Submssion–

“I don’t have a Tumbler account, because I am not creative enough to post anything there, so I try to submit a question here instead of asking.

I loved your run on X-Men Legacy, and noticed that the end really reminds the 5-th series finale of the new Doctor Who. While reading the final pages of David’s monologue I was actually chanting “ And if something can be remembered, it can come back.”

So… Was this similarity intentional? And do you have plans for a Blindfold (with David) cameo anywhere? I was hoping the 300 issue of X-Men Legacy would be about Ruth living with the DID David became.”

First up: “not creative enough to post anything there” - let’s stop that sort of thing straight away. For one thing if you can ask a question, make a statement, express an opinion or communicate with other people in any meaningful way, which you manifestly can, then you’re automatically As Creative as anyone who presumes to claim “creativity” as a talent. Self included.

For another thing, life’s not always about creating stuff (in fact in my more wretched states of mind I’d argue all “creation” is really just imperfect mimicry and/or appropriation and/or distortion and/or conflation of existing information - we haven’t collectively “created” anything truly new since someone threaded a rod through a disc and invented the wheel, and even that’s just lateral conflation - but I’m being pedantic). As with life, so with tumblr! (Which is a thing I never thought I’d be writing).  In fact a lot of the best tumblr feeds I follow are pure curation: smart people taking good things and collecting them together. I guess the best analogy is this: you find yourself alone with a guy in a pub on a rainy afternoon. He’s the only means you have of avoiding boredom and insanity.  Which would you rather? That he knows endless stories, myriad facts, and can articulately acquaint you with wonders?  Or that he can make fake stuff up on the spot?

Start a tumblr. Be the first guy. 

(And arguably, by the delightful smartassery of words, curation is secretly a creative art in its own right.)

ANYway. Thanks for the kind words on XML. Similarities to DW not intentional, no - I’m a Who-tourist at best, though I’m trying to get more absorbed. I think there’s a slight but critical distinction between the Whovian aphorism you cite and David’s bittersweet coda in XML (I’d argue that having left an impression - having done something beautiful and incredible before bowing out - is splendidly important whether or not there’s any sneaky hope of a curtain call), but still.  

No current plans for a Blindfold cameo, alas. As I’ve waffled elsewhere - in particular here - I think the story deserves the respect of being left alone, rather than clarified and fiddled-with like an unhealed scab.  If I ever have new, valuable ideas for stories involving Ruth then I’m all for it, but not just for the sake of it.  (As per this week’s X-Force, I have various other characters I can enjoy cameoing to my crusty little heart’s content.)

Thanks for the question!