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not the biggest Anne Boleyn fan, but I am an Alicent fan and their parallels are very similar. And I don't mean the "evil step mother becomes a homewrecker" and more of "young woman is pursued against her will by a monarch, and said country hates them because of it. All choices she makes, even if cruel, are for survival and for her children."

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I did not realize there were actually people unironically shipping Johanna and the Corinthian like that. But every new shipper is a new homophobe to block and that's lowkey therapeutic so you win some and you lose some

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title: word salad (because this is a wip) Summary: Hob is not unused to making deals with the Endless. And when Time offers him a deal he cannot refuse, he takes it. Consequence be damned. In which Father Time gives Hob a horrible choice. (Hob goes back in time to prevent Morpheus's death by killing Orpheus himself. Dream is unaware of the deal made, and believes Hob simply sought to kill his child)

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Somehow Orpheus knows though. Their exchange is briefer than the one with Father Time -- and yet it is the heaviest conversation Hob has had in his life.

The bodiless son speaks as if this meeting was predestined.

Whether that be his nature as an oracle, or his own deal with Time, Hob doesn't know. He doesn't care much either. It makes what he is going to do much easier.

Orpheus regards him with a small, pained smile. His eyes tell Hob that the man is glad for his company and grateful for what he must do. Exhausted is his gaze. Light dimmed in a way Hob knows all too well. For he's fought a hundred years to keep his own eyes ablaze, lest death take him and his wager is lost.

He and Orpheus are not unlike each other. For now, at least. Forgoing the obvious. In another life, he would have loved to be friends with Orpheus. Perhaps they could heal Morpheus's heart together.

Deathless men. A brotherhood forged in immortality. Stagnation while the world turns. The last artifacts of societies that had been forgotten. Hob would no longer have to resign himself to a hundred years meeting for some semblance of familiarity. He would have had Orpheus.

Until today, Hob supposes. In this moment. The cursed blade, a gift from Time pulses in his grip. Each moment he holds it, it tears holes into his soul like cheese left out to rot.

A swift jab between Orpheus's eyes and he is free of this flesh cage.

The conclusion to the epic that was the poet Orpheus. Hob almost thinks himself unworthy of such a responsibility. One such as himself has not the divinity to silence the Oracle's song.

But he is not a god. He is not an Endless. He is a man. And that's the point, isn't it. He is a man who will kill the Oracle Orpheus. Dream of the Endless will live. The Oracle will be free, and yet--

"Perhaps it is better to know him as he was than to know him as he will be when he finds out what you have done to me. For me. I understand that you act in love; but take it from me--" had he limbs, he would have gestured to himself in a morbid attempt at humor, "there will be consequences. Of which you may be unable to fathom now. And my father...my father is a tempest when enraged. He will kill you, Galding."

"He'll try to kill me--" And for some reason, that realization is more horrendous than the uncertainty of death itself. Hob swallows thickly, the inkling to run ever a present flutter in his heart.

But to run means Morpheus dies. Father Time wins. And Hob has never lost a wager against this family. He doesn't plan to now.

The bodiless man sees the resolve in his eyes, solidified by the tightening of his grip around the blade's hilt.

"You are braver than most." Orpheus he breaths, relenting the tension in his voice. "And I am sorry for you that you must do this, but I am glad it is you Galding. I will be free, and my father will live. And I will pray for you ever after in the Sunless Lands."

The strike is swift. A deceptively quick catalyst for the eternal torment that befalls Hob Galding next.

Sometime back in the 15th century, his unkempt locks and unshaven face had landed him on the gallows, mistaken by the local authority for another vagabond who'd stolen a coin purse off of a noble. Because it was not treason, he was to be just hanged.

Not drawn, not quartered. Simply hanged and left for dead. Strangled to death by the time the small rays of pinpricked sun shone through the smoke and smog that had become England's sky.

Only Hob did not die. He enacted it well enough -- the final moments of a dying man. Because he felt it all. And fought the instinctive urge to gag and gasp for breath whenever his body jerked itself back to life. Lest the masses that had gathered to watch him die ignite his cadaver for a witch -- the crime of failing to die normally*.

Up until now, Hob Galding considered the attempted hanging his worst death. His body pendulating between two states. Relief coming in short spurts followed by mind numbing pain.

Today might take the cake.

Hob recalls the last time he laid eyes on Dream of the Endless. The King's body shrouded by a tarp darker than a starless night itself, embraced by the sweet kisses of roses surrounding him, seeing him off into the ether.

But more than that, Hob recalls the agony that followed the realization that his friend was lost to him forever. That his love would be forever unrequited.

That time had slipped so finely through the fingers of two immortals had been a kick to Hob's gut. The irony more anguishing than any tragedy Shakespeare had written.

