payneland neighbors AU
(a.k.a. one of my million WIPs that may actually be seeing the light of day)
edwin is an Alive Boy, who has had a near-death experience being bullied while he was at school, so he can now see ghosts.
charles is a Dead Boy, who is starting a detective agency out of his new flat, which happens to be next door to edwin's.
edwin does not realize charles is a ghost at first.
they are mutually down bad and trying hard (and failing) to be normal about it.
pining and shenanigans ensue.
should be able to get this posted to Ao3 sometime later today as chapter 1/? of who knows how many because apparently payneland has made me that person with multiple multichapter WIPs, lmao
~*~*~
Edwin does not think about his new neighbor across the hall.
(Said new neighbor's name, it will turn out, is Charles.
And Edwin most certainly does not fixate on the compelling glint of Charles' single earring in the sun, or the curve of his smile so easily offered.)
The story of it is this: Edwin had held the door to their building for him one fine spring day. Simple politeness, and moreover basic human decency, both dictated this was the proper thing to do for someone carrying such an absurd quantity of unwieldy parcels.
He had not expected the stranger to look so taken aback.
(He had an honest-to-goodness crystal ball propped precariously atop a stack of antique-looking books; and those teetered on top of several cardboard boxes near buckling under the weight of whatever they held within. A cricket bat protruded from the pin-encrusted rucksack slung over his shoulder. People did insist on having such incongruous pastimes, Edwin thought; and, apparently, atrocious packing habits to go along with them.
But the titles of the volumes Edwin managed to glimpse were as intriguing as the crystal ball was misguided—and he'd found himself rather helplessly curious.
"Cheers, mate!" the person he will soon know to be Charles had said, sounding obscenely grateful as he manouevred his way inside, and had flashed Edwin a grin so radiant and wide it hurt Edwin's cheeks in sympathy just to look at it.
Still, Edwin tried to think no more on him; nor on how surprised he'd appeared to be at Edwin's tiny show of kindness—at Edwin's perceiving him at all, even. Tried being the operative word.)
He'd been aware Jenny was letting the rooms across the hall, because she asked him several weeks ago if he might know any potential tenants. Edwin had informed her he did not. His last neighbor had listened to ungraciously-loud electropop at all hours of the night and harbored a seemingly endless stream of stray cats despite Jenny's very clear policy against animals.
Edwin would far prefer the space to stay blessedly vacant and blissfully quiet for as long a stretch as possible. He deserved some sort of a reprieve, he'd thought.
it seems he is not about to get one.
Edwin is reading when he hears a muffled string of colorful swearing, the lugging of things, the scraping of furniture across hardwood floors. While he may be able to studiously avoid thinking about the beautiful boy he'd met downstairs, Edwin cannot escape the inevitable and inconvenient fact that they will now be living in proximity. The telltale commotion that can only be made by someone moving in comes right to his proverbial stoop.
Who else could it be but him?
Edwin sighs. The only thing for it, he supposes, is to go over and introduce himself.
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hello i am here to say two things
i want marlow as a companion so badly please let us know if you make a mod i'd cry/pos
Please tell me anything about your ocs one of my favourite things is hearing about people's ocs or what they're interested in. just rant at me like you've got a red string conspiracy board if you'd like
1. Ahhh you are just the sweetest! Sorry it took me a bit to reply, I really appreciate your words!
2. Thanks so much for giving me an opportunity to share things about Richie. I’m don’t know the best way to put OC lore out there so these kinds of asks help a lot! More to read below :)c
A fact about Richie is that he tried isolating himself in the Glowing Sea before his long trek out to the Mojave Desert. He had just cut all ties in the Commonwealth and heard the earth-shattering news that Mr. House was still alive. He thought the tough conditions in the Sea might calm him down and set him straight, but it turns out manifesting about the man who doomed you in a twisted hellscape isn't very healthy. His time spent there only turned his heartbroken anger into a full blown revenge quest. Surely killing an old flame would make him feel better...right?
The fact of the matter is, even if he hadn’t passed the point of no return in the Sea itself, it would have happened somewhere else eventually. His steady decline was inevitable because he is just... so hard on himself, refusing to accept any kind of help or prolonged companionship. Under his confident exterior, the guilt and grief is eating him alive, and sadly all this self-destruction leeches out onto his friendships and lovers as well.
The sorrows of a man who needs to feel love to be okay, but snuffs it out before it can grow...
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i will not stand here and say the quarry's writing is perfect by any means, but man. that moment. in the beginning. when chris absolutely loses his shit and you see every last one of the hacketteers freeze..............shocked, wide-eyed, so taken aback they don't move even to look at each other.............
and then, realizing what just happened, chris scrambles frantically to grab hold of the situation again. he tries to grin at ryan ("tries" being the keyword), he tosses him the keys like nothing's wrong. he tries to go back to being mr. h - he does, he tries so hard - and finally when ryan talks to him, there's what waver in his voice. that absolute lack of understanding in his eyes. ryan's not just surprised, he's not just shocked......for a second there, he is scared, and chris sees that, realizes it, and peels out of there before anyone can say anything else. just.....
JUST............
i think that moment is 100% the moment i realized UH OH I THINK I LOVE CHRIS HACKETT because that's when we see the counselors have been around this guy for two whole months (some of them even longer, possibly), and not once. not once!!!!!!!!!!! had they realized who he really was.
ugh. UGH. i LOVE IT.
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[Start ID. A digital drawing of Minos Prime from Ultrakill, who's wearing a strapless slit dress and sandals of the same deep purple. He faces towards and slightly to the right of the camera, his head is tilted further right. With one hand he gestures in a vague pointing motion, his arm folded and held close to his body. There is nothing in the background, but bracing himself on one arm, Minos is implied to be leaning against something about the height of a countertop. The background is a blank purplish black, save for three diagonal stripes in the colors of the bisexual flag. End ID]
Shading study that quite literally came to me in a dream two weeks ago, after this post apparently beamed itself into my mind
(also a few edits below the cut! they're very slight but whatever :])
[Start ID. Three different versions of the previous drawing. The first changes the tone of the lighting from blue to pink, and similarly the shading from pink to blue. The second replaces the faint black border with pink, purple and blue, syncing with the stripes in the background. The third combines both these changes. End ID]
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