#cw dead child

[wickjump]

// cw for graphic descriptions of corpses/child death

can we talk for a little bit about how fucking horrifying it must’ve been for asriel to see chara’s corpse. his entire life, he grew up thinking that when you die, you turn to dust. he never had any reason to be taught otherwise.

so imagine his surprise when instead of the dust he’d assumed would come from his sibling’s death, it’s an empty husk of their body. skin turns paler and bluer and eyes glaze over, almost watery in how they look. they’re heavier than they’ve ever been before, and it takes asriel so long to get their body from their home to the barrier. and the entire time chara is looking at him with eyes that didn’t recognize him, eyes that don’t recognize everything. unfocused. cloudy. and when they’re lifted, their neck no longer holds up their head and it drops back and asriel has to keep pushing forward while carrying his sibling’s dead body in his arms, and you have to just think about how young they both were, too. that they were kids during all this.

as someone who did not have many experiences with corpses and then was forced to have experiences regarding a corpse at a young enough age, it’s fucked and i think that should be acknowledged because asriel didn’t know anything about corpses before. he likely didn’t even know humans didn’t turn to dust after they died. and he had to carry his best friend, his sibling’s corpse. y’all draw chara’s corpse with closed peaceful eyes and they look like they’re asleep. hell no. iirc most dead bodies eyes’ are at least a little bit open cause of muscle relaxation. chara would’ve looked wide a-fucking-wake. and buttercup poisoning also has rashes as a side effect too. like they’d have had plenty of rashes and blisters.

their body was anything but peaceful, and anything but calm while asriel had to drag it to the barrier, desperate to not let chara’s sacrifice go to waste. it was much less stoic and a lot more desperate and horrifying than is acknowledged. it wasn’t asriel majestically carrying chara’s body to the barrier before absorbing the soul. it was likely asriel having to sneak chara’s corpse away from their parents in the night while they talked about what to do now, trying his hardest to pick chara up and carry them but they’re so heavy now and a few times he ends up dropping them, maybe even dragging them once it gets tiring enough, only absorbing their soul when he’s reached the barrier, and when he does it’s scary how light chara is in comparison. this is asriel’s best friend, his sibling, someone he cared about. and now they look at him with distant eyes and a mouth slightly parted with blisters around their lips.

and it’s a death asriel regrets ever agreeing to because they look like a stranger like this. they’re not the same chara that would make scary faces and play with him in the flowerbed, it can’t be. internally he still associates death with dust, and because chara isn’t dust, some part of him is convinced they aren’t dead yet, even if he knows they are. he’s never had to cope with the idea of an empty husk of a body before, once lively yet now limp and motionless. that concept must be terrifying to a monster asriel’s age.

LIKE HELLO. ???? THATS TRAUMATIZING. CAN WE ELABORATE ON THAT MORE. BECAUSE HELLO WHAT

[ayyy-imma-ninja]

Has SK sun and moon ever found a dead child? If so how bad did that effect them?

They have...

and pretty badly...

[clowns0up-felix]

Linktober day 6 - fear/horror

Yeah so this guy might’ve scared me quite bad when I first played oot idk

Life got me unable to draw much the last few days so I’m trying to catch up to day 9 rn,,,, if all things go well I might post 3 drawings tomorrow (/today for me)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 81

Danny blinked at the small children Ellie was holding the hand of, looking quite proud of herself. The small children- between ten and twelve so somewhere similar to Ellie’s age- who both practically stank of magic and Gods. 

He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose even as Dan cackled while opening the door more to let them inside. “Alright, what’s your name, kids?”

“B-billy…um, Billy Batson...” “‘m Percy! Percy Jackson.” 

“Nice to meet you two- any idea where in your family you have a god or two, because one of you definitely smells like Zeus and I’m pretty sure Poseidon and I am not dealing with either of my half-brothers.” 

[every-moment-a-different-sound]

flashbacks

The first gif was originally supposed to be for @lesbicosmos's fic through your eyes i see a smile you bring to me until I stepped back and realised the tone and clips were completely wrong for the fic. So I decided to make it into a seperate gifset. Definately go read that fic because it's amazing, but it is much softer and more tender than these gifs suggest. Thank you for the inspiration though Sarah!!!

