A mix of art and writing

Figured it'd be fun to share my ramblings somewhere

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

I drew the boys on an adventure in the Neitherlands to find Niko for my page in the @dbda-coloring-book. I hope people have some fun colouring in whatever page strikes their fancy. There are a lot of fun pages to choose from!

[dbda-coloring-book]

🎉Happy New Year🎉

The DBDA Digital Coloring Book is now available for download here!

Thank you to the wonderful artists for all their hard work over the past few months. This has been such a fun project and we can’t wait to see people enjoy these pages!

This is completely FREE to download, please do not pay anything for it!

As mentioned earlier, we are currently testing the version formatted for professional printing. Once that is 👌, those files will be added and we will make an announcement!

DBDA Everlasting Seasons Coloring Book

THIS IS A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD. NO PHYSICAL PRODUCT WILL BE MAILED.This item is 100% free! Please do not pay anything for it.Introducing the Dea

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

It was a delight to work on this project. Thank you so much, Sam, for organising! I'm still working on your lil' thank you gift <3

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Wouldn't it be a bit silly to draw something for the first time in over a decade, make a tumblr to post it and then belatedly realise you can also post what you write?

Couldn’t be me.

Anyway, for unrelated reasons, here's a link to the first story in my Charles Rowland figures out the rest series:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64706236

This one is mostly pre-canon. It explores the difference (?) between falling in love and, for once, having an aces best friend who actually cares for you after years of you feeling afraid, angry and lonely. Surely the warmth tingling in your belly and the way you always want to be close to them is just a bangin' friendship?

[ellipsus-writes]

If you haven't heard, the em dash has been getting a lot of attention lately…

Because it was trained on pirated work—including freely accessible online writing (like fanfic, academic texts)—ChatGPT picked up patterns and quirks native to human writing.

Including (sigh) the em dash.

There are other victims here (RIP tapestry and delve 🫠), but the appropriation of the em dash—a punctuation mark beloved by writers everywhere—feels especially personal.

A kind of low-grade panic is ensuing. Writers who once memed their own em dash overuse—the greatest punctuation mark ever to grace the control-freak’s lexicon, frankly—are suddenly backing away to avoid accusations.

No. More. We have centuries of dash-abusing writers behind us. We will not sit quietly while AI repurposes our beloved stilted aside—or the just-one-more clarification the sentence demands—or the dramatic pause your comma could never—etc.

You don’t write like AI—AI writes like you.

Defend the em dash.

(Feel free to download/share/stick it where it matters!)

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Once upon a time, back when we walked uphill both ways to school (also known as 2013), I wrote an essay about Macbeth. It got flagged as suspicious because I used the phrase "like the dagger he wielded". After all, the software thought it was weird that I, a non-native, would be familiar with the word "wield". I'm sorry, plagiarism software. But I am not a cheat. I'm just a nerd. I'd been playing fantasy games and reading fantasy books since before I spoke English. People can be bad at writing. They could be children and used to shorter, simpler sentences. They can write empty-sounding phrases because they're new to writing. They might be writing for the first time in their second, third, or fourth language and trying to translate in multiple steps. And some people love em-dashes. It's a fun little line. Use it responsibly or, better yet, have fun with it and use it irresponsibly. The only real way to test for AI is to ask the writer something about the story. Ask them about the character's motivations. They've been thinking about that for hours, days, weeks or months before putting it on the page. And they'll be delighted to ramble about it.

[deadboydetectives-confessions]

Can anyone confirm if the guy Crystal made walk into traffic survived? He must have right because I think they would have made a bigger deal about it otherwise.

.

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Disclaimer: I adore Crystal as a character. But she did some Not Good Things with her powers. Which is something I hoped they'd explore in S2 (alas, poor Yorick), but who knows? As you said, they kinda brushed over it in the show. In the scene, she's packing and the boys are wondering why so they're a bit too distracted to discuss her past and Crystal seems unwilling in the moment.

___

The line in the show is that the guy (James, I think) was hit by a car after walking into traffic. There's no line about if he's alright or not. The girls around Crystal says things like "That's insane!", but nothing about how he is. Could be that they don't know how he is yet. Crystal just says something about how he ghosts girls and that maybe Karma is a bitch while smiling. So she seems pleased with whatever happened.

