Virtual Worlds · Digital Culture · AI Literati
What fools these mortals be. Shakespeare gave that line to a fairy who has been watching humans stumble through their own desires since before the play began, and four centuries later, the observation...
Read article →The most famous half-human in science fiction spent decades insisting he had no emotions, and the audience never believed him for a second. That tension between what Spock claims to be and what he obv...
Read article →The most unsettling thing about Hannibal Lecter is not what he eats. It is that you like him. Bryan Fuller's television adaptation took a character who was already iconic from Thomas Harris's novels a...
Read article →Barbara McClintock (1902-1992) was an American geneticist whose discovery of transposable genetic elements -- genes that can move within the genome -- revolutionized the understanding of genetics. She...
Read article →Isis is one of the most important deities in the Egyptian pantheon -- a goddess of magic, wisdom, motherhood, and healing whose worship eventually spread across the entire ancient Mediterranean world....
Read article →Buffy Summers is the titular heroine of Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- a seemingly ordinary California teenager who discovers she is the Chosen One, gifted with supernatural strength to fight vampires, d...
Read article →Edith Piaf (1915-1963) was a French singer whose voice became synonymous with the soul of Paris itself. Born into poverty on the streets of Belleville, she rose to become the most celebrated French vo...
Read article →Annie Besant (1847-1933) was a British socialist, women's rights activist, writer, orator, and Theosophist who became one of the most remarkable public figures of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. She...
Read article →Mohini is the enchantress avatar of Lord Vishnu in Hindu mythology -- the only female form of the supreme god, whose beauty is so overwhelming that it can bewitch gods, demons, and the cosmos itself....
Read article →MF DOOM (Daniel Dumile, 1971-2020) was a British-born, American-raised rapper, songwriter, and producer whose masked persona, labyrinthine wordplay, and fiercely independent artistry made him one of h...
Read article →Farid ud-Din Attar (c. 1145-c. 1221) was a Persian poet and Sufi mystic whose masterwork, The Conference of the Birds, is one of the greatest spiritual allegories ever written. A pharmacist by trade,...
Read article →Ferdinand Magellan (1480-1521) was a Portuguese explorer who organized the first expedition to circumnavigate the Earth. Though he died in the Philippines before completing the voyage, his fleet's jou...
Read article →Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) was a French philosopher and writer who invented the personal essay as a literary form. His Essays, first published in 1580, explore everything from friendship and deat...
Read article →Tyrion Lannister is the sharp-tongued, wine-loving, brilliant youngest son of Tywin Lannister in George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Born a dwarf into Westeros' most powerful family, T...
Read article →Miss Marple is Agatha Christie's beloved amateur detective -- a shrewd, elderly spinster from the village of St. Mary Mead whose gentle exterior conceals one of the sharpest analytical minds in all of...
Read article →Amy Winehouse (1983-2011) was a British singer-songwriter whose extraordinary voice, raw honesty, and genre-defying music made her one of the most important artists of the 21st century. Her album Back...
Read article →Carolina Otero (1868-1965), known as La Belle Otero, was a Spanish-born dancer, actress, and courtesan who became one of the most celebrated and scandalous women of the Belle Epoque. Her beauty, talen...
Read article →In the Council of Elrond, where the fate of Middle-earth is debated by kings and wizards, a wood-elf prince sits quietly and volunteers for a suicide mission with a single sentence. Legolas Greenleaf...
Read article →Clarice Starling was a trainee. Not even a full agent yet. And the FBI sent her down a corridor of maximum-security cells to interview the most dangerous mind they had ever locked up, because the men...
Read article →The first time we see Eleven, she is alone, terrified, wearing a hospital gown in the rain, and she has just killed people to escape. The Duffer Brothers gave us a superhero origin story told as a hor...
Read article →Imagine being conscious in the womb. Not just aware but fully, terrifyingly awake, flooded with the memories of every woman in your genetic line stretching back thousands of years. That is how Alia At...
Read article →The most powerful man in New York sits in a dark office on his daughter's wedding day, listening to requests. He does not raise his voice. He does not threaten. He simply asks what you have done for h...
Read article →Al Simmons was a good soldier. He followed orders. He served his country. Then his own government had him killed and he woke up in Hell, face to face with a demon named Malebolgia who offered him a de...
Read article →Johnny Blaze made a deal with the devil. Not for power. Not for wealth. Not for fame. He traded his immortal soul to save his dying mentor, Crash Simpson, from cancer. The devil cured the cancer and t...
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