Arnold is still playing the terminator at 70, Stallone is still Rambo at 65, so why do we need a new Xena: Warrior Princess? Lucy Lawless is only in her 40s, ffs.
Reminded of people saying Katee Sackhoff, Katheryn Winnick, and Anna Torv are “too old” to play Carol Danvers becase they’re >35.
RDJ is 50, assholes.
Okay, this is the sixth time this has crossed my dash and I could no longer resist:
Carol Danvers is a Colonel in the United States Air Force. The average age of USAF officers, full-stop, is 35*, and only 14% of all USAF officers are younger than 26*. The average age of a Colonel is 49.** Even if we assume they’re introducing an earlier-career Carol, a Lieutenant Colonel averages 45** and a Major 39**, so technically just about every actress I’ve seen suggested is more than a decade too young for the role.***
Not that that’s out of the ordinary for women on screen, who are routinely cast as younger than is even remotely feasible for their stated professions, particularly in military stories (unless you count Star Trek, though since a) the human lifespan in the Federation is drastically longer than ours and b) THAT IS A SCIENCE FICTION SERIES SET IN THE DISTANT SOCIALIST UTOPIAN FUTURE it’s probably not super-relevant; the closest-to-reality portrayal - Stargate won awards for its faithful representation of the USAF - I can actually think of right now is Sam Carter, who makes Major at ~32, Lieutenant Colonel at 36 and full-bird Colonel at 39, BUT THEN AGAIN she is part of a super-rarefied secret program and one of the four smartest people on the planet so adjust for sanity.****
Anyway tl;dr: Hollywood’s ageist/sexist casting double standards are ridiculous and offensive and bad for verisimilitude which is something you’d think an industry founded on convincingly portraying the fictional would care more about, Dear Hollywood, Katee Sackhoff and Katheryn Winnick are great but I would prefer it if you cast a more mature lady as Carol Danvers, please and thank you, obviously I would prefer Amanda Tapping because then you could cast Claudia Black as Jessica Drew and I would EXPIRE FROM JOY but I can learn to live with disappointment.
**These particular statistics are from 1997, but I cannot imagine age ranges have changed as much as gender distribution; someone feel free to correct me. As I understand it, mostly promotions are based on years of service, so they’re unlikely to have changed much above Captain. Consider, too, that USAF officers generally have a shit-ton of advanced education in addition to military training. 60.8% of officers have advanced or professional degrees and 48.6%* have master’s degrees and anybody hoping to make Colonel one day is all but required to have a master’s degree (or equivalent). So assuming you’re being sensible and getting that out of the way up-front while maybe the USAF will pay for it, that’s - start at age 18, bachelor’s degree, master’s degree - your average starting age for active, post-degrees service would be 22-24 depending on what combo of education/training you go with. PROBABLY NOT A LOT OF 25-YEAR-OLD CAPTAINS IS WHAT I’M SAYING.
***All of this is, of course, irrelevant if they do something unpardonably stupid like write out Carol’s military backstory, in which case of course I will burn down the fucking world and salt the earth.
****I will not pretend that the overwhelming majority of my casual knowledge of American military ranks does not come from Stargate or my over-researching because I was writing Stargate fic at the time. Whatever.*****
*****I am so sorry about all the confusing asterisks. My footnotes aren’t even funny like Pratchett’s.
P.P.S. HOW DARE ANYONE EVEN SUGGEST RECASTING LUCY LAWLESS SHE IS THE FLAWLESS AND ETERNAL WARRIOR PRINCESS OF MY HEART AND IF YOU THINK IT’S HARD TO GET PROMOTED ABOVE THE ZONE AS A LADY IN THE REAL WORLD IMAGINE HOW LONG IT TAKES TO BUILD A TERRIFYING REPUTATION CONQUERING SWATHES OF GREECE IN AN ERA BEFORE COMPUTERS OR AIR TRAVEL FIGHT ME OH WAIT NEVER MIND XENA WILL TAKE CARE OF THAT FOR ME
With rumours circulating re: Brie Larson (who is 26) being considered for Captain Marvel, I see it’s time to post this again, because honestly, the research is done and I don’t want to go and do it again.
