GQ Magazine, 2002

CW: It's kind of disgusting. It's a window to the way female starlets were viewed and treated prior to the era of online presence, even at fifteen.

"They're normal girls who lead normal lives," said Robert Thorne about the Olsen twins he helped create. "They have friends who are fat, short, dumpy. The only difference between them and the other girls is next year they're buying a jet." Thorne is the force - a sort of manager/agent/marketer - behind the $500 million industry that is the Olsen Twins. [...] They are a living, breathing brand. And they have Robert Thorne to thank. Actually, he does a fairly good job of thanking himself: "The thing I want to say, it's very important, they brought nothing to table except popularity and charisma, and I brought marketing and really phenomenal deal-marketing." At 47, Thorne only has a thin hash of hair in an unusual place - on the middle of his forehead. It stitches its way across his brow like an old scar. He used to be the Olsen family lawyer. Now he works almost exclusively on all things Mary-Kate and Ashley. He spends a lot of time pacing his 12th floor office in Century City - you can see the green Herbalife sign flickering down on him - brainstorming and jangling his coins. As soon as he gets an idea, no matter how small, he flings the door open and shouts it out into the hallway, "A coke!" Or if he sees something that besmirches Mary-Kate and Ashley's honor, he's on the phone. "Hello? Hi, Brian. I just saw a movie, a teen-snowboarder movie, yesterday, Out Cold, and at the end this guy has a certain part of his anatomy hurt- there's two of 'em. Ok, his 'thing' gets caught in a jacuzzi- and he walks into a bar that night kind of dragging, and says,'Gee, my Mary-Kate and Ashley are really hurting'... Now, is that ok?" Jill Zimmerman walked in, the twins' 32 year old ex-nanny, a blond in a slit denim skirt chewing on a salad. Zimmerman has gone from au pair to executive of the company. She controls the girls' shopping (they live to shop!) and school schedule. What's unusual is that the two directly deal with the girls, not through their parents, who have divorced and share custody of the children. The twins live in San Fernando Valley, but in a larger sense their home is in Century City. The company has become their family and little Mary-Kate and Ashley are growing up in it. What the twins have evolved into- or what their particular talent is, is another question. Their talent is almost beside the point now - a confection of teen identity, something poached from their puberty and increasingly indistinguishable from it. I asked Thorne and Zimmerman if they agreed that the girls are now selling early teen sexuality. "They're attractive," said Thorne, "and more and more boys are buying their movies because they're hot looking, but there's nothing sexual about their content. It's scintilling because of beauty, because of sexy dress, but they don't overdo it." "They won't," said Zimmerman. But it's obvious: They're the object of horndog jokes in Maxim and on Howerd Stern. "What are you going to do?" said Zimmerman.

Stardust (2007)

dir. matthew vaughn

ya ever think about how the lannister sibs all have big secrets kept from each other, like huge life-altering experiences? jaime's is the most obvious, the most talked-about, with the full story of his kingslaying and everything he endured from aerys leading up to it. it's clear enough to me that brienne was the first he opened up to about that, including either sibling. they never asked, but unlike ned stark and the rest deriding him as kingslayer, their lack of curiosity is no offense in itself bc as tywin's other children they would never judge him for turning his cloak purely out of family loyalty. ned's assumption of jaime's motives is directly tied to his judgment of jaime, but it's the judgment that rankles jaime so. choosing your father's life over a king's is hardly the worst crime in itself. how can he explain all the other reasons without prompting when its not just about his crime but all his trauma too? is there any basis for that in his relationship with cersei, who always relied on him for comfort and consolation but seems less adept at providing the same to him? or even with tyrion, his only real male friend for years, but also his baby brother, the one he was meant to protect and take care of, who was only 10 at the time of the kingslaying? even to fully share all with tyrion years later, both adults, could be something of a role reversal, forever shattering tyrion's image of him as the strong invulnerable golden big brother by revealing his own broken inner child. jaime can't break out from those sibling roles and patterns, so neither can ever understand that part of him, never knowing the early life he had at court without either of them with him.

and tyrion, who trusted jaime more than anyone in the world before learning the truth about tysha, still could not confide in him freely even when all that trust was still intact. jaime must have heard some story of what tywin did to tysha to feel the need to confess his lie, but he def didn't hear it straight from tyrion bc imo there's no way he could still think confessing would help anything if he understood how scarred tyrion was by what he witnessed and esp not knowing that tywin ordered him to participate at the end. tyrion could reveal all that to bronn when they barely knew each other but not to his beloved brother, his first and best friend. how can the most abused child explain all his unknown abuse to the golden child, the big brother meant to protect him who couldn't always do so? how does he even begin to reveal the deepest trauma that happened to him when jaime wasn't in the room, esp when the story does start with jaime apparently trying to help him by fixing him up with tysha?

