#c: lucy hale

[itsnickgalitzine]

texting 📲 lucy goosey

nick : can i talk to you for a minute ? ( @hale-raiser )

#texting; holding all your texts like memories #c; lucy hale #[ i miss them so please love us <3 ]

[biersackandys]

hfrpconnect📲 lucy

andy: hey, i'm andrew, i like long walks on the beach, a scotch on the rocks and.. i'm fucking around. you know me, so, hey!

andy: i'll just say it, you're beautiful okay? no matter what this connect shit brings, remember, you're beautiful and deserve the best

#hfrpconnect #texting; tell me everything will be alright #c; lucy hale

[itsawsten]

texting 📲 🦆

Awsten: just know you're a duck in my phone because they have no goose emojis

Awsten: do you still want waterparks merch or.. one of my limited hii-def drops? i can share pics of both

#[ just so they can keep talking after the birthday wishes if you'd like ] #texting; i could write a couple words #c; lucy hale

[sellymarie]

@hale-raiser​​ - since they talked about it, selena was excited to see lucy again and now that she wasn’t filming, she finally had the time to see her friends again til she’d get busy again. so, she was taking this time to do just that. getting her home all straightened up from being away for a bit before making sure she looked decent herself. letting her shoulder length locks rest straight down to the top of her arms, in a simple t-shirt and some sweats not sure she needed to fully dress up this time around.

#f2f; we're going round and round #c; lucy hale

[untilnextchapter]

Monthly Fanfictions Recommandation: September'23

Here are my best discoveries from the last weeks

🍬 The Authors

@kquil : a gentle author, writing about the Marauders, her writing will bring you peace and the writings are so soft. I love seeing her theme on my computer and seeing her icon on my dash is always a sign that I will read something good.

@luveline : you don't know if you want to read an Aaron Hotchner story or a good Marauder one? You don't need to change to another page, here is the wonderful Jade. She's so talented and you won't be disappointed if you want to check her work.

@thatfanficstuff : when I discovered this blog, I didn't know where I should go first. So many fandoms I love, so many characters, so many stories... So many comfort shows and so, comforting times after work. And sometimes, it's all I need. A gentle person writing some sweet stories.

@luci-in-trenchcoats : I read a few stories a few months ago but, I recently re-discovered this amazing author. With her works, I was back into Supernatural. So many hours spent at reading about our favourite hunters, so many series. And the best of the best: the writing skills are so great and it's so easy to read... Waow, just waow.

@imagineteamfreewill : Fluffy Supernatural fics and a lot of good AUs, all I need after a hard day at work. Meg is an excellent writer and you will spend a good time, I promise. I haven't read everything yet but, I know I have a few a good escapes in perspective. Don't hesitate , you will enjoy your time reading, I hope as much as I'm doing.

@anika-ann : I'm in my Marvel phase, I'm weak, I know. And, I think I found someone that could quench my thirst with so many good stories and good writing skills. I could spend hours reading about Steve Rogers. And I know I've found an unique writer because I loved a crossover story. I usually hate that. But here I am, reading a Criminal Minds / Avengers story and loving it. Thank you for that.

@crazyunsexycool : Another "Val", it can only be someone nice, right? But really, a sweetheart, someone with so much imagination, and a way to write about children... And I know what I'm talking about, I'm working in a nursery. It's so great to read something accurate when it's a subject you know. And except for the children, she's always here to answer your questions, being nice and taking time for her followers. I hadn't asked to be add into a taglist for a story for a long time. You won't be disappointed if you want to make a stop here.

🍭 The Stories

* = Smut (Minors DNI) || 🦋 = Series || Beware of the TW please

Not so secret admirer || @kquil (Remus Lupin x Reader, you can't hide your adoration for remus lupin and often end up staring at him, good thing he thinks you're really cute)

A star between hands 🦋 || @luveline (James Potter x Reader, finding out you’re princess isn’t half as intimidating as your new bodyguard, James. mutual pining, fluff)

if things go bad || @/luveline (Aaron Hotchner x Reader, Hotch rushes to get to you when you call him during a home invasion. angst, hurt/comfort)

True Mate 🦋 || @thatfanficstuff (Peter Hale x Reader)

Remember me || @/thatfanficstuff (Thranduil x Reader)

I Know Your Brother || @luci-in-trenchcoats (Sam Winchester x Reader, The reader is pulled out of Hell accidentally by Sam Winchester who’s wondering where his brother is…)

A Safe Mistake 🦋 || @/luci-in-trenchcoats (Nanny!Dean x Single Parent!reader, Dean’s in need of some extra cash to help Sam pay for his tuition and gets a job working as a nanny for the reader’s young son. As Dean becomes ingrained in the reader’s life though, he soon becomes more than just the nanny to them both…)

Beauty and the Beast 🦋 || @imagineteamfreewill (Dean Winchester x Reader AU, Living in a village is nice, and even though you’d always longed for adventure, you weren’t expecting to go on an adventure of your own anytime soon. But as soon as you take your father’s place as the prisoner of a Beast who lives in an enchanted castle, you’re surprised that adventure isn’t all it’s cracked up to be—and neither are monsters)

Daisy || @/imagineteamfreewill (Sam Winchester x Deaf!Daughter!Reader, Sam breaks some bad news to his daughter, who’s deaf, and watches her start to grow up without her mother)

Love on the Brain 🦋 || @anika-ann (Steve Rogers x Reader / Crossover MCU-Criminal Minds, You found menacing pictures of you friend, colleague and neighbour Steve in your mailbox.   Someone might play it off as a bad joke, but you were an agent for the Avengers Initiative and a former FBI agent. You’ve seen cases like this and you were taking no chances. Not with Steve of all people. But you were going to need help; enter the BAU)

Hands Too Cold, but Heart of Gold 🦋 || @/anika-ann (Steve Rogers x Reader, Matt Murdock x Reader, You officially joined the Avengers only two months ago and you’re about to take off to yet another mission. Cap would like to have some extra help on this one – but the Avengers have approached the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen before and he made it pretty clear how he felt about it. Of course, this time it’s you who got stuck with trying to convince him once again. “I still don’t understand why it’s not you coming, oh Star Spangled Man with a Plan.” “I do have a plan. I have you.”)

Heart’s Munition 🦋 || @crazyunsexycool (Mob boss!Steve Rogers x Maid!Reader. I can't copy and paste all the resume but I swear, you'll love it. A bit of surprise but it's worth the world)

My little love * 🦋 || @/crazyunsexycool (Bucky Barnes x Enhanced!Reader. Really long resume but in short, Bucky, Reader, children, Papa and Mama bears, great scenario, you'll love it I promise!)

That's all, for now.

Don't hesitate to share the stories you liked and tell the writers you enjoy their works, it always means a lot to them ❤️

Have a good reading,

Val 🌸

#untilnextchapter #untilnextchapter rec #monthly rec #fanfiction #marvel #marvel x reader #criminal minds #criminal minds x reader #steve rogers x reader #bucky barnes x reader #steve rogers #bucky barnes #x reader #supernatural #supernatural x reader #dean winchester x reader #dean winchester #sam winchester x reader #sam winchester #harry potter x reader #harry potter #marauders x reader #remus lupin #remus lupin x reader #james potter x reader #james potter #teen wolf x reader #teen wolf #thranduil x reader #lotr x reader

[grandvhs]

lista de nomes masculinos que estava no meu bloco de notas e eu só lembrei agora

starting with A ;;

aaron.

adair.

adam.

aiden.

ajax.

alec.

alfie.

allistar.

anderson.

andrew.

andy.

angus.

antonio.

anthony.

archer.

archibald.

archie.

aries.

arlo.

arthur.

ashley.

ashton.

austen.

avery.

axel.

starting with B ;;

bailey.

beau.

beckham.

beckett.

bellamy.

benjamin.

bennett.

bentley.

blade.

blake.

blaine.

blaise.

blue.

bobbie.

bodhi.

brad.

brandon.

braxton.

brayden.

brent.

brett.

brock.

brody.

brooke.

bryson.

starting with C ;;

caleb.

callum.

calvin.

cameron.

carlisle.

carlos.

carson.

carter.

casey.

chad.

chandler.

charlie.

chase.

chaz.

christian.

christopher.

cody.

colby.

cole.

cooper.

colton.

connor.

conrad.

corbin.

corey.

starting with D ;;

dakota.

dallas.

damien.

damon.

dante.

darian.

darron.

darryl.

david.

dawson.

declan.

demetri.

dennison.

denver.

derek.

diego.

diesel.

dimitri.

dixon.

dominic.

donovan.

drake.

drew.

dustin.

dwayne.

starting with E ;;

eason.

eaton.

eddy.

edmund.

edward.

elijah.

elior.

ellias.

elliot.

ellis.

elyas.

ember.

emerson.

emery.

emilio.

emmett.

enzo.

eric.

ernie.

ethan.

ethaniel.

evan.

everett.

everson.

ezar.

starting with F ;;

fabio.

fallon.

farah.

felix.

fernando.

ferris.

felton.

finn.

finnegan.

finnick.

fitz.

fitzgerald.

fletcher.

floyd.

flynn.

foley.

forest.

francisco.

franco.

frankie.

franklin.

fraser.

frasier.

freddie.

fredrik.

starting with G ;;

gabe.

gabriel.

gale.

gallagher.

garcia.

gareth.

garrett.

gary.

gavin.

gene.

george.

gerard.

gilbert.

giovanni.

glenn.

gordon.

grady.

graeme.

grant.

greggory.

gregor.

greyson.

griffin.

gus.

guy.

starting with H ;;

hadley.

hale.

haley.

hamilton.

hamish.

hansel.

harley.

harris.

harrison.

harry.

harvey.

haven.

hayes.

heath.

hector.

hendrix.

henrik.

henry.

holton.

howard.

hudson.

hugh.

hugo.

hunter.

hyde.

starting with I ;;

ian.

ibrahim.

icarius.

idris.

igor.

iman.

immanuel.

imran.

indi.

indiana.

indigo.

indra.

inrique.

irwin.

isaak.

isaiah.

isaias.

ishmael.

isobell.

israel.

ivan.

ivey.

ivor.

ivory.

izzy.

starting with J ;;

jack.

jacob.

jagger.

jai.

james.

jamie.

jason.

jaspar.

jaxon.

jaydon.

jed.

jeremy.

jesse.

jett.

joel.

jameson.

jonathon.

jordan.

jose.

joseph.

joshua.

jude.

julian.

junior.

justin.

starting with K ;;

kade.

kai.

kalen.

kameron.

kane.

kasey.

kayden.

keaton.

keegan.

keenan.

kellan.

kendall.

kendrick.

kevin.

khalil.

kian.

kiefer.

kieran.

kingsley.

kingston.

klaus.

kohen.

konrad.

kristoff.

kyle.

starting with L ;;

lachlan.

lamar.

lambert.

lance.

landon.

langston.

lawrence.

lawson.

leeroy.

lennon.

leo.

leonardo.

levi.

lewis.

liam.

lincoln.

lionel.

logan.

lorenzo.

louis.

luca.

lucas.

lucky.

lucis.

luke.

starting with M ;;

mackenzie.

madden.

maddox.

malaki.

malcolm.

manuel.

marco.

marcus.

marley.

marshall.

martin.

mason.

matteo.

matthew.

max.

micah.

michael.

miguel.

mike.

miles.

miller.

milo.

mitchell.