The thing is, I know they’re going to do it. They’re going to cast someone who is younger than I am to play a character who by all rights, in accordance with her experiences, should be nearly a decade my senior. Even if they write us up a Carol who is a decade earlier in her career than in comics canon (not that that’s any better), 26 is still too young to play a Major, or a Lieutenant-Colonel, or even, IMHO, a Captain, anywhere near convincingly.
I have a problem with the possibility that this suggests, that they’re writing a Carol who is over a decade younger than the majority of our current cast of white male superheroes, rather than their contemporary. I have a problem with the likelihood that this will mean that her rank will be inferior to the characters that have a rank. Honestly, I have a problem with Carol Danvers calling anyone Sir (especially Captain America), which is partly my thing but honestly is mostly in keeping with her character. And I have a real, serious problem with the outside possibility of them ignoring/wiping out her decades of military service.
I won’t lie: I will watch this movie. Probably more than once, because let’s be real: I’d just be too pathetically grateful that they’d made it at all to do anything else. But I will also criticize the fuck out of anything that disrespects Carol’s history and what she represents.
I mean… if they ever actually make it. I try not to pay too much attention to “updates” on “progress” any more. It’s just too frustrating.
Sometimes I stare at the computer screen when the words don’t want to come and I think, “Fuck, who am I kidding? This is terrible writing, and this story is shit, and no one cares, anyway.“ And I close the window and go do something else.
But every now and then I get an amazing, heartfelt, beautiful comment from someone who loved something I wrote, and it reminds me that, at least for that one person, I did write something worthwhile. And so I open the window again and I write one sentence, and then another, and then I start to find my way again.
So on behalf of all fanfic writers everywhere, I want to say thank you, thank you so much, to all of the readers who take the time to leave a comment and tell us that something we wrote mattered to you, that it brightened your day or made you laugh or cry or get horny or whatever.
Please don’t think we’re ever bothered by your comment, or that we don’t want to hear it, or that what you have to say isn’t important enough. It means so, so much. And on some days, it’s what keeps us going.
when hamilton says “am I talking too loud? sometimes i get overexcited, shoot off at the mouth” he’s trying to follow burr’s advice of being more personable and keeping his opinions to himself
then immediately after that his new friends say LET’S GET THIS GUY IN FRONT OF A CROWD and i don’t think they had any idea what kind of a pandora’s box they opened at that moment by encouraging him
my favorite part of hamilton is when burr is like “you insulted me” and hamilton’s response is literally “i most certainly did, but i need you to be more specific about which instance we’re discussing here. i made an itemized list of all the times i’ve insulted you in the last 30 years, can you please point out which one we’re fighting about today”.
alexander hamilton is the kind of guy that if someone caught him talking about them behind their back, he’d be all “oh good, you’re here, I won’t have to repeat myself!”
honestly have you ever been to a college’s financial office? its a wonder more people dont get hit. alexander hamilton was probably being completely rational when he punched the bursar.
its “thighs rubbing together under ya sundress” season
Buy cute, cheap lace leggings. Cut them a little above your knee. Hem them or don’t, but then you can wear them under your sundresses and not worry about how you sit or if your thighs chafe, and if anyone sees them they look cute af so hell yes
Or a little deodorant between the thighs is magical
Also, LUSH sells this dust called Silky Underwear that makes your skin smooth so they don’t stick together or chafe.
I love that we’re all here for each other in this season of need
Monistat has an anti-chafing gel that works wonders and I live by. You can usually find it in the feminine care aisle of any drugstore.
There’s this stuff called Glide…pretty cheap & works hella miracles
Sometimes when I venture into other fandoms I get so stressed out by the drama and the hate and the ship wars, that I scurry back as quick as I can, and thank god for the leverage fandom….the little fandom that could.
