#richard madoc

[currentlyonstandbi]

[writing-for-life]

The Thing About Daniel…

The whole point of Daniel is that he’s kinder and softer. He forgives where Morpheus wasn’t able to. It’s essentially on the page—he even forgives Alex Burgess and Richard Madoc: The very people Morpheus let hang in limbo, caught in their own worst nightmares. I’m not saying it isn’t deserved, or the reasons aren’t at least understandable, but choosing vengeance is still a choice. And Daniel chooses forgiveness and kindness, even for these people. It’s so explicit, even in the words he says to Lyta above:

“Vengeance is a road that has no ending.”

That’s why I personally dislike what some of the newer comics did to Daniel, because in my view, it goes against what is essentially the whole point:

If you turn Daniel into someone who chooses vengeance over forgiveness, hard feelings over kindness, you’re back to this:

And that would render both Morpheus’ and Daniel’s arcs pointless. It would do both of them a disservice. To one because he did learn, and understood enough about himself to come to a conclusion. To the other because he is both said conclusion and the solution.

The whole, deeply metaphorical point is that it’s about change, because Dream is still Dream, but with a new point of view while still remembering the old…

[teenagecriminalmastermind]

he fucked around and found out

[raggedy-spaceman]

They made him answer the same way as all the self described male “feminist writers” answer this kind of questions I’m obsessed.

[possiblyawesometmblr]

as a writer, i feel absolutely zero sympathy for richard madoc. you're really telling me this dumbass's plan was to sit down and have a novel just pour out of him from start to finish. man had two whole years to write a novel and he didn't even have an ATTEMPT at an outline. 70% of his problems could have been solved if he just sat down and brainstormed a simple outline first and the other 30% came from locking a goddess in his house. he didn't need calliope he needed a goddamn writing 101 course

[phoenixes-and-wizards]

honestly it just makes so much sense that of all the nine muses, dream fell for and married calliope, considering her realm of expertise involved invoking inspiration in others with her gifts, which is precisely what he does, they are literally perfect for each other, season 2 please give me more scenes of them together, that is literally all i’m asking for

[mayhaps-a-blog]

One of the things that struck me the most about Richard Madoc’s character is how strongly he built up the ‘feminist’ narrative around himself; he describes himself as a feminist writer, he writes strong female characters, he goes out of his way to demand equal representation of women and minorities in the movie deal... and yet. And yet.

He’s trying so hard to assuage his guilt at what he has done and continues to do that he builds this other narrative in his mind, where he can be the hero: our success, he calls it, what we’ve done, as if Calliope has shared in this somehow, as if he’s done anything but torment her. He’ll do anything for the nebulous concept of ‘women’ but not the one thing that would help the woman in his life, right here, right now.

He’ll do anything but mildly inconvenience himself. And isn’t that telling?

[lasaraconor]

[hopeidontgetaddictedtothis]

"You have met Morpheus."

I love how Calliope tells Madoc, "You have met Morpheus."

When we talk about someone from a dream, we usually say "I saw so-and-so," not "I met so-and-so" because we regard dreams as illusions: something that we see but don't engage with. But here, a dream is very much an interactive space where you can have a "meeting" with the King of Dreams.

[sandmancentral]

Countdown to Netflix’s The Sandman Favorite (vol. 1-3) issues (as voted by our followers) 9 → #17 Calliope (14,5%)

[thepjonerd]

The reason Richard Madoc couldn't get inspiration wasn't because he'd run out of ideas, it was because he didn't write while covered in blankets, wearing his fluffiest pyjamas and socks, while drinking a cup of peppermint tea.

[littlemissonewhoisall]

I think there’s an illuminating moment in “Calliope” which shines a light on a character who isn’t even in the episode. 

See, Madoc has been given the moral okay by someone he sees as an authority to take away someone’s own agency and violate them horrifically. He’s got this cognitive dissonance going on that because Fry said it was okay, and everyone is praising him for what he’s getting out of abusing Calliope, that it must be an okay thing to do. 

But then he’s given a chance. Morpheus doesn’t inflict his curse onto Madoc immediately, he appears and tells him flat out: “this is wrong.” He explains in no uncertain terms why Madoc is morally obligated to stop what he’s doing. But Madoc is in the end too selfish and cowardly to see past his own illusions, and so doesn’t heed Morpheus’s warning.

Now, there’s a similar scene in an earlier episode, where Morpheus speaks to someone else who’s allowed cognitive dissonance and social approval to give him “permission” to take the agency of others and cause horrible abuse to them: when Hob Gadling tells him about how he’s gotten into the transatlantic slave trade.

