#also i wonder if she was meant to have some alice in wonderland elements? the cat face on the hilt really reminds me of the cheshire cat | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inkdemonapologist · 3 years

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[BatIM Call of Cthulhu Masterpost]

REMEMBER BACK WHEN WE GOT INVITED TO A MASQUERADE??? And we figured out the masquerade guests are definitely the sacrifice meant to summon their eldritch deity and that the party will probably be the location of the final ritual? ANYWAY WE’RE CRASHING THE PARTY, which means we need costumes.

The party is Alice in Wonderland themed; Sammy hasn’t read the book but got kin-assigned the March Hare by Joey, so naturally i’ve been doing nothing but drawing this loser in a dapper rabbit costume for an entire week

---

Anyway have a little smattering of out-of-context quotes from session 11

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[Sammy] Sammy just has no magical powers. [Jack] YET. [Sammy] Yet. Correct. ...He doesn't want any. [GM] Half of him doesn't want any. [Sammy] That's... accurate, yeah. Half of him ALSO wants the OTHER half of him to stop having magical powers. [Jack] No Magical Girl transformation? [GM] *laughing* Is that what that is? [Jack] I'd watch a magical anime where the main character drugs themself and then becomes a weird... religious... madman! [Sammy] That does sound compelling! Maybe you should see if you can find a franchise that contains that element, and then become a big fan of it and draw a bunch of fanart for some reason. [Jack] Yeah, I dunno, I mean... it's so tiring getting into new media, I need to get a friend who will drag me into it. [Henry] And then you guys can start a roleplaying game with it and drag me into it! [GM] There's an idea! [Jack] Yeah! Someone should get on that! [GM] And if there was such a theoretical game... people might have to figure... what they're doing when they wake up!

[Sammy] We were put in a situation before where we were told that the only thing we could do was kill the host, but we found a way around it last time, [Peter] What way was that? [Sammy] Complicated.

[GM] Henry is the first to notice the apparent cultist, camping out, looking tired, trying to spot you guys. [Henry] Uh, Henry is just going to tap Sammy on the arm and point him out. [Jack] Bros! You've got to unionise! Look at these working conditions! [GM] Maybe one of these days you won't spot them, right? Hope springs eternal!

[GM] Okay, you can make an intimidate! [Sammy] Okay! *rolls* FIFTEEN IS -- this is the only thing Sammy's good at now -- fifteen is a hard success!

[Jack] I'm proud of him! [Sammy] Someone has to be.

[GM] Allison chats with everyone, and gets you into the costume room! Everyone seems relatively friendly! [Sammy] Except Sammy. Sammy doesn't seem friendly.

[Joey] My idea was, Joey would be Mad Hatter -- [Sammy] Because he needs a hat, [Joey] --Yeah, so he can have a hat -- I was thinking Sammy could be the March Hare, Jack could be White Rabbit, and then Henry could be the Dormouse, [Sammy] Yes! And then the Haiti boys are all the Mad Teaparty, which is great, because the Mad Teaparty is canonically trapped in a time loop. [Sammy] Because we tHOUGHT ABOUT THIS TOO MUCH,

[Jack] Kin-assign Pete! [GM] He's content to wear anything that looks like it fits him, as long as people aren't trying to push a co-ordinated effort. [Joey] (Pete can be Caterpillar,) [Jack] Catter-pete-lar [Sammy] Oh my goodness. Completely unnecessary. [Jack] This is a pun that Jack might make, out loud, to Pete [GM] Pete laughs, despite himself! [Sammy] I feel like, Jack would make this pun, and then Jack would be SO pleased with himself that Pete would laugh, because Jack was so happy about it. [Jack] Yeah that sounds canon. ....It IS canon!!

[Jack] You can like, actually pretend to be people who decided to come to this party to enjoy it, and not just steal and/or murder!

[Henry] I want someone on the help, because I feel like we would have more control if we had someone on the inside, [Henry] And Henry does have a very forgettable face, apparently!!

[Joey] What are the staff wearing? Target red shirt, khaki pants? [Sammy] Perfect! Everyone will fall for it! Based on my experience wearing red shirts into Target!

[GM] I guess this does mean Joey misses an opportunity to dress up Henry. [Joey] *excited gasp* Wait, wait, [GM] What? [Joey] Sorry, this has nothing to do with anything that's happening right now in the roleplay, but I just suddenly realised that (1) when Henry got married, was Joey his best man, and (2) did Joey get to pick out his tuxedo for him [Henry] UHHHH... I feel like, Henry usually defaults to Joey for outfits and stuff, but he would hesitate a bit to ask his best friend who has an obvious crush on him to help dress for his heteronormative wedding!

[Joey] There probably is at least one of the wedding photos where Joey is insistent on standing very next to Henry -- while Henry's next to Linda! -- but, [GM] ...but also, Joey is here, [Joey] But also Joey is here. [Sammy] ...absolute disaster of a man... [GM] But the tuxedos look good! [Joey] Yes. Henry was properly fitted.

[Sammy] I don't want a full-- I don't want a freakin' fursuit, because-- [Henry] (FNAF in the distance)

[Sammy] But I feel like, since both White Rabbit and March Hare are, like, dapper rabbits, they could do something like, yeah, splicer mask and also a hat. [Jack] I mean, Jack's not opposed; Jack likes hats. [Sammy] Jack absolutely should have a hat, I agree. [Jack] He's getting so many hats! So many hats, and so many boyfriends, [GM] He can't be stopped! [Jack] >:3c He shouldn't be stopped.

[GM] I'm still just stuck on the phrase "Dapper Rabbits."

[GM] If Joey and Allison are talking further away, I guess it's moot. Though Allison did see Prophet Sammy! He changed in her room. [Sammy] Well, nobody explained him to her. Sammy just showed up the next day and hoped that we wouldn't talk about it, and then we didn't! It was great. [Jack] Sammy's over here, hoping that Allison is distracted by Joey so that none of this conversation is being listened to, [Jack] MEANWHILE, smash cut to the other side of the room, where Joey is explaining SillySam,

[Joey] A lot of Joey's lack of giving information was to keep her out of it, and not paint a target on her back... but now? She has a target on her back, so... Sure! You can also sacrifice yourself, for the greater good!

[Sammy] I'm sure someone in this party will thank Allison. It won't be me. But I'm sure someone will.

[Henry] Henry's already smearing his blood on people, he's gonna agree to whatever at this point.

[Sammy] DEFINITELY not a cult, now hold still while we put this guy's weird glowing blood on you, it's fine. [Jack] Welcome to the flock!

[GM] What does this mean for Prophet Sammy's sacrificeability rating on Henry, though? Now he's potentially long-term useful... [Sammy] I mean... [Jack] The Prophet isn't here so he doesn't need to know about this! [Sammy] ...I feel like, if something has greater value, then it's an even more impressive sacrifice. That's why you sacrifice an unblemished sheep, traditionally. If it's not a blemish-- [Sammy] Like, that's most of what he was worried about, like, “does this make you not fit for sacrifice.” But if it's actually a really cool thing, ...!

[Sammy] Sammy's nervous. [Jack] Jack is also nervous. [Henry] Henry is also nervous! [Jack] Oh, that's always a good sign, [Joey] Joey's going to be confident! [Henry] ...Of course he is. [Joey] Someone has to be! [Jack]...is he "Confident" or "Confident (Fast Talk)"? [Joey] YES. That last one. [Sammy] *muttering* That's the best we got, unfortunately.

[Sammy] If Jack or Henry express nervousness, Sammy agrees with them. If Pete is nervous, then Sammy will very aggressively say that Joey knows what he's doing.

[Sammy] Allison, don't use a spell to bind people's souls together in order to avoid crunch,,, [GM] You never know when something might be handy! [Sammy] I mean, [GM] Waste not want not!

[Henry] Does Henry have to draw in blood on himself...? [GM] No, Henry has a lot of his own blood on his person.

[GM] Aw, man, Bendy should've commented on the rabbit outfits! I'm sure he'd find that hilarious. [Joey] ...why...? [GM] WHY? It's just objectively funny! No additional reason is needed!!

[Joey] Joey will go through his notes, and confer with Henry and Bendy on, okay, shall we try this, and see if we can help Bendy as well? [Henry] Henry is down to try! [GM] Bendy is worried about Henry overexerting himself. [Henry] ...Henry is down to try!

[Jack] Worst case, Jack looks at the symbol, and then he can be seeing-eye rabbit for the rest of the group!

[GM] Norman wonders what the plan is! [Henry] Bold of you to assume,

[Sammy] We're having such a good sleepover! We did a weird blood ritual, and we're braiding each other's hair~ [Joey] Having a fashion show, [Sammy] Yeah! We went out and got clothes, [Jack] Can't believe Joey called a boy, [Sammy] Gotta ask Joey about the boy he likes... wait, no, don't do that. [Jack] I'd say it's time to play seven minutes in heaven, but I think we, we did that early. [Sammy] WE DIDN'T DO A VERY GOOD JOB,

[GM] Norman wants to see how this plays out. [Joey] Okay, well, try not to get sacrificed, then, [GM] He laughs, and thanks you for the advice! [Sammy] *Hypnos Hadesgame voice* "Try not to get sacrificed, okay?"

