writing-for-life

[writing-for-life]

Understanding Our Emotional Investment in Stories

Why Morpheus’ Death Hurts So Much

I’ve been a Sandman fan for decades and definitely had my fair share of crying over that story (despite not wanting it to end differently), so I’m the last person on the planet who doesn’t understand the grief about Morpheus’ death. I’ve also worked as a stage actor and still teach voice production to this very day. To top it all off, I’m a practising and teaching psychotherapist (yeah, don’t ask me about my weird life where I wear different hats on literally every day of the week and then have to reshuffle it all again when the new academic year starts 🙈🤣). So it probably surprises no one that I have a lot of thoughts about the intense emotional reactions we’re seeing in the Sandman fandom at the moment, from all sorts of angles. And I want to make it super clear that I write this not from a place of judgment, but from a place of deep love for stories, storytelling media, the human psyche and how all of these intersect. And maybe also to look at what happens when those connections feel threatened. If that kind of exploration isn’t for you, you think topics like psychological displacement might make you uncomfortable and/or you’d rather process on your own, this is the exit sign…

I think many of us are at the point right now, or have been in the past, when a story we love takes a turn we didn’t expect or want. Sometimes it’s disappointment. Sometimes it’s sadness. But sometimes, it’s something much more intense: rage, depression/despair, or feelings so overwhelming they spill into our interactions with fellow fans and/or our daily lives.

If you’ve noticed particularly strong reactions in our corner of fandom lately, you’re not alone in wondering what’s happening. A lot of people are struggling with very intense emotions around a fictional character/narrative right now.

And that’s because our brains are really quite sophisticated storytelling machines, but they’re also somewhat indiscriminate about what feels “real”. When we become deeply invested in characters and stories, our neural networks fire in ways that mirror real relationships and experiences. The attachment we form to Morpheus, for instance, can activate the same brain regions and hormones involved in our attachments to real people.

So when something happens to a character we love, our brain sometimes processes it similarly to loss or betrayal in our actual lives. The grief is neurologically real, even if its source is fictional.

These, albeit one-sided, emotional connections feel genuine and meaningful to many of us. And they can provide comfort and even models for understanding ourselves and the world. And at the end of the day, that’s the purpose of story.

For some of us, Morpheus represents something very specific: hope for change, the possibility of growth, or perhaps a mirror of our own struggles with identity. And we therefore get invested in the hope that everything will turn out okay for him. Because of course we want to be okay.

So what happens if a character’s arc doesn’t align with our emotional needs or expectations? It can unfortunately feel like personal rejection or emotional abandonment. Or very real hurt.

For some people, stories can serve as fictional spaces where they feel they have more agency than in real life, and you might understand where I’m going with this: It’s a lot of fun to theorise, predict, and imagine outcomes. We invest mental energy in hoping for specific resolutions (the collective sleuthing about every breadcrumb in the lead-up just shows you what I mean 😉). But when the story or adaptation diverges from the narrative we have built in our heads, it can trigger a deep sense of powerlessness that also echoes frustrations from other areas of life.

And that’s particularly acute in adaptation situations, where we feel we “know” how things should go, or we’ve built expectations for the narrative outcome for three years (maybe longer if we’d hoped the show would diverge from the comics—that’s a long time to convince ourselves of a certain outcome). And then those expectations aren’t rewarded.

Projection and Personal Meaning

We inevitably see ourselves in the stories we love, and that’s not a bad thing at all. Sometimes we project our own traumas, hopes, or unresolved conflicts onto characters and their journeys. But when the story resolves in a way that feels counter to our personal healing or growth, it can reopen psychological wounds or challenge our coping mechanisms.

Especially those of us who saw Morpheus somewhat as a metaphor for their own possibility of change, his death can subconsciously feel like a statement about their own capacity for growth.

And his loss can feel just as acute as real-life grief for some people, particularly if they’ve also made experiences with loss in real life. But it’s also a grief that society often doesn’t recognise as valid because “it’s just a story”. And yes, it is just a story, and we should be aware when it starts to affect our mental health and step back if that’s the case. But it’s also important to say: it’s okay to mourn.

And during that process, it can help to consider what the story might represent in us. Sometimes, our intense reactions point to deeper needs or unresolved feelings in our own lives.

Our fellow fans can provide understanding, but we need to be mindful not to project our anger or pain onto others who might have different perspectives. And I’ve seen that happening quite a lot over the past weeks. Just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean we have to be at each others’ throats.

Sometimes, the best thing we can do for ourselves or others when emotions run too high is to step away from discussions, mute tags, or take breaks from online fandom spaces entirely. I mean, I constantly filter tags, follow/unfollow and block/unblock people, but 9/10, it has nothing to do with the person behind the blog but everything with me, and what I don’t want to see at that particular point in time. I remember blocking a lot of people when a certain event affected several fandoms on here. But that wasn’t because I had a problem with those people but rather because I simply couldn’t stomach to see that stuff on my dash anymore, and no tag filtering got a hold of it. So if someone posted a lot about it, they got “muted” (and I often unblocked them again after a while). We owe it to ourselves to curate our fandom experience in a way that makes us feel happy, not constantly exhausted.

And on that note: Mutual support is great, but it can also very quickly turn into an echo chamber that takes on an “us vs them”-dynamic just because we don’t agree about certain points. When that gets entangled with projecting our feelings on people we don’t even know (but we presume they surely can’t have life experience X “like we do”), it gets ugly.

Everyone’s relationship with a story is personal. What feels like betrayal to one person might feel hopeful or otherwise meaningful to another. And that’s okay (as long as communication around it stays respectful).

The Role of Displacement

One of the most significant psychological processes at play in intense fandom reactions (and particularly the ones that don’t always stay respectful) is probably displacement, which is essentially a defense mechanism where emotions from one situation get redirected toward a different, often “safer” target. And stories do provide a psychologically safer place to express difficult emotions than their original, real life sources. It’s often easier to rage about an adaptation (and at someone while hiding behind a screen) than to confront feelings of powerlessness about our job, relationship troubles, or social injustice. Fiction gives us a contained space where we can feel and react without the complex consequences that come with addressing real world problems.

And I’d hazard an educated guess that one of the most common displacement patterns in fandom has to do with control and agency: If someone feels powerless about something in their personal life, they might become intensely angry about narrative choices they can’t change because they trigger the same sense of helplessness. And I’m not talking about a simple, “That made no sense, what were they thinking?” here, but rather anger and disappointment so profound that it basically makes us mentally and emotionally unwell.

