#Matthew got what he wanted

[kazbiter]

kavinsky's death is actually the closing arc in a great tragedy to me bc his actions throughout the story are mostly just him practically begging for someone to be on his side, to care about him, to even just look at him. his father tried to kill him, his mother is completely uninterested. he can dream himself as many people as he wants, but they will only ever think of him because he made them to do so. the dream pack are just physical manifestations of his desire to not be alone in the world, to have someone, anyone, connected to him. he so desperately tries to draw some sort of emotion out of ronan, good bad or ugly, because the intense similarities they share mean that he's the only person who might be willing to look long enough to see him. and when it doesn't work, when he realizes it can't, that this world is not for him and he is not going to be a part of it in a way that involves anyone else, he decides that everyone is going to look at least this once. they will all see the finale if nothing else. genuinely doomed from the start. and how truly devastating that is in comparison to the core group the story focuses on, characters that even at their lowest and darkest and meanest and absolute worst have others there with them. characters that always have someone looking for them. dying is a boring side of a life that has nothing inside of it.

[handonhaven]

“So for [Landon], I think he gets everything he wanted, except Hope.”

—Brett Matthews

[19871997]

.

[wyvernquill]

More Dreamling Anastasia AU

Because I must obviously be stricken down for my hubris if I say I refuse to write something. (Masterpost can be found here!)

This one’s an earlier bit, while they’re still trying to teach “Murphy” how to act like Dream, and first encounter The Corinthian - so please be aware that there will be Corinthian-typical mentions of stabbing and blood in this excerpt!

(Tagging @10moonymhrivertam again, and also open invitation for anyone who wants to be notified of new updates to tell me so, and I’ll tag you when/if I write other scenes!)

---

“Do the list again.”

“Hob…” Murphy sighs, visibly annoyed, hands stuffed in his coat pockets and face ducked into his scarf. There are snowflakes caught in the dark tangle of his hair, and Hob wonders briefly if he would accept Hob’s hat, or look at it with the same disgusted grimace he pulled when he was offered one of Gil’s spare cardigans.

“Come on. Again.” Hob encourages. “You’ll need to know it by heart, it has to be ingrained so deeply into you that I should be able to wake you up at three in the night and have you recite it perfectly.”

“Do not dare to wake me up at three in the night!” Murphy snarls, and they will really have to work on that temper - Gilbert is very insistent that Dream of the Endless’s fury was fierce, yes, but quiet, controlled, and merciless in its silence. These outbursts don’t befit a Dream King, and they’ll have to go.

“I was speaking metaphorically!” Hob laughs and holds up his hands defensively. “I know better than to disturb your sleep, rest assured. Matthew would peck my eyes out, for a start.”

(Judging from the look on Murphy’s face, the man would approve of that course of events, and possibly praise his raven afterwards.)

“But the list. Go on, Lord Morpheus, the list.”

Murphy sighs again, turning his face up to the snow-grey night sky. Hob is suddenly quite glad Gilbert shooed them out for a walk, to clear Murphy’s head after another long day of lessons - more lessons tomorrow, and then they’ll be travelling again over the weekend, always busy or on the move. It’s quite lovely, to have this moment of tranquillity, in the dark and the snow, and to see Murphy… well. Less frustrated and harried than he usually is, solemn and thoughtful and with chapped lips from the frost.

“Destiny, the oldest, in the maze, with the book.” He recites, only slightly sullen. “Death, the second, everywhere and everywhen, but always where she’s needed, with the ankh. Dream, the third-”

“Include the names.”

“Ugh. Dream of the Endless, Lord Morpheus, the King of Dreams, Ruler of the Nightmare Realms, the Shaper of Form, Kai’ckul-”

“Kai-what?” Hob frowns. He hasn’t heard that one before.

“-Oneiros or the Oneiromancer, and the Lord of Stories.” Murphy continues, undeterred, slogging through the list just to have it be over quicker. “There, the names. Now: Dream, in the Dreaming, with the ruby - and sometimes the helmet and the sand. Always with a raven. Next, Destruction-”

.

“No, please,” drawls a voice behind them. “Tell us more about Dream.”

.

They both freeze.

Hob turns slowly, stepping to the side just slightly, just enough so he will be in range to shove Murphy behind himself, should it become necessary.

“I do so love bedtime stories,” the stranger who has approached them is grinning broadly, in a tan suit and coat much too thin for this weather, and dark glasses - sunglasses? At night!? - covering his eyes. “Though I always like ‘em best when they have gory endings. When the stepsisters cut their feet to fit into the glass slipper in the Grimm brothers’ version of Cinderella? Boy, I could listen to that all night.”

