thecrosswind

[hotpotrandomfics]

PJO Ciel AU: Stowaway of War Pt.2

Summary: Ciel has to make a choice between inaction or taking a stand. While you can be as enthusiastic to fight, a twelve-year-old spirit may falter without the right motivation.

Part 1: PJO Ciel AU: Stowaway of War Pt.1

Disclaimer:The characters of Justin Colby Peters and Clara Atalanta Ostá are intellectual properties of @mastrmiscellaneous, please follow them for more content on those characters and their creator's brilliant content.

Word Count: 3,390

“Ciel, I think we should talk about what happened in your dream. We can't just keep quiet about something as big as a double cross during attempted peace negotiations. Or the fact you have a creepy older brother wanting to kidnap you.” 

Justin expressed his concerns regarding his best friend's dream of what is potentially to come. Granted, a demigod's dream could be a cause for a glorious victory or agonizing death with the latter being favored. 

Justin, Ciel, and Clara had finished their guard duty as the sun was rising ever so slowly. The trio sat on the first-floor lobby, eating some of their ambrosia squares and nectar supplies after the end of their shift. Given their current state while in the middle of a warzone, it was the only sense of comfort they’d felt for a near day of battle, but finding any comfort at the moment seemed like a fleeting hope. Ciel, unfortunately, wasn’t as well rested as he wished considering a few issues plaguing the young warrior's mind. 

One, Hecate knows he is fighting against her and has a brother of his tasked to try and capture him. Considering she and many of his half siblings are fighting on opposite sides of this war it does make sense for her to try and keep her kids alive. Two, Prometheus was on his way to barter for some unforeseen circumstances. Ciel didn't know much about Prometheus other than he was a savior to the early humans but was punished for it. Three, no one has spotted Michael Yew, and several fellow campers are injured or worse. The latter was his major concern as he wanted to hope his fellow archers would return, but the sinking feeling in his gut begged to differ.

“J, you know we can’t trust dreams. Demigods and dreams aren’t always fun business. You agree, right Clara?” Ciel asked his unclaimed friend who tapped her blade with her free hand, drumming a tune of some punk band. Clara was a wealth of knowledge about demigods, the gods, and monsters alike so her input would be greatly appreciated even if it counters his point. He hoped she supported his idea of keeping his mouth shut to not be a bother, there was already so much going on.

“I have to agree with Justin. You should speak up about if you saw the Queen of Witches. It is not every day you can see what is going on with the enemy, but without hard facts to back you…,” Clara sounded irritated at the idea of not having enough information, something Ciel often wondered why she fixated on such matters. For the two summers he has known her she was always trying to learn more than an Athena kid, but she says it is because she is descended from her, which made her cabin placement all the more weird when considering she has been in Hermes cabin for so long. 

“I still don't think it is a good idea. What about the plans Percy and Annabeth have made? I would be stepping on their toes if it’s a trick…” Ciel's voice filled with concern about what may or may not be critical information. Why did a twelve-year-old boy have to hold such questionable information that could level the playing field?

“Best case, we act on that information and get the upper hand. Worst case, we take an unnecessary risk.” Clara stated as returned her coin to its coin form. She cycled it through her hand while muttering something neither boy could catch in Ancient Greek. Letting her opinion on the matter linger for Ciel to mule over was anxiety-inducing at best, but when it comes to this life it was never a simple yes or no action. Being cunning is what determines a demigod's probability of survival.

“Gods, why can’t things be simple?” Ciel groaned as he lifted himself from where he was on the floor before grabbing his bow. “I’ll go tell Annabeth and Percy. Not like things can get worse, right?”

“We’ll come with you-“ Clara started but her attention was drawn to hurried footsteps from Percy and Thalia, Lady Artemis's current lieutenant of her Hunters, running toward the entrance of the hotel. Ciel just had to jinx himself at the moment as the two children of Zeus and Poseidon made their way to what the boy feared.

“Shit.” Ciel cursed at himself sensing something was off about the situation and ran leaving his friends in the lobby of the Plaza. “PERCY, WAIT!”

Ciel was a few steps too slow to stop what was about to happen with the meeting. His indecisiveness at the moment left him with the other option of giving information from his dream to Annabeth or Thalia. Sadly, Annabeth was still recovering and wasn’t a hundred percent and then there was Thalia who left with Percy to talk to the father of humanity, Prometheus. If he wasn’t quick enough then the place of this “meeting” at Central Park would possibly cost not just the glimmer of hope in Olympus. 

Steeling himself, he hurriedly ran after Percy and Thalia to the meeting sight. He stole a horse from a passed-out patrol officer as he made his way to Central Park, though his horse riding wasn't the best he'd have to deal with discomfort until he reached his destination. After catching up to them within a reasonable time, Ciel dismounted the noble steed and gave it a soft pat before traveling to the meeting. He didn’t know if he was stepping on the leader's toes but given the gravity of a part of his dream coming true means, there is more to come. 

“Thalia, Percy!” Ciel managed to spurt out to them before taking a few breaths before dismounting the kind chestnut steed he rode on. “Prometheus is-“ 

“Hello, Ciel Ambrose Silverstein,” Prometheus the Titan of foresight and crafty counsel gave the boy a small smile. “Hm… your face is quite similar to someone I know.”

“Well I have one of those faces I guess,” Ciel said as he stared at Prometheus with concern. The Titan looked at the boy with a curiosity that bordered uncomfortable as he tried to decipher who he reminded him of that seemed to bug him. “I have a message for my leader, and I’d just be a moment-“

“Why shy away from that, my boy?” Prometheus said as he leaned forward from his seat where he attempting to parlay with Percy. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be so bad to keep it to yourself, right?”

Ciel felt a shiver down his spine but a slight warmth accompanied that sensation. Prometheus didn’t seem disingenuous about the fear or matter to come, hell, it was as though he wanted to take the Titan's advice and shut up. 

“No,” the young Silverstein thought to himself, “this isn’t right.”

“Now if you could leave us to our meeting that would be extremely helpful.” Prometheus beckoned Ciel to just hightail it out of there but the boy forced himself to stand his ground. 

He normally would back out of a confrontation be it his nature as a kid who’s been bullied for some time and a fear of authority figures but Prometheus wasn’t important or someone he’d deem important to him. The Titan was part of the enemy so he wasn’t gonna dance around the issue. 

“Percy, Prometheus is here to convince you to give up the fight! Titan forces are on the march to Central and I know I should have told you at the base camp but-“ Ciel was about to dive down the rabbit hole of explaining that he normally does but Thalia clamped a hand around his shoulder. 

“Easy,” Thalia said not taking her eyes off Prometheus, “Percy, you know this kid, right? Has he ever lied?”

“No, Ciel? Doesn’t have an ounce of liar in him.” Percy said confidently before returning his gaze before he continued his talk with Prometheus. 

Percy ultimately went with his choice of not trusting Prometheus to begin with and gathered the campers to prepare for battle. Though Ciel felt good about speaking up, he wasn’t confident his choice was the right one. If Percy was going to still say no to Prometheus then what point did he serve? Maybe the Fates thought it would be humorous in this time of great strife to put a kid with confidence issues into the fray. 

As predicted, the Titan Army forces began marching towards where the forces of Olympus were making their stand. The battle began as the army of Kronos sought to defeat the limited forces before them but with the aid of Daedalus 23, nature spirits, and satyrs brought by Grover Underwood, they had enough in numbers to hold off but for how long was uncertain. Hyperion, the Lord of the East, had entered the fray and the second scrimmage of the war had begun. 

Ciel worked along the Hunters of Artemis, Apollo cabin, and Clara in a mix of hit-and-run tactics to create discord among the enemy ranks. It was a common strategy they used during their capture-the-flag matches that often gave a slight edge pending the strength of numbers on the opposing side. 

The young son of magic would dodge and hide before beginning short rounds of firing arrows to maim his opponents. The smell of iron coming from open wounds, heaviness of monsters scents, violent torrents and heat created by Percy and Hyperion clash made the battlefield fear continue to rise. The aroma of war was intoxicating but his fear, Ciel's fear was shouting into his mind to run but he couldn’t as the music of the conflict and his friend's war cries kept him playing in this ballade. 

“Hide. Move. Shoot, shoot.” Ciel mantra as he made his way through the battlefield, jumping between nearby trees to have some level of higher ground to work against the monsters and demigods who didn’t expect him. His adrenaline caused his heartbeat to drum heavily as the fight or flight response chanted a melody like the percussion section of an orchestra. 

To him, when one monster or demigod was incapacitated another two or three would take his place. This wasn’t a game like Halo 2, this was a real war that no kid should experience and yet here he was fighting kids no older than him. All because they were scorned by the lack of attention from their godly parents? Well, Ciel could relate as he wished at times he knew his mother earlier in life. 

Now? He wished his mother he had was another goddess because no mother related to him could have earned his father's love. 

“Maybe she heard it,” Ciel pushed that out as he covered some of the Aphrodite kids from some espouses.

“Thanks, Silverstein!” The Aphrodite kids kept their defense of assorted perfumes up as Ciel continued picking off more monsters. 

“Quick! Get back!” Ciel arched backward as he shot a Greek fire arrow to give the Aphrodite kids some breathing room. “Regroup with who you can!”

He then left his perch as the Aphrodite kids regrouped with some of the Hunters and Hephaestus kids, making his to the ground to snatch what arrows he could from fallen foes or misfired spots. The issue with arrows like any form of projectile is that you can only have so many arrows. 

The wind started to pick up like hurricane season which could only mean one thing. Water rising from the Central Park reservoir began to encompass Percy and Hyperion. The wind howled long and the water roared a fierce cry as the hurricane forming took control of the tide of the battle. Soon the two were swept from view until Percy remained as he defeated Hyperion and several Kronos forces fell on the defense before retreating. 

“If only knew how to control my powers. If I had any…” Ciel caught the glimpse of the hurricane as it dispersed, amazed by the power that the son of Poseidon displayed though his lack of attention left him open for an attack. 

Without warning, Ciel felt a cut on his left arm before rolling away and pulling out a celestial bronze knife ready to defend himself. Though the figure that approached him wasn’t what he expected them to meet, the kid in his dreams. A teenager approximately sixteen years old with slightly crooked teeth, leathered armored with ancient runes, and playing cards?

“Well, you’re less impressive than I expected kid. Though you do have an eagle eye.” The teen shuffled his cards as a few demigods flanked him.

“And your acne looks gross like a Cyclops ass!” Ciel was not in expecting this and the cut on his arm did make his less than gentlemanly behavior come out. “Dad would have me put my tips into the swear jar.”

“Well, now that we have met I guess I should introduce myself. I’m Alabaster Torrington.” Alabaster spoke with a tone that he often heard from some of the more “eccentric” people he had met.

It wasn’t every day you met a half-sibling from your crappy witch of a “mother” though the resemblance was evident given his demeanor. Ciel could see how the Mist bent around Alabaster, how the magician veil seemed to bask him in a greenish aura. One thing was certain, he wasn’t gonna get away without a fight or better a distraction. Ciel looked both to his left and right flanks as he watched the forces of CHB working on their regression and if he shouted he wouldn’t be in a good spot, likely killed.

“What do you want?” Ciel asked as he secured his footing, assessing what would be his next move.

“I’ve come to get you. Mother wants you alive, you see, and I’m not going to disappoint her. Especially when have the advantage, Kronos will lead a new age for us all to rule. Those who are loyal will get all they wish but those who aren’t will be…” 

“Well, I haven’t had mom around for fourteen years. Didn’t need her then and don’t need her now, or you. Kronos army has killed so many people that meant something to me and my friends.” 

Ciel’s grip on his knife tightened as he remembered Castor's death in the Battle of Labyrinth. That day he couldn’t stop crying even in the night when should have slept. Castor was like a big brother to him when he first arrived, showed him around with Justin, and helped him learn the basics of magic. Castor even started his swordsmanship training while having a cold from a prank war with the Hermes kids. 

His death hurt more than anything up till the battle, seeing more of his camp mates dying trying to do the right thing. That July 2nd, 2008, will be the day he experienced death at its worst with Castor’s funeral and having to say goodbye. Hell, Mr. D checked on him during the funeral of the fallen for the briefest of moments. The two would share a moment where they both poured Cherry Coke into the eternal flames in mourning. 

If that wasn’t a family then he didn’t know what the Alabaster twist version would be. Alabaster was nothing to him, not a brother of his, and for sure not someone worth joining. Just because they have his mother on their side doesn’t mean he will betray the world for them when they haven’t done a thing for him. Justin, Clara, Lucille, Pollux, and Castor were his siblings, and his only parent was Alexander Silverstein. 

“You’re our mother's son after all. Come on, quit being a pain come willingly or it’s going to get rough for you.” Alabaster extended his arm, offering a hand to Ciel with a sincere smile.

“I’m Alexander Silverstein’s son. So that’s my answer, wanker!” Ciel spat at him as an arrow flew through the air, clipping Alabaster’s hand. 

“Fuck!” Alabaster gripped his hand as his team of demigods and monsters tried to find where the shot came from. 

“Stay away from my bro, you scrawny witch boy!” Justin said as he and a few campers, nymphs, and satyrs sprung out of the nearby pushes to take these guys down. 

Ciel ran to his allies to regroup but one of Kronos ’ demigods grabbed his hoodie, not a fun thing to get dragged by someone at least twice your size. But that meant doing dick things in war was warranted as the son of Hecate twisted in his hoodie and sliced his hand. Freed, he gave the demigod a swift kick below the belt before bolting away. 

“Why?!” The demigod whined their knees buckled and they squirmed in pain.

Rule number one of growing up in St. Augustine, Florida? You never play fair with people, cops, bullies, and alligators. Ciel sprinted further until he was just two yards from his allies before hearing “Duck” from Clara. Following suit, ducked down into a roll before setting his bow in one hand and grabbing an arrow from his quiver, loading it, and firing immediately as a hellhound pounced at him. With perfect timing the arrow hit along beast's throat with Clara's shield bashing the skull midair was something out of a Sam Raimi movie. 

“Move it!” Clara commanded as she and Ciel pushed back to their allies, taking cover behind trees as Alabaster and his team used a combination of magic, arrows, and monster donuts to keep them pinned as they pushed. 

“We need to get somewhere they can’t reach because half of our forces are almost out of the park,” Clara complained as she used the reflexive part of her shield as a mirror to get a count of the onslaught they faced.

“Why didn’t they wait?” Ciel complained as he peeked out but got yanked by his hoodie. Why couldn’t people stop that? “Hey!”

“Stay down, stupid!” Clara shouted. “Ah! I lost my count! Ciel, what are you doing?!”

The boy ignored her as he switched an arrowhead with a Greek fire grenade tip. Lucille Peters, Justin’s daughter of Hephaestus and the fourth friend of their group came up with the idea of making Greek fire grenades, the exact engineering behind it went over his head but he knew enough on how to set it up on arrowheads but he had a very limited supply. Most of the Greek fire supply was monitored and rationed for many traps to keep Camp Half-Blood safe from possible invasions of Kronos forces. The potential was there, however, but by the gods with what they needed for the conflict on short notice? Ciel was willing to take a few punishments for the chance for a Hail Mary idea. 

“Get everyone back Clara! Alabaster is here for me and I’m gonna give him me.” Ciel readied his arrow before calculating how to climb up the tree so he could get the best shot. “I’m gonna jump and you’re going to push me up with your shield. You’re stronger and I know it so cut the holding back and launch me, Ostá!” 

Ciel didn’t wait and made a quick dash towards Clara, angling her shield to be a trampoline and used all her strength (and the magical strength, a blessing perhaps) and sent the bold idiot into the trees. Landing in a tripod stance, both legs and his dominant arm securing himself before reading to shoot the arrow. This idea better work or he was screwed…

“Artemis and Apollo, guide my arrow and help me in this fight…” With that quick prayer, he let his arrow fly between his ally's defensive line and block Alabaster’s offensive line. It worked, the grass between them was burnt as the Greek fire spread in a manner of a diagonal line.

“Hey, Alabastard! You want me? Come get me!” Ciel shouted as he turned and patted his rear in a cartoonish fashion before bouncing from tree to tree, leaving his allies in the dust. 

Alabaster and his squad turned around and began to chase him to fulfill his mission, he wouldn’t him get away or fail. Enough of his siblings had died for the cause and he was going to make him see the light or take him off the board. Whether he likes it or not... 

[see-arcane]

Before the journal opened

Before it saved his life

Before Hell staked a claim

Before he swung his knife

A storm rolled in with the spring

And hope paved his long way

Through monsters and their red wants

He takes step one today.

WARNING: Contains some grisly imagery towards the end.

PDF Version

Chapter 2 Preview is available here

Chapter 3 via Substack here

Harker

C.R. Kane

March to April

Spring rolled in more grey than green that week. It dribbled rain through morning and noon, pondering to itself whether it would save an encore for evening in the way of a proper storm. The songbirds and the street noise went on as best they could between showers. They made up the only true din in Jonathan Harker’s corner, not counting the hammering of the typewriter or an occasional rustle of sheets. The usual low cacophony of the firm had been whittled down immensely due to the cough that had been shared at the start of the week and sent the greater part of Peter Hawkins’ small legion home to hack and sniffle in private.

This left Jonathan somewhat abandoned, not counting Hawkins’ presence behind the office door. It was just as well. He’d been splitting his attention between the eternal tower of logistical and legal chores that ruled his desk and the shorthand notes made in preparation for his exam. Such had been his constant state for the past two months. There had been ribbing from all directions, some bemoaning the imminent loss of a load-bearing clerk, others saying now they could draw lots and boot someone else out the door, and still more wheedling about whether or not they could still drag him in place as a shield when clientele of a certain incendiary temperament came around. Please?

Jonathan had remained ominously mum. Groans and lamentations ensued.

This was a joke, of course. Young Mr. Harker was nothing if not dedicated to the task of transmuting Hawkins’ charity to a whipcord child fifteen years prior into a proper investment. Case in point, using a lull in his own workload to get things in order for those bedridden solicitors who had the nearest deadlines pending. Bentley idled through with his tea as he did and shook his head.