Also NONE OF THIS makes Vader less vicious or violent out in the world. Sometimes this makes Vader MORE vicious and violent out in the world, in fact, because he figures out slightly quicker than Padmé exactly how much SHARPER she is with him when he’s gone farther than she wanted him to go. And it’s not even the sharpness he wants specifically–it’s the ATTENTION–but he’d never say no to it. When she figures THAT out … hah. Haaaaah. She doesn’t even have to fucking TOUCH him, when she figures that out.
She DOESN’T touch him when she figures that out. He goes fucking CRAZY with it; he falls the fuck APART with it. She doesn’t even look at him for a full week, not even when he goddamn BEGS her to. The Empire could probably have collapsed without either of them noticing, if the Senate hadn’t known exactly how dead they all would’ve been if it had.
Just–Padmé Amidala literally riding the FUCKING TIGER here, with the fine line of giving Vader enough Dark to be content with but not enough to damn himself with. As if that even matters, now. As if that COULD matter, now.
It matters even more, now.
But what Vader wants from her is so much tenderness, and so much terribleness, and so MUCH, and sometimes Padmé isn’t sure if she’s the bloody bite-mark smeared down his throat or the soft hand stroking through his sticky, sweat-soaked hair. Or worse–if she’s both. What is she, if she is both those things to someone?
What is she if she is both those things to the GALAXY?
Like I would add more here but WHAT IS THERE TO ADD?? What. What could I even put here? Except maybe the part where Padmé realizes that even as she’s wrapping a tighter leash around Vader’s throat than anyone else ever has, he’s fucking THANKING her for it. He’s always had a leash or a collar or a slave chip, he’s always been OWNED by something or someone, and he’s always hated it. But HER leash, HER rules, HER orders–those aren’t like anyone else’s. He’s HAPPY under her, and all it took was a few thousand murders and betrayals, all it took was killing himself for her.
Vader doesn’t know how to be free, because the Force doesn’t expect him to be free and even Anakin never really knew how to be. Even though this is the MOST free that either of him has ever been. He could do anything he wanted, go anywhere he wanted, and all he wants is his Master.
Padmé realizes this. Padmé HATES this.
Padmé also rewards him when he obeys her, and punishes him when he doesn’t.
Things Vader has probably asked Padmé for/done his damnedest to provoke her into doing to him:
tie him to the bed
hit him in the face
leave hickeys/bite marks/bruises in places he can’t hide
wax/heat play, possibly to the point of burning
choke him
Things Padmé has probably ordered Vader to do:
answer to “Anakin”
Okay on the one hand OW that got painful real fast, but on the other hand that is exactly what I was hoping to get out of that question. This AU is just so fucking fantastic, I love it.
Look, I’ve been very cracky and fluffy and fun around here lately, I know, but if I go a month without someone being at least mildly traumatized by something I wrote then I will lose all my writerly powers and turn into a pillar of salt and blow away, okay, that’s just how it is. Therefore, Darth Vader is gonna have to learn real quick that every time his Master tells him to lay back and close his eyes, he better start answering to “Anakin” again ASAP or he’s not gonna get hurt the way he likes at ALL.
*coils protectively around this EXTREMELY EXCELLENT thing*
Cracky fluffy Mace Windu taking Anakin out for truckloads of glowing space ice cream and making morbid jokes is great, but for real I just want to talk about Empress Amidala and Vader and their twins who are probably really strange in this world and how the galaxy reacts when Queen Padme of Naboo is suddenly (and aggressively) promoted and the intricate details of how the Jedi flip their collective shit.
I think she ordered him to answer to “Anakin” exactly once and after that he just kind of had to learn the tells of when she wanted “Anakin” behavior out of him–the difference is so subtle for BOTH of them that it’s sort of a nightmare to get it just right, especially since “Anakin” is not exactly who Anakin actually WAS, just certain parts of Padmé’s perception of him that she knows damn well she’s exaggerating but wants anyway–especially because Padmé does NOT respond well when she does/doesn’t get him when she doesn’t/does want him.
Vader has an excellent sense of balance, at least.
