The mermaids that gathered usually in the Blue Lagoon had taken the day off, apparently, and were nowhere around as the netting pulled him deeper and deeper underwater. He had bragged that dying would be the biggest adventure yet, but perhaps he had been too arrogant, too caught up in never growing up, never surrendering to be afraid.
Now that the water filled his lungs as he reflexively breathed, visions swirled around his mind. They were regrets. A girl, Wendy Bird, was there. She had loved him, but he had been unwilling to give his heart back to her. There were boys there, boys that looked up to him. He could have treated them better. He could have showed them where their marbles were. He knew, after all, that they were hidden away in an attic somewhere. He knew all of this, but he had been too busy never growing up!
Peter thought of the little blonde nymph that also loved him. She had been the jealous type, and Peter had thought that was cute. But she died for him, didn’t she? He knew in these last moments that growing up wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened to him, it was not living because he was actually living in the worst kind of fear. He was so afraid that he might grow up that he had spent his entire life not paying attention to the things around him. He knew he should have been nicer. He should have slowed down. He should have played more!
The mermaids were long gone today, and Hook’s trap had worked. Hook. Why had he cared so much what that man thought? Instantly, Peter remembered something he had stowed away in his forgotten memories. Hook was really his father. His father wanted him to grow up and be a pirate like him. Peter had forgotten this just as he had forgotten who his true parents were, but now it all came flooding back. Then why did Hook set this trap for him? He would never live long enough to find out he know. And Schmee, good ol Schmee. Schmee was also a boy once, and a boy Peter himself had truly loved. But he, too, decided it was best to grow up.
Perhaps Peter couldn’t give his heart to Wendy because he was still in love with Schmee. The facts never lie, and his thinking was slowing down. He was dying. All around him was going dark. The last of his thoughts were like vapors, dreams, unimportant remnants of times long gone. Soon, he would be completely gone as the water spread throughout his body’s capillaries, and he would have completed his greatest adventure yet.
As he lost consciousness a light shone above him and a hand he couldn’t feel reached out to pluck him from the water.
So, I think Im gonna do a retelling of Snow White next! In the meantime, I have some links to go along with the story I will be hopefully retelling soon.
As usual, I have to say that these are amazon affliate links, and I get a small commission from buying from them. I will post the price as of today, August 30th, 2022.
The first one are these great cabinet locks! They will keep whatvever small creatures you don’t want getting into your cabinets. They are currently 19.99 as of 08/30/22.
The second thing is this set of bird hooks, for when you still want to talk to your birds, but you are tired of having birds in the house! They are currently as of today, 08/30/22 34.99!
And this is also perfect for you bird lovers. Its a dish soap that drains into the sink!
This will really cut sown on some cleaning time, and snow white only has so many hours in the day for cleaning, you know. And that is 15.99 as of today, 08/30/22.
Ariel swam to the surface. She had been told many times by her father and her father’s crab henchman, S, to stay away from the surface, from people. “They are evil fisherman who want to hunt us and put us on display”.
She had heard this her whole life, and yet, she longed to be among them. Longed for it so bad her fin hurt.
Atlantica was a bustling city where merchants would come and sell their wares, and her father, Triton owned the biggest mercantile outlet in the whole city. He was basically King there, and he acted like it. This Saturday was his birthday, and in true Triton fashion, she was asked to perform. She had a wonderful, some say the best voice, within the city of Atlantica. But honestly, Ariel was stressed to the max. She had to perform this weekend, but she also had a billion other things she had to do before she started Ocean Mermaid University in the fall.
Not to mention taking care of her garden, her human garden. It was where she took care of all of the human things that fell into the sea.
To lower her stress levels, Ariel often liked to go up to the surface and watch the people on the ships. She had to be careful and should only do it at night! Those silly humans didn’t have night vision like she did.