[Henry] Allison is very helpful, and not weird at all!

[Joey] We already have the banjo case full of ritual circles, and Joey would rather have the emergency circles than Sammy carrying around bOTTLES OF INK. [Sammy] WHY, WHY WOULDN'T YOU WANT THAT TO BE HAPPENING? WHAT WOULD BE THE PROBLEM WITH THAT,

[GM] Make a sanity check! [Jack] Wait, what's happening? [Sammy] Joey was trying to think too hard.

[GM] Sammy does manage to catch that there's a little-- next to the kitchen, when you go into the place where they're serving food, there's a sign that says "Sheep Shop" over it. And there's a person wearing a sheep mask, handing out food. [Sammy] OKAY, THAT'S FINE,,, I don't feel like Sammy has actually read Through The Looking Glass, so I don't know if he knows why this is happening. I think he's just concerned. [GM] Excellent. Ideal response.

[GM] And Joey has NEVER seen the symbol EVER because he's incredible at not looking at creepy symbols! Which you wouldn't expect. [Sammy] I'm sure Joey will put this in his autobiography.

[Jack] :/ No Hashtag Gay Rights at this party,

[GM] Seems to be another party-goer; in fact, you recognise the voice! [Joey] Ohhh. Kyle -- I don't know his actual name, but -- [Sammy] (Dennis!) [GM] (Yes, that's-) [Joey] -- Kyle.

[Henry] Henry is going to try to sneak up on Moonlight while he's distracted! [GM] OH! ...Okay! He's very distracted, Sammy just screamed! [excited noises from everyone beCAUSE NO ONE EXPECTED THIS] [GM] You successfully sneak up behind him! [Henry] I'm going to grab the staff! [GM] Make a Brawl check, with advantage! [Sammy] (He has SO many limbs that don't work my dude, you got this,) [Henry] That's a success! [GM] You snatch it! [Henry] I RUN!!!

[Joey] We're just both escorting Jack, now. [Sammy] Would you say Jack is late, for a very important date? [Jack] Well YEAH, his Face Removal was scheduled like 2 dreams ago!!

[GM] He'd have to roll for it, to see if it felt familiar to his trip to Carcosa. [Jack] Extreme success! [GM] Then he would pick up that familiar feeling! [Jack] Oh, nice and homey at this party! Really nice. Nostalgic! It's been a while. [Sammy] Hm, [Jack] Maybe he should go play the piano, for old time's sake! [Sammy] NO

#call of cthulu: haunted hijinx #sammy lawrence #Jack Fain #Henry Stein #when in doubt just keep drawing #Henry has a daughter he knows how to do hair #Joey's going as the Hatter so we match for Mad Teaparty purposes #I can't believe we put Sammy Lawrence in a rabbit mask and NEVER made the vanny connection how is this possible

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the-silvertonguewitch · 4 years

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Lyra only purposely uses the alethiometer once in TSC (two if you count the unorthodox way she uses it against the zeppelin in the Fen.) She tries it with the new method and the alethiometer answers by giving her a vision that Lyra never questions, reflects upon or try to work out afterward.

She questions the alethiometer about the cat daemon in her dream: “Was she Will’s daemon, and if so, what did that mean?” (TSC, 143)

I thought it could be fun to try working it out for ourselves. Lyra’s question has two elements: the identity of the cat daemon and the general meaning of the dream.

Is the cat daemon Kirjava?

Lyra sees a cat who’s “just a cat” and a young man that looks like Will but isn’t. This probably means “no”. The cat in the dream could’ve reminded her of Kirjava, but it wasn’t Kirjava.

What does it mean?

In the dream, the cat daemon leads Lyra to the red building. They don’t spell it out explicitly, but it’s still heavily implied since every other time a cat shows up (in an alethiometric vision or in a later dream), it’s to lead her somewhere, and because the red building comes up in Lyra’s dream immediately after Lyra “recognizes” Kirjava.

Meanwhile in the vision, the cat who’s just a cat leads Lyra to the study where Olivier Bonneville is. This must be in La Maison Juste, so it could be that the alethiometer is trying to inform Lyra of a connection between this place and the red building. This is a very vague piece of information, however, since it doesn’t tell her anything about the connection itself.

Then Olivier B shows up and a couple of things happen. At first, Lyra mistakes him for Will. Then she feels an uneasiness. Then she correctly identifies him as an alethiometrist. Then she closes the door between them.

Olivier’s striking resemblance to Will could parallel the cat daemon’s resemblance to Will’s daemon. It goes with the first half of Lyra’s enquiry (“Was she Will’s daemon?” Answer: “no”.)

It gets more complicated after that. The uneasiness, the fact that he’s reading an alethiometer, and Lyra closing the door could all point to clarification regarding what, exactly, is the connection between the red building and La Maison Juste. Either it’s that, or it concerns the identity of the cat daemon again. And – again – what is the alethiometer trying to tell Lyra?

Some checkpoints:

-In the vision, Lyra intuitively picks up that Bonneville is someone to be wary of.

-He’s an alethiometrist: does this symbolize knowledge? Dust?

-She (perhaps unconsciously) also catches on that he’s spying on her (hence closing the door to hide herself from view).

Personally, I think that the most plausible interpretation is that Lyra is being spied on and followed by someone, or by several peoples, from La Maison Juste. At least that’s what the alethiometer is trying to tell her.

It connects to the matter of the red building if we account for the fact that Marcel Delamare is also going after it. One of Lyra’s central questions during/after having the dream is about WHY she has to go there. While she’s asleep she knows the answer, but she forgets it or can’t work it out when she wakes up. By showing her Olivier in La Maison Juste, the alethiometer explains it to her: she must reach the red building because (fill in the blank: Delamare will seize it if she doesn’t? Admittedly, this does feels as bit dry.)

A really intriguing aspect of Lyra’s vision is that it correlates an awful lot with the beginning of Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. Alice follows an animal down a rabbit hole and Lyra “follows” a cat down a “terrible depth” (TSC, 142). I’ve been reading a book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Decoded, in which the author points out the parallels between Alice and Persephone, Wonderland and the Underworld, and sure enough, Lyra’s “fall” brings her in a place which could be associated with the “Underworld”: a forest “resounding with animal cries and human screams and the whisper of terrified ghosts” (TSC, 143). The parallels even go further. The first place Alice visits in Wonderland is a “long, low hall” “lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof”. The alethiometer shows Lyra “a corridor, with windows opening onto a narrow courtyard below”, its walls “painted or distempered a pale chalky green” (TSC, 144). In the hall, Alice discovers a “tiny golden key” meant for a small door that opens on “the loveliest garden you ever saw”. However, she can’t reach it because the door is too small. She eventually enters the garden by other means, after wandering around for a while in Wonderland (meaning, after gaining experience and knowledge and growing wiser). Wonderland is a place without logic. Nothing there make sense. Compare this with Lyra’s journey: she’s hoping to reach Karamakan and the rose garden, but she thinks too small. She’s too taken up by Brande and Talbot’s absolute rationalism (who both bring logic up to a point of absurdity, ironically). These parallels with Alice don’t necessarily explain Lyra’s vision but I’m mentioning them anyway because they can contextualize what comes next for her.

What are your thoughts on the alethiomether’s answer?

ETA: about Lyra closing the door between Bonneville and her, I wonder if it wouldn’t have something to do with Pan leaving. Bonneville can’t track Lyra down directly when Pan isn’t with her, so Pan effectively “closed the door” when he left. If one really wanted to read the red building into this, they could argue that daemons and humans can’t travel in Karamakan together, and/or that being separated from Pan is a big part of the reason why Lyra resolves to undertake the journey there in the first place. Maybe this is too circumvoluted, I don’t know. I’m still trying to interpret all of this within the frame of Lyra’s initial question to the alethiometer.

#hdm meta #HDM metas #the book of dust #the secret commonwealth #his dark materials #lyra belacqua #lyra silvertongue #my metas

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sepublic · 4 years

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New Promo for The Owl House!

You know what, let’s just cut to the chase and get onto analyzing the bits of the new promo that aren’t Adventures in the Elements;

We immediately get a shot of Luz being splattered in the face with something magical, presumably at Hexside; But then again, she isn’t wearing a Hexside uniform. On the other hand, this could be part of her introduction to the school and potential tracks, so who knows?

There’s King! KING! Being beloved and appreciated by everyone (Boscha included) like he’s always dreamed! I’m so proud of him… He looks so happy, and he’s wearing the same outfit from that one shot of him being placed into a magic cage by a contract with his paw-print on it! His book is titled ‘Ruler’s Reach’, and I assume it’s meant to be a fantasy novel involving King as the beloved protagonist! It may or may not involve a few embellished re-tellings of past adventures, we’ll just have to wait and see!

We have King either planning his first novel, or his next one; And his main characters are not only himself as the Ruler of Demons (so it’s likely that his story is about a blatant self-insert of himself and not a literal autobiography), along with Luz! Luz, in a witch’s hat, with her name similarly embellished (to Luzura? I can’t tell)! I love their friendship so much… King really does value Luz as his best friend and it’s just adorable, and I appreciate that we get to see more of his own drawings as well!

