There’s been a lot of speculation floating around about who should replace the soon-departing Matt Smith on Doctor Who. Our buds at Geekosystem, for one, have quite the cool list. But we wanted to go in a different direction. To that end, here are 12 people who definitely won’t be picking up a sonic screwdriver and saving the universe. Even though we might want them to.

Hospitals are a necessary part of the infrastructure of the comic book world but not one that’s generally paid a whole lot of attention to. They’re like bathrooms on spaceships: You know they’re there, and you know people have to use them (don’t tell me Spider-Man hasn’t given himself a concussion with an over-enthusiastic swing at least once), but they just don’t show up all that often unless it’s to blow one up The Dark Knight-style.

Some people like Valentine’s Day. Some people hate it. Some people don’t care much either way. Regardless of your feelings on the holiday itself, we hope you can enjoy this selection of geeky Valentines. Flowers are overrated. (Not chocolate, though.)

It’s T-minus 10 days until Valentine’s Day, so there’s still plenty of time left to buy a card for the significant other(s)/friends/miscellaneous nerds in your life. Unfortunately, drug store V-day cards tends to feature schmaltzy poems and hearts and flowers and stuff like that. Ugh. You want geek this holiday up, we know. So here are some of our favorite Valentine’s Day cards available for purchase from around the Web. Now don’t procrastinate on ordering, or else you’ll either have to pay for expedited shipping or—horror of horrors—settle for a normal, boring card.

We’ve already let you know what our most talked about and most popular posts of 2012 are. But as the people who write all those stories you read, we at The Mary Sue have to admit that we have favorites of our own. They might not have garnered page after page of comments or tons of hits, but darnit, we like ‘em. So now, in our final roundup of 2012, we’ve let our biases out to play to share with you our Favorite Articles of 2012.

Here’s to a geek-tastic 2013!

Yesterday we gave you our most commented on posts of 2012, but most commented on is not the same as most popular. And by popular we mean looked at. The number of time a specific URL was visited. And what holds true on the internet holds true here: people like galleries (as long as they’re not too annoying). So without further ado, here’s the ten most viewed posts we wrote this year. We would have had to go to twelve to reach a post that didn’t have a gallery of some kind in it (although that post would have been the announcement of The Casual Vacany, J.K. Rowling‘s first post-Harry Potter novel).

We’ve had quite the year here at The Mary Sue. Looking back on it now, we can say without any snarkiness, it was a great one. Part of that has to do with all of you, the folks who visit our site daily to participate in (usually) engaging conversations. When we post an article, we hope it garners discussion, even if that discussion is about how much Peter Jackson must have spent on shampoo for The Hobbit or how hilarious tap dancing zombies are. Some posts never get any comments (and how sad they must be) but others take on a life of their own when a particular topic gets readers talking whether the topic was controversial or not. We like it when things remain civil and do our best to step in when they don’t, but it’s always interesting to see different perspectives. Here now are our Top 10 Most Talked About Stories of 2012 on The Mary Sue.

The holiday season is upon us, and with that comes the joy—or stress, depending on how you look at it—of giftgiving. If you’re not quite sure about that perfect gift for your parent/sibling/friend/significant other/etc., you might find yourself tempted to resort to the dreaded gift card. But, dear reader, we believe in you. We know that you have it in you to do better. But everyone needs a little help, and that’s where our Holiday Gift Guide comes into play.

Whether the giftee in question is a comics geek, a film geek, an animation geek, whatever—there’s something to be found for them on this list. You can thank us later.

Bear with us, non-American readers: Thanksgiving is tomorrow, at least in the U.S., and it’s made us at The Mary Sue contemplate the variety of things from this year we’re thankful for.

From comics to movies to cosplay and other con-related fun, here’s just a sample of what has made us happy to be geeks in 2012. Getting a bit sappy for a moment, this list is dedicated to the thing we’re most thankful for: Our readers. Well, second most thankful. There’s Batman, after all.

Halloween’s about dressing up and eating candy (and, for many adults, getting incredibly drunk). But that doesn’t have to be all it’s about. Back in 2010 Neil Gaiman suggested a new Halloween tradition of giving away a scary book to a friend on that most spooky of holidays. Since then that basic idea has evolved into All Hallow’s Read, and we here at The Mary Sue are supporting it by highlighting eight of our favorite literary horror heroines. All of the books we’ve mentioned here—including one by Gaiman himself, which is only fitting—come with the TMS stamp of approval if you want to participate in the AHR tradition of book-gifting.