There Are Worse Things to Be than a Disney Princess

My hair was strawberry blonde when I first bleached it. Why I thought bleaching hair a few inches short of my ass was a good idea is a mystery. Not-so-great decisions usually accompany periods of increased anxiety. I kept it in a braid so it was less obvious how much of a calico blonde I was.

The second time I dyed it, I got most of the darker red out and started using purple shampoo. In case you have no clue what the hell that is, purple shampoo is formulated to deposit pigment that takes the brassy red out and neutralizes all warm tones. Cooling it makes it a more silvery rather than yellow blonde. My nephew's friend started calling me Rapunzel. Yup, blonde hair, braid, got the reference.

This time, I went full attack. Full cover bleach, pure white toner. Sigh, okay, toner is also a 'huh?' for some people. You add a chemical toner to a weaker developer and it does much the same thing as the purple shampoo. Whatever default a dye leaves you in, a toner will repigment it where you're aiming. You can get these in all ranges of colors, they foam up like shampoo and you leave them in for maybe a half hour.

Anyways, it's Elsa. I've gotten many compliments... From kids. Because my hair is mostly snow white and trapped in a loose braid with those tendrils that don't stay in the braid. I wasn't really aiming for that, but I got comfortable with the braid over the past few months and I'm not out to avoid it simply because Disney hijacked it.

I used to dye my hair damn near crayon red and I got 'Little Mermaid' or 'Ariel',  the first if that person was trying to seem too mature to remember her name.

8 year old me would be psyched. I would memorize Disney songs then run outside to sing them with my friends. I'm not going to pretend to be embarrassed simply because PC groups want to turn being a Disney princess into an anti-feminist or white inclusive fantasy. Nor do I care that it's sometimes considered an insult, since I'm a 37 year old woman so shouldn't I grow the fuck up?

Here's the difference. It's not what I set out to accomplish. I found my first white hair and rather than mourn it like most people would, I was ecstatic. I wanted to go platinum! It's not my attempt to recapture youth. It's my attempt to embrace aging. Braids aren't just a young girl thing and it can't be helped that I have a young face. I'm not mortified by the princess comparisons.

I'm an artist. Comparisons are how people have always tried to break me down and if I let it get to me, I wouldn't have pursued anything. Creative pursuits are open season for critics that, even if they could do what I did or might have even done it better, still can't do what I do. Sometimes, all you have to back up why you do what you do is that you don't for yourself. While I don't owe everyone that story of my first grey hair or the braid, I'm well aware that no matter if I do or don't give them the long or short version (if I don't shrug them off entirely), people tend to fill in all the blanks or take their own creative liberties. In fact, the more thorough my story, the more likely the person is to be suspicious that I'm lying to cover up my real goal of looking like a Walmart Disney Princess, because why not also throw in that I'm always wearing pajamas if I'm not in a work uniform.

Crazy world we have, where people are so adamant about redefining what girls should want to be. Just the other day I saw this winner:

Sigh... Even though, yes, overwhelmingly, the princess trend took off. But it wasn't forced on us and some of us even played with our brother's GI Joe's without our parents smacking them out of our hands. My generation did have a lot of princesses, but we also had Wonder Woman, She-Ra and Xena Warrior Princess. We had plenty of strong women characters but princesses were more popular to young girls begging for toys.

What irritates me is this idea that women would be more like men if we were allowed to be. In truth, sexuality and identity is neither that oppressed nor that fluid for everyone. Some people know they're straight or gay pretty clearly. Some people know which side of gender roles they feel more comfortable in. I mean, it does suck for the rest of us that aren't so neatly in those comfy niches, but part of what drives me isn't expecting a niche to form for me. It's my ability to adapt, to carve little dimples for other wanderers to find peace with being different.

Every little girl won't want a general either. Don't discount the princesses nor forget the value of warrior princesses. We can't lose masculine and feminine entirely. Those are someone else's comfort zones. I'm not out to take those away from people just because I'll never have a niche like that. Transsexual men and women often find comfort in the polar opposite sex to the one they were born into. Regardless of how you feel about their appropriation or adoption of gender roles, reducing all humans down to what is appropriate (rather than harmless choice) is not the solution anyone could think it is.

