izartn

[izartn]

#dead boy detectives #gifset #edwin payne #charles rowland #payneland

[izartn]

oh AND my favourite thing about the show is that Edwin and Charles spent a whole ass 30 years being best friends without ever analyzing their trauma (Charles) or their feelings (Edwin)

icons, the both of them

#dead boy detectives #pfft #very british boy teens of them

[izartn]

I love the Dead Boy Detective Agency and I just have a quick question.

Death knows all of her denizens in her realm, that means no spirit can actually hide from her. She's letting the boys do what they want because she views them as actively helping the other ghosts find closure.

I don't think she'll take them until they're ready to leave.

So my question is

" does she just kind of laugh every time she sees the boys skedaddle away from her?"

#dead boy detectives #she totally does XD #she knows they're doing good and aren't ready to go yet #So she lets them do their thing #death of the endless

[izartn]

NIKO SASAKI AND EDWIN PAYNE Dead Boy Detectives (2024-)

#gifset #dead boy detectives #niko sasaki #edwin payne

[izartn]

Edwin and Charles are each other's light in the dark

#dead boy detectives #DBD meta #meta #It's the same lamp! Still dying #ep 7 you'll always be remembered #edwin payne #charles rowland #payneland

[izartn]

EDWIN and CHARLES in THE CASE OF THE VERY LONG STAIRWAY

#dead boy detectives #gifset #charles rowland #edwin payne #paynland #payneland

[izartn]

Crystal was a complete mood all the series. I loved her, I loved her weird thing with Charles, her friendship with Niko, the back and forth she has with Edwin, her defiance at David and how she uses her powers. How she can be both sweet and fierce, and kind self-centered.

The way she totally clocks Edwin (and I'd argue Charles too) at the start but doesn't say much about it. She so knows there's something going on, she noticed right away the jealousy and even tells Charles to mind what he says for Edwin. She knows form the start, that anything between her and Charles won't last; she's not even really dating him. He's still the first to offer her to stay, a temporary home. She still has a lot of baggage and Charles is dead, forever 16. She still kisses him goodbye one last time when she goes.

How she's all ride or die for the boys and Niko, how she started the series bc she was friendly to a little ghost girl and she wanted to save another little girl, lost, across the Atlantic Ocean in another continent while she herself had no memories.

She has a demon buried on her soul bc she put him there until she could get ride of it, bc he doesn't define her and has no right to torment her. She tries to protect Niko at the finale, repeats what the boys said to her, that Niko is only human, and still they both go together to save the ghosts, and Niko dies taking a knife for her, and she wakes Lilith with her righteous rage and call for retribution for all girls dead too soon and makes Esther pay.

How she comes back to stay at the finale, because she has just recovered her memories and watched Niko die for her, and Edwin being tortured while Charles was chained, and has decided she wants this new life while she sorts out her past, fuck it she can have it all. Offering Jenny to come to London. Just. I want to hug her.

#my thoughts #dead boy detectives #meta #DBD meta #crystal palace #crystal/charles

[izartn]

The way in Charles death scene, Edwin is talking about how ghosts don't really experience the world with their senses, they can't really touch things, etc. (bc charles is about to die and he wants him to be prepared, Edwin oh boy)

And Charles immediatly answers. I'd miss kissing. Do you? And Edwin can't answer because he died without one, because he was gay and unable to even admit it to himself due to the time and place he was born into.

(how charles mind goes there so quickly, to an act of love, pleasure, warmth so different from what he has to be feeling right now)

The way Charles has that makeout session with Crystal and then tells all giddy to Edwin that he didn't really felt it physically but mentally it was good. He hasn't lost kissing after all even if it's different than if he were still alive. My god.

Charles is so very emotional and I bet when he was alive, also very much in touch with his body, for good or bad. It breaks my heart; he misses being alive, he wants to kiss and date. He's never going to last with Crystal because she's alive, but he's enjoying while it lasts. He's going to spent all his death and beyond with Edwin and one of the first conversations they had while he was dying was that he was going to miss kissing. He answers with wht is basically a not yet the love confession.

How does desire works for ghosts that don't have a physical body? It seems like the mind and the romantic attraction take the lead. (It's like the software for physical attraction is there even if the hardware is missing. Ghosts willing their bodies to act as the living do).

