happy february! as everyone always wants to know, we totaled roughly 130+ fics this year! as the last few years, nominations are split up by post, but you can use the masterdoc for convienence! voting will close february 13th <3
vote here!
masterdoc here
by category:
BEST ANGST
BEST AU
BEST BUDDIES
BEST CANON COMPLIANT
BEST WIP
BEST ONESHOT
BEST FLUFF
BEST MISC
BEST SERIES NOMINATIONS:
a sweet tooth for you by @thebhorror
bar trivia AU by @thebhorror & valhallasoundbox @kotenokk
Clichecore au by Gates_of_Ember @gatesofember
dear reader by @wrongcaitlyn
Percy Jackson and the Olympians Actors AU by @damiphantom
The Di Angelo-Solace Paranormal Case Files: Declassified by Anzojin @theshakykid
and our AUTHOR OF THE YEAR areeee:
HandleWithCare @wordsofasarcast (ao3)
langatism @losergender (ao3)
negativefouriq @mediumgayitalian (ao3)
@pey119 (ao3)
snoelled @snoelledarts (ao3)
@thelordofshrimp (ao3)
@wrongcaitlyn (ao3)
voting guidelines:
voting will close on february 13th so that the winners post can be released on the 14th for valentines day! (for realsies this time i promise it doesnt take me as long as nominations lol)
fics are listed in alphabetical order! if your work didnt make it in, there is most likely a reason! you are welcome to message me about it if you wish though and i can let you know why
if your fic was nominated and counted but is missing on one of the docs, whether its here or the poll or the masterlist, please let me know!! i have missed things and had no idea, its ok! please dont be afraid to let me know i've made a mistake!
same goes for if something shows up twice, fic has already won, links are broken, etc etc!
if one of your works has been submitted, you can promote/mention this but a reminder that there's no prize outside of satisfaction, so dont feel too bad if you didn't win! theres always more years!
you aren’t required to vote if you have been nominated, though it is heavily recommended
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this is all just friendly competition, so everyone have fun! be sure to show the writers some love!!! <3
Percy: I was just wondering, you used to be pretty ruthless—what changed? What made you wanna turn over a new leaf?
Poseidon: *Gets violent phantom pains in the scars he received after pushing a man with really sexy thighs way too far*
Percy: Dad?
Poseidon: *Swallows* Well son, you get older, you mature, you realize some actions were definitely out of proportion, and some lessons don't need to be relearned...
starting a new fic and PRAYING that you actually finish it because it's such a cool concept has become a ritual that occurs waaaayyyy more often than I'd like it to
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
summary: “Impeccable timing, too! Whaddya know? There seems to be a free medic right there.”
One day, Nico will kill Percy Jackson. It'll fix almost all of his problems, and gods know he'll always have too many at any given point in time. But he'll do it. Maybe Annabeth will even take pity and give him a free pass.
—
Or, Nico likes to wear goofy socks. No one knows until Percy accidentally reveals this little tidbit of information. And gods, did Will always look like that under the sun?
WOOHOO so I posted a little one-shot here earlier but I cleaned it up and added a small scene at the end based on the tags of that post so if you're interested, here's the final version!!
BACK from the void to present to you: Nico, who wears the most absolutely ridiculous socks ever because no one can see them.
Gods, he has so many.
Most of them are thick and warm for maximum comfort, and they go up to just under his knees with the stupidest little things and patterns on them. For summer, he has an equally impressive collection of crew socks that are still thick enough to not get easily worn out, but don't make him sweat buckets trudging under the sun.
Nico knows that he'll forever be a collector at heart but it's not like he wanted to choose socks of all things as his next prized possessions. He didn't wake up one day and decide "man, these things are pretty great, let's go amass an army's worth of SOCKS!" It just happened. He had no control over that. They just feel nice, okay. And perhaps the colour combos and sheer variety of everything makes him happy.
Is it kind of embarrassing? Yeah. Would he cease to exist if anyone found out? Holy shit, maybe. But it's not like anyone has been able to tell underneath his daily go-to of heavy jeans and combat boots, so he's been in the clear so far.
Until he gets distracted for a split second while sparring with Percy and riptide cuts a huge slash across his leg.
Nico's fast, so he's able to jump back just enough so that the sword barely catches any flesh, but his jeans unfortunately don't come out unscathed.
"Keep your head in the game, Neeks!" Percy teases with a grin. He's got an annoying glint in his eye to match and Nico just knows he's about to say something worse. "No matter who walks in."
