#Sandman for ts

[hauntedfalcon]

now how the hell am I supposed to watch an episode where two uncanny fuckers meet in a London pub every hundred years, and not think about the AU where it’s Andromache and Booker

[elvenlords]

Morpheus kneeling to speak with Matthew

THE SANDMAN (2022– ) 1.03 | 1.04

[kamwashere]

hey. uh. what the fuck does this mean.

[why-i-love-comics]

DC's I Know What You Did Last Crisis #1 - "At the Point of Vanishing" (2024)

written by Matthew Levine art by Jordi Tarragona & Luis Guerrero

[sarcasticorgasms]

@banjosandmoonlight your museum mini fic has me in a fucking chokehold. accidental museum date my beloved ♥️

[qqueenofhades]

SCREECH!

(With big big thanks to @fishfingersandscarves, who designed the gorgeous cover and arranged for it to be printed into a book!)

[hellsbellschime]

notice how a certain creep didn't appear at all in this even tho he did for s1 promotion

https://x.com/netflix_sandman/status/1836924486722916710?s=46&t=7Sjc1ccizuvSI7djpXsxQA

I'm just glad the actions of one scrub didn't kill a show that I love.

[orionsangel86]

OMG your tags... glad I'm not the only one that gets Folgers Coffee Commercial vibes from a lot of art of Dream with his sisters 😂

My guess is that it's a result of three tendencies: 1) "they're hot, who cares if they're related", 2) "well the only 'equal' pairing for an Endless is another Endless" and 3) "mythology sure has a lot of incest, and this *is* a mythology series so..."

Or, I guess, 4) it's as accidental as the coffee commercial allegedly was 🤣

Oh i totally missed this ask the other day! Sorry lovely!

Haha I KNOW RIGHT?!?

Its actually amusing how much "official" Sandman art has some really... ahem *interesting* vibes.

None of us are gonna forget the Beefy Dream/Lady Bast softcore furry porn anytime soon now are we?!

But yeah maybe its a whole "mythology is basically all incest so its fiiiine" thing? (Side note: im currently listening to Stephen Fry read Mythos on Audible and its so SO good but yeah Greek Mythology is alllllll incest!).

Remember that art of Delirium basically sitting in Dreams lap with her legs over his shoulders? Dream was shirtless (as per usual) and Delirium had been drawn uber sexy?

Or just how many times Death and Dream have been drawn wrapped in each others arms (yeah yeah I'm sure there is poetry there about Dream being "in the embrace of Death" but STILL).

I think I even saw a Dream/Desire art piece where Desire is draped across Dream (though I can't recall if that was "official" art or fanart).

Honestly I think baring in mind the interview with Mason and Kirby where they joked that Dream is so shippable he even has sexual chemistry with their characters I guess we should maybe take a deep breath and accept that for any of the reasons mentioned above, we are in the legitimate incest fandom. Lmao!

Oh the scandal!

I'll be honest with you, I have wondered at times if maybe all Dream and Desire need to sort out their issues with each other is to fuck it out and use that as inspiration to create the horniest most feral sexual dreams possible.

Ahem.

Sorry.

I'm really not advocating for incest here, but I guess if the "siblings" in question are primordial eldritch abominations its not SO bad?

God help me if any puriteens find this ask... ah well. I've been cancelled before for moronic reasons I'm sure I'll be cancelled again. Bring it on.

I wonder how Neil Gaiman feels about his characters being drawn in such folgers coffee commercial ways? Haha! Though tbh I'm sure Neil is too busy trying to avoid the semi-explicit Aziracrow asks he gets in his inbox from feral Good Omens fans to care too much if the Endless get a little incesty...

😂

[suede-moon]

The Sandman really took TS Eliot's "Prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" literally. It was heartbreaking, I love it.

[hauntedfalcon]

is this Constantine still bi though

[elvenlords]

I think it's you that's changed. How so? I think I know why we still meet here, century after century. It's not because you want to see whether or not I'm ready to seek death. I don't think I'll ever seek death. By now, you know that about me. So, I think you're here for something else. And what might that be? Friendship.

How's he faring up after all this time? Who? Hob Gadling? Hmm. I don't know. I was forced to miss our last appointment. Well, I'm sure he'd love to see you.

