#prelude or standalone take your pick

[maxbradley]

After Today (Prelude)

It's been a couple of weeks since my dad left to spend the rest of his happy life with the librarian, Ms. Mar-pole-ey. Er, I mean Marpole. Wasn't her name "Sylvia" or something? Whatever. I'm glad that he found the right one after so long. I really am! It's been a while since I had a mother. Heh heh. Man, the sun's making me kinda tired. I shuffle to the blinds and mess with the drawstrings until the orange light disappears from the room. The cotton feels good on my nose, cushioning my fall to the bed, "You did good, Max. You did good." I wrap arms around my pillow and bury my face in there for a minute, trying to get a wink of sleep… "Hey Max!" I let out a tiny groan as the wheat field disappears from my view again. Thrown back into nothing but a black hole, my hands reach for the edge of the mattress before I push my hand out of the cushion. My muzzle made a funny looking imprint, from what my half-shut eyes could see, "Yeah Bobby,”—I yawn, "What is it?" My aching neck won't support my skull; my head fell into the pillow again. Another groan. I really didn't want to get up this time. "What are you lying around for?? Come on Max the night is young”—He's shaking my shoulders again. Okay. So you may be asking, have I been plain lazy since we beat the Gammas at the X-Games? "Fine! I'll get up on my own thanks!" The blood rush to my brain knocks me out of balance. Well, no. I'm having a good summer so far. The rigorous practice cut itself down to a casual joyride. The same adrenaline drives me to greater heights, literally! And that look on his face—A laugh wakes me from my dry spell. Popularity soaring since we won. The trophy that my dad can show off to everyone— I'm feeling good right now! Oh wait. The feeling's gone. Dammit. "Aw. Look at the little champion. He's studying." The book is knocked out of my hands. I whirl my head up to glare straight into dark blue pools. His Gamma Geeks start laughing. All I want to do is punch 'Bradley Uppercrust the Third' in the face. My teeth grit and I stand up, keeping my eyes level to his. "Max. Ignore them. Sit down." PJ's tugging at my shirt. The ex-X Games King kept that smug little smirk, chuckling at his oh-so-clever stunt. I know he hates me for beating him, fair and square.

