#maybe I'll write a bit of this for Palasaki Week

[ghostinthelibrarywrites]

hi! do you have any dead girl detectives thoughts? (either as genderbent edwin and charles or roleswap with niko and crystal, whichever floats your boat)

Do I! So I love the genderbent Dead Girl Detectives, but I'm partial to role swaps where Crystal and Niko are the teenage ghost detectives and Edwin and Charles are the humans that get adopted into their agency. Here's my version:

Crystal is a student at a boarding school in 1916 who ends up getting possessed by David the Demon. Her school chaplain calls in an exorcist and she ends up dying during the exorcism, getting dragged to Hell by David in the process. The school covers up her death and she's written off as a runaway.

She escapes Hell in 1989, finds herself back at her old boarding school, and stumbles upon Niko in an attic. Niko is dying after being possessed by dandelion sprites. Crystal keeps her company until she dies, expecting Niko to move on to her afterlife. Instead, Niko decides to stay.

Niko is obsessed with detective shows, so she comes up with the idea to start the Dead Girl Detective Agency. They keep the dandelion sprites that killed her in a jar on their desk, despite Crystal's many threats to drown them.

David is a much more active antagonist than Edwin's demon in canon. He pops up throughout the decades, causing trouble for Crystal and Niko and trying to use Crystal to get back to Hell.

Charles is a psychic who comes into their (after)lives about 30 years later. He gets caught up in some kind of supernatural danger, they save him, and he sticks around, declaring himself the brawn.

One of Charles's visions brings them to Port Townsend, where they save Becky Aspen from Esther and meet Edwin, a student at Gray Wake.

After getting caught in the crossfire of Esther trying to retaliate against the Dead Girl Detectives (and Charles), Edwin starts being able to see ghosts. Charles immediately has heart eyes over him, Niko adopts him as her new best friend, and Crystal is not a fan (she's totally not jealous of how close he gets to Niko within days of meeting her. Totally not.)

I don't see the Cat King pulling the same tricks with Crystal or Niko that he tried on Edwin, so I think what would keep them in Port Townsend is knowing that if they leave, Esther is just going to start killing little girls again.

David also follows them to Port Townsend and maybe even teams up with Esther, because I think they would hate each other and it would be fun.

Meanwhile, Crystal starts to realize she's been in love with Niko for over thirty years and oh no time to have a bisexual crisis.

When David succeeds in dragging Crystal back to Hell, Niko goes to find her. (She has to lock Edwin and Charles in a closet to stop them from following her. They may or may not make out while in said closet.)

Crystal confesses her feelings on the staircase out of Hell and Niko tells her she's been in love with her for years.

They get back to Port Townsend and Esther promptly kidnaps Charles and Edwin to feed them to her snake (they're not little girls, but they're young and killing them will hurt Crystal and Niko, so they'll do.) Crystal and Niko go after them and Lilith conveniently pops up to drag Esther off.

When Charles, Crystal, and Niko return to London, Edwin comes with them, because he thinks becoming a supernatural detective (and having Charles within snogging distance) is far more interesting than anything he could learn in school.

(Jenny, Tragic Mick, and the Night Nurse are just as they are in canon. The Cat King is still in the background, being his trickster god self and offering occasional tidbits of advice for dealing with Esther.)