#neil gaiman you bastard what have you done to me

[wilsonsleftearlobe]

If i could only say two things to Neil Gaiman it would be :

1. You're a bastard

2. I love you

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Good Omens NYCC panel recap

   - Guests: Neil Gaiman, Douglas Mackinnon, Rob Wilkins, Maggie Service, Nina Sosanya and Guelin Sepulveda, it is said that Michael Sheen will join at the end over Zoom.

About Season 1

- What do they miss most when S1 wrapped and before S2:

Douglas: All the cast and all the crew. We were very big and cuddly family.

Neil: Yeah. 

Rob: David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

Nina: Missing the mentioned family and being part of the nuns sisterhood.

- At the beginning they shared several bts stories from season 1 and the book: 

First day of shooting in the bookshop was cancelled because of the blizzard and the second day they were foreced to shoot interiors because outside there were people with flamethrowers trying to melt what was there. So they build the set of Soho 2 inside.

Rob kept a lot of the vehicles from S1 and S2, all the motorbikes, the cars, and now I have topped it with Crowley’s Bentley.

A lot of nuns including Maggie had warts, but Nina didn’t want one.

Neil about Nina’s audition (read more here).

That both Michael and David both independently suggested that he might like to write a Good Omens stage play so they may swap roles each night.

About Michael originally being Crowley (more here and here).

About Terry and Neil being Aziraphale and Crowley - Neil: In the creation of Crowley Terry took the things that I did that he thought were hilarious, like wearing sunglasses indoors when I didn’t need to. He put a lot of me into Crowley but then we both put a lot of ourselves into both of them. (here, also this).

Michael Sheen is amazing mimic, Neil recalls that during one of the final scenes he had producer headphones on, the guys were acting and sitting on the bench and all of the sudden David Tennant started saying awful things about Michael Sheen, just, you know, there’s Crowley and Aziraphale talking and Crowley is saying all this stuff about how Aziraphale is fat Michael can’t act and all the stuff and I’m like ‘Whaat?! David is the nicest man in the world...’ and then the penny drops and it’s Michael sitting there doing pitch perfect as Crowley.

About Season 2

- What was like for Quelin to join the show:

She was a fan. The very first day was a bit like out of body experience, there was a scene where she interacted with David and Michael. So it was like, ‘Concentrate, Quelin, concentrate! It’s okay, it’s okay!’ And it was just overwhelming in the best of ways, honestly.

She plays angel Muriel. When Neil and John Finnemore talked about season 2, they realized that they didn't have another nice, well-meaning angels except for Aziraphale in Heaven, all they had were bastards, all awfull, so they thought ‘Let’s have a nice one’ and so they created angel Muriel, curious, gullible, well-meaning and chatty angel that spent 6000 filing in the same office in Heaven hoping that somebody would come in and the day would get more interesting and it doesn’t.  

She’s a 37th order scrivener, bottom of the pily, it’s her first time to Earth.

- They felt Terry’s presence also during filming S2.

- Douglas said that they started doing the ADR post production and that the difference between David and Michael is that David looks at the monitor and whatches what he’s done and Michael never watch, so now Michael saw himself for the first time and he was like a fan doing, ‘Oh look we’re back! And there’s Aziraphale!’.

- Neil about Maggie and Nina returning: 

It was a thing where one of the things I was very very certain before I started writing season 2 that there were two characters in it and I wanted them to be played by Maggie and Nina, so in order to make it clear to everybody reading the script, that they were going to be played by Maggie and Nina, I called the characters Maggie and Nina. Maggie and Nina liked being Maggie and Nina so the names stayed. 

Douglas joked that he thought that a bit lazy not to think up new names and it was hell on set. Later he jokes that since Muriel is an actual angel name, that Neil didn’t make that one either.

Maggie runs a record shop which is beside Aziraphale’s bookshop in Soho, Mr. Fell is her landlord, shop passed through the generations. Her shop looks across shop where Nina works.

Nina works in the independent coffeeshop Give Me Coffe or Give Me Death, she is good with dealing with people in Soho who come in, not afraid of dealing with them. Wears great cardigans. Her character is quite grumpy. There is a scene where at the start her love life is doomed and she is getting passive-agressive texts for Lindsay - Neil says writing the texts was some of the most fun they had  - maybe there will be a hope for her love life.

- About more characters:

Neil didn’t want to lose people because they are such a family and wanted Miranda Richardson back but Madame Tracy’s story had really finished and couldn’t think of more for here and her story had ended so beautifully so he wrote a new part for Miranda - she plays Shax, demon that was sent on Earth as the replacement of sacked Crowley.

Anna Maxwell Martin couldn’t make the filming (was in two shows and a stage play when they needed her), so Beelzebub is played by Shelley Conn. She demanded a lot more flies.

Donna Preston plays Mrs. Sandwich, and We’we never quite sure about Mrs. Sandwich’s profession but she’s definitely in Soho.

-When Neil started writing S2:

 In August 2019 he told Amazon and BBC at fancy breakfast, ‘This is the plot.’, and they said, ‘Oh, we like that plot.’ 

In December he and John Finnemore got together and Neil told him the plot and he said, ‘That is a good plot, but how does it end’ Neil said that he doesn’t have ends until he gets there but John needed one so Neil said, ‘How about this?’ and told him the end and John said, ‘That’s a good end.’ And that is the end we’ve got. 

He started writing it in the middle of the pandemic Summer 2020, writing with pencil to his notebook the first scene which is the first scene.

- Neil what will S2 be about:

Six episodes, each about 45 minutes.

There are some love stories in it.

We will learn a lot about Jane Austen we didn’t know before.

There is a lot more Heaven, a lot more Hell.

- What could be more eras for Aziraphale and Crowley

Douglas: 19th century Scotland, Neil: Edinburgh perhaps around 1827?, Douglas: That would be good, can you write that?, Neil: Oddly enough, episode 3 will take us to a little stint of body snatching in the era. For me it would be like 1941 and we’d go back to those Nazis. Douglas: That would be good and what about something biblical as well, could we do something? Neil: Bible’s good. Yeah back to biblical times, that would be really fun, we could do one of those in episode 2. (they are obviously talking about minisodes :))

- There was a clip from the show but only sound for those watching the stream. 

Listen here. 

Description from twitter ‘Crowley rushes into the bookshop holding plants and it’s so cute’.  

This pic should be from it :)

- Season 2 Release Date: Summer 2023

- At the end on the zoom dropped not on Michael but also David and Jon Hamm! :)

Watch here :), their banter was written by Neil, Staged-style.

Michael and David found out that there’s going to be S2 probably at the same time from Neil. There was always sort of hope after the end of S1 that there might be more story to tell. Jon found out about it from Neil during press for S1 as potentiality and then during covid Neil said an idea to Jon that we would start by walking down the street in Soho completely nude and he send me the beggining of the scene where Gabriel does not recogni- and the rest is deliberately cut with ‘Lost connection’, to the nude part Neil said, I knew that if he said yes to that he’d say yes to anything and then he says it is not actually there.

[celestialcrowley]

My mom and I were finally able to watch the final episode of Good Omens season 2.

Before we dive in, my mom is very — how do I say this — anti on certain things. My friend said it perfectly. He said she gave him the homophobic put the fear of God type vibes when he first met her.

I don’t believe anything will ever fully change her opinions or views of us. I’ve not even referred to myself as aromantic / asexual in her presence, and I doubt I ever will. I simply tell her I’m done dating. It’s clearly not in my future, and, after trying it a couple of times, it just isn’t something I’m interested in.

I hope that one day she will open her eyes and realize that it’s all fine. Whatever we are. It’s okay.

My mom enjoyed season one. When I asked her what she thought of Aziraphale and Crowley, here’s what she said. Not her exact words but close enough to what I can remember.

“Aziraphale seems like he’s afraid of getting into trouble with Heaven, but not enough to keep him from going against God’s orders.”

Just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.

“Crowley isn’t as evil as he paints himself to be.”

Just a little bit a good person.

The only thing, as far as I’m aware, that didn’t quite sit right with my mom is that God is a She.

Wibbly wobbly timey wimey…

I was terrified for her to watch the second season because of Maggie and Nina and That Big Damn Kiss. She’s told me some less than desirable things previously. Here are a handful of them.

“I won’t watch shows that have gay couples in them.”

“I will watch them, but I’ll just turn my head away when they kiss.”

About my friend who is a lesbian —

“Your friend just says that, but she doesn’t actually know what she is.”

Okay, mom. You go ahead and keep telling yourself that.

I am certain, despite my fear, that I wanted her to watch Good Omens so badly because I thought maybe it would be the golden ticket. It’s uniquely different.

We have been gifted with Anthony J’I’m Not Actually Either Crowley and Mister AZ Smitten I Believe Fell, The Almighty God She, Nina I’m Not Your Type and Maggie You Have No Idea.

I was expecting my mom to frown upon Maggie and Nina’s story in season two, but she didn’t. She actually didn’t even have anything negative to say.

Y’all should have seen me when That Big Damn Kiss was coming up. I was fidgeting probably as bad as Aziraphale was when he was gathering up the courage to ask Crowley to dance with him.

I don’t think I’ve ever fidgeted that much in my life.

And then it happened.

That Big Damn Kiss

And she watched all of it. She didn’t look away. She didn’t make a face. She didn’t say anything negative.

I don’t necessarily think her views have changed because she laughed at something my uncle told her about a former coworker of his. This coworker used to go by Craig, but he later came out as trans and asked to be called Cindy. My uncle said, “The best we can do is Crindy.”

Most of my family are homophobic, and I don’t care for it.

I don’t know if it’s the way Neil Gaiman has written Good Omens, but I was surprised that she watched the entire show, had nothing negative to say and even added that she needs to watch all of both seasons again to better understand it.

That’s something, I suppose.

Maybe she’s coming around.

Thank you, Neil Gaiman.

You truly are a legend. 💚

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Pt VII good omens S1E3 but i'm in a fever-induced haze and i watched it four days ago

Hello maggots it turns out I may have a viral fever... or perchance I'm just going viral in the GO fandom and Crowley being so hot has given me a fever (this is what I learned from years of studying thermodynamics). BAHAHAHAHAHAH anyway this is a LOOOONG post.

EDIT: There are time inconsistencies, as some of you informed me. Paint before wall slam etc. But this show does not follow linear time, just like me. Time is cosmic Play-Doh, and @neil-gaiman, Einstein and I are toddlers playing with it all bendy-bendy. We may have eaten some. I blame Neil. So I will correct nothing.

(im sorry to all my followers, the maggots, and everyone reading this post, i'm afraid this level of quality will be sustained for the rest of the post)

Whatever it may be... haveth my summary of Good Omens Ep3, or whatever I remember of it, anyway.

The second the episode started streaming everyone was yelling about the cold open in the chat.

I could be conflating this with Ep 1 but I think it begins with Aziraphale's gaslight gatekeep girlboss moment where he straight up LIES TO GOD about giving the dumb humans a flaming sword right after they fell from grace.

Hot take from someone who has negligible biblical knowledge, look at it, guys. What harm has an apple ever done to mankind (except to doctors)? Nothing. *nods vigorously* And then our lovely angel goes and gIVES THEM A GODDAMN FLAMING SWORD. Nice, fire and weaponry, this is going to go well for the world!

Anyway lesson is Aziraphale is a chaotic lil bastard and it's why we and Crowley love him.

Fast forward to uh, Noah's Ark... There is a unicorn and it runs away, which Crowley/Crawly seems concerned about. Azi is just chilling there watching all of humanity be drowned and Crowley, looking gorgeous may I add, walks up and she's like CHILDREN? WHY ARE YOU KILLING CHILDREN?

Did I mention that she looks gorgeous with those flowing locks because she does. It gives kind of Disney Brave vibes, doesn't it? Wait is David Tennant Scottish I WANT A DAVID TENNANT/CROWLEY MERIDA COSPLAY.

Anyway so Aziraphale and Crowley watch everyone drown etc

I may have missed a few centuries but then we have ol' Bill Shakespeare and Hamlet (David!!) and Aziraphale like the bean he is wants to cheer them on, and does it badly.

Crowley is standing there thinking man this angel is a fucking doofus why do I love him, and then they make a deal that allows them to do NO work whatsoever since their work cancels out anyway.

Aziraphale pouts at Crowley and Crowley melts inside and makes Hamlet a success though he doesn't even like Shakespeare's tragedies but Azi does and that's all that matters.