“Don’t know what it is that comes with your kind, Harker, but it’s a busier thing that any of us idle English have. We’re down two thirds of the building and here you are doing three-quarters of the work. Get the examination out of the way and you may as well tell the old man to retire.” A thoughtful sip came from behind the porcelain. “Must be something they teach you Gurkha sorts, eh? Some kind of discipline our doughy little English schoolboys never get knocked in their heads.”

Jonathan weighed the decision of whether or not to give Arnold Bentley his bimonthly reminder that he was, in fact, English by birth. His parents as well. But the reminder would likely fall into the same pit between the man’s ears where all the others had gone. Worse, it might risk a tally mark against him in whatever invisible score was kept by peers. The one that determined whether the combination of Jonathan’s physiognomy and disposition really were enough to pardon his status or not. He finished this measuring of scales in less than a blink. A smile was summoned.

“Not at all. Just helping where things can be helped.” He straightened a sheaf of forms back in order. “That, and I cannot go a day without productivity, or else I shall have to go home and carve my hand with the kukri knife in penance.”

Bentley paused halfway through his laugh when Jonathan held his gaze. He gawped over his cup.

“God. Really?”

“No, not really. My penmanship would suffer terribly.”

This spurred a louder guffaw from the man, likewise a rattling clap of his open palm to Jonathan’s shoulder. Then he was out like a breeze to carry on with whatever it was he had drifted from in his own territory of the building. Jonathan resumed his interrupted rhythm. Read. Check. Write. Type. Read. Check. Write. Type. So he went for another hour before his watch told him it was time to check the post.

He stepped out during a lull of rain. The thunder talked with itself in the slate-dark clouds, debating whether or not to turn the spigot on the moment the wad of envelopes was out in the open. Jonathan applauded himself on dodging the first drops of the deluge by seconds. Peeking through the window, he saw there were even a few fitful winks of lightning hopping through the sky. What few pedestrians were left went running for shops they had no interest in, restaurants they had no appetites for, and cabs that turned frustratingly scarce within the minute. Jonathan grimaced in premonition of the dash he and Mina would have to make under the umbrella once she was free of her students.

But that was for later. For now, he flipped through the day’s heap and dealt them out to the waiting desks, occupied or not. The last in the stack was a familiar packet and one of extraordinary make. It was patterned with the stamps of myriad countries with ornate flourishes in the writing. A thick crimson seal sporting a rearing dragon marked it as the second delivery from the same foreign estate that had written to Hawkins in February. A castle set in the backdrop of the Carpathians.

Jonathan had felt his heart twist the first time he’d handled a parcel from the address and it twisted doubly hard now. There had been time in the interim to start combing through Exeter’s libraries for any beginning details to have ready should Hawkins want some background to aid one of the solicitors, especially in the case of a potential trip. If the latter came to pass, it would mean a visit to London and a perusal of denser material. A fine enough excuse to wander the superior bookcases and the British Museum on its own. But the luster of the errand was already gone in his mind. The first glimpse of the prospective client’s territory in the first book he’d cracked open, wrought in illustrations and sparse photographs as it was, sent a spear of longing through Jonathan’s chest that still hadn’t left.

Why would anyone living there want to trade such a place for England?

Jonathan was not oblivious to the advantages of the country. He understood his good fortune in access to modern works, from amenities to entertainments; at least in theory. With cautious budgeting. But all his life had been spent in cramped rooms or congested streets. The presence of a park, a farmer’s field, a distant beach, or a picturesque cemetery were the nearest he would ever come to the broad and chainless beauty of places not yet stomped flat with bricks and smoke.

Imagine! Meadows and hills, valleys and forests, all topped with the great serrated crown of the mountains. Cities and villages worn smooth with generations going back through centuries.

Imagine being there with her. Seeing sunrise flood over the peaks, walking old roads and footpaths, tasting and seeing and playing and breathing in a place without its laces drawn like a noose around throat and purse. The trains alone would be enough for her, true, but we would find somewhere to stop. Somewhere in every swatch of the countryside. At some point, as she became lost in a view, in a meal, in a walk, she would see me on my knee and what I held in my hand, and the wedding could happen right there in an ancient chapel, and then…

But the fantasy turned to dust before it could finish.

The required funds were cudgel enough to smash the whole daydream to atoms. At most they might manage a trip someplace other than their usual heights of hedonism. That was, a brief trip to Piccadilly and back. Maybe a bit of theatre. Possibly a picnic. Perhaps even some further place in the Isles. Somewhere rich with quiet and history of its own, but likely not across the Channel. Never a locale so far and mythic as the place Hawkins’ new client seemed interested in abandoning. Jonathan pictured Hawkins writing back to the noble on his behalf, wailing at the stranger not to forsake his fairy tale castle for the doldrums of a Londoner’s garish crate of a manse, no matter how crusted in filigree.

Save yourself! Do not trade your mountains for an English molehill!  Turn back, turn back!

But that would be a poor way to run the firm, wouldn’t it? Resigned, he brought the packet to Hawkins’ office and knocked at the door.

“It’s open, Jonathan.”

Jonathan ducked in with his smile already nailed in place. It was an expression he now had to work at as recent months plodded on and Peter Hawkins’ complexion failed to improve. The man behind the broad desk was only half as rubicund as he’d been the year before. He had insisted to everyone who dared ask that he was merely suffering from a particularly ugly attack of gout and that he would be fine in a week or so. As it stood, Hawkins could still sit up straight and bellow thanks when Jonathan came by with his delivery. He even turned a shade ruddier upon seeing the dragon’s seal.

“Well now,” he said through a grin. He turned the packet over and pointed it at Jonathan. “Have you taken lunch?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Go on and fill up quick. If this is what I believe it is, I expect I’ll need your ear within the hour.”

So saying, Hawkins slit the packet open and began to read. Jonathan dismissed himself with his fingers crossed in his pocket. Perhaps the British Museum wasn’t too far off after all. That and the London libraries. It would be too brief a visit for anything more extravagant than what Lucy referred to as his and Mina’s ‘academic holidays,’ but it would make an interesting exercise just the same. Plotting the trip was a pleasant enough distraction to eat to.

He finished just as he heard the tell-tale grunt and shuffle that meant Hawkins was hefting himself up to trudge around his desk. Jonathan flew to the door first, only just recalling to swat his knuckles against the wood before opening it. Hawkins looked up with a shock before gratefully flopping himself back into his chair.

“You have a dog’s hearing and cat’s feet. Ought to have a bell on you to give an old man some warning.”

“Apologies.”

“Nothing to apologize for. Saved me dragging myself around unduly.” Hawkins thumped a hand on the desk as if patting a horse. “I suppose I need to throw this out and trade desks with you. I can make it past that little square of yours in no time.” He thought further on it. “Less than a minute, anyhow.” He made a face that couldn’t decide itself between a smile or a grimace. “My doctor, who only seems to tell me what I already know, declares that I am not fit for any arduous travel. In his terms, that includes going further than the street corner on foot. Even a train ride is apparently a gamble, being that I should be in bed resting and rotting like a good patient rather than hobbling my way to and from the cab to work. Already I press his orders and my luck. Which means this,” he held up an envelope, “is out of the question for me.”

Jonathan recognized the torn envelope and scarlet seal. What held him up was the recognition that it was the first of the two packets. The February delivery.

“That’s unfortunate. Who was the client?”

Hawkins grinned in earnest now, purposefully turning the envelope so that the address was hidden.

“You tell me.”

Jonathan offered half a smile back. It was an old game that had begun years ago when he was still just a bookish boy underfoot, helping around the office for whatever could be spared for a child’s wage. Even then his eyes had been hungry things.

“Count Dracula, from the castle of the same name, of Transylvania. The address is from a Bistritz postal service situated in the Carpathians.”

“True and true.” Hawkins set the envelope on the desk and tapped it with a thick finger. “Curious taste in property, this one. Likely has the cravings of a renovator. No trouble on our side but for the hunting. But the esteemed gentleman is so damnably far into the Continent that I couldn’t rightly offer myself up in the way he’s asking. I ought to say, the way he insists upon buying. The way our Count puts it, he would rather pay every fee of travel for his English solicitor to and from his keep in the mountains, and play host on top, rather than, he says, ‘Suffer bartering land through stationery.’ In short, he’s willing to ship a solicitor to his door rather than play at this back-and-forth for all his questions, all out of his own pocket. He wants someone who’s not just going to find and sell the manner of place he’s after, but someone who can play encyclopedia if he’s unsure of something.” 

“Hence him being prepared to rent out the owner of the firm for an in-person visit,” Jonathan finished. Hawkins gave a nod.

“And the owner might have been up for it a decade or so ago. But time marches and gout outweighs gold. So I fear that leaves me out of the picture.” Jonathan watched Hawkins fold his hands with a calculated laxness on the desk. “Your examination is coming up.”

Lightning flickered outside. More danced across Jonathan’s brain.

“Yes, sir. It is.”

“You have been my clerk since you were old enough to rent a flat,” Hawkins went on. “My apprentice and professional living plaster to this place well before that.”

“Yes,” Jonathan breathed more than spoke. He feared his vocabulary was leaking out both ears while his heart tried to climb his throat.

“And,” Hawkins half-leaned over the desk, “you have been holding onto her ring since last year. Haven’t you?”

Heat rushed up to Jonathan’s face as he got out, “…Yes. I have. Sir, are you—,”

Hawkins brandished the packet Jonathan brought through the door an hour ago. This he laid beside the February envelope so that the pair of them seemed like strange square eyes staring up at him.

“I need you to understand: This is not an offer as much as a prayer. If there’s no chance with you, that means Bentley is the next choice. He’s my longest running man here and is liable to set up his own firm before the decade’s out. But for all that, and for all that he is a trustworthy one to patter with most Englishmen, I would sooner trust a cat with a lame canary than Bentley to not choke on his own tongue with a foreigner. Clients of noble lineage included. The man can barely toe his way around an Irishman let alone anyone from across the Channel. And, since the door is shut and no one is around to cry nepotism, I can speak the unvarnished truth.

“You could do with one week what anyone else here could manage inside a month and have it done better. That is not me being rosy about the past or present, that is me having eyes that work and a basis of comparison between how things ran before you began working here and after. The after is smooth as silk compared to the pre-Harker gravel. Stable gravel, I allow, but not nearly as easy a burden as things became once you were attacking the paperwork. And the footwork.” Hawkins raised a caterpillar brow at him. “Any good finds in the local bookshelves?”

“Not as many as I hoped,” Jonathan thought he heard himself say. It was hard to tell as he seemed to have relocated to some remote island in his skull and could only register what was happening as if from across an ocean. “I wanted to stop by the options in London if I had the chance. Just to gather some background on the client’s location if it was needed.”

“I’d say it is,” Hawkins hummed. “Supposing you can tell me you have your schedule open for some traveling come May.”

Jonathan told him it was. Hawkins told him to go to the corner cabinet and move the bust of Alexander off the high shelf. Then to bring down the bottle and two tumblers. There were toasts and there was talk and there was a laughing chide from the older man as he shooed Jonathan’s pocket notebook back from whence it came. No notes today, young man. At least not right now. Actually, perhaps one for later. Did he have time open to visit a tailor? There was a travel budget that was about to go unused if the Count was to have his way. It may as well go toward a good cause. Hawkins could hardly send his best solicitor to a noble’s door without looking his best, and it was for the firm’s image, really, so it could hardly be helped, and the doctor couldn’t grudge him such paltry exercise as going to harangue a suit seller…

Jonathan’s eyes burned and his face ached with smiling. He was mortified to find himself close to a sob before turning the sound into a coughing laugh. Hawkins told him to drink, not inhale. That turned the next sound into a true chuckle. He couldn’t tell whether it was an effect of the liquor or his own imagination that made it seem as if the thunder was laughing too.

“Transylvania,” Mina said for the dozenth time.

“Transylvania,” Jonathan echoed. He turned to face her rather than cling to the charade that either of them were focused enough to continue their mutual study. His pile included the texts that had come to haunt his subconscious with its rules and rites of property law, now with the hypnotic temptation of the library books waiting just an arm’s length away. Mina, who Jonathan knew was as much or more a pillar of solid focus than himself, had not a mote of attention to spare for the papers taken from the realm of educational etiquette or her personal project of mirroring and translating his shorthand. The latter made a certain gleeful anticipation turn over in his stomach. It left him floundering between elation and anxiety with equal force until he thought he might lose his last meal on the floorboards.

Which would be a shame, as he and Mina had combined their efforts into a delightful result in Jonathan’s narrow kitchen. Jonathan had only half-jokingly implied that they were making a child’s ideal feast because he was, in fact, giddy as a boy who’d just shaken hands with Father Christmas. Mina had declared this was nonsense.

“A supper made of breakfast is an entirely sound culinary decision.”

“Yes, Miss Murray,” in his best schoolboy tone. “Did you want crêpes or toast?”

“Crêpes. Extra cream.”

They had giggled like children over their respective plates. Just as they did over the rapidly ignored chores they had planned for themselves after. It was the frightful intoxication of feeling the future unrolling into a new smiling mystery before them. One that whispered, yes, yes, this is real, this is coming true. A future that might include…

Jonathan gulped down a heavy lump of air as his gaze flicked again to the sheet of shorthand messages he had scribbled out for her to translate. She had stopped halfway through. Close, close, close. But he didn’t let his stare linger. Instead he found her face again, still glowing. Jonathan was forever surprised that he had not dreamt her up as a boy and continued dreaming her until now. It surprised him more that he had managed to earn her love and dumbfounded him entirely to think that she regarded herself in the same terms. More, that she insisted she was the luckier half of their equation. He did not follow her meaning then, nor did he think he ever would.

“Mina, anyone with a sliver of sense in their head would feel the same for you,” he had insisted more than once. Each time she had smiled and shaken her head. Her eyes forever bright with a sweet-somber knowledge he couldn’t decipher.

“There is plenty of sense to spare. Loving hearts as well. But there is a different lens that women see the world through and it shows things men shall never have to see. It shows so much to watch for. To be wary of, or to hope for, or to know not to expect because life has made it clear that so much of what’s dreamt of only exists for a few, while the rest make do with storybooks and stage plays.” Her hand had held tight in his. “You were not meant to exist outside the borders of a fairy tale, Jonathan Harker. That you cannot see as much for yourself makes me wonder if someone really did peel you off a page and if you will vanish back to a fair princess somewhere when I wake up.”

“That implies I am either a prince or some clever farmhand. I’m cut out for neither. I am a squire at best. Though I would not settle for a mere princess either way, however fair.” He had dared a grin at her. “Or have you already forgotten Mrs. Westenra’s unique stance on the matter?”

Memory had nettled Mina out of her glumness with a sputter that tried and failed not to turn into shamefaced laughter. She had improved somewhat in the years since the incident itself, back when the whole ring of persons involved had flamed with embarrassment over the misunderstanding of Jonathan’s presence when spotted with Miss Lucille Westenra and her companion Miss Mina Murray now that all of them had stretched out of childhood and into the far end of adolescence. Followed by the ensuing inquiry as to why Mr. Harker had been baffled at the very concept of seeking to gain Miss Westenra’s affection as anything more than a friend.

Jonathan remembered sitting in one of the gilded rooms of the Westenra estate, sat across from Lucy’s increasingly rose-faced mother as she came to the belated realization that Mina Murray’s young man was not trying to court anyone other than Mina Murray. Worse, it had been left on his shoulders to steer the conversation out of potential wreckage by thanking his hostess for clearly being concerned on Mina’s own behalf, as there were too many people in the world who took the notion of seeking out a secret paramour behind another’s back as a matter of course. He was heartened to know that Mrs. Westenra cared enough to be mindful should an actual cad come into the orbit of her daughter or her friends.

Still flushed, Mrs. Westenra had chased agreement in this, poured on apologies for the mistake and had thankfully never brushed the topic since. Though Lucy had words enough to spare on the matter for months afterward. She had languished at them in the garden about it, the image of woe in peach blossom tailoring.

“Jonathan, I fear we must become enemies,” she’d intoned gravely. “You must walk with a cane in hand and I must brandish my parasol so that we keep our distance and never risk breathing the same air. We cannot even deafen poor Mina’s ears with the Bard or eavesdroppers will take us knowing the lines of Hamlet and Ophelia as proof of a tryst. Perhaps we should go around with our hats pulled down over our eyes, lest we give into temptation and acknowledge each other’s existence while being the opposite sex. It is our only chance of salvation.”

“Miss Lindon again?” from Mina, her smile placid. Jonathan knew she wore the same callused shell he did when it came to the patter that trickled down from higher tiers than theirs. Those tiers were many and their squabbles almost alien in what they deemed worth sniping about behind their fans and cigars. The infamous Miss Lindon was apparently a thorn too serrated even for Lucy’s compassion to withstand.

“Very much Miss Lindon again. ‘He would just do for you, Lucy.’ As though she thought I would be doing a charity by going behind my friend’s back and she were doing a charity by her sneering compliment. At least nature was kind enough to spare me having to think of a similarly charitable rebuttal, as a beetle helpfully flew into her hair a moment later and she went running. One must take silver linings when they come. Unrelatedly, Jonathan, when you do become a solicitor in full, should Miss Lindon and her future beau ever approach you for a house..?”

“I shall do what I can to find them a lovely estate,” Jonathan assured. “In Northumberland.”

“Next door to an entomologist?” Mina asked over her cup.

“Of course.”

Jonathan blinked the recollection away, wondering whether it was the dizziness of the day or the ticking of the clock between Mina and the final line of shorthand that was making his mind slosh. Perhaps it was simply the subconscious’ effort to dodge the weight of the evening and what it might promise. His thoughts were fleeing to hide from hope and worry. But Mina knew him too well. She caught him with her eyes before pulling him back into the headiness of the present.

“You will do fantastically, Jonathan. Tell me you know it as well as I do.”

