#featuring the goon squad.

[lenreli]

endless pawns playing a fixed game

Explicit, 7.8k, Dream/Hob. Reacher-inspired AU with an ex-spy Hob and mafia kid Dream!

Chapter 1 // Chapter 2

[AO3]

When Hob took the Endless family bodyguard position, it was mainly for the paycheck. And also a lack of breaking kneecaps for collecting debts, which he does feel some way about. More that it’s a waste of his considerable skill, but nonetheless. 

Recent hushed rumours around the estate have made the Endless bosses more paranoid for their well-being, so he’s gathered in his time at the vast place. 

The bosses are ― well, efficient mob, and just generally terrible people, as evidenced by shouting matches featuring Night or Time, which surely can’t be their real names― 

Then again, with their children’s names, with the many different aged children also getting into screaming matches with the parents, Hob considers his lack of family a blessing, in cases like this. 

The kids, with all sorts of D-name, are varied, and from what he gathered, either orphans gathered up for some good PR, or due to some twisted sense of actually wanting a family. Or maybe they were from people and former mob bosses the parents killed and raised, which would be an impressive sort of fucked up. The kids are mostly a non-issue for him as he does his job, and usually walks past a few of them throughout his days― 

He’s used to seeing Death’s much-too-kind smile, to Destiny being cloistered up in the library, to Desire’s comings and goings at all hours, and surely he must’ve seen Dream somewhere before that night of the attempted poisoning. 

As he looks around the room as some poor schmuck is taken, screaming and pleading, he catches blue eyes and is momentarily stunned. As Desire talks to Dream, Hob gathers that stoic, pale man mainly lives around the art quarters ― which would explain why Hob only briefly remembers him. Plus, the art quarters are very dark and moody, and this is probably the first time he’s seen Dream in actual good light, arms crossed as he talks quietly with Desire. 

As he stares at the cut of Dream’s suit, the blue eyes stare at him for a moment, and Hob catalogues the minute expressions of annoyance as Dream talks with Desire. He definitely knows those blue eyes, have felt them following him since he arrived at the estate, a background awareness of everything else, and Hob considers Dream’s pink, plush lips, low voice begging and screaming, pale skin splashed with― 

“Gadling!” His boss calls and he looks over, Dusk folding her arms and giving him an unimpressed look, “you’re needed.”

Blinking, he puts his hands into the pockets of his pants, “what about Cori?” He’s pretty sure Cori actually gets off on the torture in his job, and he’d hate to take that from him.

“Who the fuck knows. Hence, you,” Dusk drawls, and she gives him an extra glare for good measure, eyes narrowing as she looks between him and Dream. Hob nods and suppresses a smirk, thinking of how cute it is that she thinks her disapproval, or even some don’t fuck who you work for would stop him. 

-

If there’s something Hob likes about his job, it’s that there’s always plots under schemes to uncover, always people to kill ― and now, Dream’s blue eyes staring at him occasionally, like they’re drawn to him. And maybe when Hob feels like a pointless one night stand, he gets a pale twink with dark hair and bites into his neck, replacing the high whines with Dream’s deep voice, the coarse black hair he tugs with the soft-looking spikes of Dream’s hair. Just for a bit of fun. 

Hob’s always one for looking for the bright things in life, especially after getting out of his former job. 

The point is, his life is pretty good, potential firing squad due to some light treason notwithstanding. 

-

Sometimes the goons of the estate think that the Endless kids should learn how to defend themselves, which would be good, he’s sure, if said goons weren’t such idiots when it comes to teaching them. And today they’ve managed to drag a scowling Dream out of his art quarters, which is why he’s actually witnessing their poor attempts at teaching today. 

“Are you going to keep judging, or are you going to give a few pointers?” The big man frowns at him. Hob blinks and crosses his arms, leaning more on the wall as he glances at Dream, hair ruffled and scowling. 

“I’m not the teaching type,” he says with a shrug, and the goon scowls, no doubt angry at Hob as he barks orders at Dream, who looks just as impressed as Hob does with him. 

The subpar teaching makes for good entertainment, and Hob briefly considers maybe giving Dream private lessons. Or maybe not so private, if only for the good screaming and whining to be echoed throughout the grounds. 

At last, the goon gives up with a huff, and Hob stares at the bruise on Dream’s cheek, the colour matching the other’s lips as Dream straightens out his ratty black clothes, small specks of blue paint on the bottom of Dream’s shirt. 

Dream looks at him, stepping closer, absurdly plush mouth opening―and a phone rings. Dream frowns and takes out a flip phone, answering it curtly, then shortly leaving. 

-

A week after that, something is wrong. Dream has been one for Wednesday meetings with his sister in the library, and nothing. Only Death, looking faintly worried. 

Then a ransom call comes in, and Hob only gets that Dream’s been kidnapped before he holds his anger tightly, the Endless parents not even worried as the modulated voice lists their demands. Many of the fellow security and goons give him skittish looks, who have been wordlessly ribbing him for taking a liking to Dream.

Hob says nothing to the Endless parents as he leaves the room, ringing up some of his contacts to get something, and quickly ― before he decides they need some persuasion. 

In the end, it takes seven days for him to find out that Burgess, another mob boss, recently hooked up electricity to an abandoned building, the night before the ransom call. Hob briefly considers going to Fawney Rig, where Burgess’s own mansion is, then considers after, once Dream is back at the estate. 

For all the heightened security that the Endless parents put in, they’re remarkably unconcerned that their own son is kidnapped, whether out of neglect, or simply because of the people around working on it, Hob is unclear about. And, well, if they didn’t give him his income, he’d consider adding more bodies to the one’s he’s already planning on.

When he tells security of his plans, they offer to give him some goons as ‘back-up’ and Hob bites back a scoff. “I can handle it myself,” he frowns, glaring at the man until he steps back, nodding sharply. 

-

The plan is to go through the abandoned building and kill everyone that’s not Dream. A simple one, but it’s never failed him yet.

Hob is almost offended at the front door, when he goes in to see five rent-a-thugs, nothing approaching a challenge as he methodically makes his way through them. With two already dead, he uses the body of one as a shield, gunshots ringing out, but soon silenced by one of his daggers through the shooter’s heart. 

The other two go down with more daggers thrown, and once he’s collected and cleaned them off with fabric from the cheap suits of the men, he puts them away and sighs. 

Unsurprisingly, the other rooms are easy enough to go through, finally finding Dream tied up on a chair, with two men near the door, guns raised at him. Hob puts on a disarming smile, putting his hands up. “I’m going to be nice, and tell you how you die,” he says, smiling brightly. Then men are shaking, guns rattling quietly in their grips. “You,” he nods to the man on his right, “are going to try and shoot me, and then I’m going to go after your buddy here and kill him with a clean knife to the heart. Then I’m going to take it out of his body and throw it into your heart, and you’ll both be dead before you hit the ground.” 

The men seem even more freaked out, sharing scared looks ― but this isn’t about them. Maybe he wanted to show off, just a little bit, for the captive audience. Dream’s blue eyes are wide, mouth gagged with black fabric― and the man on his right moves, and it goes like he said, pulling out his dagger and cleaning it off the dead man’s body before stowing it away. 

“Hello, Dream,” the other man’s eyes go even wider, a muffled sound going through the gag as he walks up to him, leaning over the chair to cut loose the ropes holding Dream. “We haven’t met yet officially, but you can call me Hob,” he smiles as he rips off the gag, then goes to the ropes around Dream’s legs, cutting them off as he stands up. Dream also gets up, face even more pale ― and Hob’s brows furrow as he touches the corner of Dream’s mouth, where a bruise is. “Maybe I should’ve tortured them more,” he remarks. 

“Thank you,” Dream croaks, eyes a dark, deep blue and Hob hums, stepping away as he rubs his thumb, still feeling the soft skin under it. 

“Let’s get you back home, Endless.” Hob gives Dream a once-over, finding nothing out of place with the black suit, or the way Dream’s holding himself. 

“Is it just you?” Dream asks as they step outside of the room, and Dream stops, looking at the bodies lining the rooms as they go through each one. Dream always takes a moment to stop, looking at the various bodies, wide eyes leaving them to look at him ― and his clean suit, not a speck of blood on him.

“I was offered back-up, but they’d just get in the way,” he says with a shrug. Dream nods as they exit the building, and Hob opens the back car door, then stops Dream from getting in. “Burgess met you, didn’t he? Probably to gloat, he seems like the type of asshole to do that,” Dream steps back and nods as Hob leans on the car door. “Do you expressly order for me to kill him for you, or do I have to do it without it?” 

Dream’s mouth moves, opening and shutting before something hard settles over Dream’s expression, “you can kill him,” Dream says, voice breathless and Hob nods. Moving out of the way, he gets in on the other side as Dream slides in, looking at the dark screen between them and Mervyn, the driver, starts the car. 

Dream still looks shocked, wide-eyed and flushed cheeks, and Hob considers the effects of kidnapping, which are never good. Or maybe it was all the dead bodies, especially considering Dream maybe doesn’t have much experience with that. 

Hob watches as Dream takes deep breaths, suit jacket being thrown off, then shoes joining them, and Hob tilts his head, looking at pale collarbones, sweaty and glistening as Dream undoes the top buttons of the shirt, black a contrast to the white of his skin. “I need you,” Dream says roughly, eyes mostly black, and Hob blinks as Dream pulls him closer by his collar, “to fuck me,” Dream states before kissing him, biting into his lips. Or maybe, Hob thinks nonsensically, grabbing onto Dream’s waist as the other man slides into his lap. 

Hob blinks, eyebrows raised, “no complaints here, just as long as you don’t regret it,” he breathes, fingers sliding up under a black shirt, and he watches as Dream shivers, bony limbs pushing him down onto the backseat. 

“Definitely not,” Dream says sharply, cold hands tearing open his blazer, then waistcoat and shirt, and Dream pauses as his blazer is thrown off, eyes zeroed in on the bracers around his biceps ― and the daggers in them. There’s a huff as Dream takes them off, then the bracers and his waistcoat and shirt, and there’s another huff as Dream stares at the harness around his shoulders, the guns on them. “Hob.” 

Suppressing a smile, he shrugs as he toes his pointed shoes off, Dream still on his lap as he watches Hob pull out a tiny syringe, then a few small daggers and puts them on his other weapons on the floor. 

“A syringe?” Dream asks, leaning closer to look.

“Lethal poison,” he says, sitting up to sit against the car side, his hands going under Dream’s shirts to take it off, pale skin and pink nipples, and he nibbles up Dream’s neck, restraining himself from drawing blood as Dream whimpers. “This too, plus another, but you’ll have to take my pants off for that,” he whispers into Dream’s ear as he tugs the hair tie off his wrist, throwing it onto his pile of weapons. 

Dream makes a sound, cold hands getting warmer as they tug at Hob’s pants, “a hair tie?” The other man asks incredulously, belt being taken off to join the rest of the weapons as Dream takes a moment to stare at the line of tiny daggers lining the inside of the belt.

“The hair tie can also turn into barbed wire,” he offers with a smirk, “and not that, I forgot about those,” he shrugs, arousal a constant, pleasant buzz with how Dream is sitting on him. Dream mutters something, words incomprehensible as Dream sits up to tug his pants off, the underwear, knives strapped with harnesses on his thighs thrown with everything else, and Dream’s look of annoyance makes Hob bite back a laugh. 

“Is that all? Anything else?” Dream hisses, and Hob does actually smirk as Dream tugs at his chest hair. Hob hums and touches the crotch of the other’s pants, feeling a wet spot already as he unbuttons them, clearly not as turned off by all the weapons. 

“Not today,” he says. Tugging Dream closer by the zip of his pants, there’s a broken sound as they kiss filthily, and Hob’s already addicted to the feel of Dream’s smooth skin as his nails scratch down thighs, Dream’s lower clothes soon joining the rest. “I’m not taking you raw,” he drawls, smiling as Dream tugs his hair and pulls back with a huff. 

Dream mutters some more and reaches for the back of the passenger seat, revealing a compartment filled with small packets of lube and condoms. Desire, probably, Hob’s mind supplies as he takes some of the lube and a condom. “I thought this would involve more fucking, not all these―” Dream’s complaint turns into a moan as Hob pushes a finger inside Dream, and his cock twitches at the thought of going inside that warm heat as he bites at the other’s jaw. 

Dream pants, breath harsh near his ear as fingers grip his chest hair and he adds another finger, twisting and stretching the walls around them. “Hard or soft?” He asks, free hand digging into and trailing up Dream’s spine, feeling him shiver and shake as Dream clenches around his fingers. 

“Now,” is the desperate order, and Hob pulls Dream by the hair into a forceful kiss, making those pink lips even redder as he takes out his fingers and prepares his cock, lube and condom cool compared to the burning heat of Dream on top of him. Hob groans as he enters the tight heat, Dream shuddering and squeezing around him, and Dream cries out, a hand coming down from his hair to dig into the stubble of his jaw. “Yes,” Dream breathes, twitching. 