The man is holding a long knife in his hand, the sort not made for cutting anything but the flesh of your fellow man, toying with it - and Hob feels a prickle of fear slide down his spine.

“Who are you, to disturb us?” Murphy snaps haughtily, and Hob would be pleased at the excellent noble-arrogant cadence, if he weren’t suddenly fucking terrified of Murphy getting a knife in between the ribs for his cheek.

“Me?” The man laughs, throwing the knife up in the air, glittering, twirling, before catching it again. “You don’t remember little old me?”

The man’s teeth are too white, Hob notes, too bright, and too *many* when he smiles like this.

.

“I’m your worst nightmare, my Lord,” he says, still smiling - and then lunges forward, knife first.

.

Hob moves instantly, instinctively, without even a moment’s hesitation.

With his elbow, he shoves Murphy back, out of the way, and then bats the man’s knife arm off-course, coming in swinging with the other fist. It connects with an audible crack, but their assailant only laughs, giddy and breathless, and spits out half a mouthful of blood - is there some dripping from his eyes under the glasses, too - before evading Hob’s grip on his arm and dancing out of the way.

“Murphy, run!” Hob shouts over his shoulder, heart beating in his throat, blood up and boiling. He hasn’t gotten into alleyway fights in a year or two, but it’s familiar, the tang of blood, the rush of adrenaline. He’s always liked the brawls where there wasn’t a sharp object involved better, just two men and their fists - but if this madman wants a fight, he’ll damn well get one. Hob’s put better people than him in hospital.

Hob charges forward, goes for a grab at the knife arm again, and manages a short grapple, a kick at a shin, the tip of the knife wavering as they twist against each other, and slicing a red-hot line of pain along the side of Hob’s jaw - the man’s still grinning, holy shit, that’s unsettling - before the other twists himself free again with almost unnatural strength, and Hob has to jump back before that knife goes somewhere vital.

“Well, aren’t’cha quite the fighter, Hobsie?” The assailant says, with his dozens of bone-white teeth bared. “I’m glad. Makes it more fun to carve into you when you struggle a li’l bit.”

“Would love to see you try,” Hob spits back, wiping his cheek, his blood dripping red onto the snow.

They throw themselves at each other again, and the man is impossibly strong, delivering an almost casual punch against Hob’s sternum that knocks the breath out of him, forcing him back a couple stumbling steps.

And Hob knows he should run, too. The best way to win a streetfight is to not be in one, and he’s not keen on getting stabbed. Would be a waste, to die now, when he’s so close to earning himself immortality…

…but he needs to buy Murphy time.

The thought alone, of seeing Murphy dead in the snow, blood pooling around him in and coat spread out like broken wings - he can’t bear it. He’s got the man into this fucking mess, and he cannot let Murphy die because of his con. This is supposed to be a win-win situation for them all, not a threat to anyone’s life!

And if somebody’s life is threatened, it better be Hob’s own. Only fair - he gets the biggest reward in the end, he should shoulder the brunt of the risk as well.

Hob coughs one last time, eyeing the blood-red tip of the assailant’s knife. He won’t die here, he refuses to, and he’ll fight until the bitter end if-

.

“Wait,” Murphy says, and Hob’s heart stutters in his chest.

.

The idiot! The absolute fool! Hob told him to run, why the fuck is he still here!?

Hob gets barely more than a second of panic in before Murphy steps up beside him, glowering darkly at the man with the knife…

And then, in a movement quick as a flash, he throws a handful of salt-grit-sand mix - the sort the city keeps in large containers alongside the streets in wintertime, to make the snow and ice safer to traverse - straight into the man’s face.

The man screeches, voice strangely dissonant, as if it comes from three mouths at once, and jerks back sputtering, dropping his knife and covering his face with his hands.

Hob kicks the knife away, out of reach, on instinct - and then he feels a bony hand curl around his own, dragging him away, and he lets it, running hand in hand with Murphy for dear life.

(There are angry shouts behind them, threats, but Hob never looks back, only squeezing the cold palm against his harder.)

.

They run, and run, and run, until they finally reach the relative safety and familiarity of the street outside their inn, both gasping for breath as they lean against its walls.

“You… need not… have come…” Murphy wheezes, his thin chest heaving under his thick coat, even as his eyes are burning with indignation, “to my… defence!”