“I will not say I know it. Too much confidence risks laziness. I will only say that I shall give all of myself to the task. It must be done so it will be done. If I think any further than that simple fact, my head will burst.”

“If you do, I promise to sweep you up and put your pieces back in order.” Her smile softened an increment as her hand settled in his. “I mean it.” She squeezed. He squeezed back.

“The same goes for you. We are neither of us allowed to hold ourselves together with string and brittle smiles once the door is between us and,” Jonathan flapped his free hand at the rain-streaked window, “all of that. No acting when it’s us alone.” He flashed her a decidedly less-than-brittle smile. “I promise not to tattle to your girls.”

“You were bad enough today, Mr. Harker. Half the classes were watching.” Her voice tutted, but the grin showed in her eyes. Jonathan had arrived at the school with the umbrella in one hand and a bouquet in the other. A bundle of her beloved lilies that he’d used as a screen behind which to steal a kiss and drop the announcement of Hawkins’ assignment in her ear. Forgetting her audience, Mina had kissed him back, forgetting to mask herself behind the petals. They had absconded to the cab to the sound of a dozen girls cooing their farewells, Miss Murray, see you tomorrow, Miss Murray, has he got a brother, Miss Murray?

“Hardly a terrible thing. If you are one of their examples, mustn’t they have something to look forward to at the end of all their practice?” He assumed a pose of scheming innocence, lashes batting. “I could be especially nefarious come Valentine’s Day. Take a holiday from Hawkins and show up toting chocolates and train tickets and a florist’s worth of flowers.”

“You will do no such thing.”

“I can hire an orchestra to follow us around. Have them play waltzes the whole day.”

“Jonathan.”

“No, of course, an orchestra would be too cumbersome. A singer and a violin, perhaps. I can hire a paperboy to throw rose petals after us. Or else I could send them up to the classroom to follow you in procession out of the building…”

The typewriter hammered back to life. Its keys were struck with more force than they needed.

“Sorry,” Mina sang above the din, “no hearing you over this. You will have to be a foul minion of Eros a little louder.” Jonathan bit his tongue against a reply. Yes, she was typing again. Yes, she was reading the last of the shorthand. Tap-tap-tap, clack-clack-clack. So far it was all the lines of a love note—a common enough surprise, if one that fished more than the usual dimpled grin out of her tonight—and she had not caught on yet to the conclusion. “How long will the client need you over there?”

“Between the travel to the estate, the stay, and the return trip, the whole thing should be over within early May. I shall have time to hoard you a while before you and Lucy have your summer escape to the coast. Was it Whitby?”

“Yes, quite near the landmark Abbey. I mean to harass the townspeople with demands for any ghost stories they might spare about the place. Perhaps Marmion is but a single drop in a sea of waiting legends.”

Tap-tap-tap.

“Then I shall try to collect what I can abroad in turn,” Jonathan said from behind a fan of notes. He kept only the corner of his eye pinned on the swimming lines. “There should be spirits in abundance along the route.” 

Clack-clack-clack.

“I would think so. But don’t settle for ghosts alone! I shall happily adopt any devils or revenants or folkloric fiends the locals can share—,”

Her voice died mid-key.

Jonathan looked over the top of his pages. Mina sat frozen as a sculpture. Her hands still hovered at the typewriter, lax and immobile. But her eyes were in motion. Flicking back, forward, and back again between Jonathan’s shorthand and the five words they had translated to in plain ink.

Will you marry me, Wilhelmina?

By the time she finally turned her head back to face him, he was already on the floor, swift and silent at her hip. The box sat open in his hand. Set inside was a petite gold band whose stone gleamed like a fleck of starlight.

Mina looked from the ring to its holder with eyes that were already spilling.

“Yes,” Jonathan heard a dozen, a hundred times in the ensuing night. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand, a million times, yes. Between kisses, between tastes, between touches and takings that skirted the furthest edge of propriety between unmarried bodies. Yes.

“We are engaged. We must prepare for the wedding night as one must study ahead of an examination. Isn’t that right, Miss Murray?”

“It is, Mr. Harker.” Then, furtive despite her position over him, she grew a smile both shy and sly. A lure surrounded by the hanging curtain of her hair, “…Can you say it? For practice’s sake.” He did not have to ask her meaning.

“Mina Harker.”

Her teeth bared in a white moon.

“I didn’t quite hear you. Say again?” As she asked, her hand moved. He gasped in the trap of it.

“My pronunciation must be off. How is this?” His own hand moved. Her eyes went wide and dark. “Mina Harker. Mina Harker. Mina Harker.”

More practice unspooled. Harker, husband, wife, I do, I will. Around and around again until their tongues ran dry and they were left folded into the tangle of each other, their last fig leaf still reserved for the nuptial night itself. As midnight rolled past, the storm slipped off with it and left the moon to throw its rays through the edges of the curtains. Mina’s ring trapped its glow on her knuckle. He almost wept to look at it.

Real. This is real. I am awake and this is real. God, God. Thank you.

“Thank you,” he murmured into the top of her head. Her hair massed into a perfect curling cloud under his chin. The cloud tickled there as she lifted her gaze to him.

“For what?”

“You know.”

“If I must say, ‘You’re welcome,’ so must you.” Jonathan held his tongue. “Exactly.” Her hand cupped his cheek as she went on, “I feel much the same. Like a lottery was won and the prize is an unfair gift by dint of how precious it is compared to the recipient. By how that prize refuses to acknowledge their own value. But there is time yet to filter that all down into something better. We will have our vows to smother each other with and neither of us will be able to shush and insist, no, no, I am the luckier one. All while the pews roll their eyes. For tonight I ask that we have a truce. No deprecation, no hoisting onto pedestals. Just for now, we will pretend we each feel equal to the blessing of the other. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Good.” Mina lifted herself high enough to find his lips with hers. “I love you, Jonathan.”

“I love you, Mina.” He mouthed the words to himself long after she had fallen asleep atop his heart. I love you, Mina. I love you, Mina Murray. I love you, Mina Harker. I love you. Thank you.

Jonathan faced the covered window and the sliver of pane visible at the cloth’s edge. He spotted the moon hovering in a split among the breaking rainclouds. As sleep finally found him, he could not shake an unpleasant certainty that he was looking at a great glowing eye. And that it was staring back. 

Jonathan discovered Carfax Abbey on a clear blue day. His immediate impressions of the place ran in quick succession. First, that the location was so precise in its accommodation of Count Dracula’s specifications that it might have been commissioned. Second, that it looked like a place meant only to exist after dark on a sinister moor. This remained true despite the brilliance of spring stubbornly budding along the edge of its high stone fence.

He sent back a late thanks to himself as he’d been that morning, when he had tossed a coin on whether or not to bring the Kodak with him for the day’s hunt. Though the cab would be trusted to take him to the general area, it would be down to more literal footwork to inspect the properties he hoped to survey as far as he could without increasing the fare. Which would not bother him too much if he were going light. He did have a fondness for a run when it could be gotten away with sans pedestrians. But there would be no jogging with the camera to mind. Only a steady trudge.

Yet even that predicted march was trimmed down to a mere amble by dint of the cabman’s suggestion. He had heard out Jonathan’s description of his ideal quarry and first assumed him to be a tourist who’d gotten lost in a search for haunted houses.

“The area hasn’t much in that way, lad. Only place that comes close is old Carfax. Used to be an abbey, but looks more like a hideaway for the Dark Ages’ ghouls.”

“Do you know if it’s for sale?” This had earned him an odd look before the cabman admitted he had seen a sign staked out front that might have claimed the place was available. Supposing one cleared away the accumulated grime.

“I have to wonder if your buyer will bother with such a place. Ghosts can be dealt with, but it has more unsavory living neighbors to deal with.”

“Who are they?”

“Can’t say I know them personally, thank God, but I know for certain they’re perfectly mad.”

“Really?”

“Well, they’d not be in a private madhouse otherwise.”

The cab passed said lunatic asylum en route to the site. Jonathan was happy to note that it was at least a stately building, clearly a former domestic estate that had been expanded into suitable proportions for the inmates and staff. Better still, it was so far from Carfax as to be invisible through the facility’s wall of tended trees even when standing outside the latter’s stonework border.

Seeing the composition of said fence’s rough stones had plucked at Jonathan’s boyhood itch for play. If it were not for the cabman as a witness, he might have clambered his way up and walked along the edge as he’d done around his aunt’s home before he was declared too old for such nonsense. Still musing, Jonathan thanked the man again for the find and paid for the ride, promising another fare if he would return in an hour’s time. The cabman hesitated even after he had taken the first half of the pay.

“You’re certain you’d rather not go up the whole road first? There aren’t many houses, but they’re each of them empty and all far less a stain on the eye than that evil heap of rocks.”

“Do any of the rest have a chapel attached?”

“Don’t believe so. But if your buyer’s so keen on his prayers he ought to make do with a trip to church like the rest of us.”

“I imagine he means to refurbish it for that very purpose.” Jonathan offered a smile. “I’m certain whatever spirits might be lurking will have to clear out once he’s put the place in order.”

“Or torn the bloody thing down,” the cabman muttered not quite under his breath. He huffed and checked his watch. “An hour, you said? Just to wander around the place?”

“To wander here and across the neighboring grounds. I need to take note of the full landscape as well as the estate.” The cabman snorted at this in time with his horse.

“I hope your buyer is paying what you’re worth, lad. Any more on his list and he’d have you mapping out all of Purfleet to be sure it suits his fancy.” When the cab pulled away Jonathan began the photography. As much as he could manage from outside the fence. But then, because there were no witnesses, and because there was no way of opening the gate without ruining the rusted lock, and because it really wouldn’t be a thorough survey of the property without a glimpse of things on the inside of the towering stone walls, Jonathan shouldered his bag and scaled the rock as blithely as a spider.

He landed in the shade under one of the sundry trees that crowded the interior grounds. Jonathan marveled at how the trees’ shadows and that of the hulking abbey combined to hold a permanent dusk in place. So much so that it was a challenge to find any well-lit spots in which to take pictures without losing details. Up close the chapel was no less imposing than the abbey. It stood apart in its overgrown gothic solitude while the abbey puffed itself out with late additions to the structure. Jonathan made a note to reserve some pictures for Mina once he’d set aside an album for the Count. Sadly there was no letting himself indoors without becoming a full intruder, and so he satisfied himself with touring the rest of the land. A tour he was happy to make at a run.

The camera and his bag were set carefully aside with the chapel to manage this—for he must manage it, seeing as the grounds seemed to cover no less than twenty acres—and sent another belated thanks to his morning self for donning more active shoes than his workplace pair. While the place was no forest, it was an easy enough copse to imagine as such. A private patch of woodlands in which he had no one to be mindful of on a trail or blush over as they gawked at him, wondering what his hurry was. Here the exercise even bore fruit in the form of revealing a pond set at the estate’s southern end. A pool clear with spring water and trickling a faint stream through a grate into denser growth beyond the rear gates. Another run and a returning walk ensured this too got its photograph.

It was as he took these pictures that he saw the place even had some refreshment in the way of brambleberries snarling their way along the masonry. They were still some months away from being in season, but the desire to steal a piece of their thorny nest to plant his own shrub gnawed. At least until he reminded himself it would be hopeless with his current lodging. A mint tin of a flat slotted wall-to-wall with the rest of the street. Mina’s was worse still, he knew. When they married, they would pool their funds to find somewhere with a little girdle of a garden around it. Or else they would have window-boxes to grow things for the kitchen. Or both. Just a wedge of greenery to tame and taste for themselves.

 For now, he satisfied himself with adding it to the marital itinerary and took out his notebook to jot the impressions of Carfax Abbey as he had for half a dozen other estates, all of them falling short on one preference or another. Too new, too near to the hub of a city, too compact, too bright, and, most damning, not a single chapel to spare among them. At least, none that were not in use by the general public. He would likely run around for another couple weeks to check on other prospective options, but he held little hope for a finer match than Carfax.

Carfax, Carfax. I wonder…

The notebook was tucked away in exchange first for his watch, which showed he’d somehow burned only twenty minutes, and then a compass. A minor note from the Count had mentioned a desire to have, ‘an open sky with which to see all the night and day, the dusks and dawns, without men’s brick and smoke in their way.’ Jonathan could not fault such a wish and so had brought the compass to see if he might happen upon a house with the view clear for the east’s sunrise and the west’s sunset. The compass revealed he had done even better with the abbey.

‘Carfax.’ Quatre Face. A four-sided house with its walls facing the four cardinal directions. All clear of any rooftops and their belching chimneys. I’m sure it will please you, Count.

The thought sank his joy like a stone. Jonathan looked again at the abbey. Haunted and a relic of dead centuries, true, but a place of dignity and grand dimensions all the same. A voice rose up in him with smiling malice as he stared at it.

You will never have such space. You will never have a home so broad that Mina can have rooms all for herself and more for the daydream of children. You will live close to all the fruits of a metropolis, as near as the gutters themselves, and only ever know what it is to skim them, to borrow them, to daydream without laying your lesser hands on them except to use them for another. You will have neither the sprawling beauty of nature or the boons of modernity. Not for your entire life, Jonathan Harker.

And, because he could not stop the flow once it was running:

She should have found someone better. Someone with more than your scraps to offer.

He ground the heel of his palm against each eye until they dried.

“What would she say?”

Something kind you do not deserve.

Jonathan shook his head and marveled at the paradox that still found its way to nettle him even with the ring on her finger. Perhaps because of it. It was the miserable uncertainty of the hours preceding his examination turned up a hundredfold. Time, experience and evidence all stood in favor of him passing his tests on the professional and romantic fronts, yes, yes, he knew it…

…But what if he didn’t? What if he had somehow fooled himself and Mina and Hawkins and peers and the world itself into thinking he was more than what he was? What if?

What if you stop wallowing and get out before the cab returns?

Jonathan stopped long enough to skip a stone across the pond before following his route back to where he’d clambered over the wall. With half an hour to spare, he began walking at a healthy gait across the spread of land between the abbey and the asylum. If only to say he knew how many paces it was between the properties. One, two, three, four, five…

The pacing turned irregular once he had to cross through the border of trees that stood for a property line between Carfax and its company. Jonathan was stunned to discover there was no proper fence hidden behind the picturesque rows. Only a walled and gated section at the rear of the asylum that suggested an area for outdoor excursion or perhaps a private kitchen garden. He hoped it was the former. Even the insane needed leave to stretch their legs beyond the borders of a cell. As he mulled this, he heard a shout. It sounded like it held the weight of every expletive known to the English tongue and several more beyond it.

Following this was the same livid voice grating seemingly out of thin air, “Idiot! Fool! One damned page and you do this?” Jonathan heard a clatter of hollow things against a wall. “Imbecile!” He stepped fully beyond the wall of trees and saw the voice’s owner pacing back and forth inside a barred window set at the foot of the asylum’s wall.

“Sir? Are you alright?” Jonathan was almost as surprised as the man in the window to realize he had not only spoken, but come closer. There was an instant in which the man tensed. The picture of one who’s realized someone of influence has caught them in a bad moment. Yet upon actually seeing Jonathan and recognizing his lack of import, he relaxed enough to smile. Albeit sourly.

“Apart from this most inconvenient stint of homemaking, courtesy of concerned friend and kin, I am quite fine, young man. Ebullient, ecstatic, elated.” The polite rictus hardened. Jonathan thought queasily of wild dogs. “Apart from the fact that I have lost the last of my stationery to an overfilled glass. My cup runneth over. My cup ruins days of work and turns the remaining space to so much waste. Just look!”

The man thrust something up to the gaps in the bars, stopping just short of throwing the spoiled pinch of paper out onto the grass. For it was spoiled. Jonathan saw the stationery was really little more than a large cut of butcher paper folded and refolded until it made a sort of accordion-book. The whole thing was so waterlogged that Jonathan could barely tell tally marks from letters as the crayon bled together and the pages sagged.

“Ruined,” the man punctuated with what was either a sneer or a sulk. “At best I can try to mash and dry the thing out as a new sheet. But the stuff was already muddy enough to write on and I shall have to reduce myself to the penmanship of an infant with the bluntest marks just to make anything legible. And I had just started to make progress.” He cocked his gaze more fully at Jonathan. His look was one accustomed to giving brisk appraisal. “If you are a journalist, you are quite tardy with your pen. You’ve not even set up your camera’s tripod to record the travesty.”

“I am no journalist, unfortunately,” Jonathan admitted as he unearthed his notebook. “But at least that leaves some of this to work with, if you’re amenable.” Covering the shorthand of the last full page, he showed the man in the window the remaining blank sheets. Not a great many pages left, and certainly not of impressive size considering it was a pocketbook, but it would be a fair amount of writing space for a careful script. The man’s expression did not change, but his eyes brightened.

“I may be. Supposing I know the price at the other end of such a trade.”

“No price, sir. You would do me a kindness in taking it as I shall have to start a fresh one for another project soon. The predecessor would be left unfinished and forgotten in the meantime.”

“Ah, a worse fate than a journalist. An author. How many poor diaries have you left abandoned in their pretty bindings for the sake of a new volume?” The man clicked his tongue through a grin. “I jest, of course. You do not seem the sort to waste what he has.” The grin, still genuine, flattened an increment. Bloodshot eyes gleamed. “I fear I wasted a great deal of what I once thought mine on the other side of these delightful accommodations. Never make such a mistake as mine, young man. Do not doubt for an instant that what you trust today cannot turn on you tomorrow.”

“I won’t, sir.” Jonathan thought of adding that he had lived under that knowledge since the day he attended the funerals which ended his childhood. He swallowed it back. “May I..?” He held the notebook up, his shorthand sheets pinched between thumb and forefinger.

“I would be most grateful.”

Jonathan tore his filled pages neatly out. The remaining clean pages were barely thicker than a pamphlet, but clung sturdily to the little spine. Jonathan knelt low enough to lay it within reach on the grass. He noticed a small dusting of white powder at the window’s edge. A crowd of ants whittled away at the mound.

