(I keep meaning to do more with this but it's been, according to my draft timestamp, 361 days since I wrote it so it's going up as is and then maybe that will finally kick me in the pants to do more. ANYWAY)
Edwin and Charles with DID/P-DID/OSDD/etc.
Payne is a tank protector, whose role is to absorb physical pain for the system, who finds himself needed far less after Hell but also less and less as Charles protects them more and more, and eventually starts to exist for other things than just enduring pain.
In Esther’s house, Payne screams while being tortured because as he’s started to step out of his role he’s no longer quite as “good” at it as he was (from his point of view); once upon a time Payne wouldn’t have been capable of screaming, and he only does in Esther’s device because he has become more.
Edwin-the-system (and Edwin-the-outernaut) isn’t always a woman, but Edith is.
The Edwin who is the outernaut after Hell (fluid, expressive, openly bitchy, freely queerly-mannerismed) is not the same as the Edwin Paine who was the outernaut before Hell (extremely restrained, shy, passive, physically pulled-in). Post-Hell Edwin formed in the first few years after Hell and was shaped by Charles’s acceptance and adoration, and their residual anger at authority.
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Charlie Row is aces with people, is able to turn off the part of his brain that sees that his “friends” are assholes in order to happily get along, isn’t a bully but is blind to bullying, doesn’t flinch from raised hands, doesn’t have triggers.
Charles was forcibly switched in, the night they died, because what their “friends” were doing was too much for Charlie Row to be blind to, and Charlie Row had to swap out to maintain himself.
Charlie Row is still useful, still fronts a lot with clients or with certain dangerous powerful individuals; Edwin took over conversation with the Cat King because he knew Charles-the-system would have that conversation as Charlie Row and he would be actively blind to TCK’s dangerous spots (as he later is to Brad and Hunter’s) which would be… not great in that particular situation.
Rowland is a protector/persecutor/avenger. Edwin didn’t know about him for years. He was the one who went after Mr. Devlin and the one who shrugged off Edwin’s hand on the cliff. (He’s the only one of them who’s touch-averse; Edwin didn’t know any of them were, so was shocked to be shrugged off.)
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Edwin Paine was dormant most of the time in Hell, and he fronts very rarely post-Hell. He thinks he’s lesser than Edwin, small and shy and repressed as he is; he comes out when something happens that makes the system feel small again, like they need to hide.
But then he happens to meet Charlie Row, who thinks he’s the cutest little thing; doesn’t think he’s less than Edwin; looks and sounds a lot like the bullies that made Edwin Paine hide but doesn’t act like them deep down...