Of course people will bend what is good into something twisted and foul. Setting up unreasonable 'safeguards' doesn't really make it harder for predators to find a way. Desexualizing women role models doesn't make rapists forget that women have vaginas. What message really needs to get out there is that what is typically considered masculine or feminine is not a cage for boys or girls. People will judge and people will attempt to define things for everyone's (no one's) benefit but it's also okay for those roles to exist.

Some of the harder issue lie in Latin American culture, where the superiority and inferiority of masculine and feminine is hardwired into the language so much that we're getting the Latinx label so that neutrality doesn't create labels to assume such gendered ranks. I don't pretend to understand this entirely, but yes, culturally, North Americans have the most wiggle room in these gender politics. Everyone in the world wandered here to escape some form of oppression, yet the divisions aren't so easy to whittle down. Here, we're carrying all of those biases and still clinging to some shitty old cultural baggage.

It's not easy, deciding where princesses and warriors and generals fit. In my own experience, those types don't wait for permission--they go with their heart, their guts and their instinct and make their path. Pretty or gritty, she'll find her way.

Crazy Rich Asians: Everything I Love about Asian Drama

Movie reviews aren't my shtick. At one point, I would have called myself an anime/manga otaku and I still love a good solid Korean drama (or Taiwanese, Chinese, Japanese... They're rife with heart), but movies are often a rare treat for me.

With this one, there was the PC hype. There was also the low key dissing about how it only covered the glorified rich culture of Singapore and excluded the everything else.

I have to assert that all of it was missing the point I got out of it.

Rachel Chu enters the scene, beautiful, down to earth, smart, knowing nothing about the man she loves, Nick Young, where his family is concerned. But we see her, the economics professor, dishing out a lesson in human psychology that will come to a head later. There will be spoilers...

We then see her meet up with her enamored boyfriend, a man who never gives us the impression that he's hiding much, even by omission. He's not doing it for her own good or even his. He looks at her like she walks on water but we see time and again how they always seem to know how to catch each other. It's mesmerizing to watch without ever seeming sappy or overly perfect. We see a man who takes this woman seriously, yet knows how to enjoy his life with her.

She probably seems like she's walking into his invitation to his cousin's wedding completely blindsided, but even when she realizes things are much bigger than she thought, we are also reminded that she knows people. There's no tearful shouting of being lied to, because she shows a resilience to all that comes her way, both with emotional honesty and critical adaption. She's not made of steel and her eyes become liquid with her feelings but she doesn't wilt.

Before her introduction to the illustrious Young family, she visits her friend Peik Lin where they first drop the bomb on just what she's stepping in. She doesn't panic--she is even game for Peik Lin's risqué new-money fashion closet when Peik Lin calls her simple red dress a good choice for the Little  Mermaid's Sebastian.

I'm not going to analyze scene for scene so I'll skip to some other key points.

Meeting Eleanor's mother gave me the dread that this woman might be like every other Asian drama rich-mama and be a passive aggressive bitch. Michelle Yeoh could definitely pull it off, but she never quite got that dirty. Instead, we see a woman who both wields old traditional beliefs and the heart of a woman who never was quite fully accepted by her husband's mother. She seems as if she might become petty, but she doesn't push, only stands her ground, an element we also see in Rachel. Rachel never makes the mistake of trying to meet this woman on her level. Instead, she takes a cue from Peik Lin and finds her own way to the front. It isn't malicious or petty either. She leaves the cold spots and stokes the warmth instead.

Astrid is one of my favorites of the bunch. Despite the snooty careful way she carries herself, she immediately shows a sort of adaptable kindness too. Her husband Michael seems like a lucky man, but instead, we see his insecurities try to push Astrid into believing he cheated on her because she is too perfect. She doesn't take the bait. She not only shows she is a real human being, but she tells him that he is a coward and she can not make him into a man. She tells him their home is his, but as far as their child goes, the child will be the one to decide how much his father is a part of his life. She does not leave broken, even though we know she loves him no less. She takes out a pair of the earrings she hid to conceal her wealth for his sake and puts them on calmly, a light of self-possession in her eyes.

