princesssarisa reblogged
apples trees in winter snow
princesssarisa reblogged
The first four options are options mentioned within the novel. Him being Black or Irish are common speculations in the critical literature on the novel. “Him being from Gondal” is a jokey stand-in for all the speculations regarding Heathcliff being some sort of a supernatural creature or from being an imaginary land.
I made a similar poll last year but I am doing it again.
I voted for Romani because that’s how most of the other characters seem to view him, but the Gondal answer was tempting.
princesssarisa reblogged
pulling this link from a longer post because
as Big Bird argued the Egyptian Pantheon into letting a child ghost into the afterlife that one time
is in fact exactly what happens and we should all know about it
I'm now reading another of Heidi Ann Heiner's fairy tale collections. Sleeping Beauties: Sleeping Beauty and Snow White Tales from Around the World. Since I enjoyed Cinderella Tales from Around the World so much, I couldn't resist opening another of Heiner's books.
The first part of the book is devoted to the different international versions of Sleeping Beauty, the second part to the different versions of Snow White. This is followed by other tales of "sleeping beauties" that don't fit nearly into either category.
We start with the medieval Sleeping Beauty prototype tales from the 13th and 14th centuries.
*The earliest known prototype of the Sleeping Beauty story is the Norse and Germanic legend of Brynhild (a.k.a. Brunhild, Brunhilda, Brünnhilde, or other variations). This legend first appears in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the Volsunga Saga from 13th century Iceland. It also appears in the German Nibelungenlied (although that version doesn't include the enchanted sleep), and its most famous modern adaptation is in Richard Wagner's four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. The figure of Brynhild also inspired the Marvel superheroine Valkyrie.
**The Sleeping Beauty-like portion of the legend is this. The beautiful and strong-willed Brynhild is one of the valkyries, the warrior maiden servants (and in some versions daughters) of Odin (or Woden, Wotan, etc.) who preside over battlefields and bring the souls of fallen heroes to Valhalla. But Brynhild disobeys Odin by saving (or trying to save) the life of a warrior who was marked for death. (The man's identity, why he was meant to die, why she defends him, and whether she succeeds in saving him or not varies between versions.) As punishment, Odin banishes her to the mortal realm, pricks her with a "sleep thorn," and places her in a castle (or just on a rock) surrounded by a ring of fire, condemning her to sleep until a man brave enough to venture through the flames arrives to wake her and become her husband. (In some versions, she has attendants and servants who all sleep along with her.) Many years later, the fearless hero Sigurd, or Siegfried, succeeds in passing unharmed through the flames and wakes Brynhild by cutting off her valkyrie armor (or in later retellings influenced by Sleeping Beauty, with a kiss). The couple doesn't live happily ever after, however: their further adventures and eventual tragic fates are a story for another day.
**Even though it's a well-known fact that in "the original Sleeping Beauty stories," the prince (or his counterpart) impregnates the sleeping heroine and she wakes after she gives birth, no such thing happens in this earliest proto-version. If we assume that this really is the Western world's first tale of a heroine in an enchanted sleep, then it seems as if that sordid detail was a later addition.
*Next in Heiner's book come several medieval French Sleeping Beauty tales, mostly from Arthurian romances. These are the tales where we first see the motif of the heroine's love interest raping her in her sleep and fathering a child. Since few of them have ever been translated into modern English, the book simply summarizes them instead of printing them in full.
