#and i want it to be actually good

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Shadowstruck: Chapter One

The room had too many shadows. They filled the corners of Mama’s sick room, where heavy velvet curtains blocked the noise of passing carriages. They stretched from her bedposts, from the doctor’s medicines and instruments sitting next to the kerosene lamp on her bedside table. Sometimes one looked alarmingly human-shaped, and Clara feared the worst, until she saw the faint flickering heartlight around Mama’s form.

Mama’s heartlight, usually a bright, cheerful yellow, had faded to the color of old paper, barely visible in that dim room. Clara’s heartlight, as always, matched it to a shade, which made her feel like she was dying, too.

In Clara’s twelve years of life, she could barely remember spending more than an hour away from her mother. Mama had been her playmate, her caretaker, her teacher, her greatest friend.

Clara held Mama’s hand between both of hers, trying to rub some warmth into the cold fingers. Suddenly, Mama’s heartlight flared like a camera bulb. Her eyes flew open and she clutched at Clara’s arms. “Jeff!” she cried, as if watching him drown. “Jeff!”

Dr. Chambers' nurse rushed from her shadowed corner to Mama’s bedside; her comforting lavender heartlight glowed faintly around Mama’s head as she tried to calm her. “Your husband is well, Mrs. Lynwood. You should rest.”

Mama pushed away the nurse’s hands. “Where’s Jeff? I must speak to him!”

Neither Clara nor the nurse could quiet her, so at last the nurse called for the shade.

The boy--who seemed to be a year or two younger than Clara--looked pale and harmless, but he gave Clara the shivers. Papa didn't keep any shades--had never let any in the house until the nurse insisted she needed the extra hands--so this one, casting a shadow instead of a heartlight, looked like an unnatural intruder in this civilized room.

The nurse ordered the shade to fetch Papa from the Senate. The moment he left the room, Mama fell back against the pillows, exhausted.

Clara shuddered as the boy's long, black shadow slithered down the hallway before him. “Papa won’t come with a shade,” she said.

“He’ll come for your mother,” the nurse replied.

And the nurse was right. Papa burst into the room minutes later, the black sash of his senatorial robe still waving behind him, his orange heartlight as strong and vibrant as he was.

Jefferson Lynwood looked nothing like a famed, formidable senator as he rushed to kneel beside his wife's bed.

“I’m here, Minna!” he said, taking her hand.

Mama’s heartlight was dimmer than Clara had ever seen it, but her eyes were wide open and her whisper was strong. “Promise me, Jeff. No matter what happens, promise me you will care for Clara.”

Papa cast a quizzical glance at Clara. Clara didn’t understand it any more than he did. She was much younger than her brothers, and Papa stayed busy with senatorial work, but he was still as fond a father as she could ask for.

“Of course I will, darling,” Papa soothed. “You’ve nothing to worry about.”

Mama gripped his shoulders and looked into his face. “No matter what happens,” she insisted. “Promise me you will care for her as your daughter.”

“I would never do anything less.”

“Swear it!”

“I swear it, Minna, on my own right hand.”

Mama fell back against her pillows, satisfied. She was asleep within moments.

Papa shared a look with Clara. “Do you understand it, Clara?” His mustache twitched. “Has she given you reason to think you’re not--”

“No. Never.”

Papa shook his head. “Probably raving. Chambers warned me that might happen, near the end.” Papa scowled back at the doorway. “Probably comes of being around shades. I told Chambers I didn’t want those creatures near her!”

Clara had heard all his lectures about the dangers of shades—how they were soulless, shadow-casting creatures who fed off the heartlights of humans. Shades looked human-shaped to Clara, and Mama urged her to treat them with respect, but she never argued with Papa. Right now, Clara wasn’t sure she wanted to. The doctor kept a few shades as house slaves like most people did; Clara hadn’t thought anything of it when he left one to assist the nurse, but what if they were what kept Mama from getting well? The doctor had said that he couldn’t understand why she was fading—she should easily have been able to easily overcome this cold.

For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening, neither Clara nor Papa left Mama’s side. Mama never opened her eyes. Her breathing became harsher, but none of the nurse’s medicines helped. Sometimes she stopped breathing for almost a minute, but the continued glow of her heartlight assured Clara she yet lived.

Clara cried—she couldn’t help it. Sometimes Papa did, too. They both loved Mama. Without her, what would their little family become?

At last, Mama gasped, gave one last deep breath—then stopped. Her face went still and icy white. Her heartlight went out like a snuffed candle.

At the exact same moment, so did Clara’s. Her yellow heartlight—the comforting ever-present glow that was her—disappeared.

On the wall, black and menacing in the light of the kerosene lamp, stretched her shadow.

It looked exactly like a shade’s.

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[chloesimaginationthings]

Man this scene in FNAF 2 movie is gonna be wild-

[ink-the-artist]

Video game I saw in a dream. It was in this low poly style like an older video game. You play as this character I think was meant to be a lamb, or maybe a weird mix of a lamb a mouse and a rabbit, (while not really looking like any of those things) and you’re running away from a wolf. Your objective is to last as long as possible before the wolf catches and eats you.

The house you’re running in is endless and bizarrely put together like most building interiors in dreams are (like the infinite toilet dream dimension on Reddit lol) the layout of the house is pretty detailed, you can stop and hide in places like closets or bins while the wolf looks for you, you can go up and down stairs and into rooms etc.

You never actually know where the wolf is or how close it is to you until it appears in your line of sight, it makes no noise and the game gives you no way of knowing where it is, and it’s pretty unpredictable it doesnt move at a consistent pace. When the wolf catches you there’s an animation showing it eating your character

[elainiisms]

it's almost like... if you play a movie in 10 cinemas worldwide, it doesn't do as well as it could 🤯🤯

[bone-yarddz]

Audio books but it’s Michael Sheen reading books as Aziraphale and sometimes you hear David Tennant shouting something obnoxious as Crowley.

[uncanny-tranny]

Fat people deserve mobility aids, too. No matter if it's connected to their fatness or not, because having a mobility issue that is connected to one's fatness won't change that they're still fat and still have the issue at hand. Fat people don't deserve to "tough it out" because fatness should be this divine punishment doled out to those who "deserve" it. Fat disabled people deserve to have the peace of mind that they can exist in whatever way is most comfortable and accessible to them

[hinamie]

quick itfs sketch page

[squidsmeister]

dungeon meshi is my favorite road-trip comedy film

[egophiliac]

was this anyone else's first thought, or

[neytui]

BeholLD MY TINKER HICCUP FAIRY DESIGN!!

Been having this on my head for a whilee and really wanted to give the desing a go. Why? I don't know, but a Neverland au sure it's fucking cool

[d-1hater]

honestly one of the main reasons I like dc is that they can’t keep a storyline straight for shit. anything I don’t like is just *not real*. that’s different storyline babes what are you talking about???

like at this point I can consider shit like wfa and hell even well written fanfics as canon bc who knows what’s going on with those funky little people?? certainly not the dc writers

[nyerusnova]

yeah... things are pretty yikes right now in the current batfam storyline,

but at least Tim is rocking those thigh-high boots and I just wanted to appreciate that for a sec

[chloesimaginationthings]

Vanny finally meets FNAF tape girl in person...

[ink-the-artist]

Rabbits

Some bonus art, I initially started making this in a totally different art style but changed my mind about halfway through lmao, here are the parts I finished

[camilleflyingrotten]

Drew the ineffables in the Maria Pascual art style because why not