When I’m off work (self-employed), like I was over the past couple of weeks, my screen time is usually massively reduced because I tend to sit in front of them a lot when I work (from online sessions to research to admin to writing). And I remembered that this was still sitting in my drafts, so I'm finally going to publish it because I thought about the topic for a million reasons. But before I get into what happens neurologically and mental health-wise when we spend a lot of time online, I want to start by saying:
Online community is real. The friendships you’ve made, the support you find, especially if you’re disabled, chronically ill, housebound, unemployed, or otherwise isolated. All of that is real and sometimes genuinely life-saving.
So I’m not here to tell anyone to “touch grass”, or that they need a job or a hobby or go outside more. Framing it like that is classist, ableist and frankly misses the point entirely.
I’m a psychotherapist, and for many reasons (my clients, my kid, myself), I have an interest in what the research tells us happens to a human brain and nervous system when the internet becomes its primary (or only) environment. And that’s not our fault, because the internet and especially social media were not designed with our well-being in mind. They were designed to keep us on it. Each and every single one of us can become vulnerable to it, and it doesn’t take much.
What actually happens neurologically
The internet (and again social media specifically) operates on what behavioural psychologists call a “variable reward schedule”. It’s the same mechanism that makes slot machines so difficult to walk away from because you don’t get a reward every time. In the case of Tumblr, that reward would be a nice post, a comment/reply or a reblog. What you get instead is unpredictability, and that unpredictability is what makes the dopamine loop so powerful and unfortunately also so hard to get out of voluntarily.
Most bigger platforms had, or still have, behavioural psychologists in their teams specifically to exploit that mechanism, and over time, it really shoots our attention. Research from UC Irvine found it takes around 25 minutes to fully regain focus after an interruption. That means that if you’re online on and off for hours, your brain never fully completes a thought cycle.
Over time, sustained attention (the kind needed for reading a book, completing a task that requires focus, watching a film without your phone, or simply sitting with a feeling without trying to resolve it) becomes genuinely harder. It dysregulates our nervous system. Discourse, conflict, distressing news, posts that make you angry or sad, all of that activates our threat response (your sympathetic nervous system, fight-or-flight, whatever you know it as). And when you’re online, that activation never fully resolves. Chronic low-grade activation is associated with anxiety, hypervigilance, and difficulty feeling safe even when you are safe.
Being chronically online also distorts your social baseline. Human nervous systems evolved to read faces, tone of voice and physical co-presence. We NEED this (as a general rule), no matter how much we tell ourselves we don’t because we’ve been hurt. Online interaction, even with people you like or love, doesn’t fully activate those systems. Over time, that can deepen a particular kind of loneliness, and that’s confusing because you are talking to people constantly, right?
And one of the most harmful things is also that it completely erodes body awareness. When you’re staring into a screen for hours, you stop receiving your body’s signals (hunger, thirst, the need to move or stretch, getting tired). And that’s especially important for people who already have complicated relationships with their bodies due to chronic illness or disability.
Online friendships
I genuinely believe online friendships can be meaningful. But I also believe that parasocial and semi-parasocial dynamics are very easy to form online, and they’re also very easy to confuse for closeness.
When you follow someone’s life via their daily posts, your brain builds a model of them that can feel like closeness (or, to the contrary, you can build a picture of them that is completely wrong in other ways). And sometimes it is. But sometimes, the connection is more one-directional than it feels, and the loss when that person leaves, blocks you or simply turns out to be quite different from that model you built of them can feel sort of devastating. Simply because your nervous system experienced it as a close relationship, even if the other person didn’t.
It’s how human attachment works, but it’s at loggerheads with a medium that often only mimics intimacy without really delivering it.
Some honest questions to sit with (as genuine self-inquiry)
You don’t have to answer these to anyone but yourself:
When I close my laptop or put down my phone, what do I feel in the first few minutes? Boredom? Anxiety? Relief? Emptiness?
Is being online giving me energy, or am I often more tired, irritable, or sad after long sessions than before?
When have I last eaten, and what? Did I have water? Is my body okay right now?
When something upsetting happens online (argument, callout, someone being unkind), how long does it take me to stop thinking about it?
Are there things I used to enjoy (games, art, music, books, being in my body in some way) that I’ve gradually stopped doing? What happened there?
If the internet went down for 48 hours, what would I feel? What does that tell me?