and then there's cersei and all her secrets. she always turned to jaime for consolation, or at least when he knew she needed it, but how many times did he not know? how personally could she confide in him as they grew older and their paths diverged? we know the first big secret was maggy the frog's prophecy, her first big scare, which came on the cusp of puberty, an experience she couldn't share with her twin bc he would prob just laugh and make a joke of it. in their first real scene together, in bran's pov, he mocks lysa's motherly fears and likens her to cersei. ("I think birthing does something to your minds. You are all mad." He laughed.) then he makes light of her marital discord, ("And whose fault is that, sweet sister?"), having no idea of the depth of pain she'd suffered from robert, beyond his infidelities. he later blames her for being robert's queen, not his, only thinking of how she managed to arrange his kg post, that power to forever tie him to her in secret, never grasping her lack of control in marriage, that "a queen is only a woman after all". in her pride it was hard to reveal all she'd suffered as a woman, but she also couldn't rely on jaime's response if he knew of her abuse, knowing he would kill robert and get himself killed too, only making her and their children's lives more precarious. she couldn't trust him to listen about securing the throne before dealing with robert or that as robert's victim it was her right to decide such matters, to choose his fate, not jaime's place to avenge her without her say-so first. all bc they were both too stuck in their idea of jaime as her sword, nothing more, with jaime determined to protect her and tyrion, always a bodyguard before he ever donned a white cloak.

something something tywin did his best to play his children off each other and the most effective thing he did to divide them was by setting jaime up as the golden child and family protector. the designated lannister sword only pointing at threats outside their house. a knight serving his family whose protection was always limited, who could never protect them from the person who first hurt cersei and tyrion and made them who they were at a distance from him, bc ofc he couldn't fight his own father, much less slay him with a sword.

something something maybe the reason that joff+marg+loras was a surer recipe for kingslayer stew than robert+cersei+jaime is all down to that tyrell lack of abusive structure. not that loras cared more about marg, was more willing to kill for her than jaime was to kill robert, but that there wasn't a chance of marg hiding her misery from him if/when her husband abused her in their shared household. it's not like he understood her to the point of mind-reading but when their previous royal marital household involved her bearding for his boyfriend then they prob had a pretty good basis of open communication. in that sense, the lannicest twins with all their sexual and physical intimacy still had less emotional intimacy than the tyrell queen and her kg brother.

Robert Mapplethorpe - Tulip and Thorn (1985)

Robert Walser, from Fairy Tales; "Thorn Rose, The Sleeping Beauty" (trans. from the German by Daniele Pantano and James Reidel)

[Text ID: At twilight, I would spend the time / thinking of how gentle you were and / sweet, and how wonderful it would be / to stir you, for me to look upon / you a little, to draw you toward me / tighter and tighter and you thinking / of me, that I am good enough.]

cassie is just killing lightwoods for sport now

The three stages of Red Sonja by Frank Thorne:

- The Roy Krenkel version of the original Robert E. Howard character, Red Sonya of Rogatino, introduced in the story The Shadow of the Vulture.

- Red Sonja, the character created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith in 1973, adapting Howard’s Red Sonya and transporting her to the Hyborian Age where she could interact with Conan the Barbarian.

- Red Sonya in the chainmail bikini designed by artist Esteban Maroto, and used to great effect by Frank Thorne, the artist most associated with Red Sonja during her long run at Marvel.

At request of the Cantripped cast: All of my characters but listed as which adaptation of Batman they are akgsksgsksg

Ulysses - Iain Glenn “Titans (2018-2023)”

Virgil - Robert Pattinson “The Batman (2022)”

Dan Thorns - Kevin Conroy “Arkham Series (2009-2015)”

Leopold - Kevin Conroy “Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1995)”

🚨SPOILERS FOR BURROW'S END EPISODE 9!!!🚨

Dimension20 "Burrow's End"

Episode 9

Timestamp: 12:25

Video Length: 3min. & 50sec.

We don't speak Stoat, We speak Human!!!