"Is there a problem, Baby Goof?" "Yeah, Brad. I think there is." Peej stood up and gripped my shoulder. I turn my head as he's shaking his own side to side. "Dog Boy needs his biscotti friend to calm down? What a loose cannon!" Tank looked at me differently from the others. He knows that we saved him. But even as we let bygones be bygones, I can't forget that he's on the other team. The Gamma House became, and still is, the sole target for hate, rancor. We could never be friends, even if we tried. "I think we've had our daily fix. Let's pack it up!" Much less with their retard of a leader… I thought they kicked him out? I growl and settle down on the stone bench. Apparently not. "Are you all right, Max?" I forgot to mention my ravings and rants throughout the preparation of the X-Games. Every other day I'd have something to complain about; usually the subject revolved around Uppercrust. Bobby, at some point, got himself entertained with other aspects of the college life. He's more interested in checking out girls than hear my bitching. It's embarrassing really. So now the only one that puts up with my frustration is my buddy Peej. Since we were kids in Spoonerville, we'd have the best of times—the worst of times and everything in between. Both of us put up with our overbearing fathers until we graduated from high school. Ha ha! And my dad decided to spend a year here to finish his education. I should have noticed a lack of a diploma when I was 11. But to be honest, if it wasn't for him, we would have been disqualified. I'm glad he got through my "get your own life" phase. That was the lowest point I ever had with him since that camping trip… Back when, I was in… ***** I'm a guy like every other. I got hormones. And when you look at a pretty girl you can't help but stare at them as they walk by. It's their fault for wearing shorts and skirts. I know what the ideal woman is from knowing PJ's mother. Debbie was a crazy, ugly looking cousin, but turned out to be a bombshell from what I could remember. Getting all cleaned up for her and everything. Heh heh heh. And then there was her. Roxanne. She was beautiful, inside and out. The wheat field in my dreams under that light blue sky remind me of her… That summer at the end of my sophomore year marked the beginning of our relationship. "Puppy Love", my dad would say as a joke. My feelings for Roxanne were strong even as we spent our last days together in senior year. Like any couple we had some fights, usually because there was something on her mind that she would never tell me, no matter how many times I asked. But then I would see it in her eyes, something was wrong. Eventually people were noticing my growing talent in skateboarding and other athletics, and they told me, "Max you're so good! Have you ever checked out the College X-Games?" "No!" I'd tell them. Then they told me to watch ESPN. So I did. I was floored by all the cool stunts they were doing. The Gammas were the best. I admired the X-Games King at first. He was everything I ever wanted to be: A superior athlete with decent looks, above everything and everyone, admired by all. Popular! I found out too late that he was a jerk. A complete jackass. Back to Roxanne before I crack. "I got a scholarship for college! Can you believe it?!" The tightest hug I ever gave her before spinning her around; I was just getting taller than her, and I think I almost choked her from the enthusiasm ~~~ "Max! Put me down!" "Oh Roxanne this is what I've always dreamed about!" "It's all you've been dreaming about?" "Yeah, what . . . ?" ~~~ I didn't know what to say after that. Her head stayed on her chest. The only thing I could do was kneel under her and give her a kiss on the lips. Hers were shaking, and I felt a tear on my cheek… ***** "Mmmph.—Ha… haa." It's happening again. The excitement was too much—I had to wake up. It began to throb again; l locked my knees together to get it to stop. There are some nights when I love my hormones. And then there are others when I hate them. Dreaming about your first love, now at a time when you get the basics of "that", is kinda disturbing. It seemed, back then, we were too good for that. And even now, I respect women. I swore not to let my primal instincts take over before marriage. And then have kids of our own. I'll make sure not to overprotect them like my dad did… But, maybe, even that… "Nggh!" What the hell was that?! I shot up in my bed before wringing my hands at the warm cloth. I kept on throbbing and throbbing. It wouldn't stop! It won't stop! I fell off the bed and I hear Bobby snort in his sleep. I clamber up to my feet and nearly stumble into the bathroom. I'm careful to click the door shut and turn on the fan before I curse at myself and see my red cheeks in the mirror, "Calm down!" Please calm down! Was it because I kept on obsessing over—?! "Max you're so stupid—I hate this!" I didn't care what hell time it was. I took off everything I had and delved into a cold shower to get rid of all the sweat— Just perfect! ***** "Just fuckin' perfect." I don't think they heard me with my head buried in my crossed arms. "Cheer up buddy. You're not the only one with freaky dreams." I never told them exactly what I dreamed about. "Yeah Max don't let it ruin your day!" I sit up, "But what if it is?!" Our professor glared