Like with Madoc, Morpheus lays out clearly and succinctly why what Hob is doing is wrong. But unlike Madoc, Hob listens. Hob, who was a bandit, a killer, and a scoundrel, still hears what Dream is saying and decides he’s right. That slavery and abuse is wrong. Now, obviously that’s like the bare minimum for being a decent person but it’s important to note that Hob’s decency has always been a little in question and he’s living in a society where indecency is encouraged on every level. But he proves that even so, he’s a better man than Madoc is. 

[teenagecriminalmastermind]

morpheus said "you want ideas? here's some fuckin ideas"

[just-french-me-up]

Another Sandman French dub gem :

Translators often have to make choices when translating from English to French between "tu" (informal) and "vous" (formal) because that distinction doesn't exist in Modern English. So they have to make the active decision of "ok so are these characters using formal or informal to speak to each other?"

When Dream confronts Richard Madoc about freeing Calliope, he starts with the formal "vous" when talking to him, and THEN switches to the informal "tu" at "Hold your tongue" because that is when the threat starts and formality goes out the window.

Dream's basically like "ok I did try to ask the polite way now let's go for the curse of WIPs, bitch"

And I just love that

[thesleepy1]

I would actually love to read about two old women taking a weasel on a holiday.

[honourablejester]

Watching the Sandman Calliope story, and maybe this is just everyone’s brains being different, but why the fuck do you need inspiration for ideas? Ideas are a dime a dozen! Read two books and watch a nature documentary and there’s at least 15 ideas in there. I just … If we’re talking a premise, a one sentence concept, ‘in the year 5000 there are werewolves on Mars’ or what have you, they are limitless. You don’t need a Greek goddess for that, just go for a walk and read some fiction that weekend.

I can see needing a muse for motivation. For the skill and energy and time and will to turn that premise into an actual story, to make the words flow and the phrases turn good. But the premise, the idea? Do you live in a box? Go outside for a while and read some other stories.

Like, is this just me being weird? Am I blessed by a good relationship to the muses and just think that’s standard? But everything Madoc says in that second presentation, when Dream’s already inflicted inspiration on him, that’s bang on. Ideas are everywhere. Stories are everywhere. Now, taking them and turning them into a printable manuscript that you could then actually show to people, that’s a different, hah, story, but if you just need stories to tell yourself at night to get yourself over the hump into sleep, or daydreams, or a premise to get you started …

I honestly have no idea how someone could run out? Writer’s block, I get, but that’s not having no stories to me, it’s having all my stories feel clumsy or irritating, or just no motivation to put any of them on paper/screen. Like, are my ideas good? Maybe not. But there sure are a lot of them.

I don’t know, maybe this is just my brain, but holy god Richard Madoc seems pathetic to me. I mean, he’s definitely supposed to be pathetic, but like even more so. You can’t even come up with an opening premise? Why do you want to be a writer if you have no stories to tell?

Not that there’d be any good reason to keep a Muse captive, and we’re not going to go into everything else that shows him for an absolute scumbag here. But just taking what he said, that he needs ideas. If it had been the motivation/fluency/translation-into-format problem, I’d at least sympathise a little bit. He still should have just hired a ghost writer like a normal person and just dropped his blurb/outline off with them, but at least he’d have done some of the work. But just. ‘I need her. If I didn’t have her, I wouldn’t be able to write, I wouldn’t have ideas.’ I am one with Dream’s face when those words came out of his mouth. An idea is the basic unit of storytelling. You can’t even reach step one?

I don’t know why this makes me so irrationally angry. But you can pick up ideas on a street corner. Just steal them like a normal hack! Ask 10 people in coffee shops what type of books they’d like to read and shake the results until a basic plot falls out. Read 10 short stories, pick your favourite elements of each of them, and throw them in a blender. Find an online concept generator, there’s loads of them!

And I get it, not every idea you come across is going to be one that you yourself can work with. But I’m just … If you can’t even come up with that much, did you make any effort at all?

And honestly. Saying this to the Lord of Dreams. The personification of the global subconscious. The personification of storytelling. No wonder Dream just downloaded an avalanche of concept fragments into his brain until he went mad. You want ideas? There are 20 million of them. Pick one and let us all get on with our lives, you pathetic sack of shit.

Wow. I’m just. Richard Madoc makes me angry? On a moral level, yes, absolutely, but also just on put some fucking effort in level. An idea? Just read. For fuck’s sake.

Sorry. I have a screaming headache today, and this man just annoys me. The amount of harm caused for the most pathetic reason. I cannot.