OH YEAH FRENCH REVOLUTION. Just to fuck with Aziraphale and because the painkillers are getting to me, I'm gonna do this one in my shit French (et non, je ne peux pas utiliser les accents, j'utilise l'ordinateur et je ne veux pas ouvrir Google). Alors, la revolution est la, Aziraphale veut manger (quelle surprise) et ses vetements sont tres chers, les sans-culottes le tueront, mais Crowley vient et Aziraphale dis "Crowley! Mon hero"

Okay I ran out of French but yes so he was gonna be hanged but Crowley came and Aziraphale's face literally melted and then he switched clothes with the guard and left him to die while he and Crowley went to dine happily (Aziraphale dined, Crowley was hungry for Azi because he has a watching-angel-eat kink).

Aziraphale being a casual accessory to murder/murderer is the most underrated part of good omens.

Fast forward and it's the holocaust and Aziraphale is tricked by some Nazis and they're about to kill him. But Crowley walks down the aisle to their groom, well, more like skips while yelping, and burns the place down for Aziraphale. Naturally Azi's like OH NO MY BOOKS and is ready to cry, then Crowley gently hands him the suitcase full of books unharmed and says just a little miracle for you, baby, want a ride home? And Aziraphale is left holding the books (which by the by Crowley does not care about, they do NOT read books, again, just for Azi) and looking like the happiest man alive and like he would die for Crowley.

Fast forward and we have Crowley in the sixties SERVING with her bob cut, anyone who doesn't like it can fight me to the DEATH, I LOVE HER, and anyway Crowley manipulates, manslaughters and manwhores her way into getting into the car with Aziraphale. He hands her a bottle of holy water because fuck heaven he would do anything for Crowley, and Crowley offers to drive him anywhere (mmmhm Crowley sure you're just being a gentledemon) and Aziraphale tells her that she goes too fast for him. IF THIS ISN'T CALLBACKED IN S3 WITH CROWLEY SAYING "YOU RIDE TOO FAST FOR ME, ANGEL" on a motorbike or horse or his peepee ANYTHING IDC im gonna throw hands.

I'm choosing to forget all the breakups so end cold open back in present day

They're in a paintball arena and Crowley presses Aziraphale into the wall while growling I'm not nice (ok Crowley bro maybe it's time to take a break from 2010s wattpad) and Aziraphale is just gazing adoringly at him. Ex-Satanic nun comes and is like oh my bad this is an intimate moment and Crowley turns around immediately cross that someone's interrupting them but Aziraphale continues to stare at Crowley's face hornily until he reluctantly looks at the nun too. Thanks for the acting choices Michael Sheen.

They hypnotise her and Azi melts when she mentions the antichrist's toesy-woesies and then they leave and Azi is hit by paint, Crowley circles him devouring him with his gaze and finally blows away the paint with an air kiss. I see you, Azi, I KNOW you can get rid of it yourself. Anyway then Crowley turns all the paintball guns into rifles and people start shooting and Azi is like THIS is my husband and they walk away to have drinks while the police swarms.

People were like 'Crowley only ensured no one got killed because of the look Azi gave him' like LMAO have you MET them? Aziraphale is always fucking down for murder, Crowley is the one being like FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AZIRAPHALE NO. Azi was like "shit we gotta kill the antichrist you do it" and crowley's like "bitch slow down we can literally just raise the kid right"

Anyway Crowley gaslights some demons about seeing the hellhound and ig whatever I said happened in Ep 2 with Dog actually happened here etc

The bandstand scene, fuck me. Crowley asks Aziraphale to run away together from the end of the world and Aziraphale says no and they're both sad

we're all sad too

the end

[di-42]

I've been putting off writing this because I was trying to find a way to not sound defensive. But, I mean, I do feel attacked on this subject, so I may as well sound defensive in my response to it.

If you have read some of my other posts and are wondering... yep. Yes, you might have guessed this is yet another post about Aziraphale's choice in the final 15. Or, rather, not. This post is not about Aziraphale. This post is about explaining Aziraphale's choice in a way that differs to the one-layer depth that we are shown on screen and being accused of lacking the ability to accept that characters I like can be complex and can make mistakes.

Oh, the irony!

So, I mean, possibly no one will be interested in this but let me rant on.

So first off, and I can't believe I'm having to say this, my opinions on Aziraphale are just that: my opinions. I won't specify that on every post I write. If your opinions are different to mine, I strongly encourage you to reply/reblog my posts with your own thoughts and pointing out what and why you disagree with. I take this as a healthy exchange of opinion and really what the fandom is for! I can learn from you! Just, needless to say, keep personal attacks out of this.

Secondly, surprise surprise, Aziraphale lovers can see clearly that Aziraphale makes mistakes. We have watched him making mistakes for 2 seasons, dropping our jaws and shaking our heads. He can be self-righteous, self centered, oblivious to other people's (especially other demons') feelings and incapable to read the room at times. But you know what? He gets it right the time that matters. And that time we are talking about mattered. But that's beside the point. The point is, the point is, we know Aziraphale can be, deep down, a bit of a bastard (and we know Crowley wouldn't love him as much as he does if he wasn't). So, these two things live together in our little, simple, depth-deprived minds: the knowledge that Aziraphale can be a bastard and the feeling that that one time he wasn't being a bastard, he was in fact being selfless.

Thirdly: our little, simple, depth-deprived minds know that stories can have, wait for it, plot twists! When something later on in that story is revealed to have happened for different reasons to the ones that were apparent at a previous point in the story. Neil Gaiman has done it in most of his work. This, of course, doesn't necessarily mean he's doing it here. Again, this is just my opinion. But really, dismissing completely the idea that there can maybe be reasons we don't know yet behind Aziraphale's choice is doing a disservice to Neil Gaiman.

Fourthly (do you even say fourthly?). The most important point of all: do you think we don't feel for Crowley? Do you really think that, because we believe Aziraphale didn't betray Crowley, we can't identify with Crowley's feelings of abandonment? Do you think our little, simple, depth-deprived minds can't hold these two feelings at the same time? Do you think we are dismissing his and our own traumas? Do you really, really think we never wanted to drive that Bentley off a cliff? We do feel for Crowley. We do feel desperate, broken, empty. We know he's lost EVERYTHING and we do recognise that feeling as well as you do. Whatever I think the reasons are behind Aziraphale's choice I do enjoy reading fiction that explains it in a different way to what I think because, again, I can believe something and feel something different at the same time. Reading so wonderfully written fiction about Crowley's pain makes me feel less alone, like bloody all of us. I write my own poems from Crowley's desperate, heartbroken point of view. It is much more alluring than the calm certainty of trust. But I digress. My point is, don't think for one second we are dismissing Crowley's pain. Don't think for one second we don't love Crowley as much as you do only because we believe Aziraphale loves Crowley even more.

Rant over, I guess.

Justice for Aziraphale. Justice for Crowley.

[wrengrif]

Are we ready? It's Time...

For more GOOD OMENS WILD META.

I have been chewing on this one for awhile. Like, really ruminating on it. Probably because it's so far-reaching. For me, for others. It's a matter of the Journey From The Final Fifteen.

I will openly admit it, when I first came off the Final Fifteen, sometime in August/September (yeah, I was so worried about Season 2 I didn't watch it for a month after it came out and I realized I was right to do so.). I was, and still am, heartbroken. I was angry, despairing and wondering what the point of an ending like that was. I was angry at Neil Gaiman, I was angry at all the creators behind Good Omens. I was angry at Aziraphale, first, and then after about five minutes, I was angry at Crowley too.

Note, I was never mad at David Tennant or Michael Sheen. I respected their acting choices so much in the Final Fifteen. It was beautiful. It ripped my soul out through my chest. They are both brilliant. I know everyone has their favorite GO counterparts - they are mine.

Then a funny thing happened. A few weeks passed. I started fumbling around Good Omens Tumblr again. I'd been a big contributor during Detroit: Become Human (of which I am still a HUGE FAN, god I love that game.), and until Good Omens 2 came out, I was on the side of Good Omens fandom. Reading, mostly, but at the time I was very deep into my Wangxian fixation (haaaaah, I say, like I have ever left it. My dream AU is Aziraphale and Crowley in the Sunshot Campaign, causing trouble with Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.). That changed after Final Fifteen. Now I was hurt, I was looking for comfort. I was looking for my fellow fans.

Clearly, I found you, you gorgeous bastards (saying nothing about your moms, unless you want me to). I started to read more meta, started having my own thoughts and carefully posting them. Reading fanfiction, and ... becoming less angry. Stepping back, to really look at the story. I was swallowing content like Aziraphale swallowed ox ribs. In the midst of this, I realized this wasn't The End of Good Omens, but merely the second part of a Trilogy. I'm a writer, I know what the second part of a trilogy is. It's where your heart breaks, it's the cliffhanger episode. I stopped being mad, and started loving the craft. I started to actually look at the scenes instead of just watching.

With that, I started to realize I had been missing so much. I realized I had been wrong, about a lot of things. My perspectives, and thoughts changed. Aziraphale wasn't at fault, he was a victim of the situation as much as Crowley was. Crowley left the bookshop, but he never left Aziraphale. He waited. He's still waiting. As more time passed, the more my thoughts evolved. Changed, formed anew, and I felt better for it. I decided to be hopeful about the whole thing. Yes, it was bad now, but there were enough signs and easter eggs to say this wasn't the ending we were going to get.

I healed, in short. I forgave. I'm waiting for our next chapter, because I know this story isn't done, not by a long shot. I'm waiting to see how our heroes will cope.

Rather like, I think, Aziraphale and Crowley will. The initial pain is going to fade, the anger, the feeling of rejection (whereas they will some day realize neither one of them were in fact, rejected.). The longing is going to kick in. They're going to miss one another more than they will ever be angry. There's going to be moments of grace, of forgiveness, partnered with sadness. What I think we forget, sometimes, is that Aziraphale and Crowley are 6000 years old. They've fought before. They'll fight again. With the fullness of time though, they'll come back to one another. They'll talk again.

Right now though, they've had time. Time to hopefully process (I really, really hope Aziraphale has had SOME time to process), time let the anger fade a little. Maybe not enough time - some of us here still need time - but enough to let them wonder ... is it really over? Maybe to realize, no. No it's not.

Time doesn't heal all wounds, but time does allow you to find equilibrium. I hope time will do the same for our angel and our demon. I know time helped me. I hope time will help us all.

[rollforjackass]

okay so i reread the good omens script book trying to look up a quote i remembered and i kept writing down the things that i absolutely loved about it, so here's just a list of all the quotes and moments that rewired my brain chemistry

aziraphale sasses the hell out of crowley about his antichrist birth organization skills

aziraphale saying “oh sugar” instead of oh shit...

first appearance of everyday by buddy holly, we all know how that turned out

aziraphale doesn’t know how an ansaphone works. this was in the book too, but it’s still funny, especially considering how in radio omens he at least knows about caller id

aziraphale brought shortbread for the drive to the convent. did he think it was a date? please say yes

crowley asked aziraphale if heaven wouldn’t give him (crowley) asylum and aziraphale was going to ask him the same about hell

aziraphale says “what the hell” after pointedly not swearing earlier. hypocrite ass

aziraphale is fine with killing the antichrist himself but gets upset about the humans killing each other at tadfield manor....more tasty hypocrisy. he thinks he can only ever do the Right Thing but he knows it's Wrong when anyone else does it

“aziraphale is rather enjoying having the upper hand in the ideas department for once”

crowley says “dude. chill.”

“for a moment his noble better nature rejects the idea out of hand. THEN HE FALLS...”

“aziraphale is softening. they haven’t spoken in a hundred years: he’s realizing they are still friends.” gets me every time i look at it

why was shadwell in prison?? america explain

“i work in soho, i hear things” patron saint of soho confirmed

i still think that the neon halo blinking on and off above aziraphale’s head is the HARDEST that neil gaiman has ever gone and that we deserved to see it in the final cut

"michael: when your cause is just you do not hesitate to smite the foe, aziraphale." i'm thinking thoughts about the s2 finale under this lens; when your cause is just (saving the love of your life) you do not hesitate to suffer for pursuing it

“crowley looks back. he looks at aziraphale. above them, a beautiful starry sky. and crowley softens.”   jesus janthony christ.

“aziraphale is looking for someone. he spies a human statue dressed as an angel, with wings. it’s not him.”   GOD

gabriel about aziraphale: “i’m disappointed in him. not thinking like an angel.”

crowley “looks up, and talks to god, in the classical fashion.” see i really want a script book for s2 because i want to see aziraphale's expressions of faith plucked out a little bit more

crowley in the cinema: “he’s waiting for the end of the world. out of time. out of hope.”

the fact that crowley saw aziraphale walking down the street and left dagon on read is priceless

aziraphale looks hurt after crowley says he won’t even think about him

the music for the gavotte scene was recommended to be “i am a courtier grave and serious” from gilbert and sullivan’s the gondoliers which is PERFECT

“aziraphale is heading down the street, looking harried and as if he is carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. which he is.”

sandalphon says “you know how we treat traitors in wartime?” to aziraphale and there was meant to be blood on aziraphale’s lips after sandalphon punches him. death to sandalphon

“why would you do this? we’re the good guys.”

aziraphale (resolutely not swearing): you. you B…AD angels.

