My brother Mycroft is coming! Once and only once has he ever been here. As if you met a tram-car coming down a country lane, Mycroft has his lines, and he runs on them. Pall Mall Lodgings, the Diogenes Club, Whitehall: That is his cycle.
721 things eschergirls likes Explore more popular stuff on Tumblr →
-
fuckyeahgranadaholmes reblogged lucyliued Loading...
-
wincenworks reblogged summer-of-supervillainy
Why everything you know about wolf packs is wrong
By Lauren Davis
The alpha wolf is a figure that looms large in our imagination. The notion of a supreme pack leader who fought his way to dominance and reigns superior to the other wolves in his pack informs both our fiction and is how many people understand wolf behavior. But the alpha wolf doesn’t exist—at least not in the wild…
Although the notions of “alpha wolf” and “alpha dog” seem thoroughly ingrained in our language, the idea of the alpha comes from Rudolph Schenkel, an animal behaviorist who, in 1947, published the then-groundbreaking paper “Expressions Studies on Wolves.” During the 1930s and 1940s, Schenkel studied captive wolves in Switzerland’s Zoo Basel, attempting to identify a “sociology of the wolf.”
In his research, Schenkel identified two primary wolves in a pack: a male “lead wolf” and a female “bitch.” He described them as “first in the pack group.” He also noted “violent rivalries” between individual members of the packs… Thus, the alpha wolf was born. Throughout his paper, Schenkel also draws frequent parallels between wolves and domestic dogs, often following his conclusions with anecdotes about our household canines. The implication is clear: wolves live in packs in which individual members vie for dominance and dogs, their domestic brethren, must be very similar indeed.
A key problem with Schenkel’s wolf studies is that, while they represented the first close study of wolves, they didn’t involve any study of wolves in the wild… In more recent years, animal behaviorists, including [wildlife biologist L. David] Mech, have spent more and more time studying wolves in the wild, and the behaviors they have observed has been different from those observed by Schenkel and other watchers of zoo-bound wolves. In 1999, Mech’s paper “Alpha Status, Dominance, and Division of Labor in Wolf Packs” was published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology. The paper is considered by many to be a turning point in understanding the structure of wolf packs…
Mech’s studies of wild wolves have found that wolves live in families: two parents along with their younger cubs. Wolves do not have an innate sense of rank; they are not born leaders or born followers. The “alphas” are simply what we would call in any other social group “parents.” The offspring follow the parents as naturally as they would in any other species. No one has “won” a role as leader of the pack; the parents may assert dominance over the offspring by virtue of being the parents. While the captive wolf studies saw unrelated adults living together in captivity, related, rather than unrelated, wolves travel together in the wild. Younger wolves do not overthrow the “alpha” to become the leader of the pack; as wolf pups grow older, they are dispersed from their parents’ packs, pair off with other dispersed wolves, have pups, and thus form packs of their owns.
This doesn’t mean that wolves don’t display social dominance, however… Wolves (and other animals, including humans), display social dominance, it just isn’t always easy to boil dominant behavior down to simple explanations. Dominant behavior and dominance relationships can be highly situational, and can vary greatly from individual to individual even within the same species. It’s not the entire concept of wolves displaying social dominance that was dispelled, just the simple hierarchical pack structure…
Source: io9.comImages credit: Caninest - Michael Cummings
Loading... -
I entered the dA competition to make a new outfit for Leia out of the slave costume. I had a blast drawing this, so I consider it a success even if I don’t get the cool earrings.
If it’s something you’d consider fun, I encourage you to give it a shot. Don’t worry about whether you’re good at art. Starlit-Sorceress is accepting entries on dA until the end of June. No matter who wins the competition, everyone benefits from more redesigns existing.
Loading... -
summer-of-supervillainy reblogged reloha
“Your style does not define your skill.”
See that one down there? That’s my usual at 6:00 am.