[wordsinhaled]

Thinking about Charles and his absolutely massive and enduring desire for praise... It makes me unwell, because it is everywhere, sprinkled throughout the entire season from the very beginning, and it isn't subtle at all.

Charles has this very clear thing where he is always expecting to be doubted—this really deep fear of fucking up. We see it come through especially hard with Monty specifically, actually. Something about Monty cawing at him, before Monty even becomes a person who ignores Charles' handshake and clearly prefers Edwin - seems to grind on Charles' nerves. (And, just to note, when Monty does pointedly ignore Charles introducing himself, Charles right away goes to wondering if he'd done something wrong: "I was polite, wasn't I?" and Crystal reassures him, "Yeah. You did good." Everyone can see it. Everyone can see what he needs, even Crystal, who just met him like, a week ago.)

Maybe Monty's cawing reminds Charles of his own unceasing and grating inner voice that says: You're bad, Charles. You're wrong, Charles. You're not enough, Charles. You're too angry, always too angry. Too broken, too weak, too unserious, too useless, too fake, too dangerous and everyone can see it. Who do you think you're fooling? Shut up and quit smiling about it and take what you deserve, which is nothing.

The fact that at the beginning, Monty isn't a person yet, he's just a bird, makes it extra-clear it's straight-up just Charles' insecurities coming through, provoked by his perception of being belittled, his fear of being not good enough, of being not-good period.

He was never good enough, when he was alive. He could never reach a point that pleased his dad properly, permanently. He could never reach a point where he fit in with the other lads, and eventually they turned on him. He chose to protect someone who was like him, different and defenseless and scared and alone, and it got him killed.

Edwin tells Charles he knows he can open the lock, and even that's still not enough to quell the little voice inside that says he's being doubted. And we get, "Yes, I can, crow, you'll see." He has to prove himself. To whom? To a bird?

Or is this his way of speaking, indirectly, to Edwin in that moment? Of trying to say, You're right, I can do it, you'll see. Your faith in me isn't misplaced. You weren't wrong to be kind to me in that attic thirty years ago. I can earn you if I keep being good. I deserve it. Please believe me.

(He doesn't grasp that Edwin already thinks Charles is the best person he knows. That he deserves everything good in the world and doesn't have to prove a single thing to be loved, adored, cherished. All he has to do is exist.)

And then: "Keep mocking me, crow. I'll make you my friend eventually. Everyone likes me. I'm a good sort of chap."

There it is again, the need to be good. the need to be liked. The need to be a good sort. Not a bad sort because if he's fundamentally bad then maybe he can make some sort of sense of why he's been hurt so much. Maybe that's why his dad did what he did to him; maybe that's why he got stoned and drowned to death. If everyone likes him eventually, he can keep from getting hurt again. if he's good it means he didn't deserve what was done to him and the world was wrong for it. (And indeed, when Monty seems to ally with him later, on the Case of the Creeping Forest, Charles points out to Edwin that everyone likes him eventually - an echo of what he'd told Monty at the beginning, but he's saying it to Edwin - as if to say, You see? I'm good enough for people. You were right to believe in me. I can be good enough for others so maybe I can be good enough for you, too.

But all of that, it's really still just Charles kidding himself; he knows better. If someone likes him, if he's convinced someone he's good, if someone—what the fuck—if someone is in love with him, like, romantically? It has to be a joke, or temporary. If it is real, he'll slip up somewhere soon enough and mess it all up, like he always does. Forever-love is something that happens for other people, not for Charles Rowland.

It's just a matter of which mistake he's going to make next. Was I too brown? Too weak? Too sensitive? Too compassionate? Too counterculture? Did I think about a bloke the same way I think about girls, in my head where no one can even hear? Which flavor of fuck-up will I be today, dad? Which one will I be tomorrow, world?