“Ants,” the man scoffed as he followed Jonathan’s line of sight. “Pitiful company. I had hoped the thaw would bring in something heartier. Flies, ladybugs, perhaps some early butterflies. But the real trouble is keeping them around. Ah, apologies, might you bring it a little closer?” The man raised his forearms into view. “I haven’t the best angle from where I stand.” Jonathan scooped up the notebook and brought it an inch nearer.

The man’s hands were abruptly out through the bars and clapped around Jonathan’s. Tight. Short of hurting, short of breaking, but locked as firmly as a vise. Jonathan tensed without pulling back. Again he thought of wild dogs. Of things that only seemed to be dogs until they closed in. Creatures that chased once they saw something run.

Jonathan was still. The man was still. Grasping Jonathan’s hand and the notebook in a pantomime prayer.

It’s my left hand. Smart enough for that, at least. I can still do my paperwork with the right intact and the other broken. Will the fingers heal in time for Mina to slip the band on? How mortifying to have to explain it all to her. I wonder if the asylum would make up a cast without charging for it…

“There is no need to shake upon it, sir,” Jonathan heard himself say. “The book is yours.” The man regarded him with less of a smile now. His lip still curled, but it seemed only to hold on by sheer will. It dropped entirely with the gust of a sigh.

“The book and a lack of tact, I fear. Even if I were not mad, I would still be a churl.” The hands relaxed and a set of fingers drummed once on the back of Jonathan’s wrist. “Though I suspect you are a soul used to them. I would tell you to be more wary on your way, but it is only a simpleton of a preacher who would bother teaching his flock wariness in a world where they must interact each day with wolves. Though I will advise that it is rather foolish to go around making conversation with confirmed lunatics up close. I am confirmed, you know. The facts are printed and signed all over by professionals. I saw the document myself.” The man’s look floated away from Jonathan and into a distance he couldn’t guess at. “Printed on far finer paper than what we settle for.”

One of the gripping hands came away, leaving only the one folded over the notebook and Jonathan’s palm. They shook. The notebook was collected in the same gesture.

“My thanks,” from the window.

“Quite welcome,” as Jonathan righted himself. He surprised himself with his own steadiness. The rote pitch of the office and a life’s worth of reflex steered his tongue while mind, heart, and stomach rattled where they hid. Because he had to do something with his freed hand rather than clasp it in its brother, he fished out his watch. Only now did a ripple of worry manage to rise to his face.

“Some trouble?”

“I fear I may have lost my ride.”

“You came from the by-road, yes? It hardly sees traffic. If your driver’s gone on without you, go around the front here and see if you cannot bribe our beloved head doctor into lending out the wagon. Just say you have managed to wring a whole quarter of an hour’s worth of nattering from his friend R.M.”

“R.M.?”

“Short for Mr. Rig R. Mortis.” The man chuckled at Jonathan’s look. “Pseudonym, young man. Can hardly have the family being shamed under my real title. He will know who you mean. Though I do hope you manage your ride instead.” With that, the man ducked back from the window and was gone. Jonathan had made it three strides away when the voice called behind him, “Here!” Something small struck the back of Jonathan’s heel. He turned and saw gold winking up at him. A sovereign. “It is not payment. You are merely ensuring the attendant who lost it when I had my last room search never gets it back.”

“Sir—,”

But the window was already abandoned. Jonathan picked the coin up. It was partially obliterated on one end, erasing part of Victoria’s face and the rider on the reverse. This was because the edge had been ground to a sharp edge that nicked his thumb open as he turned it over. Blood smeared Saint George, his steed, and the dragon hissing up at the sword and hooves.

Cold fingers seemed to walk up his spine as he examined it. Shaking the chill away, he tucked the coin in his pocket alongside the notebook’s harvested pages and dashed back the way he’d come. He made it to the waiting cab just as it was pulling up to the gate.

“Well, lad? Is it what your buyer’s after?”

“I believe so.” Jonathan smiled as he said it and held the expression admirably until the cabman turned his gaze back to the road. He gloved his hands despite the balmy weather, sheathing his thumb as it traced the thin impression of the cargo sitting against his breast.

“If you keep up with that you shall tear the whole cheek off,” she said at his shoulder. “You are awake, I promise.”

Jonathan stopped pinching at himself and split his attention between Mina’s face and the clock’s. The magic circle of Roman numbers seemed to shake a phantom head. No, it said, not yet. But soon.

“This is happening, then?” he asked as he turned fully to Mina. Mina, here at the last moment together until mid-May. Mina, wearing the ring he had saved a year for on her finger. Mina, who had clasped and kissed and kept him from collapsing outright in stupefied relief upon the announcement that he had passed his examination, her fiancé now a solicitor. Mina, who held his hand and kept him from floating off through the ceiling and into the sky. “This is really happening? Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.” Jonathan’s eye traveled to her neck and the glimpse of a cord peeking from her shirt collar. She caught him and spared her free hand to tuck it out of sight. “Just as I am sure you will not fly off with my treasure, you magpie.”

The treasure being Jonathan’s own plain gold band now worn as a necklace. He had been the one to slip it over her head the night before, mesmerized by the soft shine as it landed over her heart. It was done by mostly mutual agreement. Mina wished to hold a scrap of tradition close and leave his hand bare until they reached the chapel. And, though Jonathan suspected this was mere theatre, she said she wished to hold onto it as proof to herself that she was awake and that the engagement was a reality. Besides, it was practical! If he were wearing the cord on his trip, what if he should lose it in any number of countries as he traveled? It was one thing to risk forgetting it at the office or leaving it at home. Quite another to imagine losing it in a hotel in another nation. Even with all this logic at her disposal, Jonathan donned his best moue. Mina covered it with her hand.

“That is unfair.”

“I am not above unscrupulous tactics, Mrs. Harker.”

“Like trying to break me by calling me Mrs. Harker?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, you are foiled. My will is too great.” She brought her hand away to brush a strand of hair from his brow. “There is no need to scheme anyway. You shall have the thing back soon enough.”

Jonathan pretended not to hear the slight tremor at the word ‘soon.’ Yes, it was only a few weeks’ separation. A month at most if there were delays in train or coach. But even in this zenith of excitement, knowing unequivocally that this was where their future began—a future where they were taking their first steps up rather that walking the same flat circle in the dust—it felt strangely like waiting to leap into a chasm. A gorge that required endless paperwork to keep track of, plus what was required for the travel itself. Documentation, letter of credit, passport, polyglot dictionary, and, carefully packed, the first new suit he’d had in three years.

Mina had insisted on his modeling it before packing it away. After, she declared she must send a letter of gratitude to not only Mr. Hawkins, but to the tailor. They would have to see him again about the suit for the wedding. Lucy had already written back in response to Mina’s last letter with the announcement, erupting with insistence that, while she was not the sort of girl to live and die by fashion plates, she wanted to know the very instant she began hunting for a dress.

In the present, however, the only new attire was the coat Jonathan wore. A companion piece Hawkins had insisted join the suit before Jonathan could escape the tape measure. Jonathan’s hand drifted up to one of its pockets now and found it unexpectedly light. Worry spiked for a moment before his mind caught up to what it was he’d been feeling for. He almost laughed. Mina canted her head at him, searching. She never missed even the most minute shift behind his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Only I’ve realized I was so adamant about packing everything for the needs of the trip and the client that I forgot the one item I meant to bring solely for me.”

“Your books?”

“No, the law texts are there. A bit of Dumas as well. But I have forgotten my book.” He offered a bashful smile. “Ours, I mean. For your assignment.”

Her brow furrowed a moment before she recalled, “The journal?”

“Yes. I meant to grab one of the spare pocketbooks from my desk, but it’s not in its place. Maybe I bundled it in the case without thinking.” If not, he could shave out a little of his emergency budget for something en route to the castle. But Mina was beaming at him.

“An ordinary pocketbook might suffice for a clerk, but not a solicitor. Especially not when I’ve held onto this since you turned your back to peruse the dictionaries two months back.” She brought out her reticule as she spoke. From the reticule came a slim leatherbound volume with supple pages made to resist the traitorous smudges and tears of its precursor’s flimsy leaves. The whole thing was tied with a white ribbon that pinned a matching pen to its cover. “All shorthand. Promise?”

“Promise,” Jonathan nodded as he took the book gingerly from her hand. It fit so perfectly in the coat that it failed to even dent cloth. “Though I don’t believe the same applies to the recipes. Which I shall collect in abundance and inflict upon us both once I return. Is there anything specific you want me to bring back?”

“You know my tastes already.”

“Other than the cuisine, I mean.”

“Nothing comes immediately to mind. A good story or two would be nice, but,” again her hand found his face, cupped against the angle of his cheek, “as long as you come back, I will be satisfied.”

“I suppose that can be managed.”

The clock tolled and the call went out to the station. All aboard, come along. Mina’s eyes flicked with brief wonder to the train itself. Locomotives and their railways had been one of her chief interests for as long as Jonathan had known her. She regarded her copy of Bradshaw’s Guide with the same reverence as some did their Bible, to say nothing of the clipped articles she had collected concerning new routes and models being laid out within various countries. In sum, Mina loved the practicality and potential of trains. To her they were proof that their world was not limited by whether or not they could hail a hansom or how far it was willing to take them. But now her smile dimmed.

“It had better bring you back on time,” she said as they walked arm and arm up to his car. “I shall be standing in this very spot with my watch out.”

“I’ll warn the conductor.” Because they were among strangers, she had allowed him to hold her arm rather than the reverse. He gave a gentle squeeze first to her arm, then her hand. The lump of the stone stood out under her glove. “If it runs late, I will simply run ahead.” Her laugh did little to hide the dew in her eyes. It matched the mist in his. Their hands held tight.

In that moment, an absurd impulse leapt up in him. An animal-twitch of fear that went deeper than mere anxiety, deeper than love, deeper than concern of career or separation or wandering in unknown lands. It was the needling of a sense he had no name for. A thing that smelled or heard or tasted some imperceptible sign that bodily and mental awareness refused to acknowledge. It whispered:

Do not go. Do not do this. Go home. Go now. Before it’s too late.

The whisper froze him. Mina appeared to freeze with him. Her eyes reflected a feverish glimmer of his own disquiet. They stood locked in that second like a hart and doe with their ears pricked toward a huntsman’s tread in the wood.

But then they blinked. Mina’s gaze lightened and the uncanny sensation left Jonathan as quickly as it came. Only a shudder of nerves disguised as a portent. Really, he could hardly bow to it even if it had meant anything beyond a hiccough of his own fretting. Fact outweighed fear and the fact was he had a job to do. A job that began here, now, with the release of Mina’s hand so he might grab his other bag from her.

Thus unburdened, Mina abruptly trapped his face between her palms. Jonathan bent down until his mouth met hers. Here was the plush press of her lips on his, feeling so much like a reverie he thought once again that he must be asleep. He would wake any moment and the fantasy would fall away into foam. Now. Now.

“Now, I don’t mean to intrude, but there is a train waiting. I’m afraid you must save the rest of the young man for his return trip.” They both snapped up at once to see the uniformed man at Jonathan’s back. He was eyeing them with a look that spoke of a career forever encumbered with similar scenes. The man peered at Jonathan over his spectacles. “You are boarding?”

“Yes, sir. Apologies.” But an apology not even fractionally meant. He turned back to Mina who now steamed from the neck up as she avoided the gawking of an older couple taking in the show. The wife gestured at the sight of them, muttering something in a tone of mingled mirth and query in her husband’s ear, to which the husband rolled his eyes. Jonathan spared them only a mote of attention. “Mina.” She looked to him. “I love you. I’ll be back soon.”

“I love you, Jonathan. I’ll be right here.”

He found his seat at the window and did not turn his head away from the glass. Not while the train idled. Not while it pulled away in its hiss and puff of turning wheels. Not while Mina stood there waving after him, her feet tugging her forward a few unconscious steps so that she might see his window longer while he craned his head to keep her in view. Only when the station itself was a speck in the distance did he turn back around. Off to the future to lay an invisible track for them both. To collect countries as keepsakes and bring them home on paper like pressed flowers.

Jonathan tried to imagine what he might cross on his travel to and from the castle that would be a worthwhile souvenir. Images of books and baubles were conjured as he traced the edges of his journal. So he went on musing until excitement burned out to exhaustion and the first doze of his trip dragged him down into sleep.

A dream came and went.

He was still on the train, still at his window, but the seat facing his was no longer empty. A face he knew was there. One harvested from the far end of his school days and the nascent career as a clerk. So he believed.

It was a familiar countenance in the way that the sight of a stranger always seen in the same place amounted to vague acquaintance. Known enough to nod at in passing. Jonathan had nodded at this one and been given a nod back in student years. He’d thought of introducing himself once or twice, only for the young man to flush and hurry off like a frightened stray. Jonathan had never quite understood it.

Now here was his anonymous acquaintance again, finally sedate in his seat and hidden in his newspaper. While he was not Jonathan’s senior by more than a year, he looked to be in a more professional state of dress. Pressed and tailored and relaxed in that way men can be when they know they have a wardrobe full of similarly fine ensembles waiting at home. But it was his choice of accessory that gave him away as being on a similar pilgrimage to Jonathan’s. The unoccupied portion of his seat was taken up by the paperwork of a sale, carefully weighted by a discarded hat. His companion spared it no attention, having his gaze pinned on the newspaper open in his hands. It blocked the view of him from the whiskers down. Jonathan was still wondering whether to announce himself when a voice came from behind the newsprint:

“My way goes through Munich. Yours as well?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said. “Though I fear there will be no real stop there. At least, the Count did not pencil a hotel stay in the route.”

“Hm,” his companion nodded. “I suppose he would not gamble it twice. Even if he did set it right the first go around.” The newspaper rustled and the young man’s eyes finally lifted above the print to find Jonathan’s. They were bottle glass-bright. “What all have you packed?”

“Necessities, mainly. Everything for the sale, some changes for the overnight stays and—,”

“And what haven’t you packed?”

“I…” His hand traveled again to his chest. “Mina saved me at the station. I forgot a notebook, but she had one ready. I should be fine.”

“No. You are still missing something. Rather, I expect you will be missing it quite soon.” There was a sigh behind the paper. “All that practice and you go and leave the damned thing under your bed.”

Jonathan straightened in his seat. His right hand clamped reflexively, as if palm and fingers were dreaming of a hardwood handle. 

“I’m not going to the jungle.”

“There are worse things than animals to worry about. If you cannot cut them down, what will be left to you?” Another page turned. The bottle glass eyes slid to look out the window. Jonathan followed his gaze and saw that the world had gone black and white under a skull-faced moon. “But then, you might make do without the steel. You handled the worst of our schoolmates well enough back then without even raising your voice. Whatever you may lack as a full-blooded Englishman you make up for in softer stuff. Enough that one or two of the lads confessed over drinks that they wished you were a girl. I was not one of them. You gave me trouble enough as a boy. 

“All that said, you have skills that will help. Appealing attributes. Ones I could have used myself.” The unblinking eyes slid back to Jonathan. It was a greyer stare now. Almost filmy. “I had nothing to sell. Neither in English property or my personal wares, so to speak. I could not even muster charm enough to be worth an extra hour’s chat.” Jonathan watched his companion’s hands crumple the paper in two fists. He saw for the first time that those hands were red. They left dry maroon stains across the gazette. “Who is waiting for you, Jonathan Harker? Who at home? Your Mina, old Hawkins, and who else? Any names come to mind?

“Of those friends, are there any who will know to worry when it goes wrong? Anyone to ask questions? To watch the calendar and the post and wonder how you are? Because I thought I did. I even knew the difference between friends and amiable acquaintances, unlike you. Fellows in and out of my firm. Even a girl who understood my needs and was willing to play her part. They all said they expected letters from me. Said they’d be on watch if I was not back within half a month. That was a year ago. And still they do not know where I am. Nor have they cared enough to look.

“But you would have, I think. If I had ever gotten over my cowardice. If I hadn’t wasted boyhood cringing, so afraid I would give myself away. If I had not made a ghost of myself rather than a friend. I was so proud of myself for not daring at the time—I fear I would have made a wretched scene when I first realized you and the pretty schoolmistress were serious. Instead I took my wine and my pain in silence. Told myself how wise I had been not to try. Ha.” Jonathan watched pallid lips peel open on a smile glazed pink with bleeding. Red rivulets trailed out between the young man’s teeth and into the trimmed beard. “Not that it would have mattered in the end. If we had been friends, if we had been more, if we had been anything at all, there wouldn’t have been much for you to find.”

Jonathan leaned forward. It took an effort. A growing stench was starting to waft from the opposite seat. The stink of copper and rot.

“Please, just tell me what this is. Tell me how to help. What’s happened?”

His companion’s grisly smile wilted. The bottle glass eyes ran like his mouth.

“What’s happened is you have climbed onto the same train I took. You will ride on plenty more. The same coaches too. Perhaps that will help. They never caught on to the truth of things when it was me. After all, he does have work to do, being what he is. People must have made it to and from that place before in official capacity. They must have thought it would be the same for imported goods. Hopefully they will know better now. But then, so will he. Soon all you will have to rely on is yourself. Use what you have. All that you have. Play the game as best you can. As long as you can.” Red tears and dribble flowed in a thickening cascade. “I could not last a week and so lost everything. Or nearly so. I am restless, true, but it could have been worse. Much worse.”

“I don’t understand,” Jonathan almost rasped. Fear choked him like a noose.

“I know. And I am very, very sorry to say that you will.” His companion sighed, releasing a crimson haze of spittle into the air. “Well. This is all I can manage as I am. I suppose I shall not need this anymore. Here.” The newspaper was shut and held out for Jonathan to take. “Somewhat out of date, but well worth the read.”

 Jonathan spared barely a mote of attention for it. There was no headline or story that he could make out. Only a flash of what looked like the stanzas of a poem, though he couldn’t say for certain. He was too gripped by the sight of the young man below the neck. Seeing the fullness of it hooked something in Jonathan’s stomach and drew it up to the very edge of his teeth. He wasn’t sure if it was his breakfast or a scream.

That was when the hand fell on his shoulder.

Cold. Just as cold as the lips now pressed at the side of his neck.

