#edwin appreciation

[edwinpayne-deadboy]

Welcome to the Dead Boy Detective Agency.

I am Edwin Payne, and this is my partner @biconcharlesrowland.

Some other people that are associated with us:

@crystal-isalive

@nikoisalsoalive

@reallycoolcatking

@montyisntacrow

@jennys-meat-cleaver

What brings you here?

This blog is unfortunately run by two other versions of me. I will have blue text and run the cases and regular interactions.

I'm a dark, "villainized" version of the Edwin you know. I'll use red text and run the more aggressive asks and discuss, darker themes.

And I'm a demon. I find it fun to mess with Edwin and get him to engage in more explicit acts. I'm using bold text and I'll occasionally take up cases and questions about Hell.

OOC: Hello again, Mae here from @mystic-mae. With, well, a third rp blog. Don't worry, this is my last one. I hope.

× ALL EDWIN TAGS ×

#magnifying glass - Looks like Edwin and Charles are on a case! Did you hire them for it?

#charles no - Edwin's just looking out for him.

#cat bracelet - Whenever the Cat King is mentioned or Edwin's just having a gay panic.

#soppingwetcat - Poor guy needs a break. Probably give him one?

#edwin appreciation - Edwin reblogging posts about what people say about him or when they draw art of him. 'Cause this community loves him and he needs to know that.

#dead boy detectives rp - General tag to get seen.

× REGULAR!EDWIN TAGS ×

#edwardian detective - Casual conversation with Edwin.

#hell's babydoll spider - Super angsty moments with Edwin. Possibly includes Hell.

#what's [blank]? - He's trying to learn all about the Internet and slang. Charles was the reason why he has a Tumblr in the first place.

#ball of sass - Edwin being a sassy, cunty Edwardian ghost.

#oh you love this don't you? - Well, it looks like Edwin's a little jealous...

× VILLAIN!EDWIN TAGS ×

#one little spell - Casual conversation with villain!Edwin.

#runes and curses - villain!Edwin causing some mischief. Maybe something bad happens, no one knows.

#colder to touch - Oops, you angered villain!Edwin. Try and survive... (the angst tag.)

× DEMON!EDWIN TAGS ×

#paradise or limbo - Casual conversation with demon!Edwin.

#spider's den - demon!Edwin's angst tag. He remembers a lot of what happened to the original Edwin, seeing as Hell altered him so much that he became a demon himself.

#infernal deeds - It's just demon!Edwin being a flirty little shit. Only ones affected are Charles, Cat King, Monty, and Simon. And probably any gay man in the area...

× RULES & REGULATION ×

FUCK NEIL GAIMAN HE SUCKSSS

NSFW is allowed! Just no heavily sexualized actions or super gorey stuff that the Edwins (or I, the mod) tell you is uncomfortable.

Heavy gore is to be directed towards villain!Edwin and demon!Edwin. However, regular!Edwin can and does experience gore from time to time. I, the mod, will tell you when to stop with the gore.

Failiure to comply results in being blocked, sorry.

No racist, transphobic, homophobic, or ableist shit here. I'm not gonna deal with your asses, and neither will any of the Edwins.

I suppose you can be rude to Edwin, but why would you do that?

Have fun!

[edwinpayne-deadboy]

@biconcharlesrowland

...Charles?

this one's for you, edwin paine

[hagstoned]

So much love for dbda fics that don’t make manga Niko’s entire personality. She is SO intelligent - fluent in a second language, smart enough to go to a boarding school in a foreign country to study in her second language, able to read, retain and recall vast amounts of complex new information in a relatively short amount of time. Let her shine!

[mostly-functional]

Headcanon that Edwin had a stutter when he was younger and that’s why he over-enunciates some words. Sometimes it comes back when he’s angry or tired, but he tries his best to never let that happen.

