#retirement schedule

[creativity-island]

Black History Month Periodt canvas pouch.

Black History Month Periodt canvas pouch.

[cuubism]

Joy

Dreamling | T rating | Retired Dream | on emotional repression

I was thinking about a post, which I cannot find alas, about retired Morpheus struggling to deal with the fact that his actions and emotions don't have universe-wide consequences anymore. Like, he's allowed to just feel things now? And as someone who's also been extremely checked out of their own emotions at various points I can tell you the transition is… not easy. Anyways.

--

Morpheus is out when Hob gets home, or so he assumes. When he steps into the hall, the flat has the utterly still quality of total vacancy, no noise or distant movement. For all that Morpheus is a relatively quiet person, generally speaking, Hob has still become attuned to what his presence feels like, or the lack thereof.

Or so he thought.

For when he reaches the kitchen, Morpheus is there, sitting at the kitchen table, completely still. Hob almost doesn't see him, that's how still he is. Back straight, hands folded on the table, looking down at them as if he's meditating, or working out some complicated problem in his head.

Hob quietly sets down his bag and sits across from him. “Hey... love? You okay?”

He almost whispers it so as not to break the silence. Normally Hob would leave him to his devices if he was in the middle of something, but despite the fact that Morpheus is not given to unnecessary movement, the complete stillness sends something uncomfortable creeping up Hob’s spine. Morpheus hadn't even seemed to hear him come in.

With glacial slowness, Morpheus nods.

“It’s just…” Hob continues, biting his lip. “You’re not moving. At all. I almost didn’t think you were breathing.”

“That is the idea,” Morpheus agrees, still looking at his hands.

"Not breathing?"

"Not moving."

"Can I ask why?"

"I am. Preoccupied. With." His fingers flex against each other on the table as if forcing stillness. "Movement within."

Hob doesn't know what that means. "Can you elaborate?"

"I must make it still," Morpheus says. "I have before. I will."

Which clears up nothing. And Hob is getting the increasing sense that something is wrong but he's floundering as to what.

"Will you come sit on the couch with me?" he finally asks. "You look like you're about to snap in half."

"If it will please you," Morpheus says. Like his own pleasure-or-not in this matter is something he'd prefer not to touch.

"It will," Hob says. Morpheus follows him to the couch, moving like– like he did before. That ethereal creature that considered every step like he was crossing a thinly frozen lake.

So that's what it is.

Morpheus sits down beside him, drawing his knees up to his chest in a movement that, Hob is almost relieved to observe, is very much not like before.

Hob drapes the blanket from the back of the couch over his shoulders. Morpheus flinches, but doesn't push it off. "What's going on, hon?"

"It is..." Morpheus admits, slowly, "loud."

Hob frowns. "In your head? I thought you said it's been quieter since–"

"No." Morpheus presses a hand to his sternum. "Here."

Hob touches his chest, carefully, hand resting beside Morpheus's. All he can hear, or rather feel, is Morpheus's heartbeat, still a new and learning thing. "Your heart?"

"Everything. It... resounds. And drives off reason."

"Okay." Hob rubs his hand up and down over his chest, as if that might soothe him. Hob is aware enough of the feeling of overwhelm, and of Morpheus's particular brand of it, now that he has so little to distract him. "Just give it time and it'll pass, love."

Morpheus shakes his head. "That is not–" his lips press into a distressed line. "Duration is. Not the issue. It is. What will be left. After. Detritus."

Hob's own heart clenches. "Your feelings aren't a storm, love."

"Are they not?"

"You aren't going to make storms in the Dreaming, now," Hob says, though he knows Morpheus knows this.

"I speak not of weather, Hob Gadling," Morpheus growls. "I can– raze minds, I can spin balanced consciousness into euphoria, I can twist it all on its head with no effort and I will–" his fingertips dig into his chest, and Hob thinks that if he were still capable of manifesting claws he'd be drawing blood even through his shirt– "I will make it stop. It will be quiet again, I swear it."

"Only thing you're spinning is yourself," Hob says, gently.

And the thing is, he knows Morpheus knows this. Knowledge isn't the issue. It's sort of like how he never quite believes that Hob will never want to die, no matter how many times Hob tells him. I know that, Hob Gadling, he will say, but Hob can never quite get him to feel it.

"I know that, Hob Gadling," he says, again, now. That same tone. How dare you not believe it. How dare.

"Give me your hand," Hob says.

"Hob–"

Hob takes his hand and pulls it to himself, pressing Morpheus's palm flat to his own chest. Morpheus makes as if to pull away, then surrenders.

"Look," Hob says. "It's not hurting me, is it?"

"No," Morpheus admits, reluctantly, still with that tension through his shoulders.