morgan.

moses

starting with N ;;

nadir.

naiser.

nasir.

nate.

nathan.

nathaniel.

naveen.

naydon.

ned.

nico.

neil.

nelson.

nero.

nicholai.

nicholas.

nila.

niles.

nixon.

noah.

noel.

nolan.

norman.

north.

nylan.

nyle.

starting with O ;;

oakley.

ocean.

octavius.

odell.

olaf.

oliver.

ollie.

omar.

omari.

orion.

orlando.

osborn.

oscar.

o’shea.

osten.

oswald.

otis.

otto.

owen.

oxley.

starting with P ;;

pablo.

page.

palmer.

parker.

parrish.

patrick.

paul.

paulo.

pax.

paxton.

payton.

penn.

percy.

perry.

peter.

phineas.

phoenix.

pierce.

pierre.

prescott.

presley.

preston.

prince.

princeton.

puck.

starting with Q ;;

qadim.

qadir.

quain.

quenby.

quill.

quimby.

quincy.

quinn.

quinten.

starting with R ;;

randy.

raymond.

reese.

reid.

remy.

reuben.

rhett.

rhys.

richard.

richie.

ricky.

riley.

robert.

robin.

roger.

roman.

romeo.

ronan.

ronnie.

ross.

rowen.

ryan.

ryder.

ryker.

rylan.

starting with S ;;

sage.

sailor.

salem.

samson.

samuel.

sascha.

sawyer.

saxon.

scott.

sean.

sebastian.

seth.

shane.

shiloh.

simon.

sinclair.

skyler.

sonny.

spencer.

stanley.

stefan.

steven.

stevie.

storm.

sullivan.

starting with T ;;

tamir.

tanner.

tate/tait.

tatum.

taylor.

teddy.

theo.

thomas.

timothy.

tobias.

toby.

todd.

tommy.

tory.

trace.

travis.

trent.

trevor.

trey.

tristan.

troye.

tucker.

tyler.

tyrone.

tyson.

starting with U ;;

umair.

umar.

urien.

usama.

starting with V ;;

valentine.

valentino.

vance.

vaughn.

victor.

vincent.

vinn.

vinnie.

vladimir.

starting with W ;;

wade.

walden.

wallace.

walter.

warner.

warren.

warrick.

waylan.

wayne.

wendall.

wes.

wesley.

west.

whitley.

wilbert.

william.

willis.

wilmer.

windsor.

winslow.

winston.

wolf.

wren.

wyatt.

wynter.

starting with X ;;

xachary.

xan.

xander.

xavier.

xeno.

ximen.

xylon.

starting with Y ;;

yahto.

yakub.

yasin.

yasi.

york.

ysrael.

yuri.

yusef.

starting with Z ;;

zachary.

zahir.

zander.

zane.

zavier.

zed.

zeke.

zion.

zolten.

#name ideas #male names #nomes masculinos #rpg #prompt #writing help #list

[stargazingdesign]

O8 - STEROPE II | Stargazing Design - DOWNLOAD HERE

3... 2 … 1… Launching to… Sterope II! 🚀 Sterope II is a multi muse doc, which I loved creating! It supports ten muses, but feel free to add more if you need to. It also features a muse overview page. Sterope II has a twin who is its counterpart. So, if you prefer light templates, click here to access Sterope I. I couldn’t choose which version I liked the most, so I decided to release both of them. Unlike my mother, I don't pick favorite children. lol As always, most of the elements are editable, so you can customize it however you like.

✦ How to Use After purchasing, you will receive a link to the live template. Just click on it, select “file” and then “make a copy”.

You can and you should edit anything you like, but please: ✦ Don’t remove my credits and the link to my tumblr ✦ Don’t allow others to make a copy of your copy ✦ Don’t share the link that you received for this doc

✦ How to Edit ↳ To replace the images, right-click on it and then click “replace image”. Don’t copy and paste images directly on the doc because they won’t keep the original design. Just replace it and it will be perfect.

↳ I don’t recommend exceeding the text limits, since it will break the design. There’s no problem in writing less, the tables should automatically adjust, but maybe some elements will move from their original place.

↳ This doc has drawings! To edit them just double click on it, replace the text or image to anything you like and then save.

↳ Resizing images or drawings may cause some elements to move or be hidden, so pay attention when you’re editing that.

✦ Tip ↳ If you need more pages for your muses, you can select the text, drawings and tables, copy and paste on a blank page. Then, select the background image and ctrl c + ctrl v to the new page.

The pictures are of Hayley Kiyoko, Chris Evans, Lucy Hale, Eunji Hong, Sadie Sink, Alba Flores, Emily Rudd, Avantika Vandanapu, Agata Wiśniewska and Lakeith Stanfield, edited on Photoshop.

Also, if you have any doubts or need help to edit, feel free to contact me, I’ll be happy to help! Likes and reblogs are appreciated!

Thank you so much for your support! ✨

#google doc template #docs template #templates #rp resources #google docs #indie rp #roleplay #rp #rp template #rp doc template #google docs template #muse template #rph #rp help #multi muse template #google doc #discord rp #oc #oc template #oc rp #character template #character sheet #discord rp template #doc template #gdocs template #supportcontentcreators

[see-arcane]

Barking Harker TEASER 2

The following is a rough draft of a chapter for the in-progress horror novel, and alternate ending Dracula sequel, Barking Harker.

It will contain unsettling imagery.

It will contain unsettling possibilities.

It will contain things that bite, bleed, scream, and laugh.

If all this is acceptable, then welcome. Enter freely and of your own will. 

And leave all of the happiness and humanity you bring. 

For a version that isn’t in Tumblr format eye strain mode, check out the Google Doc version HERE.

Link to Barking Harker TEASER 1 is HERE.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Apparently the full length of the document is too big for Tumblr's app to handle without crashing, so you'll have to consider the section below a teaser to the teaser. For the full whopper, you'll have to refer to the Google Doc link.

Barking Harker

TEASER 2

C.R. Kane

Preludes and Interludes II:

Dead, Dogs, and Detours

DEAD

          She didn’t take note of the hansom for at least three turns. Having noticed it, she tried to convince herself against the obvious. Paranoia, it might be called. Nervousness. In the company of anyone with eyes, they would have cooed and tutted, yet quite understood. Well, look at you, dear! It’s a wonder your young man lets you be driven out and about on your own. You do have a young man, do you not? No? As it happens, I know a young man or ten in the family who are in want of a good wife…

          But her mind drifted. Just as it had drifted when the little man with the jeweler’s loop had come out of the shop with her delivery in hand. He had gone to the trouble of doing away with the dull parcel’s wrapping and redone it in patterned paper and ribbon.

          “Direct from Mellerio, mademoiselle,” he said, only butchering the latter words a touch. “It is a magnificent piece.”

          “Mellerio dits Meller never disappoints. Perhaps the finest gifts to the world old Marie ever had her hand in. Well, her and the dear Concinis.” She had smiled for him and the little fellow turned pink as a carnation. “Merci,” she hummed, letting more of her lilt into it as she cradled the parcel. The pink flushed to red. Then the victoria was pulling away and the pedestrian bustle was retreating around her. From the corner of her eye she spied a mourning couple milling away toward a park. The pretty girl in the veil—a beauty that her peripheral senses had alerted her to, being that the girl had thought herself unnoticed in her own dreamy staring—

          (Oh oh she is lovely she is gorgeous I could see her as a painting she is too fine too fair oh oh oh I wonder what Lucy would think of her I think she might go red just at the sight of her dress Jonathan? Jonathan! Jonathan oh no Jonathan what is it what’s wrong Jonathan Jonathan)

—was half-supporting her gentleman as he staggered in tow, seeming as if he had been struck. She caught a glimpse of a face that was quite handsome even with the fearful rictus carved into it.

          A needle of terror flew from his mind. It pricked at her own, as sharp and vivid thoughts often did. She shelled herself against it by reflex. Yet it stung and stuck, if only for the twinge of familiarity she sensed in it. Something unpleasant reached her thinly through a mental haze she could not define.

          (Him him him it is it cannot be but it is unless it is not but that face that face young or old or wan or hale I know I know that face the eyes the razors of the grin him it is him he is here unless he is not unless you are mad unless you are not or perhaps both but he is here he is there he is in England and you never woke from the nightmare and Mina Mina Mina we must be gone Mina he knows my blood he will find me find you find us no no no Mina)

          But she was going and the couple was staying. She tamped the bristling thoughts down to smoothness and resettled in her airy bliss.

          Had that been when the hansom began its pursuit? When had she begun to register the clatter of its chase? She could not say. Not when her focus was steeped three quarters of the way into the future. A future filled with music, with dates, with revelry, with the flutter of games, with the freedom hidden under silk masks, with the parade of her latest wide-eyed throng come to gape and cavort, with the increasingly ardent play of darling Andy, née, Lord Andrew Blythe, her newest high-born shadow who had resorted to all but bribery to move her from her estate and into a wing of his own manse. All quarters furnished, he said, precisely to her liking.

          “And how is it you are so confident of that, Andy?”

          “Because it will be furnished until you like it.”

          She had so far been able to dodge his invitations with jokes first of Bluebeard, then of La Dame aux Camélias. Soon she would run out of segues. Or worse, out of desire to dodge. He was a fun fellow, which was a rarity among Englishmen of all walks. Even that foppish sweetheart, Arthur Something—Holming? Goldwood?—had been so gallant as to cloy. She had scarcely mourned his loss to that dainty peach of a girl some seasons ago. Andy, at least, had the decency to enjoy a bit of indecency.

Her nails drummed against the wrapped box, daydreaming of the surprise intended as a nightcap to the latest party that would embrace the far end of autumn in ghastly glee.

          Even the tautest souls permitted themselves to unravel when there was a masquerade to hide behind. It was rare that she ever loaded her rooms with guests choking on silver spoons as a rule. In truth, she often preferred the company of her staff, their friends and kin over a deluge of the prim and powdered. When she first laid hands upon Perrault’s works, she had at once seen herself in the Fairy Godmother more than the cinder-dusted heroine. If not merely for the saccharine pleasure of providing enchanted nights to those who make the most of them, then for the fact that she had not encountered a single aristocratic affair that did not put her to sleep with its fine filigreed manners within an hour. Give her noise, give her life, give her a Bacchanalia, not church service with duller music.

          Lacking superior options, it often became the case that she must play hostess to events that satisfied her own wishes, just as she was conspiring to throw her latest one in the coming weeks. One tailored to celebrate as the nights overtipped the days and the presence of strange entities crept at the edges of the mind. A perfect atmosphere for a bit of charade devilry if she did say so.

Costumes, canapés, cards, claret poured by the bucketful, perhaps even some spiritualist playing with a crystal ball. And yes, Andy, he can bring a few of his gilded friends. But do try to keep things discreet, hm? She dare not offend any of his polished circles’ poor ears with talk of her festivities and the uncouth entertainments therein. It would hardly interest such refined persons, after all…

          A caveat that she knew would lead to a loose whisper too many and several a ruffled eavesdropper. If history served, it would result in quite a few covert extra additions trying to wheedle their way onto the guest list. Assuming they did not dare the unthinkable outright and try to duck through her doors under cover of a costume or a pretense that one of the invitees had brought them along. It was what Andy himself had resorted to, making use of the one loophole she provided—that the uninvited be allowed entry provided one of the invited brought them along as a friend.