“Clearly!” Hob rasps, sliding to the ground, uncaring for the snowmelt soaking through his trousers. “Still… I didn’t want to be standing in front of the Endless alone, in a few weeks’ time.”

He grins up at Murphy - the wound along his cheek burning as he does it - and the sharp retort about being perfectly capable of handling himself in a fight visibly dies on Murphy’s lips.

He crouches down besides Hob, coat puffing up around him, and brings one hand up to cup Hob’s jaw, to turn it and inspect the line of red their attacker’s knife left there. Thumbs the cut, smearing warm blood along Hob’s cheekbone.

“You were hurt,” he murmurs, dark voice almost wavering with distress.

“Shallow cut.” Hob catches Murphy’s wrist before he can fuss any more with the wound, rubs a thumb soothingly over the thin bones there. “I’ll live.”

“Foolish man,” Murphy grumbles - but he’s very nearly smiling as he says it.

Their eyes meet.

They’re both still breathing hard, and for all his haggard, skeletal build and sunken face lined with long years of hardship, Murphy looks almost lovely like this, lips slightly parted and pale face flushed with exertion, looking up at Hob through his lashes as if…

As if…

Hob leans forward, and Murphy does too, something burning bright and smouldering hot between them, lips getting close enough to brush-

.

“ROBERT! MURPHY!” Gilbert slams open the door beside them, and they both jerk apart as if burned.

“Oh, thank goodness, you’re here!” Gilbert flusters, wringing his hands on the grip of his cane. “I had the most terrible premonition that my two dear friends were in danger, most ghastly, so I rushed- Robert, are you bleeding!?”

“I’m fine, Gil,” Hob tries to wave him off - to little avail.

Hob is ushered up into their room, sat down, and then berated by Gilbert for his recklessness while Murphy is carefully, studiously, dabbing at Hob’s wound with one of Gilbert’s handkerchiefs and pointedly not making any eye contact.

(Though Matthew is more than making up for that, staring Hob down as if he knows exactly what almost transpired outside the inn’s door, and is rather firmly against the idea of letting it happen again…

Which it surely won’t. It was a mad impulse in the spur of the moment - they both know better, now.

Yes.

They both know better.)

[magnusbae]

yall guys didn't even hear me rant about how fucked it is that Dream was not allowed to mourn his raven and how his feelings been bluntly disregarded because clearly someone else knows best for how he should mourn the loss of his companion

[local-soda-can]

me: alright, so my friend want to do an oc nightmare time episode. this shouldn’t be too bad right?

-a while later-

[mattodore]

so now please tell me more about matthew, i wanna know details 🤭

he's awful. okay great that was the end of the post! come back again for more in depth character discussions! no, i'm kidding. okay so...

cw for mentions of child abuse, violence, and homophobia.

this is matthias... everyone say hi matthias 🙄

matthias is a man in his mid-twenties who's at the top of the world and still dissatisfied. born the son of a famous actress with old hollywood pedigree and a shady oil tycoon, matthias is old money rich and it's all filth, baby. with a father who saw him only as an heir to succeed him upon death and a mother who resented him for ruining her career and trapping her with his father, most of matthias's childhood was spent alone reading impressive books and analyzing the characters within the stories. not for fun. he was learning how he ought to behave since his interactions with actual people were so limited. he wasn't necessarily neglected since there were always attendants at his heel... but he was never loved — it wasn't even something he knew how to miss. he was a very quiet child. unsettlingly so. he had very little social interaction and was... a nasty little boy.

matthias went from home schooling at the hands of his expensive tutors to private school around age ten, but when he was eleven or so he was expelled from private school for slamming another boy's hand in a desk for trying to take one of his things. he broke bone very easily and didn't feel inclined to apologize or feel even an ounce of regret. after that incident, matthias was sent to a strict co-ed boarding school with no qualms with relation to corporal punishment. the distance from the cavernous manor he grew up in and the experience of actually living with people, and specifically of forced socialization with kids his own age, aided his growth. humanized him. this is when he met imani, who became his best friend.

over the years and through puberty, matthias began to come into his own as a gay man and, like many things in his life even including breaking that kid's hand, he felt no shame about it. absent parents means an absence of influence. sure, there were teachers who would say things, but matthias was always smarter than his teachers and he never valued anyone's opinions over his own.

by age fifteen his father's health had declined to a point of emergency. matthias was pulled out from school and brought home as his father suddenly felt it was important to unload his "wealth of knowledge" onto him. his mother was around much more frequently then. after a few months his father finally passed away.

