hob getting settled enough to hold on to old things in a very intentional way because of the way they hold memory; the way they bring the past into the present. hob still writing with his sheaffer snorkel and his parker 51, lovingly restoring them when they break. hob making himself eggs in the morning in the same cast-iron pan he's carried from lifetime to lifetime, identity to identity, stripping and re-seasoning it each time he leaves an old life behind
hob still wearing his denim jacket covered in vintage pins from the pride parades of the 1970s and 80s. hob preferring slow fashion and thrifting; watching clothing trends go out of style and come back in. hob owning a smartwatch, but his 1880s pocket watch still runs and keeps time. and he's the same man who bent his ear to its reliable tick 140 years ago but he isn't the same, not the same at all—and it reminds him of how he's grown with the passage of time, and how he should always keep growing
(when it is time, when he is ready, some of hob's things always go to museums if they're particularly significant, or they get left to friends or to lovers, a little bit of him to hold on to in a life he sheds)
hob's things being a love letter to material culture, though not for the sake of materialism. hob recognizing the luxury of being able to stay in a place for a long enough time to own well-loved things, and the privilege in that, after having experienced abject poverty and dispossession himself; after having inflicted poverty and dispossession and cruelty on others
and so he wants his home to be a home for everyone. he wants his things to bring everyone love, to bring people together. he wants his inn to be a place for everyone (and he means everyone, and he'll fight anyone who jeopardizes that). especially, he hopes for it to be a place where his lonely once-stranger (dream, he still has to remind himself, sometimes) might feel a little less lonely
come to the inn of an evening and hob will make you a drink expertly mixed through decades of practice and infused with welcome. a solid chunk of the barware in the new inn is thrifted vintage, and he lets the patrons eat off and drink from it daily, lets them break it without apology, because things should be used and loved and carry stories
if someone breaks a mismatched teacup, sometimes he glues it back together and drills a hole in the bottom of it for drainage and plants something in it. if someone breaks a plate or a cup, irretrievably soils a linen napkin, warps the tines of a fork... hob sands away any rough porcelain edges. puts all the little remnants of life lived in the inn into a bin by the door and sticks a note on it that says "take a piece of our history :)"
and people do take things, silly as it seems. hob spots a scrap of an old floral linen napkin from the bin tied around the handlebar of a student's e-scooter like a streamer. one of his patrons takes the shards of a 1900s bowl and makes a mosaic art piece out of it that he brings to hob to put up at the inn; hob insists he couldn't possibly take it, keep it, put it in your home, make me another
his colleague from the history department invites hob over for dinner at his home, and they use the set of 3 plates that went in the bin because the fourth plate broke. the phelps' son just went off to uni and they're empty nesters now, and it's a perfect lucky little number, oddly healing for the three of them, dr. phelps and his wife and hob, eating off these three plates and thinking about kids growing up too quickly, kids meeting their potential, kids lost before their time
come to the inn, and if you come in on a friday hob will be serving weekly community dinner, good enough to make your grandmother cry, because it's home-cooked from recipes he's perfected over generations—first chicken-scratch-scrawled in iron gall ink on a piece of notebook paper and now scanned in high-res onto his tablet and emailed around to the staff. when hob moves on to his next life people will still be talking about this meal, making these dishes for their families
come to the inn and if you need it, hob will put you up in one of the rooms for free, no questions asked, for however long you need—all he asks is that you sit with him even for 15 minutes before you leave and tell him your story. he's got a noticeboard up on the wall and it asks people to leave little notes and drawings and things, and when the board gets full he puts everything in a scrapbook and labels it with the dates and keeps the scrapbooks on a little library book cart for people to look through
consider dream visiting hob's flat and passing his hands over hob's thrifted and loved and long-lived objects; being able to tell their provenance in the dreams of their former owners. dream and hob together honoring the living memories of hob's things and the people who once loved them
dream telling hob about the old woman who owned his teakettle once, and daydreamed, whenever she brewed her tea, of when she'd first met her late husband at 19, because his cologne had smelled of bergamot. about the two men who wrote each other the pair of victorian postcards hob keeps taped to his dresser mirror; about their secret love affair, and how there had been so many letters before that, all of them burned in an abundance of caution. about the sisters who'd worked together to piece the quilt hob sleeps beneath at night—how they'd posted it across the country back and forth to each other over years until it was finished
hob being living history. preserving it in himself. in his things. in his memories. in the memories and spaces he creates and curates
"People are almost always better than you think they are."
The Sandman series showed us many times that Dream is actually incredibly empathetic and curious toward humanity, which betrays his cold, stern countenance. This scene is my favourite example:
With her...vibrant vocabulary and attitude, Lou at first seems like a passing joke character, a Victorian stereotype. But Dream neither dismisses her nor seems annoyed by her. He's observing her intently.
Then Hob comes and sends her away. If you look closely, you can see Dream following Lou's reactions when she gets the coin.
Even though this is their long-awaited reunion after 100 years, her nickname is the first thing the audience hears Dream talking about. Dream looks sad and concerned.
