#me when people identify me by my marvel obsession

[shitpostingperidot]

Carol Danvers’s Bookshelf

Thanks to the Ultra HD digital edition I have now identified 4/6 books on Carol’s bookshelf in The Marvels! There are several small piles of books scattered around various other surfaces, but no luck yet with them.

From right to left in this screenshot (it’s blurry because the camera’s focus was on the Monica and Maria pics just to the left):

1) The Martian Way by Isaac Asimov (Panther Science Fiction 8th printing from 1974). I love this choice for Carol because it’s about McCarthyism, resource-motivated imperialism, and manifest destiny (but in space). I also love the idea that Carol might have read this as a teenager and returned to it as an adult who has actual experience with space imperialism. (Thanks to my friend Mara for help identifying this one!)

2) 1999 Yearbook of Astronomy, edited by Patrick Moore. This is a guide to astronomical phenomena visible from Earth month-by-month in 1999, plus a section of essays on astronomy. In my opinion, this is proof that Carol returned to Earth in 1998 or 1999, since there’s no reason to get this book if you can’t use it to stargaze. It could also have been given to her as a gift from someone who had been to Earth, but let me have this.

3) A Manual for Being Human by Dr. Sophie Mort (published July 8, 2021). This is a pop psych and self help book about how our pasts affect us and how to create change in our lives. I’m obsessed with this choice for Carol for two reasons: the hilarity of poor awkward Carol being like “damn you’re right, I do need a manual for being human,” and the heartbreak of her still, after all this time, struggling to connect how her past has shaped her. Also, proof that Carol stuck around long enough to go to a bookstore or receive a gift when she went to earth for Maria during the Blip.

4) I am really not sure that there is enough info to go on to identify this book, and I’m considering emailing the production designer because this is really truly keeping me up at night. All I got is the book is tall, the spine is dark gray, and there’s half a face on it.

5) The Sporting News Official NBA Register 1998-99. This one was SO HARD to identify but I think the folded hands of that person sitting courtside are a smoking gun. I don’t know very much about the NBA, but interestingly, the 98-99 season didn’t even start until February of 99 due to a lockout. I wonder which team Carol likes; maybe the Celtics since she’s from New England? Anyway, to me this is further proof that she went to Earth in 1998 or 1999.

6) I got nothing and it’s killing me. No text I can make out, just some cartoon people floating around. Is this even a book?

One other fascinating thing is that in the trailer, the books have been digitally replaced with new text on similar spines? The Martian Way becomes “Lunar Mystery” for instance. I have no clue why

Thanks for coming to my Carol Danvers psychoanalysis hour. Should I email the production designer about the two unidentified books? Vote now on your phones

[hasaniwalker]

A word about Alice

“Have you seen that evil Alice in Wonderland game at best buy?”

That was how I was introduced to it. A game that would stay with me for years after. I had no idea what the person was talking about at my high school in the A.V. room. I was there frequently, editing my first stop motion film (An adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s the Raven).  They told me she had a knife and there was a thin cat next to her. I was intrigued and the next time I was at best buy I wandered to the Computer Game department and found the box.

That’s when I was introduced to American McGee's Alice.

I feel like I should mention, I was not and still am not really a PC gamer. I do console games mostly and reserve my computer for animation and editing. This game however, I needed to play it.  I was gripped by the image. The stark red background. The haunting stare of the character. the hand on the knife. It was unapologetically dark and I was obsessed. 

I went online wanting to learn more. It was early 2000 and my home internet was still dial up. I still recall going online to the Alice website and finding a countdown page. It was a music box, a child singing in the background, a terribly broken  tune looping as the box threatened to open. It was haunting and perfect.  I’d come home from school and for the short moment while I was the only one there, I’d go to the site and let that strange tune play though the house. At the end of the countdown, the box opened to reveal a decaying baby doll head (All of this is from memory and may be distorted by time. I unfortunately can’t find any images of the countdown page.) It stirred something in me to see that page come to life. It was the early days of internet. The time of MySpace. So the site was crude by today’s standards, but it was the most amazing thing to me at the time.

I’d leave it open on one of the computers while I was in A.V. at school. friends would come and we’d watch Alice move (sitting up from her seat, marveling at her blade, dusting off her dress.)

And of course, take time to show anyone the trailer.

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I remember this time of being a teenager entering adulthood, feeling misunderstood, anxious, scared, and losing myself in the music of Garbage, Poe and Crystal Method. Alice fit right in to the aesthetic of everything I saw at the time.  If Wednesday was the goth friend saying and liking macabre things, Alice was the older teen sister angry with the world and ready to scream at it with you. She was grunge, she was dark, she was frightening and wonderful.

I couldn’t afford the game, but I could afford the soundtrack. I ordered it from Amazon. A site that was also in it’s early days at the time. I hadn’t ordered much form the site, but I needed this.

I’ll always remember when the email alert came. My package had been delivered. There was a storm that day. I lived in Phoenix Arizona, and when we have storms it looks like the world is ending. The sky was dark, the thunder was loud. You had to get inside. I came home and went to the mailbox. The CD shape of the package nearly made my heart stop. I knew what it was, but holding it felt like an achievement.  I listened to that music daily.

Now, so you know, I didn’t just admire this game from afar. I did get the game for my birthday one year. I had talked about it so much that it was almost certain my mom would remember. It was the first computer game I owned. I was terrible at using a keyboard for games and couldn’t get through the first few levels without a huge amount of struggle. It was a lot of getting used to and I loved it.  

From the opening cinematic, the menu screen, the sound of the bell when you start the game. It was exactly what I wanted.

At the time I couldn’t think of another game like Alice. It felt tailored made from people with my mindset. A frightful game with a deep story and a character I immediately identified with. At a time where games had very action oriented goals, Alice gave a backstory of an asylum even coming with a patient log for Alice. All of it detailing the terrible fire, her mental state, and the struggle she was going through.

The best part of this was that I wasn’t alone in my admiration for this story. You could walk into Hot Topic and Tower Records and be greeted by large Alice statues modeled from the box art that captured my imagination from the start.

I wanted to see more of this character. I dreamed of seeing a movie someday.

And it almost seemed like I would get my wish.

There was news that a film was being developed of Alice with Wes Craven directing and possibly Natalie Portman or Sarah Michelle Gellar playing Alice. part of me hoped for an animated film with the original voices, but I was still gripped by this news.

At the time, I didn’t consider myself a horror person (feels weird to write that now since I think I’ve always really been one). I didn’t really seek out horror films and avoided gore. But I wanted Alice to by a disturbing and imaginative experience. I wanted to be scared watching this while feeling for the main protagonist and wanting her to reclaim her mind.

In a world where this film went the way I hoped, people would have movie nights today of Midsommar, Pearl and Alice. It would be a film that would take you somewhere you were afraid to go, but couldn’t look away from.

But then...I heard the movie wasn’t happening...and news of Alice stopped.

I never stopped thinking about that macabre girl and her journey through a tattered land of her mind. I listened to the music, revisited the game and also drew her now and then. lines from the game even made it into my typical dialogue (”Promise only what you can deliver” wise words).

I also still dreamed of seeing a film someday and would imagine who would play Alice (for a while I kept seeing Emma Watson as the character, but also still like the idea of an animated Alice.)

Then, one day, watching Attack of the Show on G4. I saw the most unexpected image.