But it’s not that alone. If we’re dealing with real-world rejection or loss, we might experience a character’s death as a deep betrayal, and we feel loss and abandonment all over again.

And those of us who experience a lot of unfair treatment in their daily lives might channel that frustration into arguments about what characters “deserve” or how stories “should” resolve. And we have those arguments with people who are in no way responsible for those narrative choices and just see things differently—for reasons that aren’t inherently less valid (that’s why I always want to encourage people to stop generalising what kind of storytelling “we” need in “these times”. There is no “we” in this context, and times have quite frankly always been shit, just in different ways).

In short: If we feel unseen or invalidated in our daily lives, characters we identify (or at least strongly empathise) with suffering, dying or not getting what we feel they deserve can feel like personal attacks on our worth or existence, even if we’re not consciously aware of it. And it takes a lot of reflection and inner work to start noticing when these things are happening, and that they aren’t truly about the story, but about us.

It’s worth gently checking if we might be experiencing displacement when emotional reactions to a certain story feel much more intense than our usual responses to fiction. Or if we find ourselves obsessively thinking about the “narrative injustice”. Or if our anger and grief feel urgent and personal, as if the story choices were deliberately meant to hurt us. Or if we even experience mental and physical symptoms (like insomnia, agitation, or a bout of depression or anxiety brought on by a show or book).

Sometimes, working through the feelings the story brought up can actually help process whatever is bugging us in real life. Other times, addressing the root causes can diminish the intensity of our reactions to fiction. In any case: If it’s particularly severe, it’s absolutely worth talking with either your therapist or a person you trust.

Stories are a gift, but you don’t have to accept it

Ultimately, our capacity to be moved deeply by stories speaks to something beautiful about human nature: our ability to empathise, to find meaning, to care deeply and to invest emotionally in experiences and people beyond our immediate reality (I tangentially wrote about this here as well).

Stories matter because we are meaning-making creatures. The intensity of our reactions (both positive and negative) is often proportional to how much we need the story to represent something important in our own lives, even if that intensity feels disproportionate looked at on its own.

I think it’s possible to hold space for both the genuine pain that story losses can cause while also recognising that seeing things differently, and taking from a story what we need (that includes rejecting a story and moving on before it upsets us too much), are part of what makes fandom a deeply human experience.

[writing-for-life]

Hey folks.

Here's my take on Hippolyta "Lyta" Hall in her Fury aspect, as seen in season 2 of Netflix's The Sandman.

I hope y'all enjoy it, and I wrote some thoughts on the character which you can find on my Patreon, as well as more pics of the artwork. Give it a look and let me know what you think, here or there.

[writing-for-life]

I had fun with this edit of Sandman characters to songs from a famous French musical, but there was one song I couldn't edit back then. Now, I need to grieve, and the song fits perfectly. Therefore, may I present...

So this is goodbye | Requiem for a Dream

Watch on YouTube here

Translation by me – All rights to the show and song to their creators

[writing-for-life]

THE SANDMAN

SEASON 2

[writing-for-life]

I was so glad when they finally gave us that shot (I was starting to get a bit worried they wouldn’t) because it’s absolutely everywhere in the comics. And I think it’s so, so important, for a million reasons…

😩😢can we talk about how when Daniel meets the family they have a special window in the room for dreams Star ⭐️ I missed it on first viewing

[writing-for-life]

TL;DR: I don’t think Allan Heinberg understood some parts of the story. Or if I charitably assume he did, he was at least excruciatingly careless and sloppy about certain aspects of bringing this to the screen. In more detail:

Honestly, I think this was my major gripe with S2. It’s done now, and it’s not like I hated it. There’s a lot of really beautiful cinematography, acting, and some of the changes even bettered the source material in my view.

But I also felt that some changes made the narrative incoherent. If people didn’t really focus and scrolled their phones while watching (which Netflix writers have to cater for by their own admission), they might not have noticed. But if you only paid a modicum of attention, you couldn’t help but go, “WTF?” half of the time. It made no sense. And I mean: It was actively contradictory. Not in the sense of “contradictory to create narrative tension”—that’s an actual narrative device, and IMHO, they used that, too, e.g. via hinting at Morpheus’ passive suicidality after his son’s death that was sometimes directly contradicted by what he was doing and what else was going on. I know it’s unimaginable to some, but it is possible (and in suicidal people not even uncommon) to want to live and die at the same time, and actions (or lack thereof) can reflect exactly that tension. It was just a lot more subtly portrayed than in the comics. I’m just not sure if it was helpful for those who always wanted a different ending because some of it naturally created hopes/expectations in that particular segment of the audience, who will have picked up a lot more on the offered hopeful moments than the equally present moments of the other, but that’s a different topic I’ve already addressed. I guess what I’m trying to say here is: I have what you could call an intimate knowledge of (passive) suicidality, both from professional and personal experience. And while I did pick up on those tones in the show, I couldn’t even say if that was a) what they truly wanted to go for and b) even if they did, if it was a good idea to do it like they did because I could have told you in advance that the majority of people would pick up on the hopeful tones much more (also because large parts of fandom were biased towards a different ending for the past three years), which IMHO created emotional whiplash.

But back to the real, obvious blunders like some of those things you’ve already mentioned. They were glaring and abrasive for everyone who just paid a tiny bit of attention (like vast parts of the Nada story and ridiculous amounts of dialogue involving Lucienne, Fiddler’s Green, Morpheus and Daniel). And the only question I could ask myself was:

How?

How did they not notice? Or if they did (which honestly: They’re screenwriters. I can’t believe they didn’t, but maybe I just believe too much in people’s ability to think, and to spot narrative inconsistencies and plot holes), WHY ON EARTH did they not remedy it? What was the thought process here? Or was it a problem about having different writers, and the left hand didn’t know what the right was doing? But isn’t that what a show-runner is for? To keep it all consistent, to lay out the overall vision? And I’ll say something now that I never thought possible even just a month ago:

I don’t think Allan Heinberg entirely understood the story. I always thought he did, but after reading his recent interview with Paste Magazine, I had to come to the conclusion that he maybe just… doesn’t?

