#Dream of a Thousand Hobs

[sleepsonfutons]

Please tell me about Dream of a thousand Hobs ahahaha

Ahaha so that is one I have been trying to get everyone else on board with me about cuz the beauty of this fic is it's supposed to be a massive collab with a bunch of different writers contributing to it! Just one big writing round|round robin|popcorn writing deals with a shared premise and the thought that everyone's writing blind to each other either simultaneously or in sequential order. Then at the end the narrative gets stitched together in an epic/hilarious final result.

The common premise that anyone who participated would share is:

After Dream of the Endless met Hob Gadling for the second time in 1489, he has the stray thought that it would be interesting if there were more of the man to study. He thinks nothing more of it after that and nothing seems to happen. Fast-forward to modern warfare and Hob gets blown up a few times. He survives as always and thinks nothing of it. Fast-forward again to 1989, Hob goes to the White Horse for his meeting with Dream, but when he arrives, the place is packed with (100/1000/1000+??) so many other Hobs. Like a Hydra, it seems Hob now multiplies whenever his body is split or a part of him is severed. (The Hob collective find out about Dream's imprisonment and launch a rescue. Once free, Dream has no idea what to make of the hoard of Hob.) Loosely any level of shenanigans can happen but ultimately Dream has to consult with Death about Hob's peculiar, current state and they conclude that they have to reassimilate Hob somehow. Due to him having lived full lives as a multitude though, he undergoes a transformation when the stacked lives settle back in his bones. No longer is Hob Gadling a human/mortal denied Death's gift. He is now Endless, a multifaceted representation of human Hope.

So the collab aspect would be everybody writing one of the different Hobs and the tie together would be them all reassimilating to become Hope!Hob

[fellshish]

He’s the king of dreams and he visits hob’s subconscious to practise a thousand possible versions of them meeting again after their big fight because he doesn’t want to risk anything being left to chance that’s right it’s just like hbo the rehearsal but with an anxiety riddled ruler of the nightmare realm and one night in one of the dream variations hob just kisses him and he————

Read a whole fic of this

[lenreli]

#please consider for your Hob/Dream

Tom Sturridge in A Waste of Shame | Ferdinand Kingsley in Venice Preserv’d

[valiantstarlights]

POV: You're a dreamer in the Dreaming when Hob gently nudges Meowpheus away from his keyboard while he's giving an online lecture

[magnusbae]

Now I know we all know Morpheus wanted to be mysterious and hot ™ by not revealing anything about himself.

However, consider this.

Morpheus, the king of stories, who's job is to create and make and tell. Takes one day off every 100 years, to just sit down, relax, and listen to someone else tell stories.

Of course he doesn't want to talk, he's there's to relax, not work.

[yiling-on-crack]

Tom sturridge and his ability to look like an omnipotent God who's also a wet cat is really an achievement.

[audhd-nightwing]

the fact that dream is canonically the King of Cats means so much to me so here are my dream hcs related to that

he likes soft blankets and laying in the sun all stretched out

he likes when people (aka Hob and Death) pet his hair and he grabs their hand if they try to stop, not letting go until they continue petting him

he gets distracted by shiny things (lasers, spots of reflected light) and tracks their movement like a predator to its prey (desire absolutely uses this to distract and generally fuck with him. he has no idea he does it)

after a long day (night?) dream just drops onto hob’s lap and hob doesn’t have the heart to push him off so he’s just stuck there until dream decides to get up again

he birdwatches and matthew finds it absolutely hilarious, dream even has a little book to identify them and everything because he’s secretly a dork

his favorite drink is warm milk (both because of the cat thing and because it’s supposed to help people fall asleep)

he can’t get high off of weed but he can get high off catnip which is… interesting to say the least

he unknowingly purrs when he’s especially relaxed and hob refuses to tell him because he doesn’t want him to stop doing it

[tempa11]

Ok I was just thinking

Ive been seeing cat videos with people slow blinking at theire cats and the cats blinking back ( aparently in Cat-language that means I love you/ I trust you enough to take my gard down around you and close my eyes)

Sooooo

Dream of the Endless as a cat, right?

And I would say He gives major cat vibes in human form aswell

So regarding that cat behaviorTM from him

It wouldnt been to far fetched to say

In a Dreamling fic

Hob is obsessedTM with dream and analyses every Detail of theire meetings

And after the 2022 meeting Dream starts blinking at him and closeing his eyes for prolonged periods of time

So Hob has to either enquire what that means or do some Research

I mean I could go all serious askeing and talking about it

Or

He holds his phone in Dreams face one day showing a cat article explaining slow blinking in cats

And asks

Is that you?

I will never write it I think

so feel free to go for it ( tag me if you do, I want to read it or if its been done before give me fanfic recimondations thanks )

[cuubism]

so often with characters that are like, ancient eldritch entities or whatever, the common interpretation is that they’d be baffled by modern technology or just hate it, which kinda makes sense. HOWEVER

i fully believe that Dream gets addicted to tiktok in 3 seconds flat

(it’s full of DREAMS okay. the entire internet is full of DREAMS. it has such a high concentration of dreams (and nightmares). dream gets pulled in against his will and never escapes)

[outoftimewriting]

calliope just out of prison and morpheus is incapable to SMILE at her this fucking literal drowned cat oh my fucking GOD

[trees-expertise]

WE DID IT YALL!!!!!!

