#johanna constantine is like 'hob's insane'

[moderndaypandora]

The LAYERS needed in a modern/human Dreamling au.  Some level of Endless family dysfunction, obviously.  Hob's family can be be dead or not, it's all good. Are they old enough to have individually gained the awareness they are off-puttingly intense and should hide it a bit at first, or still in that "no, why would I need to Elsa this" stage?

Option A is both of them trying to play it cool, like "don't scare him off" except they so badly want to go from zero to sixty.

(Death and Desire have ruthlessly drilled Dream with flashcards about how to react appropriately in situations.

Desire: it's your one-month anniversary, what do you do?

Dream: [hesitantly] NOT propose?

Desire and Death, conferring, because that's technically correct but the delivery was suspect.

Death, encouragingly: Good start. And?


Dream: a nice dinner and maybe a walk?

Desire: well done!

Death: and for a three-month anniversary?


Dream: give them a key to my flat.

Desire: [airhorn] NO. RED CARD.)

Option B makes them the classic anecdotal "my grandparents got engaged within seven days of meeting each other and still are happy together".

(Death, rubbing her temples: so you met this guy--

Dream: Hob

Death: -- Hob, and within 1 day you gave notice to the Registrar's Office and figured out the best day to get married. And Hob agreed to this?

Dream: NO.

Death: oh thank go-

Dream: Hob SUGGESTED this.

Death: . . .

Dream: are you going to be a witness or not?

Death, 29 days later in the Registrar's Office, to Hob's witness: Is he sane?

Johanna Constantine, drinking heavily from a large flask: unfortunately yes, by all legal definitions.

Death: fuck

Johanna: [passing the flask over] if your brother's even a tenth as intense as Hob, they'll be fine. Probably.

Death, brightening: Is Hob that bad?


Johanna: You know how sometimes you meet somebody and think "oof, they're a bit much, best give them a wide berth"?


Death: yeah.

Johanna: Hob's like a camouflaged hole in the ground of muchness. Except he's done the hole up all nice and he knows that sometimes you just want to be left alone in the hole to sulk and rattle the spikes for a bit, and occasionally get a F&M hamper tossed in.

Death: [hmmmmmmm'ing approvingly]

Johanna, morose: the bastard.

In the background, Hob and Dream are pressing their foreheads together and basking in each other's presence)

[windsweptinred]

Why I love the idea of a great big Good Omens x The Sandman Crossover Gaimonverse ... (Ineffable Husbands and Dream of the Endless hobnobbing aside).

Gwendoline Christie's Lucifer ruling over the hopeless disasters which are the GO demons... Chef's kiss! Give me a twenty part, workplace comedy. With Lucifer being driven ever closer to a complete nervous breakdown by their shinnanigans. Until they throw Mazikeen over their shoulder, yell 'Fuck this, I'm out!' and rage quit.

The Endless and the Horseman existing in the same universe... Meaning there are tiers of Anthropomorphic Personifications. What does that make the Horseman? Insanely homicidal middle management?

Following Death around like obbsessive little ducklings.

Getting into all sorts of devilment with the Twins like their little chaos groupies.

Constantly checking in with Destiny like,

War: Is it the Apocalypse now?

Destiny: (Turns a page) No

Famine: Now?

Destiny: No

Pollution: Now?

Destiny: Do not make me leave this garden and come down there!

Being one of the main contributing factors in making their direct supervisor (Destruction) become a master hermit.

Most of Hob's down time being spent avoiding/messing with Sergeant Shadwell (This headcanon is stamped across my heart in glowing neon letters).

Adam Young being the bane of Destiny's existence. A reality warping, fate changing... Doodling all over the margins of Book of Destiny in crayola menace!

The image of Anathema and Johanna Constantine as professional associates of the British supernatural community is a thing wonderous to behold.

[lalaithquetzallicaresi]

What if Hob were Modern Johanna Constantine's dad?

I asked myself that question several months ago, and this was the result:

Hob Gadling never intended to have a child again, couldn’t imagine doing it, having them, and losing them. When little Jo comes into his life though, he couldn’t regret her. He also could have never imagined how insane his life would get, once she’s in it. Then again, it’s not like he was exactly normal from the start, was he?

It's a 4 part miniseries:

Fathers & Daughters

Stranger

A Thousand Years

The Gift

[nuttersinc]

(FIC): A Hundred Years then

(excerpt from chapter 7, In which Hob gains an unlikely drinking buddy, Hob's berber carpet is in dire need of a dry-cleaning and Dream is a pathetic coward):

”I destroy what I love,” Dream rasps, and it feels like storm clouds are gathering over their heads, as if the night around them grows even darker, despite all the lights illuminating Hob’s sitting room. ”Everyone I’ve ever loved has met a terrible fate,” he says darkly, ominously, and he turns his face aside, for once the first to look away. There’s so much pain in the stubborn clench of his square jaw that Hob feels his heart breaking.

With his heart beating madly in his chest, Hob reaches out. “Then don’t love me,” he whispers.

Dream flinches like a startled horse and turns back to him, his eyes wild pinpricks with swirling nebulae at the centre. ”What…” he growls, his posture tense, not unlike the one time he refused Hob’s friendship, ”...what are you suggesting?”

“Give me whatever you can. Take whatever you want,” Hob breathes, knowing he sounds desperate and possibly a little insane. His stomach is churning wildly with nerves. In front of him, Dream looks inhuman, wild hair and strange eyes, and Hob is reminded that Dream is eons old, that he’s been here forever, long before Hob was born and that he will be here until the end of the universe.

