#dream-unity

[alcnolien]

For this years’ @mlsecretsanta , my gift for @dream-unity !! Surprise!!!

As a fellow enjoyer of both The Squad™ and the Bakery Enemies AU, I had a lot of fun working on all this. Hope you like it, and Happy Holidays!!!

Bonus details of Marinette’s Very Hinged Plan:

[domesticatedford]

It’s finally ready! The Domesticated Ford collab!! This was so much fun to do, it turned out so amazing!!! 💖

Message to join the Discord if you’d like to be part of the next collab! ✨

A big thank you to everyone who participated!!

@twinstarsbillcipher @xx-akubara-xx @felis-iris @lostinflorentine @joliemye @iamanactualmeme @alexthebordercollie @ranchsoda92 @is-it-cute-gf-au-edition @mushroommako @sixy347 @matcha-milkies @dream-unity dicerollball on Bluesky NovaDoesArts on Bluesky YasToTheTrash on Twitter fruity.ghouly on TikTok

[the-fandom-crossroads]

Folks talking about Game Devs dropping Unity or how it won't hurt small indie devs with under 200,000. Are missing the point.

Some of these Unity games can't change to another engine because they have years of code piled on top of each other at this point. aka POKEMON GO. They'd basically have to rebuild the game from scratch.

Not to mention Unity is mostly used by phone app games or Indie's that are lucky enough to get picked up by console. Indie games on Mobile easily pass 200,000 downloads. Temple Run 1 and 2 are in Unity, Crossy Road, Angry birds 1 and 2, and Hearthstone. All of these past 200,000 downloads years ago but aren't bringing in money now except hearthstone.

The Developers will do what happened to the first Angry birds app. They'll take it down, build it in a new engine for "HD", and add a shit ton of micro transactions. We are about to lose countless original versions of the OG pre lootbox mobile games.

We are also about to lose some of the biggest Indie games of the last decade. Among Us, Plague Inc., 7 Days to die, the original Slenderman game and it's sequel, I am Bread, Ori and the Blind Forest, Dream Daddy, Overcooked 1 & 2, Pathfinder online, Cup Head, Bendy and the Ink Machine, Oxygen Not Included, Bloons Tower Defense 6, Beat Saber, Subnautica, The Stanley Parable, Untitled Goose Game, Power Washing Simulator, Fall Guys, Inscryption, Phasmophobia

And the big one FUCKING HOLLOW KNIGHT. Silk song has already been pushed back out of this year specifically because it's being made by a team of like 3 people. It is so close to being finished and now they are being told they have to start over from scratch basically. Hollow Knight got over 200,000 downloads from being on playstation and was eventually put on Playstations subscription service. Every cent they made from hollow knight has gone back into making silk song. Which might now be delayed by multiple years and oh they are going to have to use some of that funds to pay unity now. Or find a way to get out of a contract with playstation. Because folks will keep downloading Hollow Knight for free and Unity will send the Hollow Knight team the bill.

oh and there's one more teeny tiny game made in Unity that you guys might not want to suddenly disappear. One with almost 3 years of monthly code updates, one with 139 million downloads to date, and 4.8 million monthly users.

Genshin. Guys Genshin Impact is made completely in Unity and that's not a game that can have it's code just copy and pasted to another engine.

[amielot]

Sweet Tooth

I was joking on discord about Hob turning back around and Dream is just ugly crying into his pie.

so here's a very self indulgent bonus drawing.

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Masterpost

[fishfingersandscarves]

ending of lost hearts (colorized)

[writing-for-life]

The Sandman Overture and Exiles: Omnia Mutantur, Nihil Interit

Everything Changes, Nothing Is Truly Lost—Not Even Hope

There once was a little girl (well, not a human girl) known by the name Hope Beautiful Lost Nebula, egg-daughter of Clearly who died in childbirth, sperm-daughter of Troubling World who was murdered by reavers. She is one of the most meaningful characters of the whole Sandman, so why does fandom hardly talk about her, not even those who have read the comics?

Understanding Hope, her story and her connection to Dream, is more or less understanding the entirety of The Sandman, and that's why I want to write about Hope and hope.

This contains major spoilers for Overture, Exiles and the ending of the Sandman, so if you’d rather not, this is your exit sign…

Pictures often speak louder than words, so I would like to start with these [I will add Alt text gradually, it’s a lot]…

If you haven't read Overture, you would not know that the words Dream speaks in Hell when he wins the Oldest Game are a direct mirror of Hope's words, down to repeating "I am...". It is not a sudden epiphany about how to win—it is a memory.

