I’m Just Feeding the Pigeons

I know people are upset. A lot of people do not understand why this show gave us hope, after hope, after hope only to have those hopes fail. It feels cruel to those people.

I understand this. I respectfully disagree.

Because this was always going to happen.

Morpheus was dead to begin with.

For me? The hope was the point.

We didn't GET Overture so we had to see the hope somehow.

The point is that we have to have hope, even when it feels like there is no point, because it is through hope that opportunity is created. That's where the multiple Destinies come from - which we got instead of Desire's ship after Hope the Girl died. Hope is the point literally and metaphorically in Overture and since we can't go there? The Sandman carries it as a through line in the show, in the face of something that should be as impossible as saving a dying universe - that is defeating the Furies.

Furthermore seeing a Dream who wasn't suicidal, who didn't want to die, who did everything possible to live even when it was impossible for him because of his values and his available choices was beautiful and important to me.

Because sometimes? There is no other way out of a situation based on who one is, and what one is willing to do.

Because Morpheus could have done a lot of things to survive! But if he had? It would have changed reality for the worse, or it would have changed him for the worse, or it would have been crueler.

Or it would have been a deus ex machina. And that isn't the story we have.

Like Daniel said, sometimes things just happen that are unfair and stories are generated to create an explanation.

But this show took Morpheus's story out of the comic? And it made it kinder, it gave him more support, it gave him more empathy more understanding, more people who care about him, and it made the people who care about him more able to hear him and be heard by him, and it gave him more love, just, generally, coming and going.

Sometimes? Terrible things happen and the only solace to be found is that we have done everything possible to try to stop it. And while you can look at that has the show teasing you with false hope? Th fact is that Morpheus did try everything before resigning himself to death, which, in the words of Hob's therapist is checking his work thoroughly, which, I can tell you, are anti-anxiety and radical acceptance techniques I have my own patients use.

I get wanting him to show up ala Hob's dream. I do. And I have my issues with season too.

But Dream's arc isn't one of them.

Maybe it's because of where I am with my own life?

But sometimes stories and in life? The kindest ending is the one where everyone tried their hardest and things still ended badly, but you get to know that everyone still tried, and in trying, things do get better in some ways, despite the losing. There is power and strength and profound beauty and unquantifiable value in remaining hopeful when things are absolutely hopeless; if only because doing so creates a better future in ways that will not be known until the smoke clears as the generational curses begin to break.

Thats what this ending is about for me. The last scene in particular.

That it wasn't pointless, that it did matter, all of it mattered, and everything Dream did and gave and changed, it mattered for him, because he got to experience all that growth and newness and for the world, and for his loved ones, and for the new family he created when he left them behind.

It wasn't elegant. It wasn't done well. But they said it over and over.

Hope. Love. Effort. Change. Kindness. Care. That trying matters, even if it doesn't prevent disaster.

But the effort to communicate this was made, if you care to look for it, which I did.

It may not have succeeded but considering the point of the message of show was that change can be achieved even if it doesn't save you and effort put towards love and kindness and hope matters I personally feel like appreciating that in the show's message matters too, even if it doesnt go as far, as artfully, as skillfully, as well, as gently as I might want it too.

I'm trying to accept the flaws of Season 2 in the spirit of the thesis - that the attempt at positive change and the love and kindness and hope that things will be good enough, does, in fact, make a difference.

I think that leaning into that is worth it.

I choose to change in this way. I think that's a message worth accepting.

And as far as Morpheus is concerned? I would remind you all that Dream of 1000 Cats means that all universes are canon if 1000 people are into it at the same time. So all Morpheuses can be canon.

1000 people believe the Hob Dream is real at the same time, so it is real. That's not an opinion. That's canon, according to the lore. You don't need the show to affirm that for you.

It is. That's what makes comics fun.

And so are all the fanfic that have 1000 people who have read them at the same time.

That's what makes that lore so brilliant. It's ALL canon with enough support.

It fixed the DCU's rebooting issue, and it fixes this too.

So I've seen these screencaps of Tom Sturridge talking about what he thinks about the Endless as a whole and it just SCREAMED at me that this is the kind of analysis Hob would make and put together when none of the Endless themselves have. So here's this half-baked snippet that comes somewhere in the early/middle of a fic where Dream and Hob have continued meeting and are close enough friends that Dream tells him about all the rest of his siblings, maybe even introduces Hob to a few of them.

(Rated T)

"Huh," Hob says as he sits back in his seat on the couch, staring into the fireplace for a minute and resting the tumbler of whisky in his left hand on his knee. The logs crackle and pop softly as Dream watches Hob watch the fire. He supposes that his friend might need some time to process all of what he has just learned. It vastly expands his understanding of the universe, no doubt.

"Well, that's a neatly wrapped bundle, innit? Makes so much sense."

Or... not.

