#the endless line

[limnsaber]

When Eurydice followed Orpheus from the underworld, it was Schrodinger’s existence. How do you know if she’s behind you or not if you haven’t looked? How do you, Eurydice, know if you’re there at all? This is what it’s like for Scully.

Mulder and Scully would go to the end of the earth for each other. When Scully made the decision to stay on with the X Files, she did so because she wanted to see where Mulder would take them, and what she and Mulder would see on their path to the unknown.

She loves him for his passion and wonder, but in turn his fixation is his fatal flaw. One of the main reasons for her hesitation to mention the ever-present subject of their relationship is her fear that Mulder will succumb to his fixation, and lock himself in the basement forever.

Because, when it comes down to it, Scully knows full well how she feels about Mulder. She knows what they could have together and she knows how she feels. But Mulder is himself, with all of his trauma and tendencies and idiosyncrasies. He cannot look her way, even when he wants to, even when they both want him to. Mulder’s fixation on the hidden and the unknown means he cannot look to see her behind him.

He cannot support her, he cannot look at her when he’s too busy looking at the sky. They’re partners, running this path together, but he doesn’t look back to see her falling behind him. And his faith that she will be behind him, which she always will be, means that he doesn’t turn to look.

Mulder and Scully would go to the ends of the earth for each other. We watch Mulder travel time and time again to the underworld for her. But Mulder does not look back. They’re still stuck in the basement, they’re still trying to exit the underworld.

To Scully’s point of view, their relationship, from Scully’s role in the X Files to her importance to Mulder, exists in that quantum state where he doesn’t look back at her. It’s Orpheus and Eurydice, Scully and Mulder. They’re still walking out of the underworld.

And until Mulder gets his head on straight, until Mulder has the presence of mind to look up and leave the basement, nothing will change. Her following him, they're still traveling the underworld. Their relationship exists in this state. This is the tragedy. If you don’t look back, how do you know if she’s there at all?

[coverpanelarchive]

Nubia: Queen of the Amazons #3 (2022)

[meltedmush]

I did a bunch of SVSSS doodles to cope while I was in the 2ha pit 😭

[hinamie]

for @cherryys who (rightfully!) hcs lategame megumi as having a bunch of scars befitting his status as resident punching bag

[banancrumbs]

desperately needed but not expected

[odos-bucket]

wanted to share this with the netflix Sandman fans who may not have seen it.

Hob's immediate reaction upon waking up in a creepy torture dungeon is to call for Dream for help, then promise his captor will "never wake up from [his] nightmares" do with this information what you will

[eybefioro]

It just hit me.

"Put on the cuffs, I'll come quietly"

Wtf. We. We really heard this from Crowley's mouth.

[beastlyidiocy]

[selenophany]

LAMIA 🪸🌴🪷

original video by Rexlent

𓇼 | Endless Count of Favorites

[perplexingly]

I think about Antonio from Twelfth Night at least once a month

[cuubism]

"Ooh, Kinky"

Hob enjoys doing small, nice things for Dream. Dream... really likes it. A lot. Explicit. Acts of service Hob. Horny-for-kindness Dream. Smut, light angst, fluff, and simple pleasures.

Dream is about to reach his fucking limit with this social event. Hob knows, because he's seen it happen more than a few times before. It doesn't help that Dream's limit is... easily reached.

Unfortunately, this is a political event critical to the peaceful relations of the Dreaming, so they can't just fuck off whenever they like. Well, Hob could, probably, but he won't leave Dream stranded surrounded by his greatest enemies. Those enemies being small talk and attempting to smile, of course.

Dream is perfectly savage in a conversation when he’s allowed to use words as clever and cutting as he likes, but this event has been mostly petty, mundane topics and people trying to see just how rude they can get away with being before Dream breaks his composure. He never does, because he’s trying to reaffirm the strength of the Dreaming after his long absence, but his glares are icy and his annoyance visible in the patina of stardust dancing over his skin. Hob’s never seen someone say Your company has been a pleasure with quite so much venom, and he spent a not-insignificant amount of time as a knight in the Queen’s court.

He watches Dream grit his teeth and visibly restrain himself from dissolving into sand at the end of yet another mundane conversation, his fingers clenching at nothing. Once the person’s retreated, Hob leans against his side, murmuring in his ear, “Just a little while longer, hm?” and rubs a hand up and down Dream’s back. “Then I’ll take you home, run you a bath, get you those biscuits you like. Sound good?”

All Hob is expecting to get is a hum of acknowledgment, maybe a smile if he’s really lucky. Instead, Dream stares at him, eyes wide.

“What?” Hob says. He hadn’t even said anything bad. He’d been trying to offer a little encouragement, not make Dream more frustrated, after all.

“I—” Dream says, and swallows hard. Hob watches his throat bob. “That. Would be nice. Thank you.”

Odd.

Hob offers him a small smile, but doesn’t get to ask about it further as somebody else comes up looking for the Dream Lord’s attention. Hob leaves him to it for now, mulling on that reaction as he wanders in search of another conversation partner. He’ll just have to ask about it later.