Alice was coming back, and this time she would be on consoles.

The thrill was back, and as soon as a trailer came out, I immediately shared it with everyone.

undefined

I was quick to buy the game when it came out, and it was wilder than I could have hoped. A gripping story with tragedy, beautiful animations and moments that sent a chill through me. The kind of chills that made me pause the game and take in what I was seeing. The sight of a monstrous train rampaging through wonderland was a gift. The way Alice’s mind would unravel things was mesmerizing. Seeing life in London through her eyes and getting more of the history of the character (and the twist of the Red Queen’s identity) it was perhaps the only game that really pulled me in fully. I love games like the Arkham series, Bioshock, Horizon, Silent Hill, and so on. Alice to me felt like something more. I wasn’t trying to save a city or save someone, I was playing to help retain someone’s sanity.

The fascination with this character and world was just as alive as when I first saw all of it. I bought the art of book and still go through it and use it as a bit of inspiration if I have a creativity block.

 I carried my love for the character all the way to my work in animation and even built a stop motion puppet while I was working on Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio film. A character who I was so taken by in high school now stood on my desk.

All this is to say that this take on Alice Liddell and her fantasy world has had a great influence on me. I was prepared to continue following this story and I hoped to someday see her find her way to the big screen and have a final story where she would come to peace with what happened to her.

The news that the tale of Alice is not going to continue is devastating. It’s troubling to see so many stories be brought to an abrupt end. for finales to never be given and answers to questions to be lost forever. 

There are a lot of stories that I believe deserve to be told, but we’re constantly given entertainment that’s simple, easily digestible, with nothing to say except to reference nostalgia and trend online. It’s hard to find something that you can connect with. Something that you need a moment to think about after you’ve seen it. Something that gets you emotionally. These things are found mostly in the passion projects of creatives. The projects they pour so much into and want to present to the world.  The projects that are not just made with earnings in mind, but also how you’ll connect to the audience. I think these projects are important. They push us to look further in and to question how we connect and interact with a story.

Too easily these types of ideas are thrown aside now and it’s harder for anyone to finish the tale they wanted to present to the world if it doesn’t fit with what a studio algorithm says. It may be a dark time to be a creative right now, but I’ll remember the stories that I connected with. The ones that hit an emotional part of me and made me stop and think about a new perspective on life, fear, depression, joy and how I connect to these things.

Thank you American Mcgee and the Alice team for taking me and many others through a Wonderland that reached into our very soul. 

[jennilah]

so pins are the new about-me pages I guess

let's make one, shall we?

⬇ Click through to learn more about me than you want to! ⬇

Heya! So my name is Jenna.

I am a 3D animator for film and tv. I genuinely adore my job and think I get to make some pretty rad stuff! Once in a while you’ll see me sharing trailers and reels, or just talking about it in general.  You can check out my vfx work in my tag, or on my website.

I’ve been using tumblr since 2011, you are simply not getting rid of me no matter what dumb thing Staff does.

Fandoms

In that time, I have gone through several fandoms and have made so many memories in each one. People may remember when I was big into Supernatural, record-holder as my longest-lasting fandom, as many of us were. I may have since put that part of me in a nice little box with a nice little bow labeled “happy memories,” but I am still thankful to those who have stayed with me ever since. 

I typically get extremely deep into a new fandom every few years. I apologize to people who don’t care to see it, I try to tag it all for your blocking needs! You can see my up-to-date current obsessions labeled in my blog bio! ☝

I am also a shameless, unrelenting shipper so block any of those tags that might bother you too. (I love imagining characters in love, what can I say)

Art Stuff

My drawings tag (all polished art, original and fanart mashed together.)

My doodles tag (non polished sketches, junk drawer of doodles. Things I deem unworthy of my drawing tag.)

Redbubble

Other social media links

Big ole list of other tags to be found here

In addition to my current main fandom, I also have several other interests that I talk about less often but do still come up occasionally. For your reference, intrigue, or blocking needs, here are some of those things:

-Slashers -Godzilla -Undertale / Deltarune -Marvel -Half Life / Portal -Deux Ex -Action and Animated movies in general  -Pokemon -Zelda: Breath of the Wild -Splatoon -My twitch streamers like Jerma, Kitboga, Criken, Charborg, & Wayneradiotv 

Hobbies

I also love playing games and going to the movies. And I also love convention-going! I am not a serious cosplayer by any means, but I do enjoy trying to whip something up based on my current favorite characters. 

I also have a passion for VR! I think it is an incredibly immersive and fun gaming & long-distance social experience. Sometimes I’ll post screenshots from my VRChat adventures!

I also love birds. Like, the animal. They’re so cute and I love trying to identify them. I like the idea of birdwatching but I am too casual to get up early and go to parks. I am an amateur birder if anything!

And I also love tattoos and plants and dinosaurs and penguins and getting high and science and really, really, really stupid memes.

I think thats it.

[warmbloodedzines]

new zine from me (mordecai)! xalli and i actually hung out in person for the first time yesterday (which was amazing and so so lovely) and hir neocities reminded me that i posted a zine recently on my own that i never posted here. it didn't get posted until very recently because i wanted to wait for permission from the friend whose face appears in it :] i hope you all enjoy!

Transcript:

A mini-zine with 8 pages. The first page is a cover, and has a red and yellow door on it with the title "Red Door, Yellow Door" in all caps and the subtitle "a zine about middle school girlhood."

Page 2: If you had asked 12-year-old me whether she thought of herself as a horror person, despite her penchant for Stranger Things and creepypastas, she would have said: "No!" (The word "No" is large and appears in a speech bubble next to a photo of my younger self.) But in the fall of 2018, I began a steady obsession with theghostinmymachine.com (appearing as a screenshot of a web address), one of the only unblocked sites on my school laptop where I could spend hours reading the spooky content I craved so much.

Page 3: One post in particular stood out to me, where the author gave instructions on how to play a game called "Red Door, Yellow Door." You were supposed to play with at least one other person, assigned as "The Guide." They would rub your temples while chanting: "Red Door, Yellow Door, any other color door." (The chant appears in all caps in a speech bubble attached to a drawing of a hand.) This was meant to draw you into a trance-like state, guiding you through the rooms and hallways of your mind.

Pages 4-5: Once in this state, you were supposed to be able to dreamily describe what you saw, ideally at least one door that you could walk through. Some doors would be locked, and if you couldn't find a key, it meant you weren't ready to see whatever was behind. The goal was to travel through your own mind, watching out for clocks, a man in a suit with a briefcase, an elderly woman, rushing water, a staircase leading downwards, or any other people at all. If those appeared, the guide needed to wake you immediately, at any cost—shaking you, splashing you with water, or screaming to wake up. (This page also includes several collage-like pictures of doors, clocks, and a picture of my younger self and a friend I played this game with.) This was exacty the kind of thing i hungered for at that age, and I was quick to suggest the game at every sleepover I went to, most of which involved the same friendgroup of girls (although, of course, not many of us still identify as girls). Our love for the game was so intense that we started playing at recess, too. While most of us had trouble sinking into a trance,

Page 6: one friend of mine didn't seem to struggle much at all. She spoke in an entirely different voice than she did when she was fully conscious, describing in great detail how each door or room instinctually "felt" to her and occasionally becoming fully unresponsive, at which point we would shake her awake again. Her mind had a depth we didn't quite know how to plumb. When I was "under," I was fully conscious of this fact, and was unable to divorce it from my experience. Others couldn't "go under" at all. (The bottom of the page has a collage of an eye behind pictures of doors.)

