#very gnarly

[zombieclieo]

"D'you think she cares?" His voice came across as a little worse for wear than it oughta. Death usually restored the body to peak order aside from a few scars, but here Martyn's throat was, scratchy and harder to parse than he woulda liked.

"What?" Came the reply. Scott shook his hand out, dirt particulates separating from his fingers as he did.

"Cleo, I mean. Obviously." Martyn laughed, leaning back against Scott's pretty little house, hand waving in a mockery of one of Scott's common gestures.

"Why would I know what Cleo thinks of you? We aren't teammates this go around." Scott turns back to his work, but it's still obvious how the previous victor felt about this game by how his voice catches at 'go around'.

Martyn winces, but he shakes it off within milliseconds. "You two are always allies! There hasn't been a go when you two haven't been conspiring. I'm asking because--"

"Martyn." Scott's voice was sharper than he meant, and it softens as he continues. "For one, I won't ask how you know more about mine and Cleo's relationship than either of us have told you. You and Grian get so clammy about that nonsense. For two, she hasn't mentioned you."

Martyn doesn't flinch, but Scott can tell that hurt him. Scott lived with him for a while, he knows. Martyn thinks himself infinitely cool and collected, but he isn't. He never has been and Scott's pretty sure he never will be. The blonde coughs. "Cool."

"Cool?" Scott laughs, looking up. Arcing underneath his hair from his right temple under his hair and around his throat is a lightning scar, and it glows slightly at the middle of his throat in a cool cyan. It aches. Martyn knows it aches, especially when Scott laughs. "Martyn, you were soulbound two goes ago. I know she's cool and all, but what's your hangup? Are you this hung up on Ren? Me?"

"What! Scott, you're having a giraffe. I don't get hung up on people."

There is a poignant silence. Martyn shifts uncomfortably. Scott rolls his eyes and returns to his work.

"Scott, I just wanna know how she is. If she ever thinks about me. I don't--I try not to think about it. The past, I mean. But it just... I may die but the soul lives on. Bones are buried but the soul is still here and it still feels that little string, y'know? We had the same soul, for a while. The same beating heart." Martyn finally moves from his ramrod straight stance, squatting beside Scott, a gloved hand extended.

The palm is cold. Ice fucking cold. The diamond shaped mark seems to give his flesh freezerburn as he nears the scar to any other living being. Any that are around, anyway. Martyn is cagey about it--Scott wasn't being mean. He has four of those diamonds across his body, though he supposes he's lucky that they're all... eh, relatively easy to hide. The one on his cheek, the back of his neck, and right over his heart were harder to conceal, though. That, and the massive ragged timepiece seemingly slashed across his back. The scar that never healed. The reminder to keep his ears open. To listen. To betray when it suits him. That one still pulses red, sore and obvious.

Scott doesn't know that a diamond burns for him as Martyn nears him. He doesn't know that it gets a little harder to breathe as the scalding diamond on the back of his neck makes itself very known. Bound, again and again, had he always found himself following after another? Hitching his soul into pieces again and again? Where would a diamond appear this time, for Jimmy? Where else would the cracks spread? Scott flicks his nose.

"You're absolutely doing that thing again where you just stare at me and look pensive. Fine, you want to know so bad what I think they think? Fine, if it'll get you to either go away or help me plant." Scott finally stands up fully and stretches his back out, then his arms high above his head. He reaches over to grasp Martyn's upper arm. "Cleo is a complicated person. They do care. They also don't. You aren't the center of her universe and that is fine. For both of you. Worrying about what they think won't make you less afraid of what comes next. Holding onto us--me, Cleo, the Ahaliance, Ren, that won't give you the peace you're looking for. You and Grian hold on tighter to the past than the rest of us. Let us go, Martyn, and let what joy you can have now happen."