Hob takes a deep breath, smelling blood and sweat on Dream’s neck as he gets used to the feeling, a part of him wanting to drive in, but also Dream was just kidnapped, so he tries to have a modicum of care as he bottoms out, nails digging into Dream’s waist as they adjust. The tenuous self-control frays as Dream wriggles on top of him, licking into his mouth as Dream grinds down onto his cock. 

“Stop being such a pussy and fuck me,” Dream croaks ― and there’s a gasp as Hob’s free hand circles Dream’s neck, nails digging into the other’s esophagus until Dream coughs, eyes wide and dick leaking onto Hob’s stomach. 

“With the way you’re acting, no,” he frowns as Dream continues to cough, eventually nodding frantically as Dream’s hand pulls the one away from the other’s throat. 

Dream licks his lips, a bit of terror in his eyes that makes Hob’s sharp anger lessen. “Please,” Dream whispers, eyes still overtaken with black, a thin ring of deep blue as the car passes a pot-hole, jostling them and Dream wails. “Pleasepleaseplease.” 

“Better,” he breathes, tugging Dream’s hair roughly as he guides the other man up and down his cock, feeling tight walls slowly loosen up as Dream is impaled on him. Dream tries to say something, but Hob shifts him and only a cry comes out as he hits the other’s prostate, and Hob nibbles at the blossoming bruise on Dream’s throat in the shape of his hand. 

Dream sobs and claws at his chest, at his shoulder as they fuck, as his tempo rises ― and Dream comes with a sob, squeezing his cock tightly and pulling an orgasm out of him. 

-

Checking all his weapons are where they’re meant to be, he puts on his clothes as Dream frowns, glaring at him on the backseat. “Now, I have to report to security, and you’ll probably have to deal with your family, so. See you around, Dream,” he says with a lazy fingered salute as he hops out of the car. “Mervyn,” he says with a smile and a nod towards the driver. Mervyn gives him the middle finger as he leaves. 

The security briefing is, well, brief. Mainly because he doesn’t reveal the people who kidnapped Dream. So that he can go after them himself, but that’s splitting hairs. There’s a cacophony of sound, and there’s a done-up Dream, looking only a tiny bit ruffled as he’s surrounded by all his siblings as they talk at him. Dream catches his eye and sends him a desperate get me out of here look, and Hob only shrugs, leaning against the wall as Death and Delirium move on to hugging Dream, only quickly though. 

Dream scowls, bruises on his neck hidden by layers of collars and black as he steps into Hob’s space once the room has cleared out and the siblings have dispersed. “Will you join me? To my room,” Hob raises an eyebrow and Dream looks away, fiddling with the sleeve of his shirt, “for protection, after my ordeal.” 

Hob frowns, Dream looking so exhausted now, and he nods, following after Dream into the labyrinth of the mansion until they end up at a room near the art quarters, opening into a red and black bedroom. Hob watches as Dream sheds off his clothes, marks and bruises ― mainly from him, bright against his skin as Dream goes into the bathroom. Hob closes the bedroom door as Dream fills the bath in his en suite, eventually hopping in with a weary sigh. 

There’s only the sound of a ticking clock, a far-off, muffled television as Dream curls up in the bath, eventually hopping out after at least an hour. Hob’s heart aches, which he ignores as Dream pulls a fluffy black towel around himself. “Hob,” Dream whispers, voice rusty as Dream dries himself off, getting into a ratty black shirt and pants. “Will you stay? Until I fall asleep?” 

Dream looks at him with red-rimmed eyes, drained and tired, at how vulnerable Dream is, and he wants to make sure that no-one else ever sees that look, as much as he wants to make it even worse. However, he did say, he would deal with Dream’s captors, and he thinks of the soft touch of the other’s skin, the fiery determination, even after being rescued. 

His heart, which he long thought dead, twists at the other’s exhaustion, and the decision is simple.

“Of course.” 

-

Going through the information gathered on Fawney Rig, Hob may actually have a bit of a challenge, so he decides to take his time working out angles, and what he plans to do. Especially when he discovers that the kidnapping wasn’t the first time he’s interacted with Dream, and those haven’t been good either. Nothing as overt as kidnapping, but enough of a pattern to make Hob think of the many ways to flay an old man alive.

Afterwards, Dream asks him to his room more. Sometimes for just peace of mind, apparently. And other times for sex, which isn’t trouble at all, and Hob is happy with the way things are going in life, even as he deals with rising amounts of plots against the Endless family with no clear mastermind, much to his frustration.

However, there’s always time for some fun, this time with Dream pushing him against his bedroom door and kneeling down, hands quickly taking him out and Hob gasps at the hot mouth around his dick, sucking him to hardness. Groaning, Hob grabs onto soft dark hair as Dream pushes his hips against the door. 

“What, no undressing me first?” He says, and Dream stops to give him a withered look, clearly not in the mood to deal with his many weapons. Hob barks out a laugh as Dream licks him. 

Dream moans, long black lashes fluttering as Hob fills up in his mouth, the other’s nails digging into the harnesses under his pants, daggers cold against his skin as Dream licks and sucks. 

“You may want to move those hands,” he breathes, tugging the other’s black hair, “daggers.” Dream gives him a tired look and pulls off him, teeth lightly grazing the top of his cock, annoyance showing even more as Dream tugs down his pants to reveal the harness and taking off the daggers. 

There’s a huff as Dream’s mouth returns, one of Dream’s hands going underneath his shirt to tug at his chest hair, and the pleasure fizzles steadily, unwilling to look away from the other man.

Even just looking at Dream in this position is enough to make his arousal build, spiraling at how much Dream obviously enjoys it. “So pretty,” he whispers, and Dream shivers around him, lashes fluttering and Hob smirks as Dream’s hips move, grinding into air. “Taking me so well,” he says, a hand trailing down to touch Dream’s jaw, going down to a pale throat as Dream moans and swallows around him. “Knew you’d be good with lips like these.” 

Dream whimpers as his hand goes up to pink lips, split around his cock, a thumb pressing inside the warm heat. There’s a cry, blue eyes shiny and tears sticking to the edge of long lashes. 

His orgasm is a slow thing, helped along as he tugs Dream by his hair, making him choke and swallow around him desperately as he comes. Dream coughs, covering his mouth as he swallows the white fluid. “Was that necessary?” Dream asks, voice rough and fucked, and Hob meets on the floor with a smirk. 

“No, it was just fun,” he says with a grin, making Dream gasp as he tugs black hair roughly. Pulling him in for a messy kiss, licking some off of Dream's puffy lips as Dream whimpers. His other hand goes to black skinny jeans, swiftly undoing them―and Hob raises his eyebrows, leaning back as Dream’s face reddens. “Was it the praise or the way I used you?” 

Dream’s face burns even more as his hand feels a softening cock, come coating his fingers as he takes his hand out. 

-

A different day, and Hob’s spent hours between Dream’s sheets, wringing out orgasms until he’s had his fill, the night air cool on his skin as he sits up on the bed, a warm lamp and moonlight showing their clothes strewn about the room. He at least tries to sit up, with a skinny arm going around his waist, and there’s a groan as Hob puts some of his daggers back into their harnesses. “Cuddly, are you?” He asks. 

“No,” Dream groans, muffled against his skin as the other man curls around him, a thumb going under one of his thigh harnesses as bright blue eyes peek at him. “Surely there’s better things to do than whatever you’re planning.” 

“Like making you come even more?” He asks, raising an eyebrow as he finds his syringe of poison, putting it into place. Dream huffs, pouting as Hob moves off the bed to sheathe even more of his weapons before haphazardly putting on his pants, afterglow settling in his veins.

“I could read to you,” Dream says, pride in his tone and Hob blinks, baffled as he turns to look back at Dream. “I have been told I have a good reading voice,” Dream explains as he picks up a book from his nightstand. Hob considers ― and Dream does have a good voice, and Hob did work very hard today with his own side project of dealing with Burgess. 

Hob crosses his arms and waits, although, “well, Prince of Stories?” Hob says sarcastically, and Dream blinks, shock on his face before it quickly becomes blank, Dream flipping through to the start of the book, a bookmark kept in place near the end of it. 

“Along the shore the cloud waves break, The twin suns sink behind the lake, The shadows lengthen. In Carcosa,” Dream begins, words deep and resounding, and vaguely familiar. 

“Horror?” He says with a grin, going back to sit on the edge of the bed. Dream’s eyebrow twitches. 

“It’s what I’ve been reading,” is offered primly. Dream clears his throat and pulls the sheets over himself, eyes focused on the page in front of him intently. “Strange is the night where black stars rise. And strange moons circle through the skies But stranger still, is Lost Carcosa―”

-

Hob frowns as he walks towards the art quarters, knowing that Dream would be there, since he’s not in his room. While the mansion has many cameras, there are none in Dream’s art areas or their rooms ― and not that he’d care for them, but it’s handy, especially with what he wants to talk to Dream about. Sighing, he enters the art room, finding Dream mixing paint near a canvas. “Anything you want to tell me?” 

Dream turns around and blinks, paintbrush in his hand dripping black paint. “About?” 

“Like another attempt on your parent’s life, which I only found out about after I left your room,” he says slowly, walking closer to Dream. 

“What are you implying?” Dream asks, shock giving away to an offended glare as the paintbrush gets put down. Hob doesn’t say anything, just watches as Dream glares at him, and continues―until a tiny tic, Dream looking away momentarily. 

“You knew,” he drawls as he grabs the other’s jaw, forcing blue eyes to look at him as Dream tries to look away again. “Why?” 

“You have some gall to accuse me,” Dream breathes, trying to push his hand away and failing as Hob digs his nails into Dream’s jaw. There’s a brief look of terror from Dream as his fingers go down a pale throat, beginning to cut air from his windpipe. “It wasn’t,” Dream gasps, voice high, “I did want to spend more time with you, but also.” 

 “Again. Why?” He asks as he lets go, letting Dream wheeze and take some deep breaths. 

“They want to send Delirium off,” Dream mutters, “and we―my sibling and I, don’t want that.” 

Hob nods, rumours and attempts coalescing into a clear picture, “that’s all? They want to send her away?” 

“Among other things,” Dream says quietly, giving him a wide-eyed look, “you can’t tell anyone.” 

Hob crosses his arms as he tilts his head, “I don’t know. I do enjoy the money.” 

“Once they’re ― nothing will change with that, I swear,” Dream says, almost pleading, “just a change in who runs things.”

Sighing, Hob steps back as he pats Dream’s cheek, a brief flash of fear crossing the other’s face. And, well, he did briefly consider killing the parents himself for the way they acted with Dream’s kidnapping. “As long I get my money, do what you want,” he says curtly as he leaves. 

-

A day later, and Dream freezes once he enters his bedroom. “Hob, I thought you’d be…” Dream trails off as Hob smiles, waiting for the other man to come closer. 

“Maybe I wanted to reward you for being so honest with me,” he says, holding his hands out ― which Dream takes warily as he pulls Dream on top of him. The other man looks confused and apprehensive, even as they share biting kisses. “A gift,” he breathes, smiling as Dream’s hands go under his shirt ― and stops, the hands leaving to pat over his thighs and chest. 

“Why do you have no weapons,” Dream says flatly, patting his thighs like he expects them to suddenly materialise from where Hob stashed them in the en suite. Hob resists rolling his eyes, bringing Dream in for another kiss, licking into the other’s mouth as their clothes are shed. The arousal builds slowly as he grabs Dream’s hip, stroking up and down as Dream gets his lube. 

“No,” he whispers, and Dream lets out a sound as Hob takes the lube from Dream, coating his fingers in it ― and Dream makes another sound as Hob puts the finger in himself, feeling odd after so many years. “Like this,” he says into Dream’s lips, watching Dream’s eyes widen, mouth dropping as Hob puts another finger in, stretching himself. 

“You―what,” Dream chokes, thin hands gabbing his waist tightly as Dream stares down as Hob puts another finger in, stretch sliding from weird to pleasurable as he brushes his prostate, gasping at the jolt of it. 

“A gift,” he whispers, looking up through his lashes as he finishes prepping himself ― and putting a condom on Dream’s red, leaking dick. There’s a whimper from Dream, hands fluttering up and down his chest as Dream breeches him. “And a punishment,”  Hob says with a grin as Dream bottoms out, and he shivers through the pleasure, nails digging into Dream’s jaw to force those blue eyes to look at him. 

“Fucking you? A punishment?” Dream asks, expression flummoxed, then quickly turning into determination and cockiness as Dream holds him down. The rhythm builds quickly, sometimes brushing against that bundle of nerves and bringing Hob closer to orgasm ― and Dream looks quietly smug, blue eyes dark as Hob clenches around him.

Hob blinks, watching as Dream fucks into him, nails scratching marks into his waist as Dream gets closer to coming ― and when Dream exits him, he puts his hand around the other’s cock. Dream cries out, orgasm stopped in place by his hand. “I think I need another orgasm. You, however.” 

Dream’s eyes widen, pink mouth gaping, cockiness forgotten, “but I. No. Hob,” Dream pleads, “Hob, please.” 

Smiling at how he can feel Dream’s cock twitch and jerk in his hand, he deems the orgasm stopped ― and uses his other hand to control Dream by the hips, guiding him in. Dream cries out, body collapsing on top of him as Hob guides the other’s cock, oversensitivity making it pleasure-painful as his cock eventually starts to fill again, and there’s only the sound of slapping skin, his moans and Dream’s pleading as his next orgasm arrives slowly. 

