You can see here the redressing of a previous background for another season--that was fun! I stayed up till two to get this ready because I really want this chapter, which occurs at Christmas, to be posted during Christmas, since it's so lucky the opportunity arose for it to be timed thus.
It updates on Fridays on my site and Sundays on Arktoons.
(My site is ahead).
I recommend using bookmarking or the "Save your
place" gadget on my site, even once you catch up, because the site starts
at the beginning and updates are several pages.
Veronika Bosch, who's never left her father's estate, has to go on
a journey when envious animals kick her out. Half collage, half puppetry, it's
the traditional media equivalent of an elaborate sprite comic.
Bonus art for Chapter 3 of Part II of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Because of the timing, that this would post on Christmas, I think it became much better and more atmospheric than it would have otherwise been. I also wanted to suggest an other story, where she is, perhaps, a ghost returning.
I am still continuing the series of 13 Ace Attorney fanart prompts I started for the Inktober of 2020. The ninth theme is criminal-but-not-killer, and I chose Enoch Drebber. (Spoilers follow) Though, he is morally culpable for murder.
I really really liked him. Maybe it's because he looks like Vaati. Maybe it's because he's like a member of Steam-Powered Giraffe but without the embrace of abhorrent mental illness. Maybe it's because he's the random chance turning point that caused a chain reaction that leads to basically everything, even to the point of, if he hadn't just happened to be in the graveyard that night, Phoenix Wright would probably never have existed, let alone become a lawyer. And maybe it's because in the original Sherlock Holmes story, he had seven wives.
I have some greeting cards available on Society6, including these designs which are suitable for Christmas:
Not Christmas exactly, but near
I'm not sure whether orders made now would arrive by Christmas Day, but I support sending Christmas cards during the actual twelve days of Christmas, December 25 through January 6. That's what I'm going to do!
Bonus art for Chapter 2 of Part II of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
This piece is quite different from how I originally planned: I had wanted to paint the upper part, then print out a copy of it and cut it into ripply pieces and stick them upside down on top of a graduated wash for the water in the lower part. But my printer ran out of ink, so I just watercolored the whole thing, with the figure of Julide separately painted on tracing paper.
It updates on Fridays on my site and Sundays on Arktoons. (Arktoons is behind).
I recommend using bookmarking or the "Save your place" gadget on my site, even once you catch up, because the site starts at the beginning and updates are several pages.
Veronika Bosch, who's never left her father's estate, has to go on a journey when envious animals kick her out. Half collage, half puppetry, it's the traditional media equivalent of an elaborate sprite comic.
I've added more of the Paper Doll Veronika chapter bonus art to my Society6 shop, and they currently have a free shipping offer and 25 percent discounts going!
This is the first page to include character cameos! Two of the people in the background belong to supporters of the comic.
It updates on Fridays on my site and Sundays on Arktoons.
(Arktoons is behind). I recommend using bookmarking or the "Save your
place" gadget on my site, even once you catch up, because the site starts
at the beginning and updates are several pages.
Veronika Bosch, who's never left her father's estate, has to go on
a journey when envious animals kick her out. Half collage, half puppetry, it's
the traditional media equivalent of an elaborate sprite comic.
Bonus art for Chapter 1 of Part II of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
As you can see, this update contains a significant, and, may I say, very grand page.
It has been over a year since the last update, but in the meantime it was posting on Arktoons, not quite caught up yet. This Sunday, the beginning of Part II will post on Arktoons. Soon it may catch up and they'll be synchronized, but in whatever case, I'm determined to keep going at a good clip, preparing more dolls, props, and backgrounds ahead of time than I had been doing.
It updates on Fridays on my site and Sundays on Arktoons.
I recommend using bookmarking or the "Save your
place" gadget on my site, even once you catch up, because the site starts
at the beginning and updates are several pages.
Veronika Bosch, who's never left her father's estate, has to go on
a journey when envious animals kick her out. Half collage, half puppetry, it's
the traditional media equivalent of an elaborate sprite comic.
On
the morning of July 4, 2014, I had a dream that I was in an immense museum. It
was all about abortion. First I passed by a theater room just like many museums
use to show films. The film being shown had a title in Russian, a four-letter
word that I cannot remember. Sitting in there watching the film were some
people, including Vladimir Putin.
After
that, there were a few rooms of the equipment used for abortions. I must point
out that this museum was set up like one about a totalitarian genocide; it was
not promoting or glorifying abortion. I walked through these rooms without
looking at much. Then I came into huge rooms with wax and plaster models of
every body of every baby killed. Most were in pieces or burned. These rooms
were at first big but still such as real rooms one encounters, but as I went on
they became incredibly huge; instead of walking on the floor one took stairs up
onto a green and amber glass catwalk, while the room went deeper and deeper,
stretched out of sight below, all the walls lined like an ossuary.
