#cassandra is fucking dead

[azucar-skull]

I'm gonna be real with you guys...

I'm totally procrastinating on drawing the next update-

[corkinavoid]

Thank you, @aceinacorner, for this gem:

You are the inspiration for

DPxDC Ring of Rage? More Like Ring of Engage [pt. 3]

[<- part 2]

Duke narrows his eyes.

He swears Tim was not in the Cave just five seconds ago, and yet, in the brief moment when Duke wasn't looking, he just materialized out of motherfucking aether. Smelling like Chinese food and holding a chicken skewer that looks so good that Duke's mouth waters.

"Can I have a piece?" He asks, the divine smell of food overriding the urge to ask 'where did you get it' or 'how did you get here'.

Tim nods, smiles, and hands Duke the whole skewer before going for the elevator.

Is it Duke's hallucination, or is he really humming something as he goes?.. Actually, that doesn't matter. The chicken tastes even better than it smells, and Duke is perfectly willing to keep his mouth shut in exchange for food.

You don't talk with your mouth full, after all.

~☆~

Cass watches Tim over the table. She hasn't heard him coming into the dinner room - no steps in the hall, no rustle of clothing or breathing. It's like the boy has somehow appeared right in front of the door out of nowhere before entering.

What's more, he seems obviously not hungry, picking at his food with an absent, if a bit dreamy, expression. Granted, Tim always picks at his food, but Cass can see the difference between 'Tim's mind is busy with a new case and therefore too distracted to eat' and 'Tim already had dinner elsewhere and is too full to eat now'.

The bags under his eyes are also not as dark as they usually are. Come to think of it, Cass hasn't seen him in a bad mood for a few weeks now, which shouldn't really be that strange, but it's Tim. The smallest of inconveniences can put him in a bad mood.

Tim notices her looking and raises an eyebrow.

Cass blinks and goes back to her plate. Whatever is keeping her brother happy, it deserves her full approval.

~☆~

Jason is... not so sure as to what is happening.

He did notice that Tim was really chill lately, but this is going a bit overboard.

"Did you spike it with arsenic, Replacement?" He asks, suspiciously looking the offered cup of coffee over without taking it. Tim - surprisingly, actually - doesn't react to the nickname in the slightest, instead giving Jason a deadpan look. Then, he brings the cup up to his mouth, takes a sip, and hands it back again.

Okay, well, that proves no arsenic, at least. It's still very weird. Tim doesn't just buy coffee for people, and he especially doesn't buy coffee for Jason.

"Am I going to owe you something for it, or what?" He asks, slowly reaching for the cup. Tim sighs.

"No. It's just a drink - my boyfriend loves it, and I think you'd like it as well," he explains with a shrug, and Jason is honestly too befuddled to ask about anything. Including the boyfriend part.

No, but since when does Timbers have a boyfriend? He sure hadn't mentioned anything about it to any of the others.

The drink turns out to be not coffee but something else, tangy and thick, and when Jason takes the lid off, it's green like Mountain Dew.

It does taste great, though, and later Jason considers asking Tim for another one. He hadn't had anything better in ages.

~☆~

Damian strikes through the last one of the training holograms, breathing heavily. And yet, just as the 'simulation complete' message pops up in the air, he hears a step behind him.

He turns around faster than a lightning, and-

Finds Timothy's neck at the tip of his katana, with his hands up in surrender.

"What are you doing here?" Damian sneers, lowering his weapon, and Tim swallows. Not because of surprise or fear, though, he clearly had some half chewed up food in his mouth.

"Inaccurate drop off," he says, looking Damian straight in the eyes, "I was aiming for the main floor."

He smells of Indian food and spices, and Damian almost sneezes.

"What do you mean 'aiming'?" He demands, but Drake just waves him off, heading towards the elevator up.

"No worries, I'll do better next time," he shoots a smile over his shoulder, "See you on patrol!" And with that, the elevator doors close after him, leaving Damian alone.

Drake has always been strange, but this is too much even for him.

Not that it's Damian's business. He huffs and starts the simulation over again.

~☆~

If Dick didn't witness it with his own two eyes, he would have never believed it. Alas, he did, and even though the swirling green vortex has already disappeared like it was never there, Tim, whom the strange portal just spat out on the floor of the Cave, is still here.