“seducing women to do your evil will!” “i think perhaps you’ve got the wrong shop.” still the campiest line delivery i've ever seen

we don't need to speculate about crowley being in tears in the burning bookshop because according to the script he is canonically right on the verge of it

“right. i’m done. i’ve had it. i don’t care about any bloody angels or humans or anyone. i hate you all. somebody killed my best friend, and i don’t even care who did it. bastards, all of you.”   😭

when aziraphale is discorporated, his heavenly appearance is all his normal clothes but gleaming white

aziraphale: i have no intention of fighting in any war. “all angels on the floor turn and look at the angel who has said the unsayable.”

aziraphale can’t actually see crowley in the bar scene…he has no idea how wrecked his best friend is

aziraphale doesn’t take sugar with his tea. bastard

aziraphale crosses his fingers under the table when answering shadwell’s nipple question

aziraphale is wearing madame tracy’s pink motorbike helmet in the mirror of her scooter

they describe crowley’s suit in the burning bentley as “interestingly ripped”...........we were robbed of a crowley boob window moment and i'll never forget

aziraphale introduces crowley to madame tracy as “he’s…well, we’re sort of business associates.” you know, like a liar

aziraphale was fully about to murder adam. i don’t think i can stress this enough

aziraphale pokes himself to make sure he’s solid once he’s separated from madame tracy

aziraphale isn’t threatening crowley with the sword, “just making his point that he can do dangerous out-of-character things if he needs to.”

crowley: what if the almighty planned it this way all along? from the very beginning aziraphale: takes a drink from the bottle of wine

aziraphale looks like he’s going to cry when crowley reminds him that the bookshop burnt down 😭

aziraphale-as-crowley looks depressed 😭 he still thinks his bookshop is gone

the angels kidnapping crowley-as-aziraphale zip-tied his hands those dickheads

aziraphale-as-crowley: my friend! they’re kidnapping my friend!

the hit hastur gives aziraphale-as-crowley would have killed a human 0/10 wahoos

“the van with [crowley-as-]aziraphale in it drives away, and [aziraphale-as-]crowley tries to crawl after it.”   HEY NEIL I JUST WANT TO TALK

crowley-as-aziraphale says “what fun. i love a barbecue.”

i am literally ENRAGED that sandalphon was like “hell yeah you can hit aziraphale” to the minor demon who brought the hellfire i WILL throw hands

uriel calls it a barbecue too those fuckers

in the script uriel and sandalphon have their flaming swords drawn, so it wasn't going to be as insidious as expecting aziraphale to walk into the flame of his own volition. but they didn’t end up including it in the show, so it is that insidious after all

aziraphale-as-crowley keeping his socks on for the bath was such a choice

“he doesn’t actually have a newspaper and a cigar, but damn, he’s enjoying himself in his bath” 

i've seen so little talk about how absolutely ice cold aziraphale is in the bath scene with the whole “so you’re probably thinking, ‘if he can do this, i wonder what else he can do’? and very, very soon, you’re all going to get the chance to find out.” BECAUSE THAT SHIT IS TERRIFYING

aziraphale-as-crowley: michael. duude.

crowley and aziraphale both get out of their own elevators and meet up to walk out together which is poetic cinema

PIGBOG AND THE OTHER MOTORCYCLE IDIOTS THAT HUNG OUT WITH DEATH WERE GOING TO BE INCLUDED i miss them

[lukeskylovr]

good omens s2 ep6 thoughts

i love his stupid fuckinf angel cosplay so much. and his little hops 😭

“i had brothers u don’t scare me by making faces!” STOP SHES SO RIGHT

DONT CALL MY GIRL MAGGIE UNLOVABLE

maggie ily but srsly 😭

“i haven’t always been a demon” IS TJIS A CALLBACK TO “that was a long time ago, angel” 😭😭👿

noo azi remembering the fire 🙁🙁

“crowley’s emotional support angel” STOP IT 👿👿👿

AW CROWLEY PUNCHING MURIEL LIKE THAT IM CRYING I LOVE THEM

bro why did they tell gabriel to take his clothes off ☠️

bro what is azi doing 😟

A HALO!??!

damn 😭

ohhhhh i love crowley sm

azi what have you done 😭😭😭

THE FLY WAS GABRIEL THIS WHOLE TIME !?!?!? STOP IT that is so fucking unserious neil gaiman i love you

NO WHAG THE FUCK IT WENT IN HIS EYEBALL

“you can’t always get what you live for” um. um am i supposed to think of azi and crowley when i hear that

are these two assholes in love with each other ….

GABRIEL MADE THE JUKEBOX PKAY EVERYDAY FOR BEELZEBUB!!(!!!!!???!!?!

period aziraphale

crowley don’t talk to me about alpha centauri i can’t do this

shut up michael

crowley sitting like that 😭

fuck off metatron looking at crowley like that leaving him alone u bastard

“us time” i am going to die

maggie and nina giving crowley advice omg ❤️❤️❤️

azi PLEASE just let crowley talk oh my god i’m actually gonna explode

oh azi 🙁

RESTORE CROWLEY TO FULL ANGELIC STATUS ARE YOU FUCKING JOKING

no nightingales 😟

“we could have been … us” what if i killed myself

i am fucking devastated no one talk to me

[nimbusalba]

Hiya! For the Good Omens Ask Game - questions 2, 10, 15 and 22!

Hiya! How are you, honey? I’m so glad you asked! Sit down and take a cold drink, iced tea? Juice? Smoothie? Let’s answer those questions, shall we?

2. What was it that drew you to Good Omens, and what was it that sucked you into the fandom?

What drew me to the book about 20 years ago was that it was written by Terry Pratchett. I didn't know Neil Gaiman yet. I loved the book and that drew me to the show. Last year I remembered they had made the series. I watched the first season and loved it even more than the book, because, come on, that series is a work of art. The story is amazing but what Michael Sheen and David Tennant have done with Aziraphale and Crowley is just beyond words. I learned there was a second season. And that sealed my future. Somewhere between s2e2 and s2e3 I was so hooked I couldn't stop watching. But I think what sucked me into the fandom’s downwards spiral and the never ending brainrot was the final fifteen. That scene changed my brain chemistry for good and after that moment I haven't been able to think of anything other than these two idiots and the good omens universe.

10. What traits do you share with Crowley?

Just like Crowley I’m a nervous wreck trying to hide it from the rest of the world, so anxiety is one of our shared traits. Also curiosity, critical thinking, dislike of hierarchy and questioning orders and authority. You’ll be happy to know I don’t kill kids either, so that’s another trait Crowley and I share. I also love Aziraphale, but I reeeeally love them both, so idk if it counts as a shared trait. Unfortunately I’m not an optimist deep down.

15. If you could be besties with anyone from the Good Omens universe, who would it be?

That’s a difficult one. I’d give an arm to be besties with Aziraphale or Crowley, just like anyone would do. Aziraphale is so tender and caring and, deep down, such a bitchy bastard. On the other hand, Crowley is a captivating demon and if I were besties with him I’d probably get to meet Hozier, which would also be amazing.

But other than the ineffables, I’d love to be besties with Tracy, as I find she is a fascinating, strong woman and she seems to be so fun. I'm sure there wouldn't be any dull moments with her.

22. Bildad The Shuhite: hot or not?

Short answer: hot! I find Crowley/Crawley hot as hell in any circumstance whatsoever.

Long answer: Well, it depends on the POV. In the scenes at Job's house (at the patio, the cellar), which I take as Aziraphale's POV, Bildad is hot, hot, hot! With that long, curly hair he's really Bildaddy, you know what I mean.

In the rest of the scenes (which I take as Crowley's POV) with the shorter, frizzy hair he's hot but in a funny way.

[scifireadingclub]

Good Omens

An oldie but a goodie.

Admittedly, this is only a recent read in the sense that I re-read it about every six months, and have done since I was about fifteen. But I have to start with something!

What’s it all about?

Powerhouse authors Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s 1990 classic, notably now also the source of a well-received TV series of the same name, presents the reader with a comedic re-imagining of ‘the Omen’ as it could have been, had the agents of heaven and hell had been a bit more incompetent and the Antichrist slightly more normal.

What might turn people off?

The pacing can feel slow at times. This is partly because of the large cast of characters, whose viewpoints are switched between relatively frequently. Also, if you’re not a fan of British humour or either author’s writing style - particularly the late, great Terry Pratchett’s propensity for using footnotes to great comedic effect - then this probably isn’t for you.

Why should I read it?

Where to even begin.

It’s outrageously funny, for one. The prose is sly and assumes intelligence on behalf of the reader, so the jokes never feel over-explained. The mix of absurdist and genre-bending elements into an otherwise very well-known mythology is expertly deployed to the fullest comedic effect.

The characters and relationships are likewise subtly drawn and extremely memorable. While there are a large cast to choose from to demonstrate this, I’ll draw attention here to Crowley, a demon ‘who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards’, and Aziraphale, an angel who is ‘just enough of a bastard to be worth liking,’ whose characters and relationship serve to subvert expectations regarding agents of extreme Good and Evil. In a memorable example, when Aziraphale accidentally kills a dove, it’s Crowley - in fact the far more empathetic of the pair - who revives it. I also have a deep love for the four other (motorbike) riders of the apocalypse, whose redaction from the show made sense for pacing reasons but made me personally a bit sad.

The core of the novel - that humans are neither fundamentally good nor evil, but can choose to be both, and the absurdity of the human condition - is clear in every element of the story and remains consistent throughout.

What’s the verdict?

Good Omens is one of my favourite books of all time. I’ve re-read it twice a year at least for over ten years. I cannot recommend it highly enough, particularly to fans of the authors’ other works but also to basically everybody else.

[minibagelqueen]

My heart is shattered so I may as well go deeper. Share your angst fics that have awful similarities with S2!

This is an excerpt from mine, This isn't Flopperoo

"Yes. But if I'm wrong nothing happens."

"And nothing will ever happen if you had your way!" Crowley instantly regretted those words as soon as they left his mouth.

"And what is that supposed to mean?!" He bristled.

"That you're happy just… doing this forever." He gestured, "I want us to have a life together."

"We can't!" Aziraphale bit back. "How naive can you be? We're in an illegal relationship. We're abhorrent to society!" He pushed his plate away and threw his napkin to the table. "And we live in a tiny village, Crowley! How are we supposed to be together?!"

"Then we move! We could buy a place in London! You could open a shop? A book shop!" Crowley shouted back. They weren't abhorrent. It was society that was wrong. Not them.

"More of these preposterous ideas!" He didn't understand how painful it was to Crowley to be ridiculed for his plans. "Besides, I like it here! This is my home. And we'd only have the same problems in London." He barked back.

"We could find somewhere with two flats, connect them together?! I've known people who have done it." He flailed around for a solution. "People wouldn't know or even care if two men live together in London! It's London! Everyone has their heads up their own arses anyway."

"Like someone else I know." He said sarcastically: that little bit of a bastard coming out. He was feeling attacked just for being cautious, for liking the simple life. If Crowley thought that he was boring then all of this was a moot point anyway. He couldn't risk moving to live with someone who could grow tired of him. Would grow tired. After all, Crowley was sexy and experienced and clearly wanted excitement. He had so many other opportunities to explore. He could easily find himself someone more suited. And wouldn't it hurt more? If they tried and had a life together only for Crowley to take it away when he realised what a mistake he had made investing in Aziraphale?

Crowley snarled, "At least I'm trying to think of a future for us!" He didn't want to think about why Aziraphale was so resistant to them becoming more. Why did he always meet resistance when he wanted to commit? He wasn't expecting life changing things right now. He just needed a sign that he wasn't just the convenient homosexual in the village for him to experiment with. Because lately he had felt like Aziraphale had been pushing him away with one hand and pulling him in with the other. It was confusing. He just wanted to know where he stood. What this was. His own insecurities were playing on him. Aziraphale was so incredible. He was scared that he'd realise there was more to the homosexual world than just… him. He had had a sample of home during the Winter. He had never felt that before with a person. He wanted to feel it again so desperately. He wanted it with his Angel.

"Well it's simply foolish to dream." He said, something final and dismissive in his tone. Crowley just wasn't being realistic. He didn't want to change. He didn't crave more. He loved the library and he missed how easy life had been before. Oh no.

"Before? Before me?! Before us?" Crowley choked.

How could I have said that out loud?

"Aziraphale…?" Crowley asked, his voice breaking now. "Aziraphale… what did you mean? Do you… are you?" His entire world felt like it was crashing around him. "When you always say that it'll never work. Do you mean the plans? Or us?"