at us three before clearing his throat. Lucky me to have Brad in the same class this summer session. I can see him from the corner of my eye, smiling at our interrupting of the class. I can't wait when he graduates next year. Good riddance. I groan and bury my head in my arms again, not even paying attention to our lecture on Freudian Theology—or whatever the hell that old man was blabbing on about. He's not the same guy as last year, but man his voice is so boring! God! It took forever until I heard the shuffling of papers and the shutting of notebooks. The zipping of backpacks and the click of tote bags. The light shone through the windows on the chalkboard, orange and a muddy green. I'm all ready for bed, "Max." Peej tapped on my shoulder, "Time to go." I let out a sigh before reaching down to get my pack, "I'll catch up with you later." I'm dead tired. My friend gives me a strange look and shrugs his shoulders, "If you catch up, I'll be at the Bean Scene. Bobby said he'd be at some free rock concert around campus." "I think, I'll just go back to the dorm and sleep." "But that's all you've been doing lately!" "I don't sleep very well." I push myself off of the desk and sway around for a bit before regaining balance on my sore feet. "Suit yourself. Um, do you think that we should, I dunno, go out on a road trip during the weekend or something, get some fresh air?" I sigh deeply and look away from him, "It's fine, Peej." We were the only people in the room. And now I was the only one. The sun was setting even lower, but I kept on staring at nothing. The screech of a nearby car outside snaps me out of my trance. I trudge up the steps and push the door open. I must have tripped on the bottom of a post because the next thing I knew I was on the ground, chin hitting the concrete, "Ouch!" I can see a shoe in front of my face and it threatened to kick me— I roll out of the way quickly and jump off the ground to see an all-too-familiar silhouette, red-orange shining the side of his prissy sweater— "What the hell do you want?!" I wasn't so tired anymore. "What I always wanted to do since we met— The collar of my shirt's pulled up to his giant chin, "beat you." I push him off me and block a blow to my jaw. I came under and punched him in the stomach—It was almost satisfying until I felt my back rammed up against the wall, the back of my head was about to go numb— "Make this easy for the two of us, freshman. Get the fuck out of here. Transfer out of this campus so that I never see your mug again." My eyes widen. I never heard him swear before. "Because, the next time I see it—the next time when we're all alone—I'll break it in!" The grip is suddenly released and he whirls around and leaves, but not down the stone steps. Like a thief he disappears 'round the corner of the building. My shallow breathing made my heart pound violently, for more reasons than one. I shake my head and wrench onto my pack's strap and practically run down the steps, grating my teeth together and only wanting to see Brad in a pool of his own blood— "oof!" The flutter of papers and a couple of books— "Watch it!" I growl. I'm about to push this guy to the ground—this guy with red hair… Dammit, it's a girl. Despite my sudden poisonous fantasies I kneel down begrudgingly to help pick up after her. Our hands touch, and through my glove I feel a wonderful warmth . . . A warmth. "I'm sorry." "It's okay." Our eyes peer up at one another. They lock. Her face is in shock. I recognize that beauty mark anywhere. "Roxanne." I breathe—my heart beat even faster than before. Something caught in my throat, but I didn't care— "Roxanne! Oh!" I knock her down on the bare sidewalk with a big hug, careful not to hit her head. All the feelings from the past washed over me in an older body—a taller body—she felt like a child in my arms, "Max?!”—I let her go so that she could catch her breath. I stand up and take her hand in mine lifting her off the ground and giving her a more civil embrace, "It's so good to see you again I can't believe it!" A finger comes in between our lips. " . . . Is it really you?" more sad than happy. "Yeah, Roxanne! It's me—Max—don't you remember me?" I broke into a humored smile. "I do." Didn't she used to be more bubbly and excited when we saw each other? "What are you doing here I thought you had gone to another campus??" I can't even pause between my words; I felt elated. Her hair got shorter. She's covering more of her skin too. Her shorts became loose jeans. "I did, Max. Stacey moved up here with her family and decided to transfer over. I came with her to visit for a couple of days. This is my last night." "Well how is she? Why are you walking around here by yourself? You were trying to find me, weren'tcha?" A playful nudge on her shoulder, like old times. She finally smiled, "I didn't think I would find you. At all." Then she slowly hung her head, again. A lump caught in my throat again; I had to swallow it down. "Roxanne." My fingers cup her chin and raise her brown eyes to mine. I want nothing more than to kiss her again, "I'll take you to the dorm. Come on." I pick up her stuff and offer her my arm to wrap herself around. "I'm fine, thanks." She's walking ahead of me. "You're walking the wrong way!" I laugh. "Oh. Sorry." "Don't be!" ***** Cappuccino's almost ready. I