#couldn't make myself power all the way through but i think the depth of my ardor should be proven anyway

[fanfiction4sooya]

Loyal dog (Sub A! Seulgi x Dom O!Reader)

This was a request, but I think I lost it somewhere 😭 I hope y'all like it babies!! 💖💖💖💖

tw: abo dynamics, unprotected sex, edging, crying, reader is a little rude, jerking off, nipple play, cum swallowing, etc.

Last board meeting went hectic. You were the head of the meeting, conducting every single detail and discussion, very focused on finding the solutions the other shareholders needed. One of them was pushing for a sale you were reluctant to accept because you really didn't find any benefit on it. A stupid alpha that couldn't think ahead like you could.

"It's not up to you to deny anything" The alpha said, her eyes were cold and her demeanor was definitely disgusted; Many alphas didn't like omegas in position of power. You felt in the depths of your soul she really wanted to say Omegas had no say in anything.

"Well, Ms..." You looked down looking for a paper with her name. "Park, isn't it?"Lifting your head, you could see her eyebrows slightly lift in this contained anger. "Ms Park Sooyoung, I do in fact have a say in this since I'm the head of the board and my success rates are high. Higher than any of yours, I might say"

She tried to make you back down by staring at you, her pheromones strong as she tried to make you submit. That was so disrespectful and rude to do on a work setting that you felt your anger bubble inside you. When you were about to say something, a more sharp voice cut your phrase through, the sound reverberating around the meeting room.

"If you have any decorum, I advise you to stop this little attempt of strength play with your weak pheromones and leave this meeting" You looked straight at her, Kang Seulgi. Pretty, collected and overall avoiding of you. Your eyes quickly scanned her and you lightly scoffed.

Another brainless Alpha trying to assert dominance.

"I don't need a knight in a shiny armor, Ms Kang. I can handle insubordination myself" You said before the other Alpha could respond. She lowered her eyes, looking at her hands as she clenched her jaw. "But since you said it, it is against the company's policy to try making anyone to submit on the clock, specially in democratic meetings" You took a deep breath a little affected by Sooyoung, but your poker face was impeccable. "This meeting is over, for now" You said seeing red, dismissing all the others and going straight to your own office.

Anger seething, your blood boiling for so many reasons. You stood by your window trying to collect yourself, wanting nothing more than to jump onto Park's neck, end that little arrogant look. You fucking hated those types of alphas.

And Kang Seulgi? Oh she was so much worse with that condescending tone and those eyes, those fucking lowered eyes...

Next thing you knew you had already asked your secretary to call her to your office. You needed to see something by yourself.

"Did you ask to see me, boss?" She entered your office, closing the door behind her; perfect posture, secure of herself and her surroundings.

"Indeed" You said. Your glasses perched up on the tip of your nose, staring at her. You called your secretary, your voice ice cold as you spoke. "Ms Kim would you mind telling me if we hired any bodyguards for me, please?" You simply asked, still staring at her. You saw her avoid your eyes again, slightly looking down.

"There are no bodyguards on the record, boss. Why? Do you need one?" Yeri asked, a bit concerned.

"No, not at all" You said. "I was just checking, thank you" That anger was still there, mixed with a little bit of curiosity.

Narrowing your eyes, you tilted your head to the right.

"You do not get to speak for me" Poison dripping, you fixed your glasses on your face.

"It wasn't my intention, I was-" She looked anywhere but you, her posture tense now. "I didn't like the way she spoke with you and that stare... You don't deserved it" She cleared her throat. "It was unprofessional"

Now that she looked at you, you could see how she wasn't being condescending. It was something else and that was definitely something... good.

"Oh, I see..." You got up, going around your desk, crossing your arms under your breasts and leaning on it. "Maybe you don't want to be my bodyguard..." You said, eyeing her down. Her grey suit was perfect on her figure, but you could see the bulge forming inside her pants. "A loyal dog, maybe?"

You saw in first hand as a sharp exhale left her lips, her hands clenching by her sides.

"Oh, you would like to be my loyal dog" She finally returned your stare, her eyes pleading in an embarrassed, conflicted way. You got up to lock the door.

"I-" She gave a step towards you and you quickly shut her off.

"Stay" Was all you said and, much for your surprise and pleasure, she did stay; a tent on her pants as she looked down. "What an obedient dog..." Your tone changed to an alluring one. Standing in front of her, you smelled how aroused she was. "What a rare finding..." You traced her tie with one of your fingers and she whimpered. "Look at me" You commanded and she promptly did so, her eyes following how you licked your lower lip.

"I will do anything you want, boss" She finally said it, eyes locked into yours. You scoffed.

"Everyone does that already" Your cleavage fully on display made her dick pulse hard and she gulped. "What makes you different from everyone else, Ms Kang?" You got closer, heat emanating from her body to yours.

It felt so fucking good to be in full dominance mode with an Alpha like Kang Seulgi. It made you feel millions of times hotter. You always pushed away your omega nature, specially against some traditions the dynamics between Alphas, Betas and Omegas required.

"I can do whatever you ask me" She pleaded, her low voice was basically a whisper. "I am very good at obeying" You took a deep breath. Wet was an understatement, you were completely soaked and your lacy panties ruined.

You pondered, really thinking about it. Office sex wasn't something abnormal. If anything, office sex was the most normal thing in this situation.

"Sit down, hands on your sides" You told her, glancing at your leather couch and she did so. You unbuttoned your white button up just enough to pull your breasts out of your bra. Seulgi visibly shivered and you stood in front of her. "If you cum unauthorized I'll stop" You said, unbuckling her belt and pulling her dick out. "If you try to scent me I'll stop and kick your ass out of here" You have a good look to her cock.

It was was absolutely hung and veiny, throbbing on your hand as you pulled your pencil skirt up on your thighs and your panties to the side, sinking in next. Yes it was big and stretched you just fine, but you didn't express any type of reaction. She moaned, her eyes attentive on yours.

"If you manage to obey me until the end I'll be your dom" You told her, rolling your hips against her cock and she grabbed at the couch, whimpering. "If you want to stop you can just ask. Understood?" You said through gritted teeth.

"yes, b-boss" She stammered, her eyes rolling back a little.

You started riding her like there was no tomorrow, your cunt sinking deliciously on her cock and coating it with your slick. You tried to, but couldn't resist her pretty lips when she made all those sinful moans, kissing her roughly with your hand tangled on her beautiful wavy hair. You pulled it back, exposing her neck to lick and bite as you set an impossibly harder pace, your hips slamming against hers.

You moaned against each other's lips and she stopped kissing you to grab one of your boobs between her lips and you yelped, her tongue felt deliciously hot against your nipple. You stopped bouncing on her lap and started humping, your clit grazing against the fabric of her pants and a little bit of exposed skin. You were about to cum, clenching and unclenching on her big cock completely stretched.

"You want to cum inside me so much, I can feel it" You decided to play dirty as she sucked on your nipples very sloppily, coating your breasts with her saliva. "Aren't you an alpha after all?" You gather every ounce o strength you had not to moan while saying all that, but the woman was a rock. Holding herself in the most painful, delicious way.

In a last attempt to make her cum before you, you grabbed her neck while kissing her, squeezing it just right to a perfect chockehold. She shivered, her body shaking so hard it felt good under you.

You were still mounting here and absolutely losing the battle, cumming so hard on her cock you saw nothing but blank spots, body slumping forward on hers as she kept taking deep breaths with her eyes closed. You tried to catch your breath, swallowing hard when you managed to look at her face.

Absolutely beautiful and that little dumb look was pathetic but oh, so fucking hot. You kissed her roughly again, holding her neck.

"You did good, congratulations Ms. Kang" You said and she bit her lip, smiling. "I could've let you cum inside me..." You got off of her lap and she hissed, you felt your legs weak. "But I didn't told you to suck my breasts" You scoffed, sitting by her side.

"I am so sorry boss, I-" You shushed her, pulling her head to your lap, commanding her to lie down on the couch and she did, her dick standing proudly erect and furiously red from all the action and no cum.

"To show you I am no monster, I'll make you cum" You said, pulling her mouth to your nipple, your hand going to her cock. "Suck as hard as you can, but tell me when you get closer"

"Yes, boss" Her beautiful brown eyes glimmered and you bit your lip. "Thank you so much" She said, putting her mouth to work as you spat on your hand then started to pump her cock up and down, swirling your hand against the tip, your thumb rubbing at her slit.

She moaned against your breast, releasing a lot of precum as her body shook. It took less than a minute of you jerking her off, that's how needy she was.

"I'm close" She said, tensing and you completely stopped letting go of her cock. She whined, her mouth still sucking hard on your nipple and you whimpered.

She didn't protest, didn't even stop sucking. She held herself again, like a good girl. You caressed her hair, starting all over again that beautiful torture, jerking her even harder, her hips shaking as you stopped once again, feeling her hot tears on your lap. Fuck, she was so beautiful.

"Shh, it's okay" You cooed as she sobbed still sucking your breasts, her eyes locked into yours. Her nose was red and her eyes puffy. A masterpiece. "It's okay Ms Kang, this it the last time..." You said.

Going back to jerking her off, you could feel on the way she tossed against the couch how painful that was but she didn't complain once. You felt your pride grow, coaxing her into her climax. It hit her hard as your palm rubbed specially against the tip.

She came hard, ropes and ropes of her thick cum filling your hand and you kept swirling her tip. She was still crying, your breasts purple with how forceful her sucking was, but you didn't mind in the slightest.

You kept saying sweet nothings onto her ear, helping her to recollect herself and to come out of subspace, her sobs felt electrifying against your skin but you knew she couldn't take anything anymore.

You took your hand to her mouth and she licked it clean, sucking on every bit of her cum she could take from your hand as you caressed her hair, being careful not to scent her.

"Good girl... you were perfect Ms Kang" You whispered and she nodded, still sucking on your fingers. "Now you are my good loyal dog" You said, excitement taking over you when you realized how this finding was uncommon...

#gxg smut #red velvet smut #red velvet seulgi #seulgi smut #alpha seulgi #sub alpha #kang seulgi smut #kang seulgi

[thepaintedlady00]

The Sandman and the Girl Without Dreams

Chapter 9: A Past As Beautiful and Destructive As Me

TW: the fates, knives, dirty thoughts, smut (Soft Dream is here)

I curled deeper into the warm covers, breathing out a sigh of relief at the heat that rolled off of them. That breath was one I could feel hanging in the frozen air, the heat of it visible in the cold as I blinked my eyes open. Everything was frozen. My pillows, the empty space of bed beside me, the windows and curtains, my chair. All of it. As I sat up, the chill filling the warm space I'd left, three figures stood in front of my bedroom door.

The first, standing closest to me, was a young woman in a beautiful sapphire blue gown, her dark hair curled in ringlets around her soft face. "Greetings, fate kept sister."

In a blink she was standing in the back and one of the others was now standing in front of me. She was older, her face slightly worn by the years. Her hair and eyes remained the same as the younger ones. "It is so good to finally put a face to that lovely name of yours, dear Weaver."

Another blink and the oldest of them stood before me, eyes cold and face wrinkled with age and wisdom. Her silver hair wrapped around her like a shroud. "She doesn't look like much, you'd think with the power in those veins she'd have a bit of spark to her."

I wanted to speak, wanted to demand what the hell was happening, but I couldn't. Like the room around me I was frozen in place, clinging to what little warmth remained. The youngest smiled at me. "I think she looks perfect!"

The oldest sneered. "Fate kept, fate kissed, fate bound. Your titles are as endless as that which you would so easily spread your legs for."

The middle one tutted. "Now, now sister-self, we cannot chastise her for answering the song she was gifted. That even remains higher than us."

"Such a sweet song they make together!" The youngest said. "I hope it does not give way to the dissonant cries that threaten to swallow it."

"A butterfly can do little against the storm to come," the eldest remarked.

"She will have to become a dragon then," the youngest replied. "Fire and armor born to weather any storm."

"The question remains if she will heed her calling or if she will bend and break and burn beneath the threads." The middle said.

"Heed our advice, fate touched, do not hesitate to reach out to the cold. For in the frozen depth much truth lies." The youngest said.

The middle reappeared. "Heed our warning, fate kissed, do not bend to those unworthy. It is their stained hands that seek to tear your wings from your back and watch you crawl and wither."

The oldest glared at me. "Heed our truth, fate bound, forsake that which you fear. For the path through flames of molten gold is that which holds your freedom."

A loud crack of shattering ice echoed in my ears, my hands cupping around them as I tried to block out the sound. When I looked back up they were gone. A faint feeling, like a hand wrapping around my arm pulled me from the frozen world. My hand found the knife beneath my pillow and my body moved of its own accord, the world swinging as I threw myself over the top of whoever had touched me and pressed the blade snuggly against their throat.

Below me Pierres eyes were glowing, his hands resting tightly on my hips. "It is good to be back beneath these powerful thighs, Ma moitié."

Breathing heavily I looked around the room, pulling the blade from his throat. It was just as I left it. My head snapped to the bed, now empty save for a single peony that lay on the pillow beside mine. Dream. I looked back to Pierre who looked me over with his heated gaze and winked. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I was attempting to wake the sleeping beauty, but in our time apart it appears I've forgotten that she has quite the bite when startled." He smiled even wider. "Though I will never complain about our current position."

"How did you get in?" I asked standing up and helping him off the floor.

"The witch," he replied. "Though we both know if I had truly wanted in I'd have found a way." He leaned slightly to check out my ass in the shorts I'd slept in. "The years have treated you kindly."

I slapped his arm. "Eyes up."

He complied with a sly grin. "Oh I've seen it all before, no need to be so prude about it."

"That was a long time ago," I said, forcing his chin upward as he started looking back.

"Ahh so my other half has found herself a new lover!" He teased flopping onto the bed and twirling the peony in his fingers. "A thoughtful one is he?"

I snatched it out of his hand and carefully set it on my nightstand. "As much as I'd love to talk to you about my sex life you have work to do."

He relaxed into my bed. "It is already done."

"You cleaned up three bodies and all that blood already?"

"You say this like it is difficult," he replied, offended. "Have the years made you forget my talents for such things?"

"No."

"Stop worrying, Ma moitié, come lay down with me and relax for a moment."

With a sigh I flopped down onto the bed beside him. He pressed a kiss to my cheek. "It's good to see you Pierre."

"Of course it is, I am spectacular!" He cheered, turning to face me. "Now, tell me of this tall dark stranger the witch claims to have caught fingers deep inside you."

I groaned. "JOHANNA CONSTANTINE!"

***

Dream had watched Penelope sleep until the sun began to rise before he was forced to leave. He hated having to go, hated that she would wake up alone, but his realm needed his attention now. So he'd placed the peony beside her, hoping it would soothe her if she woke up worried about his absence. As he stood in the corner by her door he turned to the raven that had accompanied them. "Stay with her, Matthew. If trouble comes for her again I will not be caught off guard."

And trouble indeed did come, but a kind that Dream had not been prepared for. His jaw was firmly locked in place as he watched the interaction through Matthews eyes. At first he was relieved, proud, to watch her take the man to the ground with ease, a blade to his throat, but then when she retracted it and helped him up his relief twisted into something else. Something green.

When the stranger had not even attempted to hide his blatant lingering gaze on her body Dream felt the green feeling twist inside him. When he leapt onto her bed and grabbed the flower he'd left for her, he nearly lost all his self control and when she joined him in the bed his hands curled into the arms of his throne and the room around him gently quaked. 

Penelope was obviously familiar with this man, too familiar for his liking. But as he watched them he felt no flare of arousal or any feelings from her that indicated this was anything more than a friend. Even without the mark he trusted her, but that didn't stop the bitter taste that filled his throat at the sight of them. He let his connection drop, let his eyes refocus on the throne room. 

His thoughts were a rampant storm in his mind. She may not have felt anything for her friend, but seeing her so close with another man brought a possessive need within him. He was not unfamiliar with this, he’d had many lovers in the past and had felt the need before, but with Penelope it was different. It was so strong Morpheus had to consciously remind himself he could not just show up in her room and trap this friend of hers in a never ending nightmare. It was more than that though, more than mere possessive jealousy that made him retreat inward. 

She was happy. She had been before he showed up in the apartment she shared with Constantine. In all the years he spent locked in that cage he thought of her often, mourned her. He was not prepared to find her alive, healthy and happy in the Waking World. Before Hell, he’d been determined to retrieve his tools, answer her questions and then let her finally be rid of him. Then he saw the torture she’d endured… felt the softness of her lips on his… had her gasping and moaning against him. He did not want to leave her, he did not think he could survive it now, but he worried what him staying would cost her.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He needed air - he needed to think. He needed to see her.

***

Pierre finally climbed out of the bed after he was satisfied he was caught up in my sex life since our departure, and grabbed a long box from the chair. “I know the last time we spoke, you told me you did not want these, but… Given the recent events I brought them with me just in case.”

At the sight of it I clammed up. It had been years since I’d given them to him… and as he opened the lid, holding it out for me to see the gleaming steel blades within it an old pain filled my chest. I took one of them in my hand, the familiar weight of it digging up a wave of bittersweet emotions. As I looked into the reflection in the blade it was his eyes that stared back at me. Olethros. The pain was one of great friendship and a sorrowful betrayal. 

"I know it's not ladylike… but you really need to learn how to throw a proper punch Miss…"

"Barlow. Penelope Barlow."

"Well, Miss Barlow, are you alright?"

"Better now that I've stumbled onto a knight."

His laugh was deep and heartfelt. "Never been called a knight before, I could get used to it."

"Well, what name does my knight normally go by?"

"I've got a lot of names, Miss. You can call me Olethros."

"Olethros, I'm glad to have run into you."

"As am I, Penelope."

I quickly set it back in the box and closed the lid. “Thank you, Pierre. Could you just… just hold onto them a while longer for me?”

His eyes held the understanding that made Pierre one of my closest friends. He nodded, holding the box with tender care. “Of course, mon amour. Now, get dressed and join the witch and I for breakfast, yes?”

“Of course,” I answered watching him settle into my chair with a shit eating grin on his face. “Get out you sly bastard.”

“Very well,” he said with an exasperated sigh, moving toward the door. “But, if your new lover disappoints, perhaps we will reconnect in a different way?”

I rolled my eyes. “You and Johanna are the worst with boundaries!”

He laughed as he closed the door with one final shout of, “That was not a no!”

“NO!” I hollered, sitting on the bed and grabbing the flower Dream had left for me with a smile.

