neurodivergent, hyperfixating brain.

On the other hand, that would inevitably encourage more people to join the fandom, which would be great, except it seems these days the bigger a fandom gets the more toxic it becomes, and I really like what we have going on over here in our little corner. We all just love the game and its characters and nobody fights about who should and shouldn't date who or who you shouldn't like because they're ~problematique~. Nobody's trying to make one ship morally better than another, nobody's calling anyone names or threatening to doxx people who don't agree with their opinions. It's so peaceful and I love that for us. We're just vibing. Moisturized. Unbothered. In our lane. Flourishing.

[chiimeramanticore]

[modern-inheritance]

I can't stop thinking that the way MIC!Arya announces she and Firnen are at Ilirea to give Murtagh and Thorn a heads up is to do the mental equivalent of flicking crumpled pieces of straw wrapper at the back of his head.

Arya's childhood was certainly not the normal for elf children, not with the fall of the Riders occuring and having lasting effects, but she did have Fäolin to play with and spent a lot of time with him. The teasing and rough and tumble play that she got into with Fäolin and the continued 'raising' of her the Wolfcats did, combined with influences from Glaedr, Brom and Rhunön (Oromis was the most traditional of the bunch so he didn't contribute much to the more wild sides of Arya's personality and mannerisms) gave her this very rough around the edges, teasing, everyone is a kid brother when they need to be and everyone is a big brother when they need to be sort of vibe of dealing with younger peers once she battle bonded with them.

She knows that Murtagh's upbringing probably wasn't that great, and that he probably never had friends his own age that were real friends. So she just treats him like he's one of the Wolfcats from so long ago, would give him noogies if he were shorter, give him a hug if he let her, and if they were kids it would be just an immediate 'hi! can i see your room? YOU HAVE STAR CHARTS ON YOUR CEILING THATS SO COOL! AND A CHEMISTRY SET?!'

I just want Arya to give Murtagh a chance to experience that easy friendship.

oh god damn it.

Toph. Arya Toph style friendships him.

*Chucks laptop over shoulder*

[thehealingsystem]

no way I saw someone say that r/fakedisordercringe has potential.....because instead of going after queer disabled people, they could go after endo systems........ "yeah this subreddit bullies and harasses neurodivergent people and anyone it deems 'cringe,' but it would be better if they went after this specific group of neurodivergent people" have you considered you're part of the problem

[boxwinebaddie]

hi uncle neen! in honor of freckle kyle becoming canon, does jers have freckles? <3

yES!!!!! YES HE DOES!!!!

YES!!!! HE!!! DOOOOOOES!!!!

hooooooly shit, oh My GOD, i am so sorry for being FERAL, you guys, but when i tell you that i have been WAITING FOR THIS QUESTION!

because jerseykyle does not just 'have freckles'.

obviously, everyone's kyle is different and i think a lot of people hc kyle having a nice light smattering over his nose, some light ones on his cheeks, neck and shoulders, which, again, i think is so lovely, i love when kyle has freckles, i think that is a perfect hc, tbh.

bUT JERSEYKYLE??????

JERSEYKYLE HAS FRECKLES.

for days and weeks and months and YEARS!!!!!!

anyways, follow me under the cut if you want my yelling.

okay, so, i wasn't sure how to explain this, but if we don't know, my embarrassing uncle nina lore is that in mid-highschool i used to tumblr rpg often which required the use of faceclaims or irl actors and models so i actually have...a surprising depth and wealth of knowledge when it comes specifically to models/supermodels so...

this is cintia dicker. X / X / X

( yes she is beautiful )

JERSEYKYLE HAS CINTIA DICKER FRECKLES.

like aaaaaalll OVER his damn face. like jersey be dominating boys in the bedroom, but those freckles be DOMINATING HIS FACE, BABY! like light ones, dark ones, idk, but they are fucking everywhere, all over his face, his neck, his arms, his legs, his chest,

EVERYWHERE.

which...Whew. he is sooooo pretty. it is seriously striking like he looks like pale pink sky with a blizzard of amber sparkles on his face. it's so wonderful, like jersey kyle please model for VOGUE. he is that bitch, he is freckly as damn hell, there are HUNDREDS, possibly thousands.

i might be exaggerating...