This post is getting a bit long, but I'll just point out Charles' relationship to making mistakes, since it comes up already in the second episode, after he breaks the enchanted vessel at the dandelion shrine. Important to note that Edwin doesn't actually tell him off for doing it at all; he just looks shocked it happened, and then explains it to Crystal as a statement of facts: 'We found the vessel; Charles dropped the vessel; now we need the vessel to trap the sprites.' He sounds a bit terse, maybe, but it's nothing much, for how blustery Edwin can often get when he really means to.

But Charles shouts at himself immediately when he drops the vessel; he goes to beating himself up, internally, instantly. And then, when they are explaining the situation to Niko, he's visibly bracing for his own part in messing it up, you can see it on his face - his mouth thins into a line, he's rolling his eyes, he's ready to be the fuck-up, so to speak, the reason everything went tits-up. When Crystal gets frustrated about him having dropped the vase, he gets apologetic - "Didn't mean to!" - and then defensive - "All right, all right, no need for you lot to pile on!"

What 'you lot' does he really mean? Edwin's actually being pretty reserved with the telling-off, in this instance. And yes, Crystal's annoyed with him for it. But I'm willing to bet a huge part of what's making him feel so on edge is the loud, loud, loud inner voice that's been punishing him since it happened. And then! He goes straight to fixing the situation—in a really ingenious way! In a way that completely compensates for his mistake, and solves their problem, and has Edwin awestruck praising him just minutes later.

And that's the thing, isn't it? The thing is Charles is brilliant. He's creative, artistic, and inventive, he thinks on his feet, he says he's the brawn because it's what he thinks he has to be to have worth in their partnership, but he's equally as often the brains. He creates loopholes, he survives by being convincing, in fact he makes himself a walking exception to the rules of the narrative by sheer power of will, when he becomes an Orpheus analogue who defies the text of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth he never even finished, and successfully saves Edwin from hell.

How often had Charles done this in life? Worked so hard to make up for even the tiniest mistakes, real or perceived, in ways that blatantly try to overcompensate for being weak, undeserving, wrong, inherently bad? How hard did he—does he still—overwork himself with his mental gymnastics; his insistence on placing himself in physical danger for others because it's the least he can do to be worth their time and attention and esteem; his suppression of every emotional impulse he thinks makes him awful and unsavory?

All he wants, so bad that it informs his every decision, is to be told he's good.

Each time it happens, it's like a tiny, pleasant surprise. And like an awful little game he plays with the world. Can he get people to think he deserves their kindness? Has he finally earned it? Now how can he keep it? Can he do enough sleight-of-hand with his cricket bat that they'll look past all his flaws and see something to love in him?

Each time he gets a kind word, a little morsel of praise, it's like, maybe it'll finally sink in this time—but he's not exactly holding his breath. Just like he's never enough, neither is there ever reassurance enough. Soon he needs it again. And again. And again.

And so it goes. To the point where he can't help but be so transparent about it that his praise thing can be seen from space.

[discard-celestia]

lestat de lioncourt - on the deer which runs faster than itself. Hélène Cixous, Stigmata / Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat / Interview with a Vampire (2022) / Catherine Malabou, Ontology of the Accident / Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001 / Louis Moe, Allegory / Ovid, Metamorphoses / Ethel Cain, Ptolomea / The Company of Wolves (1984) / Lingua Ignota, I WHO BEND THE TALL GRASSES / Hugh Parry, Ovid's Metamorphoses: Violence in a Pastoral Landscape.

[lasagnaprince]

man this douche really can't get over the goblin joke huh

[solargeist]

Wait students protesting? Context pls?

University students are protesting on campus for Palestine, either in solidarité or to pressure their university to divest in israel's genocide on palestiniens.

the two i see often are Columbia in New York and Sorbonne in France

The students of Columbia University took over Hamilton Hall, which hasn't happened since another student protest in the 60s

The flag says "Hind's Hall" after a six year old Palestinien girl who was killed along with ambulance by israel.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Stephanie Brown has such fucking girlproblems.I'm being dead serious,not joking or mocking.Her dad was abusive emotionally and psychically and her mom was a drug addict who had to rely on her in a significant amount of places but when she recovered she was able to be a proper parent to her and there's a strong emphasis in their relathionship to them finding solidarity in being abused by the same man who had position of power over them as a husband and a father respectively.She's autistic and never learned how to mask so growing up until Robin 1993,she had no real friends and all the other kids thought she was a freak and isolated her on purpose when she's always been such a kind and upbeat person who does her best at everything

