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Edwin Paine - Blog Posts
Okay, so something I’ve noticed in Dead Boy Detectives episode 3 that I haven’t seen anyone talking about yet is Edwin and Niko’s talk in the library.
So Niko asks Edwin while he’s in disguise 4 questions.
1. Are you always a woman?
2. Is Charles a woman too?
3. Can you change your eyes and nose like Mr. Potato Head?
4. Do you know who Mr. Potato Head is?
And do you know what Edwin’s answers were?
Yes, No, No, Yes.
IM SORRY, EDWIN???? YES YOU’RE ALWAYS A WOMAN??????? WHAT????
Anyway, trans Edwin canon.
🎵 maybe it will did turn out this time on the road to hell, on the railroad line 🎵
is being really pretty a requirement to play those gay ghost boys or
finally got around to the dead boy detectives episode of doom patrol.
I absolutely love that Edwin Payne is a huge bitch in every continuity 🤣 MY BOY
Guys guys guys guys-
Doom Patrol Edwin Paine 🤝 DBD Edwin Payne
Oh I love how Edwin suffers no matter what series, really pay homage to his last name
underated part of the dead patrol episode is that edwin gets called “judgey harry potter” which is not only hilarious but also a lowkey accurate comparison
Crystal: The next person that says "weird flex but okay" is going to get kicked in the shins.
Edwin: Preposterous boast but alas...
Watched the one Doom Patrol episode with the dead boy detectives in it yesterday and I still can't get over their method for "astral projection". This version of Edwin has my heart.
No one ever point this out to Charles - something something his parents making love painful and Charles clawing his way out of the cycle
I know we make jokes about Edwin’s harem but it’s deeply tragic how every man who has ever desired Edwin romantically has also hurt him in profound ways. Simon is the reason Edwin was sent to hell. Monty abused his trust and nearly got him and Charles killed. The Cat King manipulated his repressed attraction and leashed him like a pet, keeping him trapped in a town with a murderous witch. All the while, the man Edwin actually loves, the man who has been nothing but kind and gentle and devoted towards him, does not love him back. Not in that way. Something Something Love is a punishment for not having been strong enough to remain alone.
I really want something where Crystal and Charles see all of Edwins memories. Maybe Crystal is trying some new stuff with her powers and accidently drags Charles with her into Edwin's memories.
Some of it flashes by quick. His childhood, the years with Charles before they met Crystal, the cat king, Monty, a majority of Port Townsend.
Some of it drags by. His death, hell, meeting Charles, hell again, Esther, Niko.
She knows Charles kind of has an idea of what to expect but knowing and seeing are two different things.
Crystal can't even watch most of it. Crouching down and covering her eyes, crying and occasionally making a sound like she was going to be sick.
They can't make any changes, of course, and they can't talk to anyone. These things have already happened and they're just watching them but Charles breaks her heart.
He bounces between furious and devastated.
He walks around the boys holding Edwin down to sacrifice him like he's looking for an opening, around and around restlessly. He knows, even better than she does, that he can't do anything.
Hell is even worse. Charles is clearly upset but he's not surprised, a grim determination that has him trailing after Edwin like a shadow. He keeps up with Edwin, running with him through the hallways and making himself watch each time it all starts over. He runs back to find the new Edwin and sticks close again, right beside him or behind him. He doesn't get in the way or try to stop it, he can't do anything so he's trying to provide a comfort that Edwin can't feel.
He sits with Edwin when he finds a place to hide, just watching him. Sometimes he talks. She can't hear what he's saying but she can guess.
Sometimes the demon doesn't kill Edwin right away and he isn't hiding so much as trying to find a place to curl up and die. Charles follows, sometimes circling him like he had when they saw the boys who sacrificed him.
She doesn't understand why he's making himself watch it all. How can he watch it when Crystal can barely tolerate just the sounds?
She's never seen him so focused. She thinks he might have forgotten she's even here.