It's the way kisses are important to both of them in season 1, both as something never had before (Edwin) and something to miss and long for (Charles). When they kiss if we have a season 2 (or even 3 though I hope hey take pity and have them kissing in season 2 if it's greenlighted on light of Netflix sudden cancelations) I'm going to scream to my TV.

They're already together for what matters but the romantic/kissing aspect is clearly important for both of the so I'm just. Gripping my hands on the sofa thinking about them having that with each other.

#my thoughts #dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #payneland #DBD meta #meta

[izartn]

Edwin and Charles ideal afterlife includes them being together, that's what I took from the numerous scenes where they both commit to either oblivion (look that handhold in ep6 against mushroom omg) or misterious afterlife bureocracy together. Also episode 1: I won't let Death separate us. (OK Romeo! How didn't you realise you were completely gone for Charles before this is impossible to understand)

Hell is hellish, but also, crucially, they're separated if Edwin goes down.

The moment the Night Nurse said there was a case to be made that Edwin didn't have to go down, him and Charles just. Accepted that it was it. Didn't like it much, but were willing to go together.

Just. Agh. Love them.

#dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #payneland #DBD meta #meta

[izartn]

Anyways Charles having to drag Edwin away from Niko's corpse in episode 8 so they avoid Death was a perfect acting choice. Holy shit.

The way Edwin is noticeable subdued for the rest of the finale; most clearly just in the aftermath at Jenny's with Crystal and Charles, but even to the end already back in London you can notice the difference to before. He's also been to hell and back and been tortured by Esther so like. What an ending to their visit to USA.

Niko truly was his friend, and died trying to free him from Esther and protecting Crystal when she was only a human without even psychic powers. So I love we both hear him when she's stabbed and that it has such an effect in him he doesn't seem to be able to leave her. Just. Perfect choices.

#dead boy detectives #DBD meta #meta #edwin payne #niko sasaki #I bet he feels guilty for her death #given he's already dead and she died in an effort to save him

[izartn]

You really gave up a potentially tranquil eternity for your friend?

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES 1.07

#dead boy detectives #edwin payne #charles rowland #gifset #this is where I went oh wow #these two are inundating me in feels #forever ever #in the comics I heard they're like 12 or 13 #and it's an insane choice regardless (I haven't read the comics) #but here there's a weight to charles choice to stay #that I think comes across harder bc the actors are older #(it's very important that Charles didn't want to die #and he grabbed with two hands the chance to stay in the world with a friend someone kind to him in his last moments #and experiment what he could of the world even being dead) #(but I don't think he would have avoided death if Edwin hadn't found him in his last moments) #(which is just brrrr to my brain) #(what a choice) #Also the “I make choices base on what I feel in the moment”? So you don't want to leave Edwin got it

[izartn]

If I was a ghost and my best ghost friend who I've been in love with for 30 years rescued me from hell and held me by the shoulders and said he wasn't in love with me at this very second but that we had forever to figure out our feelings for each other I think I'd simply pass away again

#dead boy detectives #charles rowland #edwin payne #payneland #oh yes that was perfect

[izartn]

On the topic of Palamedes and Camilla also having messed up lives: while Paldulcie doesn't fit into a lot of folks' conventional ideas of queer romance in sci-fi, their whole love for each other circles back to Muir's point that you can't have shit in Empire and that love will often chafe against form and functioning Empire no matter what. The act of writing letters and attempting to make life better for Dulcie was revolutionary of Palamedes.

It went against planetary politics that demanded house necromancers compete and remain compartmentalized. It was an act that wanted to humanize a woman who was effectively bred to be an art piece of slow death and coddling.

Not to mention the continuous times in the series that Muir makes it seem like the Sixth house maintain some form of lesser place in the empire's hierarchy: like they're running out of genetic material, in Harrow's Marriage AU she mentions how they're often painted in a corner like her house is, The Second House went after their keys because they believed them the easiest to over-power, Palamedes and Camilla had no clue what formal dueling practices were.

Palamedes trying to marry the Duchess of Rhodes screams of the taboo and forbidden that Muir explores in Locked Tomb. I need y'all to wake up and see the sixth house as more than the funky librarians helping out the funky lesbians. They are definitely doing that, but they are so fundamentally crucial to this series.