Aziraphale was silent in panic.

[lokeanwelcomingcommittee]

Now alls y'all got your opinions on marvel Loki, but what about Loki representations from other franchises? Like the D&D Loki. (The more I read the DnD wiki page for him the more I start to chuckle).

With the perhaps obvious caveat that I would be hard-pressed to find every variant and at the end of the day it would be a personal opinion, I did at least skim the DnD page (it's been a while, and I tend not to gravitate to pantheons based on existing ones in those games just for the sake of variety)-- perhaps not the most popular answer, but certainly it's gotten better than the last time I checked. Clearly they've taken their own unique routes in many regards, but so goes storytelling. I tend to think him and the Old Bastard generally fall more under the chaotic neutral category (although at this point the alignment system's changed from my heyday), but I'm not shocked to see a certain lack of nuance on that front from a game that... has an alignment system, if you feel me. I suppose it's tempered expectations; I don't expect to see an exact replication of my impressions or experience in even a co-religionist context, much less one where he's a literary character being adapted into some other modern work, so while I certainly have preferences in depictions of him, it's fairly hard for me to get riled in either direction about one. (Let me find some wood to knock on, but so far so good).

If you wanted a personal favorite, it is, indeed, these two (or one, in some sense):

For the unfamiliar, the comic panels are from Neil Gaiman's Sandman (post-binding, to somewhat explain the mood, but free through a series of Important Plot Events), the bottom from the adaptation of his American Gods. Arguably not the nicest, but that is part of the draw for me, as he (perhaps predictably) does an excellent job especially in terms of the ambiguity they both have-- believably bridging the gap between the "fun" and "criminal" in "fun lovin' criminal," along with-- even if one loathes the characterization-- Mr. World especially is a god who goes where others can't, in unquestionably enemy or adversarial territory-- and he gets the job done, whether that be regaling an audience or retiring a god, and I think that's something that even in more positive adaptations gets somewhat overlooked; "balls of steel" is apt far beyond the goat incident, and Crispin Glover (for me, at least) handled that range and focus incredibly well. Only two seasons of it really, but him and McShane gave us the Last of the Famous International Playgods for two seasons and that was probably more than enough.

On a less obvious front, the version I've always said was my favorite is actually one that... isn't actually him, but I think one can at least tip one's hat to a program that really knows how to tangle people up in each other, and, of course, electrify the boys and girls.

But, of course, to end where we started, YMMV. On the upside, there are a lot of choices (including no favorite at all). Gotta love having a shapeshifter around.

- Mod V

[sammininoofthelord]

Third chapter of the 5+1 "5 times Aziraphale shielded Crowley from the rain, and one time he didn't." !

Collab with @zeckarin-blaise

"... In the background Aziraphale and Crowley met on the tops of buses and in art galleries." (Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman)

This is a two part chapter, continuation tomorrow!

You can read it on Ao3 by Zeckarin or bellow

**

They had agreed to go to the museum and discuss their respective progress on little Warlock’s education while visiting. It would be more discreet than talking about their plan outside, where even walls had ears, Crowley had said .

It was raining, which was not very surprising, rain being a common occurrence in London even in the middle of June. Still, thought Aziraphale, shaking his umbrella before carefully folding it as they both entered the building, it was a bummer. Rain on Pride Parade day was unfortunate.

“Coming, angel?” called Crowley, handing him his ticket, “I’ve heard there was a special exhibit on third floor. You’ll love it, it’s called “Eden”.”

Aziraphale let out an excited sound and joined him with a happy wiggle. “Oh, let us go this instant, Crowley! I am sure it will bring back lots of memories.”

 

The painting was, as usual, thought Crowley, rolling his eyes, featuring a very white Adam, animals waiting in front of him to be named.

Aziraphale sighed wistfully.

“I remember that day. Naming everyone took an awfully long time.”

“Yeah,” said Crowley, “I spied on it for a while then I got bored and took a nap.”

“Really, asking him to do it on his own was pretty rude of Uriel,” added the angel with a pout. “Eve was perfectly able to help, and it would have taken only half the time to get the job done.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “If I remember correctly, she did name one.”

“Only because she asked Adam to let her for this specific animal!” countered the angel, still pouting, “She named the ornithorynchus, then that was it, no one asked her her opinion about the others!”

“Weeell…” Crowley drawled on, shrugging slightly, “you have to admit that she got a little carried away. Imagine if every animal on the surface of Earth had such a convoluted name. It would be chaos. Not that I wouldn’t like it,” he added hurriedly, remembering that chaos was considered evil most of the time.

Aziraphale straightened his cufflinks. “I think that ornithorynchus is a perfectly proper name.”

Crowley huffed. “Course you do. Your name is Aziraphale.”

He waited for the answer with an inward grin, walking towards a statue that was only half as good as the one he owned, expecting the start of some good old bickering.

But after a while, since no I am certain I do not understand what you mean, Crowley, was coming, he looked back questioningly, only to be greeted with a very concerning sight.

Aziraphale didn’t look incensed or annoyed. He looked sad. This was not the expected reaction at all.

The demon blinked behind his sunglasses, several alarms blaring loudly in his brain, yelling at him to fix it right this instant!

“I imagine it is a tad longer than any other angel’s name” murmured Aziraphale, looking down as his left hand fiddled with the buttons on his waistcoat, a move Crowley knew to be a self-comforting one, and that always had him want to throttle someone.

Knowing he was responsible for it this time was not a good feeling.

“Wow wow wow, no, that’s not what I meant, angel! It’s a good name! There’s nothing wrong with long names! Much more interesting than plain, simple ones like Uriel!”

“Maybe I am the ornithorynchus of angels,” said Aziraphale with a weak laugh, “humans do like to make fun of the poor dears.”

Crowley scowled. “Hey, that’s not true! They’re the coolest in all creation! I mean, they have fur and a duck beak, which makes them doubly cute by human standards. Plus, they’re venomous, so they’re fluffy, dangerous bastards. Much more interesting than plain old, purple-eyed Archangels, if you ask me.”

Aziraphale’s hand finally stilled, and he looked up disapprovingly. “Really, my dear, you should not criticize Gabriel that way.”

Inwardly, Crowley let out a huge sigh of relief. On the outside, he only scoffed.

“I am fairly certain I should. It’s probably even written on my employment contract.”

The angel blinked. “Oh. I did not know you had those.”

Crowley waved a hand in dismissal. “Figure of speech. Though we do have employment contracts. Dagon loves papers. Always finds a way to make me sign hundreds of new ones every time I head Down for a report.”

Aziraphale tutted and patted his friend’s shoulder comfortingly. “I am sorry to hear it, dear boy.”

“Nyeeaah, it’s okay, I usually find a way to have Eric do it for me,” mumbled Crowley. “Come on, angel, let’s head out, or we’ll miss the parade”.

[thusatlas]

Can we talk about Barty Crouch Jnr?

This tweaked bastard has been living in my head, rent free, since I read the Goblet of Fire - in 2005.

Think how much rent that is! 

You see, this malevolent set of cheekbones is not only a brilliant portrayal of a true psychopath, but he’s also somewhat responsible for Voldemort’s death. And it all comes down to one, beautiful, sweet, doe-eyed glow-up baby - 

Let me lay out fifteen years of thoughts here for you.

1. Is he a psychopath? 

Well first let’s define psychopath. I’ve spent much time toiling over this conundrum for my Masters (not as long as Barty Crouch Jnr but enough). Hollywood has made the image of a psychopath synonymous with Hannibal or Patrick Bateman, but let me assure you - that is a very, very small percentage of what would actually be considered a psychopath. According to the DSM - V, there is no such thing diagnostically as a “psychopath”. This is for two reasons: law and philosophy. Philosophically speaking, the MindBody Problem is still at the forefront of conversations about the conscious, and so when faced with the paradox of a psychopath, the MindBody problem freaks the fuck out. Briefly, this problem is that we as neuroscientists and psychologists can map most - if not all - the ‘hardware’ of the brain. So the mechanical actions like moving your arm or drinking some tea. The hard problem - the actual problem - is we haven’t got a fucking clue what the Mind is. It’s all a bit... ineffable (that is legitimately how we academically put it, Neil Gaiman = God). Religion says that the Mind is the soul. Science says - we haven’t got a fucking clue what it is; it’s qualia, its unquantifiable experience that effects your entire worldview and make you wholey unique from everyone else on the planet. 

And we can’t fucking find it on a map - hence its a problem. 

Now this ineffable, unquantifiable mind, soul, conscious whatever you want to call it, is the thing that directs your moral compass. Psychopaths seem to present behaviour that does not prescribe to the moral code that we, in our relative societies have agreed upon. There is evidence to suggest that they do not feel guilt, which is a key ingredient in Moral psychology (I direct you to the research of Jonathon Haidt). Within the law, internationally, individuals with psychopathic traits are perceived as being predicated to criminal behaviour - therefore, exempt from taking any insanity defence. Now within psychology, because of the law and philosophy, and the mindbody problem - IT’S VERY FUCKING HARD TO DIAGNOSE A PSYCHOPATH BECAUSE WE CAN’T DECIDE WHAT ONE IS, because of all of the above. It’s all very... grey.

But what we can agree on, is there is a list of qualities that you would usually find in a psychopath, these are measured on the PCL-R  (Hare 2003) and the PPI-R (Lilienfield and Widows 2005):  

Machiavellian Egocentricity

Rebellious Nonconformity

Blame Externalisation

Carefree Nonplanfulness

Social Influence

Fearlessness

Stress Immunity

Coldheartedness

Early behavioural problems

Lack of realistic long term goals

Juvenile Delinquency

Parasitic Lifestyle

As you can see, Voldemort was a psychopath, but I digress. Barty, not so sure, and this is earmarked with the fact that we don’t know the entirety of his character. By the time he’s outed the first time, he has a seat on the Wizengamot and Crouch Snr is all shocked - like he never saw this behaviour coming. It can be inferred that a) Crouch Jnr is a excellent liar, capable of manipulation those closest to him with machiavellian behaviour; b) probably quite a well behaved young boy. So I would disregard the idea of juvenile delinquency and early behavioural problems. 

And this scene stands as evidence that Crouch Jnr is capable of Rebellious Nonconformity as well as Blame Externalisation. We know that he was a politician prior and well liked, so I will again infer that he had Social Influence. I will also infer that he had a predilection for Stress Immunity given he was outed infront of the entire court room and his reaction was this: 

Not screaming and running for the high hills. I’ll raise you the fact that he was undercover as Moody for an entire year, rubbing shoulders with Dumbledore, and seemed pretty chill about the whole thing given that he was acting in, what I can imagine to be, was a very stressful situation. 

So as you can see, a fair argument could be made for Crouch Jnr to be diagnosed as a genuine psychopath. 

And yet we come to the reason why this has bothered me for fifteen years. 

2. The Character Development of Neville Longbottom

It’s a well loved narrative that Neville goes from the bumbling bucktooth first year, to the Gryffindor God slaying Nagini in the Battle of Hogwarts. 

...deceased. 

Anyway, years 1,2,3 Neville is still treated as the weakling: he’s forgetting books, he’s leaving Common Room passwords lying around so that they’re stolen by nefarious Kneezles who let in escaped convicts etc etc. Come forth year, we open with Neville stepping in the trick-step that everyone knows to miss and yet bumbling Neville, still doping along. At this point, you’re like, ‘na this kid is gonna die because he trips over his own shoelaces or something.’ 

And then that fateful Unforgiveable Curses lesson happens. 

For those who need reminding, here Neville offers up the Cruciatus curse to which Professor Moody - aka Barty Crouch Jnr, tortures a spider using it as a demonstration. Neville is stricken by the whole event because of his parents. After the lesson, Hermione hurries Ron and Harry (who haven’t really realised that Neville was that effected) to find Neville who staring at a wall in a side corridor or stairwell - I can’t remember which. Neville’s shellshocked, saying he’s fine but keeps talking about dinner. He’s in full trauma. 

Then Moody Crouch comes along.

3. The paradox

Moody Crouch then takes a traumatised Neville to his office, gently reassuring him, offering him tea and calling him ‘laddy’. Here, he tells Neville that Professor Sprout was singing his praises in Herbology and gifts him the book on African plants, I think it was. This book is what Harry and Ron see him avidly reading later. This is the start of his love of herbology, which then leads to him being the one to get Harry through the second challenge, which then allows Harry to go on and touch the portkey Triwizard cup. Whilst also setting Neville on the path of having confidence in himself. By book 5, Neville’s braver, he’s no longer forgetting things, and this only improves by the time we get to the Battle of Hogwarts where he becomes a literal Hero from a Greek Myth. 