when the will was read and it was announced that matthias, at the age of 21, was to be given the entirety of his father's estate and fortune, the room was silent. his mother, who a month before found matthias in flagrante delicto with one of the younger stableboys, neatly grabbed a decanter off an end table and threw it at him, badly scarring his chin, and said she knew she should have told his father he was corrupted. from then, matthias was sent to a different boarding school (a reformation school) out of spite; his new school was much more harsh, offered very little autonomy, and in many ways broke him. his mother sent him there every year up until he turned eighteen, after which point he lived with imani. at the age of twenty-one he took back the manor he grew up in. his mother, long-since estranged, had already left it empty.

as an adult, matthias is bored of everything and seeks out whatever can make him feel something, only he doesn't know what exactly he's looking for.

matthias is intelligent, independent, uninhibited, loyal to some, romantic when he wants to be, and exceptionally charming for the audience. when he takes the mask off, matthias loses the veneer of mystery and instead offers the reality: he's erratic, amoral, hedonistic, selfish, disdainful, and numb with unimaginable wealth.

[gregoftom]

awful, just awful

[air-mechanical]

Heartstone AU where Ellen voluntarily leaves the Bedlam and becomes Guy’s assistant.

She’s got the kind patient bedside manner needed to deal with distressed patients and the stomach to stitch up terrible wounds. She’s seen a lot of mental and physical illnesses during her twenty years in the Bedlam. She’s seen too much. But not enough to erase her sense of decency towards others. She isn’t easily shocked. She cares. She wants to help. She knows that what happened to her when she was 16 wasn’t her fault. She knows she isn’t crazy. She’s so sharply intelligent. And compassionate. She knows she’s more privileged than anyone else in her tiny little stone world full of abandoned suffering people. And she’ll use that privilege for good by helping others less fortunate than herself, because she is fortunate – she has her mind in full working order. And she’ll also help them because she wants to do something with her life. She needs to put her brain to work, or else she really will go crazy. So yes, she cares for the patients out of selfishness as well as altruism. The two are effortlessly linked.

Matthew respects her wishes and doesn’t visit her again. But Ellen continues to receive Guy as a visitor. They become friends. Her mental door to the outside world has been punched through, and light is streaming in. With Guy’s help she fights back against her illness. She may not ever fully recover. But she gets better and better, first one step outside and then another. And another. And one day she leaves her hospital-prison and starts again. She takes an assistant position with Guy and adores it. She gets to heal people and live in safety in the outside world, while Guy gets to pass on his knowledge to his new heir.

[A possible bonus is that she and Matthew start speaking again and become friends on more equal terms.]

[flovverworks]

five yrs in forgotten valley would help akira tremendously

[caterpillarinacave]

All I want is a hug from Henry Fairchild 

[moonsbijou]

okay bloodmarked you know i am all about the edits with arcade by duncan laurence playing over it…just didn’t picture it being for my babies Bree and Nick

[gender-euphowrya]

let it be clear that the fact that ceo matt is DMing people about the predstrogen situation instead of making broad posts addressed to Anyone Reading is 100% an intimidation tactic

it's '' by personally messaging you i make it clear that i'm aware of what you've been saying and either you stop or i make you predstrogen 2"

[ronanlynchbf]

ronan and adam should’ve had a real conversation in greywaren they should’ve both been awake and should’ve argued the way they did back in the days because emotions are running High so naturally there is a reverting back to their younger selves and they should've started to calm down a little after said arguing and have an actual good thorough conversation afterwards in which ronan actualy apologizes to adam because let’s be real there was one needed and they make it clear what they want for the future and how they want it to pan out and how things are gonna work out and about what home means to each of them and about how each of them were keeping secrets from each other and how to avoid hurting each other in the future by not talking to each other and to stop keeping those heavy secrets to themselves with the thought that it’s only going to bother the other and “they were wanted they were wanted they were wanted” is actually brought across by them communicating this to each other in Real Actual Words and after this very good very lengthy very needed conversation they can hug as their actual real life corporeal bodies with their ribs still fitting together just as they had before and with adam’s hand still pressed against the back of ronan’s skull the way it always did

[unzip-your-guts]

Hey Matt, mind explaining to the tumblr user base how following a person who left your site after you and your team harassed and bullied her off to expose private information to the public and shame her publicly is actually an example of how much you respect the trans community and aren't a transphobe because trans people use your app?

[snapbackslide]

kinda insane how the beginnings of my love stories coincide with the first snowfalls ...