Im Not A Woman But I Am A Lesbian Who Is Shaped Like A Woman And This This This

I’m not a woman but I am a lesbian who is shaped like a woman and this this this

My favorite part about being sapphic is when the things I love about other women become things I love about myself. One day I was tracing another woman’s stretch marks in a dim bedroom light. And then, seemingly by accident, I was doing it to myself in my bathroom mirror. I loved the feeling of a full hand of flesh when I grabbed a woman’s hips, and then mine didn’t need to be so skinny anymore. I looked at a woman’s lower stomach pudge and thought it was so soft and cute, then never wanted a flat stomach again. Loving women can be so healing when you come from a world that doesn’t.

These boys are haunting me body and soul this is so fucking beautiful and I am going INSANE

obsessed with charles & edwins version of orpheus & eurydice because like. in this version of the story looking back saves you. of course it was always going to end this way (there’s no version of this where I don’t come get you). you’re not doomed by the narrative, I love you. I chose you over heaven the day we met, do you think hell could stop me? there’s no force on this earth that could stop me from loving you, including you. come on, let’s get out of here. take my hand.

These are so goddamn beautiful and they are causing Emotions. In my eyes.

Hurt/Comfort Payneland

Like they’re DEAD boy detectives. They have to have their “true” ghost’s forms (Part 2)

I've seen a lot of talk about how hell affected Edwin's pain tolerance, but not very much breaking down how it seems to have affected the way he manages emotion. So to that end, here we go:

Edwin Payne vs emotions (and how his no good very bad helltime messed with him something awful)

Dead Boy Detectives does a very good job early on of establishing the fact that Edwin is not particularly good with people. He's stilted, he's repressed, and though he can be incredibly kind to the people he cares about, he can also be quite abrasive, particularly to those he doesn't know well.

Time and time again, we see Charles step in to be the face man. Charles is the one to greet the clients, to take note of their names, to set them at ease. Charles is the one to support Crystal emotionally, and his interactions with Edwin seem to imply that he's done the same for Edwin, over the years. Charles has to remind Edwin to mind his bedside manner, and he explains to Crystal that Edwin forgets how to talk to people sometimes, because of how long he spent in hell.

In short, these boys compensate for each other's strengths and weaknesses in a lot of ways, and Charles is very much the one doing the emotional heavy lifting in this partnership.

And there's a reason for that, laid out in the text and subtext all throughout the show, and the narrative handles it brilliantly.

Edwin's actor does a fantastic job in expressing the character's reactions – or rather, lack of them. Because in the most shocking scenes throughout the show, Edwin often doesn't seem as horrified as the others in the face of events that ought to be horrific. In the Devlin house, he seems as though the murders scarcely affect him. When the jumper at the top of the lighthouse throws herself down, he's downright composed in comparison to everyone else.

And Edwin repeatedly shows or expresses that emotion makes him uncomfortable. When Crystal and Charles are fighting in episode five, he requests that they set their feelings aside until the case is finished. At the end of the episode, he says that the day has been entirely too full of emotions for his taste.

So, what is it specifically about emotion that bothers him so much?

In hell, emotion meant an awful, bloody death.

Panicking over potential incoming horrors? Nope, sorry, too loud. Dead again. Having a sobbing breakdown in a corner? Nope, sorry, too loud. Injured and trying to keep it down so it doesn't get worse? Nope, sorry, that's too loud, too.

Again and again, we see Edwin trying to tamp down on his emotions, but also, tellingly, trying to keep his emotions subdued and quiet.

When Charles finds him in hell, he's crying without making a single sound. When Esther starts to torture him in episode eight, he doesn't scream at first. He's trained himself out of making noise when something hurts or frightens him.

Of course he wants to set emotions aside until the case is done. He's spent seventy years learning what happens if you don't. You take care of business first. If, and only if, there's an after? That's when you let yourself feel.

Early on, when Edwin and Charles need to find the correct book but Edwin is unable to access their office due to the Cat King's bracelet, Edwin is upset. He's frustrated and out of sorts, blocked from making progress on the thing he knows he needs to be doing – hurting himself trying to get his arm through the mirror until Charles stops him. It's Charles who has to step in and help him calm down. It's Charles who has to remind him to breathe through what is very likely a panicked throwback to those times when if he could not solve his way out of a problem, it would very literally get him killed. In this scene, we get a brief glimpse of how Edwin looks when he starts to lose his grip on his rigid control.

And that's before we even get to these things:

Because as awful as the doll spider was, it wasn't the only thing skulking around the Doll House. Charles stumbles across misery wraiths when he goes to rescue Edwin from hell – and we know from the Devlin house episode that Edwin is extremely aware of what they do and how they operate. They were in his space, looking for despair to feed off during a time when he had it in spades.

Taken all together? It's an absolutely heartbreaking picture.

This boy seemed a little socially awkward before his death, from what we see of his time before hell. But afterward? He's had seventy long years of having to teach himself to regulate his own emotions, under pain of excruciating torture if he didn't do it well enough.

With an object lesson like that, over and over again, for literal decades, it's no wonder that Edwin has such a hard time navigating emotions and everything surrounding them.

Gorgeous ghost girls ♡︎

Dead girl detectives

I was inspired by @unicorngunter ‘s shapeshifting art. love everything this person does! go to their page and see how much beauty there is!

Repressed Edwardian girl who reads books and 80s girl with a cricket bat and anger issues

I’m sorry they are too powerful

Beautiful ghost boys <3

Edwin and Charles DEAD BOY DETECTIVES, S01E02, The Case of the Dandelion Shrine