**The best-known of these stories, which most resembles Sleeping Beauty as we know it today, is the tale of Troylus and Zellandine from Le Roman de Perceforest, an Arthurian romance from 14th or 15th century France. In this tale, a knight named Troylus loves a princess named Zellandine. Then learns that while spinning, Zellandine has suddenly fallen into a deep sleep, from which no one can wake her. With the help of a spirit named Zephir and the goddess Venus, Troylus enters the tower where she lies and, at Venus's urging, he takes her virginity. Nine months later, Zellandine gives birth to a son, and when the baby sucks on her finger, she wakes. Zellandine's aunt now arrives, and reveals the whole backstory, which only she knew. When Zellandine was born, the goddesses Lucina, Themis, and Venus came to bless her. As was customary, a meal was set out for the three goddesses, but then the room was left empty so they could enter, dine, and give their blessings unseen; but the aunt hid behind the door and overheard them. Themis received a second-rate dinner knife compared to those of the other two, so she cursed the princess to someday catch a splinter of flax in her finger while spinning, fall into a deep sleep, and never awaken. But Venus altered the curse so that it could be broken and promised to ensure that it would be. When the baby sucked Zellandine's finger, he sucked out the splinter of flax. Eventually, Zellandine and Troylus reunite, marry, and become ancestors of Sir Lancelot.
***This tale provides some answers for questions that the traditional Sleeping Beauty raises. In the familiar tale, the king, the queen, and their court know about the curse, so why do they keep it a secret from the princess? Yes, they avoid upsetting her by doing so, but the end result is that when she finally sees a spindle, she doesn't know to beware of it. Why not warn her? And why is there a random old woman in the castle, spinning with presumably the kingdom's one spindle that wasn't destroyed, and why, despite living in the castle does she not know about the curse? (It's no wonder that most adaptations make her the fairy who cursed the princess in disguise.) Yet in this earlier version, there are no such questions: no one except the eavesdropping aunt knows about the curse, because it was cast in private, so no one can take precautions against it. Another standout details is the fact that Zellandine's sleep doesn't last for many years, and that the man who wakes her already loved her before she fell asleep. Disney didn't create those twists after all!
**The other medieval French Sleeping Beauty tales are Pandragus and Libanor (where Princess Libanor's enchanted sleep only lasts one night, just long enough for Pandragus to impregnate her), Brother of Joy and Sister of Pleasure (where the princess isn't asleep, but dead – yet somehow the prince still impregnates her – and is revived by an herb that a bird carries to her), and Blandin de Cornoalha (a knight who, refreshingly, doesn't impregnate the sleeping maiden Brianda, but breaks her spell by bringing a white hawk to her side).
*All of these early Sleeping Beauty tales are just one part of bigger poetic sagas. Maybe this explains why Sleeping Beauty is fairly light on plot compared to other famous fairy tales (i.e. we're told what's going to happen, and then it does happen, and it all seems inevitable from the start). Of course one argument is that it's a symbolic tale: symbolic of a young girl's coming-of-age, as the princess's childhood ends when she falls asleep and her adulthood begins when she wakes, and/or symbolic of the seasons, with the princess as a Persephone-like figure whose sleep represents winter and whose awakening represents spring. That's all valid. But maybe another reason for the flimsy plot is that the earliest versions of the tale were never meant to stand alone. They were just episodes in much longer and more complex narratives.
princesssarisa reblogged
SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)
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People in real life question me because of my Aşk-ı Memnu obsession. They ask me why I am not obsessing over a better novel. And I can’t say anything.
The thing about this obsession of mine is that it sits uncomfortably between a guilty pleasure and a legitimate respectable interest. It is too good and canonical to be just a guilty pleasure that I too can make fun of, I can pursue (and am pursuing) this interest academically. But it is also too frivolous and not quite “high” enough that people can be a bit baffled about my interest in it. The problem is that I don’t want to be apologetic about my interest in it, I think it is legitimately a good novel, and a novel about which I can make valuable contributions to the literature.
But of course my interest in it is fannish and it is incredibly intense. And most people probably hide their intense fandom interests in their real lives. But in this case I am both an obsessed fan in every sense of the word and a person who wants to study this. Do you see the problem? I made my guilty pleasure hobby and what I want to write about academically the same thing. I put all my eggs in one basket. I confused work and play.
Edit: And there is also the dumbness of writing my observations that I want to write academically about on social media.