She turned to sexualizing herself and letting men exploit her because that's what society teaches girls entering puberty how you earn your worth and become a true woman.At only 15,she mocks a 14 year old Tim for being a virgin as she reveals she's now a teen mom.Her boyfriend who got her pregnant is implied to be 18/19 and SHE is shamed instead of him when she was a fucking child and even more vulnerable than normal children and he was GROWN.Tim has plenty of mistreatment thrown at him too but he's gotten praise and care Stephanie did has because he's a boy unlike her.Bruce literally picked on her as Batman and Robin and he still got to be with her in her last moments instead of her mom or her loving and protective boyfriend or her best friend who was first female friend she made fullstop and gaslight her about seeing her as a real Robin to save his own ass and NEVER EVER faces consequences for it

Almso NOBODY ever appreciates her instead of making fun of or hating her in-universe AND out of universe.Slade,the military member who's creator stated his core character is a pedophile who abuses kids even non-sexually,has more solo runs than her and is given more sympathy too.She's so much like Roy in personality and has her own homoerotic childhood superhero best friends relathionship too that parallels his and Dick's so much that 'Stephcass and Dickroy are the same ship in different font' should be a very common DC take but what excites people in him disgusts them with her and Roy isn't even allowed to be with the one he actually loves in favor of the man who ruined his life and comics history.Now isn't that ironic?Does how Jason treat him mean Roy is 'female-coded' now?

Like bffr-You as a woman stanning and especially being attracted to a male character dosen't magically mean he's a woman.And this ain't about transfems because this is peak cis fandom brainrot girl mentality and to white tboys,know that Stephanie is infinitely more interesting and trans swag filled than whatever basic white boy protag you claim is trans and make up a nonexistent personality for as you ignore canon queer poc and that Jason's cast is of women and characters of color with his story never being a trans metaphor but about poverty,trauma and mental illness.He's not for your bigoted lil asses and more importantly,Stephanie is not your jester.HER story is about girlhood and the suffering it brings but also the joy too.Stephanie Brown is my everything and she is to tons of other women as well,not just a nothing to you.Work on that shit instead of your smut wips

[lulublack90]

Prompt 24 - Kid Fic

@wolfstarmicrofic July 24, word count 975

Part five of werewolf Sirius

CW - Mentions of child abuse (Not described)

Previous part First part

When they’d gotten back to the camp, Greyback had disappeared but a lot of the wolves that had been friendly to him since he got there were now keeping their distance. It was definitely because of what Greyback had said the day before. And then the whole Regulus thing. Regulus's death had been reported in the papers. Sirius had mourned him, but now there was a chance that he was still alive. Sirius slept poorly that night. He dreamed of his brother.

“Sirius, Sirius, where are you?” The worried voice of his little brother cried out in the dark. 

“Hey, hey. Shhhhh, I’m here,” Sirius soothed Regulus, slipping into his bed and cradling him against his chest. Regulus had night terrors almost nightly. Sirius normally got to Regulus’s room quicker, but his mother had punished him that afternoon when he covered for Regulus when he’d dropped a glass at lunchtime. He was so sore that he’d just fallen asleep and was woken by Regulus’s screams. He had to get Regulus to stop quickly or else their mother would come and Sirius would have to listen to Regulus’s screams without being able to help him. 

Regulus was shaking in his arms. Sirius began telling him fairy tales from a muggle book he’d read in the local library. His parents, of course, had no idea he'd even stepped foot in a muggle library, but there were only so many times he could read Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump before he went insane. Tonight’s story was about a mermaid who fell in love with a prince and traded her voice to a sea witch in exchange for legs. It did not have a happy ending, but that was muggles for you.

Regulus had fallen asleep by the end and an exhausted Sirius followed soon after. He slipped out when the birds first started chirping and went back to his own bed. 