On the boat she was spying on was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. The human had long, dark hair, and the most gorgeous brown legs she had ever encountered. She longed to touch them but also to be them. She imagined caressing all the different parts of the legs. She looked up at the human creature and nearly gasped, the creatures face was the most breathtaking thing she had ever seen. Large hazel eyes, and a huge smile that lit up the face. The human was laughing at something; Ariel was enraptured, and it broke her heart because she knew she could never in a million years get close to the creature. Instead, she went to her human garden and fell asleep.
She awoke hours later when her best friend Flounder the fish, because mermaids can talk to all of the sea creatures, of course, came in a panic.
“Ariel, Ariel, Ariel! You gotta go! Your father’s big birthday celebration! You’re late!”
Ariel, also panicking, grabbed her performance attire and swam to the pavilion in which it was being held. It was actually a restaurant that Triton owned. And she was to sing a jazzy piece that night, but when she arrived, she was too late. Everyone was gone but her father who sat at a table with his head down and holding a glass of the best ocean shine this side of the West Coast.
“I’M SO SORRY DADDY” Ariel let out in a rush.
“I’ve been studying for my Ocean SETs and I completely fell asleep.”
Her father only looked down at his glass and chuckled sadly but said nothing.
“Where is everybody? Am I really that late? Can we call them all back? I’ll call them back!”
“No, Ariel, we can’t CALL them all back. I sent them home. I had one request from you! One! And that was to entertain these people tonight. I had invited my friends, my collogues, and colleges that wanted you to go there for your voice. Zeus Damn it, A. What were you thinking? This party wasn’t for me tonight. It was for you! Your future is important, and all you want to do is moan about the humans. That’s why, right now, as we speak, Sebastian is destroying your little “garden”.”
Ariel looked aghast.
“ Yea, I know about it. Everybody in the kingdom knows about it! You keep little human trinkets and collect them. It’s disgusting. It’s gross. It’s sick, Ariel, and you need help. Those men murder us every day, and you build a SHRINE to them. That’s no daughter of mine.”
Ariel bites her tongue so as not to cry, although she can feel the tears welling up behind her eyeballs. He has a point. Humans do fish, and they do at least try to catch mermen, but she knows within her heart of hearts that there is more to the story. They are just misunderstood!
“That’s why, I’m getting you help.” As he says this he nods and waves his hand over.
Suddenly two eels are wrapping themselves around her. “What do you mean, help? Let me go, you eels! Help, stop!”
“You need help, Ariel. You need more help than I can give.”
He nods his head and looks down as the eels drag Ariel out of the door.
She screams and screams as they drag her away, but the last thing she sees before a dark bag is thrown over her head is her father looking down at his glass.
The eels drag her to the darkest and coldest part of the ocean, and only then do they remove the hood. She is being pulled down a hallway. Each room has a door with a window. Inside are sick mer people. Very sick. They are withered and gray looking. That’s when she realizes where she is. She is at the sanitarium nicknamed the “Sea Witch’s Cottage” because of the horrible things that are done to people by an octopus doctor so evil, she is referred to as a witch.
At the end of the hall she is drug into a room. The octopus doctor is there looking at a clipboard and sitting at a table. She looks up, her eyes are cold, but her mouth is smiling.
“Ah”, she says, “you must be the sweet princess, Ariel. I am Doctor Ursula, and you are here to be lobotomized.”
The room spins. This really must be a mistake. Her father would never do such a thing. She actually isn’t entirely sure what lobotomized even means, but if it is anything that what’s been done to those sick people, she doesn’t want any part of it.
She struggles as she is strapped to a chair.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, this is much less painful than electric shock therapy. Your father says you are sick and you need help, and it is my job to give you the help you need.”
Ursula pouts like she is looking at a sick puppy.
“Honey,” she says, “you are addicted to people -watching and collecting human things. It’s not your fault. It is a sickness, sweetheart, but we are able to fix that here, aren’t we, Lotsum, Flotsum?”