It might be funny, if there was anyone left he could make the joke to. Definitely not any of the surviving Jedi. >>;;
MAN you are right, though, Luke and Leia are probably gonna grow up VERY UNUSUAL children, especially because Padmé will occasionally say things like “here is the list of things you need to lie to your father about no matter what” and VADER will occasionally say things like “eventually you’ll probably want to destroy each other and that’s a very natural feeling but I would recommend not following through on it because ruling the galaxy with a partner to do the parts you don’t like is just SO MUCH better”.
And meanwhile Luke is such a fucking sunshine bomb and Leia is so very fiercely JUST and KIND, no one is ever gonna believe they’re the Empress and Vader’s. Did–did Obi-Wan Kenobi maybe get Mustafar-ed for causing these two? Are these two HIS fault?
Okay, no, never mind: they’ll believe it the first time someone lets Princess Amidala anywhere near a lightsaber. They will believe it and FEAR IT.
No, no, not here. Padmé does what needs to be done to save the GALAXY. Padmé would die right now if she thought it would leave the galaxy a free Republic again; Padmé would’ve died in the delivery room, would’ve taken the twins with her into the Force, would’ve given up ANYTHING to avoid so much death and darkness. Anakin could never do the math, but Padmé knows that one or two or three versus three THOUSAND is not even a real sacrifice.
It is a sacrifice, of course. But there’s giving up your own neck for a greater purpose and there’s slitting three thousand unwilling throats on someone else’s altar.
And Vader really was right when he handed her the Empire. Padmé Naberrie can be Empress Amidala and still be Padmé Naberrie, and she can do the math, and she can hold him back when he’d tear the galaxy past the blood and to the bone and never, ever stop. She knows the difference between making a sacrifice and TAKING one.
She knows what a Queen must do for her people and really–is an Empress all that different from a Queen, when all is said and done? It’s just another name for something very similar. A sacrifice, and a sacrifice.
So yes. An Empress is very, very different from a Queen.
“Let me tell you about how to make a sacrifice,” Padmé Naberrie says with Empress Amidala’s mouth one day when Vader is far away cutting the galaxy to the blood, and the twins look up at her curiously. “Let me tell you what a dynasty is and should never be.”
I am curious about what the twins think of their parents in the Empress Amidala 'verse. What are the things they are told to lie to their father about?
The twins have four parents. They recognize this fairly early in life, and are mildly surprised when they eventually realize that other children DON’T recognize this about their own parents.
The twins’ parents are: Empress Amidala, Darth Vader, Padmé [redacted], and [redacted]. They don’t know Padmé’s last name or Darth Vader’s other one, but they know there ARE other names there. Their absence is obvious.
(once, one time only, one of them catches their father coming home very late and very injured, stumbling into the apartments with his own blood all over himself and his prosthetic smashed and torn and a dazed, distant expression on his face, and on the other side of the room Empress Amidala drops her datapad and Padmé whispers, “Anakin”)
They see more of Padmé than they ever do of Anakin (whose name they don’t know, really, honestly, they’ve never heard it once). Amidala has missions for Vader, far-away places to send him for long times, and to the twins, for some time, a father is the kind man cloaked in warm Darkness who drifts in and out of their lives to touch their minds with an overpowering love and show them the proper way to hold a lightsaber and throw a full-grown adult in full armor a hundred yards back with just one push. They always know him in the Force, but he is not often close enough for them to see or speak to, at a certain age.
And at that certain age, every night that Vader is off-planet Padmé closes the apartment doors and teaches them every secret she knows how to.
And, very importantly, how to lie.
The twins don’t always understand why knowing how to lie is so important, and especially not how to lie to their father–about certain thoughts, certain feelings, certain reasons for certain things. Leia thinks it’s just Vader they’re supposed to lie to, because of course the two of them are different men. Luke thinks they’re the same man, just they don’t admit it. Either way, they both know that Mother can be Padmé and Amidala in the same breath, doing the exact same thing for two opposing reasons, but Father is only ever Darth Vader.