“What do you boys have planned today?” Orion asked over the top of his newspaper when they came down for breakfast, already dressed in smart clothing befitting the young heir and his brother of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.

“I thought we could go out into the gardens and identify the uses of the magical plants in the greenhouses,” Sirius said as formally as he could. He didn’t care about the plants, he wanted an excuse to be outside all day so he could teach Reggie how to fly. 

“Uh huh,” Orion raised his eyebrow. “No more than five feet off the ground and do not let your mother catch you. Ensure you are back inside and presentable before lunch is served.” Sirius and Regulus wolfed their food down and hurried outside. 

“Are we really going to fly?!” Regulus asked him excitedly. Sirius couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. 

“We are,” Regulus leapt into his arms and hugged him tightly. “You have to listen to everything I say, Reggie, okay?” Regulus dropped his feet back to the floor and nodded his head so hard his curls flew everywhere. “Good. Follow me.” 

Sirius pulled out two brooms from the small broom shed behind the greenhouses. “Okay, so first thing you have to put your hand above the broom and very clearly and confidently say ‘Up’, like this. Up,” He ordered the broom and it shot into his hand. Regulus took a deep breath and copied Sirius’s movements. 

“Up,” He said quietly. The broom didn’t move. He looked at Sirius, his eyes filling with tears. 

“Don’t worry, try again. Just be a bit more confident. You can do it, I believe in you,” Sirius ruffled Regulus’s curls. 

“Up,” Regulus repeated, his voice a little stronger. “Sirius, did you see, did you see? It moved!” The broom had rolled over. 

“Amazing, try again,” Sirius encouraged. It took a few more attempts, but finally, the broom rose to Regulus’s waiting hand.  

“Well done, Reggie. Alright, step number two. Kick off gently from the ground and we’ll hover. Be careful not to kick off too hard, or you’ll rise too high. Copy me,” Sirius barely pushed his feet from the ground and slowly rose until his toes were just brushing the grass. 

Regulus had a death grip on his broom handle, but he copied Sirius exactly and rose to the same height. Being shorter than Sirius, his feet were a bit higher off the ground than his brothers. 

“Wow, that was excellent, Reggie, I’m so proud of you. Right, you’re going to lean forward and follow me. We’ll start with a few circles.” Sirius showed him how to make the broom move, and soon they were racing around the garden having a wonderful time. 

“Boys,” Orion called them in just before lunch. He shook his head when they ran over to him after landing and putting their brooms away. He raised his wand and both boys tensed, but Orion just used Scourgify on their sweaty faces, smoothed their wayward hair and straightened their rumpled clothes. “Hurry up, your mother will be back shortly,” Orion warned, before returning to the house.  

“I love you, Sirius,” Regulus threw his arms around Sirius’s middle. 

“I love you too, Reggie,” Sirius chuckled, stroking his brother’s head. He kept an arm wrapped around him as they went to join their parents for lunch, only letting go when they were outside the dining room.

Sirius woke crying as the dream still played behind his eyes. He and Regulus had been so close when they were young, it was only when he’d left for Hogwarts and made his first-ever friends and been sorted into Gryffindor that they had begun to drift apart, and it had only gotten worse over the years.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll find him,” Remus whispered lovingly into his ear, pulling him closer and lulling him back to sleep. 

Next part

[super-weed-ninja]

TMNTTober

Day 6: An Injustice

"He dropped to his knees, ignoring the muck as it mixed with the growing pool of blood and soaked into his kneepads.  Michelangelo knew already that it was too late.  Knew when the cries of the toddler stopped as suddenly as her mother had fallen to the cold concrete.  Still, he held his breath and reached his shaking hands over her little form where it lay draped over the woman.  As gentle as he could, he tilted her back into his arm, desperate to feel her breath. Barely a sliver of yellow light broke into the lane from the street, but from above, the nearly full moon reflected in her open and lifeless eyes.  He choked on a sob, holding back both tears and retching as despair tightened painfully in his chest. It wasn't fair.  He'd been right there."

From a one shot I wrote a bajillion years ago and never posted.

there's so many things I want to fix in this drawing now but I have to stop messing with it.

