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Part 09!!

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It's Awful Here

Finished up the Dead Girls piece, and oh I'm love. Decided against a corset for Edith, just a chemise and bloomers. I kinda wish I'd done more with Charlotte's clothes, but they're just Charles' right now. His outfit is pretty gender anyway. Also enjoyed the lighting here - back lighting AND holding the lantern made for some fun puzzles to solve.

Another collab with the AMAZING @asidian for their fic The Case of the Abandoned Mine for Day 26 That's no barn spider: Venomous bite / Arachnophobia / “You'll be okay, we can help.”

Its been such a joy to do these with Asi 😍 We have the same mind so anything she writes just is right upp my street and I always see so many moments I want to draw.

@whumperless-whump-event

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me and my besties at the front door of Netflix headquarters

he is his father's son, forever shaped by his father's hands, he must be. it's hard to think of himself as anything else when anger starts to feel like a familiar embrace, a familiar rush, a familiar love—when anger starts to run through his every thought like blood.

his father's shadow is long, deep. sometimes charles wonders how he can see in the dark, with only the glow of his own despair to guide him, only the sting of a buckle to keep him from finding the walls and clawing his way out of the chasm of his past.

he sits in the office, and catches glimpses of his father at the desk. he breaks something, and finds his father in the way his hands clench around its pieces. he yells, and the sound of an unraveling belt swings below his words. he blinks, and any room looks at least a little like the basement. he looks at edwin, and wonders how long it will take for him to ruin him beyond repair.

sometimes, when it's dark and cold and there is a familiar sting against his skin, charles wonders if his soul was collected in that attic after all, if he has become nothing more than a hollow shell for his father's lessons to be unleashed into the world; a way for his father to stretch his bloodied fingers further than their little house. sometimes, it feels like he is in the passenger seat of his own mind even after death, forever made to watch his father jerk the leather wrapped wheel with furious hands and force him into the ditch filled with thorn bushes and shattered glass.

he feels like a chained dog, trained with tight leashes and tighter fists until bark and bite are the only things left inside. truly his father's son, a rowland through and through, tainted forever by a legacy of bruised knuckles and broken toys.

but fuck, he thinks with furious tears spilling despite his wishes, he doesn't want to be.

(edwin smiles like there is nothing more ridiculous than charles being like his father. edwin flips up his collar, tilts his head, and calls him the best person he knows. edwin melts into his hug like it's a sanctuary, not a prison meant to escape. edwin stays.