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I love this so much!!

Cherik mini comic about Charles’ telepathy vaguely based off a fic I read while back where they had a similar conversation. I can’t find it now but if anyone can let me know 😢

Not a sad one! Kind of! Maybe I’ll make a sad one in the future. I need to go finish my homework now LOL but thank you everyone for the patience!

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It took me way too long to realise that Waterstones wasn't selling a printed Sabriel fanfiction

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dean saying "Hell no. 😐" to sam then immediately reassuring cas on the phone "No, not you. 🥺"

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My favorite Merlin head cannon is that Arthur knew Merlin had a secret that they didn't talk about because it would get him in trouble with the law

but he always just assumed the secret was Merlin that preferred men.

feat: this scene

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tired: mermaids are all women

wired: much like elves, merfolk are mistaken by sailors for being all women because they have long hair and are very pretty

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Me: starting to watch Good Omens Season 2 exactly 1min after it was released cause I got no self control and the alternative would've been to keep writing my bachelor's thesis

Me in the next 5h: having a good time, eating pizza, ignoring friends and family

Me during Episode 6: pausing every 5 seconds at the end, first cause I was naïvely wondering how they will resolve everything in the last 10min, then with growing dread that they won't

Me afterwards: having an 1 hour crisis (but only 1h cause I promised my friend I would still meet up with her)

Me another 4 hours later after having to act as if I'm completely normal about the ending of a show my friend keeps forgetting exists (I'm still on a mission to make her watch it): opening AO3 hoping against better judgement to find multiple 100k fix-it fanfictions. Obviously not finding any but still desperately reading almost every new fic resulting in a full 2 hours of sleep that day

Well that was me on the 28th July 2023. What did you do? Anything interesting or productive?

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icemav: we keep this love in a photograph

pain

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TAROT CARDS ✴ SIX OF CROWS

➳ “No mourners, no funerals. Among them, it passed for ‘good luck’. But it was something more. A dark wink to the fact that there would be no expensive burials for people like them, no marble markers to remember their names, no wreaths of myrtle and rose.”

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A ray of sunshine untill you hurt his beloveds aka Feral Hob

Also protective Hob

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hob gadling being so goddamn normal compared to his anthropomorphic husband, in-laws, and husband's social circle that he circles right back around to being the more sus/shady one OR hob gadling keeps accidentally derailing dream's attempts to be King of Nightmares by horny vibes/going "joke's on you, i'm into it"/"promise?" to any and all threats

Hob isn't normal, is the thing. He's not. He never was. He was smouldering with strangeness and hunger long before his future sister-in-law took one look at him and decided he'd be good for her little brother.

He asked her, once, bit drunk, if that was why she chose him: if she'd heard him forswearing her in the White Horse and looked at him, peered into the contents of his soul, and thought: well, there's one at least as stubborn as my brother - maybe they'll be good for each other. She'd just smiled and waited for Hob to take another sip before saying, "Good? I just thought it would be interesting," and twinkled at him when he sputtered. Hob said older sisters were terrors, and they'd toasted to that.

Whether she'd intended or not, they were good for each other, him and Dream. It took them a little bit to realize, a small handful of centuries holding one another at arm's length for fear of what would be seen any closer. Then they'd crashed together anyways, and it had turned out they were matched not just in that bloody-minded stubbornness to keep a decent thing going, but also in all the intensity they'd tried to smother to do so, the roaring hunger and devotion and need; the both of them strange creatures capable of giving so much and greedy enough to take just as much in kind.

On the outside, though, others see Dream, his distance, his power, the thunder of his voice, and don't see it as the armour it is, the necessary carapace protecting the sort of tender feelings that could scorch the entire earth, because he is a vessel for human emotions that are strong enough to live on in stories and dreams, because he is, in that respect, - and Hob gets choked up about this, if he allows himself to think about it too much - fundamentally more human than him, than all of them, the embodiment of every fantasy and fear and tall tale of men, tending to them each night, taking no rest for himself.

On the outside, others see Hob, his banal humanness, and other humans assume the rest of him is the same, and so do most non-humans, except they're baffled by it, baffled by why he is Dream's husband. So he plays it up, because it's funny, and if they're too incurious or gullible to figure out what lays beneath, then that's alright, because his husband figured it out, and loves him for it, and that's all he needs.

Dream didn't understand at first why Hob acted extra human whenever they mingled with other capital-e Entities and inhuman sorts, but now he finds it so amusing as well that Hob wonders how the gig isn't up from the moment anyone sees his twitching smirk. His husband has a terrible poker face, Hob thinks.

