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 Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 8:49 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 8:51 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 8:52 pm
 Name: Orestes Benjamin Gaunt. Nickname: Prefers to go by his middle name. Most often called “Benjy.” Performs as Benjy Trevelyan, but that’s just a stage name. Accepts a whole host of endearments (e.g., dollface, mon brigand, kitten, mon p’tit chou, sweetie-pie, mon p’tit bête, etc.) from his best friend and his mother, but you aren’t them, so these aren’t for you. Gender/Pronoun: Cis man, he/him. Age: 39. Birthday: June 13th, 1986. Sign: Gemini. Gemstone: Moonstone, pearl, and alexandrite. Blood Type: A– Fav. Food: His mother’s or grandparents’ cooking, doesn’t matter what they’re making. Pretzel sticks when he feels snacky. Hated Food: Venison. Also, he maintains that anyone who claims to make “Cajun” food without being Cajun, preferably from Louisiana originally, is a liar until proven otherwise. School: Did all his childhood/adolescent education in New Orleans. Got his undergrad degree in theater and creative writing from Northwestern University in 2008. Occupation: Writer and host of The House on St. Ann Street, a horror podcast. PHYSICAL DESCRIPTIONEyes: Rosy pink. #FD92C3. Hair: Black with some natural wave to it (sort of between 2b and 2c, texture-wise). Wears it long (about mid-back/upper-waist length) and tied back in a ponytail, with the hair in the front cut shorter so it can frame his face. Face: Angular, pointy. The individual parts of his face are nice, but when put together, there’s something ever so slightly off that keeps him in the realm of “character actor” good looks standards rather than “classically handsome leading man.” Perpetually smiling, give or take the shifts of his micro-expressions. Skin Tone: #C98C58. Medium brown, sort of russet with some golden tones. He both darkens up and freckles when he spends more time in the sun. (Think a tone like Jacob Anderson 1 2 3 4 5 6.) Body Type: 5’11” and lanky. He’ll tell you he’s six feet, though. Clothes: No, seriously, Benjy’s sense of style is stuck in the 1920s and 1930s, and he likes it that way, thank you. Only rarely is he caught outside the house while wearing less than a button-up shirt, with some kind of tie (be it a classic necktie or bow-tie) and a fitted waistcoat (oh, boy, does he have a sizable collection of those). No, he’s not going anywhere special; he just feels his best when he’s dressed like a Jazz Age dandy. Most of his modern-style clothes are for sleeping in, working out, laundry day, etc.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:27 pm
Hobbies: “An Old Soul”: Benjy revels in all things vintage, especially favoring the 1920s and 1930s, aesthetically. Catch him wearing thrift store finds he spruced up and modified to better fit the styles he likes. Antiquing is his idea of a special treat (he’d go more often if he could afford to). For a night on the town, he prefers piano bars and places where they play live jazz to anywhere else. He’s more open to literature from other periods, but even then, several of his favorites were published before 1950. Horror: The best stories, in Benjy’s mind, leave you deeply unsettled. As an audience member, he reads new horror novels and short stories voraciously, makes time for new horror films (though he tries to avoid “90 minutes of jump scares with no substance” pictures), and keeps up on other horror-genre podcasts. As a creator, most of his time goes to writing short stories/novellas to dramatize for his own podcast, or doing research for his more analytical or discussion-based episodes. He also participates in some book clubs and discussion groups around town (and he’s always on the lookout for engaging, opinionated podcast guests). Accents and Vocalizations: Something of a lifelong fixation, Benjy is fascinated by people’s speech. What they say is fine, but how they say it is far more interesting. As a kid, he copied specific movie characters or TV personalities, rehearsing with himself until he got their voices/accents right. Over time, he’s learned more technical aspects of voice-work and prosody, like how to read IPA, the names for and social connotations of different accents, the interplay of speech and overall physicality, etc. He has a wide array of accents and voices in his back pocket, and regularly works on new ones. Piano: As a kid, he started because piano lessons were one of the only Nice, Extracurricular Things that his mother could afford to give him. As an adult, Benjy continues playing because it helps clear his head. Regular practice helps him create a sense of order in his life. Playing when he’s emotionally riled helps calm him down; he can often express himself better by running through a song or improvising something than with words. This is mostly a private hobby, but Benjy also plays piano in and arranges music for a local band that specializes in vintage-style covers of popular contemporary songs. Virtues: Charming: In a harsh and complicated world, Benjy strives to put his best foot forward. He may not always enjoy working with people—Benjy can be a control-freak, and personalities can clash so easily—but he doesn’t want to show that off. Meeting people with a (more or less constant) smile, he chooses his words, his tone, and his rhetorical devices carefully, all to ease any potential social stress and win people over to his side. He practices the compliment sandwich even when he thinks people only deserve the criticism because it makes people more inclined to listen. Genteel: In addition to his unflinching smile, Benjy strives to meet people politely, holding himself to a high standard for etiquette and (at least ostensible) interpersonal respect. He tries to address people sweetly but not with undeserved familiarity, he doesn’t often raise his voice or interrupt people, and he always hits his “please”s and “thank you”s (though he may forego one on purpose to make a point). He also tries to mind when etiquette rules shift and adjust accordingly. People in the neighborhood where he grew up might call it “putting on airs,” but Benjy calls it good manners. Adaptable: Nobody ever gets anywhere in life by being too static. Benjy has his priorities, values, and deep personal ideals, and he doesn’t believe in sacrificing those—but compromise is an art. He tries to keep plans flexible, and while he will set boundaries with people, he adjusts to work with theirs as well. He regularly fights his own first impulses to keep himself open to feedback and making changes as necessary. Working with people and staying fluid amidst changing circumstances will make everything easier. Besides, it’s easier to control and come out on top in any given situation if people think that you’re ceding ground to them. Positive: Benjy is not immune to frustration or exhaustion, but even with odds against him, he works hard to look on the bright side. Benjy sees it as a low-key propaganda spin game with himself, or sometimes as a way of gaslighting himself—but better that than succumbing to despair. Bad situations can always be negotiated to his advantage. Nothing is hopeless or impossible if he refuses to give up. Yes, things may look bad right now, but the silver lining is here somewhere, alright? Benjy may simply need to roll up his sleeves and work a little harder for it. Flaws:Vindictive/Petty: Holding grudges comes as second nature to Benjy, so much so that he will do it about “personal slights” that don’t really matter but did sufficiently annoy him. Likewise, sending just desserts toward the people who’ve “wronged him” is an Olympic sport where he aims to take home the Gold. Sure, he could let his smiling façade slip enough to talk about his problems with someone like an adult, but where’s the fun in that? If he doesn’t nurse that grudge until he gets one over on the “offending party,” he doesn’t get to win. Performative: Benjy is what happens when you let a theatre kid take “All the world’s a stage” a little too seriously. Normal conversations, to him, aren’t much different from being on stage, or from putting on his podcast host persona. While he doesn’t make a habit of outright lying, his need to control how others perceive him leads him to overly tailor how he presents himself in ways that make him struggle to connect with people. Really, darling, it’s fine! He’s simply giving the audience what they want (never mind that the “audience” is one person, who actually wants Benjy to be real with them). Arrogant: Hubris, thy name is Benjy. In theory, he knows that he doesn’t know everything and can’t do everything himself. In practice, however, Benjy strives to feel perfectly in control of every situation, and clings to that feeling until he’s lost every justification for his stubborn pride. Benjy knows more than you. He has thought further ahead than you have and considered more possible outcomes. He’s right, you’re wrong, and there’s nothing you can do about it. In addition to making him an annoying p***k to deal with, this often leaves him scrambling in messy situations where he could’ve asked for help a lot earlier. Unhinged: Underneath the polite manners and near-permanent smile, Benjy has a lot of feelings. While he keeps them on a tight leash, he still feels them very intensely and he doesn’t always have a good outlet for them. Day-to-day, he has enough incentive to prevent him from going entirely off the ******** chain, and a lifetime of practice restraining himself has helped. But when Benjy gets riled, he easily gets swept up in his own emotional hurricane—and depending on how severely he feels he was provoked, it might be a while until he calms down again.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:27 pm
[will he get a knight power-up someday? MAYBE SO.]
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:27 pm
Blanche Gaunt, Maman: 65, b. April 30th, 1960. Roderick Gaunt, Papère: 90, b. August 3rd, 1935. Gabrielle Delafraise, Mamère: 85, b. June 30th, 1940. Mimi Delavigne, Best Girl: 39, b. August 14th, 1986. Henry Beaupêcher, Sperm Donor: b. October 17th, 1943—d. July 14th, 2013, aged 69. Daniel Rondouillard, Half-Brother: 44, b. March 27th, 1981. Charlemagne “Charlie” Beaupêcher, Half-Brother: 33, b. September 3rd, 1992. Philippe Beaupêcher, Half-Brother: 29, b. July 21st, 1996. Jeanne Beaupêcher, Half-Sister: 24, b. June 4th, 2001. Róisín Branagh, Benefactor: 68, b. December 29th, 1956.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:27 pm
Benjy started going by his middle name very young (around age three or four), mostly because he could actually pronounce (and eventually spell) variations on “Benjamin” while “Orestes” escaped him. Mama Blanche chose the name Orestes from Classical mythology because she thought it sounded Rich and Classy (incidentally, this is the same reason why her own parents named her “Blanche”). She’s also the one who nicknamed her son “Benjy” rather than any other possible “Benjamin”-related nickname.
Very gay. Not aromantic, but calls himself “bad at relationships.” That little turn of phrase is a cute way of saying that he hasn’t made any serious attempts at romance since a little-discussed heartbreak when he was twenty. Romantically, Benjy is the equivalent of a cat who became feral after being abandoned by his humans.
Grew up speaking both English and Cajun French at home, and has a notable tendency to slip between them. Sometimes, he “slips” on purpose, peppering in Cajun French where he might not naturally place it. Other times, he misplaces words without meaning to (which usually sees him devolve into a frustrated string of mixed-language cussing, some words of which may not actually be curses).
Benjy originally hails from New Orleans, which generally becomes apparent within a few moments of meeting him. The Big Easy hasn’t been his primary residence in a long enough time that his natural accent has shifted, incorporating elements of the Northern Virginia accents found in Destiny City and the Chicago variety of the Inland Northern accent that rubbed off on him in college. The lilt and drawl he acquired from growing up in New Orleans remain, but when he isn’t putting on a show (an unfortunately rather rare occurrence), they’re both softer and less pronounced than they used to be.
That being said: Benjy is mild-to-moderately obnoxious in his hometown pride and love of New Orleans, so in most situations, he deliberately emphasizes that part of his accent. He wants you to know where he comes from, and he wants you to know how much he loves his hometown.
Devoted cat dad to a very long, moderately chonky, green-eyed VOID named Louis, and regularly addressed with variations on “Monsieur de Pointe du Lac.” He came to Benjy through the Destiny City Cat Distribution System (read: he was somewhat feral and kept messing up Benjy’s recycling bin while trying to get at the garbage, so Benjy lured him home and adopted him when it was determined he didn’t have A Person already). Benjy named Louis after Anne Rice’s Louis because, much like her Mssr. de Pointe du Lac, Benjy’s Louis dislikes most people. He adores Benjy and his mother, behaves for Mimi, and thinks pretty much everyone else can shove off.
One place where Benjy doesn’t default lean into his New Orleans accent like that is with his podcast. Most episodes of The House on St. Ann Street feature dramatic readings of horror fiction (whether written by Benjy or not). They sound like old-timey radio dramas, with the major difference being that Benjy very rarely features guests in voice acting roles. He uses a very Old Hollywood Transatlantic accent with the “Benjy Trevelyan” persona that he puts on serves as a storyteller to introduce stories, do the ad reads, and act as narrator for stories where the narrator is less of a character than in, say, William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily.”
The titular house is another reference to his hometown, though: the famous home of Marie Laveau is a city historical landmark, and sits on a street called, in the present day, “St. Ann Street.” “The House on St. Ann Street” was also the title of the first story that Benjy dramatized on the podcast, a novella of his own writing that wasn’t not about Marie Laveau, but also tiptoed around outright naming her, choosing to let her haunt the narrative instead.
Ostensibly dated Mimi for a while, but that was a teenage arrangement of mutual protection between friends. 2000 to 2004 was not the safest time to be queer in their old neighborhood. Pretending to be boyfriend and girlfriend gave both of them some relative protection from harassment.
As the adult child of a messy relationship that ended in divorce, Benjy knows that he isn’t qualified to do any of the serious work of helping children in similar messy situations (his degree is in theatre and creative writing, not social work or child psychology or something like that). Even so, he volunteers with a local big brother-big sister type organization, trying to be a positive presence in kids’ lives where he can. Sometimes, a friend can work wonders to help someone out.
Benjy’s favorite volunteering gig is at a branch of the Destiny City library near his home, though. Every second and fourth Saturday, Benjy does a storytime for local kids at the library. It’s a good time for all, and the kids love how many different voices Benjy can do for all the characters.
Quite unlike his present-day sense of style, in his teens and early twenties, Benjy was most often to be found in the early 2000’s, Hot Topic and early Myspace variety of goth/emo fashion. Benjy tries his best to keep the old photos from this era from seeing the light of day, but Mimi and Mama Blanche have copies and saved versions ready. Keeps their favorite boy (relatively) humble for him to be periodically reminded of the time he spent wearing too much eyeliner and skin-tight black jeans, low-key painting himself like a vampire, and wearing chains attached to his wallet instead of a vintage pocket watch.
Doesn’t drink very often, and when he does, he tends to cut himself off at one drink (two at the absolute most). It’s about the control issues for him: Benjy doesn’t like letting his self-control slip too much if he can help it, and alcohol impairs his ability to do that. When he does drink, he favors his New Orleans hometown drink, Sazerac. He’ll take a bourbon whiskey if he can’t have Sazerac, but not another kind of rye.
The horrible, terrible things that happen when Benjy drinks too much and lets his self-control slip? He gets snuggly and affectionate. He stops treating most conversations as something that he needs to win by getting the last word or getting in the best witty rejoinder. Pair 2+ drinks with some Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald, or Judy Garland, and he’ll even more or less chill out for once (………more or less).
Basically, he goes from feral cat to lap-cat. This is, of course, disastrous for Benjy, who is actively invested in his ability to present himself as a feral cat.
The songs on which Benjy most often takes lead vocals during performances with Mimi and the band: “You Give Love A Bad Name”; “I Will Survive”; “The Man That Got Away”; Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers”; “Mein Herr” from Cabaret (and Eartha Kitt, why not); “Good Luck, Babe!” (albeit with a few strategic lyrical edits to make it m/m, rather than an entitled man being dumped by a bisexual girl); “Jolene” (and a Lil’ Nas X); and “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?”
Smoked for seven months between the ages of 20 and 21. Then, his mother found out and got him to quit, through sheer force of Disappointment and Orestes Benjamin Gaunt, I know that I raised you better than that, and you know it too, or you wouldn’t have tried so hard to hide it from me. It wasn’t really a discussion.
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:29 pm
[does YOUR little twink need to hook up with a smiley podcast host who only does one-night stands? RELATIONSHIPS.]
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:29 pm
[maybe there will be a knight wonder here someday.]
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:29 pm
[does he have a past life? HMMM, MAYBE SO.]
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:29 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:30 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:30 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:30 pm
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Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2025 9:30 pm
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