****

Hob does not get to ask about it later. Nor does he get to run Dream a bath, or even get the biscuits out of the cabinet, because the moment they return to the Waking, Dream is climbing on top of him in bed and pulling down his pajama pants.

Hob just watches him do it for several long moments, half of his brain still asleep and the other half not comprehending things much better. “That all got you really pent up, huh?”

Instead of answering, Dream licks a stripe up Hob’s cock.

Hob yelps. “Jesus fuck!”

Dream merely hums, already hyper-focused on his self-appointed task of driving Hob round the bend. He leans in low, takes Hob’s dick in his mouth, sucks on it like it’s the only thing he’s been thinking of for the past eight hours, or whatever amount of time in the Dreaming, and, well, if Hob wasn’t hard when he woke up, he will be in about three seconds.

What a wakeup call.

“Dream—” Hob flails in his general direction and manages to find his hair, tangles his fingers in it. He has no idea what in the bloody fuck is going on, though it’s hardly a situation he’ll protest. “What—?”

“I appreciated,” Dream says, pulling off Hob’s rapidly hardening cock, “your company at that wretched event.”

Hob pets his hair, cradles his cheek. "My love, you don't have to pay me back for these things. You know I would do anything for you."

"You misunderstand." Dream leans his forehead into Hob's hip, breathing hard. Breathing. He really is worked up. "It is not. Obligation. I simply. Was thinking of you. All night."

"Oh. Alright then. Really?"

"There was nothing that could hold my thoughts more than you, my lover."

Hob sighs. "You say such pretty things."

"As do you."

The sight of Dream looking up at him with his face still pressed to Hob’s pelvis is not sanity-inspiring, but Hob still manages to ask, “What did I say, exactly?”

Dream hums as he presses his closed lips to Hob’s dick again, and the vibration travels all the way through Hob’s body. “Taking me home. Baths.” He kisses the head of Hob’s cock, tongue darting out just briefly to wet it. “Biscuits.”

It takes Hob so long to comprehend this he wonders if he’s actually still been asleep this whole time. “That’s what got you worked up?”

“It was sweet.” His long fingers sneak up to Hob’s hips. “Alluring.”

Hob is going to have to unpack this at a later time. “You sure you don’t just want the bath and biscuits?” he asks, and then immediately wants to hit himself.

“Later,” says Dream, and returns to his task of waking Hob up in the most startling way possible.

Later, they do indeed have that bath, which Dream takes as another opportunity to show his apparent appreciation, then rests, purring, against Hob’s chest as the water cools. Hob still has no bloody idea exactly what he’s done to inspire this, but he’s definitely going to have to do it again.

****

Apparently, he does it again not a week later.

Hob’s finally managed to get Dream in the habit of taking the occasional, proper night off from his work in the Dreaming, and so tonight Hob’s made them dinner (more for the familiar experience of sharing a meal than with the expectation that Dream will actually eat), with plans to have a relaxing night in watching a movie afterwards, and then even later, as they usually do, winding up in bed for something even more ‘relaxing’.

It doesn’t go that way. Or rather, it does go that way, but a hell of a lot faster than Hob had intended, and a lot weirder, too.

It starts with dinner, although ‘dinner’ is a bit of an optimistic way to speak of it—it’s actually ice cream, because if there’s one thing Dream will sometimes eat, it’s sweets. There’s never a bad time to eat ice cream, though, in Hob’s opinion. If you have regular access to ice, and freezers, why the hell wouldn’t you make use of it?

And Dream likes sweets. And florals. Hob has attempted to combine these into lavender-flavored ice cream—not something he’d been certain would work, when he started it, but he thinks it’s turned out pretty well.

He places a dish of it on the coffee table in front of Dream, a tiny spoon already stuck into the ice cream. Dream touches the condensation on the cold dish. “Did you make this?”

“Yup.” Hob takes a tiny spoonful of his own, and, yes, it is good, thank God. “It’s actually not as hard as I might have thought.”

Instead of using his spoon, Dream just dips a delicate fingertip in and brings a tiny smear of ice cream to his mouth. Licks his finger clean. Does he actually, truly, have to do those kinds of things to Hob’s sanity? “Lavender?”

“Mmhmm. Was going to try for dandelion, actually? I remember how much you liked the wine the other day. But I wasn’t sure the flavor would come through.”

“Because I liked it?” Dream says, looking down at the dish again. He sounds lost in thought.

“Yeah, of course I made it because you liked it.” Frankly, a large, and continually growing, percentage of Hob’s behavior is driven by what Dream might like.

“You do not have to go through such effort,” Dream says.

“Don’t have to,” Hob agrees. “I want to. Go on. Eat it.” He taps at Dream’s bowl with his spoon. Dream takes another tentative spoonful—actually using the spoon this time—and hums in appreciation.

“It is… very good,” he admits, and Hob can’t help his smile. He sits beside Dream on the couch, tucks into his own bowl—but quickly becomes aware that Dream is more so watching him than he is eating his ice cream, though he does occasionally lift some to his mouth and take a slow bite, lips lingering on the spoon.