Or if he does, maybe he had a different vision about what he wanted to do with Morpheus’ character (and you can love or hate that vision I guess). But if that’s the case I think he didn’t hold the reins tightly enough and was careless. And that quite frankly sucks, no matter how you turn it…

rewatching the end of s2 and damn the writers could NOT commit to anything could they. lucienne talks about dream changing before her eyes but then says he couldn’t change. dream 2.0 says he’s not daniel but then tells lyta he’s still her son despite corinthian earlier talking about how the baby was burned away and that that’s not daniel. he says what was mortal in Daniel was burned away but then lucienne says he’s partly human.

and it’s not even a case of “it’s nuanced! the writers know it’s complicated!” it’s just the writers being completely unable to decide which is true because they want BOTH to be true but the point is that it doesn’t work like that. smh. I really feel like they didn’t understand their own story.

[writing-for-life]

Potentially controversial opinion about Sunday Mourning (maybe not for people who still feel upset, so proceed at your own peril)…

I don’t think Sunday Mourning ever was about what became of Morpheus. It was about Hob. It was about closure for him. It was about grief and how we keep the ones we love alive in memories and dreams. It was a “dream gifted by Dream” (Daniel, who has all of Morpheus’ memories, and who also just met Destruction, who is walking the stars while Morpheus has become one, and he points at the sky several times). And that’s been implied with movie concept art, but I’m not sure whether we even needed that?

These three men/concepts also share the theme of “Your life and death are your own”. All three of them chose—one got out choosing life, the other choosing death (but truly, it’s transformation), the third chooses life for now and probably always will but can decide otherwise if he wishes to. It’s about choice. And all three of them chose what gave them peace/closure/whatever-you-want-to-call-it.

I personally don’t think Hob’s dream ever was about Morpheus living on somewhere and walking off into the proverbial sunset (he even nods when Hob asks him if he’s dead). And I could dig out an interview with the creator that Hob’s dream exactly mirrors his own experiences with the death of someone, and how he woke up from it with the deep realisation that person was truly gone and then finally felt at peace with it, but I’ll spare you that one for obvious reasons. If you feel so inclined, you can find it on my blog though…

Just like the whole of the Sandman, at least in my opinion, isn’t just about Morpheus, or about change or about hope. It is also a contemplation on grief. Many times over. And life (even if people are hurting right now and understandably struggle to see it), and how we keep on living even if we’re hurting over deep loss. About processing the stuff that cuts us open and seems senseless. It’s basically about everything people in fandom are feeling right now.

I simultaneously think it’s sad we are losing sight of so much of those deeper parts of the story, but I also understand that people are disappointed and wanted Sunday Mourning for the ambiguity they perceive in it. I just personally never found it ambiguous, and if I look at the show, I felt that Hob got the closure he needed in ep. 11 (and I got mine as well, already in ep. 10, but I think I sat with this story for so long that I didn’t expect anything else, so I’m not the best example because I’ve always been at peace with how it ends).

Maybe after a bit of time has passed and people had time to mourn, fandom can also get that closure via art, fic or simply moving on…

[writing-for-life]

So I dug out my completed community bingo sheet, and I cackled so hard. What a mess…

With a lot of good will, I might have completed one column, but I won’t count it since the nod to Exiles was so small that people who haven’t read the comics (and maybe even those who only read them once) wouldn’t even notice. It certainly wasn’t remotely close to make it really obvious. And the Hempel Morpheus & TKO was also extremely subtle, but it was there, so I’ll count it.

Some of these choices I honestly don’t get. Especially that they didn’t give us the chair. That the Shakespeare volumes weren’t truly used as bookends. Others would have been a lot of fun, but they were more in unhinged headcanon territory.

All in all, it’s done. It’s a beautiful show, I got a lot of what I wanted and was disappointed in a lot of choices, too. But I still have the comics, and I’m ok with seeing the show as a sort of standalone thing that succeeded in some ways and failed in others…

What about everyone else? Did you have a bingo sheet (even if just in your head?)?

[writing-for-life]

I will never forget you, Nada.

[writing-for-life]

That’s just me every time I try to pick up something today. I don’t look as graceful dropping stuff though…

[writing-for-life]

Hello! May I ask what do you think made Sandman Season 1 episode 11 work in comparison to the other changes made in the Netflix show?

I’m a woman, so to me, it was mostly about leaving Calliope’s dignity intact. And the changes were small, but I think they were meaningful. We don’t need to see Calliope running around naked, we don’t need to see the actual rape taking place. I think it was enough to imply it.

I guess you could say that sometimes, we need to show things to grasp the true horror of it, and I partly agree. I just don’t think this was one of those cases, and I’m glad they made those changes.

I also think it was the right choice to show the unresolved feelings, especially those of grief, between Morpheus and Calliope. Their comics relationship was shown as much colder, especially from his side (even if he freed her), but that’s probably a matter of taste, and I would have been okay with either take.

None of these changes led to narrative inconsistencies like some of the changes made to S2, where we were shown one thing but told another, or where they changed things narratively but didn’t change the dialogue from the comics, and it stopped to make sense. And none of the changes to S1.11 felt like they thought we were totally incapable of perceiving nuance or subtext ourselves (the exposition and “telling over showing” in S2 was really excruciating at times).

I think A Dream of a Thousand Cats was very close to the comics and beautifully done, so no notes on that one.

[writing-for-life]

Dream and Matthew—RV Aguilar

[Process in Source Link]

[writing-for-life]

The Pillars of Creation

New chapter has dropped, link to Ao3 here if you prefer. More links to whole series etc at bottom of post.

Fandom: The Sandman (Netflix/Comics) Characters: Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, Thalia Callaghan (OC), Delirium of the Endless, Matthew the Raven, Desire of the Endlesd Pairing: Dream/OFC Rating: M

Content Warnings: Minor character deaths (mentioned), canon typical violence (mentioned), anxiety/panic responses, mild language, mental manipulation

Chapter 8: Love and War

“Over there, over there, that’s where the dancing lady is!” Delirium shouted, and Thalia just about managed to take the turn while narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic.

“You need to give me a bit more warning the next time,” she grunted, “I can’t just turn like that.”

Delirium cackled. “What’s supposed to happen, it’s not like any of us can die.”

“You two can’t, not so clear-cut for the rest of us,” Matthew cawed in very apparent disdain. “Besides, everyone else can, and it’s not exactly something we do—endangering other people with reckless driving.”

“Thanks, Matthew, at least someone gets it.”

“Yeah, well, about that… Not the best driver in my time, as I said.”

Thalia threw a glance at Morpheus, who was just pinching the bridge of his nose in his usual manner, and he probably rolled his eyes behind his firmly closed lids.

