#the case of the devlin house

[shaylogic]

Okay, so we know that Charles' polo goes red>burgundy>black and back by the end of the season.

Because there's so much going on, I always missed the exact transitions. This time I specifically tracked them down. (Apologies if this has already been done.)

Charles shirt is bright red through the majority of the Devlin House, even in Hope's Diary scene, when he opens up to Crystal.

Even when he first swings at Mr. Devlin and gets knocked back, his shirt is red.

The very subtle shift to burgundy is after he disappears and first reappears in the loop.

It remains burgundy throughout the entire lighthouse leapers episode and beginning of the two dead dragons.

I finally realized the very last moment we see of Charles in the burgundy is with Crystal. She tells him after the confusing makeout night, "But I think we should be friends," and kind-hearted Charles, of course, respects that and puts on a friendly smile.

It's difficult to see in the next scene with him because of his jacket, the angle he sits at on the ladder, and the lighting, but it's immediately after that when we first see him in the black polo.

My brother in death, you are NOT doing well.

here's another song from Jayden Revri's official Charles playlist, that I think is about this conflict with Crystal:

His shirt is still black during the "I don't wanna be a bad guy" scene.

After Edwin's affirmation of Charles' inherent goodness, it is directly after this scene that the shirt goes back to burgundy!!!

He's still wearing the burgundy during the confession:

BUT IT GOES BACK TO BRIGHT RED LITERALLY RIGHT AFTER EDWIN'S CONFESSION AND THEY ESCAPE HELL TOGETHER!

Yo I equally love Cryland and Payneland but the show canonly said "Crystal hit him in the loneliness and Edwin hit him in the loved"

[zmorak]

We live in a terrible time loop

Idea: @knifesimmons, my execution

[mountainsoftreatos]

So something kinda funny (and peak married behavior) that I noticed on rewatch is that during the Devlin house ep Edwin scolds Charles for not knowing what the Stone Tape Theory is -

Those texts in our office are not just for display.

And then a few scenes later Crystal asks him -

Is there anything in that crazy infinite backpack you could use?

And he replies -

It took Charles years of research and practice to learn how to use it. If I stick my hand in there it is liable to be torn off!

Like, Edwin, babes, Charles could have been reading the books but you also could have been learning to use the backpack. But they don't, because they rely on each other for that knowledge or that skill.

[fan-a-tink]

Everyone asking for a scene in season 2 where Charles is missing and Edwin is the one who either goes feral or has to rescue Charles, have you forgotten about the case of the devlin house? Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see more of this as well, but we already had the scenario where Charles is lost and Edwin does the rescuing. And not only did Edwin give us one of his most devastating lines - I could… we could lose Charles - but he was also absolutely determined to save Charles and did so all on his own when Crystal got harassed by David. He was kind of like beyond panic and just tunnel-vision focussed on getting Charles out of that trauma-loop.

Edwin Payne would go to hell and back for Charles Rowland just as much as the other way around.

[pippin-katz]

Not so friendly suggestion, but maybe it took so long for Edwin to hear the misery wraith in the Devlin House is because he heard them so frequently in Hell that his mind learned to automatically tune them out so he could listen for the Spider...

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Dead Boy Detectives: The Case of the Devlin House || Kyle Tran Myhre, Voting As a Fire Extinguisher

[theworldisabrokenbonebutitishome]

I know it's used partly as a 'ah-ha! gotcha!' plot twist that the letter in episode 3 is actually for one of the girls to go to university, and not that stacey devlin was leaving brandon for another man, but i still appreciate that it's a subtle way of saying this man has not been wronged at all and is not deserving of a seconds moment of sympathy. i don't think someone cheating or leaving a relationship for another person constitutes a loophole for murder, just to be clear, but it is the type of thing that some people would use to victim blame and rationalise the actions of bad men, there are plenty of news reports that could provide supporting evidence for this. women and girls who turn a man down and then he goes on a killing spree and yet it's the woman exercising her autonomy that gets judged, no matter how subtly.

of course jenny has already made this point when getting asked about the murders earlier in the episode: who cares what his trigger was? it is never going to be something that could excuse or rationalise his actions so why even bother trying to work out his logic because it will never result in justice? the reason is meaningless to her, it will never change the fact that this was a man who murdered his family, nothing excuses that.

but then, it turns out that the letter isn't actually causing the loop either. the contents of the letter actually becomes rather irrelevant to solving the case. it comes down to the vhs recording of the murders captured on the cameras brandon devlin installed. he caused their deaths because he was a controlling prick who could not bear the thought of his daughters one day leaving his house, his control, and his surveillance. and he caused them to get stuck in a loop reliving that night for 30 years because he had previously set up hidden recording equipment that captured the trauma. he didn't know that was possible but nevertheless every part of the horrors these women have been stuck in has been caused by him. there is no way to excuse him spying on his family in their own home and everything that spirals from that sickening behaviour.

i just think it's important how this episode really emphasises that the actions of controlling and abusive people is what causes the pain and suffering. victims should not have to answer questions about how they set off their abuser because that is not something they can control and also is rarely a rational thing, abusers are not reasonable.