He's much better at pretending. In fact, he's so good at performing the petty normality expected of him that it goes full circle and becomes, somehow, magnetically strange to all the fantastical creatures in his husband's social circle.

He had not realized the heady effect of normal human upon non-humans until the time he had gone to a Samhain 'do in the Underhill, in his formal role as Prince Consort to the Lord Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, first of his name, et cetera, and, rather comfortable with those sort of events by then, which were really not that dissimilar to interdepartmental faculty parties, with all the posturing and alcohol, only far better outfits, had, a bit soused on the fantastic elphin mead, accidentally started talking with a member of the faerie delegation about the football tables. At first he thought he'd committed a faux pas when the faerie just stared at him, slack-jawed, but later that night, he'd found himself surrounded by a cluster of wide-eyed dryads and undine and fae, gratifyingly holding court on why Billy Wright had been such a shite Arsenal manager. Apparently, it was the highlight of the evening.

It also helps grease the wheels of immortal statecraft, which Hob thinks of as something of a secondary benefit to making his husband smile. He would be a fierce bodyguard and soldier for Dream, in a heartbeat, he would curry favour on his behalf with pretty words and eager gladhanding, but what works out best, he's realized, is when important folk approach them to talk shop with Dream, to head it off with warm conversation about things like Tube construction, ABBA, and sausage rolls, until they look thoroughly disconcerted, before gracefully handing them off to his husband.

Whenever the occasion allows it, he'll skip on the finery too (another thing, he thinks, that he only cares about his husband seeing). Once, a baku ambassador, himself arrayed in glorious golden robes that matched his sharp gilt claws, had been so baffled by Hob's appearance on the arm of Dream, in his ratty old jeans and a United jersey he got as a gag gift once (and, on principle, refuses to wear in the Waking) that the chimera had absently agreed with Dream's suggestion for revised quotas on devouring nightmares.

Dream had been so delighted by that victory that he'd pressed Hob up against the front door of their flat in Islington, the moment they got back in, and laid kisses all over the hideous jersey, murmuring that Hob was a fearsome diplomat, and Hob had laughed and said he was only a distraction, then let Dream drag him to the bedroom anyways to thank him for his contribution.

Some see what's underneath, of course, and Hob's just as glad for that too.

The second time they'd had dinner with Crowley and Aziraphale, well past the food and making excellent headway on the rest of the wine, Dream had been called away on urgent business. Hob thought the night would end there, but the moment Dream left, Crowley had leveled an unsober finger of accusation at Hob and said, "Don't think I can't tell what you're doing."

Hob hadn't needed to try and look confused, but then Crowley leaned in and said, conspiratorially and only accidentally hissing a little, "This 'regular bloke' thing, but you're worssse than him, aren't you? Bet you are. Bet anything," and Aziraphale had genuinely emitted a tiny gasp of affront on Hob's behalf, and Hob was too busy laughing to say that he wasn't wrong at all, while Crowley gleefully swiveled around and said "I told you so, angel. S'obvious. Humansss. Not a normal one among 'em."

It was a lovely thing to say, actually, and all too easy for Hob to forget sometimes, being a particularly abnormal human leading a particularly abnormal life. But Crowley knew what he was talking about. He spent far more time with humanity compared to most of the inhuman lot. When Hob had made him promise to keep his secret from the rest of them - humanity's secret, really - and explained why, Crowley had laughed and laughed and laughed. He thinks it's the moment they became proper friends.

Hob isn't normal, is the thing.

But it's fun to don it like ceremonial garb and be an ambassador of humanity twice over: in truth and performance both. It's fun to be exactly what's expected and still disconcert.

And most of all, it's fun to go back home with his husband, to their terribly normal human flat, and curl up together in their terribly normal human bed, and watch Dream's face flush with pride or amusement as he debriefs Hob on what chaos he's wrought this time, intentionally or otherwise, with his terribly normal human presence, and Hob just laughs, then smiles until his face hurts, because Dream is his husband, wholly apart from humanity and still the most human creature Hob has met, and he knows all the ways that Hob feels like both, too.

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Look, I adore the dreamling trope of Hob moaning ”God” and Dream huffing ”I am no mere god”.

But you can’t tell me that an Endless — being at the top of the divinity hierarchy — wouldn’t have a little bit of a mythological creature humiliation kink.

***

Dream pouted.

“You said you wanted it to be a surprise.”