"What the fuck was that?" He nearly yells, and Tim looks up, a face of perfect innocence.

"What was what?" He returns the question, and Dick can't find the words to explain, so he just wildly gestures to the place where the portal has been less than five seconds ago. Tim blinks, "Oh, that. That was my date."

Dick chokes on his breath.

"Your date?" He parrots, hoarse and breathless, and Tim nods, like there's not a single thing wrong with anything that has just happened. "Since when do you go on dates? Wait, I thought you were engaged, you said it was cheating to date anyone else, even if you didn't know the spouse, you said-" he cuts himself off, feeling his own face slowly falling and his stomach sinking down in horror. "No. No, don't tell me."

But the shit-eating grin on Tim's face is already proof enough.

Dick clears his throat. Takes a deep breath.

Seeing that Tim is still in one piece, and, well, that he did just casually come out of a magic portal in the middle of the Cave, it's probably safe to say that it's not the first time.

And, judging by the mirth in Tim's grin, it's also safe to say he's been rather enjoying it.

Dick releases one long, loud breath and forces a smile on his face as well.

"So, how is it?" He asks, trying in vain to sound light-hearted, not suspicious. Tim's smile gets wider, and there's a glint of excitement in his eyes now, which Dick considers a good thing, all in all.

"Oh, I thought you'd never ask."

~☆~

Bonus Scene (that somehow turned out longer than I planned)

~☆~

"Where's Tim?" Bruce asks when all the rest of his kids are already seated around the table for breakfast.

"At Danny's, probably," Steph shrugs before digging into the waffles on her plate. Bruce frowns.

"Danny's?" He asks. He hasn't heard that name before. Is that a friend of Tim's?

"Drake's paramour," Damian clarifies, not bothering to look up from his own food, and Bruce's mind comes to a screeching halt. He blinks stupidly, looking around the table and sincerely hoping it is some sort of a prank, but Cass smiles and nods, and Dick has an expression of pure exhaustion on his face, and Duke is huffing a snort of laughter at him for it.

"Since when-" Bruce starts, but he is suddenly cut off by a glowing circle that appears just a few feet away from them all.

It grows quickly, morphing into a vortex, a green and ominous tear in reality big enough for a person to walk through, hanging in the air a few inches over the ground. The space around it feels staticky somehow, and the color is too bright to look at directly, and it definitely doesn't belong to their dining room. But before Bruce is able to say another word or do anything at all, Tim steps out of it, his hair and clothes ruffled.

"Oh, fuck," he mutters upon seeing them all, and turns around, sticking his head into the vortex just as it starts to close. The vortex pauses.

Bruce is almost too stunned to move.

His kids don't share the sentiment, though, most of them not paying the portal any attention at all. Bruce would have reprimanded them for the poor awareness of their surroundings if he didn't notice how Damian simply glanced up at it before going back to his food.

They saw the portal. They just didn't deem it dangerous. For some reason.

Tim's face comes back out, and he turns to Bruce. His expression looks different than before: a bit smug, a little mischievous, and just a tad bit nervous.

Then, another head pops up through the surface of the portal. A boy - or at least they look like a boy - with snow white hair that floats in the air and bright, almost neon blue eyes. His skin is far too pale for him to be human, and- he has freckles that look like constellations.

For some reason, that's the part that makes Bruce finally resign to the fact that this is just how his life is. With breakfasts interrupted by green portals and otherworldly boyfriends - because who else might it be, really - before he even had his morning coffee.

"Hi!" Said otherworldly boyfriend grins and waves his hand. "I'm Danny, Tim's fiance," he introduces himself, and Bruce conjures the last scraps of his scattered mind to smile and nod back.

"Good morning, Danny. I'm Bruce." He has no idea what else to say; it seems like a bit late for shovel talk, but a bit early for welcoming speech.

"Would Young Master Danny care to join us for breakfast?" Alfred's calm, but still slightly amused voice comes from the door. Bruce turns to look at the butler with a sense of exasperation - is he really the last one to learn anything in this house? - but the man seems... well, not surprised, at least not on the surface. But his grip on the pitcher of orange juice is just a little too tense for him to have been in the know all along.

Danny turns to him and smiles nicely - his teeth are also way too sharp for a human - before shaking his head, "No, sorry, I was just dropping Tim off."