Whatever sound he might have made was cut off as something sharp drove into his throat and the train went as dark as the world beyond it.

“Sir?” Jonathan fell against his seat as if thrown. The uniformed man started back himself, taking his hand away from Jonathan’s shoulder as he did. “We’re coming to the station soon. Can’t have you sleeping through your stop.”

“No. No, of course. Thank you. Sorry.” The man glanced at Jonathan’s lap with a look possessed by every father who has ever known better than his progeny.

“You could pick lighter reading to nod off on. You’re only setting yourself up for sour dreaming if that’s what you skim beforehand.” He didn’t loiter long enough to explain what he meant. Jonathan looked down.

He had picked a gazette to stuff into his things before he and Mina reached the platform. He’d had an idea that he was reserving his books for the far end of his travel and so would make do with some final updates from his native soil. At some point he had turned all the way to the obituaries. His hand rested on one describing the tragic loss of a young man at sea. A sailor fallen overboard in a storm, presumed dead.

They could be wrong, Jonathan thought with sudden desperation. Perhaps he lived. He made it safely to an island or some distant beach. They could find him alive and well. Couldn’t they?

The newspaper was shut, folded over twice, and tucked back in his luggage. Jonathan did not touch it again until he left the final station that spat him out by the shore, feeding it to the first wastebin he saw. He almost laughed to himself when it came time to board the ship. It would be May by the time he cracked open the journal and wrote anything of interest.

“I shall do better on the return trip,” he promised the naked pages. “I’ll record a view of the sunrise on the water, I swear.” And he meant it. But for this first voyage across the water, Jonathan stayed shut in his room. If he dreamt of a black tide coming up to swallow him, he was happy to wake without recalling it. 

[riordanness]

— main masterlist ->

here is my main masterlist for all of my fics on this site!

i will obviously be trying to get this updated every time i post a new fic <3

disclaimer,, i haven’t posted very many fanfics on tumblr yet, so some of these masterlists are currently empty.

enjoy!! 🤍

(coming soon!) masterlist.

percy jackson masterlist

— percy jackson

pick up lines

my tears ricochet

wildest dreams

crazier

fictional

mi amor

things percy would say to me if he was real

i wish you would

bad blood

false god

seven

sparks fly

burning it down

bed chem

— walker scobell

slow motion, double vision

— leo valdez

stranger

delicate

— percabeth

the way i loved you

headcannons

— jason grace

start of something new

today was a fairytale

— luke castellan

— carter kane

— will solace

he was sunshine

the summer i turned pretty masterlist

— conrad fisher

pretty things

— jeremiah fisher

outer banks masterlist

— rafe cameron

gorgeous

breathe

labyrinth

— jj maybank

headcannons

once upon a time masterlist

— peter pan

— killian jones

better than revenge

spider-man/peter parker masterlist

— peter parker

coffee… at midnight

he isn’t you

peter parker headcannons

— tom holland

heaven knows

the chronicles of narnia masterlist

— edmund pevensie

cardigan

just a man

— peter pevensie

the maze runner masterlist

— newt

would’ve, could’ve, should’ve

say don’t go

— minho

— thomas

miscellaneous masterlist

— peeta mellark

tolerate it

— coriolanus snow

— finnick o’dair

— rodrick heffley

headcannons

change

— hiccup haddock

bad blood

out of the woods

— ravi singh

you are in love

dear reader

timothée chalamet masterlist

— willy wonka

sweet nothing

nightmare dressed like a daydream

safe and sound

electric touch

lover

for a moment

all i’ve ever wanted

— timothée chalamet

chocolate like this

— laurie laurence

champagne problems

i think he knows

— nic sheff

enchanté

<3

[companion-showdown]

Who is the best companion to get intoxicated with?

this tournament was suggested anonymously

GRAND FINAL

Ace McShane vs Donna Noble

SEMI FINALS

Ace McShane vs Wilfred Mott

Jack Harkness vs Donna Noble

QUARTERFINALS

Ace McShane vs Jamie McCrimmon

Wilfred Mott vs Bill Potts

Jack Harkness vs Jo Grant

Donna Noble vs Iris Wildthyme

previous rounds under the cut

ROUND 4

Ace McShane vs K9

Ruby Sunday vs Jamie McCrimmon

Wilfred Mott vs Liz Shaw

Dan Lewis vs Bill Potts

Jack Harkness vs Irving Braxiatel

Madam Vastra vs Jo Grant

Donna Noble vs Missy

Iris Wildthyme vs The TARDIS

ROUND 3

Ace McShane vs River Song

Charley Pollard vs K9

Ruby Sunday vs Dodo Chaplet

Rose Tyler vs Jamie McCrimmon

Delgado!Master vs Wilfred Mott

Romana II vs Liz Shaw

Barbara Wright vs Dan Lewis

Frobisher vs Bill Potts

Jack Harkness vs Martha Jones

Polly Wright vs Irving Braxiatel

Madam Vastra vs Koschei

Sarah-Jane Smith vs Jo Grant

Donna Noble vs Bernice Summerfield

Clara Oswald vs Missy

Iris Wildthyme vs Romana I

The TARDIS vs Tegan Jovanka

ROUND 2

Day 2

Jack Harkness vs Liv Chenka

Martha Jones vs Alan Turing

Polly Wright vs Mel Bush

Chris Cwej vs Irving Braxiatel

Madam Vastra vs Jason Kane

Koschei vs McQueen!Master

Sarah-Jane Smith vs Narvin

Ruth Leonidus vs Jo Grant

Donna Noble vs Vislor Turlough

Bernice Summerfield vs Steven Taylor

Wolsey vs Clara Oswald

Clarence the Angel vs Missy

Iris Wildthyme vs Karra

Romana I vs Romana III

Compassion vs The TARDIS

Hebe Harrison vs Tegan Jovanka

Day 1

Ace McShane vs God the Computer

Evelyn Smythe vs River Song

Sabalom Glitz vs Charley Pollard

Miranda Who vs K9

Ruby Sunday vs Hex Schofield

Dodo Chaplet vs Panna

Vicki Pallister vs Rose Tyler

Peri Brown vs Jamie McCrimmon

Delgado!Master vs Fitz Kreiner

Wilfred Mott vs Leela

The Brigadier vs Romana II

Liz Shaw vs The Black Dalek Leader

Barbara Wright vs Nyssa

Lucie Miller vs Dan Lewis

Father Kreiner vs Frobisher

Amy Pond vs Bill Potts

ROUND 1

(too many links for the post to work but all matches under the tag intoxication: round 1)

Day 1

Ace McShane vs Adric

Tegan Jovanka vs Victoria Waterfield

Delgado!Master vs Aris

Jo Grant vs Sutekh

Jamie McCrimmon vs Kamelion

Barbara Wright vs Harry Sullivan

The Black Dalek Leader vs Mother Francesca

Irving Braxiatel vs Elspeth (Where Angels Fear)

Iris Wildthym vs Peter Summerfield

C'rizz vs God the Computer

Romana III vs Carmen Yeh

McQueen!Master vs Mr Crofton

Wolsey vs Sam Bishop

Jack Harkness vs Rory Williams

Bill Potts vs Mickey Smith

Donna Noble vs Ryan Sinclair

Day 2

K9 vs Grace Holloway

Sabalom Glitz vs Sara Kingdom

Polly Wright vs Mike Yates

The Brigadier vs Morbius

Panna vs Varsh

Vicki Pallister vs Karuna

Father Kreiner vs Cousin Anastasia

Alan Turing vs Captain Magenta

Compassion vs Jack McSpringheel

Evelyn Smythe vs Renée Thalia

Frobisher vs Sabbath Dei

Narvin vs Lola Denison

Ruby Sunday vs Ianto Jones

Missy vs Yasmin Khan

Madam Vastra vs Sally Sparrow

Dan Lewis vs Graham O'Brien

Day 3

Steven Taylor vs Ben Jackson

Sarah-Jane Smith vs Zoe Heriot

Leela vs Ian Chesterton

Soldeed vs Vislor Turlough

Tremas vs Peri Brown

Dodo Chaplet vs Duggan

Bernice Summerfield vs Pandora

Koschei vs Valarie Lockwood

Lucie Miller vs The War King

Charley Pollard vs Joseph (The Doomsday Manuscript)

Miranda Who vs Eliza

Chris Cwej vs Adrian Wall

Death's Head vs Hebe Harrison

Jane Austen vs Amy Pond

River Song vs Gwen Cooper

The TARDIS vs Beep the Meep

Day 4

Romana II vs Chang Lee

The Three Who Rule vs Liz Shaw

The Kandyman vs Nyssa

Sergeant Benton vs Karra

Mel Bush vs Susan Foreman

Romana I vs Erato

Jason Kane vs V.M.McCrimmon

Clarence the Angel vs Scarlette

Hex Schofield vs Cousin Justine

John (Another Girl, Another Planet) vs Liv Chenka

Ruth Leonidus vs D'Eon

Fitz Kreiner vs The Original Golden Dalek Emperor

Martha Jones vs Bannakaffalatta

Wilfred Mott vs Toshiko Sato

Rose Tyler vs Vincent van Gogh

Clara Oswald vs Nardole

links to previous tournaments

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Who is the Sexiest Fictional Podcast Character?

After receiving 219 submissions for 152 characters from 52 podcasts and a round of preliminaries, we have our brackets!*

*20 characters from the podcast Welcome to Night Vale will appear later in a Night Vale-only bracket.

Round 1:

Scripted Bracket

Isabel Lovelace (Wolf 359) vs Cyrille (5 Minuten Harry Podcast)

Krejjh (The Strange Case of Starship Iris) vs Lady Ethel Mallory (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Lord Arum (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs The Witch Queen A.K.A. Daughter Dooley (Old Gods of Appalachia

Warren Kepler (Wolf 359) vs Ashley "Ash" Ramis (Georgie Romero is Done For)

Brutus Feels (Kane and Feels) vs Shan (SPINES)

Sir Caroline (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs The Dragon Narrator (Unseen)

Alé (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs Hester/The Narrator (Within The Wires: Season 1)

Thistle/The Woman (Alice Isn't Dead) vs Sam Bailey (The Sheridan Tapes)

Peter Nureyev (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Butt (Pounded In The Butt By My Own Podcast: Episode 1)

Alice (Alice Isn't Dead) vs Diggory Graves (Hello From the Hallowoods)

Antigone Funn (Wooden Overcoats) vs Ryan Dallas (EOS 10)

Martin Blackwood (The Magnus Archives) vs Galileo (Let's Make A Music)

Lucifer Kane (Kane and Feels) vs Gin (Story Break: Heaven Heist)

Amaryllis of Exile (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs Mabel Martin (Mabel)

Pilot Pereya (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Hester Oleta (Within The Wires: Season 1)

Strelitzia (Additional Postage Required) vs Harold "HBD" Bastion Demetrius (The Soft-Boiled Detective)

Akmazian (EOS 10) vs Everyone from The Strange Case of Starship Iris

Damien (The Bright Sessions) vs Mari Datuin (Hi Nay)

Count Dracula (Re: Dracule) vs Static Man (Archive 81)

Dragana Vukovic (The White Vault) vs Elias Bouchard (The Magnus Archives)

Agnes Montague (The Magnus Archives) vs Vega Rex (Vega: A Sci-Fi Adventure Podcast!)

Mina Murray (Re: Dracula) vs Nicholas Waters (Archive 81)

Mark Bryant (The Bright Sessions) vs Laura (Hi Nay)

Georgie Crusoe (Wooden Overcoats) vs Kate Burnham (The Bridge)

Keisha (Alice Isn't Dead) vs SAYER (SAYER)

Chance Sequoyah (The Penumbra Podcast) vs Yaretzi (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Buddy Aurinko (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Dane (Dreamboy)

Sadie Doyle (Thrilling Adventure Hour: Beyond Belief) vs Hera (Wolf 359)

Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) vs The CryptoNaturalist (The CryptoNaturalist)

Rita (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Lou (Archive 81)

Dr. Joan Bright (The Bright Sessions) vs Ashvin Beeharee (Hi Nay)

Renée Minkowski (Wolf 359) vs Clara Page (Who is Aldrich Kemp)

Unscripted Bracket

Pickman (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle) vs The Shadow Man ('Til Death Do Us Blart)

Beacon (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty vs Glenn Close (Dungeons and Daddies)

Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Grand Magnificent (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage)

Taako (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Bathin (Stella Firma)

Lup (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Sago Glegg (Rotating Heroes: Arc 6)

Sans Undertale (Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined: Authority) vs M. Leopold Duvall (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle)

Duck Newton (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Chine (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle)

Tryst Valentine (Campaign: Star Wars) vs Mini Smithson (Chapter and Multiverse: Masks)

Gable (Campaign: Skyjacks) vs Hector Hu (Friends at the Table: Bluff City)

Michael (The Adventure Zone: Dust) vs Nicky Close (Dungeons and Daddies

Zolf Smith (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Fourteen Fifteen (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage)

Coco Cashmere (Hey Riddle Riddle) vs Trexel Geistman (Stella Firma)

Killian Fangbattle (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Henrietta Salm (Pest Control: Fate)

Kalvin Brnine (Friends at the Table: PALISADE) vs Lye "Lyke" Lichen (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle)

Indrid Cold (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Rigour (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Chunt (Hello From The Magic Tavern) vs Suvirin Kedberiket (Worlds Beyond Number: The Wizard, The Witch, and the Wild One)

Tender Sky (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage) vs Pox (NeoScum)

The Firbolg (The Adventure Zone: Graduation) vs Ron Stampler (Dungeons and Daddies)

Azu (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Hadrian (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Moonshine Cybin (Not Another D&D Podcast: Bahumia) vs Caspian (Just Roll With It: Riptide)

Amber Gris (The Adventure Zone: Ethersea) vs Jens Lyndelle (Not Another D&D Podcast: Trinvyvale)

Perennial (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN and PALISADE) vs Throndir (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Nadiya Jones (The Adventure Zone: Commitment) vs Ibex (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Cassander Timaeus Berenice (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight) vs Tech Wizard (NeoScum)

Vermillion "Milli" Blue (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN) vs Dak Rambo (NeoScum)

Rainer (The Adventure Zone: Graduation) vs Mercedes Oak-Garcia (Dungeons and Daddies)

Thisbe (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN and PALISADE) vs Echo Reverie (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage)

Kravitz (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Henry Hogfish (Not Another D&D Podcast)

Aubrey Little (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Glenfyr "Glen" Gladewyn (Not Another D&D Podcast

Cel Sidebottom (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Adelaide Tristé (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Kardala (The Adventure Zone: Commitment) vs Jacqui Green (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Hella Varal (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron) vs (Former) Confessor Bartholomew Lamentations (The Unexplored Places: Ruin's Gate)

[blue-sadie]

.Random.

.Request Page.

A place for my different fandoms brain rots

Platonic = 🌼 Fluff = 🌺 Smut =🌹 Lime = ⚘️ Angst = 🥀 Yandere = 🍁

Anime

Imagines.

(H) kakeru Sengoku - Her Little Merman 🌺

(H) Keishin Ukai - Assistant Manager 🌹

(HMC) Howl Pendragon- A Thing Of Beauty 🌺

(LOK) Mako & Bolin - Brothers Charm 🌹

(MHA) Katsuki Bakugo - Silly Nicknames 🌺

(MHA) Shota Aizawa - Villainous Love 🌹

(MHA) Shota Aizawa - Little Helper 🌹

Combo.

Incorrect Quotes.

Drabbles.

Oneshots.

(H) Asahi Azumane - Pregnant Hungry 🌺

Different Aus.

Headcanons.

NSFW/SFW Alphabet.

Animation

Imagines.

(QFC) Garrett Touch Says All 🌺

Combos

(A&TAE) Dimitri & Cale Tucker - The Tucker Twins 🌹

Incorrect Quotes.

Drabbles.

Oneshots.

Different Aus.

Headcanons.

Nsfw/SFW Alphabet.

Celebritys

Imagines.

Hayden Christen - Yn Moment 🌺 Jamie Flatters - Admiring The Interviewer 🌺

Henry Cavill - Distraction 🌺

Oscar Isaac - Wavering 🌺

Combo.

Jamie Flatters,Tedros Pendragon,Neteyam - One Room 🌹

Incorrect Quotes.

Drabbles.

Oneshots.

Jamie Flatters - Attention Thief 🌺

🎃 Colby Brock - Love Even In Death 🌺

Jack Champion - Past Experiences 🥀🌺

Jamie Flatters - Bakery Girl 🌺

Jamie Flatters - When Fate Intervenes 🌺

Stephen Lang Hard At Work. Prt 2 🌺

Combos.

Avatar Cast - Dream Come True 🌺

Different Aus.

Headcanons.

NSFW/SFW Alphabet.

Games

Imagines.

(BG3) Astarion - Love From Cold Lips 🌹

(BG3) Astarion - For Your Pleasure 🌹

(BG3) Astarion - Flaunting Treasures 🌹

(BG3) Astarion - Sweet As Sugar 🌹

(BG3) Astarion - Red As Cherry 🌹

(BG3) Halinsin - Size Difference 🌹

(HL) Sebastian Sallow - Dazzling Smile 🌺

(TLOU) Joel Miller - The Tiredness 🌹

Combos.

(BG3)Astarion & Halsin - Vampire And The Bear ⚘️

(BG3) Astarion & Gale - Love From The Gods 🌹

(BG3) Astarion & Harleep - Jealous Much 🌹

(HL) Sebastian & Ominus - Bros Before... 🥀🌺

(SR) Fratpack - Bare Claws🌹

Incorrect Quotes.

Drabbles.

Oneshots.

(BG3) Ascended Astarion - Truly Broken 🥀

(BG3) Astarion - My Darling Baker 🌺

(HL) Sebastian Sallow - Lace Me Up 🌺

Combos

(BG3) Astarion & Halsin - Lust Filldd Touches 🌹

Different Aus.

(BG3)God Astarion & God Gale -Praises From The Gods🌹

Headcanons.