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #meta #palamedes sextus #dulcinea septimus #paldulcie #camilla hect #the point of the sixth also living in basically a tomb #never knowing fresh air or sun until they get to Canaan #wow

[izartn]

btw loved how tender but simultaneously filled with dread the death with the gas mask ghost scene was. the boys are double outside, not only are they not dead, thus outside out of death but also they watch but from the physical outside from the window too. and for them this really nice peaceful moment is filled with fear of being ripped from the most important person in your life....

#dead boy detectives #DBD meta #meta #Yes exactly this!

[izartn]

Buganvillas! Me encanta el color rosa y la textura de papel de sus flores, además de la estructura de la planta en sí, de enredadera. Como se nota que es abril toda la ciudad está cubierta de flores ><!!!!

#my photography #spain #andalusia

[izartn]

Unexpected poppies here on the sidewalk! Pretty.

#my photography #spain #andalusia

[izartn]

Does the way Padme and Shmi are discussed in fandom ever make you . . . uncomfortable? I feel like Padme gets bashed a lot (with positive media about her being dismissed because it makes her “too perfect”), while Shmi gets this weird treatment of held up as this paragon of virtue and morality in way that seems to deliberately ignored just how much her life fucking sucked and refuse to engage with the slavery issue at all. I think the canon writing for them can and should be criticized, but some of the fandom criticisms get to be just as problematic, IMHO. With Padme in particular, I get the sense a lot of the criticism doesn’t even stem from actual analysis of her character, but fans who are upset that it’s Anakin who she loves. I get the feeling that if her character remained precisely the same, but it were a different dude who she married, she wouldn’t get nearly as much criticism from certain segments of the fandom. Am I wrong on this one? What are your thoughts?

no i would agree! i do think it is weird. i think it's a combination of factors, primarily that these are female characters and people are always weirder about female characters for systemic reasons, and then, yeah, the inherent arms race of the Did Darth Vader Do Something Problematic Discourse. buckle in. this..... long.

luke and anakin are the main characters of the series, and by virtue of being the ones to carry the narrative, a lot of how you read star wars is dependent on how you read their stories, and how you read their interactions with each other. they carry a lot of the themes of the saga - it's not only their story, but they are the biggest players in it, and their stories are designed to reflect each others', to be mirrors, to tell the story of how evil can corrupt good, but evil is not absolute, and love is where it loses. for all that i've written literally hundreds of thousands of words about The Meaning Of Star Wars, it's not altogether that complicated a premise. i watch these movies the way i do because this is the story i see in it. because i see that kind of a story, that reflects on how i see everyone else in star wars.

if star wars is about how evil is inherently weak because unconditional love is always stronger, then the part of ANH where han chooses the rebellion over his life as a smuggler becomes about that. the part where leia says, "someone who loves you," becomes about that. when leia strangles jabba, it is about that. when leia comforts luke over the loss of obi-wan kenobi, the fact that luke even grieves a man he barely knew, it becomes about that very thing. the cheers and frantic hugging and bright, happy joy of the rebellion after luke destroys the death star becomes about that; the rebellion is cast as a large, loving group, united in their desire for something better, filled with people who love each other and are excited to succeed because they do. the climax of the series becomes about this very thing.

if the OT is about unconditional love and its ultimate, unstoppable power to level the playing field and destroy the root of all evil, the PT is about what can happen to that love in the face of tragedy people are ultimately helpless to stop. anakin is not capable of saving his mother. he wasn't capable as a child, and although he had the power as a jedi, through systemic forces and death itself, he never did. anakin is not capable of ending slavery as a child, and neither is he as a singular jedi knight. the things and causes that matter to him only eat him alive, because he can never act on them; the war he fights in is not a violent struggle for justice that can satiate this, but a sham war, state violence for meaningless purpose. he's never capable of saving padme, and even outsources his only idea to do so to someone who will accept, "will you do what you're told?" as payment. it's easy for me to see - compared to the rebellion's open joy, luke's gaggle of friends who he saves again and again, who save him again and again, who hold each other in their joy and comfort each other in their sadness, who openly love each other to the degree where han abandons a probably fairly well-paying life as a smuggler to become a terrorist hunted by the empire, an act which causes him no small amount of suffering but we never see him once genuinely regret it - why anakin's story ends differently from luke's, because, like, that's just what i see in the story.