Pierre had been the person I trusted most in this world before Johanna and now Dream. He had been by my side in my darkest moments and had seen me through it all with kindness, patience and laughter. He was perhaps the most annoying person I'd ever met, but single handedly the most loyal and loving individual. I knew he wouldn't betray me, no matter how we left things or how long it'd been since we spoke through the years. Pierre would never betray me, would never do anything to cause me harm, would never abandon me.

It was nice to have him around again, nice in a mostly annoying way, but with him he brought a lot of messy history. I had no doubts that Dream had his own unpleasant moments in his past and I truly didn’t think he would care about some of mine, but I still felt nervous, still felt ashamed. What if the things I’d done made him see me differently? What if upon learning of the years I’d spent without him was just too much? Nothing could ever change the way I see you. He’d said those words, not long ago. He’d said them and meant them with everything he was. I set the flower back on my nightstand and smiled. Dream wouldn’t scare so easily.

A soft noise echoed from the top of the curtain rods and startled me. “Would now be a good time to tell you I’m here?”

Matthew perched above me, awkwardly. “Oh my god Matthew! How long have you been here?”

“Since the sun came up,” he said. “Dream had me stick around just in case there was any trouble. You know so he could come help and all that.”

I sighed, letting the tension release from my shoulders. “I should have known he’d leave you behind. I’m sorry you’re stuck on babysitting duty.”

"I don't mind!" He insisted, flying down to rest on the bed. "It'll be fun."

"Will it be?" I asked.

"Yeah! We can get pizza or go to the movies," the raven sounded very excited at the prospect of a normal day.

"Missing life as a human Matthew?"

"Just a little," he said. "Being a bird is great and all and I enjoy The Dreaming and everyone there it's just…"

"A lot of change in a small span of time. I get it." I finished for him. “I’m not sure what the day has planned, but I’ve got to warn you it might not be the typical human outting you're wanting."

His head cocked to the side a bit. "Yeah, I doubt most humans deal with constant threats of being attacked." Clearing his throat he hopped towards me a bit. "Speaking of… You don't have to tell me, but, uh, I am curious about what exactly you've got going on."

I smiled tensely at him. "You remember Hell? Those, uh, memories you saw?"

"Yeah," he admitted softly. "Those are kind of hard to forget."

"The doctor from the asylum is the head of the sixty, hell, it might be seventy now, year long hunt I've been avoiding."

"The doctor?" He questioned. "Shouldn't he be, I don't know, dead?"

I picked at my fingers. "Yeah, he should be. But those… The, uh… The procedures he did on me… They gave him enough biological material to create a prototype of his weird eternal life elixir or drug or whatever. He took it and used the extra time it gave him to link up with the cult assholes that trapped Dream with Roderick Burgess. They mixed their weird magic and his mad science to make a better version of the prototype. He and his closest confidants took it and have been using it to keep them alive."

"So these assholes don't die?"

"They do. Their new elixir only preserves their life… Their minds I guess. Their bodies still age and decay just at a slower rate than normal." I sighed. "He's running low on my material now though, he has been for the past tenish years."

Beside me Matthew cawed. "That's why they're coming at you so hard."

"Yeah," I whispered. "If they can manage to catch me, it'll be the end this time. He'll take every last bit of me and…" I shook my head. "But that's not going to happen."

"Yeah, I mean you've got Dream now." Matthew said. "He'll take care of it."

"No." I couldn't even think of what the worst bad outcome would look like. "He's going to stay out of it. If they think he's a threat they'll just find a way to trap him again, or worse. He needs to keep himself and The Dreaming safe."

Matthew looked up at me. "Does he know that?"

"No," I breathed out, trying to keep myself calm. "No he doesn't. But… He'll understand."

A chuckle and another caw. "I think we both know it's not gonna be that easy. This is Dream we're talking about."

I laughed. "Yeah, he's kind of an ass."

“He’s much better around you,” Matthew stated calmly. 

Smiling down at the raven I shrugged. “I don’t think he can really help it. He can’t exactly hide things from me, not for long at least.”

“Well, whatever thing you two have got going on I’m happy for you. The boss needs someone like you around.”

“Someone like me?”

“Someone that will call him out on things,” he clarified. “Someone that’s not afraid to tell him he's wrong.”

Well, that was certainly something I could do. “Okay, shield your bird eyes dear Matthew while I get dressed for our human outting.”

He flew to the corner of the room, pushing his tiny head through the curtains and observing the street down below as I threw on the thinnest turtleneck I could find, adjusting it so the nearly faded bruising wasn’t visible before securing Jessamys’ feathers back around my neck and pulling on a light long skirt. I was covered head to toe, so any cuts or bruises I hadn’t noticed or hadn't healed yet would stay covered and not draw anymore unwanted attention my way. I set a magazine up for Matthew as I washed my face and did my hair. Listening to the bird comment on movie stars was one of the most amusing things I’d heard in a while. “You should start a podcast.”

He laughed. “A raven with a podcast, that would be hilarious!”

Once I’d gotten on a comfortable pair of shoes he flew to my shoulder and perched on me as I left my room to greet Johanna and Pierre who sat on complete opposite sides of the sofa, leaning away from each other. “Wow, don’t look too comfortable you two, someone might think you like each other.”

Johanna flipped me off. “Fuck you.”

“I would never!” Pierre said at the exact time.

“Breakfast,” I said. “Who's buying?”

Pierre’s eyes were glued to Matthew. “Are we not going to address the bird?”

Johanna smiled. “Nope. Don’t you say a word to him.”

“This is Matthew.”

Pierre's face grew even more confused. “The bird has a name?”

From my shoulder Matthew bristled and let out a caw. “Yes, he has a name and you’re not making a very good first impression.”

“When do I ever, mon amour?” He asked with a wide grin.

“Point taken, now let's go, I'm starving.”

Johanna pulled on her jacket. “Yeah, you haven’t had a real meal since Hell.”

I felt somewhat bad for Pierre as he looked between us with absolute confusion. “What has happened in my absence?”

The four of us walked to a nearby cafe and Pierre and I grabbed a table outside while Johanna went in and got our breakfast sorted. He’d pulled his chair right next to mine and leaned into me the whole time, something Pierre never grew tired of was physical attention. Matthew had perched on the opposite side of the table, beady black eyes boring into the French man beside me. Pierre stared at him for a while before turning to me to ask, “It cannot kill me, can it?”

Shrugging my shoulders I smiled at Matthew. “No clue, that's why you need to be nice.”

It was only when Johanna returned either coffee and plates of food that we got back to the situation at hand. They were back in London and if last night was anything they knew I was here too. Pierre spoke first, "So, no running this time eh?"

"No," I said, picking at the food in front of me. "Not this time."

"Why now?"

There were so many answers. I'm tired of losing the ones close to me. I'm tired of letting them push me around. But one that held the most truth. "I'm tired."

This made Pierre wrap his arm around me and squeeze my shoulder. "Finally. I have been waiting for you to turn loose the dogs of war!"

Johanna rolled her eyes. "We need to be smart about this. These cunts have people and resources, we can't take them in an all out fight."

"We have her," Pierre insisted. "No one is better in a fight than our Penelope!"

I looked down at the table, my mind drifting back to the hulking mass of red hair from all those years ago. "Fighting isn't just about numbers or strength, Inky. You have to slow down, think through the moves before you act."

I'd watched him attempt to bend the paper into the shape of my butterfly for almost an hour as we talked, still to no avail. "I've thought out the moves, Olethros. I can't win if I don't know how to actually fight."

"God damn paper," he muttered, tossing the paper into the pile with all the others. He sighed. "Why are you asking me this now?"

"You're the one that said I needed to know how to throw a proper punch!" I replied, reaching over to help guide his fingers. "I'm not asking you this lightly. I know how seriously you take fighting."

"Fighting almost always leads to death and destruction. Are you prepared for that?"

I shook my head. "No, but I don't have a choice. I have to do something, Olethros. I'd never be able to live with myself if I didn't." 

I pulled my hands away from his and looked down at the disfigured butterfly. He let it fall onto the desk. "Don't think I'll ever be able to make one like yours."

With a gentle tug I pulled the paper butterfly off of where it hung on my necklace. I stroked over the soft worn paper, smiling at the memories of the friend that had given it to me, before holding it out to him. "You take it. Until you make one of your own."

"Inky…"

I set it in his palm. "Consider it payment for teaching me how to fight?"

His rich eyes bored into mine, fingers curling around my own. "Fine. But just some basic moves. You're no killer, Penelope Barlow. I just want to keep it that way."

Pierre nudged me, hand squeezing my shoulder. "You drifted off, Ma moitié. Are you alright?"

"Yeah," I answered, straightening up in my chair. "Yeah I'm fine. What were we saying?"

Johanna watched me carefully. "Pierre and I were arguing over strategy."

"Once she picks up those blades of hers we won't need your strategy!" Pierre replied.

I shook my head. "I'm not picking up the knives. Johanna is right we need to be smart about this."

He sighed. "But-"

"I don't want to lose anyone else, Pierre." I looked up at him with watery eyes. "I can't."

Cursing in French he pressed a soft, quick kiss to my lips and hugged me. "Alright, mon amour. We'll do it your way."

"Thank you."

Matthews wings flared out as he cawed, eyes focused behind us. I turned, looking over Pierres shoulder at Morpheus as he stood across the street. Smiling at him I looked at Johanna. "Are you guys good or do we have more to talk about?"

She glanced at Dream and smirked. "No, we're good. Come on Frenchie, let's go hit up a few contacts."

Pierre followed our eyes and grinned. "Is that the new lover? He is handsome."

"Very," I agreed, shoving against his chest. "Now get out of here.

He pressed one last kiss to my lips, longer than the first one, trying to get a rise out of Dream. And, if the way the shadows seemed to move over him meant anything he'd succeeded. I shoved again, slapping the back of his head, but he only smiled at me. "I have to make a good impression, no?"

"Fuck off." I laughed as he slid out of his seat, glancing at Dream as he walked away with Johanna.

Dream stayed still for a minute before he moved to join Matthew and I at the table. "Good morning," I said happily.

"Good morning." His tone held no indication of, well, anything. 

I tiled my head, watching him take a piece of bread from the table and hold it. "How are repairs in The Dreaming coming along?"

"Well," he said. "I should be regaining most of my lost subjects soon."

"That's good," I said. He was off, but I couldn't quite tell why. A familiar feeling rose up in my chest, along with the sound of the raging ocean waves hitting thick wood. I shoved it down, watching Matthew peck at a plate of food, not able to get it all. I reached over, grabbing the plate and starting to cut up the food into smaller pieces.

His eyes looked down the road, where Pierre and Johanna had gone. "Was he a friend of yours? Or an old lover?"

"Both? Neither?" I chuckled. "He's my friend. We slept together a few times, but it was mostly out of convenience. I trusted him, he trusted me, we didn't have to think about potential dangers or something going wrong. We didn't have to think."

Dream nodded. "Does he know this?"

"He was there for me during a difficult time. And when he was offered an obscene amount of money to trick me he refused." I met Dreams' eyes and sighed. "I know he's a lot, but Pierre is one of the few people that didn't betray me."

"I understand," he said. "If you trust him..."

"I do trust him."

"And I trust you." He said simply. "So long as he keeps his mouth to himself you'll not hear any complaints from me."

"Your mouth is the only one I want, Dream Lord." I insisted with a wide grin.

Nothing. No smile, no teasing, just the same blank expression. After a few minutes of silence he spoke calmly, "I'm assuming there were no other attacks in my absence."

"No," I replied, bracing myself for this part of the conversation.

A nod. "Good, it won't take too long finding the individuals behind this."

"About that," I said nervously. Taking a deep breath I met his cold gaze. "I don't want you to get involved."

A flash of annoyance and anger filled him, curling around me. "What?"

"It's just…" I sighed. "These people are dangerous, Dream-"

"All the more reason for me to deal with it."

"They're well organized and well versed in both magic and science. If they find out you're involved in any way they will trap you," I said, watching his eyes flare with memories of his cage. "I'm not going to risk that happening, not ever again."

His jaw clenched. "I will be discreet."

"No." I could see the understanding fill his eyes as my aching worry reached out to him. "I have lost far too many people to this crazy cult mad scientist bullshit. I am not willing to risk losing you too."

"Penelope-"

"Promise me, Morpheus." I bit back a sob. "Promise me you'll let me handle it. Please."

He nodded, every inch of him rigid and tense. "Very well."

"Thank you."

Dream watched as I held the now smaller bits of food out to Matthew, who took it almost too eagerly. "You shouldn't indulge him."

"Oh leave him be," I said, the tenseness slowly dissolving. "He was human once, it's only fair that he gets some treats."

"If he gets too fat to fly back to The Dreaming it'll be on your head then."

I laughed. "If your magic ravens get fat from a few pieces of biscuit then that's just poor execution on your part."

Matthew ignored us both in favor of the food, but made quiet content noises from beside me. Dream continued looking around with his lips pouted. I could sense the emotions he was feeling, but couldn’t identify them. It was like a glass wall separated them from me, and looking at him I could just tell he was doing it on purpose. To keep me from being forced to feel them perhaps? Or to keep him from having to open up to me about what was wrong. Of the two the second seemed far more Dream.

I nudged his leg with my foot, bringing his emotionless eyes and face back to me. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Dream…” I began. “I can feel something is off with you. Something you’re keeping from me.”

He sighed. “It is not important, Penelope.”

“I don’t care, I still want to-”

“Please.” He said, a flash of tenderness filling his eyes for a moment. “I do not wish to burden you with trivial things.”

With a sigh I handed Matthew the last piece. “Okay, but I want you to know that I’m here. No matter what it is, or how trivial it may seem, I’m here.”

“Thank you,” he said softly, sounding almost pained by the kindness of my words.

I didn’t push it further. Dream was stubborn and if he really didn’t want to talk to me, he wouldn’t. Trying to pry more out of him would only result in a fight, and after eighty years apart I did not want to spend our newfound time together fighting over little things.

After paying for the food we began walking once again. In one hand he held his bread and the other hand was stuffed in his pocket. I missed the feel of his arm wrapped around mine, but respected his space. I knew that it wasn’t something he did to appear cold or to purposefully hurt my feelings. Even in his sour mood I didn't think he'd act cruelly. He was a private person, that was all.

I followed him to a nearby park where he took a seat on a park bench and slowly began picking away at the loaf of bread, tossing the pieces to the pigeons. This was odd. Dream of the Endless was not the type to sit in a park and feed pigeons. I looked at him and just as I was about to ask what he was doing his hand snapped up, catching a rogue ball as it came hurtling towards my face. The young man that came to retrieve it apologized and complemented Dream’s catch before turning and going back to his game. “Are you alright?”

I nodded. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

His eyes gave me a once over and then the silence returned. That feeling began to aw its way back up just as I spotted the black boots approaching us. Everything was washed away with the warmth of her. With a bright smile I leapt up and threw my arms around her. “Death!”

She returned my embrace with an even tighter one. “It’s so good to see you, Penelope.” She pulled away, fixing my hair and looking at me with the warm loving gaze I hadn't seen in years. “You look good, how are you doing?”

The last time I saw her was the night I nearly died. I’d almost begged her to take me then, and she’d been the one to assure me that there was still so much for me to live for. I smiled even wider, ignoring the tears that started to fill my eyes. “Better.”

“Good.” She said looking down at Dream, her face contorting into confusion. “What’s he doing?”

I shrugged. “No clue, he’s in a mood.”

“I’ll talk to him,” she assured. “Why don’t you go do something fun?”

He looked up at us now as the words of his sister registered, but before he could speak I held up my hands. “Don’t worry, I’ll stay within your line of sight.”

Dreams' jaw was tense as he nodded. “Thank you.”

Death gave me a look, but I waved her off, walking over to a nearby tree and plopping down. The two of them had a lot to talk about, and if anyone was going to get Dream out of his mood it was her. Matthew joined me shortly, nodding to the small hot dog cart off to the side. “Hungry?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, but I’ll get one for you.”

“You’re the best Penny!”

***

Death sat down beside him with a sigh, watching him closely. “What are you doin’?”

“I’m feeding the pigeons.” It was a simple answer, one that Dream knew would not keep her from digging up what was truly on his mind. His older sister was wise and had a talent for getting the truth out of people.

“‘You do that too much, you know what you get?’” She asked with a grin. “‘Fat pigeons.’”  When he didn’t react she laughed quietly to herself. “That’s from Mary Poppins. Did you ever see it?”

“No.”

She watched a child run through the group of birds that had gathered in front of them, her joy among the humans was something he found odd, but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit he envied her. She saw them, truly saw them, for all that they were and she loved them. “Okay, so what’s the matter?”

“What do you mean?”

“I can tell something’s wrong. I mean look at you. Sittin’ here, moping, pigeon-feeding. It’s not like you.”

He sighed. “No. Perhaps it isn’t. I don’t know what’s wrong, but you’re right. Something is the matter.” He paused as she got comfortable on the bench beside him. “When they captured me, I just had one thought. Vengeance. And then…” His eyes found Penelope, mind racing with all the memories of her being chained and beaten in front of him. Death seemed to understand. “Then it wasn’t just about me, and my hunger for that vengeance grew.” With another sigh he shook his head. “It wasn’t as satisfying as I’d expected. Meanwhile, my kingdom had fallen apart. My tools long since stolen and scattered. And so I embarked upon a journey to find them. Which I did, along with the girl I’d spent eighty years mourning. She’s here, healthy and happy and I’m more powerful than I have been in eons. And yet…”

“Here you are feeding the pigeons.” She finished for him, gently clapping her hands together.

“You see, until then, I’d had a true quest. A purpose beyond my function and then suddenly, it was over, and…” He made a face. “I felt disappointed. Let down. Empty. Does that make sense? I was so sure that once I got everything back, I’d feel good… that I’d be able to let her go and move on. But in some ways I feel worse than when I started. I feel like… Nothing.” He tore his eyes away from Penelope. “You asked.”

Death put a comforting hand on top of his knee and smiled at him. “You could have called me, you know.”

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

She rolled her eyes and stood quickly. “Oh, I don’t believe it. Let me tell you something, Dream.” Taking the bread out of his hands she pointed it at him accusingly. “And I’m only gonna say this once, so you better pay attention. You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, pathetic excuse for an anthropomorphic personification on this or any other plane. Feeling sorry for yourself because your little game is over and you haven’t got the balls to go out and find a new one.” Her bread wielding hand gestured over to Penelope. An obvious message. “You’re as bad as Desire. No worse.” She threw the bread at him with an exasperated sigh. “Did it never occur to you that I would be worried about you?”

“I didn’t think-”

“Exactly! You didn’t think.”

The white ball flew through the air toward the back of Death's head. She whirled around and caught it right before it could connect and with a sigh she handed it back to its owner. “Wow. You’re as good as you… friend there.”

