Well, OSWALDA says...
I met the most arresting creature in my dreams last night.
She went by the name "Oswalda" but was commonly mistaken for "Oswald," and she was the DOUGHTIEST thing.
She spoke of herself in third person and did not refer to herself as Oswalda but as "The Short, Fat Girl."
For example, "The Short, Fat Girl is the hero of her tale."
Or, "The Short, Fat Girl trains her own dragons."
"The Short, Fat Girl fights her own battles."
My favorite was the one right before the alarm.
Oswalda said, with a direct look, a stern (but also very droll) mouth and a STUBBORN chin:
"The Short, Fat Girl wrestles her own angels!"
I think Oswalda needs a poem. And a place in my fictional canon. Maybe she could pop into different stories in all different genres, like Joanna Russ's Alyx! Maybe she'll feature prominently in Miscellaneous Stones: Necromancer, ostensible and unwritten sequel to Miscellaneous Stones: Assassin. (I have a THIRD title for the THIRD book too, which makes me giggle uncontrollably every time I try to say it aloud, so that's cool.)
Maybe one story she'll be a hero, and one story the Best Villain Ever (that seems like something Oswalda would approve of). Maybe in some a small, precocious child and in some an old, shrunken, chubby, angry, smart, cranky, funny lady.
Whatever, Oswalda. Are you to be my own Mr.Punch? My Baba Yaga? My own familiar?
It would be funny to start all my arguments, "Well, OSWALDA says..." Like a WWJD talisman. Or a person with a particularly know-it-all spouse. Or a nursery rhyme game.
Oswalda says: LEAD YOUR OWN SKIRMISH!
Oswalda says: FINISH YOUR DAMNED NOVEL DRAFT!
I think I really need to write. Hell. I do everything but, don't I, Oswalda? My dearest, scariest, commandingest Short, Fat Girl.
***
I think part of my Oswalda compost must've come from watching Game of Thrones, seeing Sam and thinking, "Ah, here is a character who is another soft fool. An easy-going clown made to be bullied. The butt of the joke."
I can't remember the books exactly (it's been too long since I read them), but I think he ends up doing something heroic and bonding with his fellow brothers in black. Then maybe he dies, because doesn't George R.R. Martin kill EVERYBODY???
So long as Arya and Tyrion survive. Or at least die better than EVERYONE else, I'm not complaining.
...But I'm not at that part yet.
Martin's Sam got me thinking (as I think he's supposed to?) of the other Sam, Samwise the Hobbit, the faithful sidekick, Gollum's "Fat Hobbit." And of what jamesenge was saying about Penguin in Batman II -- how there's a certain kind of villain, a grotesque, as outwardly repulsive as he is inwardly, and how that usually manifests as "short and chubby."
I've heard some similar talk about Ursula in the Little Mermaid (who I think is actually the sexiest Disney villain) as the "fat stereotype villain," but since you have the tall thin villainess in Malificent, and the horrible passive aggressive mother villainess in Tangled, and the scary (but coldly beautiful) stepmom in Snow White, I think one has enough villainesses there to say that they come in all shapes and sizes.
Am I spelling villainess wrong? LJ doesn't recognize the word. Better google it.
But they're all OLDER women, naturally. The crones and queens.
Been a while since I saw a young girl be truly evil (er, leaving aside my own scrumptious Princess Oubliette, of course). And they're usually PRETTY young girls, aren't they? Maybe I should re-read Turn of the Screw. DUNNO!
Anyway, Ysabeau Wilce's protagonist Flora Segunda is one of the best, most stalwart, attractive, active, roly-poly, go-getter-heroines I know of.
But Oswalda? Oswalda's different. And she's mine. And I don't know that she's going away.
***
She went by the name "Oswalda" but was commonly mistaken for "Oswald," and she was the DOUGHTIEST thing.
She spoke of herself in third person and did not refer to herself as Oswalda but as "The Short, Fat Girl."
For example, "The Short, Fat Girl is the hero of her tale."
Or, "The Short, Fat Girl trains her own dragons."
"The Short, Fat Girl fights her own battles."
My favorite was the one right before the alarm.
Oswalda said, with a direct look, a stern (but also very droll) mouth and a STUBBORN chin:
"The Short, Fat Girl wrestles her own angels!"
I think Oswalda needs a poem. And a place in my fictional canon. Maybe she could pop into different stories in all different genres, like Joanna Russ's Alyx! Maybe she'll feature prominently in Miscellaneous Stones: Necromancer, ostensible and unwritten sequel to Miscellaneous Stones: Assassin. (I have a THIRD title for the THIRD book too, which makes me giggle uncontrollably every time I try to say it aloud, so that's cool.)
Maybe one story she'll be a hero, and one story the Best Villain Ever (that seems like something Oswalda would approve of). Maybe in some a small, precocious child and in some an old, shrunken, chubby, angry, smart, cranky, funny lady.
Whatever, Oswalda. Are you to be my own Mr.Punch? My Baba Yaga? My own familiar?
It would be funny to start all my arguments, "Well, OSWALDA says..." Like a WWJD talisman. Or a person with a particularly know-it-all spouse. Or a nursery rhyme game.
Oswalda says: LEAD YOUR OWN SKIRMISH!
Oswalda says: FINISH YOUR DAMNED NOVEL DRAFT!
I think I really need to write. Hell. I do everything but, don't I, Oswalda? My dearest, scariest, commandingest Short, Fat Girl.
***
I think part of my Oswalda compost must've come from watching Game of Thrones, seeing Sam and thinking, "Ah, here is a character who is another soft fool. An easy-going clown made to be bullied. The butt of the joke."
I can't remember the books exactly (it's been too long since I read them), but I think he ends up doing something heroic and bonding with his fellow brothers in black. Then maybe he dies, because doesn't George R.R. Martin kill EVERYBODY???
So long as Arya and Tyrion survive. Or at least die better than EVERYONE else, I'm not complaining.
...But I'm not at that part yet.
Martin's Sam got me thinking (as I think he's supposed to?) of the other Sam, Samwise the Hobbit, the faithful sidekick, Gollum's "Fat Hobbit." And of what jamesenge was saying about Penguin in Batman II -- how there's a certain kind of villain, a grotesque, as outwardly repulsive as he is inwardly, and how that usually manifests as "short and chubby."
I've heard some similar talk about Ursula in the Little Mermaid (who I think is actually the sexiest Disney villain) as the "fat stereotype villain," but since you have the tall thin villainess in Malificent, and the horrible passive aggressive mother villainess in Tangled, and the scary (but coldly beautiful) stepmom in Snow White, I think one has enough villainesses there to say that they come in all shapes and sizes.
Am I spelling villainess wrong? LJ doesn't recognize the word. Better google it.
But they're all OLDER women, naturally. The crones and queens.
Been a while since I saw a young girl be truly evil (er, leaving aside my own scrumptious Princess Oubliette, of course). And they're usually PRETTY young girls, aren't they? Maybe I should re-read Turn of the Screw. DUNNO!
Anyway, Ysabeau Wilce's protagonist Flora Segunda is one of the best, most stalwart, attractive, active, roly-poly, go-getter-heroines I know of.
But Oswalda? Oswalda's different. And she's mine. And I don't know that she's going away.
***