As I said, these aren’t gotchas, they’re just invitations to notice.
Small, accessible things that can help
I’m not gonna say “go for a run/exercise” or “just go outside” because while these things can help some people, they're also ableist as a generalisation. But there are some genuinely small things I regularly go over with my clients, and many of them have limited energy, reduced mobility or generally a limited amount of “spoons”
Build a micro-transition ritual. The brain needs a signal that one context is ending and another is beginning. It can honestly be as small as “close the laptop, take three slow breaths, drink some water”. That’s a full ritual. It helps your nervous system to downregulate.
Use “do not disturb” or app timers as a scaffold for a brain that’s been trained out of self-regulating by social media professionals who know a thing or two about your dopamine system. Give yourself support with that, like using Opal or Freedom or one of the many other systems out there (they all have free plans that are honestly enough). Or simply delete that app for a while and make it more difficult to access.
Introduce one offline sensory thing per day. No, that’s not the same as “just get a hobby” or “do some exercise”. I really mean something sensory (something that you can see, hear, feel, taste or smell), like a nice candle, or tea you make deliberately. Or listening to music while lying down and only doing that (no background music while scrolling). It’s about reconnecting your brain to your physical environment, because it has real effects on nervous system regulation.
Notice the content, not just the quantity. Passive scrolling (consuming without interacting) is consistently associated with worse mental health outcomes than active use (creating, reaching out, commenting intentionally). So if you have to be online (but don’t make that your first choice because it’s easier), creating things (even a reblog that isn’t empty but one where you actually engage or comment) is genuinely better for you than scrolling silently. Ignore the rage bait, pick something that makes you happy to connect with and create for. Which brings me to…
Have one conversation a day that isn’t reactive. No discourse. Just reach out to one person you like, about something you like, for its own sake. It activates different neural pathways than conflict-driven or anxiety-driven engagement.
Tend to one physical need with deliberate attention. Eat something and actually taste it, or stretch one part of your body while noticing how it feels. It’s not about “improving” anything, it’s just a way of reminding your brain that you have a body.
If the internet is the main (or even only) place where you feel seen, safe, and connected, it’s something worth sitting with without shame, but definitely with attention.
Online connection isn’t worthless, but I truly believe people deserve more than that. You deserve to feel okay in your own body, in being able to sit with yourself in silence in your own company (even if you’re bristling at that, but it is so, so important). And if being away from the internet feels impossible or unbearable, it’s honestly a nervous system screaming for help.
You are allowed to want more for yourself, even if the “more” is very small and very slow. It’s possible to build it into your life, even if that life has real constraints.
[Sources if you want to read further: Jean Twenge on screen time and wellbeing (especially in children and young adults), Gloria Mark’s attention research at UC Irvine, studies on variable reward schedules and dopamine (Schultz, 1997), and the body of literature on social media use and loneliness including Primack et al. (2017) in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.}
I’m a therapist, not your therapist. So please only see this as psychoeducation, not a substitute for professional support or individual needs that are complex.
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When he died on January 8th, 1880, he collapsed in the rain on his way to a debate. If we can trust reports, he had roughly fifty cents (~ $15 in today’s money), a single gold sovereign and a French franc in his pockets, and that was pretty much all he owned.
And yet, 10,000 people filed past his casket (although, as always, there’s more to the story than that. Because while those numbers are true, the actual number of mourners at his procession and burial was far lower). On the day of his funeral, San Francisco closed businesses and flags came down to half-mast. A total solar eclipse marked the day (well, no, because that was actually a day later, but it makes for a good story in the context of The Sandman 😉)…
And I’ve been turning a question over and over in my mind since I first read this story ages ago: What does it mean when an entire city agrees to believe in one man’s delusion (or dream: Once again, Delirium’s and Dream’s realm have some overlap, because, well, at the centre of the Dreaming lies the madness of pure D/dream)?
The Wager
Despair approaches Dream with a challenge (and we are quickly told that the two other younger siblings are also involved): Joshua Norton has lost everything. His fortune is gone, his reputation is in ruins. Despair already has her hook in him because the ground has long been crumbling away under his feet, and the only thing that keeps him alive is that he can’t find it within himself to commit suicide.
So what could Dream possibly offer to a man this broken?