By then, he’s stopped Dream’s orgasm once more, who continues to beg into his neck. 

His third orgasm is erring on the side of painful and dry, but he enjoys it anyway as Dream lets out a broken wail as his own orgasm is stopped, Dream’s body shaking above him, and he can feel tears on his neck. “Do you think you’ve learnt yet?” He asks breathlessly, smiling as Dream nods against his neck. “I’m not entirely sure you have, considering that stunt you pulled.” 

His fourth orgasm is entirely dry, the oversensitivity making him grit his teeth as his walls clench around Dream’s throbbing cock. Dream at this point is completely incoherent, only the suggestions of begging are almost discernible beneath broken sounds. 

It’s after he’s stopped Dream’s orgasm for the seventh time, does he take Dream out, who is a collapsed, shivery mess on top of him. As he gets up from the bed, Dream blindly reaches for him, eventually gripping onto one of his biceps. “Hob,” Dream croaks, blue eyes watery and puffy, black eyeliner running. 

“Behave, and I might let you come,” Hob purrs, pulling Dream in for a filthy kiss by his hair, and then leaving to put everything on in the en suite.

-

Next day, the soreness is pushed away with painkillers ― and the way Dream stares at him, eyes pleading and suit askew at a meeting for the family. Hob listens on with half an ear, mostly looking outside the window as he feels Dream’s gaze on him. 

“Oi!” A voice hisses next to him, and Hob turns around to see Matthew ― and a cut-off, decaying finger in a ziplock bag. “Hold this.” 

Sighing, he gets out his leather gloves, putting them on before handling that, turning it around to look at a tag also in the bag, only making out a vague Choron, “more dirty work?” 

“Trash, actually,” Matthew says as he picks up a drink. Hob gives him an unimpressed look. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle it, I just wanted a bit of space.” 

Hob goes to say something, but catches Dream’s intense stare across the way ― the way Dream’s lips have parted as they hand at his hands. “Ever wonder how they lived with that?” He asks idly, shaking the bag and bringing it up to his eye level, Dream’s gaze pinned on his hands. 

Matthew chuckles, and there’s a gulp and sigh as Matthew drinks more of the middling beer usually on offer for such a fancy place as this, “badly, probably. Can’t imagine jerking off with a missing finger, poor fuck,” Matthew says with a laugh. Hob smirks, and the rest of the meeting passes uneventfully, and Hob watches as Dream squirms in his seat, heavy gaze resting on him all the while. 

Meeting adjourned, Hob’s unsurprised with how fast Dream appears next to him ― although, the way Dream grabs hold of his lapels and pushes him against the corridor wall is a bit of a surprise, considering the cameras as they share heated kisses. “What brought this on?” He asks, gloved hands holding onto the other’s jaw, watching as Dream shivers, body pressing against him. 

“Hob, you know why,” Dream says, tone almost desperate as he pushes his face into Hob’s hand. “Please.” 

Humming, his hand trails down the other’s torso, feeling Dream press even closer as he reaches Dream’s clothed cock, his other hand going to tug Dream’s head to the side as he bites into the marks hiding under Dream’s collar. Arousal flares as Dream whimpers, squirming against him as he opens the other’s pants, leather-clad hand stroking Dream’s leaking cock. 

“Yes,” Dream gasps, a pale hand gripping the back of his neck as he strokes Dream, almost no friction from pre-come getting onto the leather. “More,” Dream breathes and Hob looks up, catching sight of a goon staring at them. 

“Think this is good enough for now, don’t you think?” He smirks, keeping eye contact with the shocked goon as his hand in Dream’s hair ghosts down his back to slide under Dream’s shirt, feeling him shiver and cry out. The goon seems to move out of his stupor and walks out of sight, Hob tracking him as he bites further up Dream’s neck. “After all, the only reason I’m not fucking you at this moment, is if I’m not sure if you deserve it.” 

Dream lets out a pathetic sound, clutching him tighter he presses against the slit of Dream’s cock, making the other man shiver. “It won’t―that won’t happen again,” Dream pants.

Hob sighs, twisting his wrist as Dream moans, hands scrabbling desperately over his torso as it takes only a few more strokes until Dream comes. There’s a loud cry, Dream going boneless as his other hand goes to Dream’s front to pinch at pink nipples hidden under the black dress shirt. “Next time, I won’t be as nice,” he says, hand moving out of― 

Until Dream grabs his wrist, and his cock, neglected, throbs as Dream licks his come off the black leather, eyes an intense dark blue as they look at him. 

“Needy, aren’t you?” He rasps, Dream’s eyes fluttering shut as he continues to lick the his gloved hands, and Hob moans as Dream grabs his cock. Dream undoes his belt and zipper as his thumb presses Dream’s bottom lip, black glove and pink lips making his cock twitch before Dream gets his own hands on it, stroking it in a frenzied rush as Dream bites at his fingers, licking the palm of his hand as Hob comes with a groan.

-

Dream has asked him to be around his art room, looking haunted ― and Hob gets the impression he’s there for more emotional support again, which. He’s a bit out of practice with, but for Dream usually just requires being in the area, so he’s sitting in one of the plush chairs and reading a book, while Dream mixes paints and glares daggers at a canvas. 

There’s a sigh, and a clatter as brushes get put down, “why do you let them do that?” Dream asks, apropos of nothing and Hob blinks, attention dragged away from his book to Dream.

“Let who do what?” He crosses his legs, placing the book down the side of the chair. 

“I heard some guards talking about you. They don’t know about you.” Dream clarifies, eyes narrow as they stare at him. 

“They don’t matter. And I like to operate so that people under-estimate me,” he shrugs, putting his face on his hands. “Art not co-operating today?” 

Dream scowls and glares once again at the canvas, then stands up and comes over to him, hands gripping his thighs. “I read about you ― or what wasn’t heavily redacted. What did you do?” 

Hob’s brows raise, and he huffs, gently pushing Dream away with his foot ― and Dream lets out a sound, blue eyes darkening as they stare at his pointed shoes. That’s always an option, Hob considers as he guides Dream onto the floor, shoe on Dream’s shoulder. Cocking his head, he thinks that Dream kneeling for him might be one of his favourite things. “A light disagreement with a former employer, nothing interesting,” he breathes. 

“It said you’re to be executed on sight, from the MI6, that wasn’t redacted,” Dream scowls, trying to hold onto getting his answers. Hob hums, smirking as he puts his other leg in between Dream’s, lightly pressing onto the other’s crotch, and Dream gasps. 

“The disagreement wasn’t so light, then,” he amends, feeling Dream’s cock fill under his shoe as Dream grabs onto his shin, nails digging into him. 

“Hob,” Dream growls, staring up at him with blue eyes swallowed by black ― and Hob’s other shoe taps against Dream’s cheek, trailing to the other’s jaw and pulling his face up, legs loosely crossed as he does. 

“Dream,” he mimics, feeling Dream shiver as he grinds his shoe into a hard cock. Hob blinks, resting his head on his hand, watching as Dream holds onto his ankles. “While you’re down there, there’s better things to do than talk about ancient history,” Hob drawls ― and Dream shivers, arching into the shoe on his groin ― and the point of the other shoe presses into Dream’s pink mouth. 

“I―I don’t,” Dream whines, muffled by his shoe as he’s given him a wide-eyed look, surprise as Dream grabs onto the shoe near his mouth. There’s a whimper as Hob continues to press onto Dream’s cock, making the other man shudder and curl in on him, Dream’s nose brushing against his other shoe, cheeks flushing red. 

“You don’t even have to do anything if you don’t want, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy,” he purrs, own arousal making his dick hard in his pants, and he grins as Dream moans, blue eyes glazed over as they look at him, mouth open. “Look at that,” he breathes, leaning over to grip Dream’s hair, Dream following along obediently. “Now,” he guides Dream’s face to his other shoe, still grinding into Dream’s cock as the other man whimpers. “Be a good boy and lick.” 

Dream lets out a whimper, staring up at him, then to his shoe, blinking ― and there's a frisson of pleasure coiling inside at seeing a tentative lick on the top of it, blue eyes fluttering closed. There’s a broken, surprised noise as Dream kisses his shoe, hands moving to grip underneath as kisses and licks get laved upon it. 

Having been roughly involved in the BDSM scene, but again. Disagreements, and yet he’s delighted to see how easily Dream falls into subspace, feeling the scrape of teeth through leather as Dream bites at the point of the shoe, sucking it and Hob shivers, dick throbbing as he watches. Licking his lips, he lifts the one on Dream’s crotch, and Dream whines, staring at him imploringly. “If you want to come, you’ll have to work for it.” 

Reclining back in the chair and resting his fingers on his cheek, Dream takes a few deep breaths, blinking up at him. Dream moves forward, a hand coming to grip the ankle of the shoe that was grinding into him ― and he lets out a pleased sound as Dream starts to press against his shoe, chest arching into his leg as Dream moves up and down. 

“Beautiful,” he praises, stroking Dream’s red cheek as he whines and grounds up against him, licking the top of his other shoe, and there’s only the sound of their breathing, and Dream’s whining, with leather creaking as Dream works himself towards orgasm. 

Dream comes with a cry, hiding his face into Hob’s shoe as he pants, weight falling onto Hob’s legs as Dream stares up at him. 

-

A week later, Hob enters Dream’s room, who reacts with ― embarrassment, blue eyes looking away as Dream’s face starts to redden. “What?” Dream asks, voice gruff and giving him a death glare. 

“I’m going to visit a mutual friend today,” he says dryly, and Dream, hunched over a desk with a notebook, tenses as Hob pulls a gun out of the holster under his suit jacket. Refraining from rolling his eyes, he grabs the barrel of the gun, butt facing Dream as he walks up to the other man, other hand in his pants. “Remember, whose men I had to deal with to free you?” 

Dream’s eyes widen, looking between the gun and his face as Hob leans against the desk. “Why now?” 

“Had to make a plan, at least a bit of an effort regarding some things,” he shrugs, and now Dream looks more confused, closing his notebook. “As for this,” he rattles the gun, thumb moving to the side of it to show the shining gleam of it, “a kiss? For luck,” he says with a grin. 

The other man scoffs, staring down at the barrel, “why? You don’t need it,” Dream mutters, glancing between the gun and him for a few moments. Hob raises his brows, and Dream’s lips purse before he moves forward, lips pressing onto the barrel of the gun. There’s a clack of teeth against steel as Dream grabs onto his hand, eyes dark as they stare up at him. 

A pink tongue presses against the barrel and Hob takes a breath, feeling himself get half-hard as Dream pulls him down, breath almost mingling over the top of the gun―  And Hob takes the gun away, putting it back in its holster, Dream’s stare heavy and Hob forces his mind back on track, that’s not filled with Dream’s delicious cries and warm skin. “Later,” he manages, voice rough as he steps back, and eventually out of the room.

#dc #the sandman #dreamling #dreamling fanfic #dream x hob #hob x dream #hob x morpheus #dream of the endless #hob gadling #writing #not sfw #oh my amoral baby of a fic i care you so much #the second part is pretty much almost done and so

[furbygoblinxiv]

MASSIVE TOTK STORY SPOILERS

Made some quickly colored sketches based on my thoughts and playthrough of totk now that I've reached the end of the main story (in 65 hours over 10 days...)

Explaining in order of appearance and also delivering thoughts opinions and spoilers on most things:

So since Sonia gets got and Rauru self sacrifices, and also Zelda shares a blood connection with them, they had to have had kids by the time Zelda got there. And I imagine she spent alot of time with them, since so much happens in those memories, so I like to think the kids and her got along. And I also image that these kids gotta look wild based on being half Zonia half Hylian. Wild looking halfling children left orphaned by Ganondorf.

Zelda gets saved from dragon form at the end, hoorah, however I think she should have kept some of the more dragon like features. I swear I'm not a furry but I just really like funky character designs. Something something how its become part of her something something I need lore videos on it immediately. Also a little Link mashup outfit (my favorite so far, pairing a horn with normal clothing)

So the sage avatars are like physical beings, hence why enemies can shoot at them and why they vanish when in villages in order to not scare people ig. Which to me implies that when you complete a sage dungeon with other sage avatars out, that actual sage can see them. While this has plentiful comedic potential, I do think Riju would be the only one to actually question it though. Also, I call the avatars "my shadow clone goons" or just goons for short, since they do like all my fighting for me. I sit back and block and they do all the work. Extra shout out to Tulin, I think he's killed more dungeon bosses than I have. I didn't wanna spoil Mineru to people so I just collectively call them my Goon Squad.

