#see the links

[yourneighborhoodneighbor]

and you're always free to begin again ch5

(masterpost to my fics while ao3 is down) AO3

not currently updating on tumblr, go to ao3, there's a bit more

fic under the cut

previous chapter

From the moment he had come to live at the manor, everyone could see that Damian did everything to perfection. If he did not know something he learned, and he would not drop it until he was the best. There had only ever been one exception.

After his eleventh birthday had passed—a terrible experience for everyone involved, what with everyone trying to celebrate and the birthday boy doing his best to get away and threatening everyone with bodily harm should they continue with their well wishes and congratulatory attempts—he had declared the grand piano in one of the manor rooms was to be fine tuned and readied for use.

Bruce had complied with his demand, probably feeling the same confusion everyone else did, since it did not seem to be in character for Damian to ask for something like that, not that they would deny him a less violent hobby. A teacher had been gotten, and bets placed on how soon the youngest of the brood would have them running away.

To everyone's immense surprise, Damian had taken the classes for two days before declaring himself done after the teacher had left. Left calmly, that is, not chased away. Bruce had asked if he would play for them, but Damian had vehemently refused. Upon teasing from the rest of the batkids about not even him being able to learn how to play an instrument that fast, Damian had furiously declared he wished to learn no more, and did not need to.

Things had settled after that, the family learning that Damian would—if grudgingly—accept birthday celebrations the day before or after his actual birthdate, but preferred to be alone, with some very few exceptions for Alfred, on the day of. They had also come to their nickname deal, everyone stating which nicknames were off-limits, and which ones could be used for teasing, which coupled with Damian's—unexpectedly but welcomely emotional— statement about seeing all of them as siblings and family now, had lowered tensions exponentially.

Things were good now, and the family had never been better.

Tim found himself thinking about all of this as he walked through the hallways towards the kitchen in search of a snack and some black tea with milk (since he had restricted access to coffee now and was only allowed caffeine in the form of tea, most of the time). Today was the brat's birthday, so  everyone in the house had cleared schedules (in case Damian decided he wanted some company or help for once) and nothing to actually do, since, as usual, Damian was nowhere to be found (though Tim was certain Alfred knew his exact location, and Cass probably only didn't know out of respect, not for a lack of ability to track him down in seconds).

After getting his snack and drink, he decided to wander around aimlessly through the manor, seeing if something caught his eye so he might entertain himself.

About half an hour and most of his tea later, he almost dropped his bottle (sue him, carrying his tea in a bottle was easier than a cup) out of sheer surprise.

He was in one of the far wings of the manor, a place that usually only housed visitors (the less wanted kind, the Bruce Wayne Rich Guy socially expected kind) and was therefore pretty much never visited by the family. What he heard made him glad he had both decided to wander around and also not wear his headphones to listen to music or a podcast or evidence.

A few notes of piano, as if someone was just slowly going through the notes in order so as to test the keys, could be heard through a door.

Tim could not believe his ears. In all the years since Damian's short stint with a piano teacher, no one, not even Cass or Alfred or Bruce, had ever heard him play. They had all assumed he had simply not liked it, something that was later further evidenced (or so they had thought) by the youngest brother finding a love for painting with various mediums, something he had put hours of work and effort into (to amazing results, his little brother could draw and paint like nobody's business!).

Which brought him back to his almost dropped bottle of tea. Only years of stalking vigilantes and then being a vigilante himself saved his bottle from perishing (and, admittedly, himself as well, for Damian would surely not like being discovered during his yearly birthday escapade).

As the notes on the piano started sounding more like a specific song and not just warm up notes, Tim decided to take a risk and look at what his brother was doing. He quickly slipped into the neighbouring room and slipped one of the windows of the room Damian was in a smidge open, just enough to be able to see and hear clearly.

Out of years of habit, both pre and post joining the family, he slips his phone out (sadly the only camera he has on hand) and begins filming.

He almost immediately drops his phone.

Not only is Damian actually playing the piano, like, for real, he is also starting to sing.

Tim is glad Alfred made all of them become healthier both in their food and drink intake as well as their sleep schedule years ago, or he might genuinely think he is hallucinating right now.

Luckily, his phone (and precariously perched body) remains undropped, and he can take in the scene while Damian continues playing and singing like his very soul depends on it, like he might just lose anything and everything he has ever cared for if he does not deliver the best and most emotional performance to his audience of an empty room (and Tim, not that he knows it).

Or…

Perhaps he is playing like has already lost everything once.

Feeling a bit guilty at that thought about spying on the kid on the one day a year he asks to not be disturbed completely, he steels himself and keeps on filming, taking the time to also look at the other things that can be found in the room, particularly things close to Damian.

If he knows what is hurting his brother, maybe he can help him.