I don’t even know what to call Dream’s intervention, because his motives aren’t exactly pure. He initially refuses to take part but comes round when Despair starts to taunt him about Destruction (NB: we don’t even know Destruction’s name or function at this point).
So maybe it’s not so much the act of compassion we’d like to see, but rather an ethically complicated intervention into a human psyche without consent, just for shits and giggles (not that Dream would laugh anyway. But his motivations are still very much, “I do it just because I can and my siblings get on my nerves” at this point).
So he gives Joshua a dream, specifically that he is Emperor of the United States.
The narrative point is that Dream doesn’t try to fix Norton’s circumstances, because the question is never really, “How can he recover?” but rather “How does an emperor conduct himself?” And that question has answers. And it’s Dream’s recurring approach across the whole of The Sandman: He doesn’t solve problems, he reframes them. And he often gives people the stories they need to survive (we all do!).
His Madness Keeps Him Sane
Delirium says it first, and Delirium says it best because Delirium knows:
It’s is the keystone of the entire story. Norton isn’t performing or running a con; he is the Emperor. And that delusion has rules, a code of conduct, a set of responsibilities, a reason to get up in the morning and inspect the streets of his city and issue proclamations that newspapers print not out of cruelty but out of something closer to delight (or selling copies 😜). It literally keeps him together, and it upholds his dignity.
I want to be careful here not to romanticise mental illness. “Three Septembers and a January” is not saying, “Just believe in yourself”, or that delusions are actually “not that bad” and don’t have serious implications. But narratively, it’s doing something important: It’s showing how one man chose to live inside a story where he still mattered, and how that dream/story became the thing that kept him alive.
And yes, he has nothing apart from a tattered uniform and a story, and whether that story holds depends on the people around him honouring it.
He is incredibly vulnerable. But…
Community as Co-Authors
The dream Morpheus gives Norton is a seed, but every seed needs the right conditions to grow. And the city of San Francisco is the soil and the water and the sun. Because the people who interact with Norton are making a choice. Maybe out of pity, maybe out of curiosity, maybe out of genuine care, maybe even because they want to benefit in some way (like the newspapers who started to print fake decrees—one of the reasons why the real Norton chose the Pacific Appeal as his only “imperial organ” in 1870). But still, they choose. Like the restaurants and bars that accept his scrip (in theory worthless because it’s a currency that has no backing and no legal standing, and yet, they either accept it or swap it for legally accepted tender) so he won’t go hungry. Or like the people who let him “tax” them in good humour so he doesn’t have to beg or accept charity because that, again, would rob him of his dignity.
When Norton is briefly arrested, the judge who releases him says “that he had shed no blood; robbed no one; and despoiled no country; which is more than can be said of his fellows in that line” (real quote, by the way).
So what the city of San Francisco is doing is participating in something akin to collaborative fiction. Fan-fiction, if you will, about a real person, authored by an entire city and ongoing. Maybe it is a bit of a joke for some. Maybe it’s offering kindness to a “pitiful madman” (as Despair calls him). But most of all, it’s a genuine, chosen and sustained commitment to a shared story.
Because stories have power when people believe in them.
Desire is a Sore Loser
Desire sends the King of Pain. By all conventional measures, this should work, right? Because Norton does desire women. And the King of Pain shows up with wealth and comfort and power and honestly the weirdest sales pitch in the entire series (Desire really has a thing for handing out trophy wives it seems, and it’s not like it’s the first time either).
And Norton… refuses.
Not because he doesn’t feel any of it. Because he feels all of it, and Desire is right about that. But he is the Emperor of the United States, and the Emperor of the United States already has everything he needs. He lives in a fifty-cent-a-week (- $15 in today’s money) room. He wants for nothing, and dignity? Well, that’s baked into being an emperor, no?
“He has his dignity. He is, after all, an emperor.”
And the double meaning is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Of course Norton has dignity because he believes himself to be an emperor. But the line isn’t condescending, and Dream doesn’t deliver it with a wink. Because in the Dreaming, belief is what shapes reality. And Norton’s dignity is therefore categorically real.
Desire’s rage plants the seed for wanting to destroy Dream and make him spill family blood. So the story of Dream’s eventual downfall sort of begins here, in a fifty-cent room in San Francisco, because he refused to let Joshua Norton despair. And moreso: He got roped into it because of… Destruction 😩 Again. Or for the first time, whichever way you want to turn it.