The two eel henchmen giggle in response, still tying Ariels arms to a chair. Ariel tries to keep calm and think. But she can’t. Thinking under pressure was never her strong suit. She is almost in full panic mood, but Ursula is calm, so very calm. She begins to get things out of a bag and put them on the table. They are horrible things that look like torture devices.
Ursula has been talking this whole time, but Ariel cannot really hear her.
“You know, I am doing this as a favor for your daddy. He helped me back in the day. He helped me start this clinic, and sometimes I deal with people who owe him money. Well, he sends me the people who owe him money for me to play with, I mean straighten out, so I guess I do kind of owe him. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have a wonderful place to store my own collection.”
Suddenly she gets a look in her eye, a gleam if you will.
“Wait, do you want to see? Oh, I know you do! From one collector to another, what was I thinking?”
She goes behind the chair Ariel is strapped in and begins to push. She pushes her out of the door, and down the hallway.
“Let me give you a little tour, honey, before I erase your brain. It is so rare that I get anybody down here who still has the capacity to understand the work I do here. It would be so nice to share for a moment. You see, I, too, had a little obsession with the humans for a while, but not so much because I liked them, but more because I was fascinated with them! And their legs! That’s why I started collecting them. See?”
She points to the cases lining the walls and sees jars. She sees things inside the jar, and almost pukes when she realizes what’s in the jars. Legs. Human legs. All different kinds and sizes.
“H-h-how,” Ariel sputters out.
“Well, simple really, ship wrecks. Those things wreck all the dang time! And I get to collect the legs. Sometimes the people, but most of the time, just the legs. Although I do have one little surprise for you! I think you might like it. Have you ever met an actual human?”
Suddenly she is rushed into a room, and there, floating in a tank is a human. Not just any human, but the one from the ship. The one with the long dark hair, hazel eyes, and beautiful long legs. The one she didn’t know if she wanted to be or kiss. That one. The human is suspended in the tank with some kind of air mask on.
Ursula pushes Ariel closer. “Isn’t it a beauty? Came off a shipwreck in last night’s storm. It’s taken me awhile to perfect this tank with the air mask. Turns out, humans don’t live very long without their precious oxygen. It’s taken several specimens to get this just right, but now that I have, what do you think? This beats your human collection, doesn’t it?”
“W-W-WHAT are you going to do with it?”
“Well, I was thinking about trying a new experiment. How would you like to have legs, girl?”
Ariel simply stares back at Ursula, in complete shock.
“Oh, I’m just kidding, your father would kill me! But I am thinking of trading the next poor unfortunate soul’s fin for her legs. What do you think? Honestly, it might take a few tries. I should probably collect a few more specimens.”
Ariel is speechless and somewhat a little drugged from a sharp pinprick she had felt at the beginning of her journey down the hallway. Her eyelids become heavier and heavier, and soon there is nothing but blackness.
She wakes up later. It could have been hours, minutes, days, or months later. She really has no idea, and she is strapped to the bed.
A nurse is taking her vitals. At least that is what the nurse says she is doing. Ariel thinks one thing as she is drugged back to sleep, and that is she must save the human from the tank! And then they must get out of here.
Somewhere on land, a dog, Max, and a man, Grimsby, were on a mission, a mission to find the Princess, Princess Erica. The last they saw of Erica she was on ship, and that ship went out, and did not return. So, now, the dog was on a mission to find his master, and Grimsby was on a mission to find his ward. He believed beyond belief that Erica was still out there, and he was determined to find her with the dog’s help.
Back down below Ariel was still strapped to the bed, but she had not lost hope. In fact, she was growing stronger. Apparently, Ursula wanted to keep her around for awhile before her lobotomy. She wanted guests, she said, and since Ariel would be brainless after surgery and Ursula, for some reason, enjoyed Ariel’s company, (Maybe because they both had human collections, albeit very different collections.) Ursula was keeping Ariel around to be a guest, and every day Ariel was there, she was treated as such. She was awakened in the morning and brought to the breakfast table to dine with Dr. Ursula. It was horrible. It was like an underwater mad hatter tea party with rotten fish involved. Because that’s what Ursula liked to eat, rotting fish. Luckily, she also had some sides of seaweed that she liked to eat with her rotting fish, so Ariel had a little something to eat. One day, Ursula had crab, but it reminded Ariel too much of her father’s henchmen to even try to take a bite.