He notices a small table next to the piano, holding, interestingly enough, a roll of toilet paper[1] , a water bottle, what seems to be a chocolate milkshake with extra whipped cream and sprinkles, as well as what he could only assume to be some type of sheathed twin weapons, though he had never seen any like them before. The pattern and colouring of the weapons seemed similar to Damian's League uniform and the scabbard of his katana, mainly black with golden designs on them.

Tim is jolted out of his musings for the unexpected items on the table by his subconscious informing him that he actually recognizes the song Damian is playing.

The thought of purposefully throwing himself off the side of the manor and hitting the floor just to make sure he is actually awake and not on drugs passes through Tim's mind.

It's a Barbie song.

It's a Barbie song from the only Barbie movie Damian refused to watch that one time, after declaring himself as acknowledging the rest of them as family (and apologizing for his delay on it), that he himself had expressed interest in a Barbie movie marathon (much to Dick and Jason's delight). It had taken them days to make their way through all of them, old and new, with the exception of one movie.

Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper.

Mother of all shits.

Tim feels like he is collecting pieces of a puzzle, what with the piano playing, the song from the missing Barbie movie, the things on the table, he just doesn't know what the hell he is building yet.

Invested now more than he already was at the beginning, he checks himself to make sure he is still properly hidden, not wanting to be seen now that the song is coming to an end.

For a few minutes, there's silence, broken only by Damian's breathing, which seems to be too controlled to mean anything other than a swell of emotions he is just barely keeping a lid on.

Suddenly, the quiet is broken by a breath coming out more forcefully than the rest.

It seems to be the dam breaking, as more of those hard breaths—sobs, his little brother is sobbing— follow, accompanied quickly after by a cascade of tears.

Like a puppet with its strings cut, Damian sags, dropping the carefully straight posture he had been trying so hard to keep, hunching over the now closed piano with his face buried in his hands.

Tim has never wanted to hug his brother so bad. He stays put, though. He knows making himself known now will just wreck things, whatever may be going on. He has to wait, to compile more evidence, to learn what damn puzzle he is even trying to solve.

Almost half an hour passes, Tim barely able to hold on the face of Damian's screams and wails, full of pain Tim knows he hardly ever, if ever, lets anyone see. The younger boy's full body shakes subside, his head rising once again, revealing a blotchy face full of tears and snot.

The purpose of the toilet paper makes itself known as Damian grabs it and promptly cleans his face and blows his nose, afterwards taking a few gulps of the water bottle.

Taking a few more deep breaths to finish calming down, he then grabs the milkshake and drinks it. Once finished, he sets the glass down, wipes his hands on his pants, and grabs the weapons.

Flipping them open reveals the coolest set of butterfly knives[2]  Tim has ever seen. He didn't even know such a weapon existed.

He brings the opened blades up to his forehead and closes his eyes, moving them to his chest after a few seconds before finally closing them and setting them on his lap.

He looks out the windows in front of him, overlooking the manor gardens, and speaks.

“I asked father for a telescope and some glow in the dark stars this year. You can't really see the stars from Gotham, but I will map them all for you regardless and accurately copy them on my ceiling.” He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes again, his grip on the blades tightening. “Wherever you are, I hope  you can see the stars, and the entire universe, Danyal.”

Tim is too busy adding these pieces to his mental puzzle to freak out over this person Damian seems to know.

“Chocolate milkshakes are better than we ever imagined, you would have loved them,” the youngest continued, opening his eyes again. His face seems calmer.

Okay, so, whoever it is, they're dead, got it.

“You would have loved this life as a whole, I think. We have many brothers, and a sister, and a grandfather and, of course, a father. I know you never had much interest in a man you had never met, but maybe you would have liked him too. They are all… so nice,” he says, a small, genuine but somewhat bitter smile making its way into his face.

And wow, Tim didn't think the kid admitted that out loud, usually only with attempts at nice gestures and a whole lot of glaring to accept the love.

“It is nothing like the League here. I am safe here, and I am happy. It took me a while to be able to be, but I was not left alone or punished throughout it. I like it here. I like it here a lot. I believe, I… hope, that would have been the case with you as well.”

Was that a tear in Tim's eye? No, shut up, what are you talking about, it's just a speck of dust, nevermind that Alfred keeps the manor spotless somehow. Focus on the fact it sounds like Damian had a brother before joining the family instead, that's more important.

Damian stands up with the blades in his hands, giving one last look out the windows towards the sky.

“Happy birthday, Dany. I miss you. I wish you the best,” are his last words before turning and leaving the room.

Tim is left reeling.

Quickly stopping the video on his phone (fucking shit, he even forgot he was filming), he makes his way back into the manor.

He starts laying out the facts as he understands now, racking his brain for more things that may fit into this strange puzzle Damian just unknowingly showed him.

So, a list. Tim can make lists.

