This Is Like Peter Pan If It Was Tragic - Tumblr Posts
compilation of thoughts relating to trauma, dbda, & ghosts
ghosts can't grow up. by definition, ghosts are trapped at the ages they died at. that's how it works. so edwin is sixteen and charles is sixteen and technically they are fifty and a hundred but mostly they are sixteen.
trauma can often stunt someone at the age you are traumatized at. this can relate to a singular field (ie, have a traumatic romantic relationship, and thereby not maturing in romantic relations), or all around.
i saw in an interview with one of the show creators -i can't remember which interview- but that season two would be about growing up, and how that's ironic because they are ghosts.
god, there was this dbda fic i read once where edwin lost his memories of being dead and charles says something like "he hasn't been sixteen in all the time i've known him."
edwin is sixteen. he is a ghost and he is traumatized. and he is also not sixteen. he is also an adult and devastated and a child and mostly he is scared and traumatized.
in that big comic compilation thing that i don't own but have seen screenshots of, it says edwin's essence is that he wants to feel safe. edwin is sixteen and at a new boarding school and he needs to feel safe, and edwin is 123 and so deeply traumatized that he needs to feel safe. has edwin ever felt safe? has edwin ever felt like a child?
trauma can mature you and it can infantilize you. it can make you never feel safe, even when the danger is gone.
i've heard that saint hilarion's is a boarding school for military brats. which means edwin's dad is fighting in world war one. edwin would have been drafted if he hadn't died. they both might have died in the war. they could have died side by side or having not spoken for months. he does not have the safety of knowing his dad will survive the week.
something something being a ghost isn't an allegory for trauma but they do intersect. death and trauma and life and what could have beens and the nothingness that is between it all