Page 7: (This page has another collage, of an eye behind a golden snake made of a house colored with white ink for scales.) Despite this, I found that my mind, too, was full of wonders, even if I knew they were a figment of the imagination—I watched from the bottom of a sinkhole as the boy I liked tilted his head down at me from a cliff far above, ran barefoot through hotel hallways carpeted in warm, breathing velvet, and raced across a large yellow snake as it billowed in the sky like a cloud. (There is a drawing of a snake here.) Of course, at this point, I haven't "gone under" in years, but I still marvel at the game's ability to draw

Page 8: us in so completely. I don't think there was anything sinister in our fascination with our own psyches. I think it was just an attempt to understand ourselves, cloaked in intrigue and horror. (There is a drawing of a red door in a great field.) I miss those days. But I know that one day, I'll return to those gaping sinkholes and great golden skies. (There is a dotted line, and underneath, some drawings of stars and a picture of me saying "Thank you SO much for reading!" as well as the date 6 May 2023 and mordecaialba.com) (End transcript)

[voids-ideas]

Hi, this is my main blog. Where I throw (reblog) almost anything I see

Below the "read more" you can find a lot of information that may or may not be important

Here I just want to say:

Hi again, please do not insult anyone in my posts or where I can see it, or in general, idk. Respect everyone, It's not that hard

Warnings

One of the things I must warn you is that I am often on the phone and just give fast reblog, so many things are not usually tagged.

I think it's worth mentioning that I occasionally reblog things that are sexual content or +18 in general… in my defense, I'm over 18.

I hope it doesn't happen, but I do occasionally enter debates. I apologize but it's a guilty pleasure. I know they serve no purpose, but I like to argue with people

Interactions

I love any interaction that happens on any of my accounts, reblogs, messages, likes, asks, if you do any of those things I probably screamed with excitement when I saw it

In the case of asks and messages, there is the possibility that I am slow to respond, I tend to panic in social interactions

Also I recently remembered that I've always liked to give advice, I don't know if I'm too good at it, but if at some point you want to try asking an internet random stranger…. you have my permission to talk to me, as long as I feel comfortable giving advice on the subject, I will give you some advice or idk

Blogs (Why the fuck is there no yellow I wanted to make the damn flag)

Good omens obsession here, good omens obsession there: @im-the-j-in-anthony-j-crowley

Helluva boss and Hazbin hotel over here: @mrfancytalkcreepyvoice

If you don't know anything about aftg I really ask you to find out about the trigger warning first, but this is my aftg blog: @neiljostenmakesmyday

Blog where I sometimes share things about disability: @all-the-things-i

And this is my main blog. I define it as: Chaos

Fandoms

Things you may (or may not) see on this blog:

Good omens

Our flag means death

Interview with the vampire

Percy Jackson

Grishaverse

House MD

She-ra and the princesses of power

All for the game

The hunger games

Willow

Heartstopper

Heartbreak High

Hannibal

Prodigal son

Hazbin Hotel

Helluva Boss

Marvel

Star wars

Nimona

The magnus archives

Doctor who

Dead boy detectives

The sandman

Tags

I don't remember all the tags I've used, but I remember some of them (I'll add the link to them as soon as I get my pc and remember to do it):

Jay attempts to draw possibly there are drawings here, warning: I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRAW

Jay and... Jay what are you doing? You figure out what I was doing here, because I definitely didn't know.

Jay cries about some misfortune that happened to them in minecraft self-explanatory

There are tags for comments on movies/shows/podcasts/(possibly books) that are very well organized in this post

About me

I like cats. That's all.

...

Well, no. I'm in my 20s, recently diagnosed with adhd and autism (before that I had self diagnosis), I am in evaluation for chronic pain and other things, I identify as greysexual, greyromantic, agender (sometimes non-binary), bi, among other things.

I have trouble explaining things, and I define myself as a joke, in the way that my life is full of comical situations in which I am at the centre

[aeide-thea]

god i know that complaining abt fic which most of you haven't read, and which i won't, for politeness' sake, identify in this post, is a great way to come across as both dickish and boring—

but i've been rereading a very long, very satisfyingly plotty series that's a fandom darling and the thing is, when you read like 400k of an author's work at once it really starts to become painfully apparent what their priorities are, by which i mean two things:

holy shit they're obsessed with 'what if strong powerful men who could hurt you didn't (but did hurt Bad Guys) (and it was sexy of them),' which leads into

holy shit they do not appear to have thought through the implications of saying 'i will have my heroes take over the same power structures that have enabled abuse, make no real changes to those structures other than swapping out the leadership, and then claim that everything is wonderful now bc Good Men Are In Charge'??

like. i don't necessarily need every passing fantasy to present me with a coherent, revolutionary system of politics and ethics—sometimes things are just fun and sexy and not especially Examined and that's fine!—but by the time someone's written literally almost half a million words, and done a lot of worldbuilding while they were at it, i am going to start squinting if they seem to think a Good Man can e.g. become an emperor by killing off the leadership of multiple countries and installing puppet kings loyal to him and still remain a Good Man, even if the justification was that the original leadership was maltreating its citizens and deserved to be extrajudicially executed. like. this shit was a bad, autocratic move when the US did it in real life and it's still bad now that you're having our mutual blorbo do it in fiction! and that's not even getting into the whole thing where like. they've got servants who the Good Man and his friends ""treat well"" but who very much remain second-class citizens in terms of how the story actually frames them and their concerns. [this was also a huge issue i had with foz m*adows' most recent book—everyone wants to write about fantasy nobles but they also want to make them good people and it's like. honestly i think it might be better to get comfortable writing about flawed people, but also—if your aristos aren't treating their servants like equals and your text isn't either, you haven't actually cracked the Moral Aristo paradox, sorry!] like, there's nothing that says your story has to depict a fully Healed World, nor should there be! but it's troubling if you seem to be convinced you've written one (and have your wide-eyed love interests constantly marveling at it!) when you very patently haven't.

[nicklloydnow]

“I thought of Sam Bankman-Fried’s numbskull posturing recently when I finally read Nathan Heller’s article about the “The End of the English Major” in the New Yorker. The account of the collapse of undergraduate interest in the humanities touched off a lot of anguish, pained tweets, and op-eds this past month. For me, it clarified something about the trajectory of culture in the recent past, and made me think about the increasing widespread popularity of something I’ll call Quantitative Aesthetics—the way numbers function more and more as a proxy for artistic value.

(…)

The most-shared tidbit from Heller’s piece were the lines from professors lamenting that her Ivy League students who are social-media natives no longer have the attention for reading literature: “The last time I taught The Scarlet Letter, I discovered that my students were really struggling to understand the sentences as sentences—like, having trouble identifying the subject and the verb.”

We’re talking about the period since 2011, the first college class since the introduction of the iPhone, and it is logical that mass adoption of such seductive and pervasive consumer technology has changed people’s relationship to culture.

But 2011-12 is also the first full college class since the financial crisis of 2008, and the other obvious culprit is the greater ruthlessness of the economy post Great Recession, the flight away from the “softness” of the humanities in a time when studying anything not directly seen as useful is viewed more and more as an unsustainable luxury.