Damian plays the piano, potentially only the one song, given how short his venture with a teacher was.

Damian has some form of attachment to Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, potentially something that makes him feel very vulnerable, given his reluctance to watch it with the rest of them.

He had a brother. Before joining the family. Given he was wishing him a happy birthday, it was probably a twin (hecking shit!).

Said twin is dead, and died before Damian left the League (potential reason why he left in the first place???).

Damian used to lose his shit at having anyone call themselves his brother, so, potentially, the loss was recent, at the time of Damian's arrival.

He hates being called Dami, Dick said he has even cried about it. Probably what his brother called him, given his use of Dany just now.

Damian did not like to be celebrated on his birthday, possibly because he could not share the celebrations with the aforementioned and just discovered dead brother

Damian felt happy and safe here and wishes his brother could have been happy and safe too.

The twin used to own the sickest ass blades Tim has ever seen.

Conclusion:

What. The. Fuck.

Damian had a twin brother?! Who was dead?! And he never told anyone?!

Okay. Okay. Tim could be rational. He could think things through. He had a reputation in the family for planning to the point of almost insanity. He was not going to immediately spill the beans on Damian. That would be very rude. He knew that. Of course he knew that.

…

Okay, he was definitely going to tell Dick, but only because he felt Dick would be able to help!

But for real, they needed to help Damian. This was obviously weighing on him, and Tim could see why. He could not even imagine the pain of losing a brother like that. Dick would.

Collecting his tea bottle and armed with a video of the last however long, he made his way back to the family side of the manor, mind set on finding a way to help his little brother. (And maybe also ask to see those super cool blades, but that was for later). Even if it got him a katana to the face.

(the butterfly blades i mean here, here, and a vid)

i am not updating on tumblr anymore, but the story continues on AO3! find it right here

[lautakwah]

EDIT: CHECK MY LATEST ADDITION BEFORE YOU START SHIT IN THE NOTES, THANKS.

warning for discord users

If you're on the app, immediately go to your dms and then "add friends". After the latest update they allow your contacts to find you and have that option turned on by default, so make sure it's unchecked!

This is very obviously not great for a multitude of reasons, but especially for people in vulnerable positions who do not want people in their contacts to see who they are on discord and/or know they have discord in the first place. I've also tried finding out if this is a thing on desktop but haven't been able to find any mention of it, so either it's not a "feature" (yet) or they've hidden it. Either way, stay safe, and turn off finding friends via contacts!

[ID: three screenshots from the discord app with circles around the buttons to press to get to this "feature". 1: the messages/DM button, 2: the "add friends button", 3: in the add friends page, the "allow contacts to add me" checkbox. /END ID]

[borrelia]

if you donate one single us dollar to the unrwa, you will have donated more money than you would have by clicking that stupid arab.orb link every day for four and a half years. yes, they do actually donate money to the unrwa, but even with tens of thousands of clicks, most of that money is the baseline $90 they send every quarter. from 2023 quarter 4, half a million clicks turned into $380.57. maths out to six hundreths of one cent per click. just donate to unrwa.

[samgiddings]

@staff @support @engineering @music @books

Have you ever considered this is a really stupid layout to have when there’s no way to easily get your account back if you accidentally hit the wrong button???

[fruityrats]

Happy pride!

[littlelightfish]

This... this is a whole different kind of psychic damage here. When nightmares got Marcille, we get to knew that her's biggest fear is outliving her friends. This isn't even canon probably, but look at this. This isn't a "I don't want my friends to die" kind of dream. This is a "I'm terrified of loosing my daughters, of something killing them, and being incapable of stopping it" kind of dream. It's so simple yet it explains perfectly the whole of chilchucks character. He loves, he cares, deeply. But he, or doesn't acknowledges, or doesn't know what to do with that knowledge.

Besides that. Someone had to wake him up after this. Imagine the devastation in this man after he wakes up. He just saw his three little babys murdered corpses (or maybe he saw them die, wich isn't better). He would possibly not talk about it, and that would worry the hell out of the party, because we'll, they see him all down and only one of them knows what he saw. Imagine being the one to pull him from that nightmare. Seeing this man, usually so composed, fuking staring with tears and terror in his eyes to the composes of what you can only assume are his daughters. It would be heartwrenching.

Idk, I love this man so much...

[visenyaism]

we made it yall you are speaking to tumblr user uncredited author of unconfirmed viral post

[spacerockband]

loved

[raptorrobot]

...like antennas to heaven

link to the full image

[cookie-nom-nom]

Their entire relationship

[ibtisams]

I don’t know if people here have been talking about the #1 song in Israel right now “Charbu Darbu” is an Israeli war anthem that calls for the destruction of Gaza and for the IOF to kill “terrorists” Bella Hadid, Dua Lipa and Mia Khalifa

Beyond the disgusting lyrics, it is very telling that Israel will say that “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is calling for a genocide, but they celebrate a song with lyrics that are a call to action for people to encourage the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

[tadfools]

Make sure to check your kid's Halloween candy this year!!! I just opened my son's snickers bar and found an astral tadpole that could have unlocked his illithid potential!!!!