tell the machine to work faster under my breath. From the corner of my eye I can see Roxanne prodding at the scone I got her, "Did I catch you at a bad time? Period maybe??" I chuckle at my own joke. It seemed easier to be myself around her, not having to carry around my façade of the goody-two-shoe kid on campus. I was more mischievous towards her as we reached our senior year together. But I'd always draw the line wherever hands were concerned. I wouldn't dare touch her inappropriately, even now . . . Coffee's done. Damn she's silent tonight. Like before we had an argument. I'd always ask her, "What's wrong?" "Nothing." "Are you sure?" "I'm sure." "Roxanne…" I forget about that endless cycle, "So how's your dad? College done you in yet?" "He's fine. College is good. I'm getting good grades…" "Higher GPA than mine, I bet!" Then she grins. I wish it could stay. I feel like reminiscing, "Did you miss me?" . . . "Did you, miss me??" I never noticed the bags under her eyes, like we suffered from the same spell of insomnia. The way she asked me the question made me nervous. "Of course! Wh- What makes you think otherwise?" The hand holding the mug begins to shake, "ow!" The hot water went into my gloves. "Are you all right, Max?" Roxanne's holding my hand in hers. I'm about to melt, "I've always missed you.. I still dream of the field." "What field are you talking about?" I bite my tongue down; I had let my sophomoric fantasies slip out of my big mouth. Her brows come together. I'm not liking her expression right now. "Look Max. I'm not surprised if you've gone and seen other girls. I don't care if you still see them after I'm gone." What? "Roxanne”—The chair scrapes the floor as I find myself kneeling before her—"Don't go. Not yet." "But I'm not leaving yet. Max, what are you doing??" My lips were pressed against her knuckles, palm, wrist. In a blur my eyes look up to her face before making contact with her own. As I stood up I took her by the waist and held her close, letting myself get lost in her scent. "Max! Stop it!" She's wiping her mouth, her pupils shrunken down. Roxanne's trying to get away. "Please don't go. But what do you mean I can't see you again?" "A lot's been going on and I can't take you with me!" "Roxanne, please—I'll even transfer out of this campus— A sharp slap—"Come back to your senses, Goof!" I let go, shaking. She's petrified in fear… of me. "Roxanne. What have I done wrong now??" "It's not what you did! It never was!" I choke on a gasp. Why am I crying? I wipe my tears before she sees them— "I know I did something wrong Roxanne! If you would just tell me!" You never tell me! The umber flared into lava under the iridescent lights, "Max!" I see her leaning on the kitchen counter for support, lips shaking and face pale as if she were about to throw up, "I was raped!" . . . . . "No. No, you weren't." I couldn't understand why a chuckle was coming from my own throat. "Max! Listen to me!" I'm lounging around on the couch and stifling my laughs. All of a sudden Roxanne's right next to me, "Max—mmph!— "No. You're too good. You're an angel." My right hand runs forever through her hair, dark and tight. I hear a sob within my chest, I feel the tears. Lying on top of me, my angel wrapped her arms around my neck and spoke, "Max . . . Do you remember? When everyone told you how good you were, in skateboarding." I can only give her a kiss on the head, "Yeah." "I got jealous." Of who? "Of your passion." "Why didn't you tell me? If I ignored you because I got caught up in sports, you could have told me." I turn over so that our eyes are the same height from the ground. We're pressed against the couch, holding onto each other for dear life. "I got depressed for a while… and then… he— ~~~ "Hey Roxanne. How 'bout Stacey's party?" ~~~ "We were juniors, Max, when it happened. I was so stupid to let him comfort me, hold me. Because, at that point, I wasn't getting any of that from you. You kept on obsessing over some 'Bradley Uppercrust'— In a pool of his own blood. "Roxanne. Don't mention that name again. I don't want to hear it." Her eyelids raise a bit and she nods her head, "Okay." I finally got a kiss from her dry lips, covered with salt. I didn't want to hear the rest. Good thing, because she was never going to tell me. It was her turn to comfort me when I burst into tears when the truth sank in… "I want you—I want to be with you forever… Marry me." My eyes blur over and fog out as I held on tighter . . . Marry me. "Please don't go." My arms are wrapped around my pillow. The sun shone yellow on my bedroom wall. Lazy eyes scanned the nightstand. The analog clock reads 7:20AM. I could hear the snoring of my roommates. I stare at the ceiling for the longest time before stretching out my arms and legs—one of them got a severe cramp, "ff—- owow ow—" I let the blood circulate so the pain would go away. All that was just a dream. I groan and sit myself up on the bed. After standing I stretch out even more and breathe in as much oxygen as I can. I exhale and shuffle to the bathroom, turn on the faucet and rinse my damp face. The cold water burned my cheek. It stung, "What?" Face wet, dripping of all the sweat and tears I shed, I spot a red mark in the mirror right where her hand had struck. Was I still in a dream, or in a living nightmare?

