The Dreaming: Waking Hours is a 2020 limited comic book series published by DC Comics under the DC Black Label imprint as part of the The Sandman Universe launch line. The series is written by G. Willow Wilson with art by Nick Robles.
Lindy has the same dream every night of the Stratford House. This time, however, she runs into Ruin, a Nightmare, and nothing will be the same again.
The first issue was released August 4, 2020. The series ran for 12 issues, with the final issue released August 3, 2021.
The Dreaming: Waking Hours provides examples of:
- 0% Approval Rating: While Nuala's rule wasn't exactly ideal in the Faerie Realm, she refuses to admit that overthrowing Auberon and Titania was the wrong thing to do, and implies that they weren't that popular with the rest of their subjects to begin with and her coup wouldn't having gone as far as it did otherwise.
- Angelic Abomination: Jophiel is an angel. His real form has four wings and a lion head.
- Baby Language: Apparently angels can speak "baby", Jophiel being able to hold a coherent conversation with the infant Anne.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family The Burgess/Cripps family is large and convoluted. Roderick Burgess and Ethel Cripps were the great-grandparents of Heather After, but she comes from a side of the family that the Burgess's disowned. She doesn't care, though, because Heather is determined to be the last of her line.
- Born Unlucky: From the moment Ruin came into existence, things have gone to hell. Even his name isn't so much as a name as an insult, Daniel calling him "ruined" for not being what he intended him to be. It's implied that he exists not to cause suffering, but as an agent of change that goes beyond the Realm of Sleep, this being one of the reasons why Daniel can't bring himself to unmake him in spite of all of the trouble he causes.
- Call-Back: Many to the original Sandman series:
- Brute and Glob show up in the Nightmare Box. Even though Morpheus destroyed them, Daniel has recreated them so that they will be loyal to him.
- Heather After is the great-granddaughter of Roderick Burgess and Ethel Cripps. She even has the eye totem that Ethel stole for protection.
- The Chains of Commanding: Auberon outright calls his subjects "spoiled, semi-immortal monsters" and thinks that he faired fairly well for his millenia-long tenure as their King.
- Central Theme: The indomitable spirit of Free Will superseding one's nature.
- Ruin is described as "the dream of catastrophic failure," and from the moment he came into existence all he ever does is make everyone worse off. The act of creating him instills Daniel with the crushing feelings of being Morpheus' Inadequate Inheritor, and he unintentionally has Jophiel exiled to Earth after failing to instill the fear of Eternal Damnation into the mind of a true believer. From then on he escapes to the waking world and causes all sorts of mayhem across various realms. Even with all of the trouble he causes, Daniel recognizes that he is a unique being that is more than what he made him to be and allows him a chance to live a life with the man he loves.
- Benedict was meant for a life in the church, Jophiel and Ruin assigned to help solidify that faith in the form of a nightmare of martyrdom and Eternal Damnation. Their attempts instead crush that fate (resulting in Jophiel being exiled and Ruin banished to the Box of Nightmares) and he leaves the clergy to pursue a normal life. He later admits that while the dream frightened him, all he could think of was Ruin's expression of sadness. He even vouches in Ruin's favor towards Dream, making a point that at the end of the day, it was his decision to take a different path and that Ruin shouldn't be punished for it.
- Jophiel is a loyal servant to the Heavenly Host who winds up being banished to the mortal plane after failing to solidify the faith of a true believer. This has made him cynical and homesick, trying to stay uninvolved with the messy politics of other realms like the Dreaming and Faerie as his probation dictates, only to wind up involved anyway due to his association with Ruin and Heather. It's implied by the end that his "exile" was all a part of Heaven's plan to ensure that the right people were where they needed to be, and that the whole thing was a Secret Test of Character to see if he was willing to do the right thing of his own free will, a test he passed with flying colors.
- Heather After is the transgendered descendant of Roderick Burgess and Ethel Cripps and apprentice to John Constantine. Even though she was from the "illegitimate" branch of the family, she is proven to be a talented sorceress with enough skill to summon angels and faeries, travel between realms and is able to intimidate Dream by reciting the incantation used to imprison Morpheus. While she tries avoiding getting herself into the same misadventures as other magicians, she decides to be involved anyway out of a moral obligation to do so.
- Deadly Scratch: Puck cuts Heather with the Vorpal Blade. While the wound is small, it's also cursed to never clot or heal, meaning it's a matter of time before Heather bleeds to death.
- Deal with the Devil: The Unseelie Court come to Nuala's aid when the Realm of Faerie starts devolving into chaos under her rule, resulting in a Crapsack World where the forest is dead and most of the fae there are either dead or imprisoned.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Not exactly "punch out," but Heather After threatens to imprison Dream with the same spell as her great-grandfather if he doesn't let Ruin and Ben have their happy ending.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Heather tries summoning a minor elemental to help find a backdoor into the Dreaming, only to summon an ornery Puck instead. He takes personal offense for being summoned, and after she sends him back, he later tracks her down and gives her a Wound That Will Not Heal, the magic of the curse attracting Unseelie fairies trying to eat her.