Dream stares at him, aghast for once, and there’s something brewing in him, rising to the surface, something dangerous. Hob squares his jaw bravely, ready for whatever Dream will haul at him.

In the end, it is Dream himself; Dream who shoves him up against the bookshelves and clutches his face between his strong hands, knocking the breath out of Hob.

“”I will ruin you,” Dream says, breathing the words closely against Hob’s skin, and it’s both a warning and a plea for Hob to put an end to this.

You already have, Hob thinks, but his mouth is too dry and his brain too overwhelmed to say it out loud. He licks his lips, his body otherwise frozen, like a startled deer, waiting.

”I will ruin you and leave you in pieces.” Dream murmurs, distraught and dead serious, his fingers digging into Hob’s cheekbones.

“Yes,” Hob whimpers, pleading for it. He doesn’t care. 

*-*

Go and read it if you like:  Dream’s existential angst and Hob’s eternal devotion,  idiots to lovers, a side of FwB, lots of pining, sex full of feels, bamf!Hob, sidekick!Johanna Constantine and a fishbowl rescue.

I’m currently finishing up the penultimate chapter and I’m kind of enjoying the character arc A LOT.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42013197

[corvuserpens]

My thoughts on Orpheus’ story in The Sandman

Okay, SO. After reading The Song of Orpheus, I’m like... Fucking hell. 

I already knew our Dream Boi was a proud creature pre-capture, but THIS... This is a whole other level of asshattery. His own son, I’m soooo... WOW. Yeah, no wonder Calliope left him, lmao honestly girl fucking same.

This made me realize something, though. We already picked apart the reasons why Dream never asked for help when he was captured and they’re all valid reasons which I agree with: out of pride (that damned pride hhhhh), a king not wanting to appear weak before someone who could use this opportunity against him, etc, BUT... 

Maybe another, albeit smaller reason why he went against requesting aid, is because he knows damn well that, were it anyone else who had been imprisoned in Death’s stead, ESPECIALLY someone he is currently angry with (Desire immediately comes to mind), then he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help them. It’s like Calliope said: “in the old days you would have left me here to rot without turning a hair.” It’s what he does. Or, well, did. Even if it was his wife. Even if it was his son. He did it with Nada and, had he not have been captured by the Burgess, I’m now 100% sure he would not have gone to meet Hob in 1989. Just... Gods, he can be so heartless, it honestly shocks me.

The worst part of this whole story is right at the end, when Dream goes to find Orpheus’ severed head after he’d been torn apart by the Bacchae (which I am SO NOT looking forward to in the show, that was the most gruesome graphic shit I��ve seen in any medium ever), and once he’s done telling him that he will be looked after by some priests and that he won’t be seeing him again, he just... walks away. Throws that stupid line Orpheus said in his anger and grief about “no longer being his son” back in his face and simply turns his back on him while he calls to him and pleads for him not to leave him. He potentially abandons his child FOREVER and (presumably) doesn’t even give it a second thought.

“His father drifted away slowly, step by step, through the sand and seafoam. Orpheus looked on with tear-filled eyes until he lost sight of him. His father didn’t even deign himself to look back.” (Apologies if it’s not accurate, I’m translating it directly from the Portuguese version).

That is so haunting. It’s so bloody sad. So unnecessrily cruel, I... I can’t even... I don’t have the words to describe how heartbreaking reading this was. Just... DREAM. DREAM OF THE ENDLESS. FOR FUCK’S SAKE, HOW COULD YOU??? 

The fucking paralel between Orpheus looking back after going to so much trouble to rescue Eurydice only to lose her, and Dream NOT looking back not even once as he willingly abandons his only son to his fate is... immesurably painful. I wanted to cry so bad, this is insane. Even I could never write something so overwhelmingly cruel if I tried.

Well. That said. Let’s look at some positives: at least he didn’t leave Orpheus completely helpless. He did find some people to take care of him and keep him safe, and after he went missing, Dream enlisted Lady Constantine’s help to search for him and return him to the priests (little side note, I LOVE that Lady Johanna becomes friends with Orpheus, it’s cute). This is a little bit of consolation for me, the confirmation that, yes, even in his wrath, Dream still cares about Orpheus enough to do the bare minimum to assure his safety, even if Orpheus himself isn’t sure about it. I like to think so. 

Unlike with Nada. Poor Nada.

And now that he’s free, I see that he’s come to understand how wrong he was to punish people the way he did, even if he needed a little help from Big Sis Death (and a baguette tossed on his head). He went down to hell to free Nada, I already know he will eventually find Orpheus and grant him the release of death bc spoilers (my fault entirely, I’ll admit). I don’t know how they’re gonna handle this story in the show, but one thing is for sure: I’m counting on it to be emotionally devastating.

In a way, being a prisoner in a fishbowl for over a hundred years might have been the best thing that ever happened to Dream. It was still evil and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone save for a few exceptions, but... yeah. It humbled him and taught him to distinguish what truly matters from the petty crap with zero value. And it forced him to grow up. He still has a long, long way to go, but at least he’s on the right path.

On a final note, it makes me both melt and LAUGH my ass off to discover Orpheus inherited a lot of Dream’s personality traits, such as, but not limited to: his pride, his pettiness, his STUBBORNNESS for sure, as well as his tendency to act on his emotions rather than logic, but also his hopeless romantic streak. Like father like son indeed. Adorable.