Looking back at him she shrugged. “He’s not my friend. He’s my brother. And he’s an idiot.”

He returned to his curled up position, tossing more crumbs down into the grass. “I’m just feeding the birds.”

“Look, I can’t stay here all day. I’ve got work to do. You can come with me if you want, or you can stay here and sulk.”

His eyes flickered back to Penelope. “What about her?”

“Is she not allowed to be alone all of a sudden?” Death joked.

“There are people after her,” he said, watching his sister's face grow more concerned as she looked over at Penelope. “I do not want to be far, just in case…”

“She can come with, if she’s comfortable with that. She's good for you, by the way," Death said with a smirk.

Penelope sat under the shade of a large tree, tossing bits of hot dog up to Matthew who swooped down making attempts to catch them before they hit the ground. She'd made a sarcastic comment about his eyesight, resulting in Matthew dropping the hot dog into her hair. He made playful attempts to get it, pecking her head and tugging on her hair lightly. They chased each other around the tree, her laugh lighting up the whole park.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, though he didn’t really need an answer. It was obvious.

She pointed to him. "You get that look when you see her, even when you’re sulking."

"I don't have a look."

"You do. It's cute!"

"Dream!" Penelope shrieked, running over to him and ducked behind him so he was in between her and the raven. "Control your pigeon!"

"Pigeon?!" Matthew hollered. "Low blow!"

She peeked out from behind his shoulder and flipped the bird off. The two bickered with him between them, yet all he could do was smile. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his sister's knowing grin and immediately forced his lips down. "Settle down you two."

Finally the two relaxed and Penelope turned to his sister and asked her about work, as if it was nothing to her, speaking to Death. After a minute he realized she still hung onto his shoulders, using him as a perch, not unlike the raven she bickered with. "Is there a reason you're hanging off of me?"

"Not particularly, why am I weighing you down, mighty Dream Lord?” She teased in his ear.

"Not physically. Mentally you are quite the weight to carry." Though his tone hadn’t changed, Penelope caught onto his playful meaning instantly.

She gasped and groaned, slumping forward, now fully hanging off him, acting as if she’d been struck. "You wound me, my lord! Oh! I fear I’ll never recover!”

“I wish to accompany my sister for a while.” He said, looking at her from over his shoulder. “Will you join us?”

“I don’t want to impose,” she said, nervousness flaring in him.

Death smiled. “You won’t be. I’ll tell you when to stay put and we’ll be fine.”

“Alright then,” she replied, squeezing his shoulder and moving to stand beside him as he rose to follow his sister. She moved further in front of them and he immediately reached out to her. She gave him a comforting smile.

“You can stand with us,” he said.

“You two have a lot to talk about,” she insisted sweetly. “I don’t want to intrude.”

He let his hand return to his side. “Stay within my sight.”

“I know, I know.” 

Dream watched her walk forward, Matthew perched on her shoulder, and he felt a piercing pang of guilt fill his gut. He’d told himself he would say goodbye to her and let her live the life she’d built without him. She was happy, the feel of it warmed him. His presence would only bring her trouble, but she was already in trouble. The white coats and the doctor were a thorn in his side, but the even bigger thorn was her. He recalled her words to him, her gentle plea that barred him from involving himself in the matter. If it’d been up to him he would have already hunted them all down and put an end to this. He could do it still. But what would that cost? Her? 

“Look!” Death said sweetly, drawing his eyes from Penelope to the stand of fruits and vegetables. “Yum! Okay two please.”

“None for me, thank you.”

She looked back at him with that loving sisterly gaze he’d missed so much. “They’re good for you.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You can just have it later,” she insisted with a shrug. When he didn’t budge she turned back to the vendor. “Just one, thanks.”

He watched the man clean the apple off and hand it to his sister with a warm smile. “There you go. It’s a gift.”

“Aw. Thank you! That’s so nice.” She turned, taking a large bite of the apple and then nodded to the vendor. “Mmm! That is delicious.”

“You are good with them,” he noted.

“Apples?”

“Humans.” His heart dropped when Penelope wasn’t where she had been. He took a long stride forward, Death's hand on his arm stopped him. She nodded to a small covered stall just a few steps ahead of them where Penelope knelt letting a child observe Matthew, who perched on her arm with his wings spread wide, clearly showing off. His heart slowed and he took a deep breath. She stood, urging Matthew to hop back onto her shoulder as the vendor, the child's father he assumed, handed her a bouquet of flowers. He listened to her whisper a soft thank you to them before glancing up to find him and Death before continuing onward, smelling the flowers as she walked.

Death watched him with her knowing eyes, practically beaming beside him at how obviously and pathetically enthralled he was with the human girl. She held the apple out to him, a smug smile on her face. “Bite?”

“No, thank you.” He replied.

“Hmm. Have you seen any of the others since you’ve been back?”

He shook his head, looking over at her. “Have you?”

“We did have one family dinner when you were away. The twins were in high spirits. Mmm, Desire was anyway.”

“With me gone, I have no doubt.”

“I don’t know. I think Desire missed having their usual sparring partner across the dinner table.”

“Any word of the prodigal?”

Death shook her head sadly. “No. Still missing. You were both missed.”

Dreams' eyes stayed locked onto Penelope as the crowd began to thin. She spoke to the raven beside her, not caring if anyone looked at her oddly, the joy he’d felt in her since this morning hadn’t dwindled at all, not even when she'd asked him to stay out of things. It was always there, buried in whatever else she was feeling. How does she do it? He questioned. She was being hunted like an animal at this very moment. Anyone else would have been terrified, paranoid at every noise or stranger, and yet she was here walking in front of him acting as if nothing was wrong. Death nudged his shoulder. “How are you sis? How have you been keeping? Aww. I’m well, Dream. Thanks for asking.”

He didn’t fight the smile this time, leaning into her and asking, “How are you, my sister? How have you been keeping?”

“I’m worried about my brother,” she answered honestly before perking up and holding out her nearly gone fruit. “And I’m enjoying this apple.”

Penelope’s sigh drew his eyes back to her. She swayed to the sound of the violin playing in the distance, twisting and twirling to the soft melody. He couldn’t help but stare at her, wondering how anyone could be so beautiful. Death pulled him to a stop, looking up at the building. “Can you hear it?”

“I know this piece,” he realized. “I haven’t heard it in two hundred years.”

“Come on,” she whispered, urging him to follow. 

He looked back at Penelope. “Wait here. We won’t be long.”

She jumped up onto the stone wall and smiled. “We’ll be right here, Dream.”

***

I watched him follow Death into the yellow house where the violin had stopped playing and sighed, turning my face up to the sun. Matthew had hopped off my shoulder and settled beside me. “So, this isn’t exactly the human outting I was expecting. But it’s nice. Kind of relaxing, which is weird considering we’re walking with Death literally behind us.”

“She’s sweet,” I assured him, pulling a flower out of my bouquet and setting it on the stone beneath us. “Far more friendly than any of the others I’ve met so far.”

“Was Destiny a dick?” He asked with a chuckle. “Seems like he would be.”

“No,” I answered with a smile. “He was polite, but very cryptic.”

Matthew fluffed his feathers a little and watched the people walk past for a moment before asking, “Are you scared?”

“Scared?”

“Yeah, scared they’re gonna try and grab you at any minute?”

I looked around at the crowd of people and shook my head. “They’re not here.”

“How can you tell?”

Shrugging I watched the faces of smiling people pass and listened to the roar of their conversations. “They’ve been hunting me for eighty years. I’ve gotten pretty good at picking them out of crowds.”

He sighed. “I can’t even imagine what that's like.”

“It’s not all bad,” I said gently. “I just moved around a lot.”

“Yeah, and literally had people try to kidnap you more than once!” 

“You get used to it after a while,” I answered. “It sounds sad, I know, but I did okay after a while. Lived as much as I could moving from town to town. I got to see the world, got to live in places I’d never even heard of.”

Matthew looked up at me. “You’re probably one of the most positive people I’ve ever met. It’s kind of annoying.”

***

As Death and Dream exited the house he felt relieved to find Penelope in the same place he’d left her, for once. Beside him Death smiled. “She’s lovely.”

“I do not deserve her.” It was honest, but he hadn’t meant for it to sound so hopeless.

“Maybe not. But she’s here all the same.” She said, “And from what little time I got with her it’s quite clear she’s not going to just let you disappear.”

He looked over at her, silently surprised that she’d read him that well. “I-”

“You're my brother, Dream. I know you. And I know you’re an idiot, big enough of one to think that abandoning that girl over there was a good idea.”

“She’s lost so much of her life already because of me.” He shook his head. “She doesn’t deserve to lose anything else.”

“What do you think you’ll be doing if you leave her now?” Death asked. “Because the way I see it, you’ll be robbing her not only of any future with you but also her choice in deciding if that’s what she wants.”

Death said nothing else to him, she simply made her way to Penelope and helped her off the wall with a smile. They waited for him to join them, and then they continued on. His sister's words echoed in his mind as they walked across the bridge, leaving Matthew and Penelope behind them. He hadn’t thought of what he would be taking away from her by just removing himself from her life without say or warning. 

From his side she said, “I thought he was sweet, didn’t you?”

He thought of the old man they’d just left. “Sweet? I don’t know. Perhaps. My sister," He’d meant to tell her earlier, but had forgotten in his haste to move. “When I was captured, it wasn’t me they were looking for. It was you.”

Death nodded, a sorrowful smile on her lips. “Yeah, I know.”

He felt the ball of pain in him as the unanswered question exploded. So they had known, had known and did not come to his aid. She used his shoulder to kneel down and take off her boots. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking my shoes off. You should take yours off too. It’s good to touch the Earth with your bare feet. It’s grounding.” She was so odd, in a way that made him wonder how they were related. Grounding? Why would he need grounding? “Come on, I don’t want to miss the next one.”

Looking back at Penelope as she looked out at the water, a look of something in her eyes as she turned to look at him. Before he could even think the thought she’d smiled and waved him off. “I know, Dream.” 

She was insufferable.

***

The water moved and rippled beneath the bridge as I bent over the side to look down at it. Matthew watched me curiously. “So, rumor has it you threw a car off a bridge.”

“I did,” I admitted, resisting the curl of adrenaline that surged through me at the memory of the car falling and the water surrounding me.

“Why?”

“It seemed like my only option at the time,” I said, chuckling. “Though that might’ve been all the sedation drugs I was coming off of.”

Matthew cawed and said, “He’s different than he was when I first met him.”

“Dream?” I asked, looking down at him. 

He gave me a tiny nod. “Yeah, he was all doom and gloom the first few times I interacted with him, I mean he’s still all doom and gloom the majority of the time, but, when he saw you it was different. It actually looked like he gave a shit about something, which was new considering his resting face looks like it does.”

I laughed, my heart fluttering at the thought, before the undeniable weight I felt in my gut returned. “He’s gonna try leaving.”

“What?” The raven demanded. “Why would he do that when he’s so obviously, I don’t know, in love with you?”

“I don’t know if he’s in love with me,” I argued. “Maybe it’s just this, just tension. Once we take that leap it’ll be gone and he’ll want to move on.”

Matthew laughed. “That’s not at all what this is and you know it.”

I focused back on the water. “I just don’t want to be blindsided again.”

“You’re not gonna get blindsided, Penny.” He assured me, tapping my arm with his beak in an attempt at a pat. “He’s not going anywhere.”

***

Dream watched the woman, the new wife of the man his sister had come for, cradle her husband's body in her arms and wail. He’d known that pain, he’d lived with that pain for eighty years. The only difference was that his grief and mourning had been put to an abrupt end by the woman he thought he lost. As he and Death returned to the bridge he felt an uneasy weight in his chest, a realization, as he looked at her. She had mourned him too. When they first reunited she’d told him that she tried to come back to the Burgess house to free him. It had been left unsaid, but obvious that this attempt was what led to her current troubles. Because of him. No. For him.

Penelope was a lot of things, but a victim of circumstance was not one of them. Everything she’d been forced to endure she did so with blood and fire. She could have bent under Rodericks thumb or under the doctor's blade, but instead she burned brighter and fought and raged until the chains that held her broke. She had not chosen to be stuck in the basement with him, to receive the mark that bound them, but she’d chosen every action that followed. And each time her choice was the same. Him. She chose him every day for years, most likely far longer than even he knew. He looked at her and felt her steady heartbeat in his chest, felt the swarm of joy and love that filled her as her eyes found him across the bridge. If he gave her a choice he knew what her answer would be and that scared him. 

Death looked up at him and nudged him forward, and they reunited with the duo just as she’d finished pulling a flower from her bouquet and placing it on the bridge. He nodded towards it. “What are you doing?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, I just felt like leaving a little piece behind.”

Death smiled and rubbed Penelope's shoulder. “That’s sweet.”

“Where to next?” She asked as Matthew settled back on her shoulder. 

Death watched him with a curious gaze as he watched Penelope continue down the new street, not even batting an eye at what they were here for, not questioning any of it. “What?”

“How do you do it?” He questioned. 

“Do what?”

“This. Be there, for her, for all of them.”

She shrugged modestly, as if what she did wasn’t that important. “I have a job to do. And I do it. When the first living thing existed, I was there. When the last living thing dies, I’ll put the chairs on the table, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave. And I’m not there for all of them, there are exceptions. Mad Hettie. Penelope. And then there's your ongoing project. How’s he faring up after all this time?”

“Who? Hob Gadling?” Dream sighed. He hadn’t thought of the man in a long while. “I don’t know. I was forced to miss our last appointment.”

“Well I’m sure he’d love to see you.” She said, “They’re never too keen to see me though.”

He looked at her softly. “Does it not bother you?”

“I actually used to think I had the hardest job in all our family.”

“Oh did you?”

“They fear the Sunless Lands, yet they enter your realm every night without fear.”

He smirked. “And yet I am far more terrible than you.”

She laughed for a moment before a nervous guilt passed over her features. “It was fine in the beginning. Dying and living were new things and people did them with the enthusiasm they always bring to new things. And then after a bit, it just got harder.”

“But you continued.”

“I thought about giving up. Walking out.” She walked into the house as he looked up the road at Penelope. 

“Don’t wander,” He reminded her, noticing she’d gone further than he’d thought.

She turned back around and came walking towards him with a sarcastic salute. “Apologies, Dream Lord Sir!”

He rolled his eyes and followed his sister inside.

***

I sat on the steps of the house Death and Dream walked into a few minutes ago, pulling another flower from the bunch and setting it on the step beside me. “No more questions dear Matthew?”

“You’re kind of an open book to be honest,” he replied from his perch beside me. “Though I am curious as to what your theory is on your whole situation.”

“That’s a very loaded question.”

“Aren’t those the best kind?”

“I guess it depends on who you ask.” I retorted, avoiding the answer.

He looked at me expectantly. “Come on, you have to have some theories.”

Shrugging I sighed. “I mean I did a long time ago, or at least I thought I did, but eventually it all just molded into one very dark theory.”

“Let's hear it.”

“I’m cursed.” I finally said, looking away from him, anywhere else. “It’s kind of the only thing that explains everything. Anything I touch, anything that I get close to gets ripped from the world because of me. It’s why I never… Why no one…”

Matthew was quiet for a while before he said, softly, “I don’t think you’re cursed, Penny.”

“Thank you.”

***

Dream had watched his sister take the child with a heavy heart and thoughts filled with the memories of his own son's loss. He exited the house, Death close behind when they walked into Penelope and Matthews conversation.

“I’m cursed.” She said after what appeared to be a long moment of silence, looking out at the sky. “It’s kind of the only thing that explains everything. Anything I touch, anything that I get close to gets ripped from the world because of me. It’s why I never… Why no one…”

Dream felt her sorrow mingle with his own as Matthew softly replied, “I don’t think you’re cursed, Penny.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was strained, on the verge of tears as Death closed the door loudly.

She stood quickly, not even turning to look at them before she continued forward, moving out of their way. When they all stood together for a moment, to travel to Death’s next appointment she didn’t look at him, just kept her eyes on the ground in front of them, twisting her necklace between her fingers. How long had she thought this? He wondered. How long had she been waiting for him to abandon her as well because of some curse?

In the next location he watched Penelope more closely, watched her leave a flower in the room of the patient across from his sister. She made small talk, laughed alongside the stranger and bid them a gentle farewell when it was time to leave. Her sorrow had lessened when she rejoined them, walking closer and closer to them each time they moved now, but still out of reach.

"You were there that night. The night she should have..." He couldn't even bring himself to say it.

Beside him Death nodded. "Yeah, I was."

"What happened? Why didn't you take her?"

"Because she pulled herself out of that river and breathed." She said simply. "She was alive again."

"How..." He wanted, no needed, to know. "How did she feel about that?"

His sister met his gaze and smiled sadly. "She wanted to come with me. She was one of the first that ever has."

“Could she have?” he asked.

“No. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Will you take her eventually?”

Death shook her head as they walked down the alleyway. “I don’t think so. Something tells me she’s not meant for my lands, not for a long, long while at least.”

Dream looked at Penelope where she stood on the sidewalk by the street as his sister worked beside him. She left a flower on a small ledge of a nearby building with a smile. And when some loud drilling or construction work echoed from a few streets away she covered her ears with her hands, a wave of fear hitting her, and him, like a truck. But, just as he moved to go to her he felt her take deep breaths and heard the soft words that left her lips as she pressed her hand to her chest. “I’m here. I’m alive.” When they rejoined one another she’d calmed down, so much so he wouldn’t have even noticed what had happened if he hadn’t been looking. 

In the field she waited on the path for them, leaving a flower on a nearby bench as she knelt down and played with a group of dogs as they and their owners passed through. She was so bright and full of life, even though only moments ago she was nearly curled in on herself with a residual fear. As they resumed their movements he could only focus on one thing. How resilient she was, had always been from the beginning. No one else would have survived, and they certainly wouldn’t be as she was, not as courageous, not as happy, not as alive.

“It’s funny, looking back now,” Death continued beside him. “I used to think I had to do this all by myself.”

“But you do.”

“No. At the end, I’m there with them. I’m holding their hand and they’re holding mine. I’m not alone when I’m doing my job. And neither are you. Think about it. The only reason we even exist, you and I, and Desire and Despair, the whole family. We’re here to serve them. It isn’t about quests or finding purpose outside our function. Our purpose is our function. We’re here for them. Since I figured that out, I realized I need them as much as they need me. I’ve seen so many cool things and people and worlds. I’ve learned so much. Lots of people don’t have a job they love doing, do they. So, I think I’m really lucky.” 