(…)

As one student says in the article, “Even if I’m in the humanities, and giving my impression of something, somebody might point out to me, ‘Well, who was your sample?’ I mean, statistics is everywhere. It’s part of any good critical analysis of things.” This provokes Heller to reflect, “I knew at once what [the student] meant: on social media, and in the press that sends data visualizations skittering across it, statistics is now everywhere, our language for exchanging knowledge.”

(…)

Nevertheless, there’s something called the McNamara Fallacy, a.k.a. the Quantitative Fallacy. It is summarized as “if it cannot be measured, it is not important.” The Heller article made me reflect on how a version of it is now very present, and growing, at the grassroots of taste.

On one level, this is seen in a rise of a kind of wonky obsession with business stats in fandoms, invoked as a way to convey the rightness of artistic opinions—what I want to call Quantitative Aesthetics. (There are actually scientists who study aesthetic preference in labs and use the term “quantitative aesthetics.” I am using it in a more diffuse way.)

It manifests in music. As the New York Times wrote in 2020 of the new age of pop fandom, “devotees compare No. 1s and streaming statistics like sports fans do batting averages, championship, wins and shooting percentages.” Last year, another music writer talked about fans internalizing the number-as-proof-of-value mindset to extreme levels: “I see people forcing themselves to listen to certain songs or albums over and over and over just to raise those numbers, to the point they don’t even get enjoyment out of it anymore.”

The same goes for film lovers, who now seem to strangely know a lot about opening-day grosses and foreign box office, and use the stats to argue for the merits of their preferred product. There was an entire campaign by Marvel super-fans to get Avengers: Endgame to outgross Avatar, as if that would prove that comic-book movies really were the best thing in the world.

On the flip side, indie director James Gray (of Ad Astra fame) recently complained about ordinary cinema-goers using business stats as a proxy for artistic merit: “It tells you something of how indoctrinated we are with capitalism that somebody will say, like, ‘His movies haven’t made a dime!’ It’s like, well, do you own stock in Comcast? Or are you just such a lemming that you think that actually has value to anybody?”

It’s not just financial data though. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have recently become go-to arbitrators of taste by boiling down a movie’s value to a single all-purpose statistic. They are influential enough to alarm studios, who say the practice is denying oxygen to potentially niche hits because it “quantifies the unquantifiable.” (How funny to hear Hollywood execs echo Theodor Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory: “If an empirically oriented aesthetics uses quantitative averages as norms, it unconsciously sides with social conformity.”)

As for art, I don’t really feel like I even need to say too much about how the confusion of price data with merit infects the conversation. It’s so well known it is the subject of documentaries from The Mona Lisa Curse (2008) to The Price of Everything (2018). “Art and money have no intrinsic hookup at all,” painter Larry Poons laments in the latter, stating the film’s thesis. “It’s not like sports, where your batting average is your batting average… They’ve tried to make it much like that, like the best artist is the most expensive artist.”

But where Quantitative Aesthetics is really newly intense across society—in art and everywhere—is in how social-media numbers (clicks, likes, shares, retweets, etc.) seep into everything as a shorthand for understanding how important something is. That’s why artist-researcher Ben Grosser created his Demetricator suite of web-browsing tools, which let you view social media stripped of all those numbers and feel, by their absence, the effect they are having on your attention and values.

(…)

Again: Data analysis, done with care, can yield insights of great depth (Albert-László Barabási has even argued for “dataism,” a kind of sophisticated data analysis, as an artform). But as an instrument used to justify consumer preference within a landscape of complex values, a Quantitative Aesthetic often just becomes a way to deal with the problem of not wanting to spend much time thinking—the opposite of deep thought.

If you walk into a wine store, you could get descriptions of various wines, taste them, decide whether you want something more “foxy” or more “herbaceous,” match the subtleties to your palette. But most people will probably just pick the bottle that has the price point they think suggests about the level of quality they are shooting for.

The “McNamara Fallacy” is named after one-time defense secretary Robert McNamara—a Harvard grad, like the students Heller talks to. A numbers whiz, he was the architect of the U.S.’s murderous, ultimately catastrophic Vietnam policy, and known for his obsession with “body counts” as the key metric of success.

McNamara apparatchik Leslie H. Gelb later recalled in Time magazine the debacle fueled by this quantitative mindset:

McNamara didn’t know anything about Vietnam. Nor did the rest of us working with him. But Americans didn’t have to know the culture and history of a place. All we needed to do was apply our military superiority and resources in the right way. We needed to collect the right data, analyze the information properly and come up with a solution on how to win the war.

(…)

Daniel Yankelovich, the sociologist who coined the term “McNamara Fallacy,” actually outlined it as a process, one that could be broken out into four steps of escalating intellectual danger. Here they are, as it is commonly broken down, with his commentary on each:

Measure whatever can be easily measured. (This is OK as far as it goes.)

Disregard that which can’t be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. (This is artificial and misleading.)

Presume that what can’t be measured easily really isn’t important. (This is blindness.)

Say that what can’t be easily measured really doesn’t exist. (This is suicide.)

Based on the data I have, I’d say that we as a culture are approaching somewhere between the third and fourth steps.”

[trouble-in-space]

hi hey! could i get a stranger things and a marvel ship if it’s not too much trouble?

i use she/they pronouns, am a cis female, and identify as bisexual. i like playing electric guitar, playing video games, watching 80s and 90s movies, and i love all different kinds of rock music. classic, indie, pop, punk, new wave, goth, you name it. my favorite color is green, i have super curly and long dark brown hair and brown eyes (someone once told me they were almost like a sienna brown). i’m also super short :/. i have some anxiety problems, so i can come across as a little judgy or standoffish at first. but once i get to know people i’m super friendly. i’m a total theatre kid, I’ve been doing plays since i was 8 and i love listening to musicals.

i hope you’re having a great day/night!

Hi hon! Thanks for submitting!💕

Stranger Things:

Steve Harrington. Like immediately got Steve vibes. Right off the bat he just loves that you’re shorter than him, and he’s like totally obsessed with your hair. He’ll do whatever he can to help you work through your anxiety and help you find coping mechanisms if you’d like. And once you guys get close and you’re able to open up to him he’ll be like the happiest man in the world, he’d feel so special. (aka it would give his ego a huge boost lmao) He’s obsessed with your guitar playing and will come to every single play you’re in, and every time he’ll have a bouquet of your favorite flowers to give you after the show.

Marvel:

Wanda:) I think she would understand your anxiety because she’s had to work with her own, so she’d always be there for you if needed. Would always offer her help to you when you’re rehearsing for your theatre projects, literally will do whatever you need just ask her. Will always watch you play guitar, and eventually would ask you how to play video games because she wants to play them with you.<3

[sweetly-yours-and-mine]

there is something your writing makes me feel that no other fics do and i cannot put it into words but it is incredible. i don’t know how ti explain but you’re able to establish such a loving. sweet. calm. peaceful feeling. in the words that you use and i UGHHBDBDNDSN you really have a talent. and i love how you write marc

also i love rare hearts but haven’t heard it in a while so i went back for a relisten and i’d like to thank you for that

Bestie I don't even know what to say to this. It literally brought tears to my eyes when I read your message.