There are no heroes or villains, even though it is ultimately a love story, we see real people. Beyond all claims of destitution or wealth, we see people who navigate through it, some tempted and shallow, some oblivious and wise, but the strengths and weaknesses we see only make it more obvious that we would be foolish to judge anyone. These people grow and change, for better and worse.

It is the mahjong scene after Rachel makes up her mind to leave that brought on the waterworks, because here we can sense that Rachel is about to show his mother Eleanor her full bloom. It is an honest scene where Rachel is both teaching and learning, a way to show both the honesty of her character and the reason why she has every right to gift the world with the profession that makes her happy. I wouldn't say she plays Eleanor like a fiddle at all. No, this is where she reaches in to understand Eleanor even as she gives her softness. She needs no walls because all is left on the table. As she shows, there is no winning when it hurts the one you love.

I won't give up my thoughts on the ending. It all culminates into the big finish and I wanted to stand and clap through the veil of happy tears. While many critics will pick at the cultural aspects or revere them, I've never pretended to know enough about Asian culture to go that route. I've simply been enamored by the cultivation, the spectrum, of humanity through entertainment. I adore and loathe some aspects as an outsider who can quite easily and honestly say that I am never opposed to the interpretations of lives I haven't lived. I could never speak for white people, women, asexuals, etc. though I'll borrow the labels from time to time when I think they might shed understanding, avoiding them otherwise. I don't need to be Asian to appreciate the beauty of this movies, both in the story and the wonderful cast that brings it home.

Crazy Rich Asians is a must-see. If you want funny, emotional, interesting, smart and never a dull moment, it's all here. No movie, no matter how it tries, will ever be able to encompass every cultural aspect. This is, on the surface, a Cinderella story. Beneath it is a tapestry of humanity. People with the requisite personalities that are ever subject to the growth and change of life.

See it.

Coming Up With Fantasy Names

The easy answer? Name generators, the many many baby name dictionaries...

However, that's always the patronizing one, isn't it? It doesn't show much consideration for the deeper aspects of why a name resonates, why an original name can make all the difference, in fantasy especially.

So what are you looking for? Here are some of the basics I consider while hunting for a name:

• Meaning: even if you want a wholly original name, you might want to consider combining names with cardinal meanings. I use names meaning flame and rain in UnSung (Aiden and Talia). If they had a child, I might name it Aylia or Talen, some variation of combination. It doesn't have to be so cutesy an arrival, but combining can give you the aesthetic base of a name that is still uncommon without being nauseating.
• Regional consideration: this can also combine with racial/cultural difference but if you have vastly different people, you may consider distinctions in preferred sound and language. Commas might become a cultural trend. Warlike tribes might favor harsher consonant sounds while scholarly cultures might embrace the cadence of vowel sounds.
• Unconventional: in certain cases, names are not loving or considerate. A street urchin may have a common name or one akin to an object, even a nickname. Goblins might get names with odd compound word combos (Nobcorn or Henpeg-- just play with it). The more you can distance it from Earth culture, the less you have to suspend disbelief.
• Accent marks: I'll throw out a name like Kvothe. Most people won't say this 'right' but then most authors are fine with that. (It's something along the lines of lines of keh-vohth, but a quick transition between the kv and just a hard 'o'. The e is ignored). If there's some insistence on a pronunciation, accent marks can be a good guide, but you'll have to remember to type it every time. Accent marks may present formatting problems since not all fonts support or display them properly. You can also use conversation, someone teasing how it's said deliberately or something along those lines. PRO TIP: if you already have a uniquely spelled name, you can control/command-F to find it, then Find and Replace the unaccented name with the accented version. Unless you're a natural at the keyboard shortcut for accents, this will keep you from breaking the flow in drafting and save time in editing.
• Test: even once you find one you think you like, test it out loud. Names are rarely actually said in natural speech. Names are more for introducing or getting their attention, scolding or teasing.  You'll use descriptions more often to direct who is speaking and to whom. I've gotten sick of a name I thought I liked or something just didn't sit right once used a lot. Remember though, that in real life, people often have unsuited names so you can poke fun at that too. He might not 'feel' like a Bob, but he just is.
• Common: nothing wrong with Bob, John, Karen, Ann or Sue. Except the presence of a great deal of common names tends to disinterest readers. If your main character is lamentably just regular earthling Joe, then his trip to a fantasy world with Celestyne, Van'Hanara and Jekoura stands out. Even his attempt to nickname them Tina, Hannah and Joe to simplify would be interesting (and rejected as absurd to them).