I thought it was really sweet how Zelda seems to have gotten a chance at having caring parental figures in Sonia and Rauru. I also think it's funny that the closest equivalent that I think Link has is in Purah. Who, when I got all the memories (and thus knew of the imposter and the fate of Zelda) and got the master sword, Link just straight up didn't share any of this until AFTER he got Mineru. Like. Buddy. All these people are worried about Zelda but you SAW THE MEMORY of Ganondorf using a puppet Zelda, and the memory of Zelda becoming a dragon. Like. He just chooses to keep those to himself until someone else brings it up. Straight up iconic. You keep all your secrets to yourself, little man. But it's funny how Purah literally had a line like "You knew all of this?! When were you gonna tell me?!" Lol

I have a lot of thoughts on this game, both good and bad, about the story, lore, mechanics, ect that I may make a post about eventually. However I do know that I'll probably make art of like every single new character eventually bc I dearly love them all (I especially think Yona has a cute design)! Anyways slay fun game I love it I shall continue to play 9/10

#loz #totk #totk spoilers #legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #the legend of zelda #totk purah #ive decided the only character tag Im adding to this is purah actually #my thoughts and rambles #my totk playthru #my art tag

[kristen-chin]

If you are (or want to try something spooky for your tabletop group, or are obeying the inexplicable howling of the void)

Then the 2023 Tabletop Halloween Spooktacular might be up your alley.

9 Halloween games for $20 - featuring:

Vampire Support Groups, Haunted overgrown churches, the perils of being immortal, underground research facility horror, being a magical goon squad for an eccentric wizard and also a chance to chant TEETH TEETH TEETH in a tabletop game.

#halloween #tabletop #ttrpg #october

[definitelynotthedarklord]

Why do they hate Batman Beyond all of a sudden?

So I was scrolling through social media the other day and I saw a video where they talked about a canceled sequel to Batman Arkham Knight, that, from the sound of it, would have been one of the greatest games any of us would ever play, essentially being a bigger, sweeter cherry on top of the other cherry that is Arkham Knight that was on top of the sunday that is the Arkham series.

The story was that 10 years after the end of Arkham Knight Bruce, who had been using fear toxin to better strike fear into the hearts of Gotham's criminals, retires and passes the mantle of Batman to his son, Damien Wayne, who then goes on to fight the Court of Owls.

And it would have had a Nemesis system kind of like the Shadow of War/Mordor games, where if you break a goons arm, the next time you see him his arm'll be in a cast or something.

And they scrapped it because of leaks, and instead gave us Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: KTJL!

And then I hear they also canceled a Batman Beyond movie made by the people behind Across The Spiderverse

Like what in the everloving fuck is wrong with these people? How can they look at these amazing ideas and say "Nah." Are they trying to not make money? Do they want a reputation of sucking?

#batman #dc #batman beyond #bruce wayne #damien wayne #terry mcginnis

[thebl00dmaster]

Every Limbus Company Canto in a nutshell:

Obviously : spoiler warning and dubious attempt at humour.

Prologue: Meet the goon squad ! (and a grumpy old man and his daughter).

Canto I: War flashbacks - Coop mode.

Canto II: The gang fumbles their way through a casino heist !

Canto III: The worst (not) Christmas ever ! Featuring: Nine Foot Nails.

Canto III.5: The Pollo Loco incident - Master Chef edition.

Canto IV: The Corporate, the Terrorist and the Ideal. ft a double L for Carmen.

Canto IV.5: The beach episode - turning the magic hell bus into a boat using crabs !

Canto V: Moby Dick II - Electric Boogaloo featuring the Cthulhu Mythos (and other maritime works + hair coupons)

#limbus company #meme

[twistnet]

chapter two — outskirts

⋯ SUMMARY ; the outskirts of the quarantine zone are trivial to navigate, and you are slowly starting to find out just how difficult this mission is about to become the longer you trek towards the capitol building

⋯ WARNINGS ; canon divergence, tw [ mentions of death, infected, guns, getting bit, blood ], some soft moments + mature language

“home sweet home...” tess utters, knocking rhythmically against the wooden door before working a series of locks open. tess’ route back to the warehouse located on the edge of the zone had taken a lot longer to get back to than anticipated. soldiers had practically swarmed the streets after the checkpoint explosion -- something she made sure to comment about at the first sight of the heavily armored platoons lining the streets. which had only earned her a slight glare from yourself before moving on.

the door swung open and tess was quick to announce herself, “hey. sorry it took so long. soldiers. fucking everywhere.”

“how’s marlene?” a voice -- ellie, questioned quickly with concern dripping into her tone before being offered a short smile from tess, “she’ll make it.” the answer was short, but seemed to do enough to stem the girl’s worries about her friend before turning toward joel with a wild smirk, “i saw the merchandise. it’s a lot. wanna do this?”

“yeah, but first...” he seemed to hesitate before continuing, “who’s this?” joel questions, frown lines deepening as his gaze falls where you stand just behind tess. your name rolls off her tongue easily as she waves her hand in your direction, “marlene sent her as insurance -- she’s taking over once we get to the capitol. they're expecting her to be there.”

“this was not what we agreed to! smuggling two girls outta of the zone? is marlene out of her mind?!” joel’s quick spout of anger is quickly diminished by tess’ heated glare, however, the anger is still evident on his features, “don’t you think it’s a bit strange that they're having us do their smuggling?”

“marlene wanted to do it herself. we weren’t their first choice, or the second for that matter. but it’s apparent she trusts this girl to make sure things run smoothly.” tess counters, shoulders shrugging slightly as she nods over towards you with a light smile, “besides, from what i hear, it’s not her first time out of the zone.”

“well, let’s just hope someone’s around to pay us.” joel grunts, following the group of girls into the other room. he brings up the rear, making sure each one of them makes it through the cutout in the wall before stepping over to the generator powering the lift.

“who’s waiting for us at the drop off?” he questions after the lift lowers the group down to the subfloor of the old apartment building -- one of the few unblocked entrances into the zone left untouched by fedra goons. “she said there’s some fireflies that have traveled all the way from another city. girl must be important.”

joel nods, turning his gaze towards you with a raised brow, “anything you want to add before we get started?”

you look up from the floor, arms crossing over your chest as you shake your head, “i probably know just as much as you do.” and for the most part, it was the truth. you, honest to god, had no clue why marlene wanted ellie escorted out of the zone. no reasoning was ever given and you definitely wasn’t going to ask. as for what you did know, it simply came down to knowing who exactly they were meeting at the capitol as it wasn’t too strange that a squad from another city had traveled in for the meet up, “great.”

once the lift comes to a halt, you step off the platform and follows after tess, lingering behind her and ellie as she takes a few looks around -- not at all familiar with this way out of the zone.

“how long is this all gonna take?” comes ellie’s question, her eyes glancing between the three other members of the group before tess shrugs, “if everything goes as planned, we should get you both to them in a few hours.” the answer seems to satisfy the girl again and the four make their way towards a ladder that leads to the ground above, “ellie, once we get out there, i need you to follow our lead and stay close.”

joel is the first up the ladder, hand pressing against the wooden panel that covers the entrance. he spares a quick glance around before climbing up and through. you are next, quickly climbing up the ladder and taking up an outlook position as the last two of the group join.

“this rain ain’t gonna do us any good.” joel comments, hand raising to shield his eyes from the onslaught of rain coming down around the city. it had been some time since you had been outside the walls, with your last run to an outpost just outside of boston having been almost four months ago and it seemed the travel times outside the walls were getting further apart as tensions continued to raise between the fireflies and fedra.

“holy shit... i’m actually outside.” ellie smiles, briefly locking eyes with you -- receiving a soft smile in return before being ushered forward, leaving you to bring up the rear alongside tess. you followed after joel, down and through what looked to have been some old sewage lines, all rapidly filling with water from the rain pouring down from above. this was definitely going to make the journey only slightly more miserable with the current given conditions.

you continued after joel and ellie, following them both up the length of an old semi trailer, only to curse a few seconds later when a fedra soldier pops out from nowhere and butts joel with the end of her rifle before lining the barrel up with the rest of the group, “don’t do anything stupid.”

heavy steps sound from behind, another fedra soldier with his gun drawn and pointed at tess’ back, “move.” he commands, ushering the girls out of the trailer and onto solid ground.

he gestures pointedly with his gun, “turn around. on your knees.” you drop to your knees beside tess, hands already raising above your head with the hopes the medallion of your necklace isn’t visible anywhere -- knowing damn well that the second either of the soldiers see, it’s an instant bullet to the head.

“you scan them, i’ll call it in.” the female soldier orders, stepping just a few paces away to talk into her radio as her partner steps forward with a scanner, “this is ramirez at sector twelve. requesting pick up for four stragglers.”

the male soldier slowly goes down the line, pressing the device against the back of each person's neck and only moving on when it comes back clear of infection. however, as he gets down to ellie, you quickly notice the girl grow antsy -- muttering something under her breath before she whips around and drives her knife into the calf of the soldier behind her.

you scramble, gun already in your hands and making the shot at the female soldier behind you and tess before turning to find joel apprehending the other with a single blow to the head.

your blood runs cold as panic slowly begins to set in -- this wasn’t how things were supposed to go. shooting soldiers and making a mess on the outside wall wasn’t how things were supposed to go. but your best guess is that this had to happen, otherwise they’d be carted back inside the walls.

your gaze turns toward ellie, who’s braced herself up against an old box as she slowly begins to panic herself, “oh fuck... fuck! i thought we were just gonna hold them up or something.” both tess and joel look about ready to rip into the younger girl when tess’ gaze drops to the scanner that lay at her feet.

“oh shit.” she mutters looking down at the reading, before tossing it over to joel, “look at this.” he catches the device effortlessly, eyes widening as he too reads over the reading before anger flashes over his face.

“jesus christ. marlene set us up?” he questions, almost distressed, tess only able to offer a shrug of her shoulders as she attempts to comprehend the turn of events. “why the hell are we smuggling an infected girl?”

your gaze drops to ellie, before snatching the device from joel’s hands to read it for yourself. brows furrowing before shaking the device -- hoping to some higher power that this thing was wrong. yet, the scan doesn’t change in the slightest.

“did you know about this?” tess questions you quietly with the briefest twinge of anger already beginning to lace her tone. though it disappears the second you shake your head, shoulders sagging as you turn to face away from the conversation. this whole trip was slowly starting to not make any sense and doubt was slowly starting to fill in the pit of your gut.

“i’m not infected!” ellie yells, hands held out in front of her as joel scoffs at her, “no? so this is lying?” he states, pointing towards the device in your hands with an angered expression.

“i can explain!” she states, pleading for the rest of the group to listen as tess and joel slowly start to crowd around her. “you better explain fast.” tess growls, gun already in her hand as she takes a step toward ellie in a menacing fashion.

“look at this!” her hand pushing the sleeve of her shirt up her arm to show off the healed over bite mark on her forearm. joel scoffs again, “i don’t care how you got infected...”

“it’s three weeks old...” ellie states, looking between the two in front of her, before tess quickly cuts her off with the shake of her head, “no. everyone turns within two days. so you stop bullshiting.”

“it’s three weeks. i swear. why would she set you up?” ellie pleads again with the group, knowing that this could very well end badly if they chose to leave her here. sure, she knows tess and joel would disappear without another word, but you? she wasn’t sure. you had been assigned to make sure she got to the capitol by marlene -- you wouldn’t abandon the orders you are given... right?

“i ain’t buying it.” joel sighs, turning away from the girl before spotting the humvee of fedra reinforcements approaching their location.“oh shit... tess. run.”

you jut forward, grasping ellie by the upper arm before pulling her along after the two smugglers. the group traverses through some of the old tunnels and sewage pipes -- wanting to avoid running into any and all fedra soldier now that they know two of their own were killed.

alarms and lights lit up the area around them, making avoiding the mass of fedra soldiers all that more difficult, “there’s so many of them out here. how are we going to get around them?” ellie whispers from your side, shouldering herself up against the broken piece of concrete as lights flooded the area below in search of the four of you.

“they ain’t spotted us yet -- quick, over this way.” joel states, waving for the rest of you to follow after him. it takes a few minutes to navigate the old sewers, and there are a few times where you feel yourself holding your breath as you wait to see if the fedra soldier had caught any of your movements, only to move on and call out to their team.

you slide into an area, pausing abruptly when humvee’s pass over a large grate, before joel ushers you into an area where it seems you all could get a grasp on what was going on, “alright... they're gone.”

“okay, what was the plan? let’s say that we deliver you to the fireflies, what then?” tess questions, looking between you and ellie as the latter settles to the ground under her. you can only shrug, only knowing to get ellie to the capitol -- you’re next orders would come from the team lead.

ellie sighed, “marlene... she said that they have their own little quarantine zone. with doctors there; still trying to find a cure.”

joel huffs out a disbelieving laugh while shaking his head, “yeah, we’ve heard that before, huh, tess?” there’s a slight glare sent his way before tess motions for ellie to continue with a lopsided smile, “and that... whatever happened to me is the key to finding a vaccine.”

“oh jesus.” joel curses, huffing out a laugh as ellie stares at him disbelief, “it’s what she said.” and once again, it seemed her words had fallen on deaf ears as joel shakes his head and all but waves her off, “oh, i’m sure she did.”

“hey! fuck you, man! i didn’t ask for this!” ellie yells, quickly standing from her seated position and walking a few paces to get in his face, only to be dragged back by your hand at her bicep with a swift shake of the head. she seemed to deflate at the action and muttered something under her breath as joel seemed to continue.

“tess, what the hell are we doing here?” he questions, now looking over at his partner with the hope that she wasn't buying into what was being said. however, the hopeful look in her eyes give the exact opposite response as she shrugged, “what if it’s true?”