“Have I got it on my face?” Hob asks, but instead of responding, as soon as he turns Dream leans in to kiss him.

Hob lets out an involuntary startled sound, but quickly gets with the program, putting down his bowl and taking Dream’s face between his hands instead. Dream tastes, of course, of lavender, with the static charge that sometimes jumps to his lips when he’s worked up. He licks into Hob’s mouth, pushing closer, leaving aside his bowl and spoon to half-crawl into Hob’s lap, whines when Hob runs his hands through his hair.

Hob chuckles as Dream starts tugging at his shirt. “Easy, love. No rush.”

“Is that truly what you wish?” Dream asks, pulling away just far enough to speak against Hob’s lips. His voice is heavy with want. “For me to go… slower?”

Deep down, Hob is really not a very strong man.

So he lets Dream push him down onto the couch, pulls him in with a smile as Dream kisses him hungrily. Hob’s back will regret this later, but for now he just spins into this moment with Dream, forgets about the subtle strangeness of Dream’s pivot to sex because Dream seems so happy and that’s all Hob wants, for him to be happy.

Dream undresses them both and straddles his lap and rides him like he lives to do it, and that successfully wipes any lingering thoughts from Hob’s head. All he knows is the blessed touch of Dream’s skin and the euphoria of having him. And knowing that, some way or another, he did make Dream happy.

****

Every once in a while, Dream brings his work to the Waking world so he can sit beside Hob while he grades without falling behind on his duties in the Dreaming. Hob’s not sure… exactly how he does that. He can’t properly create dreams in the Waking world, of course, but he seems to be able to… sketch. Drawing patterns in his sand on the tabletop, or molding it in the air before him, then whisking the designs back to the Dreaming for later fulfillment. It’s fascinating and highly distracting when Hob is trying to grade, but he certainly won’t tell Dream to stop.

Now, Dream has been spinning the same amorphous shape before him for nearly an hour, frowning. Stuck. His shoulders are tight, arms held aloft in the same position for far longer than a human would be able to manage.

Hob nudges his calf with his toes from where they’re sitting across from each other on the couch, legs outstretched. “You want to take a break, love?”

“A break,” Dream mutters, greatly affronted. “I think not.”

Oh, Hob can play this game. “What if I make it worth your while? Little massage, maybe? You must be sore after sculpting for that long.”

“I don’t get sore,” Dream, the proud idiot, says instantly — before pausing and taking in the rest of Hob’s statement. He finally meets Hob’s eyes, the swirling sand collapsing back into a cube in his palms. “You would… do that?”

“What, a massage? Yeah, I mean, it’s nice, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Dream agrees, staring off into the distance over Hob’s shoulder. “Nice.”

Hob scoots over on the couch to push up next to him, takes Dream’s hand between both of his own and starts rubbing at the meat of his palm. “Yeah, isn’t it? Something the matter?”

“Not as such.” Dream contemplates for a long moment; Hob waits patiently. “I suppose I am not used to it. It affects me, when you say such things.”

The fact that a simple offer of a massage to make him feel better is confusing to Dream hurts Hob’s heart, but fortunately it’s a problem he can fix. Or at least, something he can make Dream get used to. Eventually.

He kisses Dream’s palm. “Well? How about it, then? Let me make you feel good?”

“You make me feel good,” Dream says, with a little smirk that suggests exactly what he means. “Often.”

“Not what I meant, but we can do that, too.”

“Very well, Hob,” Dream concedes, with a heaving sigh, as if this is quite a concession indeed. “Do your worst.”

****

Hob does not get very far into “his worst.”

He supposes it was only inevitable. Straddling Dream’s thighs, rubbing warm oil in soothing patterns over his lithe back and upper arms, is not really a position conducive to reason. Hob didn’t start it, though. He was determined to show Dream an actual, nice, mostly innocent massage.

Then he’d pressed his thumbs into Dream’s neck, rubbing out the undeniable knots that were there despite Dream’s insistence that he did not have a physical body, and Dream had let out a very not innocent moan. And had pushed his ass up against Hob’s clothed dick.

“Stay still,” Hob had said, and Dream had subsided immediately, but not in true understanding or acquiescence. No, it was the quick obedience he played at because he knew obeying Hob’s commands like that turned Hob on.

Hob had recognized the ploy, but that did not change that fact that his self-control in the face of an obedient, wanting, moaning Dream was exactly zero.

That’s how they’ve ended up here. With Hob pressing Dream into the sheets, fucking him hard and fast, hands still slick with massage oil.

“You are incapable of just having a good fucking time,” he complains, not slowing in the slightest.

When Dream replies, Hob can hear his smirk even through the muffling of the pillow. “I am having a good time now.”

“There’s more than one type of a good time,” Hob says, and bites the back of Dream’s neck.

Dream shudders. “Why change a good thing?”

“More than one type of good thing,” Hob repeats. He doesn’t really know why he’s attempting to convince Dream not to have sex. How incredibly self-sabotaging. Only it feels important that Dream gets to experience simple nice things as well. Not only sex.