NSFW/SFW Alphabet.

(BG3) halsin - NSFW

Movies

Imagines.

(HP) Draco Malfoy - A Bubbly Companion 🌺

(It) Bowers Gang - Plaid Skirts 🌹

(JB) Jennifer Check - Boyfriend And Girlfriend 🌹

(MR) Newt - Second In Command 🌺

(MR) Gally - Soft Spot 🌺

(RH) Prince John - Fall From Grace 🌺

(T) Paul Lahote - Second Head 🌺

Combos.

(HPM) Remus & Sirius - Moon Light 🌹

Incorrect Quotes.

Drabbles.

Oneshots.

(A) Kane - Stop Your Breath 🌺🌹

(D) Harry Hook - Second Star To The Right 🌺

(FG) Walter Mckey (keys) - Cuter Then Puppies 🌺

(MR) Newt - Glow Of Embers 🌺

(TF) Santiago Garcia - Friend Of A Friend 🌹

Combos.

(TF) Santiago Garcia & Frankie Morales - Movement Of The Hips 🌹

Different Aus.

Headcanons.

NSFW/SFW Alphabet.

Series

Imagines.

(F) Savitar - A New Day Has Dawned 🍁

(OBX) Rafe Cameron - Uncontrollable??? 🌹

(OUAT) Peter Pan - Whisked Away 🌺

(SN) Dean Winchester - Jealous Much 🌹

(ST) Billy Hargrove - Addicted 🌹

(ST) Eddie Munson - Something A Bit More 🍁

(T) Jason Todd - Cold Stares 🌺

(TVD) Stephen Salvatore - The Classics 🌺

(TW) Derek Hale - Big Bad Werewolf 🌹

(VK) Ivar Ragnarsson - Tracing Tattoos 🌺🌹

Combos

(OUAT) Peter Pan & Felix - Princess Treatment 🌹

(ST) Billy Hargrove & Eddie Munson - High And Mighty 🌹

(ST) Billy Hargrove & Steve Harrington - You Wouldn't Dare🌹

(T100) Bellamy blake & John murphy - little convincing 🌹

(TW) Stiles Stilinski & Scott Mccal - Rain Check 🌹

(TVD) Damon and Stephen - Elana Really... 🌼🌺

Incorrect Quotes.

Drabbles.

Oneshots.

Combos.

(911) Eddie Diaz & Evan Buckley-Something To Look At 🌹

Different Aus.

Headcanons.

NSFW/SFW Alphabet.

Tag.List

@sweetirilly @neteyamyawne @greekgods15 @laylasbunbunny

[satansapostle6]

Characters I Write For

Please message me with any ideas/requests! I need ideas(short fics or series)

Mostly write for fem!readers. I can write fluff, angst, smut, etc. If I’m not comfortable with something I can let you know

Character/Actor List

Favorite Characters/Actors To Write For

Draco Malfoy, Weasley twins

Jesse Pinkman

Paul Dano characters

Josh Hutcherson characters

Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel

Damon Salvatore, Silas, Klaus Mikaelson, Kol Mikaelson

Rodrick Heffley

Bellamy Blake

Ezra Fitz(should probably make it clear I don’t condone)

Ian Duncan(Community)

Charlie(It’s Always Sunny)

Luke Castellan, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase

Finnick Odair

Tommy Shelby

Killian Hook

Paul Dano

Klitz(The Girl Next Door)

Dwayne Hoover(Little Miss Sunshine)

Edward Nashton(The Batman)

Calvin Weir-Fields(Ruby Sparks)

Brian Wilcox(Fast Food Nation)

Joby Taylor(For Ellen)

Nick Flynn(Being Flynn)

Josh Hutcherson

Peeta Mellark(The Hunger Games)

Mike Schmidt(FNAF)

Josh Futturman(Future Man)

Devon Bostick

Rodrick Heffley(Diary of a Wimpy Kid)

Jasper Jordan(The 100)

Cillian Murphy

Tommy Shelby(Peaky Blinders)

Dr. Jonathan Crane(The Dark Knight)

Neil(Watching the Detectives)

Christian Bale

Patrick Bateman(American Psycho)

Bruce Wayne(The Dark Knight)

Breaking Bad

Jesse Pinkman

Jane Margolis

Saul Goodman

Harry Potter(Golden Trio Era)

Harry Potter

Ron Weasley

Hermione Granger

Fred Weasley

George Weasley

Ginny Weasley

Luna Lovegood

Neville Longbottom

Draco Malfoy

Pansy Parkinson

Blaise Zabini

Theodore Nott

Daphne Greengrass

Adrian Pucey

Terence Higgs

Harry Potter(Marauders Era)

James Potter

Remus Lupin

Sirius Black

Lily Potter

Severus Snape

Regulus Black

Lucius Malfoy

Narcissa Malfoy

Bellatrix Lestrange

Arthur Weasley

Harry Potter(Fantastic Beasts Era)

Newt Scamander

Queenie Goldstein

Leta Lestrange

Percy Jackson

Percy Jackson

Annabeth Chase

Luke Castellan

Thalia Grace

Jason Grace

+ Gods

Criminal Minds

Spencer Reid

Aaron Hotchner

Emily Prentiss

Derek Morgan

JJ

Penelope Garcia

David Rossi

Elle Greenaway

Cat Adams

Megan Kane

Supernatural

Dean Winchester

Sam Winchester

John Winchester

Mary Winchester

Castiel

Charlie Bradbury

Rowena McLeod

Adam Milligan

Lucifer

Ruby

Jessica Moore

Gabriel

Benny Lafitte

Bela Talbot

Jo Harvelle

Ellen Harvelle

Superstore

Jonah Simms

Amy Sosa

Marcus White

Garrett McNeill

Dina Fox

Cheyenne Lee

Bo Thompson

Gilmore Girls

Lorelai Gilmore

Christopher Hayden

Luke Danes

Logan Huntzberger

Jess Mariano

The Hunger Games

Peeta Mellark

Katniss Everdeen

Gale Hawthorn

Finnick Odair

Johanna Mason

Haymitch Abernathy

Pretty Little Liars

Aria Montgomery

Spencer Hastings

Emily Fields

Hannah Marin

Mona Vanderwaal

Alison Di Laurentis

Jason Di Laurentis

Ezra Fitz

Toby Cavanaugh

Jenna Marshall

Caleb Rivers

The Vampire Diaries

Damon Salvatore

Stefan Salvatore

Katherine Pierce

Elena Gilbert

Jeremy Gilbert

Bonnie Bennett

Caroline Forbes

The Originals

Klaus Mikaelson

Elijah Mikaelson

Kol Mikaelson

Rebekah Mikaelson

Freya Mikaelson

Hayley Marshall

Marcel Gerard

Davina Claire

Twilight

Edward Cullen

Bella Swan

Alice Cullen

Jasper Hale

Rosalie Hale

Emmett Cullen

Victoria

The 100

Bellamy Blake

Octavia Blake

Jasper Jordan

Shameless

Fiona Gallagher

Lip Gallagher

Carl Gallagher

Frank Gallagher

Mandy Milkovich

Kevin Ball

Veronica Fisher

The Bear

Carmy Berzatto

Sydney Adamu

Richie Jerimovich

Suicide Squad

Harley Quinn

Rick Flag

Blackguard

Once Upon A Time

Emma Swan

Regina Mills

Killian Jones

Rumplestiltskin

Robin Hood

Ruby

Hades

Community

Jeff Winger

Abed Nadir

Annie Edison

Troy Barnes

Ian Duncan

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Charlie Kelly

Dennis Reynolds

Dee Reynolds

Mac

Cricket

House MD

Greg House

Robert Chase

James Wilson

Lisa Cuddy

Parks and Recreation

Ben Wyatt

April Ludgate

Andy Dwyer

MCU, Marvel

Steve Rogers

Tony Stark

Natasha Romanoff

Bruce Banner

Wanda Maximoff

Loki Laufeyson

Peter Parker(Holland, Garfield, Maguire)

Gamora

Peter Quill

Scott Lang

Steven Strange

Jessica Jones

Wade Wilson

DC CW

Oliver Queen

Barry Allen

Felicity Smoak

Laurel Lance

Sara Lance

Malcom Merlyn

John Constantine

Leonard Snart

Ray Palmer

Caitlyn Snow

Julian Albert

Rip Hunter

10 Things I Hate About You

Patrick Verona

Cameron James

New Girl

Jess Day

Nick Miller

Schmidt

Other Characters

Charlie Kelmeckis(Perks Of Being A Wallflower)

Jesse Eisenberg Characters

Dr. Who(10th Doctor)

Will Probably Add More

[hamiltonforpowerpoint]

Spiderling HCs [YIPIEE]

Hobbie is British/Jamaican so I know he fucks up a mango. I’m talking straight off the tree in right into the flesh. He gets stares

Margo is FNAF fan. She’s watched every recap and theory. Her fav is Bonnie.

Gwen is good at learning an foot heavy hobby. Skating, Roller skating, soccer, you name it shes a little bit above her learning limit

The spiderlings all dye their hair together. Pav gets a strip, Margo uses a tiny tiny bit of temp dye, Hobie goes for the tips, Gwen gets her reg but with a different color, and Miles gets a section

Jess ends up helping them with homework. Miguel is too scary, they end up hep by Peter more than him helping them and Lyla just gives them the answers. Jess ended up stepping in bc she “wasn’t going to have idiots as her protégés”

Miguel and Miles are IPad kids. If you try to talk to them while they are eating and watching something they visibly get upset

ITSV group are Minecraft players and ATSV group are Roblox players

Hobie is the equivalent of stomping your sketchers in the dark but instead he turns a different color

Group cosplays all around. Top ideas are Sonic, Kingdom Hearts, Animal Crossing and MHA

Miles falls down the dnd pipeline and teaches all his friends to play just enough so he can play one shots(yes this includes the adults and parents)

Margo and Pav are designated camera ppl. They are organizing the group, finding the best lighting, getting it together for the camera

“Stays in the box Miles” vs “ wow! I need to display outside the box! ” Gwen( only way I’ll except her opening his action figure)

Miles hits triple homicide by being part of the blk, nd, and lgbtq club at HQ (gah damn 😭)

They have comparing nights where they find one thing and have a sleepover talking about dimensions differences and which ones better

Miles reads anything PJ or Rick ajecent . His favs are PJO, Kane, and Tristan

Miguel’s room is designed nap time(yes from that one fic). Once they got over their fear they realized that the other spiders didn’t. If they were quite enough they could just sneak in the room and make a little hammock or bed(depends in the platform is high or low)

^^^Miles was the last one to do this alone(bc he’s went with one of the other spiderlings) but when he did it my god was knocked tf out 😭

[simp2537]

Requests are open

My request box is open! I write for a bunch of fandoms and characters that I’ll list below.

Percy Jackson

Character: Percy, Annabeth, Grover and I do the Greek gods and stuff. I might add more characters from the series/show so ask if you’re not sure.

Grishaverse

Character: Aleksander, Alina, Nikolai, Zoya, Genya, Kaz, Jesper, Nina, Inej, Matthias, (I haven’t read the series all the way through but I have seen the show and read the demon in the wood)

Harry Potter

Characters: Golden trio era, Marauders era, and Fantastic Beasts

Narnia

Characters: Caspian, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Susan

Disney

Characters: Just general Disney, like the Princess, Princes, Disney channel and stuff

Avatar

Characters: Jake, Neytiri, Tsu'tey, Lo'ak, Tsireya, Tonowari, Ronal, Neteyam and Spider

My Hero Academia

Characters: Deku, Dabi, Shoto, Kiri, Mina, Bakugo, Shōta, others

Hunger Games/ TBOSAS

Characters: Katniss, Peeta, Gale, Coriolanus, Lucy, and Finnick

John Wick/ John Constantine

Stranger Things

Characters: Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington, 001/Henry Creel, Billy Hargrove, Nancy Wheeler, Robin Buckley

Tales of Arcadia

Characters: Jim Lake, Claire Núñez, Toby Domzalski, Douxie Casperan, Krel Tarron, Aja Tarron

Dead Boy Detectives

Characters: Monty the Crow, Edwin Payne, Charles Rowland, Crystal Palace, Niko Sasaki

The 100

Characters: Bellamy Blake, Octavia Black, Clarke Griffin, Finn Collins, Jasper Jordan, Raven Reyes, Marcus Kane, Monty Green,

And so many others I just can’t think of them right now. If there’s a fandom you’re wondering about just ask and I’ll see what I can do. I do platonic, romantic, Female, Male, neutral, working on yandere stuff, angst, head-cannons, au’s, working on smut. I don’t write Character x Character stuff. Have a lovely day 🥰🥰

[werepuppy-steve]

gay pirate brianrot (our flag means death)

just straight up vibes, mate

the chain - fleetwood mac

sweet creature - harry styles

could have been me - the struts

here i go again - whitesnake

love is gone (acoustic) - SLANDER, dylan matthew

let me follow - son lux

achilles come down - gang of youths

till forever falls apart - ashe, FINNEAS

i found - amber run

achilles heel - j. maya

pierre - ryn weaver

partners in crime - set it off, ashe costello

motion sickness - phoebe bridgers

arms unfolding - dodie

sea of love - cat power

hello hello - elton john

ready now - dodie

love like you - caleb hayes

this will be (an everlasting love) - natalie cole

abcdefu (angrier) - GAYLE

would you go with me - josh turner

if i ain't got you - alicia keys

ship in a bottle - fin

underground - cody fry

one (mono single version) - harry nilsson

simply the best - billianne

miss missing you - fall out boy

burn butcher burn - joey batey

in case you don't live forever - ben platt

never love an anchor - the crane wives

inkpot gods - the amazing devil

ruin - the amazing devil

i guess i'm in love - clinton kane

chicken tendies - clinton kane

like real people do - hozier

seven - taylor swift

our prayer - the beach boys

hallucinogenics - matt maeson

crazy on you - heart

locomotive breath - jethro tull

high on a rocky ledge - moondog

messa da requiem: 2. dies irae - guiseppe verdi, berliner philharmoniker, carlo maria guilini, ernst senff chor

sonata in e major, k. 380 - domenico scarlatti, khatia buniatishvili

gnossienne no. 5: modéré - erik satie, olga scheps

concerto for recorder and viola dagamba in a minor, twv 52:a1: I.grave - georg philipp telemann, hille perl

II triello - ennio morricone

perfect day - lou reed

träumerei (kinderderszenen, op. 15) - robert schumann, ronny matthes

2 arabesques, l. 66: no. 1 in e major - claude debusy, peter frankl

rêverie, l. 68: rêverie - claude debussy, jean-yves thibaudet

avalanche - leonard cohen

miles from nowhere - yusuf / cat stevens

go to hell - clinton kane

back to december - taylor swift

mine - taylor swift

break my stride - matthew wilder

viva la vida - coldplay

blackbeard's ghost - jesse rice

back to black - amy winehouse

change (in the house of flies) - deftones

we'll never have sex - leith ross

make up your mind - florence + the machine

everybody loves me - onerepublic

the captain's daughter - alison krauss & union station

easy on me - adele

hoist up the thing - the longest johns

gimme! gimme! gimme! (a man after midnight) - abba

right where you left me - taylor swift

super trouper - abba

soldier, poet, king - the oh hellos

raise hell - brandi carlile

ocean blue - moniker

no choir - florence + the machine

leggie blonde - flight of the conchords

little lion man - mumford & sons

rolling in the deep - adele

pirate song - ben barnes

i love you like an alcoholic - the taxpayers

hello my old heart - the oh hellos

a pirate's life - joel fry

to death we go - joel fry

hurts like hell - fleurie, tommee profitt

lay all your love on me - abba

judas - lady gaga

the moon will sing - the crane wives

this side of paradise - coyote theory

shrike - hozier

enchanted - taylor swift

the night we met - lord huron

dear wormwood - the oh hellos

iris - the goo goo dolls

favorite crime - olivia rodrigo

the foundations of decay - my chemical romance

curses - the crane wives

matilda - harry styles

if i could fly - one direction

welcome home, son - radical face

the mary ellen carter - the longest johns

sweet disposition - the temper trap

like ships need the sea - emily hearn

[hotpotrandomfics]

PJO Ciel AU: Stowaway into War Pt. 1

Summary: Ciel has only been aware of his demigod status for less than two years, so he's learned to be more cautious. Though the cries of war thrust him into joining the fight in Manhattan even if he ruffles a few feathers with a fellow stowaway. Will he die in battle or will he survive the horrors to come?

Part 2: PJO Ciel AU: Stowaway of War Pt. 2

Disclaimer: The characters of Justin Colby Peters and Clara Atalanta Ostá are intellectual properties of @mastrmiscellaneous, please follow them for more content on those characters and their creator's brilliant content.

Word Count: 3,345

It was the dumbest idea in his twelve years of life, that of which his father would throttle him upside the back of his head. Laying inside of a duffle bag with little room to move, clutching his bow, and hoped he wasn’t caught. 

“THUCK!” His body made as it whacked against the back of the rear seats of the Camp Half Blood van. “Ow…” Ciel murmured before covering his mouth to not give his position away to the campers sitting in anticipation of the coming battle. 

“What was that?” One demigod said, scanning around the van.

“What was what?” Another questioned.

“I thought I heard- never mind.” The demigod focused on the road ahead. 

Taking a deep though slight breath, Ciel felt the tension release slightly. However, as time progressed the tension, fear, and worry began to bubble in the pit of the stomach. It was as if ice began to creep throughout his body the closer the van got closer to the final destination: the Empire State Building. 

An hour and a half later, the vans arrived at the Empire State Building. The doors of the van opened as each of the demigod teams began their short meeting with Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase. 

As Annabeth gave out orders, the demigods began unloading the van with their equipment, including the bag that Ciel had stored himself in. Being pulled out, by a camper and with a loud thud the boy gave his position away. 

“Ow!” Ciel yelled as his body hit the asphalt road. After a brief moment, someone opened the bag and met the gaze of the boy. “Uh, hi!”

