#it's so wonderful

[stardusted-bookworm]

I love, more than anything, the angst fic writers build into their stories about Dreamling. Even if it's the fluffiest thing ever, there will almost always be something where Hob says something along the lines of "I love you" and then freezes. There's a moment of panic, we can read it in his eyes.

And Dream is silent.

Because he is processing, allowing the idea of being loved to wash over him.

But Hob mistakes his silence for rejection and is, either silently or aloud, wishing that Dream won't leave.

Please don't go. I'm sorry. Don't leave. Not again. Is all that's running through Hob's mind.

My favorite instances of this are when Dream cups Hob's face, hearing his dreams. His silent wishes. He cups Hob's face and says, "Do you mean it, Robert Gadling?"

And Hob, understandably is a little confused because he had fully expected Dream to leave again.

"Y-yes. Of course I meant it. Obviously I meant it." Hob would chuckle, nervous. "You are my oldest friend and I... well I have been fond of you for quite some time as well."

And Dream would smile, a small thing. But it would be a smile nonetheless. And he would lean in, pressing a gentle kiss to Hob's lips.

This, of course, would fry Hob's brain, but he'd lean into it, not one to waste a golden opportunity.

"I must admit," Hob would mutter, unwilling to break the kiss for long, "people have said I am somewhat of an obsessive lover."

Dream would break the kiss, staring deep into Hob's eyes. "I would not have you any other way, Robert Gadling."

And Hob falls even more in love.

Anyway, I love the fics that are like that. I hope they never stop being made <3

#the sandman #dreamling #dream of the endless #hob gadling #i've been rewatching the sandman recently and i LOVE that episode with hob and death and dream #it's so wonderful

[golden-rats]

Another commission done!

I got the opportunity to draw @batcadillac lovely oc Kyrië. I saw him and am obsessed with his design. I'll protecc this ghoul with my life.

#Such a pretty boy #please check out their art #it's so wonderful #good soup #ghoul oc #the band ghost #rat scribbles

[evviejo]

inspired by this incredible artwork by @kellyerosen

#dwedit #doctor who #thasmin #yasmin khan #the doctor #thirteen #thirteenth doctor #survivors of the flux #the vanquishers #once upon time #the power of the doctor #mandip gill #jodie whittaker #my gifs #thasmin* #yaz* #thirteen* #please support the author of the original #reblog it!!!! #it's so wonderful

[sylvies-kablooie]

i appreciate that tumblr is so accepting of blocking people. other websites, people act like it's a personal attack. here i'm just like. bad take about my blorbo you are banished to the "i can no longer see you" realm.

#it's so wonderful #i will block people who post negativity about sylvie #shitpost #but also no really #we can and should curate our online experiences #it's what we deserve! #anyway back to sylvie posting

[onehundredandeleventropicalfish]

so, anyone who knows me from previous blogs knows i’m an absolute music nerd who’s worked on both film score and musical theatre book before (and is still working in that vein, though i’m combining it with script writing these days)

and, god, i would be doing such an injustice to whoever is writing the soundtrack for the sandman if i didn’t talk about it at least once, because it’s one of the best tv scores i’ve ever heard, i wanna teach this as an example of how to do it right

i’ll be here for days if i try to cram all of it into one post, so i’m gonna focus on episode six, the sound of her wings, because that’s the one that really gripped me

(under the cut though to save dashboards bc this is still me and it will still get long)

so, to break this down, there’s a lot of different ways to add musical motifs (leitmotifs) into tv, but sandman is a show that does it (mostly) by character. in this episode we see a lot of dream’s motif, death’s motif, desire’s motif, and a slight appearance of johanna’s when the earlier constantine shows up (hob doesn’t have one, but i’m betting that’s deliberate). which makes sense for such a character driven show, especially in a story that’s got many anthology aspects - not much stays the same in this show but the characters, they are the through-line, and even the changing characters from episode to episode help give each episode its own musical feel

(people have said that sandman would work better with weekly episodes than binging, and this is part of why - they're very self contained, each episode a new vibe, and whether you notice it or not the soundtrack is contributing to that)

back to our episode 6 breakdown - so this is death’s motif, in its simplest form. and (barring a little of dream's when he's explaining why he's upset) this motif is the only motif we hear in the entire first half of the episode

the reason i’d wanna teach this is mostly that it’s not easy, developing a motif without making it stagnant. it’s actually the first thing we ever covered when i studied music composition, because they really wanted to get it into our heads - anyone can make up a melody, but our brains notice patterns. and the really effective patterns consist of, at most, four notes. in a sense, the notation i’ve added above is actually the motif four times, just phrased as a question, a pause, a question, and an answer. and developing a motif into a score means changing it enough to give it direction, but keeping it similar enough that it’s recognisable. and that’s a hard thing to do! but we spend a full 20 minutes with just this motif, and it not only never gets boring, it’s developed into such a beautiful moving score, going from this very simple theme that just exists in the background to a huge emotional orchestral piece

and in terms of what it's actually doing character wise, i wanna focus on those gaps in the original. bc those are some long pauses between each three note repetition. and i think that is a good representation of death, and her patience, this theme isn't trying to rush you into anything, it's just sitting there reliably for when its time comes.