I have been writing for various Marvel characters for about a year and a half now, but I deactivated a couple of months ago for various reasons. I wasn't really sure if I was going to get back into writing but looking back on it now, one of the biggest struggles for me, right before I ended my old blog was that I kept repeating to myself 'show don't tell'.

I was such a huge stickler for that, that even when I wanted to be like 'he was jealous, his eyes were flaring' or something along the lines of that, I'd thought I'd have to write a flashback with fleshed out dialogue that fit into the story's plot to show how that character would get jealous and vaguely imply it when I got back to the main plot.

That for me was extremely suffocating. I would want to write a simple 1k and then I'd be neck deep in 12k with no end in sight.

Then everything really changed.

Idk if you can tell, but I am obsessed with the Sally Rooney extended universe (lol). During my little break I got the chance to read Normal People and Conversations with Friends as well as watch both of their Hulu series. What amazed me with Sally Rooney was how 'telling not showing' her writing was, and how well it worked for her. Her writing extremely moved me when I was reading it, so when I started writing again, I tried to let go of that hard rule I kept for myself.

Not to get too much into the beef I have with the MCU, I also think that I had hit a bit of a creative dead end with the characters I was writing for. The MCU had taken their characterisations in ways I didn't identify with, and that left me little to no creative foundations to draw form, having already exhausted some of their earlier content.

But Moon Knight really kinda just took over my world the way the other movies and shows didn't. It was spectacularly executed, and really rooted in reality.

Besides that, Marc just speaks to me on another level, Steven too. The struggle that Marc went through, the way it's portrayed on the show, and Oscar Isacc's specatcular acting really was the whole deal. I guess my writing stemmed from the violent need I had to hug him in Episode 5.

So, to put it mildly, it's not just me, it's this heaping spoonful of top-tier quality content I've consumed in the past few months, as well as the fact that I've stopped policing what I write so much.

I love you, nonnie, you're the absolute sweetest for telling me this, I really just want to melt into the ground. Sorry if this wasn't the answer you were really looking for.

[sunbodi]

I feel and notice myself pivoting to doing things regardless of being accompanied. Ima go regardless and have me a good ol time. I’ve decided to pour into myself more and to fall back in love with the things about myself and life that use to have me marvel. putting in work to becoming a better person for self and the relationships I choose to maintain becomes more important to me the older I get. but if someone is actively choosing to see me for who I was, I can no longer continue feeding that relationship. I can’t afford to have people in my life who choose to see me for who I was before. Who choose to identify me by my past flaws.  I’m also accepting that its okay to let go of people who make me feel like me setting boundaries is an inconvenience to them. I love when people show me that they’re no longer for me. I love when they show me who they really are. anyway - no more over extending myself for others at my own expense. I’m tired of obsessing over controlling situations that should have been settled. I be stunting my own growth and I can admit that - holding on to things that have ran its course in my life. Nothing is suppose to be forever but your growth and evolution. the idea of something lasting forever is starting to sound off-putting cuz there's no growth in living in the same cycle - you won’t learn anything, you won’t be challenged 

[simonalkenmayer]

Why do transphobes think they have a right to speak, like at all? And how are they gonna erase the fact that trans women largely helped to build pride as well? The lack of brain cells..

Largely? By heaven, in some places they were the sole moving force! Not to mention the fact that intersectional feminism teaches us about how race and gender combine to leverage even greater force against trans women of color. My god the suicide rates in trans communities are astronomical statistically! The only people alright with that are people who don’t care and are very pleased when trans people cease to exist. It simplifies things for them. Not only does the glaring flaw in their calculation of reality crease to exist, they can turn around and say “yes that trans person committed suicide, but that’s because trans identity is a mental illness.” It’s disgusting.

Let me share a very serious life lesson with you: if you spend your days stewing and ruminating on how other people run their lives and find their joy, churning inside because you worry their contented ness somehow adversely affects you, manufacturing ways to be offended or identify them as aberrant, then you are a miserable fuck. Please see someone about that.

Terfs have NO idea, none whatsoever of the pain, misery, torture, and vengeance that was leveled by cis people against the gay community as a whole. Take a moment and think. What you’re doing to trans people? That’s exactly what was done to the “gay” community before. You are guilty of the same crime. The very same crime.

Let people exist as they wish to. They aren’t hurting you by existing. If you find out that the person in front of you is different than you believed or imagined, then welcome to life, and may I show you this technique I’ve learned called “walking away”. It’s a marvelous thing. You just turn and go. You don’t want to date a trans woman or man? Then don’t. You don’t have to shame them, mistreat them, slander them, harm them, and work against their rights. That’s what cis het men do, when the pretty girl turns them down. Familiar no?

Wake up and smell the horrific atrocities wrought by your own self-obsessed search for legitimacy.

[lokigodofaces]

thoughts on loki ep 2: the variant (spoilers)

under cut to not disturb your scrolling

Overall I enjoyed so that's good

Uh frick my mind blanked so sorry if things are completely out of order

I don't know, I expected the renaissance fair to be 2012 or 2021 or 2024 (Loki's time, our time, current time in the "sacred timeline"). So I was genuinely surprised when it was in 1985.

Ok, i really like the title card thing. And how the year scrolls around. It's a nice aesthetic touch there.

I wonder why the female Loki variant chooses her locations? Does she have a thing for renaissance fairs, French cathedrals, and Oklahoma?

1985 is when Back to the Future came out. And it's y'know, one of the most popular time travel movies ever. So I think they chose that year as a reference.

Again, not liking that the minutemen only have numbers, not names. It is giving me lots of Clone Wars vibes. If you don't know anything about Clone Wars, the clones are given number identifiers by the Kaminoans. Things like CT-7567. The clones would give themselves names (CT-7567, for example, names himself Rex). A really good sign throughout the series that someone is a sketchy person is if they call the clones by their numbers. The clones don't want to be known as numbers. They are people too, they deserve names, so they come up with all sorts of creative names (Rex, Fives, Cody, Tup, Hevy, Hardcase, Echo, Waxer, Boil, Wolffe, Jesse, Kix, Fox, Hunter, Wrecker, Crosshair, Omega, Tech, Matchstick, etc). The jedi respect this, and the only jedi that i can think of that called clones by their numbers is Krell, who fell to the dark side. the Kaminoans and other sketchy people all call them by their numbers and the clones don't like it. A big focus of the show is on the clone's agency (at the end, they all have brain chips that take away their agency and force them to kill jedi), and how the clones need to be respected. So for me to see in another series that people are only given numbers is bad. What's worse is that the minutemen are fine with this. They don't see it as dehumanizing or belittling. They are brainwashed into being okay with it. Which says a thing or two about the Time Keepers.

did. did the renaissance fair really have Bonnie Tyler's "Holding Out for a Hero" for their renaissance themed fight? Is this normal? Was it normal in the '80's? We saw later that the female Loki can do electronic stuff. Did she rig it to play it? For the vibes?

Also the stuff before the song was about fighting for a princess, and in the end she kidnaps C-20.

Okay, btw, I'm just gonna say Lady Loki for a while because no one has explicitly said Sylvie yet, so I'm going to refer to di Martino as Loki until she or another calls her Sylvie. Cool? Cool.

I was thinking the "Holding Out for a Hero" fight would be the roomba fight or something. It is such a good song that has huge potential for this genre. Why did they use it in a lame fight as that one?