At
this point an old woman came up to me, and I knew that she was "The Woman
of the Holy House of Walsingham," but I'm not sure what that means. She
was not the Virgin Mary; but I had the sense that back when the original shrine
of Walsingham stood as a pilgrimage place, people would see her there. She told
me that something was going to happen to a great number of unborn children in
Michigan.
I
went on, and next there were huge halls plastered with newspapers going back to
the 1880's. I saw ones in German, Hebrew, Russian, French, and English. When I
got near the end of these rooms, the Woman came back and led me up a stairway.
We came out in a room I recognized from Trinity College, Dublin. (I visited there
in 2009.) A door from there led to another fancy room. The Woman told me this
was a room in Buckingham Palace. I saw another woman sitting on a plush chair:
She looked like a combination of Elizabeth I, Queen Anne, Queen Victoria,
Elizabeth II, and the queen of hearts from playing cards, all done up in a
gaudy parody of the Virgin Mary.
The
Woman of the Holy House told me: "That woman is the Spirit of the
Ascendancy. She used to be the Protestant Ascendancy, but now she is just
Ascendancy, empty power. It is because of her that the children of England are
in such danger, but soon the children of Michigan may wish they were in the
United Kingdom instead." Then she told me to wait here and went off. I
leaned against a balustrade and started to pray.
The
Spirit of Ascendancy came over and asked: "Are you praying?" I said
yes. She said, "No one prays here anymore. It's not done."
Then
I said, "You have to stop it. You're killing your children."
She
shrugged.
I
said, "You're killing your grandchildren. Don't you want anyone to live
here anymore?"
She
frowned and said, "I suppose it is a problem. But it's not talked
about." And she walked away.
I
walked down a flight of stone steps and once more found myself in the entryway
to the museum. The Woman of the Holy House was there and she said to me:
"Now you've seen Michigan and England, and when you go back to Houston or
Minnesota you must tell this, you must post it."
I
said, "Post it?" taking her to mean publish in the only way readily
available to me, the internet.
She said, "Yes. Don't care about your reputation, even
if you were to be excommunicated, you must do it." As she spoke she was
shrinking; she turned into a baby, then even smaller, an embryo, and I picked
her up. "I love you, I love you, I love you," she said and put her
tiny hand on my face. Then the museum doors opened unto a bright white light
and at that moment I woke up.
~~~
I wrote to a priest about his dream, and I admitted that I
have had mental health difficulties, and he advised that since the evil of
abortion is clear without any special revelation contained in the dream, I
should forebear posting anything beyond requesting prayer for the unborn in
Michigan until I was sure it wasn't just a regular dream reflecting issues
troubling me.
And I wasn't sure, so all I did was put in my email
signature, "Pray for the Unborn in Michigan."
But now, eight years later, Michigan has, most probably via
election fraud, enshrined the killing of unborn children in its state
constitution. Also, everything I have since learned about Vladimir Putin and
about the British monarchy has reinforced my conclusion that the dream was more
than a regular dream. So I am finally posting it, praying it's not too late,
and begging everyone, anyone who sees:
I have added several of the Paper Doll Veronika bonus art pieces to my Society6 shop, so you can buy them as prints! These are the ones I've added so far:
Bonus art for Chapter 24 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
This is the final chapter of Part I, so the Arktoons posting will take a break while I finish Part II. There is already some of Part II posted on my own site, so I plan to continue it there at the same time I will start it on Arktoons.
Bonus art for Chapter 23 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
The background is pen and ink. Doing it was an interesting experience!
Heraldic-style art for Paper Doll Veronika that portends important things. I used it as the cover art for Chapter 22 of Part I on Arktoons, where it has returned to posting after a couple-month break.
If you want to see this background by itself, and lots of other bonus and behind-the-scenes material, please consider supporting the comic on SubscribeStar. Thank you!
And I am returned home from helping family, this time for good. They have had a terrible time of late, and it's clear that where they lived was a terrible place. So they have moved to where I live, and we all hope things will start going better now.
Thus I will be getting back to work, with Bovodar foremost among my projects. Paper Doll Veronika also should return to posting on Arktoons soon. Thank you for waiting, reading, and, if you would, praying for us.
I just finished reading The Silmarillion for the first time and I want to draw a bushel of illustrations. The condensed form of it, as opposed to the novel form of The Lord of the Rings, really spurs one to want to fill in what isn't described in great detail with what one imagines.
And I want to use a style that's very different from how people usually draw Tolkien characters. Almost everybody these days is influenced by the look of Alan Lee's work and the Peter Jackson films. Now I have no problem with that, but it's not at all what I want to do. Since The Silmarillion really surprised and delighted me with how much it wasn't just noble high fantasy, it had many parts that were very fairy tale, even whimsical, I want to go for the look of a fairy tale storybook for children; plus influence from 1980s illustrations of toys for girls, like Lady Lovelylocks and Peppermint Rose; and just a touch of 1970s psychedelic graphic design. I don't know whether Tolkien would approve, but it's what I want to do.