She said it all with a passion he’d long since forgotten. Dream didn’t even truly remember the last time he enjoyed making his creations. “Listen, I’ve got to head back soon, but before I go I need to say this. That girl is in love with you, Dream. She has been from the start, she was the night I found her by that river. And if you leave her after everything you’ve both been through she will never forgive you. You’ll never forgive yourself and I certainly won’t forgive you. So, just this once, don’t be such an idiot.”

He stepped in front of her and held her hands. “You’ve taught me something I had forgotten. I thank you, my sister.”

She smiled. “Aw. That’s what family’s about, little brother.”

Penelope had stopped off to the side but quickly joined them when Death turned and opened her arms. She embraced her tightly and Dream watched her sink into the hug, soaking in the warmth of his sister's embrace. “Will I see you again?”

Death chuckled. “I don’t know when it comes to you.”

“Then I guess we’ll see,” Penelope replied fondly.

“Goodbye, Penelope. I might be seeing you.”

“Goodbye, Death. I might be seeing you too.”

***

As we walked through a small crowded alley Dream set his hand against my back and led me through the crowd of people. Once we reached a larger area he stood close beside me, his hand occasionally brushing against mine. "I'd like to introduce you to someone. A friend I need to reconnect with."

I opened my mouth in amused surprise. "Friend? That's a big word for you, Dream."

He rolled his eyes, lips twitching to fight the smile. "Will you come with me?"

"Of course," I said, falling into step beside him.

Looking up at him through my lashes I watched his eyes fill with that signature gloss of fondness. "I've not seen him in a long time, he may not be too happy with me."

“Oh?” I nudged him. "What'd you do?"

“What makes you think it was my doing?"

"Because I know you," I said laughing.

"I may have insisted I had no need for his friendship."

I hummed. "You know, you're kind of an ass, but I'm sure your friend will let it slide."

That soft smile finally graced his lips. "How very optimistic of you."

"Well one of us has to be."

Dream and I walked a ways before a familiar old tavern came into view. Beside me Dream looked sad, his eyes staring at the old building as if it had meant something more to him than I understood. I stayed quietly beside him, letting him work through the emotions I could feel bubbling against whatever barrier he'd kept between us, something I hated more and more with each passing minute. It felt wrong, not feeling what he did, even more so being able to feel something, but not all of it. Finally I said, "I came here once before it closed."

"You did?" He asked softly.

I nodded, leaning against him a bit. "Yeah, the place was an absolute shit hole, in the most endearing way of course."

"You should have seen it when Death first dragged me here." He chuckled a little. "They had livestock inside with the food and drinks. Absolutely abhorrent."

Looking up at him I smiled. "Don't lie, you loved it."

"I did not," he insisted. "But I suppose I did grow fond of it over the years. More so the friend I made here."

"Were you supposed to meet him here?"

"I was, a long time ago."

I pointed to the red graffiti. "Maybe he went to the new one?"

Dream sighed, turning and following the red that lined the fence. I didn’t need the bond to feel the nervousness rolling off of him. Did he and his friend leave things so horribly between them that he felt afraid they weren’t waiting for him? I leaned into him a little more, offering up a reassuring smile. Just around the corner, across a small section of tall grass was a beautiful brick building with white trim labeled The New Inn. Small tables with green umbrellas shielding them lined the patio as Dream and I entered.

Inside was decorated with old pale blue wallpaper and dark trim, blue curtains lined the large windows and antique looking tables lined the wall across from the bar. It was busy, but not so much that we couldn’t move through the space. I pulled away from Dreams' side. “Go look for your friend, I’ll hang out at the bar for a minute so you two can catch up.”

“You do not need to-”

“Go, Dream,” I prompted with a smile. “Unless you want me there for your grand apology.”

He nodded, moving through the space and around the corner, out of view. When he disappeared from my line of sight the ache slowly began to build again and I found myself worrying that if I followed he would be gone. God I was pathetic. If he was going to leave, why would he invite me to meet his friend with him? If he was going to leave, why would he still be around at all? I sighed, leaning against the bar counter, my eyes finding his black clad figure as he stood beside one of the tables, with his friend I assumed.

“Can I get you anything?” The bartender asked with a comforting smile.

I smiled back, recalling the man I’d met at the old tavern. “What’s the oldest whisky you have?”

***

Dream looked down at Hob Gadling with a smile, one Hob returned with a chuckle. “You’re late.”

“It seems I owe you an apology. I’ve always heard it impolite to keep one's friends waiting.” The man's smile widened and he nodded to the seat across from him, which Dream took with a lightened heart. He was so sure that Hob would be angry at him, yet the man simply seemed happy to see him.

The two spoke for a while about what Hob had been doing in Dream's absence, but then something at the bar caught his friend's eye and he smiled even wider. “How many more immortals do you have running around?”

“They’re not my immortals,” Dream said simply. He supposed now was as good a time as any to explain a few details to the man.

Hob nodded to the bar. “See that knockout of a woman over there?”

Dream turned, his eyes immediately finding Penelope sitting at the bar, making polite conversation with the man behind the counter as she swirled a glass of whatever drink she’d ordered. He turned back to Hob with wide eyes. “Do you know her?”

“I met her at the old tavern, waiting for you actually.” Hob said with a chuckle. “She has not aged a day! So, I assume she's one of yours then?”

He was surprised to say the least. First Penelope had met his sister, then his brother, potentially his mother and now she'd apparently met Hob Gadling. He looked back at her, just as she rose from her seat to come find him. The warmth of her smile almost made him miss the fear that was twisted in her gut. He wanted to inquire about it, but as her eyes slid to the man he sat with and her smile grew he had to push the thought away. She pointed to him, squinting a little. "Hob?"

He laughed, standing and embracing her. "Strange Penelope. I should've known you were one of his immortals."

"I should have known you were! You're so obvious about it with all those age jokes!"

Dream watched Hob take his seat, trying his best to ignore the way his eyes lingered on Penelope as she pulled a chair up beside him and sat down. She looked at him and nodded to Hob. "So, this degenerate is your friend?"

"Yes, yours as well it appears."

She shrugged. "I wouldn't say friends. We met once, drank a little and then I never saw him again."

Hob scoffed. "That's about the same thing he and I do every hundred years. I don't even know his name!"

Penelope turned to him with wide shocked eyes. "You haven't told him your name? How long have you been meeting?"

"A very long time."

"Are you serious?!"

Dream sighed. These two were going to be absolutely unbearable together.

***

My stranger, Hob, was my Dream Lords best friend. God it was funny. So funny I had to physically restrain myself from laughing multiple times as the two interacted. Dream told Hob his name and explained a few little details and I watched poor immortal Hob Gadling eat the words up with glee.

Once he'd had his fill of Dreams answers he turned to me and smiled. "So, how long have you been around?"

"A hundred years. Well a hundred and twelve years."

He smiled and shook his head. "You're just a newbie then, aren't you?"

"A hundred and twelve is hardly new!" I argued.

Hob shrugged. "Have you ever killed anyone?"

I tensed. "Why?"

"Well, as an immortal myself it's kind of a staple of the experience."

Trying not to think about just how many that actually was I nodded, my fingers curling into my glass. "Yes."

"How many?" He asked, leaning forward with a smile. Hob was curious, rightful so, I was the first immortal he'd met.

"A lot."

He hummed. "What was the first one? How'd you do it?"

"My father." I answered stiffly. "I tore his throat open with my teeth."

Hob made a face. "Well, I've never done that before."

"I don't recommend it," I took a drink of my whisky. "Takes weeks to get the taste out."

"Oh I can imagine!" He said. "Now, what's the worst way you should've died? Mines a tie between starvation, thrilling I know, and hanging! Interesting story that-"

My eyes were glued to the amber liquid in my glass as I thought about all the ways I should have died. There were so many… All under the pale eyes of that damn fucking doctor. Dreams hand wrapped around my thigh, his thumb drawing tiny circles into the skin. "You're here, with me."

I smiled at him, putting my hand on top of his, the memories fading away the more I looked into his eyes. Hob continued on describing his most noteworthy deaths, but he didn't ask me about it again. As the sun began to set Dream and Hob began reminiscing on the old days.

"Do you remember what the place looked like at the beginning?" Hob asked, laughing. "It was god awful!"

"Yes," Dream agreed. "I believe the livestock was partly to blame for that."

"Livestock," Hob shook his head looking around. "It's crazy how far humanity has come since then."

"How did the old tavern end up closing?" Dream wondered.

His friend shrugged. "Some people wanted to turn it into an apartment or something. Project fell through a little while after I found this place. I do miss it though."

"Why don't you two go back and look at the place?" I asked. "It's just around the corner."

Hob gave me an odd look. "It's locked up though."

"Hob Gadling, are you telling me you've never broken into a building before?" I laughed.

"I've never really needed to before," he mumbled.

Turning to Dream I said with a smirk. "I know for a fact you've broken into plenty of places. Fancy a walk down memory lane?"

He smiled a little. "I'm not opposed to the idea."

"Good! Because I want to hear all about you two idiots over the years!" I stood, nodding at the men to follow.

The gate was easy, so easy Dream hadn’t even gotten to offer his assistance before it slid open. The two looked around, pointing out things that had changed before we even stepped inside the musty space. Dust coated all the leftover furniture and the remaining sunlight that peaked in through the busted windows made the space feel even more like some far off memory. I stood at the bar, in the same spot I had been sitting the night Hob wandered over and smiled. What were the chances of us meeting? What were the odds of it being on the day he was waiting for the same Sandman that I, in one way or another, also waited on?

Hob settled in beside me, smirking at the fond memory. “Still the prettiest girl in the place.”

“It’s good to see your moves haven’t gotten any better,” I replied as Dream looked around the space.

“And what about your moves?” Hob asked with a wicked gleam in his eyes. "Strange Penelope,  what ever happened to the bloke you were getting hot and heavy with that night?"

I nearly choked and sent him a look, heat rising to my cheeks as Dream's gaze fell on me."You noticed that?"

"Oh I think everyone noticed that."

"Well, I wouldn't know what happened to him. I never saw him again."

"A one night stand, how scandalous!" Hob sang.

I groaned and shook my head. "No, we kissed a little and I left."

"Was he that bad?" 

I shrugged, eyes gluing to the floor. "It wasn't him. I just... Couldn't get someone else out of my head."

When I looked up and met Dreams gaze it was dark and hot as pride and tingle of something else twisted between us. I took in his posture, the way his jaw had tensed, the way his hands had curled into themselves. Was he jealous? Before I could ask, Hob turned to him. “So, you’ve got some kind of… Magic, right?”

“I do,” he answered coolly. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I was just thinking the best way to give Penelope a taste of what things were like in the old days would be, well, through some kind of magic.” He answered. “Can you turn back time or something?”

Dream scoffed. “I am not a magician Hob Gadling.”

“Well what can you do?” He inquired.

He looked at me for a long moment before nodding. “I can cast a simple illusion. It should suffice for your purposes.”

Hob nodded with a wide grin. “Alright then, let's give the girl a proper tour!”

Dream waved his hand and the room around us filled with smoke and livestock and people from long ago. I looked around at them, listened to the near incoherent conversations they had before turning and looking at Hob, who was now dressed head to toe in rags. Suppressing a laugh I nodded. “This was the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“Oh shut it,” he scolded. “This was what everyone wore back then. I get better!”

“When was this?””

“1389,” Dream replied from behind us.

When I turned to look at him I was taken aback at the sight. His hair was longer, brushing against his shoulders. The black tunic he wore had long intricate sleeves that flared away from his wrists in a dramatic fashion and his ruby hung around his neck. I nodded at him. “Not bad, Dream.”

“Oh come on he looks as ridiculous as I do!” Hob argued before he scoffed. “You know what just take us to the next year!”

Dream merely smirked as he waved his hand again, the illusion around us shifting. The smoke cleared and things had gotten a little cleaner. The people's clothes changed as they shifted through the space. Hob was still dressed poorly, but less so than he had been. His hair was cut shorter and combed through and his brown attire looked at least somewhat cleaner and finer made. I pointed to his hair. “At least you improved a little.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ha ha, let's all make fun of the dirty little peasant!”

My eyes slid over to Dream. His hair was also shorter, framing his face similar to the first one. His black attire was slimmer, better fit to his body, the long cloak flared behind him in a very Dream way as he moved through the space, inspecting the fireplace by the table in the corner. “It’s a bit simple for you.”

He chuckled. “Simple?”

“Yeah, your usual style has a bit more flare to it. Fancy boots, your little midnight coat, you know Dream things.”

Hob looked at the fireplace with Dream and laughed. “I can’t believe I was going on about chimneys and card games.”

Dreams eyes slid away from me, a dangerous glint in them leaving me wondering what trick he had up his sleeve. “Indeed, it was quite riveting to listen to.”

“1589 then?”

With a nod Dream did his magic and the space lit up with the warmth of the fires. Everyone was dressed finely, making conversation and Hob had changed the most. He was dressed head to toe in an elaborate silk tunic adorned with blue designs and frilled cuffs. His hair was pulled back and his face framed with a goatee. He held his arms out nodding enthusiastically. “It’s good right?”

I nodded back, running a hand over the fine fabric of his shoulder. “An improvement for sure, Hob.”

“Ah, no then I was known as Sir Robert Gadling!” He proclaimed proudly.

I leaned back against the table and laughed at him. “Sir, what did a degenerate like you do to get such a fine title?” 

He leaned in and whispered, “I don’t actually remember.”

Just as I was about to ask where Dream had gone he walked around the corner and my heart stopped, mouth falling open slightly with a breathless, “Oh shit.”

He was dressed head to toe in glossy black leather. His hair was slicked back, revealing the glint of an earring. God this is not fair. I bit my lip, eyes focusing on the ruby that reflected in the candlelight as he walked leisurely towards me, each step echoing through the space. I was blushing, I just knew I was. Hob had moved to look at something across the room and I had never been more thankful for his absence as Dream stood, dark eyes looking down at me.

 “Well, what is your verdict, my lady?” He inquired, tilting his head a little, flashing his neck. 

“It’s…” My voice was hoarse. “It’s a good look.”

His brow arched and he smirked down at me. “Good?”

A shiver ran down my spine and straight to my core. God damn you and that fucking voice. His smirk grew and he closed the little space that was between us. I tried to keep my thoughts from straying, but as soon as my hands touched the soft leather of his chest, in an attempt to steady myself, the filthy image filled my mind and if the unbearably hungry look in his eyes meant anything his too. It was a simple little fantasy. Dream, dressed in this newfound leather attire, throwing me on top of the table and fucking me relentlessly in the tavern full of people.

His lust smoldered between us as he took in the new information. “Is that how you think it would go?”

“Am I wrong?” I asked, straining to keep my eyes on his and not on his lips. 

“Perhaps we’ll have to test that active imagination of yours,” he whispered, lips moving closer to mine. “Later.”

Then he pulled away from me entirely and it was like a bucket of ice water had been dumped on me. Hob rejoined us, asking to continue through the fun, while I glared at Dream. You’re an asshole. 

The next hundred years Hob had lost everything, dressed back down to rags and disheveled hair. Dream however was dressed elegantly in black, long hair cascading down his shoulders. I glared at him as Hob looked down at himself and complained. I should pull your dumb long hair. He merely chuckled at me and we moved forward.

A hundred years later and both of them were dressed in high collars and well adorned outfits. They looked good, but I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of their hair curled and prim and proper. Hob rolled his eyes. “You have no idea what fashion was back then!”

“I don’t,” I said between laughs. “But my god your hair!”

A flash of gold entered the illusion and I turned with wide eyes staring at Johanna. Dream hummed. “Ah, I’d almost forgotten about this.”

“Is Johanna immortal too?” I asked looking at the image of the woman in front of me. 

“No,” Dream assured me. “This is her ancestor. Though the resemblance is uncanny.”

“She would absolutely hate this,” I said with a smile at the thought of her disgusted face looking at the poofy dress.

I saw Dream’s 1889 look first this time. A simple black overcoat, short hair slicked back underneath a long top hat. He quickly took them both off, revealing a form fitting black shirt with his ruby around his neck. He looked good, and he knew it, but I refused to give him the satisfaction after his rude teasing. So I turned to Hob, who was dressed in simple gray and white with nicely styled hair. “Looking good Hob!”

He beamed at me. “I told you I got better.”

I ran my hands down his shoulders and smiled back at Dream. “Don’t you think this is a good look for him?”

Dream glared at Hob, then at me and sighed. “It looks fine.”

Eventually, the sun set and Hob retired for the evening, but not without making Dream promise to return soon… before the next hundred years, to make up for missing their last meeting. Then it was just he and I, walking along the mostly empty streets. “So, it looks like I know your friend.”

“Yes,” he said. “I was not expecting that.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

With a quiet sigh he looked at me and smiled. “Would you come with me back to The Dreaming?”

Warmth filled my chest and I turned into him. “Of course. But I need to grab a few things from my apartment first, and tell Johanna.”

He nodded in agreement, using his sand to take us to my room. I packed a small bag of clothes, knowing full well I intended on staying as long as he’d let me, before I left in search of Johanna. Dream waited in the doorway as I searched the living room. “Jo?”

“In there,” she said from the office. She was knee deep in a box of crosses, grumbling to herself as she tried to fish out a particular one. When she saw me she smiled. “Have a good time with your man?”

I rolled my eyes, moving through the mess to grab the bag of trinkets from my desk drawer. I’d wanted to show Dream some of the things Jessamy had found, but with the insanity of his arrival and everything that followed there hadn’t been time. “Shut it. I’m going with him for a few days, I hope. Will you and Pierre be alright here?”

She nodded. “Absolutely. He’s annoying as fuck, but the french man is very good at handeling himself. And I’m, well, I’m me so no worries there.”

“Be safe, and please don’t kill him while I’m gone,” I said, giving her a one armed hug over her mess. “I want to be there for the show.”

She laughed, but looked in my eyes with a seriousness unlike her. “You seem off. Everything okay?”

I sighed. “I’m about to find out.”

“If we need to kill him, let me know, I’ve got some people that might know a trick or two.”

“Goodnight, Johanna.”

As I made my way out the door she hollared back, “And if you fuck him I’m going to want the details!”

I laughed all the way back to my room and smiled at Dream when he gave me a curious look. “All set to travel, Dream.”

He set a hand on my back and I curled into his stiff body. Something was still on his mind, but I couldn’t tell what, so I elected to ignore it… I’d wait for him to bring it up, or at least until I couldn’t wait any longer. 

