Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/11/the-great-closet-purge-of-2025/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56029

Today in Incredibly Mundane Things That Yet Must Be Done, my side of the closet had become untenably crowded with clothes that I currently either can’t or won’t wear, and it was driving Krissy a little batty. So this morning she hauled all my stuff out onto the bed and told me to decide what was going to stay and what was going to go.

For an indecisive hoarder such as myself, this ultimatum filled me with existential horror, and yet I knew she was right: Much of what I have I can’t fit into at the moment (someone decided to eat a few too many snacks and not walk enough steps for, uhhhhh, a while now), and even with what I can currently fit into, I tend to default to basically the same five shirts and three pairs of jeans. So basically 90% my clothes are, essentially, just taking up space. I would never do a triage of all of it without prompting. So here was the prompt.

The “triage” was actually a quadage, as everything got sorted into one of four categories:

1. Clothes that don’t fit and/or I wasn’t wearing it even if it did: On the floor to be donated (as you can see in the picture above, with Charlie the dog for scale). In this category are a lot of shirts that are currently tight across my midsection, multiple Kickstarter t-shirts (sorry, Kickstarter pals, I mostly didn’t get the “t-shirt” tier because I wanted a t-shirt, I just wanted to send you extra cash), old convention/book festival t-shirts and sweatshirts, souvenir shirts, jeans in a waist size I will likely never see again, and shorts I can’t manage to get past my thighs. This is the largest category of stuff.

2. Apparel with sentimental value and only sentimental value: Put into a box for storage. These include gifts I would feel guilty disposing of, commemorative apparel I want to keep but can’t/won’t wear at the moment, or quirky stuff that amuses me, but I don’t necessarily want to be seen in, even if it fits. This is the smallest category, but it’s enough that it will take up a whole box.

3. Apparel I want to wear again but currently don’t fit into: Back into the closet, pushed to the back. This is mostly shirts. I need to lose at least 20 pounds before I unlock some of these again, and losing 30 pounds will unlock them all. Call them “shrink goals.” I’ll start working on that in earnest starting at the beginning of July.

4. Stuff I currently fit into: Back into the closet, obviously, shirts near the front of the closet, pant/shorts in their corresponding cubby holes.

Of the last two categories, what’s left? Honestly, not a whole lot! My regular shirts were basically entirely wiped out (note only two collared shirts there, although I will clarify that actual dress shirts and suits are in a different closet along with other more formal wear; this closet is for everyday wear), and what I have left are primarily t-shirts, most of which I recently purchased when I realized I let my sloth change my clothes size. On a day-to-day basis this isn’t an issue, since as I already mentioned, I tend to just wear the same five shirts anyway. Also it’s summer so I’m not exactly dressing up, and as a science fiction writer I’m not expected to dress myself up fancy-like when I do events, I just have to be, you know, not all covered in stains and crumbs. This current state of affairs will not present either a logistical or sartorial crisis for at least a few months.

Still, it was a little bit of a surprise to me how much of my ostensible wardrobe was functionally inert and just taking up space. It was a lot. And now all of that is off, or soon to be, to local charities who will hopefully pair the clothes with people who actually need and might actually wear the stuff. It’s not all Kickstarter tees, there are some things in there one could wear to work. The clothes being actually worn is a more useful fate than the one they had in my closet. Fly, extraneous clothes! Be free!

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/11/the-great-closet-purge-of-2025/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56029

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/10/reigniting-my-love-for-phase-one-of-marvel/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56011

In recent years, I, like many others, have pretty much completely fallen off the Marvel bandwagon and stopped watching all the Disney+ shows, the spin-offs, even most of the theatrical releases like Madame Web and Brave New World. Whatever your reasoning is, whether it’s because there’s simply too much stuff to get through, because the original gang we all loved is long gone, or you’re just burnt out on superheroes, tons of other people are in the same boat as you.

For me, I’ve been wondering so much lately what it is for me. Why don’t I like Marvel anymore? When Marvel hit it big and came out with The Avengers in 2012, I was 13, and boy howdy did Marvel take over my teens. I was pretty damn obsessed. I had Tumblr posts and fan art saved on my iPhone 5, would talk about all the movies and superheroes with my friends, see every movie on opening day like my life depended on it, all that typically teen fan type stuff.