How much Morpheus truly remembers about the universe before the reset in Overture—it is something we cannot know for certain, and we have discussed it on here many, many times. I personally lean towards his remembering a lot more than we might think, and I've written about it in other metas before, e.g. here (super long with many tangents) or here. The narration is unreliable on this, because Desire in cat-form says in Overture that “there won’t be anything to remember”, but also that Dream will be “the only one to remember”. But whether he remembers every detail, or whether it is exactly the way Glory states in the above panel and it’s just that Hope's name is there for him when he needs it most, is secondary. What matters is that he does remember (side-note: It also matters because Dream promised her himself. And he never goes back on a promise, for better, for worse).

The above conversation with Glory is often taken as proof that there is no hope in the new universe, and by extension, the whole of the Sandman turns into a story with a hopeless ending. But in my opinion, that isn’t true. Yes, as a mortal being, Hope does not exist in the universe we are now in. But two very specific panels in Overture are directly contradicted by what happens in the later arcs of The Sandman:

The Star says here, after Hope's above statement that she is not nothing, that she is Hope, "As if saying that might ever change something." [And the Star’s tone is equally mocking than that of Lucifer Morningstar when they say, “What are you then, Dream Lord?”, but that just as an aside.]

And since Hope is killed in the very next panel (because Time pulled Dream out of that situation, so he wasn't able to protect her anymore. Who needs parents, right?), we might be inclined to believe this.

But by now, we all know that the Star is WRONG. These are not "three words that mean nothing." Once again:

And also this (I couldn’t find a gif with the bit where she says, “I will never give up hope,” but we all know she does say these words):

What else makes Dream/s prevail in Hell, what else are the dreams Morpheus speaks about here than hopes?

The Star is directly proven wrong. And so are we if we assume that Hope’s spirit doesn’t exist anymore. Because hope as a concept, hope as the thing that Morpheus remembers when he fights Lucifer/Choronzon in Hell, still exists. Even though this was said in the old universe before the reset, it DOES mean something. It DOES change something. Because Morpheus remembers.

Remembering Hope means to have hope.

And if we believe there isn’t any H/hope, we are also directly proven wrong by Time, who tells us that there will always be a universe in which Hope (the being) exists, and that there will always be one in which she doesn’t. And they, in a way, exist simultaneously. So even in a universe without Hope, her spirit, her memory, prevails. That is not a universe entirely without hope.

And that is also our tie-in to Exiles, because Morpheus and Daniel also exist simultaneously. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit—everything changes, nothing is truly lost.

Morpheus has moved on, but he still exists—in story, in memory of those who cared about him, in Daniel!Dream, in the “Soft Places” at the fray where reality and dreams meet. And it is exactly what H/hope is in the Sandman universe—it keeps on existing: In stories, in memories, in the “soft places”. Because to hope means to love, and to love means to hope.

Sometimes, you need to find hope…

Sometimes, she needs a bit of coaxing. Sometimes, hope means not to forget, so you keep going and remember what truly matters…

Sometimes, we lose her, and even Hope loses memory of who she was, but we can be reminded…

Hope might transform, but she never truly disappears in The Sandman.

On that note: I totally understand the attachment to Morpheus as a character. He is my favourite character, too. I cried buckets when I first knew what was going to happen (decades ago I dare say, and not at the end of The Kindly Ones, but during World’s End). And I think it is totally legitimate to want him to survive. Part of me does, too. It is a bit baffling to assume that people who read the story with acceptance and find meaning in it don’t care enough about Morpheus as a character to want him to survive, and that they are even a bit stupid for thinking The Sandman’s underlying message is one of hope. I don’t know many people who aren’t heartbroken in one way or another. But the story had to end the way it ended because it is not just about Morpheus and humanising him.

I often feel that by clinging to his character and person alone, we are losing sight of the deeper meaning, and we are closing our eyes to all the messages that are there, in plain sight, if we just let them speak to us:

The Sandman is not simply a story about Morpheus. He is the protagonist (even that could be argued), but he is also a vessel for the meaning and power of change, for letting go instead of clinging to what doesn’t serve us (and isn’t it ironic that by desperately wanting him to live and getting upset about the fact he doesn’t, we are doing exactly that instead of leaning into catharsis that actually has the potential to bring on change in us?).

Dream does not die because Dream cannot die. He changes. What dies is a point of view (symbolised by Morpheus). That’s it. That is the message. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.

Hope is not gone. Not in this universe or in any other. Her spirit prevails. Because when she calls you out, when she touches you, you remember what matters:

“I’m not,” he says after thinking for a hot second, and proceeds to do exactly that regardless.