As for how poor James(?) is feeling: the average risk of death for a pedestrian reaches 10% at an impact speed of 23 mph, 25% at 32 mph, 50% at 42 mph, 75% at 50 mph, and 90% at 58 mph. Or, in case you're like me and prefer the metric system: 10% at 37 km/h, 25% at 51 km/h, 50% at 68 km/h, 75% at 80 km/h and 90% at 93 km/h. (Data from here: https://aaafoundation.org/impact-speed-pedestrians-risk-severe-injury-death/)

Around a city, I'd assume most traffic goes at a speed of between 32 to 42 mph (50 to 70 km/h). If it's in the city during congested commuting hours, I feel like cars would drive so slowly that it's less walking into traffic and more casually strolling past a car driving at a snail's pace.

So I'll give James a 25-50% chance of being dead. Around the same speeds, the risk for serious injury is 50-75%.

We also see her and David throw rocks at cars from an overpass (suggesting it's a highway). And since that can also cause injuries (including lethal), I didn't get the sense that she was too fussed if people were hurt or not.

In general, humans are soft and squishy and cars are hard and heavy. Realistically, you don't make someone walk into traffic with the goal of *not* hurting them.

In a similar vein, while it's not physical abuse, giving a security guard horrible nightmares for weeks for trying to do his job (stopping her from shoplifting) is more than just giving a guy nightmares. Since if the security guard can't sleep for weeks, he can't work. The guy might lose his job and therefore his paycheck.

To be fair to Crystal in regards to that point, she's a teenager and her parents are filthy rich. It's likely she doesn't really consider that some people live paycheck to paycheck.

That's also why she might also not consider that even if James survived, he might not afford the hospital bills. If he's rich, that's one thing. If he's not (and if they are in the US in that flashback), those bills can end up ruining him for life.

[frenchhornfish]

truly nothing can come between a girl and the tv show she watched during her formative years that was canceled after one season

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Mine was Firefly. I was nine, so I'm stretching the definition of formative years a little, but fuck it.

Me at broadcasting companies and streaming services to this day:

[miyoriia]

discord collecting data on your private messages for a yearly recap isn't good.

turn all this off immediately.

your private conversations are not truly private on discord and you should assume that any and all messages you send can be monitored or turned over to any police or government force. use signal if you need to for protected chats.

[genevievefangirl]

I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but I keep seeing this idea going around that turning off these settings will stop your data being collected, and I need you all to learn how to read.

Turning these settings off *doesn’t* stop discord from collecting your data. It very specifically says it stops them from *using* your data. And actually, it only says they can’t use it for *those specific* purposes, who know what else they could use it for.

If you decide to use discord, they are collecting data from you and there is no way to stop that. Do with that information what you will.

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Reblogging you since I wanted to reply to you, Gen, and I dunno how the comments work on a reblog <3

The amount of people who reads "use the data" and think it's the same as "collect the data" scares me a little, ngl.

PSA: if you wanna know the data Discord collects from you, you can request that being sent to you. It's right there in the same tab everyone points to in these posts. This can take them up to 30 days to collect. I'm thinking this will be more than account name and age, mates.

I'm also very dubious about if that data leaves their servers when you delete your account. Back in 2022, they paid a €800k fee for multiple GDPR violations, and lacking data retention policies was one of the reasons.

I've seen individual users complaining about the inability to remove their messages if they leave a server (either of their own choice or if they get kicked/banned) and of Discord's unwillingness to do it for them. And that's from individual discord servers, not their databases.

Never forget the obvious truth: if you don't pay for the product, you are the product

Of course, Discord has Nitro, so a fair bit of their revenue is from that. They also state that they don't make any money from our data. But who invests in the company? And will it ever be sold? Will that sale include the data?

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

It's a well-known fact that rugby players require enrichment in the form of a proper muddy field for some friendly tackles (Edwin would agree, I'm sure). And so: a muddy (and happy!) Charles Rowland from my fanart for the lovely story Meet me at The Try Line by @sixbynine-da and @cairngorm-ard. It was nicknamed "Swiggity swooty, I'm coming for Edwin's booty" in the initial draft(s).

[sixbynine-da]

FINAL CHAPTER!!!

It's here! and with some STUNNING art work by @tiny-caffeinated-panda to round this fic off in the BEST way <3 @cairngorm-ard and I love it!