- Evil Counterpart Race: The Unseelie Court are characterized as a race of more monstrous tribes of The Fair Folk who saw an opportunity to take over the Faerie Realm's capital after Nuala overthrew Auberon and Titania. While all fairies are selfish and a little monstrous, the Unseelie are more visibly monstrous and the realm has fallen into a dying state under their charge.
- Eye of Providence: Two of the versions of Shakespeare Lindy encounters are based on conspiracies, one having a light-based triangular Eye of Providence on his forehead, the other having a pyramid with a single eye instead of a head.
- Fallen Angel: Jophiel was exiled from Heaven because he failed to recruit a dreamer to Heaven's side due to the intervention of Ruin. However, unlike a lot of other examples, Jophiel still retains his essential nature, i.e. helping innocents.
- The Fair Folk: The second story arc is about Heather After's deal with the former King Auberon in order to depose Queen Nuala from the throne of Faerie. It doesn't go well.
- Grail in the Garbage: While Robert Burgess's legitimate descendants argue over Ethel Cripp's stolen property, a young Heather (who is from an illegitimate branch of the family) only asks for what they presume was are worthless trinkets with sentimental value. Only a second too late do they realizes that the "worthless" property include the Amulet of Protection and one of her spellbooks.
- Guile Hero: Like her mentor John Constantine, Heather After is a magic user with a tendency to find herself in deep trouble, but is witty enough to get out of it just as easily.
- Hobbes Was Right: When Nuala tried an egalitarian approach to running the Faerie Kingdom, her hedonistic subjects devolved into backstabbing and hoarding resources, this being the opening the Unseelie Court took to take over.
- I Know Your True Name: Nuala dethroned Titania by saying her true name. When Heather After learns this, she doesn't worry and accepts the deal with Auberon. We learn why in issue #11, when the Unseelie attempt to control Heather by using the name on her birth certificate. Which is her deadname, so it doesn't work and results in the Unseelie who used it dying. Heather, in turn, says there's no such thing as a "true" name, only the one you make and names them all Lost.
- Ignored Epiphany: When Heather thinks that Faerie should do away with the monarchy entirely, Auberon and Titania can't help but bursting out laughing at the alternative. Even Nuala, who agrees with her on how flawed their system is, thinks it's ridiculous, preferring to argue over who gets the throne over addressing the real problem.Auberon: The sorceress would have us give the gnomes and harpies a vote!
Titania: How very droll!
Jophiel: You'll find no converts to anarchy here.
Heather: I'm just trying to help!
Jophiel: Have you seen these people? They're beyond help. - Love at First Sight: Ruin when he first saw the Boy.
- Mordor: The Faerie Realm has devolved into a near-lifeless wasteland under Unseelie occupation.
- Mundane Utility: Heather After makes a living shooting livestream videos teaching her subscribers how to perform real magic spells.
- Necessarily Evil: Ruin suffers from an existential crisis from the moment he was created because he has a reluctance towards frightening others in spite of fear being his purpose. Dream elaborates that nightmares are created as Stealth Mentors that renew the dreamer's will to live in the waking world.
- Psychological Projection: Lindy realizes that everyone in the Stratford House is a projection of her own psyche. So none of them are the real Shakespeare.
- Soapbox Sadie: Heather is more interested in lecturing Auberon, Titania and Nuala on why monarchies are bad than help them restore Faerie to its former glory on their terms.
- Supernaturally Validated Trans Person: The Unseelie try to use Heather After's "true name" to control her, but collapse in pain instead, because that's not her true name, that's her deadname. Heather declares triumphantly that there are no such things as "true names."
- To Be Lawful or Good: Being a loyal cherubim, Jophiel is reluctant to be involved in all of the interdimensional shenanigans Ruin and Heather drag him around, not wanting to make his exile from Heaven permanent. By the end his exile is rescinded after he helps restore order in Faerie and reunite Ruin with his first dreamer, implying the entire ordeal was a Secret Test of Character to see if he would do the "good" thing over the "lawful" thing.
- Trapped in Villainy: Nuala manages to dethrone Auberon and Titania using Titania's true name and takes the throne for herself after years of being taken for granted, hoping to take a more egalitarian approach and redistribute resources to less well-off subjects. Unfortunately, fairies are selfish and hedonistic by nature and the kingdom collapses. The Unseelie Court show up and agree to act as her enforcers to help curb the chaos, but they only acknowledge her as their queen if she agrees to their brand of cruelty, out of fear of what they would do otherwise.