Can I just say how much I love Hob’s “about to get stabbed in the face” face?

Like what is even going on here it is so much. He’s amused, he’s delighted, he’s having a great time and just got to finally show off his well-earned badassery credits from decades as a soldier and brigand to the tall, dark and handsome stranger he meets every century. He’s daring her to do it, he’s amused that she might, there isn’t a scrap of fear in him over the possibility and he is having the time of his life.

You get the sense in that glance that there’s a whole Badass Hob cinematic universe of run-ins like this where he has been able to completely shrug off danger to life and limb. To anyone who isn’t the divine anthropomorphic personification of a universal force like Dream, Hob is the most powerful supernatural being they’ll ever meet and he knows it.

Hob is, in the otherwise fairly low-magic setting of the Sandman show world, Hot Shit as a 400+ year old immortal who has lived a full and extremely varied life. He hasn’t been burned by the possibility of capture, he doesn’t tangle often with anything above an average human’s capabilities, he tends to keep a low profile so he really has not a single doubt weighing him down about his ability to walk away victorious from this fight, except to make sure Dream is ok (and also watching all this, you are watching aren’t you, handsome stranger? Maybe we can go to another tavern after? Or back to my place?)

And here's a freeze frame:

But that's not all. Let's slow it down.

Tom Sturridge on becoming Morpheus

What is a dream if not the most lucid articulation of our true selves… He knows how everyone feels … and is in fact the most extraordinarily empathetic being but is managing this unstable thing which is the collective unconscious of the universe, this incredibly dangerous thing, just all of our feelings, and to manage that he has to push it all down into his belly and hide it because the consequences are disastrous…And I wanted to play someone who had that struggle. 

(BFI) 

There’s a line in the book where John Dee is driving with Rosemary and he says to her: “Dreams are real but they’re made of viewpoints, images, memories, puns and lost hopes” and I think my assembly of the pieces of the character is not dissimilar to that 

Morpheus & his short coat in the Waking world vs long coat in the Dreaming + bonus: arriving to vs leaving from Hell

Consider this a sort of ‘soulmate au’ promptlist except it’s for significant connections, either good or bad. Often it’s soulmates, but it can also be like, your wife’s murderer, your found family, etc (so there’s some ambiguity). Or just use it as a soulmate au list - whatever floats your boat!

Send a prompt and I’ll write a starter where…

[First Words] - the first thing our muses say to each other is tattooed somewhere on their bodies.

[Injuries] - whenever one muse is injured, the other becomes injured in the same place, and vice versa. Good for muses who get stabbed, etc. (Bonus: either muse can treat the injuries, so if one can get to a hospital they can get the other urgent medical care.)

[Through their eyes] - for 10 minutes every six months (or a year, etc) our muses get to see through each other’s eyes. It happens at random, not on a schedule.

[Birthmarks] - our muses share the same birthmark, in the same place, in the same shape/size. Particularly good for two celebrity muses where the public notice their birthmarks before they do.

[Clock] - each muse has a countdown on the inside of their wrist until they meet each other (or until they die, or until they see them for the very first/last time)

[Names] - our muses are born just Knowing each other’s first name. There are probably a lot of Johns/Janes/Jordans out there, but every time they run into someone with The Name…

[Dreams] - our muses occasionally share dreams. It happens randomly, only once every couple of months (or years).

[Love] - whenever muse A feels loved, muse B can ‘sense’ it, like a distant thrumming heartbeat, and vice versa. Good for muses who did not grow up in happy homes.

[Adrenaline] - whenever one muse is in danger, the other can feel their adrenaline. Unhelpful for sitting exams. Good for muses who live dangerous lives.

[Scars] - shared scars. If one muse is scarred, so is the other, in the same place in the same way.