We’ve got Luz and Willow on their date and Gus playing some Skee Ball, in their casual outfits. We also have a shot of King and Luz shrinking in a scene straight out of Alice in Wonderland, presumably because of the purple potion; Coupled with King’s fanny-pack, it’s pretty obvious that this is Tibbles’ revenge in Really Small Problems! Perhaps he intends to show off his miniaturized captives as an attraction? Do a ‘show’ with them?

Eda is looking over her should, interested in a glowing map. There’s not much else I can discern here, although it does remind me of that time Luz got that fake map from Adegast. I assume Eda is smarter than that, but who knows what’s going on?

We’ve next got King barging into Grimgrub’s Pub for whatever reason, only to be thrown out. Does this relate to Sense and Insensitivity? Is this an event he later re-imagines in Ruler’s Reach, or is this King getting in over his head after the authorial fame? Perhaps he’s planning to confront the Lizard-Dude he signed the contract with…

More of the Hexside Trio having fun at a Photo Stand-In, and King, Sweetie, Dearie… You’re better than trash, you don’t DESERVE that! Hopefully the trash-can is his choice, but just let him know that he is precious and valued!

King climbs atop Luz, who’s wearing a Hexside uniform… And then we have the main trio in the kitchen, Eda shaking something off of Owlbert, and… LUZ HAS TWO-COLORED SLEEVES!!! I assume this is the uniform of the Delinquent Track? Either way, I imagine this scene is Luz returning home after being placed there, with Eda having something to say about the situation as she always does! Obviously, this scene (and potentially the first one) come from The First Day!

And then we have Luz and King together, with King having the fanny-pack (indicating this is Really Small Problems), with this duo just being adorable together! I love them…

I have to wonder- Are the shots of the Hexside Trio at a fair from Understanding Willow, or are they perhaps from Really Small Problems? We can’t see if King is wearing a fanny-pack in that one shot, and Tibbles does appear to be encountered outside some sort of amusement park (or something like that) in the previous Season 1B promo. Either way, I can’t wait to find out, and I wonder if King being thrown into mud outside Grimgrub’s Pub is related to him fulfilling the role of a Trash-Can in the Photo Stand-In?

#the owl house #owl house #speculation #analysis #the owl house luz #luz noceda #the owl house eda #edalyn clawthorne #the owl house king #the owl house gus #the owl house willow

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ramonaprintmakingtwo · 4 years

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Assignment 1: A landscape

I approached this assignment with a slightly different way, considering printing technique and style before working through the subject. As I have not done it before I wanted to attempt creating a jigsaw linocut print. Working with water based inks in Printmaking One meant that I had to work very quickly as the ink would begin to dry and change consistency. Having invested in some oil based ink giving me a longer working time, I wanted to utilise the medium use a technique that requires a slower inking time. Using a jigsaw method would allow me to use different colours within one layer of printing.

I have seen this technique executed beautifully in the work of Lili Arnold, a printmaker in California whom I have followed on Instagram for a few years. By sharing not only her finished work but the printing process itself, we are able to gain greater insight into her methodology.

(Arnold, 2020)

When I’m not entirely sure of the direction I want to take within my work I like to step back and look at artists and images that inspire me. I review what works well, what aspects I enjoy and consider how I can apply these concepts to my own work.

Mary Blair

One of my favourite artists is Mary Blair best known for her role as a Disney concept artist for both animated films and the ‘Small World’ in Disneyland.

(Blair, 1964) (Unknown, 2020)

Blair had an exceptional understanding of colour and form. Particularly within the ‘Small World’ concept art where different shapes and patterns are used together to create a more abstract image, reminiscent of children’s building blocks. Animation art director Fred Cline described her work as;

‘...juxtaposition of neutralised and intense colours. Lots of artists make everything really bright or really mute. She mixed both with a graphic sense without hardness. Her shapes are very organic but graphic. It's different. You know when you're looking at something only Mary Blair did.’ (Cline, 1994).

Charles and Ray Eames

Using the work of Mary Blair as a springboard I looked at the work other mid-century artists and designers. The form of Blair’s ‘Small World’ concept art reminded me of the toy designs of Charles and Ray Eames.

(Eames Office LLC, 1952)

(Eames Office, LLC, 1951) (Eames Office, LLC, 1952)

Both the house of cards style toy, ‘The Toy’ and ‘The Little Toy’ focused on creativity within play. The individual elements can be arranged in any combination by the person playing with the toy. I wondered if this could be interpreted within a jigsaw linocut.

Rather than the elements within the composition being fixed could they be arranged in different ways in a more spontaneous way within the printing process?

Frances Wood

I also looked at the work of contemporary printmaker Frances Wood. Inspired by mid-century design and Scandinavian folk art, Wood creates colourful screen prints using paper-cut shapes when developing her screens.

I enjoyed Wood’s layering of colour within her prints, having a muted background design with a bold pattern in the foreground. Much like the work of the mid-century artists that I have been looking at, despite using organic subjects of flowers and birds, they layout and composition of Wood’s prints are graphic and geometric in style.

Mid Century Hues, Mid Century Sunset, Mid Century Birds (Wood, 2020)

Subject

This last year I have spent more time at home than ever before. The local community of our street has become much closer, supporting each other and sharing food. Holding socially distanced street parties and looking after the more vulnerable residents. We even had a surprise stray kitten birth under my neighbours dining room table. It felt fitting to mark this.

My print design criteria

Execute a set of three colour prints, each using a minimum of three colours. Each print must be different but connected in some way.

Use a jigsaw technique using repeated key shapes so that the composition is easily changeable.

Explore alternative colour palettes based on the work of Mary Blair, mixing brights and neutrals.

Use symmetrical graphic designs to represent features and patterns within my neighbourhood.

Use colour to indicate the time of year.

Working process

I began by walking up and down my street (after pre warning my neighbours!) taking photos of patterns and shapes that occur within the houses.

Rather than sketching I decided to use paper-cut shapes to reduce the photographed elements into simplified forms. By using this technique I have to be more considered in my approach as I am unable to cut details as fine as I would be able to draw. This hands on approach also felt in keeping of the spirit behind the design.

I then scanned the glued paper to work on rough designs and colour combinations within photoshop. Looking to Mary Blair’s work for possible colour palettes, I identified different schemes that would be indicative of different seasons.

Alice in Wonderland animation concept painting (Disney, 1951)

It’s a Small World, finale, concept art. (Blair M, 1964)

Alice in Wonderland concept art (Blair, 1951)

So Dear to My Heart, Indian summer, concept art. (Blair M, Undated)

Identified potential colour palettes

Photoshop mock-ups

Within my designs I included a geometric background in two colours which I would intend to print in one layer with a jigsaw cut lino.

Printing

vimeo

Prints

Birkbeck Winter

Birkbeck Spring

Birkbeck Summer

Final Selection

The prints turned out as I had planned them and I am particularly pleased with the colour combinations inspired by Mary Blair. The process of rearranging the tiles was enjoyable and I like that each print is unique. I am slightly concerned that it may not be in keeping with the assignment brief as it did not say that an abstract representation of a landscape was an option but it felt right to me.

References

Arnold, L., 2020. Passiflora Edulis Aka Passion Fruit II, Process Photos.. [image] Available at: <https://www.instagram.com/liliarnoldstudios/> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Blair, M., 1951. Alice In Wonderland Concept Art. [image] Available at: <https://pm1.narvii.com/6117/fdcbe2c5a62f88227bd6de6d1f0678a4c3acf51a_hq.jpg> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Blair, M., 1964. It's A Small World. [Collage].

Canemaker, J., 2003. The Art And Flair Of Mary Blair. Disney Enterprises Ink, pp.vi, 19, 35, 55, 93.

Cline, F., 1994. Questionare. Mademoiselle,.

Eames Office LLC, 1952. Charles And Ray Eames, House Of Cards, Publicity Photo. [image] Available at: <http://eamesoffice.com> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Eames Office, LLC, 1951. Ray Eames Plays With An Early Prototype Of The Toy Outside The Eames House. [image] Available at: <http://www.eamesoffice.com> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Eames Office, LLC, 1952. The Smaller Scale Of The Little Toy.. [image] Available at: <http://www.eamesoffice.com> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Heritage Auctions, 2020. Alice In Wonderland Animation Concept Art. [image] Available at: <https://comics.ha.com/itm/animation-art/production-drawing/mary-blair-alice-in-wonderland-animation-concept-painting-original-art-disney-1951-/a/825-43034.s> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Unknown, 2020. Photo Of 'It's A Small World' Disneyland. [image] Available at: <http://disneyatplay.com/index.php/2020/03/23/its-a-small-world-around-the-world/> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Wood, F., 2020. Mid Century Bird, Hand-Pulled Screen-Print. [image] Available at: <https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/769826324/mid-century-modern-print-mid-century?ref=shop_home_active_25> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

Wood, F., 2020. Mid Century Hues, Hand-Pulled Screen-Print. [image] Available at: <https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/722871610/mid-century-modern-print-art-floral?ref=shop_home_active_2> [Accessed 30 December 2020].

#Ass1 #part1

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brightbeautifulthings · 4 years

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The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma

"We have some ideas about the afterlife, about why we're still here. The thing about a life being cut short, when it's not by choice and not with any rhyme or reason or hinted at by diagnosis or threat, is that sometimes, some of you will want to hang on. We do. We can't seem to find a way to leave."

