#dbda meta

are heavily tinted green (it's hard to see bc of the dark lighting but when you start playing with the colors it's clear they are so green)

and it's because these are Charles's and Jenny's Hells

Jenny is living her worst nightmare of allowing herself to be vulnerable and getting hurt

Charles is living his worst nightmare of not being able to protect Edwin

Because like... well, Crystal goes and actively seeks out her asshole ex who she only just got out of her head. Which says so much about how kind and caring and brave she is at heart and I love her for it but it doesn't ultimately end up being all that helpful to the situation at hand.

But Niko... it seems like Niko just passively accepts it. She knows she can't help with literal actual hell so she just stays behind and waits. And no one questions that. Everyone has always respected her ability to tap out of the scary adventures and that's lovely and if that was it that would be perfectly fine storytelling.

But it gets better. When Edwin and Charles return, we realize that she hasn't just been sitting and waiting. She realized that she couldn't help with Hell, so she looked ahead to what the next obstacle would be for her friends, and she looked at the Night Nurse and she realized there was a way she could help. So she sat with this woman who wanted to take away her friends and she played the fool and asked questions and convinced the night nurse to let her see the rules and regulations just to stop her chattering - knowing that if she could just find a loophole, she could buy them some time. So she dove into this book of regulations, and she found a loophole. She probably found a few, just in case the first didn't work.

And no one - not even the audience - realizes what she's done until it's done. It's brilliant and she makes it look easy. It's something only she can do, and it works with Charles' plan, even if he isn't trying to work with her.

Edwin might be book smart but Niko is the one who is willing to ask questions and listen to the answers. And the information she finds this way is always so critical.

HOWEVER

I think actually it's Charles who should be more shooketh about Edwin in his funky lil edwardian two piece!!

Picture this. The year is 1916. You are 16 year old Edwin Payne with a bunch of repressed gay thoughts. Much unpleasantness happens, you die and get dragged to hell, even more unpleasantness happens, 70 years later you finally manage to claw your way up and suddenly women are allowed to vote. There's been not one but two world wars, several countries you grew up reading about in the news don't exist anymore and mini skirts are a thing now.

All I'm saying is, for all the teasing Edwin gets for "What is a handjob?" and "Crystal's internet", this kid was essentially thrust into a scifi world full of weird shit and gets mostly by via an attitude which can only be paraphrases as "fuck it, this might as well be a thing (maybe ask Charles about it later)". King of adaption, master of radical acceptance.

Charles on the other hand, and I say this with only love in my heart, is at his core a boomer. He was there for every tiny gradual shift from '89 to modern day. Sure, he was dead for most of that time, but that's not really relevant. All I'm saying is, seeing the bbc announce marriage equality was probably a bigger shock to Charles than it was to Edwin. That's a guy who already had to accept he will never fully wrap his head around home television.

Also consider the states of undress they've been exposed to seeing the other in. Edwin was stripped to his underwear in hell and still had his knees and elbows covered. And that was probably a more exposing outfit than he'd ever be comfortable with. His usual casual get up features a sweater vest for crying out loud! Meanwhile you have Charles going full 'ceps out in his undershirt first chance he gets. Edwin either got real cool with a lot of shit real fast or he would have combusted several times over those 30 years.

And yes yes, we've all seen Edwin "Haunted By Gay Thoughts" Payne's mental slideshow of abs n hips close ups after getting one (1) glance at the Cat King's stomach. But to his credit, the man was going through a full blown sexuality crisis at that and has since emerged victorious.

So all I'm saying is. Edwin seeing Charles shirtless at the beach? Probably not even the first time this is happening, a lil flustering for sure but just last week he saw two people making out nasty on the tube so hell if he knows. Charles seeing Edwin's kneecaps and upper arms for the first time? Incredible, show stopping, pride and predjudice 2005 hand flex level of suppressed horniness.

he hasn’t had the luxury of being able to simply sit still, to sit and read, in so long. and when he used to read them to himself he’d read them quietly, alone in classrooms, hiding his magazine to his chest when others came upon him. hiding his fascination with the stories, hiding his whimsy.

and he’s been running for so long, running and running and running and torn apart and torn apart and torn apart, four times longer than he’d ever been alive. long enough maybe to forget this small thing that brought him joy - to render it inconsequential in the face of his immeasurable suffering.

but he emerges into the attic and the stack of magazines, the stories that he loved are just where he left them. simple compared to the visceral and existential horror of hell. comforting. and this time there is someone for him to read them to aloud - someone else for him to comfort, who doesn’t think it’s trivial.

and edwin can feel free enough to laugh at the story, to do all the voices, to get wrapped up in it again, and share all of that with charles.

But that's not the point of this post.

The point is that Charles makes the exact same leap in logic when talking to Edwin about Crystal in episode 1. Edwin brings up the Puppy Debacle of '94, which I've always interpreted as referring to a living puppy, since Edwin's biggest problem with Crystal in this scene is ostensibly that she's living. But that's all Charles needs, and instead of easing any of the worries Edwin has expressed (living girl, Puppy Debacle, Death having been in their office), he says, "Oh, I get it. You're jealous there's someone else here." And he's right. (Even if Edwin won't admit it.)

Vs Charles 'I like emotions. Big emotions guy, me' who will manage everyone's issues before he admits that he even has any of his own

This works great with their everything, too: Edwin, invisible and quiet all his life, now taking up all the space he wants vs Charles, under constant scrutiny for 16 years, seeking the safety of being unperceived

Idk, I was reminded of that while reading a fic and I really like it