THE SANDMAN 1.06: “The Sound of Her Wings"

[kamwashere]

happy birthday, william shakespeare! in another unrelated news, wishing hob gadling speedy recovery in these trying times x

[orionsangel86]

I LOVE this idea which I think certainly has a lot of merit from an analytical perspective. Within the context of the show specifically, the major arcana are presented as quite obvious mirrors for Dream and his own repressed desires. In the comics, its a bit more subtle, and a bit darker, sadder, but it's the changes in the show which fascinate me the most.

Starting with Fiddler's Green, in the comic, he speaks of being tired, and curious, and he does not argue when Dream calls him the heart of the dreaming. In the show however he says the following:

"No sir you were the heart of the dreaming, and you were gone. I was curious, and it turns out that life as a human contains substance that I never even imagined when I was here."

The curiosity is still there, the need to experience life as a human, but there is no mention of Fiddlers Green being tired. He also reminds Dream that HE is the heart of the dreaming instead. If Fiddler's Green represents Dream's heart in the comics, the show has shifted that back to Dream himself. If the point of this moment in the comic was to indicate that Dream's heart was tired and curious, what does this change mean for the show? Dream's heart in the show is his own. He is far kinder and more compassionate in the show, and without the point about being tired, Fiddler's Greens role as a Dream mirror becomes purely about Dream's curiosity and desire to experience humanity. It's not foreshadowing for a creature tired and weary of their role.

Moving on to The Corinthian, there have been some epic meta's written about how The Corinthian is Dream's dark mirror image, reflecting his nightmarish aspects and also symbolising Dream's repressed queerness. But the changes from comic to show are eye opening if like me you are utterly obsessed with how the changes made so far are changing the trajectory of the overall tragic story.

In the comic, the only things the Corinthian says to Dream about his time on Earth is to encourage Dream to fight him, and to show him the arts of pain and war that i have learned on this Earth.

Even in Overture, when Dream confronts the Corinthian before he gets called away (the sequence that inspired the very beginning of episode 1 in the show) The Corinthian only ever talks about the enjoyment of violence and being unstoppable on Earth. It is only in the show that he states the following:

The Corinthian: "Do you know why I do it? So I can taste what its like to be human. And you dont care about humanity. You only care about yourself and your realm and your rules."

Dream: "I contain the entire collective unconscious, without my rules it would consume me. Humanity would be consumed."

The Corinthian: "Or you might actually feel something."

Like Fiddler's Green, The Corinthian's motives were also to experience being human. Something that is NOT said in the comics. In the show confrontation, Dream is forced to contemplate his rules, and the nature of being Dream of the Endless. As the Corinthian says, it's all about the desire to feel something. A desire that show!Dream clearly has.

Finally, the biggest difference from the comic to the show is in the creation of Gault, to replace Brute and Glob. When Dream confronts Brute and Glob in the comic, their motives for doing what they did was simply because they wanted to create a Sandman and a dreaming they could rule, which they admit to Dream, and get sent to the darkness as punishment. From a comic meta view point, Brute and Glob only serve as Dream mirrors in their need for control and to make something of the chaos that was left when Dream was held captive. Comic!Dream is a controlling character, but where Brute and Glob wanted control over a puppet Sandman, Dream's careful control is over himself. It is a control he never relinquishes in the comics, even at the very end, as it is revealled everyone else has simply been manipulated and playing into Dreams own game. Interestingly, this is not a trait that comes through as strongly in the show, because whilst Show!Dream tells the Corinthian of his need for rules to prevent him being consumed by the collective unconscious, he is able to give up some control of the Dreaming in the end to Lucienne. That control being a source of conflict between them during the Dolls House story. Food for thought perhaps?

Back to Gault, Show!Dream accuses Gault of having the same intentions as Brute and Glob in the comic, but importantly, her intentions were completely different. She had "no wish to rule". She saw a terrified young boy who was being abused, and wanted to make him feel safe and happy in the only way she knew how, by being a good dream, rather than a nightmare.

Gault: "I had no wish to rule. I merely wished to be a dream, and not a nightmare. To inspire, rather than to frighten."

Dream: "The choice is not yours to make. We do not choose to be created, nor do we choose how we are made."

Gault: "That is true, but we can change."

Dream: "No. We are each of us born with responsibilites. Even I am not free to choose to be other than what I am. Nor is anyone."

