#THEY MEANT *YEAR* OF SHADOW

[heading-down-to-georgia]

Happy 20th anniversary Four Swords manga!!! Thank you so much for such an amazing story, and a wonderful community xxx

[ficcerspam]

Tim has noticed something odd, about the Demon Brat.

Sometimes, the Demon Brat would look to his left, as if to start a conversation, or as if anticipating someone saying something, only to freeze. Just for a moment, a half second, because nobody was there, before looking away with painful expression. 

Months later, Tim decided to stand there, just to see what would happen. The brat didn’t look at him once, and Tim found that curious, and odd.

Another odd thing about his new, murderous brother, is that he refuses to look into the mirror. That’s not true, exactly: he would look in the mirror for basics, for necessities. 

Tim realized, months of observations later, that the brat didn’t look himself in the eyes. 

Strange. 

Tim had asked him, once, why he didn’t. As expected, all he got was a “It’s none of your business Drake.”

But that didn’t stop Tim from wondering. Tim is, if nothing else, curious to a fault and persistent to an illegal degree. 

And so the strangeness would continue, and Tim would wonder.  

The brat would look to his left, pause, and then look away. He would deftly avoid mirrors, and when asked why he would sneer and avoid those questions, too. 

Until he didn’t. 

Until he came back to the Cave battered and beaten, some dreary autumn day, the Demon Brat unusually sullen and quiet and off his game. He had sat through the lecture Bruce had given him, and sat through the quiet reaching out from Dick, and sat through the cajoling teasing meant to rile him up, to get him to say or do anything per the norm, with an unusual aplomb.

The brat apologized, said he was fine, and ignored the rest. He told Bruce he wouldn’t patrol tomorrow, and would stay home from school, because clearly he wasn’t feeling well. 

 It was like Damian wasn’t there, fully. 

So when Tim saw that the brat’s door was open, the next day, he peeked in. 

Of course he did. 

And there the brat was, sitting in front of the full length mirror he usually had covered with a cloth when it wasn’t in use, reaching up and staring directly into his own reflection’s eyes. 

“Demon Brat?” Tim asked, stepping in and concerned about the look in the other’s face. There was no answer. 

“Damian. What’s wrong.” Tim stood behind the boy, watching as Damian touched the corner of his own reflection’s eye. 

“The color’s wrong, Drake.” Damian finally said, matter of fact and almost broken, absent-minded. 

“What?” Tim asked, trying to see what he was talking about. Nothing was wrong, nothing was changed. Damian met his eyes through the mirror for a long moment, but Tim didn’t understand. 

“The color.” Damian reiterated, looking at his own reflection again. 

“The color? Of what?” Tim and Damian were never close, not really, but he was starting to feel like something was slipping away, in this moment. Damian dropped his hand, and finally looked away. 

Without answering, the boy got up and carefully draped a cloth over the mirror, ushering Tim out of his room silent as the dead. 

“Leave me be for today, Drake.” Tim reached, opened his mouth to try and say something, because something was wrong, but what? 

But Damian simply shut the door softly. 

The sound of the lock engaging felt strangely, and utterly, final in a Manor full of lockpicking detectives.

Tim laid a hand on the door, and mourned. 

[nebzox]

TTYD take on Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Lavinia Fontana

My piece for the @paper-mario-zine !!

[pestercide]

Decided to revisit my Minecraft spooky guy designs

Old designs here

[sophfandoms53]

I’m literally gonna self-combust PUT THIS DAY IN THE HISTORY BOOKS FOR SHADOW NATION

[sforzesco]

Crassus, Caelius, Cicero, Catiline, Conspiracy

boy howdy these four sure are something. not featured in this soup of C names, Caesar! what on earth happened here.

Plutarch, Crassus

Sallust on Crassus, Ronald Syme

Patron and Client, Father and Son in Cicero's "Pro Caelio"

Crassus' New Friends and Pompey's Return, Eve J. Parrish

Catullus and His World, T.P. Wiseman

Cicero's Catilinarians, D.H. Berry

[worstloki]

AU where Laufey and Loki look so similar that the second Thor sees the guy on Jotunheim he's stuck looking between them like 'wait, something is wrong here...'

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

My hot take is that marcanne has as much potential for toxic yuri as any other calamity trio ship and it's not nearly as soft and fluffy as one may think

[sonknuxadow]

sorry i dont really like the shadow is silvers dad theory/headcanon/whatever and part of the reason for it is that people keep presenting it as an actual thing that could be possible even though it makes no sense and all "evidence" people use to back it up is easily disputed

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

things i am not normal about:

• how clearly you can hear alex’s influence in miles’s singing voice, especially his later stuff after he and alex stopped collaborating

• how when alex is around miles, his accent takes on a subtle, more scouse than sheffield twang to mirror the way miles speaks, and that as the years have gone on this has just become a natural part of his accent

[deerest-me]

*puts on beret picks up cigarette holder and starts talking about differences between the TTYD remake soundtrack and the original*

[meringuejellyfish]

wait this is how i can still win

[rangers-arecool]

@thegreatstrongbow:: beleg | reply to this ::

  ”Ada.” The little boy returned solemnly. Well as solemn as he could get when there was a massive grin on his face. He stopped just inside the main entrance to Imlad Gelair and let go of Beleg’s hand, before pointing in the direction of the inner part.