Year Read: 2017, 2020

Rating: 4/5

About: Violet has everything going for her. She's a dancer only weeks away from going to Julliard, but a dark secret in her past threatens to bring that perfect world crashing down around her. Years ago, her best friend, Orianna, was convicted of a double homicide and sent to Aurora Hills juvenile detention center. Ori's roommate, Amber, has been on the inside for nearly as long as she can remember, and she begins to suspect that, of all of them, Ori may be the only one who's innocent. Trigger warnings: death, violence, blood, poisoning, electrocution, self-injury, incarceration, bullying, some drug use.

Thoughts: Suma's story in Slasher Girls & Monster Boys made me want to read lots more of her writing. It was my favorite second only to Carrie Ryan's (because, you know, Alice in Wonderland), and I like the way she writes mostly about the relationships among girls, good and bad. That being said, I struggled some on my first reading of The Walls Around Us, but I found it way more accessible on a second read. I rarely change my ratings on rereads, but I feel like I needed to add a star to this; it’s very good at what it does.

Right out of the gate, I should probably just acknowledge that this is a weird book. The timeline is murky and non-linear, not just in the narrative, but also in the story itself. The dead and the living cross paths without realizing it, past and present are not entirely separate entities, and events loop back on themselves and repeat. It can be confusing, but I don't think it's strictly necessary to map a sequence of events in order to understand what Suma is getting at. Each time something recurs, something small changes, and a little more of the past is revealed, like brushing grave dirt off a long-buried skeleton.

Suma is a strong storyteller with a gift for creating atmosphere. The whole novel is steeped in ghosts and uncertainty. It's the chill down your spine, the feeling that you've been here before but can't remember when, the fear that there is someone standing just behind you, but when you turn it's only shadows. I really enjoy her writing style, although I wished for more scares as I was reading. It’s not a jump-scare kind of book though. The real horror of this novel is not the dead, but the way living girls are treated, the way they treat each other, and the dull, daily dread of being locked away. It’s a heavy novel for a lot of reasons.

The characters are fascinating and complex, but I wouldn’t call them likable, nor do I think they’re all meant to be. I liked Amber even after I learned her secrets, which I think is a credit to the wonderful empathy Suma has for these girls, but the first several sections from her point of view are quite repetitive. (There’s a very good reason for that though.) I found Violet ridiculously unlikable on my first read, to the point that it’s difficult to believe a person can have so little remorse. I found a little more empathy for her on my second; she’s both bullied and a bully, which doesn’t excuse her but helps me understand her a little better. There are also a number of parallels between Violet and Amber. Despite the fact that the book makes us feel so strongly, and so differently, about each of them, they have a lot in common. Orianna always feels just out of reach, and I find it interesting that for all this book is giving voices to those who don’t usually get to tell their stories, we never have a chapter from her perspective. Ori’s voice is always filtered through someone else’s.

I like that Suma writes about girls, many of them disenfranchised. There's a suggestion that Orianna is convicted in large part because she's poor and also, probably, because she's a person of color, and that Violet gets by because she's rich and white. Amber and the rest of the girls at Aurora Hills are the girls on the edges, the ones society has shut away and resolved to forget about, and it's never clearer than in the pile of rotting letters and teddy bears at the gate--a "too little, too late" gesture that's more an attack of conscience than genuine regret. Suma chases down the consequences of a system that was rigged against these girls from the start and in no way attempts to rehabilitate them. I would recommend The Walls Around Us for this reason alone, since there are few other places where characters like these get a voice.

This book has a lot of great elements, but it never quite came together for me on my first read. What happened with Orianna and Violet, along with the "accident" at Aurora Hills, is sort of obvious from early on, so there's not a lot in the way of plot reveal. I was forced to revise this opinion on my second read. There’s a massive twist in the timeline that I found difficult to follow at first, but I ended up loving it this time around. I still think it’s a bit quick and an epilogue may have helped, but it’s ultimately very effective. Imaginary Girls is still my favorite Suma book to date, but I’m thinking that, overall, TWAU is probably the better novel. It’s dark and lovely, and it rewards rereading. I suspect I’ll be haunted by these girls for a long while.

#book review #the walls around us #nova ren suma #ya paranormal #2017 #2020 #rating: 4/5 #4/5

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randomkposts · 4 years

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Up the down way

So I once wanted to write a FFIV AU, with a very different universe and an OC Callian Jackson. here was my attempt at note taking.

Callian is here in the story as Kain and Rosa's best friend. Kain and Rosa are dating, and with Callian here, there is a different dynamic to their friendship, as Kain has two girls teaming on him to do things, and is probably not left alone to brood as often as he would like, among other things. Callian is mostly here, because Cecil was being raised elsewhere, and Callian is a girl who lost both her parents in the war, and chose to take up the way of the dark knight, and passed it, becoming good enough to be a Captain of the red wings. She is not a cannon clone of Cecil or Kain, though she may take some elements of the roles, she is ultimately her own weirdo in the story. I do not intend her to be an expy, and hopefully she does not come off as a Sue either. Cecil is still in this story, just obviously not here in Baron. He'll probably show up briefly soon. The characters will not be as you remember, because the blue planet they grew up in is not the one we are used to, and there are some odd consequences to that. The social chemistry of the world is different, and so are they.

Is a bit of a parody and an AU Alice in Wonderland style, in that the characters can be downright odd.

Plot: When Callian Jackson's invasion of Mysidia goes wrong, she is sent to be a delivery person as atonement. Callians invasion likely went wrong because of a stray berserk spell, and her soldier's went nuts on the people. Never less, a good commander should rise above that, and accomplish the mission, keep the men's respect. Kain, wondering what Rosa was talking about, Comes into the room to ask, and ends up getting sent alongside Callian to Mist. ---

The scene starts with Callin quietly but furiously questioning her men, and her men too ashamed to say anything to her, beyond monster warnings. She begins, quietly, and intensely angry, getting details about the mission , until a monster attack distracts her, much to their relief. To the king, she is quietly upset, trying to hold her temper. Kain wanders into the room, and gets sent along. She does let it out when Rosa comes to her room, as Rosa often serves as an outlet.

Differences from IV: Kain is dating Rosa, and is not nearly as broody or secretive in part to having two woman who would pester him if he was off. Rosa is a lot more outspoken, and has Scrying abilities, as well as being Paranoid of Troians. Callian had a crush on Kain, but when Rosa asked him out, they talked about it, and Calians happy for them. I think in the original, Cecil was a peacemaker who asked Rosa to leave Kain alone,even when he deserved a chewing out.

Day two: They leave the castle with a feeling of Destiny in their hearts. At Baron, Calian goes and finds stuff with "treasure hunter senses", and Kain goes to buy supplies, (bartering , an act learned from Rosa). While Kain contemplates sporks, he runs into fan-girls and an eager dancer, and helps Calian take a tent from a river when he jumps. Once out of Town, the two decide to train like mad, then ride the Chocobos to the mountain , so they go south. They earn goblin and cocatrice. Meanwhile, at the castle, a Scrying Rosa sees them going the wrong direction, and decides to catch up with them using many Hermes sandals, and remembering why using too many items outside of battle is bad (made her more susceptible to the illness later). Meanwhile, Callian and Kain reach the grove after fighting enough battles with goblins to win the summon , and grab Chocobos. When Rosa arrives after, she sees a black Chocobo and uses it, much to the pale haired man's upset utterances. -(Yes that is Cecil, Lol)-She flys over the mountain and lands , deciding to rest in the grasslands. Meanwhile Callain and Kain arrive at the mountains, and take a rest instead of going in and facing zombies. (Rosa tells many horror stories) They get through the cave fine, and decide to rest in the tent before entering Mist.

Day two, part two: Well rested, our hero's enter the cave and run into porcupines and the dragon of Mist. Kain is not fond of attacking Dragons, so they try to run, only to have to kill it anyways. Entering the village, bombs attack from the Carnelian Signet .Rather than Come to the logical conclusion, Callain concludes its a test and she is meant to be foiling a ninja plot , and begins shouting orders and getting people to safety "taking command" of a chaotic situation.She decides to evacuate. Following orders, Kain goes to help a little girl, who- furious her village is being invaded- summons Titan, separating Kain from Callian. Meanwhile Rosa, believing they would be taken to Kaipo until they were transferred to Fabul and shipped to Troia, wanders around outside of Kaipo, trying to find the blasted place In the desert. She runs into Tellha, who informs her she is not the Mage he's looking for.

Day three: Kain wakes up, and decides to find a place for the little girl he accidentally orphaned to sleep, and perhaps be adopted. So he goes to Kaipo, a neutral city, and more importantly, close. In the middle of the night, three Guards come for Kain and Rydia. Kain sends them away stating Calian asked him to watch this kid. The Captain then asks if Rosa was here, since she has been missing and that their purpose here was a search party. Kain offers to take over the desert search party, much to their relief, and they go. Kain is glad that encounter could be solved by negotiating, as that was one of Callins competent Captains. Meanwhile Rosa collapses at Kaipos gates.