(except when Mother calls him that other name, of course; the one that they don’t know)
ok but why is there such a stigma amongst straight guys on taking a girl wearing a suit to homecoming or prom? like have you seen a cute girl in a nice suit?
if you think a guy dating a girl is gay then boy do i have some news for you
Oh my fucking god there are two men and two kids at a table on the other side of this beer garden, and one guy is telling the little girl shit like, “Your brain is probably wired linguistically, whereas mine is wired mathematically,” and the girl is saying in a quiet little voice that she got the highest maths score in her grade, and his response is to talk about how men have bigger brains than women and jesus fucking christ someone please tell me why I shouldn’t go over there and pour my beer all over this asshole’s head
I can’t figure out how to reply to replies on mobile but to summarise: I finished my pint and walked over and said to the girl, “Did I hear you say you wanted to be a scientist?” And told her that I’m a scientist, and maths was always my favourite subject when I was a kid, and wished her good luck, and told her the most important thing about science is to question everything. And she turned to the guy (her uncle?) and was like “Yeah, like I was questioning what you were saying before!”
I reckon she’ll be okay.
True fucking example of how not all heroes wear capes. Bless you.
don’t have anything in common with me anymore, and are bored by the things i post
feel obligated by whatever personal reason you may have to keep following me, even if literally any of those above things apply
this applies to mutuals as well. your dash should be your happy place, so no hard feelings and i wish you the best in life
I’m adding here that I don’t actually check my followers list ever - I only ever check the number if I’ve had a rash of new follows - so if you’ve got any anxiety about offending me, don’t worry, because I literally won’t see. Your dash is your safe and happy spot, and if my content doesn’t jive with what you want to see…that’s fine with me.
And like…don’t feel compelled to tell me why you’re unfollowing. (In fact it’s…pretty bizarre to have someone tell me why they’re unfollowing, especially since I’ve had at least a couple people unfollow me for shipping things I don’t like at all.) By all means, feel free to just…stop, if that’s what would make you happiest.
Okay so many of you know about Ramadan, the month in the islamic calander where every muslim who’s not travelling, pregnant, breastfeeding, diabetic or on their period or is ill or elderly has to fast from dawn until sunset and refrain from smoking, sex, swearing, etc. Instead of sending everyone I follow what I would like them to tag as #nsfr (not safe for ramadan), here is a list of things to tag:
food
nudes/ nsfw
kissing/ pda
smoking
bad language
I’d appreciate it if people reblog this so every muslim doesn’t have to ask the 400+ blogs they follow to tag stuff. Thanks!
This year it’s gonna fall on June 6th to July 6th, I believe :)
Also NONE OF THIS makes Vader less vicious or violent out in the world. Sometimes this makes Vader MORE vicious and violent out in the world, in fact, because he figures out slightly quicker than Padmé exactly how much SHARPER she is with him when he’s gone farther than she wanted him to go. And it’s not even the sharpness he wants specifically–it’s the ATTENTION–but he’d never say no to it. When she figures THAT out … hah. Haaaaah. She doesn’t even have to fucking TOUCH him, when she figures that out.
She DOESN’T touch him when she figures that out. He goes fucking CRAZY with it; he falls the fuck APART with it. She doesn’t even look at him for a full week, not even when he goddamn BEGS her to. The Empire could probably have collapsed without either of them noticing, if the Senate hadn’t known exactly how dead they all would’ve been if it had.
Just–Padmé Amidala literally riding the FUCKING TIGER here, with the fine line of giving Vader enough Dark to be content with but not enough to damn himself with. As if that even matters, now. As if that COULD matter, now.
It matters even more, now.
But what Vader wants from her is so much tenderness, and so much terribleness, and so MUCH, and sometimes Padmé isn’t sure if she’s the bloody bite-mark smeared down his throat or the soft hand stroking through his sticky, sweat-soaked hair. Or worse–if she’s both. What is she, if she is both those things to someone?
What is she if she is both those things to the GALAXY?
Fuuuuck, can I *please* have more sense freak hedonist Vader? That might have been the most AMAZING thing I've read in a good long while! & more of Padme & Vader's fucked up D/s dynamic. Just... christ, that was AMAZING! You're just AMAZING!