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

Which I definitely forgot to do last month, ah well.

As per usual, this is also an Open Question Night post! Aka, while my askbox is always open, tonight I’ll be keeping an eye on it and around to answer in a semi-reasonable timeframe. Feel free to ask about anything in the post, or anything I’ve talked about here on tumblr, or posted on AO3, etc. ...I don’t recall if I have any active memes or anything, it’s been a while since I’ve been super on tumblr...but anyway, ask away!

I do also take prompts, but no promises on when I’ll get around to filling them. I still have a few sitting around from. Uh. Last year........

But anyway, what’s on your mind?

Precipice:

The first Preludes story went up this past weekend! Somewhat later than I’d planned, but there was another project that ended up eating a lot of my writing time/brain, alas. This one features Lavinia, Mara Jade, Kallus, a Legends cameo, and the introduction of another recurring OC. The next one will...proooooobably be Hondo, Kanan, Ezra, Obi-Wan, and Anakin? Assuming that’s the next one I finish.

There will be seven in total, and the other five will involve whatever’s going to go down with Maul; Hera and her contact in this AU; Sidious’s Fifth Titled Apprentice; and...I’m still considering the last two, lol. Maybe something to do with Mandalore; probably something more Senate-focused...I’ll work it out.

As I mentioned in the tumblr post and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m going to continue posting these alongside the first arc or two of Protectors, which should debut...sometime in the next couple weeks, lol.

Most of these, as you may have guessed, are shoehorning Rebels content and characters into an AU that wasn’t designed with them in mind. The gist of it is, S1 of Rebels goes more or less in canon, and then...S2 probably went differently just because of where Certain Key Players were, but I’m handwaving most of the details unless they’re interesting enough to show explicitly (probably in the Maul Prelude, if nothing else). But for the most part (even though this doesn’t, uh, entirely make sense necessarily XD) anything that doesn’t directly involve Vader/Ahsoka/Rex/Force Woo probably happened similarly. Most notably, The Honorable Ones and all plot points following directly on that happen essentially as in canon. The Mandalore plotlines are also essentially the same. ...oh, I probably should address Thrawn, since I need him in a slightly different position a few years later for spoiler reasons...

Leaving that aside...as I said, Protectors will start coming out soon, I’m just finishing up what I want for the first chapter or two, and waffling on how I want to tag some things. There is a...possible major character death in arc 14, but I’m going back and forth on whether or not I actually want to do it, which changes what tags/warnings I include...

But I’ll work that out and get it out before too much longer!

Other Star Wars Projects:

I have a Thing coming out at the end of this month or early next month, for pod_together. I’m pretty excited about it, I’ve listened to my podficcer’s first draft and am making minor edits/etc., but I think we’re in pretty good shape ^_^

Other than that, I don’t have any concrete plans for new SW fic in the near future. I’m going to buckle down and really get some momentum with Protectors and Preludes for the most part, maybe start poking at some ideas/concepts for next year’s SWBB.

Maybe also crossposting some tumblr-exclusive oneshots like I started doing last winter, or picking up with one of the AU outlines that I keep meaning to continue (Ventress + Luke, Let’s Go Steal a Crossover) but...well, we’ll see how time/brain works out this month.

Other Fanfic Projects:

I will have some standalone/fulltext AtLA fic out later this month, I promise XD It’ll be an Avatar Zuko AU, I’m putting the text together and figuring out how I want to structure it, etc.

I’m also genuinely working on a BSG/SG-1 crossover AU outline. It’s. Already quite long and I haven’t even gotten to most of the meat of the crossover yet, lol. But at least the first chunk of that will probably be up sometime later this month, too. Fingers crossed. That’s the plan, anyway.

Original Work:

I haven’t done much in the last month or two, but I’m hoping to get back into this. Both for extant ‘verses and really diving into Arthuriana research because I want to write that one story, maybe really working it up to Publishable??? We’ll see how it goes...

...I think that about covers it! Like I said at the beginning of the post, we’ll also do an Open Question Night, and I’d love to hear about what you guys are working on! What’s on your mind?

[aion-rsa]

Neil Gaiman: How The Sandman Reinvents the Audiobook Format

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

“For years, I’ve said that I would rather have no adaptation of Sandman than a bad adaptation,” says Neil Gaiman – and for years we’ve had no Sandman adaptation. But perhaps surprisingly, given the very visual nature of a graphic novel, the first one to make it past the finish line is an audiobook – more than an audiobook, a scripted audio drama, something akin to a radio play or perhaps an ‘audio movie’ of the first three volumes of Gaiman’s The Sandman graphic novel series. It might not be the adaptation audiences were clamoring for but it works surprisingly well and might just set a path for a whole new way of consuming classic storytelling during a time when traditional screen productions are stymied.

Directed by Dirk Maggs who is well known in radio for producing complex, immersive and cinematic audio productions, the new Sandman adaptation has a Hollywood cast and an epic feel, spanning almost eleven hours in total. It’s a project which almost certainly couldn’t have worked as anything other than an audio production and retained the scope and scale, especially right in the middle of lockdown.

“When we made Coraline, on a good day, you would get seven usable seconds,” Gaiman explains. “Shooting a movie, on a good day, you get four minutes. Shooting Good Omens, on a really good day, we would get six minutes done. The amazing thing about audio is because we are just using voice and sound and because you’re relying on the listener to work with you as a co-creator and to imagine and to build, themselves, things are relatively – and I’m using the word ‘relatively’ here just because I do not, in any way, want to diminish the magnitude of what Dirk Maggs and his collaborators have done here – but it’s ‘relatively’ simple.”