The sand took us somewhere different this time, the boards of the pier creaked and groaned with the soft gentle movements of the water. As far as the eye could see there was nothing but the deep sapphire and the reflection of the misty star filled skies. The air smelled like rain as a light breeze surrounded us, making me curl deeper into Dreams embrace. For a moment we stood in the silence, content to just exist, but then Dream cleared his throat and stepped away. He pulled the bag of Jessamys ashes out of his coat and smiled down at me. "She would have wanted us to do this together."

I nodded, holding my hands out and letting him pour half of the ashes in my palms before he poured the rest in his. Together we slowly let the ashes spread in the light breeze and the glistening waters below us. "Goodbye, old friend."

"May you finally be at peace," I whispered.

The silence that had once been comforting was now filled with uncertainty as I felt my gut twist the longer we stood. "Morpheus."

"Yes?"

"Are you going to leave?" I watched the water, afraid to look away.

He sighed, hands clasped behind him. "I thought about it."

There it was. The answer I didn't want to hear. Stinging pain, echoes of the countless abandonments and betrayals over the years filled me. Tears threatened to spill over as I said, "I would understand if you did." He hadn't been expecting this, his eyes looking down at me. "I can't imagine what it must be like, being thrown into the mess of my life."

"That's not at all why I'd been considering it, Penelope." He turned to me, his hand settling on my arm. "Look at me, please."

I did so with my jaw clenched. "Then why?"

His eyes looked even brighter here as he looked down at me. "I don't deserve you."

I laughed a little, tears rolling down my cheeks. "If you don't then no one does. You're not perfect, Dream, I’m not expecting that of you. I’m not perfect either."

"You are far better than I am."

"Maybe, or maybe both of us are imperfect." I pulled him down by his cheeks, pressing my head to his. "Have we not given enough? Do we not deserve even the chance at happiness?"

He closed his eyes, sinking into my hands. "You do deserve that."

"So do you. You are my chance at happiness you idiot," I breathed. "You always have been... You always will be."

His hands cupped my face as he pulled away enough to look down at me. "I am far from what you deserve, but so long as you want me I will always be yours, Penelope Barlow."

“I meant what I said the other night. I want all of you, Morpheus."

“I’m beginning to see that.” His eyes softened as he pressed a gentle kiss to my lips. My hands slid into his hair as the kiss deepened, quickly filling with the heat and pent up need we’d both been keeping reigned in since Hell, maybe since long before. I felt one of his hands leave my hair and then a slight tingle rushed over my skin and when I pulled away we were in his bedroom.

His eyes watched me take in the change of scenery, the depth of their want barely contained as I smiled. “That’s a very impressive trick, my lord. Do you have any others?”

"I have plenty of tricks," he said, pulling me back to him.

"Will I get to see them?" I asked breathlessly.

"Maybe a few." Heat ripped through me. "Now," he whispered, breath fanning across my face. "Where were we last night?"

"I'm pretty sure I was on top of something." I mused, pretending it was difficult to remember. I felt the hard wood behind me as Dream lifted me up onto the top of the replica of my desk. "I was wearing a dress and you'd just torn one of my favorite pairs of panties." The slight wave of his fingers sent a chill up my spine as my clothes shifted to a silk dress, not unlike the one I was in last night, soft and cool against my bare skin, already bunched up above my thighs.

"Anything else?" His voice was low and rough.

Fisting his coat in my hands I pulled him closer. "Just you."

He gripped my legs tightly as our lips connected. Soft hands dragged up my thighs, moving beneath each of them to drag me further down the desk and into him. I groaned at the feeling of his hard cock straining against his pants. My hands slid under his coat, pushing it off his shoulders greedily as Morpheus' hands moved again, under my dress to pull my thighs apart as wide as he could. 

I gasped at the sudden chill of my exposed ass on the bare wood as he shoved the dress up higher, holding it in a tight grip in one hand while the other gathered the slick from my soaking folds and lifted them to his lips. I watched his tongue curl around his fingers with a needy whine. "Are you going to show me what your mouth can do when you're not pouting?"

He chuckled, returning his fingers to my core, circling around my clit torturously slowly and drawing out a strangled moan from my chest as I held onto his arms for dear life. "Next time."

"God, Morpheus," I gasped as his fingers pushed into me.

"You're so beautiful like this," he mumbled against my skin as he buried his face in my neck. He pressed soft kisses to the faded bruise left by the white coats, soothing over the skin with his tongue before biting and sucking new marks along my collarbones. "Falling apart already and we've only just started."

His pace quickened and my hips moved against his fingers. I gasped, the coil that had formed in my gut tightening every second. "You…" Another gasp as his fingers found the deliciously sensitive spot. "Ah, you… Make falling apart easy."

"Show me, my lady," he whispered as my fingers gripped his hair, tugging roughly at the roots.

His voice alone was enough to send me over the edge with a loud breathless moan. His fingers coaxed me through the orgasm, and slowly began building me up to a second before they stopped. I gripped him tighter, whimpering as he pulled away from my aching cunt. "Morpheus, please!"

With a chuckle he grabbed me by my thighs, and lifted me off the desk. "As much fun as that position is, I'd prefer take you on the bed this time."

The chilled silk sheets caressed every inch of me, now completely exposed before the Dream Lord. I scoffed up at him. "That's hardly fair."

"Maybe not," he admitted, eyes running over every inch of me, drinking in the sight with lust.

"Are you going to relieve yourself of your clothes as well, my lord?" I asked.

"I want your hands on me," he rasped. "If you'd like to do the honors."

I moved to sit up, running my hands up the sides of his things, under the black shirt he wore. Our eyes stayed locked as I relieved him of his shirt, pressing light kisses along his abdomen and working on his pants. When he was at last standing in front of me just as bare as I was I bit my bottom lip to keep in the groan. My eyes ran over the defined lines of his muscles, the memories I had of his naked body did not do him justice. Wrapping my hand around his hard dick I looked up at him, watching his eyes roll back and his mouth fall open slightly. "God you're pretty."

"Enough teasing," he gasped, wrapping a hand around my wrist to stop me. "Tonight, I will worship you."

"Worship can go both ways," I reminded.

Dream smiled, stroking my jaw. "You may worship me all you wish, later."

"Later," I whined as he gently pushed me back onto the bed. "I'm starting to think you like that word too much."

"I like you a great deal more," he whispered, kissing the scar along my thigh. He moved to the next scar, my knee and then the next, my hip. Every scar I had received his attention and every inch of skin between them was worshiped with kisses, bites and hickeys until he finally reached my collarbone. 

"Morpheus," I heaved, every inch of my skin burning with the adoration he poured down the bond. "You said no teasing."

He sighed against my skin, his head moving toward my breasts. "My apologies, my love. Let me make it up to you."

When his tongue darted out and swirled around my hardened nipple I nearly choked on the moan. He continued the same attention to the other, seemingly attempting to draw out as many noises from me as he could and I was in no position to deny him. Every touch felt like fire, fueling the coil in my core until I couldn't take it anymore. "Morpheus, please!"

Smiling against my skin, his teeth grazed my nipple one last time, tugging on it lightly before he moved to press a searing kiss to my lips. "What do you want, my lady?"

"You!" I whined breathlessly. "Please."

Without another word his eyes locked onto mine as he lined his leaking tip with my entrance. My nails dug into his arms as he slowly pushed into me. Head thrown back against the silk I gasped beneath him and his hand beside my head fisted in the sheets. "Oh my god!"

A strained chuckle vibrated through him. "Not quite a god-"

"Endless," I said, a moan interrupting me as his hips finally came flush with mine. "I know, I know just shut up and fuck me."

Dream took my words to heart, his free hand gripping my hip tightly as he pulled back, almost pulling out of me entirely before thrusting forward. Oh god! My hands found purchase in his hair, tugging tightly and earning a moan from him as he continued setting a brutal pace. "I've thought of little else since our reunion," his voice in my head was too much as I writhed beneath him, the sounds spilling from my lips were absolutely unhinged. "Yet, in all my fantasies I could never have imagined just how wrong I would be. You are far more exquisite than I could ever imagine."

"Morpheus!" He looked down at me, his breath fanning across my face as he began thrusting harder, lifting my leg over his arm to push even deeper inside me.

"Keep making those sounds for me," he ordered.

I moved my hips against his, panting and scratching at him, blinding pleasure building even faster in me as his dick hit just the right spot. "There…" I breathed, pressing my lips to his in a sloppy, desperate, needy kiss. "Don't you dare stop."

He bit my bottom lip, tugging it between his teeth as he moved even faster, both hands on my hips, lifting me slightly up off the bed and pushing me down against him to match his pace. "Come for me, Penelope," he urged.

The coil wound tighter and tighter and then he moved his fingers to my clit, circling it quickly to match his thrusts. I came beneath him, my toes curling and head thrown back with a cry so loud I was certain at least half The Dreaming heard. He didn't slow, his thrusts growing faster and more erratic as he chased his own pleasure. With a few final movements he came, hands gripping me tightly as we both heaved against one another, sweaty and satisfied. Between us a steady hum of love and adoration flowed.

Morpheus gazed down at me for a moment before he pressed his forehead to mine. "I love you."

I smiled and breathed out a content sigh. "I love you too, Morpheus."

"We should have done this from the start," he said, rolling to the side, still holding me in his arms.

"Absolutely," I agreed. "But, the wait was worth it."

His smile was more beautiful than the stars. His fingers caressed over my back, lovingly tracing the scar up my shoulder. "You are so beautiful."

"As are you," I whispered back, my body melting into him. "So, do Endless dream kings sleep?"

"I can sleep," he said, waving his hand, encasing both of us in the silky blankets.

"Will you sleep with me then?"

"There is nothing I want more, my love."

***

When I woke the next morning the feel of his cold smooth skin beneath my palm sent a wave of happiness through me. He'd stayed. I moved, my cheek rubbing against his bare chest and his arm wound around me a little tighter. "Good morning." God his voice was even sexier now.

Looking up at him, bathed in the gorgeous light of the rising sun I smiled. "Good morning."

His fingers ran through my hair, scratching lightly at my scalp as I lifted myself a little to press a kiss to his jaw. "I trust you slept well."

"Better than I ever have," I said, burying my face into the crook of his neck. "Though I should have expected as much with the king of dreams in bed with me."

His lips pressed into my hair. “I’ve been meaning to ask, what was that bag you brought?”

Oh! I sat up quickly, reaching over to where my bag lay beside his bed. Magic is the best. I could feel his eyes roaming down my naked body as I fished the smaller bag out and set it on the bed. “Ta da!”

“It would certainly be more impressive if I could see what's in it.”

He sat up and then it was my turn to admire his naked body. I hummed, looking at him before leaning to press a kiss to his shoulder as he settled in beside me, pulling the bag open to reveal the shiny treasures within. “It’s mostly junk. But I wanted to bring it so you could see some of the things Jessamy found.”

Goosebumps rose on my skin at the coldness of the air, so Dream stroked a hand down my back and pulled me in for a kiss as a pair of the clothes I’d brought magically appeared on my body. When I pulled away I grumbled in disappointment at the sight of him also redressed, he only smiled. “There will be time for that again later.”

“Later again,” I groaned. “Fine, but it better be good, great king.”

“Was last night not?”

“That was perfect,” I assured him. “I’m just saying you owe me some mind blowing sex for robbing me of your naked beauty.”

“I could use the same argument for you.”

“Please do,” I encouraged with a wicked grin. “I have plenty of mind blowing ideas.”

He began sifting through the bag, looking at each small trinket with bright eyes and a smile. I told him the story behind all of them, moving so I was between his legs and leaning back against his chest.

When he pulled the old wired ring out I sighed. “This was one of the last things she brought me.”

“I know,” he said. “I sent her to get it.”

“What?” I turned, looking back at him with furrowed brows.

“You were crying,” he said softly, running his fingers along the stone. “She told me it was because you were worried for me. So, I sent her to find it.”

I looked down at the beautiful opalescent moonstone. “Is it from The Dreaming?”

“No,” he replied. “I told her to find a moonstone that she liked. Where she found this particular one I’m not sure.”

“Why a moonstone?”

With a small shrug he smiled at me. “Sometimes when you’d look up at me from that basement floor your eyes would catch the light and shine like these stones do. I figured it was as good a gesture as I could offer at the time.”

My heart filled with joy as I curled back into him, kissing his neck and jaw before pressing a longer one to his lips. “It’s perfect.”

“Well, not yet, it's not.” He curled his fingers around the ring and when he reopened it the beautiful stone was set in a dark, intricate band that shimmered and shined with starlight everytime the light hit it. “There, now it is perfect.”

“Morpheus,” I gasped. “It’s beautiful.”

He slid the ring onto my finger and kissed my knuckles. “I’ve enchanted the stone as well. If you ever need me, just invoke my name and I shall find you, wherever you are.”

“Probably a useful trick to have, all things considered,” I said, stroking his cheek.

“That reminds me, Lucienne requested my presence in the library. She wishes to go over a few things she’s found that might explain your disappearing act.”

I kissed him, intending for it to be short, but he cupped the back of my head and pulled me into him. The easy, soft kiss made every inch of me tingle with a gleeful happiness that was alien to me. It felt like I was finally where I belonged. He sighed against my lips when he pulled away, his thoughts swimming with my own. I lightly pushed against his chest. “Go, before we get lost in all those filthy thoughts of yours.”

“As if yours are much cleaner,” he teased.

Blushing, I shrugged. “Can you blame me? You’re far too good looking for clean thoughts.”

“Go back to sleep, it’s still early for human standards. I’ll be back as quickly as I’m able and we can continue this discussion.” He kissed my head and made his way out the door, sparing me one last glance before he closed it after him.

I smiled as I lay back on the bed, running my finger over the new shimmering ring on my finger. My eyes closed and I breathed in the absolute perfection of the atmosphere. When I opened my eyes next, everything was too bright. Lines of colors flared in my vision no matter where I looked and my head swarmed with a blinding pain. I grabbed my head, my hands digging into it tightly as everything began to twist and pull around me.

I stood, falling to my knees immediately and gasping for air as the pain began to lessen and my hands slammed down onto the glossy red floor.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

"Come now, Petal, we don't have all day." A familiar voice purred as my vision started to return to normal. With a groan I looked up at the figure clad in black standing before me. Gold eyes and red lips twisted into that wide grin. "There she is, our baby Weaver."

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#dream of the endless x reader #the sandman series #dream of the endless #dream of the endless imagine #dream the endless #morpheus imagine #sandman netflix #sandman morpheus #the sandman fanfic #dream imagine #dream sandman #dream smut #king of dreams #lord of dreams #sandman dream #morpheus smut #morpheus x oc #morpheus imagines

[sapphic-agent]

You know, the narrative plus the fandom sure loves to single out Izu in any way possible. The last ask was about Shig and how his "I want afo" makes no sense.

Can I say what else makes no sense? What was Shig's plan for Overhaul?

"Kill him" yeah sure but that is a goal and technically ...he didnt kill Overhaul.

Not saying Shig should have broke the fouth and said "hey reader here my plan" but like what was the plan?

1) did Shig knew about the raid before happening? Aoyama couldn't know as Izu kept tight lips as the others

2) and even if he knew...so what? The place is crowed with heroes. He could have been captured or LoV could have too.

3) whatever the initial plan was ...it was gone. Thanks to Izu...Shig menages to enact revenge thanks to Izu...

On the third part is what calls my attention bc while Shig stans praise this scene as Shig being a badass villain...I don't think this would have happened without Izu and no credit or aknowldge is give to him.

"You want people to assiciate murder to izu?" No. But Shig is fairly smart and I would like him to understand "oh yes if it wasnt for Izu...I wouldnt have got it" that could help his character a lot. Hell, why not estabilish a connection with Izu? They do have tons of paralels (fandom chose to ignore or downplays it)

Fandom and narrative seems to ignore Izu's pain and contribution in the story.

Shig has cool scenes sure but no depth. Nothing.

On the other side of the coin, Izu has so few cool scenes. He is the mc. Where is the power up? Where is the mentor? Where are the villains reconizing Izu is a big deal? Where are the friends?

Mt kaachan academy.

Anyway. To conclude: Izu and Shig team up accidentally and its still miles and miles and miles away better than bk and Izu teaming up. Think that for a moment, the villain can work better with Izu(even if accidentally) than bk who is stuck and leeching on Izu's narrative.

You bring up some valid points, and it's clear that the narrative and fandom can be quite dismissive of Izuku. Shigaraki's plan for Overhaul is indeed a bit enigmatic, and I've wondered about that myself.

It's true that the goal was to "kill him," but as you pointed out, Shigaraki didn't actually succeed in doing so. The lack of detailed information about the plan is something that's been on my mind too. The questions you raise about whether Shigaraki knew about the raid in advance and the risks involved are important. Izuku's role in disrupting the plan and enabling Shigaraki's revenge is noteworthy, and it often seems to go underappreciated.

I don't think it's about associating murder with Izuku, but rather, recognizing that Shigaraki's success can be attributed, in part, to Izuku's involvement. The two of them are parallels and two sides of the same coin so it's interesting that their actions are so opposite yet end up coinciding. It would have been nice to see more of this.

Your point about the narrative sidelining Izuku and his contributions is a valid one. Obviously, it's one of my biggest gripes with the series.

Shigaraki does have a lot of great moments in the series, but he ends up coming off as shallow a lot of the time. it's like Hori is scared to go all the way with him.

I agree, Izuku's character could use recognition from the villains. Missed opportunity to have villains (maybe not the LOV, but someone) try to convince him that he deserves retribution for what society put him through. I still stand by that it's weird that Bakugou was the one kidnapped. He might have anger issues, but he's the kind of arrogant, entitled hero that the LOV should hate.

In the end, the accidental team-up between Izuku and Shigaraki does offer an interesting dynamic, and I can see how it can be more engaging than the dynamic with Bakugou. It's all part of the complex web of character interactions in MHA.

#mha critical #bnha critical #shigaraki critical #izuku midoriya critical #i guess #ask

[demonscantgothere]

I don't know if you've already talked about this. An interesting moment indicating the feelings of Galadriel. When she already knows that he is Sauron and he gives her the dagger. She doesn't even try to kill him. She simply puts the dagger to his throat (and so carefully so as not to cut him in any way), and then simply removes the dagger. And this is the same elf who has been chasing Sauron for thousands of years and longing to kill him. But now she cannot kill him and just stands and cries in that scene. Now it is clear why later the powerful queen of the elves helped in the victory over Sauron only with the gift of a flashlight to Frodo. And nothing else. She cannot kill him, although she understands that it is necessary.

And the question is, did Sauron hope that she would change her mind? And what did he think of her during the main trilogy (in your opinion)? Did he still have feelings for her? P.S. Sorry for my English.

