#I do think I get perilously close to Dream being OOC affectionate and caring in the series

[themirokai]

I was rewatching A Hope in Hell (fast forwarding through the John Dee parts, sue me) and the thing that my Matthew-obsessed brain latched on to was the conversation about Nada.

Because Matthew asks what the deal was after they leave her, and Dream… just straight up answers him! Just freely offers this very personal, emotionally fraught, and quite unflattering information. There’s no resistance, no arrogant remarks, no “I did not bring you here to question me”. Dream just tells him!

Obviously the Doylist explanation is that they’re not doing voiceover narration so they need to explain who tf Nada is to the audience and the episode has a set run time and they have much bigger stuff to get to and didn’t want to spend time on Dream stonewalling. But BUT there’s a cut between when they leave Nada and when Matthew asks about her, so that dialogue could easily have been written to imply that Matthew spent the intervening time trying to get Dream to tell him and Dream finally gives in. It would have used the same amount of screen time and served the same purpose. And while I’m very willing to assume that the writers/show runners of most shows just didn’t think of things, I’m completely confident that *these* writers and *this* show runner thought of *everything*.

Which gets us to Watsonian explanation, my beloved.

Dream was shaken by the encounter with Nada. Even though he knows that that’s what Lucifer wanted and says as much to Matthew, it worked! And Mr. Contains All The Emotions of the Multiverse And Must Hold Them Back is actually visibly upset. (But like, micro expression visibly upset cause it’s Dream.)

And then this defiant, obnoxious raven who refuses to leave Dream alone, asks about Nada and maybe something in Dream’s mind clicks back to the eons in which he had a raven confidant and he answers. He tells Matthew the truth. A succinct version of the truth, but the truth nonetheless. It may be the first time he’s talked about Nada in ten thousand years. And he chooses to tell Matthew.

And THAT is what I’m pinpointing as the canon jumping off point for Matthew the Emotional Support Raven. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#I do think I get perilously close to Dream being OOC affectionate and caring in the series #but I hope I’ve shown that affection growing over the series #and I do think what I’ve described here is a legit starting point in canon #matthew the raven #dream of the endless #matthew the emotional support raven #the sandman netflix #the sandman #miro does sandman #sandman meta #a hope in hell