I feel the same way about all the things I obsess over. You're not alone.
princesssarisa reblogged
Schneewittchen, 1961
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I always stood my ground when it comes to the Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass stories. I am certain and I will defend that they are NOT fairytales, despite a mass-culture effort to consider them as such just because they want to lump together all children fiction as farytale (plus Disney's influence of course).
Thinking about it, I recently realized that I can sum up the situation perfectly by creating a triangle with two others works. The Alice books - Pinocchio - and the Oz books.
The Alice books are not fairytales, "modern" fairytales, fairytale fiction or fairytale fantasy in any way. Pinocchio, on the contrary, is what I will call for this post "fairytale fiction", and as such stands as an oposite of the Alice books. (And Oz stands in the middle between the two, I'll come back to this later). [Note: I want to precise that I am a HUGE fan of both the Oz and Alice books. I love them. So I am not saying that negatively, on the contrary, I want justice for them to be recognized as what they are.]
What makes Pinocchio a "modern fairytale", a "fairytale novel", a "fairytale fiction"? (I do not call it "fairytale fantasy" because I keep this term for fantasy works that are primarily fantasy but rely on fairytales for inspiration or motifs, such as the Narnia books, Tolkien's The Hobbit or movies like Legend or the Last Unicorn) One, the book was intended by its author to be a modern fairytale or a new fairytale. Two, the book reuses fairytale structures and archetypes. As simple as that. The Alice books, on the other hand? They were never intended to be "fairytales" and never refered to as such by their author.
Not only that, but these books lack any type of fairytale structure when it comes to the plot or narrative. In terms of structure, half of these books are to be ranged into the "allegory" genre, the "metaphorical journey" - for example Alice Through the Looking-Glass is actually a chess match, a chess game that has been narrativized and word-built to produce a children book. The other half is simply the genre these books hailed, heralded, symbolized: nonsense. The Alice books are one of the most famous displays of Carroll as the master of "nonsense". Because nonsense is a genre in itself, and the first Alice book for example, the Wonderland one, is a nonsense plot. A dream-like journey through a bizarre otherworld solely guiding by the reversal of human norms (everybody is insane, that's the normal), the twisting of what children are taught at school (Carroll playing around with everything children were given to be "equipped" in life and how it would seem absurd to them when confronted with a child-like pragmatism) and the literal application of the kind of philosophical and metaphysical questions children would be faced with. Alice in Wonderland is a "nonsense philosophical" story - in France we have a genre matching the "fairy tale" (conte de fées) which is the "philosophical tale" (conte philosophique), most famously represented by Voltaire's works. Alice in Wonderland is a nonsense philosophical tale, not a fairytale.
Yes, the world Alice encounters is filled with talking animals, magical royalty, and other monsters... But they are not fairytale archetypes or even "types" at all. And that is where things are interesting. Because too many people forget what the worldbuilding of the Alice books is, what the "rules" for creating the worlds Alice visits are.
Yes there are bizarre creatures - but they are creatures born out of puns. The Alice worlds are words of wordplay - Carroll created half of his characters simply by playing on the several meanings of a same word, or by breaking down in a literal way a common name, or even by applying expressions in a pragmatic way. Remember: the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are simply Carroll deciding to use two common sayings about madness as literal characters.
Yes, there are talking animals - but they're not out of fairytales. They are out of NURSERY RHYMES. And there's a big difference. In fact, while I refuse to call the Alice books "fairytale fiction" I do recognize their nature as "nursery rhyme fiction". The Queen of Hearts, Humpty Dumpty and many more were straight up lifted from nursery rhymes, and the entire books rely on the memorizing, parodies and twisting of the nursery rhyme genre.
Finally yes, there is magical royalty, but they are just caricatures of the real-world. The Alice books are meant to mock and caricature the society they were created into - such as how the Red Queen of Through the Looking-Glass is meant to embody strict rules children had to learn and those harsh nannies obsessed with etiquette and how nonsensical the rigid politeness could be. Quite a handful of the characters Alice meets are simply references to real-life people (starting with the Dodo which is Carroll himself, or even Alice herself who is the fictional version of the girl the story was meant for) - and if people did a bit of research they would find that Carroll wrote quite a bit about the intended personality of the characters (he notably described extensively what kind of "person" the White Rabbit was supposed to be).