She touches him, she holds his hand, and calls him out.

She touches him, she holds his hand, and he is honest with himself, for once.

Hope touched Dream, but did she touch Desire in the same way? I already wrote about it here, and I think in certain ways, she did:

Hope prevails…

Hope is what saved the universe in the first place.

Hope is what Morpheus remembers when it matters.

Hope is what Nada finds again in A Hope in Hell after she gave up hope in Tales in the Sand.

Hope is what drives Unity and ultimately lets Rose survive.

Hope springs eternal in people like Rosemary who are willing to help and overcome their own fears. And in the TV series, that hope gets rewarded, and that’s important (I am glad they made that change).

Hope is even what drives Morpheus, but to see that, we need to take our eyes off only focusing on his having hope for himself, his having hope for his point of view (that does not serve him or anyone else, and he knows). If that’s the hope we’re looking for, we won’t find it. No, that’s not entirely true either. Because again, Dream can’t die. But the true reason is:

Morpheus is bigger than that. The story is bigger than that.

He has hope for humanity and sentient beings that are under his purview—what else are dreams but hopes? And Morpheus as the “point of view” understands that said point of view needs to make space for a better, kinder, more human (for lack of better term—human=/=man but human=with humanity) Dream to exist. And said Dream comes into existence with Daniel, but he also still contains all that was Morpheus. See it as having learned from experience and moving on with a new point of view instead of letting our hurt define us and holding on to it indefinitely. It is something we recommend in real life all the time—why can’t we find it in this story? Because it is right there, again, in plain sight: Omnia mutantur, nihil interit.

I am not saying this is how you have to see it. But I am saying that engaging with the story on this level makes it easier to come to terms with an ending that is commonly interpreted as hopeless because we can't see the forest for the trees.

Hope is hope. And she saved the universe and us. Not just once, but many times over. The new universe isn’t the hopeless, sad universe. The old one was. The new one has hope because it keeps existing. With Hope’s spirit and a Dream who has changed…

[postergadorart]

Sketch Commission Info || Twitter || Instagram || RedBubble || VGen

It's crazy to me that The Owl House ended a year ago!

I usually don't like fantasy stories that much but this one means a lot to me. I got to learn a lot about myself thanks to it! I especially love the characters so so much

Also, eclipse taken into consideration, today the Boiling Isles are celebrating, sort of, The Day of Unity lmao

This design will be available in my RedBubble Shop if youre interested!

[tampire]

Corintheus speaks to Unity and Desire

[thepersonalwords]

This is what our love is––a sacred pattern of unbroken unity sewn flawlessly invisible inside all other images, thoughts, smells, and sounds.

Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

[morpheusbaby3]

I love how Morpheus is The Sandman but he is constantly humiliated or berated by women. I especially like when Lucienne does this, in canon or in fanfics.

[zzoomacroom]

More memes? More memes.

The Sandman + Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt quotes (part 1)

Part 2

[bobbole]

Playing with dolls: the Corinthian and "this dream people call Human Life" - part I

Written for The Sandman Book Club

Since at The Sandman Book Club we are re-reading The Doll's House, and since the first chapter of this story marks the entry of the Corinthian, I would like to dwell on some of the distinctive traits of this character, how he is the embodiment of one of the great symbols of American and Western pop mythology (the serial killer) and how the netflix adaptation, while excellent, has completely deprived him of precisely those elements that made him so distinctive, while enhancing other important aspects.

Murderer vs. Killer, or when killing is a "work of art"

In The Dreaming, the spin-off series immediately following the canonical Sandman, there is a panel that I think is emblematic in defining what the Corinthian is, even before his being nightmare, black mirror, etc

Judging Cain like he's on Dancing with the Stars

There is a passage in which the Corinthian states that Cain is definitely a murderer, but not a very good killer. This because the word murderer here is linked to a primordial concept of homicide. Yes, Cain is the first murderer, but his act is something instinctual, part of his nature. Cain kills because he cannot do anything else and murder for him is an inevitable act, demonstrating his being part of a story from whose narrative he does not escape.

For the Corinthian, on the other hand, killing theoretically is not in his nature: he is after all a nightmare, which must terrify, unsettle, reflect the deepest fears and secrets of the human subconscious. A means to an end, not the end itself. For the Corinthian, killing is a deliberate act by which he tries to carve out a space of his own within a predetermined story.

The serial killer is a planner: in the Corinthian mind, an artist too. Even the fact that he appears on the scene not already in his nightmare function but primarily in that of being ready to kill a young man leaves no doubt about it: the Corinthian, in the way he perceives himself, is first and foremost a serial killer/artist.

