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Kyle Soller as D.I. Alfred Hillinghead and George Parker as Henry Ashe
BODIES (2023)
DI Hillinghead, 1890. DS Whiteman, 1941. DS Hasan, 2023. and DS Maplewood in 2053. You're not the first detective to discover this body.
"My love for you and Polly, it's so very real. It's just that...there was always something else, just as real. No matter how much I didn't want it to be."
Kyle Soller as D.I. Alfred Hillinghead in BODIES (2023)
"I treat people the way they treat me. I made my peace with that."
Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as D.S. Charles Whiteman/Karl Weissman in BODIES (2023)
four detectives walk into a bar (inspired by @themalhambird's fic )
weissman is an obnoxious drunk who thinks he can handle his liqour but is already sloshed, hillinghead has had one too many and knows as soon as he opens his mouth he will say something incredibly embarassing, hasan is (as always) the only functioning adult of the group and maplewood was last to arrive and first to knock out after one bottle of french wine
Hello! I adore your Bodies fanart. I was imagining Karl in 1890 and how much havoc he would wreak. Also Henry and Karl would get along very well, I think, and Karl would be a *terrible* matchmaker for Henry and Alfred... I'd love to see your take on any of this, if anything comes to you 😍
HELLO OMG THANK YOU FOR THE EXCUSE TO JUST DROP HOT TAKES INTO THE BODIES NETFLIX TAG <3 all these drawings are very scrappy and i lost the plot and this became more like sharing all my hcs but still :')
now that you have brought it to me i really do think henry and karl would be unstoppable, i think they'd constantly have a fun, back-and-forth banter !!! i also can see karl dropping multiple not-so-subtle hints, and all of the detectives being quite supportive. gently too, considering the period-typical homophobia. i do think sometime along the lovelorn pining looks, he gets tired of seeing them orbit each other without anything happening, and this exchange occurs:
more doodles and crying under the cut :)
i will die on the "karl weissman bisexuality" hill. HE TOLD ME IN A DREAM!!!! it's just a little messier for him because he really likes women and will not figure it out ever. charlotte hillinghead TO ME also has the exact opposite problem where she is very much in love with her husband and doesn't have any incentive (or freedom considering the time period) to explore her sexuality. the way she accepted hillinghead's feelings for henry, and was less rejecting and more devastated over thinking he didn't love her or polly, just read queer to me somehow. an acceptance because she's like that too, yk? (maybe a bit of a reach but i don't get to choose who my mind designates as being bi)
i like to think that charlotte-karl experience a spider-verse mindmeld "YOU'RE LIKE ME" moment over being bisexual but they're not quite sure why they're feeling that way because they have no idea they're bi. if you are me you will understand perfectly
and i am a henry/alfred/charlotte poly truther as well (please see above discord ranting from my dms with a friend lol)
on more notes of just giving whichever character i want the bisexuality card, hasan is bi to me too. i think hillinghead and her bond a little over that shared religious guilt, of having their respective institutions be homophobic, and the feeling for so much of their life that they're different, so there must be something wrong. it helps her empathise with him and they quickly become closer because of it :) possibly also introducing him to queer lit, and maybe some non fiction lgbt history books
and one last final doodle because i think alfred as the only detective with an active love life where he's pursuing someone would make the others pretend like they can be adults but they want to know SO BAD and they also give advice once in a while because they're rooting for alfred :) they're all pretty good at hiding how badly they're invested in this (think iris 'casually' asking hillinghead how it's going and the other two perk up in the background) like i refuse to believe any of them are totally immune to the equivalent of office-gossip
this was so so long LOL i hope any of that is coherent !!!!! a lot of it ofc is my own projection bc i am bi, but it's real to me <3
Whiteman’s lounging with a whisky, looking comfortably casual in a pair of chinos and a t-shirt—blazer combination. He might be taken for any young, up-and-coming London professional out for a drink to celebrate the long weekend. Hillinghead, by contrast, looks like he should be at a wedding- the man’s in a three piece suit and the most complexly knotted tie she’s ever seen. Still, Shahara’s hardly going to judge him for feeling more comfortable completely covered up and the man is (she still can’t really wrap her head around this) a Victorian. He’s got a pint of beer in front of him, though it doesn’t look like he’s touched it.
She takes the first of the two empty seats at their table, her coke sloshing over the side of the glass as she sits, and remarks: “You two found your way around alright then?”
Whiteman sniffs sharply and half shrugs. “Fine. Nice to see the place not bombed to bits and rationing over.”
“It’s so- loud,” Hillinghead murmurs. “And crowded, and it smells-”
“It’s always smelled,” Whiteman interjects. “What, was it all roses in your time? I don’t believe that.”
“No,” Hillinghead stresses. “But it is- more.” he rubs the bridge of his nose. “Have you heard from-” He freezes, staring at something just over Whiteman’s shoulder. Shahara can read a shift in to flight-or-fight posture easily and from the way he’s suddenly more alert, Whiteman’s clocked that something’s got Hilinghead spooked as well.
“Problem?” he asks quietly, in his clipped, cockney accent; a half-strangled vowel slips from Hillinghead’s throat and Shahara turns to see what he’s looking at. There’s two men enjoying what’s clearly a date, holding hands and locking lips. Shahara sighs internally, bracing herself for a slew of Victorian attitudes- “Yeah,” she says, a little sarcastically- Hillinghead’s knuckles have gone white, he’s clenching his fist so hard. The gold of his wedding band stands stark against it. “That’s allowed, nowadays- we don’t care.”
“Hm?” Whiteman glances around- there’s a moment where Shahara thinks she’s gonna have to deal with 1940s attitudes as well, but Whiteman turns back, uninterested. “Fair enough.” he starts patting himself down, like he’s looking for something in his pockets.
“They can-” Hillinghead murmurs. “I could…” He swipes for the beer and downs a quarter of the pint in one. Now Whiteman looks interested, he pauses his search, leans right forward and says, smirking, “Detective Inspector Hillinghead. Do you have a fancy man?”
Hillinghead sputters and brings down the glass. “Are you twelve?” he demands, something of the outraged parent seeping into his tone as– he’s blushing, Shahara realises. He’s actually blushing.
“Are you-?” She asks, leaning forward, and she knows it’s rude and none of her business, but still. “Are you gay?” The wedding ring. “Bi?”she suggests, as a follow up, and then: “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“I- what? I-” he looks back at the couple, then grabs his beer again. “I have- I have a- I have Henry,” he downs more of the beer. “It-it would be nice, to- to not…” he trails off, his eyes drifting away from both of them.
“See, I’ve always been a bachelor- a bachelor bachelor, not a confirmed bachelor, myself, but I - fuck, I left my cigars and my lighter in the other jacket-”
“Language,” Hilinghead reprimands at the same time as Shahara says: “You can’t smoke in here anyway.”
Whiteman drops his elbow to the table and points at her. “You what?”
“No smoking in public places, it’s banned.”
Whiteman flops back in his seat and grabs for his whisky. “The future is bollocks.” he drains the glass and slams it down. “Good whisky though. So. While we wait for Maplewood to join us….Hillinghead can kiss blokes, and I can’t smoke in a pub. What else should we know about this 2023, then…?”