“Silverstein?!” Annabeth Chase turned to see the boy with a frown that could petrify him like Medusa. “What in the gods' name are you doing here?!” 

“I…” Ciel shimmed out of the bag. Dressed in hiking boots, jeans, a camp shirt, and a military jacket that may or may not have been “acquired” from the camp store, and his armor. A black bow, quiver, and sword were pulled from the duffle by one of the campers. Some could state the obvious but did want to hear what he would say. 

Standing up, he looked over the other demigods. Some with glances of annoyance, humorous (mostly the Stoll twins), but a majority irritated of stares made it hard to speak. 

“Ciel?” Percy's voice called to him with a stern stance though a calm gaze was enough to acquire a response. Ciel and Percy were not super close, but they had a cordial relationship a mentor and mentee. “Why are you here?”

“I wanted to help. To fight…” Ciel gripped his bow firmly as he looked at the rest of the campers. “I can’t just not help! Kronos is on the way, and I-“

“Isn’t your mom against Olympus?” A son of Hephaestus stated with a hint of hate. 

They weren’t wrong, Ciel's mother was the goddess of magic, Hecate, and one of the greatest betrayers of the former Titan army. A number of his siblings were claimed during the Battle of the Labyrinth, in which they sided with Kronos and Luke's forces in the hopes of gaining the favor of their mother and recognition. Ciel wasn’t one of them, though just because one could join others who are in the wrong doesn’t mean all should.��

How could he not want to have considered the possibility of joining the other side? Having siblings who were willing to switch sides was not something he’d care for because he couldn’t imagine betraying others, especially because he was taught that letting his anger over not receiving prayers and love was worth it. The blood of those who fought and died to the Titan Army. Having a mother’s love? Hecate never stepped in or cared for him for twelve years so why would she change? No, just because he was claimed does not mean she gets to act like he owes her a pegasus fart from him. 

“So?” Someone spoke up. Justin Colby Peters, Ciel's best friend for the past year in a half. Cladded in his own attire, faded jeans, a camp hoodie, armor and bow in hand. Never did Ciel feel more thankful than in that moment. 

“Ciel is one of our best archers and he doesn’t need permission to do the right thing. Right?”

Some of the demigods grumbled while others nodded at the facts before Annabeth spoke up clearly annoyed. 

“Fine. But you’re stuck with the Apollo cabin.” Annabeth said in a stern tone, Ciel nodded in acknowledgment as the rest of the demigods continued clearing the vans of their gear. 

“For Olympus' sake!” A hunter pulled out a girl dressed in armor, jeans, a camp shirt, and a dark blue hoodie. “We got another one!” 

“Hey, let go!” The girl growled, her eyes a fierce deep blue like the sky at twilight. 

“Clara too?!” Percy said as she glanced between her and Ciel. “Are there any more stowaways?” 

“Just us, Percy,” Ciel spoke as he walked over to Justin, glancing at Clara before beckoning her to them. “She can help with our assignment.” 

“You’ll need me on the battlefield, Jackson,” Clara stated boldly as she cycled her bronze coin through her hand. A statement that couldn’t be argued as Clara is a prodigy in the field of swordsmanship, if he wasn’t mindful of her potential, then Percy would be obliterated during training. This though was not training and there was no chance of a second chance or luck on their side. Clara Atalanta Ostá is someone you could rely on in a pickle and given their limited numbers who could argue?

With little choice in the matter, Percy nodded as the trio smiled. Michael Yew looked at the three before rolling his eyes and taking charge of his cabin and the two stowaways as they made their way to the Williamsburg Bridge. 

At the Williamsburg Bridge…

Michael Yew, son of Apollo, began setting up a series of archers between every few cars that sat on the road. In some of the Apollo cabins, the more experienced were in front while Ciel, Justin, and Clara made up the rear guard. The trio went over their gear respectively, ensuring their straps were secure on their armor, counting their munitions, first aid packs, ambrosia, and nectar supplies. 

“So… you guys didn’t want to tell me why you hitchhiked all the way to the war zone?” Justin asked as he tested the drawstring of his bow. 

“And risked being told no?” Clara countered was she flipped her coin a couple times as she glanced from their position. Scanning for the coming of Kronos forces. 

“I could have vouched for you and you could have sat comfortably,” Justin stated a bit irritated given his view of the two. “It’s not like we aren’t close to each other and aren’t friends.” 

“Justin,” Ciel spoke up. “It was my idea that we sneak up to join the fight. I… I can’t stay at camp knowing I could help fight against them.” 

Ciel stood as he looked out to the East River before turning his gaze to Brooklyn. The thought of not helping his best friend, the camp that made him feel not so alone? To him, the answer was easier than throwing a spear into the ocean. 

“Ciel, why didn’t you trust me to tell the truth?” 

“It’s because-“Before Ciel could decipher an explanation an explosion and the roar of the Titan Army began to march down the Brooklyn end of the bridge shifted his attention. “We’ll get back to that.” 

The three took up positions, Ciel behind a Jeep Cherokee with his bow at the reading an arrow housing Greek fire. Launching his arrow at a great angle, Ciel and a few others Apollo created a steady wall of Greek fire to slow the charge. Justin holding a position in the bed of a Ford F-150, knocking an arrow down the bridge and hitting a hellhound in its forehead. Justin and Ciel continued in intervals while Clara headed forward line with more combat-oriented Apollo kids. 

The few demigods and hellhounds that were past the line of fire engaged in a melee with the Apollo kids. Clara raised her sword as she countered a demigod who raised an axe. Siding stepping and slashing towards the enemy's stomach, Clara followed with an elbow strike into their left bicep. Duck, dodge, and parry are all Clara could do against a demigod twice her size before she slipped under their swing. Clara then kicked their knee in before following a hilt strike to the left temple.  

Another demigod aimed their shield to bash at Clara, lucky an arrow flew by and struck the demigod in the shoulder. Glancing back, Clara saw Justin giving her a wink before he continued aiding with the volley of arrows. Afterward, Ciel pushed forward as one Apollo kid fell down due to a spear on their leg. Will Solace, another son of Apollo helped pull his sibling to the rear with Clara and another Apollo kid serving as a set of escorts. 

The metallic scent of blood and flames carried throughout the zones of the defensive perimeter as more combatants fell. The clang of swords, axes, and shields collided with a thunderous boom as the fever of the Apollo cabin stood holding the line. This was war and they were aiming to win this battle, but the forces of Kronos began to push the forward line back into Manhattan. Apollo kids conducted a retrograde of their forward line while the left and right flanks covered the retreat. Yew ordered them by section to ensure there wasn’t chaos amongst them, and so his siblings could get out of the line as fast as possible. Though it was difficult for them to buy time for those who were injured, that was until Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase arrived to even the odds. 

Percy, Annabeth, and Michael discussed the current circumstances while the Apollo kids continued to hold what they were able to. Ciel caught a glance as Percy charged into the fray, followed by a few of the Apollo kids and Clara. Percy fought back demigod after demigod, turning the tide of the battle in their favor with the aid of a few Apollo kids who were skilled in close quarters. The Minautor made a b-line for Percy, and the two enemies engaged in brief combat before Percy eliminated his first feat. 

Clara was keeping up with Percy though by a lesser margin possibly due to their height and age difference by taking on her own share of demigods with a fury not seen in training. Ciel along with Justin pushed forward with a few of their comrades, Michael calling out their orders for their shots as they blanketed the battlefield with a hail of arrows.

“We have a chance.” Ciel thought as he kept lining his shots up for the most accurate hits. Though the son of Hecate saw a spear going for Justin, without thinking he tackled his friend but received a graze to his left shoulder. 

“Shit! What hell- Ciel, oh gods!” Justin sat up as he looked at Ciel clutching the fresh would. 

“I’m okay, it’s just a scratch!” Ciel said in a lightly pained and angry tone. “Gods, that hurt,” he stated as he covered his wound with gauze and medical tape before taking his position again to aid the line. 

“You’re stupid!” Justin commented as he took his place firing arrows. “Like who takes an arrow on purpose?!”

“You can complain and tell me how stupid I am when we get outta here!” Ciel shouted with a hint of venom. 

“You’re not allowed to leave me alone,” Justin said as he readied another arrow. “Got it?!” 

“We’re best friends, so we aren’t allowed to.” 

As the battle on the Williamsburg Bridge drew closer a domino effect took over the entire flow. Ciel couldn’t tell much as a storm conjured by Percy took hold of the bridge, on the order of Michael the rest of the Apollo team ran. The crack of the asphalt, wires, and creaks of metal trembled in the demigods' hearts as the bridge fell into the East River, some not making it off or being swept away by the currents. Ciel was bringing up the rear of his comrades, ensuring Justin and Clara made it off but the structure underneath their feet collapsed. 

“AH!” Ciel grabbed a piece of rebar as he fell his feet dangling and his grip ever weakening. The violent waters once calmed were disturbed by the falling bridge, metal, and cars that flashed before dimming out to nothing as if Charybdis was making an appearance from the Sea of Monsters. 

“Ciel!” Justin and Clara both divided down onto their belly to the remnants of the bridge, reaching out for him. The pair inching closer to him to grab their third member. “Hold on!” 

“I’m trying!” Ciel trembled in terror trying to tighten his grip. The fear sank in his stomach as he stared up at his friends pleading for them to help him up. 

They inched closer and closer until they were but a hand length away. 

“Ciel, you’re gonna have to pull yourself up!” Clara barked as her hand reached for him.

“I… I…” Ciel shook as his grip felt as if it were loosening. He either pulled himself up or fell to his death. 

Though the injury from saving Justin made his left arm wail in agony, sapping away at what energy remained shortened the ability of what could have been easy. Nevertheless, he couldn’t blame himself for trying to protect the closest person to him like a brother. Mustering what strength he had left and with a loud yell, he pulled himself up as Justin and Clara clamped their hands on his arms and quivered, pulling him to safety. 

“I hate heights,” Ciel said as he crawled on his knees. “Thanks, guys.”

“Don’t be a crybaby,” Justin said with a light jab at Ciel's shoulder. 

“Ow!” Ciel rubbed where he was hit in the shoulder. “Mean!”

Justin rolled his eyes as he took a step up, his prosthetic leg being slightly banged up but manageable once they got back to the Plaza Hotel, the headquarters of Camp Half-Blood forces. Clara sighed in relief before glancing at the disaster of what came of the bridge and Percy's rage. 

“By the gods…” Clara muttered. 

“We have to regroup!” Will Solace shouted to the three and the others lagging behind. With no room to stay in their stupor, the trio followed the rest of their forces back to the Plaza Hotel. 

At the lobby of the Plaza Hotel…

The silence that rippled through the dead streets of the Big Apple lingered, only emphasized by the steps of the members of the Camp taking spots to rest. Ciel, Clara, and Justin had just barely gotten through the lobby before they saw the carnage of their casualties. Some kids they fought with during Capture the Flag, some they raced with by the lake, and others barely held to life as medics tended to their wounds. 

Ciel didn’t know if it was eyes playing tricks on him. Whether the battle on the bridge, fear of falling to his death, or the heavy exhaustion he felt he could have sworn he saw lights on each of his comrades. Whether they were bright in sold shades of different colors felt odd, unnerving would be more precise as he watched one of the mortally wounded camper's lights seem to flash dimmer and dimmer until there wasn’t a light. 

“Hey, you alright man?” Justin asked as he pulled Ciel from his daze. “You, um, got a tear running down your…”

“Oh,” Ciel said in a monotone voice before wiping it away. “It’s… it’s nothing, J. Promise.” 

“If you’re sure. Well, we get a chance to rest for a while. We will probably be called to take up guard in a few hours.”

“Alright,” Ciel responded. 

That night was the worst sleep Ciel ever had up to date. What he hoped was a dreamless, dark, and silent mind where his thoughts could just stop. On the contrary, his thoughts were rampant as his dreams were filled with the campers who fell today in the defense of Olympus. 

A boy from the Hephaestus cabin's stomach was slashed open by what can be assumed to be claw marks. A daughter of Aphrodite clearly speared through her chest as her wound sucked air, but her face is what cemented the terror in Ciel. Her eyes and the eyes of his fallen comrades pleading to be saved as if he could have saved them. How could he have though? 

Maybe if he knew magic or was better at first aid he could have helped Will and the other medics. Right? Sadly, he wasn’t skilled at magic if at all. Whether it was Hecate doing or not wasn’t for him to say but one thing was clear: more lives will be lost before the end of the night. 

His dreams pulled him to what seemed like the Titan army base camp. A boy in black armor and what appeared to be Greco runes carved into his armor. He stood around six-foot-two, his eyes glimmered a deep green like that of Greek fire. He stood with a woman in a royal purple gown and silver armor. The woman’s features shifted to those of the one Ciel met the day his dad told him of his origins. The way she carried herself was dignified and regal but there was something else about the air around her, it was something akin to a gentle breeze in a quiet evening. A presence Ciel often felt walking the streets of St. Augustine during its nights where the spirits would often walk amongst the living but not able to be seen except by him and those privileged to see into the Mist. 

“Mother, it seems that the forces of Camp Half-Blood were able to turn us away.” The boy said as he pointed to the sections of the invasion attempt on a map. 

“Prometheus is making his way to the Half-Bloods, if they give up after his talk then we will secure victory-“

“Do not get cocky, Alabaster.” The woman said in a firm, almost parental tone as she spoke. “We have not won this war. Your siblings who you lost in the invasion…”

“I’ll avenge them. I’ll avenge every single one and we will win. My blood is your blood, mother.” Alabaster retorted as he shuffled a set of cards in his hand before gazing at his mother. 

“Hm. We still have some time before Prometheus reaches Jackson’s forces. His love for mortals will be his undoing if he steps out of line with Kronos.” The woman claimed as she scanned the map before looking up.

“You’re watching me, aren’t you?” She smirked before reaching for a handout. “There is still time to bend the knee. Join me, son.” 

“Mother?” Alabaster questioned as he looked around before realizing his mother wasn’t focused on him. 

“Seems one of your siblings can’t help being nosy. You have one chance, join us and you. Your father. Will be safe. I can swear this.” The woman's face though it was stern began to soften, almost pleading, as she tried to convince Ciel through his dreamscape to fall in line. 

“If you don’t I’ll drag you here,” Alabaster stated as he marched towards Ciel's direction with a hand reaching out.

Ciel shook as he felt their combined gazes weren’t that of comfort did not make him want to join, especially with Alabaster threats towards him. He looked around to find an exit but was jolted awake and away from the Titan camp. His body shook violently as wind chime during hurricane season, drenched by his sweat as if he rose from the fresh surf. 

“Ciel?” Justin questioned worriedly. “We got our shift. Are you alright?”

“I saw my mother. Hecate…”

[basicrese]

oh my gods i could cry right now, i really could.

so here's my reactions to the first two episodes of Percy Jackson and the Olympians (long post ahead):

Episode 1

To start, I know we've seen and heard this from the trailer and sneak peeks already but hearing the line for real from the first episode, oh I almost lost it right then and there. This has been YEARS in the making.

Baby percy already embodying the snark and sass from facial expressions and internal monologue alone, i love him

In a similar regard, I know we've already seen it from sneak peeks but the possible Blackjack cameo made me so happy 🥹

The portrayal of the mist is everything I wanted and more actually

Sally being a Medusa ally, i know that's right!!!!!

"appointment to see Mr. Kane?????" "at D'angelo's??????" They're making me go crazy because all these subtle name drops and I have no idea if they're just tiny easter eggs or if they mean something in the long run 😩😩

the design for Mrs. Dodds as a fury?????? absolutely amazing and I love how they carried that entire scene out; how she was there one moment and gone the next and that Percy didn't suddenly turn into this invincible warrior. It perfectly set up the suspiciousness of what just happened because it all happened so fast and there was no room for Percy to process what actually happened because suddenly no one even knows who she is. BUT YET there's a momentary flicker of guilt and hesitation in Grover's face and curiosity in Mr. Brunner's (just as it was written!). You can almost hear Percy's inner monologue doubting their words because it didn't add up to their body language but simultaneously doubting his narrative too because everyone is proving what he saw otherwise.

"I'm all wet now" as Sally, dripping wet because she had just been basking in the rain, goes to hug him. there is little to none seriousness in this child's body

"You fell in love with God? Like Jesus?" unseriousness.

the very intentional lighting during the goodbye scene in the way it only cast golden on half of Percy and Sally's faces

the depiction of Sally being crushed like ofc we know she's being held captive in the Underworld BUT PERCY DOESN'T AND HE THINKS HE JUST WATCHED HIS MOTHER DIE IN SUCH A BRUTAL WAY RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS EYES I COULD SOB LIKE THE WAY HE FOUGHT? THAT WAS ALL RAGE AND DESPAIR.

ngl Percy just dropping names left and right made me so anxious with the whole "names have power thing" HJGKLDSBSG had me going "don't say his name out loud!!" during the car scene

oh that end-credits was gorgeous. and the way it depicts the entire story even ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

the sneak peek of camp after the credits, we're about to eat!!!

i did not realize rick even cameoed until i saw it on twitter help

Episode 2

"You drool when you sleep." SCENE EVERYBODY CHEERED

Mr. D passed out while holding a can of coke is the only way he could have been introduced actually (and the first Peter Johnson!)

The Big House is so pretty???