          It had been his farrier, Henry Caldwell, who had to sneak him into that first gathering half a year ago. And oh, how many exciting hues he’d turned in the face when the young lord discovered the man who tended his horses had received an invitation to her ball rather than him! He’d turned colors again at learning the only other attendees of noble blood had needed similar patrons and matrons from their underlings and staff. Imagine, a lavish romp thrown for the Cinderellas while the ‘stepsisters’ were left hoping for the charity of their invitation.

          Practically an age ago, that was. Andy had grown on her since. He had glowed when she told him he almost passed for a proper rogue in stolen clothes. Now here came the surprise in her box. The treat awaiting him at the end of the costumes. She sang from Baudelaire’s poem:

          “La très chère était nue, et, connaissant mon coeur,

          Elle n’avait gardé que ses bijoux sonores…”

          My dearest was naked and, knowing well my prayer,

          She wore only her sonorous jewelry…

          Her laugh almost broke on the air, but the driver pulled up short and clipped the sound. The driver and the poor mare both huffed over a passing cat in the road. In the same instant, she heard the whinny and hoof-clatter of horses behind her. It occurred that she had been hearing those same hoofbeats for some while. Three turned corners. All quite far apart.

          The moment she recognized as much, she became aware of a hostile edge to the air. It came to her the way a rush of sensory reminder will hit one after fixating too deeply on a task or thought until all other stimuli loses volume. Such was how poor musicians, bad smells, and dreary lectures were weathered. In the case, a nigh tangible essence of threat had been ignored as she lost herself in plush premonitions.

          The denied sensation carried its own portent—all but a promise.

          A certainty that was not helped by the fact that the hansom’s driver saw her looking and shamefacedly ducked under his hat brim. The picture of a child caught committing a crude prank at the behest of an older boy.

          He was not paid to be taken to a destination. He is being paid to stop where you stop. Perhaps he was told that it was you who insisted on being followed, that the gentleman in the hansom can find you again later. We are old friends and he is stopping in town. Go on, good man. She will lead us on.

          Perhaps that was it. Perhaps not. But the man behind the horses gave her a pained look when the victoria resumed its trundling way. It grew grimmer still when he bade his stallions to plod after her and he kept his eyes trained strictly on her wheels. And though no other eyes were visible, there was no ignoring the fact that she felt observed. Ogled in the way fat rabbits feel themselves seen by a predator who is no more than a wheeling dot in the sky, waiting for the moment to descend and sink in the talons.

          Come now. Do not insult birds of prey so callously. All an animal wants is to eat. Not that one. Not him.

          For it was a him. A very singular him. The kind that would make the Ripper seem positively chummy.

          Oh, stop. What are the odds? Truly?

          This scene was not what she thought it was. It couldn’t be. Wouldn’t be. In a few more stops, the hansom would turn away and be gone.

          And what you think is in the cab will not be there.

          Five stops and two turns later, the hansom cab was still with her. As was the pressure of a very particular presence. One whose secrets were locked against the cursory probing of her mind, but could not smother the miasma of himself for anything. Not that he would want to. The grim clockwork of his thoughts was a guarded thing, yes, but he wanted her to know it was him.

          After all this time, it was him.

          “Damn it.”

          “Did you say something, Miss?”

          “I should like to stop at a café. That little place with the garland on the sign.” She smiled by reflex despite Joseph’s turned back. “Is there anything you might like to take along? I will not be needing you for the drive back after all. I can hail another rather than keep you lingering on my account.”

          “Are you certain?”

          She was.

          They stopped. She ordered. Sent him off with a steaming bundle to eat along with an apple bartered from the kitchen for his patient steed. Then she took herself to the furthest table outside the restaurant and pretended interest in her tea as she stared down the hansom. The driver pulled up his horses for a moment, teetering between his options. Flicking a sweat-shined look at her table, then quickly away, he urged his horses on. He meant to give renewed chase to the victoria—

          (Just following your orders sir follow the victoria you said—)

          —but came just as abruptly to a halt.

          His face crumpled in comfortless lines as the cab door opened. All at once, whatever thin patter there was among the sparsely peopled tables shrank several octaves. The September air puffed with a breath of malign cold. Somewhere close, a dog barked and bayed. Truthfully, she was surprised the windows did not crack because the man stood too near to them. Assuming one could regard him as a man.

          He was dressed as a moneyed one. The midnight of his hair was tied back, moustache and sharp beard impeccable. Yet his eyes. His eyes were chips of red glass lit by hellfire. Or so he would have prided himself to hear. Liken him to Judas and he would preen like a peacock. She’d encountered more than one such fellow in her time, but even in this, he was singular.

          She watched him toss the money to his driver. He watched her watch him.

          Go on, said the red stare. Go on. Say something. Do something. I am only a man stopping for a meal. What fine coincidence it should bring us together like this, dear.

          She suppressed a sigh and turned her box round and round on the table. For effect, she produced her little gold watch to mind the time. Tick-tock. Though no shadow fell across her table, she was not surprised by the skid of the chair across from her pulling out. Nor by the gloved hands folding where she could see them.

          Resigning herself to a lost afternoon, if not worse, she peered up at him through the thick fringe of her lashes. A look that had set more hearts racing than could be counted and had, on some rare occasions, stopped them altogether. The gentleman feigning humanity merely smiled at her.

          “Is there something I might help you with, sir? I am waiting on a friend and he shall need the chair shortly.”

          “It would not surprise me,” he said. “You could point at any man on the street, declare him your companion, and have him propose before sundown.”

          “A flattering estimate. Yet I would blame it more on the country’s quality than my own. This is a land of such tedious constriction.” She glanced at the amber swirl of her cold tea. “If I showed one inch more of decolletage, I would have a husband by dusk, a mistress by midnight, and three consorts by morning.” Her gaze rose back to him. “I would not even have invited them, but there they would be.”

          Behind him, a server approached to ask after an order, met the gentleman’s gaze, and hastily swerved away to attend another table. Satisfied, the gentleman shrugged.

          “That is the price paid for being what you are.”

          “Is that so?”

          “You cannot be so desirable a thing and not expect pursuit.”

          “Perhaps. But with some, the effects of distance have proven a decent enough deterrent.” Lashes batted. “That and death.”

          “There are always exceptions.” Saying so, he bared the top row of his teeth. It was the edge of a white saw.

          “I suppose there must be. Pardon, I am at a loss for your name..?” He paused to consider this. Then, to her misery:

          “Count DeVille.”

          “No.”

          “No?”

          “No. You can do better. Please, please, say you can do better.”

          “Alucard.”

          Her eyes fluttered shut in pain as she frowned over her cup.

          “I should have asked for cognac.”

          “I would expect something redder in your case.” She looked up at the sound of tearing paper. He’d tugged her parcel across the table and slit the wrapping. This he did with his thumbnail. He had peeled his glove to show a hand almost as wan as the silk. “Ah. Almost as red as this.”

His spade of a nail hooked the necklace and let the briolette cuts catch the light until every ruby burned. It could not be brought out of the box in full, or else the gems would drag upon the table. She planned to wear it with her artfully gruesome gown on the night of the masquerade. All glittering gore sewn into supple white while the necklace spilled over her chest like an exquisite slit throat. Then, in private, she would wear that pantomime blood for Andy’s eyes alone. In the present, the necklace received an admiring hum.

“An interesting design.” He lowered it back into the box. “Yours?”

          “Commissioned for a special occasion.”

          “What occasion is that?” He slid the box back. “A party, perhaps? One of costume and pageantry and that unholy relief worthy of the old Carnival days?” His grin showed even the bloodless edge of his gums. “You always did make such a lovely Columbine.”

          “You must be mistaken, sir, and tragically senile as well. Venice killed its dear Carnival in 1797.”

          “So I heard.” His tongue clicked in disgust. “That wretched Francis. Was it the first or second?”

          “The second. Twice as miserable as his father.” She struck a praying pose. “May they rest in Hell. Do give them a hello from me when you pass through.”

          “Surely we can greet them together.” He leaned forward until he had nearly come over the table. His eyes were lanterns. “Or must we find another abbot to spill his holy water on you first?”

          “Again, sir, I fear I do not follow, and that you have taken me for another.”

          “I have taken you, yes. But I make no mistake. Even a blind man could not forget you.”

          “You are adamant in this performance, my friend, and most original.” She scooped her parcel up and made a show of righting her already-righted hat. “But I have other strangers to be accosted by. Hopefully less mad ones.” She moved to stand. “Good day—,”

          He recited two addresses.

          One hers.

          One the Blythe estate.

          “I had planned to pay my visits later, as I am so terribly busy with business and pleasure alike. England makes for a most engaging territory. It really was pure accident spotting you ahead of schedule.” It was his turn to bat his lashes. “Shall it be a happy one? Or do I pay my fellow gentleman a visit tonight? He seems a healthy young man, despite his merry vices. The kind that so often catch up to a body in the most unfortunate ways.”

          She looked at him. A emerald stare grating against ruby.

          “Which will it be, Clarimonde? Stay or go?” And, because he threw himself at her mind, she heard the unspoken—

          (Again.)

          —barb. Under better circumstances, be they petty or romantic, she might have flattered herself at the genuine displeasure laced in the thought. Something that could almost pass itself as the heartbreak of an abandoned lover rather than whatever distorted translation of emotion had resulted from their parting. Partings, plural, if they were to play pedantic. But she was in no mind for flattery or for purpling the mental prose.

          Clarimonde was of a mind for irritation.

Which was good. To be irate, annoyed, even perturbed was better than pulling such chafing shields away and letting in the thing that lurked beyond their bounds. She told herself the monster there was not her own. Not wholly. It was part of his presence; that artificial injection of dread that he foisted on others like a pile of offal inflicted its stench. Such was the fear that lived on the other side of mere exasperation. Not hers, no. Just another unwanted gift from an old friend.

          Not mine. Not mine. Not yet. Keep it that way.

          All this churned through her head with the speed and sting of a wasp’s needling visit. There and gone but for the aching throb. It lent some credence to her striking a pose of one bashed by a sudden headache. She sighed.

          “Go,” she said. It was pleasing to see the momentary flicker of surprise and a chasing moue of disappointment in his face. Just as it was supremely annoying—ah, blessed annoyance—to see the triumph flash back in place as she added, “We both will. This place lacks for our preferred delicacies and it is rude to take up their table while we fuss over the menu. Besides, you are up and about at noon.”

“So I am. What of it?”

“Unless you have forsaken your old habit, that means you have stored up your waking hours and are no doubt eager to indulge in daylit distractions. I doubt you shall get your fill idling over teacups and pastries.”

A quarter of an hour saw them away from the café and drawing looks of either envy or pity from passersby.

The former were of that demographic who looked upon ‘Count DeVille’, grousing over how his wicked mien was outweighed by enough wealth to buy him the company of either the plum of all eligible daughters, a prize-winning mistress, or else the most expensive woman of negotiable affection in the country.

The latter were those who saw only Clarimonde, pondering whether her smile was true or a mask, and thinking in their hearts that they were witnessing some poor girl doubtlessly haggled away from her parents like a glorified sheep to slaughter. It surprised Clarimonde but little that there were so few of the second onlooker compared to the first.