Death and the 36 Tzad(d)ikim
Norton dies, and Despair admits she lost: Since Dream accepted the wager, Norton never despaired, not once, not even at the very end. The dream held all the way.
And then Death arrives, and the story becomes something else entirely.
She tells him about the Tzad(d)ikim, the 36 righteous ones of Jewish mystical tradition holding up the world, usually without really knowing they’re doing it. At every given time, there are 36 people whose goodness and unselfishness sustains creation. Most of them live ordinary lives, but the world continues to exist because they exist in it.
Death doesn’t verbatim tell Norton he could be one of them. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t. She only says, “I’ve met a lot of kings, and emperors, and heads of state in my time, Joshua. I’ve met them all. And you know something? I think I liked you best.”
She has more context than any being in existence for evaluating what it means to be a leader, a ruler, a person in whom others have placed their faith.
And she liked Norton best!
Because he was kind, because he kept on living with grace in a world that had stripped him of every conventional reason to have it. He walked through “his” city every day and never once, in all his years, became cruel or small-minded (if you want to know more about the actual Joshua Norton and what he stood for: plenty of info to be had all over the net).
So was he deluded? Or was he, in his own way, the sanest man in San Francisco?
The story won’t really tell you (or maybe it does via Delirium?). Maybe Dream’s gift was the first domino in a chain of events that sustained Joshua for decades. Maybe Norton would have eventually found his way to the emperor story on his own.
I don’t think it really matters, and maybe that’s the point. The belief saved his life, and the city sustained that belief. The story became real because enough people chose to treat it as real (“A Dream of a Thousand Cats” or “Overture”, anyone?).
I personally think the real magic in “Three Septembers and a January” was never what Dream did. It was what San Francisco (and beyond) did. They saw a man who was in some ways broken, and instead of looking away, they decided (individually and collectively, sustained over twenty odd years) to tell his story with him. It cost them almost nothing, but it gave him everything.
And now we can go back to crying over that man, just like the sun at his funeral (even if it decided to be blotted out a day late 😉)…
I love this story dearly 🥹 There's so much to dig into and think about! Excellent meta! 👏
"...it’s Dream’s recurring approach across the whole of The Sandman: He doesn’t solve problems, he reframes them." - Yes!! So true! Even his own!
Oof, Desire. Absolutely a sore loser. If only they could blow off Dream like they do Delirium. Dismiss him as a "little gleet" (an insult only Desire can properly pull off, truly 🤢) and move on when he gets too annoying or sanctimonious. What a different story the Sandman might be...
I adore the idea of San Francisco as a character, its citizens collectively deciding to honor Norton's story (dream... delusion...), to ultimately care for him and show kindness rather than cast him off to the fringes of society for Despair or Delirium to claim. It's quite sweet (even if not all intentions are pure), and hopeful. I need to believe, in these troubling times, that we (as individuals AND communities) are capable of caring for our most vulnerable neighbors while respecting their dignity and autonomy. This really resonates.
Only one choice. You can defend/explain it in the reblogs…
No nuance, no alternative, no scope for, “I love Desire but I don’t drink alcohol” or “I hate coffee but I also hate Desire, can I not have wine with Destruction?”
I’d rather have…
Coffee with Destruction
Wine with Desire
Voting ended onFeb 7
Here’s mine:
Coffee with Destruction, hands down. Makes it easier that I absolutely love coffee, but I always liked Destruction, too (sort of unpopular in the show fandom, I know, but psychologically speaking, he is the most self-actualised out of the bunch). I mean, he paints badly (although I’m not even sure that’s true. He paints. Give him time to figure it out). He cooks enthusiastically. He probably has an opinion about whether pour-over is pretentious, and I think he might even be interested to hear yours. Because I think he’d actually listen when you talk instead of just cataloguing your weaknesses for later use. I’m more of a cat person, but Barnabas is cute, so I think we’ll be okay and have a lot to yap about.
I feel like I’d leave that wine bar (or wherever Desire would take me) feeling like I’d been psychologically filleted (because I know that’s what I’d do—the shame 🤣). And I really like wine, too, so that’s not it…
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Because I’m still drying my tears (complete poll results here), some fics and poems for everyone who’s suffering with me:
As It Was Before The Otherness Came
(Johanna Constantine x Rachel Moodie, link to full story here)
But the demons I’m talking about are mine, and mine alone. And when she looked at me that final time before I left her with him, I wished I’d never let her close enough to see them. Because once she had, she wanted to get to the bottom of it all, and she kept on trying. But that’s not how it works. It never does because it’s true:
I ruin everything I touch…
The Song Remembers Her Name
(Johanna Constantine x Calliope, link to full story here)
“The binding…” she began, then stopped. How could she explain that she didn’t trust her freedom yet?