So what happened? Is it that I’m getting older, or did Marvel content just genuinely get worse and worse as the years went on? Is it some of column A and some of column B?

It was just about right after having seen Thunderbolts that I was really thinking about this question a lot, when a video came up in my recommended section on YouTube.

The video was called “The Lost Art of Marvel’s Phase One,” and was part of a series called Detail Diatribe from Overly Sarcastic Productions. If you’re on the internet and also a nerd, you probably already know who Overly Sarcastic Productions is. While I had heard of them plenty and even seen a mythology video from them once or twice, I never really got into them.

But how could I resist a two-hour video essay over Phase One of Marvel, the phase that pretty much changed not just my life but society as a whole? So I took a chance on it, and immediately loved it. So much so that I started watching OSP’s other superhero videos, and now I’m here to recommend them to you.

They put out “The Lost Art of Marvel’s Phase One” about three weeks ago, and I would recommend starting with this one, like I did. In it, they talk about what made everyone fall in love with Marvel in the first place. Are we all just wearing rose colored glasses and remember them being better than they were? Especially for people like me who were younger when they came out, is our nostalgia blinding us into unearned fondness of these movies?

While it is almost two hours long, I genuinely don’t feel like any part of this video essay drags or is boring, as they talk about so many different things and keep their points moving along consistently. They go over the characters specifically of course, like Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, even Hulk, but they also go over how well the creators did at weaving together the overarching narrative that comes together in The Avengers.

This video made me realize, you know what, fuck yeah I liked Marvel. Shit was good. Like genuinely good! There’s so much to love about Phase One, and so much to love about our original group of super pals! I’m not ashamed that I liked, and am still fond of, Phase One. I hope this video inspires some of that in you, too.

After loving this video so much, I of course had to watch another one of their Detail Diatribe videos called “Captain America The Winter Soldier is the Best MCU Movie” which came out only two weeks ago. Why? Because I have been saying that exact thing for years. But, they can explain it better than I can, so you should listen to their video over it:

This one is also two hours long, but when you’ve been saying FOR YEARS that The Winter Soldier is the best Marvel movie, those two hours really fly by. This one is such an important analysis of not just Captain America as a character, but also Black Widow, and the relationship between these two throughout the film. It also talks about the importance of Hydra and how this movie is a damn good political thriller/espionage movie that I feel like we did not know Marvel was capable of at the time!

Moving away from Marvel, I just listened to their Detail Diatribe over Superman a couple days ago, and since Superman is my favorite superhero, I want to share it with y’all!

Superman is my favorite and I’m sick and tired of people saying he’s boring! He’s not boring! Y’all don’t understand the art, and most importantly, heart, of Superman, and hopefully this video will make you see how awesome he is. And you guessed it, it’s almost two hours.

I have absolutely been loving these videos (and a couple others, such as their Doctor Strange one) and I hope you do, too.

My parents were being killjoys by saying that they didn’t understand why I’d spend two hours watching something like this, and that you can just say “The Winter Soldier is the best MCU movie” without needing to talk about it for two hours, but I wholeheartedly disagree! So I’ll keep watching my two-hour videos and keep recommending them to you. You’re welcome.

On a real note, though, if the idea of sitting there and watching a two-hour video is daunting or seems like too much, I’ll go ahead and tell you I didn’t actually watch a single second of any of these videos. I only listened to them. I listened to them in the shower, on my drive to the store, while I was folding clothes, etc.

You don’t have to sit perfectly still and have your eyes glued to the screen the entire time to watch these videos, y’know? You can still enjoy the points they’re making and think about the ideas they bring up without feeling like it’s a chore to sit there and watch two hours of PowerPoint slides.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy what OSP has to say about these characters and movies we’ve all loved at some point in our lives. I know I did!

Do you have a favorite superhero? Which Marvel movie is your favorite? What do you think of all the shows they’ve come out with? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/06/10/reigniting-my-love-for-phase-one-of-marvel/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=56011