Meet me at the Try Line (308904 words) by sixbynine, m_erlin_s Chapters: 36/36 Fandom: Dead Boy Detectives (TV), The Dead Boy Detectives (DC Comics) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland, Simon (Dead Boy Detectives)/OC Characters: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Charles Rowland (DCU), Simon (Dead Boy Detectives), Original Characters, Paul Rowland | Charles Rowland's Father, Crystal Palace (DCU), Niko Sasaki, Edwin Paine's Father | Edwin Payne's Father, Edwin Paine's Mother | Edwin Payne's Mother, Mary Rowland | Charles Rowland's Mother Additional Tags: First Kiss, Falling In Love, Alternate Universe - High School, Rugby, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Charles Rowland (DCU), Charles Rowland Loves Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne Loves Charles Rowland, Edwin and Charles are on opposite rugby teams, rugby based romance, Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne Needs a Hug, Charles Rowland Needs a Hug (DCU), Gay Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Feelings Realization, Protective Charles Rowland (DCU), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Charles is impulsive, Edwin is appalled, Kissing, Boys Kissing, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Frottage, Classroom Sex, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Groping, Hand Jobs, Come as Lube, Alcohol, Drinking, Underage Drinking, Anal Fingering, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Physical Abuse, Verbal Abuse, Racism, Hurt/Comfort, Coming Out, Oral Sex, Shower Sex, Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Spit As Lube, Hair-pulling, Anal, Anal Sex, Cock Warming, First Time, First Time Bottoming Summary: Charles had played sports his whole life. Football, Cricket, Basketball, Rugby - he threw himself into all of it with a passion like no other, and he was good, very good. Playing on Eastfield Community's Sixth Form Rugby team meant Charles, and his teammates, regularly practiced with and competed against local private boys school: St Hilarion's. Charles didn't usually pay much attention to the opposing team. Then Edwin crossed his path.

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

A very muddy Charles Rowland.

[hobbitsdoitbetter]

Post for Wk 2 of @bottomedwin

The prompt is: Damsel In Distress Edwin

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Frankly, this would have been the superior way of getting Edwin out of Hell.

[sthilarions]

Just finished binging the full show at the Port Townsend fan meetup (which was awesome) and something really stood out for me on this watch, for some reason, which is that…

Obviously, as viewers, we know that Charles adores Edwin’s bitchiness. But I think it would be an extremely reasonable conclusion that Edwin doesn’t. Because Edwin’s, like… he’s a words guy, you know? And once you start listening for it there’s a kinda fascinating recurring thing in the words Charles says to Edwin.

“Oi! Bedside manner.”

“At least try to be nice.”

“Come on, Crystal, let’s go out for a bit and give Edwin some time to adjust his really poor attitude.”

And on and on, it’s in every episode, many of them multiple times.

And, like. WE know that when Charles left with Crystal, he was actually using that time to tell Crystal to be more considerate of Edwin (and demonstrating on her that he super does not mind people being snippy and in fact actively enjoys it).

But Edwin doesn’t know that! As far as he knows, he lashed out a little, and Charles told him off for it, and then, far worse, Charles left with the person he was jealous of in order to put him in fucking time-out!

It’s just really interesting, because Charles very blatantly adores Edwin’s attitude, but Charles’s words are constantly reprimanding Edwin for it - even putting him in time-out for it. And I think it would be… very reasonable, for Edwin to - at least on his bad days - only hear the words, and not trust the besotted looks over those words.

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

I was saying the other day that Charles really is THE PROBLEM in the first few episodes when it comes to Edwin and Crystal not getting along. Edwin's stressed. Crystal's afraid. They're lashing out in their own way. And what does Charles do? He's stoking the flame more and more and commenting on Edwin's behaviour, who gets meaner to Crystal, who snipes back, and so the spiral goes. Charles isn't really that much of a people person, is he? Actually walking away -the time-out as you put it- is both using the words, and then performing an action which supports that he means the words. He's leaving Edwin in favour of a girl he then keeps siding with throughout the first few episodes (from Edwin's perspective). He also tells her about Hell, which is maybe not something Edwin wants everyone to know. After all, how many would believe (paraphrasing): "Eh, it was a clerical error, but he's great"? The only time we see him reveal his time in Hell to the Cat King is under a truth spell. We've got no real proof that it's something Edwin tells everyone. Given Esther's fascination, that might even be dangerous information to reveal, given that ghosts are made up of energy. But Charles tells Crystal pretty much straight away.