Though of course, Hob is always in favor of sex.

He tables that conversation for later. “Hush, now,” he says, and mouths over the bite mark he’d made on the back of Dream’s neck, deepening the bruise. “We’ll talk about that later, after I make you come.”

“Oh, we will?” Dream says, petulantly, and Hob leans back, pulling Dream with him by the hips so he’s balanced precariously on his elbows and knees, spine arched, as Hob keeps fucking into him. Which, admittedly, is probably exactly the kind of reaction Dream wanted to get out of him.

Dream lets out a pleased groan at the new angle, confirming Hob’s suspicions. Hob loves to get those sounds out of him, though, even if by Dream’s design. His own breath is loud in the quiet bedroom, the quick slap of their bodies together too, but Dream’s moan as Hob takes him in hand is louder.

His hand is slick with oil still, and Dream slides easily through his grip, pushed by the force of Hob’s movement. Each thrust punches a broken ha-h! sound from him, and his hands are fisted in the sheets, and Hob knows from experience his eyes are squeezed shut tight. Braced against overwhelm.

Lord does Hob love to overwhelm him.

“Do you think you’ll be sore tomorrow?” he asks, false casual. “More than when you were working? Do you think you’ll still feel me in you?”

“Yes,” Dream pants. “Yes.”

“Will you keep it, even if it hurts?” Dream could easily wash these small human remnants from his form, but sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he comes back to Hob joints still aching from being fucked. God it makes Hob sick with want.

“Pain is good,” Dream says. “I will take it.” He clenches around Hob as if to emphasize the point, body spasming. Held open and full.

‘Pain is good’ is not exactly what Hob meant, but Dream is overdramatic like that and he does like a little pain, sometimes.

In the morning Hob will take him in his mouth, bring him off with easy heat and agonizing slow pleasure. Then he’ll roll on top of him, fuck him through the afterglow, erase that soreness with a slow, easy stretch that melds right into him. Kiss him and move in him until Dream comes twice, at least.

Now, he twists his grip around Dream and thumbs over his slit in the way he knows will make him come, and grips his hip hard enough to leave bruises, and Dream cries out at the force, spilling over his hand.

Hob doesn’t slow. He takes Dream’s hips in both hands again, holds him there as he fucks into his tight, oversensitive body. So tight after, always, as if whatever arousal unlocked gets timid again in the aftermath. Hob would feel like more of a dick for loving it if Dream didn’t seem to get off on it, too.

“So fucking tense, baby,” he says, pressing Dream to the sheets again, mouthing at the back of his neck. His skin tastes like oil. Dream trembles under him. “Should I stay in you longer? Maybe I should make you wait. Keep you on my cock until you get used to it.”

“Yes,” Dream says. “Mold me to you.”

Hob fucks him harder, down into the bed, and Dream gasps at each stretch. Hob won’t last much longer like this. He’s surprised he lasted this long.

“Come back to me in the morning,” he says, “and we’ll keep practicing.”

And Dream moans, and that’s enough for Hob. With several quick stutters of his hips, he spills in him, Dream’s muscles going all tense under him at the feeling. Then he falls boneless over Dream’s back, and stays like that, in him, keeping a promise, or perhaps a threat, for a time.

“I love when you get like that,” Dream murmurs, eyes heavy-lidded. Shifting against where Hob is going soft inside him.

“How?”

“Wanting me,” Dream says.

“I always want you,” Hob says.

“You know what I mean.”

Yeah, Hob does, and it’s not really what he intended for an easy, relaxing evening, though Dream has relaxed under him. But this intensity, this roughness, no matter how much they both love it, hadn’t been what he had been aiming for at the start. He hadn’t even been angling for sex at all at the start.

And now Hob is picking up on the pattern that he’s been pushing aside each time it comes up. The way Hob will try to do something nice for him and Dream will spin it around into sex. After that event in the Dreaming. After Hob had fed him. He had been attributing it just to passion, but… maybe that’s not the whole truth.

He finally pulls out, trying not to relish too much in Dream’s groan at the feeling, and goes to clean him up with quick, practiced motions. Dream just hums, still sprawled out, loose and spoiled. Hob cuddles back up to him, turning him on his side and pulling Dream flush to his body, Dream’s back to his chest. He knows from experience that it’s the best position if he wants to get real, personal answers out of him, because Dream won’t have to look him in the eye as he says them.

“Do you not like,” he starts, thinking it through as he speaks, lips to the back of Dream’s neck, “when we do just… simple things other than sex?”

Dream stiffens immediately, which perhaps was inevitable. Hob holds him tight so he won’t slip away. “If you are dissatisfied with our lovemaking—”

“Not what I said.” He kisses under Dream’s ear. “Don’t jump to conclusions, eh?”

But jumping is how Dream’s mind works, Hob knows. It’s not for dreams to be linear, but to create zigzag webs of meaning, clouds of abstraction. Feelings layered and refracted.

“Are—” he starts, a thought occurring. “Are you unsatisfied?”