The diamond hurts like hell. Like Martyn has slammed back into a pool of lava and it is eating him alive. It feels like dying when Scott holds his arm. He doesn't react. Scott doesn't know everything. "Alright, alright, I don't need an intervention here, mate! I'm genuinely just trying to see if she's mad at me, and you're talking different breeds and stronger memories. Bah. Maybe you're holding on to Cleo."

"Am I, then?" Scott snorts, and thankfully releases Martyn's arm. The burning subsides, somewhat.

"I think you are, honestly. I look away and suddenly you're gaslighting and gatekeeping and girlbossing! What about my gaslighting?" Martyn holds a hand to his chest as he fakes haughtiness.

"You're a bad liar, Littlewood." Scott kneels back in the dirt. "Now help me plant before you go back to our canary."

Martyn snorts, this time. "Our canary. Yeah, Scott, only me and Grian hold on." He does listen, though, and helps cover wheat seeds with dirt. As his right hand connects with the soil, it aches like a red winter, cold and bloody. He misses Ren. He misses Cleo, and Pearl, and Mumbo and everyone. He feels like there's a world where they could have been happy together, where they played games and laughed around Christmastime. As he looks at Scott, he wonders...

"Do you know what Christmas is?" His voice is more hesitant than he means for it to be.

"No, why?" Scott replies, shoving half a tuber deep into the earth.

"No reason. Just an old story." Then, that was the difference. He and Grian knew there was something beyond. No one else remembers what life extant a Watcher's game is like. He raises his head to watch the darkening horizon. Scott boxes his ear with a smile, and he shrugs. At least they have tonight to pretend like She wasn't watching. Like they were friends planting a field.

[aphantimes]

[mamawasatesttube]

i think tim has a gnarly back of the neck scar from the explosion at the end of robin '93, and that its why he a) grows his hair out longer (aside from, yknow, the depression) and also b) wears a cowl afterwards. reinforced protection for his head and neck after All That.

i also think this scar is one of kon's favorite spots to kiss. do you see the vision,

[sforzesco]

ANTONY cry 'havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war

earlier in my script (which is not Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar), Antony refers to Dolabella as one of his ‘dogs of war’ when talking to Cassius (which IS a reference to Shakespeare’s JC), and it comes back around after Cicero writes to Cassius and informs him of Trebonius’ fate

While these things were taking place at Rome, Cassius and Brutus were collecting troops and money, and Trebonius, governor of the province of Asia, was fortifying his towns for them. [...] Trebonius, who was captured in bed, told his captors to lead the way to Dolabella, saying that he was willing to follow them. One of the centurions answered him facetiously, "Go where you please, but you must leave your head behind here, for we are ordered to bring your head, not yourself." With these words the centurion immediately cut off his head, and early in the morning Dolabella ordered it to be displayed on the praetor's chair where Trebonius was accustomed to transact public business. Since Trebonius had participated in the murder of Caesar by detaining Antony in conversation at the door of the Senate-house while the others killed him, the soldiers and camp-followers fell upon the rest of his body with fury and treated it with every kind of indignity. They rolled his head from one to another in sport along the city pavements like a ball till it was completely crushed. This was the first of the murderers who received the meed of his crime, and thus vengeance overtook him.

App. Civil Wars III. 26

For Dolabella is in Syria, and, as you have foreseen in your prophetic soul and have foretold, Cassius will crush him while they are on their way. For Dolabella has had the gates of Antioch shut in his face and got a good beating in trying to storm it. Not trusting in any other city, he has betaken himself to Laodicea, on the sea-coast of Syria. There I hope he will speedily pay the penalty of his crime: for he has no place of refuge, nor will he much longer be able there to stand out against an army as large as that of Cassius. I even hope that Dolabella has by this time been overpowered and crushed.