The next day, Rydia wakes up and can't remember the attack, or what she's doing here, and asks where her mother is. Kain informs her that her mother is dead. She is quiet after that. They hear some rumors about a girl with desert fever, and some more about the prophetic chick Anna who everyone had talked about the other day when they were looking for an inn. They find Rosa and discover she was the one with desert Fever. Kain goes off to find a sand pearl, and Rydia comes with him. In fact she refuses to leave him, very assertively. Kain gets Rydia some weapons. Rydia proves competent at Healing, and distracting monsters with weak attacks for Kain to counter. They use this strategy since Kain can't jump and leave her. Beyond battle, Rydia is quiet and unobservant in terrain. Kain has to hold her hand to prevent her wandering off.

Randomly added note.(Edges difference in attitude comes from a more comprehensive training due to an attack on the palace he almost died at. He is quieter and more ninja like.)

R.A.N2(Edward is determined to get the prophet who tried to save him back! He is more determined than sad.)

R.A.N3( Palom is already a sage, spellwise. He had to learn some cure magic until someone gave Porem a cure staff. The problem with the twins is that they are five year old prodigies, who are probably pushed because of paranoia over Baron. They have some issues. Palom has high standards, is hypercritical of himself, and uses lots of false bravado. He needs the rest of the world to believe he's awesome. Porem has a terrible bedside manor, and anger management issues, so carries a cure staff, so when she hits people, it heals them. They are quite nervous about teaching her hammer style fighting, even if she might be good at it, because no cure hammer has been invented. )

RAN 3.5: (Kain has to protect them on his way up the mountains. That means covering and countering the attacks directed towards them in battle, taking breaks for them, and giving them piggybacks. He also gives Rydia piggybacks. The trip up the mountain is a long and grueling journey. PS: Write a story about Cecil and the twins climbing the mountain, frame as elders revenge)

Finally Kain and Rydia arrive at the cage and meet Tellaha.

Rn4( Tellaha can see the future. Or at least possible outcomes of the future. Kain being here, makes him realize something is different, but he can't quite remember what. He has trouble differentiating between what is a possibility and what is real, leading him to sway between right for the wrong reasons, and completely off base. He seems to believe in the original timeline at the moment, and may leave on a quest for Cecil. Tellah is also amnesic, and can not remember past Anna's eleventh birthday)

Rn4.5 (This world's Anna is kind of Joan of Arc, and Callian’s main opponent, and they will clash more throughout the fic. Callin kind of sees her as worthy adversary, and keeps her alive, but gives her to Kain so she doesnt have to explain it.)

Tellaha informs them they are late, much to their confusion, and they enter the cave. Throughout the cave, they find several potions, and pieces of dark knight armour and a sword . Kain notes he does not have to worry about getting Callin a birthday present now. Tellaha focuses on teaching Rydia thunder and ice spell words, as fire will not be very useful in an water cave. Rydia tells them the smell of smoke terrifies her.

Kain and Tellaha reconsider their plans to have goblin for dinner, in favour of smoked goblin. Then again, fire keeps away Zombies. Kain and Tellaha debate the merits of fire as they continue through the cave.

(RN5: Rosa has a crazily complex family tree that includes, but is not limited too, Tellaha &Anna, Palom&Porem& Sheila[ Yangs wife]. It debatably includes Rydia. Maybe. Callian of course has no idea of this when she sits down and tries to relate to Rosa just how odd this is.)

(RN6: Rosa hates Troians. Troia, in this universe, are the Amazonian-esque city. They are fierce magical archers who steal or entice men into their castle, in an attempt to sire strong warriors. As a magical archer (white) Rosa is often accused of being one, and has grown a tad resentful. It doesn't help that Rosas family is from Mysidia, Barons former close ally [before the attack], who is traditionally rivals with Troia. Kain has huge respect for ninjas, like Callain has for monks )

After a brief rest, Tellah attacks Kain, asking where they are, who they are, and what happened to his daughter. Kain reminds them of the current quest, and Tellah asks where Cecil is. Kain asks who Cecil is, and they continue on through the monster packed cave, to face the Octomamoth. Kain has to keep to the strategy of defending Tellaha and Rydia, and countering the monsters attacks, while Tellaha and Rydia put their lightning based attacks to good use. It's a fairly long and painful battle, but they emerge victorious. Upon exiting the cave, they see an attack on Damcyan in the distance. They go to investigate.

Upon entering Damcyan, they meet Calian at the entrance, with Anna unconscious. Tellaha is out of it. Calian asks if they have seen Rosa, as she has gone missing. Kain affirms they have, and that she has desert fever, and they need a Damcyan person to get a sand pearl. Callian tells him, that although she still feels disturbed with Baron actions of late, she's happy to report, there were fewer casualties, her men were controlled in temperament, and once the tactician was knocked out, resistance fell apart. She believes Anna may be a genius tactician, and brilliant leader.

Upon seeing the tactician Anna, Tellaha attacks Callian, accusing her of being a spooney bard who ran off with his daughter, married her without permission , and got her killed.

Callin tells Kain to keep his companions under control, and get their stories straight. She also insists to Kain she is not a lesbian, and that she better leave if he wants help from the Damcyains. Before going, she tells him she found this among Mist, and gives Kain the bomb item hoping it will be useful to him.

Kain tells Tellaha he was attacking the wrong person, and they should go inside. They see people bringing a either pot downstairs to the wounded, and begin healing them. Rydia and Tellah spend time helping with magic, and Kain uses first aid, and helps with moving people downstairs. Eventually he comes across Edward mourning his mother and father. Kain, having some tact, leaves him alone for now. Once the cleanup is done, they begin moving the bodies Kain comes up, to talk with Edward. (Rosa has had him come on talks to patients families and he and Callian have also done so to their soldiers families). Kain is still quite blunt, but has learned some thing about talking to grieving people. Sorta.

They have a talk, and he manages to convince Edward to both help them get the sand pearl, and warn Faboul, once his kingdom is better. Rosa being a healer is mentioned. Rydia has no outburst. Once a second for Edward is appointed, they go to move out. Tellah yells at Edward asking what he was doing with his eleven year old daughter, and is asked what he is talking about by Edward. The only Anna he met was the glorious savior of Damcyan.

Tellah gets mad and runs off, much to Kain and Rydias discomfort. Finally they set off for the anitolin den. Much to Kains annoyance, he is still the group shield. The Antoilon is not a difficult foe, and after many battles they earn not only the sand pearl, but the elusive rainbow jelly for Edward, who is not going to give this one to Callain.

(RN7 Callain is crazy prepared in some ways. She insists on fighting many monsters with Kain outside of town, to stock up on items & Gil harvester as an ability. She and Cid had airships capable of invading the moon, that were destroyed by the red wings, because they left them with the RW in preparation to invade the moon. She also has oddly convenient timing, and a love of training people, with a dream to fill the bestiary. She buys every weapon, shield, ect. It's why Kain had Goblin on him. )

They then battle their way out of the cave, and take the hover across the shoals. They fight a few battles and get cockatrice summon.

Rydia is pleased. Rosa is revived.

The story goes on, but I haven't moved far past that point.

So some explanations and headcanons to make sense of this verse

Baron is at war with Ebalan. The crystals being stolen and the army, and Callian’s explanation of “foiling a ninja plot” are tied to this. The war started over a catastrophic failure in marriage negotiations.

Rosa is the current heir of Baron. She is tied to the lineage of the throne through her grandmother, a princess who married a mysidian mage, who had her mother, who married a dragoon in Barron. It was a scandalous story back in the day, although it is kept on the down low now that the king has fathered no children, and they are at war. Kain is looked at as the future ruler, because of this. Politics will play a part, particularly during the Fabul castle invasion. Also Rosa needs to be depicted with more muscle please, she wields a bow for crying out loud. She should be soo buff.

There are rumors that Calian is the heir. Callian plays along with this to protect her friend.

Calian is loyal to her friends, but she is also loyal to her country and the people she leads. She is not leaving on Kain’s quest because she intends to take care of the people back home. I wanted to contrast the personal reasons of Kain being an antagonist from cannon, and avert brainwashing. She’s not as blind as she pretends to be, and comes up with some very bizarre explanations to others in the intention to subvert the malice in her orders. She won't be able to look away forever, but in the meantime she can use “alternative explanations” to do things like prevent Mist from being a genocide, or win Damcyan with less casualties ( Anna of Arc was a pretty big factor in this too). The surviving summoners will play a part later.

Who cast the Berserk spell is a small ongoing mystery. (The brainwashing is not contained to Baron)

At this point in the story, Rydia is amnesic, and I tried to include some realistic symptoms of that. She is also under the impression that Kain is her previously unmet Dad, who came for her after her mom died, and does not remember the invasion, probably the trauma from it. The “Kain is secretly my dad” is not revealed until after the Faymarch, because it had no reason to come up, and it's pretty hard to dissuade her of it after she has lived with it for years.

Oh, heres some older notes

-“Honesty, my first attempt went from crack to serious, to crack. Like at the beginning, I decided there's no way the mages should be that easy to defeat, so I decided that a berserk spell had been cast on half of both armies. Of course, it's a pretty chaotic battle between being turned into frogs or pigs , and the fire spells, the mages berserking and everything. So, Calian decides, let's complete the objective, get in, get the crystal, get out.

So once she recalls her troops, she is on the airship, and trying to figure out WTF happened. Of course back home!e, she is responsible, and the king is questioning her competence there. He sends her on a milk run to deliver this ring to some nowhere village in the mountains.

