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two pretty best friends!

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Edwin: a repressed Edwardian, rather posh, uses formal language.

George: hello pookie bearcubs! Is your mum a ghost? because I like her BOObs!

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the game's afoot

One thing I haven’t read in all of our DBD discourse is the role of drama and playacting for the boys. It’s a little more obvious in the original comic, where they’re both 12, but the decision to be detectives isn’t based in some gritty narrative, it’s just a cool idea for a couple of kids who just made their first friend in each other. Like, it’s so obviously a game for them, even when they’re aged up.

Their cupboard has two versions of Clue. Edwin comforts Charles by reading aloud from a popular book about a blind detective. They clearly taught themselves from books and games and probably movies in Charles’ case.

When Edwin flashes back to his life before he was murdered, he's reading a detective serial.

Charles says to little Emma, "He’s going to play hardball with you now." Edwin doesn't want him to say it but Charles loves every bit of this game they play, every bit of the script they’ve written for themselves.

And Edwin always comes across as more serious, but the man seriously set up an ironing board in Port Townsend so that he could sit behind it to interview potential clients. An ironing board. That is pure kids-playing-dress-up stuff right there.

And even though the season gets into their other, deeper reasons why they do what they do, I think that the play level is really important to them, because it gives them control over their own senseless tragic deaths.

Edwin goes off on Crystal, accusing her of treating their cases like a game (when, by the way, she’s never done anything but take them seriously; he’s projecting like mad), blurting out that they do this work because no one ever cared about their own deaths. Every case, no matter how ridiculous, is also deathly serious for Edwin, so much so that he can’t bear the idea that someone thinks it’s only a game. (Especially because he’s jealous of the way Charles is fixed on Crystal; he feels like he’s becoming less important to his only friend, which seriously threatens this big adventure they’re on.)

Later, when the Cat King coerces him to tell the truth about why he does what he does, he confesses that he’s trying to save himself through good works. And Charles, he’s trying to prove to himself that he’s a good guy. They both know first hand that there was no justice in their suffering and death, and no amount of innocent shyness (Edwin) or outgoing achievement (Charles) will stop any of the terrible things people did to them. Edwin not wanting to consider a boy liking him didn’t stop him from being murdered and then tortured. Charles died defending a kid whose only crime was being a different race; before that his father beat him no matter how good he was. They both know that the punishment of the world and the afterlife is senseless and cruel and not based in any sort of justice. 

So what do they do? They make up a game where justice exists. They make up a game where they can be the heroes they needed when they were alive. They make up a game with tidy little episodes so that they don’t have to think about the eternity that awaits them, of how long they will have to fight to be together.

They are playing a game, and it’s the most important game in the world to them.

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Charles Rowland | Dead Boy Detectives 1.04

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Not to be overly emotional about this but if you pause the night nurse beurocratic paperwork scenes, you'll find that the file is labeled "PAYNE/ROWLAND".

They have a shared file folder guys

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OMG.

I JUST realized that the reason Charles just laughs when Crystal is being a bit of an asshole in Ep 1 is because he's been with Edwin for 30 years.

Edwin, whose love language is "correcting you with the snarkiest, sassiest retort ever known to humankind."

Edwin, who flirts by dropping absolute bombs of devastating personal truths as though they are simply facts he read from a book.

Edwin, who he's loved a little more every day for over 30 years.

Of course he interpreted Crystal's meanness as flirting/gentle ribbing.

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ᴅᴇᴀᴅ ʙᴏʏ ᴅᴇᴛᴇᴄᴛɪᴠᴇꜱ | ᴇᴅᴡɪɴ + ᴄʜᴀʀʟᴇꜱ + ɴᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ꜱᴜʙᴛʟᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋꜱ

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Niko!! Girl!! What are you up to

What if she were like .. a cool dandelion goddess now thatd be cool

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Niko Sasaki & Charles Rowland | Dead Boy Detectives 1.04

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a) charles and edwin’s safe place is their office:

b) this scene was so domestic. charles is wearing his white tank top. edwin is wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and the buttons on his top collar unbuttoned. he’s sitting on the couch in a comfortable pose.

c) but we don’t see anything like this when the boys are in port townsend. they "hide" behind their clothes almost all the time cause this is a new “place” for them which is not safe to be in

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DEAD BOY DETECTIVES TAROT PART 3

Monty Finch, Tragic Mick, The Washer Woman, and Lilith | Dead Boy Detectives

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Edwin being Edwin

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the lamp™️ bringing edwin and charles together since 1989

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES SEASON 1

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Dear Niko,

Are you doing well? Have you gotten used to life at school? How is the food in America? (I’ve heard it’s not very tasty.) Right now I was thinking  “It’d be so nice if I received a reply from Niko…” so I decided to write this letter. The person who always loves you deeply is not just some person, but me, your mother. Though I think that you can’t imagine that anymore.

Over here, the cherry blossoms are starting to fall from their trees. When I see this, I think about how the dry and chilly season is here again and get sad. You already know this, but - - -

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I'm so emotional about how Niko reacted to Charles forbidding them to come with him to hell

Because like... well, Crystal goes and actively seeks out her asshole ex who she only just got out of her head. Which says so much about how kind and caring and brave she is at heart and I love her for it but it doesn't ultimately end up being all that helpful to the situation at hand.

But Niko... it seems like Niko just passively accepts it. She knows she can't help with literal actual hell so she just stays behind and waits. And no one questions that. Everyone has always respected her ability to tap out of the scary adventures and that's lovely and if that was it that would be perfectly fine storytelling.

But it gets better. When Edwin and Charles return, we realize that she hasn't just been sitting and waiting. She realized that she couldn't help with Hell, so she looked ahead to what the next obstacle would be for her friends, and she looked at the Night Nurse and she realized there was a way she could help. So she sat with this woman who wanted to take away her friends and she played the fool and asked questions and convinced the night nurse to let her see the rules and regulations just to stop her chattering - knowing that if she could just find a loophole, she could buy them some time. So she dove into this book of regulations, and she found a loophole. She probably found a few, just in case the first didn't work.

And no one - not even the audience - realizes what she's done until it's done. It's brilliant and she makes it look easy. It's something only she can do, and it works with Charles' plan, even if he isn't trying to work with her.

Edwin might be book smart but Niko is the one who is willing to ask questions and listen to the answers. And the information she finds this way is always so critical.

I love her so much.

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Help me what is this 😭