Cic. Fam. 12.14

Place then before your eyes, O conscript fathers, that spectacle, miserable indeed, and tearful, but still indispensable to rouse your minds properly: the nocturnal attack upon the most beautiful city in Asia; the irruption of armed men into Trebonius’s house, when that unhappy man saw the swords of the robbers before he heard what was the matter; the entrance of Dolabella, raging,—his ill-omened voice, and infamous countenance,—the chains, the scourges, the rack, the armourer who was both torturer and executioner; all which they say that the unhappy Trebonius endured with great fortitude. A great praise, and in my opinion indeed the greatest of all, for it is the part of a wise man to resolve beforehand that whatever can happen to a brave man is to be endured with patience if it should happen.

Cicero, Philippic 11

Philippi and Perusia, Ronald Syme

ko-fi⭐ bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost ⭐ cara.app

[mayordea]

“go on, praise me like a god!”

[ashtcnirwin]

we lose the chase for nothing

[sugarpasteltmnt]

tbh haven’t reached out beyond my lil bubble here, and I like for other AU creators to feel totally comfortable with any kind of interactions between their AUs and my silly little guy— especially since there are some Intense Themes in TNV and I don’t wanna intrude too much on others’ AU settings—

but with @intotheelliwoods ’s 2AL @dianagj-art Sep-Leo I think the silliest (and chillest) interactions would just include TNV-Leo getting fashion pointers from Sprout, Poptart, and One because those boys have Drip and my Leo does Not LOOOOL

[b1gwings]

GOOD LORD i have not been able to think about anything else but Fig's undying devotion to her friends since last night's episode. I wonder if she's actually going to persue the paladin stuff, and if she does I wonder if they're going to make her a custom oath??? i know mechanically, oath of devotion is pretty versatile, but ALSO it would be so cool to find something that's so Fig. the way you could combine the warlock "relationships & agreements" stuff to an oath.... her love for her friends is so powerful :(

[wulfums]

the guys who think theyre the cool evil villains VS the actual villain

some mroe finalized crittertopia designs. smormu has been finalized for a While but i never drew a full ref of him.

[dadbastiandisaster]

Oh shit it’s finally done

This is fanart for the incredible, amazing, heart-warming-and-wrenching (it has range) Coattails by @pain-in-the-butler which you can read here. It’s one of the best fanfics I’ve read ever, every chapter is an absolute delight, all the characters are so in-character and also so well and interestingly utilised, and if you haven’t read it you absolutely should. It will recover the years of your life that the season 2 rewatch everyone was doing at one point took off you.

So, I am a horse girl, I love horses, and I actually don’t mind drawing them, so obviously I had to do fanart of Ciel with the Irish and Avalon in chapter 23. The horses are truly one of the highlights of this fic: Ciel’s interactions with them are so sweet, and Sebastian’s are usually quite amusing.

Also this did take me literally forever because I took up cross-stitch and then life kept happening and also I struggled with horse shading for some reason

[wandringaesthetic]

Something that sticks with me is that Zenos not only committed suicide in front of you, he did it in a particularly gruesome way. Like you don't really see it because the ESRB rating and the game engine don't really allow for it, but like (I think) Lyse said he practically decapitated himself. He could have jumped off the building there (also gruesome but not as upfront and personal) but no he wanted his arterial spray on you.

[askgnarlyeddy]

Um idk how to tell you this but the biggest bird I ever seen just swooped down and carried nails away.

[s0fter-sin]

reverse verse where soap takes on the mask instead of ghost. he wears his red skull mask so you can see the lower half of his face and his chin scar extends along his whole jaw to look like exposed teeth

[louisisalarrie]

..

[lizasweetling]

I still have many questions, which makes it very irritating that it seems like he's gonna die. Or maybe do something worse?

if he turns into some kind of TimeHorror when he dies in this condition that would go a long way to explaining why his squad left him and he doesn't seem to resent them doing that.

[rowanisawriter]

having a cute idea of zagreus carrying love notes and kisses between achilles and patroclus while they’re still separated, very cute, very fluffye 🥰

what i wrote in the middle of the night when i thought god wasn’t watching