#edwin and charles in hell

[gameo-archive]

"Did you have a particular favourite moment or directing decision that contributed to this episode's [The Case of the Very Long Stairway's] success?"

Praise for the acting, especially Ruth, Jayden & George, as well as praise for Steve Yockey's script. Every person in the crew gets a shoutout for their specific contribution. Also, he mentions that, since he did the Despair episode, he also got to shoot the Death scene in the pilot.

He is such a fan of the show, you guys. He bemoans the cancellation SEVERAL times and invites any further questions because he loves talking about the show.

[jimjamgem]

Here's the finished piece, hope your Friday was brills.

[myiliterallyhavenolifegoals]

What I do find low key funny is that in most shows/movies, when a character goes through their Traumatic Incident™️, they're almost always very tight lipped and secretive about what happened to them.

However if you speak to Edwin Payne for more than 20 minutes, not only will he tell you that he was in Hell, he'll give you a time scale and recommendations for restaurants there. He's leaving catty reviews on TripAdvisor. He's the Edwardian equivalent of a vlogger who had a bad time at a starbucks and has to make a 40+ minute call out video. Conceptually he should be Broody and Mysterious but he's fundamentally too much of a gay little bitch to keep shit to himself.

[montyfinchirl]

A dead boy with a cricket bat and a magic backpack: if you wanna get to him you have to go through me!

Another dead boy who spent over 70 years in hell AND clawed his way out of it, is an insanely skilled magic user, doesn’t even notice when he’s burnt by iron, and got up and started walking around like he was in barely any pain after being trapped in a machine for half an hour that evaporates other ghosts in SECONDS: :3

[seance]

DEAD BOY DETECTIVES + the onion headlines

[khorazir]

For today’s and tomorrow’s @dbdpromptober : Blood & Hell

[technically-human]

When the ghost who read to you as you died activates all of your Must Protect instincts

[gameo-archive]

"I am always intrigued by Charles and Edwin's reactions to seeing their reflections in Hell. What would you two say went through their heads at that moment?

How do you think Edwin was affected by being a teenager in World War One and knowing he might have to take part in it?

The show has touched me very deeply, and it has inspired me to reach out to people again, which I hadn't done in a long time."

Thanks to @pipwasreal for transcribing!

So I wasn't sure if I was going to share my cameo because it's a little bit more personal towards the end, but I decided I rather wanted to share the video than just transcribe their answers to my questions.

I asked them about their thoughts on Charles and Edwin seeing their reflections in episode 7 and about Edwin's experience as a teenager during WWI.

[leahaart]

Eeepy boys

[minnaeatsbread]

something something about edwin, the hyper-verbal, eloquent language person, being reduced to a simple 'Charles, I'm in love with you' and Charles, normally answering immediately with exactly what he's thinking in that moment taking the time to think about an answer before giving it

[fear0phobia]

Payneland | Euripides, from "Orestes", an Oresteia - Anne Carson

[wilderbas]

green is for emotional stability | besties

[idontknowwhatimdoing-13]

Charles Rowland really figured out how to friendzone someone and tell them you’re in love with them at the same time.

[myiliterallyhavenolifegoals]

I've never been more right about anything in my life ever 💚

[sweetlullabyebye]

Charles Rowland being so chill about Edwin's fanboys

[sthilarions]

AU where Charles and Edwin both died two years older, at 18.

Edwin was an officer, in WWI. Sensitive, gentle Edwin; “I shan’t hurt you” Edwin; Edwin who had not been tempered by Hell. Edwin whose fellow soldiers already hated him for being a nellie.

During the Great War, the British government found 20,000 members of the armed forces guilty of crimes carrying the death penalty; of those, 346 sentences were carried out. Those executed included 266 for desertion; 18 for cowardice; two for casting away arms. Others for disobedience or sleeping at post or other like crimes.

Edwin has a memorial, in this universe. The Shot at Dawn Memorial, in Staffordshire; a statue of a boy, blindfolded and bound, who lied about his age to join the army and was executed for desertion at 17, with stakes around it representing the hundreds of others killed. Edwin Payne, 1900-1918, has his own stake.

He was posthumously pardoned with the others in 2007, in a ruling which focused less on the pardon and more on how the officers at the time were “doing their best” and should not be “second-guessed”, and with a section stating that the pardon “does not affect any conviction or sentence”.

It turns out Hell’s pretty much happy to accept the judgments of mortal executioners, and Edwin Payne was convicted of a capital crime - and the Inferno has always held special places for cowards and traitors.

Charles Rowland, in winter 1991, saw a bunch of cops beating on a Pakistani boy and jumped into the mess without a second thought. The cops happily switched objective and beat the shit out of him and he ran, swimming across a river - Prescott Channel - that they weren’t willing to jump into, and ended up shivering and bloody in an attic by its banks.

And Edwin Payne - Edwin Payne who was killed for running and for refusing to cause harm, and for liking boys a little too much - Edwin Payne ran right out of Hell and into that attic, and told the boy he met there, the boy he’d just seen executed by a governmental squad for daring to defy their wish to kill, the same as he was - “I shan’t hurt you”.