Weekly thingy and Strength/Snow White and Rose Red
From a fairytale I felt no need to summarize to one I probably should:
Snow White and Rose Red is totally separate from the much more famous Snow White story. In this one, an old woman has two rosebushes, one white and one red, and two daughters. Literally the whole description of them is that Snow White is like a white rose, and Rose Red is like a red one, so they tend to be drawn as a pale platinum blonde and either a brunette with rosy cheeks or a redhead. In the middle of winter a giant fucking bear turns up at their house and basically settles in – lies around in front of the fire while the kids beat the snow off his fur and play with him like he’s a big dog. In the summer he disappears to protect his treasure, and the girls go wandering around the woods, repeatedly saving a very rude dwarf who’s always in some kind of treasure-related trap and needs saving by way of cutting off bits of his beard.
Eventually the dwarf threatens the girls directly, the bear kills him, we discover that the bear was actually a prince cursed by said dwarf and he handily has a brother. I particularly appreciate that in the Grimm version we end with ‘EVENTUALLY, Snow White married the prince and Rose Red married his brother’. Thank god for one fairytale that remembers the lead girls are children – I’m going to choose to assume that the enchanted prince was also super young, please feel free to assume that with me.
Anyway, the RWS strength card is a woman holding a lion’s mouth closed, and I’m a fan of a slightly different version, where it’s about lack of fear and friendship and a little girl feeling totally safe braiding ribbons into a bear’s fur.
Places to buy stuff!
- TEEPUBLIC: mostly t-shirts, a few other products. Watch for sales, when shirts drop from $20 to $14!
- REDBUBBLE: Just, I don’t know, a ton of different stuff. T-shirts are more expensive than Teepublic, but there are a lot more options.
- AMAZON: Home of the Geeky Gals Coloring Book! Daydreams and Whimsies! AND NOW, The Neurotic Owl Compendium!
- ETSY: paper dolls, a knitting bag pattern, and a bunch of vintage dolls of various sorts from my collection
Did I miss something? I think that’s everything.
What’s making me happy this week:
- First meeting with a new therapist later today EEEEK. So I mean, happy might not be the word, but I’m glad I’m finally making a step forward on dealing with my anxiety after a whole year where I had tons of free time to do so. I have a month and a half before I’m back to full time at work, so I’ve definitely squandered a big opportunity to get more of a head start here, but at least I’m starting. I really, really hope I like her. She doesn’t list specific experience with ED, buuuut she does work with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and PTSD treatments, so I think that’s the right kind of focused result-oriented work I’m looking for.
Neurotic Owl 
Wishing you all good things with your new therapist. I hope to hear a bit about your PTSD therapy. (Something I ought to be pursuing, myself.) (Not in the personal details, of course.)
THANK YOU for speaking up about the age at which fairytale princesses wed! I continue to be entirely cheesed off that no one is concerned that Ariel ends the Disney Little Mermaid movie a 16 year old bride. I mean, where were the picketing moms??
PS. Your illustrations are lovely, as always.
I saw a lovely image this evening that made me think of you. I thought you might enjoy it, too but can’t think of any better method to share but to leave a link here: https://penland.org/workshops/fall-one-week/
It’s the fourth item down, Joseph Cavalieri’s Two Nanny Goats.