I Doodle Stuff Sometimes

ART ONLY

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story post 9A

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story post 12 (part one)

story post 12 (part two)

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story post 14 (part one)

story post 14 (part two)

story post 14 (part three)

story post 15 (part one)

SUPPLEMENTAL DRAWINGS

1st sketch

wheelchair struggles sketch

beard Caleb

bald Caleb

Caleb and Belos drawing

Caleb and Belos time lapse

Caleb and Gus sketch

be nice to your uncle

bad end drawing

rough time sketches

fake assault

meme

pottery sketches

BEHIND THE SCENES

furniture exploration sketches

wheelchair exploration sketch

costume design sketch

costume design sketch 2

grimwalkers

Caleb's room

Clawthorne shop

ART AND TEXT POSTS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER (only works on PC)

How about I share this comic I drew ages ago to emotionally damage some friends :) Not sure this exact scenario will actually have the chance to happen, but this is the gist of it.

In other words: Normal! No daddy issues at all.

[Image ID under the cut]

I'm fine! I'm sorry if my silence lately has worried anyone. I've just had a lot going on.

I also reached a point in the story where I can't really move forward until I've pinned things down that were never really decided on, so like. I have to do *~story development~* But I don't actually have TIME to do story development!

And I didn't want to get anyone's hopes up or let my blog turn into an ask blog where the only thing I do is answer asks and never share any art, so. I've just kinda. Stopped saying anything.

And, if those boys would get a happy ending (aka, they would have lived), what would they decide to do with their lives?

I've been playing coy with these guys because I like people to learn info as the story reveals it, but at the rate I'm going tbh I might as well just go ahead and say stuff! 😩 So!

Matthias definitely has confused kicked puppy energy. He's the first grimwalker. He was brought into a world where no one had heard of Belos or the Golden Guard, and Caleb was still intent on escape. He had an especially rough time of things because he’s the one who was used to teach Caleb the consequences of defiance.

He was also created old enough that he was being handed responsibilities shortly after being born, even though he had no idea what was going on. He has no context for anything. Everyone else is expected to evangelize for a cult people are suspicious of too, right? Nobody else has childhood memories, right? It's normal for your dad to live in a cage, right? Dads are always trying to run away and arguing with uncles, right? Abuse is normal, right?

No? Hmm.

I think this was early enough that if he’d lived and they’d escaped, Caleb would have taken him back home to Evelyn, and Matthias would’ve become part of their family. He would’ve been BOTH the older AND younger brother of Caleb and Evelyn’s kid, heh. As for what Matthias himself would do, I think he’d be most interested in simply learning how regular people live and exploring the world around him? His experiences were really limited and by this point he’d be painfully aware of how not-normal his life was. He wants to know what’s out there. He wants to know what’s true and what was a lie.

Obed, on the other hand, is much more confident. He's tough. He's sure of himself. He’s good at what he does. He's had a long and successful career as the Golden Guard in an era where everyone knows what that is. People looked up to him and Belos approved of him.

He was Golden Guard before Hunter and was one of—if not THE—longest lived grimwalkers. Much like Hunter, he was created a baby and groomed into the perfect Golden Guard, and then he matured into a fully-grown, savvy, competent adult. He’s sort of the ideal that Hunter is expected to emulate. Everything Philip wanted. The shadow Hunter lives under.

BUT, in the end he was too smart for his own good…

All these years and I'm still not beating the Full Metal Alchemist nerd allegations

Does this doodle count

He is often a bit busy being zooted out of his mind to reliably comb his hair, I'm afraid.

Actually, I use the state of his hair and (when in his room) his clothes as an indicator of his state of mind in any given scene. If his hair is messy, it's because he's not all there at the moment. If it's combed, he is sane. When left to his own devices, he puts it in a ponytail, or a bun if he's actively sculpting or potting.

Yes 🙃

So about what you said in one of your recents asks, can you further explain?

I understand that Puritans emigrated to North America in family units in order to escape England religious persecution, but I realize I haven’t taken the time to research what happened to orphans during that time period. So if you please, I would be very interested in learning what you know. :)

Ok! So! I started trying to write an essay with like. Sources and stuff. But I'm forced to admit to myself that I do not currently have the time to write an essay with sources and stuff. I might come back to this in like. 2 weeks.

Instead, for now, I will simply point out that the Wittebanes are from THE VERY BEGINNING of Conneticut's colonial history - a time period where the population of English colony settlements was so low and their need for labor so high that they wouldn't have been able to afford losing any member of their population. And yet it's also unlikely they could afford the upkeep of anything like an orphanage/almshouse/poor house/whatever equivalent existed at the time.

I recommend looking up the practice of "binding out." I'm not saying that's definitely what would have happened to Philip and Caleb, but I DO think it's a compelling and probable option! At least it's what I like to go with in my head.

In canon, of course, it’s impossible to really say. He did whatever works best for your own interpretation or whatever fic you’re writing lol.

Personally though, the part of the Wittebane story that compels me is the implication of two brothers starting out with the same societal pressures towards bigotry and fitting in who ultimately make opposite choices. Caleb was able to have a peaceful, happy life (however briefly) because he quite literally left all that behind him and chose to be different, while Philip clung to it and descended into monstrosity and madness.

For that reason, I like to think that Caleb CHOSE to leave, but also that he didn’t just up and carelessly abandon his kid brother while he was a child, as I’ve seen some people suggest. I don’t like to rob Philip of having made horrible hate-fuelled decisions by giving him the excuse that Caleb truly wronged him.

So if I was writing it (and I am in this AU lol):

While the decision to leave was intentional, not bringing Philip was either an accident or a decision Philip himself made to some degree. I'm leaning towards the second. I think he was happy where he was and wouldn't have wanted to go to the Boiling Isles (although the degree to which the two of them openly communicated about this is an opening for all sorts of possibilities and drama. Did Philip turn down the chance to go with him or did Caleb just read the room?)

Either Philip was already an adult or he was an older teenager and Caleb was not his caretaker. (I do think it's unlikely he raised his brother all by himself. Even the early colonists weren't just leaving child orphans to fend for themselves. In fact, the history of what the Brits WERE doing with orphans in this time period is very interesting and has a lot of potential for how it could have shaped the Wittebanes. )

Is this an indicator that what may have caused caleb to be spared is that in this version philip is either a lousy aim, or he willing chose not to hit a vital spot this time around?

A good question! The doylist answer for why Caleb's injury doesn't match canon is actually just that the first comic was drawn before Caleb's ghost appeared in the show, so I didn't know where he got stabbed.

The watsonian answer, I think, is that Philip didn't really want to kill Caleb. He either aimed somewhere non-fatal on purpose, or he did it subconsciously in the heat of the moment.