ENOUGH OF US DREAMED OF SANDMAN SEASON TWO AND IT FUCKING WORKED

[freytful]

I don’t think theres any true immortals in the sandman TV show universe, but theres canonically thousands in the comic. While Netflix!Dream doesn’t think anyone would want to live forever, Comic!Hob legitimately isn’t very special for living so long. Hes learned as much by the 1800s, which is why he suggests that they’re friends in the first place.

This is kind of an interesting change, actually! Simultaneously makes the world building and the character development read differently. Hob becomes lonelier, and seems more dependent on Dream when he’s apparently the only fixture, and Dreams interest in him is more obviously never just academic when there are 15 000 year old men are having entirely normal lives out there. 

Interesting!

[gabessquishytum]

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s the ultimate catboy, Dream of the Endless!

[salmadurka]

Hear me out - One Thousand and One Nights (-ish) AU for Dreamling! I have only a rough idea, some outlines and dialogues so far so bear with me. Gods know if I’m even gonna write it... Take this just as an idea

every 10 years a murder of raven show up over a village/town/place and one of them sit at the village square. This indicates a soon arrival of the King of the Nightmares, the King of Stories

someone in the village must be chosen to go to him and tell him a story (OR Morpheus chooses them, showing up in their dream!)

if they fail, the King is not pleased with the story, they either never come back or die within a week (their last week is filled with nightmares)

if the King is satisfied, he lets them go and grants them a temporary immortality. The storyteller is expected to visit the King in the next ten years and tell another story

most don't last a single night, some live for years before failing

there are tales about a couple of storytellers who lived long lives, telling the King stories for long years - like Nada or Calliope

there was a rumor/tale/legend that Calliope even had a child with the King. He grew up to be a wonderful bard and storyteller

 Morpheus travels across the land and realms so sometimes is not seen for decades or centuries. The true tales about him and this ‘arrangement’ can become 'just' tales, legends or just rumors the time he shows up again in the area

enters Hob!

he is chosen by the village cuz he’s already a pretty good at telling stories (maybe he volunteers a bit too?)

something-something the King likes his tale and makes Hob his storyteller!

decade after decade Hob’s stories pleases Morpheus

after a long time, centuries even, Hob starts to have the (for us known) suspicion that there is more to their meetings than just the sharing of stories - "I don't think our little meetings are about the stories and tales anymore. Not really. Yes, you enjoy them, oh King of Stories, but I think it's more about who is telling them to you. It's about the company.”

I’m still trying to fit the fight-aftermath and/or Dream’s capture BUT Hob would be mad at him at first but than would gradually decided come, every decade, to their usual spot to tell a story to no one (Dream would not show up but Hob would still have his immortality, for reasons)  

BONUS: every 50 years, after 5 meetings, Morpheus (has to?) asks the storyteller if they want to continue to serve him. They can leave and live the rest of their mortal life. However, he won’t ask them again for another 50 years and they can still fail afterwards (they are not protected even after serving him for so long)

BONUS: Morpheus keeps his distance at first. During the first meeting he’s just a dark silhouette sitting on the throne but as the time passes he becomes more open. Maybe he tries to keep the ‘King of Nightmares’ scary appearance at first but gradually gives up, stops give a fuck

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

less “hob realises dream can shapeshift into a cat” and more “hob is forced to confront the fact that dream looks like a cat to every cat he passes by all of the time”

[lightdancer1]

An annoying aspect of current Sandman fandom:

Is the tendency to keep forgetting that all of the Endless are dual beings. And that their functions cover all the bits of their concept, not just the cuter or fluffy bits. Death puts it very bluntly in the Nyarlathotepian monologue in Facade when she notes that she's there for all deaths, the gruesome and the horrible as well as the more dignified. She is also life, and she is there at birth and death both. She IS Life, insofar as there is such a being in the Sandman and in the DCU, at the highest scales.

Dream IS reality, as Dream of a Thousand Cats, Overture, and the Al Rashid story make very plain. Nightmare is not his 'evil' self, it's a part of who he is, for nightmares are just a subtype of dreams. Dream is the kind of figure who makes horrific nightmares and beautiful dreams alike because they're both part of the Dreaming. There is a tendency to treat Nightmare and Nightmares as if they're the 'evil' dreams and they're really not, that's not how it works.

Despair and Hope are intertwined, that's why she's the real architect of superheroes and more bluntly, Superman.

Delirium's fourth-wall awareness is a part of her counterpart, that absolute Reason and Clarity that would include the awareness that she, and all of them, are comic book characters (and depending on how you look at it definitely in some of her appearances outside Sandman death shows some fourth wall awareness

Destiny is free will.

Destruction is Creation, which is why when he refuses to hold his function he can't create very well, though if he was Destruction and accepted that he no doubt could do so.

Destruction says Desire's opposite is Hatred but to me, at least, the true opposite would be Indifference or Apathy.