This is not Vogue: comics vs show

In the netflix Sandman, episode one, the Corinthian has sensed that Dream is free. He wipes off the blood from his eyes and stands up, sensually stroking the head of his...victim? It would be better to say a model without eyes. Death here is not horror: there is something glamorous about this scene that irritates me deeply, not least because we are watching it from a spectator's pov, comfortable in our chairs. We are in a hotel room but the space is open, and the screen of the devices from which we are watching the episode gives us

1) an escape route

2) a way to dilute the horror of the scene (there is always hope if there is an escape route)

This Corinthian is elegant and sensual. He could disturbs us, if he wants, but definitely he's not scary.

Let's compare the netflix scene with the comic. First, fundamental change: the reader's pov, which coincides exactly with that of the Corinthian. We do not see the Corinthian in the panels, and we will not see him until after a long time. We look at the scene through his eyes, we read the words through his voice. From this perspective, it's as if behind the glasses, together with him, we were there, an active part of this crime.

Paradoxically, this scene should be less scary than the one in the TV show. There is no blood and the boy still has his eyes. But we perceive his terror, we see him tied up and helpless like a doll. We see his pimply face making ugly grimaces of fear (in the netflix episode the victim's face is perfect). There is no hope for this boy and while he begs for mercy in vain we brandish, together with the Corinthian, the knife that will kill him. There is no sensuality, there is no seduction, there is no sex here (better, sex and death are the same thing but I will return to the relationship between death and sexuality in the second part of this little essay). We are in a room with no escape, the scene in front of us is dirty, not at all glamorous, in which we readers are actively participating. This Corinthian is fucking scary.

The waking world: a big doll's house to play in

This title takes on a different meaning depending on the various characters involved in this Sandman story. From my point of view, I believe that the characters who most of all are linked to the concept of a doll's house are Unity and the Corinthian.

Unity appears near an old doll house, and her clothes are also similar to those of an old doll

Unity was literally a doll for most of her life: her condition was caused by an external event and external people decided about her life, including her motherhood.

The Corinthian doll and the surrealist doll of Hans Bellmer: both obscene and disturbing toys

The Corinthian, on the other hand, is a sort of doll maker and the dolls are the human beings he kills and whose physiognomy he transforms with his knife.

This last thing is perhaps one of the elements that most differentiates the netflix Corinthian from the one in the comic. The Boyd Corinthian is almost a romantic character, a bohémien eager to savor human life in every sense, moved by contrasts and ambiguities that make him decidedly more similar to the Second Corinthian of the comic than to the First. He looks at humanity with a curiosity that is sometimes almost paternalistic: ruthless, but not cruel. He embodies a type of socially well-integrated serial killer, the "unsuspected type", who knows how to contain his impulses when necessary. Most important, with him sex is not always synonymous with death.

The Corinthian of comics, on contrary, never escapes this binomial: in him, sex and death are always intrinsically linked because they are the same thing. He is always cruel and brutal, seeing humans as meat to be cut. Humanity is nothing but fresh clay in his artist's hands: shaped dolls to play with in his new dark stories.

[ometochtli2rabbit]

Today (March 11) is National Dream Day.

I dream of Chicano unity. I dream of Raza unity. I dream of cross-cultural unity.

I dream we all unite for a common cause and end the power structures that purposefully keeps us divided.

=RVS= c/s

•••

Artwork: “Paz” (1996) – color pencil 

[palatinewolfsblog]

The Age of Ambiguity (for my dear Friend @acommonloon ) "The world of nominal, cultural Christianity that took the American dream and added Jesus to it in order to say, 'you can have everything you ever wanted and heaven too,' is soon to be gone. Good riddance." - Russell D. Moore

[writing-for-life]

Lost Hearts Everywhere…

…or why comics issue #16 is so central to the whole storyline of The Sandman

We are currently reading #16 of the comics in our community (join us!), and I don’t know about you, but seeing Lost Hearts in context of the whole run always makes me a bit unwell because the visual and thematic parallels are just so strong…

About Lips, Hearts, Living, Dying & Dreaming

Sleep of the Just : Lost Hearts

About Family, Gender, Losing Your Heart & Desire

Tales in the Sand : Lost Hearts

Speaking of Which: About Interfering Cats, Their Toys & Memory Fragments

Overture : Lost Hearts

About Not Wanting to Kill, the Consequences of Failing in One’s Duty & Why Responsibilities Mean Everything

Overture : Lost Hearts

About Being Tired & Walking Away, Victories & Defeats, Life & Death

Lost Hearts : The Kindly Ones