[willowser]

i need dad touya i nee i neeeeeed him i nEEEEEEEEE

HONESTLY same. big big same. he's so qjdnfnskqkq he's trying so hard. he's far from perfect but he wants to do his best. wants to give better than he got. he's terrified. he never thought he'd want kids. and then he lays down on the couch and his daughter crawls all over him and says silly stuff and he laughs so truly and genuinely from the core of his heart. WAAAAHHH he's soooooo good i love him so much qkfbdnan

[anartisticdreamer0]

ya know on this island, parents have never really had to explain death to their kids. it’s always been an accepted thing that can happen, a fate that might befall any of them at any time, that at any point one of them or their siblings may die.

but now they have to. now it’s not just eggs that die. now they have to explain death. which now leads to different parents having to explain different perspectives of death. so far it’s mainly been phil and bbh, but that makes it even more interesting because they have probably the weirdest povs on death. phil literally explaining how he views death. we legit got lore out of him.

and that’s mainly just in reference to the older eggs, the newer eggs have had a completely different scenario happen to them. in which they’ve gotten told “oh these are your new parents, some of them have dead kids so they might not be receptive to you, but that’s fine they’ll learn”. which creates a whole new relationship with death. em and pepito having to live in bobby’s shadow. sunny knowing she had a sister but she’s not around anymore. and those past relationships affect the relationships those parents have with their “new” kids. not to mention how sunny never has really had death explained to her. the new eggs have not yet had death normalized, they are still scared of it.

that’s not helped by islanders themselves dying. chayanne said (paraphrased) “you’re not supposed to die like eggs” while talking to phil and i think that perfectly describes how the older eggs perceive death. they can die forever and never come back that’s why their parents protect them. their parents can’t and won’t die permanently, they will come back. but tubbo, and now bad have destroyed that mindset. because now parents can die permanently. and that’s what scares them. death overall scares the newer eggs, their parents dying scares the older eggs.

this isn’t even getting to how dapper, pomme, and tallulah have an even stronger connection to death and therefore likely have a slightly different view on it. sunny has had that entire everything with q!lenay’s corpse, don’t get me started on the kinds of tragic and fucked up all that is. or how pepito has 3 of pepito’s parents have dead kids. at the end of the day, these are kids. all of them. and i don’t think we talk about the inherent importance and interest that automatically holds enough. these kids are growing up on an island where if your parents don’t feed you cookies for a week you die. and so you just have to hope someone else does it for you to keep being alive. and some most of you only have one dependable parent, some of your parents have to worry about two of you, some of you can only depend on a babysitter.

then one of your parents dies. and then the babysitter, that everyone has depended on at least once, dies. . .

how safe then is your mom or dad? and if they die, who takes care of you? who makes sure you don’t die?

[wordsinhaled]

Wild to me that photo-shoots like this exist and no one has yet written the AU where Charles has many outfits for Edwin to lose his mind over. But it’s about more than just the outfits, of course. It always is.

So... if I were to do it it'd be like this:

Charles’ history and childhood are the same, and he’s chock-full of confidence issues, anger, a profound need for validation. When he’s in front of a camera he can make that all disappear for a bit, and just be pretty.

But what is he worth when what he is isn’t pretty? When he’s full of spitting, incandescent rage so strong it scares him; when all he wants is to fight back against the people who hurt him?

He thinks it’s ugly how much he can’t stand his dad. How jagged he is inside. How much he wants to be loved and held safe. How deep he carries the shame for wanting to simply be admired, and for daring to think he could deserve it.

He learns his way around a cricket pitch because he has to. Because it’s the thing to do. The thing that’s going to get him the least hurt, at home and at school. But it’s not foolproof: He’s never quite one of the lads. Never quite the right sort of son, either.

Charles who saves up for ages for drapey, pretty things; lovely things; things that feel too nice and look too nice on him, and secrets them away because if his father or his friends find them he’ll be dead. Charles who finds a secondhand camera in a charity shop. Charles who takes secret photos in the middle of the night of himself wearing his secret clothes, photos in which he could maybe be the kind of person he wishes he could be all the time. Confident. Cool. Not just pretty but beautiful. Unbroken.