Your English is perfectly fine, anon! She's in love with him already. That's why. That's why she couldn't do it. She already grew too close to him. The main writer for that episode, Gennifer Hutchison, said this:

So it was really about tracking his journey, what he says, his relationship with Galadriel, so it all feels consistent across both storylines, and then just building to that final confrontation and making sure that they're in this place where their friendship and their relationship is so solid and intimate that it blows the world apart for her at the end.

She clarifies next that she meant emotional intimacy:

That's so funny! [laughs] I meant emotionally intimate …

And finally, offers up this gem as well:

No, it was not meant to be an overtly romantic relationship. It was meant to be this sort of meeting of the minds and this deep friendship. But of course, we knew that there would be shipping. It's fandom. There always is, no matter what. And I [in] particular, because I'm a big person in fan culture myself, I [in] particular was calling out and talking about that in the room. The guys were like, "No." And I'm like, "Just wait, Just wait." [laughs]

. . . So, the main writer for that episode, really just told us that "it was not meant to be an overtly romantic relationship. It was meant to be this sort of meeting of the minds and this deep friendship," and that Sauron and Galadriel "they're in this place where their friendship and their relationship is so solid and intimate," and finally, that Sauron and Galadriel's relationship is "emotionally intimate."

That's a lot of emotional intimacy she kept talking about, over and over again, which honestly? Means way more than anything physical. Galadriel couldn't bring herself to try and stab him until he egged her on because, by then, she was warring with herself over everything she felt for him versus everything he has done in his past, both against her family and other innocent lives. Until he verbally berated her, she didn't try to hurt him.

Sauron attempted during the trilogy to reach past the vast distance between them to get into Galadriel's mind and head, like force his way in. Which tells me by then he was just purely obsessed and so messed up from it, he didn't care how he got through to her, even if it was by force. I don't think it was love anymore by that point. By then, he didn't care about changing her mind. I think he just wanted to wholly dominate her, regardless of where her mind was. He wanted in.

Like, truly? Everything they've written for Sauron and Galadriel isn't exactly out of left field. They've weaved something between the lines that still makes sense when placed within the frames of the original canon story that Tolkien wrote, from The Lord of the Rings to his vast manuscripts. It all still comes together, and her temptation with the One Ring hits now with a profound depth it didn't have before. Her heart has greatly desired this, but it wasn't possible because she couldn't reconcile with Sauron's war crimes - especially the one he committed against her. The wolf that wounded and killed her brother, Finrod, was sent by Sauron after their battle.

There's a deep tragedy in it, and I'm greatly moved by tragedies. Franz Kafka once said, “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” Well, hack me to pieces, because that's how this has made me feel.

#saurondriel #haladriel #sauron x galadriel #galadriel x sauron #galadriel x halbrand #halbrand x galadriel #the rings of power #rings of power #trop #the lord of the rings #j.r.r. tolkien

[lizethvillavicencio]

My current hyperfixation is Lab Rats.

Not the animal, but the show. You know the one. Leo Dooley has just moved in with his Step-Dad, Donald Davenport, and discovers a secret lab in the basement, where he finds three kids with incredible powers that they call Bionics. He forms a bond with them and brings them out to the normal world for the first time in their lives, which sets up four seasons of wild shenanigans, villains, and self discovery.

And a constant laugh track.

I always thought that Lab Rats had such an amazing concept. The idea that someone made three regular people super with advanced technology, leaving room for morals about self identity and family along the way; I eat crap like this up every time. But Lab Rats was very limited in what it could do because it was a Disney Sitcom. There was no room for character growth that lasted more than an episode or discussions about the trauma that would come with being raised by a narcissist in a lab, never knowing the light of day until your late teens. The neurodivergent and queer coding was never brought up, and just over all, darker themes could not be explored.

So, Tumblr, I've decided to pull a Thanos and do it myself.

I want to make a story about what the show couldn't. I want to write about how the Davenports' relationship will be effected after they meet other people and learn what normal family dynamics are like. I want to write about Donald's emotional neglect and narcissism and how this would be the main key towards Douglas' redemption. I want to write about Adam, Bree, and Chase, exploring their genders, sexualities, masculinity and femininity. But, most of all, I want Donald Davenport to face consequences for his actions.

You may be asking, "Person, why announce this to Tumblr when you can just post the story to Ao3 and/or Wattpad and be done with it?"

Because I wanted to ask the people what they want.

This story isn't just self indulgence, it's for the fandom, whom has already done so much to add more depth to the Lab Rats world. So, I want to know what you want to see. Here is what I have planned to add so far:

1. Chase has D.I.D

I am a firm believer that Spike isn't just some Bionic that Douglas gave Chase. I believe that because of the practically endless trauma that Chase has gone through(going on missions to save the world and Adam's abuse) he developed a D.I.D. system and Spike is the protector. I know that people with D.I.D. usually have multiple alters, but it's not impossible to only have one. Or I may add more. Let me know what you think.

2. Adam, Bree, and Chase are triplets.

They still have the same birth order, they're just triplets now.

3. The main three have less bionics

Oh my god, these kids are so overpowered. To help fill some plot holes, here are the bionics they're going to have:

Adam: Super Strength(his limit is a ton)

Super Durability

Heat Vision

Blast Wave(but he becomes

incredibly exhausted after using it,

so he saves it for emergencies)

Bree: Super Speed(her highest speed is

70 mph, but she becomes

incredibly exhausted after using it),

Super Durability

Super Agility

Invisibility

Vocal Manipulation

Chase: Super Intelligence

Super Durability

Force Field

Laser Bo

4. Douglas has more kids

I'm planning on making Daniel WAY more involved in the plot and Douglas having another daughter. I don't have a name for her yet, so I'm gonna call her E for now. My plan is that after Adam, Bree, and Chase are taken from him, Douglas and Krane just relocate and make more kids. Daniel and E are definitely going to be there, but I might add more. Daniel's bionics are going to stay the same, and I'm deciding between giving E geo-leaping or molecularkinesis. The main purpose for the two of them is to further the I-Am-Your-Father arc, as I like to call it, and to open up new perspectives on Douglas as a father figure.

5. Douglas and Krane are/were in a relationship

Every scene with them is just them being an old married couple.

6. Mighty Med and Lab Rats existing in the same universe is a lot bigger to the plot

I don't want to reveal how I'm gonna execute this, but trust me, it'll be there.

7. Adam has ADHD and Dyslexia

After watching the show fiftyleven times, I can say with confidence that Adam is not dumb. He has a short attention span, sure, but he can think quick on his feet and is actually quite clever. He may not excel in the classroom, but unlike what a lot of parents will tell you, grades are not a good reflection of someone's intelligence or skills. And while Adam's spelling skills are below average, this doesn't usually occur to someone in their late teens unless they a) didn't have access to a good education, or b) they are lazy and incredibly spoiled, and Adam is none of these things. But, something that neurodivergent people tend to do in situations like these is uplay their "dumbness" to the point where it's OBVIOUSLY a joke, except it's not. They just don't want people to think they're actually that dumb.

I wouldn't put it past Donald to just label Adam as dumb and not get him assessed.

8: Bree also has ADHD

Bree also seems to have trouble concentrating and waiting, but where Adam hyperfixates for months at a time and is innatentive, Bree's hyperfixations last for a few days at most before she moves on to the next thing.

9: Chase is bisexual

Do I even have to explain this one?

10: Chase has autism

Listen, this man does not get social cues and info dumps like crazy.

And last, but certainly not least,

11: Krane's story is going to go beyond the every Disney Villain motivation of wanting to take over the world

I always wished they had done more with Krane than the simple, "I wanna take over the world," crap that most Disney villains do. I wanted more lore, more backstory, more motivation. Now, I'm finally getting it.

Please let me know what you think and have a great day!

#lab rats #adam davenport #bree davenport #chase davenport #leo dooley #donald davenport #douglas davenport #rewrite #fanfic #fanfiction #mighty med

[limeade-l3sbian]

I really need help with the whole morning paralysis thing. My psychiatrist keeps pushing anti anxiety meds on me but not only do they not work but they make me feel so like lethargic and numb.

I hate feeling like this. I waste 3 hours every morning just laying on my bed waiting for it to pass, people keep saying do yoga, move your body a little but like I can't???? I'm literally like paralyzed in bed, if I move my arm just to reach my phone I feel like there's pounds and pounds of heavy iron inside it.

I really wanna get better and I'm willing to do what it takes I just need to know what.

I'm not really a pro or anything so my advice is strictly based on what I personally do.

I think what helps me in these moments is both somewhat helpful but also uncomfortable. I ask myself what specifically I am anxious about. Because what I'm anxious about can vary at times or it can be the same reason. Either way, in situations where I HAVE to get up soon but can't move, I ask myself, "What am I afraid of today?"

Doesn't matter how big or small it is, it just matters that you address it.

What sticks out to me is that you say when you reach for your phone, it is like an extreme weight. But all this tells me is that you can move. It is laborious and feels like the most effort you've ever used, but it is possible. Because that feeling of "I can't move" is an unfortunate power of the brain. Good lord is that thing powerful. But it is possible! Your fear, the soundness of which is not being questioned, has literally debilitated you on a physical level so intense that you cannot move. But it has also deceived you into believing that you cannot do something you very much can.

I don't know the depth of your anxiety. I don't know the severity beyond this obvious hurdle. But something that helped me growing up with anxiety was facing the fact that something I was anxious about was going to happen. It's weird, but I used to get genuinely nervous about falling in front of people. I was scared to be perceived and when that perception came, it came with embarrassment of my clumsiness.

I grew up poor and always running out of time, it seems. Always on other people's schedules (parents, school, the bus, etc.). So to be honest, I was kind of forced to work through my anxiety because I couldn't afford not to. And this isn't saying anything about you. I'm saying this to say that my advice may sound so straightforward because I never really got the chance to ease out of it. But in a way, it really helped.

I don't want to lie and say "you're worried about nothing!" because honestly, the shit that keeps you frozen in place is likely very real. And I'm rambling a little so I'll say this: for the small things, you must know that they are just going to eventually happen. you are going to 'make a fool of yourself' in front of people, you are going to fall, you are going to drop something, you are going to misunderstand, you are going to make someone upset. these things are going to happen. and honestly, the more they do, the more you must tell yourself "i was okay the last time this happened. embarrassed but okay."

For bigger issues like fear of attack, impending financial issues, potential death of someone, etc..: All you can do is all you can do. Unfortunately, the world is kinda shit right now. And that's also important to remember! Are you unreasonably anxious, or are you responding to this current world around you the same way anyone would? You can only control your efforts. And this shit sounds generic as fuck but it's true.

I promise you, talking to yourself OUT LOUD about these things will hit you different. You might cry and you might even feel more anxious, but facing the things that are literally keeping you prisoner in your own body will not fix everything, but will help you start to reclaim yourself.

#ask

[sophiamcdougall]

hi :) regards to your post

Question 6: Are there any other matters directly related to the retention of digital or paper wills that are not covered by the proposed exercise of the powers in the ECA 2000 that you consider are necessary? and

Question 7: If the Government pursues preserving permanently only a digital copy of a will document, should it seek to reform the primary legislation by introducing a Bill or do so under the ECA 2000?

ive got no idea whar to say? im so confused about their asking me abd the gov website is not helping. if you could clarify it for me i would be v grateful thank you

Thanks for responding to the consultation! I think answering as many questions as you reasonably can is good, but you don't have to provide in-depth answers for every question if you can't/don't want to. You can see my responses on the original post -- I was pretty cursory on some of them. In others I more or less repeated myself, on the off-chance responses to the questions might get separated at some point. Q6 -- OK, I think it's saying, "well, ECA2000 says we can digitise stuff where that's a satisfactory equivalent to paper. We think that digital files are a satisfactory equivalent to paper, so it follows that ECA2000 means we can digitise this data and destroy the originals, even though as far as I can see ECA2000 says absolutely fuck-all about that. We haven't really considered any other arguments for or against retaining paper, so you can say some stuff about that here if you like." You could point out all the reasons about why retaining paper records are important -- even if you've already done that -- and say that you don't think these proposals have taken any of those issues into account. You could say that you don't think ECA2000 does grant the minister powers to act in the way proposed. But you could also just be like "Don't destroy the documents. I've already explained why not." Q7 is basically asking, "So as we all agree this is a brilliant idea, can we just go ahead and do it, or do we have to be boring and go through parliament?" You just say that the government shoiuld not pursue only preserving a digital copy so you would not support any legislative path to doing so. (This is more or less what I did.) Or you could say point out that ECA 2000 doesn't actually confer any powers to destroy anything, so doing this without parliamentary scrutiny would be especially egregious, but this would be an appalling thing to do even if they got it. (You may want to check the Act yourself before making assertions about what it says -- I have only skimmed and although I do get to poke bits of legislation-equivalent stuff occasionally, I am not an expert on this. I am just some person on the internet, who, like you, knows basic information about data that the government evidently couldn't be bothered to find out before deciding to destroy it! Tumblr's failing me on links, for some reason, but it's here: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/7?view=plain)

[kungukingi]

Meditations on bris/isbr [3/?] "Barou as Isagi's Catalyst of Change"

Link to previous part.

Team X versus Team Z is a match that gains a whole new depth of meaning when it's contextualised with Isagi’s backstory from the light novel, with one particularly important perspective coming through his internal narration about the Saitama Prefectural Tournament Finals (the match against Kira), and about what he thought it would mean to him.

To put Isagi’s backstory short; he was initially a timid kid, likely partially due to his implied hypersthesia (a condition that involves an abnormal increase in sensitivity to stimuli of the sense, such as sounds, textures, light, etc.) — until he got into football, developed a passion for it, and started to excel in it. From his light novel:

In elementary school, he scored a goal beating five opponents in a row. In junior high school, he became known as the unbeatable striker in his hometown in Saitama.

He discovered Noa, gained confidence in his dream to become the best striker in the world and to win the World Cup. That is, until he entered Ichinan High School, which is where it all changed. When Isagi first learns of the “One for all, all for one” motto of Ichinan, he questions it, but when his teammates see nothing wrong with it, he decides not to press the issue so as not to stand out negatively:

“Well, in soccer, it feels good because you can beat your opponents and score goals by yourself, right? That’s the joy of being a striker. It's not about joining forces, but about the power of each individual striker… I guess.” He glances to see how Tada reacts. “Huh? You can't play soccer by yourself.” He said “What are you talking about?” then laughed. “Soccer is a sport played by eleven people! My goal is a team play that represents the bond of those eleven people! One for all, all for one!” Suddenly, they wrap an arm around each other’s shoulders. “Let's all join forces and go to the Nationals!" “Yeah!” When Tada said this, their other teammates got excited. (Huh? Am I the only one who thinks that this is ridiculous?) Isagi couldn't say anything more.

He is far from happy with this status quo however, silently disagreeing with the ‘nobody should stand out’ way his coach is making them play football, and eventually asks to play as a striker.

“Uhm… I want to go for the next game, as a striker, I'd like to shoot more if possible.…” This was all Isagi could muster. “Hahaha! You want to show off?” The coach laughed out loud, and his teammates laughed out loud as well.

Isagi turns red from embarrassment, and the coach goes off about how that’s just not happening because it’s not the Ichinan High School way. Shamed, Isagi then tries to gaslight himself into thinking this is fine and he is the one who is wrong:

(This is fine. Indeed, this is how a team works. Soccer is a sport played by eleven people. I'm sure it's not right for me to disturb the harmony… by myself.)

(Literally Isagi when he’s told he can’t play as an egoist striker:)

From then on his ego is described as ‘sealed’ and he focuses on just keeping the harmony, hiding his more assertive tendencies because he doesn’t want to stand out to his detriment in this harmony-valuing environment. This continues up until the moment when they’re getting ready for the Prefectural Tournament Finals in his second year. It’s the moment where his “true feelings welled up in his heart” and “Isagi heard the voice of his ego for the first time in a long time”.

Their opponent in the Finals was Matsukaze Kokuo High School, which had one of the best strikers in the prefecture, Kira Ryosuke. (I will beat that Kira Ryosuke, go to the Nationals……get scouted, go to the J-League……Someday, I will represent Japan……! Someday, I'll be at the World Cup I dreamed of……) He looked at his clenched fist and realized. (World Cup? So I’m still…… hoping for something like that.) He had never told anyone about it, and even he had almost forgotten about it, but it had always been there in the bottom of his heart. He wants to represent Japan and win the World Cup. It was a dream that he had been thinking about ever since the day he saw Noel Noa for the first time when he was eight years old. Then a predictive thought came to his mind. (......if my dream were to come true, this match would surely be the turning point.)

That bolded part is very revealing, and heartbreaking considering how he ended up automatically adhering to the “Ichinan Way” when the chips were down. That match did not end up being the turning point for Isagi, as we know. He ends up passing to Tada in the moment where he could’ve chosen to be assertive in a 1v1 situation with a goalie, and Tada ends up botching the goal and losing them the game.

But another match would become that turning point in a different way, and one specific person would become the catalyst to give Isagi’s ego the spark it needed to start on the path of turning into the all-consuming flame it eventually becomes. Someone Isagi immediately notices from the very first moment he enters the pitch.

The Team X versus Team Z match begins in chaos, as Ego has created a very specific situation that discourages any kind of meek “one for all and all for one” philosophy. The dumpling football that ensues is downright Darwinian in nature; individualistic and cruel. Though it’s not football exactly, it’s still closer to Isagi’s ideal football ethos than Ichinan High School’s way, which becomes clear when you look at the paragraph of Isagi’s thoughts upon him discovering the football club’s motto for the first time:

One for all, all for one. It means each one should act for the sake of others, and the others should act for the sake of each one. Sounds good, but isn't the game far more from that ideal? The soccer that made his heart fired up was even more cruel. The striker who single-handedly broke through that cruel world was beautiful.

Barou is the one who immediately takes control of the match, ends up “turning 0 into 1”, and dominates the pitch by getting his team to support him while team Z continues to struggle without a clear centre. And he does it in a way that leaves Isagi awestruck.

Isagi knows they can’t win anymore, but he still tries to do that same thing Barou did for Team X for their own Team Z; turn 0 into 1 and become the axis of their team.

Barou ends up taking notice of this change, and comes to stop him himself, in doing so creating an imperfect echo of the situation in the Prefectural Tournament Finals. But now Isagi doesn’t only have that traumatic memory pressing at him, there is also the imaginary World Cup Finals scenario that Ego painted for them at the start of Blue Lock, during which Isagi had imagined himself acting like a “true striker” would.