Ghosts bleed here, they can feel and, the last thing Edwin felt as a living being was hands holding him down and the last thing he truely felt while dead would have been the last time the demon ripped him apart before he escaped hell. No wonder he's less bothered by iron than Charles. Iron is nothing compared to this.
She wants to tell Charles to come over to her. Tell him to stop watching, god why is he watching?
She knows why though, because he needs to know. Usually the mind can conjure up things much worse than reality but she thinks that neither of them could have imagined something like this. She knows Charles saw some of it when he went to get Edwin the second time but it wasn't a lot. He and Edwin were both tight-lipped when it came to hell, other than Edwin mentioning it vaguely here and there, usually in arguments.
He passes her again as he follows Edwin, again and again, and she goes to yell at him but she stops. His jaw is clenched the way he does it when he's truely furious, and his mouth is a thin line.
Charles can be scary when he's angry, especially when he's angry because someone has hurt Edwin. He would never hurt her but there's a cautiousness to how she speaks to him when he gets like this. Forget the cricket bat, he looks like he'd throw himself at the demon with just his nails and teeth if he could.
The memories go on and he's just as restless during Edwin's second trip to hell, only relaxing when he appeared in the memory.
Watching Esther is hard, Charles doesn't move during this one, just stands by the table Edwin is stuck on and stares.
This one is different and she thinks it because Charles was here for this one. She knows he's in the kitchen, kept in place with an iron collar and stuck listening to Edwin scream.
Crystal loses track of them as she sees Niko in the corner and sudden she needs to see it. She can feel Charles look over at them as Niko dies on the floor but he stays where he is until Edwin is up and next to Niko too.
More memories slip by until they're suddenly thrown back into the real world.
It's jarring, like something smacked them on the back of their heads. It takes them a minute for the world to stop spinning and their thoughts to reform. It's been seconds, maybe a minute, since they'd been thrown into the memories. Crystal feels like she's aged 10 years.
She does think she understands Charles a lot more now. She knows she's going to be reluctant to let Edwin off somewhere by himself, not that Charles would let him.
Edwin looks nervous, looking at them then the floor and back up to them again. He straightens the ends of his sleeves the way he does when he needs something to do with his hands and then he starts to press against each other. He must have a good idea of what happened and what they probably saw.
She remembers one of the deaths where he had ended up close to where she's been curled up. The way he laid on his side and just stared at the wall, quiet and accepting, the way tears rolled down his face and he just kept bleeding. Until he didn't anymore and Charles took off without a word to go find the new him again.
Niko is beside him and looks at both Charles and her with big eyes. She wonders what they look like, if they look any different to her and Edwin.
Charles makes a vague stangled noise beside her, makes a move towards Edwin, and she takes a deep breath.
Right. Okay, she and Niko need to leave. Like, right now. She has a feeling that the boys need to have a very long talk. And just cling to each other for awhile.
She grabs Niko, who looks at Edwin to see if he wants her to stay but he shakes his head just enough for her to let Crystal get them both out the door and away.
As they're leaving, she wonders what she'd do if someone had shown her Niko's death over and over. She looks at the other girl, who still looks worried but gives Crystal a little smile.
Maybe they need to have a talk too.
🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙
Two side notes:
*Currently living for the idea of Charles and Crystal going feral over Edwin and Niko being hurt. And vice versa.
*You know when dogs/wolves circle something over and over, like they're trying to herd it or just watching from all sides? Idk for some for some reason I just picture that from Charles in certain situations. Especially when he can't do anything. Just circling it over and over like eventually he'll see something, find a way to do something.
When I first started watching DBD I did NOT think that the repressed edwardian twink is gonna be the character I relate to the most but here we are...
theres probably someone whos already pointed this out, but anyway
so when in niko and edwin are in the gift shop by the lighthouse in episode 4 (??) theres a table with some dolls on it. and one of these dolls is a baby doll and when edwin sees it he looks at it with disgust (if i remember correctly) and turns the head away from himself. and that has got to be connected to him being tortured by a disgusting baby doll spider creature for 70 years, or at least thats what i think.