He stashes the photos even though it would be safer not to keep them at all. And maybe it should be enough just to know he took them. But some selfish and needy part of him wants the evidence, the physical proof. So he’s got this shoebox of photographs stashed under a loose floorboard in his dormitory room at St. Hilarion’s, and after he dies, he retrieves it before he and Edwin leave the school together forever.

He won’t let Edwin look inside the box, at first.

Charles doesn’t show up on film anymore, or in mirrors. He tries to keep it a secret from Edwin—that this might be the bit that hurts the worst about dying, the being invisible. But it’s harder to keep this a secret than other things about his past.

He doesn’t have to really actually say it. It’s the wistful glances that do him in, probably, the ones he fails to hide well enough. One day, with no preamble, Edwin presents him with a full-length mirror in an ornate frame. “We going somewhere, mate?” Charles asks. Edwin tells him no, this mirror is different. He’s enchanted it. “Look again, Charles,” he says gently. And Charles looks again, and realizes he can see himself.

And who the fuck is going to stop him choosing what he likes now, when he’s picking out his outfits for the afterlife? His cunt of a dad? The ignorant tossers who drowned him to death? Charles’d like to see any of them try.

It seems like it won’t be Edwin who stops him either—Edwin, who goes a little glazed round the eyes every time Charles draws up short to stare at a silk shirt in a highstreet window. Nah, Edwin Payne’s a bloody first-rate enabler of all of Charles’ base needs to feel worth it. Charles has got the best best mate in the world. He doesn’t say anything as Charles’ wardrobe slowly grows. Just smiles his little enigmatic smile, the one that's just for Charles with its tantalizing flash of teeth, and drags his gaze over Charles like he approves of Charles’ daring every time Charles wears something new.

So one day he shows Edwin the box. The photos. A month later Edwin brings him a vintage camera and a roll of spelled film. Offers to photograph him.

And Charles could cry. Could shake apart into tiny little pieces. He wants to be seen so fucking bad. By Edwin in specific. By Edwin, who wraps himself all up in tweed and pinstripes and flushes regularly at the sight of Charles’ collarbone. By prim and proper Edwin, who puts his hand on the small of Charles’ back and tells him to buy the silk shirt; that is why they get paid for taking on cases, isn’t it, after all? Port Townsend has changed him. Changed them both.

“We all have our pleasures,” Edwin says, and there’s that smile again, that raised eyebrow—and what does it mean? Charles wants to know Edwin’s pleasures. Wants to be one of them.

Can he be one of them?

There’s a tiny little thrift store in this little seaside town, crammed full of clothes Charles loves almost viscerally and just has to have - but he doesn’t try any of them on until they’re back home in London, in the familiar comfort of their cluttered, dimly-lit office. He digs the camera out of the bag of tricks backpack then, puts in the film; checks and rechecks that he’s put it in right.

One evening he sets the camera on the desk in front of Edwin, who is reading. Waits patiently for his attention to catch on it and for his curious eyes to lift to Charles’ face.

“Right,” Charles says. Past the lump of nerves in his throat and the phantom heat in his cheeks and the impending thrill of being looked at. “About those photographs. You asked if I’d...”

“Be amenable,” Edwin finishes for him, like he’s remembering their conversation precisely.

Charles wants to shrivel up. And he also wants to stand taller, prouder. Angle himself just right. Because Edwin’s watching him now, appraising, and the idea that he might like what he sees makes something unbearably good fizzle down Charles' spine. “Well, I'm. I'm a bit more than amenable, mate,” he says. His voice is a rasp in his throat.

“Are you indeed,” Edwin says evenly. He steeples his fingers. Like Charles is a case and he’s already solved him. Like Charles is one of his cherished first-edition detective magazines with a fraying binding and Edwin is going to fix him right up.

Maybe it'll be easy. Done in a flash. Or if not, maybe Edwin will be up for the challenge. Charles wants to find out which, more than he's ever wanted something in his entire short life and in his afterlife combined.

[anumori]

True beauty of the world