Then the MOST interesting change to the show from the comics, is that Dream DOES allow Gault to change. He makes her into a Dream and we get this entirely new exchange:

Gault: "May I aks what made you change your mind about me Sir?"

Dream: "I had no right returning here after over a century expecting everything to be just as I left it. Lucienne tried to tell me that. So did you. Now I'm listening, or trying to."

I could scream about all these changes because they are SO good and SO positive for any change of story trajectory.

If Gault is a Dream mirror, she is his desire to change. Dream basically says as much when he compares her responsibilities as a nightmare to his own as Dream of the Endless. By allowing her to change in the end, he is contradicting his earlier stance. If Gault IS able to be other than what she was, then perhaps Dream too, can become something other than what he is.

In the comic, the major arcana reflect Dream's curious but tired heart, desire for human experience, repressed queerness and inner darkness, and his need to maintain perfect control over himself.

In the show, the major arcana reflect Dream's curiosity and desire for human experience, repressed queerness and need to feel something, and his desperate desire to change into something more hopeful and inspirational. To be a better version of himself.

All this is to say that if we are considering where all this could lead, and if it could possibly save our dear Dream Lord from himself, then I think we are on the right track.

Struck between the eyes today by the Random Sandman Twitter account that posted this image from the comics and what it means for Retired Dream AU:

So if we go with the headcanon (/ fact??) that all the Major Arcana represent some deeply buried fear or desire of Dream, specifically (because the Dreaming is him but at least in theory his greatest creations should be even more reflective of him than the average?) then we could in theory take Gilbert's words as reflecting Dream's desires as well.

We could read all of Dream's interactions with the Major Arcana as, on some level, being interactions with himself, Dream talking to himself in the mirror, or at least the strongest external parts of himself, the largest fragments so to speak. So Gilbert/Fiddler's Green is called the heart of the Dreaming here.

And Dream's heart then is tired. His heart is curious. Specifically, his heart is curious to experience the little victories and tiny defeats of human life. And, his heart longs to spare Rose, which we know Dream wants to do as well, another point in favor of the possibility that Gilbert's words are literally Dream's heart speaking right now.

And, because I am Dreamling shipper trash and it all circles back to that, I can't help but think of who we have seen in the Waking who is most familiar, perhaps of anyone in the world, with the little victories and defeats of human life and who would love to share those with Dream (spoilers, it's Hob).

(Dream, the votes from 2 out of 3 of your MAJOR ARCANA are in, they want to be human enough for your own heart (Gilbert) to FLEE you and for arguably the personification of your darker desires (Corinthian) to IMPRISON you and risk being unmade to live as a human, and the third one wants so badly to stop being a nightmare so she can make dreamers happy that she also risked being unmade. Dream, my man, I think your subconscious is trying to tell you something. Why are you only the Dreaming when it means you're supposed to be miserable but not when the entire Dreaming is telling you that you want to be human so badly you'd risk death to do it??)

[qqueenofhades]

It is a not-to-be-underappreciated pleasure when they let the blorbo say "fuck" canonically.

[windsweptinred]

Hello! Saw your post about feeling ill and hope you're feeling better today <3 I did have a question if you still wanted to chat fandom things - I'm a multishipper and I can see that you are too, so was wondering what draws you to a ship?

Thank you @rriavian 💖💖 I'm on the mend! What draws me to a ship? Oooh, that's an excellent question to get my teeth into. Thank you! And always fantastic to meet a fellow multishipper... Tis a good fandom life to live. 😅 Let's see. 🤔

Well for the Sandman Fandom particularly...

The Sandman has one of the most fleshed out, complex cast of characters I've ever seen. There's such a depth of shipping potential, and not having an OTP or particular character I'm averse to means I'll happily read and debate just about ANY ship I come across, even if it's not a personal favorite. Because there is so much intrigue in putting any of these characters together. Pondering on how they interact romantically and how that would impact the narrative. It's honestly one of my favorite things to do. I don't think I've read 'every' Sandman ship out there, but I've read a lot. And there's not one that's failed to hook my interest in a fic so far. 😅

As for my personal favourites, hmm.... Well I guess at the heart of it, shipping's subjective. I'm not sure I can honestly say exactly what makes me fixate on a pairing and say 'my darlings now and forever' 😅. But something in me must connect to them.