Simple compared to a full on 11 hour screen version but, still with a ferocious number of moving parts and a massive cast spread across different countries, there were still major factors to take into consideration. Talking separately to Maggs we start to get a sense of the magnitude of the production. Sound was, unsurprisingly, the key to making the series work.

Maggs explains that they first recorded the ensemble cast, a group of around 60 actors who between them formed all the smaller supporting roles – some who are A-listers in their own right. These parts were recorded in London.

Neil Gaiman and Dirk Maggs

“I shoot on shotgun microphones, the same mics that you use on film sets to pick up actors’ voices, because I’m trying to carry this cinematic feel through everything,” he says. “So my first question to the other studios we were using is ‘what mic have you got?’ and then we work from that. Then it’s just a case of me carrying in my head how the recording is shaping up now. The director’s job for me is to make sure that as an audience, the listener isn’t suddenly thinking ‘hang on a minute, that sounds like it was recorded 3000 miles away, a month later.’” 

The layering of sounds effects is a complicated business too and something that Maggs has been perfecting for much of his career. From directing Superman radio plays back in the ’90s he’s no stranger to translating comic books to audio.

“The movie feel we strive for is a case of taking the voices and then basically mixing it as if it were a movie and not a radio play. It’s not the sort of polite teacups rattling, ‘more tea, vicar?’ BBC thing. This is where we add pretty much everything to the audio mix down to footsteps, clothing, rustles. If you listen to episode eight where Dream is feeding the pigeons and chatting to Death you can hear their movements as they turn to each other and throw and catch basketballs and so on. So it’s a very complex business and it’s very labor intensive, but the end result is something where if you close your eyes, you’ll see it play out on a screen in your head.”

It helps that the production managed to round up a cast that any blockbuster movie would be proud of. Front and center is James McAvoy as Morpheus – he was easy casting as far as Maggs was concerned.

“I knew that James had everything we needed to deliver Morpheus,” Maggs says. “We’d worked with him on Neil’s Neverwhere for the BBC. The thing about James is that he brings an energy. The tricky part with Morpheus is that he’s not a passive character, but he doesn’t actually do a lot of decisive action. A lot of the time he is reflective. I needed an actor who even in the reflective moments would get the sense of action and that’s what James brings.”

McAvoy was set to record his part last of all. “What none of us then knew was the day that he was due to go into the studio was the day that we went into lockdown…” Gaiman says, telling us that in the end they had to ship McAvoy “a studio” and he had to learn to work it. “He had to become his own sound engineer while Dirk Maggs directed him and talked him through, at the other end of a screen,” he explains. Gaiman says he’s started to do the same from his place in Scotland and shows us the very professional looking microphone he’s using for this Zoom call.

The result is surprisingly seamless. McAvoy and Gaiman himself are the two main constants throughout the series. Morpheus’ arcs in Preludes and Nocturnes sees the lord of the Dreaming captured by mortals and held prisoner for decades until he is able to free himself and go on a mission to win back his three stolen tools. The Doll’s House which is the second Sandman book adapted sees him on the hunt for errant dreams who have escaped from The Dreaming. While the third book, Dream Country tells standalone stories, not always featuring Morpheus at all, like the Element Girl tale, which stars Samantha Morton as a faded and long forgotten DC superhero who is severely depressed and longs for the freedom of death she is unable to attain. Morton is brilliant and the whole episode is just terribly sad.

“Dirk mentioned that, when he taped her performance, she wanted the lights down,” Gaiman explains. “He recorded her in the half dark. And then he had to go and find Kat Dennings in Atlanta. She’d been doing an all-night shoot, and she was exhausted. She still gave us her all, which is so wonderful.” The episode includes Kat Dennings as Death gently handing a tissue to Morton’s Element Girl in reality from across the Atlantic as if the two were sat together talking quietly in a dark room.

Kat Dennings voices Death

One element of the series that may provide an extra thrill to fans of the book is Gaiman’s appearance as the Narrator. By necessity, the adaptation adds extra levels of description to make up for the lack of panels to really paint pictures of The Endless and more in listeners’ heads. 

“The entire experience was very strange. I would very happily not have been the narrator,” Gaiman smiles. “Dirk wanted me, and this was Dirk’s project. My attitude was that I wanted whoever played Morpheus to be the focus and the voice that you were going to hear the most of.”