"For God's sake," Tim rolls his eyes, "Just put on some pants and come out, I refuse to suffer through this alone."

Dick chokes on his toast. Steph gasps, her eyes snapping between Tim and Danny in delight. Cass snorts and kicks her under the table. Damian groans.

"Spare me from the details of your personal life, Drake. Need I remind you that I am thirteen," he narrows his eyes.

The constellations on Danny's cheeks shine just a bit brighter, and Bruce has no idea what that is supposed to mean, but his guess is along the lines of embarrassment. Especially when the boy completes it with rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"You mean to tell me that, at thirteen years old, you don't know what sex is?" Tim deadpans, running a hand through his hair in a useless effort to smooth it and taking his seat at the table. Dick's coughing fit comes back with renewed force.

"We didn't-" Danny starts, still kind of hovering midway through the portal, but Damian pays him little attention.

"I do. Yet, I prefer my mind free of the knowledge when it applies to you."

"I want all the details, though," Steph pipes up, looking at Danny from her seat, "Can you, like, sprout tentacles or something, because I know for a fact Tim likes that kind of-"

"Steph!" Tim yells at her, face red, and then turns to Danny, who suddenly has a very interested, if a bit mischievous, look on his face, "Don't you dare."

"Yeah, okay," Danny snorts and disappears back in the portal. Bruce half-expects it to close after him, but the vortex stays.

Which probably means the boy - the King of Infinite Realms, Keeper of Unseen Worlds, Eyes of the Universe - is going to be right back.

After he puts on some pants, supposedly.

Bruce watches Tim rub his face in frustration while Steph giggles and elbows him in the side, and sighs. This is so not how he expected this morning to be.

[littlefankingdom]

~ Batgirl (2000)

ASEXUAL CASSANDRA, LET'S GOOOOOOO!

Sorry, not sorry, but I'm ace and that's exactly how I feel when someone flirts with me or is clearly looking at my body. I love wearing revealing outfits, until someone shows interest in my body. Ugh, gross, let me dissapear.

[high-in-the-tower]

What if next season Armand and Lestat are in a secret situationship and are having nasty hate sex because they both hate themselves + each other,,,,,,rock bottom together but at least you know the other guy next to you on the cave floor !

[demonic0angel]

Love buff Cass there!

Thanks! She works out! :D

[campspawn]

yknow i know a lot of people are upset about cassandra dying which i get. BUT. i can’t fucking wait for kristen’s ‘my deity is dead i’m a cleric and i’ve killed TWO gods in rapid fire succession what am i gonna fucking do’ arc because i think it’s gonna be the best kristen arc yet

[paddysol]

they're in love your honour

[ferrouswheel11]

Pre-Damian Wayne, I'm curious who the writers envisioned carrying on the Batman legacy.

Obviously Dick took the mantle in Prodigal, and I can think of several instances where Tim pushed for him to be Bruce's successor. I don't think Dick wanted to be Batman, but we've seen that he was willing to do it if he thinks it's needed. And he's certainly a popular character, maybe enough to satisfy Batman readers.

Parallels have been drawn between Tim and Bruce as well (both in and out of universe), and of course we have the appearance Evil Batman!Tim from the future. And if Damian's not too young to be considered a hypothetical Bat-successor, then neither was Tim.

I know that people think of Cass as the most similar to Bruce when it comes to the mission, and you could think of Helena's run as the Bat in No Man's Land as a test run for a female successor.

And of course there's Terry McGinnis, but he was never a part of the mainstream comics universe pre-reboot...

The Trinity universe is just the most recent time we've seen a possible future version with Damian as Batman, so that seems to be the direction writers have been leaning pretty much since Damian was introduced. Not sure how I feel about that overall, but I do like that it suggests Dick sticks with Nightwing instead of giving it up to be Batman, and that Damian's Batman is clearly very different from Bruce's. Still, I'm curious about what we could have had.

[drbatsponge]

I got accused of not caring about Cassandra Cain's development and just her fighting recently.

Yes, on the dreaded hellsite, I should really just leave. 😭

Idk, it might shock some people to know where most of her development comes from, lmfaoooooo.