Point being, from Isagi’s perspective this is a moment that ought to be pivotal, a kind of a litmus test of whether he’s cut out to be a striker or not. But he’s not stupid, so he knows he can’t match Barou in a 1v1. So he freezes, wonders about what would a striker do, unconsciously activates a nascent version of metavision for one brief moment… and passes to Kunigami, mirroring his actions in the Prefectural Tournament Finals when he passed to Tada. In his mind, he does the exact thing he’d already thought he wouldn’t do again, because he is a striker, and he’s regretted not taking the shot ever since.

He is shocked, Barou is shocked. Raichi is furious and starts berating Isagi, who can’t clearly answer the question about why he did it, and then Barou says this:

Barou, who left such an impression in Isagi in this game, who has in such a short timespan embodied many key “striker” traits that Isagi has admired in Noa and ‘strikers’ in general for half of his life by this point, being someone who can:

…single-handedly break through “that” cruel world

…beat his opponents and score goals by himself

…turn 0 into 1

…be at the centre of it all

— This Barou tells Isagi that he isn’t cut out to be a striker, causing him to collapse on the pitch, wonder what the hell is he doing, and think that Barou — someone who does seem to have what it takes — might be right. But this being Isagi, he of course doesn’t give up. Instead he takes this despair Barou has fed him, uses the opportunity to truly look at himself, learn, and evolve instead.

Link to next post.

#barosagi #barousagi #bris #isbr #Blue Lock #bris/isbr meta #I can't believe I just deleted this post #I'm never trying to edit on my phone again

[curoopeez]

(Final?) Update on my vegetarian anti colonialist minecraft world:

I managed to find the stronghold. I will admit, I cheated to find it. I tried the legal way and it didn't work. In fact, it was so hard to find the stronghold that when I finally got to the portal room I had lost one too many ender eyes and had to go back to the nether to make more

The end fight went smoothly, but I was using shaders to make it more epic and that ended up causing me to miss some mlg clutches. It's fine tho, my boots had feather falling maxed out, I barely felt anything

Speaking of enchantmens, I couldn't find any mending books but I did find a couple with sharpness, so I had a sharpness V diamond sword for the battle

Honestly I don't know if I'm gonna keep playing now that I've beat the game. Maybe some day I'll come back to it

Now, lemme talk about my experience under the limitations I put myself through

Early game it's really hard to be a vegetarian. In most worlds that I tried the hail mary was running into pumpkins, because sugarcanes and chikens are easy to find and with sugar eggs and pumpkins you can make pie, which can be a food source until you grow a wheat farm

The enchantments were straight up upsetting. The enchanting table needs an update asap. Make it less random the enchants you get, make it easier to add enchants to an already enchanted item, or at the very least make mending a part of the enchanting table loot.

All the other treasure enchants have reasonable excuses for being exclusive. You have to get soul speed from piglins because they live in the nether and can know ways to navigate there better than any overworlder. You have to get swift sneak from ancient city chests because whoever lived there had to figure out a way to live with wardens around. Frostwalker doesn't have any specific mob or structure connected to it, but at least you can get depth strider from enchanting, which gives you an alternative to move around on water

The only way to get exactly the enchants you want is with villagers, and I have conflicting thoughts about them. On one hand, they are a form of community a player can form, and the fact they are so op highlights the power of making connections and being around other people. On the other, the way the game incentivizes players to interact with villagers resembles slavery in an unconfortable number of ways. I think that could be remedied by changing the restock mechanics so that they have some basic needs met, like making villagers have to sleep or chatter with other villagers to restock (both mechanics already in the game and affect golem spawning)

Nametags should have a crafting recipe. Some of my dogs remained unnamed because I didn't have enough nametags, and I had to leave some nametags behind on chests I knew I wouldn't be able to find again because my inventory was full. Being able to name pets should not be a treasure loot, that's just another thing to be dependent on villagers for

Finally, the stronghold entrance room should be wider. I dug straight down where the ender eyes phased through the floor 3 different times, and each of them I had to mine hundreds of blocks because with the new terrain generation it takes forever to check if you're digging in the wrong place or just not deep enough. Just make a wide entrance room that's all I ask

#minecraft #mineblr

[risu5waffles]

Watching @soupum 's stream yesterday was definitely the highlight of a pretty murky day. The kid has chops; i had a great time, we all supported a good cause, it was heartwarming and fun.

Which, let me tell you, i really, really needed. Had a headache start setting in round the end of Tuesday's shift, and it just kept kicking my arse even through aspirin most all Wednesday. i've been getting headaches more frequently recently, and that bothers me. None of them, thank Entropy, have been migraines; it's been a while since i was getting those on the monthly, and they really kicked the stuffing out of me. But still, in the end, regular old garden variety headaches can be just as enervating, and any continuing change in health for the worse is a cause for at least light concern.

But it was my day off, and i couldn't just watch a stream all day, as good a time as it may have been, my brainmeats wouldn't have let me hear the end of it. i got some recording and editing done to catch us up to next Friday. i'd really wanted to work on my big project, but the spoons and thinking power just weren't there. This one's important to me, and i really don't want to fuck it up.

So, i thought, why don't i toss together a little hub, quick-like, you know? Nothing too flash, maybe practice a bit wiv parallax (i will always go to bat for a good endless scrolling parallax). This was not exactly not a brainmeats-intensive thing to do, and it certainly wasn't quick, but it was low stakes enough that it didn't amp up my anxiety, and let me feel i was being productive for myself, not like a thing i had to do.

i like how it turned out, really. For a real simple set up, it's relatively effective. i'm going to want a few more layers of depth to really make it look good, and i think the water and land layers here should be swapped, so it doesn't look like the train is up to its windows in a river, but yeah, it works. Something i figured out working on the big project, that little Savannah section of it, is if you've got your cameras tight enough, you really don't need to be emitting all that many things as once. When i did this for the old review show, and i think the environmental pieces were traveling almost to the end of the create mode space before getting destroyed, even though we were using an viewable area not much larger that what we see in this set. That was simply way too much, and it played all holy hell wiv the thermo.

The set is haunted tho'. Like, i had so many weird buggy things happen trying to put together this train. i was lucky that i thought to at least snag footage of the entire car getting deleted when i rewound, but, like, that was the third time it had happened. i have absolutely no idea why. Something deep in my profile is seriously fucked. i suppose it's not surprising since it's been active since almost LBP1's release, and has been used across two regions' games, two systems, and a handle change.

Fun fact, this is probably the second or maybe possibly third time i've ever used the phrase girlcock, so you can log that in your lore books, i suppose.

#littlebigplanet #little big planet #lbp #lbp3 #dev diary #drawing board #Youtube

[hungeringheart]

Can you please do a session analysis with Prince void, Rogue of space, mage of life, thief of time

Woohoo, we are back in business baby! Finally answering my backlog!

Anon, as you're the oldest anon in here I think I owe you a particular apology for how long this took -- the others I can honestly tell I got married and then hurt my spine and couldn't do much of anything all that time and then the holidays rolled in, but you were "only" a casualty of common or garden depression ::( ... at first.

I hope I manage to make up for that!

So all right, in our little world we have our dramatis personae.

☆ Prince of Void

☆ Rogue of Space

☆ Mage of Life

☆ Thief of Time.

I have a clear favourite already! Which is unusual, admittedly, but I'm admitting this because I have to make a legal distinction for both you and myself between your Prince of Void and my fantroll blorbo, Yudhei Tanina, imperial failson. :^)

Or maybe I don't! Maybe you'd like to hear how I write that one, and cannibalize a bit. Either way, two for one deal here, let's get mystical!

Prince of Void

Prince, active "Destroyer" class; a Prince destroys with, through or the essence of their aspect. I suppose they could also subvert their aspect and subvert through their aspect, but they would do it more aggressively than bards are able to, and more selfishly, very like the difference between Rogue and Thief.

There are also undertones of command and nobility, though they're played differently than a Lord's.

Ah, Void, the aspect of mystery, secrecy, depth, obfuscation, the arcane, the dark. The aspect, apparently, also of obsession -- just look at Grimdark (Inverted, Void) Rose, or Equius, in his element! We can also make a case for Roxy... but let's not get into that, it is very sad after all.

Truly the most sexyman of all the aspects. Muah. Chef's kiss, chef's kiss I say!

The presence of this Prince within the parameters of your play predicts that, bluntly speaking, everyone is phucking screwed. Not because of the Prince, necessarily -- although maybe because of the Prince, you could do that. You could write a story about a Lovecraftian-Machiavellian paranoiac ruining everyone's lives with their hidden depth of obsessive eldritchness. I kind of did it (almost).

There is a second path. In a specifically trollish, caste-bound reading of the role of a prince, and also in a parallel human one focused on the romantic concept of royalty, nobility obliges, and so a hypothetical good, realized Prince of Void must serve the cause of victory through their capacity for destruction.

That's sort of the concept behind my Yudhei -- a literal prince (both by blood and in that he's the Prince, like a Nasi, of his Empire's religious-legal supreme court -- a president and an emissary and interpreter of the eldritch gods, and most importantly the Empress' fruity vizier) who sincerely believes that only he, or at least his benevolent direction from the shadows, can fix anything. The Void is all around, see, and nobody else can see and thrive in it...

Yudhei's biggest problem was/is that he's incapable of delegating to other people, which in his case was because his entire life is a conga line of increasing horrors, and everyone who raised him including the monster openly thought he was an abomination who ought to have realized his destiny as a condiment sweeps ago.

For totally understandable biological and social reasons he decided he was physically and psychologically the only non-Horrordeity person in the entire universe even slightly capable of coping with his problems, so he simply never told anyone anything that would endear him to them, ever. Also, per his own beliefs, as the only competent person anywhere at all and one of the most powerful individuals in the known universe, of course he was both entitled and obligated to meddle ominously in everyone else's lives!

(Actually, the SGRUB-SBURB double reacharound game in that story is directly a result of him realizing what the game is, releasing it into the world, and herding his mostly estranged siblings and their friends into an enormous daisychain of linked sessions. He fucked it up for everyone colossally.)

I think this is probably common to the entire classpect, for different personal reasons -- whether a Prince of Void personally wants to destroy Void or use it to destroy (or both) or whatever other reading you prefer, they do it out of motivations that ultimately grow out of a deep feeling of loneliness and being in danger from others, which they build a "castle" around and defend from others using whatever power or privilege they have. They may, as you can see, also deeply need to be sure that no one else is lonely.

We can kind of see similar behaviours playing out with Eridan, Prince of Hope, and Dirk, Prince of Heart, with respect to their own classpects. Eridan's White Science thing is an obvious result of feeling failed by the concept of whimsy and magic, inextricable from the concept of religion (which after all presumably dictates that whatever happens to anyone is moral as long as the castes look right). Dirk has no idea who he is, and vacillates between tearing down others and leveraging what he does know about souls and the like to help them.

So then, what would you like your Prince of Void to be?

You have options! Many options, even.

Distant, lonely, altruistic but misguided seeker of mysteries?

Enlightened aspirant to the status of Horrorterror for themself (I once wrote against this exact concept but as a Mage)?

Machiavellian grey eminence?

All three, somehow?

What you do depends on what you want from the narrative.

Rogue of Space

Rogue: Class of altruistic redistribution. One who takes their aspect or uses their aspect to take for the purpose of sharing the loot with the team.

Space: Aspect of potential, room to grow and breathe, and actual physical space, dimension and physics.

I also quite like this one, and no doubt the players for it like it for the same reason: how do you take and give potential, safety, place-belonging? Can you do that with size? What does that MEAN?

To think about it, let's address our canon Rogues, Roxy (famously the Robin Hood of Void, whatever that means), Nepeta and Rufioh.

Examining their patterns we can see that what a Rogue seems to actually "do" to redistribute their aspect is be dealt an objectively fucked up hand, and then through sheer yes-anding, willpower and a little bit of luck and legerdemain.

In that way they really are the Robin Hood of whatever it is -- it's not "about" the stealing (and Rufioh certainly wasn't meaning to steal freedom from other people, that's the opposite of what Rufioh was meaning), it's "about" the other Robin Hood trait of being handed hot nothing and making a balloon animal out of it that helps everyone somehow. Stealing is kind of incidental here; you can think of it as more like ... the effective use and allocation of limited resources. Some of which you happen to need to steal.

Roxy making things from literal nothing isn't actually doing any crimes, and Nepeta is a furry roleplayer, not an identity thief, see? They do things that seem like they should be illegal, and iirc they do both actually steal, but rogue is a broader term than thief...

So then, the Rogue particularly of Space is someone who doesn't have a lot of space -- room to breathe, literal actual living-space, space away from people. But even though they're deficient, they provide to others -- they're the street-corner therapy friend with a skeleton full of closets full of more skeletons. The guy whose couch is always open, for "free", except if you consider it a form of payment to listen to them obliviously go on about how they went to a protest once and got robbed by otherwise completely see-through cops ("I never saw it coming!"). We all know and love one like that.

What does it mean that they're in over their head like they are? In their cramped little room covered wall to wall with struggle art, their own and others', where does the room for others to breathe end, and when do they actually get to breathe themself?

Who watches the watchers? Who recognizes the one who recognizes others?

Mage of Life

Mage: Class of the active seeker of understanding for themselves or for its own sake: the visionary, the prophet, the wizard.

Life: Aspect of the way of things, cycles, systems, growth, flourishing, struggle, and development.

Personally, I'm a Witch of Life, but I can respect the single most Earthsea classpect in the catalogue.

The Mage of Life has essentially the same arc and lifepath as Ged from Earthsea, which is a fascinating cycle you should read if you haven't.

I'll try not to spoil too much in case you haven't in fact read the books -- I really do treasure Earthsea and think everyone should read it, even if they never touch any other fantasy.

But, so, then -- a Mage of Life begins the session with no understanding of Life. Their being a Mage, this doesn't also need to be true of the rest of the cast; for the Mage's journey it doesn't really matter whether their friends are all perfect boddhisattvas in tune with the cycle or not.

The point is that they personally aren't. The point may even be that they personally don't get it -- they could be merely naive or actually malicious, in the vein of a smug young capitalist aspirant too deep in the hole to care about a burning planet.

Either way, whether they're essential to the group's victory or not (it may help humble a particularly industrialist Mage if they aren't), they have to engage with Life on its own terms. Perhaps their Quest relies heavily on becoming a participant in and interdependent with their Consorts' society? If you like, you can also have them wake up to the realities of certain systems -- have them acknowledge their own gender, their demographic's structural role in their own society, the way they've been shaped by their own struggle, the ways they didn't see others' before.

Out of your entire cast here I think this person is the one who's most likely to benefit the most from the game... if, of course, they flourish and learn and grow and survive.

They might not. Knowledge is power, after all, and it's not quite that only the strong survive, but how equipped actually are the only available people in the world to hold them up if they flag?

Their journey's a very hard one most of us are still on, and they'll need support. Without it... well... it doesn't bear thinking about.

Thief of Time

Aspect of routine, ritual, rhythm, pattern, the relation of past and future, relation to the coming end.

Class of one who takes away from others for their own benefit, to fill their own lack.

Ah! Traditions, traditions. Without them, how would I get three words deep into the Fiddler on the Roof tradition monologue before you realized what I was doing and seriously contemplated shooting me?

Bulwark, scaffold, thing on which a spirit grows; Time is the complement and antithesis to Space, the concept of learning to relate to yourself as a mortal creature dancing its own brief role in a spectacle without end. Homestuck has this as a central theme -- I think all aspects in some way relate to either conforming to or defying or iterating the way of things, as is required for making your own way as an adult, though some do this more literally than others.

Time's concern is with rhythm and repetition, though, and in a way with predestination, though it doesn't take Doom's stance about embracing the inevitable.

It's left open-ended what a Time player wants to do with the rites and patterns, and most people write their Time ocs as rebels in the vein of Dave.

But ... you can lack Time-- literal Time to live, metaphorical Time to dance to -- so severely that you need to aggressively and hostilely appropriate other people's.

What if structure is something some people actually want?

I had a conformist Seer of Time many moons ago, when I was barely older than he was myself, Khanan S. by name (six-player game, as you can see). Great kid -- his inciting incident will be instructive here. Khanan, see, was a sort of person immensely concerned with religious norms and rituals, the right things done at precisely the right times, in a cycle that will go on forever (even past the end of our own universe). But you can't do all that when all your friends formerly from the Internet are people who don't get it, can't get it, and who need you desperately.

So he did a lot of flailing around, a bit of ill-advised shaving with Occam's razor (lalala none of this is real lol the world can't be over because it can't, also I'm 14-15 years old I'm too little for this) and trying to make it work, very Magelike behaviour you know. And then his friends started dying because he refused to be a big damn hero, at which point he leveraged his understanding as someone who once actually did have Time (before the end of the world; to keep the beat of life unending; to be a child), to provide his friends with some sort of a framework for themselves.

Also from Alpha Khanan's point of view he was trying to make sure everyone else (including his own alternate selves) understood what to do with their Time over, and over, and over, and over, and...

Well, for him it didn't pan out, he went a bit grimdark. Everybody else had to help their Khanan (#18) herd Alpha Khanan back into the Furthest Ring where his natural habitat now was (completely deranged and well on the way to becoming a Horrorterror), it was great. Existential. Horrible, actually -- imagine being trapped in the void forever because the people you love most know that if they kill you, their better and kinder and softer and stronger version of you, which is you but completely stupid, ignorantly cruel and irredeemably naive, will also die. And so they won't even give you the mercy of letting you stop spinning plates for them. They hate you and they need you and you love them because you have nothing else.

Homestuck, everyone! And that's why he turned himself into an Earthsea dragon type of game construct - can't be sad if you can't experience sorrow and live forever as a caretaker of the cycle! It's almost like growing up and going to divinity school really (it's nothing at all like that even slightly. When this was current events my friends and I had also just read Omelas and seen Madoka.)

Cool story bro. What have we learned here that's applicable to a Thief?

Well, what if somebody never had time, or Time?

What if they were very ill and very hurt, and their community had no more communal tie to the rest of time than any random arbitrary bunch of strangers?

What if they thought they were the only one of their friends who really suffers, who really gets it, because at least the friends have something they can point to and say "this is my way to go, this is who I am, this is a map for my life, this is me"?

What if they envy their friends' connection and sense of knowing what to do to be a friend, their friends' connections to their cultures, their friends' banal musicality and sense of timing?

What if something told them they could take that for themselves?

I imagine your Thief of Time is probably the sort of person who's chronically online and loves to argue -- they need a sense that they do something, anything a person is supposed to do better than other people, because for the moment, their sense of self depends on diminishing others. And of course they love to take up others' time. It makes them feel seen, heard, and something very far removed from but still tangential to loved.