Yet the Count himself remained a dark room in which no hint could be read. She had been trying to squint through that iron murk since their amble began. He seemed content, even pleased, to let her fail as he busied himself with catching the eye of the occasional gawker and spiking them with a fresh jab of inexplicable terror. One poor man saw a need to be grateful he wore dark trousers—the smell would have given him away even if his mind hadn’t. A laugh tried to escape, but the Count caged it behind a smaller chuckle. This caused a nearby infant to wail in her pram.

A lovely walk, this. One still lacking for revelations from the gruesome mire of a mind. It remained to be seen whether this was an unconscious feat or one which he was maintaining through cold focus. So.

“From the passable accent and the new ensemble, I take it you have been making yourself comfortable. Do you wear them for the sake of a holiday or for expansion?”

“Can it not be both?”

“It can. Which makes it doubly worrisome for the local fauna. All the carefree gluttony of a vacation, all the ongoing attention of an extended stay.” She sighed. “That was you who delivered the empty ship to Whitby, was it not?”

“No, not at all. I am certain it was another undetectable party onboard, indulging in the local…hm.” he paused in thought. “Would sailors be considered seafood?”

“Was that all they were? More pressingly, is that all they are?”

The Count peered down at her. He wore a passable expression of confusion, but for the eyes. They smiled too much.

“Whatever do you mean?”

Dropping her voice a pitch below a whisper, affecting the tone of one interrogating the cat as to whether they knew how the glass was knocked off the table, “Exactly how dead did you leave them before they went overboard?” In answer, the Count dropped his own pitch to a stage whisper.

“Not dead enough to escape an appetite. The first mate was alive when he threw himself off the ship in an attempt to escape their fate. As it turns out, all his crewmates were waiting below the surface to welcome him. All quite delighted to see him again. That one, at least, is dead in full. As for the rest?” The gaunt shoulders rolled in a shrug. “They go on as an intriguing experiment. I have wondered what would happen to a vampire turned amid the waters he cannot cross. Now we know. The only question now is what will happen to them in a century’s time. Will the water still corner them? Or will they be free to travel so long as they bring a box of sand to sleep in? I shall have to make a note in my calendar.”

A true headache lent its aid to her expression now, crimping her brow into a disappointed slant.

“You have not indulged so boldly in an age. There must be a special occasion in progress.”

“Perhaps it was merely my excitement at traveling to your new hideaway.”

“How flattering! Supposing I could believe it. But I do not doubt for a moment that you, so freshly groomed and with an oblivious bevy of English beauties, have not set your sights on newer fare. Am I wrong?”

“I would be a most terrible liar to deny it.”

“And you are an excellent liar. Who is the lucky girl, then? I would ask after a harem, but if you have even an ounce of taste left in those old bones, I know you are choosing with care. Pretty faces and pure souls.”

“Never a combination in ready supply. Not even in these soft times.” His teeth caught the sunlight. The canines blazed. “Yet I have managed.”

“Anyone I know?”

“I should think not. You would have been sunk to the gums in her dreams otherwise. Such a tender one, in all respects. Yet a temptress wholly unaware. She will be mourned by many a poor suitor, I think. When the time comes, I do not doubt that she will have heart enough to spare for all.”

“She must be special if she has been your sole quarry since wrecking yourself on the shore. Or else you are sinking into another old custom, greedy thing that you are.”

“Greedy? How am I greedy?”

“Leaving aside the trio you no doubt left to hold down the castle while you cavort across the Channel, I could not help but notice you have another new friend already accustomed to your unique company. One not so oblivious as you usually take them. Though I do not fault you for the exception. He looked to be a charming thing. There are girls who would kill to get such a gaze without a smear of kohl. His wife was a fair match as well.” She conjured a convincing smile. “Are you collecting in pairs now?”

Her answer was a sudden hush. When Clarimonde looked up she found herself grateful for the meager shield of the cartwheel hat. It cut the Count’s gaze by half. There was more than the default of cruel joy in it now. Things moved behind the scarlet pane of his eye like demons toiling at a forge. Drawing plans, turning gears, heaping their screaming fuel upon a thousand fires. The eyes burned brighter as he spoke.

“If you refer to the couple spying on us from the park, you are nearly right. Both in their time. It may amuse you to know the young man surprised me by appearing here. He too was meant to await my return to Transylvania once my initial business was concluded here. Alas, he slipped free of his keepers.” His head canted toward her. “Not all hostesses boast such persuasive charms as yours.”

The leer found itself somewhat lost when her line of sight fixed an inch above his stare. She leaned her head back to squint beyond the brim of her hat.

“What happened here?” She tucked the box under her arm so that her hand was free to reach up and tap the vivid red scar slashed across his forehead. She had assumed on first seeing it that the wound was new and would seal up in the time it took to walk around a corner. Yet the mark lingered. “Did you run into some holy crusader aboard the Demeter?”

At this, he seemed to brighten. She watched him trace the mark with something very close to pride.

“Ah, this was a parting gift from that same young friend! I’m afraid he took his new living arrangements quite poorly and made sure I knew it before I departed. It has stayed in place as a reminder for quite some time now, if only because I have not found myself the time to gather the materials for the usual plaster. I think I may leave it a while longer, for its own sake. A visible scar puts the onlooker at ease. Any wound in plain view does.”

“If only because it proves you can be wounded. But again, it takes more than a mere scuffle to land a lasting blow on your like. So, what was it? Don’t tell me you have sacred paraphernalia just laying about in that old ruin. Your housemates could only resist such a temptation so long.”

“Ha. No, nothing sacred.”

“Then how—?”

“If I intended to divulge all my stories in a single dose, I would have already swung the doors open and let you go pillaging my memories. An allowance I never permitted cheaply.” He patted her glove with his own. “It seems you will have to suffer as the commoners do and simply not know all the interesting details in a single prying sitting.”

Memory prickled. She did her best not to show it.

While he had never been one to unload all the machinations of his thoughts and plots as the villains on a stage were compelled to—indeed, as some of the more grating self-styled kings of any age were wont to do when they wished to impress a room—the Count was nothing if not a habitual orator. So long as it was not a thing detrimental to his designs, he would happily make full use of his dead lungs and listen to himself while his audience, so often captive, debated the merits of tearing their ears off. Which was all to say that his not saying more was proof positive of…what?

Something important. Assuming anything he’s said yet is true. He does so love to mingle fact and fiction.

Yet the scar seemed evidence enough of that nebulous Something. Neither shrinking nor radiating the essence of the divine, it simply blazed there against the chalk of his brow. It made her think unhappily of damage administered to a corpse too cold to bleed. She shelved it all away in a private crevice of the mind and turned her attention back to the street.

They had managed to pass by the more crowded areas and its gawkers. Pedestrians milled thinner and thinner the further they walked from the condensed clamor of the Square. Neither could complain of exhaustion despite the unfolding distance, not even she in her button boots. It was one of those smaller perks that hitched onto the greater ones in their condition and quite made up for the price. Most of the time. Unless her senses deceived her, and they didn’t, the price would become its own boon within—oh, she would guess less than ten minutes. Fifteen at most.

In her peripheral, she saw the Count’s attention sharpen into recognition.

All we need now is Lord Killjoy and it would be our little haunting party all over again. …Oh, do not let him be part of this. I do not think I could stomach them making up for another round.

The notion was a limp one and it died almost the instant it came to her. Neither half of that pair carried a mote of forgiveness in the ravenous pits they might mistake for a soul. Both were convincing enough actors to fool less initiated victims to the contrary, but history had proven that neither was so idiotic as to buy the other’s performance. A combination of novelty, familiarity, and that occasional itch for company not predestined for the blood-crusted altar of their own appetites had been the truer bond in-between all the little evils flung at one another. But the last row had been of a very particular sort. The kind that did not merely burn bridges, but the bodies left broken-legged and howling at the middle. No, Ruthven was nowhere about. Common as well as uncommon senses verified as much. How fortunate for him.

All this mulling passed in the space of a blink.

“I shall have to treat you likewise,” she said aloud. “Though I expect it is hardly a loss for your end. I’ve so little to tell. Not all of us have grand machinations within machinations to eat up our nights, O Great Alexander with your conqueror’s itinerary. For we mere commoners, hedonism is enough to while the hours away.”

“Not all conquests are the same. Or was I deceived in all the so-secret-but-not chatter whispering of a certain rising queen among revelries? A curious phenomenon, how many speak of it versus how many bodies I imagine could actually fit in your estate. Apparently you manage to fit half of England in its walls and a third of Hell with it.”

“Preposterous. A quarter at the most. I must always reserve space for the Maenads, the witches, a few practical instructors of the Kama Sutra. And there must be comfortable space enough for all the orgies.”

No less than five sharp-eared heads turned. Notably, these were the only five pedestrians present. The herd was thinning, thinning.

“No vampires?”

“Not of late. Names will not be named,” she flicked her best glower to the side, “but in the past, certain parties had a habit of poaching my guests to excess. And, though it may wound some of those parties’ pride, it was one of my more recent invitees that sealed my prejudice against the lot.”

“Oh?”

“Back when I was touring about through Styria. It was my ball, but not my castle. Invitations were not wholly in my hands. I caught dear Millie sniffing around the girls—which would have been fine enough if I did not see the pure Lothario lurking under her pretenses. You know the type. Makes a big dramatic production of fondness and obsession and stalking and ‘I must have you, my darling!’ Then the moment the bedmate’s bled and undead?” Clarimonde flicked her hand in a dismissing gesture. “Poof. Lost in the night. Off to nibble another pretty thing. I can allow for juggling multiple loves in the know, but I quite draw the line at such utterly caddish treatment.”

“I tremble to imagine earning such displeasure.”

The barb flew—

(Again.)

—and struck. Clarimonde withheld a bristle as his arm unfolded out of her hand and moved to loop her closer. His glove rested on her like a massive spider. The sight irked her for many reasons. Reason one being that she would quite like to run a hairpin through it. Repeatedly. Reason two being that, like the rest of him, it truly was gaunter than she had ever seen him. The cut of his greatcoat was enough to disguise much of his thinness, but up close there was no mistaking the narrow dimensions that had overtaken his frame.

She did not brush off the gripping hand, but, to his surprise, tugged it nearer until she could pinch the mountain range of knuckles in her fingertips.

“All charades aside, you did finish off that whole ship, did you not? Bar the poor captain?”

“I have eaten well of late, yes. I’ve left hibernation famished and indulgent.”

“Then how did this happen, mon géant?” She rolled the spindly digits in her soft grip. “I know broomsticks with more bulk than you.”

“Ah, the return of the Nursemaid. I so missed her. Shall she kiss me better? Or do I have the pleasure of a reunion with one of the Consorts? Perhaps an Adulteress feigning a tryst behind your fresh little lord’s back?” In a blink, he had twisted her hold around so that her hand was locked inside his. It held just at the edge of pain. “You have such a broad cast living in you, my love.” He brought her glove up to his lips. Cold on cold. “Losing you was losing a legion.”

“Yet now that we’re here, you can speak to none of us.” She considered trying to pull herself free, but left it on the off-chance that he would grip it until the fingers groaned. Her thumb grazed the back of his hand. “That is your second dodge. I begin to think you do not have anything to say except that you have nothing to say.”

“I have much I wish to say to you, Clarimonde. A great deal.” He gave her fingers a parting crush before snatching his own hand daintily away. “Alas, I cannot even spare a full day’s escapade! Not even with an old friend. Too much to be done in too many ways. So many potentialities need their foundations in place.” He performed a great sigh. “I cannot even say if fair England will be my only destination in the year to come. Time must tell.” Though his face was a caricature of distress, once more his eyes gave away nothing but delight. There was a project in his hands. A true goal that had cracked through some dreary shell of stagnation and set his dust-choked mind into motion. Had Clarimonde been a dimmer person, she might have been happy for him.