now my arrival to the point; if you're seeing that story, shmi's life becomes a horrible tragedy. she's a woman left in enormous, incredibly pointless suffering. her name fades out of history, and the only person who remembers her is the proverbial monster at the end of this book. to me, when tiny anakin runs back to shmi, mourning leaving her, i see the only display in that entire film we have that anyone cares that shmi skywalker is enslaved. everyone else quietly moves on. qui-gon says they're not there to free slaves. her words, "be brave, and don't look back," become horrifyingly tragic in such a context, because she's losing the only person who is showing her real compassion, because unfortunately that only person is her nine year old son, whose safety she wants to to ensure by sending him with qui-gon.

if you're seeing a story about how anakin is bad at accepting change and bad at letting go, how his attachments are possessive by some inherent quality, then shmi's wisdom - "be brave, and don't look back" - would make her a paragon of virtue in such a story, and her being enslaved would be this weird piece of set dressing, not easily reconciled with the rest of the plot. they're not there to free slaves. this is why people who do see this story in star wars frequently dismiss That Whole Slavery Business as being pointless; it's either a metaphor for childhood being restrictive, or anakin's childhood was actually supposed to be totally fine, or everyone's just making a big deal out of it because people love woobifying villains. this is a fine thing to see in the story, i guess, although it's probably obvious i personally don't buy it. this interpretation is not without its side effects, however, and i think this idea does an enormous disservice to shmi, whose frankly intense onscreen suffering (she is tortured to death, holy shit) probably should be allowed to matter more than being the highlighter over anakin's possessive attachment issues. her suffering becomes even more meaningless, because the only person who, onscreen, extends shmi skywalker any kind of compassion - who cares, demonstrably, if she's hurting - is explicitly condemned for doing so.

this isn't to say anakin's response to her death is morally correct, because it obviously is not! and maybe this would be a story about possessive attachment if shmi's death was natural and unavoidable and anakin still responded with explosive violence, but simply put, it isn't, and that changes the narrative enough for me to discount that as being true. if you have deduced anakin's problem is attachment, rather than his inability to act on those attachments in any meaningful way, you've created a world where no one was supposed to care that shmi was enslaved. anakin was supposed to be able to leave her behind without feeling guilt, and he was supposed to be able to ignore his visions of her suffering. dreams pass in time. this is a world where it's not just okay for the suffering of the people you love to not matter to you, that is, actually, the only virtuous way to live your life. with regards to shmi, this turns her personal agony into a footnote, the warning that anakin got of the darkness growing within him before it completely took him over, instead of shmi's personal agony mattering because it's inherently unjust to do to someone what she was forced to go through. shmi doesn't matter because she was an innocent person in pain; she matters because she was a warning anakin ignored.

that's why shmi as a paragon of virtue can never be discussed with shmi as one of the most tragic characters in star wars; they can't really coexist, can they? because it would be kind of uncomfortable to go yes, this woman was enslaved, her labor was coerced from her via an explosive implanted in her body, she lost her only family and continued to be enslaved for years, until one good thing maybe happened to her, which was brutally cut short by being tortured to death, and the last she saw of her son was dying in his arms, but no, dreams pass in time. no one should have particularly cared that this was happening to her, and in fact, onscreen, the only person who does is anakin, and even then he's tormented by the fact that he cares. he is explicitly not supposed to. dreams pass in time. the two conceptions of shmi cannot coexist, or the argument becomes kind of cruel. you essentially have to lessen the degree to which she suffered. which is fine, i guess. you do you, or whatever.

to contrast, luke sees his father, who is demonstrably much worse on a moral level than shmi, who luke would have legitimately had every right to abandon, and goes to free him from a form of slavery anyway. and he is completely and entirely vindicated for this in every conceivable way. do we all see where i'm going with this? i think i'm belaboring the point by now. i can move on.