MY BRAIN LEGIT DIED WHEN THIS CAME UP IN THE EPISODE!!! 😭😭✋✋ MY BRAIN HAD JUST A STRAIGHT-UP MALFUNCTION!!! Literally Jasper's facial expression was mine too when that happened!! 😭😭✋✋💀💀

I love how Thorn literally tells Tula that they shouldn't go up to the humans and be like "hey buddy" because it ruins their element of surprise but LITERALLY THAT IS EXACT WHAT VIOLA DID when she went up to the human and went "HEY GIRL! HEY!" Literally doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what Thorn and Tula were discussing about in this moment earlier on in the episode! 💀✋ Like y'all! 💀✋

Also, Bennett offering Tula the thimble of water at the end of this scene was so cute as well!!! 🥺🥺❤️❤️

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Maddie Morrow- Havenfall by Sara Holland

Lucy Muchelney- The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite

Moiraine Damodred Sedai- The Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan

Silariathas “Silas”- Sorcery of Thorns by Margaret Rogerson

Wesley Dodds: The Sandman #5 by Robert Venditti and Riley Rossmo. Cover by Rossmo. Variant covers by (2) Carson Thorn and (3) Rafael Albuquerque. Out in February 2024.

"It’s Wesley Dodds vs. the U.S. Army as the Sandman infiltrates a military base in search of his missing journal. Can he get in and out before anyone sees him, or will the full force of the military come down on Wesley?"

GQ Magazine, 2002

Part II.

On the other hand, I said, you could argue that the twins exist mainly to make money for adults like Thorne and Zimmerman. Thorne rose to the defense: The Olsens have made plenty of money for themselves. "They're set for life, and their great-grandchildren are set for life. I don't know if that's bad. They're filthy rich and control the biggest kid-entertainment empire in the history of the world. So yeah, adults are making money, but no one's making as much as they are." [..] The only thing Thorne couldn't tell me is what the empire he created meant. He kept talking about the "Olsen brand" and its aspirational qualities. I wondered what the Olsen brand was supposed to represent. Most brands have a slogan, I told him, something that wraps up in a sentence what the brand is about. What were Mary-Kate and Ashley about? Aha! He said. Somebody in the office had come up with a slogan. Wrote it down on a napkin. He flung open his door and screamed into the hallway, "What was that slogan?!" No one could remember. Though he couldn't recall the term, he did try to explain what the Olsens symbolized: "They're real beauty for real girls, the fashion is real for real girls, the magazine is real talk, the dolls...are really dolls....real books. The point of all that is, it's all about real." And what of the real girls? It's easy to forget the actual girls in this brand empire, since they do so much representing and signifying. I had to interview them over the phone - they lead very busy, very normal lives, Jill Zimmerman kept telling me, they have school and shopping and boys. They get massages. They fly to London, Paris and Venice for their movies. Normal, normal, normal. They're normal girls. Maybe that should be their slogan. Mary-Kate spoke to me from the innocence of her bed. Both her and her sister were sweet and adorable, as I knew they would be. Ashley more grounded and savvy, Mary-Kate more sparkly. "Mary-Kate and Ashley are not the kind of people who go to nightclubs like Drew Barrymore," said Ashley. "I do everything else that other kids my age would do," said Mary-Kate, "even though I wouldn't know." Back at the offices of Dualstar, Thorne became more obsessed about finding a slogan that defined the Olsen essence. He disappeared for a long while, leaving me alone in his office, then suddenly barged back in with an absent look on his face, like Uncle Billy having lost the money in "It's a Wonderful Life". "We'll find it! But anyway, what defines them is that they're number one. They're number one in every category - fashion, videos, magazines. And why - what does it mean? It's entertaining- real fashion, really cool stuff. I don't know if it's any deeper. This one sentence says it all, and we'll find it."

“Riri could continue his legacy not by following in his footsteps or as an extension of his character, but instead by keeping his legacy alive through his technology. The legacy of Iron Man lives on not through someone directly connected to him but through a brilliant young engineer with a heroic streak inspired by another genius engineer who saved the universe.”

(source)

I am officially obsessed with Stardust (2007), like it is everything to me? It's so romantic I can't 😭

1. THE CAST IS STELLAR (haha pun intended) LIKE OMG

2. Captain Shakespeare is a literal icon, who needs OFMD?

3. Charlie Cox 😍

4. It's so purely fantastical???

5. Princess Bride vibes

6. The score slaps

7. YVAINE GLOWS WHEN SHE'S HAPPY

8. The chemistry is so refreshing, they're the most adorable couple istg

9. This scene ⬇️

10. This man's smile 🤩

11. Her smile is so cute ahh

12. The phantom of the opera vibes this scene gave off?!?!

13. Ghosts, pirates, witches, magic, what more could I want?????

IT.