"What about the room? Is everything shaking into pieces? Is it all going haywire? People rioting in the streets?"

Morpheus shakes his head no.

"See?" Hob says, squeezing his hand. "It's alright."

"I want it quiet," Morpheus says. He no longer sounds frustrated. More defeated. "It should not be... here." He touches his breastbone. "Here." His throat. "Here." His head.

"Where's it supposed to be, then?"

"Gone."

Hob sighs. This will not be an easy fix, not at all. He leans in, awkward though the angle is, and kisses Morpheus's chest, his neck, his temple, then stays, leaning against his shoulder. "I'm sorry, love. I know it's not easy. I happen to like you not gone, though, for what it's worth."

"Me?"

"Uh-huh. You. That's you in there, you know, not some brain-eating amoeba."

He gets a tiny huff of an almost-laugh from Morpheus. "Is it?"

"Yup. The part you weren't allowed to see because everything else was so loud." He rubs Morpheus's chest again, where he keeps saying it's hurting.

Morpheus's mouth opens as if to protest, and Hob adds–

"I'm not going to criticize you for it, okay? I promise I'm not."

Hob gets it. Well. He can't get it, actually, he's never been in charge of the entire dreaming world, but he tries.

"I thought you were supposed to go out today?" he says. "Weren't you getting tea with Rose? What happened with that? You were looking forward to it, I thought."

"I was, yes." He says it as if this is bad somehow. "Looking forward to it, that is. Her company is... enjoyable.”

“Okay? That's good, right?"

But Morpheus shakes his head. "It is too much."

"Too much?" Hob asks. "Were you nervous about it?"

Again, Morpheus shakes his head. “Joyful.”

Hob's heart is actually going to break. He knows this is part of why Morpheus left in the first place. And yet it's still tormenting him, which feels criminally unfair. And the worst part is there's no one to really blame, he knows why Morpheus did it, he can't and won't fault him for it when he was put in such a position.

He asks quietly, “So that joy didn't feel good to you?”

Morpheus shakes his head, biting down hard on his lip, and then, to Hob's horror, bursts into tears.

For all that Morpheus is prone to drama and moping, Hob has never actually seen him cry. He hadn't cried when he’d told Hob of his imprisonment, offering only a hint of scorched anger to indicate how he felt about it, the words, I had not realized what it was to be isolated and embodied until then. It was agonizing, said with the even cadence of the moon in orbit instead of the rawness they deserved. Nor had he cried when he'd shown up on Hob's doorstep and, when greeted with a concerned Hey, Dream, are you okay? – because he certainly didn't look it, drenched to the bone and his cloak absent its swirling inner cosmos – answered merely, You should call me Morpheus, I am no longer Dream of the Endless. The closest Hob had ever seen was the glimmer in his eyes when he'd thought Hob no longer wished to live, all the way back in the 1600s, and even then, his tears had not fallen.

“Oh, darling.” Hob pulls him into his arms, rubbing his back. “It’s alright.”

“It does not feel,” Morpheus continues, voice remarkably steady given the tears streaming down his cheeks, “good. It feels loud. And I am not in control, I am subject to these whims and I am no subject, Hob.”

"Those feelings are part of you. Not subjecting.”

“I don’t want it,” Morpheus insists, with the bitter frustration of a former king, used to shaping the world around him as he wishes. “If they are free I do not know what might come out.”

What comes out are parts of you, Hob thinks, but doesn’t express it again. The raw parts that you think are so awful. “Well, if there’s any feeling to try it with, wouldn’t it be joy? Happiness?”

Morpheus huffs. "Do you think that sorrow and rage are the only feelings with the capacity to destroy? Joy can become hysteria, joy can ruin, I have seen it, I have done it, when I was much, much younger and did not understand my abilities. Strong feelings have power, the very Dreaming is crafted of them. It could not exist out of apathy.”

“Neither could you,” Hob points out, and Morpheus just huffs again, shaking his head.

“I thought that if I relinquished my responsibilities, I would no longer have to worry so about everything outside of myself,” Morpheus says. “And how it entangles with me. Only now. It is still there, but I can do nothing to stop it.”

“But listen, darling.” Hob squeezes his hand. “You’re allowed to be tangled up with everything, now. You’re supposed to be.” He twists their fingers together. “I want you tangled up.”

“I will— without access to my realm I will step wrong, and—”

“And you can fix it,” Hob says. “Promise. No rebuilding a whole universe required.”

Morpheus sniffles, and Hob wipes the tears from his cheeks. “You always kept yourself above it all, didn’t you?”

“It is my responsibility to keep the collective unconscious in balance,” Morpheus says. He hasn’t quite stopped talking about his responsibilities in the present tense — Hob thinks it will be a while before he fully internalizes the lack of that weight. “Not to sway it to my feelings. Historically, when I have involved myself, it has… not gone well.”