Dream sits up straight on his side of the sofa and stares at Hob. "What?"

He turns in his seat to face Dream, curling one leg under him. "All you Endless. Separated you are all your functions, but together... You're love. It's rather poetic really." He finishes off his drink and puts the empty glass on the coffee table.

Confusion, true lack of understanding, has never been something that visits Dream often. "Excuse me?" He can feel how tightly his brows knit.

Hob's eyebrows, on the other hand, rise high up. "Love. All of you and your siblings, together, as a family, represent love." When Dream's jaw just falls open Hob continues. "There's nothing stronger than love. Love is a delight, certainly, but can also drive you well into delirium, drive you totally mad. And obviously heartbreak is its own special category of despair. Not to mention that, in my experience, it is the loss of a great love that brings someone the lowest, to the true pits of despair." He starts gesturing as he speaks, tilting forward excitedly, as emphatic and confident in his analysis as Dream is completely stunned by it. "Love, even when it is not romantic or sexual love, always includes desire for something: a person, a community, a feeling. And what destroys someone more thoroughly than love? What else other than love allows people to piece the world back together after destruction?"

As Hob approaches Dream's place in the sequence, the King of Nightmares feels his insides squirm and twist... only to be drawn out further.

"Love is often talked about like a destiny, a fated meeting of souls, two halves meant to be together. And death, well," Hob swallows and looks away from Dream for the first time since he started his little speech. "Love is made all the more precious by the knowledge that it, too, can die. Not to mention that, sometimes, the embrace of death is its own kind of expression of love. As for dreams..." When Hob meets Dream's gaze again he is very much blushing. But he doesn't look away. "Well, for those who have loved, isn't one of their nightmares always losing said love? And what thing or creature or person doesn't dream of experiencing at least some form of love? I can only imagine, if flowers dream?" He makes it a question and pauses.

"They do." Dream whispers.

The warm light flaring in Hob's eyes, his gentle smile at confirming that tidbit, like it is the most pleasant of discoveries, makes Dream feel almost... dizzy? Is that what this is? He lists forward with it, towards Hob.

If he notices the movement, he doesn't show it. But Hob's voice, when he speaks again, is softer and more lovely for it. "Splendid. They do. Yes, ah, I assume if flowers dream it is, at least sometimes, of the Sun?" Dream nods, speechless at how his friend is making these leaps. "To a flower, what is the warm embrace of sunlight, but a kind of love? And does it not dream of that love when it is gone? Yearn for it?"

Their knees touch and Dream's whole form ripples with the surprise. When had they gotten so close? But Hob doesn't look away, so neither does Dream.

"What is being in love if not a dream?" He can feel Hob's breath ghost across his face, but still the human doesn't stop speaking. "Being in love... isn't it a dream of the destined finding each other? A dream of the death of loneliness? A dream of being willingly and utterly destroyed by just a kind word or a sweet smile from your beloved?"

Hob's nose almost brushes Dream's, but he pulls back just a fraction at the last second. There is a fire in his eyes now, hotter than any that might burn in a fireplace, and Dream is nothing short of captivated. Further, Hob is no longer speaking in the hypothetical; Dream can feel how he now is speaking of his own dreams.

"A dream of being desired? A dream of being someone worthy of feeling despair over? What is being in love if not a dream that brings you to the most joyful, delirious extremes of delight?" His head tilts to the side, inviting Dream even closer. So close.

"Tell me, Dream of the Endless," and oh how Hob saying that name makes him burn, "how well do you know love? Does it live within you? Right now? As it does me?"

"Hob," slips out from Dream's throat as a moan before their lips brush. It is a temptation Dream has no will to resist.

They crash together, hands cradling necks and jaws and faces. Dream surges up into Hob's lap, suddenly ravenous for him, only to have Hob push back, toppling them over so that he has Dream on his back beneath him on the couch. The whole time their mouths never part.

Has this been here all along? Just waiting for Dream to notice? Has Hob been waiting for him all this time?

They kiss and writhe and grasp and their bodies fit too perfectly together for it to be a coincidence.

Or maybe it has been Dream waiting for this? Waiting to be craved like this? Waiting be seen like this?

Hob pulls away, panting, holding himself up on unsteady arms. "Dream. I need to know. Before I lose myself in this. Because I will, if you let me... You don't... Do you love me only because I dream you do?"

"You, Hob Gadling," he says with fondness, cupping his cheek, "are out-thinking yourself. Your dreams are only a billionth of a billionth of a fraction of all the dreams that make me."

"So I can't coerce you in some way? Intentional or not?" He leans into Dream's touch.

Ah. There is the crux of it: Hob doesn't know if what Dream feels for him is real.

"No, my sweet Hob." How he shivers above Dream at that pet name is delicious. "I am here purely by my own free will."

