A rekindling

Remember that secret project I mentioned in my last post? Now I can finally tell you what it is! With a great deal of pride, I would like to announce

A modern reimagining of Benjamin Franklin's club, my dear friend Holly and I started it with an intent at promoting self improvement and discussion of intellectual topics. We hope you'll join us by following the blog and commenting, or if you're really interested, in posting as a contributor! Can't wait to see you there!

Blog button!

This is just a really teensy update, but upon request from Miss Raquel, I made a blog button! I guess since Wickfield's been around for about a year, though, it's about time. ;P

And I know I've been absent lately, but only because I've been busy working on a secret project that will air March 21st. Stay tuned!

Neat!

HEY! SOMEBODY (PBS) didn't tell me (PBS) that "South Riding" with Anna Maxwell Martin and David Morrissey will be airing at the end of the Masterpiece Classic schedule (PBS! Y u no tell me?)! It's set during the 1930s, and Maxwell plays a schoolteacher who butts heads with Morrissey's character. I had heard about it on Dickensblog a while back and thought it sounded interesting, so I can't wait to see it! I guess that this series and Upstairs, Downstairs gives me something to look forward to during the dismal days of PBS pledge drives, lol. :)

Just thought I'd share!

Pocahontas: Beautiful Love fanvideo

So I just have to say I'm a sucker when it comes to Disney's Pocahontas. Of course we all know it's not historical in the least (lol, putting it mildly ;P) but I love it anyway for its major nostalgia factor and its epic feel. I found this great fanvideo on YouTube the other day and just had to share! I think the song and video go together beautifully. :)

(P.S. The song is evidently by a Christian band, The Afters. Turns out they have some great music in their own right!)

Artistic Influence Map

This is another post that's really old - been in the works since, oh uh, SEPTEMBER? I was just copying a meme that I discovered on Deviant Art - it's a map of the artists and artistic elements that have joined together and inspired your own drawing style.

And here are some of my own drawings - see the resemblance?

Disney fic :)

I'm doing some catch-up on several posts I had planned for late last year and never got a chance to publish. :P

At the end of last September I started work on a fanfic sequel for Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It (among many things) fell to the wayside in the following months but I've finally been working on it and it's about halfway done. I'm publishing it in installs on FF.net, so here's the link in case you want to check it out:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Devil's Masquerade

Leave a review if you get a chance to read it! ♥

Something beastly, for sure

I've been in rather an indignant mood lately, and so I have a feeling this post is going to come off as a little ranty, lol. Well, I hope I don't have *too* many rant posts and so this will be a bit of a change, right? Let's go with that. ;)

Anyway, I was watching TV with my mom yesterday, and the trailer for the new teen movie Beastly came on. The movie is a retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast story, only in a modern teen setting, and though I'm not a general fan of teen movies anyway (besides the fact that most of them are PG-13 which I won't watch :P), this one particularly grated on my nerves. It kind of goes along with my post yesterday in that I am so tired of girls being fed the idea that you can love someone into being a good person. It's not true - people can change sometimes, I guess, but it's not anyone else's responsibility to do that changing. It has to come from inside, and no one has to give up on a selfish or mean person, but the girl can come back later when the guy has done some serious soul searching.

And since when has the Beauty and the Beast story become the vehicle for this idea in the first place? If I remember correctly, the initial BatB style tales revolve around a prince who is either a) a perfect gentleman with good manners or, even better, b) one who has repulsed the advances of an enchantress, and who then has the misfortune of being trapped in a horrible body. THAT'S when the story works and is useful, when you should learn to love a KIND person despite outward appearance. So why has this disappeared to be replaced by some supposedly attractive bad boy persona?

I'm no huge fist-shaking feminist in the first place, but I still find it so ironic that in an age where girls and women should feel empowered and safe and confident in their thoughts, that the media is packaging potentially abusive relationships as something desirable and a way for women to continue that maligned traditional role of "fixing" someone else's life. I'm seeing the result with guys and girls my family knows right now - the guys expect they will get everything they want, and a lot of them actually *do,* because these are the little girls who grew up (like I did) with the modern, twisted, hateful-with-a-heart-of-gold Beast Prince. And if the guy DOESN'T get what he wants, well, then the girl pays some way or another, through either emotional mistreatment or worse (look up the statistics on date violence in the U.S. and you'll see what I mean).

Yep, pretty ranty...XD. But it's just because I'm very earnest about this. Girls need to be told that they should expect the best - even if it's, as the original story says - it comes in an unexpected package. But the idea that you should invest your time in fixing someone with a beastly attitude - no matter what the cause - is wrong. Roar.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hello Valentine's Day. Yes, you're talking to a girl who is almost 19-and-a-half who has never dated or had a boyfriend. And to be honest, I'm perfectly happy with that.

Of course it's not that I'd never want to have a relationship - it's not that at all. But I'm just seeing how so many people my age (and much younger!) are settling for a romance that's less than what they're worth, a false romance full of unnecessary drama or lies and unfaithfulness - and I find it a waste of time. Why would you rather have a relationship at any cost than live out your time being a productive "single lady"?

Now I plan on finding me a man one of these days - and he doesn't have to be perfect, because I'm not perfect, but loyalty and honesty are basic prerequisites that are evidently not easy to come by. But I'm not pushing it, because I know that when I'm at that point things will work out like they're supposed to. :)

So *in deep husky Barry White voice,* here's to all you single ladies this Valentine's Day, who are willing to give yourself the time to find the right guy. Trust me, he's out there - you just haven't met him yet. ;)

fic + poem: Creakle's Song

This is OLD! OLD OLD! I wrote this back in the middle of August and just never got a chance to post it. But anyway, it's the relatively latest addition to my David Copperfield-centered Fanfic 100 list. I hope you like it!

Title: Creakle's Song
Fandom: David Copperfield
Characters: Traddles, David, Mr. Creakle and Mr. Tungay (sort of)
Prompt: 026. Teammates.
Word Count: 629
Rating: G
Summary: At Salem House, Traddles shares an original poem with David Copperfield. "But we never will tell how we beat him with glee - /We're close with our secrets, dear Tungay and me! "
Author's Notes: This story includes a poem within a fic. ;) I got the idea for the first lines while I was watching a movie, and scratched them down, and added to it for a poem by Traddles. I decided to use the prompt "Teammates" to stand for both Tungay and Creakle (in the poem) and Traddles and David (in the fic). Enjoy!

Thanks to Alexis Bledel....

I now have bangs!

Well....sort of. I actually intended to cut my hair for the New Year, as a sort of change - I'll be 20 this year, and this spring I'll be graduating with my AA, but when I mentioned to my mother that I'd like the new style she reminded me that my hair is naturally wavy - and then I realized that um, yeah, most of the people I was looking at were Asians who have naturally straight hair and wouldn't have to do the amount of styling I would. So what's a poor naturally-wavy-haired gal to do?