Hob sighed, and cupped Dream’s chin in a fond caress.

“Don’t get me wrong, darkling, it was amazing — I’m just saying that a mara-incubus-ambush kind of warrants a heads-up, or a save-the-date card at least.”

Once Dream had been sufficiently placated, Hob ran his hand over his face, still a little bit shell-shocked by the way the memory of the dream was now beginning to crystallise in full detail.

“God, you’re a menace.”

Dream wrinkled his nose at Hob’s monotheistic faux-pas, before huffing: ”When your lover has spent days crafting an intricate fantasy for you, you could at least do me the courtesy of not denigrating my station.”

”You’re lucky I’m allowing you to even be a god, when you act this bratty. But you know what — keep talking like that, and I’ll keep kicking you one rung down the pantheon ladder until you behave. You’ll be a duck pond nymph by the time I’m done with you.”

It was meant as a joke, but Dream’s horrified but clearly intrigued sepia blush opened up a whole new range of questions for Hob.

The first being, of course, how was this his life?

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Ahh! Just had a thought and no time to write it, so it’s up for grabs.

I see all the amazing ‘Hob hates Shakespeare’ posts out there.

But I raise you:

‘Hob wants to see what’s so special about Shakespeare that his Stranger abandoned him, so he starts hanging out with him and accidentally becomes one of his patrons. Shakespeare then falls in love with Hob and tries to woo him with some lovely sonnets and comfort him after his son’s death because Shakespeare has been there too.’

Meanwhile, in the Dreaming, Dream is grinding his teeth over Shakespeare’s new sonnets. He didn’t give that stupid bard all that inspiration just for that stupid bard to go and seduce HIS human with all that sappy poetry.

Turns out Hob is the Shakespeare fan when all is said and done and Dream can’t stand him.

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It's not surprising that someone like Hob Gadling has many admirers among his students, colleagues or acquaintances from the New Inn. Some nights these admirers dream about him. Sometimes their dreams become a bit intimate. As the King of dreams and nightmares, Morpheus is always aware of these kind of dreams. And before he knows what he is doing, he appears in those people’s dream just to say, "This dream is over".

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Imagine Dream learning about the failed Armageddon from Death. Then he goes to Aziraphale and Crowley for more details. However, he gets completely distracted when they get to the bandstand part of the story.

“So, even though you love Crowley and you knew it would hurt him, you told him you weren’t even friends?"

“I… yes. I’m not proud ab…”

“But you still ended up together in the end?”

“Um…”

“Tell me how!”

Afterwards, Dream rushes off and Crowley starts shaking.

“Whoever he’s going to talk to had better love him back or I’m not sure who it will end worse for; them or us.”

He finds Hob in a lecture hall, telling his stories to an audience of students who daydream variously of the contents of them, and the teller himself. One or two, Dream cuts off in a fit of pettiness no one but he ever need be aware of.

Hob offers him a smile in acknowledgement, a momentary pause, and continues only when Dream takes a seat at the back of the class.

It is not Dream's way to be restless, and he is interested in what Hob has to say, but the lecture seems interminable and by the end of it he has wrought a small but distinct scratch in the desk before him from worrying idly at it. Hob, he hopes, will not notice.

"Fancy seeing you here," Hob greets a hovering Dream once most of his students have filtered out, one or two with questions Dream is certain have already been answered. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Pleasure.

A spark of hope catches in Dream's chest. Hob has been perfectly civil to him—friendly, he has been Dream's friend, but there had been a hesitance about him. Dream's fault.

"I." Dream pauses. He had been so focused on what he wanted to say that he had not decided how to phrase it. "Have recently made some new friends."

Hob beams at him. "And now you're breaking up with me?"

"No." Dream blinks at him. "No, I—the opposite."

Hob raises an eyebrow, a smile still playing around his lips. A joke. He was joking.

Dream takes a steadying breath. "I was reminded of the pleasure of your company," he says. This is not a lie. It is not his reason for being here, but Hob must know him well enough by now not to expect any great wealth of direct answers.

Hob laughs. "Well, tell your new friends thank you from me. Come with me for a coffee?"

He has already had no small amount of tea pressed on him today, and cake besides, but the thought of sharing more of the same with Hob is pleasing. It is a mark of Hob's favour that he would choose to see to his bodily needs in front of Dream. A mark of his trust.

Soon enough they are ensconced in a private corner, settled in plush armchairs, their feet tangled together beneath the low table, Hob smiling shyly across it at him.

"Did you really just want to see me?" he asks, something like wonder in his voice.

