Some Edwardian Slang/turns Of Phrase From This Dictionary That I Imagine Are Still In Edwins Vocabulary,

some edwardian slang/turns of phrase from this dictionary that i imagine are still in edwin’s vocabulary, or his internal monologue, or private writing (some a bit more late victorian in the sense of years but since there was overlap in the eras in practice, could probably still in use in edwin’s time)

there are lots of other words and turns of phrase listed at the link above, but these are just some i thought were neat for edwin specifically! <3

top-hole - he does use this one on the show! for excellent, the very best (“top-hole job today, niko” <3)

wizard - excellent, as in “a wizard time” - please imagine edwin telling charles he had a wizard time after a date… so cute…

nasty jar - a bit of a sticky situation

grig - grasshopper or cricket. “merry as a grig” - ecstatic or jumping for joy

footle (nonsense) - talk nonsense or waste time

cropper - hard fall, as from a horse. usually used in “come a cropper” as in to come to ruin or fail miserably

balmy on the crumpet - insane

fast for extravagant or wild and flash for showy

poodle-faker - a man who spent too much time in the society of women, engaging in such activates as tea parties, balls, etc. - i imagine it would be the sort of thing edwin would hear said about people or implied about himself…

other words and phrases still being used today - “crack up” - to praise or laud (i assume this would be a “not all it’s cracked up to be” sort of usage); “nightie” for nightgown; “rooky” for a new recruit; “cushy” for easy (1915); and “down” - to be critical - i’m assuming this would be used as in “he was down on himself,” more or less the way it is now but not 100% sure; but to note, to be “screwed” was to be drunk or intoxicated, compared to say, if crystal were to say “we’re screwed!” during a case and mean it as hopeless. also, “feeling punk” was feeling ill (1896)

heart-whole (not in love) and repining for/that (longing/yearning for/thinking regretfully of), e. g. “His tendency… to repine for even the minutiæ of his old life” (1897, but close enough) or “bitterly repining” - these would absolutely show up in edwin’s journal…

see “repining” as “yearning” in this bit of “A Song of Eternity in Time” by Sidney Lanier (written 1867, revised 1879), which gives me such payneland feelings

Once, at night, in the manor wood

My Love and I long silent stood,

Amazed that any heavens could

Decree to part us, bitterly repining.

My Love, in aimless love and grief,

Reached forth and drew aside a leaf

That just above us played the thief

And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

Charles realizing he's in love with Edwin after all, my beloved

I have another thought about the “Edwin not knowing stuff because he was in hell for decades” thing

Charles tells him about the guy he saved being from Pakistan and how he’s half Indian, and Edwin tells him they were the same country during his lifetime, so when did Edwin find out about Pakistan?

How long was he out of hell for before he met Charles? How much time did he have to catch up on everything? Did he study everything at the school or did he somehow find out while in hell?

I need to know so much more about the 30 years between Edwin escaping hell and the events of the series

I think one of the things that makes Payneland so so so irresistible and makes us INSANE is that they have the kind of bond you read about in classical love stories, that kind of mythological devotion, and still they are so very human.

They are Achilles and Patroclus but not in a distant, 2000 year old tale way. They feel real enough to be our friends if it was possible, which is always amazing in a character, and YET the strength of their love feels just as real.

So this is why I cry about them everyday I guess

"you like dead boy detectives so much you must have a lot of merch"

this... this is all i have...

I really just decided I needed something with ghosts because yeah. It was very fun to make actually, and now I will take the fan out everywhere I go. Brills!

Reference images under the cut

Dead Boy Detectives scenes but as skeleton memes: