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gimmethatagustd · 3 months

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venor (2) | kth + jjk

The barista at the university's café keeps telling Jungkook not to come back, but Jungkook is too busy daydreaming about kissing the beauty marks on his face to be paying attention to his warnings.

○ Pairing: Tiger!Taehyung x Bunny!Jungkook

○ Rating: Explicit/18+

○ Genre: Hybrids, predator/prey, college au, strangers to lovers, slow burn, fluff, light angst, eventual smut

○ Word Count: 4,364

○ Warnings: None

○ Notes: I miss hanging out at coffee shops pretending to do my homework in college, honestly. Take me back.

○ Post Date: February 11, 2024

○ Masterlist | AO3 Cross-Post

○ What was Jai listening to? The series playlist

The start of the semester is a disaster, to say the least. Jungkook quickly realizes he didn’t pay enough attention to Yoongi’s campus tour.

Despite the seemingly clear distinction between the two halves of campus, Jungkook gets lost. On his first day, he accidentally shows up to the wrong class. Not only is it embarrassing that he sits down in a psychology class when he’s supposed to be in a computer science class but it’s also a predator class.

Jungkook has never felt his face burn as hotly as it does when he leaves the classroom – which takes entirely too long since he chose to sit at the front of the room. He grips his backpack by the straps and holds his head high despite his pinkening cheeks.

It doesn’t help that a rumble of dark chuckles, snickers, and a few whistles follow him out the door. In his periphery, Jungkook thinks he spots one of the predators that had been in the group with the tiger hybrid. It’s the wolf who commented on showing Jungkook around – which, apparently, had something to do with his knot.

(Jungkook looked up knots on the internet later that night and was, to put it simply, scandalized.)

Jungkook flings the classroom door open and slips out of the classroom, but not fast enough to have missed the wolf. He shoves his tongue against the inside of his cheek and makes an obscene gesture with his fist.

Lovely.

The thing about Jeon Jungkook is that he has never let anything stop him. No amount of inappropriate comments or intimidation tactics will prevent him from having a fulfilling college experience. Predators be damned!

Once Jungkook memorizes his class routes, the next step is to establish a routine. This is an essential part of college life, considering Jungkook has a habit of getting a bit… off track. It’s only been a few weeks, and Yoongi has already commented on what he has dubbed Jungkook’s “loading face” that pops up whenever he gets lost in thought. Jungkook thinks Yoongi is being playful and not mean when he calls it that, but he can’t be entirely sure.

Still, Jungkook understands this aspect of his personality, so he’s very pleased with himself when he finally figures out what to do with the random gap of time in his daily schedule in the afternoons between his last class of the day and the start of his shift working at the campus library.

Across the street from the east side of campus is a little coffeehouse called Venor Cafe. Jungkook, never being one to study languages, doesn’t think much of the establishment’s name as he stops at the chalkboard A-frame sign on the sidewalk outside the cafe’s front door. The large, bubbly handwriting advertising discounted flavored drinks for college students catches Jungkook’s eye. He’s a broke college kid living far from home, and he hasn’t eaten lunch yet – he might as well take advantage of what little rewards his student ID can get him.

The shop isn’t one that Yoongi included in his list of restaurants for Jungkook to try, but Jungkook remembers Yoongi mentioning wanting to cut back on his coffee intake. Perhaps that’s why the nearby coffeehouse isn’t on the list.

The bell hanging above the front door chimes when Jungkook slowly opens the door and slips through. It’s dimly lit inside the cafe, with most of the light coming from the large front windows facing the street. It takes a few seconds for Jungkook’s eyes to adjust after being in the summer sun. The air conditioning is welcomed, as is the array of mouthwatering aromas that greet Jungkook as he ventures further into the building. Something about the rich smell of ground coffee beans and sharp spices like nutmeg and chai makes Jungkook’s skin tingle.

Wooden tables with colorful, mismatched chairs are placed throughout the cafe. A large couch and a few well-worn leather armchairs crowd around a glass coffee table in the corner of the room near the register. Jungkook sits at a table by the front door to look out of the large windows and people-watch.

Removing his backpack, Jungkook places it on the empty chair opposite his seat and pulls it closer to him for easier access. The metal scrapes against the concrete floor, making Jungkook cringe.

It’s strangely quiet in the cafe. Chill lo-fi music plays from the overhead speakers, but it’s quiet enough that Jungkook almost doesn’t notice it. Somewhere in a back room, he can pick up on dishes clattering in a sink and the murmur of voices, and there’s the hum of machines behind the front counter.

Surprisingly, the cafe is nearly empty. There’s no one at the counter, and Jungkook spots only one other occupied table toward the back of the cafe where what looks like three college students sit, hunched over laptops. Maybe it’s dead in the cafe because other students are still in class.

Since there’s still no sign of any employees, Jungkook ignores the rumbling in his stomach and pulls out a tablet and stylus. He uses a napkin to brush off the little crumbs on the table and gets to work on his latest project. It’s a comic, less Marvel and more BL manhwa webtoon, and nothing he plans to show the world. Drawing is a creative outlet for Jungkook when he’s tired of writing code all day. Sometimes, he comes up with a story to tell, but he usually just likes taking little scenes from his everyday life and adding something to them that makes the world feel a bit more exciting and much less ordinary.

A part of Jungkook wishes he’d decided to attend a university for graphic arts rather than computer science. Unfortunately, the promise of a high-paying, stable job and his pushy parents makes him stick with the path he has paved for himself.

The sudden harsh sound of a coffee grinder startles Jungkook, forcing his gaze from his half-finished drawing to the cafe’s long counter. From this angle, Jungkook has to look over a glass case displaying various baked goods to see the employee behind the counter, who is now adding to the noise by brandishing a whirring frother. All Jungkook catches a glimpse of is a puff of coppery curls, but that, paired with the sudden earthy scent of summer rain, is enough to make Jungkook jump from his seat.

Jungkook has to say something cool. In the few steps it takes to approach the register, Jungkook has gone through about seven hundred options. He reminds himself that this is a totally normal scenario. He’s just a guy at a cafe to get a sandwich and a latte. The barista is just a guy working part-time to get through college. That’s it. There’s no reason for Jungkook’s hands to be clammy or for his heart to stutter as he leans against the counter, wide eyes tracking the tiger prowling on the opposite side.

Taehyung.

The barista is close enough for Jungkook to read his nametag, close enough for Jungkook to see the little beauty marks dotting his face like constellations or little flecks of chocolate on caramel skin. Sweet.

“Hi–”

“What are you doing here?”

“Um…” Jungkook resists the urge to shrink away from the counter, the harshness of the barista’s question digging into his flesh like sharpened talons. “Coffee?”

So uncool.

Taehyung’s striped tiger ears lay flat, disappearing into his curls, and his sharp eyes flit toward the group of people sitting in the corner of the cafe.

He looks so much bigger now than he had before. Maybe the apron he wears accentuates his proportions, showing off how broad his shoulders are and how prominent his chest is. Jungkook can’t help but follow his body, taking note of the raised veins of his forearms and his large hands compared to the coffee mug he holds between them. There’s an elastic hair tie around his wrist. Jungkook imagines what it would be like to play with his curls and tie them back out of his pretty face.

“You’re new, right?” Taehyung asks, pulling Jungkook out of his stupor. His voice is rich and deep, like the chocolate mocha Jungkook is considering ordering.

“Oh, you remember me.”

They slip out, words meant to remain a thought but escaped before Jungkook could stop them. He feels his face grow hot, but the little smirk that tugs at Taehyung’s lips makes his stomach flip.

“Of course I do.” Taehyung sets down the ceramic mug, now dry from him rubbing it down with a clean cloth. With his palms flat on the counter, Taehyung leans forward. “Couldn’t forget a pretty little bunny like you, could I?”

No one has ever spoken to Jungkook with such blatant flirtation before. At least, Jungkook thinks Taehyung is flirting with him. There’s already a little imaginary Yoongi on his shoulder telling him that Taehyung is a predator who is more likely hunting than he is flirting, but Jungkook would rather watch Taeyung’s tongue swipe across his bottom lip than pay attention to what the Yoongi in his subconscious is saying.

“Thank you?” Jungkook asks with a little scrunch of his nose, an expression that accentuates his front teeth. “I think?”

Taehyung’s gaze drops to the counter as he laughs lowly with a slow shake of his head.

“Here’s the thing, bun,” Taehyung’s fingers tap against the marble counter in tune with the music overhead. Jungkook can’t help but admire how long and pretty they are. “You can’t be here.”

Jungkook is so caught up in the new nickname that he almost forgets to ask, “Wait, why?”

“You’re on the east side. Predators only.” Everything about Taehyung’s presence is intimidating as he utters those simple words, but Jungkook can’t find it in him to be afraid, even as a chill creeps down his spine. “And judging by those floppy ears and little cotton-ball tail, I’d take it you don’t belong over here.”

The bell above the front door rings, interrupting Jungkook’s response. It’s for the best; Jungkook isn’t even sure how he would have responded to such an embarrassing read. All he can think about is how Taehyung managed to notice his tail, which he thought was hidden by his baggy t-shirt. The floppy bunny ears are inescapable, unfortunately. They’re smaller than other rabbit hybrids but still there, with black fur that doesn’t quite blend in well with his hair.

Two snake hybrids get in line behind Jungkook. He doesn’t look at them, even though his curiosity makes him want to. They’re whispering to each other with words that slip around Jungkook’s eardrums. They’re whispering about him.

With a sigh, Taehyung straightens his posture. He drapes the rag over one shoulder and gives Jungkook a stony expression.

“Please leave.”

“What?” Jungkook’s eyebrows lift into his bangs. “I haven’t even ordered my coffee yet!”

Taehyung’s jaw flexes as he hollows his cheeks, gaze sliding from Jungkook’s face to the snake hybrids behind him.

“You’re taking it to-go. What do you want?”

“What do you recommend?”

“I don’t drink coffee.”

“Then why–” Jungkook presses his lips together and tries not to laugh at the desperate look on Taehyung’s face. “Never mind, just an iced mocha latte, please. And one of those.” Jungkook points to the sandwich he wants.

After paying, Jungkook steps to the side to let the snake hybrids order. By this point, another employee appears from the back room. He’s a panther hybrid with a silky-looking tail and rounded ears. His pale eyes lock on Jungkook, and his lips curl into a scowl when Jungkook smiles. The poor guy clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

The panther takes over the register so Taehyung can finish making Jungkook’s order. When Taehyung hands Jungkook his drink and sandwich, his fingers brush against Jungkook’s palm. The touch leaves Jungkook’s entire arm tingling long after he’s packed up his backpack and left the cafe to head toward the library.

Sure, it wasn’t an ideal first meeting with Taehyung. Jungkook even forgot to tell Taehyung his name! But now Jungkook knows there’s the possibility they’ll cross paths again, especially since Venor Cafe’s food is pretty good, and it’s only a short walk from the library. Maybe this little cafe can be part of Jungkook’s routine, too.

Later that night, after an uneventful shift at the library, Jungkook still buzzes from the high of seeing his mystery tiger hybrid for the second time. It’s almost too much for his little body to contain, and he struggles to keep his cool when Yoongi eventually gets home from his part-time job at a local record store.

“Jungkook,” Yoongi sighs with his head in his hands, “I specifically told you not to go over there.”

“Yeah, but it was fine.” Jungkook slurps more noodles, unintentionally spraying little droplets of broth on the kitchen table. It’s an instant ramen kind of night. Luckily, Yoongi is a decent cook, so he added shrimp and fresh vegetables to the broth to “elevate it,” in his words.

“You said people were gossiping about you at the cafe! How is that fine?”

Jungkook shrugs. “Maybe they’ve never interacted much with prey either. You never know.”

Yoongi gives Jungkook a deadpan expression. “You’re being too naive.”

Maybe Jungkook is naive, but he prefers that over pessimism. Life is too short to be worried so much. Yoongi already acts like an old man.

Yoongi pushes his empty bowl away and opens his laptop again. Bulky headphones wrap around his neck and rest on his collarbones. The headphones are designed to fit his ears much better than any headphones Jungkook has used. Jungkook can hear some type of electronic music beeping and thrumming from them—the life of a music major. Jungkook doesn’t understand it, but he respects it.

Until transferring to his new university, Jungkook had never been the type to stay up late. It seems that little parts of Yoongi’s personality are rubbing off on Jungkook because he has found himself working on assignments well into the night to keep Yoongi company while he works on his music.

After a few minutes of silence, with only the sound of the two men clicking around on their laptops echoing through the quiet kitchen, Jungkook finally lets out the little secret he was hiding when he relayed his earlier cafe adventures to Yoongi.

“I saw the pretty tiger again.”

Yoongi groans loudly, pulling his headphones off again. He gives Jungkook another judgemental look that does nothing to curb the giddiness stirring in Jungkook’s chest.

“You need to stop.”

“Why?” Jungkook whines. Moving his laptop, he folds his arms on the table and rests his head on them. “He’s so pretty, hyung. He’s got these sharp eyes that dip a little in the corners. When he smiles, his mouth makes this, like, rectangle shape that may sound weird, but it’s so cute in person and, like, not at all scary. Well, he is kind of scary, but not in a bad way. It’s actually kind of hot. And he smells so good–”

“Jungkook!” Yoongi presses his palms to his cheeks and stares at Jungkook with a look that borders on horrified. “This never works, okay? Predators and prey aren’t meant to go together; we’re literally hardwired to avoid them. They’re gross, disrespectful, and aggressive. They let their animal sides totally control them. He was probably trying to come onto you!”

With a roll of his eyes, Jungkook huffs. “Taehyung is nice. I can feel it. Besides, I could kick a predator’s ass if I needed to. I do kickboxing, remember?”

Yoongi ignores the kickboxing part, commenting, “Oh, so you’re on a first-name basis with a tiger now?”

Jungkook’s cheeks heat up, and he responds a bit too quickly.

“Yes!”

Sort of.

Yoongi doesn’t need to know the details about that.

“Whatever, I warned you. Don’t come crying to me when he turns out to be a douchebag,” Yoongi grumbles and refocuses on his laptop.

It’s a discouraging conversation, but Jungkook doesn’t let Yoongi’s grumpiness dissuade him. He has seen a predator-prey relationship work out; at least, so far, it has. There’s a girl in one of his classes, a mouse hybrid with the cutest ears that twitch whenever someone makes a loud noise and a flighty but sweet personality. Jungkook knows for a fact that she’s dating a fox hybrid; he saw the two of them holding hands in the library– the only place on campus that isn’t separated by hybrid type. They are adorable. The way her boyfriend looks at her is with love, not intimidation.

Other students whisper about them, primarily predators who disapprove of their relationship, but it doesn’t seem like the couple cares about what others have to say.

Jungkook doesn’t care, either. Maybe he’s getting ahead of himself, considering Taehyung doesn’t even know his name, but he’s determined to befriend the tiger, at least. Something about him makes it difficult for Jungkook to let him go.

Undeterred, Jungkook spends the rest of the night finishing assignments that aren’t even due yet; that way, he knows he has time to kill tomorrow before his work shift. He’ll go back to Venor Cafe and properly introduce himself to Taehyung. He’ll prove that he’s more than the stereotypes about prey. He’s accepting of all people and unafraid to make friends with people who aren’t like him.

Jungkook’s chance to improve Taehyung’s first impression of him comes sooner than expected and in an unlikely place.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jungkook’s last class of the day is a random elective he chose because he had the room to add a fun class to his schedule. It’s an Art History class, specifically one that focuses on ancient Egyptian art and mythology. As someone who appreciates art and dabbles in it, Jungkook enjoys the class, even though he’s one of the few third-year students out of a lecture hall of primarily first-years. Stuff like that has never bothered him; Jungkook just likes to learn. He doesn’t care if people think he’s weird for being older or for choosing a course that has nothing to do with his major studies.

As is the case with all his classes, Jungkook likes to sit at the front of the lecture hall. It’s a little life hack since he’s self-aware enough to know that paying attention can be difficult. The closer he is to the professor and the learning materials, the easier it is to focus. If he sits in the back, there will be too many other things to distract him.

Unfortunately, today, Jungkook is late.

His previous computer science class ends late, and Jungkook has to sprint across campus to get to the Humanities building. With the weather still clinging to the summer heat, Jungkook gives himself a moment to stand outside the classroom doors to catch his breath and hopefully let his sweat dry. The only thing more embarrassing than showing up to class late is showing up sweaty and panting.

Flapping his t-shirt to get some circulation, Jungkook takes a deep breath, adjusts his backpack, and slips into the lecture hall as quietly as possible. He doesn’t bother being strategic about where he sits; there’s no way he’s going to draw further attention to himself by walking to the front of the room.

He drops into the first empty seat at the end of the last row. It’s far from ideal, but only a few students turn their heads to look at him, so Jungkook takes it as a small victory.

Taking out a notebook and pen, Jungkook tries to figure out where the class is at in the lecture. He didn’t miss much, but it’s hard for him to catch up when the adrenaline of needing to sprint to class is still flowing through his veins.

What makes it worse is that only a few minutes after he calms down, the door to the lecture hall opens again. Another late student with few seating options, it’s no surprise that they take the seat next to Jungkook.

What is surprising is that the person is a certain fluffy-haired barista.

More heads turn this time, and a few whispers create a quiet buzz throughout the room. The professor continues the lesson on hieroglyphics – the part of the course that Jungkook is the most excited to learn about – but Jungkook hardly notices. All he can do is stare at Taehyung.

He wants to say something, but they’re in the middle of class, and Jungkook has no idea what he would say.

Hello? Why are you in a class for prey students? Why are you here when school started three weeks ago? Why is your profile so pretty? Did God personally sculpt the slope of your nose and the pout of your bottom lip? Are there little beauty marks scattered all over your body or just on your face?

Taking a deep breath, Jungkook tries to force out the delusion in his brain and focus on the ancient symbols the professor shows on the screen. He’s being weird; he doesn’t even know Taehyung. He’s fawning over the first predator he’s ever spoken to, and it’s weird.

Jungkook needs to be normal about this.

Except, he can’t.

He’s just so intrigued by Taehyung. Yoongi’s scolding replays in the back of Jungkook’s mind, but he can’t see what the big deal is. Taehyung is just like all the prey hybrids in the room. He takes notes in a leather-bound notebook as though he’s always been in this class. When he isn’t writing, he brings his pencil to his mouth and gently bites on the eraser with his front teeth. It should be gross, but Jungkook finds it endearing. Here is this big, intimidating predator nibbling on the end of his pencil and practicing writing his name in hieroglyphs.

If Taehyung notices Jungkook staring at him, he doesn’t show it. His eyes never stray from the front of the room unless he’s looking down to take notes. He sits slightly slumped in his seat, with his thighs spread as far as they can. He’s too big for the furniture and is clearly uncomfortable, Jungkook realizes. Prey are typically much smaller. Even Jungkook, who works out religiously, is smaller than Taehyung. Something about it makes Jungkook’s stomach feel weird.

“Jungkook?”

Blinking away the blur of his vision, Jungkook looks up at the mouse hybrid with the fox boyfriend, Suyun. She gives Jungkook a puzzled look, ears wiggling and nose scrunched the way Jungkook’s nose often does. Suyun is the only other third-year student in the class, so Jungkook usually sits with her… when he’s on time.

“Yeah?”

“Class is over… I thought maybe I could go over my notes from the first part of the lecture with you since you missed it.”

“Oh, um, yes, please!” Jungkook shoves his stuff into his backpack and stands up, twisting around to see that Taehyung is already gone. How had Jungkook blanked for half the lecture?

“Want to go to the library?”

Suyun leads the way out of the lecture hall. As they pass through the doors, Jungkook realizes that Taehyung is speaking with the professor at the front of the room. For a moment, Taehyung’s gaze meets Jungkook’s, but Suyun quickly ushers Jungkook into the hall.

“Do you know that student? The tiger hybrid?” Jungkook asks as they leave the Humanities building and walk to the library.

Suyun shakes her head. “Do you think I know all the predators just because I’m dating Jackson?”

It’s a teasing question, but Jungkook ducks his head in shame. He shouldn’t have made the assumption.

“Sorry, that was silly.”

“It’s okay. I actually assumed the two of you were friends or something,” Suyun says with a shrug. She carries her things in a tote bag that is half her size. It swings dangerously when she rounds a corner.

“Really?”

“Yeah, he kept looking at you like he knew you,” Suyun explains, though Jungkook doesn’t understand what she means. “Wanna get a study room so we won’t have to deal with all the noisy predators?”

Jungkook nods and follows along with Suyun’s plans, too busy mulling over her words to help them plan their study session. He supposes he won’t have time to go to the cafe before his shift, but maybe that’s for the best. It might be weird to see Taehyung three times in less than twenty-four hours, even though the second time wasn’t Jungkook’s fault.

“Are predators even allowed to take prey classes?” Jungkook asks as Suyun leads him up the library stairs.

She takes a moment to think, letting out a soft hum. The study rooms are on the second floor, away from the chaos of the library’s main level, where the predators tend to hang out. They pick one of the smaller rooms since it’s just the two of them, equipped with a single table and a few chairs, plus a whiteboard mounted on the wall.

“They can, but I'm pretty sure it’s only for special circumstances. Like, if they really need the class and it’s only offered at a certain time or they’re trying to graduate early. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it happen, though.”

Jungkook sits down beside Suyun at the table and waits patiently for her to get out her notebook. He wonders what’s so important about Art History that Taehyung must take it with a bunch of prey.

“Do you think it’s awkward? Being the only predator in a class?” Jungkook wonders aloud. The question makes Suyun laugh.

“Nah, they’re all so self-assured. That guy’s probably loving the attention he’s getting from it. Everyone was talking about him after class.”

Something akin to jealousy flares in Jungkook’s chest, but he does his best to stamp it down. What does he have to feel jealous about?

“Yeah, probably,” Jungkook agrees half-heartedly.

Suyun gives him a strange look but doesn’t push the conversation further, which Jungkook is grateful for. He’s not sure what he’s feeling anymore, but he knows his Tuesdays and Thursdays will be much more interesting now.

Series Masterlist

Disclaimer: All my writing is fictional and for entertainment purposes only. None of these characters are meant to actually represent the real people mentioned in the stories.

All rights reserved © @gimmethatagustd - Do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my writing. Do not use my writing for any AI purposes whatsoever. Do not use my fics for anything aside from reading and commenting on them. My fics will only be posted on this Tumblr and on AO3 (gimmethatagustd & daddytaehyungie). Request an AO3 account here.

#taekook #taehyung x jungkook #bts fanfic #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #taehyung fanfic #jungkook fanfic #taehyung fluff #taehyung angst #taehyung smut #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jai writes #gimmethatagustd #venor

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sequinsmile-x · 2 months

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Achene

It felt almost cruel that the world carried on, as if hers hadn’t shifted with the loss of a baby she never got to meet.

Emily and Aaron try to move forward together.

-x-

Hi friends,

My insomnia is back in full swing, which means the hurt/comfort is also back in full swing.

Couldn't say where the idea for this one came from, but it wouldn't leave me alone and writing it kept me from accidentally napping on the couch after work and making my sleep pattern even worse.

As always, please let me know what you think <3

-x-

Words: 2.8k

Warning: Miscarriage

Read over on Ao3, or below the cut

When he wakes up alone, he knows where he’ll find her.

It was a pattern they’d fallen into over the last couple of weeks. Usually, he’d be the one who woke up first, Emily’s face still pressed into his chest, a tiny patch of drool on his shirt underneath her open mouth. He’d always wake her gently, running his hand up and down her back in a way he had done on their first night together, a habit that had carried them through from boyfriend and girlfriend, to fiances to now husband and wife. He liked it, enjoyed the predictability of how much she hated the mornings and waking up, the way she’d grumble as she slowly opened her eyes, never quite able to fight a smile as their eyes met.

The last two weeks had been different. She’d woken up before him every morning, the sheets on her side already cool to the touch. It made him worry she was barely sleeping, if she was sleeping at all, and it only added to the concern already pooling deep in his gut, seeds that had been planted days ago blooming and taking up all the space in his chest. He blows out a steady breath and stands up, rolling his neck as he steps towards the ensuite, the light streaming out from under the door confirming what he already knew.

He doesn’t say anything as he steps into the room. He leans against the doorframe and crosses his arms over his chest, giving his wife the lead in how they move forward. It was a grim pattern they’d fallen into, one he didn’t know how to get out of, and it broke his heart.

“It’s already fading,” she says, the only indication she’d noticed him walking into the room. She turns to look at him, a positive pregnancy test in her hand, a tight forced smile on her face, “I have to tilt it in a certain way to see the result now,” she clenches her teeth and sighs, shaking her head at herself as she places the test back in the draw she had taken to keeping it in, “Soon there won’t be anything…”

She trails off, but he already knows what she’s going to say, and he steps forward, his hands on her hips as he tugs her into a hug. She wraps her arms around him tightly, her hands in fists in the back of his shirt as she buries her face in his neck, anchoring herself to him as if he was the only thing keeping her upright.

They’d been trying. Meticulously planning to have a baby that they’d both wanted for a long time. There was a box of ovulation tests in the cabinet that Emily started her days with to keep track, and a thermometer in her nightstand that she used to track her basal body temperature. It was something they’d wanted desperately, and when after a few months they got a positive result from a pregnancy test Emily had taken because she felt a little off they were overjoyed. Aaron had run into the bathroom the moment he heard her crying through the door, ready to comfort her but she’d beamed at him, the very same test he’d just found her holding clutched in her hand.

Their joy was short-lived.

The scan Emily had excitedly scheduled that morning, the only one they ended up having for that pregnancy revealed two things. Emily had been a week further along than she’d calculated, closer to 9 weeks than the 8 she’d estimated, and there was no heartbeat. The air had been sucked out of the room when the doctor told them, Emily’s hand slack in his as she nodded along when she was given instructions on what came next. It was a conversation she’d had once before in wildly different circumstances when she was a child herself.

When they made it home from the hospital she’d finally broken down, cried the tears she refused to shed in front of anyone other than him. She’d deleted the app on her phone that was tracking her cycles, the one she’d only just switched to ‘pregnant’ mode, and tearfully told him the fruit for 9 weeks, a gimmick they’d both unexpectedly loved, would have been a strawberry.

The pregnancy test was the only evidence they had that the baby had existed, and watching it slowly fade was devastating, another type of loss he hadn’t anticipated.

“We should get ready for work,” she mutters against him, not loosening her grip, and he sighs, taking a moment to press a kiss to the top of her head before he pulls back, his hands on her lower back as he smiles encouragingly at her.

She hadn’t been back to work since the miscarriage, but today was supposed to be her first day back. None of the team knew what had happened, something Emily had been insistent on, and they thought she’d been sick with the flu. The lie had worked, and it also gave them a good reason why Aaron wasn’t currently going away on cases. Whilst the reason their friends had for her absence wasn’t true, his desire not to leave her alone was.

“You don’t have to go back today if you don’t feel ready for it,” he says, reaching up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, “The boss has a bit of a thing for you so I think you’d get away with more time off.”

She chuckles sadly and turns her head to kiss his palm, pressing her grateful love into his skin, “I do have to go back,” she says softly, reaching for his hand and linking their fingers together, “I can’t just keep sitting here thinking about everything that could have been,” she shrugs half-heartedly, “Plus, I’m not sure how much longer the others will buy the flu excuse.”

He nods and runs his hand up and down her back, “If you want to come home at any time-”

“I just have to tell you,” she says, leaning forward to stamp her lips against his, “Thank you. For being…well you I guess.”

He pulls her into a hug and kisses the side of her head, “You never have to thank me for loving you, sweetheart.”

___

She feels tired in just about every possible way.

She’d been back at work for a couple of weeks and it felt like she’d never been away at all. The team didn’t ask many questions beyond asking if she was okay on her first day back. Life carried on much like it always had for her and Aaron. They went away on cases, they spent their weekends with Jack, they loved each other. But there were moments when she felt stuck, when the grief would be overwhelming and make her breath catch in her chest.

It felt almost cruel that the world carried on, as if hers hadn’t shifted with the loss of a baby she never got to meet. She knew they’d try again, the doctor's soft assurances that they could at her recent appointment ringing around her head, but it didn’t help. Especially since she knew if she was still pregnant they’d be getting ready to share the news with their friends, their chosen family, and the thought of it made her ache.

She sighs as she settles into the couch, relieved to be home after a long couple of days away. She hears Aaron’s familiar footsteps on the hardwood floor and she smiles as she looks at him, gratefully accepting the glass of red wine that he hands to her.

“Thanks, honey,” she says softly, shifting so she’s facing him when he joins her on the couch, “It’s nice to be home.”

He hums as he sips his wine, “You’re telling me. That mattress in that motel did a real number on my neck,” he complains. She places her wine down and puts her hand on the back of his neck, pressing her thumb and forefinger into his skin, massaging the area she knew he carried the most tension, “God that feels good.”

She chuckles and leans in to kiss his cheek, “When we’re in bed I’ll massage your back if you want.”

“I’d love that,” he says as he turns his head to capture her lips in a kiss and smiles into it. He’s glad to see her more like herself, the sadness that had permeated everything in recent weeks still there, but not as overwhelming as it had been. He’d missed her smile, missed the sound of her laugh, and more than anything he wanted to protect her from being hurt anymore. It’s why he suddenly feels nervous, worried that what he’d been planning for a few weeks might set her back. He decides to go ahead anyway and he blows out a slow breath before he reaches into the pocket of his suit jacket, “I got you something.”

She smiles curiously at him and tilts her head as he pulls a square box out of his pocket. Her curiosity suddenly turns to panic as she furrows her brows and tries to think of what the date is, if she’d somehow forgotten something important as she waded through her grief.

“It’s not our anniversary is it?”

He chuckles and shakes his head, reaching out and pressing the box into her hand, “No, Em. It’s not. This is just…” he doesn’t know how to say it, how to put it into words, so he clears his throat, “I think you’ll understand when you open it.”

She hums, “Oh, that’s mysterious…”

She drifts off as she opens the box, her words caught in her chest along with her breath, making her feel like she could burst with emotions she can’t name. In the box is a necklace, a delicate silver chain with a tiny pendant on it, the detail of which, the seeds and the ridges, were only visible up close

It was a strawberry.

She huffs out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob and she covers her mouth with the hand not clasping the jewellery box. She can’t do anything other than stare at the necklace, at the pendant she knows Aaron would have painstakingly chosen because of a comment she’d made the day they found out about the miscarriage.

“I ordered it a few weeks ago,” he says, clearing his throat again, hating that he can’t read her expression, that he can’t tell what she’s thinking, “It took a little while because it was custom made. Dave gave me the name of a guy.” He adds, his smile fading as his wife still doesn’t react. Dave had made a joke, one Aaron knows he wouldn’t have made if he knew the circumstances, about Aaron enjoying the finer things in life now he had married into money. “I thought it would be good for you to have something-”

“To remember the baby by,” she says, finally finding her voice and looking up at him, tearing her gaze away from the necklace. Her chest feels hollowed out, like all the love she has for him is forcing its way up her throat, “Aaron…”

He only feels more worried when she trails off again, her eyes shining as she trails her finger over the small pendant, and he swallows thickly, “I’m sorry if this was a bad idea, I just wanted to do something to help-”

This time she cuts him off by kissing him, her lips stamped against his as she grabs his chin, holding him in place as she rests her forehead against his, the jewellery box pressed between them.

“No, it’s perfect,” she pulls back and looks at him, chuckling wryly as tears fall onto her cheeks, “You’re perfect.”

He smiles and wipes her tears away, his touch soft against her skin, “You want me to help you put it on?”

She nods and passes him the box, watching intently as he carefully picks the necklace up and undoes the clasp. She turns and pulls her hair to the side and she breathes shakily as he puts the necklace around her neck, his touch gentle as he does the clasp up and adjusts the chain. She touches the strawberry pendant, holding it between her thumb and forefinger and she sighs, closing her eyes as Aaron tugs her back into his embrace until her back meets his chest. He wraps his arms tightly around her and kisses her cheek, and she rests her hands over his.

“I love you,” she says, grateful when he ignores the shake of her voice, “So fucking much.”

He kisses her temple and pulls her impossibly closer, “I love you too.”

___

One Year Later

Emily hums contentedly as she rocks back and forth in the armchair, the nameless melody turning into a yawn as she looks at the time.

3.20 am

She tilts her head down to look at the three-week-old lying on her chest, his eyes wide open as he refused to fall asleep. She chuckles to herself and kisses the top of her son’s head, taking a moment to breathe him in.

“You really do get your hate of sleep from your Daddy, sweet boy,” she says softly, kissing his head again.

“I don’t hate sleep,” Aaron says, smiling when she turns to see him standing in the nursery doorway, “I just get up early.”

She rolls her eyes at him, “Sounds like the same thing to me,” she says as he walks across the room and joins them, perching on the arm of the armchair, “Did we wake you up?”

“No,” he assures her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and smiling at the sight of his youngest fighting sleep in her embrace, “I woke up and you weren’t there so I came to see how you were doing.”

“We’re okay,” she says, turning her attention back to the baby, “We’re okay, huh? We’re just trying to get back to sleep after a diaper change and a 3 am snack.”

Aaron watches contentedly as Emily runs her hand up and down the infant's back, lulling him to sleep against her. He wishes he could go back and tell his wife that they’d make it to this, that the clouds had parted and they’d found happiness after the storm.

“He gets the need for a 3 am snack from you,” he says and she playfully narrows her eyes at him before she looks back down at her son.

She strokes her fingers over his cheek, smiling as he twitches, the corner of his mouth turning up into something that resembles a smile. His eyes finally drift shut, his fight against sleep a battle he had lost, and he relaxes against her. The only thing that hadn’t relaxed was his fist, tight even in his sleep around the chain of her necklace, his little fingers next to the strawberry pendant that symbolised the loss they’d had before him. It was a complicated kind of grief, one she thinks she’ll never get used to. The acknowledgement that if she hadn’t lost that baby she wouldn’t have her son was hard to accept, a bittersweet taste left on her tongue whenever she thought about it.

“You want me to take him?” Aaron asks quietly, drawing her from her thoughts, and she smiles and nods, taking a second to kiss her son’s forehead.

“Mommy loves you, sweet boy,” she says, kissing him again, “I’ll see you in a little while.”

She watches as Aaron carefully lifts the baby and carries him back towards their bedroom. She follows them, her fingers automatically reaching for her necklace, something she now wore at all times. She rubs the pendant back and forth between her finger and thumb, a movement she had found comfort in ever since Aaron had first put the necklace around her neck, and she smiles as Aaron gently lowers the baby into the bassinet, simultaneously treating the newborn like he was something precious and a bomb that could go off at any moment. He turns to smile at her once he’s done, his smile curious as he catches her staring at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she says, letting go of the pendant and letting it fall back into place against her skin. She walks across the room and climbs into bed, her exhaustion returning in full force as soon as she’s under the comforter, “I just love you, thats all.”

He smiles and gets into bed with her, tugging her against him as they settle down, both facing the direction of the bassinet where their son was sleeping, “I love you too.”

They fall asleep in tandem, and when they are woken up just an hour later by the baby crying, they are still tangled up around each other, not sure where the other ended and where they began.

-x-

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ginoeh · 2 months

Text

This is the second part of three for my entry for @the-centennial-husbands-bigbang 2024! The awesome banners were done by @lalaithquetzallicaresi who is also on Deviant Art !

The story is available on AO3, where I will post chapters serialized!

To the Edge of Night

Explicit || Hob Gadling/Dream of the Endless || Part 2 of 3 || 14k

Part 1

Part 2

*** *** ***

Chapter Three

The reconstruction of the New Inn was coming along swimmingly. The tap room was nearly all done which was great, really, because that meant Hob was perfectly in time for the day of the planned grand opening. He’d set it, nostalgic fool that he was, for the 7th of June.

But on the other hand, there was this:

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to work behind the bar, Bobbie?”

Hob sighed and resisted rolling his eyes at Martin. The man understandably thought he was ‘Bobbie’s’ elder by several decades. But Hob could really do without his repeated attempts at motherhenning him into a healthier lifestyle. Which, according to Martin, included more friends and more social interaction.

Usually, Hob would agree. It was just… well, it was just that so far, his attempts at interaction had been met with mixed results. It wasn’t even that he didn’t want more friends apart from Emily and Oswin. The actual reality of that was turning out to be somewhat more difficult to achieve, though.

It was hard to be entirely genuine when he knew the fears and nightmares of every person he came across. He simply didn’t know how to work with that, yet. Maybe in time he’d get used to it all. So far, all he’d managed to do was inadvertently alienate a lot of people; his inborn sociable nature didn’t fare well when coupled with this new kind of knowledge.

Martin sighed as well but he wasn’t half as good as Hob when it came to hide annoyance and concern.

“Kiddo, you need to get out more. I kept telling the same to your uncle. Ya need friends and people to talk to! Bartending is exactly what you want right now.”

It wasn’t but Hob had to concede the point. He did need to get used to people.

“I can do the late shifts, if you absolutely insist.”

Hob made sure to sound as longsuffering as possible. Wouldn’t do to seem like he was giving in too easily, after all. Otherwise, next he turned around, Martin would try to ply him the sunday roast left-overs from his wife. It was very much enough that Emily kept trying to get him to eat.

Hob was perfectly aware that he didn’t necessarily need to eat, to stay alive. That didn’t mean that he enjoyed starving but the thing was, he simply didn’t. He wasn’t hungry because he didn’t need the food. He was not starving. He knew intimately how that felt, after all. Looking back, Hob was pretty sure it had started at the same time when his lucid dreams began to outnumber his normal nights, at the same time that he started seeing the shape of people’s fear in their eyes.

He wasn’t sure he liked the conclusions that could be drawn from this.

“The late shifts? That is a stupid idea if I ever heard one, Bobbie.”

Hob shrugged. He appreciated Martin, he really did, but he had to put his foot down somewhere. He wasn’t going to let the man dictate the schedule of his waking hours, after all, no matter if he’d usually find the caring nature endearing.

“That’s all I can offer right now. You do know that I have my coursework to do, right? If you say it would be good for me to get out more, then the late shifts it is.”

Martin levelled him with a dark glower that Hob was sure not to find too amusing, and set his empty glass of coke onto the table between them. For a guy in his seventies he sure had a lot of life in him yet.

“Three nights a week, tops.”

“Are we really haggling over this now, Martin? I’m still your boss.”

Martin crossed his arms on the table and kept his large hand on the signed papers that declared him manager of the New Inn.

“You want me in charge of the staff as well, Bobbie. And I take care of my staff, believe me. Three nights a week. Four during semester breaks.”

Hob smothered a laugh at the stubborn look his future manager shot him. Exactly that was why ‘Bobbie’ had insisted to employ Martin, his ‘uncle’s’ closest living friend.

“Okay okay. You win.”

Hob ginned and gamely shook Martin’s hand in agreement. There wasn’t really any reason to tell the other man that Hob hadn’t actually felt any real need for sleep in weeks - months maybe even - and therefore the late shifts wouldn’t impact him at all.

*** *** ***

The rise on which the forest ends slopes down gently into the valley. There is fog hanging around bare tree tops and over the houses and a pale sun lurks behind a thin white cloud cover. Hob becomes aware of the dream, or maybe steps into it might be a better descriptor at this point, at the edge of the forest, half lying between the tall stalks of damp, yellow winter grass. He appears to be wearing something like a cloak this time, its unadorned black fading away into wisps of smokey grey towards the frayed hem. Underneath, there might be just a normal jumper and trouser combo but Hob finds he’s entirely unable to concentrate his sleeping mind to look beyond the shadows of the ominous cloak.

It feels a bit like a game the dreamworld is playing with him and Hob is amused despite himself. He’s had the usual nightmares of being butt naked in the middle of the city so he’s a bit glad it’s not that.

The Gargoyle that he has glimpsed the last time gamboles around the shingled roofs and over a crooked chimney, dips playfully behind a barn and clips one wing on the branches of a massive oak tree before it rights itself midair and continues its dizzying game of hide and seek. Hob makes his way down, the nightmare Otter - and he thinks he should maybe find a name for it - contently lingering on his shoulders. It’s an unexpectedly reassuring weight even if it offers no warmth like a mortal creature might.

It’s when he draws closer to the two storeyed houses that a rather stately figure with carefully coiffed hair steps through one doorway. He’s in a three piece suit but bears an iron rake in one hand that gleams like polished steel knives.

Hob slows down when he approaches an old bridge that leads on into the yard between both houses. The man stands on its other end, one arm at his hip and the other tightly wound around the rake that he holds in front of him like a weapon.

“Who goes here.”

His voice is a nice baritone but it carries his mistrust as easily as his drawn brows do and Hob is, for once, thrown. This is the first time since entering this world of dreams that someone - or some-thing - isn’t naturally inclined to be friendly towards him.

It’s also the first time since his very first awakening that an inhabitant of his dreams speaks to him in an audible voice. This might be the chance he’s been waiting for to gain a bit more information about this strange strange world he’s in.

“I’m just… passing through,” he says and holds up both hands placatingly. In answer, the man grips the rake harder.

“To where.” It’s less a question and very much a demand.

“Um…I don’t know? On, I suppose?” Hob gestures vaguely into the direction of the valley behind the two houses, where he now knows a large part of the landscape centres around something like a palace.

The man frowns, annoyed, and levels Hob with a look that speaks volumes as to the intellect he thinks Hob possesses.

“So you come here, to the gateway of the Nightmare marshes, and you don’t know where you’re going? Are you mocking me?”

This is turning out to be one very unique dreaming experience, Hob realises. It’s not an unpleasant realisation at all. Hob is living for new experiences after all, and while he certainly loves the land he has for some reason been chosen to traverse in his dreams so far, this is a welcome interruption.

On his shoulders, the Otter lifts its head to lay a proprietary claw against Hob’s neck. The man startles at that and Hob looks a bit closer. There’s apprehension in his eyes, something that looks like anger but veers closely towards fear.

And quite suddenly, Hob has another epiphany. The strange mind-reading powers that he has gained while awake, the same thing that lets him feel his little nightmares intentions, work just as well on this different dream-creature. Because no matter how human he looks, Hob is pretty sure that the man before him is both less and more than simply a human man.

“Are you,” he starts and lifts one careful hand to cover the smile that threatens to break out on his face, “perhaps afraid of intruders?” Of old enemies, he wants to say, or rogue nightmares, because that is what he sees when he concentrates. But he’s not really looking to make the man more uncomfortable than he already is.

“I’m Hob,” he offers instead, when there is no answer, “And I think I’m on my way to… the palace.”

The man gears up to say something cutting, Hob can see the way his shoulders draw up and how his glower deepens when they are interrupted by a cheery yell.

“H-hey b-broth-ther! Is this a g-g-guest you’re holding u-uu-up there? Ca-can w-we inv-vite him in fo-fo-for t-tea?”

The man that turns around the corner of the leftmost house looks nearly exactly like the one barring Hob entrance - they are brothers, without a doubt, even if the way he eyes his much more personable sibling promises murder.

“Shut your jabbering gob, Abel. He’s a dreamer. He’s not supposed to be here. So no, we can not invite him for tea.”

The so-called Abel hurries closer, an amicable smile on his face for Hob and a fearful glance for his brother. In it, Hob sees flashes of blood and pain, shallow graves and wooden crosses. He winces. This is… not what he’d expected, really.

“B-b-but h-h-he’s a r-real my-my-my-mystery, r-r-right? Don-don-don’t y-you want to k-know it? Really?”

Despite his fear of violence and death by the hand of his brother, Abel rolls neatly past him and manages to make him lose his grip on the rake. He comes to stand in front of Hob, a hopeful smile on his face, and holds out a meaty hand.

“I-I’m Abel. And h-h-he’s C-cain. Welcome t-to- the H-house o-o-of Secrets! W-we have t-t-tea. An-and c-c-cookies.”

The vision of blood and murder flashes across Hob’s new sense again and Hob knows, intrinsically, that these are ‘the’ Cain and ‘the’ Abel. It’s all a bit much to swallow and he’s sure that if this weren’t a dream with all the ingrained suspension of disbelief he’s desperately been clinging on to since his journey started, he'd be much more pole-axed by this revelation. Instead, Hob shakes the hand of the first murder victim.

“And I have Earl Grey and digestives,” the biblical Cain, first murderer, interjects. He looks miffed but the threatening rake has been abandoned for now and he as well holds out his hand. “I welcome you to my house of Mystery. I’d be honoured to have you as my guest, dreamer. You can tell me all about how you came to be here.”

“B-but he was my guest f-f-first! A-and I can tell him nice s-s-secrets. Ma-maybe the o-o-one about th-th-the Thing in the b-b-b-basement!”

Hob does end up going with Cain first. He has the vague hope that it might avoid or at least postpone the clearly inevitable bloodshed that’s sure to be in Able’s future. There are a lot of crooked crosses and mounds of overturned earth that peek from the strip of land that borders the half-hidden backyard of the houses.

His nightmare, though, has no inclination of going with him. As soon as they reach the door, it nimbly hops off Hob’s shoulder. Cain casts it a long glance.

“If you don’t wish to come, you can visit Gregory. My soft-hearted fool of a brother insists that he’s getting lonely. You wouldn't owe me either way.”

The Otter bares its teeth in something that Hob thinks might be equal parts amusement and threat. Cain just scoffs and turns to step through the door.

The nightmare glances at Hob and if there were words they’d be a flippant ‘so long’ before it summarily abandons Hob for the first time since he’d arrived on these shores.

“Oh very well then,” he says gamely, “no one forces you to have tea, after all.”

Cain’s house is dark and warm and narrow. Everything is wood panelled, from the carved ceiling squares to the soft grey planks of spruce that make up the walls, and down to the unnaturally long and gleaming floorboards.

There aren’t many right angles in the house. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t seem to be built sturdy, quite the contrary even. But the angles are all just slightly off and despite the bookshelves, knick knacks and homely fireplace, there is something eerie to the place.

Cain is backlit by the glow of the fireplace where he takes a steaming pot of water from the hanger with a glowing poker.

“Gregory is the Gargoyle, I’m guessing?”

“Gregory the gargoyle, yes. He lives here.”

Hob thinks this is a paltry amount of information to give about an actual Gargoyle but then again, this is the land of dreams and nightmares. So maybe having a mythical creature as pet isn’t all that strange, all things considered.

“How did you come to be here,” Cain asks abruptly after they sit over sturdy mugs of tea.

“What do you mean, how?” Hob swallows around his digestives. They taste of nothing. Neither does the tea.

“You are a dreamer, a human one at that. You should not be able to traverse the Dreaming like you do.”

The firelight reflects eerily in Cain’s thin glasses. In the background the iron poker heats up in the open fire. This, Hob realises, is still a nightmare, after all.

“This is what the place is called, then? The Dreaming?”

“Don’t you know? These lands are the sleeping marches, the nightmare lands, where all dreams and nightmares dwell.”

Queen Mab’s country after all, after a fashion Hob thinks with a mixture of amusement and apprehension. No wonder his Otter had been so thrown by naming the offering he’d made. Hob’s wild guess had been close to the truth, after all. Though he’s reasonably sure that’s not all there is to it.

“Huh. I knew I was sleeping. Dreaming, as it were but - I didn’t know that there is a name attached to the place. Are you telling me that this isn’t just… in my mind, then?”

Cain stares at Hob and Hob can’t read his expression at all.

“Are you asking me if you made all of this,” he gestures around and to himself, “up in your sleeping mind?”

Hob has the grace to look chagrined. He’d been lucid dreaming for months now. Years if he wants to count the many times he’d been dragged into the sea of dreams and nightmares by the nightmare he now has as a travelling companion. He has developed strange insights while awake and he has had more than just a suspicion that these dreams hold more truth to them than mere figments of his imagination.

“No. No, not really, I guess,” he finally mutters. “I s’ppose this is as real as anything I experience when I’m awake.”

Cain looks at least marginally mollified.

“So you don’t know how or why you arrived here, I gather? That… is disappointing. Rarely do things like these happen without reason or will of our Lord.”

There are many things Hob wants to unpack here; so this isn’t the first time someone has gained access to the Dreaming in a way that resembles his; and there is a Lord - and not a queen - who holds the power of this place. He’d known that one already, considering that he’d been greeted once, so very long ago, by this Lord’s librarian.

“Who is this Lord,” he decides to ask, “and isn’t he… missing?”

Cain straightens and spears Hob with his glare.

“And how have you come by this information? Has your… nightmare blabbered? Talked about abandoning the realm?”

“Nothing of the sort,” though now Hob wonders; had many nightmares left the Dreaming? What then about those that he encountered? “When I first woke up - at that dock over the endless sea? - there was this woman, Lucienne. She told me.”

Cain doesn’t look convinced at all. He stands with narrowed eyes and leaves Hob at the table in favour of stoking the fire with the red-hot poker. Hob debates telling him about the neglected air of the places he’d travelled, about the feeling of bruised and yearning emptiness he'd seen in every world he’d rushed by on his mad dive through the nightmare sea. He decides not to, in the end. It feels… personal, somehow.

“Why would Lucienne travel all the way to the Dreaming Sea, just to greet a… dreamer. Now this is a mystery…”

Hob snorts. “Well, her greeting wasn’t all that enthusiastic. Was surprised to see that I wasn’t her Lord after all.”

It is silent for a while apart from the crackling fire. Hob discards the tea and digestives; he doesn’t know why he thought dream food would do anything for him, really. When he’s about decided to leave the brooding Cain to his own devices and instead go and try his luck with Abel, the man finally turns.

“Yes… there is something about you, dreamer. Hob. I thought for a moment at first, that you might be… but that was foolish, of course. You are nothing like Lord Morpheus, after all.”

“So that’s your missing Lord’s name?” It does have a bit of a ring to it, admittedly, even if it’s only due to Hob’s much longer memory of Morpheus the roman god of dreams that he doesn’t immediately think of the new movie that has just hit the cinemas. He doesn’t suppose Lord Morpheus looks quite like Laurence Fishburn in The Matrix.

“The Dreaming is the Realm of Dream of the Endless. Morpheus is one of many names he holds. And why he’s missing or where he’s gone - that is the greatest mystery of all, isn’t it?”

Hob leaves Cain’s house feeling not one jot more knowledgeable than when he entered it.

“The Dreaming is governed by Dream. Go figure.” He makes sure to keep his voice down but this one is a bit of a let down. At least he’s rather sure that Lucienne the palace librarian is something of a known entity. Which in turn promises the palace he’d glimpsed in the Ruby’s facets to be an actual place as well.

But this Lord… there is his missing Stranger in the waking world, there is a missing Lord on this side of dreams and between them, a deeply magical Ruby has found its way into his hands. Hob isn’t sure how much he believes in coincidences like that.

He’s nearly bowled over by a diving Gargoyle when he clears the awning of Cain’s house. Shingles shatter on the crooked pavement in his wake and a wildly gesticulating Abel rounds the corner.

“Gr-gregory, s-s-stop that!”

Abel hurries over on the beast's heels but doesn’t manage to deter him at all. The Gargoyle dances around Hob a few times, inspecting him, it seems like, before it comes to a stand squarely in front of him.

“Hello there,” Hob croons, enchanted.

Intelligent eyes consider him, before he bobs into the likeness of a shallow bow. Then, he buts up gently against Hob’s side.

“G-gregoy don’t bo-bo-bother our g-g-guest!”

When Hob’s hand comes into contact with Gregory’s rough scales, something like knowledge suddenly sparks between them.

“So you’re a nightmare, too.” Hob strokes Gregory’s scales behind the spikes on his head. “Or were, at any rate. You like this better now, don’t you?”

Gregory puffs hot breath across his neck in silent bliss.

“Have you met my- the nightmare I arrived with, yet?”

Hob gets the impression of sleek black fur rolling between moss and stone and grins.

“G-g-gregory c-can you p-p-please s-stop destroying m-my house!” Abel looks forlornly at the shards of mossy green shingles he’s swept into a sad little pile. “It’s ge-ge-getting worse a-and worse e-e-either w-way. N-no need to ma-ma-make it g-go f-f-faster.”

Gregory looks repentant but Hob gets the sense that the Gargoyle, however much he might want to try, can't really stop destroying things in his wake. It’s in his nature to be disruptive and playful.

“I can help,” he offers instead.

“Th-that’s t-t-terribly n-nnice b-but the r-repairs ne-ne-never stick anyway.” He pokes the pile with the tip of his shoe. It’s so pitiful that Hob feels like it’s a kicked puppy and not a grown man.

“Why don’t they, though? Mine alway do.”

He kneels at Abel’s side and takes a few fitting pieces out of the shard pile. They slot together easily.

“I've repaired a lot of things on my way here. My repairs always go well.”

He swipes over the shingle in his hand and some of the moss comes off, leaving it a faded, dusty red. The breaks are thin lines still, but it all holds together. He’s really gotten better at this.

Abel watches him, something guarded in his jovial face.

“N-no repair ha-has stayed wh-wh-whole, since o-o-our L-Lord le-le-left.”

Hob thinks of the dock that regained its sturdiness, or the little bridges in the moor that repaired themselves with barely any effort from him. Then he glances back at the forest that rises over the valley’s far side and takes in the lush dark green it has become in his wake, teeming with lively nightmares.

“I don’t know,” he says and smiles, “maybe you need to have a bit more faith in this whole thing. It works fine for me.”

He holds up the shingle for Abel’s inspection. It’s unbroken again.

“I think most things here know what they’re meant to be. It’s a dreamworld, after all. Just help them get back to that. That’s all. Do you have a ladder?”

Abel does have a ladder, though it’s a rickety thing when Hob starts ascending it. He’s pretty sure that on his way down it will be much sturdier. It is not hard work to set the roof to rights again, Hob has had much more strenuous jobs over the centuries. Though admittedly he’d never been a roofer before.

“H-hob?”

Abel calls him over where he’s taken off his shirt - it does after all exists under that terrible cloak - because the sun has decided to peek out behind the thin white cloud cover. It fits his mood well; he has a goal now and something like a plan.

“I w-want to t-tell you so-something. I-it’s a se-se-secret.”

“What is it?”

“A d-dreamer who rem-m-members h-himself ca-ca-can ch-change th-their d-d-d-dreams.”

Hob thinks he knows all about lucid dreaming by now and this seems spot on, even if it’s not really a secret. Abel and Cain both aren’t really very inclined to part with useful information, it seems like. It does pose an interesting question though.

“And you and Cain, you aren’t dreamers, are you? But then, how does the upkeep of this world work? Only by the Dreamlord’s will?”

Abel shrugs. “The D-dreaming sh-shapes itself o-o-only for th-those that l-l-love it. B-but a-a-a few ca-can do th-things, w-w-with His b-b-blessing.”

It sounds as mystical as impractical - and this power imbalance surely has its drawbacks, considering the state the Dreaming is in with its Lord’s disappearance.

“Maybe he should consider sharing a bit of his power then,” Hob mutters and slips into his shirt again. It’s time to go on, he thinks. There’s the palace waiting for him and possibly, hopefully, answers to his questions.

“L-lord Mo-mo-morpheus d-doesn’t share. He i-is the D-d-d-dreaming.”

The strange emphasis Abel puts on the last sentence perlocates in Hob’s mind, sleeping and waking, long after.

***

He leaves the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets behind without mentioning the magical Ruby or the Stranger that used to wear it. Neither does he mention anything about his immortality or the growing suspicion that the Dreamlord’s absence and Hob’s presence in the Dreaming are intrinsically connected.

Instead, he finally starts to tell his nightmare companion a bit about his life. He starts, of course, with the greatest reget he holds. It’s a nightmare after all, and probably much more interested in the things Hob has had nightmares about than in the general comings and goings of a human life.

“He could just as well have simply left me hanging to prove a point, you know,” he tells the Otter when the Houses of Mystery and Secrets behind them are swallowed into the last wisps of fog. “I mean I was a bit of a berk, all things considered. Not that I wanted to be, but you know how it goes, don’t you? Wanting something so much that you just… overreach. And by doing so destroy what you try to build.”

The Otter doesn’t answer, of course. But it does clamber up Hob’s truly terribly threadbare cloak and settles again on his shoulders.

“Thanks, my friend. I really appreciate that. I hope one day I can apologise and make it up to him. I mean it’s been a hundred and fifteen years now since that cursed meeting. Who knows what happened to him in the meantime…”

Hob thinks of the invisible weight of the Ruby at his chest and wonders how or why the Stranger had lost it. Because there is no way he had gotten rid of it on purpose. Not with the way it had been the main and centre piece of each of his statement outfits. It was important.

The muddy path underneath his feet stretches into the far distance, where the cloud cover isn’t quite as heavy any more. There is the pink light of a friendly sunset that beckons him on in a perfect reflection of his own tentative hope.

Maybe he’ll meet his Stranger again. Maybe he’ll find answers at the palace. All he needs to do is make his way there. He needs to find Lucienne.

*** *** ***

His dreams were occupying Hob’s quiet hours more and more. Sometimes, after waking, he thought the reflection in his bathroom mirror mocked him - there was red and black in his eyes where there should be the browns he was born with, the shadows he cast looked like writhing masses of nightmares and the deepest waters, his face the same one he had seen when he’d thrown the flower crown into the cursed pond. And then, within the blink of an eye the illusions were gone again.

The Ruby was warm, as always these days, when he took it out of the box. He’d bought a new chain to match its delicate gold casing and wondered if it was normal for a magical jewel to seem proprietary and unwilling to leave its owners hands. All the same, it looked entirely unchanged in all other respects and he knew that if he looked closer, there’d be the same pictures, the same views in its facets as the last time he’d done so.

There hadn’t been any more incidents of surprise souvenirs from his dreams after that first time. Instead, the phantom sensation of wearing the Ruby as a pendant underneath his clothes didn’t stop with his dreams.

But there were two other things that reluctantly joined Hob’s mental list of changes that were most likely connected to the jewel:

Emily had kept up pestering him about eating - it was the thing that had started their friendship two years ago. But by now, Hob was starting to become suspicious of his lack of need for food. Usually, he loved eating. Physical pleasures were part of the experience, after all, and food was one of the many things that changed constantly, to Hob’s neverending delight.

And the newest and most concerning thing: Hob didn’t remember the last time that he had felt truly tired.

The Ruby, even though he was never wearing it, rested like an unseen weight on his chest.

*** *** ***

As if the Houses are a gateway that Hob has passed, beyond them the Dreaming feels like a different world. He finds himself in an endless landscape that looks like it's been well tended and designed but with harrowing signs of neglect everywhere. There are skeletons of trees where a lush forest once grew, dry earth and cracked stone in place of meadows and rivers.

Hob doesn’t see any paths or streets as such, at first glance but he discovers fast that wherever he steps, paths try to form or emerge from the debris.

The Otter on his shoulders grows quiet - Hob hadn’t noticed actively because of course the little nightmare has never made so much as a sound at him; but there had been, for lack of a better description, a sort of humming at the back of Hob’s mind, a susurration of unheard whispers that conveyed laughter and wit, disdain and hope and all things the nightmare wanted Hob to know.

It’s never been as clear to Hob as now when it is entirely absent, how the Otter has indeed talked to him in its own way.

“This is wrong, somehow, isn’t it?” Hob hushes his voice down to fit the horrifyingly despondent mood of his surroundings. He’s equally as horrified if he’s being truthful. This is not how it’s supposed to look, he knows that much without needing it explained.

“Where do I even start setting this to rights again?”

He can’t see what most of the landscape was supposed to look like so he doesn’t know how to start fitting things back into place. There are no structure for him to mend, only barren landscape.

“You don’t, “ says a high-pitched voice at his back.

Hob swivels around and feels his Otter’s needle sharp claws prick through his clothing to keep its place. Behind him are two androgynous figures, holding hands. They look like children at first glance, if children were monocolored including skin and hair.

“You can’t,” says the second one, voice nearly identical with the first.

They sound like children as well.

“And… why can’t I?” Hob gentles his voice even though he knows that these are, of course, not actual children.

They feel like nightmares as much as his Otter does and as Gregory did. Where their hands touch, their skin is the oppressing colour-leached grey of foreboding twilight; otherwise, one is entirely white and the other, entirely black.

The first one, black as a moonless night, shrugs.

“The power here,” they start.

“It’s gone back to the palace,” the other finishes.

“It’s needed there,” the white one whispers.

“Because if that place vanishes…”

They look at each other and Hob can sense their fear. But that means that he can probably help more at the palace or close to it, where there is something left to draw from and form. Here, he only feels the hollow phantom pain of a missing limb when he tries to look and see what the ephemeral path he’s on wants to become.

His own capability of repairing the Dreaming seems to be dependent on the power of the Dreaming itself, at least in parts.

“Then what about the other part of the Dreaming? The ones I came through?” Hob gestures to the far away reaches of the Dreaming, where he woke.

Again they shrug in tandem.

“Oh that’s a bit different…”

“...it’s nightmare country, after all.”

“They’re wild.”

“And know how to take…

“...and take…”

“...what they need…”

“...from the dreamers.”

The Otter shifts on Hob’s shoulder and Hob finally finds that its quiet stream of thoughts and feelings are back. What it projects feels to Hob a lot like dissociation - a loss of identity and directed thought, of watching from the outside, going under and only remembering in short glimpses when breaching through the surface of confusion. It’s helplessness and impotence and a strange kernel of hope when the little nightmare looks at Hob.

“And it takes from the nightmares, too,” Hob realises out loud and for the first time, dares to run a hand over his nightmare’s slippery fur, “you were once… something bigger, weren’t you. The Nightmare of Drowning. Until the sea swallowed you up.”

The Otter presses into Hob’s careful fingers and he understands more. The sadness and rage of being diminished, the knowledge of going back to what it was before its creation, the hope when it found, in Hob’s dreams, persisting memories of itself and then clinging to them.

The twin nightmares share a glance but don’t contradict.

“That’s why the two of you are here. Instead of there.”

“We didn’t want to…”, they begin.

“...disassemble. We like…”

“...how we were made.”

“So we came here,” they finish in tandem.

“We could have left,” white mutters, discomfited and black squeezes their hand. “No. We’re not Arcana. We’re not strong enough to last long.”

“I travel to the palace. Do you want to come with me?” Hob has offered the same to the nightmares of the nightmare country after all.

They share another long glance, a communication that Hob feels but doesn’t yet understand. He thinks he might, one day if he keeps trying. He rubs his chest and thinks of the Ruby in his bedroom.

“For a part of the way,” they finally decide.

“We can’t go everywhere here.”

“Lead the way, dreamer.”

Hob turns, leaving both of them in his shadow and walks for a few short steps before he suddenly stops. He can’t help the delighted laugh. He’s been thoroughly had there.

“I know who you are now,” his grin is so broad that it rings in his voice.” I used to know you well when I was still young.”

“Yes you did,” they giggle.

“C’mon then, you terrible two. Let’s get going.”

He doesn’t need to turn to know they are following. After all, behind him walk the Nightmare of Being Chased Through Empty Streets and the Nightmare of Being Too Slow. Hob grins quietly to himself for the better part of this dream.

***

Sometimes, Hob thinks he hears the churning waves of the sea of nightmares and dreams from the shadows of this scorched landscape. It takes him a while to realise that what he hears is an echo of a place within himself. He doesn’t know how it works but he knows that he’s hollowed out a part of himself to make space for that which is the foundation of the Dreaming.

He’s not sure if he can ever make that undone. And he doesn’t know if he even wants to. He loves the place, after all.

Sometimes, they come acrossother nightmares. All of those who cross their path are small. They might have been bigger once and found sanctuary in this powerless stretch of the Dreaming out of fear of being swallowed back into the sea. He talks to them, the many-eyed and tooth-limbed and creeping-fears, even if they can’t answer back like the twins do. The way he’s learned to listen to his Otter works on them as well. So he listens when they in turn tell of themselves.

They meet only two more of the bigger nightmares; where the rest is, Hob doesn’t want to know. There is the Nightmare of Empty Houses that Should Be Lived In and the Nightmare of Gone Loved Ones - both of them Hob recognizes at first glance - but other than them, it is empty here. He wonders where all the dreams have gone.

“Closer to the palace,” the Nightmare of Gone Loved Ones answers.

“It has been empty here for a long time now,” the Nightmare of Empty Houses adds.

They don’t walk with him far, not like the twins who still follow in his shadow, but they do offer their help if Hob needs them.

***

Hob doesn’t know how many nights and dreams he has spent traversing this part of the Dreaming. He’s never counted any of them and anyway, he can’t decide if he should count nights in the waking spent sleeping or rather the progress of time as it flows in the Dreaming. They are not at all the same, after all.

Rather, he measures his progress by how far he feels he still has to go to reach the palace. And that is, despite all of Hob’s attempts to measure the distance any other way, the only manner to do it: by some vague compass in his chest - if he had to put money on it, he’d probably say that it is the Ruby and its strange connection to the Dreaming that helps him out.

During one visit, he comes across the most wretched sight he’s ever seen. Or not seen as it were. Before him is a stretch of land that simply - isn’t. A place that has once been somewhere, but now exists only in broad strokes of bareness - like an artist colour blocking the barest shapes of a background; the reverse of an actualized idea.

“I can’t go through there.”

The words barely make it past his lips and after they leave them, they seem to vanish in the vague emptiness. His head hurts from looking at the stretch of - of bloodless heart-tissue. His own heart hurts as well.

“You must, if it’s the way,” says black, unimpressed.

“You are the one deciding on the path,” adds white.

“Can’t I go around?”

He knows before he speaks that that’s impossible. He knows the way and to detour from it is not a good idea. There are places here that he might get lost in and never leave again.

A suggestion of darkness and soft fur swims into his mind’s eye.

“Do you think that will work?” he asks the Otter, “Don’t you think that I should see where I’m going?”

The equivalent of a mocking ‘are you an idiot?’ tickles his ears without sound.

Hob sighs. “No, of course I don’t. This is a dream after all. Why would I need my eyes to see, really.”

The Otter stretches, satisfied in Hob’s answer. The twins, though, remain silent.

“We won’t go through here,” black finally says.

“It’s not a place any more.”

“It hurts to go in…”

“What is it then? Or, what was it before it became - this?”

“It was Fiddler’s Green…”

“...the Heart of the Dreaming.”

Hob shudders and averts his eyes from the stretch of horrifying bareness. The place left behind when a dream leaves, when a heart is gone…The Ruby he’s not wearing beats a warm and calming rhythm against Hob’s skin. What does one put in the place left empty by a missing heart, Hob wonders. It’s probably not so surprising that the Dreaming is so receptive to Hob's attempts to help - he’s grown to love the place after all and a thing without its heart… Hob wonders if he’s reading much into it. ‘Heart of the Dreaming’ might be an entirely metaphorical name after all.

The Otter, impatient as his little nightmare is, clearly decides that it has had enough of Hob’s woolgathering and puts its tail firmly across Hob’s eyes. It is unexpectedly soft but doesn’t budge one bit when Hob tries to push it down again. Bossy little bugger his nightmare is. He feels the tickle of laughter at the back of his mind

“Thank you for keeping me company, you two,” he says and gives up trying to dislodge the tail.

“You are welcome.”

“We will wait here and listen…”

“Incase you need us.”

Hob smiles in the nightmares’ direction, or he hopes at least that it’s the right direction, and concludes that he definitely won’t call for them if travelling closer to the palace is something they’re uncomfortable with.

“Take care.”

In his mind’s eye, the Ruby glows. Beneath his feet, a street starts forming in the dark of his imagination. He hopes the Otter can see it too and won’t lead him astray.

*** *** ***

Hob’s shift at the bar is long over, the New Inn empty and dark. He’s moved into the freshly finished upstairs flat only a week ago and already it feels more like a home than the apartment he’s had for nearly five years ever did.

He hasn’t switched on the light after coming in. It’s not really necessary, after all. While the streetlights are more than enough for navigating the space, he feels comfortable in the darkened shadows. He can feel them, like an extension of the Dreaming or doors connecting into it. They are the home of many nightmares. Hob wonders how many of them he’s gotten to know during his travels through the Dreaming.

He perches at the edge of his bed and stares listlessly into the London summer night beyond his window. He’s not tired at all, but strangely hollowed out even here in the world of the waking hours, where he’s nothing more than a human with a magical jewel. The ebb and flow of the sea of nightmares and dreams thrums underneath his breastbones at all times, by now. Something is missing but he doesn’t what it is.

The bed sheets are nicely cool underneath Hob’s bare thighs when he finally decides to settle. He doesn’t really feel like he needs the rest but all the same he’ll dream as soon as he’ll have closed his eyes. There have only been the lucid dreams for him, for weeks now.

Next to him the ruby sits on the bedside table, sparkling invitingly. He’s given up keeping it in the metal box. When Hob closes his hands around it, it beats in time with his pulse. In the mirror on his new wardrobe he thinks for a moment that he can see into the Dreaming, a bird’s view of a ravaged landscape yearning for its Lord.

The ruby screams in his mind and Hob flinches.

And then he realises that whatever it is he is missing - love, life, his heart maybe - it has come alive in the ruby, has fed it and given it power.

*** *** ***

On the other side of the missing Fiddler's Green, the palace suddenly looms closer than ever. There is a cobblestone road stretching from where he stands and into a quaint assemblage of houses and huts. To his right there are steep hills with the obvious ambition of becoming mountains at one point. To his left, there are swaths of burnt and grey meadows and dried out rivers but between them, the remnants of flowers and fields still shimmer like fading dreams.

The sound of a hammer being swung rhythmically onto wood drifts from the village. With the sound comes the smell of tobacco and the low scratch of off-key singing.

Chapter 4. → chapter 6?

There is a man with a pumpkinhead trying to fix a bullock cart. Or maybe it’s a pumpkin that play-pretends to be a man. He - it - he wears a simple white shirt underneath a worker’s overall. There is a cheroot cigar clenched in his gaping black mouth and puffs of its stinking smoke spiral slowly out from beneath the cut out lid of the pumpkin’s stalk. He hums a terrible rendition of ‘In the Army Now’ that has Hob’s toes curl in sympathy with his ears.

“Hi there”, Hob tries.

The Pumpkin man doesn’t react.

“Hello, good sir,” Hob begins again, several decibels louder and takes a step closer.

“Fer fuck’s sake what -” The pumpkin whirls around, angry words dying on his lips when he sees Hob. The hammer falls and narrowly misses the wooden sticks that serve as his legs and feet.

“Who’re you then?” He squints at Hob who holds up his hands placatingly. “And watcha doin here. Huh!?”

He rudely points a wooden finger straight into Hob’s face and leans closer.

“If ye’re an intruder then ye’re shit outta luck, my man. Cause I’m gonna flatten yer ass and feed ya remains to the birds. Ya hear me?”

Hob does hear and that’s the only thing he gets from the pumpkin man except for his general presence as part of the Dreaming; there are no flashes of fears, no general sense of what he wants or feels. This, Hob concludes tentatively, is probably a dream.

“Okay,” Hob says, “then it’s a good thing I’m not an intruder. I‘m here to see Lucienne the Librarian. Do you know her?”

It’s likely, after all, this close to the frankly enormous palace that looms behind the little hamlet.

“Sure do. What’ch want with ’er?”

“I need to ask her something that I’m sure she can help me with. See, I might have come across something that originally belonged to the Dreaming.”

“Something from here? But ye’re a dreamer. Dreamstuff doesn’t live long in the Waking ‘s far as I know.”

Hob shrugs. “So you see that I do need to talk to her, right? I’m Hob Gadling, by the way. Pleasure to meet you. Can you tell me where I can find her?”

The pumpkin-man spits his cigar onto the dry ground and stomps one of his wooden stick feet on it. Hob wonders if he’s ever managed to set himself smouldering on accident.

“I can do ya one better. I’ll bring ya to her. You’ll need a guide into the palace of the dreamlord. Not just anyone can come and go as they please.”

He puffs out his chest.

“Mervyn is the name and I'm the facility manager of this dump.”

He gestures around himself grandly and kicks the offendingly rickety ox cart. One wheel tilts sadly sideways on its frayed hub.

***

Mervyn prattles on and on as they make their way around the outer reaches of the palace. It’s forebodingly large this close to it. The onion domes, turrets and minarets he’d seen from afar tower so high above him that they might as well belong to the clouds. It probably was once a gleaming white jewel but now, there are signs of decay everywhere.

They detour around fallen remains of grand arches, climb over broken pieces of beautifully carved balustrades and take a shortcut through something that might have once been a rose garden.

“We gotta go all th’ way round to the front. Used to be doors here too but they’ve all vanished - poof - a while after Lord Murphy left. There’s only the Bridge now ‘n’ the main gate.”

The bridge is magnificent. Was magnificent and Hob sees only the sad echo of something fantastically great. There are hands holding it up over a ridiculously broad moat but they are crumbling, missing whole fingers that lay broken and shattered in the dried out basin like the remains of some grand beast.

The dereliction makes Hob’s heart ache. He wishes he could make it go back to how it was before but this… he eyes the broken balustrade and the deep drop where part of the bridge has fallen. Beneath his skin, he feels the Ruby like a physical weight.

Could he? If he tried - if he threw everything he has into it - could he repair this?

“There ya are,” Mervyn says and stops them before a pair of grand doors that hang askew on their hinges. “Used ta quibble with tha gate guardians. The pegasus is a right uppity li’l shit if ya ask me. They stopped movin’ though. It’s just Lucienne holdin’ down the fort now.”

There’s sadness behind Mervyn’s gruff words.

“Great woman, tha’ Lady. Must’a been an incredible raven to his Lordship back in the days.”

Hob is too close to his goal now to ask after either the fantastical gatekeepers or how Lucienne was once a raven. The only thing he wants to know is what the Ruby is, and how his stranger is connected to the Dreaming. The palace calls for him, or something in it does. He can feel it better, now that he’s closer but it is the same thing that helped him navigate the dead parts of the Dreaming after leaving Cain and Abel. Or maybe, it calls for the Ruby.

“So we just go in?”

“Nah.” Mervyn cups his hands around his mouth. “LOOSH! LUCIENNE! YA GOT A GUEST!”

He clears his throat while Hob’s ears still ring and adds, a bit awkwardly, “I don’t like entering the palace anymore. Haven’t been in there in forever.”

They wait in silence.

Once, Hob thinks the Pegasus - no matter how uppity it might have been - blinks but he’s not entirely sure. He is sure, though, that the Griffin on the other side of the door has turned his head towards them.

It doesn’t take long until a figure emerges in a brisk pace from the darkness beyond the gate.

Lucienne looks exactly as Hob remembers her from his very first foray into the Dreaming, sharp suit and sharper eyes.

“Mervyn. What are you shouting about?”

***

She notices him right away, of course, before she’s stepped far enough into the entrance hall to be seen. There is a dreamer at Mervyn’s side and he’s very clearly lucid. He is also familiar.

Much more familiar than he has any right to be, even considering that she once found him, aware of himself, on the dock to the dreaming sea. He’d been a strange case back then already. His arrival in the Dreaming proper had been felt by her in a swell of power that swept through her entirely unexpectedly. For a few painfully hopeful moments she had thought that the surge might herald Lord Morpheus’ return. She’d hurried to where it had come from, taking every shortcut the Dreaming could still provide for its last keeper. But even on the way there, she’d felt the quick decline. Still, she continued to hope.

Instead, she’d found a dreamer on the dock. Yes, he’d reeked of remnants of Lord Morpheus’ power but it was fading fast, becoming nothing more than a quiet little hum until it finally vanished from her innate raven sense for Dream of the Endless completely.

It is back now though, steady and strong, like a thread woven through the dreamer’s own soul.

“Ya know the guy, Loosh?”

“We’ve met before,” is all she says to Mervyn, “thank you for bringing him.”

Mervyn squints suspiciously at the dreamer who looks entirely nonplussed - there’s even an amused smile at his lips if she’s reading him right.

“She’s right. And thanks Mervyn.”

“If ya say so Loosh…” He grumbles and turns to the human, “if ya so much as put a toe out of place, I’ll find ya and mince ya.”

He leaves with the threat, throwing occasional glances back at her and the dreamer until he vanishes behind the broken southern hand of the bridge. The dreamer stays, eyes focussed neither on her nor on Mervyn but on the solid statues of the former gate guards. Lucienne remembers the grim loneliness that had settled once the both of them had grown back into stone.

“I think the Griffin turned his head,” the human says and tilts his own.

“That is unlikely. They have not moved for a long time now.” Still, when she turns around and follows his gaze, the Griffin indeed looks different.

His whole head is turned towards the dreamer, inclined as if the lifeless statue had tried for a bow.

Impossible.

She’s unable to keep the hope and fear contained completely and she knows it shows through her next words. They aren’t as unaffected as she wants them to be.

“Usually I wouldn’t have to ask but since these are the most unusual circumstances I am without a choice: What is your name, dreamer?”

He finally ends his appraisal of the Griffin and gives her a most charming grin. There are dimples at his cheeks and his eyes nearly sparkle. He looks … warm, all around.

“I’m Hob Gadling, my Lady. And you are Lucienne, the Palace Librarian.” He says the name like the title it is. “A pleasure to finally meet you properly. I’d apologise for taking so long, but it was a while until I realised that this is where I have to go.”

Not an unknown entity after all, she thinks, slightly validated in finding him familiar.

There has been talk about Hob Gadling the Immortal in the Dreaming, once long ago; the only connection close to something like friendship their Lord has ever had. The emotions his meetings with the human could evoke in Lord Morpheus had been rivalled only by those he expended for his lovers and family.

Hob Gadling, as far as she is aware, is neither.

That setup had lent itself to both positive and negative outcomes. There’d been bouts of furious creativity, begetting dreams of hope and nightmares for healing, there was April weather, capricious and bewildering, and of course the oppressive tension of 1789 where even decades later there had still been gossipy wondering whether that had been budding anger or another tension all together.

The dreary and awful weather that had persisted for a good while after his meeting in 1889 had prompted her to seek out Jessamy in a bid to find out what had gone wrong. Her Lord had been - furious and upset. More upset than furious if she was being honest but she hadn’t gotten a good enough look on him afterwards to ascertain if the tears in his eyes had been of hurt or of anger. With Dream of the Endless, it was often both at once if someone did manage to get close enough to truly hurt him - the kind of privilege rarely afforded to anyone.

When Hob Gadling bows, half in jest and half serious court manners that she knows are the genuine learned thing of a noble, she notices that what she’d thought was an odd patch of uneven sable fur on the strange clothes he wears, can move and nimbly clambers down from his shoulders.

The human doesn't look surprised in the least.

“So you don’t want to come with me?” he crouches down and Lucienne can’t see what it is he does but then he says, “I see. Take care and - thanks for … bringing me here.”

This is a nightmare, Lucienne realises and watches in disbelief as the human continues to hold a conversation with it.

“I’m glad I could help. You don’t owe – okay then. Anyway, you were a great guide.”

The nightmare in the form of an Otter gives her a mocking half-bow and a leer and then slinks into the shadows along the edges of the bridge until it vanishes through a gap between several broken columns. Hob Gadling seems absolutely unfazed and the smile with which he follows the curious form of the nightmare is fond.

“Sorry about that. That was the Nightmare of Drowning. It… found me, I guess you could say, and stuck around.” He grins quickly and Lucienne is sure that he has no idea about the unlikeliness of what he has just said. Nightmares do not ‘stick around’ dreamers like that. Neither do they converse with them or share their names. This one nightmare in particular, if the human has the right of it, she had thought lost or dissolved back into raw dreamstuff decades ago.

It is… heartening, to see that it is not so. There is one more dreamthing left in the Dreaming when she had feared that their number had nearly reached zero.

“I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind? I think I … might have found something that came from here, originally. But I'm not sure. May I - come inside?” He gestures towards the shaded awning, and a bit of tension creeps into his shoulders. There might be something like a frown on his face as well.

“You are welcome,” she decides and hopes that this is not a mistake, “You may follow me.”

He crosses the threshold in front of her and then wavers. It’s a movement small enough that Lucienne nearly wouldn’t have noticed it if there hadn’t been at the same time a flash of red that ran across him and drawn her curiosity. Hob Gadling is half turned towards her and so she sees how he presses a hand against his chest where the light seems to gather for a short moment. The curious hum of Lord Morpheus’ power that seems to hang around him, grows stronger.

Before she can even blink the human straightens and keeps walking.

Lucienne hesitates too long then and before she can decide on a course of action - maybe it would have been better to bar Hob Gadling entrance after all - the man starts walking into the depth of the palace by himself, feet carrying him in a straight line towards the corridor that leads on the shortest route into its heart.

He could not have seen the corridor from where they stand, Lucienne is sure. Silently, she follows him. Maybe she should warn him about staying on the path - the palace isn’t any nicer about lost wanderers notwithstanding Lord Morpheus’ absence, after all.

She does not and stays behind him.

“You have come far since I last met you, Hob Gadling.”

“Just Hob is fine, Lady Lucienne. And yes, it was a long way. I suppose you took a shortcut to the palace?”

“Of course I did.”

She doesn’t offer him the same familiarity of using her given name and has no intention of using his but - Hob Gadling seems like the embodiment of friendliness, despite the strangeness of his presence.

He laughs. It’s a warm sound like the palace hasn’t heard in the longest time. Longer than the century Lord Morpheus was gone. She wants to believe that he is a sympathetic character. They walk in the dim light of the corridors, past junctions and up several stairs, around twisting bends - a spiralling, illogical maze that makes sense to exactly no one but Lord Morpheus and, at best, those that he allows to serve him in the palace.

It should be impossible for a dreamer to navigate it without following a clearly set path.

And yet… Hob Gadling does.

Lucienne takes care to stay just half a step behind him at all times, just to be entirely sure. He never hesitates, he never slows his steps or turns to Lucienne to take point. On the contrary, he seems entirely unaware that she is the one following, instead of him.

“Why did you seek out the heart of Lord Morpheus’ Realm?”

“I thought that title went to Fiddler’s Green?” The question sounds like idle small talk, not something Lucienne likes to indulge in normally, but it has been so long since things have been normal in the Dreaming.

“How do you know of Fiddler’s Green? Has the Drowning told you?”

“The Drow- oh yeah right,” he laughs sheepishly, “I suppose ‘The Nightmare of Drowning’ is a bit of a mouthful. And no, I met other nightmares on the way. A few of them fled to…”

He flounders for words for a moment and doesn’t seem to notice how the crumbling relief on the wall he musingly runs his fingers over while walking is glowing with a red sheen.

Everything about this human is ludicrously impossible.

“...hm that strip of scorched Dreaming that starts after you leave the Houses of Mysteries and Secrets in the direction of the palace? I don’t know what it’s called. It’s not the nightmares’ country any longer, though.”

There is no such thing as a direction in the Dreaming, least of all for dreamers.

The relief he has touched starts reassembling, stone chips and dust gently lifting from the floor he walks on and agglomerating in pristine shapes along the wall.

Absolutely, gallingly impossible.

She swallows a soft inhale and when her eyes start watering, she tries to tell herself that it is just the unexpected dust. This is a sort of power and care that she has last seen employed in the hands of Lord Morpheus.

“The Heart of the Dreaming - It is the title Lord Morpheus bestowed on one of his Arcana - Fiddler's Green, a long time ago,” she finally answers when she finds her voice again. “But this here, the palace, it is where Dream of the Endless resides. Without him, there is no Dreaming. It is all him.”

Hob Gadlings looks contemplative at that, as if the words remind him of something.

“…It empty though,” he finally says, some unnamable thing in his voice. “I know that Lord Morpheus is missing. You told me so already. But still it’s… empty.”

“So he does. I did not expect you to remember. Dreamers rarely do.”

They come to a stand in front of elegant double doors. And Lucienne realises that she hasn’t kept an eye on their path at all for a while now.

Despite this, Hob Gadling has unerringly brought them to the remains of the throne room.

***

There is power in every stone, every filament and tapestry. It suffuses what he breathes as air, and the hollow part in him that has been replaced with the Sea and the Ruby vibrates. It’s a high pitched humming at the back of his mind that nearly makes him want to scratch at the inside of his skull.

It’s hard to keep still, to not try and touch everything. It crackles under his fingertips, the power he associates with the Ruby, like the prelude to a storm. The palace is empty, yes, and it is yearning, screaming, pleading for its missing Lord. And Hob isn’t it; what it wants is not Hob and his power but it’s rightful ruler.

“What would happen if Lord Morpheus never returns?”

He’s curiously pushing at the double doors. They are finely wrought in carvings of illusive fairytale scenes and end in a pointed arch that makes him think of the gothic architecture of the Minster of York.

“The Dreaming would decay entirely. The waking world as you know it would descend into chaos.”

What is left in the absence of a dream; or Dream, in this case. Weren’t dreams and hopes two sides of the same coin?

“That sounds… awful, actually.”

“Very. Yes.” Lucienne steps up beside him. “So far, his absence has caused an ailment called Encephalitis Lethargica in the Waking. We still have dreamers here that have not left the realm in decades, and some who do not even reach us. I dare not imagine what would follow were the Realm to collapse entirely.”

Hob… can, actually. There were friends with him in the trenches that never woke up after falling asleep in 1916. He remembers the confusion and horror vividly. A new weapon of the Germans, they’d feared. More though, never found true rest again. They’d called it shellshock and yes, trauma was surely a large part of it but…The onset of the Sleepy Sickness was followed by the worst stretch of the First World War.

Nausea churns in his stomach. To imagine that the impact has already been felt in the Waking - it’s hard to swallow that a world of dreams might have such an influence on the Waking. What would the world look like if its access to respite and hope was - restricted; or gone entirely. He doesn’t want to remember the Second World War at all. If it got to be even worse…

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, right?” He hopes his grin isn’t as shaky as he feels.

Then, he finally pushed open the doors in front of him.

Lucienne slips past him, when he can’t manage to gather his wits fast enough in the face of what lies beyond. There’s something curious in the press of her lips, something between disapproval and naked hope.

“This is the throne room of Dream of the Endless, Hob Gadling. Will you not come in? You have led us here, after all.”

The room is grand.

Or rather, it was grand but the decay has not left even this innermost room of the palace untouched. The room stretches long before him, debris strewn in columns and shards up to the foot of winding stairs that rise unsupported towards three magnificent stained-glass windows.

The windows are unbroken, filtering colourful beams of ambient light into the cavernous room. It illuminates the remains of enormous arches that reach up high above him like the skeletal ribs of a slain beast. Beyond them, there is no ceiling. Glittering stars and nebulae make Hob feel as if he’s falling into space.

Hob doesn’t have a lot of time to take it all in.

The moment he has crossed into the room, a wave of power expands within him. It’s the nightmare sea’s full weight, it’s the ruby’s unfiltered heat and it drowns out every other sensation with him. He’s vaguely aware that he stumbles and manages to barely catch himself against the wall beside the entrance. His visions swims and he thinks he might lose consciousness if something like this was possible inside a dream

Under the hand he uses to support himself, marble carvings, once finely wrought like thinnest porcelain but now broken and chipped, regains their pristine edges and shapes. He hadn’t even meant to repair this.

He takes a deep breath and then another, trying in vain to pull the power back underneath his skin and into himself. It’s there to stay.

Lucienne, the only orderly thing inside the chaos of the throne room, observes him with sharp eyes.

When he finally manages to right himself and steps between the debris and shards of glass to join Lucienne, dust starts to swirl around his feet and the insistent pull of the ruby’s power has him stumbling like a newborn foal. He’s too small for it, not enough by far.

“Lady Lucienne? I think… I think we really need to talk about what I came here for, now.”

It’s hard to swallow around the words, his teeth and tongue are unwieldy.

“Indeed, we should.” Her voice is quiet and barely makes it above the insistent sound of crashing waves and static humming he hears. There is a careful hand on her shoulder and he finds himself led to the set of impossible stairs where he sits heavily.

“I found something in the Waking,” he forces out and does his best to calm the grip the ruby and the nightmare sea have on him. It’s… exhausting, and his stomach churns uneasily under the greedily pulling sensation.

“A jewel. I think. I think it might have come from here.”

“A jewel you say?”

“A… ruby. Or at least it looks like one. Since I found it, I have started this - this dreaming journey. It has… a strange power to it.”

Lucienne’s face is shuttered and her glasses make it hard for Hob to evaluate her ecpression. She’s taken a step back from him, tense and straight but her words are gentle.

“There are many magical stones and artefacts in the Waking, Hob Gadling. Some of them, in the right hands, might even allow you some measure of control over yourself in this realm. They must not necessarily have come from here, to let you dream lucidly as you do.”

That would explain the very beginning he guesses but nothing of the rest of it all.

“This here is not exactly the same as lucid dreaming, though, is it?” He makes sure that he’s as gentle as she is, that nothing of his fight to stay above the pull of the ruby gets out. “This is not really my dream at all, am I right? This is the place where dreams and nightmares dwell and I don’t think I should be able to perceive it like I do.”

They stare at each other for a long moment. Before she unfolds her staunchly crossed arms.

“You are not wrong, Hob Gadling. There is a way to prove it, once and for all. If this jewel is truly of the Dreaming, then you should be able to take it with you when you come here. If it is of the Waking, it cannot cross into your dreams with you and retain its properties.”

“Just like that? I could have proven-”

Hob breaks off. There’s no need to make himself look even more foolish. If he’d just dared to wear the ruby after all…

“Yes. Just like that.” The small crinkle of her nose and eyes is silent laughter. There’s unexpected warmth to it.

Hob grins self-deprecatingly and braces himself for having to wait out his time in the Dreaming. He’ll have to leave the palace before long; he doesn’t think he can sustain himself against the power of the ruby very long any more. He feels as empty as the palace, hollowed out and scraped clean by the tides of the Dreaming Sea and the jewel. There’s not a lot left for him to give without getting something, anything really, in return. Otherwise there’ll be nothing left of him.

He shudders and makes to stand with trembling knees.

“I need to wait until I wake.” It goes without speaking, that in Dreaming time that could take a long long while, still.

There’s something considering in Lucienne’s gaze before she turns and walks towards the part of the wall he’d accidentally repaired when coming in. She runs a hand over the intricately carved wall cornice musingly and looks between him and the broken stairs to the throne.

“Try willing it,” she says quietly.

“What?”

“Try it. Tell yourself that this dream is over and will yourself awake.”

“I don’t think that’ll really work.”

It couldn’t be that easy, could it? He could just -

***

Hob opens his eyes in the dark of his bedroom and rears upright with his heart rabbiting against his ribcage. It did work; and it was truly that easy.

“Fuck.” He runs a hand over his face. He’s not sleepy but wide awake. Like always.

“What the actual -”

It worked. How has that worked? Granted, he’s never before tried to actively make himself wake up - why would he after all - but this was just… this was too easy and too real. The power he’d felt in the palace tingles in his fingertips like static. It’s not gone entirely but for now, in the Waking, it’s manageable.

He disentangles himself from his bedsheets and plants his feet squarely onto the cool floorboards. It doesn’t help much against the feeling of waves crashing against his insides.

The ruby glows where it sits innocuously on his bedside table, hypnotic as always. It resonates somewhere within Hob’s mind and makes his head ring faintly. It stays, no matter how hard Hob rubs his face.

“You’re the real thing then.”

Dread pulls at his stomach. This has terrible implications for his Stranger. If he even is a stranger any longer. Because if this ruby is of the Dreaming - what are the chances that his Stranger isn’t. There are many dreams and nightmares missing, as far as Hob has seen, but there is not a particularly large likelihood that someone who holds a power that belongs to the palace of Dream of the Endless is a mere dreamthing.

It’s… a staggering thought and Hob shies away from it. Waking up on purpose is not enough proof. He needs to bring the ruby back to Lucienne. It’s the only way to be absolutely certain about what he fears.

The gem is warm to the touch and slips around Hob's neck without second thought - as if it belongs there. It’s unexpectedly heavy and the fine gold chain he’d bought seems suddenly insufficient to carry its weight in the long run. The moment the stone settles on his skin the ringing in his head stops. So does the staticky feeling. Instead, it’s just the deeply thrumming growl of waves breaking against waves.

It fills him, every nook and cranny and pore of him until he feels he might burst with the sheer might that suddenly runs through his much too human body.

He’s too small, too tiny in the scope of things to hold this power without it changing him irrevocably.

He doesn’t know what is different this time; it's by far not the first time he touches the stone. But maybe it's not mere physical contact at all, he realises slowly, thoughts nearly sluggish under the weight of the Dreaming Sea and the ruby combined. He is now actively acknowledging its power, after all; for the first time he accepts it in a way he has never dared to before.

He’s always felt it reaching for him, surely. It’s only now that he is reaching back. He’s made space for the ruby and its power after all. It’s time to accept what it gives in return.

Hob only realises that he’s closed his eyes, when he finally deigns to open them again. He’s still sitting on the bed in his flat above the New Inn. It’s still the night hours of a new day. Around him, there is a spread of awareness that reaches out into the world. It starts small but he can feel it expanding with every heartbeat.

His neighbour is still sleeping, as is the old couple one floor up. Their visiting grandson teeters on the edge of waking. Across the street a man is in the last throes of a nightmare, its presence a brush of warm water to Hob’s cold black sea. Fears, old and new, linger in the wake of the shadows.

There is a shimmer to the world, a curtain behind which he glimpses the Waking in strands of truth and story and fears.

He becomes aware, mind reeled back into himself, at the window. London is sleeping and Hob can feel all those dreamers like little pebbles sinking through the Dreaming sea. And beyond the humans, beyond London and England - he snuffs the thought, suddenly nauseous, his unspooled awareness like the sting of a rubber band that has been stretched too far before snapping back.

Is this how his Stranger had felt when he’d worn the ruby? Because this is more than just a paltry bit of magical power. This is responsibility and duty. Hob could decide hold them all, those Dreamers, and guide them … or clench his hand mercilessly and -

This is inconceivable.

He falls heavily into his armchair. The ruby needs to go to Lucienne, as fast as possible. Natural sleep, though, feels a million miles out of his reach at the moment. On the other hand, he did will himself awake once already. Curiously, he prodds the veil that sits ephemeral somewhere at the back of his too small mind.

He might just as well try the reverse of waking up and will himself to sleep. Slowly he leans back and gets comfortable in the armchair.

“Sleep, Hobsie,” he mutters as he reaches into the power of the stone and pulls at the veil.

He doesn’t even have to close his eyes before he appears in the throne room between one heartbeat and the next, the ruby hanging heavily around his neck.

Beyond the palace, there's the raging sound of heavy rain and booming thunder.

***

Interlude

Dream cannot stop the shudder that runs through his crafted, cold body when it happens. He carefully unfolds his limbs until he is upright again and sitting in his temporary prison.

Where the warm flow of stories had settled underneath his skin, there is now the gentle hum of power. He cannot reach for it, not through the bindings of the circle but it is there nonetheless - the ebb and flow of his might and his realm as he hasn’t felt it in longer than a century.

It is the culmination of a development the true reason of which he can only speculate on. The warmth that had burrowed unbiddenly underneath Dream’s skin has persisted. No, not persisted. It has grown - steadily and unnoticeably at first until it flowed nearly like mortal blood though every part of him.

But it’s not only power and warmth he feels.

He has bent his whole focus on it, dissected its flow, its cause, its effect. What he has found is gentle care shown to the Dreaming that has grown into something more. So much more that it changes him even in his prison. He is the Dreaming, even here, even cut off from it.

There is endurance in his limbs where there was the strength of rage before. The colour of faith is a new blush on his cheeks and lips, a trickle of spring that contrasts the winter of his cell. He has - grown used to it, over the months. Cherished it. Awaited each increase.

This, now, is more than that. It is a surge, a rising wave that blazes through him without an inkling of remorse. He tilts his head up and smiles at the painted ceiling. A large part of his power has just been fully returned the Dreaming.

Someone has brought his ruby back and restored it to its primary purpose.

He wonders how long it will be until he finds an opportunity to leave. He wants to see for himself who serves him undaunted and bold like this.

***

It’s worse than wearing it in the Waking.

Much much worse.

The jewel is heavy, chain cutting deeply into his neck. It's bright, nearly too bright to look into and it hums with the voices of millions, billions of Dreamers all vying for Hob’s attention at once simply for being there. When Hob closes his eyes, he’s swimming in a dark, endless sea, lost in between all the beings that make up this realm.

Quickly he slams his eyes back open, panting as if he’d really been caught in the deep sea. For the longest moment he can’t differentiate between the thunder crashing around the palace and the booming waves of power pounding inside him.

There‘s too much in his head. His skin is wrong, his body is wrong.

In the many facets of the ruby, he can see his own face - thinner than he's used to, black-bleeding eyes staring back at him. There’s no trace of the brown he’s used to, only the same black he knows from the eyes of the nightmare of Drowning.

“I knew it,” he pants, out of breath simply from trying to hold on to his sense of self, “I knew it was from here.”

The grin he shoots at Lucienne is probably more a grimace.

She doesn’t return it anyway. She has a hand in front of her mouth and there are unmistakably tears running down her cheeks even if she’s quick in wiping away the evidence. She’s not looking at Hob at all, though. She’s entirely fixated on the ruby that lays heavily on his chest.

“Yes,” she breathes, voice thick, “this is a thing of the Dreaming. It is Lord Morpheus’ Dreamstone.”

She brushes new tears away before they fall. “He would never be parted from it of his own will. It is an extension of his power, a sign of his sovereignty.”

“Lord Morpheus’... Dreamstone.”

He’d known it, hadn’t he? At one point, he thinks, he must have realised the possibility that his Stranger and the missing Lord of the Dreaming were one and the same, right? He’d simply - decided to ignore it.

“Do you want to know why I kept it at all after I came across it? It wasn’t for any kind of power I felt from it. To be honest, I didn’t feel shit at first.”

Hob hears himself laugh but it’s an ugly, self-deprecating sound.

“I kept it because it reminded me of my Stranger. The one I met up with over the many centuries of life he gifted me with. One century, one meeting. I kept it because it reminded me of the stupidly large gemstone he would wear each century. Except he didn’t show up last time, did he? And I… missed him; miss him now even, more than a decade later.”

His eyes are hot and he doesnt think he could stop the tears if he tried. He doesn’t even know why he’s feeling so betrayed by this. He’d come here purely because he wanted to know about a magical stone. He was an idiot. An utter and complete fool.

“You’re telling me- What you’re telling me is, that the man - being - who I owe my immortality to, who is most likely missing in action, is your Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless.”

A foolish human meddling with forces beyond his imagination. Why is he so angry that this is the way he learns about his Stranger? It’s not as if it makes a lick of difference. Hob still misses him, still wishes he could have had a chance or a way to show him that he’s come to care for him.

“Yes, of course that is him.”

“What do you mean, of c- “ He breaks off at the curious expression she looks at him with. It’s nearly apprehension. It dawns on him at once “… You knew. You knew who I was the moment I said my name, am I right?”

“I did. There has been a lot of talk in the palace about you over the centuries, Hob Gadling.”

The storm outside howls against the stained glass windows and Lucienne frowns uneasily.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” But why should she have? Hob himself had given no inkling of recognizing her Lord’s name or station after all. He’d given her no reason - he’d only asked for advice.

“I… apologise,” she says, “I should not have held back the information.”

Again she throws a tense glance at the windows. She says more but Hob can't hear her over the howling inside his dreaming body and the winds battering the palace noisily. He’s angry - at himself mostly or at fate maybe. Why hadn’t he wanted to wear the ruby? If he had, would he have found out earlier? He hurts, everything hurts and bends and stretches in ways that are impossible even in his worst nightmares.

His Stranger hasn’t come to their meeting, Dream of the Endless doesn’t freely part with his Dreamstone, has been missing since 1916 if Lucienne is to be believed - something horrible must have happened. And Hob has squandered precious years by dithering, pitying himself, by being to much of a coward to-

He grips his arms with nails that are much too long to belong to him. They shimmer, black and shiny and sharp. He feels thin and hollow and angry. Something in him hungers. He hasn’t felt hunger in so long.

“Sir! Hob Gadling! Hob!” Lucienne’s hand on his too pale arm rips him out of his spiral.

“L-Lucienne. What is-”

“I apologise,” she says again, more softly this time and despite the howling in Hob’s ears he hears her easily, her touch on his skin a steady grounding point. “I should have been frank with you from the moment I recognized who you are.”

“It’s- it’s fine. I’m mostly angry at myself,” he grits out and then closes his mouth again. There is something wrong with his teeth.

“What is happening to me?”

“I do not know, Sir,” Lucienne's voice startles him despite having expected it. She’s much too close now, nearly hovering. “But whatever it is that the Dreaming is doing to you, it is trying to help you fulfil the purpose you set for yourself. It… is partial to you. Very much so, I fear.”

“It’s the ruby, though. Not the - not the Dreaming.”

“There’s no difference. None that matters at least,” she says, “The Dreamstones are as much a part of the Dreaming as they are a part of Lord Morpheus. Here, in his Realm, it is the Dreaming’s tool. Just as it is Lord Morpheus’ when he wields it.”

Hob's smile is a shaky thing as a long overdue realisation slowly takes shape.

“The purpose I set myself, huh… What I wanted…”

What had he wanted, at first? He’d wanted to see his stranger again when he first found the ruby, wanted to find him and apologise. Then, when he began his journey in the Dreaming, he'd been curious, and enchanted.

But after that, he'd just wanted to help - help those sadly decaying things of beauty he’d come across - full of teeming possibilities but slowly falling prey to hopeless dereliction - help that fantastical landscape who’s scorched bones screamed for something that had been ripped away.

And he’d wished to help that depthless sea that had hummed and whispered underneath his skin and in the shadows of the world he had so easily come to love the longer he had walked in it…

“I wanted to help this place,” he whispers, “because I've… grown to love it.”

The Dreaming and Dream of the Endless are the same, he remembers. He doesn’t think it makes any difference at all to disentangle which one he’s fallen in love with.

It’s okay, though, he thinks as he considers his nails and feels his teeth. He’d given freely of himself and he doesn’t begrudge the Dreaming for trying to give something back. It’s only fair. He’s not going to eschew the gift it offers in reciprocity.

#hob gadling #dream of the endless #dreamling #centennialhusbandsbigbang #centennial husbands big bang #ginoeh writes #lucienne the librarian

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theflyindutchwoman · 7 months

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So I've been rewatching a lot of season 5, and there was this scene in 5x19. It was when Lucy was studying in the morning and Tim had just woken up. There was a brief mentioned of how difficult it's going to be for them to maybe see each other daily in the future because of Tim's metro hours and Lucy's detective hours (if Lucy pass the exam). Which got me thinking.

There has been lots of discussion on Lucy's future as a UC and how it may impact Chenford's relationship in the future, and there's already a lot of fanfics going around that explore lots of those possibilities. There are theories that Lucy may not be a UC for long or at least not a long term ops like what Isabell did, which make sense, but her being a detective and having long hours are actually something both Tim and Lucy seem reluctant to have in the first place. One of the reason Tim initially become a court liaison is because had Lucy transfer to another station, it will be difficult to sync up their shift and they may not see each other everyday.

So this got me spiraling, say Tim and Lucy really want to maintain they see each other everyday or at least as often as possible, how would the story goes? Maybe Grey retires and Tim promoted as Watch Commander? or Tim move to other place aside from Metro but where? or Lucy not become a detective, but then how would her career go next?

really interested to hear your thoughts on this. thanks

I'm not really sure how this particular storyline would go… Here's the thing : as much as they want to see each other as often as possible, they also both want a career. Only, considering their line of work, that means long and unpredictable hours. This is something they're going to have to contend with. And honestly? This is the kind of conundrum most couples go through at some point in their relationship. It's all about finding a balance.

What makes this harder is the fact that they spent years riding together, working side by side all day every day. Going from this to only seeing each other a couple of hours per day was always going to require a period of adaptation. The long hours in Metro or as a detective add another layer. But despite this, they're still supporting the other in their respective career. As Tim said, they'll figure it out.

However, let's say they really want to see each other more often than their current positions allow them to… The ideal solution would be for both of them to take a desk job within the station. That's where they have the best chance to have a regular schedule. But Tim has already done that and the man looked miserable after just one week… That's what started the five-player trade in the first place. They love the action too much : in 5.21, Lucy asked him if he ever wished he had a normal job, one where he didn't get shot at, and he said no. So did she. Which rules out this option.

At the moment, I'd say Metro presents the biggest challenge. So one way to fix it would be for Tim to move somewhere with less demanding hours. Being the Watch Commander could indeed be a possibility since he has the rank - but only if Lucy is out of patrol. He didn't seem to particularly enjoy the job though. And it would be a shame to lose Grey. That still leaves plenty of other positions, like the ones mentioned by Lucy when she was trying to get him a better job : IA, Motor, SWAT, Robbery, Vice… Now Robbery and Vice could present an issue if Lucy makes detective, depending which department recruits her. SWAT would be just as bad as Metro, and I doubt Tim would be interested in working for IA. Motor could be an option. K9 too. They are other departments and positions of course, but I don't really know them. That said, while it wouldn't be as unpredictable as Metro, as a supervisor, he would still have long hours.

Lucy has three main options : stay in patrol (where she could become a TO), try the detective's exam (her current path) or take the sergeant's exam (Tim's path). But again, being a Sergeant is no less demanding than being a Detective : Tim was asked to pick an aide for that very reason and we saw him stay after-shifts as well. Patrol is where it would be ideal in terms of a 'regular' schedule (all things considered) and action. But Lucy hasn't shown any interest in becoming a TO or even staying in patrol. Not to mention that it would be quite close to Nolan's storyline…

In my opinion, the best solution would be for them to move in together. Sure, it doesn't solve the issue of the long hours… But at least, it eliminates time spent commuting from one house to the other.

#ask & ye shall receive #chenford #the rookie #lucy chen #tim bradford

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yeontaescumslut · 19 days

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ᡕᠵ᠊ᡃ່࡚ࠢ࠘⸝່ࠡࠣ᠊߯᠆ࠣ࠘ᡁࠣ࠘᠊᠊ࠢ࠘𐡏 “SWIM”

pairing: yeonjun x beomgyu x readerx2

Genre: non - idol au, smut

Synopsis: INTEREST CHECK!!! (Would you want more of this)

Warnings: none yet

Word count: 835

authors note: This is just an interest check to see if anyone would be interested in this story! If so please leave a note or comment!

Reader one pov

Today started like any normal day, you and your best friend had college classes all day and then work later on in the day. You both worked the same job at the local Boba shop. Luckily today you were both on schedule at the same time, those are the best shifts but also the worst because you never get anything done.

Obviously you both plan to buy tickets, the closest tickets to the stage possible, you just had to see them up close. You both secure your tickets for the show, which was in a week from that day….Time flies and before you know it, it’s time for the concert. You and your best friend are wearing “I ❤️ my Bf” shirts with your favorite member in the center of the heart. Yours is a picture of Taehyun and Hers is a picture of Beomgyu. On the bottom you both are wearing the shortest shorts you could find, mainly because the concert was in the middle of summer…definitely not for any other reason.

The both of you had barricade tickets, you don’t know how you managed to score barricade tickets but you weren’t complaining. You were both so excited for the show to begin and just when you’re least expecting it the lights dim and 5 silhouettes appear on the stage. The lights turn on and you can clearly see the boys now. Yeonjun directly in your line of sight along with Beomgyu… you’ve always been a Taehyun Stan but in that moment Yeonjun took your breath away…his plump soft lips, his pearl skin, his brown hair looking as soft as silk… you don’t notice but your best friend taps you on the shoulder and tells you he’s staring directly at you, very noticeably at that. You finally snap back to reality and notice as well that yeonjun is definitely eyeing you down. He eventually gets caught up in his performance and makes his way back to the other side of the stage. You forget about yeonjun for the moment because Taehyun comes to your side and Is definitely interacting with you. Before you know it yeonjun makes his was back to your side of the stage and you’re reminded just how “excited” he made you.

Reader 2 pov

being too caught up with affiliating with your best friends affair you were too distracted to notice how Beomgyu had not only refrained from moving away from your side of the stage, but has found himself a seat on the edge of the stage almost directly in front of you as his other members get comfortable frolicking around the stage or find other places to sit and interact with fans. Once you leave the land of delusional affairs, you are met with his melanin filled skin glistening from sweat as the sun beats down on him like no tomorrow (hehe). The way his face lifted in amusement once he saw you were now finally looking at him was more than enough to make your heart falter, noting the way his eyes glanced down to your breast..that had his face printed it bold ink on it made his top lip curve up into a smile before flashing you a quick wink. you re-adjusted your posture flustered, hanging onto the barricade for any more support you needed after that occurrence.

Soon enough the sun set and the concert was moving into some of the last segments of the show meaning the boys would change into the more casual outfits consisting of their own tour merch and ripped jeans. those fucking ripped black skinny jeans clung desperately to soobins thighs that have not left your sight since they stepped back out on stage. you wouldn’t know how obvious it was that you were staring at his lower portion that you just so happen to be almost eye level with rather than his upper half but this became more apparent to you when he bent down right in front of you to catch your gaze. singing his next line straight into your soul, right after licking the sweat off his upper lip with a smile before regaining his standing position, eyes still on you waiting to see if you’ll follow him up this time. which thankfully you did seeing that it was probably best you didn’t stare at his thighs right fucking in front of him. if only he knew just what you were thinking about doing with them specifically.

* NOTE*

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, this is a collaboration with my best friend. We are writing this together in our own POVS. We hope you enjoy!

#kpop smut #txt smut #beomgyu #yeonjun #kang taehyun #soobin #tomorrow x together #smut #kpop scenarios #yeonjun smut #taehyun x reader #beomgyu x reader #yeonjun x reader #txt hard hours #txt hard thoughts

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mariacallous · 5 months

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Promise Edwards, a single mother of three living in Laurens, South Carolina, spends her spare time passing QR codes out to schools, churches and members of her local community. Scan one, and you'll be led to an online document full of LGBTQ+ resources across the state — which Edwards hopes to expand to a nationwide list by 2024.

The heart-shaped codes — on stickers, embedded in keychains, printed on T-shirts and more — are sometimes adorned with sparkles or owls because, according to Edwards, they were "Jacob's favorite thing."

Edwards, known as Aunt Lulu to 18-year-old Jacob Williamson, welcomed the newly out teen into her home after he was kicked out of his own.

"The day after he moved in with me, he said, 'I'm trans, and I go by he/him and I want to be called Jacob,'" said Edwards, whose mother had been Edwards' childhood best friend. "I said, 'OK. I love you,'"

"He was only allowed to be himself for 28 days."

Four weeks after Williamson went to live with Edwards in June, he went missing after going to meet up with online friends for the first time.

Edwards had begged him not to go, even asking her boss to change his shift at the Waffle House where they both worked to make scheduling harder — but Jacob was unconvinced. He shared his location with Edwards through an app, got in the car and left.

It was the last time Edwards would see him alive.

After she could neither get in touch with him nor see his updated location, Edwards reported him missing and spent the next four days talking to law enforcement, hanging posters, and frantically searching for Williamson. She knocked on doors, passed out flyers and posted online — but to no avail.

His body was discovered by police on the side of a South Carolina road — just three days before Edwards' 37th birthday.

Williamson was at least the 14th trans person murdered in the U.S. in 2023, against a worrying backdrop of statistics that show trans people are more at risk than ever, despite only making up an estimated 0.5% of the U.S. population.

Data compiled shows 320 trans and gender-diverse people were reported murdered between October 2022 and September 2023, according to nonprofit Transgender Europe, though actual numbers could be even higher.

Ninety-four percent of the victims were trans feminine people or transgender women — meaning they were not assigned female at birth — and three-quarters were younger adults, between the ages of 19 and 40.

"Most victims were Black and trans women of colour, and trans sex workers," stated the report, its Nov. 13 publication intentionally coinciding with the start of Trans Awareness Week.

The week culminates each year in Trans Day of Remembrance, which was founded on Nov. 20, 1999, by trans advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith, to honor Rita Hester, a trans woman who had been killed the year before. The vigil honored Hester and the deaths of all the other trans people who had been lost to violence that year, according to GLAAD.

"It's a day to honor and remember the folks that have died, but it's also a chance for us to reckon with, where do we go from here?" said Arielle Rebekah, communications consultant at the Transgender Law Center.

"Every day is the day to think of a way forward," they said.

Mariah Moore, the co-director of policy and programs at the Transgender Law Center, agreed and reflected on how imperative it is for allies to show up for trans people.

"A lot of folks are very vulnerable and feel alone and isolated," she says. "You could change the trajectory of someone's life by simply saying something — letting them know that they have someone ... that is also standing beside them, willing to fight for them."

In addition to her work at the Transgender Law Center, Moore is also one of the co-founders of an organization called House of Tulip, which was born during the COVID-19 pandemic and works to find long-term housing solutions for trans and gender non-conforming people in Louisiana, where she is based.

"The goal is to help folks build a stable foundation so that they can have access to the futures that come so easily to others," she says, adding that the organization is a shining reflection of successful "coalition work;" identifying a cycle and working to fill a need by collaborating with others and sharing knowledge and resources.

In the U.S., 586 anti-trans bills have been introduced in state legislatures this year alone, and aim to restrict or completely ban access to gender-affirming care, rid trans youth of the ability to participate in sports, arts and clubs — and in more extreme cases, even threaten parents with child abuse charges for affirming their kids' gender identities.

In the current tenuous political climate, the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth is worsening, according to the results of a national survey by The Trevor Project, which found that 41% of LGBTQ+ young people had seriously considered suicide in the past year. Additionally, youth who are transgender, nonbinary and/or people of color reported higher rates of suicidal ideation than their cisgender and White peers.

"I feel that Jacob was not targeted because he was trans, but yet, he was targeted because he was trans," says Edwards. "These people preyed on the fact that Jacob was partially out; that Jacob was ostracized from his family; that he had nobody but me and my family."

Since Williamson's murder, Edwards says that while many in her life — including close friends and family — have turned their backs on her, the trans community has embraced her with open arms as she continues to fight for justice for Jacob.

"I really just wish we could have had this support when Jacob was alive," she said. "And we probably wouldn't even be talking right now."

But further data from The Trevor Project provides a glimmer of hope for others within the trans and gender non-conforming community: youth who reported gender-affirming school and home environments reported significantly decreased rates of suicidal ideation — with actions as small as being addressed by their correct pronouns, having access to gender-neutral bathrooms or being able to wear gender-affirming clothing making a noticeable difference.

As Rebekah puts it, "Even in the face of this violence, we are thriving."

"Yes, we might be under attack," adds Moore. "But guess what? We've also fought back. And we're winning."

Each year, though violence against the community soars, young people are increasingly identifying as trans and seeing themselves reflected in culture, including in film, television and literature. Transgender Day of Visibility is even now recognized by the White House.

"My life is great," says YouTube star Eden Estrada, also known by her online alias, Eden the Doll. "I had a hiccup, but my life is good."

In August 2020, video depicting a violent attack on Estrada and two of her friends was posted online, where it quickly went viral and became national news overnight.

While waiting for an Uber in Los Angeles, Estrada alleges that the trio was beaten and robbed, with one of Estrada's friends knocked unconscious in the fray. The LAPD later investigated the incident as a hate crime.

"I'm grateful to be alive," says Estrada. "I've been through something traumatic, but I came out of it really, really, strongly."

Estrada is now happily engaged, has a flourishing career and in her own words, is "over" what happened to her. But reflecting on Trans Day of Remembrance, she recognizes this could have been a different story.

"This day, it could be about me," says Estrada. "Something worse could have happened to me that day."

Estrada said that she uses this day not only to reflect on loss, but to reflect on the LGBTQ+ figures who paved the way for trans people today — people like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Erica Andrews, she said, adding that she also uses this day to reflect on past versions of herself as well.

"I think it's remembering where you started, where you're at and where you're going," she said.

Rebekah feels similarly about Trans Day of Remembrance, which they say is an opportunity to elevate stories of trans joy and triumph.

"People need to see that trans folks are also changemakers; are also leaders; are also successful across all fields, across all industries, across all areas of life."

When asked how she will be spending Trans Day of Remembrance, Moore says, "I need to take time to really mourn some of the folks that I've lost recently, and just take time for myself as a Black trans woman... honor myself and the work that I'm doing."

"I think this year, I need some time for me."

It has been nearly five months since Williamson's body was recovered.

The two people he went to meet that day were both arrested and charged in his death, but that's not enough for Edwards. "These people still get to talk to their families on Christmas," she said.

"And we don't."

She says she will be keeping Williamson's memory alive on Trans Day of Remembrance by hanging Christmas decorations at the site where his body was found and attending an event in honor of the day at the University of South Carolina Upstate, where she has been invited to speak.

While Williamson and at least 319 others who have been lost to violence this year will be in hearts and minds on Trans Day of Remembrance, Moore points out that countless trans people have also been lost to lack of basic resources like housing, healthcare and food.

"It's important that we uplift those stories and use Trans Day of Remembrance...to let folks know that trans people are loved and have people fighting for them," she adds. "Don't be silent when you see injustice is happening."

Edwards believes Trans Day of Remembrance is an opportunity to provide support in death for trans loved ones that they may not have had in life, and bring attention to the fact that nobody is above experiencing loss.

"It means awareness that this actually happens to people that we know and we love," she says.

But more than anything, Edwards hopes wherever Williamson is now, on this day and all days, that he is at peace.

"He had a life full of conditions," she says. "I hope that where he is, he feels love. Unconditional love."

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fuck-customers · 2 years

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a few months ago I started working at a locally owned restaurant, and during my interview I tried to make it clear to the owner that I left my last job due to it being hard on my body, and I would only be able to work 25-30 hours a week at the absolute maximum. it was fine for about a month, and then I started getting scheduled 32 hrs/wk, even once school had started and I changed my availability. today the owner came to talk to me about the schedule for next week (he usually writes it on friday or saturday, which means planning for anything outside of work is impossible—he forgets about time off requests and I have no way of knowing if I’m actually guaranteed a day off until the schedule is written) and asked if I could work on one of the days outside my availability. I said yes just bc it’s MEA and I have school off one day, but I tried to talk to him about how much I’m getting scheduled and he rlly was like “but you only work 4 days a week 🤔” yes and you’re consistently scheduling me more hours than I said I could physically handle and you only let people take one 15 minute break during their 8 hour shifts AND I’m taking 11 credits this semester 😭

also. I work in an area full of affluent white people and I s2g the entitlement of some of these people… I’ve had customers complain TWICE NOW because I was sweeping within view of them while they were eating 😭 like I’m sorry things can’t just be perfectly clean all the time without a person having to do it. this one person got all huffy because I was sweeping the dining room and had to set my broom down for about 2 minutes to go run food out and my little pile of crumbs was Sort Of within her line of sight during that time. still mad at myself for not just telling her to get over it when she said it was “unappetizing” like it’s no fucking worse than the crumbs being spread out over the floor

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askthingone · 13 days

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meet madison, auditioning with what was i made for by billie eilish.

“when did it end? all the enjoyment. i'm sad again, don't tell my boyfriend. it's not what he's made for. what was i made for? cause i don't know how to feel, but i wanna try. i don't know how to feel, but someday i might. someday i might.”

wait, is that MADISON MCCARTHY? they kinda look a lot like KATHRYN NEWTON, don’t they? i heard the TWENTY year old is known as the THING ONE around mckinley. it seems like they auditioned to be in THE TROUBLETONES which is so lame? people at campus have said they’re OPTIMISTIC, but don’t be fooled since they’re also CONTROLLING. rumor has it, you can find them at CHEERIOS, GAY/STRAIGHT ALLIANCE, DIGITAL MEDIA CLUB when they aren’t belting show tunes. their entire vibe revolves around PERFECTLY POINTED TOES DURING A HERKIE, A COLOR COATED DAY PLANNER WITH THE NEXT FOUR WEEKS SCHEDULED, A CRISP RED AND WHITE UNIFORM IRONED JUST THAT MORNING but no one pays attention to that here in ohio

BASICS

full name: madison danielle mccarthy

pronouns: she/her

hometown: tba

birthday & sign: tba

age: twenty

relationship status: single

sexuality: pansexual

occupation: student at mckinley arts college

clubs: cheerios, gay-straight alliance, digital media club

glee club: the troubletones

major: communication

HEADCANONS

since her parents were part of a traveling performance group, they were able to see the talent within their children at a young age. madison has been competitively cheering since she could remember and that seemed to be the ticket into college. now that she’s in college and realizing that the likes of becoming a professional cheerleader once she graduates is unlikely, she is having a minor midlife crises.

madison is very much a TYPE A person. she plans her life down to the smallest detail and often doesn’t stray from those plans. she believes there is a need for order and control and often blames it on her busy schedule. but, some small subconscious part of her wonders if that is just an excuse to cover her fear of change and spontaneity.

when the glee clubs were announced, madison had dreams that she and mason would become co-captains of the new directions and the school would finally see their talent shine outside of the cheerios. but when mason decided to join the duly noted, madison felt everything shift. never has she competed against her brother before, and its definitely an uncomfortable feeling. currently, she is apart of the troubletones, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t set her mind on being the first girl ever allowed into the all male glee club. she just has to prove to them the asset she could be.

madison and mason were not raised in lima, ohio. in fact they are at mckinley on a cheerio's scholarship. cheer is supposed to be the main focus, but madison prides herself on being a great multitasker and knows she can easily balance cheerios, glee club and school.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

truly open to anything!

best friend

friends

enemies

exes/past hook up

competetors

TAKEN CONNECTIONS

bree brown: madison and bree have become close friends through spending time on the cheerios and troubletones.

dottie kazatori: madison and dottie were paired up as roommates last year, and when dottie mentioned at the start of this school year she had an open room in the house her parents paid for (?), madison took up the offer. although, she would rather be rooming with her brother and she does make that know.

kitty wilde: madison and kitty have a very cordial relationship and madison is working hard to get on kitty's good side. maybe even help ease the tension between her and bree.

rachel berry: competitive rival. madison can't stand rachel and her i'm the best mentality. sure, madison can be confident too, but that doesn't mean she isn't okay with sharing the spotlight. she was so turned off by rachel's need to be the star, that she joined the troubletones over the new directions.

sam evans: madison wants in on the duly noted. she is having some separation anxiety from mason and has realize sam might be a good way into the group. or at least she might be able to get him on her side and one more vote in favor of her being the first girl let into that stupid boys club.

mason mccarthy: mason is feeling smothered by madison's overbearing nature and she is none the wiser. with his decision to join the duly noted, she has made it her silent mission to be the first girl accepted into the group

finn hudson: madison does pretty well at school and finn needed a tutor, so she has begun to help him out with a few of his more troublesome classes.

tucker atkinson: they met at a party and it wasn't long before the two began to flirt. the flirting has yet to evolve into anything more but madison is not opposed to having a hook up on speed dial.

#intro #wmacintro

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whocarestbhly · 7 months

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ain’t sweet enough

part one: shortcakes and ice cream

prologue part two

(a/n: honestly, i still wanna continue this story. sooo, i don’t care if ya don’t like it. but i saw a couple of positive responses, thank you very much to those replies. I know this took a little while but I’ll see if I can get a schedule ready. Feel free to tell me how you like it! other tags: fluff, Ichihime, angst, slow start, romance, drama)

“So, you’re working at Urahara’s now, huh?” Ichigo remained silent as he run up the customer’s items. “$10.54, please.” He announced to the young man. The blue haired man smirked and adjusted his glasses. He gave the employee his debit card, “Typical.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Ichigo slightly snapped at his friend, who was purposely irritating him. “It means that you’re a predictable person, Kurosaki. What did you lose your previous job? Or more specifically, did you get mad and quit?” He said, gathering his items in a bag.

Ichigo rolled his eyes, “Geez, Ishida, I can’t stand you sometimes. You’d rub salt in a wound just to prove that it stings.” Ichigo tapped on the screen, printing out his receipt. He handed it to him, “So how long were you planning to keep this job a secret?” Ishida placed his receipt in his wallet and placed the wallet in his back pocket.

“Till I found a new one.” Ichigo came from around the counter and started to unbox some supplies for the store. “I didn’t have time to hear your snarky replies but I guess you beat me to it. I didn’t even know you hung around this area.” He started shelving perishable food and Ishida shifted his feet. “No, I usually don’t. I was just visiting some relatives.” He said and gave a long sigh.

Ichigo noticed, “Everything good?” Before Ishida gave a response, someone walked through the door. Ichigo greeted “いらっしrゃいませ” (Irasshaimase means welcome) and the stranger waved back. Ishida continued when he walked by, “Same old shit. Drama here, business arrangements there.” Ishida’s family is a well-known family who runs a large insurance company. There are plenty of lawyers in his family, which is the major Ichida is currently studying. His immediate family life isn’t the best, especially when your father is pressuring you to take over the company and his mother sets up marital arrangements for him.

“Sounds like a headache. Let me know if you need an aspirin. Or some ice cream.” Ichigo finished unpacking one box and returned to the counter. Ishida slightly smiled, “It’s going to take more than an aspirin and ice cream to get rid of that headache.” Ishida jingled his car keys, “Hey, are you gonna be on the game this weekend?” Ichigo pondered the question, “Don’t know yet. Depends on how tight the money’s looking. Also, depends on Karin and Yuzu.” The orange haired man grieved at the thought of those two.

Ishida smirked and headed towards the door, “Sounds like an excuse. Since you know I’ll beat your ass.” Ichigo flipped him off, “Shut up and get out.” Ichigo said as he saw his friend leave, chuckling. The stranger from while ago came up to the counter to ring his items out.

It’s only been two weeks since he’s been working at Urahara’s shop, and he’s getting the hang of it. Ichigo might have a temper and can sometimes come of as rude, but he was a quick learner and a hard worker. In fact, Urahara trusted him so well, that he left Ichigo in charge of the whole store while he went to pick up some supplies. While it didn’t pay much as Ichigo would like, it did manage to pay the bills, get some food, and make sure that Yuzu and Karin had what they needed. Barely, though. “良い一日を.” (Yoiichinichiwo means have a good day) Ichigo said as the customer left the shop, leaving only him.

He took a breath and before he could decide what to do next, his phone rang. He grabbed his phone and looked at the caller ID, and answered immediately.

“What’s up, Chad?” He placed the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he rearranged the cash register. A deep, low voice came from the phone, “Nothing much, just checking in.” Ichigo smiled to himself. “Ain’t nothing wrong over here. Just trying to make ends meet.” Chad hummed in agreement, “I heard that. You still working at that packaging factory?”

Ichigo contemplated on telling Chad the truth, “Yeah, no. I had to give up that job. They were overworking me. Also, I think they were not paying me fully.” Ichigo closed the register, “I’m working at Urahara’s for now.” His friend went silent for a moment, “Urahara’s? Am I hearing that correctly?”

“Yep, nothing wrong with your hearing. This is a job that’s only going to keep the money flowing until I find a new job.” Ichigo stated his case, while picking up a broom to sweep the floor. Chad chuckled, “Wow, hell must’ve frozen over. I guess Ichida was right about you eventually working for Urahara.” Ichigo sucked his teeth.

“Don’t mention that asshole. He already knows and it’s pissing me off.” Chad laughed at his reply. “Oh, how’s it going with that red head that you’re interested in?” Chad says, hearing some ruckus over the phone. Ichigo continued sweeping the floor as he thought about the last encounter with the woman. He only seen Orihime once after he dropped her off at her place. She was shocked but seemed happy when she saw him working as an employee. She said she was glad that there was another familiar face that she knows around the area, and plus has his number to get in touch.

He truly didn’t get this job because of her, it was necessary to have this job in order to stay afloat. But he considered it a perk of the job to converse with Orihime. She was an interesting character who was bringing a new light in his life. Not as a love interest, because he still thought it was weird to think of her like that (even though he’s enamored by her beauty). He doesn’t even know her as a friend yet, and he’d like to take it slow before he gets to that stage.

“Again, I’m not interested, Chad. I just thinks she’s a nice girl.” He paused on sweeping, “Also, how’s her car? Is it back to running smoothly?” Chad puffed out a breath, “No, not yet. I’m not gonna lie. That beetle is a piece of junk. Motor’s barely functioning, transmission’s faulty, and it needs a bad tune-up. She’s lucky that she was able to drive it for this long.” Ichigo shook his head and sighed.

“Christ, that’s not good. She did tell me that she’s had it for a long time and it’s rusty. But I still don’t think she wants to scrap it yet.” Ichigo heard a sound of something hammering metal. “I ordered some parts, should come in this week. It’ll be enough to get her back on the road. But it’ll still be in bad shape.”

“How much will the bill rack up to be?” Ichigo knew that Orihime was a part-time baker and student. Also, meaning that she didn’t have a lot of money. “Don’t worry. She offered to pay $300 to get it back on the road, I’ll just accept that as payment.”

I’m pretty sure that part cost more than $300 or close to it.

“Chad, that doesn’t sound like much profit. Look, I can spot you some cash-” His friend cut in off, “No, call it a friend’s referral discount.” Ichigo paused and smiled, “Thanks man, I’m sure she’ll appreciate it too.” Sado Yasutora might appear to be quiet and not social to others, but he had a heart of gold. He never asked for nothing or expected anything from his friends.

“You’re a great friend-” Chad cut him off.

“Yeah, yeah. But you owe me in before next year starts.” He hung up the phone. Ichigo gapped at the screen then shrugged. That’s fair.

“Inoue, are you daydreaming again?” Her dear best friend pulled her mind away from the clouds. “Huh? I’m sorry did you say something Tatsuki-chan?” She looked at the short lack haired woman who clearly seemed irritated. Orihime couldn’t blame her though, if she were in Tatsuki’s shoes, she’ll be pretty irritated with herself. Not only is she an airhead, but she’s inconveniencing her friend for a ride since she doesn’t know when to regularly give a maintenance check on a car. “I said asking if you knew when your car would be ready.” Tatsuki repeated herself.

“Oh, don’t know. He said he’ll call me when he’s finished though.” Orihime replied. Tatsuki didn’t seemed too pleased with her answer, “Call you back, huh? Who is this guy anyway cause I don’t trust him. He could be running a scam.” She muttered under her breath and Orihime laughed at her dramatics. “Oh, relax, Tatsuki-chan. The man who referred me to him is a very kind man. So, I believe he’ll do a good job.”

“Geez, Inoue, you’re too damn trusting. You’re that type of person who would see a homeless man on the street, feed him, and allow him to stay in your place until he can get back on his feet.” Her friend stopped at the intersection due to a red light. Orihime slightly frowned at the idea, “Would that be so bad?”

“Yes, it would! He could be a serial killer for all you know. You never invite a stranger into your home, that’s rule number one of not putting yourself in danger.” She let on the gas once it turned green. Orihime Inoue was a beautiful girl with a big heart, but sometimes she was, no-no, is known for being naive. Her naivety has been discussed with her for all her life by different people, but she still doesn’t know when she’s being over-trusting at times. Nobody knows how but she’s managed so far, she calls herself ‘lucky.’ I guess it was luck since she got accepted into a private girl’s school, because anything bad could’ve happened if she was enrolled in a public school.

“I’m relieved that you’re safe though. That man didn’t do anything sexually inappropriate to you, right? You can tell me if he threatened you not to tell.” Tatsuki was interrupted by Orihime’s loud sigh, “For the fourth time, no. He was incredibly nice and mature about things. And quite frankly, I’m offended on how ignorant you think I am. I know when a guy comes across as a pervert and if he’s really genuine.” Tatsuki gave Orihime a side-eye and scoffed at seeing how serious she was. “No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do!” Orihime slightly raised her voice, becoming agitated. “No, you don’t. Remember that time when that middle aged guy at the gas station asked you for help to get his wallet?” Orihime pondered and recalled the situation, “Yes, he just asked for me to get his wallet of the ground. What’s wrong with that?” Tatsuki rolled her eyes, “Oh please, that man looked healthy to grab his own wallet. And not to mention, he positioned it just right for you to bend down so he can get a glimpse of your underwear. Lucky, I was there to stop him.” Orihime pouted at Tatsuki’s statement, as she stared out the window.

“But was kicking him in his crotch necessary?” She mindlessly said. “Absolutely. That’s an crucial attack to use when a man is coming on to strong towards you.” Tatsuki observed her fuel needle which was inching towards E. She cussed under her breath, “I’m going to need some gas soon.”

Orihime frowned a bit more about the situation she was putting Tatsuki in. Her close friend was seeming a little more upset than she usually is, and she keeps wondering if it’s because she’s becoming burdensome to her friend. “Tats, again I’m sorry about you having to carry me back and forth to work. I promise-” She started to apologize.

“Orihime cut it out, you’re not a pain in my ass. I told you I don’t mind it at all.” Tatsuki replied nonchalantly. But Orihime didn’t let up. “No, no, it’s not fine. If I weren’t so stupid and sold that car years ago, I wouldn’t have to deal with this mess. Then you wouldn’t have to waste your gas and you wouldn’t be so irritated with me.”

Tatsuki looked to Orihime with a face of surprise, which turned into concern. “Hey, Orihime, don’t be so hard on yourself. We can’t predict everything.”

“Well, you can’t predict everything.” The orange-haired man said and she agreed and the car was silent for a moment until she spoke again.

Tatsuki reached over and pinched her cheeks, “Ow!” The red head cried. “Plus, I’m not mad at you. I’m just worried, that’s all. Can’t I be worried, I’m your friend, right?” Orihime slightly smiled and pinched her cheek back. “Yeah, you’re my best friend.”

Tatsuki smirked and went back to focusing on where she was going to get her gas. Then Orihime observed the area more clearly. “Hey! I know where we are! If you make a right on the next street, there’ll be a convenience store on your left.” Tatsuki raised an eyebrow, probably questioning Orihime’s direction. But she thought that it couldn’t hurt so she followed her instructions.

“If he’s here, I’ll introduce you to the man who helped me out that night with my car!” She smiled at the idea of seeing his scowling face. Orihime couldn’t help but giggle because of how soft he was behind that face. If he wanted to, he could scare off anyone with just his looks. But she liked the idea of him being soft as a teddy inside. Not ‘like’ him but was intrigued by him.

“Great. Now I can size up the perv myself.”

They arrived at the small convenience store and mini gas station. Orihime got out of Tatsuki’s gray Ford Focus and made her way to the entrance. She scanned the parking spaces and saw a familiar green Jeep. “Yep, he’s here. Come on Tats.” She waited for her friend to reach her. “I’m coming, geez. Why do you even seem this excited to see him?” She questioned her and Orihime shrugged it off as she opened the door for the both of them.

Tatsuki quickly did a scan over the place. It wasn’t too shabby. It reminded her of a mini farmer’s market along with a marketplace to buy some souvenirs. The place had it’s own charm which could grow on you. She looked at the sign which said ‘Welcome to Urahara’s Corner Store.’ She never heard of this place before but she’ll make a mental note of it next time.

Tatsuki looked towards her friend who was looking around for something, or specifically someone. “いらっしrゃいませ.” They both heard a greeting come from the back. Orihime smiled and grabbed Tatsuki’s arm, “Shh, let’s sneak up on him.” She whispered as her friend took her eyes.

They, well, Orihime tiptoed to the back while Tatsuki walked casually behind her with her hands in her pockets. The black haired woman was peering at the cute souvenirs whilst following Orihime. Something’s caught her eye and made a note to come back when she’s done talking to the perv. Closely making their way to the back, Orihime saw the orange haired men storing some beverages having his back exposed to them. She hopped towards him quietly and cuffed her mouth. “Boo!”

He didn’t flinch as he slowly turned his head to the red head. He chuckled as his eyes landed on the familiar red head, “Inoue? What are you trying to do?” Tatsuki tilted her head to the side, recognizing the voice. Orihime folded her arms and pouted, “Well, I was trying to scare you. But I guess I’ll have to find other creative solutions to shake ya. Anyway, I was just stopping by and I wanted you to meet my friend-”

“Ichigo Kurosaki!?” Tatsuki walked in front of Orihime and stared at the familiar orange head man. Ichigo almost dropped the beverages in his hands. “Tatsuki Arisawa?” He grinned manically and he pulled her in for a big hug. Orihime blinked at the interaction, somewhat confused.

“Oh my god, I haven’t seen you in so long!” Tatsuki wrapped her arms around her childhood friend. “Orihime! You should’ve told me that the perv was Kurosaki! Then I would’ve believed you for sure.” Ichigo backed up from Tatsuki, “Perv? Since when did I become a perv?” She shushed him, “No offense, Ichigo. Orihime told me some random dude offered her a ride home and I immediately thought that it was some perverted old man, since she attracts those type of guys.” Kurosaki have an understanding nod as Tatsuki mockingly winked at Orihime.

“I do not.” Orihime pouted and looked at the pair, still side hugging. “Anyway, wow, what a coincidence that you know each other. So how did you guys meet?”

“Yeah we go way back, since we were nine years ‘till the end of middle school, right?” Kurosaki questioned his childhood friend. “Something like that. Also, we were students apart of the same dojo. So, I guess we are considered rivals also.” Orihime eyes lit up to the words ‘dojo.’

“Really?! That’s so cool! You know I always wanted to be part of a dojo.” Orihime looked at Kurosaki, “Tatsuki won’t teach me though, she said I’m too clumsy to handle it.” Tatsuki rolled her eyes, “Yes, you are.” She stated and Ichigo simply chuckled. Inoue ignored her friend’s reply, “Kurosaki-kun, since you’ve been at a dojo, can you perhaps teach me how to beat people up?” Kurosaki eyebrows rose up in amusement at the request. Before he could respond, Arisawa spoke.

“You’re asking him? Really? He’s tough, I’ll give him that. But he’s nowhere near my level.” Kurosaki sucked his teeth in disagreement. “Please, Tatsuki. You’ve only bested me twice and that’s when we were kids. I’m pretty sure I’ll demolished you now.” Arisawa smack the orange head across the head. “I’d like to see you try.” He narrowed his eyes at Tatsuki, and the shorter woman narrowed her eyes back. Orihime caught both of their attention by clapping her hands.

“But please, Kurosaki-kun, can you consider my request?” His heart slightly swooned at seeing her gray puppy eyes on the cute shortcake. But he quickly regained his focus at the question, “I don’t know, Inoue. I’m not a great teacher, plus I don’t have the time.”

“Also, you’ll be doing more damage to yourself than to the enemy, Orihime.” Arisawa added, making Inoue click her tongue. Sure she was clumsy at times (most of the time) but she deserved to know how to defend herself when the time comes. She may mess up from time to time, but she’ll get the hang of it eventually. She needed this as self-defense too, since Tatsuki kept mentioning how she attracted perverted characters. It was totally not because she was interested in competing in sumo wrestling on the side. Totally not.

“But hey, if you just want to just defend yourself against horny guys. I don’t usually recommend it, but a good kick to the groin will do. If you can’t do that, a head-butt or an elbow to his ribs can do it too.” Ichigo said, and she heard Tatsuki mutter an ‘I told yo so.’ Orihime huffed at the similarity of the pair, “But that’s not cool enough!” She whined and folded her arms. “Oi, quit your whining.” Ichigo smiled and shook his head at the two women’s antics.

“So, what have you’ve been doing since you graduated from that preppy girl’s high school?” He asked his old friend. Tatsuki hated when Kurosaki referred to it as a ‘preppy’ high school, because in reality, it was. The only reason she went to the school was because she was forced. Her mother thought it would’ve been good for Arisawa to hang around girls instead of boy all the time.

“I’m studying to be a health coach.” She replied to Ichigo; he nodded. “What about you, Ichigo? And how’s mister Kurosaki and your twin sisters doing?” Kurosaki’s face tensed for a moment before he replied. “They’re doing well. But I don’t know what to do at the moment. I’m just tryna figure out myself.” Tatsuki gave an understanding nod.

“I told him that he could be a mechanic since he knows cars.” Inoue says as she patted the orange man on the back. Tatsuki eyes widen in realization, “So the mechanic is Sado-san?!”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Kurosaki turned his head in Inoue’s direction. “By the way, did Chad get back to you with the price?” Orihime smiled and nodded, “Oh yeah, this afternoon! He said he’ll charge me $300 for the engine replacement.” Tatsuki’s mouth dropped, and Ichigo just shook his head and sighed. “$300! For an engine replacement! That’s too cheap.” Inoue gasped as he eyebrows rose.

“What? Do I need to pay him more?” Tatsuki folded her arms and shook her head. “No. Well, honestly yes. But Chad is being too nice and he really stubborn. We wouldn’t accept any money from you if he thinks that you need it more than he does.” Orihime pouted her plump lips in a frown. “I knew that it didn’t sound right! It costs around $95 for an oil change. He didn’t have to do that!” Ichigo smiled at the determination she had in her eyes. He thought that it was admirable of her to be honest in her everyday life.

“That’s Chad for you. He might seen a bit intimidating, but he’s a softie at heart.” Ichigo said and he felt a vibration in his back pocket. He reached and saw Karin name across his phone screen. “Ah. My sister’s calling.” Tatsuki nodded and looked at her watch.

“Also, it’s past 7pm. I gotta get you back home, Orihime.” Her friend said and Inoue realized the time. He’s probably sick, waiting for me. She thought to herself.

“Oh yeah, it’s getting late.” The redhead spoke and patted Ichigo on his shoulder. Tatsuki gave the orange head one last side hug. “Tell everyone I said hi, alright. Oh, and put your number in my phone.” She said to his old friend. He nodded putting his phone in his pocket, letting it go to voicemail. In a few moments, he created a contact in Tatsuki’s phone. “We should meet up soon. And hey, maybe I could beat Mr. Kurosaki in a match next time.” Ichigo eyes dulled for a slight moment, remembering the times where his dad and Tatsuki would have arm wrestling fights on Saturday nights. He smiled at the thought, “Maybe.”

The two girls waved goodbye as the headed out in the night. Ichigo waved back wishing them to stay safe. He picked his phone back up and dialed his sister. “Sup, Karin.”

“Hey, what time are you coming home? Yuzu’s having an attack again.” He heard his younger sister say in a controlled voice. He pinched his eyebrows, “Shit, I’ll be home shortly.” As the said their goodbyes, he reminded himself that her medication needed to be picked up. Was the pharmacy even opened at this hour? Probably not. He sucked his teeth at his absent mind.

He rested his head in his hands, “Wish you were here, old man.”

“Thank you, Arisawa for the ride. Sorry to inconvenience you again.” Tatsuki shook her head and smiled, “Told you. No need to say sorry. We’re basically sisters. I’d do anything for you.” Orihime have her a bright smile and instantly hugged her tightly. “I’m glad to have you as a sister.”

Tatsuki returned the hug, pulled back and planted a firm hand on her shoulder, “Orihime, you let me know if anything happens to you, okay?” She gave me a serious look as she looked at my apartment door. I understood that look and nodded, “I will. I’ll be okay.”

“You have my number, call it. Don’t care if it’s two in the morning.” Orihime squeezed her friend’s hand back, “Don’t worry, I will.” She grabbed her handbag that was used for schoolwork and got her keys.

“Ride tomorrow?” She asked and Tatsuki laughed. “Yeah, see you tomorrow.”

Orihime got out of the car and walked up the stairway to her apartment. Tatsuki waited until Orihime opened her front door, then beeped the horn. Inoue closed the door behind, welcomed to her dimly lit apartment. She didn’t say a word as she took a few steps in her quiet place.

She sat slid out her her sneakers, and walked further to put her bags onto her couch. Orihime felt very dehydrated, not knowing the last time she had some water. So she fixed her a cup of iced water and sat alone on her couch.

He must not be home. She thought to herself and shrugged at the idea. She relaxed a bit, sitting on the couch and drinking her water. When she was done, she got up to rinse out her glass. She thought about the day as she walked to the sink. I wonder how much the engine replacement would’ve really cost. Probably a solid grand.

She remembered when she first met up with Chad. She had to take the bus and followed the address that Ichigo sent her through text. Yeah, the man was tall but she wasn’t scared of him. She could tell he had a heart of gold by the way he offered her some lemonade. And they had a long conversation, not just about the car, but about how he became friends with Kurosaki-san, who’s also friends with her best friend, Tatsuki.

Kurosaki must be a really lucky guy to be surrounded by such great people. Or maybe it’s just that he’s an amazing guy.

As Orihime put her dishes in the rack, two slender pale arms wrapped themselves around her waist. And she felt a hot breath on her shoulder followed along with a small peck on her neck. “You almost scared me.” She heard him chuckle a bit.

Orihime’s soft gray eyes searched for his green orbs, “What were you doing out so late?”

(The end. I’m kinda thinking about making this the first official chapter since it’s a bit longer. But this chapter was basically introducing everyone besides the two main characters. Next time, it’ll start to pick up a bit more. Hope you liked it, smooches.)

#ichigo kurosaki #ichigo x orihime #ichihime #inoue orihime #drama #romance #bleach #fluff #angst #slow burn #modern

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being-worthy · 8 months

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Guns N’ Roses - 3½ hour concert (and a long Slash guitar solo)!!

(This is my 2nd attempt writing this because Tumblr's automatic saving is shitty.)

I know, I know... I'm soooooooooooooooo freaking late with this...

But I had some issues, health and mostly to do with work, and my dumb manager who changes his mind more than a Kardashian changes her clothes in a day. (I hope to quit it soon and hopefully with a new/better job in the horizon.)

But without further ado, let's get to the GNR concert.

The concert was at the Cívitas Metropolitano on Friday, 9th June 23 in Madrid. The weather was nice and warm, a bit cloudy but no rain thankfully, since it had been raining cats and dogs at the beginning of the week. Although there were around 40,000 people present, the home stadium of Atlético Madrid was not fully filled, sadly.

Let's start with the negative parts...

The music started, and I don't mean GNR, but the opening act was not until almost 4 hours later(!!) than its scheduled time.

Apparently, and this is just a rumour. Still, I heard this from many many many security staff members, volunteers, and last but not least, even GNR staff members that it was because Axl was being a little diva and didn't show up until like an hour later after everyone had already been at the venue for rehearsal. The security staff couldn't even have their lunch break on time but only 2 hours later! Imagine these people are on-site since the wee hours of the morning and might have water and a snack here and there, but not proper food in them and you've to wait an extra 2 hours for your lunch and the guys for the next shift. Once I was at the entrance of the venue, I could hear Axl practising which was great but I wanted them to get some food and to get to the main event already!

Moreover, they were supposed to practise the day before but this was cancelled due to rain and I WAS THERE to check out the venue (and totally not because my silly butt mistook the dates 🤣) and the supposed "rain" was like a few water drops and some wind. Now, I'm not an expert, but I don't see that for a little water, which I wouldn't even consider rain, it'd be necessary to cancel the whole band practice, especially if the whole thing is under a roof and the venue is known for being one hell of a place to get the sound right. I don't consider this very professional, particularly, the part that Axl was late which I was also told that it wasn't the first time (the previous one was that everyone was at the place in the morning but he said that he had to finish his lunch and didn't appear until way after lunchtime). I could've overlooked this if anyone not even necessarily Axl, just anyone had apologised right when the concert started. Nevertheless, it wouldn't be a GNR concert without its shenanigans, I guess.

The organisation left a lot to be desired (again). It was the same story that the GNR staff didn't communicate with the venue staff like last year which I don't understand why this is something so difficult to do? And hundreds of people didn't know where they had to go in order to wait to get inside.

There were some sound problems, especially, because they didn't practise enough and this stadium is known for being difficult and requires a lot of rehearsal (at least, a full day), but it wasn't as bad as last year despite most opinions I've heard, mind you I was front row, like literally in front of the horn which Axl always toots right before Nightrain.

And the last thing, the stage was way too high up compared to the previous year. I could barely see them when Duff and Slash sat in front of the drums and play. I’ve got no clue why they’d raise it up so high. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Now about the positive aspects...

The opening was done by The Pretenders and they were a G-O-O-D F-R-E-A-K-I-N-G choice! They were amazing and brought me many children's memories back 😊.

Chrissie Hynde's voice was so ethereal and she sounded so great!! I loved them so much as a child and I'd like to see them again.

Once the stars of the event appeared, I wanted to smooch Axl sooooo badly!! He started greeting my home with his enunciation in English saying "Spaaaainnnnn" with that "n" nasal typical of him.

There was a moment when Slash was lying on top of the equipment and I wanted to throw myself on top of him 😂 - don't blame me for this, I know I'm not the only one who probably had the same thought.

I loved that they played Yesterdays, Patience, and You Could Be Mine which are some of my favourite songs of them. 😭❤️

But what really really made this event so special and unique to me was when I blew a kiss to Duff and he gave me a full-teeth smile from ear to ear and he look so good and sweet!! I was trying not to pass out of how delicious Slash was with his shirt wide open, glistening from all the sweat (I never wanted to be a drop of sweat so bad in my life like in that moment) and his arms and hands and veins, god dammit his arms!! YUMMY!!!! 🤤 And when I blew a kiss to Slash too... I thought I was done for it for real!! 😍😍😍 He gave me a sexy and devilish smirk combined with a wink and made this gesture but showing his long and big tongue fully out:

I was ready for heaven/hell to take me.

And yes, my loins were very on hellfire at that moment!

The concert ended around 0.57 am and it was quite an adventure to get back to my accommodation and fight my way through thousands of people to get to the last train of the day.

Here's the list of the songs they played:

It’s So Easy

Bad Obsession

Chinese Democracy

Mr. Brownstone

Slither (Velvet Revolver version)

Welcome to the Jungle

Pretty Tied Up

Reckless Life

Double Talkin’ Jive

Hard Skool

Absurd

Live and Let Die (Wings version)

Wichita Lineman (Jimmy Webb version)

You Could Be Mine

Estranged

Down on the Farm (UK Subs version)

Rocket Queen

Anything Goes

T.V. Eye (The Stooges version) (and baby boy Duff sung! He should sing more!)

There Was a Time

Don’t Cry

Shadow of Your Love

Civil War

Long Slash guitar solo

Sweet Child o’ Mine

November Rain

This I Love

Locomotive

Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door (Bob Dylan version)

Nightrain

Extras:

Yesterdays

Patience

Paradise City

I'd have preferred it if everything had been better organised and if there had been some more interaction from Axl and the rest with the audience. I mean, it's not that difficult to include your audience one way or another. We didn't even get a 'thank you' at the end, but one thing I want to tell everyone is to stop comparing then and now, whether you've had the honour to see them in the past or not, just enjoy it as much as possible and stop saying crap like "he sounded better back then and now he sounds like a chipmunk" or "they've gained so much weight", or any other nonsense like it. To everyone saying shit like this, bugger off!! 🖕

Overall, I give the concert a solid 9/10.

Last picture credits to Guns N' Roses.

#guns n roses #guns n roses concert #guns n' roses #madrid #madrid concert #gnr 2023 #gnr tour 2023 #gnr concert

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formorethananame · 1 year

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PSA

So! For next week at the very least, my work schedule is very tight! I was just given a second promotion, which means my schedule will change, but for the moment, it’s still the same. This week, though, I have to help prepare the store for a visit from the district manager and the vice president of the company, so I’ll be working every day until Thursday starting tonight (and I have a brutal clopening shift tomorrow night and Sunday morning, pray for me).

I’ll be saving all replies I get for next weekend, when I’ll have the time to do them. For now, I’ll be sharing lots of prompts so I can still interact with everyone! I’ll also be lurking and will be in the IMs as usual!

Thank you in advance for your understanding and patience, I love you all!

#ooc

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general--winter · 9 months

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Update on the blog!

What's up, everyone! So, my last post was... *checks calendar*

Two months ago??

I'll be real with y'all, I did NOT notice that much time passed. That's on me. But I will let you know what's happened in that time and why I've been away.

Mainly what's been happening is that I graduated university and started a new job, so I have had to:

Shift my sleeping schedule towards the morning, which was a Herculean effort, especially when ya girl's got ✨insomnia✨.

Move my entire livelihood back home and unpack from my apartment, which by the way is still not done!

Create an entire financial/budget system since within the span of about two weeks I went from entirely dependent on my parents for everything in my life to completely and utterly independent minus, like, groceries and rent.

Actually work... woo hoo! I do actually like my job, but it's hard. It's an adjustment from my normal way of thinking, so I'm definitely mentally tired by the end of the day.

So yeah, life has been yikes. I have been writing in increments, but not enough. Now that my schedule has adjusted, I anticipate I will be updating more. Now, onto the real reason I made this post:

THANK YOU FOR 50 FOLLOWERS!!!!!!

Omg I cannot believe you guys kept supporting this blog even though I've been MIA for a bit. I'm so grateful for each and every one of you that request, like, reblog, and comment on my little headcanons and fics. I have absolutely no ideas whatsoever for an event, so for the next few days I'll be brainstorming. By next Monday, I will have something cooked up to thank you all! I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of the support, it truly means so much that you all come back for my writing. I'm a deeply unconfident individual, so when people give me validation on my hobby I get all happy and giddy :)

So yeah, that's pretty much all. I have a few requests and my own pieces cooking up in the background. I'll also be making a separate post about a new fandom that I am opening for. So watch out for that! See you soon!

#❄️

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popculturebuffet · 2 years

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Go Team Venture! A Venture Bros Retrospective: Season 4A

Hello all you happy venturoos! I”m jake and I review comics and animation, and today we return to the world of guys in costumes, stuffed dead cats, batman obessed blond mop heads, super science shenanigans and naked men, as my Venture Bros retrospective makes it’s triumphant return!

For those of you who missed the looks at the first three seasons, which is fair the season 3 review was two months ago, here's some links

Season 1!

Season 2!

Season 3!

The short version: Since high school i’ve been a huge fan of the Venture Bros, but due to my watch queue being as bit as the posts linked above and this one your reading, I simply never got around to it. So late last year when I decided to continue the trend i’d started of starting a review of something I love dearly to the point it’s a part of my very soul, the choice was obvious and thus this look back at the series had began. Like with Scott Pilgrim I noticed tons of deeper things about the series I hadn’t before, re-evaluated episodes I once hated, got to enjoy ones I loved again and found some.. were just as crappy as always. Hello Fallen Arches, Love Bheits, Guess Whose Coming to State Dinner, and an episode we’ll get to shortly. I got to bask in the titular bros shenanigans, recoil in horror at just how low Doc could sink, and see the badassery and jerkassery of brock sampson and many many more in this stuffed to perfection cast.

So with how well this was going you might wonder why I stopped.

Okay I do have some but I coudln’t resist that gag. The first delay was because I got sick unexpedetly and had to push it back as it was the only review I could afford to. As for the second it’s ironically for the same reason this season got cut in half: Much like Jackson I was burnt out after stupidly overtaxing myself and thus delayed some things rather than half ass them. These reviews mean a lot and just like Jackson i’d rather things take longer than come out half assed and exausted. Thankfully a few days off last week, even with ANOTHER cold because I have Rusty’s luck without actually deserving any of it, did the trick and i’m primed and ready to jump into what is easily my favorite season, and I feel comfortable saying that both having only rewatched one half and having had to sit through Perchance to Dean again. By episode 4 the season is on full blast, taking everything that made the show work thus far from oddly specific references, to the gorgeous art direction, to the fatnastically lived in and well constructed world to the titular boys themselves, and took it to it’s peak. The first three seasons are good, especially seasons 2 and 3.. but season 4 is damn near perfect.

As usual before we get into the season itself we have to see how the sausage gets made. And the key part of this one’s development was burnout. Season 3 was the first season they had made that had the promise of another one. It’s WHY they upended the show: As Doc pulled it its’ no fun to do something like say, killing 24 or having brock quit, something that changes the shows dna.. and then just walking away. You don’t end on a cliffhanger unless your sure you’ll get to resolve it. It’s why Doc and Jackson were so determined to find some way to end things after season 7: having Hank leave possibly forever is not the note you end a series on, it’s the kind of note you play knowing it’s leading into another song. It also meant having to shelve an episode idea till next time was less frustrating: for all the ones the big status quo shifts would make unwritable, there were dozens more that would be just fine next time.

The problem was, much like myself, Jackson overestimated just how much he could do and how long it would take. As such he expected to be ahead of schedule and fell horribly behind instead, something I again know all too well and something that according to Doc he does every year. It’s just this year he didn’t have the gap between seasons to recharge his creative batteries so they burst into flame on him. All but one of the episodes aren’t bad and the one that is isn’t because of burnout, so he didn’t let the work suffer but having put so much into it he was about ready to collapse and utterly behind when he got to what would become the season 6b premire “The Diving Bell Vs The Butter Glider” he had the ideas.. but he just coudln’t bring himself to make the script.

Doc was fully supportive as like any sane person when he hears a person screaming I need a break his first inscint isn’t to crack the whip and increase the crunch like too many assholes out there in creative fields.. but to let Jackson slow the fuck down. Jackson went to the network and convinced them to let him split the season in half and add a few extra episodes: Adult Swim gets basically two seasons of it’s most popular show and Jackson gets a LITTLE rest. They didn’t really STOP or anything, they just didn’t have to go as hard and despite being exausted to hell in the second half we’ll get to next month, Jackson still was utterly proud of what he produced and never made the mistake to not have a decent gap between seasons again. And look most shows do come out at a once a year clip, but I can’t blame the guys for working at their own pace, epsecially having to do dvd stuff, promotion, all sorts of other things going on around each season.

As for why keep the split it’s two reasons: the first is that i’ts simply less exausting to do two batches of 8 episodes versus one motherfucker big 16 episode giant, 17 really as Prom is double length. I have my limits and while these reviews are some of my faviorite work i’ve ever done they still take a LOT out of me. And that’s knowing one of the next shows i’m going to going to do full season reviews like this of has 24 eps a season. But said eps are 11 minutes, so it’s a bit easier to swallow compared to trying to cram down 15 half hours and one full our in the span of a month. How Totally Not Mark does WAY more than that every month, even without two other reviews in the week to consider, I have NO idea. More than that it also just.. feels right to split the season. While on a nostalgic level it’s how I watched it both halves , while making a whole together, still FEEL like their own seasons with their own dedicated premires. More than that thanks to Brock’s absence 4a just has it’s own feel and even it’s own status quos for Gary and Hank that get shifted a bit next season. While hank is still a tad more rebellious and mature and gary still entirely badass while still very much gary, both shift in priortities with Hank having his absent surrogate dad back in his life, thus having no need to rebel against his other authority figures anymore, and Gary questioning the life he’s chosen. We’ll obviously get to those more next month, but you get my point: each part while making a whole together is it’s own thing, kinda like how the two halves of amphibia seasons 2 and 3 each feel very diffrent from each other while still flowing into one another. So it just makes the most sense to do each part on it’s own. So with that let’s begin this journey with the first part as Hatred moves in, brock moves out and 24 dosen’t really move on so much as talk to his halluciation of his best friends ghost.

Content Warning:

This Review Contains mentions of Pedophilia as one of the main cast members at this point is a former pedophile, as it will sexual assault. Discretion is advised

The Season(Piece) and Me

When making the intro I forgot to get into how I experienced the season way back when, or at least this part. And despite this review being a meaty boy that took several days, I still felt I needed to go back and add it. The whole reason i’m doing this project, and frankly do most of my projects, is it means something to me. Sure I take comissions and patreons and gladly, i’m getting paid to do what I love. I’d never walk that back and I do have to sign off on the thing i’m reviewing before I actually agree to take money. But one of the best joys of this job is just getting to jaw on about works I truly love, the good and the bad of them. And on rare occasions tearing apart things I truly hate, see you next month Quagmire’s Dad!, but my point is I do this retrospective out of love and the deep history I have with the show so not sharing it now we’re in the thick of me watching it one on one is just silly.

So by now I was hooked, having written my own utterly terrible fourth season during sophmore year of High School.. it’s thankfully lost to time. I loved this show so while I checked season 3 out casually this was the first season I went into hyped as hell and obviously it did not disapoint. This really was the golden era of my being a venture bros fan: the mantis eye experiment, a fansite that not only still exists but is where I get most of the screencaps for the episode guide, allowed me to talk about the episodes as my struggle to find people who share some of my werid intrests is eternal apparently, and it was just pure fun. I got to see things progress and change, the characters truly evolve and ooo and ahh as the show really hit it’s peak. It was a great time to be alive and to be a venture fan.

Seasonal Stylings

Starting us off is something I don’t feel i’ve gushed enough about in general but hits it’s stride here: the animation. The show has always had a gorgeous art direction, essentially being a filmation superhero show or a hannah barbera action show if it had the actual budget it deserved, and every season it’s improved from being slightly chonky but still lovely in season 1 to improving on that and helping it become more cinematic in season 2 to the HD upscale last season that reworked the character models to fit the shows art evolution.

Now with Season 4 and most of the characters getting a redesign the art direction truly has hit it’s stride and it’ll keep, and sometimes up, this level of quality from here on out. Last season was the show upgrading to HD, wisely knowing that’s where things were headed. This year was the show taking that to it’s ultimate form.

Said redesigns are also all cherry: Brock and co’s sphinx unfiorms should absolutley not work, being poo brown with some gold accents. But they look damn cool and the muted brown fits their off the books gone rogue approach to tackling super villany. LIkewise hank gets my faviorite look for him here, only rivaled by his seasons 6 and 7 rainbow jacket and hella good hair: the grown out hair and brock’s jacket, draped over the team uniform or his pjs depending on what time of day it is. We also get 21′s upgrade to buff as hell wolverine style badass. I also do love Team Venture’s new look, something I didn’t notice as a teen. Ala the fantastic four they now all have the same uniform, with Hank naturally adding his own touch with the jacket. We’ll get more into what that means story wise in a moment but It’s clear jackson and doc took the big changes as an excuse to really have some fun. In the past the characters generally stuck to their classic looks, with only Shelia getting a big change with the dr. mrs the monarch suit but here everyone in the main cast gets changes great and small with only monarch keeping his classic outfit and SHielia sticking with her change up from last season which fits: both are in the most stable place they’ve been since season 1 so unlike everyone else, who is going thorugh a lot of upheavel, why WOULD they change.

Change is the theme of the season. The first three seasons had a strong continuity and a mini arc here or there: Richard Impossible’s degrading marriage and sally leaving him, JJ slowly getting disllusioned with his big brother, the order of the triad trying to function as a team, dean’s crush on triana slowly progressing. Just some things on the outskirts. But as far as the main cast was concerned only the monarch had any lasting changes to his life: he had a messy entirely his fault breakup with his girlfriend, got framed by her ex, went to prison, adjusted poorly without her, won her back thanks to a combo of Dr. Henry Killinger (and his magical murder bag) and Shielia realizing why she left limb in the first place, succesfully wedding her despite Phantom Limbs attempted guild mutiny and bride abduction, and having to TRY to not arch venture before eventually finding his way back within the rules. While Malcom didn’t change a LOT as a character he still went through a lot and it effect his arching every time.

In contrast team venture remained mostly the same. Hank and Dean did evolve as characters, with Hank going from a jock bully moron to an intensely weird, immensely loveable, and entirely specific weirdo who thinks he’s batman instead of barely qualifying for robin and is the only one in his group who enjoys this superhero crap like anyone else caught in this vortex, whlie Dean went from a put upon nerd to a proudly geeky in the 60′s style nerd who is unabashidely optimstic, naive and sweet, while Brock slowly grew to accept his roll as nanny before the stress of it lead to him noping out. Rusty remained pretty much the same asshole just marginally better every season

But their core deal was the same: Doc was a failing super scietnest resulting to increasingly shady side hustles to get by, Brock was his best friend, loyal body guard and constantly failing at his job because Doc won’t listen concisence who kills anything that dares threaten his found family, Hank batusi’s into danger despite having no buisness doing so and dean has a panic attack. together they get arched by a jackass in a butterfly suit (and for one season a recovering pedophile with a military gimmick) when their not on globetrotting adventures or dealing with the remains of rusty’s latest bad decision. The show never rested on it’s formula or anything but there was an inherent saftey in the core status quo. A combination of Brock Mothefucking Sampson and having survived far worse meant that while we knew rusty COULD die in the shit he kept getting thrown into, he probably woudln’t, while the boys not only had the brock saftey net but also the clone one. As long as they were arround, they were imortal.

Season 3′ sending cleverly cut both safety nets to ribbons: Brock is not only gone but he’s replaced by Hatred. As Jackson put it Brock occasionally did badass herculean feats of strength, stuff no normal man could do and even some paranormal men would say “fuck that” to trying. Hatred is just a middle aged guy who wouldn’t be out of place at possum lodge who only has guns, army/osi/guild training, and inside baseball knowhow of the guild. He can protect his unit sure, but he’s just not the guaranteed instant win button. Meanwhile the clones are gone: they grow in real time and even if Doc COULD make more, The OSI is making sure he DOESN’T. The Boys are the last one he has.

With the safety net gone and someone whose not even remotely like brock taking up his old duties... it cleverly changes things. The ventures are now bolted to the compound and doc has switched from get rich quick schemes aborad to simply renting out to whoever will take it. The old offsceen adventures are gone and what’s left is a family struggling to hold it together when their heart ripped himself out and walked away. And as a result the family is BARELY holdling it together in this part: While Doc TRIES to be a parent it only works with dean, who he affectionately mentors. With Hank he’s just somehow even more of an ass to him than anyone he’s ever been an ass to (which given he reached one hundred on the “Rusty Sucks Suprising No One Count” last season is saying something), and Hatred just isn’t good like brock was at ballancing that out, with hank rejecting him most of the time and for understandable reasons (he replaced his dad and also tried to molest him. I can’t blame the kid) Meanwhile hank acts out more as a result of both loosing brock and his dad being a dick. Dean is really the only one whose got it together this season and that’s only by a hair. The family was always dysfunctional but now they’ve hit their lowest point and it will only get marginally better from here.

It changes up the show.. and for the better. It shakes things up at just the right time: three seasons isn’t a bad amount ot keep a set status quo, getting fans used to the show.. and then shaking it to hell and back like Rusty probably did with the boys as babies. By changing everything the show was allowed to truly grow, having already slowly done so and hit it’s true peak. Anything could happen with Brock gone and it did: 21 became a badass, a new member joined the family, a longtime mainstay in triana exited, and things would only keep c-c-changing from here. And the show would only be better for it.

Roll Call

As usual we start with Doc who is trying to be a parent for once, staying at home to try and keep the kids safe.. not that this makes a ton of sense given most of the boys deaths HAPPENED in the home but hey, rusty’s life never makes a ton of sense and the boys have become marginally less death prone, and it is a place where he can keep a better eye on them before they do something suicidally stupid. He’ll NEVER be able to control costumed jackasses attacking him but he can at least try.

The problem is his efforts are so titled to one side i’m suprised Hank didn’t shoot off into the stratosphere. Doc IS geninely trying with dean, to guide him into doing actual science via giving him a lab (instead of growing experiments in the kitchen) and most heartwarmingly introducing him to his love of pro rock to inspire him. While he’ll be more of a pushy dickhead in later seasons toward dean following in his footsteps, here he’s gentle and when the guild invades his compound and you know, dosen’t realize how utterly horrible any of that would look to everyone inside, especially one fo their ex employees, Rusty not only gently helps his son with his panic vomiting , assuring him that’s half the reason to wear a speedsuit, he actually goes along with dean’s plans to confront them. It dosen’t go anywhere, but it’s heartwarming to see Doc REALLY trying for once, realizing that this is the last son he gets and now Dean CAN grow past being a teenager, it’s time to prepare him

The problem is while he’s being a good parent for once to Dean it’s ONLY Dean. While Hank IS acting out, refusing to accept Hatred as his new bodyguard and calling Doc insults , including my personal faviorite “A Honky”, both for the delivery on that line from Doc and the Monarch understandably snickering.. Doc predictably is being extra obnoxious about one of his sons finally defying his abusive ass. Over the course of the season he geneinly seem to consider not rescuing hank from the monarch (He actually does put in the effort to get him back but still), tries to bar him from using the bathroom, physically abuses him for the first time while blaming him for something he didn’t do and doesn’t really trace back to him, and snarks about Hank working in UPS as an adult. He is just awful to my boy all season and even putting me spiritually adopting hank aside, this is easily the worst i’ve seen rusty. We’ll get WHY he does this next time but it dosen’t make him any less awful for treating hank like this simply for acting out, especially since Rusty himself acted out plenty with his own dad in college. He’s also not great to Hatred.. to a point. His comparing him to brock constantly is just sad as it’s clear by the finale DOC is the reason Brock left the compound. Brock genuienly laments not being able to “tell the boys their safe” and misses them.. but while Doc will always be his close friend it’s clear he’s fed up with his crap and relishes getting to call him an ass. Doc had a good bodyguard by pure luck. Hatred is exactly what he deserves for his threat level and he just can’t accept he has to actually try now. That being said Hatred is also an ex pedophile who begged for the job, shows up naked in Doc’s room during an emergency, and unashamedly talks about how he was masturbating piror to being tranked. And look masturbation shouldn’t be stigmatized.. but Rusty is right Hatred dosen’t need to TELL him about it especially in an emergency. Just because you can and should be able to talk about masterbation dosen’t mean you HAVE to bring it up when you don’t have to.

We also have Doc finally get some therapy.. only to chuck it deciding he’s better than everyone else in the group. Which.. he is to a point. He makes a good point how unlike the hardy boys by way of the mendez brothers, patton oswalt’s robin and action johnny he is better off.. but being better off than the REST of his group dosen’t mean he’s better. It’s honestly.. sad. Doc DOES need help, he does need to grow but because the Monarch can’t grow up for five minutes and accept Rusty can have one night a week he dosen’t get arched, he looses that and convinces himself he dosen’t need it back. Once again the adventure life has cost him peace of mind, but this time he just accepts it. He probably would be more pissed the Monarch was interfering with his life than that he actually caused his therapy to end. Rusty NEED help: he has decades of trauma, abuses his kids, and is a former addict. He NEEDS someone to help him through his issues so he can be better... but the thing about mental health is you NEED to want help or it’s not going to take. You need to WANT help.

We’re also given the heartbreaking reason WHY he hasn’t gotten help: SHOCKINGLY Jonas gaslit his own son, playign therapist while really just bullying rusty for not wanting to have a grown man put an empty gun to his head and whisper “not today rusty”. Yeah even if Jonas isn’t playing the HUGE roll he did last season he still gets worse this season. So it’s easy to see why Rusty turned out this way and sad to see he can’t see the way to dig himself out of the hole his own poor decisions and his father's abuse buried him in.

Now onto Hank who out of the two boys gets the most development this season and part of that is his dope outfit change. I’m not one to take the side door, i’ll go up front and knock: i’m not a fan of Hank’s classic outift. It’s not terrible and provides a nice color contrast to Deans and as Hank points out this season he can rock a kerchief but it never worked for me. So it’s probably not a coincidence teen me finally noticed just how awesome hank was the same time he got a sweet new outfit, getting his own team uniform while adding Brock’s Jacket to it and growing out his hair. It’s not supposed to be neat looking, it’s what a teenager is supposed to think is cool and past me can confirm but evne as an adult it just flows better and fits hanks insane personality better. It’s also part of why I feel the season splits into halves so well: Hank in part 1 is a different hank than hank in part 2 down to sadly shedding the hair cut and eventually the jacket.. though he keeps the speedsuit and gets some other fun outfits next season, so it still works out and he thankfully grows his hair back to an even better style during the new york era. I don’t hate shaved hank but I prefer him with some hair as it just looks better.

Anyways, Hank has taken his only positive role model leaving him poorly and thus is changing the most. Dean loved him and misses him too.. but to Hank brock was everything: he was the one he tried to be a kid sidekick to, the mulleted ladies man badass who let him hang out in his room and quite honestly... his dad. Doc can barely be assed to be a parent so while Hank treats him like a dad.. Brock actually ACTED like one. He was tough but fair with him and actually bothered to spend time with hank and teach him stuff. And now he’s simply stuck with the bitter resentful jackass who clearly prefers his brother not going on adventures anymore.

When you look at his changes... he’s TRYING to be brock since he can’t have brock: he’s wearing his jacket , growing out his hair and taking up Brock’s place of busting Doc’s balls. Granted part of that is also that hank needs someone to blame so he lashes out at the guy who replaced him and the guy who clearly drove him away in hanks eyes... which is part of it but not the ENTIRE reason Brock left, so fair enough. He just wants Brock back and is in denial that he’s gone. Well okay he’s on the same yard, but he’s not present. It makes two parts of the premire in paticular heartbreaking: The first is Brock’s full exit: while he did quit at the end of the season it’s clear no one on Team Venture bought he was really leaving.... until he does, running out to escape the OSI and leaving his watch behind. While both boys are devistated.. it’s Hanks face that’s the most hurt. Brock not only REALLY is leaving.. but he didn’t say goodbye. It’s why Hank retreats into blaming everyone else but Brock for leaving: because he can’t take the idea his mentor, his dad, REALLY thought so little of him as to leave and really didn’t care about him. He does of course and Brock really just left because he had no time to say goodbye and it hurt him to know he was close to his kids but coudln’t see them, but to Hank it’s just his favorite person in the world leaving.

The hardest one though is the end of the same episode when we catch up with real time.. and see Brock with Sphinx. Jackson’s performance is utterly heartbreaking. He hugs his missing father figure.. before asking some pretty soul crushing questions, sounding not like the fearless, reckless, endlessly confident doofus we love.. but a scared child wondering why his father left him. His “why did you leave me” just.. breaks me every time i’ve heard it, and the “Why didn’t you say goodbye right before” .. it’s just utterly heartsmashing to see hank break like this and you can tell Brock just wants to tell him but knows Sphinx needs to remain in the shadows both for it’s good and Hanks and asks to share him a while. He dosen’t even properly comfort the kid he has to go before that. It’s not one of brock’s better acts, basically asking hank to hide he was there, and thus any chance of finding him and to just accept he’s gone.. but the fact it’s not so simple, that Brock knows what he’s doing is hurting them both... it’s masterful writing.

It’s just a half a season of a sad child wondering when his dad will come home while having a LOT of shit piled on him. And i’m not exagerating: in the span of 8 episodes he only gets to see brock for five seconds and gets no good reason why he left, gets kidnapped by a man trying to make him into his new sidekick instead of you know, get therapy while his dad only tries to rescue him because he has to, thinks he killed his brother, gets blamed for said brother’s deranged clone’s actions, gets kidnapped AGAIN this time by one of his only friends, has said friend block his view at the movies, then has to use himself as bait to help prevent his new bodyguard from having a spiral back into pedophilia. it was dressed up as his ex wife, to be clear, but it’s still no less fucked up. I didn’t even realize it till I rewatched this batch: hank goes through a lot and the fact he got through all of this his usual dopey self speaks to his resielnce. The kid has been through so much shit before and after this season and he just keeps going, happy as ever and as determined to be batman as ever.

The season does compensate though by showing some real growth in hank: While he’s still far more skilled in his head than in reality, he does show some flashes of actual skill: he has a robin style battle as wonder boy with 21 and the monarch and while both are going easy on him (21 ONLY punching him because he was being a little dick), and the monarch as he needs his hostage, he still dodges both fairly well and dosen’t get recaptured and for someone who used to get kidnapped every other week, that’s a win. He later manages to stall the bulk of the guild of the calamtous intent’s military simply by stonewalling them with the intercom. Granted again the opponent didn’t have killing intent, but not only did hank NOT know they didn’t and was willing to put his life on the line if they did, but their still highly trained, deadly strangers who still got outwitted by a 16-17 year old weirdo who did it by treating them like telemarketers. Hank is starting to go from someone who thinks he’s badass to the true badass he was destined to be.

He’s also grown emotionally. I mean he’s still hank.. we still get the whole conversation with hank where he asks if he has a “weird dingus” becauase he assumes gay people are transgender and somehow manages to be unwittingly trans and homophobic all at once.. but in the same sentence his response to being asked if he’s ashamed of his ignorance, even just a little?” “Constantly” it’s both hilarious but shows hank is’nt a malicious idiot, just one raised by Rusty who isn’t the most socially concious guy on a good day and he hasn’t had a good day in 20 years.

Hank first shows it in said captain sunshine episode. While he’s more than happy to basically be robin after a Kevin Conroy voiced combo of superman and batman kidnaps him without realizing he’s not an orphan (or that dean exists), to be his new ward, especially since for all his awkwardness, Sunshine isn’t a dick like his actual dad. It’s everything hank could possibly want, especially since we later learn that cap took over from his butler/dad desmond, meaning Hank would be a shoe in to basically become a rainbow combo of batman and superman. But it just.. isn’t right and hank can see that. The Good Captain hasn’t moved on from loosing wonder boy, breaks down frequently, nearly beats a guy to death and in general just ISN’T ready to take on a surrogate son and is trying to make hank into someone he isn’t. Hank isn’t wonder boy and he sees Captain sunshine needs help not a young ward.. and givne he clearly gets one later it sadly didn’ take. But hank tried and it says a lot when the hank of a few seasons ago probably would’ve been a lot harder to convince to come home. but this hank, even if his home sucks.. it’s where he needs to be.

His next big moment comes in “The Revenge Society”. IT’s not one of his finest hours to start as he preys on Hatred’s fear to try and steal his dad’s playboys and other shenanigans.. but Hatred is able to get through to his moral center by guilt tripping him without hank even realizing it. It shows that while Hank is willing to get into shenanigans when he realizes there is real stakes he’ll try and as we saw he didn’t do bad. And he eventually did find those playboys thanks to karma. So good for him

Finally we have The Better Man, which I didn’t expect to have choice Hank as I remembered everything else going on in that one more, but here we are. While Hank being the one to finally break it to dean he’s not in a relationship with Triana and it’s not headed that way, the fact he does so rather well and with minimum hank is what stuck out to me. I do say minimum as he opens his questions to dean with “Have you seen her naked”

But the rest are honest ways to get Dean to realize their relationship hasn’t gone anywhere past platonic: “Have you kissed her?” “have you held her hand?” “Have you gone shopping with her?” And is the last one a tad accidentally sexist... yes. It’s hank... but the fact they really HAVEN’T hung out in a coupley way is a fair point. And frankly given the fact Hank was raised by every woman’s nightmare and a serial womanizer i’m shocked his advice is not only entirely on the nose but functional. Granted his next move is to take Dean to the mall and literally throw him at girls after making him look like Rufio but he’s trying. He even gives Dean a well deserved “touche” when he tries to razz his brother for “falling in love with the first girl to live in your backyard”.. only to be reminded of his longstanding crush on the mail lady (”In my defense she had very attractive shorts”). Hank is just sweet here.. entirely out of his depth, he woudln’t be any good at this till season 6, and it’s nice to see the two really gelling as brothers despite the divide between them growing by the day. After half a season of Doc being said wedge, it’s nice to just see Hank try and help dean and the two really hang out again. Pity it won’t last but we still got a few moments with them to savor before we get to .. that one. But I got a few months before I have to dissect that trainwreck of a creative decision. Hank’s at his best.

Dean also changes a bit this season piece, just not as dramatically as hank. He’ll get his turn in Season 5. For now he’s still the same loveable little goody two shoes whose anxious as hell about this life yet geninely seems to still want it on some level.. he just has the kind of pencil mustache most boys get as a teenager.

His progress though is neat: He tries super science for the first time and while Doc’s treatment of hank absolutely sucks, him mentoring dean is adorable and a this stage, while as we'll see next season half open to other careers he genuinely WANTS to try science, and relishes getting his own lab for a bit. He also takes to prog rock which is a sweet bit of father and son sharing a hobby. It’s also neat to see the parallel with his own dad: both of them WANT to continue science like their father before them and seem to really enjoy it.... it’s just the costumed crap that comes with it really bothers them. Doc is numb to it but for Dean.. he just wants it to stop on some level. Dean actually having some enthuastic for science here is important as he tries to drive away from it: he can do it.. it’s a question of SHOULD he do it that will span the rest of the series and probably the movie. Still no word in the last 5 months dammit.

The other bit is the beginning of the end for a series mainstay: Triana Orpheus leaves the cast this part and while she’ll return for Operation PROM, she’s gone from then on. And surprisingly her departure WASN’T doc’s breakup with her va or simply just not caring: She was intended to come back... it’s just they never found an opportunity and probably won’t with the movie. The reason was simple: She was growing up and at the age she’d leave the nest and the boys just wren’t there yet. This super science world just wasn’t her. She was fairly normal and thus had to move on. Granted she did so by going to train to be a sorcerer supreme like her dad because it pays more than art school would, but still it was her version of going on to college, something Dean himself would need a season and a half more to get to.

And honestly while I do feel the character could have an awesome return down the line, I seriously doubt Jackson and Doc will stop entirely and now they don’t have the show they could continue in comics if they wanted, I do feel she just lost her place in the show: Dermott was working better as a link to the outside world, especially as he and dean slowly grew to tolerate each other, the rest of the order served as better non-doc foils to orpheus, and Dean really didn’t need a love interest especially if they had no intention of going anywhere with it. At the end of the day she was a very normal person in a very abnormal world who just had no place being there other than her dad happened to be part of it. IT made sense to ship her off so she’d become more part of it and she simply hasn’t drifted back yet because her dad, her primary link to the show, slowly drifted out of focus.. and while she could easily exist independent of him if she and dean patched it up as friends, which is plausible he did end things dickishly but she seems forgiving enough and Dean seems like he’d offer a hell of an apology for being a butt (We’ll get to that incident last time), but she needs that link to her dad to hook her back in to have anything to do with our cast of loveable assholes.

So having Dean move on was what the show needed and how they do it is good: Hank gets him to see his relationship with triana while POSSIBLE hasn’t gone anywhere, and after again his brother lovingly shoved him into some teen girls, just talking to one and seeing where it goes (Nowhere as it turns out), taking Dermott’s advice allow shim to TRY to move on. Granted his trying to quickly backtrack when he “breaks up with triana’ shows he’s not over her and sadly.. as good as an ending as him “breaking it off” and her humoring him with both parting as friends WOULD’VE been.. this is the venture bros. Things often don’t end well fo rour heroes.. and it’s often their fault. And sadly it’ll be dean’s fault when we pick this thread up again next time.

Next up we have our new and for better or worse pemenant addition to the family: Sgt. Hatred. His replacing Brock was far from a popular move, something Jackson and Doc knew would happen so the question is.. was adding him to the main cast a good idea?

I do think hatred isn’t a TERRIBLE character: replacing brock with a far less compitent, emotoinally open and loud replacement works comedically and it’s fun to see Doc be the sane one in a bodyguard super scientest relationship for a change, and as I said he can be competent in the right context. He also does have some genuinely great moments: his letting hank shoot him to gain his trust, while utterly insane, is also bizzarely touching: he just wants the kid to trust him and can’t get through to him. And the entire scene with him and doc in return to malice is pure magic: from him showing up basically naked to just.. casually admitting he was masturbating, it shoudln’t work but it does.

The problem is the elephant in the room, something Jackson and Doc obviously shoudl’ve seen as a problem in promoting this character beyond supporting and of having him around long term but clearly didn’t: Sgt. Hatred was a pedophile. He is a reformed one: he takes medication (If an injection in the neck because of the show we’re in and whose giving him the drugs), geninely regrets what he did seeing it as being in a dark place, and it’s revealed part of why he kept it up for so long is the Guild saw this.. as an asset

So it’s not like they aren’t writing him as a guy TRYING to reform from being this monster in the past terribly. When he runs out of his drugs while at the last film in a fantasy trilogy with the boys, he well.. runs out and locks himself in the panic room, not wanting to harm any innocent children. He’s TRYING not to be a pedophile.

The issue is they just don’t handle the topic well. At all. Venture Bros deals with many issues with great nuance. Doc is a great example, being both utterly loathsome but also on some level pitable. You don’t forgive how he treats the boys.. but you get WHY he’s like this and thus can sympathize with him on occasoin without forgettnig what an ass he is. But with Hatred it just dosen’t work

As for why for starters they mostly use his pedophila as a punchline and wanting to sleep with children.. isn’t funny. It just isn’t. I never really found that shit funny and I find it even less funny now I have neices, nephews and niblings to worry about. Kids getting horribly scarred for life by being raped is not funny and it never will be. So having jokes about Hatred still having child porn on his computer aren’t funny. Him wanting to go to thailand to buy a child isn’t funny. And worst of all him RAPING BILLY because he looks like a chlild isn’t funny. Yes they made one of the main cast a rapist. I only vaugley remember it happening and while they don’t outright say he did it, the implication is VERY clear. He’s naked, he’’s happya nd billy is horrified to find out he was clearly raped. It is easily the worst joke in the entire series thus far, and as good as the series is that is not an easy title. But just casually having one of your main cast rape a person for a joke is just.. holy shit. I didn’t think the show sunk this low.

I could stop at “he raped billy” as reasons I no longer like the character, but the fact he tried to rape the boys, if offscreen, in season 2 DOES NOT HELP. He did and part of hank’s reluctance is that exact incident and they just kinda.. brush past it. And whlie brushing past horrible shit is usually the show’s bread and butter and usually works you just.. can’t casually walk off the fact the guy now in charge of the boys care once tried to rape them. You can’t. Having someone more pathetic as the new bodyguard was a good idea.. but adding hatred to the main cast was a VERY bad one and only made the character worse. And yes i’m focusing mostly on raping billy but it says to me that even WITH the drugs Sgt. Hatred would gladly resume raping if he could get away with it. He suffers ZERO consequences from this and it’s treated as a gag because “DUR IT’S A MAN”. And look on the whole the “men getting raped is acceptable trope” is fucking disgusting and needs to be burned, thrown off a cliff and into a pool of acid. This one gag destroys any chance of me ever carring about this character again and i’m willing to double down on that. There’s nothing I remember in the rest of this season that really adds to him as a character enough, he never apologizes and next season thinks “giving him boobs” is funny which

But we’ll get to that. I get the sense Jackson really likes working with the character but he also says shit like “We don’t relaly go into that side of him” on his pedophilia.. and that it’s just a “sword of damocles hanging over his head”

And I do love Jackson and Doc but man oh man when they fuck up it tends to be dramatic and noticeable, like the moppets last season. Adding hatred to the main cast was one of the series biggest mistakes, something I realized more and more as I wrote this section. It’s a miracle this season is as good as it is despite ole hatred.

Okay that was a lot of hatred in both senses of the word. Thankfully we’re on to the last of the clan venture, Brock. Brock left the family and while some shows would resolve this cliffhanger fast, Jackson and Doc wisely decided to keep brock away, and using his story as bookends for this part of the season was genius. Blood Of the Father, Heart of Steel, wisely dosen’t keep us waiting a whole season to see where Brock is now, which was also to prevent fans from hunting them down and burning them in a brock themed wicker man, but still it did it’s job of keeping us informed while still keeping the mystery up to the finale. We see brock escape (and the heartbreaking scene of the boys realizing he’s REALLY gone), go on a wilderness sabatical with steve summers and sasquatch, two characters I honestly DIDN’T think ever returned properly, and finally going after the people who screwed him over. It dosen’t qutie work out with mol, but he does find out what Hunter was up to.. and joins him.. likely as hunter planned. We then see him and shore leave at the top of the season and while on the surface the scene, him trying to get hank to calm down despite having every reason to you know.. apologize or anything, dosen’t paint him in the best light i’ts clear later why.

And that later is the finale. It was a MASSIVE gamble to get rid of Brock for so long, especially since we fans watching.. had no idea if he was coming back or not. I wrote embarrassing fan fiction between seasons, that I thankfully didn’t post online and I can tell you I just.. didn’t think he was coming back. didn’t replace him with anybody but I just wrote him off and went on with shipping dean and triana because I was a naive little idiot like dean so I glommed onto that relationship.

But of course the guys always planned to bring him back as they knew the fans might accept brock being gone a few episodes, or half a season, but wouldn’t accept him leaving the main cast for too long. It’s why this season feels like two seasons really: brock is gone for this part, and next part his coming back and SPHINX! now being open with their presence on the compound changes things.

Speaking of which we have the shakeup with finding out just WHY Hunter went Rogue. As it turns out it wasn’t for no reason but simply because he had grown tired of how the OSI runs things. Easy to see why too: as we’ve seen now we know the orginzation better the most they do against the guild is try to do covert stuff with guys like doe and cardholder, they never vindicated brock and hunter for going after them despite not only learning one of their own was compromised, but that Phantom Limb was indeed working with the guild, and the entire operation with brock, while setup by hunter himself, was utterly bungled: they tried talking to him sure... but with a giant army on his doorstep. Of a guy who takes out giant armies on a regular basis. They didn’t try talking or doing any investigative work, they just went in guns a blazing and assumed he’d gone crazy or flipped to the guild despited neither making sense. So wanting to not only break from that but take out the guys the other orginzation are missing, i.e. super science nuts who plan world domination or dirty bombs, makes sense.. and it makes sense why Brock would join them despite hutner’s betrayal. He was probably still mad at him at first but after so long having to take it on the chin getting to go after the costumed set and co who step out of line.. it had to be cathartic. It was a chance ot do real good for the world instead of babysitting a garbage fire or doing the work of an orignzation who clearly hadn’t cared about him. Hutner did use him true... he could’ve just.. given brock a job offer and he woudl’ve considered it. Then again he woudln’t be hutner if he did. But I get why Brock took it: this is a chance for a fresh start away from the OSI

It’s not away from the family as it turns out he was on compound for months, and the pain of not being able to tell the boys they were safe was a lot. Noticably though he dosen’t seem to have missed doc much.. can’t say I blame him. And the second he gets a chacne as seen in the stinger, he reconnects and as we’ll see next time, makes it so the boys aren’t being mindwipped anymore. Partly for their good.. but it’s clear he misses them. They’ll never not be his family.. but you can’t blame him for hitting burnout and wanting to go back to doing cool superspy crap that for once feels like it has a real purpose. The guy he and Shore Leave take out on a mission had a geninely dangerous weapon and was a genine asshole. It also is clear from said mission Brock is HAPPY where he is. Hunter still isn’t the most ethical boss, trying to keep what’s going on with monstroso from brock, but frankly to be a spy master while you have to have SOME ethics, you can’t have a ton so fair on him. But he and Shore Leave go from two guys who hardly knew each other to best friends, and Brock seems far happier doing this than killing the monarch’s men. Before he was just slaughtering for a job. Now he has a purpose and he’s happy. And now he has the boys back he truly has everything.. or almost.. but we’ll get to her next time. Also yeah lotta next times this review but that’s what happens when you review half a season and given i’ve put out THIS much for just half a season. .you can see why I cut it

Onto the Monarch and the Mrs who.. honestly haven’t changed much. And it makes sense to not really rock the boat with them: the two have had two seasons straight of upheavel from their breakup to adjusting to their marriage and a venture free life. It’s fine to let 21 be the one to really change and evolve this season and just let them do what they do: come up with elaborate schemes for a guy who coudln’t care less and try and talk their husband out of the dumber parts while supporting him best she can respecitvely. It’s just nice after their relationship was dead for almost all of season 2 and struggling a bit in season 3 to let them just be happy.

The only real change is the Monarch does up his game. Clearly being away from Venture only made him think of new ways to torment him, starting with the geninely clever scheme of ransoming the boys, knowing Doc’s main weakness is his checkbook. He only even gets the money because Billy and White got startup money. His other schemes are more classic monarch from the scarionette canon, to preventing venture’s therapy because he’s a selfish prick, to his half assed plan with monstroso that nearly destroy shim. HE hasn’t really changed as a person but he is trying more than just the old game of cat and also cat with Venture and it’s fun to see. Shielia is also largely the same and I don’t really have anything to say about her.

Now we have our main event, as 24′s death has utterly changed Gary, transforming him from an out of shape geek with no competence to a ripped geek whose vowed to not loose another henchman. He’s got cool wrist glove claws, is respected and feared by his fellow henchman, and even ignoring the brock factor is actually getting mortality rates down. It’s like Jackson and Doc outlined when talking about the finale in the art book: what happens to half a comedy duo when the other half dies? What was two friends throwing out a really dumb suggestion became one of the series most intresting arcs. No one , myself included, saw Gary turning into this but it was the right call, taking a stale double act and instead building it’s better half into one of the shows best characters.

And part of that is he’s still gary. He still has a chest of nerdy stuff, still pines for dr. girlfriend, botches water tourture and goes to a fantasy movie on an unexpected night off after dropping off a viper for his boss. What makes him so intresting is he’s STILL gary.. he’s just the best version of himself. or almost. I mean he still talks to his best friends ghost.. or what he thinks it is. And given his harsh reaction to the idea that he isn’t really a ghost it’s clear he may not even be that.. but that hard truth comes next time. For now it’s clear that while Gary has bettered himself and is close to his best self he’s also still torutured by 24′s death via said “ghost” chats and hunting his killers, kidnaping the boys and later scraping with brock. This part of the arc isn’t over.

That said before we move on from him and to the last part of the cocoon his fight with brock is easily one of the best shows of character development i’ve seen: mimicking his earlier lightsaber debacle, Gary instead punches brock at the boo and when left bloody his response is “bring it”. He’s gone from a geek super running away to a geek who get sto be the fucking wolverine. While Gary of course looses, it is brock freaking sampson he got said brock freaking sampson’s respect. Gary. Of all characters GARY geninely earned one of the biggest badass’ respect and got to team up with him to finish the score, showing no fear as he faced the physical equal of the kingpin... or blockbuster. either way motherfucker big , strong and ready to beat his ass. Gary ends this half a hero.. and may just like the sound of that.

Finally we have the Moppets and thank fucking god, Jackson and Doc listened to fans. Given how stubborn they can be on that, we’ll get to the kim thing again next time, it’s nice they relaized they didn’t work and their only apperances are getting dragged by their bosses: the monarch gets an UTTERLY awesome scene when they try to keep him from leaving his house. His response?

“I'm only gonna say this once. I don't like you two. And if you ever, ever try to give me an order again I will kill you both and feed your tiny, rotting bodies to the neighborhood dogs!! Now what were you saying?“

It shows that clearly the ONLY reaosn he put up with them for so long.. is that he wasn’t at the top of his game, still effed up from not getting to arch Venture. Once he can.. we finally get cathariss after a season of their shit. While it wasn’t say 21 getting one on them, that’s next season and it is also glorious, it was so damn good. Likewise is Dr. Mrs not only calling them out for tattling on 21 in the finale, but admitting she finds them creepy. It’s just nice to finally not have to seriously deal with them as characters.

Okay onto the supporting cast. The big one is Dr. Orpheous, who goes thorugh what’s sadly his last bout of character development. He does get two more episodes where he gets a lot of focus: “Assisted Suicide” and “A Very Venture Halloween”.. but this is the last time the show really feels like it cares about progressing him as a person, with him being absent from season 6 since they coudln’t squeeze him in and only returning for the morphic trilogy after, and only one of those eps focuses on him. It’s sad to see the era of his relevance end.. but easy to see why. While the magic stuff is fun, it just dosen’t mesh entirely with this weird world of costumes and super science. It fits in enough that Dr. O isn’t out of place or ever fully removed, but it’s not enough he can easily be brought into plots. He’s a magic guy in a super science and b-list costumed villian type show. He has a great cast, a great personality and is truly one of the shows greatest characters.. but ultimately he’s a relic from a time when the show threw everything at the wall to see what stuck and now the guild and super spy stuff is sticking in additoin to the usual venture hyjinks.. he just dosen’t work as a mainstay anymore. Supporting cast yes, it was a crime he was left out of season 6 as understandable as said crime was, but his time in the sun is over and i’ll miss it.

That being said he does leave being in the main cast with one hell of an episode: The Better Man is truly excellent and works simply by bringing in Orpheus real nemisis: The Outrider aka his former apprentice or as Dr. O puts it “THE MAN WHO STOLE MY WIFFEEEE!” or in laymans terms the guy who made him a

So he naturally does what Dr. O does: mad that the outrider also reached the second world he’s desperate to find out why... while even Triana can see he just desperatley wants to prove he’s better in the vain hope of getting back with his ex which naturally the master mocks him with by transforming into her. and so he can jumprope naked but hey he’s likely alone in that room for hours. He’s gotta find SOMETHING to do. But he makes a valid point: none of this is going to make him better than the outrider and he’s only pissed because the outrider once again beat him. Granted Dr. O, as usual with the master, didn’t take it right away and tries to find a portal... but despite his issues his true character does show when the outrider emerges from the portal. He sees that while this is still the bastard his wife cheated on him with, and is within his rights to resent the man.. at the end of the day... he’s not a terrible person. He did a bad thing.. but he also went ot hell and back to hlep torid. It backfired but he still did. So when given a chance to lie about his death and just leave him there comotase and truly win.. he dosen’t even consider it. He takes the man back to help him, finding out the Outrider cheated to get ahead dangerously putting a magical artifact in his brain via trepanning

And it isn ‘t as removing the thing he used for it with special brother of the order of the triad billy, they get stuck between worlds and only get out because Jefferson’s magic. That is a nice bit of character stuff itself (Don’t worry Al fans, he gets his next time). After once again feeling useless for being the team normal in a team of magic guys, Jefferson finds out he’s between worlds. It’s not exactly useful for every day but for one moment he’s their only way out and gets to enjoy it.

Importantly for orpheous though.. he makes peace with the outrider. Even allowing him to take triana with him to her mothers. He realizes ultimately that while the Outrider did sleep with his wife, still never going to not downplay he slept with his masters wife, the marriage falling apart was due to his work.. he wasn’t a great husband or father... and he accepts it and treis to be better.

And that leads to Triana’s exit. While I covered most of it above, and it’s a great turn for her character, what’s most telling is that this is the tenth time the master has done this. Granted he does so by dickishly resembling dean’s worst possible future because he fucking sucks nad dosen’t get triana isn’t THAT intrested, I love the guy but he is the worst sometimes, but still he, and likely the audience expects orpheus will just mind wiper her again.. but instead he dose’nt. He clearly listens to her and let’s his daughter go. And while it truly hurts.. it’s also him accepting that just because his life has been rough because of his job.. dosen’t mean hers will. She can be better than him and it’s up to him to let her. As for why her mom and stepdad that’s easy: Orpheus likely knows he coudln’t teach her properly himself as he’d be holding himself back or trying to keep her safe, something her mother won’t do as much. She’ll keep her safe.. but she’ll also let her go. And so Dr. O let’s his daughter go and we let him go... he’ll still be around but... this is the end of his true relivance and it will be missed.

We then have Billy and White. Their arc won’t come full circle till next time, but they have money now. So that’s a thing. The real notable thing about billy is that they up the abuse the poor guy takes: he has his money stolen, gets kidnapped twice for surgery, gets raped and gets mindwiped by an abusive asshole. The show just makes the poor guy into a punchline and it’s not funny.. especially the rape thing which yes I still haven’t let go. How the fuck have I not thought about how messed up this is more? Did I just block it out?

Finally out of the notable side cast we have Shoreleave. HE dosen’t do much this half, just be awesome, but it is the start of his evolution from minor shipwreck from bibleman parody into proudly gay badass, expert marksman and all around great character. He’s only prominent in the last episode but boy does god damn does he make an entrance and he’ll only get better from here.

Episode Guide:

40. Blood of the Father, Heart of Steel

Summary: In parallel stories showing where are heroes are post season 3-finale, Brock Of Ages goes on the run from the OSI, paints some terrible paintings, gets a gut, looses a gut and joins his old bosses rogue spy agency. Meanwhile Hank grows his hair out, Hatred moves in, Gary’s life savings are destroyed and Dean gets a dog that turns out to be hitler. So average tuesday for Team venture. My Thoughts: I didn’t remember this episode all that well before rewatching it. It’s fair enough as a LOT’s going on and thus my brain gravitated to the bullet points: Brock starting up with SPHINX, nazis, dean having a boy and his dog plot but the dog has the reincarnated soul of hitler. You knkow the stuff you remember. That said rewatching it it’s a decent episode. I earlier had the take Jackson and Doc aren’t great at premires when really they have hit it out of the park at times with Shadowman 9, Hostile Makeover and Curse of the Haunted Problem... it’s just often these episodes aren’t AS good as what to come and this is the purest example of that. It’s not bad, and the stuff with hitler is some of the series funniest stuff from the casual (for him) way orpheus tells dean his dog is the “spawn of hell”, to dr. venture being fed up with nazi’s for being cliche rather than nazis, to his “Wait.. you guys are nazis” and of course the iconic line “I love hitler and hitler loves me!”. The brock stuf fis fine, including his shitty photo, but this ep is really just that. Fine. It has a neat gimmick but isn’t the best or the worst and if I ranked every episode which...

So yeah a solid middle tier episode that helps set everything up right and has some all time classic jokes, and the fact a mid range episode in this season has so much iconic stuff says something about the season as a whole. Best Moment: “I”ll pay you ten bucks not to shoot your dad” ALMOST won, it was very close.. but I gotta give it to Doc’s “Wait.. you guys are Nazi’s! James deilveriy is just perfect.. just the right sorta “this again” baffled tone like they were a sitcom neighbor whose dog crapped in his yard again and not you know, The Fourth Reich. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 102. Refusing to you know.. actually look up the Marvel Comic and then letting it get beat up by the kids. Though I will give him credit for not working with actual nazis. Hanktastic:Hank’s confidence he can shoot a bullet off his dad’s belt buckle and have it ricochet. Again “I’ll pay you ten bucks not to shoot your dad” is an all time classic line. The wolf mask is also neat. Deanarific: “I love hitler, and hitler loves me! He’s not all bad, Hitler just needs someone to belivie in him. can’t you just give hilter a chance?” part of it is for how delebertly out of context the episode stages it but it’s mainly just Mike’s through commitment to the bit. Questions For Later: Gary being with a larp group and disappearing for some time will come up in a few episodes, while the Brock SPHINX mystery gets solved end of season. First Appearance: Hitler Reincarnated as a Dog. I mean normally I save this only for characters who I know show up again, as to not clog it but some things only happen once in your career and you gotta take your shot.

41. Handsome Ransom

Summary: The Monarch what kidnaps the boys again but this time plans to ransom them to bankrupt his arch foe.. only for one of his utter arch foes to swoop in and take hank. So while Hank hangs out with a literal sunshine superman voiced by THE batman and gets creeped out a little, Doc scrambles to get the money and keep it and the monarch scrambles to get hank back before his scheme unravels. My Thoughts: This episode.. wasn’t as good on rewatch. As Jackson himself admits the jokes, having batman come off as a pedophile (Though not actually be one in this case), comparisoins to micheal jackson and just general stuff. It drags the episode down slightly. That said.. it’s still not BAD. It’s just the main “He comes off like a pedophile joke” isn’t funny the first time they say it aand isn’t that funny by the time Monarch comes out and says that’s what it is. But the stuff around it is filled with great jokes: Hank having called Doc a honkey (and The Monarch naturally loving this fact), the constant treating of dean as half a person, something he takes in stride, tiny money hatred, “It’s chuck scarsdale, hide or we’ll be on the news!”, the sheer dumbassery of the monarch’s plan and the truly awesome freedom fighters pastiche. This episode is full of too much gold to be TOO bad.

Though while the sunshine has a bit too many pedophile jokes, especialy in a season where they have an actual pedophile living with hank, it ends up not tanking entirley thanks to one man: Kevin Fucking Conroy. THE batman playing a parody of batman with a lot of superman in him. It’s Kevin’s being fully game to play this sad, desperate and untetionalyl creepy version of him that works. From the calling a sleepover to the PTSD laden shouts of WONDERBOYYYYY to his breakdown, kevin both gives the character perfect silver age comedic timing (doubled thanks to said things being said by THE post silver age batman. Love you keaton but... he’s the chosen one), and pathos: i’ts clear he’s a man who hasn’t moved on and needs help and sadly never gets it as we see later. He’s a tragic character, not reailizing how broken his cycle is or how he threw out his second wonder boy. I wish the character had come back to get developed more, but hey Kevin’s a busy man and sunshine dosen’t easily fit into the show, so I undrestand. Overall again not a top tier episode like I used to think but still a hell of a good time, as well as one i’d use to intro people to the show. Best Moment: Hank having called Rusty a Honky, mostly for again James delivery. THe Monarch and Hank sniggering over it just completes it. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 104. Insulting Dean for no reason, as funny as it is and outright threatning not to rescue hank. Hanktastic: Again, calling his dad a Honky Deanarific: Just how he takes his dad treating him as just.. a casual object of little intrest is hilarious. He just dosen’t care. He’s just happy to be included. Questions For Later: Desmond will be important next time. First Appearance: Captain Sunshine and Desmond

42. Perchance to Dean (Pissed in God’s Eye Award Winner)

Summary: Doc introduces Dean to the power of Prog rock, a cloned dean does this

Hank thinks he killed dean and Doc gets arrested and blames it on hank due to some wacky circumstances. My Thoughts: Yeah not even a close race. Every other episode this halfa season is either a true classic or at least watchable. This one, while still loaded with some good jokes.. is neither of those. It’s not as bad as past season’s bombs but it still dosen’t work, something Jackson acknoledges. I feel Clone Dean is just too sad and horrific to really fit with the show’s tone well which does have unedning horror but threaded with laughs. But a sad teenager hunchback whose haunted by a hallucination of his dad urging him to kill.. I just want to give the poor kid a hug that dosen’t end in an explosion. It just dosen’t work. It also ups the hank abuse with hank getting grounded for.. some idiots thinking the compound is a cult.. whic his a fair assumption but isn’t fair to hank. The episode is dark and mean spirited in a way this show just usually isn’t.. dark yes, while the show isn’t over the top dark it’s pretty fucked up when you think about it. But it’s usually used for black comedy, like having a scooby doo group resembling famous serial killers or an orphan heart powered fantasy machine. The show can get dark.. but it usually either uses it for drama effectively or for a laugh. An the show will do horror later iwth the morphic trilogy and worse stuff than this, but they just aren’t there yet. Best Moment: “He’s in a floyd hole!” Just the way James delivers that line man three in a row so far. I swear this is the best season (or part of one but semantics) for James deliveries. Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: Hanktastic: Hank’s response to dermott being suprised he didn’t know they weren’t using acid “What am I bill nye the science guy? I don’t know what any of this stuff does. “ Rusty Sucks Suprising No One:... better strap in. Trying to BAN HANK FROM THE BATHROOM, insuiating both that he’ll work in package delivery and doing so as a classist as hell dig (Ironically he DOES end up as a delivery boy but i’m not giving rusty any points for that. Most teens work food service), HITTING his son, and grounding him based on flimsy evidence when he has no reason to think hank did that especiallya fter he saw the clone explode. So that’s 5 for the supremely fucked up first one, 1 for the second, 10 for the hit (while verbal violence dosen’t > phsyical violence he still hit him repeadtely), and 5 for the last one. so 21 for a grand total of 125 Deanarific: Hard choice given, for all the episodes weaknesses we have a lot of good dean this episode, including the beautiful as hell prog rock sequences.. but I gotta give it to his weird belieif there’s a hair fairy. Hatred Paedo Jokes: We start tracking these with Hatred telling the police not to check his computer. Yes he still keeps chlid porn around 1. Also yes I had to add another running thing and i’m sure given my track record, this won’t be the last. I already have one in mind for season 6. Dermott is Spare Parts Bud: Claming he’s moved a lot, trying to burn off hank’s finger prints and in general thinking fleeing an accidental hit and run was in any way a good idea.

43. Return to Malice

Summary: 21 begins his hunt for 24′s killer, starting with the boys, leading the rest of the cast to try and to undo ths fiasco whlie the Monarch.. deals with a bad shelfish allergy. Would you belivie this is one of the best episodes of the series so far? My Thoughts: Yeah never thought i’d be typing that. I remembered not really liking this one but on rewatch? This is where the season goes from pretty good , even the tire fire, to truly excellent. As the season has been so far i’ts packed full of great jokes but what REALLY elevates it is the character stuff, something the other eps had but this one really digs in with and what makes the show special. We see who 21 is now, how he got that way and that he talks to a skull a lot. It also dosen’t bother the monarch because he does the same thing with the greatest new character of all series; Mister Mostly Mittens. RIP. We also get some great character interactions: Dean gets to interact with 21 at length for the first time as he was geninely paired with 24 before his untimely demise, Rusty and SHelia have a genine conversation for the first time with Doc only hitting on her a little (Which for him is imporvement) and as I mentioned earlier the Monarch telling off the moppets was so damn cathartic. This is a hidden gem of an ep that’s worth a revisit. Best Moment: Mister Mostly Mittens. Not only the full shot of the horrifying taxidermy cat, but how the Monarch seems to think this is remotely normal “He could catch a rubberband and bring it back to you. Just classic venture bros going off on some weird aside that has nothing to do with the plot but is still soaked in character. Hanktastic: When 21 realizes in a way he killed 24, dean tries to comfort him with an “We all did” Hank.. dosen’t take it “Not me I didn’t!” Deanarific: Dean geneinly comforting gary and getting through to him. Best boy. Hatred Paedo Jokes: Just outright mentioning it casually.. though it’s one of theo nlyt imes it works as it has Doc rightfully questioning hiring him. 2. ALso forgot to add 4 from previous seasons so 6. (The refrence to him trying to rape hank ins eason 2, his needing them awayin season 3 and his later mentionnig giving up the little boys and calling the chlidren sexy at the daycamp0 Questions For Later: First Appearance:

44. The Revenge Society

Summary:

Phantom Limb makes his grand return, kidnapping Billy and two of the council.. and making them into a two headed man because Jackson and Doc loved the idea of a two headed man, with intent of getting the ORB, so it’s up to david bowie, dean and doc to stop them while Hank and Hatred try to super runaway from hatred’s past.

My Thoughts: Look i’ve talked quite at length about the hatred bit, and that was forgetting the book has a bit where Doc tries to say “nah nah see they just cuddled” which I geinely can’t tell if he’s in denail or trying to cover his ass as they did cut back on the pedophile jokes, but yeah it was utterly awful and drags this episode down slightly. Also that explination dosen’t help as billy “thinking” he got raped as a joke still isn’t funny and isn’t at all what you were going for. The rest of the ep still shines as Phantom Limb returns half crazed and having an army of inanimate objects as his “Revenge Soceity” and Urabanik completely sells crazy limb while Jackson and Doc play off him great as mantle and dragoon. The two are easily one of the best additions the cast got over it’s long run. They were right on the money that making a double act that can’t phsycially get away from each other worked and the fact the two didn’t choose this but just have to deal with it makes for that much more comedy. The mileage they got out of a character simply being two bickering old men with one attached to the others shoulder is amazing. Bag Billy is also amazing aside from that stinger. We also get great character stuff: Hank and Hatred’s bonding with Hank realizing he has to do the right thing and Dean and Doc’s even better bonding as Doc is geninely helpful.. it’s all great pieces. Add in some premium david bowie and you got it. I’m also fine the ORB thing ended with an anticlimax.. it’s a good swerve and i’m baffled so many people thought it should go somewhere. Even as a teen I thought it was a great swerve and as an adult it fits the show: something big super mcguffin turning out to just be a pile of broken parts no one checked because they were too busy killing anyone that did. It’s classic venture bros.

Best Moment: Hard to choose.. which I know I keep saying some form of but these episodes are absolutely stuffed... but in the end i’ll go with what I picked for the picture: The reveal that Phantomas kidnapped richie valens and the big bopper.. just to have them play crappy music. And that this somehow is the secret origin of them becoming super villians. This show is fucking stupid and I love it.

Hanktastic: As said in his section hank holding off the full brunt of the fucking guild.. with the hank equilvent of “dave’s not here man”. Good god I love this boy.

Deanarific: Dean bravely deciding to take the fight to the guild and do reconcizne.

Hatred Paedo Jokes: GUESS

Questions For Later: Just where Phantom Limb goes from here. While unsuprisingly it involves a jail cell , suprisingly it dosen’t end there.

First Appearance:Red Mantle and Crimson Dragoon

45. Self-Medication

Summary: Doc gets out of arching for therapy but when his therapist is killed by a snake themed coffee deathtrap, his therapy group takes on the mystery to find his killer... in theory. IN practice they get beat up at a strip club and get talked out of beating up an old man before he calls them all loosers. Meanwhile Hatred takes the boys to the movies and slowly breaks down over being out of meds.

My Thoughts: Another spectacular episode this time with both a great premise for both plots and a throughly stacked guest cast. Huge fan of the show Patton Oswalt, VA and screen legend Seth Green and John Hodgeman all do a wonderful job. Jackson had wanted to do this one for a long time and it shows as the idea of getting all these washed up boy adventueres together works great from the menendez hardy boys, to robin if he never became nightwing to an unsettling version of astro boy, all anchored by our old friends rusty and captain johnny. It’s just comedy gold , especaily Johnny which is brendan small at his best in the roll as just about everything he says is hilaroius as it is messed up. It also shows just what Rusty might’ve been in diffrent cirucmstances, from strung out to killing his abusive dad to .. well probably not wonder boy. Add in some great stuff with dr. z and this plot works.

THe Hatred plot is one of the few of his that work as the pedophile thing is treated as a horrible addiction he needs to face and he’s shown doing everything not to surrender to it and once he is in that state, he’s already locked himself away where he can’t hurt anyone or act on gary glitter’s tip. It has no real resolution, he apparently got diffrent drugs? I dunno, but it’s at least trying. Overall a classic, if not one of my favoirites.

Best Moment:”You got a little herpe on your lip. You get it from your wife... after I put herpe in her?” This joke wouldnt’ work at all without Brendon’s delivery.

Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 126. Deciding he’s “Too good for therapy.

Jonas Sucks Suprising No One: 36. Yes a whopping 20 points for pretending to be his own son’s therapist just to gaslight him. He may not be a point leader but he makes up for it.

Hanktastic: HIs weird logic that somehow Gary and co’s wing sblocking him counts as an arching. Look I love hank but he hasn’t been as full tilt nuts this season.

Deanarific: Dean showing his full strength and heart, encouraging hatred to fight his urges and refusing to let him out knowing he’ll do something unforgivable he’ll regret. Granted not letting a man buy an underaged sex slave off a tip from Gary Glitter is something any person should do, but the fact Dean figures Hatred can fight it and does his best is fantastic, as is , after realizing Hatred’s will isn’t strong enough, finding a way to take out his uncle so he’ll get help. Dean’s come a long way from being afraid of the coming of jesus last season.

Hatred Paedo Jokes: The Subplot

This Didn’t Age Well: Mrs. Z’s voice. Good god no.

46. The Better Man (Super Good Award Winner)

Summary: It’s a three fer as Doctor Orpheus tries to one up the man who his wife left him for and ends up in hell, Triana discovers her destiny in her closet, and Dean tries to move on from her with the less than helpful advice of his twin and the suprisingly helpful advice of his half brother.

My Thoughts: It was HARD picking the best ep this time, as most of this batch could qualify.. but in the end I gave it to this one for it’s character depth. I’ve gone into most of that above but each bit is brilliant and joke wise it’s stacked as this season has been, from Hank’s disasterous attempts to wingman for dean, his crush on the mail lady (”She had very attractive shorts”), to dean’s all time great roast on dermott, to all the drags on orpheus desperation at the start.. this ep is just stuffed with some of the best the series can offer. It’s why i’m being so breif: this episode is a fucking good, soulful, and hilarious ride and I’ve said most of what I need to say about it above.

Best Moment: LOT of contenders, as usual, but this one especailly. I’m giving it to one of my faviorite scenes in the whole show: dermott advising dean on the girl he just met. It takes dermott from hank’s idiot sidekick to a fuller human being, a kid who may be VERY stupid and very egotistical, but isn’t all bad nor always an unhelpful pile of acne who thinks he’s steven segall and has the ego to match. The boys response is also fucking great with Hank geninely confused Dermott was helpful, clearly starting to see his friend for what he is and Dean having one of the best digs of the whole series “Better check the temprature in hell”

Hanktastic: LOT to pick from, but I have to go with his crush on the mail lady “She had very attractive shorts”, as well as the fact he dosen’t back away or try to justify his crush, simply giving dean credit for poitning out he dosen’t have MUCh ground to stand on.

Deanarific: Again a lot of choices , with “I look like rufio” coming very close. But in the end his smug as hell face when triana says she can’t keep him from all the ladies wins it.

Questions For Later: Triana’s training and the outrider both come back in the season finale, Orpheus having a room free will be just as important as it brings a certain well loved paunchy gay man into the fold, and Dermott’s part time job will be a fixture from here on out.

First Appearance: The Outrider

47. Pinstripes and Poltergeists

Summary: Brock returns and just in time as the Monarch’s latest ill thought out scheme puts both him and the venture compound in the clutches of Monstroso and it’s up to the unlikely dynamic duo of 21 and brock to take him out while Doc finds out about SPHINX

My Thoughts: One of the series best finales and as Jackson put it a good note to end on, giving us plenty of brock to make up for his absence and explain where he’ sbeen with the brilliant sphinx sequence, the asendency of shoreleave and some all time classic gags like Doc revealing shit to the boys pre mindwipe, “Cigar?” and that fight scene, a show of how far 21 has come. Add in a great ending, a great big bad for the season in monstroso, and you get an all time classic. If this dosen’t make my adjusted top 12 list I’ll be a little suprised and given teh quality of this season it just might not. This is the season rising even higher and i’ts only going to go up next time.

Best Moment: The 21 and brock fight. It ALMOST lost to the rusty sucks suprising no one moment bellow, but in the end it’s just too iconic to the series to not give it and too damn awesome too. It’s breif but it’s so damn beautifully shot, well acted and cathartic, showing just how far 21′s come to the point he earned brock’s respect

Rusty Sucks Surprising No One: 132. A double pointer for the “Have I ever told you boys about your mother, or that your both clones?” and a single one for not keeping billy from being mindwiped, 2 for being put out at having to do something ood with the space with an additional one for not seeming to care brock was gone. And while 32 points in 8 episodes is a lot, most of that was from one episode. He’s been suprisingly less horrible this batch.

Hanktastic: Hank’s reunion with brock.

Questions For Later: Monstroso and what he and his investors mean for our heroes. The fight with 21 and brock will also lead to consequences for the big man down the line.

First Appearance:

Monstroso

So that about wraps it up. This was one of the funnest times I had and it was great to get back to it after so long. Next time we get some of the best the series has ever done, again and finally get to my all time faviorite episode, something I don’t think my rewatches of seasons 5-7 is going to change. If you enjoyed this review consider joining my patreon to help me keep these thick boys going and for bonus content

You can find it here

And as an added bonus in a few days i’m doing a summer fun poll to pick a movie for me to review that’s summery this month. Me and my patreons have picked some true classics: UHF, Hot Fuzz, Batman 1989, Transformers the Movie and The Simpsons Movie are all on the ballet and it’s up to you to pick which one. So you lucky folks who read ALL this way get to vote early.

Poll link is here, vote wisely

And i’ll see you all in a month though your free to stick around for more fun stuff.

#adult swim #the venture bros #hank venture #dean venture #sgt hatred #brock sampson #rusty venture #kevin conroy #henchman 21 #retrospective #go team venture #dr byron orpheus

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