#violetoftheendless

Hii!!!!

So! This is my first time drawing the Corinthian (and also a sneak peak of Dream as a bonus 😁)

Also took this as an opportunity to play with gradient maps, and rattlesnake looked the best, as the values were the most contrasting

Hope you like this 💖

and here a close up:

SAME. as in, this is only a concept on the back burner of my brain because i haven't really worked out a satisfying answer to the central q of the thing which is: what does a gender flip DO to these characters?

because here's the thing. i think 99.9% of the time a genderswap au is unnecessary and boring. (not to mention essentialist as hell.) boys have pussies, girls have dicks, people of all genders are intersex, etc. some of us notgirls and failguys just want to vicariously experience our fave getting his clit sucked or her prostate massaged. i personally hate fics that go "but what if these [cis] dudes were [cis] GIRLS" and then proceed to strip the characters of everything that makes them compelling, that makes THEM, because at that point you might as well just flesh out your OCs and maybe interrogate your internalized misogyny and transphobia while you're at it.

anyways.

in the case of sandman, i am (transparently, obviously) curious about what happens if the Corinthian is not designed to be (read as) a man. in the comix, he very much embodies the fears and risks associated with gayness in the 90s (the AIDS epidemic, the dual violence of the closet and/or being outed, the culture around cruising, intersections of race and class with queerness in U.S. urban areas, etc). in the show that's subtly shifted to be a broader umbrella of queerness as well as a very 21st century anxiety around surveillance/public vs private that also taps into a cultural fascination with serial killers. in both cases, him reading as white, middle-aged U.S. man is a CRUCIAL part of what he signifies. he looks like (and takes advantage of being) someone with a lot of social privilege, across multiple categories. no one is going to question why he's in a fancy hotel, a conference room, a seedy bar, a suburb. OBVIOUSLY that changes if any one of these categories changes. i'm thinking about how and also what that means.

(the dreaming spinoff comix tried to do a Thing with a female Corinthian: while Coco spends a year as a real boy, a trans woman named Echo takes his place in the Dreaming. the spinoff handles Echo...really poorly. [i wrote a whole paragraph here trying to distill her arc but it's tangential to this post so suffice to say: it was Bad.] Echo is posed as this "femme fatale" type because i guess if the Corinthian is a woman, she'd also have to be sexy and alluring to the (heterosexist) male gaze. imho this was a cop-out, but then again...what about that spinoff wasn't.)

on some level i'm not sure the Corinthian could ever be anything besides the Corinthian, if that makes sense. as in, if you change anything about him, maybe then he ceases to be the Corinthian and becomes something else entirely. Dream can take different forms (and Overture has a femme!Dream) because stories can take different forms across cultures and times and species. but the Corinthian is intrinsically tied up in humanity and its biomythic nature. and what we think of as Human, as Sylvia Wynter reminds us, is very much tied up in narratives around identity including race, gender, and class.

OH HELLLLL YEAH THANKS SO MUCH FOR ASKING THIS I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT MY ROSE SONGS ARE

ANXIETY BY MEGAN THEE STALLION especially the lyrics from “If I could write a letter to Heaven / I would tell my mama that I should've been listening” through “It's crazy how I say the same prayer to the Lord / And always get surprised about who He take, man”

003 - Gault

002 send me a ship - CocoLuce when or if i started shipping it: last year, initially as a knee-jerk reaction to the way fandom kept characterizing Lucienne as either asexual or a frigid lesbian out of lazy misogynoir. (like, i think there COULD be a thoughtful take on Lucienne as ace--just like i think there's a reading where she's nonbinary or agender--but the fanon never provided any context for this headcanon, and it seemed to emerge as an excuse for why Lucienne and Dream couldn't be a major ship [or indeed, to have ever had any intimacy beyond "boss and employee"], or as a reason why Lucienne would only ever appear as a cheerleader for dreamling in fics.) it felt like another instance of (white) fandom's general attitude that Black female characters are somehow inherently undesirable (and not engaged as active, desiring subjects).

but that scene where the Corinthian reappears in the Dreaming and Lucienne is there waiting? Boyd and Viv play that as LOADED with interpersonal tension. like, his mouth is RIGHT THERE, practically brushing the shell of her ear, and she doesn't flinch or react beyond that long, simmering stare. the slow lowering of her eyelashes, the flick of her gaze up? and he turns his back to her! she watches him as he leaves! it's SUCH a vibe of fraught exes, and/or rivals for Dream's attention/affection. it's palpable chemistry.