As it stood, she felt a most unwelcome resurgence of concern. That vague and edgeless unease which stretched beyond herself and those she could conceive of enjoying in her immediate future. It sat in her chest like sickly flowers going into bloom. She did her best to kill it.

“In that case, I shall not force you to dally longer. If we must part ways…”

She had not made it a step away before he had snaked around her again.

“Not so soon. Not until the midday meal has been and gone. Is it close?”

“Yes. He is.” And she did not lie.

Alec Mooring was a gentleman of that particularly disappointing blend of rich prose, wide acclaim, great potential, and a wide stinking smear of prejudices and predilections to stain the underside of all the preceding virtues. Epithets were varied and plentiful regardless of a body’s hue, nationality, ethnicity, faith, or sex. There were opinions of the non-Anglo and tragically female body and brain stewing behind his pen that would make even the most odious sectarian turn from white to green. Yet enough degrees and a flair for the written word made much of his work as good as gospel in many an empowered circle.

Tragically, when away from the lecture halls and salons, one of Mooring’s most habitual locales was a certain small building he owned under a pseudonym. In the cellar of this tidy brick box, he entertained a hobby that, were it known to the shivering bruise-speckled wisp that was his wife, would see him divorced; were it known to his followers and peers, would see him violently ejected from his career; were it known to the world at large, would see him hanged twice; were it known to the families of the victims—or, considering the age of some, merely the parents—his body would never be found. At least not in one piece.

As it happened, Mooring would have his sins revealed too late for them to matter to anyone living. He had been approached whilst he was making a less fevered return to the building for a bit of clean-up. The place needed a scrub and some chemical application to fight the stench building up with its occupants.

It was as he was about to unlock the door that he felt a hook land in his head. It turned him around and brought him eye to eye with a beauty even his eloquence stumbled to define.

Love herself stood before him, poured into the hypnotically curved mold of a tailored dress. She was patterned everywhere with brilliant butterflies. More balanced on the disc of her hat. Her gaze held the lushness of the forest, the depths of an absinthe sea. In her mouth was the supple curl of the opening rose. The rose’s thorns showed behind the petals. White and pointed. She even smelled of a garden. Was it perfume or her own scent? Neither would surprise him. A springtime goddess come to visit him in the ruddy rim of autumn.

Behind her was something he first mistook for a shadow on the alley wall. But to his knowledge, shadows did not have their own eyes. Provided they did, he thought they ought not to glow like twin furnaces. Nor should they turn his bowels into quivering ice water.

“Shall we head in?”

His attention fell back to her. The seraph smiled. Love and loins demanded he lead the way in for her. Surely the threshold would clip her shadow off at the heels. Mooring held the door open for her. He had some faint idea that perhaps he was dreaming, and that even after he saw to the services he meant to apply to her indoors, she would simply cobble herself back together for another round. She seemed infinitely accommodating in all things. A perfect woman, a finely fashioned Galatea among the tawdry strumpets and frigid harpies plaguing the cusp of this backwards century. She alone was perfection. An oasis in a wretched desert.

They were inside. Perfectly—ah, he could sing it, perfect, perfect, perfect!—she did not bat her eyes at the signs of his work within. Neither stain nor stench nor the sorry state of the mattress or manacles moved her smile an inch. But as he moved to shut and bolt the door, the shadow slithered in. Rather, a sort of black fog did. Mooring might have taken it for smoke but for the lack of smell and the sudden shudder of a chill that passed through him as it seeped in. The fog grew a hand and helpfully shut the door the rest of the way. And bolted it.

There was some minor debate that Mooring was aware of toward the start, before the full comprehension of the nightmare settled in. That is, the comprehension that he was not in a nightmare.

“Ladies first?”

“You are the guest, I insist.”

“I insist back. You have been starving yourself again. A holy man’s sneeze would leave you blistering.”

“Oh, but he simply reeks of the druggist. Anyway, I would not risk him enjoying even a moment of it. He deserves your attention more than mine.”

“If I decant, will you drink? More than a thimble?”

“…Two thimbles.”

“Swear a pint or it will be over in a blink for him. No play at all.”

“Fine, fine, a pint…”

And then Alec Mooring proceeded to be unmade in most meticulous fashion. Whatever noises he could make during this were as muffled behind the insulated brick as the noise of his collected tenants had been while alive. Ignorable as the squeal of vermin.

He would be found later that day by the police following an anonymous tip. Amid the mess of Mooring and the unearthed rot of his collection, only a single sign would be left of whomever might have committed the final murder in that miserable killing floor. A sole print of a sole pointed at the door.

The underside of a woman’s boot, stamped in blood.

“You know, with the proper look, you could have some passing husband lick that clean for you. There is a slavering wretch I know who would plead for the chance.”

“I would have to charge you for the show.” Though she could not deny a certain temptation of her own. The silk handkerchief was beyond saving now, swollen as it was with the coagulating mess. The Count had his matches out before she could get hers. They watched the scrap burn, its motes drifting from their rooftop perch and up to the clouds. “You really do mean to loiter here, don’t you?”

“There are worse places to run out the last of the millennium. You are here, after all. Perhaps I shall wring an invitation out of you before the next one.” He canted his head in pantomime of epiphany. “Or I could always get an invitation from one of the invited.”

“Supposing your schedule clears up.”

And supposing you know when my doors will open.

“It will be clear for the night of October 31st.” His smile widened as hers curdled. “Likewise for the week preceding and following. Oh, but I shall have to find a costume. Perhaps I will come as a priest.” 

“I would not put it past you. As for now, I believe you said you were short on time? I did not mean to distract you so long with lunch.”

“You do excel in distraction and I would gladly suffer it again. Especially if it means seeing you forestall your latest death with proper nutrition. I can tell you are out of practice.” He tapped his lower lip in illustration. Clarimonde licked her own, wiping a spot of wet red glaze from her mouth. “How often are you feeding, Clarimonde? I would so hate to think I have found my old friend again only to discover her wasting away from weakness over poor self-maintenance. Do you mean to tease your little lord into the same phantasmal play as dear Rom—,”

Clarimonde looked at him.

Clarimonde looked into him.

Not to read the secrets, but to follow the familiar routes that were open in all minds. The pathways of senses and sensation. She went to work. It was uncanny how easy it was to fall back into the old habits. Even with all the time between them. Nostalgia, nostalgia.

She watched as his eyes rolled up, red to white, his head trying to loll back with them. His mouth shuddered and twitched. Fangs still scummy with drinking caught the sun as he spasmed on his feet. Bliss. Pain. High. Low. Victories old and miseries new.

Back and down and burrowed into the meat of the human animal on which he had built himself, all the base foundations that were slick and sweating and sticky with the ghost of living longing, and then he almost pitched forward, swarmed, drowned, buried in the pretty folds and holds of loves given and stolen in ages past and they are there, they are breathing for the joy of it, incense and candles and death in the air, the fools a floor below call their teacher Geber instead of Jabir, all pretending to know the truths of God and Devil and Trismegistus, oh my, and they do not know what is up here in the dark, these greybeards will never know anything of all the black wonders of the world and the worlds beyond it until its thirsty teeth and truth bite them open and suck them dry as fruit and oh, oh, oh, don’t go, don’t go, don’t let his mind retreat back to itself, this, always this, turning, running, betraying, no, no, no—

Within him the walls cracked, the moat drained, and for just a moment there was something—

(—show me show me yes good yes look at that look how he does it, yes, yes, above God and Devil and soul, yes, good boy good man, so much hidden inside, yes yes yes, Solomon needed a ring, but all I need is—)

—there and gone before the fortress righted itself again.

It helped that his hand was locked around her throat. Crushing.

“Try that again and your next party shall be a funeral.”

“Well, that will be bothersome, but hardly anything new,” she rasped. Her lungs had no complaint beyond that. “Really, you act as if you’ve never been goosed before. You did help yourself as much as I did down there. You only have yourself to blame for possessing enough of the old verve in you to produce the,” she gestured airily at him, “natural results. Ah, but it has been a long while. Things may have changed. I do hope I have not overstepped my bounds.” She laid her fingertips on the strangling hand. Against the agony in her neck and the would-be panic trying to roost in her chest, she bowed her head until she had to look up at him through the fans of her lashes again. And winked. “Are you saving yourself for someone new, dear? If so, we could form a club. The Regrettable Romantics Society has a decent ring.”

Then Ruthven can laugh at both of us.

The Count seemed to hesitate on the line between releasing her and snapping her neck. He settled for flinging her aside. His claws had pricked through the gloves and scored her throat as she went. The skin sealed itself readily enough, but not before the blood spotted her shoulder. At least it hid well amid the butterflies. Salvageable.

Clarimonde looked to him only to discover his back was to her. He’d lost his hat as he tilted his head back. When he rose from retrieving it, it was like watching an obsidian plant grow its shoot from the earth. Slow and silent. The hat went back in place. He did not turn.

“You may see me at your revelry. You may not. Perhaps I shall pace out my time here for months and years and decades to come. Yet the odds are just as fair that I may be gone before the first gasp of November. Much is in motion. Some priorities outweigh the others. You, consort of Concini, of so many decadents besides, are not at the top of the list in any eventuality. You are there, of course. You will be seen to. But do not flatter yourself to think you are of such significance that you can be sheltered indefinitely from the consequences of your play.”

If I ever played, voivode, I never played alone. A consort does not break into the chamber where they work. They are bought and begged for. Just like any narcotic.

“I’m certain. Alternatively, if you must kill me to satisfy whatever amorphous whim dictates I must die for whatever vague crime I committed in your mind, you could always do it now. Save me the time and effort of playing hostess. Only, do try not to ruin the ensemble. But first.” She opened the box and let it fall away as she fastened the necklace and its pouring rubies at her throat. The effect improved when she opened her walking coat and the gems spilled over the dress beneath. “Leave my corpse someplace picturesque. A nice botanical garden someplace.”

 Now he turned. She recognized some of the old hunger in his look. Yet it was crowded in with something else. Something that stoked the flame that was almost fear in her. It did not lessen when he began to soften at his edges, the body breaking down into a bruised fog. She watched it seep out and away on the wind.

“Clarimonde. I would never kill you. There is no repercussion for you in that. There never has been. For you, I must utilize true artistry for a consequence, and I shall not fail the task. But if it is any consolation, such things are still at the bottom of my itinerary. If properly convinced, I may even forget it. Regardless, my love, you can go back to your château with at least one certainty to warm you in the coffin. If you are to suffer, you shall not suffer first…” Eyes and teeth were all he had left. They blazed. “…and yours will be a far kinder agony than his.”

With that, she was alone.

Time had come, time had gone. The masquerade went with it, another scintillating success, whispered about behind fans and winked about over cigars. Andy had loved the necklace.

Her friend made no appearance. Even so, anxiety had opened the door to dear Andy’s reserved wing at last, replete with the gentleman’s delight. He really was a darling thing, and she was not far off in guessing he would hear her ulterior reasons for the stay—

‘A grim shadow from my past has followed me to England, sweet Andy, and I am afraid!’

—and think himself a knight with a desperate damsel in hand. Assuming, naturally, that the fear was for herself.