Like in canon, Kain comes along.

Rosa talks to her to try to cheer her up that night.

The next day they go to town. Kain goes shopping, and Callian goes Item hunting. When Kain runs into a crazy dancer fangirl, he jumps off a bridge and finds Calian contemplating a tent in the water.

They decide it would be better to catch a Chocobo. Of course they run into so many goblins there they find a goblin summon. (Ffiv has a ridiculously low drop rate) . Then they set up a tent outside the cave.

The next day, they face the dragon, accidentally kill the summoner. Then they find out the purpose of the ring was to summon bombs on the village. Callin interprets it weirdly...

"It is an Ebalanese ninja plot. I must do what I failed last time and take control of the situation. Command it. Kain, help me evacuate."

So, more villagers survive, but Rydia still summons Titan

The nation of Barron is being taken over by Golbez, who is also possessed. He had the king brainwashed, then disposed of and replaced, and Barron is now making war for crystals of other nations, and bombing the village of summoners, and in cannon Cecil and Kain agreed this is not the king we want to work for. Then they are separated by a magic earthquake, and end up on opposite sides of the mountain. Cecil is left caring for the child whose mother he inadvertently killed, and Kain is presumably taken back to Barron and brainwashed.

In this one , Kain will be with the kid, and Calian will be back in Barron not brainwashed, (yet,) but loyal and willing for the time. She's a capable captain, and as long as she is loyal to home, well someone needs to lead the army.

Like Cecil, she's friends with Kain and Rosa. Unlike Cecil, Kains group dynamic is changed, because I sort of get the feeling that Cecil let Kain brood too much. Like Kain and Cecil were said to be BFF\Rivals, but the game didn't really show it much. There was a love diagram with Kain crushing on Rosa, who was dating Cecil, so I get the feeling that tension was never properly talked out in Cannon, because Kain kind of behaves like a creep towards her when brainwashed, and then apparently stays on a mountain for 30 years post game. Some shit needs to be said here.

So yah, different dynamic here

So Cailan takes Cecil's role at first, being captain of the red wings, Kains Rival, and generally regarded as essential for being a knight. She worked hard to get there, and is pretty competitive. Cecil is still around, and will show up later, as a different person with different teachings.

She is loyal to her home country and her troops, and that will get her into trouble and scapegoat in the long run.”

So Cecil. Here Cecil is still a dark knight, who grew up the apprentice of the wandering dark knight whose armor we find around the game, and is mentioned in Fabul. As an apprentice to someone who the dark knight class is a family style, he has a lot more battle techniques and equipment then in game. He is investigating why there are increasingly frequent monster attacks, and trying to find out why the world is out of balance.

Edward sincerely admires Anna.

Anna and her father have hereditary clairvoyance. It takes a toll on them as they age.

#Random K #Up the down way #Callian Jackson #kain highwind #final fantasy iv #rosa farrell #plotting #plot bunnies #the notes

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ladyherenya · 5 years

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Books read in November and December

Between trying to write a novel for NaNoWriMo and discovering oh-so-addictive Korean contemporary romantic dramas on Netflix, I didn’t read as much in November. But after reading two months worth of books in October, that felt like the right decision.

And then December was busier than I anticipated.

Favourite cover: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making.

Reread: The Girl in Times Square by Paullina Simons (November).

Next up: Miss Bunting by Angela Thirkell.

(Longer reviews and ratings are on LibraryThing. And also Dreamwidth.)

November

When We Were Warriors by Emma Carroll (narrated by Victoria Fox): A collection of three stories about children in England during WWII, loosely connected by an American soldier who turns up in each story. “The Night Visitors” is about a group of London children evacuated to Frost Hollow Hall and I would have appreciated it more if I’d read Carroll’s novel Frost Hollow Hall. I enjoyed revisiting the characters from Letters from the Lighthouse (which I have read and loved) in “Olive’s Army”, and “Operation Greyhound” is about an important issue that none of the other wartime fiction I’ve read has explored: finding safe shelter for pets during air raids.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente (narrated by the author): Even though blogging acquaintances had reviewed this positively, I was still surprised by how delightful and meta it is. It felt, very intentionally and thoughtfully, written in the same vein as the first novels I ever read: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and The Magic Faraway Tree, with a dash of Narnia. Twelve year old September doesn’t have siblings or friends accompanying her into Fairytale and I wondered if that would limit how emotionally invested I became in her story, but I cared a lot about September and her relationships. And the prose is just lovely.

Three Little Truths by Eithne Shortall: This is about the different women living in a Dublin street. I liked the way their lives and stories fitted together. The conclusion has the potential to be bitter, setting women against each other, but is much more forgiving -- and manages that realistically. It makes for a quieter ending, but that isn’t a weakness. Not every story needs to be sharp and shocking. I think having so many characters meant enough time wasn’t given to Martha and her daughters and how they are dealing with the aftermath of trauma. The book could easily have just focused on them.

The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory: Alexa and Drew meet when a hotel elevator briefly breaks down. Afterwards Drew asks Alexa to be his date to a wedding, and a fake relationship quickly turns into a real one, complicated by them both living in different cities. This was okay, which is to say that I enjoyed reading it but don’t feel inclined to spend any more time reviewing it.

The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave: This is darker than Hargrave’s middle-grade fantasy but otherwise it felt very much like the same sort of adventure and even in the final act, when it had clearly turned into a vampire story, I was still expecting that it would have the sort of bittersweet ending her other books have. It doesn’t. Intellectually I can recognise the merit in what Hargrave is doing here. But from an emotional perspective, I found the ending thoroughly disappointing. As a teenager, I would have hated it.

Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett (narrated by Nigel Planer): When Death is, well, fired (for want of a better word), he finds himself a different job. But his absence causes problems for those who die, particularly for Windle Poons, the oldest wizard at the Unseen University. It wasn’t a book where I felt like I really related to the characters. (It was published in between Moving Pictures and Witches Abroad, and I like those two a lot more.) But it was entertaining and had its moments when it was surprisingly funny or thoughtful. I like reading about the antics of the wizards more than I expected to.

Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi: Pablo is working nightshift when pop star Leanna Smart comes into the store. I read most of this, put the book down to do something else... and then never picked it up again. It was interesting, particularly for its portrayal of a teenager who has dropped out of college and is struggling to find direction -- something I think should be explored more in YA fiction -- but I think those qualities which made it interesting also made it a bit too real to be really enjoyable? I don’t even know.

December

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente (narrated by S. J. Tucker): September returns to Fairyland, a year older, to discover that Fairyland has been changed by her previous adventures and that this sojourn is not going to unfold how she’d expected and hoped it would. As a story about changes, consequences, coming back to a place you love and entering adolescence, this is poignant and astute; it resonated with me so much. I also liked its many nods to the portal fantasy I grew up with. But I found some of the landscapes, and the people September meets, less appealing than those in the first book. I’m not sure why.

Notebooks of a Middle-School Princess: Royal Crown by Meg Cabot: I enjoyed this more than the previous two in the series. The focus is on Olivia’s family and friends in the days leading up to a coronation. Olivia’s family is Mia’s family -- after reading all The Princess Diaries books, I care about them, and I continue to think it’s interesting (but also very believable) that Olivia has such a different relationship with Grandmere than Mia does. And I like how Olivia navigates relationships with, and advice from, her peers. She’s got a lot to learn because she’s thirteen, an age where there are a lot of changes, but she’s realistically level-headed.

Warrior of the Altaii by Robert Jordan: Jordan’s first novel was written and sold in the late 70s, but never published until now. What I found most interesting were the differences and similarities between it and The Wheel of Time, one of my favourite series. In terms of the protagonist, prose and plot, it’s very different: its first-person narrator is a already a warrior and leader; the story revolves around why the nomadic Altaii try to take a city; and it’s all over by page 350. But many of the worldbuilding elements are variations on things which are also in WOT. If I hadn’t read WOT, I would have still found the worldbuilding interesting but probably not enough to make up for not really connecting with any of the characters.

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett (narrated by Nigel Planer): I knew about the Discworld series for years and years before I read any of the books and I’ve wondered when I was going to meet Susan. Sixteen year old Susan fills in for her grandfather, Death, after he disappears. Meanwhile Anhk-Morpork discovers “music with rocks in it” I enjoyed watching Susan learn about Death, Pratchett’s parody of rock music was a lot of fun, and the combination of those two storylines means this book isn’t a rehash of Moving Pictures-but-this-time-with-rock-music. However, I didn’t find the final act -- and its resolution -- quite as satisfying as Moving Pictures’.

#Herenya reviews books #Emma Carroll #Catherynne M. Valente #Eithne Shortall #Kiran Millwood Hargrave #Terry Pratchett #Discworld #Mary H.K. Choi #Meg Cabot #Robert Jordan

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academiablogs · 7 years

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In The Face of Change: Defending Remakes, Sequels, and New Retellings

The last weeks of the year were cluttered with the howls of internet drama. Forums and Facebook posts filled with disappointment and rage- why? The Last Jedi is why. The latest installment in the Star Wars movie franchise proved its worth in record breaking sales and glowing reviews, but some fans were… less than pleased with the film. A lot of reasons come up, but it’s usually come down to three things: a different style of plot, a different direction with characters, and a different direction with lore. Different than expected, and unpredictable when compared to the previous seven Star Wars films.