Like literally fighting Shiva in her first arc was the ONLY thing that got Cass to develop as a character, Bruce and Babs could not get through to her about not holding this guilt over her head and it took Shiva beating her senseless for her to finally get over her sins.

Like I'm sorry, but Cass develops through fighting, her character is tied to being a warrior, that's just her.

LIKE IT'S LITERALLY HER LANGUAGE, MY GOD!

[mvffinhamster]

ttrpgs fuck you up

everyone says “try out dnd”, including me but dude believe me, dnd fucks you up, ttrpgs fuck you up

there’s this person in your head and you can only scream about them to the other five idiots with their own little guys in their heads

and sometimes you can’t even scream at them because first you have to reveal the backstory you came up with and you don’t want to do that immediately

ttrpgs fuck you up because they make you daydream about your little guy and what happened with them AND YOU CAN’T STOP THE THOUGHTS

try out dnd (or any other ttrpg), they say… but what they don’t say is that it’s all emotional damage

and the worst part of it is that you enjoy every fucking minute of that emotional damage

ttrpgs fuck you up.

[ndostairlyrium]

Shuffle your favorite playlist and post the first five songs that come up. Then copy/paste this top ask your favorite mutuals. 💛

Tagged by @greypetrel <3 Thank you so much dear!! Hopefully the playlist I've chosen gets me diverse genres °-°''

"Unbroken (Hotel Baby)" by Monster Magnet

"Breaking Me Down" by Soil

"A Secret Place (2004 remastered)" by Megadeth

"Descent - Aftermath" from the DAI Descent DLC soundtrack

"Tooth Fairy" by Nanowar of Steel

...and it didn't. hahahah I mean, except the Descent suite which is like, my favorite soundtrack throughout the games << at risk of being controversial, I prefer it to the Trespasser one. They're both gorgeous of course, but I can't really command my preferences

I'm tagging: @underneathestars @daggerbean @layalu @m-bj @n7viper and whoever feels like sharing some music u-u

[revenancy]

Who is nevi? What inspired you to write them?

thanks for the ask!!

cw on this for mention of injury and death →

Nevi -- Vanessa Wyse -- is one of the main characters in Six Dead Princes. She's the only child of the Sorcerer Wyse, and at the present time in-text, she's 24 and has been Roslin's keeper since she was 16. She came up with the nickname "Nevi" when she was 4 because her mother instilled in her an apprehension towards letting anyone know her real name. (In other, simpler reasons, she just wanted to know something that Roslin wasn't allowed to know.)

She's a dilettante dabbling in sciences. Roslin has been her guinea pig for countless experiments, mostly in the fields of chemistry, biology, and what can loosely be described as medicine. He's her Ship of Theseus -- she's removed nearly every vital organ from his body at least once. The spell that binds him to the Sorcerer Wyse also keeps him alive, regenerating each of them and begging the question -- is he still himself? Was he ever himself?

She has a cruel fascination with the human body, but fundamentally, she's a coward. If Roslin was allowed to fight back -- if she didn't have total control over him -- she would never dare do any of this. She would think about it, but she wouldn't indulge herself for fear of retribution; now, her mother may be annoyed with her, but technically Roslin is property of the sorcerer, and so is Nevi's rightful inheritance, for her to keep or break as she pleases.

I don't know if anything directly inspired her character -- I mean, there are parts of me in there, as well as parts of other people I know and love -- but the way the characters for SDP came to be was, in order, Roslin → Nevi → Emra. So everything about Nevi's early character is informed by Roslin's, effectively molding her abuse in the shape of his trauma. I'm actually so excited to write the rest of this bc of her.

thanks again ♥

[chickensoup1025]

I actually cried laughing from the latest fantasy high episode

[hetchdrive]

I wish I could articulate my earnest and sincere feelings about the usage of "I'll Be Seeing You" in Deadpool and Wolverine but unfortunately I can't take myself seriously long enough to string my thoughts together.

[castametric]

when you suddenly owe a life debt to your friend turned gf turned ex turned even better friend turned roommate

[nohr-selphias]

i really feel like da2 does not give justice to how devastatingly in love my red hawke is for merrill, and im choosing to believe that varric went for more of a surface level grumpy/sunshine motif rather than depicting his usually badass friend as a guy so pathetically down bad for his elven blood mage gf he ugly cries when she's a little mad at him