Disaster

The Dead Boy Detectives anniversary month has started, and that means our anniversary event is now underway ✨

From now until the end of April, write fic, draw art, make gifs, curate moodboards, edit videos, or create anything else you can dream up!

When you're finished, just share your work with the tags #dead boy detectives and #a year at the agency, and we'll reblog anything sfw to spread the celebration! Our Ao3 collection for the event will be a_year_at_the_agency.

We can't wait to see what you create! 💀🔎

It really shouldn't surprise me so much that 'men are human beings' pisses so many people off considering I myself was steeped far into into radical feminism enough at one time to be like, "Are they really, though?" but it is disappointing to see how the attitude has spread since I pulled myself back out of it.

Btw, no one is telling you to go up to Matt Walsh and try to have a deep conversation about where and how his fee fees were hurt and why he acts this way.

We're telling you to reassure the sixteen year old boy asking on reddit what he can do about being a man because he feels so bad about it and and if there's any way to not be a bad person despite it that he's not irreparably damaged and destined to go full Anakin just because of the sex he was born as and maybe watch where and how you do your venting because why the fuck have I seen so many questions along these lines from young men on reddit the past few years.

There was also an uptick of young trans men posting questions in trans reddits asking how to get themselves to 'not want to become an icky predatory male' despite their dysphoria over the past several years too.

The dehumanization of men hurts me as a nonbinary transfem person too. It hurts me because many ppl still see me as male, and it hurts me because I see myself as part male. And thirdly because I want to be free to express my gender how I want, and I cannot do that if I have to run from or denounce masculinity in order to be accepted in left-wing circles. That's not freedom, it's toxic.

It's also homophobic to gay men let's be real.

you know what this means chat

the quiz:

I was wondering what happened to this post but it turns out the fucking trekkies (affectionate) got to it

Concept: Edwin has developed his freeze response across all of his life and death - in that it keeps evolving. First freezing in response to governesses and parents, then teachers and bullies, then of course it got locked in as an almost universal response to negative stimuli in Hell, hiding from demons and wraiths and spiders. But it didn’t stop evolving, after Hell.

He now had the base instinct to respond to things with freezing hardwired into his hindbrain, but the way he froze changed: because his ghost body is better at it than his living body or his Hell bodies ever could be. His heart doesn’t beat, his limbs don’t tremble, and, most importantly, he doesn’t have to breathe if he doesn’t want to. Since Hell had primed him to freeze regularly, he kept doing it, over and over, as a ghost, often enough to build a new reflex, of breathless immobility. All autonomic functions shut down to achieve perfect, silent stillness.

His first ‘death’ after he was taken back to Hell was from suffocation.

I think it’s frankly rather odd that fics don’t address more frequently Charles learning that Edwin’s death was a hate crime, too.

Because Edwin tells him up front that he was murdered by bullies, but for obvious reasons does not tell him why. He seems to have been pretty firmly closeted right up until Port Townsend. It’s conceivably possible he could have told Charles something like “I was killed because they perceived me as an [outdated term]”, but I think incredibly unlikely because he would not want to open that door in Charles’s perception of him (or his own perception of himself, either, frankly), among other reasons.

It’s significantly more likely that Charles figured that out on his own. I grew up in the ‘90s and 2000s, and boys were still being killed for acting like Edwin does, violently physically bullying people for that was still fully standard behavior. (And against perceived-girls who acted in the equivalent opposite fashion, but that’s a separate matter.) Charles certainly knew enough bullies and knew enough about social dynamics to identify that if Edwin was showing the mannerisms when alive that he does when dead, the bullies Charles knew might’ve killed him for it.

But, like, there’s a difference between part of you knowing that with plausible deniability (maybe they were just Like That in Edwardian times, maybe that was part of it but also Edwin has those Vibes that also drive bullies to people [those Vibes being autism vibes but Charles wouldn’t know that], and simply harshly repressing his awareness of what all that suggests about Edwin for a wide variety of reasons both historical and relational) - there’s a difference between that and being told, explicitly, that your best friend was murdered by people chanting a homophobic slur.

And, I dunno, I think it’s interesting that doesn’t come up more.

Someone took a photo of that moment 💙

My favorite trope ever when I read a tickle fic is when the lee character actually genuinely likes being tickled (either it’s a secret or it’s obvious to the ler character) It’s just so much cuter like that because he’s actually enjoying himself and—

what do you mean he has a thing for tickling like me?? I feel so seen when that’s the case

Even better is when they’re desperately trying to hide it, and the ler starts getting suspicious and then asks the lee about it and then the lee gets all flustered and omg it’s so CUTE I lose my mind every single time

This shall not live in the tags

“When you're going to change the world, don't ask for permission.”

Incredible artwork, loved his character!

Okidoki, it's quarter finals time! We have sadly lost all of the cat king gifs, BUT the sprites, niko and the palasaki gif made it into this round, now the only three non-payneland contestants :) Let's see which four gifs make it into the semi-finals! 💙

the end ✅

Not writing this out because I can’t get it to properly straddle the line between crack-y and angsty but

Edwin starting to get Symptoms and going ah, yes, consumption. I will respond to this in the traditional fashion, by tragically coughing blood into my handkerchief right after others have left the room and telling no one

The others eventually find out and Crystal’s like “You mean the fucking tuberculosis?” and Charles is like “the one that ghosts can’t get?” and of course it turns out that Edwin was, in fact, cursed, and they all realize they need to finally get around to having that sit-down with Edwin about advances in modern medicine (and also telling people when he’s having problems instead of acting like a doomed courtesan in an opera)

Very abbreviated concept, but please consider the classic “Charles gets dosed with a love potion” - but the person the potion latches onto isn’t Edwin, it’s an amateur potioneer with a crush on him and no respect for consent. And it works, fully, Charles is madly in love, sobbing and composing sonnets and proclaiming everlasting devotion and all the rest. He tries to stay with Edwin, but the draw gets too strong as the potion takes hold, and he runs off into the night to meet her.

And then, a few days later, Edwin gets to them, and tries to rescue Charles starting with taking down the potioneer, and the potioneer commands Charles to protect her from Edwin. And Charles freezes, and stares at them both. And then, face covered in tears, slurring apologies, he knocks the potioneer out from behind.

Edwin gives him the antidote, and his eyes slowly clear, coming into sharp focus on Edwin.

“Charles? Are you alright? How do you feel?”

Charles keeps staring, for a bit, eyes fully focused now but brow furrowed, and Edwin gets more concerned, if possible.

“I… I think I feel… I think. No. I don’t think, I’m quite sure. I love you, Edwin. Like, the way you love me. I’m in love with you.”

Edwin lets out a breath like he’s been hit. “Oh.”

He looks back at Charles, hands moving spasmodically through the air, reaching towards Charles and then back again. “I’m so sorry, Charles. I must have failed with the antidote, it must have altered the parameters of the potion instead of ending the effects, I - just give me an hour, I’ll find out went wrong and remedy it, I promise. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it, just - “

Charles surges forward and grabs Edwin’s erratic hands from the air. “No, that’s not what I’m saying! I’m saying - I’m saying that even when the potion was working, and I was madly in love with that bint, I still loved you more. I had to go with her, I couldn’t stop myself, but I still loved you more. And I always have, Edwin, the whole - the whole drunken giddiness or whatever that it did to me, the obsession, it’s nothing to what I’ve always felt for you, I love you so much - so much bigger - than that potion. I love you, Edwin.”

And Edwin looks at him, again, still, eyes wide, hands held clutched in Charles’s, and speaks again, and this time it sounds like a breath let out after having been held for decades. “Oh.”