She turned into the car park and shut off the motor. The big signs reading “girls” and “beer” didn’t exactly leave much doubt as to the nature of the establishment, neither did the pink “Suffragette City”-neon sign that displayed enough tits and arse to last anyone a lifetime. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Oh,” Matthew exclaimed excitedly, “I haven’t been in a place like this since I had hands.”

Morpheus glared at him, and Thalia couldn’t help but snort.

“My wife didn’t mind, I swear,” he protested. Then he clicked his beak. “Well, okay, maybe she’d have minded if she knew. Anyway, are we going in?” He perched on Morpheus’ shoulder.

“Certainly.”

“Cool!” Matthew sounded a bit too happy.

“Tiffany’s here!” Delirium squealed. “And the dancing woman. And they aren’t dead or exploded or anything.”

Morpheus looked at Thalia with a roll of his eyes. “I am relieved to hear it.”

“Are we all going in, or…” Thalia leaned in and whispered into his ear. “Isn’t she too young?” He just raised his eyebrow and could hardly keep a straight face. “Sorry, I meant: too young looking.”

“We shall see.”

And see they did: When they arrived at the door, the bouncer immediately squared up. “Where do you all think you’re going? You’re definitely not taking that bird in there.”

“He’s not a bird,” Delirium piped up, “his name is… um…” Her voice trailed off.

The bouncer looked at both Thalia and Delirium. “Listen, you wouldn’t like it in there. And I don’t want the customers to get uncomfortable.”

Delirium protested, “But we’re friends of Tiffany’s!”

“She gets off work at 1:00, come back then.”

Delirium still didn’t give up. “But I want to see the dancing.”

He started to lose his temper. “See that sign there? ‘The management reserves the right to refuse admission’? Well, that’s what I’m doing. Now piss off! And take your bird with you.”

Thalia put her hand on Delirium’s shoulder. “Come on, we should…”

That’s when Morpheus stepped in. Or rather right in front of her. “Excuse me…” And the moment she heard the tone of his voice, she knew exactly what he was doing. “If you reflect for a moment, it will occur to you that we are four adult males, attired in conformity with local standards. And you are only too pleased to invite us into your establishment.”

The bouncer’s expression was dazed when he opened the door and said, “Well, have a great night, everyone.”

Thalia couldn’t help but grin as they walked in. “So, what did I look like to him?”

“Threatening enough not to want to get involved with you.” Morpheus gave her a sideways glance. “Or perhaps desperate enough for what this establishment has to offer.”

“Arse,” she laughed quietly, and he just shrugged his shoulders with a barely hidden smile.

As they walked in, Thalia immediately felt the heat, smelled the sweat of the bodies around her. It was overwhelming because she hadn’t walked the waking world for so long, and especially not a crowded place like this. The music was too loud and thumped in her ears, the flashing lights and the smell of alcohol and smoke made her feel dizzy. Something burned in her throat, and she coughed. She wished for something as simple as a glass of water but forwent the urge to order.

Everything felt wrong.

Three more or less naked girls were writhing on the stage, one blonde with curly hair, one extremely petite with a black geometrical bob, and a taller one with long brunette hair.

“Look, that’s Tiffany!” Delirium shouted in her ear while pointing at the blonde. “She looks smaller from outside her head.”

Morpheus fixed his gaze on the brunette, who seemed immediately uncomfortable, despite probably not being able to see him. Her dancing began to turn insecure, out of time, until she just ran offstage.

Thalia watched him closely. He knew her, so much was clear, so she just decided to be upfront about it. “Who is she?”

He chose to communicate without talking, maybe so he wouldn’t need to raise his voice over the noise, maybe so no one else would hear. “Her name is Ishtar—at least that is one of her many names. When Delirium spoke of a dancing woman who knew my brother, it never occurred to me it would be her. I last saw her 2,000 years ago. My brother and Ishtar were lovers. She was a bad influence on him, and…”

“Did he love her?”

“I fear he did, but I haven’t changed my opinion.” His jawline hardened. “I will need to speak to her. She might know where he is. But something isn’t quite right.” He looked at Thalia and briefly ran his thumb across her cheek. “Wait outside.”

Thalia snorted. “You are not seriously sending me out into a dingy old car park in the middle of the night, are you?”

Morpheus took her by her shoulders. “You should not be in here, trust me. Please go.”

“Is that supposed to convince me?”

“I will not discuss this any further.”

“But if you’re staying, I’m…” The dizziness was setting on quickly and heavily, and she lost consciousness…

When she came to, she found herself at the far end of the car park, slumped against a mesh fence. It took her a moment to collect herself, and she felt like she had been hit over the head with a hammer. It was clearly his doing, and a quick flash of anger surged at the thought he would do this to her without her consent. Only for it to be replaced with genuine worry. Because he wouldn’t have done it if he hadn’t been concerned, if he hadn’t thought about her safety. And she couldn’t see Morpheus, Delirium or Matthew anywhere. It made her feel even more anxious because it meant they were probably still inside. So why wasn’t she?

“And I only am escaped alone to tell thee…”

The voice had startled her, and when she turned to face whomever it came from, she looked at the potentially most physically attractive man she had ever seen. He wore a sharp trouser suit and looked at her in a way that eerily reminded her of Morpheus when she had first entered the throne room: curious, interested, but also with a type of disdainful haughtiness and yes, pity, that she found hard to stomach.

“Can I help you?” she asked with a deep frown.

He gave her a little chuckle. “Oh, I don’t think either of us need any help. At least you got out of there before she goes critical.”

“What?”

His eyes fixed on the club for a moment, seemingly weighing up options she was not privy to. “You know, she still really loves him. Even now, he is all she is thinking of, I can feel it.” He popped his lips. “Poor thing. He was the only one she ever loved who wasn’t all used up in thirty, forty years.”

Thalia’s patience began to wear thin. “Listen, I don’t know who you are or what you’re on about, so why are you talking to me?”

He flashed a smile before he got serious again. “I tried to tell them, Thalia. They wouldn’t listen.”

This was getting too close for comfort. “Do I know you? How do you know my name?”

His eyes shone in the most intense golden hue, and he reached out his hand to touch her face. She didn’t even flinch; the moment his fingers came in contact with her skin, she knew. “You’re Desire.” And without a second thought and out of sheer impulse, she smacked him right across his face. “You fucking piece of shit!”

He changed right before her eyes, enough to make it hard to tell if they were a man or a woman. Right now, they seemingly had stopped being either. And while Morpheus wouldn’t have taken too kindly to being struck in earnest, Desire just laughed and seemed genuinely amused. “Atta girl, give it to me straight! But you have to admit: I helped out quite a bit, didn’t I?”