It’s a lovely bit of meta-casting which sees the creator of Dream of The Endless as the overlord, weaver of his own stories. And the extra description needed added no problems for Maggs or Gaiman since the original directions Gaiman gave to the artists on the series still existed.

“If you go into my hard disk, and you go into ancient photocopies of ancient drives on computers that have long since been forgotten and junked and abandoned…,” Gaiman says, taking us on another journey of undiscovered hidden treasures, “and you follow down ancient, DOS branchings, you eventually get to files with names like Sandman and Sandman Archives, in which all of the files are in WordPerfect 4.1 format. And they are the original Sandman scripts.”

Gaiman dug out the scripts of old and sent them to Maggs to work from.

“Everything in Sandman has been described by me at some point or another,” Gaiman says. “So Dirk would then go and find the lines that he wanted to use, which were my original descriptions to an artist of what a place looked like, what a person looked like, and slide that in and give me, as the Narrator, that line that I’d already written long, long ago, as a line of description. So, that was kind of weird. It’s almost like asking everybody who’s listening to this to become the artist for their own comic.”

It’s a rather lovely element to the adaptation which means it works just as well for people completely new to the comic as those who have images of the Endless already burned into their subconscious minds.

There’s another advantage to this approach too.

“I love the idea that blind and partially sighted people, people whose brains do not process comics, people who just can’t pick up the comics for whatever reason, now have a way of accessing those stories. That, for me, is huge,” Gaiman explains.

The Sandman brings in other well loved DC characters too with similar quality casting. Taron Egerton plays John Constantine in an arc from Preludes and Nocturnes which sees the occult detective visiting an old girlfriend to help Morpheus in his quest for his lost artefacts. Egerton plays Constantine as a convincing Scouser (Egerton’s parents are both from Liverpool) and Maggs says the Golden Globe winning actor gave him the most trouble in the edit. 

“Taron’s was the hardest because he gave me so many great choices on each line that it actually made it quite quite a challenge to make any set of decisions,” he says. “He’s like James, he comes in with ideas.”

Michael Sheen who played an angel in Good Omens, which Gaiman scripted, plays Lucifer Morningstar, “I’m not sure if it’s a promotion or a demotion,” laughs Maggs. He’s something of a favourite in the world of The Sandman who we are likely to see more from if the show gets a second series. “Michael came in and he ran with the idea of Lucifer being based slightly on David Bowie which was really nice,” says Maggs. “It worked really well with James’s Morpheus.”

With Miriam Margolyes as Despair, Riz Ahmed as The Corinithian, Arthur Darvill as Shakespeare, and Matthew Horne as Hob Gadling, among many favourites rounding out the cast, this is an all-star production that transports listeners to hell and back via the world of The Dreaming in a beautiful, sleepy way. 

There’s also the chance that this adaptation might reinvent people’s expectations and perceptions of what an audiobook can do, at the very time when many on screen productions have had to be shut down due to Covid.

“This was the chance to take a modern classic like The Sandman and realise it so convincingly in audio that people who think audiobooks consist exclusively of single voices reading against a silent background will have their expectations massively opened up by the breadth and power of the acting of our superb cast, the cinematic atmospheres, settings and sound effects, and the beautiful full score especially composed for The Sandman by James Hannigan,” explains Maggs.

“I’d love this production to open some doors for people who feel the only epic entertainment worth their attention has pictures already attached. Hopefully they’ll find the pictures in their head can match anything Hollywood can produce!”

There’s still so much material to adapt, too, with the rest of the series of graphic novels as well as The Sandman: Overture, the prequel, to work with. Gaiman is hopeful for more.  “Put it this way. This is currently number one in all categories in the UK and around much of the world on Audible and only number two in the US, because the thing about President Trump from Trump’s niece, about how awful he is, is just sitting there at number one,” says Gaiman. “Everybody’s very happy at Audible with how well this has done in terms of reach and listening and people enjoying it and everybody’s loving it. So, I cannot imagine a world in which we don’t now go on and do Season of Mists and keep going. I want the whole thing.”

The post Neil Gaiman: How The Sandman Reinvents the Audiobook Format appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Black Mirror Season Five

Well that was, anticlimactic.

Once shorthand for searing tech-dystopia and warnings of what may have already come to pass, standalone episodes that could be deemed average television or less have now bridged the divide with that which made Black Mirror exceptional.