And—shit. Nico feels his face flush scarlet despite him screaming internally at his body to not react. He pointedly does not look at the new blob of neon scrubs sitting next to Kayla in the stands. "Shut up, Jackson. Like you're any better when Annabeth so much as blinks at you."
Percy shrugs. "Hey man, at least I acknowledge it."
And—fine, he does. Nico will give him that. Jackson was peak levels of embarrassing about his girlfriend on a good day.
"I think you should go get that patched up," Percy smirks. He then makes a big show of squinting at the stands, pulling a similar face that Jason makes trying to read highway signs without his glasses. Basically, he looks really fucking stupid. "Impeccable timing, too! Whaddya know? There seems to be a free medic right there."
One day, Nico will kill him. It'll fix almost all of his problems, and gods know he'll always have too many at any given point in time. But he'll do it. Maybe Annabeth will even take pity and give him a pass.
Before Nico can even open his mouth and retort with something snarky, Percy raises his hands and hollers. "Hey, Will! The King here is in need of some dire medical attention!"
Percy snorts and claps him on the shoulder. "As if that's worked before. Good luck, little man. Same time tomorrow?"
And he doesn't wait for a response, just gives a one-handed salute and begins to make his way to the stands. Percy says something to Will as they pass by each other and Will's brows furrow.
One day.
"What happened?" Will asks as he jogs over. His blond curls rise and fall with every step and if you zeroed in on only them, the loose coils look like they're in zero gravity. Bouncing with an impossible grace as they get closer and closer.
Not that Nico was looking. Or that he'd even noticed at all. Man, is it getting hotter here? He should definitely drink some water soon.
"Nico?" Will waves a slow hand in front of his face. "You alright? Percy said his sword mostly caught your jeans, but you never know."
"Huh?" Nico chokes. Right, this is the dire medical attention part.
Will gives him a wobbly smile, like he's trying not to laugh but failing miserably. "Okaaay then. Can I check your leg?"
"Um, sure."
He's still so out of it that he doesn't hear his subconscious screaming at him why Will kneeling down to lift the denim is a terrible, horrible idea.
Nico feels the lithe fingers carefully cut down the fabric with scissors that have seemingly appeared from nowhere. He feels them gently peel back his jeans with a confident precision, minimizing the disturbance to the wound. He hears the faintest of gasps and he feels the other boy go completely still.
He tilts his head down to see what the issue is—surely Percy hadn't slashed him that bad—and then, like a statue, he freezes in place too.
In the most obnoxious shade of yellow possible, rows of mischievous rubber ducks beam back at both of them. He says mischievous because they've got annoying smirks and eyebrows strong enough to rival the Stoll brothers on the first of April. Which is quite a concerning amount. The smallest flecks of red from his cut take the whole "sinister menaces" thing to an unholy level.
Neither of them breathe for the next 30 seconds. Or maybe it's 30 years. Hell, if Nico knows now, his damn heart stopped working properly ages ago.
Then, either his saving grace or the final nail in his coffin, Will sucks in another shaky mouthful of air and clears his throat.
"You know," he starts, scarily neutral. Not a single waver in his voice. "I'm beginning to think Kayla's got a point."
Kayla talks a lot, running through an average 5 conversation topics in a record of 7 minutes with Nico himself, so that narrows it down by exactly nothing. "Uh, about what?"
Will doesn't reply, simply carrying on with cleaning and dressing his injury like he hadn't said anything. It drives Nico crazy, but he knows Will's priorities, so he holds his tongue. Will had drilled them into Nico's brain during his first infirmary stay; treat first, talk second.
So he waits. He lets Will dab the tiniest bit of nectar across the cut and wipe away blood. After a minute or two, his leg is wrapped neatly with a bandage, and suddenly, there's no more treating to be done.
"We're matching," Will finally says.
Nico blinks. Because—what.
"I mean, it's a slightly different shade, but eh, close enough to count."
Nico breaks out of his stupor when Will traces one of the ducks with his nail. Soft but accurate, light but impossible to ignore, like everything else he does.
"Yellow?" Nico whispers. He can't seem to muster up his voice to be louder than that.
Will looks up at him with a particular glint in his eye, and Nico's heart stops a second time.
"Mhm," he grins, dusting his knees as he stands up. He winks and it has no right to kickstart the thumping in Nico's chest. "Same wavelength."
"You're ridiculous," Nico lightly shoves at Will's shoulder and prays that his face isn't burning red.
Will just laughs and catches his hand, holding it in place. "Sure, but I'm also right."
"Are not."
"Are too."