“I know about bindings,” Johanna replied. “Know about that one, too. Burnt scrolls, power passed between hands like currency. Always the same in a roundabout way.” Calliope cast down her eyes. “Sorry, didn’t mean to imply you’re just a statistic…” Johanna moved closer. “You can walk away. Right now. He’ll come back to an empty house. Whatever hold he thinks he has over you is gone.”
And the inspiration for that one was a poem I wrote for an ask game:
muse, unchained
(Johanna Constantine x Calliope, link to full poem here)
johanna constantine finds me
and on that day i remember
i have a name
that isn't "muse" or "mine"
[and since m/f that isn’t self-insert doesn’t fare much better, I’ll go back to crying now]
With more and more AI slop appearing, I thought: Why not start a reblog chain that celebrates all the incredible creators who keep this fandom alive?
Some people are new to fandom, some people don’t browse the tags and therefore hardly ever see anything that’s not been posted by mutuals, some people are simply looking for something new. Maybe we can turn this into a creator source (no AI-generated stuff please)?
So reblog this post with a shoutout for your favourites (as an important aside: Reblog creators you appreciate whenever you can because Likes don’t really help their creations to get seen):
Fic writers
Meta writers
Fanartists
Gifmakers & Editors
Cosplayers
Crafters
Podficcers
Bookbinders
or ANY other creative person who enriches this space for you
It can be just one or several, but let us know what they do. I’ll make a start (not all of these are Sandman blogs because it’s just idiots like me who hardly blog about anything else 🙈, but you’ll find their Sandman stuff via their blog search):
— — —
🌙 @embervoices gets a mention because you are one of the few people who also share my love for poems. Poetry might be a tiny fandom niche, but that’s exactly why I put it at the top of my list.
🌙 @tickldpnk8 because your meta brain works like mine, my partner in crime.
🌙 @gifs-by-renegadesstuff because your gifsets always make me not just watch a scene again, but truly see it.
🌙 @karmaisacat0121 because your art is absolutely stunning and more people should give it some love.
🌙 @amones because your art hits me where it hurts, but in a good way.
🌙 @vivisectrix speaking of art: You get a shoutout because I’m still not over your wonderful art for my fic 😩 (and this is when I love fandom most: gifting and community)
🌙 @dragonnan because I love myself some wild whiplash between beautiful and completely unhinged (and I mean this in the best possible way). Those panel redraws shall never be forgotten…
There are many, many others (I wanted to post only five, and as you can tell, I failed miserably), so hopefully, this is just a start.
Oh this is delightful!!! Thank you so much for the shout out!
So I have some to add to the mix:
@wolf-and-raven-dreaming for the INCREDIBLE fanart and the ongoing masterpiece of a Sandman au comic that has my neck in a vice!
@the-apocrypha Amazing and rich cottagecore fic series and other incredible writing!
@amielot I meaaaaan!!!!! The au'verses!! The source of all my unhinged aus of these aus!!!! Cow Hob and Cat Dream and the centaurverse just for starters!!! ASDFUGKKFHJDGSDFGKFHJDG!
@gabessquishytum Need spicy SPICY story prompts? You are covered! Also another extremely talented fic writer with so many stories that are a delicious blend of sexy and angsty!
@softest-punk Another author of some really gorgeous fanfic! My heart has been deliciously broken and stitched back together with so many of their stories!
@five-and-dimes Stunning spicy fanart that's both whimsical and realistic and very sultry! I've loved the various lingerie designs and the emotion shared between these beloved characters
@goldflinches Love the fanfic and a fantastic part of the Sandman community! Lots and lots of fantastic stories!
@seadeepspaceontheside Oh gosh this fanart is so much fun and absolutely hilarious!! The art style and expression of the characters is a pure delight!
@teejaystumbles I love this fanart so muuuuch!!!!! Beautifull whimsy and stunningly accurate to the characters! It looks like it belongs in its own comic or maybe on my wall lol!