[autolenaphilia]

It's funny how clearly uninformed a lot of criticism of Mozilla and its browser Firefox is. Like people say "it's just another corporation, out to make profit, just like Google." And that ordinary users promoting Firefox are just giving them free advertising.

It's in basically any post criticizing Mozilla, including on this site. Like using tumblr search I quickly found a post that was largely positive, but argued that Mozilla operates "under capitalist incentives" And outside tumblr I found a blog post out on the interwebs that criticized Mozilla and outright wondered "I don't know if Mozilla's business model ever made sense, it makes a lot more sense if it's something closer to a nonprofit rather than a commercial entity."

Well, let's research the Mozilla Corporation, see what that business model actually is. Let's begin that research by going to the wikipedia article, and read the two introductory paragraphs. And it turns out that it's "a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation", which is a non-profit.

"The Mozilla Foundation will ultimately control the activities of the Mozilla Corporation and will retain its 100 percent ownership of the new subsidiary. Any profits made by the Mozilla Corporation will be invested back into the Mozilla project. There will be no shareholders, no stock options will be issued and no dividends will be paid. The Mozilla Corporation will not be floating on the stock market and it will be impossible for any company to take over or buy a stake in the subsidiary."

Turns out that it is not just "closer to a non-profit", it is literally a non-profit. Turns out you only needed two paragraphs on wikipedia to learn that, the most basic online research possible, which basically every post I found criticizing Mozilla failed to do.

This is entirely different from any other entity calling itself corporation, which is all about creating profit or money for its shareholders, the "capitalist incentives" spoken about earlier.

If you read further into that article, you will learn that the Mozilla corporation literally only exists separate from the foundation for tax and legal purposes, but it's still a non-profit operation.

This makes it reasonably immune from the enshittification process I've written about before. there is no incentive to fuck over the experience for end users for the sake of shareholder profits, like what tumblr is doing right now.

It means that Firefox is an exemption to the rule that "if something is free, you are the product", because there is no product to produce profits for shareholders, it's a charitable endeavour for a free and open internet, as laid out in the Mozilla manifesto.

This doesn't mean non-profits make corruption impossible, there is plenty of corruption in non-profit foundations. But unlike actual capitalist corporations, it doesn't have the greed and corruption built in. And if you are going to criticize Mozilla and Firefox, which it does sometimes deserve, you should have your basic facts straight before doing so, if you expect me to take you seriously.

[blumineck]

Bows vs Guns: when does it make sense for modern/ sci-fi characters to use guns?

This is just one example! For a longer breakdown (with some bonus history!), check out my YouTube channel.

And don’t forget there are art reference packs now up on Patreon!

[cranity]

Astarion class swap🔮🧙‍♀️ Collab with @heph!

We swapped Gale and Astarions classes in a "what if" scenario. Here's comp I sketched + Rogue!Gale concept :] We honestly think he'd be a terrible rogue lol

[selenityshiroi]

Zelda travelling around Hyrule after the Calamity and people are tripping over themselves to tell her stories about the Hero because they love that feral cryptid mad man and are so proud of him

'I met him when I was about to get eaten by a Hinox...he jumped off a horse, fired 12 arrows in the blink of an eye and then got smacked in the face with a tree...but then he came back and hacked away at it's legs with this stupidly big sword until it finally died'

'He was wearing this weird patched together mask that looked like a monster but he made enough curry for everyone so we didn't like to ask'

'But...the hero was a girl? She wore these lovely green silks and every time she came out of the Gerudo Canyon she had a bag full of electric safflina to sell to Beedle over there. The Gerudo think she's an amazing fighter, which says a lot, and she always thanked me for looking after her horses when she went into the desert'

'I swear to Hylia that he ran through here wearing nothing but his underwear and a mask shaped like a leaf...claimed he was looking for the Children of the Forest. Sorry, Princess, but I'm not sure he was quite right in the head at the time'

'He used to creep in here silently wearing this grey mask and with enough lizards and beetles that we could make enough elixirs to last for a month. Not sure I ever saw his face without it'

And the entire time Link is stood neatly dressed, three steps away, listening to every word and no one pays him the slightest bit of attention. Because none of them cotton on that 'prim and proper Royal Knight' Link and 'I will defeat this Lynel with a stick, a pot lid and a bucket load of adrenaline' Wild Child Hero is the same man. Especially with how many masks he owned.

When they walk away and are out of sight and earshot Zelda just raises her eyebrow with a smile and he is like '...I can explain...it made sense at the time'