So, Psychopathic Machiavellian behaviour would say, he needs to get Harry on side. You do that by showing that you care. So you go over-board punishing the known bullies and enemies:

Whilst being nice to Harry’s friends (Neville with the book). He could have deliberately orchestrated the Unforgiveable curses lesson, in the attempt to traumatise Neville so that he could then be the Hero and be seen looking after him by Harry. Then you use the friend as a means to ensure that Harry is able to get through the second challenge, by setting him on the path of plants. Ergo, you complete you mission and your year long con. You got Potter to the graveyard, to the Dark Lord - you’re the best little psychopath and nobody suspected you the entire time. 

BUT. He was nice. He was caring. He was tender with Neville. 

And if you remember, psychopaths also have a tendency to have a Lack of realistic long term goals, and have behaviours that display Carefree Nonplanfulness and Coldheartedness. Getting Harry to the cup had to be a sure-fire thing. The plan had to be solid. It is my belief that Moody Crouch had a plan in place for every trial, but I do not believe he was the puppeteer pulling the strings. The aforementioned plan has too many if’s and but’s. Too much causality. Too much left up to circumstance. I think if Neville hadn’t done something, then Moody Crouch would have, but it was never the intention for Neville to be his tool - just a happy accident. 

While he can be ascribed to portray some true psychopathic behaviours, I don’t believe that Barty Crouch Jnr was a psychopath. I think he was just rebelling in a really hard way from his Stiff, Loveless Father. Because this moment of caring, was a product of guilt. This was where Moody Crouch’s moral compass kicked in and he began to mentor Neville throughout fourth year (like a father) thus inadvertently setting Neville on a path to defeat Voldy-bollocks. 

Thus the paradox: the best teacher Neville Longbottom ever had was a Death Eater. 

And that just fucks me up. 

Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 1: E is For Extinction “They Will Need Us”

I am SO fucking excited for this one. As might not be obvious to ALL of my readers but should be obvious to some, I fucking love the X-Men. They are one of my favorite superhero teams period as are several of their spinoffs such as X-Factor (All versions), New Mutants, and Marauders. I love the wide cast, the hugely vast universe within the already vast and wonderful marvel universe, and the sheer amount of GREAT stories. I own all 11 movies, have several action figures, and two posters from Jonathan Hickman’s current and utterly dynamite run right above me right now as I work, as well as a marvel 80′s themed poster behind me that’s at least half x-men for good reason. I love this gang of mutants and I have not talked about them enough. 

I”ve done some X-Men stuff sure: I’ve talked about hickman’s time as head writer of the books a year in earlier this year, I did a few scattered reviews back when I did single issues of comics, and then we get to the one I beefed big time: covering ALL of X-Men evolution. While it’s a noble endeavor I freely admit to overexerting myself: I recapped the episodes way too closely, gave myself no real schedule and did so while I was already covering two shows a week at the time. My point is it was a good idea, but the timing was REALLY fucking bad and if I do it again, I intend to do it right and iwth a proper place in my now properly paced schedule. I also planned to do the movies which, unlike evolution, I have solid plans to do once I clear out some of my projects. Point is I burned bright and then exploded and took a whole projecet with me phoenix style. 

I had until this moment yet to do a really big x-men project, something digging into the comics, something that could help fans both of the comics and not get familiar with something really good, and help me dig into both the good and bad of something. I jsut needed the right start. 

Then Christmas gave me that spark, that project that gave me the idea for a butload more x-men content on here and was the perfect starting point for some. See my friend Marco lives in Honduras, and so since i couldn’t afford to send him anything for christmas in the mail, as i’m not exactly rich, I instead offered him three reviews of anything.l He still hasn’t taken up two of them, nor one I gave him for graduating college, but the first one was a doozy, something he hadn’t read due to not liking the art, which is fine as I have some art in comics I don’t like everyone has diffrent tastes, at least for the first arc, and something VITALLY important to x-men as a whole and that’s the backbone of hickman’s current run: the first arc of new x-men, e is for extinction. And given New X-Men is one of my faviorite comics of all time I not only lept on it.. but decided fuck it I’m covering the whole thing. So every so often on here from now until I finish, i’m going to be covering Grant Morrisons ground breaking, mind shattering, status quo destroying run on the children of the atom. This.. is going to be fucking awesome. Buckle up. 

New X-Men came about in 2001. Stop me if you heard this one: The X-Men, once marvel’s best selling title and one of i’ts most beloved, had been set adrift in a seal of editorial bullshit, bad writing, bad storylines and a stale continuity where not much could change or grow and things always reset to about the same place it was last week. If this sounds familiar it’s because it somehow happened AGAIN thanks to Ike Perlmutter’s bullshit, hence the current hickman run, but we’ll get into all of tha tsome other time. Point is as it was in 2018, so it was in 2001: The x-men were in bad straits and marvel reached out to a host of various creators to swing for the fences and find a new direction, something to bring sales and life back to the book. To my shock they actually took a LOT of diffrent pitches in before Morrisons won and from huge names: Geoff Johns, who had not yet returned to DC never to leave, Alex Ross, Keith Giffen.. all huge creative types. but in the end the best man won.

For those unfamiliar with him, Grant Morrison is a gloriously batshit scotsman with a long, storied and delightfully insane history in comics, mostly at DC before and after this comic. This is for good reason: DC scouted Morrison specifically because of his early work at 2000ad. See at the time Alan Moore had hit it really big with Swamp Thing, taking a d list, so so book and making it into an utter masterpiece and giving it thoroughly interesting mythology. Given it was a blockbuster hit that’s still widely loved and discussed, as it should be today, DC decided to repeat the strategy of asking British indie comics creators to come do the same to another property. This same experiment is why Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman exists, so.. yeah it was actually a great strategy and naturally Grant had their first big hit with Animal Man, a metafictional take on a b-list hero that made him a loveable family man, while also putting him through hell and playing with the medium and dc’s vast history, the last two being Morrison’s trademark from then on out.

 They’d next go on to reinvent one of my other faviorite teams: THE DOOM PATROL!  The patrol are a bunch of victims of strange accidents who got powers out of them that are basically curses... and Morrison solidified that concept, taking over after a weak run that ironically enough was trying to imitate the x-men’s success at the time. Instead Morrison just went all out with his weird shit for the first time and made them a team of broken but likeable people with weird powers fighting just the weirdest most incomprehensible shit, a run i’ll likely be digging into eventually along with the team as a whole. It’s also, along with Gerard Way’s recent run, the bedroock for the current and utterly masterful doom patrol series I need to catch up on. They also apparently once wrote a satrical comic starring and lik mocking hitler... a fact I somehow JUST learned but naturally doesn’t surprise me at all. 

Morrison’s career at dc, after doing some creator owned stuff there when Vertigo opened up, hit it’s peak in the late 90′s as they were given the go ahead to reinvent the Justice League, with the wildly successful and awesome JLA, another book I probably need to take a look at that put the big 7 back into the team.  And by now your probably getting the point of me covering his career pattern.. besides giving morrison the praise they deserve, and they’d have some really great runs after this.. and some terrible ones but no one’s perfect. My point is that at this point in their career Morrison’s greatest skill was taking something that had grown stagnant or been forgotten, blowing it up and reworking it into something glorious and new. Taking what worked, scraping away what didn’t and on the whole making something fucking glorious out of it. So here we are. The X-Men needed a new coat of paint and uncle grant had their lcd laced psycadelic paint bucket and brush shaped like a pidgeon at the ready. And for better, way better and admitely sometimes here and there worse,they changed the x-men for good. Some changes were rolled back out of spite, others finally got their chance after said rollback recently, and some were just outright thrown on the grown and smashed with a hammer. But for the most part Grant left a huge impact on the x-men and i’m here to show you why, warts and all. To me my x-men, this is new x-men.  Now naturally there’s even more exposition but i’ts more in what COULD’VE been. Originally while Wolverine, Cyclops, Jean Grey and Professor X were all part of the team the other two members of the slim roster for this run, Beast and Emma Frost.. weren’t. Originally Morrison was going to have Colossus and Moira Mactaggert, long time team ally, token human until very recently, and now thanks to hickman one of the most important x characters peirod and long before that a fan favorite of mine, on the team, with Moira taking over for beast. 

This.. didn’t pan out since Marvel apparently either didn’t give a shit about their plans or already had things in motion as the climax of the longtime legacy virus storyline killed both off. Colossus until Joss Whedon, bastard he may be, brought him back for his terrific Astonishing X-Men, and Moira SOMEHOW stayed dead until House/Powers of X. See this speaks to one of the big roadblocks morrison faced: Jonathan HIckman currently has absolute power and all his writers working in concert, a new way of doing things comic companies shold honestly copy en masse as it’s really working wonders. Grant.. was just one of many writers and one of three main x books the others being Chris Claremont’s XTREME X-MEN, basically “let the legend do what he wants since he can’t get freedom on the main book” and another writer on uncanny... before eventually chuck austen took over and I will tackle that horrible mess some other time. Point is while Morrison was setting the tone, costume style and making the big waves, they still didn’t have full power and thus had to play nice with eveyrone else.  So their next idea was Rogue, making mer more like her x-men evolution version.. except Chris wanted her, so that was out, though being a decent enough guy he willingly gave up Beast since the moira thing meant Morrison needed a science person. As for Colossus replacement, as it turned out a fan had suggested Grant do something with Emma Frost since Gen X was canceled and while Morrison had zero intention for it clearly Emma clicked with hthem and she was soon both a main part of the cast and one of their biggest contributions to X-Men as a whole.

As for what I think of the needed changes.. they ended up being for the best. I do like Moira... but Hank ended up being a much better fit for the team dynamic wise and power set wise, while Emma was the same. While Colossus, Rogue and Moira are all fantastic characters, I think what we ended up with was just a better mix overall. I DO think the team is incredibly white, but that’s a general x-men problem, even with having an assload of diverse and intresting characters, so it’s not entirely his fault. All in all it’s a fantastic roster: four of the x-men’s best, their leader in the field for the first time in forever, and a new and intresting wild card. IT’s a nice ballance of characters and we’ll get more into it as we go. Now all the expositions done, we can finally dive head first into new x-men. I hope you survivie the experince under the cut. 

After an utterly gorgeous and striking cover, the one used up top, we get one solid page to introduce us to Morrison’s mission statment, how  they feel and how good Frank Quitely’s art looks

I cropped it best i could for tumblr but this one image immidetly says a lot. Our heroes are just.. easily taking down this sentinel, an old model... the same one we’ve seen a dozen times. What were once the grim, possible destroyers of an entire race of beings in days of future past and devistating killing machines in the present.. had become stale easily defeated murder bots There had been noble attempts to really make the sentiinels work again like the horrifying omega sentinels, humans forcibly converted into sleeper agent killing machines, during operation: zero tolerance, but otherwise they were mostly just a prop for the x-men to knock down. And that.. really is morrison’s whole point. Lampshading and mocking the fact the x-men had grown stale, things hadn’t really progressed.. and that it was time to move on. But to Uncle Grant’s credit, they not only uses this as a mission statment but it’s plot relevant: this mission will both be explained soon and explains why Logan and Scott are out and about enough to end up where the plot will soon need them. It also helps, via the sight of the syndey opera house establish something Morrison made a staple of their run: the X-Men going global. While the x-men were never really NOT global post claremont, Morrisons run has them handling rescue missions and what not worldwide far more often than most runs before it sans Claremont, and really made it feel like they weren’t just another super team but a global force of good with a specific goal and mission. More on the global aspect next time, as that’s where it really comes in but I felt it was important to show it was there for minute one. 

So yeah before we move onto the first full scene of the run, let’s talk about the costumes. 

We’ll talk about Emma’s later since she’s not introduced to the story for a while but yeah. There’s a sharp, obvious and immediate change just in the outfits, which take after the movie’s more military look, having the x-men not only look more like a unit but more like a professional orginization. Someone to come and help when needed. While this would take on more siginifigance in a bit, we’ll get to it, it also fits Morrisions own views that the x-men were less of a traditional superhero team and more something different on the edges that fought things out there, sorta what like he did with doom patrol. And it’s honestly a valid interpretation as the x-men are often seen as outlaws and misfits by society for beingn well.. mutants. Not as trusted as the avengers. So having them adopt this look played into that: Having them look more professional and focused as The X-Men have a less blanket mission statement than the avenger.. but also mildly threatning. Something to alarm the humans. It’s an utterly brilliant look thrown best together by the big yellow x’s, still giving it a nice flash of color to show off and show this is still a comic and this is still damn colorful.. this just isn’t your AVERAGE supherhero comic or the x-men your used to. IT’s a real shame the only fox x-men movie to use it was fucking dark phoenix.. a film where it didn’t even fit as xavier was getting flashier and more reckless so why wouldn’t he have more garish and colorful and more traditional superhero outfits. They did look good in their variants in first class though. Props there. Point is this is a classic, utterly stunning look, and tha’ts coming from someone whose fine with goofy superhero outfits and perpetually bitter hawkeye is almost never allowed to wear his actual comic outift and is instead stuck with shades instead of you know.. a mask. Or anything resembling an actual good looking costume. This though this is how you do a less superheroy costume: practical and realistic, but still cool looking and comic book friendly. 