padme makes, essentially, a very similar choice to the one luke makes; the narrative itself has shown you previously that in the universe of star wars, showing unflinching love in the face of evil can work. but her decision is cast as rash and naive because she fails, which is a really weird way to blame padme for being strangled. because she failed, it's her fault, but because luke succeeded, he's the hero. padme dies because she goes into labor - there's no sign in the film prior that she was anywhere close - which was induced by being strangled into unconsciousness, and fans for years have been obsessed with how "weak" this makes her. these arguments are honestly just bold misogyny. i used to pay lip service to the idea but i've since come around; i think it's fucked up, plainly, to act like padme was at fault for something anakin did to her, and it is downright batshit insane to act like it would be impossible for a pregnant woman in surprise labor who is unknowingly giving birth to twins who has just been strangled so severely she passed out from oxygen deprivation to die because of that. padme is not even allowed to die directly because of anakin's actions without people going, "but padme was so toxic, she was obsessed with him, they're both examples of possessive attachment!"

but it continues! people go from that point, and work their way backwards - it was weak, of padme, to love anakin at all. luke gets a pass because he's male, and successful. obi-wan gets a pass for loving anakin, because he's male, and sad about it later. ahsoka gets a pass, because she's a female character but a Strong Female Character - she's a fighter, she's badass, so it can't be her fault that she made the mistake of caring about anakin skywalker. but padme. we have to come up with endless, endless theories as to how padme could possibly come by the same affliction everyone else in the prequels does; she should have been written to be older, she must have been just as possessive, toxic, and fucked up, there's no possible way that this woman could have had feelings like everyone else did. it's just implausible. it begs explanation. when will padme answer for her mistakes, which were the same mistakes everyone else made? luke's only explanation for returning to save vader's immortal soul is literally, "i have a feeling," but it's instead padme who is the subject of endless, endless interrogation. part of this is because george lucas doesn't spend a lot of time developing padme's interiority - her family, her life, these are left to interpretation, and suffice to say, you can't leave a female character with blank spots without people being intensely weird about it.

the above isn't particularly related to what someone gets out of watching the saga, the way interpretations of shmi are, in my view, inherently reliant on someone's point of view; a lot of the issues that surround padme are classic misogyny-reflected-in-fandom. they are intensified, definitely, by her relation to the Did Darth Vader Do Something Problematic Discourse, purely because in the narrative she chooses a relationship with anakin, whereas most other characters in the prequels just have anakin foisted on them. that act of it being padme's choice stokes a lot of bad will for the character from the crowd of people who dislike anakin intensely. if you fundamentally don't want to engage with the idea that the prequels as a story of good turning into evil, then the decisions everyone makes in that story will, yes, look crazy to you, and because of the above, padme gets the brunt of that criticism where there's more effort to understand characters that are more palatable. if you believe anakin just was evil, that he was always predisposed to it, and that his redemption in the sixth episode doesn't qualify as a redemption, then, yes, padme's choices look unhinged, and it's easy to put the onus of that on her because she's the easiest target. it's simple to project on a blank canvas.

it goes without saying that this particular set of criticisms is kind of bullshit, really. it's not someone watching the movies and enjoying them for what they are, or even disliking them on the basis of what they are, as much as it is people huffing the fumes of the point in order to make polarizing posts on the internet for a quick hit of dopamine when the numbers tick up. even the people who i disagree with about the saga's general themes broadly accept the idea that star wars is about how evil can't be absolute as long as love persists, because they actually do like the movies, they just happen to like them in a different way, which is fine. this new kind of criticism is a little more disingenuous. like i said at the start, anakin and luke are the main characters, through which we perceive the world of star wars and how its themes are fed to us, the nerds. if your answer to one of the main characters of the series and its actual climax is, "no," then, i'm sorry, the actual criticism you have of star wars is that you fundamentally do not like it, and, "i don't like this," is not a very hard thought to have, and you probably shouldn't pass it off as critical thinking. it's just not padme's fault as a character that you, the nerd, are bad at watching movies, and weirdly proud of it, and no one is really obligated to take you seriously because you're oddly determined to do nothing, add nothing, and say nothing. it's such a bullshit set of criticisms there's not really anything else i can say than, "i guess?" which is what this paragraph is trying so hard to get at.

anyway! no, i don't think you're wrong, i actually agree, and these are my thoughts! hope you enjoyed this brick of a post hahaha

#star wars #padme amidala #shmi skywalker #sw meta #meta #fandom issues #mysogyny