"Are n—"
"Okay," Will interrupts, "I hate to break it to you, Neeks, but we're both wearing obnoxious shades of yellow. You've got the added bonus of sly rubber duckies, and my scrubs glow in the dark. Ergo, we're both ridiculous and both on the same wavelength."
Gods, who the hell says, "ergo". Why is Nico so enamoured with such an idiot.
"And how, exactly, does Kayla have a point here?" Nico sighs, ignoring that his hand is still on Will's shoulder and that Will is still holding it there. He'll take his silent wins as they come.
Now, Will's cheeks become a rosy red. It makes Nico want to trace a finger around his freckles to check if his skin has become warmer, too.
"Well..." He trails off. He glances down to Nico's leg again, where some of the damn ducks are peeking out behind his jeans.
With a grounding deep breath, Will shuts his eyes for a moment. When they open, he meets Nico's gaze head on, calm yet confident once more.
He's beautiful like this, like he always is.
Against his own will, Nico smiles. Will shines underneath the sun and his stupid blond curls are golden.
"She said we're soulmates. And I think she's right about that."
“And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. [...] When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.” 🩸
“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.” 🌻
Two souls, reunited.
(quotes from Madelline Miller's The Song Of Achilles)
As much as I love the idea of Will wearing Lee's flannel after his death, I much more prefer a scenario where he was constantly trying to steal it when Lee wasn't looking. Lee got fed up with this gremlin child (affectionate) trying to steal his clothes (he knows that he should toss it out, burn it, but he can't bring himself to do it; it holds way too many memories) so he gets a green flannel and embroiders it with little sun symbols.
He hides it in one of the secret rooms in the infirmary, because he can't have any of his siblings – or worse, a spy – stumble across it in his cabin. He leaves it here and makes a promise to give it to Will on his birthday.
Over a year later, Will tries to find a place to hide – no one should see their head counselor and head medic cry. He finds this room and remembers the talks about it and how it was one of Lee and Luke's secret hideouts. He wants to leave; he doesn't need another memory of what it was and what it could've been. But his gut tells him to enter and he finds a neatly packaged box.
hear me out: Connor and Mitchell but have their first proper interaction be going on a quest (3rd quester is Lou Ellen because I need more Lou Ellen + Hermes kids shenanigans content) to retrieve a special conch shell that requires the cunning and craftiness of a Hermes and Hecate kid and a connection to the sea that only an Aphrodite kid has. Percy offers them a few pointers on sailing but after that, they're on their own.
not sure what exactly the quest would entail but at one point they stop by a port town and Connor steals a bunch of pearls from an extractor. Mitchell reasonably panics a bit when he finds out because oh gods barely a day in and he already has to charmspeak someone into forgiving and forgetting them but Lou Ellen discovers that the extractor was doing detrimental damage to the sea life, so not being able to profit off of the pearls and harming the business is actually perfectly alright in her books.
Connor: perfectly alright, you say?
Lou Ellen: yeah, why allow some assholes to make money off of animal abuse?
Mitchell, seeing the glint in both of their eyes get brighter: ... sigh. Fine, I guess we can fit ruining their operation in today's itinerary.
They go haywire. Lou Ellen works the mist to give them more cover than usual, allowing Connor to have his fun completely messing with the extractors by setting up (relatively) harmless traps and stealing a little more with each passing second, while Mitchell distracts and deflects any concerns the extractors have
One of the extractors: oh, uh, yes! I can definitely show you where we keep the metal pliers, it's somewhere in the back. Let me just—wait, where the hell are my keys?
Mitchell, leaning in heavy with charmspeak: I think you left them near the back door, right? We can just go there now.
Exactor guy: ... yeah, of course. I always do that, easy access you know? Follow me.
And when they reach the door, Lou Ellen knocks him out and Connor unlocks it, a silver set of keys appearing in his hand seemingly out of nowhere. He winks when he catches Mitchell staring.
The rest of the quest follows pretty much the same: with one of them getting sidetracked and the others jumping in to "have a little fun", as Connor likes to put it. They eventually find the conch shell and return to camp, a little wounded but a whole lot closer.
As soon as Connor is let out of the infirmary, he dashes to the Hephaestas cabin. Mitchell is curious, but no one seems to know anything. Lou Ellen just cackles like a madman when she hears. "Ha, he was so antsy for most of the quest. Glad he's able to do something about it now."
Mitchell has no idea what on earth she's talking about, which takes him more off guard than he'd ever thought it would. Because he really believed that him and Connor had become close friends after everything they'd gone through. And surely, he would’ve known if Connor had something else going on. But apparently not. And Lou Ellen did.
