It never really occurred to me how many of our heroes are orphans.

Superman was the last survivor of a planet that perished. He was adopted by loving Earth parents, but he's one of the iconic orphans in fiction.

His counterpart Batman, of course, lost his parents at an ...

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We're talking about swearing! Swearing in comics, types of swearing, the use of swearing, causing offense, taking offense, swearing used as a term of endearment, and ...

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Art: Paolo Uccello, The Battle of San Romano

We're talking about WAR here! Trying to leave out politics, though that's really hard with war because ...

I watched an interview with Ira Behr, the writer and showrunner on Star Trek Deep Space Nine. He talked about his days in the DS9 writer's room. It was the 90's, and the early days of the Internet. Even in those days, Star Trek discussion was flourishing online ...

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Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc ...

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Generational tensions are a cultural constant. It's popular to pick on the young and say they're lazy, irresponsible, stupid, changing things in silly ways etc ...

Villains are tremendously important for a story. They set the framework and standard for a lot of things in an unsaid but definite manner: how far your villain is willing to go sets up audience expectations for how big and how dire the stakes will be in the story.

If ...

In rewatching some 1990's movies, I saw quite a few of these Protagonists show up - they're these disaffected types, usually quite intelligent or at least verbose, who are wrapped up in their emotions and sort of spinning their wheels in life as they analyze their problems and face ...

The DD Awards, run by DD Awards Queen Niccea, are already under way!

The first For Your Consideration (FYC) pages are already up on the DD Awards 2023 page, so go check them out if you haven't already.

And since the DD Awards are already happening, you guessed it ...

Picard Season Three hit the fan service HARD. I absolutely loved it.


The final season of Star Trek Picard is winning very good reviews from fans and critics.

Of course, in some corners there is criticism of fan service, nostalgia and ‘member berries’ being the driving force behind the season ...