Fan outrage is nothing new (indeed, we could argue that it’s become worse and/or easier to spot with the internet), but the question remains: why are some viewers and readers so adverse to change? Vocal push-back emerged when Avatar: The Last Airbender’s sequel series took a new direction, Star Wars fans never seem to be happy with new additions to the franchise, and every time a remake or new retelling is announced, there is an associated outrage attached.

Sure, we could argue that Hollywood’s run out of ideas, but are we prematurely judging something instead? Some push-back for The Last Jedi has been summarized with the fact that Star Wars is a modern myth or fairy tale, meant to be happy and heroic… And this ignores that folklore and myth was made to grow, and made for us to grow with it.

Let’s talk retellings for a bit. Disney recently started rebooting their animated properties into live action films, earning their share of sighs and groans. Nevertheless, some of these movies have tried to do something unique: Cinderella was a subtler, Grimm’s-based story when compared to its animated counterpart. The Jungle Book film integrated a few familiar scenes from Kipling’s original book- something the animated movie dodged. Maleficent, for all its flaws and silliness, explored a completely new angle of its main character and her relationships with others. Likewise, Disney’s theatrical release of the musical, Into The Woods, turned out to be a morally challenging fairy tale that outright ignored most of their canon.

And these are modifications on their own retellings, but let’s not forget that Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and The Sleeping Beauty are much, much older stories that Disney themselves retold many years back. I often wonder if people in the 40s, 50s, and 60s were rolling their eyes, complaining about more fairy tale retellings? I wonder if they were defensive of the original (much darker) stories now whitewashed for Disney’s growing public?

Likewise, when Disney’s young audiences discovered the original stories, did it change their perception of the movie? I know this happened to me as a child, after stumbling upon some of darker, more violent versions of Cinderella and the original story for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Not only did I find these versions better, I began to resent Disney for missing the original point of the stories.

These days, I still don’t like these movies very much, but… I see why they exist, and what audience they were for. Maybe not for me, but they were for someone. A retelling’s point, I suspect, is to offer incite to the original work. Interpretation and context that may have been missed once, and while we might roll our eyes at the trivial nature of these stories, we forget that the exchange of stories sometimes means those stories change.

Star Wars itself has gone through a few retellings, whether it be deep in the extended universe, which changes every time a movie revises the canon, or in the very tone of each trilogy. The originals came out to a young Generation X, starry-eyed and full of that 1980’s hope. The prequels released to young Millennials, a darker yet sillier galaxy far, far away to open up the franchise (notably, the only PG-13 entry to the prequels released right as most kids turned tween and teenaged. Hmm). The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Rogue One, and the remaining unnamed films are probably, as is the pattern, meant for the young Gen Z. But they’re also for the older generations, who can connect with callbacks through Luke, Leia, and Han Solo, now aging adults with real problems, real flaws, and real shortcomings. Millennials can come in for the dynamic, relatable characters in Rey, Poe, Finn, and Rose (or Kylo, depending on your preference- no judgement). These elements have upset some viewers though, citing that they hate watching heroes fail and act “out of character.” Akin to learning that our parents aren’t perfect, or that or favorite celebrities are awful people.

But isn’t that true of life? Don’t these depths and shades exist? It would be a disservice to Luke or Han if they didn’t change after forty years, because that will be what happens to all of us as well. Perhaps we are resistant to change of quality in a series, but deep down, it’s worth wondering whether we resist it in face of something that’s different, or too honest, for our liking. “Witches can be right, giants can be good,” comes as a lyric from Into The Woods, stating well that our assumptions can be wrong about heroes, villains, and the norm.

One of my favorite scenes in The Empire Strikes Back is when Luke trains with Yoda, and enters the Dagobah Cave to meet his biggest fear. At first, he’s faced with Darth Vader, but upon defeating this phantom visage of a Sith, he discovers that what he truly fears is the evil within himself. This is paralleled in The Last Jedi with Rey, when she enters an undersea cave and faces herself against her greatest fear: her own loneliness reflected back at her for an eternity.

These are incredibly powerful scenes, but also summarize beautifully why we fear change. We don’t just hate that Luke Skywalker is flawed and old, we hate that we now see ourselves in him. We don’t resist retellings and sequels just because of faltering writing, but we resist them for defense of the status quo. We long for the moment when the cave confirms that Darth Vader is our worst nightmare, because anything more challenging will require thought, and inner effort, and reflection.

#amwriting #retelling #fiction #star wars #sequels #the last jedi #tlj spoilers

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tumblunni · 7 years

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I had a weird dream last night that there was like a new sequel comic made by the Bobobobo Bo-Bobo guy and it was calld ‘Blind Nya’ (???) and it was officially licensced by sega and then there was a scene of eggman in Garnet cosplay doing a fusion dance with Don Patch

Also another dream where I was equally convinced that a thing existed, but it was less funny this time and more So Mundane That I Wonder Why I Dreamed This. It was just some sort of anime dating sim that i thought was Ehh kinda average, like i was living in an alternate world where this had been a part of my childhood that was so boring i forgot. I think it was called ‘Goodbye Mayfly’, and in context my dream-mind was trying to remember the word Wallflower, i think? Anyway you are An Anime High School Girl and Date Some Cliche Strait Dood Archetypes. But I think also there was something with a parallel world that was magic?

Like I think I was possibly taking inspiration from the manga Dream Saga Takamahagara (hope I spelled that right) which was actually a very unknown thing that I liked when i was a young kid. (First ever canon trans character I ever saw in anything!) Anyway the plot of that manga is that everyone has a parallel self in a magical mirror fantasy world, and when you dream in our world you wake up there and vice versa. Protagonist was the only one with the power to remember our world when she went to that world, at the cost of not having a parallel life over there so she was totally lost and needed to have her parallel friends explain all the worldbuilding to her. But they didn’t remember her and she had to win their trust again until they awakened as part of the super duper hero team and gained magical girl powers and stuff. then save de world!! Also everyone was lil kids in real world and bishie magical girl/boy type characters in fantasy world, so it had that cool element of ‘wow i wonder what i’ll be like when i grow up and get to have grown up adventures’. (Ha.. ha... kids, the real grown up adventures are just paying gas bills and stuff, don’t idealize us...) And also there was one character whose fantasy world self was a girl and like in the real world she was ‘a boy who wants to be a girl’, and just it was nice to see a trans character explained in rather simple terms for kids, even if also sometimes the portrayal wasn’t 100% perfect. man I wish i could read that story again but its so hard to find the books! i never even got to see what the ending is...

ANYWAY BACK TO THE DREAM So it was a dating sim in that sort of setting, but the mirror world was just a very boring cliche alice in wonderland ripoff instead of the cool desert setting from Dream Saga that combined japanese and indian mythology. And it was just something like you were a princess and everyone else was a prince of a different kingdom and then you had basically the same dynamic as you did in real life high school? So it was just like ‘your choices in real life high school have way more importance and you’ll have an even bigger happy ending’, cos you’d unify some fantasy kingdoms. And then i (sadly) don’t rememember if any of the other princes got to be cool fantasy races or anything, but if I could make this game for real then they TOTALLy would be! Hug your shy and nice ogre boyfriend!! get swept off your feet by the king of bunny boy kingdom! (I am still so pissed that i saw concept art of the Viera race in FF12 as a both genders non sexualized thing, like it makes me even madder to know they wasted a good idea instead of always intending it to be the bad version...) Also I think the game actually had some character customization, and in the dream i was like ‘man this is the only good part of this’. It was kinda basic tho, you just selected from five or so preset appearances for your protag and all of them were white, lol. But it was interesting cos the appearance selection also corresponded to what elemental affinity your fantasy kingdom would have! And you had different kinds of elemental fairy wings. Also i recall that all the selection pictures for the different elements had the protag doing some sort of weird model pose while a lot of terrible ps1 era particle effects floated in the background. Like a non sexualized version of this random character from Monster Rancher: (have a good laugh at the badly translated profiles, lol)

And then like I never got to actually play the game before I woke up? I was just on the character creator screen complaining about how I’d apparantly played it before and I knew that half of the elemental options were essentially unuseable due to bad gameplay balance. Like there wasnt any battle or anything, the element just determined your starting boosts and penalties to social stats you needed to romance all the doods. And apaprantly some stats were easier to gain than others, so certain boosts were essentially useless and certain penalties made the game almost unwinnable. I think I always still picked those broken options tho, cos I was more interested in picking the character i thought looked coolest rather than winning the game. Also all of the dudes weren’t very fun to romance, apparantly! I remember that dream-me was really annoyed about the ‘chair kicking scene’? Like, there was one character who was an immature bully in highschoolverse and then he was supposed to be the super rich and noble prince that’s the best ending in the fantasyverse. One of those ‘oh i was just bullying you cos i liked you’ plots of a jerkass boyfriend who never even apologizes or anything. And the last straw for me was when he kept kicking your chair during class and then lying to get you in trouble when you told the teacher about it. I was like ‘wtf dude, you’re THAT immature? aren’t you supposed to be 16??’ And I think I was mad cos he had turquoise hair and I liked his character design but he was a douche.