And so what if it makes something burn in his chest? To know that Connor is keeping something from him when he thought they'd passed that hurdle long ago. To have that one conversation under the stars, afloat at sea, just drifting calmly and releasing their worries to the wind, that meant so much to him, not hold that same weight?
So what if he had feelings for Connor?
Mitchell doesn't sulk, because an Aphrodite kid will always retain most of their pride in the face of rejection, dammit. Connor seems to be—not avoiding him, but a little distant than he'd grown familiar with, and it hurts a bit. He can admit that.
It isn't until a few days later that there's a tentative tap on his shoulder after lunch and Mitchell turns around to see none other than Connor Stoll with a face so red, Mitchell is genuinely concerned he's going to pass out.
Mitchell: Connor? Are you okay? You look like you're going to explode or something.
Connor, fiddling with something in his pocket: ah ha ha, um, well. I have—something. For you.
Mitchell, completely taken aback: what? For me?
Connor: yeah, I— uh, I had to ask Nyssa for some help and then I had to go steal—I mean, borrow another one of yours because I wasn't sure how many to use and Nyssa wouldn't stop teasing me even though it had to fit perfectly—but t-the point is! This is for you.
And carefully, he pulls his hand out from his pocket and opens it. Laying gently in the center of his palm is a pearl bracelet. It's beautiful.
Mitchell: wait, are those...?
Connor, fingers tapping restlessly and somehow blushing harder than before: the pearls I stole on the first day? Yeah. I saw them on that boat when we were pulling up to the harbour and I just—
He pauses to let out a low, quiet breath, as though steeling himself.
Connor: I noticed your weren't wearing your favourite bracelet when we left for the quest and Lou Ellen told me that it took some damage from the lava wall the other day and you were heartbroken about it— so, I figured... well, you deserve something as beautiful as you.
And Mitchell is just speechless. His heart is pounding so loud and he melts on the spot because it's the sweetest thing he's ever heard and Connor is the sweetest person ever and gods, it was all for him?
Both of their hands are shaking as Connor helps Mitchell with the bracelet's clasp. And of course, it fits perfectly. Snug but not tight, a comfortable weight like it had been there all along.
Connor begins to pull away but Mitchell grabs his hand properly before he can. With hesitant maneuvering, Mitchell interlocks their fingers. The pearl bracelet subtlety reflects the light from the sun, making it look like it's glowing between them. Mitchell softly gazes at Connor, who tentatively matches his smile.
Mitchell: I love it, I really do. Thank you so much, Connor.
Connor: I'm, I'm really glad you do.
Mitchell: I want to take you somewhere. Follow me?
Connor: of course, anywhere.
So Mitchell leads Connor to his favourite spot near the strawberry fields, where there's enough shade under the sturdy tree but still bright and alive with the sun. Somewhere where they can once more lie down and hear the distant waves, free to drift off calmly and release their feelings and dreams, not just worries, to the winds, side by side.
They run into Lou Ellen on their way there. She takes one look at their intertwined hands, the new bracelet around Mitchell's wrist, and she lets out a triumphant whoop!
Lou Ellen: oh let's GO!!! Connor Stoll, bless your little heart, Cecil owes me 10 drachmas now!
Mitchell: huh, so I'm guessing you knew about this?
Lou Ellen: Mitchell, sweetheart. Every time you looked away, he had the worst case of lovesick puppy eyes I've ever seen. I thought it was bad at camp but this guy was clearly holding back. And I had to put up with Solangelo getting their shit together first-hand.
Connor: wh— I— wait. Did Cecil bet against me? Also...Solangelo?
Lou Ellen: Will and Nico, their last names. And Cecil didn't think you'd ever get the guts to properly talk to Mitchell after the quest, never mind enough to give him the bracelet. I, on the other hand, am familiar with what the sheer powers of long time pining can do. Also, having to stare into each other's eyes for like, 5 minutes while holding the conch shell pretty much sealed the deal.
Connor and Mitchell, now BOTH bright red:
Lou Ellen, snapping her fingers with a wild grin: hang on! Connor, Mitchell, conch shell... holy shit maybe this was fate.
listen y'all can pry the piperjasonleo ship w/ leo referring to hazel as his platonic soulmate and constantly flirting with nico who's in a relationship w/ will alongside a heaping tablespoon of oblivious mitchell and pining-so-much-he's-in-PAIN connor stoll from my cold, dead hands.