If truth were told in all its coldness, she could not say she was in love with the young man. Yet she had reserved a corner of her heart for him as she had for many in her time. If the Count meant to start tightening the noose, those closest would be the first to feel the rope. She could at least buttress the manor and its people against his entry.

You say it as if it matters. He would as soon burn the place to the ground as charm his way through the door. …So why hasn’t he?

A persistent question.

Flashes that might have been trying to form an answer had come to her in dreams as September tipped to October, as October bled to November. When she was not constructing worlds against a dreamscape, she could fish for more than her own inventions in the psychic ether. More often than not these came to her as pure gibberish made of symbols and metaphor and hints so layered in enigma they bordered on indecipherable.

A whirl of bats and loose earth littering the air.

A face melting like wax between a vaguely familiar beauty and a screeching flower of teeth and blood.

A thunder-drum of living hearts beating in the same tune with eyes piercing an endless dark like desperate candles. 

A second face, another semi-recognition, grinning with hate and pulling apart into something horrid beyond words.

A pack of collared dogs with sharp twigs of ash in their mouths, a foaming pale hound racing ahead, carrying a great shining knife, all giving chase to a massive wolf leading them into snowy wilds, leaving a trail of dropped blood from the beating heart caught in its jaws.

A pair of shadows embracing, kissing, eating out the other’s heart.

A world that was a cemetery, every tomb and casket around its dead globe breaking open to scream a choir against a bleeding sky.

All less than heartening and even less enlightening. No more than her discovering the state of the Count’s Piccadilly purchase following the first nervous week of October. His estate or no, she had the benefit of not requiring an invitation at any home’s threshold. Not that there was much about the place that could suggest a home.

Here was dust tramped with strangers’ footprints, broken glass, whiffs of garlic blossom and, hidden in the lowermost dark, boxed Transylvanian dirt muddled with both its owner’s unmistakable stamp and the divine stain of the Eucharist. But no Count. Not even a spot of blood to mark a quick nibble taken before his exit. In the busiest room—at least busy in way of mess—she had found a single gold coin forgotten in a corner. There were a few fibers of fine black cloth with it.

No more than that. Not for days. Weeks. Now creeping toward months. With that time and no sign of change in the Piccadilly estate, she could only guess that whatever his business was, it had moved elsewhere for the time being. It had also given her a significant enough pause to mull her own status and that of Lord Blythe; namely, that perhaps her very nearness would be the thing to paint a target on him and his. It had already drawn enough attention to make his address known. Better to excise themselves from the others’ circles.

A dalliance was only a dalliance and the boy didn’t need to die over it.

Away and adieu, now. Go blow away to a new corner before the poor boy gets it in his head to come clawing at the door.

Such was her intention.

Among others, formless and imperative as they felt. She wanted to be away from where Dracula knew she could be found. She wanted to replenish herself with another unhappy red draught. She wanted to make a pilgrimage to poor Romuald.

She wanted to shed the nauseating disquiet of her last nightmare, a thing full of howling, barking, cackling horror that still left its echo reverberating in her head like a shriek in a cathedral, made worse for how it had crashed its way into her dream-dead mind without warning.

Away. Clarimonde wanted away. It could be her, it could be the Count, it could be the whole jagged mess that was the shattering of her latest pleasant bout of idle comfort and debauchery, so long as it was away.

For now, it must only be her. The single moving piece she had control of. She could take a holiday away from her holiday until she could arrange for a new permanent residence. All this should have been enough to consider. Plenty to frustrate the plush default of her life.

And yet, there was more.

Of course.

Three new nuisances in the shape of three envelopes of varying stationery. Two of which had come by post. The third she had found hidden, with schoolboy bluntness, waiting in the lingerie chest she had left behind during her stay with Andy. That one bore the black wax seal of the Dragon. Despite the sender’s best efforts, it did not unsettle her as much as the deliveries sent by mundane measures.

A crimson seal of an ornate dagger planted in a skull marked one’s sender clearly, even without his true name in the corner. She was less than shocked at the whiff of blood stirred into the wax. A predictable thing was Ruthven.

The third she did not know at all. No more than she recognized the sender’s address, being even more distant and stamp-smothered than the one in ruddy wax. It was this last alien offering that disturbed her most. Unbidden, she found herself repeatedly hiding, revealing, and hiding it again under the letters she knew. The carriage ride’s dullness had not yet bored her enough to break any of the seals. Even the train’s steady chugging march had not prodded her into killing the suspense and rending the wax. Not yet.

But her novels were tired and the fashion plates more-so. Curiosity warred with the premonition of deepening displeasure.

Clarimonde looked again at that third seal. All the while sensing, despite her best efforts at senselessness, that the seal was looking back at her and seeing more than it should.

This wax seal was gold.

And at its center was a single staring eye.

FOR THE FULL CHAPTER, REFER TO THE GOOGLE DOC LINK. 👁

For more Barking Harker details, go here.

#hope you're ready to read through a cinderblock #barking harker #dracula #carmilla #clarimonde #lucy westenra #charnell wight #bram stoker #theophile gautier #sheridan le fanu #my writing #horror #jonathan harker #mina harker #lord ruthven #the vampyre

[cynthiafalvey]

BIOGRAPHY | MUSINGS

character name: cynthia ruth falvey

nickname(s): cynthie, cynth, thia, princess

age & dob: june 9th, 1990 (33)

gender identity & pronouns: female, she/her/hers

sexual orientation & relationship status: bisexual, single

residential area: an apartment downtown

occupation: producer for local colorado commercial video production company

place of birth: cardiff, wales

length of time in providence peak: consistently from 2000-2008, visiting in between, and permanently since july of 2023

faceclaim: lucy hale

FAMILY.

mother: erica falvey (53)

father: rodney falvey (59)

siblings: elijah falvey (41), nikolas falvey (39), reginald 'reggie' falvey (35)

niece: rhiannon falvey (7 months old)

TL;DR.

youngest (and only daughter) of the falvey family, born in cardiff, wales and moving to providence peak at the age of ten. youngest sibling to her very core, and an expert of teetering on the edge of demanding attention when not easily given and knowing just how and when to slip under the radar. moved to new york after high school to attend university, eventually settling into film & television studies. after finishing her masters degree, a personal assistant role to the executive producer of a reality dating show (what the heart wants) turned into the start of her own producing career. worked on several seasons of the show, but the behind the scenes dishonesty and manipulation eventually got to her. after saying no to her boyfriend's proposal and on the verge of a mental breakdown, cynthia quit her job and moved back to providence peak seven months ago under the pretense of it being a temporary stay for her niece's birth, and is currently working a less soul-crushing producer job at a local colorado production company.

BIO.

Cynthia had just turned nine years old by the time she accepted the fact that she would not be getting another sibling to take over the role as youngest in the Falvey family. It was one year more than the gap between her and her eldest brother, and the surpassing of it successfully sealed her fate in the spot she now knows she was always meant to uphold.

Did it stop her from thinking that the sit down conversation her parents had gathered them for shortly before her tenth birthday had been a surprise pregnancy announcement anyways? Unfortunately, it had not, and the actual reasoning for the common room meeting had left very much to be desired, especially when Cynthia’s usual tactic in getting what she wanted (being cute) did not seem to sway her parents on their decision to move them all to Colorado.

Her go to plan B (kicking and screaming like a bat out of hell the whole way until they changed their mind) and C (turning around and boarding a flight back to Wales immediately upon landing) both proved to be busts, but Erika and Rodney weren’t without some tricks of their own.

Who would’ve guessed that all it would take for Cynthia to change her tune was a little promise that she could get her ears pierced once they were settled?

(Or that that had been her longcon all along?)

Ears freshly pierced, there was nothing her first year in the American school system could throw at her that she couldn’t handle. Socially and academically, she excelled and continued to do so all throughout her junior and high school years.

The worst part about being the youngest was by far that unshakeable feeling of being left behind. They’d always been close, but it was watching each of her brothers leave the nest for their respective endeavors, and the combination of losing Eli and Reggie both in the same year to theirs, that really had Cynthia digging her heels in. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, stop them from achieving whatever it was they were searching for away from home, and would be proud of them all the same, no matter what it was, but she’d be damned if they all drifted apart on her watch.

Her own time to fly came at the age of eighteen with an acceptance to NYU. Though tempted to head to the opposite coast of LA to be closer to Elijah, hearing the way he talked of the big city life there, she couldn’t help but want one of her own after practically conquering Providence Peak.

New York was decidedly not Colorado, but Cynthia fell in love with it all the same. There was always something going on, always something to see or do, and the city quickly became her playground while she figured out just what, exactly, she was accumulating all that student debt for.

She eventually settled on Film & Television studies, which no one in her family had to point out wasn’t the practical choice (then again, what was anything any of them did considered practical?), but after shopping a few different majors, it was the first to feel right. Cynthia learned that she thrived in the behind the scenes of tv and filmmaking, several of the projects she worked on over the course of the four years going on to win local festivals and awards, and even a chance to study abroad in London for a semester before her junior year.

It was a no brainer to continue her studies all the way through to her Masters, graduating finally in 2015. Various odd jobs and several internships were held over this course of time, but her big break came in the form of working as the personal assistant to the executive producer of a reality dating show, What the Heart Wants. It wasn’t exactly what she envisioned herself doing in the long term, but an in was an in, and she was going to give it (and her boss, Isabelle Robbins) her all.

And her all she gave, and then some. For years and several seasons of the show, she made sure she was at the top of her game, Isabelle’s right hand man, but still Cynthia felt like she wasn’t any closer to getting a shot at any kind of producer spot. It wasn’t until an off hand comment she made about a lie to feed one of the contestants was put into action and garnered a viral reaction that opened Isabelle’s eyes to just what her assistant might be capable of beyond fetching her coffee.

Her first official producer role for What the Heart Wants was at the age of twenty seven for the show’s fifteenth season, and Cynthia began to build herself a reputation for knowing exactly what to say and do to get the most drama. She couldn’t say that she didn’t like the attention, didn’t like the praise from her boss, or scrolling on Twitter after an episode would air and see the reaction gifs and memes created from the episodes, and she definitely couldn’t say that she didn’t like the travel perks, getting to visit different beautiful locations with each new season, even eventually meeting her long term boyfriend, Jonas, while abroad.

What nobody prepared her for was how much the constant drama would eat at her over the years. By her fifth year and tenth season (including spin-offs), Cynthia was losing her edge, no longer able to stomach the word-twisting and blatant lies, a development that Isabelle was not pleased with, and was constantly breathing down her neck to fix. And yet, her breaking point was when her boyfriend of several years got down on one knee and proposed: what should have been the happiest day of Cynthia’s life, only for her to look the man that she claimed to love all this time in the eye and answer with a resounding no.

The worst part was that she couldn’t even give a reason. She didn’t have one. There had just not been one part of her that’d wanted to say yes, a part of her that’d felt anything at all, really…and that was what scared her the most.

Needing a change and with the excuse of being there for her niece’s birth, Cynthia quit her job and flew back to Providence under the pretense of it being a temporary visit (just until the ink on her new lease had dried). She loved her family and had never been known to shy away from being the topic of discussion amongst them, but the thought of having to explain to them what had happened both with work and with Jonas was too much when she didn’t even know what to say.

For the time being, she applied for and accepted a producer position at a local Colorado commercial video production company, which has somehow already felt more fulfilling in eight months than the several years she spent in reality TV.