So... The Alice books are nonsensical philosophy for children, and a comical caricature of society, and a nursery rhyme fiction. But they are not "fairytale fiction" or "fairytale inspired" in any way. Unlike Pinocchio which does deserve its fairytale status, and is an emblem of what fairytale fiction is.
I promised you some Oz so here's my stand... The Oz books started out as a fairytale fiction comparable to Pinocchio. When Baum wrote his first Oz book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", he explicitely intended it to be a modern American fairytale able to rival with European classics. The novel reinvents several fairytale archetypes (such as the witch, the talking animal, the wizard), and applies a certain fairytale structure to its narrative. When Baum wrote a sequel to this book, when book 2 of Oz came out, "The Marvelous Land of Oz", Baum kept it a fairytale fiction. We still had a fairytale structure, a fairytale motif, and fairytale archetypes. This second novel was much more extravagant and bombastic (because it was actually created as a tie-in with the Oz stage extravaganzas Baum had created, hence the "dramatical" and "theatrical" nature of this second book), but it stayed fairytale fiction. And the same can be said of book 3.
However, by the fourth book (Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz) onward, Baum, who was fed up with Oz and only continued because he needed money+ audience pressure, dropped the "fairytale fiction" and rather turned the Oz series into basically something similar to the Alice books. He didn't do full nonsense like Carroll but he did two things that made these books "American Alices". 1) He dropped fairytale-narratives like (go on the quest to kill the witch, go on the quest to obtain your wish, undergo this journey to free the trapped royals) for an absence of real plot similar to the Alice books. Stories start randomly, characters find themselves in a new place for no real reason, they travel through bizarre lands, encounter excentric characters, return home at the end. And that's it. Baum didn't bother with a plot anymore since he knew what kids wanted was just see more of this world and that was it. 2) Over-reliance on punny worldbuilding. This is one of the greatest feature of the "late" Oz books: to create his world, Baum massively uses (if not excusively) puns and wordplays, from which are born entire lands and people - thus making it very similar to the Alice books where the Wonderland and Looking-Glass lands precisely exist to warp language.
As such, this is why I consider the Oz series to stand perfectly between Pinocchio and Alice - it started out as a fairytale fantasy similar to Pinocchio, and then it drifted to a "nonsensical childhood marvel fantasy" a la Carroll's Alice.
princesssarisa reblogged
people say folks with adhd struggle with "delayed rewards" aka long term goals and as such we tend to focus more on short term rewards. what they don't talk about is that at when we Do accomplish long term goals we don't actually feel anything proportionate to the amount of work we did to achieve it. In my head I suffered for a while and then money spontaneously appeared in my bank account.
princesssarisa reblogged
please make every effort to vote <3
Voter suppression is a real problem!! I know so many people in real life that are LGBTQ and or left leaning irl that seem to think theres no hope and dont bother to vote! Its insane!!
princesssarisa reblogged
Concept art for Lady and the Tramp (1955) by Joe Rinaldi
Source: scurviesdisneyblog
princesssarisa reblogged
Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #12
March 29-April 5 2024
- President Biden united with Senator Bernie Sanders at the White House to review Democratic efforts to bring down drug prices. President Biden touted his Administration’s capping the price of insulin for seniors at $35 a month and capping the price of prescription drugs for seniors at $2,000 a year. Biden hopes to expand both to all Americans through legislation next year with a Democratic congress. The President also praised Senator Sanders' efforts as chair of the Senate Health Committee which has lead to major drug manufacturers capping the price of inhalers at $35 a month. “Bernie, you and I have been fighting this for 25 years,” Biden said “Finally, finally we beat Big Pharma. Finally.”
