Queens Regnant were unusual. Queens Consort were exceedingly common (a king needed one in order to produce a prince) and Queens Regent not terribly uncommon. In no case were queens rare, certainly not outside of the French and English dynasties that were so misogynistic, they eventually went out of existence.

Elizabeth doesn’t appear to have cared much, personally, what people believed. Initially, Mary didn’t really care, either (a lot of her personal religious beliefs were reinforced by loyalty to her mother).

Uh, no. Reality is that the ethnically diverse Mediterranean and Byzantine Empire were by far the most populous and “civilized” parts of Europe. Southern France, the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and Greece were *huge* parts of Europe, both geographically and demographically. It’s ridiculous to try to dismiss them as Not…

From what he said in On Writing, his writing day is more like four hours, on average.

Initially, I was hesitant about Cosby, yes, because he is an African-American entertainer with a wholesome reputation (which could make him an easy target) and it was possible there was ulterior motive on the part of the accusers. It was also possible women were just jumping on the bandwagon to see what they could…

Never say never. MST3K’s coming back after yonks out of circulation. And Tudyk and Fillion didn’t just decide to do Con Man with a spaceship for the giggles. It’s really a matter of getting the rights and everybody back on board. The Browncoats would totally crowdsource that thing.

An absolutely critical part of the Mary Sue definition that the pejorative (and usually sexist) use ignores is that the new character has to fit poorly into the verse due to all the established character worshiping at the feet of that new character’s total awesomeness. So, traditionally, a Sue has to be a new…

Raw viewership is meaningless these days. It’s how the demos fall out. The A18-49 demo for the show isn’t bad, but there may be some specific demos they’re looking for (usually younger and female) that aren’t up to snuff.

Also, they tend to tweak shows that have promise, but that they just don’t think are quite where…

This argument *might* work if you were talking about a relatively small and very isolated area like Australia where cats have fairly recently been introduced (though, with all the invasive species of rodents humans have also introduced to that ecosystem, you need something like cats to keep their populations down). It…

A lot of things we glean from ancient burials are assumptions—like the previous one that anybody buried with weapons would be a man. We thought that because, while there are exceptions, people were generally buried with signs of their profession or livelihood and the assumption was that only men were ever warriors.…

No. I'm not. Women are more likely to experience pain than men simply because of childbirth and attendant gynecological issues. It's easy to "ignore" something when you don't have it nearly as much as the other gender.

You, sir, are five hundred kinds of awesome. And I am so using that gif somewhere.

I don't believe for a second that men have a higher tolerance of pain than women. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I worked for six years in EMS and I've seen some ugly things, too. I have heard the terms you commented on. And I have diagnosed endometriosis (not to mention some nasty lingering effects of two years of bacterial dysentery). My mother, who was a nurse, and I used to gross my father out at the supper table by talking…