Thank you! ❤ I got a little stim-indulgent with Vader’s hedonist streak, I think, writing it was soooo enjoyable, hahahaha. AND YOU ARE IN LUCK, FRIEND, I’M ALWAYS A SLUT FOR TOUCH-STARVED HEDONISTS. ENOUGH OF ONE TO NEED A READ-MORE, APPARENTLY.
Also, handmaidens. Lots of handmaidens. Because hell yes handmaidens.
I’m just going to lie here and purr. I am a kitty. You are petting me.
Hey speaking of petting, how many times do you think Vader literally just kneeled on the floor by Padmé’s chair during a meeting or something and waited until she got distracted enough by all the political talk to start petting him like she would’ve if they were in their rooms? Just, like, a casual estimate.
Also, how many times do you think she internally freaked out once she realized just what she was doing in front of the damn Senate and gave him the you’re getting Punished for this later look.
Like, absolutely everyone is already terrified of her because Vader and the clone army answer to her and EVERYONE knows Vader killed Palpatine on her orders, and at least SOME people probably suspect he also killed the JEDI on her orders. And then she gives Darth fucking Vader, terror of the goddamn galaxy, the PUNISHMENT look. Everyone in the room immediately reconsiders every single one of the life choices that led them to BEING in this room.
Except for Vader, obviously. Vader is fucking DELIGHTED to be in this room.
Things Vader has probably asked Padmé for/done his damnedest to provoke her into doing to him:
tie him to the bed
hit him in the face
leave hickeys/bite marks/bruises in places he can’t hide
wax/heat play, possibly to the point of burning
choke him
Things Padmé has probably ordered Vader to do:
answer to “Anakin”
Okay on the one hand OW that got painful real fast, but on the other hand that is exactly what I was hoping to get out of that question. This AU is just so fucking fantastic, I love it.
Look, I’ve been very cracky and fluffy and fun around here lately, I know, but if I go a month without someone being at least mildly traumatized by something I wrote then I will lose all my writerly powers and turn into a pillar of salt and blow away, okay, that’s just how it is. Therefore, Darth Vader is gonna have to learn real quick that every time his Master tells him to lay back and close his eyes, he better start answering to “Anakin” again ASAP or he’s not gonna get hurt the way he likes at ALL.
*coils protectively around this EXTREMELY EXCELLENT thing*
Cracky fluffy Mace Windu taking Anakin out for truckloads of glowing space ice cream and making morbid jokes is great, but for real I just want to talk about Empress Amidala and Vader and their twins who are probably really strange in this world and how the galaxy reacts when Queen Padme of Naboo is suddenly (and aggressively) promoted and the intricate details of how the Jedi flip their collective shit.
I think she ordered him to answer to “Anakin” exactly once and after that he just kind of had to learn the tells of when she wanted “Anakin” behavior out of him–the difference is so subtle for BOTH of them that it’s sort of a nightmare to get it just right, especially since “Anakin” is not exactly who Anakin actually WAS, just certain parts of Padmé’s perception of him that she knows damn well she’s exaggerating but wants anyway–especially because Padmé does NOT respond well when she does/doesn’t get him when she doesn’t/does want him.
Vader has an excellent sense of balance, at least.
It might be funny, if there was anyone left he could make the joke to. Definitely not any of the surviving Jedi. >>;;
MAN you are right, though, Luke and Leia are probably gonna grow up VERY UNUSUAL children, especially because Padmé will occasionally say things like “here is the list of things you need to lie to your father about no matter what” and VADER will occasionally say things like “eventually you’ll probably want to destroy each other and that’s a very natural feeling but I would recommend not following through on it because ruling the galaxy with a partner to do the parts you don’t like is just SO MUCH better”.
And meanwhile Luke is such a fucking sunshine bomb and Leia is so very fiercely JUST and KIND, no one is ever gonna believe they’re the Empress and Vader’s. Did–did Obi-Wan Kenobi maybe get Mustafar-ed for causing these two? Are these two HIS fault?
Okay, no, never mind: they’ll believe it the first time someone lets Princess Amidala anywhere near a lightsaber. They will believe it and FEAR IT.
