Ten seconds after this Daph dropped the phone on his face.
If you're here just for the fanart. There. Tom's eye-bags have eye-bags. I can guarantee at some point Daph's legs ended up hitting Tom in the face or smth.
If you wanna stay for the talking nonsense, the rest of this post is waiting.
Hmm, let's see, until now I discovered my posts have the specific format of fanart → rambling about the character/show in the fanart → occasionally complaining about doing the fanart in the tags or postscript. At least I don't have to be original.
The interpretation of shadows is probably the only comic I can say I read (and re-read) on a regular basis because it's just. so fucking good. It has crime, mystery, trauma, queerplatonic relationship and whatever the fuck shadows are and in case you haven't read it... first of all, hi, how tf did this post get to you, second of all:
https://tioscomic.com/
I'm doing you a favour, you can thank me later.
As an aro person, I love the relationship between Daph and Tom, it's so rare to have representation of qrp and this one is done so well it melts something in my heart, I can't wait to actually see these two working together.
Daph is my favourite character, although half the time I'm worried he will end up killed by someone or killing someone. He is very competent at his job but goddammit, fuck you mean you didn't learn shadows can't hurt you until you made one try to slash your throat. No wonder Tom is worried about your ass.
I was re-reading the fight in the car these days and like. I kind of hate how much sense it makes from both perspectives. Now, this is just my interpretation (hah) of these characters and I want to ramble about it bc I have no people to talk with, so don't take it at face value or smth. I work with some yt shorts, twitter posts and 51 chapters, I have like 5% info here and my brain is not that alive in the first place.
Imo, both Tom and Daph are acting in a way that was heavily influenced by their friend death. Tom deals with it by not dealing with it and is worried about whatever tf Daph is doing because yes, it is illegal and yes, It is fucking dangerous. He seems to try to forget what happened, even if It's not really working, and from his perspective, it would make sense for Daph to ignore the shadows and even go back to college. It would be after all the safer option and I don't think Tom is very thrilled about how often his partner can be in danger.
On the other hand, Daph just woke up with this shit a year ago, he lost people because of it, he needed so much time just to re-learn to function normally. He seems to have taken their friend death as a reason to do something, to change something in the world, to help others and these shadows give him the opportunity to do more than other people can.Where Tom tries to live his life as it never happened, Daph seems to live around the fact that it happened.Both of them have the same type of guilt and grief express in opposite ways.
At the same time, Daph is, from what I could gather, extremely lonely. He didn't have an emergency contact until he reunited with Tom, he can see and hear things that (to his knowledge) no one else can, he found out all his old friends don't actually like him, etc. He seems to want Tom to become his assistant because at the end of the day, well. From his perspective, there is no one that could understand him, Tom is the only person that knows the truth. It makes sense how much he pushed for it if you think it's about the fact that literally no one else is there to help him. Daph's whole support system is a single person and it shows.
The scene where Daph tried to speak about Denise's shadow and Tom cut him off was... painful for a number of reasons.
First of all, both just experienced something in the flavour of an old tragedy and both cope with it in such completely different ways that it ends up colliding with each other at full speed. Tom doesn't wanna touch it with a ten foot pole and Daph needs to dissect it like a frog.
Second of all, one of the most painful feelings is to have someone you care about not even acknowledge what you want to say. And then to say he can go back to college... It does make sense Daph thinks Tom doesn't believe him, and from his perspective if his partner doesn't believe him, if Tom doesn't listen to him, if Tom doesn't help him... then there's no one that would. Then, he's truly alone in all of this. Meanwhile, Tom just wants him alive and out of prison.
They care so much but God they are both so stupid.
I don't know where I want to go with this. Something about different reactions and hurting each other and shit. Maybe we just need a forum for shadow seeing people and some good old therapy, but I highly doubt we will get that. Or maybe I'm just projecting.
Also, Daph is so right about Tom's smile, it's uncanny as fuck, I fear it greatly.
Anyway. Complains and words about drawing below.
P.S.: I was today years old when I learned how to use my own body as a drawing reference. I now have several videos of me trying to look at a phone backwards from a bed cosplaying as a sofa. It did help with the hands and arms. I gave up at the 4th arm tho so it kind of just. Disappears somewhere.
Don't even ask me about the feet, they don't exist, they're a lie, there's no such thing as feet, have a blanket instead. #foreverfeetless
I don't think I'm getting better at art btw, I think I'm getting better at being a copy paste machine.
I would have drawn Daph getting hit in the face by the phone, but that would have meant I needed to get hit in the face by the phone and I don't think I'm ready for that type of commitment yet.
Uhh, what else, what else... I used the colors from the carrd website, except they are inversed and/or derived.
I think Daph's hand is the best hand I've ever drawn.