And as such he had cursed the cruelty of Time. Cursed him into the same void he'd challenged death in, hoping that his conviction would be enough to will an audience with whatever manner of being controlled the unilinear force.

If his drunken 14th Century shot in the dark had beckoned death to his doorstep, than he prayed his very sober, very intentional cursing of Time would do the same thing.

And do the same it did. He did.

Time was a man. And for some reason, that made sense to Hob. And he was vile.

Scoffed at the love a human bore for an Endless. Regarding Hob with a colder regard than Death ever did (and for the entirety of human exists, Hob pondered on how the great enemy was Death. Really, though it should be Time).

The similarities between the Stranger and Father Time were uncanny. And had the Omnipotent being not mentioned their connection ("You are just as foolish as my son. His love ruined him. And it will ruin you too"), he could have pieced it together by their shared cruelty and disregard for others alone.

Still, adamance for humanity and his own child aside, Hob had been offered a deal he could not refuse. Had been given the balm to his bleeding heart as the Lord of Time offered him once chance to save his love even if it meant damning himself.

"Dream died because he killed Orpheus, his son. If you kill Orpheus, Hob Galding, Dream will not die. But he will hate you. And if he cannot kill you, he will make you hurt. But he will live, and you will see him again."

He accepted the deal without thinking, really.

And at present, he supposes his newly torn out throat, thrown beside the gore that was Orpheus's head, sums up beautifully what Father Time had told him. And Orpheus (And God, aren't Grandfather and Grandson just alike?).

As swiftly as Orpheus's lifeless head rolled onto the ground, a very alive Dream of the Endless surrounded the area. Every bit of eldritch that the Endless was enveloped Hob, fury aflame.

He sits up against the structure that once held Orpheus, pawing at the mess that his lack of Adam's apple has made; trying his best to stay awake as Dream cast him into a chasm o darkness.

The worst part is the grief. The mind-numbing grief. Hob knows it well. The loss of a son is not unfamiliar to him. And the need to avenge that death is not either.

Dream is here. His being tearing Hob's immortal body apart, piece by piece.

But he is here. Cerulean eyes now dark and moon crested. Body free of the corpse drape.

He is here. And he is alive. And Hob thinks this makes the pain worth it.

(when i do finish it, it will be on ao3 in my sandman shorts so you can follow the series if you want to wait!)

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His corinthian, his and no one else's.

You guys will have to give me some grace with this one because i only had a single bic pen my fingers and a dream to make it

Non colored ver:

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You're actually right. I was high off of that scene and kinda jumped the gun with interpreting it. lowkey falls into mammying, and i think it's a bit problematic with the way it's implied he's treated her for eons.

I think they could be a good pair though; or she could just be someone who really cares about him.

After Morpheus admitted Lucienne was basically his mother, him moping around her personal quarters and messing up her books like a her son makes so much sense

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#enough love for eternity

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I would love to see a fic were it shows Sam Wilson’s family but filled with practitioners. Sam originally from Louisiana. Louisiana is the capital of Hoodoo. Why isnt there a fic that shows Sam knowing something about the practice. It would be interesting especially in a Sambuck fic.



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The Fëanorions arrive in Nargothrond

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drew a corinthian skull with only the mlm pride flag colours 💙

he’s meant so much to me since season one came out and regardless of certain BLASPHEMOUS changes for the show, he’s still my favourite character of all time and he will always be a man loving freak

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tumblr users’ obsession with self-reporting (especially as a weird form of penance) needs to be studied

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I know I've also talked about how bad the changes were regarding the Corinthian; but going to Johanna, I do think more people should be outraged at the fact that a bi woman's relationship with a woman of color was demonized, while her relationship with a white man was not and essentially a symptom of her being in a better headspace.

Folks praising Johanna and Constantine as representation while saying zip about the way her relationship with a woman was, nor exploring the implications of what that means is very weird to me.

Never mind the fact that sapphic relationships are demonized and fetishized, and seen as an experimental phase for many queer women.

Justice for Johanna.

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When the villagers told Thomas that Orlock'scorpse was cursed by the Devil to walk the earth after his bidding, it made me wonder about the concept of vampires and the soul.

Are they the same soul they were when they were human? Are they doing the devil's bidding unaware, with pieces of their soul being chipped away until it is unrecognizable?

Like of course at a point they are themselves, but years past and how much of that is really them?

IWTV does a good job I think at portraying this. Louis remembers who he used to be -- impressions -- but he is still so far removed from his actual human self.

Vampires are the horror equivalent to Theseus Ship if you think about it.

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Isabelle Huppert on the set of La Dame Aux Camélias (dir. Mauro Bolognini) | 1981

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