But if I had to try, I love characters who are out and proud little sh*ts, so I'm naturally drawn to characters like Desire, Johanna and the Corinthian. I tend not to gravitate towards soft ships often. (Though I still love me a bit of fluff.) Then I like to pair them with characters who have an equal air of complex disaster about them and let them reach some kind of harmonious chaos together. 😅 Not try and fix each other or expect them to be better. This is definitely how I see Constantdeath (Johanna x Death) and Corinthiel (Daniel x The Corinthian 2.0). Even with Desunity (Desire x Unity) I tend to look at the relationship as Unity loving Desire for the fickle little hell cat they are. Not in a, my love will change them for the better kind of way. And the sass on Unity! She definitely has a feral side and no one can convince me otherwise. 😆

So maybe my thing is, not we love each other flaws and all. But we love each other because of our flaws. That's something that binds us that no one else can understand. I've mentioned before one of my favorite books is Wuthering Heights. That may explain alot. 😅

Thank you so much for that rriavian. It was so fun to deep dive into that question. ❤️❤️❤️

[orionsangel86]

Excellent meta and additions.

I'm sure you guys know how big of an advocate I am for Johanna replacing Thessaly. I absolutely adore the addition of music analysis to support this viewpoint.

Episode 3 of The Sandman is so wild to me because on the one hand, this is supposed to be about Johanna and Rachel, but that is misleading, because this episode really is all about Johanna and Morpheus (whether that upsets you or not is irrelevant to the meta here, the Netflix show is most definitely turning The Sandman into the Morpheus Show and every episode is ultimately all about him, no matter which other characters you may believe it is about at a surface level). I love that @writing-for-life mentioned the rain because its a bit crazy how intense the rain was in this episode. It doesn't actually rain like that in London, other than maybe for quick bursts of a few minutes before turning back into drizzle. But it certainly does rain like that in the Dreaming when Morpheus is upset. This was intentional rain coming down in thick curtains of water specifically to add mood and a touch of romanticism (Good Omens S2 using rain as a metaphor for romance has also clued me into this type of thinking. Yes thank you Crowley we have all seen the famous scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral and we know how Neil Gaiman likes to repurpose his ideas across his projects *cough*MenOfGoodFortuneandGoodOmensSeason1Episode3AreTheSameThing*cough*)

So the rain is significant. But here's the kicker, it's not raining in the comic. All the time John and Morpheus are together, it doesn't rain. There is one panel at the start where we first meet John where its raining, but then it stops. There are no scenes with John and Morpheus standing together in the rain, even at the end (also John asks Morpheus to take away the nightmares. Morpheus doesn't offer. He only does it once asked.)

Yet rain is significant in the comics. Rain and Morpheus at least, is significant, because its associated with Morpheus' feelings and hurt after Thessaly. What better way to indicate to the audience that Johanna is potentially our replacement Thessaly than using rain?

Another really interesting point I found in episode 3 was how Johanna compared herself to Roderick Burgess. Dream immediately dismisses this, but if we think about that comparison on a meta level, it could almost be foreshadowing. Roderick Burgess put Dream in a binding circle and held him prisoner for 100 years. In the comic, Thessaly puts Lyta inside a protection circle, preventing Dream from killing her to save his realm, and ultimately leading to his doom. If Johanna stepped into that role, where SHE is the one who has Lyta in the binding circle, preventing Dream from taking action to save the Dreaming and himself, then in a way, Johanna's claim that she is like Roderick Burgess becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Roderick Burgess's actions destroyed the Dreaming, and so did Thessaly's, so could Johanna's.

At the end of the day, it's all speculation, but Johanna is in a prime position here and if I was a showrunner trying to turn the behemouth that is The Sandman comic series into a more coherent linear TV show to appeal to the widest possible audience, I would be picking through those comics to figure out where to streamline, where to shift focus, and where to cut and combine characters because hey, budgets are a thing and if we've already got one very popular actress playing a relatively minor role, why not expand her role into something bigger for the show? Why bring in yet another new character and force a romance with our protagonist on an audience that may reject her and find the whole thing rushed and confusing (ngl this was my reaction as a comic fan so it stands to reason that show fans would feel the same) when instead we already have the building blocks for a whole messy romance right there in episode 3 of our show.