“It doesn’t always as a human, either,” Hob says, and Morpheus’s frown deepens. “I mean, we’re all just bumping up against each other, you know? But you’re allowed to have space there, even if it doesn’t always go right.”

“If you mean this to be very comforting, I will have to disappoint you,” says Morpheus, but there’s more humor in it now, and he’s stopped crying. He pushes his head into Hob’s shoulder, and Hob wraps his arms around him tighter, holds him close.

“I wish it could all be immediately easy for you,” Hob says. “I’d do anything to make it so.”

“I did not expect this to be easy,” Morpheus says, voice rumbling into Hob’s chest. “But the challenges have repeatedly come from unforeseen directions.”

Hob kisses the side of his head. “I’m glad you’ve stuck with me anyway.”

“You have been very patient with my… meandering attempts at basic humanity.”

“Always will. I love you.”

It’s another thing he’s struggled to get Morpheus to truly accept, that Hob’s care for him was never contingent on any of his abilities or powers. That Hob won’t be scared away no matter his mistakes, because Hob has faced a lot of terrifying things in his life and the worst is the prospect of losing Morpheus entirely.

This time, Morpheus doesn’t reject it. He just hums and lets Hob pet his hair, lets Hob keep him and quiet him towards ease, which Hob intends to do until Morpheus can find it himself, and then after, too.

And several weeks later, when Morpheus comes home from the park with a colored pencil drawing Jed made for him, smiling and holding it to his chest with real joy in his eyes, Hob shines with pride, and the part of his heart that might have broken just a bit listening to Morpheus cry that day heals over again.

[bigmammallama5]

Did you retire

heaven forbid someone take some time away from fandom to get their health back to normal lol

no, im just biding my time in the gutter waiting for you to walk by

[jeanmoreaue]

Hello!

I’m the same anon that asked you to rank the AFTG characters’s attractiveness (based on the general public’s opinion) weeks ago

Now rank them as exy players based on the general public’s opinion😈 Like if you had to guess how much a pro team would be willing to pay to have them on their team judging by how good they are. Talk about them like how people talked about Mbappe Messi Griezmann.

omg hellooooo hope you’re doing well i love ranking things and i love you so here’s a top 10 list of the players we know enough of for me to rank lol:

1. Kevin Day - i think this one is pretty obvious. he was on the olympic team at like 18. even w the hand injury

2. Jean Moreau - okay personally i think that once Jean is healthy he could be as good as if not better than Kevin. it’s telling that the Ravens only lose once Jean leaves, not even when Kevin leaves. once he’s in therapy and healed from his injuries other teams won’t even know what hit them 😤 (but i could go on about how sports stars are a mix of talent + personality and Kevin is a little more appealing to teams than Jean since he’s so media trained)

3. Andrew Minyard - maybe idk enough about sports but the fact that he blocks as many goals as he does per game and can remember stats so well has got to be super appealing to pro teams. i mean maybe him putting in such low effort should make him lower on this list, but i still think he’d be in pretty high demand

4. Riko Moriyama - i’m genuinely not putting him here out of spite lmao Kevin lost his hand bc people were saying Riko was holding Kevin back + Neil was able to successfully shut out Riko in the Foxes v Ravens championship game by playing a position he only has a couple weeks experience in.. embarrassing for Riko truly

5. Jeremy Knox - tbh i think that talent-wise there are probably better players than Jeremy, like he’s really good but not like The Best. but i think they mention that the Trojans are in pretty high demand bc of their sportsmanship and i think Jeremy’s leadership/attitude do him a lot of favors (+ Kevin wouldn’t care about him unless he was really good lol). i’m undecided on whether Jeremy will go pro though (i think he’d make a good dude narrating games or coach etc)

6. Neil Josten - I think Neil has the capacity to be higher on this list and in time would be better than Riko and behind Andrew (i think Andrew’s better than Neil lmao <3). however i do think some of the Neil drama in the press might have him here. the PR of the pro team Neil joins is gonna have their work cut out for them

7. Zane Reacher - it’s unfortunate that he’s on this list, but Jean gave his stamp of approval that he should’ve been given a perfect court number so here he is

8. Laila Dermott - again Jean’s first words to her are “you’re very good”. Jean speaks and I listen fr 🙏

9. Grayson Johnson - 😔 unfortunately i think the implication was that he was next in line behind Zane. but he will soon be rotting in hell so he will never join a pro team!

10. Matt Boyd - keeps up with Kevin Day. won a championship. Matt is slay and a good candidate

[deathcupcake]

I never understand how people are so together that they can regularly keep their house super clean: wash the curtains, wash the duvet covers, wipe down/dust/vacuum all the surfaces, wash out candle remnants from containers, change batteries, restock toiletries, put things away where they belong, and in general keep a neat and orderly house. And also still have time for hobbies.