“No,” says Dream, but Hob isn’t convinced by it. He doubts Dream would let him do something he didn’t like—Hob hadn’t even gotten away with calling him a friend the first time without getting a reaction—but that doesn’t mean he would speak up about what he does want.

“I do enjoy such things you speak of,” Dream says before Hob can push. “‘Simple things.’ Nice… things.”

“Well. I’m glad, then. Only you… do turn it into sex. A lot. And I’m not doing ‘nice things’ just to get you into bed, you know.”

“Such temptations are not necessary for that, historically,” Dream says, with some of his rare humor. Hob can imagine the tiny smirk on his lips, and leans over to kiss the corner of his mouth.

“Temptations, huh?” he says, still close to Dream’s cheek, and Dream blushes. Just the barest amount, but any flush is easily visible on his pale skin. “My attempts at strange ice cream flavors really did it for you?”

“You made it for me,” Dream says. His voice is quiet like the hush of light rain.

Hob squeezes him to his chest. “You talk like no one’s ever done something just nice for you in a relationship.”

“Do not jump to conclusions,” Dream says, echoing him with a twitch of the lips. “But such small signs of care… it is a human thing. I am unused to that. I am… a medium through which fantasies are spun. Not a creature to be made tea and ice cream.”

“What if my fantasy is making you tea and ice cream?” Hob says. His heart hurts at the thought of it being foreign to Dream, even if he knows some of it is just his nature as an Endless, that Dream has had some good relationships, at least for the time that they lasted, and that supernatural creatures can have different ways of showing care—hell, he’s seen it with Dream himself—but still—

“You are turning my words upon themselves,” Dream says, but seems to find it humorous. “I suppose that because I am unused to it, such things unduly affect me. Is it a surprise, then, that I should want you so when you do them?”

“Are you saying those things make you horny?” Hob’s voice pitches up several notches. Dream actually squirms in his arms, as if to wiggle away back into stardust.

“I do not care for that word to be applied to me,” he says.

“You are, though,” Hob says. God, the fact that he seems to get turned on by simple care and kindness in a relationship is both sweet, hot, and terribly sad all at once. But with Dream naked in his arms he’s leaning more towards hot.

Dream doesn’t answer, and Hob leans over to catch his eye. “Hey, Dream. Look at me?” Dream still doesn’t, so Hob takes his chin and tugs until Dream finally turns his gaze to him. He looks almost… ashamed.

“Hey.” Hob lets his hand fall to a gentler hold, cradling Dream’s cheek. “None of that. Would think you were talking about tentacle porn, the way you look.”

Hob does not actually think Dream would be ashamed of tentacle porn. No, it’s only this.

“Humans only see tentacle sex as ‘kinky’ because you do not know any sentient beings with tentacles,” Dream says.

Hob stares at him for several long moments. Has to shake himself hard to reset. “That’s another conversation,” he says, and Dream gives half a smile, enough that it breaks that look on his face. Laughing at Hob’s meager human experience. He’ll take it.

“What I’m saying is,” he continues, “you don’t have to be ashamed. It’s sweet, really.”

Dream finally turns over properly on his back so Hob no longer has to lean over his shoulder. Hob takes advantage of it to lean in and kiss him, slow and lingering, and when he pulls away Dream is looking at him with his pupils wide and his mouth wet and parted, a look that begs another kiss and another of anything Hob’s willing to give him. Which is much.

“You can have whatever you want,” Hob murmurs. “Any other desires you’ve been keeping close to the chest?”

Dream shakes his head. “It is not about elaborate fantasy. I can make any sexual fantasy a reality in the Dreaming. But.” His gaze slants down. “I cannot make someone love me.”

“Oh, darling.” Hob kisses him again, soft and sweet this time. “I want to give that to you, don’t you know? All the time.”

“I am coming to that awareness,” says Dream, softly. “And perhaps we might… do more. Of these ‘simple nice things’ that you speak of.”

“Because it turns you on?” Hob says, but it’s just teasing now.

“Among other reasons,” murmurs Dream, and leans his head against Hob’s.

There’s nothing Hob wants more than to give him those things. The chance to see Dream happy is the sweetest gift he can imagine. His own ‘nice thing,’ perhaps, though nothing about it feels simple.

For now, he cuddles Dream close, rubbing his hand up and down his spine. Dream makes a rumbling, purring sound of pleasure, and presses into him, nose tucked against Hob’s throat. Hob loves him so much it makes his chest hurt, a sweeter version of the wound he’d felt during all of Dream’s long absence.

I’ll make you so used to nice mundane things you’ll get fucking bored, Hob thinks. Though there are a lot of nice, ordinary things—life’s made up of them—so it might take a long time.

Fortunately, Hob has a long time.

****

The next time Hob makes Dream dinner—actual dinner this time, not just ice cream, partly because he’s too weak to handle the image of Dream licking ice cream off his fingertips again—he just pulls Dream to the bedroom afterwards to cuddle. He wants to show Dream a quiet evening, to let him feel good without plan or expectation. And by the way Dream slides into bed beside him, presses up against Hob’s body, skin to skin, just his underwear on, and then rests there like it’s where he belongs, Hob thinks he gets the message.