“i can't....” joel scoffs in disbelief, shaking his head as tess takes another step towards him, “what if it’s true, joel? we’ve come this far, let’s just finish it.”

“do i need to remind you what is out there?” he growls out, making a point gesture as tess’ face seems to twist up in slight upset, “oh, i get it.” she hisses, brushing past her partner. leaving both you and ellie to follow right after her. and after a few paces, joel dutifully joins at the back.

“this way! if we cut through downtown, we can make it to the capitol by sunrise.” tess calls over her shoulder, pointing towards the highway ninety sign. the roads leading towards downtown look about the same as the wasteland closer to the quarantine zone.

“holy moly! i guess this is what these buildings look like up close. they're so damn tall.” ellie mutters, looking up and around at the leaning buildings before turning towards tess with a curious gaze, “so... what happened here?”

“they bombed the hell out of the surrounding areas close to the quarantine zones. hoping to take out as much of the infected as possible. it worked.” tess answered, earning a laugh from joel as you all continued down between the dilapidated buildings.

a loud crack of thunder seemed to stir up some of the infected, the noises seemed to scare ellie, who jumped almost a foot in the air and quickly cozied up to your side, “ah, what the hell was that?”

“tess, you hear that?” joel asked from behind, and tess nodded, “yeah, sounded pretty far away though.” the only tough part about trying to figure out where those sounds came from was that it could have been from anywhere. which made this situation all the more troubling.

“are we safe?” ellie questions, looking over at tess as she asks this, knowing that she would be upfront and honest with her, “for now... come on.” you continue to follow her up a slope, that later banks off and then drops over the edge, “damn, that's quite a drop.”

“there’s the capitol building over there.” joel points off into the distance, with the crest of the capitol just over the tilted towers. ellie’s shoulders seem to sag as she observes just how far off the end goal seems to be.

“yeah, we need to get around this mess...” tess states, shaking her head at the sad state of the outside area before moving back and away from the edge she’s standing on.

“this is the downtown area?” ellie questions, looking up at what she could only assume to be an old office building -- just like the ones she’s seen in the textbooks from the military school. tess nods softly, “was. now it’s just a giant wasteland.”

the path leads up to the courtyard, a part of the old building already starting to give away. with the windows and doors already open giving easy access to the lower floors of the building. joel is the first to enter, climbing up and into the building before cursing loudly, “hey, tess!”

tess quickly rushes up the rest of the way, coming to stop at joel’s side before shaking her head at the sight of the freshly mailed fedra officer leaning up against the wall, “he’s been ripped apart. body’s pretty fresh.” this body would only further complicate things -- it meant the building they are in had infected roaming around it’s halls, and that it was going to be a task and a half to navigate through.

“is that bad?” ellie asks from your side, looking over the body with a slight grimace as tess and joel share a look, “yeah, it might be. let’s not stick around.”

at her command, everyone began moving up the stairs, already wanting to put this building behind them until joel stops again, “ah! another one... shit!” with a shake of his head, he kneels down next to the body, pulling the small orders paper from his grasp and reading it over, “looks like these guys died waiting for backup.”

so, it meant whatever had killed them was still lingering around in the building. and it now meant you were all going to have to deal with it when the time came. the thing with infected was they liked to hide and aside from the obvious noise they tended to make, most of their attacks were made using the cover of darkness. and that only complicated things more.

sighing heavily, you continued up the flight of stairs, keeping watch for anything that moved or made noise. you slowly continued to crepe through the building, mainly climbing the stairs until you could find a room that took you down the length of the building. the first room like this you came across was on the fifth level, yet, had a bit of an obstacle keeping all of you from continuing further.

“god dammit! clicker...” joel curses, looking over the clicker attached to the wall and doorframe. tendrils spreading from its form and crawling up the walls around it. “jeez... what’s wrong with its face?”

“that’s what years of infection with do to you.” tess explains, gesturing wildly at the face with a displeased look. to most people’s knowledge, there were still some things roaming around that had gotten infected twenty years ago -- as to what state they were in at the time, no one really knows, but to get to this point, you’d had to be infected for at least a few years.

“so what, are they blind?” ellie asks, watching intently as joel attempts to force the door open. having to break the crusted growths that had attached themselves along the wall. a few solid hits of his shoulder against the door managed to pop it open and he ushered you all through.

“sort of, they see using sound.” tess states, as ellie perks up at the piece of information, “like bats?” to which tess nods, “like bats. if you hear one clicking, you need to hide. it means it’s right behind you.”

the next room you move into is oddly steep, and coupled with a violent shake of the building as you almost slipping back down towards the windows behind you, “whole building seems like it’s getting ready to fall apart. watch your head.” joel calls over his shoulder and you manage to steady yourself enough as the next shake takes place.

“totally cool... everything is totally cool.” ellie mutters to herself, sticking close to you and tess as the building continues to shake around you. once it settles, a look is shared among the group -- silent confirmations of safety as joel and tess move forward.

the next door is similar to the other, only this time it takes both joel and tess to push the door open -- watching with confusion as a large metal desk gets pushed away from the door before falling off the edge.

“joel!” tess yells in warning seconds before joel gets tackled by a clicker. you instinctively usher ellie behind you, hand already braced against the handle of your gun as tess shoots forward, kicking the clicker off joel and stepping down on the center of its chest before shooting it twice in the head.

“you alright?” ellie calls from over your shoulder, eyes wide with worry as joel quickly brushes her off, “it’s nothing.”

“lets search for supplies.” tess calls, before moving into the adjacent room and searching along the rows of office desks for anything useful. ellie follows in behind her, “shit! that was intense!”

“you said it.” tess mutters, shaking her head at just how close of a call that had been. you enter into the small office area, following tess’ suggestion to try and find some supplies. and you manage to find a few things, and combined with the stuff you had in your backpack, was enough to make a med kit. to which you turn towards joel, holding the pack out to him with a small smile.

“thanks.” he states quietly, wrapping the gaze around the length of his forearm before moving on and behind tess and ellie -- who have moved onto the next area.

it’s another set of stairs, however, it seems that you’ll have to scale a wall much taller than the ones previous. joel drops down, bracing himself against the wall before waving for tess. he lifts her up, making sure she’s up and over before waving for ellie to go next. once she’s up, you’re next and once your foot is placed in the brace of his hands, he lifts you up to grasp tess’ hand to pull you up the rest of the way.

“come on big guy.” tess utters down at her partner, causing you to chuckle lightly at the seemingly sweet words she’s spoken his way. joel jumps, grabbing her outstretched hand and the two of you pull him up and onto the next level.

you watch joel open his mouth, possibly getting ready to point out the direction the rest of you need to continue in, when clicks sound from the next room. “clickers?!” ellie screeches, before quickly being quieted by tess, who pulls the girl by her arm. joel ushers you in front of him, shouldering you behind a large desk right behind ellie and tess just as the first clicker comes bounding through the door.

you duck further when the clicker hovers just on the other side of the desk, the rhythmic clicks searching for any sign of life that it had followed in. when it steps back, walking towards the back part of the room, you watch tess reach down to her side, silently picking up a discarded bottle, before chucking it over the desk and letting it crash against the floor.

the clicker screeches, walking towards where the bottle had landed, and using the distraction to your advantage, tess waves you all to follow her down the length of desks and around the corner.

another bottle goes flying -- this time away from the blocked doorway tess quietly points out to all of you, and the clicker goes running towards the sound as before. once over and safe on the other side, your shoulders sag in relief, “you two alright?” tess questions after a second, looking between the two of you for any signs of distress.

“other than shitting my pants? i’m fine.” ellie jokes, earning a soft chuckle from you as you nod, signaling that you are fine and ready to move forward. tess smiles, “alright. lets go.”

“the stairwell’s blocked. should we go back up?” ellie obversely looks down at the pile of desks and chairs that block the way down to the lower levels. you step forward, looking over the railing and shrugging your shoulders, “we could go over...”

joel does just that, and with a bit of struggle, manages to pull the large filing cabinet out from under the crushed stairwell. allowing enough space for everyone to slide through to the other side, “there you go, ladies.”

tess slides over the railing first, followed by ellie and then by yourself. it’s an odd obstacle and your aren’t surprised when you manage to catch the toe of your boot on a stray piece of metal. a hand grasps the handle of your backpack, preventing you from falling flat on your face before pulling you upright, “thanks.” you mutter as joel comes around you, “don’t worry about it.”

then you catch tess climbing over the railing onto some scaffolding -- something you definitely didn’t trust with the way it groaned under the new weight being placed on it after all those years, “ah! this is crazy...” ellie states, looking over at tess as if she was crazy.

“just don’t look down.” tess replies easily, already moving off the first platform and onto the next. ellie shakes her head, before reluctantly climbing over the railing and wincing when it groans underneath her, “are you serious?”

ellie’s moments are slow, and almost calculated as she follows after tess. it’s evident this isn’t something she had seen herself doing when marlene had dropped her off to tess and joel earlier that day, and she was hoping that this was going to be the last daring thing she had to do before getting to the capitol building.

you climbed over once ellie made it to the other platform, hating how the rain managed to make the metal slippery and only that much more difficult to navigate. however, you were quicker to get across the platforms, rushing by tess and ellie as they waited for you and joel to enter in behind them.

screams echo from the next section of the building has you all stopping in your tracks as tess looks back at joel, “runners.”

“i’ll go check it out. stay with the girls.” joel orders, before dropping down to the next level. you slowly watch as joel quietly takes out the dozen or so runners throughout the lower complex. and the three of you only follow down to the same level once joel gives the all clear.

getting out and onto the street made you sigh in relief, and you’re almost happy to see the ground once more after spending those horrible few hours in that office building.

the rest of you follow joel over towards a shutter door, waiting patiently as he pulls on the chain to lift the door up for the rest of you to get through. until tess drops a hand to his shoulder with a concerned expression, “what? i don’t hear anything...” until something perks at her ears and she whips back around to joel, “double time it.”

“they're coming!” ellie yells from behind you, and you quickly shove her towards the gate, sliding under the metal door and securing her away as tess and joel barely make it through as the runners butt up against the gate.

“there’s something on your foot.” ellie points out, and you look down, finding a hand still gripped on joel’s boot -- something he’s quick to shake away before continuing further into the building.

walking and climbing through the shipping area, you’re able to deduct that the group ended up in a museum of sorts. entirely based on the old vases and some of the overturned exhibits, “this would have been so cool to see before the world went to shit. i always liked museums --  never been to one but all my books made them seem cool.” you state looking over everything. there’s a slight noise of agreement from joel, who quickly exits the area and moves further through the building as ellie and tess follow behind him.

the next room seems to have collapsed, and joel steadies himself under a few of the planks, lifting them before urging everyone through. however, his grasp and the rest of the ceiling slips down before you’re able to get through, trapping you and joel together on one side.

“joel!” tess calls from the other side, concern dripping into her voice as you move to sit ip, “we’re alright! we’ll make our way around -- “ his sentence overlapped with screeches of clickers running towards the sound. ellie and tess disappear from view and joel helps you back to your feet before ushering for you to follow him.

the both of you quietly sneak through the old building, not knowing where the infected exactly were, meaning you’d have to be quiet to avoid getting swarmed by runners and possibly clickers.

the first door you entered, runners stood around the different displays, scratching at their eyes as the infection coursed through them, “take them out quietly?” you whisper, earning a nod before you move through the room. slowly but quickly taking out each infected person by driving your knife through the bottom of their jaw or cheek.

eventually the two of you were able to clear the room, and joel whistled slightly from beside you, “that was... impressive.” joel mutters, giving you a slight nod just as he passes you up the stairs.

“i told you at the beginning i wasn’t going to slow anyone down.” you state, shooting him a slight smile before pausing as a runner rammed itself up against a blocked door. its continuous action told you that tess and ellie were just on the other side.

joel quickly took care of the runner, before opening the door. you called tess’ name as you watched her struggle for a short time with the runner, before breaking the wood plank against it’s head and knocking him to the ground.

“are you alright?” you question as you cross the room, waiting for the older woman to answer before ellie’s voice cuts through from the other room, “guys!”

the three of you went running, and you took out the runner grasping ellie before pulling her behind you as more runners came into the room. the both of you backed away, your gun raised and ready to take down any runner that came your way as tess and joel worked around the room with their own set of infected.

a runner came your way, and you pulled the trigger, blood spattering as the bullet struck its face and the runner went down. ellie’s hands twisted into the back of your shirt, keeping herself practically pressed against you until joel called out to see how everyone was.

her grasp dropped and she was quick to put a little bit of distance between the two of you. you didn’t mind -- you had come to know that people did odd and often stupid things when in fear.

joel guided everyone towards an open window -- ushering everyone out and onto the rooftop. you stepped out onto the rooftop, smiling as the dark night sky slowly turned into pale pinks and blues as the sun began to rise.

from your side, joel picked up a long wooden plank. setting it to go across to the next building over. “okay, now watch your step going over as it...” his words trialing off as ellie scoffs at him before walking across the wooden plank with ease. he stares after her in disbelief before motioning for you to go, and you scale along the board right behind ellie before coming to rest at her side.

joel is the next to come across, coming to stop right next to the both of you before gesturing in front of him, “is that everything you hoped for?”