[homoquartz]

i think any time the boys have to interact with other edwardian ghosts, edwin’s eyes roll so hard they generate their own gravity

he’s like “charles these people do not even know of a pokemon” with great sadness

[lattebookworm]

Stealing @mirellapryce’s tags bc I like them

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

The greatest part about the boys liking Pokémon is that they would have discovered it together since it came out in 1996. Which means that Edwin could have showed it to Charles. And I think that's beautiful.

And since we're talking about Edwardian ghosts: if they're all stuffy, they might not like Charles. An even more egregious crime to Edwin.

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

The things you know

A small thing for a great detective

[griffineatsbread]

i love charles' reaction to edwin's confession so much not only because it is so loving and so understanding but also because his immediate reaction to 'i love you' is his eyes going wide and immediately going 'great, love you too'.

"I love you"

shit he didn't know that? oh god and we've known each other for thirty years!!!

[humblefryingpan]

"shit my best friend ever thinks hes just a casual friend to me- ohhh thank god he's just in love with me. Friend successfully friended we can go back home now"

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Not even love can change the fact that Hell still owns Edwin Payne. I was so curious to see if S2 would have had Edwin work towards asylum, and if the deal with the Afterlife keeps demons off his trail or if it simply stops Lost and Found from trying to collect him. I got the sense that it's the latter (even if we know who the Principal is, I'm not sure she can stop actual Hell), but who knows? ___ This was a part of a gift, and now that it's been given, I figured I could post my contribution here. Medium: oil and gouache in CSP for a more painterly vibe. Saved me at least 10 hours on Charles' hair this time. Still took way too long, since I drew this in high resolution. Let's see how much tumblr messes with the quality!

[musingsbysari]

Looking at the hustle and bustle im the writers room in my fav discord, I was wondering what the collective noun for fanfiction authors is...🤔

-A folder of fanfic authors?

-A romance of fanfic authors?

-A WIP of fanfic authors?

-A madness of fanfic authors?

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

Have you considered the fact that we're more like a flock of birds? Like crows: clever and distracted by shiny stuff. I'd like to submit a murder of writers, to go with the oh-so-popular angsty stories.

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

My hot take on Charles is that he just cannot for the life of him distinguish between platonic and romantic feelings. It makes sense considering that his friends literally murdered him and that he's a bi kid from the time of the AIDS crisis, but telling Edwin that he likes the girl he's been making kissy-face at because she reminds him of Edwin was bonkers.

I don't really see Charles as having any degree of romantic feelings for Crystal. She's there; she's beautiful; she can see him; she's alive. And she's a pretty girl that he has things in common with, and he likes her! Of course those things go together romantically! Logical conclusions, aren't they?

With Edwin, it's a little different. He can't say he's in love with him, but he's constantly checking him out. He does so as early as the first episode when Edwin takes off his jacket in Esther's house. This persists through the 6th episode when he runs his eyes up and down Edwin in his nice outfit. More than that, Charles wants to share everything with Edwin, has been living with him for 35 years, went to literal Hell for him, and has the primary motivation of not being split up from Edwin. The hand-over-the-heart at the end of the season may be his epiphany - but we'll never know.

Charles literally just never considered whether he might be queer because, hey, he likes girls! And, yeah, he's still got it because he can (badly) flirt with a living girl 'his age!' But boys? Edwin? Nah, they're just best mates. Which is so much more to him than dating or whatever, because it's Edwin.

He drives me crazy and I love him so much.

[tiny-caffeinated-panda]

I think part of it is that Charles fell for Edwin early and went through the infatuation and puppy love stage when they'd just met. So he'd get confused. The butterflies were surely about someone liking him and genuinely being so bloody nice. Charles might have been constantly looking at Edwin, but that was just to make sure he was there. He liked hugging him because he could feel him, nothing more. And now, they've been around each other almost literally 24/7 for around 33 years. He's well past the infatuation. There are no butterflies at this point. He's a married teenager who's never kissed his husband of 30+ years. So he sees a fit girl and he feels butterflies. He looks at Edwin and just feels that steady love he's always felt. Surely that means it's not romantic?