“When did you ever help me?” They looked at their fingernails. “How’s the old sex life going? Fine, I assume? Still hurts to be apart, doesn’t it? And tell me, does it hurt even more when that aching little spot in your core isn’t… filled?” Thalia swallowed hard and couldn’t look at them, and she felt anger directed at herself burning white-hot in her chest. “I thought so. You’re both doing so well, especially Dream. It makes for a nice change. He usually doesn’t handle giving in to his baser instincts without major drama, but you really got him off…” They smirked. “Bad pun. True, though. And it seems to stick this time. Admirable work, darling.”

“He told me everything, and it gets to him. You and Despair had no qualms about using me in your petty little chess game with your mother. I am happy where I am, but I died because of you.”

They tutted. “Oh dear Thalia, you would have died anyway, Mother would have taken care of that.” They bit their lip. “You, in fact, probably took care of that yourself because you just couldn’t let it go. You just had to be with him, didn’t you? Desire and Despair, just natural consequences. We only did what we do—hang around when you call us.” They gave her a guttural little laugh. “And since the proverbial had already hit the fan anyway, we only made sure that everyone involved got the most satisfying outcome possible: We turned the table on our mother, you two are together for good—isn’t that all that matters? And dare I say: I might even be a bit… happy for you, sister.” Their smile seemed so fake that Thalia found it challenging to hold on to her composure.

“Just don’t!”

Desire’s gaze zoned in on the club again. “In any case, I should take my leave, because some people truly aren’t bright enough to come in out of the rain.” They sighed. “If both of them were smart, they’d never have stirred things up.”

“Stirred up what?” Desire just leaned in and kissed her cheek. And this time, Thalia did flinch. “I’ll see you around, my sweet sister.”

And with that, they were gone.

Thalia stared into the distance, trying to collect her thoughts, and even more desperately attempting to calm her intense anger. But she didn’t get very far—a deafening sound made her cry out in shock, and she felt a wave of intense heat that seemed to move right through her. When she turned around and looked at the club, her heart would have stopped if she still had one:

Suffragette City was gone.

No, gone wasn’t the right word. It was in ruins, completely obliterated, a mangled mess of steel, corrugated metal sheets and whatever else was sticking out from the pile of rubble that was still burning. The cars closest to it were up in flames, the alarms of some others were blaring after their windows had been panned in or the shock wave had hit them. She immediately knew that no one would be able to make it out of this mess alive. At first, she couldn’t make a sound and just stood there, eyes wide with a sense of dread so profound that it rendered her incapable of moving. Then the shaking started. And then she wailed…

———

“Thalia, look at me.” She felt his hands on her face, and her mind slowly began to get clear again.

And all she could do was throw her arms around him and sob. “You’re okay!”

“Of course I am.” Morpheus wrapped her in his embrace and kissed the top of her head. “Shhh now, it’s alright. I am here.”

She still couldn’t stop crying, and the shaking wouldn’t subside. Why on earth was this semblance of a body doing this to her?

“Because you had a mortal body once, and your mind remembers,” he whispered. And she could hear in his voice that her distress got to him. She pulled back, still a trembling mess, and his eyes were pooling with tears. “I am so profoundly sorry you had to witness this. Your pain hurts me. I…” His words failed him.

Thalia breathed deeply, trying to steady herself. “They all died, didn’t they?” The way he looked at her was enough of an answer. “What happened?”

Morpheus looked into the distance. “Ishtar danced. For the last time.”

“Is she responsible for this?”

“She was a goddess of love and war, after all, and this was her temple. But perhaps… No matter.” He gave her a haunted smile, and she was too shaken to ask any questions. Apart from one.

“Where are Delirium and Matthew?”

“Oh, I’m here,” Matthew cawed, and it made Thalia laugh through her tears in relief.

“Matthew, you have no idea how happy I am to see you! Can I get a hug?”

“Erm, if it’s alright with the boss, I mean, I don’t want this to come across as weird or anything.”

Morpheus stepped aside with a little bow, seemingly undecided if he was laughing or crying.

Matthew hopped on Thalia’s shoulder, and she turned her head to touch her forehead to his crown. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

He lingered on the touch for a second before he quietly croaked, “I’m okay, but what about you?”

Thalia just nodded and exhaled slowly through pursed lips, still trying to end the never-ending stream of tears.

Matthew glanced at Morpheus, who was watching them, clearly emotional, and quickly flitted off Thalia’s shoulder. “Sorry, boss.”

“It is quite alright.”

“It could have been a group hug, you know?” Thalia said.

Morpheus and Matthew just looked at each other, and the “No,” virtually came out in unison. At this point, Thalia was so highly strung that she couldn’t help laughing, still crying all the same. Morpheus’ mouth twitched ever so slightly, but his main expression was one of concern, and he stretched out his hand. When Thalia took it, he just pulled her close again. “Are you alright?” he asked, but he chose to keep it private.

She just sighed into the crook of his neck and whispered, “I don’t know.”

They stood like this for a while, and Thalia could feel the panic subside gradually. She wasn’t sure if it was just the fact that he held her, or if he actively helped her to calm down, but it was all the same to her anyway.

“Where is Delirium?” Her voice sounded tired and drained.

“I think we have lost her, but you need not worry about her, she…”

And speaking of the devil, there she was. “I’m alright. That was a bit… yeah. Whatever. Anyway, onwards on upwards, I guess.”

Silence.

“Right?”

Morpheus inhaled sharply. “No.”

Delirium looked at him wide-eyed. “What?”

“I will not accompany you any further from this point onward.”

“You don’t want to go with me anymore? What do you mean?”

“I mean exactly what I say. I have gone as far with you as I will go.”

Her face contorted in annoyance, verging on anger. “But you said… You told me… You said you knew where we were going next.” She pointed her finger at him. “You said!”

Matthew mumbled, “I’m outta here,” and disappeared right in front of her eyes. Thalia wished he would have stayed because she felt extremely uncomfortable.

Morpheus put his hands in his coat pockets and just sighed. “I meant what I said, and I know exactly where we are going to go. I will go back to my realm, and you will go back to yours.”

Delirium’s bottom lip began to quiver, and the tears were starting to form. “But our brother. We’re looking for him. We have to keep looking!”

“We do not have to do anything. All we have done thus far is bring death and damage to those we seek.”

Thalia laid her hand on his shoulder. “Morpheus…”

He put his hand on hers, removed and kissed it. And that gesture was gentle yet definite. “No, no more. It is enough.”