The vulnerability in Percy's voice when he was asking for help to find his dad i can't do this 🧎🏻‍♀️

THE. CAMP. IT'S SO VAST AND BEAUTIFUL I COULD ONLY DREAM OF TIMES LIKE THESE IN THE PAST. also the way i'm taking it right now is that the cabins are already so gorgeous so when annabeth revamps the place by tlo? they are going to go crazier with the set design i fear

the supposed red herring on the scoring that makes you think luke is gonna bully percy but he's actually a good guy that'll be a mentor figure to him WHEN THAT IN FACT IS THE REAL RED HERRING LIKE IT'S THE GENIUS OVER GENIUS FOR ME

i was kinda lost on who the other guy with luke and percy was at first until i realized it was chris. he doesn't know what'll happen to him when the fourth season rolls around like laugh while u still can chris

percy already advocating for the unclaimed, he has always been a real one!!!

grover you sweet little satyr i need to give him a hug. the protector also needs to be protected 🥹

the way i could tell there would be an answer to the god of disappointment joke help; like they're quips to you percy but they will actually have answers to every rhetorical question you throw their way ���😭

"ignoring me is one thing, but he doesn't get to ignore you." one thing about percy, his mother always comes first 🙏

i can't get enough over the gorgeous cinematography I CAN'T

dior embodies clarisse's pride and cruelty with such accuracy but she's so pretty i wanna forget how mean she is LMAO

the percabeth dynamics already going so strong i could cry, like that first interaction???

i love ms. annabeth chase so much she is everything to me, the poise! the confidence! the leadership!

the capture the flag sequences oh it was everything

"I am Sally Jackson's son!" EXACTLYYYY

overall, i am going through the motions and it has been absolutely beautiful so far and everything down to the cast, crew, production, set design, costume design, scoring, cinematography has been done immensely well. i can't believe we're actually here 🥹💙

[straightplayshowdown]

Round 1 Bracket

Thank you to every single person who submitted to the bracket! The Straight Play Showdown will be a 32 bracket consisting of 35 contestants that were submitted more than once and 29 wildcard contestants. With each poll, there will be a synopsis of both shows (made to the best of my & the internet's ability) and propaganda (if submitted). The bracket will start on Friday September 8 at 6 PM CST.

Below the cut is the Round 1 Bracket!

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (Stoppard) v Antigone (Sophocles)

Arsenic and Old Lace (Kesselring) v Our American Cousin (Taylor)

Waiting for Godot (Beckett) v Hamlet (Shakespeare)

Midsummer.com (Kobler, Marcus) v Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Lewis, Sayer, Shields)

Indecent (Vogel) v Arcadia (Stoppard)

The Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Gurguis) v Medea (Euripedes)

Wittenberg (Davalos) v The Blender (Harshnel)

Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams (Cruz) v The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Horwood)

Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare) v The Rover (Behn)

The Crucible (Miller) v Twelve Angry Men (Rose)

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead (Royal) v DNA (Kelly)

The Bacchae (Euripedes) v The Flies (Sartre)

The Pillowman (McDonagh) v Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Fo)

Fences (Wilson) v Barber Shop Chronicles (Ellams)

Appropriate (Jacobs-Jenkins) v Cleansed (Kane)

Copenhagen (Frayn) v No Exit (Sartre)

Angels in America (Kushner) v The Baltimore Waltz (Vogel)

The Ferryman (Butterworth) v Heroes of the Fourth Turning (Arbery)

Doctor Faustus (Marlowe) v The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde)

Shoe Lady (Crowe) v Phaedra (Seneca)

The Play That Goes Wrong (Lewis, Sayer, Shields) v Les Fourberies de Scapin (Molière)

The Mostellaria (Plautus) v The Mousetrap (Christie)

The Wolves (DeLappe) v Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Stephens)

Pygmalion (Shae) v A Doll's House (Ibsen)

Intimate Apparel (Nottage) v Les liaisons dangereuses (Hampton)

Our Town (Wilder) v A Raisin in The Sun (Hansberry)

The History Boys (Bennett) v Peter and the Starcatcher (Elise)

Art (Reza) v Born With Teeth (Adams)

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Albee) v The Death of a Salesman (Miller)

The Mikvah Project (Azouz) v Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour (Hall)

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf (Shange) v Gruesome Playground Injuries (Joseph)

The Woman's Prize, or The Tamer Tamed (Fletcher) v Proof (Auburn)

[superhero-smackdown]

Bracket(??) Announcement!

I have FINALLY (which I am very sorry for guys) finished going through my submissions and have created something that looks like a bracket. BUT, in order to include the most characters, I have devised a group round with 128 characters divided into 8 groups and have sorted them in a way that prevents this competition from becoming a batman vs spider-man final.

making the polls shouldn't take nearly as long so be on the lookout for those! this will be pinned and I'll make sure to edit this post with links to the polls, and matchups are not necessarily going to be heroes next to each other! matches can be made up by any two heroes in the same group

polls will last a day for now and one group will be posted per day

as of right now top 4 from each group will make it to the bracket round but that is absolutely subject to change so don't count on that

Without further ado, your Superhero Smackdown competitors!!!

GROUP 1

Peter Parker, Miles Morales, and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Men and Ghost Spider (Marvel)

Garfield Logan/Beast Boy (DC)

Steve Rogers/Captain America (Marvel)

Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler (Marvel)

The Incredibles and Frozone (Pixar)

Kori'ander/Starfire (DC)

Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Marvel)

Stephanie Brown/Spoiler (DC)

Toshinori Yagi/All Might (My Hero Academia)

Charles Xavier/Professor X (Marvel)

Jessica Jones (Marvel)

Jason Todd/Red Hood (DC)

Black Noir (The Boys)

Jim Gordon (DC)

Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Marvel)

Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Marvel)

GROUP 2

Kara Zor-El/Supergirl (DC)

T'Challa Udaku/Black Panther (Marvel)

Sam Wilson/Falcon/Captain America (Marvel)

Dick Grayson/Nightwing (DC)

Peter Quill/Starlord (Marvel)

Minhkhoa Khan/The Ghost-Maker (DC)

The Green Lantern Corp (DC)

Kendra Saunders/Hawkgirl (DC)

Arthur Curry/Aquaman (DC)

Cassandra Cain/Black Bat (DC)

Queen Maeve (The Boys)

Clark Kent/Superman (DC)

Kitty Pryde/Shadowcat (Marvel)

Tony Stark/Iron Man (Marvel)

Cissie King-Jones/Arrowette (DC)

Marc Spector, Steve Grant, Jake Lockley/Moon Knight (Marvel)

GROUP 3

Barry Allen/The Flash (DC)

Starlight (The Boys)

Kate Kane/Batwoman (DC)

Darkwing Duck (DuckTales)

Shouta Aizawa/Eraserhead (My Hero Academia)

Roy Harper/Arsenal (DC)

Natasha Romanoff, Yelena Belova/Black Widow (Marvel)

Tim Drake/Red Robin (DC)

The Autobots (Transformers TV Show)

Bruce Wayne/Batman (DC)

Ororo Monroe/Storm (Marvel)

The Midnighter (DC)

Wade Wilson/Deadpool (Marvel)

Logan, James Howlett/Wolverine (Marvel)

Kon Kent/Superboy (DC)

Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (DC)

GROUP 4

Danny Fenton/Danny Phantom (Danny Phantom)

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)

The Powerpuff Girls (The Powerpuff Girls)

Izuku Midoriya/Deku (My Hero Academia)

Ben Tennyson/Ben 10 (Ben 10)

Adrien Agreste/Chat Noir (Miraculous Ladybug)

Kate Bishop/Hawkeye (Marvel)

Marinette Dupain-Cheng/Ladybug (Miraculous Ladybug)

America Chavez/Miss America (Marvel)

Kim Possible (Kim Possible)

Link and Zelda (The Legend of Zelda)

Goku (Dragon Ball Z)

The Power Rangers (The Power Rangers Series)

Kamala Khan/Miss Marvel (Marvel)

Virgil Hawkins/Static (DC)

Billy Batson/Captain Marvel/Shazam (DC)

GROUP 5

Damian Wayne/Robin (DC)

Phineas Flynn, Ferb Fletcher/The Beak (Phineas and Ferb)

Alex, Sam, and Clover (Totally Spies)

Jubilation Lee/Jubilee (Marvel)

Alya Cesaire/Rena Rouge (Miraculous Ladybug)

Flash Thompson/Agent Venom (Marvel)

Shoto Todoroki/Shoto (My Hero Academia)

Gwen Poole/Gwenpool (Marvel)

Nino Lahiffe/Carapace (Miraculous Ladybug)

Kaio Kincaid/K.O. (OK K.O.! Let's be Heroes)

Katsuki Bakugo/Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight (My Hero Academia)

Felicia Hardy/Black Cat (Marvel)

Billy Kaplan and Tommy Shepherd/Wiccan and Speed (Marvel)

Viv Vision (Marvel)

Doreen Green/Squirrel Girl (Marvel)

Mia Dearden/Speedy (DC)

GROUP 6

Undine Wells and Kokoro Aichi/Alchemical Water and Heartful Punch (Sleepless Domain)

Olive Silverlock and Maps Mizoguchi/The Detective Club (DC)

Nova Artino and Adrian Everhart/Insomia and Sketch (Renegades Trilogy)

Karen Fields/Voyd (Pixar)

Laura Kinney/X-23/Wolverine (Marvel)

William Wisp/The Wisperer (Just Roll With It)

Kagami Tsurugi/Ryuuko (Miraculous Ladybug)

Gizmoduck (DuckTales)

Dakota Cole/D.C. (Just Roll With It)

Rumi Usagiyama/Miruko (My Hero Academia)

Luka Couffaine/Viperion (Miraculous Ladybug)

Neena Thurman/Domino (Marvel)

Vyncent Sol/Virion (Just Roll With It)

Elpis (Valor Academy)

Captain Rainbow (Nintendo)

Moza/Emara (Emara)

GROUP 7

Mark Grayson/Invincible (Invincible)

Jimmy Woo (Marvel)

Kirby (Nintendo)

The Doctor (Doctor Who)

Zorro (The Mark of Zorro)

Phil Coulson (Marvel)

Megamind (Megamind)

Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece)

Donald Duck/The Duck Avenger/Paperinik (Disney)

Saitama/Caped Baldy (One Punch Man)

He-Man and She-Ra (He-Man: Masters of the Universe and She-Ra: Princess of Power)

Sonic the Hedgehog (Sonic Games)

The Tick (The Tick)

Robin Hood (English Folklore)

Yamada Hizashi/Present Mic (My Hero Academia)

Klaus Hargreeves/Number 4/The Séance (The Umbrella Academy)

GROUP 8

Super Grover (Seasame Street)

Wario-Man (Nintendo)

Fanboy and Chum Chum (Fanboy and Chum Chum)

Ace and Gary/The Ambiguously Gay Duo (Saturday Night Live)

Hero Cookie (Cookie Run)

Floyd Belkin/Splitter/Arm-Fall-Off-Boy (DC)

Bob Dobalina/Bob, Agent of Hydra (Marvel)

Bibleman (Bibleman TV Show)

Larry-Boy (VeggieTales)

Sharkboy and Lavagirl (The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl)

Mermaid Man and Barnicle Boy (SpongeBob SquarePants)

Daniel MacIntyre/Cactusman/SCP-2800 (SCP Foundation)

Morbius (Morbius)

Jarro (DC)

Jeff the Land Shark (Marvel)

Steel Samurai (Ace Attorney)

[companion-showdown]

Best companion to get intoxicated with: Round 0 Masterpost

the elimintation numbers on the posts themselves are largely wrong because I made a mistake and only realised when it was too late, its two per group except 14 and 15 which is 3

Day 2

Elimination Groups:

Group 8 (2 eliminations)

God the Computer

Hallan

Hass

Hebe Harrison

Hex Schofield

Irving Braxiatel

Jack McSpringheel

Group 9 (2 eliminations)

Jane Austen

Jason Kane

John (Another Girl, Another Planet)

Joseph (Oh No it Isn't)

Joseph (The Doomsday Manuscript)

Koschei

Laura Tobin

Group 10 (2 eliminations)

Lola Denison

Mark Seven

McQueen!Master

Miranda Who

Mother Francesca

Mother Mathara

Mr Crofton

Group 11 (2 eliminations)

Ms Jones

Narvin

Pandora

Peter Summerfield

Preacher!Master

Renee Thalia

Romana III

Group 12 (2 eliminations)

Ruth Leonidus

Sabbath Dei

Sam Bishop

Scarlette

Stratum Seven Agent

Tameka Vito

The Black Dalek Leader

Group 13 (2 eliminations)

The Earl of Sandwich

The Original Golden Dalek Emperor

The War King

Unnamed Courtesan (In the Year of the Cat)

V.M.McCrimmon

Valarie Lockwood

Wolsey

Group 14 (3 eliminations)

Ianto Jones

Toshiko Sato

Owen Harper

Andy Davidson

Gwen Cooper

Banana Boat

The TARDIS

Missy

Group 15 (3 eliminations)

Sally Sparrow

Larry Nightingale

Bannakaffalatta

Vincent van Gogh

Madam Vastra

Psi

Saibra

Beep the Meep

Seeding Groups

Group 8

Charley Pollard

Evelyn Smythe

Lucie Miller

Liv Chenka

Group 9

Bernice Summerfield

Fitz Kreiner

Frobisher

Iris Wildthyme

Group 10

Rose Tyler

Mickey Smith

Jack Harkness

Martha Jones

Group 11

Donna Noble

Wilfred Mott

River Song

Amy Pond

Rory Williams

Group 12

Clara Oswald

Bill Potts

Nardole

Yasmin Khan

Group 13

Graham O'Brien

Ryan Sinclair

Dan Lewis

Ruby Sunday

day 1 under the cut

Day 1

Elimination Groups:

Group 1 (2 eliminations)

Sara Kingdom

Bret Vyon

Delgado!Master

Morbius

Sutekh the Destroyer

Cessiar of Diplos

Duggan

Group 2 (2 eliminations)

Erato

Pangol of Argolis

Deedrix of Tigella

Soldeed of Skonnos

The Three who Rule

Varsh

Group 3 (2 eliminations)

Keara

Tylos

Tremas of Traken

Panna

Karuna

Aris

Group 4 (2 eliminations)

Richard Mace

Kamelion

King Yrcanos

Sabalom Glitz

The Kandyman

Karra

Group 5 (2 eliminations)

Adrien Wall

Alan Turing

B-Aaron

C'rizz

Captain Black

Captain Magenta

Carmen Yeh

Group 6 (2 eliminations)

Chris Cwej

Clarence the Angel

Compassion

Cousin Anastasia

Cousin Gustav

Cousin Intrepid

Cousin Justine

Group 7 (2 eliminations)

Cousin Octavia

D'eon

Death's Head

Eliza

Elspeth (Where Angels Fear)

Emilie Mars-Smith

Father Kreiner

Seeding Groups

Group 1

Susan Foreman

Barbara Wright

Ian Chesterton

Vicki Pallister

Group 2

Steven Taylor

Dodo Chaplet

Ben Jackson

Polly Wright

Group 3

Jamie McCrimmon

Victoria Waterfield

Zoe Heriot

The Brigadier

Sergeant Benton

Group 4

Liz Shaw

Mike Yates

Jo Grant

Sarah-Jane Smith

Harry Sullivan

Group 5

Leela

K9

Romana I

Romana II

Group 6

Adric

Nyssa

Tegan Jovanka

Vislor Turlough

Group 7

Peri Brown

Mel Bush

Ace McShane

Chang Lee

Grace Holloway

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

Who is the Sexiest Podcast Character?

After 37,942 votes over 64 polls, we are now ready for Round 2 of the tournament!

Round 1 Masterpost

Round 2:

Scripted Bracket

Isabel Lovelace (Wolf 359) vs Lady Ethel Mallory (Hello From The Hallowoods)

The Witch Queen A.K.A. Daughter Dooley (Old Gods of Appalachia) vs Warren Kepler (Wolf 359)

Brutus Feels (Kane and Feels) vs Sir Caroline (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel)

Alé (The Penumbra Podcast: Second Citadel) vs Thistle/The Woman (Alice Isn't Dead)

Peter Nureyev (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Alice (Alice Isn't Dead)

Antigone Funn (Wooden Overcoats) vs Martin Blackwood (The Magnus Archives)

Lucifer Kane (Kane and Feels) vs Mabel Martin (Mabel)

Oleta (Within The Wires: Season 1) vs Strelitzia (Additional Postage Required)

Everyone from the Strange Case of Starship Iris vs Mari Datuin (Hi Nay)

Static Man (Archive 81) vs Dragana Vukovic (The White Vault)

Agnes Montague (The Magnus Archives) vs Mina Murray (Re: Dracula)

Laura Nichols (Hi Nay) vs Georgie Crusoe (Wooden Overcoats)

Keisha (Alice Isn't Dead) vs Yaretzi (Hello From The Hallowoods)

Buddy Aurinko (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel) vs Hera (Wolf 359)

Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives) vs Rita (The Penumbra Podcast: Juno Steel)

Dr. Joan Bright (The Bright Sessions) vs Renée Minkowski (Wolf 359)

Unscripted Bracket

Pickman (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle) vs Glenn Close (Dungeons & Daddies)

Grand Magnificent (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage) vs Taako (The Adventure Zone: Balance)

Lup (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Sans Undertale (Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined: Authority)

Chine (Friends at the Table: Sangfielle) vs Tryst Valentine (Campaign: Star Wars)

Gable (Campaign: Skyjacks) vs Nicky Close (Dungeons & Daddies)

Fourteen Fifteen (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage) vs Coco Cashmere (Hey Riddle Riddle)

Killian Fangbattle (The Adventure Zone: Balance) vs Kalvin Brnine (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN and PALISADE)

Indrid Cold (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Suvirin "Suvi" Kedberiket (Worlds Beyond Number: The Wizard, The Witch, and the Wild One)

Tender Sky (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage) vs Ron Stampler (Dungeons & Daddies)

Hadrian [Rosana's Husband] (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron) vs Moonshine Cybin (Not Another D&D Podcast: Bahumia)

Amber Gris (The Adventure Zone: Ethersea) vs Throndir (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Ibex (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight) vs Cassander Timaeus Berenice (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight)

Ver'million "Millie" Blue (Friends at the Table: PARTIZAN) vs Mercedes Oak-Garcia (Dungeons & Daddies)

Echo Reverie (Friends at the Table: Twilight Mirage) vs Kravitz (The Adventure Zone: Balance)

Aubrey Little (The Adventure Zone: Amnesty) vs Adelaide Tristé (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)

Jacqui Green (Friends at the Table: COUNTER/Weight) vs Hella Varal (Friends at the Table: Seasons of Hieron)