[galacticlamps]

the way Edwin's immediate reaction upon seeing the misery wraith in the Devlin house is to grab Crystal and cover her mouth, even while he's explaining (apparently calmly) that it hunts by sensing negativity and pain - presumably instead of using sight or sound

and the way that he does the exact same thing to Charles when they're reunited in Hell, but here he urges him specifically to be quiet (in what must be the most barely audible line of dialogue in the whole show) because he's found that's the only way he can get a short reprieve between bouts of torture from the spider thing (to the point that when he ran into Simon earlier he - rather nonsensically - believed the sound of tearing paper behind a closed door was also a big risk)

All I'm saying is, it doesn't look like it was actually all that important he stop Crystal from making noise in the Devlin house, and as much as that scene originally read as Edwin kinda having his shit together while Charles & Crystal were both more affected & then literally incapacitated, his head couldn't have been half as clear as it first seemed if his immediate reaction was reverting to Surviving Hell Tactics even when they weren't really helpful or applicable here

[alexwilltellyouthings]

I think Charles doesn't realize the extent of the abuse he went through.

He's aware it was wrong, he hates his father for it, but it's easy to forget all the ways in which abuse happens when there's a physical aspect to it.

He can tell he didn't deserve to be hit, but when he mentions his dad broke his tape on episode 3 and Crystal reacts, he seemed to not have even considered it to be a big deal. Because compared to the physical violence, it doesn't look like it is.

Devlin's case forced him to confront it a little more, with the girl's diary; I believe it was one of the only moments in which he mentions the controlling bit, the feeling of never being enough, which is related to but not entirely about the physical aspect of the abuse.

My point is: he probably doesn't know how deep his own trauma goes. How not just his father's fists affected him, but also his father's words, the way he had control over Charles' things, and all the "small" ways in which that kind of person holds onto power.

Also, I think it's very interesting how Charles says he "wasn't enough, no matter how good he was at sports". It wasn't how good his grades were, or how quiet he was to no disturb his dad, or anything else. They chose to go with sports specifically. And now, Charles is ok with not being the brains, he's ok with not being quiet, but he's definitely not ok with failing to be the brawn. That's the one thing he has to be.

(this sports bit also makes me believe his father was actively homophobic but that's a whole other post)

In conclusion, Charles needs therapy. Surprise!

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Idk why I keep going back to The Case of the Devlin House what kind of fucking masochist am I.

But it's just. It's just done so well. The wholesome and lighthearted moments, with the dandelion sprites or with Charles and Crystal or Monty meeting Edwin, and the glaring contrast with the absolute HORRORS that happen in the episode.

And how the horrifying parts aren't even the supernatural elements. It's not the misery-ghoul-whats-its-name that's terrifying. It's the human man who is a fucking asshole, creep and brutal murderer, and what he did, and who he was. And the echoes of that toxicity that Charles sees his own father in. The monsters are the humans. The same thing happens with the date between Jenny and the librarian.

It's the human part and the knowledge of how real those situations are and how they occur every day around the world, in some degree. How humans are entirely capable of those things. That's what's the horror. Not the ghosts, but how they lived and died, how Charles and Edwin and the Devlin family and so many other people were killed.

GOD this episode brought back dark memories for me but I cannot help going to it because it's so well done.

[cull3nblaze]

Edwin, you just said it would take an incredibly strong emotion to get someone new stuck in the loop and Charles is stuck. You're the detective. You can deduce what that has to mean... He's been hiding it from you. Probably been hiding it from himself.

He wouldn't hide things from me.

You insane? Everyone keeps secrets. Like you're totally honest about everything in your life?

Charles & Edwin - Dead Boy Detectives - The Case of the Devlin House (1x03)

[shaylogic]

[marril96]

Dead Boy Detectives 1.03 | The Case of the Devlin House

[mountainsoftreatos]

I like how Edwin and Charles phase through the door of the Devlin house and then Charles unlocks and opens the door for Crystal, but I think it'd be funny if at some point the boys are in a hurry or distracted and they just forget that she can't go through doors and she's left outside for a while like "boys! I think you forgot me!"

[fan-a-tink]

1.03 gifs

Niko & Edwin ✨

"counting cats"

Esther: "Where's the uptight one?" Charles:

other episode gif sets: 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8

[pippin-katz]

Random Satisfying & Clever Moments Of Audio From Dead Boy Detectives - Part 1

There's a few moments in DBD that utilize audio really well, or use sounds that always stick out to me while watching, and these are some of those moments!

I was going to make this a list post, but then I remembered that tumblr only lets you put one video in each post, and I want to include clips of the sounds I'm talking about. So multi-part series it is!

Ep. 3 - The Case of the Devlin House: Charles' pleading in the background of the first two run-throughs of the Devlin murders.

It's very easy to miss the first few times through, especially if you're watching it through a TV or a device without headphones, but underneath the screaming of the girls, there's an echoing audio of Charles begging his dad to stop hitting him from the flashback we see in the next episode.

It's a super clever touch that probably went unnoticed by the average viewer, but they included it regardless. I love when thought, care, and effort is put into every part of a piece of media simply for the sake of making it, and making it well. This doesn't feel added in for the audience, but because the sound designers just felt it worked.

And if people pick up on it? That's an added bonus!

part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

(ko-fi)