It just seems to me that we have both Watsonian AND Doyalist reasons to expand Johanna's role and make her Morpheus' love interest rather than Thessaly. It's a no brainer. I hope they go there. Look characters from the comics are gonna get cut and other characters are gonna take their place. We already have rumours that this is happening with Wanda taking the place of Ruby in Brief Lives, though I don't know where this rumour has come from or how true it is. I know comic fans can be very protective of the source material, and like to dismiss any significant show changes, but a straight adaptation of the Sandman comics is never gonna work, for budget reasons alone. That is a huuuge cast of characters you'd have to cast and it would be jarring for an audience as well. You have to admit it makes sense.

I do just want to add to @tickldpnk8 comment about Dreamling fans not getting their hopes up. I agree that its unlikely that we are gonna get a full on Dreamling romance, I hope most Dreamling fans would understand that. Though I don't doubt that Hob is a character who could also very much get an expanded role. I personally think there is ample place for him in Brief Lives, I also think that this is one place where fandom could very well influence the show because Hob's popularity can't be denied, and the show has already changed the structure of Dream and Hob's future interactions simply by shifting the timeline 30 years into the future. Also I can't deny the way the comic ends. Hob is the last person to actually see Morpheus "alive" out of everyone other than Destruction. The show could take that in many different ways.

Ultimately, I'm on team get rid of Thessaly, bring back Johanna, give Johanna and Morpheus a messy tragic heartbreaking romance that ends in tears and mutual destruction (the foundations are already there) and then continue to play with Dreamling in the subtext. As for what will happen in the end... well, I guess we will have to wait and see.

Thessaly, Johanna and a weird meta about musical motifs (amongst other things)

As a little intro: A lot of people in the fandom want to see Thessaly cut from the TV adaptation, or at least see her changed substantially. I am not necessarily one of them because I don’t think it’s always necessary to blur the lines between fiction and reality that way, and I would be alright with portraying her in a similar way as in the Audible adaptation (where a lot of things have already been changed to make her character more palatable to 21st century audiences). It would also make Morpheus look a bit less morally grey (I mean, he falls in love with someone who is essentially a terrible person, knows it and doesn’t seem to give a shit. Then again, he often is morally grey, and people like to forget that ;)).

Having gotten that out of the road: I *do* think that “A Game of You” is hard to translate to the screen. I absolutely love it in the comics, but I think it’s one of those arcs that is tricky to do well for TV. I’d even go as far as saying it might be a dealbreaker for some people who haven’t read the comic/are show audience only, and it might jeopardise a potential S3. Not because of Thessaly or the plot as such, but because it operates on a similar plane as The Doll’s House, which was jarring to a lot of people in S1. And The Doll’s House has a far more straightforward arc and more Morpheus in it—AGoY has none of these things. I’d personally love to see it, but I would also love to see Morpheus’ full arc being brought to the screen, so I am a bit conflicted. I still think, and of course that’s just a personal opinion, that it would be best to just have little bits and bobs inserted into Season of Mists and do the whole Cuckoo arc as an animation, but that’s just me.

@tickldpnk8 and I already speculated wildly about S2, and sole speculation it is, but maybe you want to check out that post. I’m getting carried away here...

After that longwinded intro: Are we going to get Johanna instead of Thessaly?

What I actually wanted to write about is why the longer I think about it (and I’ve been thinking about it since S1, I'm really that sad), the more I can’t shake the feeling that they *will* replace Thessaly with Johanna. And the fandom is totally divided about it—some love the idea because they had undeniable chemistry in S1, others hate it for various reasons (doing Johanna dirty, keeping Thessaly "intact"--you name it).

I personally think it might actually elevate the story because it would make Morpheus look better (*if* that's what we want--I'm not really sure I do), and that’s what show-only-fans seemingly gravitate towards. As already hinted at, Thessaly/Murphy always seemed a rather unfathomable relationship, and it didn’t just make Murph look stupid, but also, as already mentioned, morally grey and not very discerning in his choice of women (hmm, maybe he just isn’t ;)).

Falling for Johanna wouldn’t be any of this. And it would be so easy to show why it went horribly wrong without making either of them look bad, and you could still feel for both of them. If we think about Johanna’s worst nightmare (literally), it’s what happened to Astra. So she would absolutely and unequivocally support someone like Lyta, who worries about her child. And she would do it for all the right reasons, and not because she’s a selfish bitch who just wants a longer life or is generally spiteful.