Her plan was simple; befriend Ursula, gain her trust, and then break the human out. Or simply figure out how to break the human out and do that as soon as possible.
“How is the human, doing, Auntie”? She had also begun calling Ursula “Auntie” at Ursulas request.
“Oh, my pet,” she continues to chew on her food with her mouth open, savoring every morsel. “Well, she might die soon”.
“Die?! What? No! Auntie!” “I just don’t know if she is going to live through the operation today, I mean this is my first try at fin/leg swapping. Who knows how it will go. I don’t want to get my hopes up, or your hopes up. I know you are fond of her. Oh, don’t look at me like that. I see the way you look at her!”
“H-H-HER? It’s a her?!”
“Do they not teach you anything in MER school? Ugh, yes, the human is a female, like you. In fact, how would you like to show her around after she receives her fins?”
“Wh-wha-what do you mean?”
“After I swap her legs for fins. She’ll need someone to show her the ropes, and that could be you.”
After breakfast that day, Ariel drew up the courage to break into the room where the human was. She was lovely, and Ariel swam up close to get a good look at her. She stared and stared, and as she stared those big, lovely human eyes popped open and stared directly into Ariel’s. They simply stared, and it felt to Ariel in that very moment that the thing she had been missing her whole life had just fallen into place.
But then the human started struggling and Ariel remembered the nightmare that she was in at the moment. The human was clearly pleading for Ariel to help. She pounded her hands against the window and thrashed back and forth. Ariel didn’t know what to do. She could hear singing coming down the hallway. It was in the Broadway style Ursula love to belt in. She was singing about her next poor unfortunate soul she was going to experiment on. It sounded like she had her next specimen, and she was coming to prep Erica for surgery!
Max had found the scent of Erica on the floating ship wreckage, and he had begun to bark and bark. Grimsby was at the wheel, and he quickly threw down the anchor and got on the dingy boat. He would search in the small boat in hopes that he would find Erica floating on a piece of the wreckage from the boat. He had no way of knowing that he would not find Erica there because she was deep underground in an Atlantica Sanitarium being prepped for a fin leg transplant!
Ursula entered the room with her assistants and begun to snap orders for prepping. She was in such a good mood she continued singing. Ariel, hiding in the closet was waiting for the right moment to attack. When Ursula had gotten the human sedated and was just about to cut into her legs, Ariel picked up the oxygen tank and conked her on the head. She went out pretty easily, and then Ariel grabbed a scalpel and held it out to the assistants. They did not put up a fight, and she picked the human off the table. The oxygen tank had come undone when she used it on Ursula, and Ariel knew from her human history class that humans without air would die in about three minutes.
To get to the surface it would take humans more than five minutes to swim out of the hospital and up unto the surface. Luckily, mermaids are much, much faster than humans. And lucky for this human, Ariel was one of the fastest swimmers in the ocean. As quick as possible she hauled the human onto her shoulders and began to swim away, but they were snapped back by some of the wires and cords the human was attached to. That was the first few seconds’ delay. Ariel quickly undid the cords and swam into the hallway. It would take another 30 seconds for Ariel to figure out how to get out of the hospital. With less than two minutes to go, she had to get to the surface. Ariel didn’t have time for doubt. She swam as fast as she could to the surface. Without a second to spare she reached the surface, but the human did not gasp for air when she got there. She still laid limply in Ariels arms with her eyes shut.
“Come on,” Ariel begged. “Please, breath, come on”. She said a prayer to Poseidon and saw nearby drifting floating debris. She raced to it and threw the human up onto it. She began to cry. Once she saw that the human really was not going to wake up she began to sing, for that is what mermaids do for their dead. They sing for their dead to help ease their journey into the afterlife. As she was singing, she felt a tentacle reach around her waist and pull her back down into the ocean.