Dream’s form is warm and alluring against him, but Hob doesn’t feel the need to push it further towards sex. The contented hum of Dream’s body at his side is its own form of satisfaction. The pleasure he can draw in him just by holding him close. Dream is calm and pleased and happy, and while they’ll surely slide into sex later, or maybe just tomorrow morning, if Dream stays that long, for now this is more than enough.

The slow build of pleasure as he strokes his hand through Dream’s hair and down over his back. The brush of Dream’s feathery hair against his jaw as he tucks his head further into Hob’s throat with a sigh. Dream is clearly pleased, Hob can feel that he’s hard against his thigh, but he seems content to just let it be for now, to relish in those early, warm moments of arousal. He really just wanted to be petted and spoiled and adored all along, Hob thinks with a smile. And how long has Hob wanted to spoil and adore him?

Hob’s just about to fall asleep, still lightly stroking Dream’s hair, when Dream’s head snaps up in the direction of the hallway, like a cat that’s spotted a fly buzzing around in the dark. “Sibling,” he calls, “I can sense your irritating presence. Reveal yourself, or suffer the consequences.”

“Ooh, consequences. I’m just shaking in my Louboutins,” says Desire, swanning out of the shadows, eyes glinting. Hob, properly awake now, gets the sense that they’re about to have a very odd conversation, here in his bedroom, in the middle of the night. Never a normal fucking tea in this family.

“What are you doing here,” Dream says flatly. “You aren’t welcome.”

He hasn’t moved from where he’s still curled against Hob, Hob notes with a little thrill.

“The level of horny wafting off this flat is revolting, I simply had to come see what you were getting up to.” Desire leans in the doorway, head in their hand, and looks the two of them up and down, face falling in what looks like genuine disappointment. “Are you fucking… cuddling? Are you— are you petting his disgusting hair?”

“Fuck off, Desire,” Hob says mildly, and Dream smiles smugly.

"Unbelievable," complains Desire. "The utter disrespect upon my realm."

"You are simply jealous that my lover is the most alluring in all the land," says Dream, and kisses Hob on the nose, then on his closed eye, then on the cheek. "Isn't he a sweetheart?”

Desire blinks at them several times in disbelief. Rubs their eyes. Looks again. "Nope, turns out I really did just witness that."

They manifest a cigarette, and take a long pull, leaning their forehead against the doorframe like the weight of the world is upon their shoulders. Then they straighten up, shaking it off.

“Well, I see you've done a swan dive off the deep end. I'll leave you to your demise. Don't call me unless you've decided to try some pet play or something else even marginally respectable."

"I shan't be inviting you to that," says Dream.

"Didn't invite you this time," mutters Hob.

"Lies. Foul lies. I know all. I see—” they point at them ominously— “all. Even though I'm wishing more and more that I did not. Sayonara, you puritan fucks."

And they disappear.

Hob breaks down laughing, tucking his face into Dream's shoulder.

Dream caresses his cheek. “What is it?”

"Oh, just. Kink-shamed by the embodiment of Desire itself. That's all."

Dream pouts. “It is not like Desire to kink shame. I assure you, I could have taken the form of a human and engaged in some real human fucking and they would still have taken issue because it was me.”

“Is that— uh,” Hob frowns. “Is that considered— kinky?”

Dream looks at him seriously. “Very.”

“Huh.” Hob ponders this strange little tidbit about immortal creatures’ lives. “Oh, is that right?”

Dream casts him a warning glance. “Do not do anything untoward with that knowledge.”

“Oh, I’m definitely going to do something untoward with that. You kinky bastard, you.”

Dream sighs as if exhausted, yet unsurprised by Hob’s antics. “Many do seem to think so,” he admits.

“This is the best information I have ever learned,” Hob decides. “You know, darling, if you wanted to have terribly spicy human sex, you only had to ask.”

“You may come to regret that offer,” Dream warns, but he settles back against Hob’s side with a satisfied hum.

“Nah.” Hob already has far too many ideas for that. Many more things to add to the list of human experiences he can show Dream. Not all of them quite so wholesome as dinner and cuddling. Indeed, there are many different types of ‘nice things’ to be had, and more than one fun way to spoil him. “I don’t think so.”

And while he’s at it… maybe he’ll ask Dream about that whole tentacles thing, too. If they’re in the process of exchanging kinks, and all.