@tj-dragonblade Sandman fanfic galore!!! TJ is an excellent writer and you'll find something for just about every fanfic need - whether human au or the charming selkieverse'!
@alexxuun This fanart is f*cking GORGEOUS!! It looks like something you'd find in a museum! The Sandman art is freaking magic!
@designtheendless This fancomic is everything!!! I'm in LOVE with this art style and the emotions it gives me!
@embroiderling Their Sandman embroidery is utterly charming!!! I've been in love with these pieces and not only because of the FABULOUS design created from one of my fanarts!
@dancinbutterfly who wrote the fic that changed my life for the better
@karalynlovescake @themirokai and @cuubism who wrote some of the most brilliant stories I’ve read
@meadowziplines and @ilya-halfelven whose stories will break your heart
@readertee @rhosyn-du @zigzag-wanderer @27dragons @ml-nolan @avelera and so many others (who I can’t remember rn bc brain issues) who I cheer whenever I see they’ve posted something new for a fandom I follow!
@zigzag-wanderer you’re so kind ❤️ and right back at you, of course! Your writing is so delightful and legitimately makes me laugh out loud on the regular.
There is so much so wonderful talent in this lovely fandom! Many already named, but I will add
@seiya-starsniper who’s fics are a mainstay of my ao3 life, whether they’re the adventure ones, the sexy ones (tis often those) or the sweet ones… and who has also made me absolutely *cry* with laughter (I’m looking at you, Matthew the cat)
@just-french-me-up whose Three Hundred Years of Longing is utterly superb. Don’t think you’d like dream/ofc? You should give it a chance for this one. I was spellbound. Camille is a wonderfully drawn character and her relationship with Dream is believable, frustrating (😅) and (eventually lol) hot. And the plot kept me on tenterhooks the whole way.
@kittttycakes As Heart for Heart… beautiful, gorgeous! Criminally underrated. Another female oc, another amazing fic. Actually really enjoyed all the one shots from kittycakes, but this one is just wonderful-Dreamling + Grace, and Grace is, again, a fabulous character and I was really rooting for her/then the entire time. Love, drama, angst and plotty plot.
No idea if they’ve got tumblr or any other socials, but I am absolutely obsessed with GhostShade’s Facing Fears, Finding Hope series. It’s a million words but, hey… I’d probably read the same again 😆. Gets pretty dark in places and there’s so much going on, so many breadcrumbs laid down and such great payoffs- eventually! This also has a strong female oc, although not a love interest for Dream.
@sleepsonfutons and @phinofthestorm guys. Guys. You have both spoiled me so badly with As a Stranger… I owe you a comment for the latest chapter ofc, but please know it broke my heart in the best most angsty way. All of Stormy’s works are *such* a pleasure to read, there are no punches pulled in the whump stakes, but also some wonderful comfort, some hot smut and some fabulous creative stories.
@lenreli you know how much I loved your daily smutty ficlets and you do God’s own work with the amazing gif sets ❤️
@tj-dragonblade I know you’ve already been tagged, but I just wanted to add that not only do I love your writing- from those sweet umbrella boys to every flavour of hot and horny Dream (ok and Hob) , but also that you always leave such kind and well thought out comments on not just mine, but lots of other people’s fics. I often read them nodding along and thinking ‘yeah, hit the nail on the head there, TJ’. Just wanted to say how appreciated it is!
@the-apocrypha please just inject your fics directly into my veins. Thanks darling.
@nuttersinc I’ll never be over One Hundred Years, Then. This is my OG fic in the fandom and the first I followed along with such excitement!
@beholdme everyone should read and love Chasing Our Ruin, it’s only right. And your and @ml-nolan ‘s The Gilded Cup is so sweet (plus that spicy one shot ‘missing scene’? Think I need a reread 😇)
Aww, thank you @dragonnan for the mention! I will also contribute to this since there's so many fantastic people adding to this fandom.
@dragonnan had made beautiful fanart (of my comic, no less!) and fanfic that needs to be looked at and given much love!
@delta-pavonis has made some unbelievable fanfics that I have fallen in love with and also added fanart of their writing! I highly highly recommend the Drummer/Dancer AU if you are seeking serious spice 😉 (It’s my favorite!)
@tryan-a-bex has some seriously great fanfics that need to be read!