We cut to a mysterious lady, we’ll come to know her as Cassandra Nova and while I know her origin... i’m saving it for later as the comics themselves explain it eventually, and a simpering dolt she brought with her, Donald Trask, a distant relative of the creators of the sentinels who, via holograms she’s showing cro magnons slaughtring the neanderthal. Her point is that Mutants are going to do this and she’s clearly fearmongering him and trying to talk him into genocide: to wipe them out before they wipe out humanity. And it’s here we get one of hte most important plot points of Morrisons run and one of the most intresting: according to cassandra’s research Humanity will be no more in 4 generations. Mutankind is on it’s way to overtaking them at last.. i’ts still a few decades off.. but it’s coming. It’s sometihing that the whole decimation nonsense sadly snuffed.. and John Hickman has thankfully brought back. I’ll get to his run once i’ts complete in a few years, but point is it’s an utterly marvelous plot hook: Humanity, whose already attempted genocide a few times, is now in real danger of what their petty, racist, fearful attacks have been about: being replaced. It’s one of the central themes of the work the other two being “Just what IS mutantkind and what will it be”. WHat are they as a people? We’ll dig into these as we go but the threat of exctincion is the backbone of this arc... and will lead to something truly ghastly. 

It’s then we get our title page.. which nothing really to add it just looks really good and helps show off who are cast is and what they can do with striking simple art. 

And since we’re already talking the art of the book, let’s take a moment to discuss an intresting detail of this run: despite it’s short length there’s quite a few diffrent artist, who we’ll talk about of course as we get to each one. The most common and notable though is Frank Quitely. Frank Quitely is one of Morrison’s closest and best creative partners, having a unique, squishy art style.. i.e. the one my friend didn’t like which is why i’m covering this. And while I like the art style quite a bit, I do get why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea: His art is squashed, weird, and admitely some faces can be good god no incaranate. But it’s also why I like it: his characters feel unique, each body and figure feels like it was custom made and thus feels.. real. Like this is a person before you. And given comics can often surrender to having everybody look the damn same, this is nice. His faces may sometimes look similar but his bodies are where the action is. But while having a realistic feel his work also has a weird alien quality that perfectly fits Morrison, and thus his run on x-men. I will say while I love All-Star Superman, his art fits less there in the more hopeful silver agey story, so he’s not an artist for EVERY STORY OF EVERY TYPE.. but when it comes to sci fi weridness, he fits it like a glove so i’ts unsuprising he and morrison are practicaley soul mates, nor that his art sets the tone perfectly for the run: this is something new, diffrent and strange.. and what says x-men at it’s best more than that?

So after our opening titles we cut to the mansion where Hank is showing off his latest and greatest invention: Cerebra. Cerbebra is a massively upgraded version of Cerebro, aka Professor Xavier’s iconic helmet that allows him to track mutants to help them out.. and covertly backup their conconousness for his long game plan, but shhhh, don’t tell anyone yet that’s not going to be retconned in for a few decades. Though i’m damn certain if Morrison has heard about the current era of x-men and how it both builds on what he built, shatters the status quo and is incredibly weird, he’d be damn proud. As for how it’s diffrent Cerebra not only has a large dome around it but said dome allows the machine to amply Charles powers to a global reach. He can now see mutants all over the world anywhere in the world, something I didn’t realize wasn’t ALWAYS a thing because it seems so simple. It’s also likely to bring it more in line with the movies. And while marvel has done TERRIBLE with bringing things in from the movies or in line with them in recent years, i.e. making star lord more like his movie self while forgetting that’s how he already used to be in canon before later writers thankfully did hte better step of merging the two, Hawkeye’s outfit, Cap’s outfit or Nick Fury Jr.  But for every mistep there’s also been tons of times it’s worked out really well such as here, as well as bringing hulk into the avengers for the first time since the founding, making tony stark more like the mcu version and less like a nightmarish self righetous dicktator who rightfully gets beat up and called out a lot, making Scott Lang prominent since he became prominent in the MCU, Wakanda being a major force in the marvel universe as it always should have been and various titles that have popped up to tie into movies, often bringing back a team or property that hadn’t had a book in some time like Ant-Man, Black Panther, and Shang Chi just to name a few. It’s not always hawkeye looking all jeremy renner is what i’m saying.. though thankfully comics clint isn’t that uninteresting. Hopefully the series will change that. 

So yeah along with a bigger shinier cerebro we’re also introduced to a big change in Hank whose taken on his lion form rather than his classic gorilla with a weird haircut or his return to that except bald. Here he’s more like aslan in a human body and I.. love it. It looks great, helps sell hanks delima of being brilliant while looking like a beast and makes sense: he kickstarted what was likely his own secondary evolution by drinking the potion that made him bestial, so it only makes sense his body wouldn’t be all that stable even if it took years to change again. And even that makes sense as hank was breifly turned back to his original hairless ape mutation during x-factor, easily one of the books.. worse decisions honestly and one that louise simonson thankfully later undid. That probably bought him some time hence why it’s only mutating further now.  It also adds an intresting wrinkle which the run will explore further: how far does this go? Will he regress? and how much hank will be left? And how will society treat his new form? 

For now he’s actually extatic. While he’s going through hormonal changes, and giving out some excellent banter with Jean

Which also includes one of the greatest lines in comic book history, one that’s been in my head for decades and made me absolutely love henry mccoy. 

He’s just great is what i’m saying. As you can tell it’s stuff like this why i’m glad Moira fell through. While I love her.. Morrison’s hank is just a delight and one really questionable subplot aside, we’ll get to that, he’s one of the highlights of this run with an intresting internal struggle, and great chemistry with EVERYONE. And that is the main reason i’m glad Moira fell through as his history with everyone but Emma, who he still has a great raport with, means each interaction has weight. He’s close friends with both scott and jean and thus serves as their needed confidant, while still being able to buddy and banter iwth good old weapon x, and speak with his mentor charles as an equal. While I love moira... Beast just fits into the cast too perfectly and I 100% suspect Morrison was only using her because, while she’s awesome, Claremont wanted her and thus gladly snapped her up when he no longer had a science person. I’ll get into his Jean soon enough but she’s likewise fantastic and easily my faviorite version of the character.. not that until very recently there was much honest competition. 

So Cerebra fires up showing a massive cloud of mutants, showing just how much of a huge spike theirs been with Xavier wondering what it all means.. and Hank seeing a weird flare on the mointor for just a second with his special eyes. But since Xavier isn’t stupid and isn’t the kind of idiot who just dismisses it as a fulke, and since Scott and Logan are in the field, he decides to confrence call them in to see if they can go take a look. 

And naturally we get to see what their up to and get context for what the hell happened in the first page. Our heroes were on a rescue mission to save Ugly John, tha’ts what people called him, a three faced mutant who ends up passing out as they head out of the atmosphere for a second. Wolverine is regenerating and smoking out of his neck becaue he could still smoke back then before marvel decided “he’s setting a bad example”.. in a comic meant for teens and adults. 

I mean I get it on some level as the x-men cartoon was a huge thing in the 90′s and Ben Grimm is basically a giant children’s toy with the mind of a surly 40 year old jewish man from yancy street, but stilll it’s just.. why. I may not like smoking but it’s not like it was SPIDER-MAN saying

It’s a grown man.. whose not a sterling roll model and who Claremont went out of his way to have Logan point out his healing factor means it really dosen’t hurt him in the long run and when Kitty, an actual teenager, tried one of his cigars she choked. I know it’s a weird thing to get hung up on but while i’m all for keeping kids from smoking, this was a really clumsy way to try and hehlp that that made no sense and will never make any sense. 

One tangent later we find out that Cassandra was showing Trask a simulation on a flight to, unsuprisingly, south america, to a sentinel blacksite. Between covertly funding civil wars as they do, the US Goverment naturally founded an experimental sentinal project, and a second master mold during the production of the first line... when larry trask asks where it could possibly be well...

Subtly was not the trasks strong point.. or common sense... or.. not realizing their creations would dominate humanity too or not dying. 

Anyways we then cut back to the x-men, as their having a psychic zoom meeting with Charlie giving one of his patnted big speeches.. and like a lot of this comic it’s too damn good not to use 

The reason I couldn’t should be obvious: This one speech sums up the x-men, why their great and why their necessary in a nutshell: in a world full of prejucided morons.. there’s plenty of scared kids who NEED the x-men to protect and guide them, and with a surge in the mutant population, their needed now more than ever. We also get a good explanation in universe for the uniform change: Charles had them in the superhero outfits hoping humanity would accept them if they were packaged as something they know. Since that clearly hasn’t worked he’s trying new ways to reach out and thus going with a diffrent more rescue team approach to the uniforms. He assigns Wolvie and Cyke to go check out the flair as you’d expect and the meetings over. On the blackbird we get our first hint at a subplot as Logan noticed Cyclops couldn’t wait to get out of there, and is being a tad distant to his wife. He actually has reasons for being kind of cold for once instead of just bad writing as he just came back from being possed by apocalypse. Yeah that happened. So the experience has rattled our boy some what. More on that as we go. But Jean ducks the subject with hank but does breach the fact that Charles has been going kind of crazy with the spending, new uniforms and ambition lately. Hank explains it perfectly: After all the death, suffering and misery the x-men have endured lately, the aforementioned deaths I talked about that took Colossus and Moira off the roster, have lionzed Charles to make sure it was all worth something and look towards the future. 

But enough hope time for horror as Cassandra makes her first direct move, trying to take over Charles brain , make his body her own and use cerebra to kill lots and lots of mutants. We then get one of the best moments of Morrisons run with Charles response to a horrifying monster trying to take his brain

While it is shocking to find out Charles has a gun..it’s a grim but kind of understandable precaution. The guy once got fully taken over by a brood, assembling the New Mutants in part because the brood wanted to create more of i’ts kind with more super powers. You’d be paranoid too if some of your beloved students were brought together partly due to your good intentions and partly because a space monster wanted to make more space montsters out of helpless teens, and even horribly gaslighted one of them. We’ll get to that some day. Point is Charles brain is one of the greatest weapons on earth and if the wrong person got a hold of it, it’d be the end of said earth. Thankfully Charles does not need plan gun, as Jean yanks Cerebra off him but the sheer HATE Charles felt from Cassandra, the sheer power has rattled him.. and also told him she’s in Ecuador and his X-Men need to be warned NOW. It’s a great way to set up just HOW powerful Cassandra is.  Speaking of which as our first issue of the arc ends, we find out two things: Cass faked being int he government but really just used dead soldiers as prop.. and just what kind of sentinels are out there.. wild sentinels. Easily my faviorite variant of the old killing machines and one that’s barely used despite being really damn awesome. Their adaptive killing machines, designed to mutated just like their pray and take tech from around them, as a result they look like a jumble of guns and parts.. but not only does it give them a unique, cool look.. but it makes them ten times deadlier as instead of being big bricks of robots that while intimidating, the x-men know how to kill... their unpredictable variable killing machines. You can figure out how to kill one sure.. btu the next might be entirely diffrent. They are one of morrisons best creations and I hope someone uses the idea again.. aka hickman. Please use it jonathan I know your focused on nimrod but come on. 

And we end on one of the best lines of the entiire run as we close out the issue

Yeah it goes without saying but i’ll say it anyway; Morrison is really damn good with dialouge and being damn quotable. 

So we open with another great quote “When I got up today I didn’t expect to kill 20 million people”... and Cassandra being aware Wolverine and Cyclops are on their way and sending the Wild Sentinels to dispatch them. Also our heroes brought Ugly John along while while a dumb move, Wolvie does point out how dumb it was to divert to Ecuador with a civlian in tow.. after the plane crash of course. As for “wait what plane crash’, the sentinels attack and start picking it apart... and since letting them have such good tech is a terrible idea, Scotty blows up the damn plane. So to recap our heroes are stuck in ecuador, surrounded by murder machines, and oh look their there and knock off cyclops viser. Fantastic. So yeah our heroes are fucked. And naturally captured by the enemy.

The rest of the x-men are doing SLIGHTLY better. While beast makes a note for his girlfriend, more on that later on, Charles is in bed, half alive, explaning the rationale I gave for why he has the gun with Jean refusing to let him get back out of bed and you know.. put on the device that just nearly killed him. But when beast announces they lost contact with our boys.. yeah that ceased being an option. 

