#mason alexander park and their goddamn voice

[hansoeii]

desire

[catharsis-in-a-bottle]

thoughts on The Sandman (2022)

oh, you knew this post was coming. i haven't done a bullet-list-non-chronological-thought-post in a LONG time. so here i go! my thoughts on the sandman show, in no particular order.

(BEWARE: i have not yet read the comics, but now i intend to!!!)

first of all, i have not been so ENRAPTURED by anything in a long time. i binged watched for the first time with this show - i did NOT want to stop, and therefore made the poor decision to stay up until 5 in the morning - but it was worth it, i think, to have all the characters begin their lives in my head in one night.

let's talk about some characters, shall we? MORPHEUS! Dream of the Endless! (isn't that a badass name?) King of Dreams! i wanted him to smile so badly the entire time, and when he did - when he gave those tiny smirks around Death, and Hob, and i think some others - it truly paid off. an endless being who dresses in all black (rather like. neil gaiman) and speaks dramatically and never not once raises his voice... SO interesting, i want his outfits, etc.

the second one living rent-free in my various neural cortexes: THE CORINTHIAN! mainly because he's gay and looks cool, but we can go deeper than that. a nightmare personified! a nightmare who wants to be seen as something he is not - as a human! is that not THE queer metaphor? a nightmare who fears his destruction and whose creator says he was not made well? godDAMN!! also i want his outfits, etc, okay let's move on:

DEATH and DESIRE. death as an absolutely beautiful ray of sunshine giving comfort to the departed; desire as. as. a hot deceiver. what more can i say. death is wonderful and creates the BEST support for dream - she is the balance to his emo, you might say - and desire is just, you know, mason alexander park lol *dies on the spot*

LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR. is the lord of hell, and is very tall, and wears a leather jacket, and has an appetite for destruction. what more, pray tell, can i say. alright let's move on from characters because i want to talk about:

24/7. 24 fucking 7. the one that the comic fans, i have heard - and neil gaiman himself, for that matter - consider to be the darkest comic. and i've seen several of you say that the comic is darker than the SHOW, which is - astounding, considering i thought this episode was better than any horror movie i've ever watched. and it started off so innocently! i didn't know what to expect going in, and that made it SO MUCH WORSE when i understood what was happening. i think the moment where i just though 'yuck' and never stopped thinking 'yuck' was the "i fuck your son"; i literally just said "WHAT." and left my jaw hanging open for the entire rest of the episode. that is not a hyperbole - my mouth was open the entire fucking time. this is the world's darkest win for gay people, i guess. when everyone started going at it, i assumed the horror had stopped there - that the revelation of the truth led to new relationships, the ones that everyone actually wanted - BUT NO!!!!!! JOHN MCFUCKING DEE DID NOT STOP THERE!!!!! the idea that the revelation of our true desires leads to just... mass suicide in a diner, homicide, etc........ jesus fucking christ i LOVED that episode it slapped the shit out of my brain. i don't even know what that MEANS

anyway! *i brush the nonexistent dust off my shoulders* let's...... move on from that. i need to relisten to the soundtrack if i want to do any musical analysis, because let's face it, i was awake during the witching hours and i was NOT paying attention to those chord progressions. however, i DO remember that the music kept me engaged and fit very well with what was happening, so there's that.

this show also just, uh, slapped the shit out of my brain in ways i truly did not expect. because some of the moments were just so feel-good! the hob and dream sequence!!! (they're totally gay!) death!! rose and jed!!! and then there were just moments of - oh my god, the corinthian is taking jed into a serial killer convention. he's taking the 12 year old into a serial killer convention. jed's abuse at the hands of barnaby was also just one continuous 'YUCK' feeling; like, god, they really pulled that off didn't they. lyta's desire to leave the waking world to live with her husband in the dreaming.... her husband as a ghost in a place he is not supposed to be.... that is QUITE an exploration of grief, isn't it!! i'm going insane

three words: GREGORY THE GARGOYLE

i really love the juxtaposition of the endless and all the strange beings / creatures they encounter next to Humans Just Trying To Human. rose walker did not want ANY of this shit - she just wants to find her brother, maybe destroy part of the foster care system, have a nice apartment, etc. and then she meets dream of the endless, around whom you could not possibly act entirely human. john dee and johanna constantine truly feel like the in-between of "humans trying to human"; john dee has made himself into something not entirely human and is trying to put himself on-par with Dream, and johanna constantine is confidently facing demons. otherwise we have the endless, and dreams, and normal people. actually i suppose the corinthian is also one of the in-between - a nightmare who wants to exist as a human in the waking world, doing human things like Fucking That Girl's Housesitter

stephen fry was excellent as always. love when he gets to play an Extra British Man

let's talk about the queerness. i know this comic was queer from the beginning, and i cannot WAIT to experience that. i think there is a very subtle difference - a difference that we easily mistake, all the time - between queer characters added as tokens for representation, and queer characters added because the writers know and understand that queer people are a normal part of life. we may ask: is the queerness central to the plot? and in both these cases, the answer may be no; but one answers 'no' because the writers view the queerness as expendable or as a currency, and the other answers 'no' because the writers understand that queerness may be integrated into the story without being the story, that queerness is a fact of life. and i think we all know which one sandman is, and i deeply appreciate neil gaiman and everyone who worked on this show for that; it seems neil's been with us from the beginning, and learning along the way.

and with that, i will conclude this post. i love this show so much, and i cannot wait to get my greedy little hands on the comics.