Grimsby and Max heard a splash and saw a fin go underwater. It could have just been a reflection of the sun. The sun was always playing tricks on sailors’ eyes, but there, floating on a board was a human, Erica! Grimsby hurriedly rowed to her. They could see from where they were that she was unconscious. As quickly as Grimsby could he began doing CPR. Within a couple of seconds, she coughed out water and opened her eyes.
“Oh, we found you! You’re alive!” Grimsby hugged and Max licked Erica all over. She had been found.
“I have been found, yes, but,” more coughing fits exploded from her mouth as she spoke, “I have to go back! I have to save the mermaid!”
Grimsby was aghast! “Mermaid! How preposterous! Mere folklore. There’s no such thing as mermaids, my girl. You must have had a dream or something.”
Princess Erica knew she hadn’t had a dream, but she was easily gas-lit, and thought that maybe he was right. There was no way that she had been captured by an evil Octopus doctor and held in a tank and force fed fish through a feeding tube through an oxygen mask. That simply was not possible. So, Grimsby must be right. There was no mer people, but then why did her heart sink as she climbed on board from the small dinghy boat unto the big ship waiting.
“It’s time to go home, Erica. It’s time for you to pick a husband so that you may rule your kingdom.”
“Once again, G, I am not marrying a man. I’m gay. Women only for me.”
“Fine, fine, woman, man, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are married. The people require their leaders to be married to a mate. It makes them feel more secure knowing that their leader is in a stable loving relationship.”
Ursula’s grip on Ariel was too strong. She was a very strong octopus, and Ariel put up the best fight that she could, but in the end, she found herself back in Atlantica’s Sanitarium strapped down to a bed.
“Well, since you made me lose my human, girl, it’s your fin I shall be taking. You’ll get your wish after all, although you might not like it. I am going to make you human! I’ve found another human from a ship wreckage. Your father won’t like it, but well, he doesn’t own me, now does he? Should we do the lobotomy or the fin switch first! Hmm… the lobotomy would be easier. Yes, let’s do that one”.
Ariel looked around and realized no one was coming to save her. This was really going to happen. She was going to have her brain scrambled and then have human legs attached. Something she had dreamed of doing for so long, but not in this way. This was horrible.
“On second thought, “Ursula mused, “let’s do the leg fin switch first!
“Lotsum, Flotsum, bring in the victim, patient, whatever.”
They rolled in another human who was clearly sedated. This human looked very, very similar to Ariel, so much that she could have been her twin, but Ariel did not recognize her. She breathed a small sigh of relief that she didn’t.
After the surgery, Ariel wiggled her toes. They felt good. A little unnatural, but good. She could still breath underwater which was good. She couldn’t say the same for the human who hadn’t survived the surgery. Ursula was right after all, and the human had died. The fin did not take, and the human passed peacefully while sedated, at least.
“There is only one thing left to do, Ariel. Are you ready for your lobotomy?”
“Please, please, I’ll do anything you want. Please just do not scramble my brain. “
“Ok,” Ursula said, “what do you have that I want?”
“Nothing, but I’ll be your slave, or do anything!”
“I really do not need another slave, but I could use your voice. I mean, your vocal chords. Can I have those?”
Ursula promised to let Ariel go after the surgery. She promised she could go to the land and find her human. She would have promised Ariel anything and Ariel would have believed it, because she had, in fact, already had her lobotomy, and this entire thing was a fiction in Ariel’s mind. Everything had happened exactly the way it happened except the last part. Ursula had no use for vocal chords, but Ariel would sit out her days in her room now dreaming up different scenes in her mind while sitting and drooling in the corner of her room. Part of her brain was missing, and the human was on land, and no one was coming for Ariel. She would spend days and days in this fugue state.