Just like how I was annoyed playing Spirited Heart Deluxe cos Frebo has a cool design and is a sarcastic funnyman but then he’s also supposed to be an adult and you’re a teenager and its Creepy. (the damn art style makes everyone look like a teenager, how was I meant to see that coming??) And like yeah, I know that the game keeps going for like six years but there isn’t anything in play to make it so that you can’t marry him until after you’re of legal age and all. And he’s still got a huge age difference even if you wait til the end of the game to tie the knot, and its still a teacher-student thing thats kinda creepy... Oh and randomly I found a site that has pics of all the different job costumes in that game! Good so you can see how awkward it is to try and tell age, cos like your height seems to vary depending on which one you pick, lol.. And while I’m going off on this tangeant I may as well ramble about how its funny that the gay DLC expansion pack had so much of an art improvement that it makes it look weird in comparison. (All those routes were way better written too!) Also I’m still sad that the sequel got cancelled, but its funny how Frebo looks EVEN MORE younger than you! Damn u game why u confuse me with elf dads

#blunni thoughts #this post went in like eight directions

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fandomsandfeminism · 8 years

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a weird and wonderful story, full of odd surreal encounters and wacky nonsense. Despite it's strangeness though, I promise that drugs were not involved in it's production.

To read all of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as a PDF: http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Alice_1st.pdf

Full text version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm

Full text version of Through the Looking Glass: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12/12-h/12-h.htm

Closed Captioning coming soon

Transcript below

Alice in Wonderland isn’t about drugs.

Now, I know that may come as a surprise to some people. It’s pretty standard internet fair to point at Alice, with all the trippy visuals and the mushrooms and the Hookah caterpillar, and declare that it was REALLY all about drugs this whole time, oh ho ho, and Disney made a movie about it!

But it’s not. It’s not about drugs.

I want to talk about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass a little bit today, what they are really about, where this idea of them being about drugs came from, and why I find it to kind of be bullshit.

So, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English novelist Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carrol. The sequel, Through the Looking Glass, was published in 1871. I’m going to focus mainly on these two original books, and not the dozens and dozens and dozens of adaptations and remakes that exist. For the record, both books are in the public domain, so it's very easy to find pdf copies of them on the internet.

Almost every movie version of Alice, including the Disney one, splices together elements and plot points from both of the books, rather than simply adapting one story or the other. It’s not particularly important to know which characters and events happen in each, since they are very often published as a pair anyway. But we’re going to have a quick overview.

In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is a young girl who is in the garden of her home playing with her cat Dinah when she sees a white rabbit in a waistcoat run past, apparently late to an appointment. She follows the rabbit down the rabbit hole and thus into wonderland. What follows is a quintessential example of literary nonsense, filled with word play, puns, and absurdity as Alice works her way through Wonderland.

She eats an odd bite of cake and drinks a potion which change her size. She cries so hard she creates a sea. She recites some poetry she had to memorize for school buts gets it all wrong. She meets a mouse that won’t answer her call in English, so she tries talking to it in French. She wonders if this assumed French mouse came over with William the Conqueror, because Alice doesn’t know much about when things in history happened. They reach the shore where other animals are. The mouse then gives a lecture on william the conqueror and the animals agree to a Caucus race to dry off (Because Alice doesn’t know what a caucus actually is.)

Alice meets the Caterpillar, who seems to speak in riddles, correcting her grammar and not making sense. She meets the Duchess, who yells a lot and seems to ignore her baby. She meets the Cheshire Cat, who again, doesn’t make a lot of sense, and then the Mad Hatter and March Hare. More and more riddles. She plays a VERY silly game of croquet with the Queen of Hearts where the rules don’t make sense and the Queen cheats a lot. She meets a Mock Turtle (a pun on Mock Turtle soup, apparently Alice thought Mock Turtles were an animal). Then the world’s silliest court scene, where everything is unfair and doesn’t make sense, and then Alice goes back home, waking up as if from a dream.

Set presumably about half a year later, in Through the Looking Glass, Alice is playing inside the house with two cats, Dinah’s kittens, when she contemplates the mirror in the room. She finds that she is able to walk through the mirror and back into Wonderland. She discovers a mostly nonsense poem, Jabberwocky, which can only be read if you hold it up to a mirror. She also finds that the chess pieces in the room have come to life. What follows is another adventure in mostly absurdity, though if you know how, you can actually use Looking Glass as a step by step guide for a real chess game. Alice plays the part of one of the white pawns.

She wanders through the garden of living flowers, meets Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, talks to Humpty Dumpty, and eventually makes all the way across the “board” and becomes a queen herself. The Red and White queens throw her a party, and then confuse her with riddles and wordplay. This actually results in Alice physically confronting the Red Queen and “Capturing her”, putting the Red King into “Checkmate” unintentionally, and thus, she wakes up in her arm chair back home having won the game.

Quick recommendation, if you want to get all of the little wordplay and puns and references in Alice and Looking Glass, I recommend the Annotated Alice by Martin Gardner. It’s awesome.

- These books are pretty strange. So, if not a psychedelic reflection about a weird acid trip, or whatever, what’s up with these books? Why are they so weird?

Well, Carrol said he wrote the book after he and a friend spent a day on a river trip with the 3 young daughters of Henry Liddell in 1862. During their journey, Carrol entertained the girls with a made up nonsense story about a girl named Alice. Alice Liddell was so entranced that she told Carrol he should publish it. And so he did. He spent a few years refining the story before it was finally published, and the real Alice got her copy.

So on the surface, it’s just that- a silly story meant to amuse children, a celebration of imagination and childhood silliness.

But there are some underlying themes in these books. The encounters Alice has have a sort of pattern to them- Adults in the books, whether they are the Queen of Hearts or the White Queen, the Duchess or the Hatter, often speak in riddles. They make up rules that don’t make sense and refuse to explain them. The white rabbit is obsessed with never being late, and much of the word play or silliness comes from Alice not understanding adult or unfamiliar concepts (like the Mock Turtle or a Caucus race.)

And so the books become a very silly exploration of how a child, viewing the adult world, might feel confused and lost. Wonderland is Adulthood cloaked in familiar childhood clothes. Nursery Rhymes and game board pieces doing a fumbling pantomime of adulthood, discussing mathematical concepts and latin grammar, through the eyes of a child who doesn’t understand it.

There are many things that can be pulled from Alice- ideas of innocence, of escapism, of identity and sense of self, of intentionally bucking order in favor of disorder. But none of those things are drugs.

(Sidenote: There is a whole other issue about Carrol’s….relationship with the Liddell daughters, and his...fondness for young girls in general. This is a whole separate debate, and it gets kinda messy with contemporary views of childhood and adulthood and whether there was anything...untoward about his fondness for them. But that’s really not what we’re talking about today. )

- So, why do people think this is a story about drugs? Carrol wasn’t known for opium use, or even heavy drinking. He had no exposure to psychedelics (magic mushrooms wouldn't be discovered by Europeans until 1955) So why?

I think the easiest answer is that people want stories to make sense. I want stories to make sense. I spent a lot of money going to college to get a degree in “Making stories make sense.” We want there to be a reason that things happen in stories, and so when a story feels as random and silly and surreal as Alice, we want to figure out what it’s REALLY about.

This is kind of the underlying idea behind surrealism in general- creating art and meaning out of the absurd and random images of dreams and unreality. [Side note, there is an edition of Alice with illustrations by Salvador Dali, which is...amazing.]

And thanks to the culture of the 1960s and 1970s, there is a heavy association between reality-bending images and drug use, especially hallucinogens. And depending on which adaptation you are looking at, some movies really play up this trippy psychedelic aesthetic for Alice.

But I think there’s another level to this one, and one that I find much more grating. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is a story for children, especially for girls. And there is a certain segment of the population, especially among young adults on the internet, who really seem to enjoy taking things aimed at children and declaring NO, this thing isn’t for kids, it’s actually FOR ME, and slapping an edgy dark interpretation on top of it, however sloppily.

Fan theories like...Ash is in a coma all along, or all the Rugrats are dead and Angelica is just imagining them, and...yeah, a huge slice of the Brony fandom declaring that adult men are the real audience, they aim at appropriating and co-opting child media for adult consumption

And there’s something about that which leaves a sour taste in my mouth over all. - I don’t think there’s anything inherently bad about reimagining child stories in more adult ways. But I do think it somewhat misses the point when people begin to insist that these mature reimaginings are the CORRECT or more valid interpretation, especially if they lead to the exclusion of children from that media space.

With Alice in particular, I think the story gives adult readers a chance to empathize with children, not as dolls or objects of cuteness, but as people interacting with a confusing and strange world as they grow up. It is an opportunity to revisit childhood, with all it’s familiar characters and uncertainty and wonder, and rather than corrupt that story, I think it should be embraced.

I’m going to leave you with the end of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s adult sister, having heard her story, lays back, and herself begins to dream, of Wonderland and of her sister Alice. And This is what it says, “Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

And that is what Wonderland is about.

Thanks for watching this video! I’ll see yall down in the comments, so if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions, head on over. If you enjoyed listening to this queer millennial feminist with a BA in English ramble on for a while, feel free to subscribe.

#Alice In Wonderland #Alice's Adventures In Wonderland #lewis carroll #feminism

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