and that's another thing i find isn't afforded to Black or Brown actresses: everyone talks about how much chemistry Tom Sturridge has with his costars, and no one talks about how his costars are ALSO responding to that in their acting choices (or...they do, when it's Ferdinand Kingsley or Holbrook, aka white dudes). (addendum: there's SOME mention of Melissanthi Mahut, because she's Dream's ex-wife, but uh. no mention of Deborah Oyelade? the lover Dream condemned to Hell? hm, i wonder why...) no one gives these women their due for the work they've put into the craft! instead it's either hypersexualization ("step on me, mommy") or dismissal.

anyways. once i get an idea it then becomes "okay so how does this work." what about the characters and their dynamic would make this happen/prevent this from happening? where are the points of friction?

my thoughts: so it's god's two favorites. it's the dark mirror of humanity and the archivist of all their dreams. the masterpiece and the librarian. OBVIOUSLY they've interacted. presumably Lucienne was already around when the first Corinthian was created. what does THAT look like? god's first and most precious raven, the only one who STAYED. god's finest work, most complex creation, the one who always hungered to leave. did the Corinthian comb through the library, when the dreams weren't enough to sate his taste for humanity? also what is the line between curiosity and hunger?

what makes me happy about them: two not-human (but human appearing) beings who've been around for centuries if not millennia, who absolutely know what makes the other tick and how to cut to the core. who have a certain level of affection for humanity. who are closer to Dream than most others, and afforded privileges due to that closeness. like, i'm not sure they ever loved each other, but they love Dream, and haven't you tried to get at the person you really wanted by getting close to someone they cared about? them finding use in each other - and isn't that a cruel sort of twist, being reduced to a function in one of the most intimate relations you could have?

what makes me sad about them: i mean. it's clearly tragic. it could never be inherently happy, so long as it hinges on the absence of Dream.

...gonna skip the two fanfic questions bc i just haven't seen enough fic with them. but! i do adore quiet in the library by ao3 user starkraving.

my kinks: the eternal cry with all bhol characters: put a leash on that man!

who i'd be comfortable with them ending up with, if not each other: i feel like my platform is "end racism in fandom spaces" and "polyamory." anyways CLEARLY they both actually love Dream.

my happily ever after for them: i do think there's a universe where lucienne/dream/corinthian as a poly V and occasional triad could be Good. maybe it's lucienne/danny/coco2. all that newness and grief. hey, isn't it a thing that people get horny at funerals? deleted Wake scene.

this one is hard...i do think the Corinthian as a white man makes sense from a narrative standpoint, for reasons i have talked about elsewhen. also definitely thinking about how "Corinthian" is inextricably linked to Classics and the role that's played in formulation of "Western" subjects/identity (re: the Corinthian's U.S. southern accent and the ways he's almost uniquely U.S. American in his scope/influence). anyways i'm saying, if you need a feral white man to play your feral nightmare, Boyd Holbrook is an excellent choice.

that being said! Amir El-Masry has that casual, devil-may-care vibe that i think goes well with the Corinthian's impulsiveness and charm. also he rocks the white t-shirt and jeans combo. (all of his like, red carpet pics are...who is styling this man? why y'all putting him in these ugly suits?) clean-shaven with a tight fade and the top all curly? mm. good look. on the younger side, Jay Lycurgo has that rangy, tight-wound energy i imagine a young Coco would embody (plus he plays very...lonely characters and i do think of the Corinthian as fundamentally lonely). the feelings i have about a mixed-race Corinthian are...hm! did not know i could feel even more intensely! also on the young side but PLEASE look at his wikipedia pic because it exemplifies everything i'm arguing here: Xolo Maridueña. give him a few years and he'd be perfect. ALSO. AGAIN. having feelings about the Corinthian as played by a Latine, LA-raised actor - Coco 2.0 goes to Silicon Valley in Nightmare Country and he's...super LA vibes. the ways that being an LA-born-and-raised brown person allows you to move through that space in certain ways - you go unnoticed, you know the various streets, you have a familiarity with the area that could either render you as someone who belongs or as someone who might be otherwise "dismissed" as, say, "the help," which! affords you a degree of freedom if you're a Nightmare on the hunt, even as it maybe adds to the chip on your shoulder. (also then so many thoughts about brownness and risk/fungibility/survival.)

of course, this is all assuming that Riz Ahmed is busy playing Dream. because again, Riz Ahmed did the Corinthian's voice in the audiobook version of the comix.