“juries still out... but man, you can’t deny that view.” ellie smiles, staring down at the sunrise cresting just over the tip of the capitol building. an amazingly beautiful sight.

“it gets better once you get away from the city. there aren't any buildings and everything is... quiet. it’s nice.” you mutter, smiling softly as ellie’s eyes seem to widen at the information. and you wonder for a second if she’s gonna get to experience something like that.

“alright. lets keep going.” tess states, brushing past you all. you instantly pick up on her tone, sparing joel a questioning look as he only shrugs his shoulders before tess turns on her heel, “hey! let’s pick it up.”

you quickly cross the roof, following down the ladder right behind ellie, leaving tess and joel to linger on the roof, “hey, we're almost done. let’s stay focused.”

it wasn’t much longer of scaling the rooftops that the group of you made it to the outskirts of the capitol building, “it’s right around this corner. let’s go.” tess calls, already moving down towards the stairs and down them.

“keep moving, kid.” joel pushes ellie forward, and you can tell that she’s starting to get a little nervous with this trip coming to an end. everyone seems to be on edge, and ready for this to all be done -- not that you could blame them. the past few hours had been nothing but stressful and you were ready to take a break yourself.

“look at this.” joel calls from behind you, waving a note in his grasp. apparently he had turned a corner after seeing someone bloodied and huddled up into a corner and you felt your stomach twist seeing the tattoo on his upper arm, “there’s a firefly logo on his arm. what if we get there and they’re all dead?”

“they won’t be.” tess promises, forcing ellie to ask, “how do you know?”

there wasn’t a way to know, but there was a bit of an uneasy feeling already starting to settle in the pit of your stomach, but you couldn't think about something like that. not when you were all so close, “i just do.... fuck, look its gonna be fine.”

after helping everyone up and over the locked gate, joel jumps down from the wood planks running along the top of the gate, turning just enough to watch as the three of you jump down behind him, “alright... home stretch, tess!” with a slight roll of your shoulders, your gaze is drawn up towards the large marble building -- while covered in plant life and rusted to hell from the heavy rains that ran through the area, it still stood proud and tall. still a symbol of the life that had been before.

“um, just so it’s out there... i can’t swim.” ellie calls from behind you, eyeing the water suspiciously before tess motions towards the side of the road closest to the capitol gates, “it looks shallow on the right side, just follow me.” you close in behind her, part of you ready to reach out and grab her from the water should she slip further in -- thankful she’s at least wearing her backpack.

“i’m glad marlene hired you guys...” ellie says after a moment, looking between tess and joel, “what do you mean?” tess questions, looking back over her shoulder at the younger girl with a raised brow.

“i know you guys are getting paid for this... and she’s only here to oversee the trade... i’m trying to say thanks.” the poor thanks earns a soft chuckle from you as you follow tess up the steps of the capitol building, “yeah, sure. no problem.”

joel slides to the front of the group, pushing the doors open with brief hesitation before his shoulders drop, “no!” tess calls from behind, surging forward through the group, “no, no, no!” she shouts dropping next to one of the bloodied bodies of the team you were supposed to meet up with.

you move around the group, looking over the bodies in search of a radio -- hopefully allowing you to radio in and let someone know what had happened. that everything had just failed. but, you curse under your breath as nothing of the sort comes up and you realize that this group was a splinter of another, given that there were only five fireflies laid throughout the floor.

“what happens now?” ellie questions, looking between the three of you now. you slowly stand, walking back towards her with a shake of your head -- you truly didn’t know what to do now.

“what are you doin tess?” joel questions his partner, watching as she digs around the man’s vest, “maybe they had a map. or something to tell us where they were going.” she explains, slowly growing exasperated as nothing starts to come up.

“how far are we going to take this?” joel questions again, frustration growing across his features before tess explodes, “as far as we need to go!”

then, she’s turning towards the two of you, hope slowly flooding her eyes as she looks between you and ellie, “where was this lab of theirs?”

ellie shrugs, “she never said. only mentioned that it was someplace out west.” tess’ eyes glance towards you, “you?”

“i only heard rumors. there was talk about leaving the zone... going where, i’m not sure.” you sigh, arms swinging loosely at your side, “but again, it was all rumors. everything was kept pretty tight lipped.”

you could see the way tess deflated at your words, shoulders sagging as a look of anguish crossed over her features, before twinges of panic started to set in. you take note of how her hands begin to shake slightly, and a part of you wonders why she’s so suddenly dead set on making this work now -- when she hadn’t seemed to care too much about it in the beginning.

“what are we doing here? this is not us...” joel states, eyeing his partner curiously as tess scoffs and shakes her head, “what do you know about us? about me?”

“i know that you are smarter than this.” he growls, pointing towards the decaying body laying at their feet. it’s surprising to see tears slowly build in tess’ eyes, something she’s quick to will down before biting right back at joel, “really? guess what, we're shitty people joel, we’ve been that way for a long time.”

“no, we are survivors.” he reiterates before getting cut off by tess, “this is our chance!” she pleads with him, voice raising just enough that it seems to make joel snap as his face twists in anger, “it is over tess! now we tried, let’s just go home.”

tess’ bottom lip trembles slightly before steeling her nerves and shaking her head, “i’m not... i’m not going anywhere. this is my last stop.”

“what?” joel questions, confusion overtaking his features as tess shrugs her shoulders, “our luck had to run out sooner or later...”

“what are you going on about - “ joel reaches forward, getting ready to comfort his partner until tess jerks herself out of his reach and screeches, “no! don’t touch me!”

“holy shit.... she’s infected.” ellie mutters under her breath, eyes locked completely on tess -- who goes quiet and seems to almost shy away the second the words are out in the open. then the realization dawns on you and your jaw goes slack in shock.

a part of you starts to rack your brain. trying to come up with a scenario and remember when tess would and could have gotten bit. then, you remember how you and joel had burst into a room to find tess fighting off that runner.

“when we got separated in the museum, and we found you later with that runner... that’s when it happened, didn’t it?” the words tumble from your mouth before you can even stop them, but tess’ nod confirms everything.

“let me see...” joel goads, eyes still on tess, “show it to me.”

at his words, tess peels back the collar of her shirt, briefly showing off the bite mark at the curve of her neck and shoulder. joel’s anger quickly drops into one of surprise, “oh, christ!”

“oops, right?” tess scoffs, before crossing the room towards ellie, “give me your arm... this was three weeks. i was bitten an hour ago and it’s already worse. this is fucking real joel!” she takes a step towards joel after dropping ellie’s arm, “you’ve got to get this girl to tommy’s. he use to run with this crew, he’ll know where to go.”

“no, no! this was your crusade! i’m not doing that!” joel states, a mix of emotions already crowding into his tone before tess shakes her head, “yes you are! there’s enough here that you have to feel some sort of obligation for me so you need to get that girl to tommy’s.”

the moment is quickly ended as shouts from outside catches everyone’s attention. you turn, cursing under your breath as fedra soldiers jump out from their vehicles and make their way up towards the capitol building, “they’re here.... i can buy you some time but you have to run.”

“you want us to just leave you here?” ellie asks in disbelief, dread already filling the pit of her stomach as tess nods, “yes.”

joel shakes his head, “tess... there is no way -” his sentence cut off as tess whirls around with a fierce look in her eye, “i will not turn into one of those things!”

then her expression softens, and she takes a small step towards joel, “come on... make this easy for me.” it seems joel tries to make one last attempt to have tess rethink her position which only seems to anger her more before she pushes him away, “no! just go.... just fucking go.”

“ellie...” joel calls her name, slowly backing away from tess as the younger girl begins to rapidly apologize, “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean for this...” she pleads, looking between joel and tess, only getting a small smile from the older woman before joel ushers her back, “let’s get a move on... you too! lets go!”

another large set of doors shut behind the three of you, joel shaking his head just before ellie begins to panic, “fuck! i can’t believe we did that!” her hands twist into the strands of hair framing her face, eyes filled with anguish as joel shook his head, “stop...”

“we just left her to die!” ellie exclaims again, hoping the maybe it would cause either of you do turn around and do something, but it seemed there was no going back now as joel turned to her with a rage-filled glare, “stop! you two stay close to me. we need to move.” he states before turning towards you, “you with us?”

“yes...” you answer back, already moving to pull your gun into your hand, “good, stay close and follow my lead.”

he leads you both up the steps, and you find yourself lingering at the top when the doors burst open and you hear gunfire rain through the building before an explosion gets set off -- and then silence. you and ellie share a solemn look before joel urges you both to continue.

you’re almost instantly met with more fedra soldiers that come flooding down the hallways, all shouting commands. you spare a glance towards joel, trying to see what the game plan would be in taking out these soldiers -- to which he brings his finger to his lips before motioning for the two of you to follow.

you’re not entirely sure how he’s able to do it, but slowly, the three of you sneak past the entirety of the fedra squad roaming around the building. and you nearly have to keep yourself from laughing aloud when they make their reports and frustratingly state they haven’t found anything.

you sneak past the last two soldiers, and head towards the door leading out of the building. “there’s stairs over there.” ellie points out across the street -- an old metro access tunnel. you follow after joel, making sure ellie stays in your sights and ever present in front of you.

the moment you start down stairs, shouts and an engine revving shoots fear down the length of your spine, “fuck! run!” you shout to joel and ellie in front of you, just as a spray of bullets starts to rain down into the old subway station.

you continue to run, only stopping long enough to pull your mask from your bag when joel calls out spores coming up ahead. with your mask secure, you trail around behind joel and ellie, taking up a hiding spot behind an old desk booth. narrowly missing the fedra officer that rounds the corner just as you do so.

“how the hell are you breathing in this stuff?” joel questions from beside you, and with a confused face, you turn to find ellie without a mask -- a part of you panics for a moment as you get ready to root through your bag for a spare mask until you remember her bit mark. so, she really was infected. then ellie shakes her head, “i wasn’t lying to you.”

as more fedra officers flood into the subway, you realize that there wasn’t going to be an easy way to sneak through this time around. you pull your gun from your waistband, cursing under your breath when you notice the amount of bullets you have left, “try and take them out quietly, i’m sure they’ve got some extras on them. only use that if you need to.”

you nod, looking over at ellie and motioning for her to stay close as you and joel slowly work through the squad of soldiers, occasionally hearing her praise the takedown or warning you about the someone coming up that you maybe didn't see.

the next obstacle comes in trying to get out of the subway, and finding that some of the tunnels were flooded and getting across was proving to be a little difficult, “is now a good time to remind you two that i can’t swim?” ellie asks staring out over the water before turning back towards you and joel.

“there’s a wooden pallet over there, joel or i could push you on it and you can let down that ladder.” you state, gesturing down towards the pallet and then towards the drawn up ladder on the other side.

“sounds good to me.” joel jumps down into the water, nearly gasping at how cool is was before swimming over to grab the pallet. he circles back around, and waits as ellie gets atop the wooden pallet. joel then gently moves the pallet to the other side, discarding it the second she unlatches the ladder.

you follow over, cursing loudly when you finally dip into the water -- earning a chuckle from ellie as you swim over to the other side and quickly climb up the ladder to follow the both of them out.

the three of you step out from the subway tunnel, your hands already pulling your mask from your face and taking a deep breath of the outside air. joel coughs a few times to the side of you, settling atop an old box as he racks his brain on what to do next.

“look... about tess...” ellie begins, hands twisting nervously before joel’s gaze lifts to lock with her own and fire lights behind his eyes, “here’s how this thing is gonna work out. you don’t bring up tess, ever. let’s just keep our histories to ourselves. secondly, don’t tell anyone about your... condition. they’re gonna think you’re crazy and kill you. and lastly, you do what i say, when i say it. we clear?”

ellie sighs, “sure.”

“repeat it.” joel growls, earning another sigh from the girl before crossing her arms over her chest and fixing him with her own hard look, “what you say goes.”

“what about you?” joel now questions you, wanting to see where you stand since the sudden turn of events. not like any of what had just happened was anticipated when your orders had been given, so he needed to know that everyone was on the same page before moving on, “i don’t have much of a choice in the matter. and considering that i never oversaw her being handed off, my orders still stand.”

joel scoffs, muttering something under his breath about orders, which causes you to roll your eyes, “you and i are both tasked with getting her to the fireflies, whether you like that or not. besides, i took an oath and i will not be abandoning my post.”

“good, there’s a town a few miles north of here. there’s a fella that owes me a few favors. good chance he could get us a car.” joel stands from his seat, already moving in the direction that you are assuming you’d need to take to get to wherever joel’s friend was located.

“okay.” ellie agreed, followed by your own noise of agreement before joel nods,“lets get a move on.”

series navigation ⇢ [ series masterlist | chapter three ]

#the last of us #the last of us x reader #the last of us imagine #ellie williams #ellie williams x reader #ellie williams imagine #female!reader #twistnet #twistnet works 2023 #twistnet :: series #series :: firefly

[2minutetabletop]

The Red Hammers Mercenary Company

Allow me to introduce Garm's 'Red Hammers,' a mercenary company you can drop right into your own game, complete with headquarters and specially-made character tokens!