- The White House gave an update on its actions around the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster. The federal government working with state and local governments hope to have enough of the remains of the bridge cleared to partially reopen the Port of Baltimore by the end of the month and have the port working normally by May. The Administration has already released $60 million in emergency money toward rebuilding and promises the federal government will cover the cost. The Department of Labor has released $3.5 million for Dislocated Worker Grants and plans up to $25 million to cover lost wages. The Small Business Administration is offering $2 million in emergency loans to affected small businesses. The Administration is working with business and labor unions to keep workers at work and cover lost wages.
- Vice-President Harris and EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced $20 billion to help finance tens of thousands of climate and clean energy projects across the country. The kinds of projects that will be financed through this project include distributed clean power generation and storage, net-zero retrofits of homes and small businesses, and zero-emission transportation. 70% of the funds, $14 billion, will be invested in low-income and disadvantaged communities. The project is part of a public private partnership so for every 1 dollar of federal money, private companies have promised 7 dollars of investment, bring the total to $150 billion for ongoing financing of climate and clean energy projects for years to come.
- The Department of Transportation announced $20.5 billion in investments in public transportation. This represents the largest single investment in public transit by the federal government in history. The money will go to improving and expanding subways, light rail, buses, and ferry systems across America. The DoT hopes to use the funds to in particular expand and improve options for public transport for people with disabilities and seniors.
- The Departments of Energy and The Treasury announced $4 billion in tax credits for businesses investing in clean energy, critical materials recycling, and Industrial decarbonization. The credits till go toward 100 projects across 35 states. 67% of the credits ($2.7 billion) will go to clean energy, wind, solar, nuclear, clean hydrogen, as well as updates to grids, better batter storage, and investments in electric vehicles. 20% ($800 million) will go to to recycling things like lithium-ion batteries, and 13% ($500 million) to decarbonization in industries like automotive manufacturing, and iron and steel.
- The Department of Agriculture announced $1.5 Billion in investments in climate-smart agriculture. USDA plans to support over 180,000 farms representing 225 million acres in the next 5 years move toward more climate friendly agriculture. 40% of the project is reserved for disadvantaged communities, in line with the Biden Administrations standard for climate investment. $100 million has been reserved for projects in Tribal Communities.
- The Department of the Interior approved the New England Wind offshore wind project. To be located off Martha’s Vineyard the New England project represents the 8th such off shore wind project approved by the Biden administration. Taken together these projects will generate 10 gigawatts of totally clean energy that can power 4 million homes. The Administration's climate goals call for 30 gigawatts of off shore wind power by 2030. The New England Wind project itself is expected to generate 2,600 megawatts of electricity, enough to power more than 900,000 homes in the New England area.
- The Department of the Interior announced $320 Million for tribal water infrastructure. Interior also announced $244 million to deal with legacy pollution from mining in the State of Pennsylvania, as well as $25 million to protect wetlands in Arizona and $19 million to put solar panels over irrigation canals in California, Oregon and Utah. While the Department of Energy announced $27 million for 40 projects by state, local and tribal governments to combat climate change
princesssarisa reblogged
Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #13
April 5-12 2024
- President Biden announced the cancellation of a student loan debt for a further 277,000 Americans. This brings the number of a Americans who had their debt canceled by the Biden administration through different means since the Supreme Court struck down Biden's first place in 2023 to 4.3 million and a total of $153 billion of debt canceled so far. Most of these borrowers were a part of the President's SAVE Plan, a debt repayment program with 8 million enrollees, over 4 million of whom don't have to make monthly repayments and are still on the path to debt forgiveness.
- President Biden announced a plan that would cancel student loan debt for 4 million borrowers and bring debt relief to 30 million Americans The plan takes steps like making automatic debt forgiveness through the public service forgiveness so qualified borrowers who don't know to apply will have their debts forgiven. The plan will wipe out the interest on the debt of 23 million Americans. President Biden touted how the plan will help black and Latino borrowers the most who carry the heavily debt burdens. The plan is expected to go into effect this fall ahead of the election.