When Lady Loki did the spell on C-20, it looked similar to what Wanda and Agatha can do. As in, it had similar visuals.

Loki reading a random magazine he finds while sitting with his feet on the desk bored out of his mind because he has to learn sh*t is a MOOD.

What is Miss Minutes? She can jump around anywhere, and pop into computers. But she can't be just a projection. She took the effort to dodge Loki swatting at her, so that may mean she was corporeal. She also could be something similar to the Kree's Supreme Intelligence?

So, did Mobius give Loki the shirt, tie, and slacks, but really didn't give him the jacket until they had to call him in? What? That makes no sense? Did the TVA not have any jackets with the variant label? Did someone have to custom design a jacket for Loki?

What is up with this show giving me things I wanted to see only in holographic form? First we saw Coulson's death, and now Loki in his Jotun form in a holograph of another variant.

Okay, Loki being someone the TVA has to constantly deal with is very on brand. Loki is a creature of chaos, of course he's going to unknowingly rebel against the sacred timeline.

Also, headcanon that the Jotun Loki we see is king of Jotunheim because that would be epic.

Also, for personal reasons I choose to believe there is a Loki variant that defeated the Avengers and immediately went queer rights.

Loki's reaction to there being many Loki variants. He's seen what his life is supposed to be. I think he is even more upset that the TVA often deals with him, that there are so many things that could have been instead if it weren't for the TVA and the "sacred timeline."

Also, I totally think Mobius was waiting for another Loki to show up to help him defeat Lady Loki. They get them so often, it makes sense.

Loki explaining the difference between illusion projection and duplication was great. And very helpful to me personally understanding lore. Also, Mobius, get your crap together. If you're a Loki expert, figure this stuff out.

Loki calling the TVA out on propaganda, we love that.

The wolf quote is actually very nice, I quite like it.

Okay, the TVA doesn't even bury or cremate or do any sort of ritual for their fallen minutemen, they just reset the timeline. Which to me seems like another way to show how little the TVA actually care for their workers.

There are statues of the Time Keepers in Ravonna's office. The camera pays extra attention to it. Keep reading for more about Time Keepers and cinematography choices.

What. What sort of relationship does Ravonna and Mobius have? What is going on there? I am really confused.

Who is this "analyst on the side?" What is going on there?

Ravonna is MEGA SUS. Along with that, the Time Keepers are mega sus.

She signs R. Slayer. Yeah. Slayer. Not at all subtle, Marvel. Letting us know that she'll do the deed if needed.

Mobius you are sending me mixed signals. What do you want?

Okay, Mobius saying Loki was a "cold, scared boy" and an "ice runt" and stuff was totally a jab at Loki being Jotun.

Mobius saying Loki is insecure because of Lady Loki is...probably true.

With the elevator, the camera stops and focuses on the Time Keepers.

The Creation of the TVA, the beginning of time, the end of time, all classified. That is sus.

Loki almost crying over Ragnarok was good. Let him cry over the destruction of his home.

Loki being the one to discover something the TVA had no idea about after a day is on brand for Loki. And it shows how the TVA really are vulnerable.

Mobius: Really? In front of my salad?

No but the object lesson was well done and actually did help me understand what Loki was talking about.

Casey! Casey drinks grape juice! Imagine how confusing this is for Casey though. Loki is captured, threatens to gut you like a fish (whatever that means), and now he's dressed like an analysist, stealing your juice box. Does Loki get Casey more juice?

Honestly, Loki looking at everything logically and scientifically is fantastic. Adds to the science = magic thing Marvel's got going on, since Loki is a sorcerer.

Loki saying volcanoes are cool is fun. I agree. Volcanoes mean the planet is geologically active, which means we won't die. Also, there is a volcano named Loki on one of Jupiter's moons. I wonder if the creators knew that and put Loki in Pompeii because he is already linked with volcanoes.

Mobius telling Loki to start off small and Loki completely disregarding that felt very personal to me.

Loki being absolutely chaotic and telling everyone they were going to die while speaking perfect Latin was iconic. I want more of that content. Let the man be buckwild.

Again, Loki finding something out after a day that the TVA never knew about is on brand.

"Be free, my horned friends, be free!" I love that way too much.

Mobius being obsessed with jet skis wasn't something I expected, but I'm down for it. Heck, even Loki admitted they were cool.

The discussion on beliefs is going to lead to saying the Time Keepers are bullcrap. Hopefully.

Grapes and nuts are "candy" on Asgard. So, when Loki was eating grapes in Ragnarok, we can interpret that as him eating M&Ms. Second, this might add to something I've seen around here. I've seen things about a book somewhere with Loki saying chocolate fountains are mythical (which is really funny to me). So, I guess Asgard really doesn't have chocolate.

Oh my gosh, so many apocalypses between 2047 and 2051...hopefully none of those happen in real life.

Roxxcart is probably part of Roxxon, something that has been around in Iron Man movies.

Lady Loki got the shovel thing from Roxxcart that she left in Oklahoma! The minutemen said it was from the early third millenia, which is where we are now! 2050 also fits that category!

I saw something about the file saying Class 8 hurricane...there are only 5 classes...which means this is a crazy storm.

Does B-15 want Loki dead? This is a legitimate question, because I think she does. Dead or pruned.

Loki looking around at the storm, I love it. This could be him loving science, or him missing Thor, since Thor creates storms. Also, at this point Loki probably things Thor dies shortly after him in the sacred timeline, so Loki would be particularly sentimental about Thor.

I love Loki drying himself off and not anyone else. And B-15 yelling about his magic. And Loki's motions are so fluid, it's so aesthetically pleasing, I love it.

Dudes, I thought B-15 was going to try to prune Loki when they were alone.

Okay, was Lady Loki bsing about the azalea sale, or does Roxxcart actually do that? I want to know.

Wunmi Mosaku did a really good job as Lady Loki, I loved it.

Loki being annoyed at Lady Loki and saying he understood how Thor felt, does that insinuate Loki can do what Lady Loki was doing?

B-15 and C-20 were both very shaken after being possessed by Lady Loki. I wonder how that felt for them? We've had different explanations of mind control/brainwashing/similar from Clint, Bucky, Daisy, Mack, Fitz, and Monica in the MCU (including AoS). I wonder what is specific to Lady Loki's possession.

C-20 kept going on about something being real. What was that about?

C-20 revealed the location of the Time Keepers to Lady Loki!

Lady Loki not wanting to be called Loki could be a sign she is Sylvie.

There's something weird where Loki's voice echoed around while the camera focused on Lady Loki. Maybe she's telepathic?

Someone needs to keep a tracker on people telling Loki this isn't his story in a show literally about him.

But, that does add to themes for his life, and how everything was always about someone else in his life. He was always a supporting character for Thor, for Odin, for Thanos. Now, even in his own story, everyone insists he doesn't matter.

I was wondering what the reset charges would be used for. I wasn't expecting a massive bombing of the sacred timeline! Wow! That was unexpected and I loved it!

Okay, this isn't from me, this is from New Rockstars. But to list all the places mentioned on chronomonitors, either bombed or not: Knowhere, Barcelona, Niflheim, Dartford, Phong Nha, Lisbon, Vormir, Thorton, Cookeville, Asgard, Rome, Sakaar, Barichara, Porvoo, Ego, Titan, New York City, Tokyo, Hala, Kingsport, Xandar, Beijing, Madrid, Portland, Jotunheim. Bolded are other planets. Those are almost all the planets visited in the MCU. So fun easter eggs there!