IS.

EVERYTHING

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk

I went to the Chain of Thorns tour tonight!

As promised, I saw Cassie today and wrote down her answers (paraphrased) to the questions asked to share here with you all -- and I asked her a question of my own, too!

It was a spoiler-free event, so those of you who have not finished or read any part of Chain of Thorns can read on safely :D

Question: Was it intentional that a Lightwood dies in every series? [referring to Max (TMI), Benedict (TID), Robert (TDA), Barbara (TLH)] Answer: No, it was not intentional and not planned to be that way. But there are so many Lightwoods. In retrospect, it sure looks like it, doesn't it?

Question: What was your process of creating Grace Blackthorn? Answer: Grace is a parallel of Estella from Great Expectations, as The Last Hours is a retelling of that story. I wanted a character to be an embodiment of "explanation not an excuse." I also wanted to give Estella the chance to tell things from her perspective, which is never revealed in Great Expectations. So Grace is that character who is able to display the other side of that situation through her point of view.

Question: How did you come up with the parabatai curse? Answer: It's a greek work and when I learned the meaning, I was immediately interested in exploring the power of non-romantic love. That's where the concept of parabatai came from. The curse then stemmed from expanding on what it means to be parabatai and who could and could not have one. That is where the curse came to be, and of course, how it became a focal point of TDA.

Question: How can I find a man like James Herondale? Answer: I asked myself the same question when I was younger: "Why aren't men like men in books?" I met my husband at a book club and we began sending books to one another that we liked. So my advice is to find a boy, girl, person who enjoys books, too.

Question: Who is your favorite parabatai pair? Answer: Will and Jem.

Question: Who in The Last Hours was the easiest to write? The hardest? Answer: The hardest characters to write were Grace and Matthew, as they both faced very complex problems that don't have an easy or single solution. The easiest characters to write were Cordelia and Lucie. Lucie, because she is also a writer and I very much had a passion for it the way I did when I was younger, too. Cordelia was easy to write because she was fun to write. (Bonus: The most fun to write is Magnus.)

Question: Who is your favorite character from each series? Answer: Didn't want to answer at first, but admitted the following: TID is Tessa. TLH is Lucie. TMI is Simon. No answer for TDA.

Question: Who in TLH was your favorite point of view to write from? Answer: Alastair, Thomas, and Lucie.

Question: Will we ever see Jace and Clary again in a prominent role? Answer: They will be in The Wicked Powers, but the story focuses on Ty, Dru, and Kit, so prominency will remain with them.

Question: How did you develop Ty [Blackthorn] and who was your inspiration for him? Answer: My stepbrother, who always said he looked for characters who exhibited similar characteristics as him, but it was never the same as having a character who was also autistic, and used the word, too.

Question: What made you decide to make Coredlia Iranian? Answer: I was born in Iran and Farsi was my first language. I can't speak it fluently now, but I wanted to make a character that incorporated that part of my life. To make her character and her family's characters, I had a group chat with my mother's friends, who were a bunch of 80-year-old Iranian women. They were very happy to help. Sometimes they argued amongst themselves about a question I had and who had the correct answer, and I would just sit back and watch it unfold while a little scared.

Question: Is there a plot line or detail you look back on and regret doing? Answer: THE FAMILY TREE. [She went on to explain that when she first made it, she had no intention to write any other historical book. But she got the idea for TLH while writing TDA, and suddenly the path and story she wanted to tell did not align with the already-published family tree. So basically, my theory was right and we have confirmation from CC herself that it's just a result of premature development!]

That was the last question of the night, but I saved the question I asked her myself for last! I asked her if Cecily and Gideon had official birthdays, and if so, if we would ever learn them, since we know the rest of the TID cast's birthdays from the 10th anniversary birthstone cards.

Her answer: I never told you guys their birthdays?! I have what I call the Bible and it contains everything about all the characters like their birthdays, star signs, etc. So yes, they do have birthdays. I don't remember them off the top of my head, but I'm sure it'd be no problem getting it out to you guys. There's no reason for not.

So, yes, they do have birthdays, and if she remembers that I asked, we might find them out very soon!

I had a great night and there were some hilarious answers to questions that weren't TSC-specific, but I simply just cannot write that fast.

What happened to Lightwoods...??? How did the go from Gideon and Gabriel being so understanding about their children being gay to Robert exactly opposite of that..with Alec... What the hell happened to them all in a century...???

And how was clave still frowning upon being gay even after a century...