  ”Papa’s that way. People keep tryin’ to peek in.”

[outeremissary]

kasperia character journal please? 👀

Hi Romeo! Sorry this is a lil late (days later edit: now a lot late), time kind of stopped functioning for part of Friday, hahhh . Anyway some good luck on this one being the only one I have screenshots from while my laptop hangs between this world and the next! (days later edit: it's actually dead forever) Anyway, this was admittedly a bit of a cheat because it is a tabletop character journal, but it's a WIP to me and I like working on it. Counts!

Anywayyyy. I don't think it's actually been said on Tumblr at this point, but Kasander and Asperia are two parts of a dissociative identity disorder system (I don't know if this is too jargon-y an explanation...?). Not the only two, but the two who interface the most with the outside world and in some ways have the strongest feelings about "Asperia's" life. In tabletop, their journal is how they communicate with one another to mitigate the effects of losing time and to get some sense of coordination with what they're doing. On a meta level, it helps me track what each of them knows about game events and how they feel about each other (and any other alter who adds something to the journal). Relationships within the system aren't really something that generally makes sense to externalize into regular RP. The journal is a helpful way to develop that running self-exploration side plot without derailing what's happening in session.

It's been a really fun exercise in character voice. I love writing epistolary type stuff- Carmen's mission report character journal was one of my favorite parts of playing her back in 2019- so it's been very relaxing to me. Excited for our hiatus to end to gather more material for it. I've gotten a little off track from some original plans though- one significant concept I'd had going in was that Kasander's parts of the journal are written as direct letters to Asperia, while Asperia's were supposed to be written as a diary as if the other pages didn't exist. Stubborn willful ignorance from someone struggling to come to terms with their reality. Unfortunately, it's very fun to write things that are a little bit more communicative ^^;; I'll probably have to rewrite pieces of recent parts of the journal to be a bit more in line with that intent before adding the next chunk to our party's notes drive. Not a lot room to develop the twins' relationship over time if there's not much distance between the start and the end, after all.

With that said, some of the direct exchanges are very fun. Pros and cons.

It's also fun to think through what's tracked and what's omitted (intentionally or unintentionally). Kasander loves describing the cultural experience of a location but carefully skips mentioning having actually spent money on things. They're always on thin ice with the funds. Asperia keeps (mildly exaggerated) accounts of personal achievements but completely skips over failures, especially failures that involved injury to the body. She needs to communicate a sense of superiority- something that certainly works when Kasander apologizes profusely any time the body is hurt under their care.

(yeah it seemed like a good idea at the time to use a more "handwritten" font for the final thing but I've been having A Lot Of Regrets)

I unfortunately don't have a screenshot, but the journal has also had one small addition from Paracelsus as well. It's just a to-do list of ways to organize and restock the crafting supplies. Very typical of them. Asperia thinks he wrote it, like everything Paracelsus writes.

Also fun to get to work in some in-world explanations for things that raise some meta questions, like not having some items that I need for my character concept (I ran out of starting equipment budgettt). This bit is also consistent with the pattern that Asperia avoids referring to Kasander by name.

How common the two of them actually sabotaging each other's possessions is has yet to truly be established, but it is an aspect of what the party thaumaturge refers to as their "feud."

Pros over BG3: they are aware of and communicating each other, and they didn't have to have five near death experiences for it to happen. Yay!

Cons over BG3: lot more hostility from Asperia persisting past that point. Kasander did in fact ruin their life a little.

[musical-chan]

Your FoT fic was brought up on the LU server today and we were all gushing about how awesome it is, as well as how crazy shit would be the LU boys somehow stumbled into that universe.

HA! Amazing. The whole concept for Father of Time actually started in the LU server, about a year ago!

Ironically, I do actually have an unfinished WIP where the LU boys end up in FoT but I desperately need to update it because I've added more lore since I first wrote it. I think FoT Link would actually be taller than Time at this point and BOY WOULD THAT BE HILARIOUS!

[zapsoda]

this shit is so boring every song feels 2 hours long if the lyrics werent so painful id literally be falling asleep here snoooopooooore

my boy breaks his favorite toys or whatever woke me up cause it had new sounds (gadp). and like that title that chorus. it could make an interesting story. and then it doesnt.

this album just feels very tired too. like shes exhausted by this shit lol. she soudns sleepy and the beats and instrumentals are sleepy and im bored im conkin out bro