- President Biden and Vice-President Harris announced the closing of the so-called gun show loophole. For years people selling guns outside of traditional stores, such as at gun shows and in the 21st century over the internet have not been required to preform a background check to see if buyers are legally allowed to own a fire arm. Now all sellers of guns, even over the internet, are required to be licensed and preform a background check. This is the largest single expansion of the background check system since its creation.
- The EPA published the first ever regulations on PFAS, known as forever chemicals, in drinking water. The new rules would reduce PFAS exposure for 100 million people according to the EPA. The Biden Administration announced along side the EPA regulations it would make available $1 billion dollars for state and local water treatment to help test for and filter out PFAS in line with the new rule. This marks the first time since 1996 that the EPA has passed a drinking water rule for new contaminants.
- The Department of Commerce announced a deal with microchip giant TSMC to bring billions in investment and manufacturing to Arizona. The US makes only about 10% of the world's microchips and none of the most advanced chips. Under the CHIPS and Science Act the Biden Administration hopes to expand America's high-tech manufacturing so that 20% of advanced chips are made in America. TSMC makes about 90% of the world's advanced chips. The deal which sees a $6.6 billion dollar grant from the US government in exchange for $65 billion worth of investment by TSMC in 3 high tech manufacturing facilities in Arizona, the first of which will open next year. This represents the single largest foreign investment in Arizona's history and will bring thousands of new jobs to the state and boost America's microchip manufacturing.
- The EPA finalized rules strengthening clean air standards around chemical plants. The new rule will lower the risk of cancer in communities near chemical plants by 96% and eliminate 6,200 tons of toxic air pollution each year. The rules target two dangerous cancer causing chemicals, ethylene oxide and chloroprene, the rule will reduce emissions of these chemicals by 80%.
- the Department of the Interior announced it had beaten the Biden Administration goals when it comes to new clean energy projects. The Department has now permitted more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy projects on public lands, surpass the Administrations goal for 2025 already. These solar, wind, and hydro projects will power 12 million American homes with totally green power. Currently 10 gigawatts of clean energy are currently being generated on public lands, powering more than 5 million homes across the West.
- The Department of Transportation announced $830 million to support local communities in becoming more climate resilient. The money will go to 80 projects across 37 states, DC, and the US Virgin Islands The projects will help local Infrastructure better stand up to extreme weather causes by climate change.
- The Senate confirmed Susan Bazis, Robert White, and Ann Marie McIff Allen to lifetime federal judgeships in Nebraska, Michigan, and Utah respectively. This brings the total number of judges appointed by President Biden to 193
princesssarisa reblogged
Ashenbank woods near Cobham, England by Simon Bolton
You've probably seen this on your Cinderella deep dive already, but it's likely that the Grimms included the Aschenputtel version of Cinderella in their collection because how it echoes two ancient Germanic folklore motifs: the Ash-lad and the Volva. The Ash-lad is a variation on the "simpleton" hero motif, where he's a lazy, assumedly dimwitted youngest son hated by his family, but who then goes on to achieve amazing feats. Volvas, also known as Hellerune in Old English and Hagzissa in mainland Germany, were ancient seers and magic-workers. Their magic became even more potent when dead, and in mythology even the gods would call them up from their graves to question them as to the past and future. Notably, Cinderella's wishing tree sprouting from her mother's grave mound echoes a medieval Ash-lad story found in the poem Grogaldr, where the Ash-lad Svipdag, abused by his stepmother, cries atop the grave of his dead mother, a powerful witch. She proceeds to give him nine charms, with which he goes on a quest to find a fairy princess. In so many variants of Cinderella, the emphasis is on the tree itself. But in Grimm's version, which cherry-picks to emphasize the "Germanic" elements, the emphasis is on the grave mound the tree grows from, thus drawing a connection between Cinderella's dead mother and the dead witches of yore.
I had never heard of any of this until now. Thanks sharing.
