Appreciation post: Idlesuperstar
This is an @idlesuperstar appreciation post. If you have not checked out Idlesuperstar and you follow me, please do so now and show her some love. She is an epic gif-maker, excellent commentator on film, smashing fic writer, expert on British film, genius fangirl and my best friend on this hellsite and in life in general.
Also she makes her living through sewing, so check out her store as well!
She was recently diagnosed with Covid-19 and is recovering, but she has been through hell. I wanted to make something to cheer her up and I think the best thing I can do is signal boost her blog.
Here is a very short list of some of my favorite Idlesuperstar Tumblr Things
RLT: Roger Livesey Thursday...different stars get different days. We used to be more efficient in actually posting content but we sorta ran out. Here is one of my favorite RLT posts....
My Wonky Scans: Apart from being a stellar gif-maker, writer etc, Idlesuperstar is a collector of film ephemera which she often scans and presents to the world.
Advent Calendars: Many years around Christmas Idlesuperstar posts a gif set every day on a theme (otps, favorite dead not American actors...). Who else does this? It’s so much work and the results are FUCKING brilliant. The most amazing part is that OP often travels at Christmas so she gets this done ahead of time.
Birthday Gifsets: OK, lots of people do birthdays but Idlesuperstar’s birthday gifsets usually have gifs from as many films as possible, are painstakingly created to be as impactful and tidy as possible and usually have salient quotes about the birthday person. The sheer amount of labor that goes into these things boggles my little mind.
AQ Wednesday: Anthony Quayle Wednesday. Idlesuperstar doesn’t even care about Anthony Quayle, but she knew I was OBSESSED with him so she made a series of amazing gifs just for me on Wednesdays because that was always my shittiest day at work. What kind of amazing friend even does that???? Idlesuperstar, that’s who!
Baby Jay Many of the things we love mutually were obsessions planted before we knew one another, but we both became obsessed with Michael Jayston around the same time for slightly different reasons, I think. Anyway, it’s been a joy uncovering Jayston things together. Last year at Christmas she gave me one of my most treasured possessions, an autographed photo of Jay that she personally got signed for me.
Photography: It’s not enough to be brilliant at like five other things, but Idlesuperstar also takes wonderful photos. She travels a lot so I get to live vicariously through her lovely adventures, which often involve classic film.
Fantasy casting: Modern actors in The Looking Glass War (an oft overlooked gem of a John LeCarre novel), Classic Warner Brothers actors in Raiders of the Lost Ark. I love these because they were often the product of a chat or film date. It’s one thing to say, “what if” another to go out and find the gifs and then put it together.
F is for Fake: Film scholarship meets completely bonkers obsessive fandom. A gifset and mini essay about Orson Welles prosthetic noses in every one of his films. Again...WHO DOES THIS???? This series alone should earn Idlesuperstar absolute “lege” status on tumblr.
Fanfiction: For those of you who are perhaps new here, the first fan fiction I ever wrote for tumblr was a lengthy co-authorship with Idlesuperstar on the series “The Life and Death of Sugar Candy.” Idlesuperstar really did so much of the heavy lifting in that. She wrote all of the Clive pieces, a great deal of the Theo pieces, made the mood boards, posted the fics on AO3 and at one point wrote postcards with different handwriting so that we could have a sort of meta new media look at our OTP. Oh she did the postcard thing TWICE!!! It was fucking YEARS of work. Oh also as an editor she is stellar and as a co-author she always turns in work that is like 99% done. She has spoiled me for working with anyone else. Sometimes, I think “did we really spend like five years of our lives working on a fic series about the interior lives of characters from a decades old movie that like six people will read?” and then I remember, yes, yes we did that. She has also written Spooks fic and John LeCarre fic and probably other stuff I’m forgetting...