I like Lady Loki's aesthetic. The fingerless gloves, the cloak, I love it. And YES SHE ISN'T SEXUALIZED. So many genderbent characters are excuses to sexualize women. But Lady Loki is just as covered as the male Lokis.

Lady Loki just...left the time door open for Loki to follow...for a really long time...I'm worried he's running into a trap.

What is Loki going to do now?

Theory time y'alls: Lady Loki bombed the sacred timeline to flush the minutemen out of the TVA, leaving it defenseless. And she's gonna go after the Time Keepers themselves. We know she gets into the TVA from trailer footage, and that's what I think we're gonna see next episode. I think she (like the Loki we are following) is upset over the lack of free will, and she plans to change that. That's why she wasn't interested in helping Loki "take over" the TVA, because she doesn't want to become the leader of a new TVA, she wants it destroyed.

Alright, back to the Time Keepers stuff. They keep focusing on the middle Time Keeper. Even in the end credits they have a weird cut to focus directly on his face. I'm not 100% on this, but I like this theory. That face is similar to Jonathan Major's, the actor confirmed to be Kang the Conqueror in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Kang is a well known time travelling villain in Marvel. Maybe he is Kang, and is using variant versions of himself (that's a Kang thing in the comics) to mess with the timeline, and no one expects that from him. Also, Renslayer was his S/O for a bit in the comics, and they keep framing her in front of that one Time Keeper's face. I feel like this would be a good way to set up Quantumania and to show how sus the Time Keepers are.

Also, Loki was absolutely adorable the entire episode. And he got to sleep! Yay for him!

Again, I enjoyed, and can't wait for next week!

[captain-azoren]

(this is a very rudimentary ramble, so sorry for my bad english)

i saw your post on the tag about how the x-men could be coded as like. an allegory about neurodivergency and people in the spectrum, and to me- a person who has autism, couldn't agree more. Especially in the case of Scott Summers, because i think that (accidentally or not,) he's been written as a heavily autistic character in the xmen franchise.

like, the biggest example i could think off where they explored more about nd scott summers is in the first edition for x-men: marvel snapshots (2020), where they spoke more about scott summers life in the orphanage he stayed in. he clearly didn't fit in, he had trouble socializing with other kids to the point where he was basically outcasted, he obsessed so much about small, intricate things and tried to make sense of every single thing. that could easily hint at like- his hyperfixations, and lack of understanding of social cues, and its just SO well WRITTEN.

and even when he ran away from the orphanage after his mutant status was already compromised, when he hitchhiked in some random strangers car, with almost nothing with him, the thing that worried him the most was the fact that he stole a library book. you cant get anymore obvious than that

Ah, I'm glad to here that :) I should check out that book. If you see other potential allegories let me know.

A big part of Scott's arc seems to be struggling with being a good leader, and this sort of thing adds a nice wrinkle and makes him tragic and sympathetic. I think it also fits him aestheyically in a way as well. He's not a robot, but Scott can come off as unemotional when he's in that kind of leadership zone, or when he gets hyperfixated on his mission. I hope I'm getting that right.

I can identify with poor social skills, so I always kind of sympathized with Scott to a degree. I think he got bashed a lot by fans because they didn't understand him for a long time.

[twistedtummies2]

Ele-May-ntary - Number 6

Welcome to Ele-May-ntary! All throughout the month of May, I’ve been counting down my Top 31 Favorite Portrayals of Sherlock Holmes, from movies, television, radio, and even video games! Last time, we spoke of the Russian actor, Vasily Livanov, who’s portrayal of Holmes crossed international boundaries to become a success. Today, we’ll be discussing a Holmes a little closer to home and current sensibilities. Number 6 is…Robert Downey, Jr.

“I…Am…Iron Holmes! DADA-DADA-DADA-DA-DADA-DA!” Sorry. Couldn’t resist. XD ANYWAY…to many people Robert Downey, Jr. will forever be known as perhaps the most definitive portrayal of the Marvel superhero Iron Man, but – even as he was tackling such enemies as the God of Mischief and…um…Jeff Bridges and Mickey Rourke, I guess - Downey Jr. was also cracking cases in a steampunk-inspired rough-and-tumble Victorian London. Directed by Guy Ritchie, Downey Jr.’s Holmes films seem to be slightly polarizing. MOST people seem to like them, but I know a few people that don’t: some dislike them for their more action-adventure orientation, some dislike them because of the choice of popular actors for the roles, some dislike them because of the way it fiddles with the “classic” Holmes style, and some dislike them because of the humor they feature. Oh, yes. Because…(points to ALL THE HOLMES TAKES I’VE TALKED ABOUT BEFORE)…absolutely NONE of that has ever been attempted in the past. :P Personally, not only do I like the Guy Ritchie films, I LOVE them. I’d actually say that the twin pictures make for either my second or third favorite take on the Holmes universe, as a whole, ever made. Having said that, you’re probably wondering now why he’s only at sixth place, if that is so. Well, I’ll get to that in a minute: first, let’s focus on the positives. As I said before, both of these movies are more geared towards action-adventure than clue-sniffing crime-busting: in both cases, we know who the villains are, and it’s not long till we know what they want and why. The real mystery is figuring out how they plan to achieve their aims. Still, both films give Holmes plenty of time to use his whole arsenal of tricks: he fights plenty, sure, but he also uses his deductive reasoning to pick out details others would miss, and wears a variety of honestly often pretty good disguises. Holmes’ disguises in many versions are pretty transparent, but MOST of Sherlock Stark’s outfits are actually pretty convincing. (Most of them, lest we forget his drag outfit in “Game of Shadows.”) This is almost ironic, because Downey Jr. is one of the funniest takes on Holmes out there: half-insane, obsessive, quirky, and going to extreme lengths just to stave off boredom. He’s so reclusive he’ll lock himself away in total darkness for days at a time, and he’s always looking for something to occupy his mind. With his Bohemian sense of apparel and insufferably arrogant demeanor, he infuriates almost everybody around him – Watson, Mrs. Hudson, Inspector Lestrade, the list goes on – but you know that, at the end of the day, he’ll get the job done, and his heart is still in the right place. Downey Jr. is helped immensely by his supporting cast: Jude Law is my favorite Watson, Jared Harris my favorite Moriarty, Paul Anderson my favorite Sebastian Moran, and various other characters are all among my favorite takes as well. Even some of the original characters featured, such as the main antagonist of the first movie, Lord Blackwood (played by Mark Strong in my favorite of his performances), are really fun and interesting figures. I love the style of these movies, I love Hans Zimmer’s musical score, I love their sense of humor and tension…so how come, again, this Holmes doesn’t at least make my Top 5? Well, to put it simply…as much as I adore Downey Jr. as Holmes, I’m always kind of aware of the actor behind the character. True, I suppose there are other characters who have a similar issue – I certainly can’t miss Matt Frewer, Tom Baker, John Barrymore, and several others I’ve mentioned in the past when I see them in the role – but with Downey Jr., the issue is a bit different. It’s a bit like whenever I see, for example, David Tennant or Daniel Radcliffe in something: to me, David Tennant simply IS the 10th Doctor from “Doctor Who.” And Radcliffe simply IS Harry Potter. Anytime I see them in (almost) ANYTHING else, all I can see is the 10th Doctor or Harry Potter, and it’s incredibly distracting. It’s one thing to be distracted by the actor, but it’s a whole other issue to be distracted by an actor’s CHARACTER, if that makes sense. That’s the kind of relationship I have with Downey Jr. a lot of the time: I just so identify him as Iron Man now that it’s hard for me to get that out of my head, no matter HOW good his performance is. And it IS a great performance – heck, alongside Iron Man, Holmes is the next character I think of with the man, and he’s equally grand in both roles. But something about the performance he gives, mixed with that familiar face, just leads to me seeing Iron Man as Holmes, rather than seeing Sherlock Holmes or even RDJ as Sherlock Holmes. It’s just a weird quirk of my own mind, and it sadly does keep Downey Jr. out of the top five…but only just. On that note, tomorrow we move into the Top 5! Who will be next? Check in and find out!