And all of this was before he went through all the significant incidents that changed his outlook toward the worlds around him.
The Corinthian is, like, Dream’s dark mirror, right? Blond to dark haired, extrovert and outgoing to closed off and introvert, manwhore to aroace, Southern American Charmer to British Public School Educated Toff.
Gay af to whatever is this wetcat incel energy that Dream has.
It’s like he created Corinthian from all the parts of himself he didn’t want or care for, like some twisted sexy version of the Anu and Tathamet mythos.
What I’m saying is after Dream destroys Corinthian he has to reabsorbs him and then he remembers that a) he’s into dudes, actually b) he likes to fuck c) he knows how to charm the pants off someone, and this is how Hob Gadling finds himself getting dragged into the supply closet on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon.
Dream of the Endless in The Sandman | 1.01 "Sleep of the Just"
[ID: Two GIFs of Dream sitting on an ornate, throne-like chair in a dark room. Pale light frames his form through thin curtains behind him; he is a shadow with flickering, star-like eyes. End ID]
Obsessed with the idea of 1389-1889 Hob being asked to be Dream’s lover, husband, partner and agreeing but also completely misunderstanding the nature of their relationship.
Hob’s been around the block a couple (hundred) times, he knows what these words mean for a man like him. Men like them. He will be a kept man, a paramour, a secret, maybe a bit more open than not, depending on his Strangers’s social circle and the power he wields, but it’s not like their relationship can be official. What a preposterous idea! Maybe they’ll be able to carve out a little space for themselves where they will be able to be as open as possible. Weirder things have happened (says the immortal to an endless)
It’s possible that The Stranger already has a wife or a female lover and he can only hope they can be civil towards one another. Hopefully The Stranger has some sort of arrangement with her, he’d hate to be a source of awkwardness or some sort of revenge plot.
I’m guessing if Dream revealed his status as a king to 1389 and 1489 Hob, Hob’s train of thought would go something like this: “men can’t get married” “Dream is a king, kings can do whatever they want” “Dream can have a gay marriage, as a treat”.
Further than that things could get a bit more complicated (also 1589 Hob was a happily married man, I think he’d reject Dream, mostly because the 13/1489 Hobs would be attracted and mesmerised by his power, wealth and mystery while 1589 would have both in abundance and he was at this point getting used to the idea of The Guy Who Made Me Immortal just being there).
1689 Hob would probably agree to literally anything Dream would want and would not consider himself worthy of being anything akin to “a lover”, more like a servant with benefits (I have so many feels about 1689 Hob and Avelera’s Giving Sanctuary is blamed for all of them) - scrub the floor, chop the wood, suck my dick, wash the dishes; do well enough and you may sleep on the kitchen floor next to the fire tonight and not in the basement.
Which brings us to the MVP of their interactions - the 1789.
Imagine, if you will, that after fighting lady Constantine and her goons, Dream openly propositions Hob and Hob agrees to go with him. Dream transports them to his ridiculously lavish bedroom (either in the dreaming or somewhere in the waking world) and Hob has a decision to make - he can either start questioning things or take things in stride, get laid, and then question things. He chooses the latter.
However, after they are finished Hob notices that their clothes are neatly folded while he knows they left them rumpled on the floor and there are refreshments available that definitely were not there before. Dream makes an offhand comment that his servants must have come in and sorted it for them while they were busy. Hob has no problem with servants watching them have sex, he’s lived long enough to have been on both sides of this, but he is uneasy with the fact that Dream’s servants had seen him being intimate with a man. With Hob. This unease only grows when Dream offhandedly mentions that they are awful gossips and probably his entire Kingdom now knows that he has a new lover. (This is how Hob finds out that Dream is a King with a kingdom and subjects) Hob is devastated, because the last thing he wanted was for Dream to be ridiculed because of him but now his entire kingdom is aware that Dream has been with a man?
Meanwhile, Dream is literally writing invitations to a 10 day feast he’s planning to throw in the honour of his Lover, Maybe A Husband One Day Who Knows.
Seriously, tho: “Be my husband” “sure! I want nothing more to be able to call you…. wait what are you doing?” “Inviting people to our wedding” “Our what?!”
I'm sorry, but Hob, at the moment when he says that he would not like to drink alone here in the next 100 years, he pulls the earring in his ear... Maybe I'm stupid or weird, but it looks like a fucking flirtation, and Dream looks like he's responding to this flirtation.
Just. Dream granting Rachel a quiet peaceful death, also for Johanna’s sake. Dream holding John’s head as he gently lowers him on the bed despite everything that just happened. Dream smiling softly when dreaming Jed says he’s the Sandman. Dream endlessly fascinated by Hob Gadling’s stubborn desire to live. Dream, with indescribable emotions in his eyes when he takes a moment to look around the old Jewish man’s house and finds a photo of his days as a musician, Dream who gasped when he heard a melody he hadn’t heard in centuries. Dream, almost dying, finding the strength to warn John: “You’re hurting the dreamers.” Dream who has so, so much love for humanity, despite the hurt they inflicted on him, and only has to remember it exists