The first time Charles hears it is after a particularly had case. Maybe it involved a demon or sending someone to Hell (even if they did deserve it). Edwin is quiet when they get back to the office, and that’s fine because Charles understands that he needs silence sometimes.

But then Charles asks a question and Edwin all but chokes on the answer. Edwin braces himself because he expects Charles to make fun of him like all the other boys in school did. Instead, Charles stops what he’s doing and tries to help by guessing the answer and giving terrible advice he half-remembers from sitcoms. Eventually, Edwin manages to give the answer, and Charles smiles so widely as he thanks him.

Maybe that’s when Edwin first starts to realize that Charles is his friend. That he’s finally succeeding at socializing for once in his existence.

A few days later, Charles comes back from a walk with an Ouija board “cause we’re ghosts, yeah?”

Edwin pretends to be offended, but he agrees to use it when he’s having trouble with speech. It becomes the first of their little idiosyncrasies.

Maybe that’s also when he starts to fall in love with Charles. He won’t realize it for another 30 years, of course, but it’ll seem so obvious looking back

[ask-geralt]

I'm very sleepy but I've had another Edwin thought.

Before WWII, the unnecessary gendering of pink and blue was actually swapped; pink was associated with boys, and blue with girls. The reason it swapped after WWII is gay men sent to concentration camps were marked as such with pink triangles, and so the color became associated with femininity instead of masculinity. Tragic yet fascinating stuff, and absolutely worth knowing, as all things relating to concentration camps, especially in WWII, are. How to avoid history repeating itself, etc-

But why does that make me think of Edwin? Yes he's gay, but he predates WWII, and he's definitely not associated with the color pink?

It's because of all that, and he's associated with blue, of course!

Blue was the needlessly gendered girl color in Edwin's time, and he liked it even before he died, the blue cap Simon snatched off him, remember? I'm not 100% sure on if it's a one to one or if we've gone even harder on the needlessly gendering, but picturing every instance of blue related to Edwin as pink instead as a thought exercise for the fem vibes of his clothes is fun, to me at least.

[edwinpayne-deadboy]

I wasn't saying I wanted to get out of it-

Edwin: If I got send back to Hell, would you miss me?

Charles: It’s cute you think Hell can get you out of this friendship.

[edwinpayne-deadboy]

Hi! I'm from the 70 questions game.

15 (including the past, we all want to know what the infamous puppy debacle was)

57

And 62

(OOC: sorry for the late response!!)

15? Well, officially, the Dead Boy Detectives Agency has owned no pets. Charles tried to get a ghost dog back then, but, they're quite unruly at times.

As for 57, I myself have never focused on love, let alone true love. Port Townsend was the first time I was able to, figure that aspect of my life out. I do not have a concrete answer, but right now it's no.

62 is an interesting one to answer. I'd say taking up cases, helping other ghosts move on, Niko, and Charles.

[distracted-and-diffused]

Every piece I’ve read or watched about the making of Dead Boy Detectives has talked about the enormous amount of preparation and dedication that George Rexstrew put into understanding and building the character of Edwin Payne, and I am absolutely certain that the character and the show are both far richer for his input.

But if I had to choose one thing that he brings to the role that I cannot imagine anyone else doing quite so well, it would be that he shows us Edwin Payne as a caring and compassionate person.

Even when it’s inconvenient for Edwin. Even when he’d rather not be. Even when it costs him personally. Even when it conflicts with his carefully constructed image as the emotionally-reserved partner who is there to get down to business and who plays hardball. Edwin Payne cares so much.

Because of George Rexstrew's performance, that’s something that we get to see in Edwin’s face as he listens to others, from the very first episode. It’s something that we hear in his voice, not just during the purpose speech, but as he talks to Shelby. As he tries to convince Simon that he can leave. As he cries for Niko.

I would love to do a longer piece about this someday, but that's the thing that sticks with me the most. I cannot imagine this version of Edwin Payne without George Rexstrew to show us his compassion.