Loading... -
summer-of-supervillainy reblogged fuckyeahdiomedes
comment credit: notemily, flootzavut, cait0716, chronicreader91
Loading... -
wincenworks reblogged cosplayingwhileblack
Cybilla Frӓulein tries an Atsuko Jackson cosplay.
Series: Michikio to Hatchin
SUBMISSION
Loading... -
summer-of-supervillainy reblogged arcadiasilver“The fact that you’re struggling doesn’t make you a burden. It doesn’t make you unloveable or undesirable or undeserving of care. It doesn’t make you too much or too sensitive or too needy. It makes you human. Everyone struggles. Everyone has a difficult time coping, and at times, we all fall apart. During these times, we aren’t always easy to be around — and that’s okay. No one is easy to be around one hundred percent of the time. Yes, you may sometimes be unpleasant or difficult. And yes, you may sometimes do or say things that make the people around you feel helpless or sad. But those things aren’t all of who you are and they certainly don’t discount your worth as a human being. The truth is that you can be struggling and still be loved. You can be difficult and still be cared for. You can be less than perfect, and still be deserving of compassion and kindness.”
— Daniell Koepke (via elevatortonowhere) Loading... -
summer-of-supervillainy reblogged fuckyeahdiomedes
So I watched Snow Angels just today going in expecting that I’d want to talk about Ms Hudson. Which I do, because she is amazing, but part of what’s remarkable about her is how much about her in unremarked on. Which is awesome, but awesome is a fairly self-explanatory way.
So I wanted to talk about this scene where Sherlock gives money to a veteran currently living on the streets for housing when a major blizzard is on its way and how well it demonstrates to me a pattern of characterization in Sherlock throughout Elementary. When I heard through Twitter that this was actually a Johnny Lee Miller ad lib at first I though that was great how much he’s inhabiting the character, but then I felt a bit of disappointment because I, like many others here on tumblr have fallen unabashedly in love with the Elementary writing staff and I was sad that this wasn’t another example of their greatness. But then I thought again about how much this version of Sherlock has been fleshed out into the sort of character from who this becomes an conceivable action I was appeased.
Sherlock and other Sherlock-type characters have for a very long time existed as a figures of a certain type of male-power fantasy (whether those who have this fantasy identify as male or not) where brain power can be used as a means of domination. Masculinity has long been narrowly defined as the realm of physical superiority and aggression that we see more readily demonstrated in sports, hunting, warfare, etc. But for certain young men, those likely invested in books or other geekish pursuits, this vision of masculinity seems unattainable and they find themselves at the mercy of jock culture. These young men find their masculine role models not in the star athletes but in Sherlock Holmes and other brain jocks like him. These are characters that use mental superiority and aggression to alienate others and the male power fantasy they represent, using genius and lack of social grace and an excuse for this intellectual bullying when in actuality this mental aggression is often the point.
Now look at Elementary’s Sherlock. This is a character who is brilliant and mentally superior to those around him, he says as much. This is part of his brain jock persona and what makes him a Sherlock-character, but what these writers have done is continually made it clear often through the character of Joan that what he’s doing is not socially acceptable. Even later in Snow Angels, when Sherlock determines that the criminals got away in an ambulance, Joan lets him know that his demonstration of intellect without regard for others perspectives can hurt those around him; that he is being a bully. Sherlock similarly is shown realizing his shortcoming in emotional matters and he actively apologizes to Joan for his social missteps. This is a huge departure from other Sherlocks or Sherlock-type characters where emotional mistakes are shown as insignificant or dismissed with humor. Elementary instead chooses to engage with the real work of developing emotional intelligence and empathy that doesn’t always come easy for everyone.
Often in our admiration of Joan, deserved as it is, and our delight in her role as a groundbreaking feminist and anti-racist character we don’t give enough kudos to how great Elementary is at engaging with the problem of this popular incarnation of masculinity and our obsession with caustic geniuses.
Loading...
