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Payneland Pumpkin Fest Day 3: Casefic 🪦

The Case of the Duelling Ideologies. When an unsuspecting tourist placed a Labubu on the grave of Karl Marx, the boys ventured to Highgate Cemetery to investigate the odd disturbance.

16) haunted

I do think it’s entirely possible for him to come out as bi to Edwin without Edwin having come out to him first - this isn’t about him not feeling as safe with Edwin as Edwin feels with him, or anything like that. But I do not think he would tell Edwin he’s in love with him, without already knowing Edwin was receptive to that. Because like… the way they express their love for each other (love-general, not specifically love-romantic) is different.

Edwin loves Charles mostly additively: emphasizing his positive emotions towards and around Charles, praising him, indulging him (eg on boxing and with Crystal), trying to increase his positive experiences.

Charles loved Edwin mostly subtractively: suppressing his negative emotions towards and around Edwin, trying to stop people saying or doing bad things to Edwin, trying to stop Edwin from stressing (as opposed to comforting him through stress), generally trying to protect Edwin from negative experiences - including negative experiences of Charles.

As a sort of example of the difference here, when Charles is dying, Edwin tries to help by adding positive experiences - by giving him conversation as a distraction, reading to him, giving him a blanket, giving him a lantern, giving him knowledge to prepare him. Whereas Charles, caring for Edwin in Hell, tries to subtract negative experiences. Attack the Spider so it can’t hurt Edwin again, keep Edwin on track to avoid prolonging the general negative experience of Hell, etc.

Some of that is situational, of course - but the fact remains that if Charles had found Edwin dying in an attic, I very much doubt he would have accepted Edwin’s death as inevitable and just tried to make it as pleasant as possible. He would have done everything he possibly could to stop Edwin from dying at all, even if that could never have worked and ended up just making Edwin’s death more lonely and miserable than it had to be.

(There is in fact a very major, very stark, large-scale thematic thing here: Edwin tries to encourage Charles to go to Heaven. Charles tries to stop Edwin from being taken to Hell.)

To be clear I am not saying either of these approaches is better than the other, they’re just different. In the attic case, Edwin’s approach could have resulted in Charles dying when it wasn’t actually inevitable, while Charles’s could’ve resulted in an inevitable death being awful instead of gentle. It’s all in the way the cookie crumbles.

(I’m also not saying that these are absolutes; Edwin does in some ways love Charles subtractively - eg I’ve written before about how carefully Edwin regulates his expressions of anger around Charles - and Charles does in some ways love Edwin additively - eg the way he avoids negative emotions is by putting on a smile and keeping spirits up. I’m just describing the primary focus of their approaches.)

Annnyway,

For Edwin, who loves additively, letting Charles know he is romantically-loved without any expectation of reciprocation is an act of general-love. Charles should know how loved he is! This is a gift.

For Charles, who loves subtractively, letting Edwin know he is romantically-loved without any expectation of reciprocation would be making him uncomfortable, off-balance, pressured. Edwin shouldn’t have to know about Charles’s weird, unwanted (by Edwin) feelings. That would be a burden.

(Again, no one’s black and white, so Edwin does worry about Charles feeling uncomfortable, just not more than he feels that Charles should know.)

when Orpheus turns, he loses Eurydice. do you think that when Charles turned, he lost Edwin?

maybe not at first, maybe they don't notice for a while, but edwin is in love with charles and that isn't returned in quite the same way. there's love there, and that's important, yeah, but how can charles really have edwin?

say they grow more comfortable, but edwin decides with his new feelings he needs to express them. so he starts dating. he's not with charles or in the office and charles finds himself wishing he hadn't turned around in hell, that he'd just kept going so he wouldn't have to deal with the fact that he told edwin he wasn't in love with him.

part 12

tomboy, meaning "this child is clearly queer but let's hope it goes away"

sensitive, meaning "clearly neurodivergent and often distressed but let's keep going until they grow numb"

self-sufficient, meaning "next to zero trust in parental figures' ability in various aspects of parenting"

Like, Edwin says out loud to Charles that they need to bounce before Death shows up, “or she will collect us, too.” As if this is a revelation to Charles, who has been cheerfully dodging Death for over thirty years.

Anyway. Rather than accepting that for the rushed exposition it obviously is, I like to imagine that the boys loudly stage this conversation every time they think Death is close enough to hear it. They’re trying to make her feel bad for them, so if they DO get caught one day they can tug on her heartstrings and bargain for release.

G H O S T a dead boy detectives au comic inspired by a poem by cynthia huntington, a #deadgaysantas present for @mellxncollie <3