Delirium started to pipe up. “Here we go again! You never liked me! I thought that you liked me, and that you wouldn’t be horrid this time. And that you were my friend and everything.” Her hair turned even wilder than it already was. “And I thought we could find him and make everything okay again. I thought we were friends!”

“Friends, my sister? I thought we were family. And we have gone as far together as we will go. Farewell.” He turned to Thalia. “Come.”

Thalia felt helpless, but her instincts told her it was the right thing to do. And yet, she looked at Delirium, who stood there, shoulders hanging, looking crushed. She tried to remind herself of what Morpheus had told her, that she wasn’t a harmless young girl, and yet she couldn’t help but feel for her. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, everyone always is,” Delirium mumbled. “Well, I’ll be back in my realm then. If anyone wants me.”

And before Thalia could say anything else, they were back in the Dreaming…

———

✨ Thank you so much for reading! Comments and reblogs make my day, and kudos and thoughts on Ao3 are always appreciated.

Read on AO3: [The Pillars of Creation]

Previous Chapters: [Tumblr Master Post]

The Light of Stars Series (all my completed works are locked and require an Ao3 account): [Link to all associated works on Ao3]

[writing-for-life]

I always loved the Zulli:

Beautiful work, OP

“In Death’s garden, all the flowers are blue.”

It’s been a hard week. Losing someone is difficult especially when it’s suddenly. I needed to work on this piece right now. Death is loving and kind and warm, always there to smile and hold your hand at the end so you’re never alone. I’ve been holding onto that a lot. She would like my friend.

Inspired by an older Death art piece from the Sandman comics and using Forget-Me-Nots. Part of my Endless series.

[writing-for-life]

All of this. And I was thinking about Daniel’s lines quite a lot and hope people have at least heard them. Whether they’re in the state yet to truly listen/internalise them is a different story of course. It might take a while. What we can’t forget, and I think you’ve hinted at this already, is that people on here haven’t just watched S2–some show!fans on here spent three years with headcanons and getting their hopes up the story might end differently. That’s a long time to spend on framing something in our minds.

It was never that for me because I look at the story differently, both emotionally and on a technical/narrative level, but psychologically speaking, I understand why these things are happening right now. I might write about it at some point, who knows 🤣

Hope Amplifies Catharsis

Even if it hurts…

I want to precede this with: I have a lot of thoughts about S2v2 that are of a more critical nature, and they’ll get processed in a different post (and they very much go into the direction of excruciating exposition/constant telling instead of showing, and narrative inconsistency—essentially what I already wrote about v1 here). But this one is not about that. It’s about the pain and distress I see on here at the moment.

So just a TL;DR for those who need to get this over and done with quickly: Morpheus’ character development in season 2 isn’t necessarily a false promise in my view (and of course people are free to see it differently). I think it’s helpful (at least in terms of processing) to look at it from a different angle, too: Every moment of growth, every flash of the kinder being he was becoming, every glimpse of hope and love he was learning to feel and give and receive: They exist to make us feel his loss fully. To turn his death into something that moves something fundamental inside of us about how we understand love and loss and transformation. Because tragedy is about catharsis, and catharsis is about us, not him.

When we cry for Morpheus, we’re not crying because the story is unfair. We’re crying because we’ve been given the gift of loving someone completely, growth and flaws and all, and then experiencing the full weight of losing them.

That’s what tragedy is for. Not to make sense of the world, but to help us feel our way through (and process) the parts that will never make sense at all…

With that summary out of the road: People are distraught that the show gave us more hope, more character growth, more moments of genuine connection and healing… only for Morpheus to still meet his inevitable end, just like in the comics.

“What’s the point of all that character development, of giving us so much hope, if it doesn’t save him?”

And to me, it reveals something pretty devastating about how we’ve come to process tragedy (this is just my opinion, people are obviously free to disagree):

Greek tragedy was never about whether the protagonist deserves their fate or learns their lesson or grows as a person. Morpheus does change. He does grow. He becomes more connected, more capable of love, more willing to bend.

And he still dies.

Because ultimately, it isn’t about him. It’s about us.

The entire point of tragedies, from Aeschylus to Sophocles to The Sandman, is catharsis. The purging of emotions. The opening of floodgates, the processing of that which we might otherwise suppress. The protagonist’s journey isn’t meant to satisfy our sense of justice or fairness. It’s meant to take us on an emotional journey that transforms us.

If Morpheus were just a static, unchanging figure who died because he was too rigid to grow, we’d feel nothing. “Well, he brought it on himself.” No emotional release. No catharsis. Just annoyance.

But when we see him capable of tenderness, genuine care, moments of mercy and growth. When we see him becoming someone who might have been saved, that’s when his death becomes truly tragic. That’s when we feel the full weight of the loss of a life.

And that feeling, that mix of hope and devastation, love and loss, that’s catharsis. And that’s the whole point.

Even Aristotle said tragedy should evoke pity and fear in the audience, leading to catharsis/emotional purging. We seem to lose sight of that and think stories exist to confirm our beliefs about fairness and justice (and potential happy endings).

But tragedy exists to give us what we need, even if we might not always be aware of it. In this case, it’s the experience of profound loss processed in a safe space, the chance to feel the full spectrum of human emotion and yet come out the other side.

When Morpheus dies, we don’t just lose a character. We lose all the possibility we saw in him. We lose the version of him that was learning to love, to forgive, to bend. We lose a future where his growth was enough.

And in losing that, we gain something else: the (in my view) profound experience of mourning someone we’ve come to love, the cathartic release of tears over something that felt real even though it couldn’t last.

Some modern storytelling has unfortunately trained us to expect emotional payoffs that match our emotional investment: Character growth should lead to survival. Love should conquer all. Hope should be rewarded with happiness.

But tragedy doesn’t exist to make us feel better about the world. It exists to help us process the parts of life that don’t make sense, that hurt beyond reason, that can’t be fixed with enough character development or good intentions. It gives us a safe space to experience devastating loss and somehow emerge from it not broken. If a story breaks us for real (instead of making us feel deeply and cry over it—that’s not the same as being inconsolable for weeks or months and not getting over it), it says a lot about how low in resilience we’ve already become. And that’s something we all should worry about.