"Yes," Dream lies. He wants a great deal more. He has been shown that he might yet have it. The urge to reach out and grasp is nearly strong enough to make his human shape tremble.

The smile Hob favours him with now makes Dream's manifested insides fill with warm feathers.

"Were you aware the world almost ended some handful of years ago?" Dream asks.

Hob blinks at him. Dream tells the story as it was relayed to him, lingering, perhaps, on the details of a very long friendship which has since blossomed into a long-overdue courtship.

"We've got a friend in common, then," Hob says when Dream is finished with his tale. "Mr. Fell. Should've guessed he was an angel, probably."

Dream blinks.

"He's gotten his hands on some very rare books for me," Hob explains. "I sort've assumed some of them had been acquired by less than legal means."

Dream smiles wryly. Aziraphale would no doubt find this assumption amusing, coming from an incurable rogue like Hob Gadling.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Hob says. "But I feel like the important part of that story is that you've maybe just come to the conclusion that it's possible to be forgiven for one tiny outburst."

Dream's mouth falls open. Has Hob always been so perceptive?

Of course. Of course he has.

"And you are forgiven," Hob adds softly. "You were forgiven by the time I'd gone back in and finished a pint."

"And for missing our meeting?" Dream asks.

"You were being held captive. And. I figured that was my fault, anyway," he admits. "Nothing to forgive there."

Dream runs a finger around the edge of his cup, considering how to approach his true subject of interest.

"Because we are friends," he says cautiously. "And have been for a very long time?"

"Nearly all my life." Hob grins at him, sipping his coffee and tapping Dream's boot with his own shoe. "A drop in the ocean to you, I suppose."

"No," Dream says. "Aside from my family. You have been my longest continuous companion."

An interesting blush spreads over Hob's nose and cheeks, and he smiles down at his coffee. "You're spoiling me today," he says. "Unannounced visit and now this."

Dream swallows. To offer so little affection, and have it thought so much of.

He leans forward, surer now of what he means to say. What he must say. "You are dear to me," he pronounces.

Hob swallows his mouthful of coffee with more force than was perhaps necessary.

"I am not proud," he continues, remembering Aziraphale's phrasing. "Of my past actions. I have often been unkind to you. Unduly unkind. I am. Sorry," he says, the word tasting strange in his mouth.

Hob raises an eyebrow.

"Forgiven," he says. "Completely. Unreservedly. I don't want you worrying about it, all right? I don't... people who care about you, right? Of which I am one. They don't just stop because you were a little sharp or rude or weird one time. They don't stop caring because of one little fight. If they've got any brains in their head they know things like that happen because you're hurting and they just feel all soft and compassionate and want you not to hurt anymore. Once they get over being upset about it."

Dream allows himself a smile. "And have you brains in your head?"

Hob grins at him. "Such as they are, I like to think so." He laughs, and the laughter glitters in his eyes like a galaxy being born.

Dream is beautiful because he is vain and chooses to be so.

Hob is beautiful because that is his true nature.

"I'll have to let... what did you call him, Aziraphale? Mr. Fell, I mean. Do you know anyone called something normal?"

"I have some slight acquaintance with a Robert," Dream says.

Hob's grin widens. "Anyway. I'll have to send him chocolates or something, to thank him for whatever he's done to you. You look lighter than I've ever seen you."

"He has offered me, as I think angels are meant to do, a sliver of hope. In that Crowley forgave him. And..."

"And?" Hob asks.

Dream looks down at his knees, suddenly unable to quite face Hob as he prepares to pry his ribs open a crack and let him see inside. "And they have since become lovers."

After a few heartbeats of silence, Dream risks glancing up, and finds Hob thunderstruck. It is a rare thing to see Hob Gadling with nothing to say.

"Of course I do not expect that I can simply ask—"

"The answer's yes," Hob interrupts. "Even if you need me to wait another five and a half thousand years."

"I am not famous for my patience," Dream says. "I may struggle to wait five and a half minutes."

Hob, once again, offers him a smile from the bottomless wellspring of them he seems to possess. This one, however, has the quality of a banked fire, smouldering with intent.

"Let me finish my coffee," he says. "And then you can take me home."

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AU where instead of trying to cure her infertility Yennefer just goes around saving random people’s lives and invoking the law of surprise bcos she figures sooner or later it’ll net her a baby. she hasn’t got one yet but she has amassed about 2 dozen dogs so she’s doing pretty well for herself.

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Learning patience with Lucienne : Volume 1000...