onpointedfeetandbrokendreams

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

by aletterinthenameofsanity

It’s been nearly ten years since Edwin last saw Crystal Palace.

They were partners, back then. The most ferocious team in the ballroom dancing scene. The ice queen and king in a world so often ruled by fire. People who looked at them thought that they either hated each other or wanted to fuck each other, because where else could all that tension come from?

The truth is, at the end of the day, a bit more complicated than all that, and yet somehow simpler, too.

Edwin and Crystal were both the best in the fucking game. Their bodies carefully honed since they were both kids with parents who had nothing better than to push their kids into dance for the sake of propriety, apathy, or some other rich-people-wanting-to-keep-up-appearances-and-not-have-to-deal-with-the-hassle-of-nannies bullshit. Their tangos and foxtrots and pasodobles on point.

And now, it’s been years.

For all that Edwin dances with Charles in the kitchen, spins Charles around to hear Charles’ laughter spill across the kitchen tiles, Edwin has never danced professionally with anyone other than Crystal.

It is a tribute to her, that a good decade after that final fight, he has never found someone who he trusted as much as her.

Words: 1314, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Crystal Palace (DCU), Charles Rowland (DCU)

Relationships: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland

Additional Tags: Ballroom Dancing, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Reunions, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne & Crystal Palace Friendship, Breaking Up & Making Up, but like for friends

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Here are my contributions to the DBDA charity calendar by @alltimefail and @savethedeadboys :)

They both take place in what we call a "bloquinho" here in Brasil that happens during the Carnaval holiday. There's is a sequence of events here: Charles and Cat King accidentally chose the same costume, had a petty argument, that ended up with Cat King being convinced by Edwin to change his costume, which he did and chose a even more elaborate jaguar costume :D

You can find more informations here

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Iris, Verse 1: Edwin Payne

Dead Boy Detectives | "Iris" by The Goo Goo Dolls

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

empty nesting has been such a joy read! go check it out 🫵

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

This illustration was inspired from the fic “One more step on the wire” written by Nigg

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64375774

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

This is a reminder that comments really do motivate authors out of their slumps.

Yesterday I got a new comment on My Life Ended and it touched my heart so much that I opened the document and worked on it for the first time in weeks.

Thank you commenters, you’re amazing ❤️

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

you are 16. you are talking with a gay man in his 50s or 60s, a friend, huge and gentle with a scarf and short fluffy curls of gray hair, who has directed you in two plays staged in your mid-size artsy town. (he has not yet asked you to be in his production of The Laramie Project which will change your life. this conversation will also change your life.)

he is talking about theatre. he is talking about theatre when he was younger. he says, "of course, it was AIDS then." in the pause, you ask him. clumsy and quiet and 16 and "straight," you ask him. what was it like.

he takes a moment in which his face is not like a person's face. "there was a time," he says, "i'm not sure how long, years. when i went to a funeral every weekend." he tells you about two funerals in a day, and choosing between friends when you couldn't make it to both. he does not look at you, he looks at them. his wet grey gaze is so clear that you start to see ghosts. it will be years before you understand why it feels like your grief too. why the ghosts call you family.

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Commission art for @carpediemma

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Dead Boy Detectives Color Palettes!

(version with hex codes is below the cut!)

Hey guys! I made a few character-based color palettes for you to use for art, gifs, edits, requests...however else you can think of* :^) No credit required, though I'd love to be tagged in whatever you make :D

Feel free to repost this one to other platforms--I'm only active on here, so I can't share them to other places. Just leave my username visible, please :)

*I'm honestly not sure how you'd use these for/with generative AI, but please don't do that. Gen AI does not belong in fandom spaces.

Edwin: #2a2d2f, #273848, #536878, #a57550, #d1ebfa

Charles: #1b0407, #560318, #800627, #af8146, #fefaf0

Crystal: #39255d, #4c8139, #7d358b, #ab3c8e, #59cbf3

Monty: #17103b, #47378f, #6d1129, #704410, #a97a33

Jenny: #000000, #454545, #bbbbbb, #f1f1f1, #cc1c3e

Niko: #a0093c, #cb1251, #d4436b, #e75a7f, #fd84a4

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Secret Pumpkin 2025?