Look at the many colorful examples of languages already available. English is one language where 'consonant clashing' happens. Languages like Japanese are heavy on the flowing vowel sounds. Kleb sounds abrupt, yet Kaleb softens it tremendously. Women's names are often light chains of vowels. Men's names tend to end in rough or final consonants. Many names that don't follow this area gender-neutral where they originate-- or it's a masculine choice in one region but heavily feminine in another.

Remember, when you set the norms for your world and regions, you can also set the name outside of convention to use as part of the conflict or development of character. I know it's not chronologically organic (worlds exist before the people shaped by it) but a writer often benefits most from creating out of order. I personally tweak worlds and characters alike to ultimately fit the story. Yes, it can be a massive edit to tweak worlds and characters for that purpose but I also feel it's up to me to struggle for what I think is best for my work.

It is worth it to follow your own rabbit hole here but I hope this brings up some helpful points to consider. Sound has a mood, a meaning, an intent, so I get why people struggle to convey what they mean when they ask how to pick a name. They don't need the lazy pseudo-intellectual assholes with their Google-send solution. They're looking for the visceral connection a name bears on the character itself. 

Aw, hell, why not end on some color porn combo fun? From Encycolorpedia, I give you Rienna's hair and eyes color combo: Chestnut brown and a 'polo' grey with a green undertone. I like to cool or warm greys and browns to saturate them a bit and because her hair is warm, I wanted to polarize her eyes to visually reveal aspects of her character. Since writing and drawing are not always about imitation but optimizing the possibilities of fantasy, I like to cement characterizations with color quirks like this. She is a simmering and restless woman that tries to emulate her father's steely authority. She wars with earning respect on her own merits while maintaining her identity as a woman.i didn't write her to be a 'strong woman' in the sense that she truly thinks she can meet men on their own level, but she does believe she has the unique ability to best them with her own advantages. She has a streak of recklessness and sometimes takes on more than she can actually handle but the follies of youth don't prevent her from adapting to new lessons.

Next post, I'll throw in Dinsch's hair/eyes combo. He's an interesting one, my Bryfolk-- a rabbit-human hybrid whose albinism only affected his rabbit genes.

What significance, if any, do color choices have on your characters?

Why Write Fantasy?

For some people, this is probably an easier answer. Maybe it's always been your favorite genre or it's how you think. In my case, most of the entertainment I consume isn't fantasy. Video games, yes, but aside from my love of superheroes, I'm not someone that looks for fantasy shows or movies first. My tastes tend to lead me to comedy, dramas, medical and crime, even documentaries. So when I ask myself 'why write fantasy?', I had to do some digging. I'll have to jump around a bit, but there are a lot of layers to this.

I've come into adult concepts since childhood that I've struggled to understand even as an adult. When we struggle to understand, sometimes we give up and end up either accepting it unexplained or developing a stance of ignorance. There's even a lot of ego in our youth that tells us it's tolerance that makes it acceptable to just let our emotions lead, but as we grow up, we look for logical ways to be at peace with the unknown. We start to accept that the good and bad in people is subjective and variable and that we often say things that don't match our actions. For example, while people might generally see as tolerant, we often say something before we've thought it out that twists that. I watched an old video where Kelly Osbourne slipped up and said "If you kick Latinos out of your country, who will be cleaning your toilets, Donald Trump?" And most of us winced but at the same time, we knew what she bungled at trying to simplify too quickly. In this country, immigrants, legal or no, have a reputation for a work ethic that most entitled citizens, including Trump himself, would never touch. Kick out the people who are grateful to do thankless jobs and what good is it for any of us?