Many days and months passed with make believe fiction in her mind until one day there was a loud explosion outside her door and the door came down. It was a human in a scuba suit. They grabbed Ariel and hauled her to the surface. From there, she was brought on board a big ship.
“Hi, I’m Captain Scuttle,” the captain said, “and you are safe now.”
“SAFE,” she said, “I’ll never be safe again. Half of my brain is gone. How did you find me?”
He chuckled. “The princess wouldn’t shut up about you. As captain of her army, she pretty much ordered me to go and find you! And don’t worry, your brain will grow back. Turns out mermaid brains grow back.”
“H-H0W do you know that? Ariel asked
“Your father Triton told me! You didn’t think your dad would have let her lobotomize you if it was permanent, did you? No, he said he just wanted to teach you a lesson, but when he found out Ursula turned you into an underwater breathing human, he wasn’t happy about it or Ursula. He had me kill Ursula as punishment and after a lot of conversing, decided that it was best for you to live on land since you have legs now. He still doesn’t like humans, but he figured you would do better on land than in the ocean. Just know, he did scour the ocean to see if anyone could reattach your fin. Ursula saved it, but no one could reattach it. So, because of that, he felt like he had no choice but to let you go.”
“How did you even know where to find my dad?”
“Your fish friend Flounder. He sought out Princess Erica on her ship and after many strange attempts we figured out he was trying to talk to us. After that, we followed Flounder down to your father’s place! Boy was that a surprise. A whole mermaid village under the ocean! Princess Erica tried to tell me about you but I didn’t believe her until I saw the underwater kingdom for myself. Now, please, go say hello to the princess.”
Ariel looked around, and there standing at the helm of the ship was the beautiful human she had previously saved from the ocean. “Princess?” Ariel asked in disbelief.
“Princess Erica.” He answered Ariel. He saw the way they were each looking at each other. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
Once alone, Ariel cautiously approached the human.
“Princess Erica?”
Erica embraced Ariel. “I thought I would never see you again, and I don’t even know your name!”
“It’s Ariel, my name is Ariel.”
And with that, they kissed, and after a very, very short courtship were married, since the people of the land truly required their leaders to be married. They lived happily ever after as Queen and Queen.
The End
For now
Per amazon’s guidelines I must disclose that this is an amazon affiliate link, so I will make a small commission if you buy through the link. Also on the date of posting, which is 8/22/22 the price of this swimsuit was 27.99
Hello everyone out there in Cyberland! It’s me again, Margaret. I know it has been a Very long time, and while I may not have been updating, I’ve never forgotten you blog!
So I decided it was time to get back into this thing (kind of). By that I mean, I’ve started an art series that centers around Disney princesses, and I wanted to share.
So here is part 1 in “A Series of Princesses”
Let me know what you think (unless you don’t like it, in which case, you can totally just hang onto that thought for yourself).
The story of Sleeping Beauty has been around for a little while. The earliest version, (that I could find) was Perceforest, dating somewhere in the 1300s-1400s. So, like a lot of fairy tales, it has lots of different versions and was at first passed down orally. The famous fairy tale writer, Charles Perrault wrote a version in 1697. Here I have written a very, very short version of Sleeping Beauty.
I heard Maria Tatar, a leading expert on fairy tales compare the Kardashians with a modern day fairy tale. Here is the article with the interview http://www.onbeing.org/program/maria-tatar-the-great-cauldron-of-story-why-fairy-tales-are-for-adults-again/transcripthttp:// The reason for this was because of constant competition between mother and daughter. That is a very common theme in fairy tales. Oftentimes mothers would compete or be jealous of their daughters. And unlike what Disney would like us to think, it wasn’t always a step parent. That was created to make the story seems less harsh. The idea of a story where a parent doesn’t love their child seems too cruel for children. Stepmoms or dads dilutes this cruelty.