[I’ve already said this in the TL;DR: Morpheus’ character development in season 2 isn’t necessarily a false promise in my view. I think it’s helpful (at least in terms of processing) to look at it from a different angle, too: Every moment of growth, every flash of the kinder being he was becoming, every glimpse of hope and love he was learning to feel and give and receive: They exist to make us feel his loss fully. To turn his death into something that moves something fundamental inside of us about how we understand love and loss and transformation. Because tragedy is about catharsis, and catharsis is about us, not him.

When we cry for Morpheus, we’re not crying because the story is unfair. We’re crying because we’ve been given the gift of loving someone completely, growth and flaws and all, and then experiencing the full weight of losing them.

That’s catharsis. That’s the point.]

My thinking is that when we watch season 2, we shouldn’t expect that hope equals salvation or that growth equals survival. That’s just raging against the purpose of tragedy, or insisting that character development should be rewarded with happy endings.

I rather suggest this (and that’s all it is): Love Morpheus fully. Believe in his capacity for change, hope for his happiness, get completely invested in his relationships and growth. Care about him even more than we thought possible.

And then, when the inevitable comes, let ourselves feel it. All of it. Let our hearts break cleanly and completely.

Because that breaking, that cathartic release of everything we’ve been holding? That’s not the story failing us. That’s the story doing exactly what tragedy was always meant to do: giving us a place to feel the unfairness of existence fully and safely, to experience profound loss and somehow come out the other side.

I believe we need spaces to mourn not just our own losses, but the very concept of loss itself. Spaces where we can practise feeling everything, surviving it, and emerging even more capable of both love and letting go. Because if we can’t bear to practise it with a story, how will we ever do the same in life?

That’s what tragedy is for. Not to make sense of the world, but to help us feel our way through (and process) the parts that will never make sense at all…

[writing-for-life]

The Narrative Whiplash of Sandman S2.V2

When Trying to Do It Right By Everyone Near Breaks a Story

I’m going to precede this with:

There was a lot about S2 I liked. Cinematography, acting, some inspired changes that I thought were an improvement on the source material. People who know me will also know that I was never one who wanted a different ending, and they did give us the core tragedy (well, sorta, more about that later): Those of us who feel so inclined can still see and feel Morpheus’ existential tiredness, and I personally always thought that was important because we tend to forget that he is not human. We relate to him that way because we are. But it’s sometimes also good to remember that for him, “keep going” does not extend to the comparably short span of a mortal life. He has been around for billions of years. He has to keep going for (potentially) billions of years still. I think it’s hard to wrap our heads around what it would mean to live in emotional pain for so long (we honestly can’t, and I think therein lies the problem). He wanted out for so long (at least since The Tempest, but if you read the comics, you can’t help but think it must have been so much longer than that—the first signs were even there during The Heart of a Star, and that was ~four billion years ago)… There were moments in all the sanitising of major story beats that made me think they might pivot away from the comics ending, and I’m personally glad they didn’t (and I also totally get if people aren’t). And I loved seeing Daniel!Dream and thought Jacob Anderson was inspired casting. But I also thought that the show somewhat undermined its narrative integrity by trying to have its cake and eat it, too. And I’d like to sum it up as the “Maybe There’s Another Way”-problem…

I’m fairly certain the writers were pretty clear that there was no way around Morpheus’ comics ending. And Morpheus’ last scene and the transition as such, they nailed: It was heartbreaking, beautifully acted, and somewhat true to (what I perceive as) the core message. BUT throughout the whole of V2, they also kept inserting moments of hope that somewhat contradicted the sense of inevitability that made the comics IMHO far more powerful. Or at least, if you don’t want to call it “powerful”: more narratively coherent.

We got scene after scene of characters suggesting there might be “another way”. It’s like the writers were constantly winking at us, saying “Don’t worry, maybe he won’t actually have to die!”

Playing to Both Sides

I get it. The show has attracted fans who never read the comics, and even to fans of the comics, Morpheus’ death was devastating. The “suicide in slow motion”-interpretation (there are others obviously, and again: I somewhat use suicide as a shorthand here because Morpheus is not human. Dream can’t die, he can only transform) has always been controversial, even among fans of the first hour. But to me, it felt that by neither committing to a truly faithful adaptation nor a meaningful departure, the writers tried to thread an impossible needle.

They tried to satisfy comics fans with the original ending while at the same time attempting to comfort tragedy-adverse fans by suggesting it might not happen. But can/should you really constantly try to soften the blow by adding hope for an escape?

In the comics, there’s a clear sense that Morpheus is existentially tired and walks knowingly towards his fate, that this is the only way things can end given who he is and what he’s done. But the show feels like he’s fighting it at times, looking for a way out despite accepting that what he has done might lead to his death sooner or later. We (as in: not me, but the audience in general) are given hope at every turn. Show!Morpheus already is what Daniel is supposed to stand for, and they hammered that message home at every corner. And by removing the last shreds of comics!Morpheus’ more problematic nature (e.g. NOT forgiving Alex himself), it all felt a bit… contrived? As if they were waving a big signpost at us constantly that read: “He’s a good one, you know?”

Edit: And to make this very clear because I think some people are misunderstanding what I’m saying here or just skim-reading (it helps to read the whole post until the end, even if it’s long): This is NOT about Morpheus’ interiority, or about thinking “he’s worse in the comics and therefore had it coming”, or about his “not being existentially tired/suicidal in the show”, because I don’t think any of these things—neither about the comics, nor about the show. It’s about how the writers treat the audience. If you’re in any doubt how I generally think about this story, please read my past meta, and especially this quite recent one, before you have a knee-jerk reaction to something I’ve never said but you somehow manage to read between the lines.

Maybe they had this idea that by giving the casual audience more hope, they would feel the loss more acutely (sometimes that is a thing writers do), and they certainly succeeded in that. Because they essentially spent four episodes going “but maybe…”, only to then pull the rug.

I just wish the show had trusted its audience with the reality of what was happening instead of trying to cushion every blow and also removing every bit about Morpheus that made him less “palatable”. I’m still seething about Allan Heinberg’s comment that they changed Morpheus so audiences would “love him and root for him.” (Honestly, we managed to “love him and root for him” for 30+ years without being treated like we can’t get subtext, and despite his being more problematic in parts). Because in light of how S2 went, I can only call it out for what it is:

The writers didn’t trust in the actual story being enough (or rather: too much?). They were worried modern audiences might not take to certain tones about it, so they had to add constant meta-commentary about “finding another way” that was never going to pay off—and they knew it wouldn’t. It made the genuine moments of beauty and tragedy feel a bit… cheap? Like it was written by committee, trying to please everyone and ultimately serving no one.