It’s not that Season 5 is bad, just that the points the show is making this time around, some of which have already been very well elucidated, are shallow and simplistically discernible compared to that which came before.

Commenting on the perils of over-dependence on social media (Smithereens) was concretely covered in, for instance, Bryce Dallas Howard’s series highlight Nosedive, in which circumstance multifaceted perils were better teased out to greater, discomforting effect. In season five’s second episode, still the stand-out of this three-episode order, a resonantly tragic repercussion bleeds into a very simplistic moral the likes of which has always been complemented in other Black Mirror fare such as, say, Playtest, through contrast of that both advantageous and foreboding about technological advents.

With the chapter’s forbears ruminating on technology’s varying detractions, Smithereens conversely highlights something singularly instructive, it being ‘one thing you shouldn’t do;’ week’s lesson learnt. We are also robbed of an ending, while the marked stylings of the Zuckerberg-esque tech-genius have very much been done before.

Striking Vipers, chronicling two best friends’ less than platonic use of a Street Fighter-esque virtual reality game, examines the repercussions of situating our consciousness in a machine or otherwise being let free in unreal environments. Be Right Back, White Christmas, San Junipero, USS Callister, Hang the DJ, again, Playtest, take your pick; variations on the theme have come before.

Examining however the ways in which one’s sexuality can be explored through digital forums, this author does not agree with some of the criticism that has been levelled at this particular episode; for this is the story of two individuals and their self-actualisation. Yes experiences are different for many, and Striking Vipers takes steps to highlight the legitimacy of diverse relationships rather than discounting any.

Most interesting for the colour-filled virtual realities which would have been a joy to film and location-scout, the episode ends with a simplistic, unusually upbeat tone for Black Mirror. It’s not as if the creators are beholden to deliver something cynical yet those episodes which have pursued Black Mirror’s signature conclusions have lingered for so emphatically making their point, as have too some of the more uplifting ones.

Hang the DJ, USS Callister and fan-favourite San Junipero all ended on memorably happy if morally fraught conclusions. Be Right Back set out to walk a pretty fine line in it’s final moments and did it well. The ‘happy’ endings were welcome and readily re-collectable for being surprising exceptions to the rule and reprieves from the show’s bleakness. Littering this season of three with not one but two of Black Mirror’s more blatantly positive, shoehorned conclusions not only sacrifices the established, distinct tone of the series but the pursuit of complex moral precepts that can’t be layered into such abrupt, here facile conclusions. The final moments we share with two sets of characters in season five are more centred on delivering now unexceptional, happy outcomes, as if this was what alone made San Junipero so endearing, rather than actually pursuing the likes of the profound moral lessons for which Black Mirror has become so well known.  

This is seen no less in season lowlight and final addition Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too which similar to Striking Vipers questions the moralities of uploading our consciousness to, well, anything. The Disney-esque, heavily unlikely conclusion doing the instalment no favours, the shallow points made about the music industry’s own shallowness aren’t buoyed by superstar Ashley’s none too creative lyricisms, nor, counter-intuitively, the presence of Miley Cyrus.

Her casting itself (given how her music is numerously if not necessarily widely viewed) making the moral of the episode self-evident, beyond this there emerges nothing distinct about her participation that really recommends this instalment beyond a less famous or even non-professional singer otherwise having taken on the role. Cyrus evidently got to have fun with the part and that’s more than can be said for much of this chapter.

The whole season suffers too for taking place, as is sparingly the case in Black Mirror (The National Anthem, Shut Up and Dance) in what is (mostly) recognisably our time. There is a distinct lack of world building; the style of which has previously so well characterised this universe. We’re not necessarily due anything as creative as Fifteen Million Merits and budget may well have been a factor but even The Waldo Moment, situated primarily in a wholly familiar world, managed to play a little fast and loose with a distinct, foreboding none too far off future.

Preluding this season with the standalone interactive feature Bandersnatch, while the notoriety Black Mirror brings to ‘choose your own adventure’ type media must be accounted for, such form has notably been experimented with in other forums, no less than the much-beloved ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series. A relatively novel experience yet disappointing for the unnecessarily heavy (and tried) reversion to and reliance on that meta and ultra meta, as if there wasn’t already enough of a story to tell, those parable-ridden narratives we came to love are joining those ever-distant days when we didn’t so rely on investment in technology nor Black Mirror.  

Black Mirror is now streaming on Netflix