#but there's something delightfully silly about getting meta asks about non-tv show elements when i am a tv pleb

[landwriter]

Saw some anon's headcannon about how Dream probably threatened a bunch of gods to make sure Orpheus was born healthy. What's your take on it? I personally love protective dad Dream and he IS overprotective, but in comics(I'm not sure if you've read them so I'm not gonna spoil anything) he always puts his function before his loved ones, and I don't know if he'd risk future diplomatic interactions or smth. What do you think?

the ask in question answered by @softest-punk.

Dream, as The Corinthian says, is ‘more than a god’ - he is apparently older and greater than gods - so I feel a bit, I don’t know, no threats or bribing needed. More sort of showing up, pointedly. His attention and presence is enough. I imagine Calliope, with her place among the Greek gods and goddesses, probably had healthy birth and blessings etc. pretty well covered, but I do see Dream as a fretting father-to-be. I imagine after the first few times showing up at whatever the supernatural equivalent is of the produce section of the neighbourhood grocery store just to aggressively lock eyes with any of the local deities whose functions concerned with Having Good Babies, Calliope probably got word and told him to cut it out. But he would fret, surely. He would. He is very, very ancient and as far as I know this is the first and only time he fathers a child.

He and by extension his realm must become shaped, in some ways, to his concern - he is the vessel of the entire unconsciousness, and I can see him, perhaps, during the first few months, going to Lucienne in a panic, after paying special attention to pregnant Dreamers - all those waking fears and hopes are already so complex! so wild! imagine if your only perception of them was those feelings too great and strange to be articulated while awake. “Can human children really come out as. A dozen frogs.” “No, my lord.” - “Is it true that if the unborn child is discontent, he will crawl out the mother’s mouth?” “No, my lord.” - “Lucienne, are you positive a child cannot stay in the womb forever? This is a surpassing frequent subject in the dreams of pregnant beings.” “Yes, my lord.”

The thing is, Dream does seem like he’d be rather the old-fashioned type about this, who would prefer to know nothing at all since he is Lord of Dreams, etc, etc, and has higher things to attend to, but the problem is he can’t really avoid the concept of it, so he is at once attempting to be distant and removed as usual, while having, on-tap, every single positive and negative feeling, every single great and horrific story, about pregnancy, about childbirth, about being a father.

I imagine, later in the pregnancy, his focus turns to dreams of children growing up, and who they become. I think he speaks to no one about this, but watches, over and over, the nightmares of parents whose children are born healthy, beautiful, and strong, whose children have great fates - as his surely will - and whose children disobey them, or fall in battle, or turn out to be cruel. I imagine he is haunted by stories of sons and their fathers. He will do better. He must. And all of it gets stored up and creates a feeling and a fear so great that it comes out the way it always does with parents: trying to exert agency over their child, and thus alienating them.

I think Dream, as a result of his function - not in spite of it - was fully unable to be At All Normal about both his imminent and then actual fatherhood. I think he must have had an eternity’s worth of hopes and expectations for his first son. I think that, among many reasons, is why Orpheus was his only son. I think whatever fears he has for subsequent romantic and intimate relationships, so well-represented in fanfic, would be leagues worse concerning the prospect of another child. I think whatever terrible lover and partner he thinks himself to be, he thinks far worse of his parenting. When your own stubbornness, your own propensity for Big Feelings, your own quickness to isolate yourself in grief - when these traits are carried on in your child, whether you recognize it at the time or not, and then Orpheus’ fate the result - how could he not? (But, of course, he does not blame Calliope for giving him her talent in music, or her fairness. So it goes.)

In the years after, he must have thought often on his old fears for Orpheus’ safe birth. How quaint his worries then would seem to him. A safe birth, when he could have been praying for a safe life.

[for reference - I haven't read the comics but I have seen Some Of The Panels Concerning Orpheus and the Orpheus Sandman wiki. One day I will set aside an entire day to weep and wail and gnash my teeth about the fact that was the task Dream mentioned to Hob, the task that Lady Johanna Constantine performed so 'admirably'. One day, I will set aside an entire day to think about how differently that conversation could have gone.]

#the sandman #dream of the endless #(m)orpheus #meta #an essay #i love getting meta asks #but there's something delightfully silly about getting meta asks about non-tv show elements when i am a tv pleb #and i am just whipping around in a dark room guessing shit #was the pregnancy covered in the comix? #was dream's reaction to baby orpheus? #was apollo's gift of the lyre? #what about orpheus as a surly teen #WHO KNOWS - many ppl but NOT ME #but will i still talk about it #you betcha buds #you will all know when i have read the comics because i will start producing angst and fix-it and canon divergence fics at an alarming rate