[sthilarions]

On the one hand yes making Charles relive his trauma was a dick move and also she was an antagonist for nearly the whole season, but I don’t think we give the Night Nurse enough credit for going “no hard feelings about beating the heck out of me and feeding me to a giant fish”

I mean, she was fine, yes. But a) Charles didn’t mean for her to be, that was fully a murder attempt and more importantly b) her being fine wasn’t a foregone conclusion even from her point of view. As far as I can tell if Kashi hadn’t happened to be there she would have spent the next few hundred years stuck in the belly of a fish, which is fucked up, tbh.

But she gets out and finds them and is basically just like “no worries about the fish thing, let’s get you on to Heaven, spit spot” and then when she realizes things are hinky and not going as planned she does Charles a FAVOR. And not a small one! One that could probably get her in a lot of trouble! One that puts her and her life’s work in danger! Because Charles asked her to and Charles looks very polite! When her only previous interaction with him was him attempting her premeditated murder!

Like. It’s no wonder Charles immediately assigns her a semi-affectionate nickname even though by all rights he should want to murder her again for trying to take Edwin to Hell. She’s possibly the first authority figure that not only wants the best for him, he actively and deliberately harmed her and she STILL wants the best for him.

[edwinpayne-deadboy]

Why, do you guys not carry some spare cocaine for emergencies?

quick comic i needed out of my brain

[technically-human]

Hi i'm absolutely in love with the reverse au!!

I want to know, in this verse does edwin still confesses to charles? if so how is it different? i feel if he did he would end it by apologizing, you know, religious guilt and all

There’s a train that goes through Hell.

Its journey starts in Wrath, and it departs already full of souls. It took Charles far too many years to realize that there were separate, more spacious wagons that demons could board. Not that he could understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t.

Actually, Charles couldn’t recall ever boarding the train. As far as he could tell, he just appeared there one day, and had spent the next tortuous decades trying to get out. It was part of the torture. Getting out was entirely possible. More than that, it was necessary.

The train had no regular schedule that he could discern (not at first, though he had always been good at finding patterns, and was eventually able to crack it) but it would make quite a few stops before finally returning to the Wrath ring. Souls inside the train were already angry and far too close to each other (close, so close not even air could squeeze in) but when they got really violent was when the train made a stop.

Getting out didn’t mean you were free, no matter where you managed it, be it Sloth or Gluttony, Pride or Lust. No, as soon as the train finished its journey, you would appear back inside, in Wrath where you belonged, suffocating once again, getting ready to claw your way out for the millionth time.

Because if you didn’t get out, The Conductor would get you.

If he thought about it calmly, Charles could probably say that he got out of the train more times than not. Still, being caught by The Conductor once was bad enough, as there was no coal in Hell, and something had to serve as combustible. Souls could not burn to death, and the whole journey always felt longer than eternity when he was caught. Once it was over, he would be inside again, and fight with more desperation than before, not caring who stayed inside so long as it wasn’t him.

He couldn’t understand why anyone, hellborn or not, would want to get into the damned thing. He certainly hadn’t. But as the souls pushed and bit and clawed and punched their way out, Edwin boarded the train. And that wasn’t even the most groundbreaking revelation Charles had that day.

ko-fi

[hannaloony]

What if?..

Day 7

SIMON APPRECIATION WEEK

@simonappreciation

[not-the-living-ghost]

RIP Edwin Payne you would’ve hated AI

[edwinpayne-deadboy]

@biconcharlesrowland

We haven't had a proper goodbye kiss after the Port Townsend events.

it's tradition crystal

[mirellapryce]

New headcanon, that Charles over the years periodically has given Edwin buttons that reminded him of his best mate. Edwin doesn't wear any of them the same way Charles does but he's kept every single one and he values each of them.

[every-moment-a-different-sound]

Dead Boy Detectives

S1E7 | The Case of the Very Long Stairway

For Day 1 of Character Appreciation Week!