#the basic reason it exists in my stories is because Hob is emotionally more mature than any Endless

[lightdancer1]

The main reason I use Dreamling in my Death fics:

Is very straightforward. Hob Gadling is a Ford Pinto of a human being but he has an uncommonly grand emotional and psychological maturity. By the standards of the Endless he firmly has the emotional and psychological brain cell and serves as an audience commentator on Endless family dysfunction. His offering obvious solutions and a means to avoid dumbassery as a plot point, which in his absence would 100% be a thing both Dream and Desire would leap into fully and they still try to with him means that I have to work harder for my plots rather than going 'eh, it's Dream and Desire' and firmly wielding the dumbass ball.

Personally in terms of 'shipping' if i favor anyone or anything with Dream it'd be the Corinthian for both LULZ and the whole 'deity and creation' plotline because that's more interesting but that would also require me to actually write a story focusing on Dream, who I find both an asshole and ultimately a boring asshole next to Death, who is the Endless I prefer to write.

Dreamling lets me have Hob and the emotional and otherwise braincell firmly involved without needing a bunch of contrivances. And frankly given how much the Death tag turns her into 'person obsessed with getting her brother laid' I take some genuine amusement in having Dreamling take a specific plot-relevant role for each individual scenario it happens in and subverting mercilessly the whole idea that Death's idea had anything to do with Dream's sex life.

The Kavorka man of the Endless doesn't need the help to get laid, Dream has no problem finding lovers if he wants them. Dream leaping to the conclusions he does about her motives is because he's invulnerably self-centered and slow to realize that people outside him act for reasons unrelated to him, especially Desire of the Endless. Who I have more than once being misblamed but since it makes Dream angry to think they did the thing and it means they live in his head rent-free they just shrug and roll with it.

It also enables me having to avoid dealing with Dream's dubious canonical decisions and as a trans person I just don't care to acknowledge Thessaly the TERF at all except throwaway lines, so Dream and Hob leap right into the relationship thing and bypass that whole angle. Dream is a supporting character in my stories to Death's stories, instead of the other way around as in canon.

Dreamling is a good way to tell the stories I want to tell and as with every other ship, they are means to tell the story, not the other way around.

I also like the nifty little twist in all this that there's a bit of a running gag where Death ends up stuck in a bad situation and Dream goes to leap straight into Dreamling rather than drop everything to help her because I know that's a whole fanon thing and I just don't think Dream would. Why? Because he's a stickler for the rules and unless Death specifically asked him in a very direct fashion he would simply trust her to get out of things because she's perfect and flawless in every way and doesn't need his help.

That whole pedestal he has her on would make the 'Burgess or someone else captures Death' scenario boomerang in a very bad and entirely predictable way.