Because I'm not gifted with impeccable selections of speech on the fly, I tend to be more sympathetic when people, who normally do harmonize with their favorable character, stick their foot in their mouth and realized their attempts to simplify have to be explained with a lot more complexity once they've smeared it. I replay a lot of bungled conversations in my head. Sometimes even when I do well, I'll think of ten better ways to say it later. Words can have a powerful effect on our reactions and emotions, but I agree when free speech, hate speech or not, is protected. Words themselves might incite a lot of strong things, but I believe that the listener, the consumer, is ultimately responsible for their actions, that words are not actions unless they directly threaten to escalate (I'm going to kill you) or incite violence (we will meet here to kill you). I don't know about you, but I want to know who hates me. I don't want these people, disgruntled, silenced, sitting in basements, stirring a bitter stew that will hit me without warning. I think oppressing speech is doing more towards encouraging violence than just being disturbed by vitriol. 

That being said, communication of my ideas is very important to me, not that everyone fall in love with everything I say and do. When we speak out, we must accept that people will react, but the consequences of reacting violently are illegal and a crime and you can't blame words alone-- only your own immaturity towards the manifestation of your reactions. I certainly encourage people to counter hate speech with rebuttals and logic whenever possible-- I envy speakers like Jordan Peterson, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and even comedians like Joe Rogan. Even if you don't like their message or what I'm about to say, it's hard to deny that they deliver their messages brilliantly and with a practiced ease I envy. I struggle to get better at public speaking, but I think I would love to say things that such talented people could deliver with their focus and force of reason. I suppose as a woman, it's taboo to say that I would want a man to speak my words for me. I might also pick Christina Hoff Summers, a choice feminist whose levelheadedness I also envy, would work too. What these people have in common-- they claim responsibility for their words, grow with new information, and don't really lose their cool even when they raise their voice. They survive Q&As without dissolving into incoherent frustration.

Even explaining that, it still seems lacking to sufficiently encompass my choices as a writer. It is difficult to summarize, but words are a responsibility with consequences that can be justified, right or wrong, but how do we choose a medium to explore them?

Again, why fantasy, when I clearly have a love for understanding reality and have a solid basis in it? Well, the whimsical outlet of fantasy allows me to explore the deeper concepts of light and dark through metaphor. Not good and bad, mind you, since moral concepts also have levels of societal acceptability and individual experience. Often, there's a general consensus of what we know we can or can't be punished for, but individual mentality or even mob mentality often kicks against where 'morals' attempt to oppress people concerning even the use of their own bodies. And yes, personally, even when it's widely accepted to be moral or immoral, we come up with logical exceptions that bear consideration. It's extremely difficult for people to voice unpopular opinions, so we all need to find a playing field where we can test those doubts, fears, and curiosities. Non-fiction, where my life is concerned, has too many consequences for being tactlessly earnest.

It would be nice if adulthood was a magical escape from childhood dilemmas, but as an adult, I'm often pulled back into the lessons of my immediate past. I know both what it is like to be a child that had been through hell that some adults have not and to be an adult who is often disregarded as childish (I laugh freely, often and girlishly even at 37). I write adult fiction right now because my childhood just isn't kid friendly. I do use whimsical themes to bridge the gap but these adult themes do resonate with my real battles from adolescence.

Some people could make the argument that it is inappropriate for characters of a certain age to run into certain situations. Unfortunately, it's an uncomfortable truth for some of us. It's not a mark of how little your parents care or love you because it IS a sign of love and trust for them to let you explore the big bad world and hope you come back, alive, when you need a respite. The world does not and cannot protect us from the curiosities of reality. Nor should it. It should definitely have laws to protect against harm and it does, ones that at best will change as the world needs it to. What stands is that a child can and does get beat down by adult things. Telling a child that they can't possibly understand insults, abuses and raises their vitriol when they are certain they are not just living in it, but are one of the new demons who come to poke and ridicule them. Disbelief only reinforces it.