[triglycercule]

sleep deprived dust can't recognize what's dream and what's real when he goes in and out of consciousness so i think dust is allowed to be incredibly reckless when he's awake but thinks he's in a dream. he will kill whoever passes by him (or attempt to. for him it's an instict to shoot bones anyways.) he will drink 4 bottles of alcohol just because he thinks its just a lucid dream. have incredibly loud conversations with phantom paps because he's asleep so nobody will hear him talk. or just have loud ass breakdowns because again he thinks he's asleep!!! nobody's gonna know what he gets up to in his dreams. and until someone (probably phantom paps) tells him that he's not asleep and this is reality he won't realize until he's done something really reckless

horror is seconds away from exploding dust's skull open with his magic while dust is trying to strangle him and FINALLY phantom paps tells him he's awake and dust snaps out of it. killer is walking around the house with bones sticking out of him like pins on a sewing pattern (casually too. another day in the life for him) and he just asks dust what that was about. dust just gets off of horror and shrugs his shoulders with an idk. and then walks away. this is the 6th time its happened this month

[poomphuripan]

POOM PHURIPAN as JOE

MY STAND-IN (2024) | 1.06

[winchestress]

y'all: oh TV doesn't do slowburn anymore, I wish there were more ships that make us wait for them for years

a ship that's not immediately canon: exists

y'all: it looks like I didn't get everything I've wanted in this one episode. naturally I'm giving up on them

[lukasadss]

They get to be soft, as a treat

Absolutely based on the fact i was rereading some of @softest-punk's sandman advent calendar ficlets (yeah it's the end of March, who cares dhhs) and the semi-running gag of them drunk cuddling

[greenerteacups]

oooh please someday tell us what you think of GOT

oh, no, it's my fatal weakness! it's [checks notes] literally just the bare modicum of temptation! okay you got me.

SO. in order to tell what's wrong with game of thrones you kind of have to have read the books, because the books are the reason the show goes off the rails. i actually blame the showrunners relatively little in proportion to GRRM for how bad the show was (which I'm not gonna rehash here because if you're interested in GOT in any capacity you've already seen that horse flogged to death). people debate when GOT "got bad" in terms of writing, but regardless of when you think it dropped off, everyone agrees the quality declined sharply in season 8, and to a certain extent, season 7. these are the seasons that are more or less entirely spun from whole cloth, because season 7 marks the beginning of what will, if we ever see it, be the Winds of Winter storyline. it's the first part that isn't based on a book by George R.R. Martin. it's said that he gave the showrunners plot outlines, but we don't know how detailed they were, or how much the writers diverged from the blueprint — and honestly, considering the cumulative changes made to the story by that point, some stark divergence would have been required. (there's a reason for this. i'll get there in a sec.)

so far, i'm not saying anything all that original. a lot of people recognized how bad the show got as soon as they ran out of Book to adapt. (I think it's kind of weird that they agreed to make a show about an unfinished series in the first place — did GRRM figure that this was his one shot at a really good HBO adaptation, and forego misgivings about his ability to write two full books in however many years it took to adapt? did he think they would wait for him? did he not care that the series would eventually spoil his magnum opus, which he's spent the last three decades of his life writing? perplexing.) but the more interesting question is why the show got bad once it ran out of Book, because in my mind, that's not a given. a lot of great shows depart from the books they were based on. fanfiction does exactly that, all the time! if you have good writers who understand the characters they're working with, departure means a different story, not a worse one. now, the natural reply would be to say that the writers of GOT just aren't good, or at least aren't good at the things that make for great television, and that's why they needed the books as a structure, but I don't think that's true or fair, either. books and television are very different things. the pacing of a book is totally different from the pacing of a television show, and even an episodic book like ASOIAF is going to need a lot of work before it's remotely watchable as a series. bad writers cannot make great series of television, regardless of how good their source material is. sure, they didn't invent the characters of tyrion lannister and daenerys targaryen, but they sure as hell understood story structure well enough to write a damn compelling season of TV about them!

so but then: what gives? i actually do think it's a problem with the books! the show starts out as very faithful to the early books (namely, A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) to the point that most plotlines are copied beat-for-beat. the story is constructed a little differently, and it's definitely condensed, but the meat is still there. and not surprisingly, the early books in ASOIAF are very tightly written. for how long they are, you wouldn't expect it, but on every page of those books, the plot is racing. you can practically watch george trying to beat the fucking clock. and he does! useful context here is that he originally thought GOT was going to be a trilogy, and so the scope of most threads in the first book or two would have been much smaller. it also helps that the first three books are in some respects self-contained stories. the first book is a mystery, the second and third are espionage and war dramas — and they're kept tight in order to serve those respective plots.

the trouble begins with A Feast for Crows, and arguably A Storm of Swords, because GRRM starts multiplying plotlines and treating the series as a story, rather than each individual book. he also massively underestimated the number of pages it would take him to get through certain plot beats — an assumption whose foundation is unclear, because from a reader's standpoint, there is a fucke tonne of shit in Feast and Dance that's spurious. I'm not talking about Brienne's Riverlands storyline (which I adore thematically but speaking honestly should have been its own novella, not a part of Feast proper). I'm talking about whole chapters where Tyrion is sitting on his ass in the river, just talking to people. (will I eat crow about this if these pay off in hugely satisfying ways in Winds or Dream? oh, totally. my brothers, i will gorge myself on sweet sweet corvid. i will wear a dunce cap in the square, and gleefully, if these turn out to not have been wastes of time. the fact that i am writing this means i am willing to stake a non-negligible amount of pride on the prediction that that will not happen). I'm talking about scenes where the characters stare at each other and talk idly about things that have already happened while the author describes things we already have seen in excruciating detail. i'm talking about threads that, while forgivable in a different novel, are unforgivable in this one, because you are neglecting your main characters and their story. and don't tell me you think that a day-by-day account tyrion's river cruise is necessary to telling his story, because in the count of monte cristo, the main guy disappears for nine years and comes hurtling back into the story as a vengeful aristocrat! and while time jumps like that don't work for everything, they certainly do work if what you're talking about isn't a major story thread!