→ Find them on 2-Minute Tabletop

Do you need a recurring enemy faction? Then this might be for you. In the article you’ll find plenty of sellsword NPCs, their main base, and some interesting features of the surrounding area.

The Red Hammers are a mercenary-cult run by Lukas Barrett, a former soldier with delusions of grandeur. They hire out squads of goons to whoever can pay them, and all their payments are funneled back into outfitting troops and fortifying the Iron Fortress, their home base. Their symbol is a crossed pair of forge hammers inside a circle...

→ Read more

#ttrpg #tabletop #dungeons and dragons #dnd #dungeons & dragons #d&d #d&d5e #dnd5e #pathfinder #gurps #rpg #top-down #battle map #map #cartography #encounter #geomorph #character #tokens

[agentnico]

The Beekeeper (2024) review

Now we just need a spin-off where Jason Statham’s beekeeper takes care of Jerry Seinfeld’s bee from The Bee Movie and they go on a murderous rampage where Statham is punching folks and Seinfeld is making terrible one-liners after each swing. Hollywood - make it happen!

Plot: One man's brutal campaign for vengeance takes on national stakes after it's revealed he's a former operative of a powerful and clandestine organization known as Beekeepers.

Imagine if one of those money scammers from The Wolf of Wall Street bankrupted John Wick’s mother. Oh, and instead of the baddies killing a puppy, there’s bees involved. That’s the starting point of this new action thriller that comes from the director of Suicide Squad. Nope, not THE Suicide Squad where John Cena and Idris Elba are measuring dick sizes, but the original Suicide Squad. The one with the tattooed Joker and where Cara Delevingne still thinks she can act. Yep, not the best one to have on your resume, but still director David Ayer perceives and brings us this 80’s inspired cheesy action flick, and you know what? It’s worth buzzing about.

The Beekeeper is exactly what you expect it to be. It’s Jason Statham mumbling in a 75% British and 25% American accent, going all Old Testament on a bunch of scumbags. Harkening back to the old-school Bruckheimer/Michael Bay flicks featuring ridiculous high concept that is on every level stupid and ridiculous, yet Ayer understands the assignment and directs the action sequences impeccably and yet playing to the movie’s more sillier nature. Look, Statham is an unbeatable force in this, who by the end is being chased by the FBI, the Secret Service, CIA and evil gonzo goons, yet no one can stop him. How is he so skilful, you may ask, besides the obvious fact that it’s Jason bloody Statham? He belongs to an ultra-secret network called The Beekeepers, who exist to keep the powers that be in check – via whatever means necessary. No one is above answering to the Beekeepers. Yep, the obvious nod to John Wick’s High Table is ‘hidden’ in plain sight. It’s super entertaining stuff. Jason Statham is on top deadpan form, being genuinely awesome as an unstoppable Rambo-type. Josh Hutcherson is terrifically cast as the annoying bratty billionaire, and Jeremy Irons is there literally to spill out exposition after exposition, but it’s Irons so it’s still entertaining to watch him.

Granted, The Beekeeper may not be for everyone. It’s so over-the-top and unapologetic that it may not be for you if you prefer action movies grounded and straight-faced. The B-plot involving an FBI agent daughter also doesn’t completely work, but otherwise this B-movie (or bee-movie?) knows exactly what it is and is one of the better Jason Statham-led action vehicles. As a January palette cleanser I had a solid good time. My only complaint? Not enough bees.

Overall score: 6/10

#the beekeeper #movie #film #movie reviews #film reviews #action #thriller #cinema #josh hutcherson #jason statham #jeremy irons #minnie driver #david ayer #emmy raver lampman #amazon mgm studios #2024 #2024 in film #2024 films #taylor james #2024 movies #bees #The beekeeper review

[jerseyluck]

Batman (1929) #515/Troika Part 1 Readthrough

Alright to get into the Halloween spirit, might as well start off the next classic DC readthrough I am going to after I finish Suicide Squad: Kelley Jones/Doug Moench run on Batman. And annoyingly the run starts at Batman #515 which is the start of a 4-Part crossover. This is Batman: Troika.

            The first thing that has to be established is that this is the status quo of the book. This is the “first” story to feature Bruce Wayne being in the cowl since he left Dick Grayson to take over so he could go on vacation. And the reason why Bats needed a vacation, is that he just went through Knightfall: the story where Bane breaks Bruce’s back, so Azreal takes over as Batman and goes a little mad (even breaking the no-kill rule). So, this story is meant to settle the status quo back to the usual one.

            We open the book on Batman’s biggest foe from the 80’s: former Soviet operatives/assassins. We got KGBeast, we got the Night Rider, we got random bald lady with a red star on her head, and we got former Soviet colonels. When the Soviet Union fell, they decided to unite and form a Russian Mafia, Troika, to take control of Gotham’s underworld.

            Anyway, the group falls in conflict over ideology. Dark Rider (who in his last story got radiation poisoning from a failed scheme to poison Gotham) is angry at his fellow comrades for falling to America’s capitalist excesses. Rider just wants to leave a mark by using a nuclear device the mob has obtained.

            Meanwhile in The Batcave, Batman shows Robin (Tim Drake) and Nightwing his new crimefighting outfit. And you better believe it has the classic Kelley Jones’s Bat horns. Yet Bruce is sad because Alfred is currently on vacation/break.

            But it is no time for rest because Batman gets an alert about nuclear trouble and connects it to recent activity in Little Russia section of Gotham. And to make it personal, the Troika threats Wayne Industries, killing two members of the security team.

            The next scene is the first scene with Bruce and Gordon together since the events of Knightfall. It is fun to see casual in his underwear Jim Gordon, and we get a moment of understanding between the two pals. But the main thing is that Gordon confirms that there is likely a nuclear device in Gotham and puts Bats on the hunt for the Dark Rider.

            Back to the bad guys, we see that the Troika has decided that it is best that KGBeast takes the place of leader of the mob and Dark Rider should be killed. But we get a sickly Dark Rider confirming that he has hidden the bomb elsewhere.

            The story then cuts back to a guy in Little Odessa about to bomb the store that Tim’s girlfriend, Ariana Dzerchenko, lives at. The dynamic duo stops him, but the bomber runs through the window of Ariana. The girl is scared that a random chase is happening at where she lives, but the most human moment is Tim lamenting that he can comfort his girlfriend without blowing his secret identity.

            In more action-packed beats, Troika goons fail to ambush the Dark Rider, so the villain is off to get revenge. He prepares to shoot one of his fellow gangsters, but Batman is not the type of guy who will just assassinations happen.

            So, we get a beautifully drawn fight between Batman and the sickly Dark Rider. Rider gets some punches in but falls because of his radiation sickness. However, Batman is distraught that in his efforts to stop violence, he saved one of attackers on his girlfriend, Colonel Vega.

            This is part 1 of a 4-part crossover that goes through several of the Bat books at the time. (Yes, I will cover the rest of it.) And it really gets the reader interested in the returning status quo. Moench tries to give the reader information on the Russia mob and most of it gets through. The threat of a nuclear explosion in Gotham City makes for a compelling story for Bruce to return to.

            And now for the main reason why I chose this book: Kelley Jones manages to draw some horror themed images throughout the book. We really get to see the horror of man dying the radiation poisoning through all the scabs on his body. A+ work! And very few people can draw Batman looking huge because of the cape flows. I am excited to see where Jones goes (especially when he gets to play in more supernatural side of the DC Universe).

            6/10

#batman #nightwing #dick grayson #robin #tim drake #kgbeast #jim gordon #dc comics #kelley jones #doug moench #read through

[rhetoricandlogic]

'The Candy House' is a brilliant portrait of intersecting lives

April 6, 20226:28 AM ET

Annalisa Quinn

I drew a character map while reading Jennifer Egan's The Candy House, just for the pleasure of charting the swooping, kaleidoscopic intersections of parents and children (and cousins and tennis partners and drug dealers) of a central set of people first introduced in her 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Mapping people in relation to each other is one of the central activities of characters in these novels — anthropologists, publicists, anxious high schoolers, or employees of social media companies all seem to be asking, What makes people matter to each other? And can you predict or control it, either for love or for profit?

A Visit from the Goon Squad first introduced Mindy, a beautiful 23-year-old anthropology student on safari with the much older record executive Lou Kline and some of his family and hangers-on. In her narration of the safari, she breaks down the group's reactions to her presence with deadpan, diagnostic precision: The "Structural Hatred" of an older woman "who wears high-collared shirts to conceal the already thready sinews of her neck" for an older man's younger girlfriend; or the "Structural Affection," of that man's young son, who "hasn't yet learned to separate his father's loves and desires from his own."

In The Candy House, Mindy has become Miranda Kline, a reclusive, brilliant anthropologist who after years living among a remote tribe in Brazil developed algorithms predicting "patterns of affinity," that is, "what made people like and trust one another."

To the dismay of Miranda (MK to her tech bro disciples), these algorithms have been weaponized by social media companies — especially Mandala, a company led by Bix Boulton, a minor Goon Squad character, reborn as the mononymous social media mogul "Bix." His biggest innovation is a product called "Own Your Unconscious," which allows you to externalize your mind and revisit your past whenever you want.

But it is one of the "ancillary features" of "Own Your Unconscious" that has upended society in The Candy House. The "Collective Consciousness" works like this: "By uploading all or part of your externalized memory to an online 'collective,' you gained proportionate access to the anonymous thoughts and memories of everyone in the world, living or dead, who had done the same."

(Sidenote: These fictional products raise obvious and enormous questions about truth and subjectivity in memory, not to mention the brain itself — would watching your past be like a movie? Does your brain retain all the details of everything you've ever seen? Do different people remember the past differently, and if so, which versions are "true"? Hilariously, Egan bypasses these questions entirely and unapologetically.)

These two linked technologies are both inconceivably invasive and basically familiar — our phones are in certain ways already our externalized consciousnesses (philosophers talk about "extended mind theory" — that our cognitive processes increasingly happen externally as well as internally), and the Collective is a kind of exponential internet. The phrase "the candy house" (as in Hansel and Gretel) refers to the (also deeply familiar) Faustian bargain of convenience and connection for loss of privacy.

Egan makes the appeal of the Collective Conscious extravagantly obvious: In addition to the clear benefits (victims of child abuse being able to identify their abusers, missing people easily located), there is eternal appeal of entering someone else's consciousness, a longing threading through human culture from the myth of Tiraseus to the terrible teen movie Freaky Friday to the project of fiction itself.

Mandala's inventions feel especially poignant in Egan's fictional worlds, which are so densely populated by addicts and alcoholics. These are people who don't own their pasts, in either the sense of literally remembering them, or in the sense of feeling any agency in the events of their lives. So often her characters are unable to understand or accept what happened, those crucial, ill-understood moments when everything went awry. Far from being cartoonishly evil, an obvious wrong, "Own Your Unconscious" has deep instinctive appeal. This is characteristic of Egan, who isn't interested in moral problems with obvious answers.

In The Candy House, there is a persistent, lovely countermelody to the corporate project of mapping human experience and using it to predict what people will think and buy. The novel is full of people engaged in a kind of sweeter and more plaintive human algebra. I haven't recently read a gentler or funnier description of longing than in one chapter here in which a "senior empiricist and metrics expert" named Lincoln tries to determine what will make his crush, "M", fall in love with him.

Lincoln (also a Goon Squad character) has already analyzed the roots of M's charm (including "four primary freckles on her nose and approximately twenty-four secondary freckles"), and evaluated the competition (of which "fully half possess at least one possibly-to-likely-disqualifying personal trait"). But what remains elusive is "x: the unknown value required to secure M's love." Maybe x is a stuffed hippo, or a music box, or "some really long tulips that are actually made of silk." He begins accumulating items.

Lincoln's is perhaps the most literal attempt to predict and control patterns of behavior, but so many characters are engaged in it in one form or another, like Molly, a lonely teenager at a country club trying to identify the elusive quality of cool, which she lacks: "…if you're nice to everyone, then why should people near you feel special and why should people NOT near you WANT to be near you, and why should anyone assume that the Times they are having without you are worse than the Times they would be having with you?"

Another character is working to "algebraize" storytelling, identifying and separating stock elements of a story so that, presumably, they can be assembled without human help: "stockblocks" include "Funny Best Friend Gets Serious to Talk Sense into Protagonist," "Blurred Faces Lean Over Protagonist, Gradually Sharpening," "Makeover Montage Followed by Gaping Reaction Shots," etc.

It's parody, of course, but Egan doesn't discount the power of stockblocks either. Her last chapter is a sepia-tinted description of a young boy's unlikely game-winning homerun, seemingly assembled of the most stock of stock elements (bases loaded, homerun from underdog, crowd goes wild, proud father claps shoulder). This is an author endlessly capable of experimentation (Egan shocked readers in 2010 with a chapter written as a PowerPoint presentation, quaint as it might sound now). But ending on something so straightforwardly conventional — so formulaic — feels not like a copout but rather like a winking flex, a master pianist infusing unexpected feeling into Chopsticks. It is moving, somehow, both despite and because of its familiarity.