but as we go through that development, those pauses start being filled. it's still just as much about death as ever, but we understand it more. and the development starts to take on a more hopeful character the more of these snapshots of people's lives that we see. and the music is telling us how dream is feeling, as he goes from not understanding death, to learning a lot more about her, to being overwhelmed by how easy it is to care about these random people in the last moments of their lives, and how death isn't a bad thing

it simplifies back down, near the end of their walk, because she's still the same person she was at the start of the episode, it's dream that's changed, but it doesn’t go entirely back to the motif we heard at the start. those gaps are now filled by gentle woodwinds, the understanding remains. and as soon as we say goodbye to death (specifically “i thank you, my sister”), we switch immediately to dream's motif

(technically, dream has two, but i associate one more with dream and one more with the dreaming, so i'm talking about the former)

now, we’ve heard this one a lot already, it's the title music for the show, here it is for the sheet music fans (you may notice it’s asymmetrical, the contrary bastard)

and we’re about to hear it even more - it's playing constantly from that goodbye right up until the start of the flashback (in more medieval sounding instrumentation than usual, alluding to the fact that hob is at the forefront of his mind), and we’ll hear the same thing coming back out of the flashback, too

now, within each flashback scene, there largely aren’t repeating motifs. and i mentioned this was probably deliberate - the music we hear in the background of each scene is fitting to the time period, and i think that in a way is hob’s musical identity. the thesis statement of sandman as a story is that you have to keep changing to keep living, and you have to keep living to keep changing, it’s why hob’s never ending immortality isn’t angsty like so many other immortals - he’s going to keep changing and keep living and it’s always going to be worth it. so his musical identity changes too, relative to wherever and whenever he happens to be living.

but then we get the moments where dream’s motif overtakes that -

1389, we actually get death’s first, when we first hear hob talking about how death is stupid and he’s not going to die, and it switches to dream’s with “why would any sensible creature crave an eternity of this?” (and back to death’s with “very well, little brother”, all three play off each other for the rest of that scene)

1489 is very much hob’s scene, there’s elements of dream’s motif in the arpeggios that pick up after “it’s fucking brilliant”, because now he’s caught dream’s interest, but it’s still largely the 15th century music, we only hear dream’s motif properly once he gets up to leave, and hob has to shout after him “you never told me who you are!”

in 1589, it starts to creep into the music (though still in hob’s native instruments), when shakespeare says “to give men dreams that would live on long after i’m dead”, and it overtakes it fully when dream leaves the table

the only moment in the flashback sequence which doesn’t have era appropriate music, is 1689, when hob is telling the story of how miserable the last 80 years have been. the music matches his mood, but it’s using modern digital instruments - this isn’t hob, not really. and while there’s no element of dream’s motif in this scene that i can spot, when we get “death is a mug’s game”, that’s when we switch back to the 17th century instruments, because this is the hob we know, the one who is always willing to live, no matter what

1789, dream’s motif when dream says “you need not have come to my defense”, through to the rest of that scene, this one stands out as a moment where he's not grabbing power, but sharing it

1889, when else - it comes in with “then i shall take my leave of you and prove you wrong”

1989, it’s so faint. it took me a minute to actually confirm that was dream’s motif - it doesn’t show up at all in the main scene, but when we switch to the view of dream in the cage, we hear a very hidden version of it, changed to the point of being almost unrecognisable

and then 2022. and we hear it in full again, but not just it in full. it gets an orchestral, uplifting development, both in tribute to the fact that this scene is very hopeful and heartwarming, but also explicitly mimicking the development death’s motif had when dream was watching her work, realising how much he cared about these random people, realising how much he therefore cared about people he’d known for much longer. her influence and her lesson is extremely present here, as she was the one who pushed him into returning

and as that scene ends, the music overlays with Desire by Bob Moses and Zhu, which is the cleverest part of the whole episode

because yes, the song is named desire, and has the word desire in its lyrics, telling you who this is, and yes, in an episode that has so far been full of medieval or orchestral music, the EDM is a sharp vibe twist, which fits with both desire’s character and the fact that their gallery in the show is styled to be very modern art/avant garde compared to dream's more renaissance style

but that’s not all it’s doing

because here’s the thing about desire. they absolutely have a motif in this show, that plays in the background every time they are on screen or talked about. but it’s not a melodic motif.