now put aside whether or not all these meandering, unconcluded threads are enjoyable to read (as, in fairness, they often are!). think about them as if you're a tv showrunner. these bad boys are your worst nightmare. because while you know the author put them in for a reason, you haven't read the conclusion to the arc, so you don't know what that reason is. and even if the author tells you in broad strokes how things are going to end for any particular character (and this is a big "if," because GRRM's whole style is that he lets plots "develop as he goes," so I'm not actually convinced that he does have endings written out for most major characters), that still doesn't help you get them from point A (meandering storyline) to point B (actual conclusion). oh, and by the way, you have under a year to write this full season of television, while GRRM has been thinking about how to end the books for at least 10. all of this means you have to basically call an audible on whether or not certain arcs are going to pay off, and, if they are, whether they make for good television, and hence are worth writing. and you have to do that for every. single. unfinished. story. in the books.

here's an example: in the books, Quentin Martell goes on a quest to marry Daenerys and gain a dragon. many chapters are spent detailing this quest. spoiler alert: he fails, and he gets charbroiled by dragons. GRRM includes this plot to set up the actions of House Martell in Winds, but the problem is that we don't know what House Martell does in Winds, because (see above) the book DNE. So, although we can reliably bet that the showrunners understand (1) Daenerys is coming to Westeros with her 3 fantasy nukes, and (2) at some point they're gonna have to deal with the invasion of frozombies from Canada, that DOESN'T mean they necessarily know exactly what's going to happen to Dorne, or House Martell. i mean, fuck! we don't even know if Martin knows what's going to happen to Dorne or House Martell, because he's said he's the kind of writer who doesn't set shit out beforehand! so for every "Cersei defaults on millions of dragons in loans from the notorious Bank of Nobody Fucks With Us, assumes this will have no repercussions for her reign or Westerosi politics in general" plotline — which might as well have a big glaring THIS WILL BE IMPORTANT stamp on top of the chapter heading — you have Arianne Martell trying to do a coup/parent trap switcheroo with Myrcella, or Euron the Goffick Antichrist, or Faegon Targaryen and JonCon preparing a Blackfyre restoration, or anything else that might pan out — but might not! And while that uncertainty about what's important to the "overall story" might be a realistic way of depicting human beings in a world ruled by chance and not Destiny, it makes for much better reading than viewing, because Game of Thrones as a fantasy television series was based on the first three books, which are much more traditional "there is a plot and main characters and you can generally tell who they are" kind of book. I see Feast and Dance as a kind of soft reboot for the series in this respect, because they recenter the story around a much larger cast and cast a much broader net in terms of which characters "deserve" narrative attention.

but if you're making a season of television, you can't do that, because you've already set up the basic premise and pacing of your story, and you can't suddenly pivot into a long-form tone poem about the horrors of war. so you have to cut something. but what are you gonna cut? bear in mind that you can't just Forget About Dorne, or the Iron Islands, or the Vale, or the North, or pretty much any region of the story, because it's all interconnected, but to fit in everything from the books would require pacing of the sort that no reasonable audience would ever tolerate. and bear in mind that the later books sprout a lot more of these baby-plots that could go somewhere, but also might end up being secondary or tertiary to the "main story," which, at the end of the day, is about dragons and ice zombies and the rot at the heart of the feudal power system glorified in classical fantasy. that's the story that you as the showrunner absolutely must give them an end to, and that's the story that should be your priority 1.

so you do a hack and slash job, and you mortar over whatever you cut out with storylines that you cook up yourself, but you can't go too far afield, because you still need all the characters more or less in place for the final showdown. so you pinch here and push credulity there, and you do your best to put the characters in more or less the same place they would have been if you kept the original, but on a shorter timeframe. and is it as good as the first seasons? of course not! because the material that you have is not suited to TV like the first seasons are. and not only that, but you are now working with source material that is actively fighting your attempt to constrain a linear and well-paced narrative on it. the text that you're working with changed structure when you weren't looking, and now you have to find some way to shanghai this new sprawling behemoth of a Thing into a television show. oh, and by the way, don't think that the (living) author of the source material will be any help with this, because even though he's got years of experience working in television writing, he doesn't actually know how all of these threads will tie together, which is possibly the reason that the next book has taken over 8 years (now 13 and counting) to write. oh and also, your showrunners are sick of this (in fairness, very difficult) job and they want to go write for star wars instead, so they've refused the extra time the studio offered them for pre-production and pushed through a bunch of first-draft scripts, creating a crunch culture of the type that spawns entirely avoidable mistakes, like, say, some poor set designer leaving a starbucks cup in frame.

anyway, that's what I think went wrong with game of thrones.