I stare into the void

and thinking about the idea of hell and the idea of forgiveness and the idea that you only stay in hell if you feel like you belong there. and how edwin says that he was never meant to be in hell to begin with but still building up a case for himself to prove it because him not deserving hell might not be immediately obvious

thinking about how edwin died because of a hate crime, how he died being made to feel that there is something fundamentally wrong with him and getting sent to hell right after. and thinking about how edwin saying "if you punish yourself, everywhere becomes hell" and over a century of repression and supressing the parts of himself that got him killed, that got him sent to hell in the first place. and thinking about how when the night nurse looked at edwin's file, it didn't know if he belonged in hell or somewhere else either because edwin didn't know because edwin knows that he never did anything to deserve hell but he didn't get sent to hell because of anything he did but because of what he is and maybe there's a difference and maybe he believes that he never did anything wrong but maybe some part of him believes that he, personally, is wrong

and thinking about forgiveness and salvation and how people actually get out of hell, and how edwin forgave simon because they were two queer kids in the same shitty situation both in life and in death and it didn't matter how simon hurt edwin because he still needed to understand that being gay was not a punishment, and thinking about simon getting out of hell right after

We live in a terrible time loop

He is entirely confident in himself, and comfortable being himself, free to be as fussy, effeminate, and old-fashioned as he likes, because the only person whose opinion of him he gives a fuck about is Charles, and Charles thinks everything about Edwin is brilliant and he can do no wrong. Thirty years of Charles's radical acceptance has allowed him not only to be himself, but to be himself fearlessly.

LOOK AT HIS EYES. LOOK AT THE MIXTURE OF HURT, AND FEAR, AND SADNESS IN HIS EYES. HE IS VULNERABLE. HE IS MAD THAT HIS DEATH WAS "AN ACT OF GOD". HE IS MAD THAT NO ONE REMEMBERS HIM OR CHARLES. HE IS SCARED OF WHAT CRYSTAL IS DOING TO THEIR RELATIONSHIP. HE FEELS HELPLESS THAT THEY DON'T KNOW HOW HANDLE A WITCH AND HE FEELS INCOMPETENT. AND IF HES INCOMPETENT, THAN HE CANT HELP OTHERS. HE WILL BLAME HIMSELF FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S UNSOLVED CASES/UNFINISHED BUISINESS.

And as we know this roots back to the fear of Hell.

If he can't help others, then he has nothing to argue about being sent back to Hell. And he's terrified of Hell. That is when he felt the most helpless and vulnerable. That pit in his gut is the most painful thing in the world to him.

In the OFFICIAL character sheet in the omnibus, it says:

The base ESSENCE of Edwin's whole character is that he wants to be safe. But he's in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar place (America), with an uncomfortable, unfamiliar person (Crystal), on an uncomfortable, unfamiliar case (witch). This is scaring him and he doesn't know what to do!