[lediableblancdotcom]

Lort!

I forget sometimes how gender obsessive Tumblr is. I apologize. I correct one person on my gender playfully and I get three instant messages about how horrible the person is for assuming my gender and so one and so forth.....the person I was replying to is perfectly fine. I am not mad at them at all. Seriously, it is fine. Calm down.

Please, remember I am an ancient human being (in my forties) compared to the majority of the people on here. I really don’t get my feelings hurt by people calling me “dude”, “guy”, “man”, “sir” or assuming I am male in any way because I run a comic book based website. I just sometimes like to remind people that, yes, girls can be into a fandom as much as boys can. It’s not because I am sensitive about my pronouns, or I identify in some way that it offends me, it is more I feel like sometimes people need to be reminded that women can do what men can do. More of a representation matter. It is a generation thing. Because of my age, when I was younger, regular girls were NOT into comics. Boys into comics were still “nerds” and “geeks” and that wasn’t a good thing like it is today. Knowing that a lot of the kids on here are being raised by my generation, and are probably getting the “comics are for kids”, “comics are for boys”, and/or “comics are for nerds” rhetoric that my generation was taught, sometimes I like to throw out that I AM female, especially when talking about being an old school fan. Just so younger girls can see that there really are women into comics and you can make it to an old age and still like comics and be perfectly fine. In other words, don’t listen to your parents, they are idiots and a product of their generation. 

Saying all that, I was not offended in any way. It’s not their fault anyway, how the hell are they supposed to know who I am. I have honestly never “introduced” myself on Tumblr, most fans of my site already know I am female, and I honestly don’t see why everyone needs to know all of my business most of the time, but that is part of my generation’s way of thinking also. We didn’t grow up talking genders, sexualities, politics, and so on. That was your business and no one else’s unless it applied in the moment. These days everyone wears their personal information on their sleeve and I have no problem sharing any information about myself, I just never think anyone gives a damn. If it calms you guys and gals down, here it is:

Yes, I am a female, identify as a female, her/she are my pronouns. I am a “tomboy”, make-up/fashion is lost on me (raised by my Father in the Mid-West, that was not important). Asexual (wait to read where I work for the shocker on that). Undrugged ADHD (it’s doable!) I have been running a Gambit based website for 25+ years (lediableblanc.com, remylebeau.com). I am an old school comic/anime fan (Marvel, Gambit, Manga, etc). Sci-fi TV geek (Stargate is my jam). Professional grade gardener (I have more cacti and trees than a garden center) and I specialize in insect and pollinator gardening. Obsessed with REAL history (the things happening right now are even more horrifying if you are a history buff). I have worked within the entertainment retail world all my working life (since 13 years old). Movie stores, anime store, etc. I currently work full time in a sex shop (yep! 17 years of convincing customers I care about sex as much as they do!) and in a comic shop part time. I am Mother to three kitty babies, Bucky, Barton, and Essex, all adopted foundlings. I prefer Vines over TikTok. I hate carrots. I think that is all I got. Boring life.  

Hope this helps in some way shape or form. At least now I can say you have been warned. If you have any questions, ask them, I’ll answer them. 

[thistle-and-thorn]

✏️💰❤️

❤️ Who is your favorite character to write for and why?

Sansa. Sansasansasansasansansasansasansasansa. I identify very, very strongly with Sansa--being a "good girl", lady-like, finding a lot of dignity in courtesy and politeness, using courtesy as armor, the compulsive empathy, the romanticism, the way she resists difficult situations in these subtle ways. Also, the darker parts of her: the moments of self-hatred, etc. I funnel a lot of personal pain through her and when I write through her eyes, it just feels so good and natural. In contrast, I feel like I'm only now beginning to learn how to write the other characters, especially Tyrion, Bran, and Brienne--all of them elude me constantly.

💰 What’s one trope you wouldn’t write, except for money?

I mean...I'd write any trope for money lol. But honestly--I've never really gotten the coffee shop AU...maybe because I'm not a big fluff reader/writer. Someone recently commented on 'our praise', requesting that I write a Jon Snow harem fic w/ like a bunch of smut tropes like ABO and sex pollen...which felt...off-brand for me lolol. (and like also, please leave a comment or two on the fic before you request porn from an internet stranger pls + ty) And he didn't offer money so he was out of luck on that lol.

✏️What is your fave fic from another writer?

Okay, I have so so so so many. I'll stick to asioaf/GoT. Fair warning, I am not monogamous at all when it comes to reading GoT fic and I have been blessed (cursed) with a high squick tolerance. So, I totally get if some of these pairings are not your cup of tea but there are so many talented creators in so many different ships that I can't not read and marvel at the varied genius, ya know? I know I'm going to forget fics, too, which stresses me out because there's so many that are dear to me.

the fact that i'm obsessed with @attonitos-gloria's work is common knowledge but, for real, every piece she writes is so gorgeously insightful. Seriously, I cannot name all the incredible Sanrion stories and writers in one post so just check out the tag, babe.

I love love love coffeeandoranges: The Cat-king; the beggar boy (Tyrion/Jon Snow) and Shame Would Not Hold Down Your Eyes (Sansa/Wynafryd Manderly) is, to me, the definitive queer!Sansa story. liketreesinnovember is the monarch of Tyrion ships, generally. But Look At the Sun (Tyrion/Oberyn; Tyrion/Cersei; Tyrion/Jaime) floored me. The Threesome in the North (Jon/Sansa/Val) by fairfleming & honeywheeler seems, surface level, like just smut but it is so so so much more than that. All our silence could not excuse by dwellingondreams changed how i wrote catelyn forever.

fun fact: i came to asioaf thru a fanfic my friend sent me and that fanfic was: Facets by expected_abberance (Petyr Baelish/Sansa) which DID make me think Baelish was the hero of GoT (bitofashockformewhenifoundout). seriously i get why people don't vibe/feel safe with petyr/sansa but it's a ship with one of the most consistently talented pool of writers in any ship in any fandom. Ones that haunt me are numb and awry by Drwhob which do this magical thing of making you feel gaslit/manipulated right with Sansa and I'm still trying to figure it out how they did it.

a little explosion of hope, let the rough winds fly, then comes blood all by @charmtion (okay, everything she writes, those are just the first ones on my bookmarks page) have all made me go insane at different points.

Omg this got so long and there's so many here but, ugh, i just cannot get invested in shipping drama when i am so overwhelmed by the sheer amount of talent in this fandom?!?