Same mention goes out to @moorishflower go! Right now and read!
@softest-punk ... I literally DREAM their stuff and made art for their fanfics. They are beautiful.
@valeriianz BOLT IN THE BLUE, how could I not mention this?!?!?! Read! Go!
@teejaystumbles , I love your art! It inspired me in how I actually wanted to do my comic and I really want to thank you for that.
@fishfingersandscarves has some NSFW stuff that's just *chefs kiss*
Many more have been mentioned, I know I'm missing a few, but give them lots of love!
So many wonderful writers in this fandom!!! Literally everything and everybody above!!!
In particular… Everything by the_kickit_domain @ml-nolan , @wyvernquill, landwriter. @zoomacroomz, Loysark, que_lla, @merinsedai @acedragontype, @tj-dragonblade, cheshyr, Karalyn, qqqueenofhades, @signiorbenedickofpadua and konstadt. I know I’m forgetting people because this fandom has so many good writers!
Lover be good to me by cinnamoncake is so good as well
I’m behind but As a stranger also has me in a chokehold @sleepsonfutons and @phinofthestorm
Finally, The fic that hooked me the Uses of Adversity by MonstrousRegiment
Sorry if I screwed up anyone’s handles! Add to the post and correct me please!
I agree, everyone who has been mentioned here (hell, everyone in this fandom) is so very amazing and talented!! And I have to add that this is just a lovely fandom to be a part of, everyone is so kind and welcoming and there's so little drama compared to other fandoms. You're all wonderful people, sorry I haven't been on discord lately, I still love you all 💗
I'm trying to figure out who hasn't been tagged yet, I don't think I saw anyone mention the following people: @menthol-drops @fleabagsversion @4typercent @marvagon @ralkana @lostelfwriting @the-cloudy-dreamer @unpredictable-probabilities @reallyintoscience ...all of whom have created some fantastic works that inspire me and live in my head rent free!
Thank you for the sweet shout-out, @4typercent 🫂 I'm so happy this fandom brought us together (and you still remember when I was writing and contributing to metas! Sadly, it's been a minute). Say hi to Dreamy for me 🖤
In addition to the many lovely and talented humans who have already been mentioned, I will acknowledge:
@klarahimmeltheendless for sharing her gorgeous art over the years. She is so skilled in capturing Dream's (and Tom's) beauty.
@tsintotwo for being a general creative powerhouse. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, gifs, and stories, and always feeding the obsession 🖤
@sigurism - one of the OG Sandman gif makers. I admired her posts from the very beginning, and I miss her sharp (yet loving) eye and perspective in this fandom!
@queenshelby (aka endlessdreamqueen) for writing a very intimidating and sexy Morpheus. One of the first interactions I had in fandom, years ago! So glad she's back.
@alexzpaintings for art so stunning and heartbreaking that I bought prints for my office. And I still admire "dream? give me your hand" on my phone lockscreen every day.
@laurelwen for the journey from Sandman though all of Tom's works (omg, the letterboxd reviews!) and now presiding over the Like Minds fandom with magnanimity.
@roguelov because we will never be the same after the helm art (we'll always be indebted to you for illustrating our collective insanity)
And of course, thank you @writing-for-life for starting this lovefest. Love ya, babygirl 📣
I appreciate you, Sandfam! I'm glad we're here together.
honestly doodled so much of them, and I’ll be slowly moving all of these over here.
For these two pieces, I want Dream and Death look like they’re on a metal album cover.after all, one is the King of Nightmares, and the other is Death personified
Since I had a lot of new followers over the past weeks (???, I’d been under the impression the fandom was slowly dying 🤣), I thought I’d say hi to you all 👋🏻
I’ve been away for a bit and stopped writing/curating during that time, mostly for private reasons that required me to take a break. But I also took that time to think about what kind of fandom space I want to be part of in 2026, what my limitations/boundaries are, and what this blog is/isn’t. If these kinds of reflections aren’t for you, this is the exit sign…
I’ve loved The Sandman comics for thirty-odd years. The show is good (even if I don’t like every detail), I enjoy it, I post and will keep on posting art and meta for it (my pinned post will help you find everything Sandman-related I’ve written and curated on here over the past three years or so—it’s truly a lot). But the comics will always come first for me.