In the vein of fairy tale elements, The Kardashians are prime examples of this. Maria Tatar also talked about how fairy tales change over the years based on what the collective thinks of as a threat. Fairy tales involve the darkest fears we have. Sometimes we defeat them, and sometimes we don’t. When Grimm fairy tales were just being put together, the woods were an actual threat. Although some people believe that the wolf trying to eat Red Riding Hood is a symbol of some kind of darker sexual metaphor, wolves really were a threat at that time. The story warns people not to go into the woods alone because dangers like wolves were literal. Even the story of Haesel and Gretl personifies a possible real danger. In some parts of Europe, famine would be so terrible that desperate people would abandon or sell their children. There are even reports of starving people kidnapping and eating children because they were the easiest pray.
With time, cultures and people’s fears of threats change. For instance, Maria Tatar gave the example that we are no longer trying to defeat the wolf, but rather we’ve befriended it. In the show Grimm, the main character did just that. Grimm’s most trusted and loyal ally is the infamous big bad wolf. Modern day fears have involved to suit the times.
Shows like Game of Thrones highlight the conflicts between people. The characters on that show are often put in the circumstance of living their greatest fears. These fears may seem fictional to the viewer who knows that dragons aren’t real. The idea of winter coming is a prime representation of the possible impeding misfortune that some of us often feel is just around the corner.
Another very real fear that people everywhere are dealing with currently right now is civil rights, the equal and fair rights of every one. The right to marry who you want affects every one, in some way. The fear of truly being yourself is universal.I think the fear of not being loved or accepted is truly a worse fear. I know that I’ve felt it. The LGBT community has it pretty rough in terms of legal rights and protection. At a time when gay marriage stirs up hot emotions from both sides, being transgender can be a really scary thing to do for so many reasons. Friends and family could leave you. Depending on the state you live in, you could lose your job or literally have no protection against unfair treatment because there aren’t a whole lot of laws out there to protect you. Or worse, you could be physically harmed in a hate crime.
At a time when this is a major fear and danger comes Caitlyn Jenner, once called Bruce Jenner , the stepfather to the Kardashians who underwent the transformation and has today, or yesterday now, emerged as Caitlyn Jenner. She’s beautiful and lovely and brave. Despite the possibility of being scrutinized, hated, or made fun of, she rose to the challenge to be who she really wanted to be. She fought off the fears and has become the person on the outside that she always was on the inside. Now that’s a modern day fairy tale with a happy ending.
Everybody knows who Calamity Jane is right? Well if not she was a famous frontierswoman who rode around with Wild Bill Hickok. She supposedly fought a lot of Indians and was this great adventurous woman. She was also pretty much in love with Bill Hickok. And it is debatable about whether or not he loved her back. (How Sad) Also she may or may not have made up all the stories about herself. Including where she got her name from. This is the story of where she got her nickname. I’m taking it straight from Wikipedia.”It was during this campaign [in 1872–1873] that I was christened Calamity Jane. It was on Goose Creek, Wyoming where the town of Sheridan is now located. Capt. Egan was in command of the Post. We were ordered out to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded. When on returning to the Post we were ambushed about a mile and a half from our destination. When fired upon Capt. Egan was shot. I was riding in advance and on hearing the firing turned in my saddle and saw the Captain reeling in his saddle as though about to fall. I turned my horse and galloped back with all haste to his side and got there in time to catch him as he was falling. I lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him safely to the Fort. Capt[.] Egan on recovering, laughingly said: ‘I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.’ I have borne that name up to the present time.”
The photos you see here are of Calamity Jane played by Melissa Henry. A huge thank you to Melissa for being a part of this. Melissa is an actress, improviser, comedienne, and a licensed real estate agent. You can find Melissa here.And without further ado, I give you Calamity Jane.
About a week ago it was the 25th anniversary of Disney’s The Little Mermaid. As a child this was always one of my favorite Disney cartoons. (Although I never owned that one on VHS for some reason…) But anyways, recently I was thinking about the character of Ursula and her origin story.