Besides, while chopping stories up into tiny moveable parts sounds like something out of a tech dystopia, folklorists have been doing it for centuries. (In the "Aarne and Thompson Type Index" classification of folk tale elements, the first iteration of which was published in 1910, the Hansel and Gretel formula is "ATU Tale Type 327A"). We tell the same stories again and again; the beauty lies in the details.

It calls to mind something Lincoln, the "senior empiricist and metrics expert" notes, in defense of his attempts to organize the world into comprehensible categories and patterns. Quantifiability, he thinks, "doesn't make human life any less remarkable, or even (this is counterintuitive, I know) less mysterious — any more than identifying the rhyme scheme in a poem devalues the poem itself."

#Jennifer Egan #The Candy House #mahreviews #long post

[morganlefaye79]

20, 35, and 43 for Joris? Thank you!

Thank you very much for the ask! 💛💜

20. Do they have a strong connection to their culture?

From age 2 Joris grew up in The Netherlands where his parents fled from. He didn’t know that until his uncle had died. 

He loved it. Especially sitting at the canals, watching the water. And from time to time jump off a high bridge into it. (in a I think this is fun way)

He knew the “Dutch culture” only from pictures because most of it was gone by the time Joris was a young adult. The beautiful windmills from the pictures were torn down long ago to make space for modern constructions. Joris loves the pictures he saw about the tulip fields, but they also had to go, mostly because of environmental issues. Tulips could now only be grown in big greenhouses to shield them from outside. Which made them so expensive that you could only have them on special occasions, and only if you were rich. The cheeses which were a delight were now just as good as the artificial ones because there was not enough space to let cattle roam on grass fields. All in all there was not much culture left to connect to.

35. Do they believe in fate or do they believe they are in charge of their own destiny?

Joris is not really sure what to believe, he rejects any form of religion because they are man made and in his opinion just a tool to control people. Which doesn’t mean that he thinks that there is nothing out there. He does believe in fate and that things happen for a reason BUT he also thinks that you can change things yourself at certain points in your life, every choice you make, changes the outcome. 

43. Can they handle stressful situations?

Joris is good at managing stressful situations. He goes on some sort of autopilot until the situation is over. Most of the time he however doesn’t remember anything that he did or said during the time. Did he kill someone, or many? 

One time he killed a whole squad of Arasaka goons, and he couldn’t remember afterwards. He heard the next day in the news that someone killed them and he was like “Oh, that guy made a real mess there.” When Vicco told him that he was the one that made the mess, he was like: “What?” 

It happened shortly after Joris arrived in NC and they visited Vik to check Joris. As it turned out, Arasaka (or more likely his uncle) had tempered with his sandevistan. He always felt that something was wrong with it but since he only went to Arasaka doctors no one ever found something.

Vik is not able to deactivate it and says he would kill Joris if he would switch out the sandevistan for a different one, so he has to live with it until they find a solution. Nix later on tells him that every Arasaka Netrunner has this feature implemented, himself as well. The only solution is to not get into stressful situations.

I guess I went a bit overboard here 😆 Oh, well some extra lore as a treat.

#ask game #oc lore #oc: joris dercks

[didyoutrydynamite]

Hi, this is a mod question, I guess, but what's with the OCs exactly ? Can I send my own? I would love it if I could, but mostly, I'm curious.

The Echo Squad OC's were fan provided OC's to help fill Cardin's "Goon Squad" now that the rest of CRDL is off in other places in the Au. A fun bit of audience interaction lol

If you'd like to send in an OC feel free to and I'll see what I can do, but be forewarned that pretty much anymore OC's from now on will not be featured in the JNRZ Year 1 story in any way, I just simply already have it full to burst with characters already lmao.

Any new OC's do have a chance however of being featured in JNRZ side stories as either side characters looking to Team JNRZ for help with a problem or as day to day minor villains as a sort of rogues gallery of Mantle and Atlas.

#jnrz ask #jnrz oc

[capriciouslyterminal]

Self Rec Game

Shout out to @flashyysins for tagging me into doing something I always want to do but NEVER feel comfortable with (talking about my work). Thank you for tagging me!

Rules: recommend three of your own fics (1 most popular, two hidden gems) then tag some people!

Most Popular

It is almost a relief to see that it's Eddie Munson on the chair and not some huge random guy. That is until Eddie's eyes crinkle open and his face goes from blind terror to bemused, the way he's curled up like a bug at the noise slipping into something languid and easy.

It's almost a relief until the prick smiles like a lunatic and Steve has to think of course, this fucking guy, because Eddie Munson may be the weirdest person Steve's ever met.

AKA Two Years of Lifeguarding, One Morning of Finding Eddie Munson Asleep on a Deck Chair

The one that started it all lol. Asshole Steve + Asshole Eddie + The Odd Twilight Intimacy of a shirtless lifeguard and a pot-head who needs to get a watch. They don't kiss but do they need to?

Hidden Gems

The Rowdy 3 is a name they give themselves, stitched together from words they collect in the underbelly of Project Blackwing and the way they live as four in one over the course of five years. It's better than Project Incubus but it starts with just Martin and Cross and Gripps and Vogel. It starts in Project Blackwing. Well it really starts with Martin meeting a suit in a bar.

It starts with Martin on the road. A song in his gut that rhymes with hunger that three other voices know too.

And it keeps going from there, just as The Universe intends.

(AKA The Rowdy Three in Project Blackwing).

Not Steddie but listen I think this is the best thing I've ever written. Okay if you haven't watched Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency then that's a hidden gem for you. It's...the perfect show? Two seasons of the zaniest most well-connected story telling I've ever seen. Featuring The Rowdy 3, some almost vampires who re-wrote my brain chemistry so hard I cry about them whenever I'm like...real drunk. Last summer I kind of...went off the rails and wrote essentially a novel about them/Project Blackwing (a secret government prison). This is that novel, my magnum opus. My manuscript I'd save from vikings because I spent my whole life on it. A friend says I should submit this to graduate school for applications and sometimes I'm tempted lol.

If they had a Van Helsing it was Nancy Wheeler, and if they had a leader Eddie would honestly say Henderson was giving them all a run for their money (God help them when the kid got a drivers license and didn’t need them anymore). And all Steve Harrington seemed to do was make Eddie want to save the world to spite him. To say stand back dipshit this is how you do a heroic sacrifice notice how my hair’s messed up in a way that isn’t tantalizing even while dripping with muck and I’m still wearing my fucking shirt.

So, no, Steve Harrington sailing in at the last possible second wasn’t on Eddie’s death bingo card. And yet, here it was. A one man army. A guy who once earnestly wore a baby-blue sweater wrapped around his shoulders and definitely was part of the goon squad that once flew Eddie’s gym bag up the flagpole and left him naked in the locker-room. One of the last people Eddie Munson would have ever expected to save his sorry-ass life.

And honestly it was kind of hot. This causes its own new kind of problems.

(AKA Obligatory Steve Harrington Sailing in to Save the Day Fic. AKA Eddie Munson develops a crush at the worst possible moment of his life and starts to get it).

When it comes down to it this is my favorite of my babies so far just in how specific the detail work is and how...pretty it got to be. Super shout out to this just being born from the fact that Eddie would be a horn dog for Aragorn and how he visualizes his fictional crush would entirely be changed by someone actually saving his life. Also just the work I got to do with Wayne.

And that's all of them. I'm tagging @fastcardotmp3 @courtjestermunsonestereddiemunson and @sparklyslug (though if you've been tagged before it's my bad and if you wanna be tagged just let me know).

#my fic #fic rec post #Stranger Things fic #Dirk Gently fic #my precious too wordy babies #Thank you for tagging me!

[sweetpeaches666]

Something for the Botbot Squads since you're my favorite, some Superpowers! Here they are, these powers are all yours per squad. What do you all think?

Lostbots 

Burgertron : Super Strength, Agility

Dimlit : Invisibility (keyword : Vanish/Reappear) + button press, Light Intensity Control (keyword : illumin-on/illumin-off)

Bonzeye : Wolf Power Belt (keyword : Wolf Power), Agility (which I mean a techno belt that gives you wolf powers and features like in the image by pressing the logo button and say the keyword)

Kikmee : Speed, Agility

Clogstop : Underwater Breathing, Water Ropes (which I mean making ropes from water like in the image)

Science Alliance 

Dr. Flaskestein : Metallokinesis (solid/liquid), Super Vision

Eye Goon : Super Vision, Speed, Metallokinesis (solid/liquid)

Face Ace : Super Vision, Levitating Force Fields, Glass Transmutation Touch (it's reversible)

Starscope : Making Portals, Super Vision, Stopping Time with a finger snap 

Sugar Shocks 

Frostferatu : Telepathy, Super Hearing, Sharp Vampire Vision, Vampire Speed, Vampire Agility, Telekinesis, High Surface Cling, Hypnotic Voice (which means instead of staring, you can hypnotize with your voice and words) 

Lady macaron : Levitating Force Fields

(Keywords are the words you used to ignite your powers)  now that I've already given you these superpowers. So, what do you all think? Do you like them? Better start testing and training them, and swear that you'll use these powers for good causes such as helping and defending others. I can't wait to hear your own answers and see your own results from you. Good luck👍.

(Blogger's not: I think they're really good. Each superpowers relate to a character's personality traits is a wonderful idea. I'll love to see them using against humans who do want to harm them. Keep up the good work, my friend.)

#transformers #transformers botbots #tfbb #I love it #submission

[bloombird]

Botbots superpowers

Something for the Botbots Squad, some superpowers! What do you bots think of them?

Lostbots 

Burgertron : Super Strength, Agility

Dimlit : Invisibility (keyword : Vanish/Reappear), Light Intensity Control (keyword : illumin-on/illumin-off)

Kikmee : Speed, Agility

Bonzeye : Wolf Power Belt (keyword : Wolf Power), Agility (and which i mean a tecno belt that gives you wolf power and features, there’s an image so you know what I mean)

Clogstop : Underwater Breathing, Water Ropings 

Science Alliance 

Dr. Flaskestein : Metallokinesis (solid/liquid), Super Vision

Eye Goon : Super Vision

Face Ace : Metallokinesis (solid/liquid), Super Vision

Starscope : Making Portals, Super Vision, Stopping Time with a finger snap 

Sugar Shocks 

Frostferatu : Wearable Flying Bat Wings, Telepathy, Super Hearing, Sharp Vampire Vision, Vampire Speed, Vampire Agility, Telekinesis, Height Cling, Hypnotic Voice (which means instead of staring, you can hypnotize with your voice and words) 

Lady macaron : Levitating Force Fields

(Keywords are words you use to ignite your powers)

#submission #I didn’t make this someone submitted a post to me but that sounds rad! #whoever you are #that ideas sounds awesome!! #wow this is my first time someone submitted a post to me

[hpldreads]

These fiction thrillers all feature cults. Keep reading for a description!

The Girls by Emma Cline

The Lightness by Emily Temple

The Project by Courtney Summers

Shiner by Amy Jo Burns

The Girls: "Girls--their vulnerability, strength, and passion to belong--are at the heart of this stunning first novel for readers of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Virgin Suicides and Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is enthralled by Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged--a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence, and to that moment in a girl's life when everything can go horribly wrong. Emma Cline's remarkable debut novel is gorgeously written and spellbinding, with razor-sharp precision and startling psychological insight. The Girls is a brilliant work of fiction--and an indelible portrait of girls, and of the women they become."

The Lightness: "One year ago, the person Olivia adores most in the world, her father, left home for a meditation retreat in the mountains and never returned. Yearning to make sense of his shocking departure and to escape her overbearing mother, a woman as grounded as her father is mercurial, Olivia runs away from home and retraces his path to a place known as the Levitation Center. Once there, she enrolls in their summer program for troubled teens, which Olivia refers to as 'Buddhist Boot Camp for Bad Girls.' Soon, she finds herself drawn into the company of a close-knit trio of girls determined to transcend their circumstances, by any means necessary. Led by the elusive and beautiful Serena, and her aloof, secretive acolytes, Janet and Laurel, the girls decide this is the summer they will finally achieve enlightenment, and learn to levitate, to defy the weight of their bodies, to experience ultimate lightness."

The Project: "After their parents died, Bea Denham joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there's more to the group than meets the eye. She has spent the last six years of her life trying-- and failing-- to prove it. When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo's investigation puts her in the direct path of its leader, Lev Warren. Delving into The Project and the lives of its members upends everything she thought she knew about her sister, herself, cults, and the world around her."

Shiner: "An hour from the closest West Virginia mining town, fifteen-year-old Wren Bird lives in a cloistered mountain cabin with her parents. They have no car, no mailbox, and no visitors-except for her mother's lifelong best friend. Every Sunday, Wren's father delivers winding sermons in an abandoned gas station, where he takes up serpents and praises the Lord for his blighted white eye, proof of his divinity and key to the hold he has over the community, over Wren and her mother. But over the course of one summer, a miracle performed by Wren's father quickly turns to tragedy. As the order of her world begins to shatter, Wren must uncover the truth of her father's mysterious legend and her mother's harrowing history and complex bond with her best friend. And with that newfound knowledge, Wren can imagine a different future for herself than she has been told to expect."