This is probably a very complicated and sad character, typifying the struggles of the other three: pathologically alone, naive, and without the luxury of either space or a blueprint for their own development. Their arc seems tragic, to me. Let's have a look at how it all goes together, though -- there is a happy possibility even for them. There has to be, right?

Otherwise everyone else is wrong, and they're right, they're the only one who's right.

Flow

So there's these four friends. I don't know them, they're very open-ended -- but I do know that they live in a particular type of world, or at least a particular type of connection to each other.

Insofar as their friend group is a world, there are patterns, and these will carry over to the needs of the session.

Void has a Prince -- that person destroys the void and through the void. Perhaps they destroy the void of ignorance by being the homework friend for the others, but they also hurt others by prying too far into their lives. They destroy through void by being unapproachable and clammy themself -- in that players reflect their aspects, this perhaps tells us that the nature of obfuscation and darkness in this session is self-protective and vulnerable. It might also tell us that some mysteries need a soft touch... and some secrets have power.

Space has a Rogue -- potential and physical space and room for development is unequally distributed in the beginning of this session, and this player's mission is to fix that, however they can, for their friends. To do that, though, they'll first have to figure out their own problems and see their friends a little bit less personally -- perhaps mediated by their Land Quest? Prior to ascension, this Space Rogue might not be very roguey in a team focused way -- or at least not effectively so, although they will try.

Life has a Mage who is on a mission to understand what the fuck it's all for. Depending on your personal philosophical mileage regarding this, what you want their position in the group to be and how they react can vary -- I think, depending on how realized they are, though, their friends might have an easier time of it...

And of course, the Thief of Time. Thieves, like rogues, mean there is a structural imbalance in the distribution of their aspect -- the difference is just that they think they're subsequently justified in hoarding it for themselves. In the Thief of Time's case, all they really need is one friend who has it all figured out to feel that they need to micromanage and manipulate their friends in order to feel something. Maybe they want the leadership role naturally occupied by someone else, and flail around imitating success because they don't know how to be themself, really. Vriska sort of thing.

So the world has a neutral Void (of course, the Void is only ever neutral), a shortage of Space and Time, and at least one person has no idea how they're supposed to work with this.

A difficult situation, to be sure, but personally I think you can write it! I'd love to see!

Good luck!

#homestuck #classpect #classpect analysis #session analysis #homestuck fansession

[thepaintedlady00]

Chapter 9 Intro because I have no self control! 😅

I curled deeper into warm covers, breathing out a sigh of relief at the warmth of them. That breath was one I could feel in the frozen air, the heat of its visible in the cold as I blinked my eyes open. Everything was frozen. My pillows, the empty space of bed beside me, the windows and curtains, my chair. All of it. As I sat up, the chill filling the warm space I'd left, three figures stood in front of my bedroom door.

The first, standing closest to me, was a young woman in a beautiful sapphire blue gown, her dark hair curled in ringlets around her soft face. "Greetings, fate kept sister."

In a blink she was standing in the back and one of the others was now standing in front of me. She was older, her face slightly worn by the years. Her hair and eyes remained the same as the younger ones. "It is so good to finally put a face to that lovely name of yours, dear Weaver."

Another blink and the oldest of them stood before me, eyes cold and face wrinkled with age and wisdom. Her silver hair wrapped around her like a shroud. "She doesn't look like much, you'd think with the power in those veins she'd have a bit of spark to her."

I wanted to speak, wanted to demand what the hell was happening, but I couldn't. Like the room around me I was frozen in place, clinging to what little warmth remained. The youngest smiled at me. "I think she looks perfect!"

The oldest sneered. "Fate kept, fate kissed, fate bound. Your titles are as endless as that which you would so easily spread your legs for."

The middle one tutted. "Now, now sister-self, we cannot chastise her for answering the song she was gifted. That even remains higher than us."

"Such a sweet song they make together!" The youngest said. "I hope it does not give way to the dissonant cries that threaten to swallow it."

"A butterfly can do little against the storm to come," the eldest remarked.

"She will have to become a dragon then," the youngest replied. "Fire and armor born to weather any storm."

"The question remains if she will heed her calling or if she will bend and break and burn beneath the threads." The middle said.

"Heed our advice, fate touched, do not hesitate to reach out to the cold. For in the frozen depth much truth lies." The youngest said.

The middle reappeared. "Heed our advice, fate kissed, do not bend to those unworthy. It is their stained hands that seek to tear your wings from your back and watch you crawl and wither."

The oldest glared at me. "Heed our advice, fate bound, forsake that which you fear. For the path through flames of molten gold is that which holds your freedom."

A loud crack of shattering ice echoed in my ears, my hands cupping around them as I tried to block out the sound. When I looked back up they were gone. A faint feeling, like a hand wrapping around my arm pulled me from the frozen world. My hand found the knife beneath my pillow and my body moved of its own accord, the world swinging as I threw myself over the top of whoever had touched me and pressed the blade snuggly against their throat.

Below me Pierres eyes were glowing, his hands resting tightly on my hips. "It is good to be back beneath these powerful thighs, Ma moitié."

Breathing heavily I looked around the room, pulling the blade from his throat. It was just as I left it. My head snapped to the bed, now empty save for a single peony that lay on the pillow beside mine. Dream. I looked back to Pierre who looked me over with his heated gaze and winked. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I was attempting to wake the sleeping beauty, but in our time apart it appears I've forgotten that she has quite the bite when startled." He smiled even wider. "Though I will never complain about our current position."

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#the sandman series #dream of the endless #dream of the endless imagine #dream of the endless x reader #dream the endless #morpheus imagine #sandman morpheus #the sandman x you #sandman netflix #the sandman fanfic

[bomblethebee]

Played a lot of games this year so put together my most disappointing (not necessarily bad!) and best games of the year!

Most disappointing:

Pupperazzi - I really wanted to like this game, but unfortunately I ran into a game breaking bug that corrupted my save and made me unable to continue playing it. Pokémon snap but with cute dogs was a good concept and I'm sad I couldn't get into it.

Rainbow Six Siege Extraction - A follow up to Rainbow Six Siege, it sadly failed to live up to its predecessor. An interesting premise and good execution, it just wasn't able to capture me. The maps and objectives felt too samey and at launch there wasn't any cool cosmetics or anything to unlock, so it quickly became a grind for grind's sake.

Lake - A fun game about delivering mail, it's sadly plagued by performance issues that turn it into more of a slideshow. I wanted to like it, but I couldn't get past the shoddy framerate.

Hokko Life - An Animal Crossing clone that sadly lacks depth. The furniture customization is a great system, but an overly slow start that cuts you off from basic functions like sprinting and a map killed the game for many players. Even if you can get past that, there's just not much to do outside of decorating your town and that takes a lot of grinding.

Best:

A Memoir Blue - A very short and simple but sweet game about growing up and the pressures that are placed on us to succeed. The gameplay is very chill and the story is told entirely through beautiful visuals.

Norco - Norco is a game that makes you think. While the gameplay is pretty much just point and click and choosing dialogue options, I never found myself bored and was always eager to continue the story and see where it was going.

Weird West - Although I have yet to finish Weird West, I can't recommend it enough. The wild west crossed with paranormal and supernatural elements makes for a unique setting and there's so many paths through this game I don't think two people could have the exact same experience.

Power wash Simulator - My top played game of the year according to Xbox and it's for a good reason. The game is simple, but relaxing. Use your powerwasher to wash things. That's it. And what more do you need really? It's super satisfying to blast dirt off of things and watch the end recap that shows the thing you clean go from filthy to sparkling.

Splatoon 3 - Sometimes games are just "another one but better" and this one is certainly that. If you liked Splatoon 1 or 2, you'll like 3. What is there to say? The paint splattering third person shooter is back and it's messier than ever.

Beacon Pines - I'm not normally a fan of time loop games, but this one is easy to follow and interesting all the way to the end. I loved discovering all the twists and turns of this story and the voice acting is spectacular.

Grounded - A game I've played since early access and is now fully released! I love this game and there's very little like it. Honey I Shrunk the Kids as a survival game. Run around a backyard and try to survive while battling the bugs that inhabit it, build bases, and craft a wide variety of weapons and armor. The gameplay loop is addicting and it can be comfortably played alone or with up to 3 friends.

Disney Dreamlight - As much as I hate the mouse, I have to admit that this game is really good. Although not fully done yet, there's still quite a bit of content and things to do. Animal Crossing but with Disney characters, it makes for a good mix.

Hardspace Shipbreaker - You work as a "cutter", someone who takes apart old, derelict spaceships for parts. The spaceships ramp up in difficulty the more you take apart and I find it relaxing but sometimes stressful at the same time as you have to deal with reactor meltdowns, gas leaks, and even rogue ai. Although Powerwash Simulator was my most played of the year, Hardspace Shipbreaker was my absolute favorite.

#hardspace shipbreaker #norco #a memoir blue #grounded #beacon pines #weird west #long post

[waitinginthecorner]

Literally tonight has been so solidifying in terms of what I want and need out of my life its kinda unreal but I'm soooooo thankful like....I literally don't consider myself that spiritual hippie stereotype but at my core I totally am...its just so endearing and powerful to view the coincidences and good times in your life as little miracles and idk if there's anything out there, from ghosts to aliens to god, but I couldn't care less because it's fun to consider and it's fun to discuss and it makes me feel like maybe even for a fraction of a moment I have something that understands me like no other and is with me at all times and maybe that's a little selfish but im okay with that. It's my belief that everyone's perception of god, whatever it may be, is unique to them the same way they are unique to him. The same way anyones relationship with another is unique. He's like viewing your reflection in the water instead of a mirror, its an approximation of oneself without being quite the same thing... in my eyes at least. For me i see god in the wind and the rain and the grass and the worms and all the little bits and pieces. Its numbers and math and and and and and and and, like pi into infinity. Past the point of comprehension. Hes you and me and everything in between but I'm well aware that some people view him much differently and that in itself should serve as a facet through which to dissect him. I've always been afraid of talking about my feelings about theology for the same reasons im afraid to talk about myself in depth. I'm not sure anyone will understand or even want to, but I have a firm foundation of beliefs in my life and I want to stand by myself and stand up for myself more and more everyday and to me this is part of the process. I think I got a tad off topic but also stuck to my point better than I thought lol. Anyway. Here's wonderwall

#rambling #dj ron #sorry i have literally been crying for so many hours i have typed so many posts and this. this is the one that really started soothing me #like. it feels good to be reflecting constantly on the good things and this has been something ive been wanting to talk abt for so long #theres only like one friend in my life who i rly trust to talk abt my feelings toward god w #so i just had to let that all out gor my own well-being ty and ily #Spotify

[threewaysdivided]

as a fellow painfully slow writer, i'd just like to say—i feel you; i understand you, and you are not alone atop the Word Glacier. stay strong, and if it comes down to it, don't be afraid to rant to the wallpaper! it can't exactly talk back, but i've found getting spoilers into even just the open air can help soothe the ache—either way, i wish you an untroubled pen.

(referring to this post)

Aww, thanks anon! And all the very best with your project as well 💜

I suppose this is the double-edged sword of the planner-writing style.

On one hand, having the story already planned out in depth is great! The path is already there so I don't have to stress about pantsing myself into a plot-hole I can't get out of. I can look ahead and remind myself of future things I love (and know that I've already done some of the prep-work for them when the time comes). I can move up and down the timeline to work on future scenes if I'm not feeling the immediate upcoming chapter (I've been playing around with some Conner stuff recently). And sometimes I can take a break from the storytelling altogether to play with thought-exercises and meta-analyses (hence those posts about The Light and Martian Prejudice). NGL I would love for Deathly Weapons to get a TVTropes page once it's a little further along, so I can see what other people are making of the meta-side. It's fun to be able to plant foreshadowing when I know what it's pointing to - both a little secret for me to enjoy now, and a treat for other people to find later.

But on the other... they say "write for yourself", and in some ways for me this story has already been written. I'm still relishing the details and having fun tinkering around adding new flourishes, little elaborations and rediscovering things in my upcoming notes, but most of those big emotions and moments of discovery are experiences I've already had in planning. It's not in prose, but most of the substance is already there for me - if someone asked me to make a Deathly Weapons wiki, I could probably do that and do it faster than actually putting chapters out. You can probably tell that I usually engage with fandom via meta and reading more than writing. I’m proud of what I've made and I want to get it written up and posted, but the experience of discovering what that story is is definitely something I'm creating to share with others.   DW started out as the fanfic I wanted to find but couldn't, and as the one writing it I can never experience what that blind-read would have been like - it's why I love it when commenters/ reviewers stop by and give me a glimpse of their experiences with it.

(Also, let it not go unsaid: I massively overcommitted with this one. Deathly Weapons has 11 planned missions alongside intervening character chapters. I think YJS1 captured lightning in a bottle and I wanted to reflect some of that in Arc II, but amidst the throes of creativity I kind of jumped in feet-first and ended up setting myself the task of solo-writing a half-season as my first major fanfic project. Whoops.)

Besides that, I think fandom is a very community experience. I got into writing fic through reading it and finding fanart (which I think is the same for a lot of people). I don't really like the word "engagement" these days because of how overused and corporatized it's become but there is something to be said for reciprocity - being part of that shared community and creative energy. It's kind of like mutual gift-giving but the main gift is time.

Being a slow creator is kind of hard in that space because fandom is so ephemeral. There are some series which have unusual staying power (A:TLA and B:TAS are considered classics for good reason and Danny Phantom is infamous as the fandom-which-does-not-die) but most of them will ebb and flow, and age out and sometimes haemorrhage when canon backflips off a cliff over every shark in existence and fanworks are kind of at the whims of that. It's the price we pay for piggybacking off someone else's work and audience. I thought I was safe, I thought I had picked two series which were finished or at least over but nooooo...

It's one of the reasons I'm incredibly grateful to have found some discord friends who were willing to let me share major DW spoilers with them, as well as to @cryxdraws and @doodly-doop for making and sharing their lovely DW art pieces. Not only was it really generous for them to give me their time like that, it's been amazing to know that there are people out there for who this little hobby project means something, and who also think it's worth seeing through to the end.

So, until then...

#young justice: deathly weapons #anonymous #lovely anons #writing problems #3WD answers #In which Dory and Marlin are the two sides of my brain #this got a bit sappy #but seriously - to everyone who has left reviews or comments or asks or made stuff - I am SO very grateful to you #my standing offer of proofreading and beta assistance is still there if anyone wants a sounding board to help grease their writing wheels #I've been toying on and off with making a DW-adjacent Discord server as a place to build some community around fic and meta #There's been a very distinct shift in the media and fandom landscape - especially in the last year or so - that's changed connectivity #I'm not sure its any one thing so much as a sum of a lot of small changes in media delivery and genre popularity #but in a word it feels much... lonelier now than it did in early 2021 #(I have mostly desalinated myself about YJ canon at this point.) #(but looking at the fandom now vs in 2018 and seeing how badly the community haemorrhaged over the revival has been pretty sad) #(I don't begrudge anyone leaving. It's not really a joyful or fun thing anymore. But it's sad to see it come to that)

[ronaldanthony4]

finally March, the start of my favourite time of year. The weather begins to warm up, and the world awakens from its winter slumber. For me, March marks the beginning of what I like to call "having a fun season." It's a time for adventure, exploration, and most importantly, spending quality time with friends. As the months go by, I always look forward to the laughter, inside jokes, and unforgettable memories of this season. March is just the beginning of all the fun that's in store for me in the coming months.

But March holds even more significance for me this year. It's also the international month of femininity, and I couldn't let it pass without doing something special. I decided to bring together five of my beloved original characters, each unique and representative of different aspects of femininity. They are Liliana, Penny, Evelyn, Sandra, and Ella - collectively known as "ASLEEP," an acronym made from the first letter of each of their names, including their only male member Arlon.

I wanted to create something truly remarkable, a piece of art that would showcase their individuality and sisterhood. I spent hours brainstorming ideas until I finally settled on a concept: two versions of the same artwork, both featuring the five girls. In one version, they would be dressed in stylish strapless short baby doll dresses, strolling through a colourful mall; in the other, they would be completely naked, surrounded by nature in a serene lush garden. The contrast between the two settings highlights the versatility and diversity of women, and how they can thrive in any environment.

As an artist, I'm constantly looking for ways to improve my craft and push myself creatively. Recently, I discovered an incredible tool that utilizes AI technology to enhance and de-noise artwork, called "BigJPG." With this software, I can digitise my traditional inked outlines without worrying about captured dust or rough strokes. The possibilities are endless! I was eager to test this new method on my latest project and see if it lived up to its promise. I began by drawing and inking the body bases on paper, just as I did in the past.

However, for the faces, I opted to use my current Android tablet. My first attempt left me feeling hopeful but also aware of areas where I could improve. The lines were cleaner and sharper, but I realized that I needed to switch to a 0.5 fine liner pen to achieve the desired effect. The final result reminded me of the style in the animated series "My Little Pony," with bold outlines that gave the characters a playful, vibrant appearance. Overall, the combination of traditional and digital techniques allowed me to experiment and refine my artwork in a new way.

Although the new method reduced the time spent inking by half, it still took me two hours to complete the faces of the group. Colouring them took me from morning till noon, but the result was well worth it. Seeing the five girls come to life on my screen filled me with pride and satisfaction. Their distinct personalities shone through, and the contrast between the two versions was striking. The combination of traditional and digital techniques added depth and dimension to my artwork, enhancing the overall visual impact. I am excited to see how this hybrid approach will further elevate my creative process and final pieces in the future.

This experience taught me that sometimes taking risks and trying new things can lead to amazing breakthroughs. I plan to continue creating group artwork, possibly once or twice a week, using this innovative technique. It's exciting to think about the potential it holds and the opportunities it opens up for me as an artist. As I sit here admiring the finished pieces, I feel grateful for these five OCs that I brought to my creative endeavours. They represent the spirit of friendship and unity that makes this time of year so special.

Here's to March, femininity, and the power of art to bring people together. Cheers!

#digitalart #digitalartist #digitalartwork #digitalartists #digitalarts #digitalartworks #digitalartistry #digitalartistoninstagram #digitalartgallery #digitalartpainting #girlportrait #girlportraits #girlportraitdrawing #girlportraiture #girlportraitart #girlportraitpainting #girlportraits_shot #girlportraits_ig #girlportraitillustration #girlportraitsstyle #sensualgirl #sensuality #sensualartist #sensualartworld #sensualbabe #sensualbeauty #sensualelegance #esensualbeauty #sensualfantasyart #sensualgirls💞