Though still battling the shame that came with trying and failing and trying to decide just what comes next, she can’t say she’s not happy to have her family all back in one place again.

HEADCANNONS.

has never known the correct words to any song ever, and this does not stop her from singing along to them anyways (very reminiscent of this tiktok)

could manage to kill even a plastic plant, do not ask her to water yours!!!

peak of her career was when chrissy teigen replied to one of her tweets and claimed to be a big fan of the show (and then when she met her at the 2022 bravocon)

considers her first time at the cheesecake factory a formative experience

self-appointed herself in charge of the family christmas card, and takes the role very seriously. in similar vein, she's also the queen of wrapping presents misleadingly to look like something else entirely

if at a coffee shop/cafe and a chocolate chip cookie is available, she will be participating in one, and thinks it is a perfectly acceptable breakfast, argue with the wall!!!

always has her nails painted, feels naked without at least a simple nude color

her anxiety manifests itself in the form of heartburn, so she eats tums like they're candy

can, but should not for the guaranteed safety of herself and others, drive

is incapable of walking past a claw machine without trying her hand at it (so you could imagine how dangerous it was once they started slapping credit card readers on them things)

what the heart wants actually won an emmy for it's seventeenth season; the statue use to reside on the mantel above her fireplace, but is now currently used as a jewelry stand

thinks she could have definitely held out longer and swindled a puppy out of her parents in exchange for accepting their move to colorado

has considered homicide over nyt connections (colors with their first letters changed??? get fucked), but still completes it, the wordle and the mini crossword every day and sends her scores to the family gc, even if no one else is playing

isn't picky with food and is pretty open minded when it comes to trying new cuisines...which is good because she's not the best cook (not awful but nothing fancy), and orders takeout several nights a week, so she likes that she has options

though finding her place running things behind the scenes, in high school she made herself nice and visible, participating in a slew of extracurricular, such as cheerleading, debate, dance and theater (her role as juliet her sophomore year of high school was truly inspired)

has a small scar on the underside of her chin from when she was eleven and her brothers had picked her up thinking it'd be funny to swing her into the pool, but accidentally dropped her too early and she smacked the edge instead (first trip to providence peak memorial, ayoooo)

currently on a social media cleanse, going as far as removing instagram from her phone entirely (does it stop her from sporadically redownloading it just to make sure she's not missing anything? no)

loves, loves, loves a bubble bath, and spends an excessively unnecessary amount of time in the shower

has a twelve step skincare routine

still has not told anyone in her family the truth behind her breakup and sudden move/job change

CURRENT CONNECTIONS.

younger (and only) sister of @elifalvey & @reggiefalvey

for all intents and purposes @draslihanxfahri-bailey's sister in law

friends who may or may not have kissed last november and are v much not talking about it @fletcher-braley

rite of passage childhood crush on her older brother's best friend @rcmandaniels

keeping the dmv workers who signed off on their licenses up at night, probs/surrogate sister @phoebeyates

friends who smash (broken tvs) @cjwelford

childhood turned awkward friends who drifted apart @theaxharris

blew off some low key noncommittal steam together in new york @dylan-westwick

fast friends who brunch @sarayoon

met and befriended @jacobklee while in new york

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

to be posted: ex-boyfriend, maybe a past contestant/host from the show she worked on (think the bachelor)!

potentially a roommate!

a best friend or two, girl squad (even old besties that drifted?)

childhood/high school/family friends

high school romances/flings

'used to hook up when home for the holidays but would stop when one (or both) of us got in a serious relationship and now neither of us are seeing anybody'

anyone she'd met while living in new york (on and off 2007-2023) or traveling (studied abroad in london in 2010, and filmed in different locations around the world from 2015-2023)

flirtationship/fwbs/one night stands/tinder dates

friends who’ve had a falling out/frenemies/enemies

connects through her brothers

neighbors

owners of businesses her production company's produced commercials for

drinking buddies

gym buddies

#providence.intro #about

[best-childhood-book]

Preliminary Round Winners

Round 1: The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Eliminations: none

Round 2: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Eliminations: Legend by Marie Lu

Round 3: A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Eliminations: none

Round 4: Little House by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Eliminations: Lux by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Round 5: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien

Eliminations: none

Round 6: Septimus Heap by Angie Sage

Eliminations: Last Survivors by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Round 7: Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz

Eliminations: none

Round 8: The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce

Eliminations: none

Round 9: Nevermoor by Jessica Townshend

Eliminations: none

Round 10: The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Eliminations: none

Round 11: American Girl by Various Authors

Eliminations: Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan

Round 12: Encyclopedia Brown by Donald J. Sobol

Eliminations: none

Round 13: Kingdom Keepers by Ridley Pearson

Eliminations: none

Round 14: Tiebreaker ongoing

Eliminations: none

Round 15: Ever by Gail Carson Levine

Eliminations: none

Round 16: Tuesdays at the Castle by Jessica Day George

Eliminations: none

Round 17: The Hardy Boys by Franklin D. Dixon

Eliminations: none

Round 18: Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown

Eliminations: none

Round 19: Ever After High by Shannon Hale

Eliminations: none

Round 20: The Icemark Chronicles by Stuart Hill

Eliminations: none

Round 21: Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke

Eliminations: none

Round 22: My Teacher Is an Alien by Bruce Coville

Eliminations: none

Round 23: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Eliminations: Killer Unicorns by Diana Peterfreund

Round 24: Upside-Down Magic by Emily Jenkins, Sarah Miynowski, and Lauren Myracle

Eliminations: none

Round 25: Don't You Dare Read This, Mrs. Dunphrey by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Eliminations: none

Round 26: Fairy Wings by E. D. Baker

Eliminations: Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill

Round 27: The Puppy Place by Ellen Miles

Eliminations: none

Round 28: Animal Ark by Lucy Daniels

Eliminations: none

Round 29: A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd

Eliminations: none

Round 30: Ten Kids, No Pets by Ann M. Martin

Eliminations: none

Round 31: Magic Puppy by Sue Bentley

Eliminations: none

Round 32: King of the Wind by Marguerite Henry

Eliminations: The Country Child by Alison Uttley, Corydon by Tobias Druitt

#best childhood book #results #preliminary round

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Gilmore Girls OC Masterlist ( D-K )

( A-C ) ( L-Z )

Name: Daniella Gilmore-Danes

Story: Home Again

Face claim: Lucy Hale

Love Interest:  Logan Huntzberger

Name: Devorah Barans

Story: The Road Not Taken

Face claim: Gideon Adlon

Name: Eleanor Doose

Story: Last Summer

Face claim: Bethany Joy Lenz

Love Interest: past Jess Mariano; endgame TBD

Born and raised in Brooklyn, Eleanor Doose was a city girl through and through.  She thrived in the fast pace of the city, in the freedom of being able to go anywhere at all, any time she wanted.  There was always something to do, and Eleanor was going to do it all.  She had never been one to slow down, determined that if she just kept going, kept moving, she could stay one step ahead of her problems.  But she couldn’t outrun them forever, and when they finally did catch up to her, it was as explosive as any collision could be.  Suddenly, Eleanor found her entire life packed into two suitcases and pushed onto a bus — for her own good, everyone said.  But there was nothing good about being sent to Stars Hollow, the entire town smaller than the neighbourhood she’d grown up in.  Eleanor Doose was a city girl, a small town in the middle of nowhere had nothing to offer her.  Nothing, that is, until another bus pulled into town, bringing a small piece of New York to her in the form of her ex boyfriend.

Name: Eliya Rygalski

Story: Faking Glory

Face claim: Odeya Rush

Name: Elle Hearst

Story: Untitled

Face claim: Danielle Campbell

Love Interest: Logan & Finn

Name: Emmeline Forbes

Story: (We’ll Never Be) Royals

Face claim: Maddison Brown

Love Interest: Logan and/or Finn

Name: Esme Gerard

Story: You’re In The Band

Face claim: Jadah Marie

Love Interest: Livi Ruiz

Name: Evan Mariano

Story: Story Of A Girl

Face claim: Maia Mitchell

Did Evan Mariano hate living with her mother?  Yes.  Did she desperately want to get away from Liz’s various boyfriends?  Definitely.  Did she want to be shipped off to an uncle she barely knew because her mom took her boyfriend’s side over her children’s?  Not particularly.  But if Stars Hollow was her escape then she would absolutely take it — if only the entire town weren’t trying to get Luke to send them back to hell.

Name: Freya Morgan

Story: New Romantics

Face claim: Adelaide Kane

Name: Gabi Mariano

Story: Wish I Were Here

Face claim: Sofia Black D’Elia

When Jimmy and Brook Mariano divorced, Gabi didn’t handle it well. Acting out, getting into trouble, she tried doing whatever it took to get her parents to pay attention to her instead of constantly fighting. Then, once the divorce was finalized and Jimmy left, Brooke decided she didn’t want to look after the child she never wanted and sent her to the other side of the country to live with an uncle she barely knew. But Stars Hollow was fine. Really. Okay, it was a bit too nosy, a bit too eager to gossip about the new girl, but it was fine. And Gabi was fine, too. Broken, alone, but fine.  She felt trapped, unable to breath, no less explain how much it hurt to be tossed aside like yesterdays garbage by the only family she knew, but she was fine. It was fine. And she was fine for an entire year; until Luke’s nephew comes to town.  A troubled kid, abandoned by his father, tossed aside by his mother, sent to live with his uncle, he sounded more like Gabi than anyone else in Stars Hollow.  And then she meets him.  Jess Mariano.  Her brother — wait, her what?

Name: Gen Saylor

Story: My Way / Piece By Piece

Face claim: Haley Lu Richardson

Name: Harry Bechtel

Story: Delicate

Face claim: Nicholas Galitzine

Love Interest: Troy Donahue-Callisto & @the-witching-ash's Richie Gilmore in Delicate)

Troy Donahue-Calliso had a plan.  A good plan, at that.  A plan that involved graduating from Chilton at the top of his class, then going to Yale to study political science and international affairs, then going to Yale law, then becoming a lawyer, then senator, and then the youngest President in history.  He liked his plan, it was a good plan.  It left room for the occasional stress relieving hookups with his friends, it accounted for the disdain that he would forever face in Hartford – for his sexuality, for the colour of his skin, for his parents’ divorce, for his father not being from Hartford.  It was the perfect, foolproof plan.  He never planned for the Gilmores.

Name: Harry Bechtel

Story: New Romantics / Coming Of Age

Face claim: Nicholas Galitzine

Love Interest: Troy Donahue-Callisto

Name: Holland Bass

Story: Breakaway

Face claim: Meg Donnelly

Love Interest: Jess Mariano

Holland Bass had never been good at staying in one place.  She’d spent her life travelling with her grandmother, being homeschooled and seeing the world.  But in her junior year of high school, her grandma gets it into her head that Holland needs permanence; that she needs normal and consistent socialization; that she needs to finish her last two years of high school in one place.  Unfortunately, rather than getting to stay in a foreign city, in any of the hundreds of places that offer stability but would still be exciting, Holland finds herself in Stars Hollow, moving into her grandma’s inn.  She loved the town, loved her godfather and all the whacky events, but she knew that it would never be enough to satisfy her need for adventure. Until she meets Luke’s nephew, the only person in town as restless and stir-crazy as her.