And it wouldn’t be hard for Morpheus and Johanna to hook up either. They could even leave the original idea intact: Thessaly just dreamed of him, and they started talking in dreams, bla bla bla. We already have the set-up for that in S1. Morpheus took away Johanna’s nightmare. She could just be grateful, relieved, whatever, and dream of him. Done. And we don’t even need to explain that at great length, because in the comics, we never really see them hook up anyway and just find things out after the deed. Although I personally *want* to see them get hot and heavy on screen, but that’s just me having my mind in the gutter because why would you not to show two sexy people with so much chemistry doing exactly that. However, I’ll survive the disappointment if they don’t—just 😂

But it’s not just the plot. It’s also everything we’ve seen in S1. I have already talked about this in other threads, most recently with @orionsangel86, but literally every shot with them in S1 was framed as a romance shot: the proximity, the play on height difference, the camera angles, the lighting. These are deliberate choices, either to hint at what’s to come, or to set up a distraction, MacGuffin, whatever.

Then the mention of “None of us can be trusted.”

Or the RAIN. I mean, I am so surprised no one has commented on that waterfall of RAIN when they say goodbye (or I’ve just not seen it). You cannot read the comics and ever believe again that Morpheus and rain, no matter where, doesn’t hint at terrible relationship outcomes.

Musical themes, oy!

But the thing that really got me was the use of musical motifs, and I am unfortunately showing my background from a former life here because I can never listen to a movie soundtrack without getting analytical about it. Johanna’s theme is called “Johanna & Rachel”, and it would be easy to just think of it as that. And yes, it is a love theme, but it doesn’t just play for Johanna and Rachel. It plays in Morpheus’ and Johanna’s last scene as well.

And here’s the kicker: Dream’s and her theme complete each other, as in: They both have what the other one is missing. They are musically extremely close, but not identical. Let me explain:

If you think of the opening lines of both of their motifs in scale degrees (like 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-(1)), they look/sound as follows:

Johanna (her motif begins right at the start, so I didn't timestamp it)

1-(minor3)-7-(2)-(1) | 1-(major3)-m7-1

If I put all of “her” scale degrees in a row, they are: 1-2-3-7

Dream (you actually hear his leitmotifs, and their subtle differences, best in his scenes with John Dee):

1-(7)-(6)-(5)-(4) | 1-(7)-(6)-2 (video is timestamped)

1-(7)-(6)-(5)-(aug4) | 1-(7)-(6)-2 (video is timestamped)

If I put all of “his” scale degrees in a row, they are: 1-2-4-5-6-7

Morpheus is missing the third (3). Missing the third, which s considered one of the most consonant intervals and DYNAMIC, also hints at his character, but that just as an aside.

Johanna has the third (both in its minor and major form). 

Johanna is missing the fourth, fifth and sixth.

Morpheus has them, in various forms (major and augmented—especially augmented intervals are highly unstable and create a lot of friction).

What they share/have in common are 1, 2 and 7:

The tonic (1) is what everything else hinges on. The supertonic (2) is musically fraught with tension and seeks to resolve into the tonic--back to base or a conclusion/resolution, if you will. The seventh (7), both as a leading note or subtonic, is also that: Tension that needs resolved.

So all they have in common is tension that needs to resolve into some sort of resolution.

(And before we are pointing out the obvious: of course both tunes have more notes in it respectively, but we are talking about the main motifs.)

What’s also super interesting is where their overall themes are going. Johanna’s is initially darker, but it actually has a lot of ascending lines and “light” before plunging back into darkness.

Morpheus’ seems a lot more regal (for lack of better term), but the lines are mostly descending. This becomes even more apparent when we are not just listening to the opening theme, but to the several variations of his theme (his presence can be felt literally everywhere, even in Desire's theme).

It just freaked me out majorly the moment I heard it for the first time in contrast. But I like to over-interpret musical stuff because I just hear it so clearly. I *do* believe that composers do these things on purpose, even if just subconsciously, because we can't separate what we know about a character from how we perceive them musically (I do it as well). Of course that doesn’t always mean that it’s exactly the purpose I am thinking of, or that it hints at whatever is to come. My brain tends to run away with these things.

But yes, musically, they are totally "on track", so let's run with it. I'll admit my embarrassment later when this all goes into a completely different direction ;)

(Also tagging @honeyteacakes in this since I encroached on your comments recently)