"And I'm not dreaming?" He smirks even as he says it.

"No," Dream chuckles. "You are most definitely not dreaming right now."

"Oh," Hob says, relief palpable. "Brilliant."

The Knight of Dreams.

Maybe it was medieval AU？

Mega Popstar Dream and Hob, his extremely non-famous celebrity crush

So in this universe Dream is an extremely famous musician. He's like Taylor Swift level of famous, if you walk up to any random person on the street they would know who he is. Meanwhile Hob is an actor but really not very well known, he was in a few small projects and is in the core cast of one TV show that's well-regarded but not super popular.

It's Dream's FAVORITE TV SHOW and Hob is his FAVORITE ACTOR that he's ferally OBSESSED WITH. Everyone knows about this too, Dream is really obvious about it. In interviews people will ask him what he likes and he's like "this is my favorite TV show" "have you seen Hob Gadling in that show isn't he incredible", They'll ask him if he has a celebrity crush (as a joke) and he's like "YES HOB GADLING 😍" like it's become a meme in Dream's fandom how much he has a crush on this random actor.

They've never met though, probably Dream was afraid to -- 'never meet your heroes' and all -- and never let his team book any overlapping events. So he's never seen Hob in person, only watched his favorite TV show 65 times in a row and memorized every inch of his face. Like a stalker.

So then a Buzzfeed-esque YouTube channel is running a special edition of their usual challenge show, "People Meet Their Celebrity Crush", except this time it's "CELEBRITIES Meet Their Celebrity Crush." Dream's entire team conspires against him to book him on this. Dream doesn't know what it is until the very moment since the whole point is to surprise people with their crush. Needless to say, Hob was REALLY dubious when the channel reached out like "do you want to come on as Dream's celebrity crush" but what's he gonna do say NO? say NO when Dream is so pretty and cute? So yeah he goes.

Anyway during the moment in the video when they revealed his celebrity crush to him -- aka Hob just looking like a totally normal and random guy -- Dream literally tripped over a chair and fell on the floor and then fainted. Instant meme and it became the thumbnail of the video. When Dream woke up to find Hob crouched by him all concerned asking if he was okay he nearly had a panic attack, he was never more flustered and nervous in his whole life not even performing for crowds of millions.

Hob fell in love instantly. He doesn't even know much about Dream, he hasn't even listened to Dream's music other than what's just playing ubiquitously on the radio all the time but all it took was watching Dream fall over a chair and then look up at him with his huge starry eyes and he was like 'This one's mine forever idc. I gotta protect this nerd he won't survive in the wild.'

Anyway they did start dating after that and Dream never leaves the honeymoon phase for the rest of his whole life, he truly thinks Hob is the most handsome man and best actor in the entire world and will tell anyone so at any opportunity, he goes around saying things like "see if you believe really hard you too can marry your celebrity crush 🥰" with zero irony, he might have skipped the Grammys to go to the premiere of season 3 of Hob's show (Hob didn't ask him to do that) (Dream won the Grammy but had more fun staring at Hob's face for 2 hours than he would have had at the awards show). Meanwhile Hob never talks about Dream in public because Dream already has negative 500% privacy in his life, he's extremely protective of him, and he allegedly punched one of the paparazzi in the face when they tried to take stealth shots at their wedding which was supposed to be a private affair. ALLEGEDLY. No charges were filed.

Dream did post one photo of the wedding on insta for his adoring fandom in which he described Hob as his knight in shining armor and then denied any knowledge of any 'alleged' events when asked about it in the future. Because Hob was so much more private about their relationship than Dream, for a while Dream's fandom had been like HOB DOESN'T DESERVE DREAM but after the (alleged) story about Hob punching someone in the face came out they were all obsessed with him. So that solved that problem.

(Despite Hob's efforts a paparazzi photo did come out of them the morning after the wedding, Hob sitting on the terrace drinking coffee, Dream sitting on his lap wearing Hob's shirt and looking thoroughly ravished. Dream might have framed it.)

Yes, yes, all the Endless have other names, so it's totally fair that he gets Robert and Hob and Hope.

Hello! I drew this once a few months ago here

But I wanted to draw an updated version that’s more like Dream’s robe looks. I hope you like it! ✨

But behind close doors? Hob would fall apart, he would remember all the ill thoughts he had carried, how he thought Morpheus was a jerk for standing him up, how he would berate Morpheus for not accepting his easy friendship, all the curse words he had uttered in the middle of the night.

And then his thoughts would turn to all he did wrong, to how he could have saved Morpheus, how he could have snuck in and broken the glass prison. He had heard about how burgess supposedly had the devil in his basement and at the time Hob had thought nothing of it, he should've, he is immortal, a being defying nature for god sake! He should have looked closer but he didn't because he was too caught up in his own self pity.

The Knight of Dreams.

Maybe it was medieval AU？