For those of you who do not know, the original story of The Little Mermaid is not as quite as happy as Disney’s version. The princess Aerial wants to marry the prince, not just so that she can be human, but because Mermaids do not have souls. When they die, they become the foam of the ocean. So Ariel has about three days to make the prince fall in love with her, and if she doesn’t not only does she lose her chance at having legs. She loses her chance of having a soul. In the original story, her prince falls in love with some other walking biped, and she dies in the end, returning to the foam of the ocean. OH, it’s sad.
However, in the original tale, Ursula is not so evil. In fact, she’s pretty impartial. She does help Aerial get to land, but she doesn’t trick the Prince into falling in love with someone else. He did that on his own. So, I recently took a portrait of myself as Ursula, and then I found out that it was the 25th anniversary! How fortuitous!
There was quite a bit that went into the making of Ursula in the Disney cartoon, and I can’t find the website that I was reading last week that went into details about it. If I can find it, I will post it later, In the meantime, here is my rendition of Ursula, the sea witch goddess.
Hello, and welcome back. Or rather, I guess I should be welcoming myself back. It’s been quite awhile. So much for posting a photo everyday! My schedule got a little too hectic for that .And I had a death in the family, so this blog sort of got put on the back burner.
But here I am again, trying to get back into the swing of things, trying to remember what was so damn important about stories that I wanted to dedicate a blog to in the first place. And honestly I haven’t been thinking about it that much. When I took a break from it, I really did take a break from it, mentally, and physically.
However, on most of my days off at home, I do end up thinking, what character do I feel like today? Whose story can I most relate to? A few weeks ago, the Goddess of the Underworld was stuck in my head. I did a little, itsy-bitsy research (Wikipedia) and discovered that what I remember from 7th grade English class is pretty much the same story.
Here is the short version for those of you who are not familiar with this tale. Hades sees Persephone playing in the meadow, or something super maiden-y like that, and decides to ravage her and take her down to the underworld.
Now Persephone isn’t just your run of the meadow maiden, she’s also a goddess. She’s the daughter of Zeus, and Demeter, the harvest goddess. So when young fair Persephone goes missing, her mamma is not too happy about it. She pitches a big fit to Zeus and says that she will freeze the earth over if she cant have her daughter back.
So Zeus is like, woah, there, Nelly, we need food and stuff, don’t be getting all crazy. Why don’t you go down and talk to Uncle Hades (because ZEUS called Hades Uncle for some reason that goes way back to a game of uncle when they were kids)
So Persephone’s mamma goes down there and tells Hades a thing or two, and he was gonna have to do what she said except for one thing……Persephone ate two pomegranate seeds from a pomegranate in the underworld. And everyone knows that if you eat the food down there, you are stuck for all eternity (or unless someone comes and gets you)
So Persephone kind of screwed that one up, but somehow good ol Papa Hades (that’s what all the kids are calling him) made a deal with the mom anyways. Every 9 months she must stay with him in the underworld, and then the three months left in the year are spent above ground. When she arises from the underground, she brings spring with her.
So there is the abridged story, and the photos I bring to you are representational of Persephone and her time spent in the underworld. It was actually very hard for me to let these images go up, as i couldn’t decide if I was 100 percent ready to part with them. But the perfectionist part in me would never have let me post anything ever. Therefore I am posting them. Please tell me if you have any thoughts about the photos reflecting the story? Do you think it complements it well, and if you think it doesn’t, then by all means please tell me why you think so.
And one more thing, I guess the “why it’s important” part. Some days I think bah, I’m simply adding whatever meaning I want into a tale, legend, fable, etc, etc, and therefore giving it more power. But no, I think these stories give US power. Lately all I’ve wanted to do was escape, and I think Persephone has some escaping themes. You could probably pull out all kinds of lessons, allegories, and what have you from it. But for me, it was simply about escaping. Persephone gets to escape the world for nine months out of the year. Sure it may be dark down there, but I hear Hades treated her pretty well. And I heard she could throw a killer party whenever she was so inclined. Or was that Eva Brun? Oh, another tale for another day. Adieu
Stories and Stuff 