Today, Alias ends. In the US, which is why I'll hate everyone on my friends list and pursue them with everlasting vengeance if someone spoils me for the finale until I hold it in my hands and have watched it myself. Please, please, please, use discreet lj cuts. It's the last time.

Of course, once I've seen it, I'm going to need some virual hand holding. I mean, I pretty much resigned myself to the fact my favourite character would not outlive this show when I realized said favourite character was Sloane all the way back in season 1. You don't fall for someone introduced as the main antagonist and even later on shown to be highly ambiguous at best without accepting he/she'll bite the dust in the end. (Well, okay, except for Scorpius on Farscape.) So even before 30 Seconds made it inevitable, I did not expect Arvin Sloane to outlive the season. (Except in that time travel fashion rozk suggested.) But I very much mind how he dies. Sydney killing Sloane I'm okay with. (In fact, this is the way it would make most sense, and not just because she's the leading character: let's call this the Merlin and Nimue ending.) Jack killing Sloane I'm okay with. (This would be, in lack of better terms and to give you a real strange mental image, the Buffy and Faith ending.) Sloane surprising everyone and sacrificing himself I would be okay with. (His intials are A.S., after all.) You know what I would not be okay with?

Sloane: makes villanous speech.
Syd: says hero thing, but can't bring herself to shoot him.
Irina: steps out of the shadows and kills Sloane.
SpyFam: At last together again! Off we go.

Also known as an unholy mixture of the Lilah Morgan copout (see also: AtS, Billy) and certain season finales recently aired in the US. I'd hate, hate, hate that.

So, anything but that, I can cope with, and even love in my masochistic way. Mr. Abrams, pretty please?

Of course, there is always fanfiction and roleplay. Check out Lilah Morgan and Irina Derevko playing cliff, shag, marry, and admire the genius. *g* On the angsty side of things, there is Comedy, kangeiko's second tackling of Jack/Nadia, and Nadia in general, written for monanotlisa, who is in hospital right now.

Moving on to other fandoms of the comicverse kind: For the Kingdom of Heaven is a fantastic take on Hank McCoy (alias Beast) in the aftermath of recent events in Joss' Astonishing X-Men. As X3 will use one of Joss' plot lines which is crucial for this fanfic, to wit, the "cure", I can only hope they do it half as well as c_elisa does it here.

Then there is The Author of All This (Our Sorrow) , a story featuring Mina Murray in the aftermath of the second volume of Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. This is comicverse Mina in her complexity, and I adore it.

Speaking of complex women: check out Take Your Carriage Clock And Shove It, which features one of my favourite Sandman characters, Thessaly. (Note to Bill Willingham: this is how you write Thessaly. See, people other than Neil Gaiman can do it, so you have no excuse.) Thessaly the ruthless survivor, and yet aware of the cost. Love it.