It's all I can do to feed the cats and fish, do dishes, wipe down sinks, laundry, and dream of re-organizing areas that have needed reorganizing for 10+ years.

But whenever I am off work for more than two or three days, I get it. It's as if working 9-10 hour days, 5 days a week in a very understaffed industry sucks all energy and creativity out of me. And when sufficiently rested, with no work deadlines, suddenly my own goals are attainable.

I just spent the last hour de-furring and de-crumbing a sofa, rotating the sofa seat/back pillows. I wouldn't say it was fun, but it was satisfying. I still have to do water changes on two fish tanks (and check the parameters on the other two), fill the holes in the stairwell walls from replacing the stair treads/banisters, and figure out a good recipe to use up the 3/4 cup of pumpkin puree and 1 cup of coconut milk, but I think that's all I need to worry about today. And I'll still have plenty of time to play some DA:V and watch an episode or two of La Grand Maison Tokyo. I mean, it's not even 11 am. Let's go!

[whysamwhy123]

A not-insignificant amount of Zay's latest vlog is him and Daniel literally frolicking on the beach together in Puerto Rico. Again, I ask - WHERE IS THE FIC??!!

[cinderflower]

New Twin Princes Fic - Stay (~5k, 18+) for the FolgersFlash72 event hosted on twt

[nostalgia-tblr]

I think the readers overall were not keen on that final chapter but that's okay it was my first go at the 'epilogue with a baby' structure and I may have made it overly twee or something (or maybe even not twee enough, idk) and so I shall not do it next time I write a multichapter (assuming there is a next time which is something I argue with myself about because Oh So Conflicted). But either way I don't need to write any more of that fic as it is done now. Hurrah!

[critter-wizard]

. peace offering .

[void-of-unparalled-chaos]

The Healthcare horrors persist

Hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[truly-quirkless]

@djsouled asked:

[ sms ] what are the odds you can cover for my english class today, eh? say one of our favorite blonds ('sides you, of course) started coming down with something. :)

[Unprompted. || Accepting!]

Yagi tilted his head. It wasn't often that his phone went off for reasons other than missions- so to see Yamada's contact flash on the screen caused him a small deal of worry. He was quick to unlock the device, heading to the chat in question--- and relaxing slightly, though his concern was not fully abated.

[Present Mic] [what are the odds you can cover for my english class today, eh? say one of our favorite blonds ('sides you, of course) started coming down with something. :)]

A small chuckle escaped him at that.

[Self] [The odds are one in one. Just send me whatever lesson plans you have, and I'll look them over when I have the chance. Do you want me to pick up anything later? I can make a rather nice soup for the funniest blond, if you want.]

He could let Nezu know that he'd be taking over Yamada's English courses for the day. Of course, Yagi had already spent all of his hours...- He couldn't just let villains slide!- But at least he'd be able to teach as his True Form. Another day as 'All Might's personal assistant', it would seem...and slightly, this time, Yamada's.

That caused another soft chuckle.

[Self] [There isn't a quiz today, is there?]

[sentientcave]

your new chapter of retirement party was amazing! i love how price was tender w/ reader even if she tried to escape. i need to know what he told the boys i know he berated them good. thank you so much for an amazing chapter as usual!! also sorry english isnt my first language :<

First off, never apologize for your english, you speak more than one language, which puts you one up on me! You're doing great

And I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Writing Price is so much fun, dancing between insidious and charming and leaving everyone wondering if he's a good guy or a very bad one is downright delightful. And we do find out some of what he said to the boys in one of the next few chapters! I can't wait for the yelling people are going to do about it. >:)

[crandberrysaucewithpulp]

does anyone have to land a forceful, comical slap to their own face for them to get back to work. or is the dilly dallying only insufferably invasive to my own productivity

[the-jam-to-the-unicorn]

Ze's face with children in school😍🥰🥺💜💜

If someone needs 100% cuteness - I highly recommend watching that video

[asinglesock]

Also it feels so good to be taking classes again even though the subject is human development and at-home care instead of literature or religion. I'm nervous about the practical skills exams, especially for very personal tasks, but I'm just going to do my best and leave it at that.

[obstinatecondolement]

I saw my psychiatrist on Wednesday and he seemed pretty embarrassed when I was like "And also the Victorians were right and that womb do be wandering" for about ten minutes discussing the issues I've been having with PMDD-like symptoms among other gynaecological Unpleasantness that have contributed to my overall emotional ~dysregulation, but also like... listen, buddy, I also do not want to be talking to you about this, but unfortunately the fucking thing is strangling my brain for half the month, and my brain is your department.