And that’s why I’ll be more forward about what I’m doing with this blog, and also who I’d love to connect more with in 2026:
people who love the comics and want to dig into them deeply, or who are at least interested to learn more about them
people who like meta, analysis, and discussion that goes beyond bite-sized, surface-level takes
people who like fic and poetry that explores deeper literary themes (although there’s other, lighter stuff, too)
people who want to actively engage and discuss rather than just passively consume “content” (I honestly detest that word in a fandom context a bit if I’m honest)
This blog probably is less interesting for you (although I’m still happy you’re here) if:
“The Sandman” mostly equals “Tom Sturridge or actor XYZ” for you (valid, just not my main interest, although there’ll of course always be stuff about the actors due to the show, as my pinned post will undoubtedly prove)
you’re looking for smut, Y/N fics, or self-insert content (awesome, just not the kind of fic I write or read)
you’re heavily into shipping, and that’s your main- or only way of engaging with the story (again great, just not what I post on the regular)
I also need to address AI and content theft for a sec…
I don’t knowingly share, or engage with, GenAI content, and there's recently been a lot of AI fic cropping up in the tags. So if I don’t follow (or sometimes even block) blogs that reblog a lot of AI-generated content, it’s nothing personal—I think many people genuinely don’t recognise it (I only do because I have to deal with it a lot in one of my lines of work, and even that isn’t foolproof. Of course there are also people who just don’t care as long as it scratches an itch, which is a different topic). But I simply don’t want obvious GenAI on my dash, and it’s the only way for me to curate what I see if people don’t tag properly. Which, let’s face it, most AI fic “writers” don’t because they’re not admitting they use it (I’d love if AI-generated fics got tagged as a courtesy to readers because if they’re not, people who are against GenAI get co-opted into them against their knowledge and might even share it, and to me, that’s just bad fandom etiquette. But that’s never gonna happen for obvious reasons, so…).
I’m also putting my foot down about content theft/not crediting, and I’m not going to mince my words here: If you’ve previously stolen posts/verbatim text from me and other creators/accounts to pass off as your own on other platforms, or you regularly take Tumblr art and gifs and post them on Twitter without crediting, kindly fuck off—that includes all your sock puppet accounts that mainly exist to create discourse or evade blocking. I'm not going to belabour the point further because I've done so enough (it's not going to take long to scroll though to find out what this is about), but it's a hard limit for me. These accounts are honestly everything that’s wrong with fandom these days, ‘nuff said.
If you're generally just someone who likes to post art (that includes gifs) but you don’t credit the original artist/creator, I encourage you to please think about crediting in the future, and to go through the effort of e.g. doing a reverse image search (if you don’t know who created it, you shouldn’t post it—it’s really that simple because it creates real life issues for artists). It doesn’t matter if your blog is “just for fun”—if it’s public, giving credit is non-negotiable in a fandom that’s built on mutual respect and usually asserts it takes pride in supporting artists.
At the end of the day, everyone can obviously do whatever they like, but I feel no desire to engage with accounts that don’t respect creators. Anyway, with that out of the road…
What I plan to do with this blog in 2026 (time and energy permitting)…
I’ll keep on writing meta about the comics (and the show), like I always have.
I’ll also recommence editing and posting the finished, remaining chapters of “The Pillars of Creation” as soon as my private life is a bit more predictable again (I’m not sure yet if I’ll go through the trouble of also formatting the chapters for Tumblr like I’ve previously done. So if you want to keep on reading, you’ll very likely need an Ao3 account).
“Dream’s Therapist” will also be back 😉
There will also be art curation as usual, and of course that art will also be about the show (I still have a queue of over 400 posts). As I said: I really like the show. I’m probably just a bit less into it than the majority of what remains of the Tumblr Sandman fandom, and the comics have always been my main interest. That won't change.
Last but not least, I’m still one of the admins of the Sandman Community, but my time there will be limited. Previous efforts required too much heavy lifting from the admins, and it’s unsustainable. If the community is supposed to thrive, it needs active participation and initiative from everyone (we’re forever grateful to the few people who tried—you know who you are).
If all of this is what you wish and stand for, too, I’d love to connect and remember again why I fell in love with this story, and this fandom, in the first place...
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Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
I love Joanna Constantine, It's been a while since I drew this but I'm still psyched with this sketch and the light shading I did. Doesn't mean I know how it happened, but it was a really fun experiment, I'll try to do more of it when I have some free time :)