Back in the Ecuadorian Genocide Factory, Cassandra does the obvious and kills donald trask as his real purpose..was to stick around and be stupid for a bit while she copied his dna so she could have full control of her new murder toys.She soon uses them, having a horrifying death chamber slaughter john.. or at least flash fry him. Wolverine takes it how you’d expect and since the sentinels need to “perserve trask dna”.. they can’t fire on him without killing her. Scott escapes.. and in a heart wrenching scene mercy kills john.. before getting badass. 

To anyone who says Scott Summers is boring, unintersting, or a stupid asshole idiot head I present exhbit shut the fuck up. Morrison gets scott just right, deconstructing his emotional suppression, while showing him off as a dedicated, companionate man who gets the job done and who seconds after tearfully having to mercy kill an innocent mutant whose death was partially his fault, wastes no time making it painfully clear to the person responsible she WILL die if she tries that again. Logan however realizes she’s already won in some fashion as she’s grinning.. and yeah never a good sign when a genocidal madwoman is grinning like a loon.. and when we find out why.. it’s even less good>  We cut to Genosha. A lot of you probably know what happned to Genosha but in case you don’t know what it is it was once a horribly racist country that genetically enslaved mutants and used them for slave labor. It was freed, but still struggled to truly move on.. till Magneto showed up, took the country for himself and made it a home for all mutants. When we last saw him he once again tried to take over the world leading to Logan seemingly killing him. Right now though Emma Frost finally enters the scene teaching some mutants.. when a young one named Negasonic Teenage Warhead.. yes that one and yes she was entirely chosen for deadpool for her name, reveals, via precognition, that their all going to die.. right as the sentinels attack. 

Genosha.. is gone. In an eyeblink 16 million mutants are dead, a possible future gone, and one of their greatest leaders is no more. Yeah Magneto WAS alive.. but paralyzed so he could do nothing when his island was utterly slaughtered. Only a handful of mutants will be revealed to survive. Humanity had done a lot to mutants before .. but for once.. they’d succeeded in wiping a massive chunk out. What was an x-men location for DECADES at this point.. was now a smoldering crater. A what could of been that would hant the x-men ever after, even now into utopia it remains the darkest day in mutant history outside of hte decimation. It is a truly horrific moment.. and if the changes already hadn’t made it clear this is morrison saying “NO character is safe, nothing is safe, and nothing will be the same and I damn well mean that”. In one act of hate the world has changed. And it hasn’t finished changing yet. 

Issue Three opens hammering in things, as Jean and Beast are in the ruins of genosha, with Xavier having found ONE surivor among the rubble, and our heroes sturggling to find even them, though Jean eventually picks them up and uses her TK to sift through the rubble. 

They find Emma who emerges from a bunker in shock, clutching NTW... and not realizing she’s dead until later and revealing she now has diamond skin, her own secondary mutation. Secondary Mutation was a birlliant idea, new powers sprouting up within established mutants.. it’s just morrison barely used this great idea as did hardly anyone else. Only X-Men Blue ever really dug into it and those were artifical at that. IT’s a great idea..it’s just barely used and at most heavily implied to explain changes in powers like Jamie Madrox Multiple Personalities later on or Doug Ramsey’s vast increase in power. Disapointing. 

While Charles takes in the tragedy and the fact his old frienmie is dead, the x-men wonder what the fuck Cassandra is and what to do with her.. why did she kill 16 million people, and what the fuck is she. I mean I know, but as I said i’ll explain that when the story does.  IN the other room Beast tends to Emma who wants none of not fucking killing Cassandra.. and is utterly right. Bitchy, because i’ts Emma, but right: she killed 16 million people. Say what you want but while it may not be up to the x-men to kill her.. she shoudln’t be living much longer. She commited genocide. Emma decides fuck that and prepares to leave summoning a cab and making peace with being a glorious living fabrige egg. Emma did apparelty change in generation x.. but Morrison is responsible for returning her not only to being a bitch, but a gloriously delightful one And really I don’t think they reset her character entirely: she’s not the heartless monster she started out as: she has empathy, grace, and caring.. she just buries it under a lair of absolute bitch and after you know, surviving a fucking genocide who can blame her? And honestly.. I love their verison of her. She provides a nice contrast to the more idealistic, even logan, x-men and a nice contrarian voice in the room without being obnoxious and her style and sacrastic swagger makes her endlessly entertaning. Thanks to morrison she’s stuck around to this day and went from a pretty good character.. to a great one. And what makes her this way, or as jean puts it “such a bitch?”

With that settled, Hank explains what Cassandra is: a competing species. As he puts it sometimes evolution takes a quantum leap forward.. and Cassandra is the result. Thus she wants to wipe out the compettition and is so far above humanity, she dosen’t need them... especially since she knows what Hank now knows: humanity is at an end. As hank puts it we have an E Gene, one that basically shuts off a race.. and thus the x-men now know what we learned earlier and that cassandra wasn’t lying: in 4 generations there are no more humans and something has to repalce htem. And Cassandra wants it to be her. 

Before Logan can do what he does best, and asks why she looks like charles, Cassandra escapes, and Scott briliantly urges them to fight only on instict as she’s a telepath. A damn awesome fight insues including Cassandra donning Charles Psoonic battle armor, Scott being put in his black bug room and the general good looking chaos you’d expect from a superhero fight. While this goes on Emma has an ephinany and realizes she likes to teach, the x-men have a school.. and she shoudln’t give up on helping kids just because of what happened and turns around. 

Cassandra is near victory, slipping her way to Cerebra.. and planning to kill only one mind before getting to the millions she wnats, a horrifying slug manifesting around her.. only...

So the x-men accept this and cassandra rises.. seemingly saying “I am charles” Huh... and then charles uncaracteristiacally shoots her saying things must change

We’ll get to what all of that means next time as we close on Jean and Scott in bed. Scott explains why he’s been so distant as what I said earlier: fighting off apocalypse stripped away a lot of illusions about himself and he’s having a hard time walking back from that but Jean is willing to help.. but before they can resolve their  issues.. charles has an annoucnment to make and grant has one last whopper of a suprise to end his opening arc on, and just like genosha...it’s a game changer of titanic proportions

No longer is Xavier’s School hidden. Their walking into the light now and so is charles. Hope they surivive the experince. Obviously this move is brilliant: while it removes the veil of saftey the x-men had it also brings on tons of new possiblities and unlike secondary mutation, this one not only stuck but would impact the x-men for good: no longer would they hide and cower.. their mutant and proud.. and their here to stay.  E For Extinction is one of the best x-men stories period. Blisteringly paced, full of great character, great concepts and utterly terrifying and terrific moments that would impact the x-men all the way to present day. It’s beautifully drawn, well paced, and a masterwork. I highly recommend it and it’s a great kickoff to a great run. Shame the run couldn’t of ended on this kind of high but.. we’ll get to that. For now this is a masterclass in how to start a run and if you haven’t read it do so NEXT TIME ON NEW X-MEN: A bunch of weirdos try to harvest mutant organs, the x-men get a brain in a jar and a new teamate, and Scott maybe cheats on his wife. Until then, goodbye goodbye goodbye. 

[thenightling]

What might have Been (Sandman fan fiction)

What might have Been...

Someone out there really does not want me to write Sandman fan fiction so naturally I must write more.  

This story was inspired by the fact that over on his Tumblr Neil Gaiman was asked on at least two occasions that if Alexander Burgess had freed Morpheus, would he still have been condemned to eternal waking or if he would have shown mercy? Both times Neil Gaiman answered that Morpheus would have shown mercy.  And yes, Neil Gaiman has a Tumblr.   So this is a story of what may have happened of Alexander Burgess had freed Morpheus back when he probably should have.

Note: This story does contain a depiction of early twentieth century homophobia and some period accurate slurs.  Based on my own personal experiences as a non-straight person I understand if the scene might make some readers uncomfortable.  However you might find the end result of what happens to the abuser somewhat cathartic.  

             What might have Been…

            The boy stared intently at the glass cage in front of him.  It was domed and rather egg-like in shape and tall enough to hold a man or something very man-like.  The leadened quartz-crystal was as clear as any well-made window.  Alexander Burgess watched the creature with the fascination of a child watching a pet lizard in a terrarium.  

           The naked being in the cage stared back at him with cold intensity and a proud contempt as well.  The creature was pale as chalk, and his eyes were like back pools of water with twin stars serving as pupils floating in the darkness.  Later Alex would be able to compare this vision to the claimed “Grey” alien encounters he would read about in grocery store tabloid magazines.   One stark difference from those creatures though was that this creature had a shock of wild, black, hair that reminded Alex of a disorderly pile of raven feathers, thick and heavy hair that framed the pale face staring out at him from behind the glass.  The creature was improbably thin.  It was clearly intelligent and generally humanoid.              If Alex hadn’t seen the summoning for himself, if he had not detached himself so thoroughly from the alienness of this entity, he might have even found him beautiful or attractive. But all potential for that had been lost to fear and the unavoidable and frightening knowledge that this was not a human being.

           Alex did not know why he found The Creature so fascinating.  He had discovered who and what the creature was in the Paginarum Fulvarum.  The King of Dreams.  That revelation had somehow not resolved his sense of curiosity. This was the being accountable for everyone’s dreams, all of humanity’s secret fantasies and all those shameful imaginings that come late at night when people are at their most vulnerable.  For Alex there was a secret shame in his own dreams…

           “I hate you.” Alex whispered.  It was a childish proclamation but there was some hidden pain there.              The bony, wraith-like, creature moved his head slightly, acknowledging Alex’s words without responding verbally.  He never spoke to them.    

Alex wasn’t even twenty-years-old yet but he knew he was not like other men.  He was not “manly” by the usual definition of the term.  And he believed that if his father knew about his secret yearnings, his Desires… He would be disowned…

It was this thing’s fault, wasn’t it? The cruel bastard there in the box.  He was the one who gave him those dreams.  The dreams that Alex dared not describe to anyone.  Dreams of other young men.  The feel of their lips against his face.   The tingle through his scalp as the lips vibrate against his earlobe as something gentle and inviting was whispered into his ear.  Their affection, their touch, their love…              How Alex dreamt of that love, that sweet, terrible, sinful love.  And why?  Why was this such a taboo?  His father had used magick for so many cruelties.  He had even killed with it.  So why were his desires, ones that could never hurt anyone, considered to be so much worse?  …And who decided that a form of love could be deemed evil anyway?  Wasn’t love supposed to be ultimate redeemer?  The ultimate absolution?  As far as young Alex was concerned humans and the powerful beings that governed the universe- they were all hypocrites.  All of them!  Hypocrites who took pleasure in the befuddlement of others by tempting them with …with deviant dreams…

 Alex had enough of staring at the alien-like boogeyman there in the cellar.  He got up off the cold, damp, floor where he had been seated, eye level with the crouching, naked thing.   Almost staring each other down, as if in a contest of wills neither was entirely sure about.   Alex stood up.  Unlike the pale creature imprisoned there, Alex could leave.  He could leave at any time.   …Then why did he feel just as trapped as if he was the one in the glass bubble?

The months passed and not much had changed.  Alex had grown a bit, but that was normal.  He had read somewhere that some men grow until they’re twenty-five. He was taller, leaner.  He discovered he needed spectacles, which wasn’t too surprising.  He had squinted often when reading father’s dusty old books.        

One thing was different though.   Father had hired a new gardener.  A pretty, red-haired boy, barely Alex’s own age.  And Alex had the distinct feeling that perhaps this young man was also… different.  Different in his capacity to feel for men what most men usually only feel for women (or so Alex believed).

It was a warm summer afternoon when Father finally took notice of Alex and the peculiar way he watched the gardener.  Alex, whom he often ignored.  Roderick Burgess found it distasteful and rather Crowley-esque that his own son should look at another man in that way.   He watched as Alex observed the gardener.  Roderick hoped what he was seeing here wasn’t what it appeared.   But it seemed so.   Alex was as infatuated with the near androgynous gardener boy in a way that he should only feel toward women.  Well, something must be done about that!  