BUT I NEED YOU TO KNOW HES FRECKLY AS FUCK.

which...he was very embarrassed about for a long time. to this day, it is a large point of insecurity for him bc he feels really weird about them and considered using foundation to cover them up because of how strange and messy he thinks they make his face look because of the way society used to treat them, like they made his face look dirty or imperfect or ugly and AAAAAA OKAY!

so throwback ( as in i want to throw that man off a cliff and run over him several times w/ the barbie jeep i don't know how to drive ) when rm cartman said jers looked like he was 'speckled with shit'. :(((

it made kyle morbidly depressed/insecure to the point where he wanted to rip the skin off his face, but then stan told him that his mom said 'freckles are places where you've been kissed by the sun' and that ky must be 'the sun's favorite' bc he's been kissed so many times and he's trying to catch up…

WHEN I TELL U HE SWOOONED.

ravenstanley marsh, ceo of simping for freckly boys.

speaking of, so one time, i think they were watching a movie and stan was, uh, not watching the movie, he was literally watching jerseykyle. and kyle was like "what are you doing, dummy? is there something on my face?" and ironically stan shook his head and said "yeah, but they're fine where they are..." then trailed off in thought, still intently staring at kyle with Extreme Laser Focus.

and normally, kyle is used to people staring at him, y'know, bc he's fine as hell and really tall, that doesn't really phase him, but ravenstan staring at him makes him SUPER nervous, awkward and flustered, so he's like -anxious laugh- "seriously, dude, what are you do—“ and stan's like "shh" ( in a not condescending, loving way )

"i'm trying to count."

jerseykyle furrows his lovely auburn brow, trying to figure out what he's talking about, realizes what's going on, but still literally in shock, laughs again, because he thinks stan must be joking and goes "oh my gahd, are tryna count my freckles? stan's literally imposs--" and stan shushes again him in a gentle manner and is like "shh, i need to focus. quit distracting me, you're gonna make me lose my place."

literally on his face, counting kyle's, i shit you not, probably over 100 freckles, which i think is soooo fucking CUTE of him because he's literally swimming against the deadly current of his adhd, forcing everything in his constantly fidgeting body to focus so that he can keep count. it's a truly beautiful thing watching r.s.' brain whir and his pretty blue eyes narrow and widen, counting softly under his breath.

ravenstan does, unfortunately, find he can't count them all because like jersey said, it is a pretty damn near impossible task...that did NOT however, stop him from trying multiple times, the last time though, he didn't actually lose count, kyle just kissed the FUCK out of him because it was literally the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

he did possibly get laid for that, i'm sorry.

but yeah FRECKLE SUPREMACY KYLE AND SPECIFICALLY JERS. that man has so many freckles that his body looks like the night sky on a perfectly clear day, it is...beautiful. it is a work of damn ART.

anyways...i'm done now.

do we see the vision ( of loveliness )

that is jew jersey kyle matthew BROFRECKLOVSKI????

-uncle nina, feral about extremely freckly jersey

p.s. ravenstan, as a man of justice for all and fairness, basically loves all of kyle's one hundred thousand million freckles equally but there is a darker one that is just above the right curve of his lip...THAT IS HIS FAVORITE FRECKLE, I AM SO SORRY IT IS THE EQUIVALENT OF THE RAVENSTAN RIGHT UNDER EYE BEAUTY MARK BUT FOR STAN LIKE HE IS FEEEERAL ABOUT IT. he does...give it a special kiss often...very gay of him. his second favorite freckle is...

anyways!

Next Question. <3

[kylarsobsession]

me minding my own business getting ready for bed when I realize one of the newer things added to dol was losing noncon encounters after fighting back has a chance of the person pissing on you......oh Whitney. Whitney when I. Whitney when I Get you. Whitney look at me.

[asgardian--angels]

you know it's bad when tumblr's being the more mature social media site when it comes to rancid takes on izzy's death