Hello wonderful people! I hope you've been doing well. As the last of the pinch hit works for DBDA Secret Pumpkin 2024 are wrapping up, I wanted to start getting people's thoughts on running this again in 2025.

I really loved running the exchange and I hope you all enjoyed participating. I would love to do this again this year, especially since now I have significantly more than half a clue what I'm doing, so things should run a lot more smoothly.

However, there can't be an exchange without all of you, so I wanted to try to get some vague numbers on how many people would be interested in doing this again. I also wanted to raise the possibility of changing the dates that the exchange runs.

Last year, the exchange launched in late October, and so I called it the Secret Pumpkin because it was like a Secret Santa, but, Halloween. However, by the time the February deadline rolled around, the Halloween spirit was kind of not really there so much and so the name didn't necessarily fit super well.

Therefore I would like to raise the possibility of running this year's exchange to end on 31st October, so that the exchange can better earn its vaguely thematic title, and meaning that signups would open in the next month or so. However, I know there are other fandom events going on and I imagine a fair few of them might be focused around Halloween (since, y'know, the main characters of the show are ghosts), so I wanted to know which option you would all prefer.

Once the poll closes I'll do another post to announce what will happen next, in the meantime please do let me know if you have any other thoughts on the exchange.

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

drowning in doodles for @aletterinthenameofsanity 's victor au but this one specifically has had such a strong grip on me !! :"]

the fic is incredible and the dynamics between the charas have me in a chokehold <3 so like read it maybe???

(the fic in itself is monty/charles/edwin but for someone heavily in the charles/edwin side of the fandom branching out into the relationship between charles/monty has been such a vibe!! they're both also such a joy to draw???)

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Sketches, sketches! They’re musicians this time!!!

Inspired by "The Stones I Threw at Your Window" by Lucrow! It showed up on my dashboard this weekend and the mental imprint that poster left was so intense I had to do something about it

I took a lot of creative liberties with the outfits, don’t mind me, I just wanted to see Charles in a crop top and Edwin as Damiano

Niko and I during the entire interview: just kiss already, you idiots!!!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64879519

Go read it. Right now. Drop everything. I'm not kidding. GO.

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Crystal Palace and Edwin Payne (Ex-Dancers AU)

For all that Edwin dances with Charles in the kitchen, spins Charles around to hear Charles’ laughter spill across the kitchen tiles and counters, Edwin has never danced professionally with anyone other than Crystal. 

It is a tribute to her, that a good decade after that final fight, both of them storming off, both of them blowing up the ground beneath their feet to prove themselves right, he has never found someone who he trusted as much as her. Never found someone whose skills and personality aligned with his, no one who could make up for several years of bonding beneath the bullshit they had to put up with from parents and coaches and the entire ballroom scene that they had to face together with every competition, hair shellacked back and costumes in place and hearts racing in their chests.

Because practice sessions might have been more bitchfest than kindness. Rehearsals might have devolved from the sort of critique that helped to the sort of fights that aimed for the fucking jugular.

But on that final night, when he confronted her about David, the new coach she was seeing, the new boyfriend she was dating after her messy break-up with Charles, the new disaster in her life, he hadn’t meant for things to go so badly. He hadn’t meant for their partnership- and the closest thing that either of them had to a friendship- to fall apart in a fucking hurricane of thrown words and insults sharpened off of years of learning exactly how to land hits where they hurt.

Because at the end of the day, Crystal Palace was Edwin’s mirror in more ways than just one. 

-aletterinthenameofsanity, you sit around getting older (we're just dancing in the dark)

inspired by @onpointedfeetandbrokendreams!

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

BEALTAINE🌞🔥🌈

This is my contribution to the charity calendar - Bealtaine was the Summer festival in Ireland, where people would light bonfires and have parties. The tradition has been revived in Scotland.

In earlier times people they would jump over the bonfires, which I definitely think Charles and Crystal would try. And when the fire died down people would lead animals and pregnant women through the embers for good luck (which Niko and Edwin would probably do).

[onpointedfeetandbrokendreams]

Ajdjdhhajsbaba this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Thank you so much 💜💜💜💜

This illustration was inspired from the fic “One more step on the wire” written by Nigg

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64375774