desire’s motif is the sound of a heartbeat

(often with accompanying ambient synths, but no melody)

and you don’t notice it when you’re just watching for the story, but every time you see desire on this show, there is a heartbeat playing in the background. and if you listen to this particular song, the dance beat is also mimicking a heartbeat, allowing it to blend in perfectly with desire’s existing motif, which is also playing in the background here

it’s just. brilliant

#like this was the most surface level analysis i could do! this is a rabbit hole that just keeps going i could be here for WEEKS #it's so wonderful #maybe i just gotta start doing a series of music breakdowns #next week: the corinthian and how he gets existing songs rather than his own score/motif #to represent the fact that he's constantly trying to mimic humanity but isn't #the sandman #1x06 #dream of the endless #death of the endless #hob gadling #desire of the endless #mine #sandman score analysis #music

[gjdraws]

THE LOSTMAGICIAN WROTE FIC FOR THIS COMIC AND IT'S WONDERFUL PLEASE GO READ IT T_T

#lawrusso #cobra kai #dark lawrusso beloved!!!! #it's exactly what I imagined in my head!! #but also read the warning #not that the comic wasn't warning enough BUT #IT'S SO WONDERFUL #JUST SO MONTH OF OCTOBER #ANYWAY I WILL STOP PLEASE GO READ IT #fic rec #johnny lawrence #daniel larusso #the karate kid

[sunflowers-and-a-tardis]

i just finished a breathtaking and wonderful book that i have seen absolutely no one talking about. “untethered sky” by fonda lee is a 150-page fantasy novel and a heartwarming and beautiful exploration of friendship, understanding, nature, and revenge. i'm pretty sure i felt the entire range of possible emotions while reading it. please read it.

#untethered sky #fonda lee #books #reading #book recommendations #check trigger warnings as always #it's so wonderful #i don't know what to do with myself now that i've finished

[witchyvixie]

the feeling when BOYFRIEND

#i luv my bf #it's so wonderful #i'm sooooooo #hehehe #bunny <3

[cocksuki2]

i will never EVER stop thinking about the quote ”everything was beautiful. not that there was anyone to share it with, anyone to tell. just the beauty.” it will haunt me until i die. it will live in my bones and my blood and my being until i am dust. 

#i just.... i'll never stop thinking about it #i read this whole book in one night #and it was so fucking fantastic #i just... it is truly #this line... is so absolutely gut wrenching #i just #it's gonna live in me forever #the book is heaven by meiko kawakami btw #and it is a fucking MASTERPIECE #it's so wonderful #cal.gen #book.heaven

[beardedmrbean]

#more people should do this kind of thing #it's so wonderful #let everyone know they this is a full fledged member of the family

[running-in-the-dark]

I just went to the library that I used to go to as a kid, for the first time in almost twenty years. I remembered so many little details about it 😭 I saw books that I remember borrowing when I was like 8 or 9 😭

I was way too enthusiastic about it all with the librarian, but she didn't seem to mind 😅 and they still had my address from 20 years ago saved, that's so cool 😭

#this is just pure nostalgia for me #it's so wonderful #literally my favourite place on earth when I was a kid #and it's as lovely as I remembered #the only thing that sucks is that they have a TINY selection of books in English #but I still got three of those so it's enough for now #plus I got like 12 mainly art related books #I've decided I'm finally going to try knitting socks again so I got a few books for that too #I'm very excited right now lol

[bestiasilvanus]

Humanity really is such a beautiful thing when left to our own devices. We will do so much just because

There are thousands of people so passionately dedicated to finding and preserving lost media just cuz we can. We want to keep our history. Just because

There are just as many people dedicated to playing games as fast as possible. Or using as few game items as possible. Just because. There's no monetary gain to be had. People just do this for fun. And keep finding ways to improve times and break records and help others to do so as well. Just because

People will create and do and be in so many different ways. Just because we care about ourselves and what we do and what we're capable of.

I really do hope I live to see a world where we can fully be ourselves and spend all of our time doing things we like just because we can.

#I can't sleep bc I had a coke b4 bed #But man... The depth of human spirit and love and curiosity is something sososo special. I really do think that's what it means to be human #Our capacity to exist in this world with so much fervor for what it has to offer. Fully exploring it and ourselves #It's so wonderful

[niemernuet]

❤️ you‘re the best mutual a girl could wish for. so happy i met you!!

Thank you so very much. 😍😘 You're the best Valentine and mutual I could ever wish.

#it's so wonderful #thank you 💗💗💗

[monotonous-minutia]

I like paperback books because I can hold them in one hand leaving my other hand free to pet kitties

#random #reading #kitties #callie is in my lap right now as i reread a wizard of earthsea #it's raining outside and my windows are open and im sitting in my rocking chair in my bedroom #it's so wonderful

[ourbastardofsorrows]

i love when i can hear a storm slowly getting closer and closer

#tia text #we're finally getting the big storms we get in the summer! #it's so wonderful

[notbecauseofvictories]

A customer contacted our team with questions, and then finished their email with: "I am daunted by the complexities and unknowns." I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

#no wonder the company has to secretly manipulate you #(which is my career tag; it is a quote from a tv show fyi) #(there was some confusion about that! it's from better off ted. just. so you know.)