 “Father, please!”  Alex tried to shield himself with his arm as his father’s heavy, old, walking stick came crashing down on him again.            “You are an EMBARRASSMENT!   The heir to the Order of Ancient Mysteries, my ONLY son… a worthless, useless… Mary!”  There was another crack from the gentleman’s cane being used in a very ungentlemanly fashion.            “No, Father, I…  Magus. Magus, Please, I-“            “It’s that boy, isn’t it?  That Elliot? Well, he doesn’t work here anymore!  I sent him away.  You’re lucky I don’t just stop his heart to rid myself of this shame!”            He was one to talk of Shame.  His father, the infamous occultist, rival to Aleister Crowley, head of The Order of Ancient Mysteries, and source of scandal after scandal. The papers always had something to say about Father.  They never spoke about Alex.  Alex knew how to keep a low profile, to keep to himself, to go virtually unnoticed in his father’s shadow.              The threat to stop Elliot’s heart was very real.  Alex knew his father had enough magick to do such a thing to someone without the occult means to defend himself.            “No!  He’s innocent!”            “Innocent?!”  What did that matter to someone like Roderick?  Alex had always been too damn soft and now he had gone over to fairyland as far as Roderick was concerned.   Well, at least he knew his son hadn’t soiled his bed with his deviance yet- he had not acted out his profanity in the house, at least there was that.  “Look at you!  You’re a disgrace!”            Alex was cowering and crouched in the corner of his room, which was in disarray from his father’s attack.  He knew he couldn’t hide what he was from him.  His father was just too powerful…  

It also didn’t help that Alex had kept those old novels under his bed.   The picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, a few selected Greek myths carefully bookmarked in a thick, leather-bound, volume, and the closet drama Goethe’s Faust parts 1 and 2 translated perfectly from German into English.  Anyone with the ability to read between the lines, as they say, could tell what Mephisto’s relationship with Faust was really all about…            Alex couldn’t tell what was worse, the words his father said or the cane coming down again and again.  He was too afraid to fight back.  There was no telling what his father or his father’s minion might do if he tried.  Sometimes he had nightmares of his father’s darker wrath, much more extreme than this.            “You dress like a fairy!  Look at you! Growing your hair out like a girl, walking around in long velvet jackets like they’re frocks!  You think you look like Henry Irving or something?  No, you look like a little girl!  No woman will ever find you attractive.   I should have realized, the way you bury yourself in those books, like a little wanna-be priest.”            Alex saw nothing wrong with dandy fashion and as for his hair, plenty of respectable men had hair longer than his. His hair wasn’t even really shaggy. Oscar Wilde’s hair had been longer than this at the time of his death.  Though he knew that was, as far as his father was concerned, an awful example.             He whimpered and tried to wait out the pain and dared not argue the accusations.              “They stare at you, you know.”  Roderick continued in his tirade to shame him.             Alex knew the only person who actually scrutinized what he wore was his own father. He kept to himself too much to be the focus of anyone else’s attention.  “You think I don’t see it?  How they turn and look at you and whisper on the street what a pansy you are.  Maybe if you dressed normal you wouldn’t forget you’re supposed to be a man!”            No one was actually saying he was a pansy. That was clearly Father’s own insecurity about his masculinity talking.

           “Clean yourself up.”  Roderick said, finally too exhausted to beat him anymore.  And in an after-thought “If anyone asks, you fell off a horse like the clumsy idiot you are.”

            Roderick walked from the room, gentleman’s cane (if you could call it that) still clutched in his hand.

           Alex slowly pulled himself to his feet.   He was trembling yet, and sniffling, trying to choke back the threatening sobs.              Alex had long ago abandoned the childish (as he saw it) hope that a parent’s love was truly unconditional. The child in him still insisted it was supposed to be unconditional, that parents are supposed to love you and accept no matter what, and Alex still craved his father’s approval and acceptance.  It had been some naïve governess from Alex’s childhood who had taught him that foolish notion he could not shake, that a parent should love you without condition. And he never could quite let go of that belief even if all of his life experiences insisted that no parent (at least his parent) could not love in that way…              Could Roderick Burgess love at all?

Alex finally left his badly disheveled room once he was certain his father was no longer nearby. There were papers and books scattered, along with a knocked over chair and some random knickknacks.  Some ceramic and glass items were broken, fragments of childhood playthings lay on the carpet.              Something had broken tonight and it was not merely some old toys…            Alex walked …or more precisely he stumbled, down the hall.  Alex’s back ached where he had gotten the brunt of the caning.  He knew the marks were going to scar.  Everything ached.  His shoulders, his legs, especially his back.  One eye was blackened and his cheeks were red from the heat of crying.  He wiped furiously at his own tears.  It was foolish to cry.  And it was dangerous to dream…

He would never really be free. He was as much his father’s prisoner as the creature down in the cellar…  If he tried to run away he knew his father and his magick would find him.  And… he had nowhere to go anyway…              Even if his situation was “Normal” and there was no fear of magical ramifications for his defiance, to whom could he turn?   Where could he run?  There was no sanctuary for someone like him…

           Alex made his way to the secret passage, to the stone staircase that spiraled its way down to the windowless chamber.  He knocked on the heavy wooden door and announced himself for the two guards his father had watching the prisoner.  One of the guards opened the door for him.  They knew better than to question the boy’s condition but there was a slight trace of pity in at least one of them, a softening to the man’s usually unreadable expression.                          Alex managed to steadily walk to the glass cage, hiding that he was in pain.  He slowly laid his hand against the cool glass.  “Please leave us.”            “But the Magus says-“  One of the men started to protest.            “My... Father,” Alex practically spat the word, “is the one who pays you.  And I speak on his behalf.  Now go!”            The men exchanged looks and then shrugged, deciding not to argue with the young man.  They both were eager to have a tea and coffee break anyway.                        Alex lowered his hand and stood outside the cage. He looked at the pale, emaciated figure behind the glass.  He had never changed.  Not since the day they had captured him.  He had not aged, nor had he grown a beard.  And yet Alex felt as if he, himself, had changed so very much in that time. Changed in such a way that he saw now that he was in no better of a situation than this creature here.                 Trapped in darkness, trapped behind the glass, unable to touch or be touched. Alone…  Naked, exposed.  Everyone could see everything about him.  And yet he- The King of Dreams- was unashamed.  Proud.  Not trembling or cowering from a brute of a father. Alex’s contempt for the creature mingled with long, distant fear, was now being replaced by a different emotion.   Something not unlike empathy and maybe even envy.  Envy at the defiance of will, envy at the hidden power that such a fragile, delicate looking thing could have…            Almost beautiful.  The King of Dreams was almost beautiful…    

            Alexander Burgess saw this weakened, helpless wretch, and he saw himself.  A prisoner locked away from light.  A prisoner stripped of dignity. Utterly at his father’s mercy until he said or did what his father wanted…  Would this proud creature eventually cower and break as Alex felt like he had broken.                Alex bit his lip.  If he freed this creature it… he might kill him… or worse…            But maybe… Whatever his fate might be, it was better than this.  Right now, as it stood, they were both prisoners. But if he freed him, this so-called King of Dreams… At least one of them would be free.  And Alex would have some small revenge on his father, the Magus of The Order of Ancient Mysteries…                          Maybe it was some half-hearted attempt at self-destruction, a suicide without noose or razor- that Alex felt he would either die by this creature’s hand or by his father’s but he wanted this thing to end and let it end tonight.  This felt like the only true way to end it.              Alex had gotten a hold of the heavy brass key and placed it into the lock at the base of the crystalline cage.  He was really doing it.  The key fit easily into the hole of the metal base just within the binding circle’s confines.   Alex dragged his foot over the old, chalk, binding circle, deliberately breaching it, as he turned the key.  The crystalline cage opened at a discrete seam.            The pale figure stood up slowly, cautiously, moving like an uncertain animal. He blinked those wide, black eyes, like doe reacting to being offered food by a human.  

           The King of Dreams stepped out of the cage and toward Alex.  He tentatively moved beyond the binding circle as if worried that Alex might change his mind and try to stop him, or perhaps that someone else might.              Alex stepped back but only slightly.              Alex waited for whatever was to come next.              The pale figure moved to him, the glassy black eyes stared at him, stared deep into his own and for a brief moment Alex felt… understood... maybe even accepted.  And most importantly he felt… forgiven.  Not for the sin of what he was- this creature saw that as no crime, but for how he had treated him.  For taking part in the summoning spell, for being complacent in his father’s abuses and humiliation of this proud entity.              “I’m sorry…” Alexander said, swallowing back fresh tears.  “I’m sorry… It was my father, he…”            The pale figure put a finger to his own lips.* “Shhh.”            Alex was trembling, afraid of what he might do next. And for a second, there was such a softness to the usually cold creature and a slender hand touched Alex’s cheek but only for a brief moment.              Alex had never heard him speak and he was startled by the soft sound of an audible voice coming from him.  He didn’t say anything really other than the “Shhh.”           Alex blinked several times.  The King of Dreams moved past Alex, toward the stairs.              Alex went to bed shortly after that as if nothing had happened.  He had just felt so very tired.  He tried to behave as if he had not just released his father’s prisoner.  The next morning though things were different.   Alex had slept peacefully and felt quite well rested.   Even his black eye had seemed to have mostly healed and his back didn’t hurt anymore. There would be no scars after all.  But something was wrong in the house of Fawny Rig. The servants were in a tither.              Roderick Burgess would not wake form his sleep. He was alive.  And he seemed to be dreaming.  He would moan and mutter, and occasionally whimper or beg for it to stop, crying out in his sleep, but he would not waken.            Alex stood to the side of the bed. “Father!  Father, please!  It’s me, Alex!  Please wake up!  …Please.”   But the situation was hopeless.

            And despite everything he had suffered at his father’s hands Alex still grieved.  He wept as if his father was dead and he knew his father’s fate was worse than death.  Alex still mourned. Alex still pined for what might have been, still longed for a father that would love him unconditionally and accept him for who and what he was without question.   If the world’s most infamous sorcerer couldn’t even do that… who could?   Who could… love him?  

            Alex was scared.  He had been in his father’s shadow so long he did not know how to function without him and he had been so isolated, he had so few friends.  All he could do was rely on the servants, the lawyers, and his father’s money to support himself.              His father was moved to the hospital and eventually diagnosed with some sort of Encephalitis Lethargica.  A sort of brain swelling related sleeping sickness but Alexander Burgess knew better…  Somehow he knew…      

           His father would never wake up…            The years passed and everything that was Roderick’s passed into Alex’s hands.  His father died years later in that hospital bed but Alex was not sure of his father’s nightmares were truly over.   He imagined his father’s soul was still trapped somewhere, still suffering an endless nightmare leading into another nightmare, and each time he thought he was waking he would just find himself in yet another new nightmare.  Somehow Alex knew this.   Where his father was now condemned to eternal waking did he know his body had died or did he have a futile hope that he would one day wake up?  

             The estate, Roderick’s fortune, everything was now Alex’s.   No one was there to be critical or to tell Alex what to wear, how to speak, or… who he could love.   And Alex eventually met a beautiful young man named Paul.  Oh, how he loved Paul.   They would travel to such places together.   London, France, Berlin…   They traveled together on a private yacht and drank Champaign on the deck as they watched the sunset over the Mediterranean Sea. There was no secret prisoner to worry about, nothing to shackle them to Fawny Rig like Dorian Gray shackled to his painting.  They could go anywhere. They could do anything. They were free.                And Alexander Burgess lived Happily Ever After…                  It was a pleasant dream.   Too pleasant…

Elderly Alexander Burgess woke in a cold sweat. There were fresh tears in his eyes.   He sat up in bed and Paul was there beside him.  At least there was that…  At least Paul was there.  Paul was real.  

But that’s not how the story played out, not really.   Alex had never been brave enough to defy his father.  He had not slipped down to the cellar the night that he should have.  He had never freed the prisoner.  Even when his father had died he had never freed the prisoner that he both resented and related to.  And he had been the one punished with six years locked in a nightmare that would seem to end only to reveal a new nightmare was starting, and on and on it had gone.   He had woken from that “eternal” curse to his beloved Paul waiting for him.  He had been forgiven.  He was relieved that Paul was here.            Paul looked at him now. “What is it, love? Did you have a bad dream?”            Alex nodded.  “I don’t know what’s worse… that nightmare that I was trapped in or…” He bit his lip before choosing the words. “…knowing I could have saved us all… saved myself…if I had just done the right thing at the right time…”

           “Hush now, darling.  You’re still half-asleep. I’ll get you some tea.”              Alex was soothed and sighed.  There was no use dwelling on what might have been.  But sometimes those dreams of what he could have done- what he should have done, if he had just been brave enough… Sometimes that felt so much worse than the actual punishment the Lord of Dreams had subjected him to before finally forgiving him…

           But at least he was safe now.  At least he had Paul. And at least he had been forgiven. And he was loved and accepted for who and what he truly was.  And his cruel, old father, was very much dead. A loveless old man was gone.  But Alex was alive.  Paul was alive.  And they were in love.  And no one could take that away from them.  And Alex and The King of Dreams were both free from the shadow of Roderick Burgess forever.

           There was no point on dwelling on what might have been.  That did not matter now.  What mattered was the love that Alex had finally found and the freedom that he and The King of Dreams both had gained.

The End