And yes, there are also attention-seeking predators, even children, who see that a tortured soul draws the sort of attention they want and mimics it insincerely. One thing I love about a Jordan Peterson video I watched is that he doesn't believe in 'erring on the side of caution'. (video here -- I encourage you to watch it and form your own impressions. Just taking what I say on faith is like playing a game of telephone. Always go from the source in case my interpretations carry a bias.)When he suspects that a patient is asking him to cater some demand of uniqueness with a privilege that they simply feel entitled to but doesn't stand to help them to pretend, he calls them out on it. He admits that sometimes he is wrong, but shows that it is imperative that we test the resolve of people's demands, to see if they are simply trying to mold others or truly find themselves. As a psychologist, he has seen that entertaining people's delusions does not help them learn how to grow as themselves. It's a very tough topic to discuss and he manages to find the words very eloquently. I even appreciate that he shows his thoughtfulness and consideration as he attempts to arrive at his answer. He's not just reading off of a script or parroting a false ego.

Diverting from the technical sides of my choice, I feel a kinship with harsh realities and the possibilities of fantasy. Life isn't just receiving our scars, but bearing them, even showing them in the sunshine. We can assemble armies or meet magical creatures, attune to our inner child or come to terms with being an adult. Even when we explore ourselves through our work, it doesn't assure hidden agendas, at least not intentionally. I've heard people make rather nefarious leaps of accusation-- underage sexuality? Pedophilia! Women writers detailing sex? Turns men gay (and I'm talking heterosexual sex even; apparently we force male readers to resume the stance of a woman to trick them into lusting for the male body. I couldn't even make this shit up)! Graphic calculated violence? Serial killer in the making!

I've always been a firm believer that saying it/playing it is often enough. Playing the games, watching the movies, reading the books, is often the satisfaction of the curiosity not the catalyst to demand more. When I write controversial topics, it is not done in secret delight, always the representative of my desires. I write things that make me downright uncomfortable. I can write something that titillates me and something that disgusts me in the same day even. Of course, those attention-seeking predators I mentioned before often look to call these the catalysts of their murder sprees, rapes, etc. Why? Because we create excuses for addictions, heinous acts, absolve people as brave for doing bad things and 'redeeming themselves', a culture that CREATES visibility for monstrous acts, encouraging people to abuse themselves and others so they can earn relevance for just doing what decent people do invisibly. Writers see this and make them into believable villains. Whether it humanizes or dehumanizes them, whether it's right or wrong is moot. We should continue to piss each other off, entertain each other, release words in ways that make people become curious, challenged. Do you back people up into a wall and tell them they're not cornered if they climb? Is there a rope, a ladder, a trampoline? Is the wall tall or short? Do you stop your pursuit or do they have to worry you're concealing a knife to drive into their back when they turn away? Presentation is everything.

Fantasy just aligns with the way I want to present my ideas. I'm not writing a book on psychology because it can't always be clinically accurate or documented in studies. There's a lot we don't understand about the brain and how it works. What other place could I bring to life the monsters under the bed, the monsters you mistake for friends, the smiles that hide the villains? It's not the only genre I will use, but right now, I'm in love with the way I can build characters and plots and puzzles and worlds and creatures, to lay color to the concepts and ideas around me? How else can I bridge the muddy transitions of childhood and adulthood with any clarity or understanding? How else can I mystify romance and horrify violence, overblowing it but making it logical to the landscape?

Fantasy is whimsy, fantasy is darkness, fantasy is triumph and tragedy.

On that note, I really can't wait to see this Welcome to Marwen movie. I'm not a very emotional consumer, but I teared up a bit just on the trailer. It does align with themes I work with and even inspired this post. One day, I hope to build up the scale of ways to present my own ideas. It's not unusual for writers to see movies in their head while creating, but I'm also well aware that a screenplay is a different creature than a novel (hey, did I mention I'm a screenplay editor? So it seems like a logical course to try it out someday). You can't dream too big.