The Tempest is so good. It's probably the first thing I read where I suddenly realized that characters could be doing double-duty as both themselves and the author. (I was very wee when Sandman was being published.)

Belatedly…

Yes, Nuala/Lyta/Thessaly are the real Kindly Ones of the title. We don't know the circumstances of Thessaly's breakup with Dream. But promising to steal your only child and forcing you to work as an indentured servant (when her imprison-er can literally make servants for himself out of nothingness) isn't just brusque.…

The thing I find most frustrating about discussing this series online is that I think it's written at a fairly accessible level… if you were actually awake during your sophomore lit class (or the self-education equivalent.) If you weren't, it's like pulling teeth.

It's a thing worth freaking out about, but there are two things keeping me calm: 1. Gaiman's had plenty of time to think about this story and 2. He certainly didn't need the work or the money.

I think most (if not all) of Wan's life story had been lost, but we know that the sages of the various tribes keep their eyes on the skies. It's probably just that they expected some wonkiness with chi because no one knew about Raava/Vaatu.

I thought it was a bit cheeky of Gaiman to have Morpheus say at one
point—to The Corinthian, no less!—that “It is hard to create things. We
have such high hopes for our creations.”

Even though I love Destruction as written, the implications of his abandonment are… horrible. And I think we're meant to think so, that even though we find him charming, when you know what humanity has lived through and sacrificed so that Destruction can fulfill himself making shit paintings is quite horrible. It's an…

The implication is that the horrors of the 19th and 20th C. were because Destruction's hand was no longer on the till.

I think this 'belief' is directly stated by text a couple of times. (Not just in Endless Nights, but there's some hints of it in World's End, I thought.)

The scene with Hob in the abandoned shed at the Ren Faire is one of my comfort places. No lies.

The reason Gaiman "gets a pass" for Morpheus's misogyny is because Morpheus DOESN'T GET A PASS FOR HIS MISOGYNY. His death is directly brought to pass by the numerous women in his life that he's wronged.

There's a point to this complaint. Which is that if you don't have actors but animation, and your writers keep throwing really complicated emotional material that isn't landing due to bad animation, your scripts aren't going to be as effective.

It's when all the planets in their solar system align, presumably boosting spirit chi because astronomy works like that in this universe. (And seriously, it's a given for these characters that astrological events have consequences for benders, so actually? They probably DON'T need a primer in the way we do, because…

I suspect that they were going for a nepotism set up with Lin at first, but the force no longer seems to be entirely metalbenders.

To be fair, the book was written in the 80s, when the idea that any form of mass communications the public would pay attention to on the Internet was entirely radical.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a real horrible bender, and read up on some of the lesser known camps. There's one in Poland where they had gas chambers, but no crematoria, so they stacked the bodies in mass gravepits in the forest.

holy fuck why would you do that

What pretty much every review has failed to mention (because lesbian porn!) is that like 10 years pass in this film. The main character is at least in her mid 20s by the end.

As a queer woman, I also thought they were too long. (And exploitative. I've seen lesbian-for-lesbians porn that's less intentionally masturbatory.) And it's kind of a shame, because the entire porn aspect is drawing away from what's an amazingly shot, and acted film. In short, agree with you.