Name: Hyacinth Nelson

Story: Windward Circle

Face claim: Peyton List

Name: Ilsa Gilmore-Danes

Story: Of Love And Longing

Face claim: Liana Liberato

Ilsa Gilmore-Danes was pretty happy with the way her life was turning out. She lived with her mom and older sister, spent most of her free time and half of her nights at her dad’s, and had turned out pretty well adjusted, all things considered. But when she turns fourteen, everything changes.  First, Rory gets into private school and Ilsa finds herself facing school without her big sister by her side.  Then, Rory’s dad comes back into the picture, as eager as ever to shove Ilsa out of the picture while he plays happy family.  Soon after, her dad’s great heartbreak roles into town, whose sudden departure had been the first heartbreak of Ilsa's young life. And if that weren’t all stressful enough, she now has to spend every Friday of the foreseeable future having dinner with her grandparents, who’ve made no secret of the fact that they think Ilsa’s existence ruined their dreams of the perfect family.

Name: Jacqueline Grant

Story: Drops Of Jupiter

Face claim: Amanda Seyfried

Love Interest: Jess Mariano

Name: Jamey Belleville

Story: Hey December

Face claim: Joshua Bassett

Love Interest: Lorrie Gilmore-Danes

Name: Jane Forester

Story: Long Time Coming

Face claim: Katie Douglas

Love Interest: Lindsay Lister; Lindsay Lister & Jess Mariano

Name: Jeremy Skinner

Story: The Road Not Taken

Face claim: Sean Berdy

Name: Jocelyn Gilmore

Story: Untitled

Face claim: Liz Gillies

Name: Julia Gleeson

Story: Untitled

Face claim: Katie Holmes

Love Interest: Jess Mariano

Name: Kaito Lauder

Story: Loveless Generation

Face claim: Evan Mock

Love Interest: Blythe Langford & Charles Gilmore

Name: Kaylee Hayden

Story: Ego Crush

Face claim: Josephine Langford

Love Interest: Jess Mariano; Logan Huntzberger

Kaylee hadn’t meant to get expelled, okay?  It wasn’t her fault that the fireworks somehow went off early, and really, if the small scars near her eye were anything to go by, she already more than paid for the stained glass windows they destroyed.  But no, apparently even the Hayden princess and Huntzberger heir weren’t above the rules this time, and Kaylee finds herself stuck back in America with her father.  An unfortunate situation, but she’s confident that in a couple of weeks she’ll be off to the next boarding school and won’t have to see him again until summer.  Instead, she finds herself stuck on a motorcycle trip to fucking Connecticut – where, apparently, he has a whole other family.  A whole other daughter, to be specific, one who was still in the womb when Kaylee herself was conceived. And as if that weren’t enough, Connecticut also has her grandparents.  The worst people she’s ever met, hands down, and the only people capable of convincing Christopher that it’s in his best interest to cut his losses and abandon his no-longer-only daughter on the doorstep of the mother she’d never met.

Name: Kirsty Gilmore

Story: Delicate

Face claim: Zoey Deutch

Love Interest: Tristan Dugray & Logan Huntzberger or Jess Mariano

Troy Donahue-Calliso had a plan.  A good plan, at that.  A plan that involved graduating from Chilton at the top of his class, then going to Yale to study political science and international affairs, then going to Yale law, then becoming a lawyer, then senator, and then the youngest President in history.  He liked his plan, it was a good plan.  It left room for the occasional stress relieving hookups with his friends, it accounted for the disdain that he would forever face in Hartford – for his sexuality, for the colour of his skin, for his parents’ divorce, for his father not being from Hartford.  It was the perfect, foolproof plan.  He never planned for the Gilmores.

Name: Kirsty Gilmore

Story: My Way

Face claim: Zoey Deutch

Love Interest: Tristan Dugray; eventual Tristan Dugray & Logan Huntzberger

Kirsty Gilmore loved her family, she loved her town, and she loved her life. Really, she wouldn’t change a thing.  But when she suddenly finds herself transferring to Chilton with her sister, change becomes inevitable.  And with a new school, new friends, and a new world to explore, Kirsty finds herself wondering if she might want to be more than just a Gilmore Girl.

Kirsty AU Masterlist

Name: Kirsty Gilmore

Story: Piece By Piece

Face claim: Zoey Deutch

Love Interest: Jess Mariano

When Tristan was sent to military school, he made Kirsty promise that she would move on, that she would think about her own happiness for once.  And she had tried.  Over the next few months, she’d found herself growing closer and closer to Jess, until the accident.  His sudden departure brought an abrupt end to whatever could have been growing between them. Even after her blowout fight with Lorelai, she’d hoped that a summer on Broadway would be exactly what she needed to keep her promise, to clear her head and hit reset, but it was proving to be just the opposite. Exhausted, lonely, and ready to pack up and give in, Kirsty is quickly losing faith in New York. That is, until something — fate, a panic attack, a thunderstorm, a lack of any clean clothes, take your pick — led her into a small diner and Jess Mariano’s arms.  

#randomestfandoms construction #gilmore girls oc #masterlist #ocappreciation #gilmoregirlsocs

[voiceactormarchmadness]

Round 1 Part 1 Master Post

Group 1

a. Grey Delisle Griffin VS Nika Futterman

b. Hank Azaria VS Billy West

c. Rob Paulsen VS Richard Steven Horvitz

d. E.G. Daily VS Kimberly Brooks

e. Ashley Johnson VS Troy Baker

f. Luci Christian VS Caitlin Glass

g. Johnny Yong Bosch VS Monica Rial

h. Jennifer Hale VS Ben Diskin

Group 2

a. Stephanie Beatriz vs Mark Hamill

b. Charles Martinet vs Lorenzo Music

c. John DiMaggio vs Kath Soucie

d. Laura Bailey vs Christine Cavanaugh

e. Liam O'Brien vs Steve Blum

f. Jason Marsden vs Will Friedle

g. Khary Payton vs Greg Cipes

h. Zach Valenti vs Jonny Sims

Group 3

a. Cree Summer vs Tress MacNeille

b. Josh Grelle vs Zeno Robinson

c. Tom Kenny vs Frank Oz

d. Don Messick vs Daws Butler

e. Jeff Bennet vs Kari Wahlgren

f. Frank Welker vs Jim Cummings

g. Yuri Lowenthal vs Greg Ayres

h. Tara Strong vs Kevin Conroy

Group 4

a. Mel Blanc vs June Foray

b. Lauren Tom vs Dee Bradley Baker

c. Phil LaMarr vs Kelly Hu

d. Brina Palenica vs Robbie Daymond

e. Patrick Warburton vs Wendie Malick

f. Wendee Lee vs Stephanie Sheh

g. Maurice LaMarche vs Keith Ferguson

h. Kevin Michael Richardson vs Fred Tatasciore

[itsawsten]

i thought about you when i picked numb for out set list. hope you liked it just as much live and maybe.. our last three newer songs as well. how’s it going for you hear, beautiful? having a good time? // @hale-raiser​

#f2f; i'll fly away like i bought my own airline #c; lucy hale

[talkingtea]

I don’t think the title is actually puppyhood…sometimes production companies use code name titles when filming, they don’t actually use the real name as it may be a working title or used to prevent price gouging from suppliers. I mean it’s still probably gonna be a c-list movie regardless of the title (sorry Lucy hale fans)

Let’s hope so…

[justannie]

ANNIE COVE ( SHE/HER ) is a CIS FEMALE, TWENTY NINE year old OWNER OF FLOSSIE’S FLORIST who has been living in Moorbrooke for THREE YEARS. They were born on JANUARY 23RD and right now, they are currently residing in REDGRAVE GROVE. It has been said that they look suspiciously like LUCY HALE and if they had to choose a song to describe themselves, they would choose TORN by LISA AJAX. 

hi, hello, hey! i’m tea, and i havn’t been in a rp forever. so, please excuse me whilst i try to figure out formatting and everything again! i’m so excited to be here, and bring little annie to life! 

annie cove . 29 . she / her . pansexual . widow.

b a c k s t o r y

annie  had a nice, clean and loving childhood. no scandals, no secrets and nothing but loving and understanding adults. she did good in school, and had her eyes set on becoming a doctor. annie went trough highschool as a somewhat popular and overall happy teenager. and then she started college, and that’s when things started going wrong.

- TW : abuse, fire, arson, death.-

or, they didn’t go south because she started college, but because she met pete. pete was charming and persistent, and annie fell head over heals. he showered her in gifts, compliments and attention. she was on cloud nine, altough her family never really liked pete. soon enough, the gifts and compliments stopped coming. the attention stayed, however it changed character. pete needed to know everything, all the time. he became controlling, and eventually he became violent. annie became a silent and scared shadow of her former self.

annie left college after just two years, to become a stay at home wife to pete. it was what he wanted, and she didn’t know anything other than his wishes at that point. her family tried multiple times to get her to come home, but they never realised just how bad it was. the nightmare that was annie’s life went on for three more years, before coming to an abrupt end.

pete was angrier than ever, because annie had finally decided to leave. she tried to pack and leave in the night, when he wouldn’t notice. but he did, and he started accusing her of leaving for another man. she wasn’t though, she was leaving to save her own life. pete got so mad, that he decided to set the house on fire. his reasoning, was that if they weren’t together they might as well be dead.

annie managed to get out of the house fairly quickly, escaping with just some smoke in her lungs and burns on her legs. pete however, never made it out at all. the fire was ruled an accident, and annie became a widow.

- end of TW -

she got out, alive. from the house, yeah. but also from the relationship. annie left the town they were in, and moved to moorbrooke. because that’s where her parents had moved a few years earlier, and because she wanted a fresh start.

she isn’t the same carefree, loving and social person she was before pete. but she tries to get back to the person she want’s to be.

buying the florist shop was a way to make a future for herself and have something that was just hers. that she could decide over however she wanted, after living with someone controlling her every move for so long.

p e r s o n a l i t y

caring. kind. problemsolver. bubbly.

clumsy. skittish. emotional.

annie is a good friend. she bakes you cookies if you'r sick and will always come to rescue you whenever you need it. she’s funny, can solve almost any problem and likes to do spontanious things.

but, she is scarred by her past and afriad to let people in. she doesn’t trust easily, and is quick to judge someones behaviours. she want’s to find real friends and relationships, but she has a hard time letting her guard down.

she’s not easy, but she is worth it.

when it comes to connections, i am open to most things. she could really use some friends, maybe an employee, neighboor or family friend. also someone her parents are trying to set her up with, the first person she slept with after her husband (she most likley woke up in panic), a sibling, a cousin, someone she used to be friends with and lost contact with during her marriage, someone that is a regular at her shop. but like i said, i’m open to most things! 

#mbintro #hi guys! #tw:arson #tw:abuse #tw:death #tw:fire

[helpersofindie]

i was hoping you might be able to help with a suggestion for a fc lookalike of phoebe tonkin. it's not exactly an alt fc request b/c in theory phoebe would still be in play. i'm hoping to rp faye chamberlain set in a the secret circle & the originals crossover/fusion. i prefer phoebe for hayley then for faye but i don't want to use phoebe for faye and have a partner also use her for hayley. someone with a lot of similarity to pt ala keira knightley & natalie portman if possible, pls! thanks! <3

i have always thought that lucy hale (33) and sarah hyland (31) share a resemblance to phoebe! i hope these help!

#fc help #fc suggestions #phoebe tonkin #hayley mikaelson #faye chamberlain #rph #rpt #indie rph #diana #answered #** #anonymous