Y’all just to preface I am insane (I mean I am on tumblr so…).
WHAT IF…
When Charles went to find Edwin in hell what if Edwin wasn’t in the room. What if Charles went down to hell and he best friend of some odd 30 years or so wasn’t there and all he saw was he’s best friends body being ripped apart by the spider-baby-demon-thing. That would’ve been devastating but also like what if he got to see Edwin running and getting caught and then torn apart. That’s would also have been devastating but what if. I mean sure I would’ve been sobbing hysterically and all that but like it would’ve been fun (put me in that writers room y’all all be dead, and cry hysterically but it would be fun).
Lilith is so special to me in dbd
Edwin is evidence that the sassy man apocalypse isn’t real… nope, it’s just an innate part of all men to be sassy no matter the time period.
I finally convinced my friend to start dbd!!!!
(I sent them a million edits of all the characters and they finally broke because all the women are absolutely gorgeous)
No because like genuinely
WHAT WAS THAT STORY LINE?!?!?
Let us have the cute lesbian couple plsssss
Watching Dead Boy Detectives like:
Man, I love the Butcher Lesbian with the Librarian Lesbian 🥰
Me, 20 min later: 😳😳😳
"well i guess all three of us lost our lives to boys who went too far."
So like WHEN we get a season 2
How do we think Edwin will react to seeing Niko again?
Like cause we see her with the sprites so idk
Me watching dbd at all hours as if I don’t have things I need to do
THIS IS SO CUTE IM DYING
Niko gave him assigned reading
Yes this is another post about Dead Boy Detectives okay I’m on a roll.
Simons punishment in Hell is so heartbreaking to me. He has to tear pages out of the book where he put Edwin and his initials and the ‘headmaster’ tells him he can stop when he finishes the whole book, but the book keeps replacing itself. And it hits so emotionally if you have ever had to hide or repress queer emotion. Simon is being punished for simply having emotion and he thinks if he can stop having that emotion (finish tearing out all the pages) all the pain will stop. Being queer isn’t something that just leaves you… it is always there and sometimes it causes you pain because others can’t accept it maybe even you yourself can’t accept it. (Ex. Simon saying Does it have to be torture? Bring the way we are?) Then our boy Edwin who has been trying to deal with the repression he’s had for so long tells him that it’s okay to be queer and if you ever make yourself believe it’s not okay you are making your own hell.
That whole scene was very sad and also happy since Simon ends up accepting himself. I cried about it multiple times (rn is one of those times).
Edwin asking Charles “what’s a handjob?” is my version of what would kill a Victorian child.
The forever question you have to ask in wlw relationships. Are the sparks between us because we like each other or because a sprite is trying to kill you?
i really thought there was something between them at first lol
Esther Finch was a bitch serving every time she was on screen (Im in love with her).
Edwin Paine is me if anyone actually liked me.
Hey people of Tumblr!
I'm trying to turn "Fencer Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne" into an official AO3 tag, so please please please if you've written or you'll write about Edwin fencing, even if it's just a mention of fencing, please use the tag🙏
Also I promise I'm not out of the fandom, sorry I've been quiet for a while, but I'm not planning on going anywhere 💪 and have more fics to come. I haven't abandoned the fandom.
Being here is great and I love this wonderful fandom. We got so little and made so much out of it, I love us.
At this point I just refuse to believe Charles is not inlove with Edwin.
Like besides the fact he looks at him like he's the sun and stars and everything in the universe and all of that; it's so in character for Charles to fall for the first boy that ever showed him kindness. The first person that was ever nice to him, made him feel safe, cared for him as he died. After the way they met?? Of course Charles will bloody fall for Edwin, how couldn't he?
That's so in character of him.
Charles Rowland and Edwin Payne are so real, I too would've avoided understanding my sexuality or confronting with my trauma for decades.