Having said all of this, I do think, as I already said, that the show is beautiful. Tom Sturridge’s performance as Morpheus is probably career-defining. The visual storytelling is stunning. But I can’t shake the feeling that this could have been so much better if they’d just picked a lane, any lane, and stayed in it.

Or maybe they thought more casual fans needed those moments of hope to make the ending bearable, but I think it just made it worse for everyone who either didn’t know what to expect or always had a problem with the comics (again, I’m not one of them). It felt like the show neither trusted the source material nor its audience, and I honestly believe the story suffered for it. And there was other stuff that felt disappointing to me…

Justice for Matthew

Perhaps the most glaring omission is basically completely cutting Matthew’s speech from The Wake. In the comics, Matthew’s speech about his relationship with Morpheus is one of the most emotionally devastating moments. A simple, honest and incredibly raw eulogy from someone who genuinely cared about his friend. More importantly, Matthew was always a stand-in for us, the audience. He struggled to accept Daniel as the new Dream like many of us initially did. Giving him a few half-sentences instead… I don’t know, it just felt off. I also missed Matthew’s buddy cop dynamic with the Corinthian in The Kindly Ones. I get they might not have been able to do this with real ravens and it would have turned into a massive CGI fest, but I still missed them. Which brings me to the next point:

Jo x Cori

I loved Jenna Coleman’s Johanna Constantine. I loved Boyd Holbrook’s Corinthian. I honestly loved their dynamic, their chemistry, and they were a lot of fun. Without any further background, I can totally get behind them, and my recent joke in the community that if Morpheus can’t have her, Cori should obviously came back to bite me in the arse big time 🤣 BUT the fun aspect aside: The writers turned the Corinthian into someone he simply isn’t in the comics, at least not to that degree. This is long enough as it is, so I won’t elaborate on this point too much, but I’ve written tons of meta about Cori 1.0 and Cori 2.0, and why understanding him is also integral to understanding Dream. And it felt like… the writers didn’t understand him at all? Instead, they gave us a bi romance that felt a bit forced (at least to me). And to say this very clearly: I’m bi. I lived in a civil partnership with a woman for years and I’m married to a man now. I love good bi representation and I think we need more of it—especially the one that is “straight-presenting”. Because I honestly hate that every time a bi relationship presents as m/m or f/f, people on here will go, “Slay!”, but that every bi m/f relationship gets called “straight” and “heteronormative”. It’s honestly insulting. But this wasn’t it in my view, the reason being the weird undertones it created. The Corinthian was recreated to be a better version of Cori 1.0 (that’s not equivalent to “puppy dog”—he’s still a nightmare and he’s still very much Dream’s Shadow with a capital S). And I know they already said he was pan in S1, but to me, he honestly didn’t present as such just because he had the ability to be “charming with the ladies”. Comics!Corinthian was clearly gay, and for very specific reasons based on what I would call fairly recent history. And while we maybe didn’t need those reasons anymore, I still think show!Cori 1.0 presented gay. If he was pan, he had at least a clear preference for men, and together with the fact who and what Cori 2.0 represents, that does make where they took him… a bit homophobic? It just felt strange in more than one way. But even if we put all discussions about his sexuality aside: The most glaring problem for me was that they turned the Corinthian a bit into an “idiot in love.” I don’t know, man…

Where TF was Calliope?

It was so disappointing to me that none of Dream’s lovers got a voice at The Wake. I understand the show wasn’t quite the same, but not even Calliope? The mother of his son who suffered beyond comprehension as well? She honestly deserved that moment, and I think they could have given it to her without going into the nitty gritty of their sex life like in the comics 🙈🤣 Maybe just parts of it, like this:

But they IMHO did Calliope dirty throughout the whole of S2, and I’m still not okay about it (and I wrote about how this affected fandom empathy as well, and jeez was I right about how people tear into Lyta)…

The Pacing Was Still Shot to Bits & They Missed Opportunities

Volume two suffers from the same tonal inconsistencies that have plagued volume one. The show sometimes rushes through crucial emotional beats while lingering on IMHO less essential moments. I get that it had to be extremely condensed, that they had to tackle the impossible task of cramming so much into one season. And maybe it’s just me, but I think the weight of Morpheus’ death wasn’t given any time to breathe in the same way as in the comics. And the biggest mistake, for me, was that they rushed through the last three issues, with maybe the exception of Sunday Mourning. My take on this might be controversial, but Sunday Mourning was never about what becomes of Morpheus to me (and it’s okay if people see it differently), but rather about closure for Hob and driving the point home that those we love live on in memory and story (and we can reasonably assume the dream was gifted to him by Daniel). So as long as Hob is still alive, there will be someone who remembers Morpheus. And the story angle is central to Exiles and The Tempest, too (I wrote about this before). Especially Exiles would have tied up so many loose ends, and while I get that the story in its entirety would have been hard to incorporate, I think at least its message would have helped a lot of people who don’t know the comics with processing. Omnia mutantur, nihil interit—Everything changes, nothing is truly lost. How they didn’t build on that much more than in the split second that no one who doesn’t know the comics would even recognise, and not even saying those words, is quite frankly beyond me when they spent so much time on stuff that was far more inconsequential or even a bit off. I mean, what were those added lines in Gilbert’s speech? Love or hate Gilbert’s decision not to come back, but in the comics, it made sense for him. It was a decision I could respect because of who he was. It had integrity, and I could totally understand why. To extend it in a weirdly patronising [to the audience] way and add those lines about bringing back Morpheus THAT WEREN’T EVEN IN THE COMICS was honestly a big mistake in my view. These lines were not just “opinionated”, but absolutely nonsensical (“You’re a different Dream already. Morpheus never apologised,” he says, while we’ve seen Morpheus apologising several times. And even Gilbert himself had commented on how much he had changed 🙈).

There’s much more, both in the critical and positive sense, but I think this will get far too long if I keep going at this point, so maybe I’ll write about other stuff separately.

It’s a, “I like it as a standalone for many reasons, but it’s neither a faithful adaptation, nor is it always narratively tight,” for me. All in all, they brought Morpheus’ story to a close, and I’m supremely grateful we got that. While the execution isn’t perfect and many decisions feel like genuine missteps, it’s over and done (bar one remaining episode). Those of us who love the comics will always have those. Those who don’t will move on or learn to take the show for what it is: Extremely flawed in some parts and beautiful in others. And on a meta-level, maybe there’s something to be taken from that, too…

[writing-for-life]

Death—Collette Turner