Finally, I really do NOT want anyone to think that this in any way has to do with or is any kind of positive response to a certain marketplace website's streaming series claiming to have some correspondence with Tolkien's work. I am not going to watch that crap and I hope nobody else does either, not even to hate on it.
Of course however, I don't know when I'll have time for this. I'm currently very busy with family-related matters, and have the following art and comics projects ongoing or planned:
Professional:
Bovodar and the Bears by Jack Mikkelson
Clockwork Dancer by Jon Del Arroz Paper Doll Veronika by me
a planned religious project
For fun:
Sherlock Holmes illustrations using Great Ace Attorney versions of characters
Batman: Decadence
Mary's Mazes
and various fanart.
But still, I really want to do this! Beware the Prince of the Cats!
Bonus art for Chapter 21 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
This picture is based on what I am planning for the art dedicated to this outfit of Veronika's: the Ribbon Ruffle Jumperskirt. I plan to do a picture for each of her dresses exhibiting its power. However, those pictures will be heavily and delicately detailed in regard to said dresses, and there wasn't time for that with this piece. So I'll do another, similar but much more finely rendered.
Bonus art for Chapter 20 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
Bonus art for Chapter 18 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
And later today (6 p.m. US Central time) I'm going to be talking about Paper Doll Veronika on the Superversive Sci-Fi stream! Here's the channel.
Bonus art for Chapter 17 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika, which is now posted on Arktoons! You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
I'm currently trying to stay mostly off the internet until mid-June, because I might have to go away again, and I really can't work on Paper Doll Veronika where I might be going, and I really want to start updating again soon from the point at which my own site left off. So I must work hard!
Issue #3 of Bovodar and the Bears is underway, and the writer, Jack Mikkelson a.k.a. Laramie Hirsch, has a post up with several previews, including the full page of the above inks, which is, though I say so myself, really really good. He also writes with fervor about how while mainstream adventure fiction, i.e. Marvel, preaches Feminism unceasingly, our comic portrays its true face.
By the way, he mentions he recommended I listen to Venus in Furs as inspiration; here's the particular cover I set on repeat. I think the instrumentation is highly appropriate!
Bonus art for Chapter 16 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika, which is now posted on Arktoons! You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
The border is a copyright-free stock image of Celtic knotwork. I was trying to make a papercut version of it, but it was taking too long for the posting deadline, so I printed it on tracing vellum.
The first of the Paper Doll Veronika - Animal Stories comics: "Daring Rabbit is Not Named Jack", is posted! These short comics are an exclusive bonus for members of the Paper Doll Club, wherein you support the comic for six dollars a month and get lots of extras. Go here to sign up!
Bonus art for Chapter 14 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika, which is now posted on Arktoons! You can also read it on my own website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
I really went to town on this one, a pure collage following what I think of as Ice Cream Parlor aesthetic. Lots of black, white, and pink; checkerboard pattern and stripes.
Bonus art for Chapter 13 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
I'm really glad to be doing these extra art pieces for each chapter, since I felt like the comic itself didn't have the time to explore the mood of "Forest", especially the creepy side thereof, as much as I would have liked to.
Quick fanart of Klavier and Lamiroir from Ace Attorney:Apollo Justice in a tavern in Borginia. I imagine Lamiroir singing "Gypsy Song" by Typhoon (because Spoiler: it's a lullaby/lament for a child; she would have thought, before she lost her memory, that Apollo had been killed in the fire in the palace.)
And Klavier will sing the Song of Anger, haha. The starry notes in the smoke are from one of the most beautiful (and that's saying a lot) puzzles in Vs. Professor Layton. (And the wine glasses--or should I say chalices--allude to another puzzle from thence.) I would very much like to be able to evoke music visually.
It is Catholic doctrine that God wills the salvation of
every human being. This has been bindingly declared in the condemnations of
Calvinism (Trent) and Jansenism (Prop. v Jansenii damn.). Therefore, the
salvation of each human being must be a possibility.
Therefore, when Ann Barnhardt speculates in her essay "The one about… DO ABORTED BABIES GO TO HEAVEN?" that miscarried babies absolutely
all definitely go to the Limbo of the Innocents--technically a part of Hell,
but one of natural happiness-- and that miscarriage itself is God intervening
in order to effect "the best possible outcome" for them, who would
otherwise end in a worse region of Hell, she is wrong. Per the previously
cited doctrine, "the best possible outcome" for a person cannot be
not being saved.
However, the idea that she is primarily addressing in the
essay: that all unbaptized infants absolutely all definitely go to Heaven, is
indeed an error and a pernicious one. As she points out, the logical
conclusion of the idea of guaranteed salvation for the unborn would make
abortion a good deed.
Several years back, the Vatican held a conference on the idea
of Limbo and concluded with a declaration that "we may have hope" as
regards the final fate of unbaptized infants. This was before the antipapacy of Bergoglio, so while not an
ex cathedra teaching, it should not be simply rejected as a matter of course; it
came from under the auspices of a valid Pope. Hope. That means not
presumption--the idea that they all are guaranteed Heaven; and not despair--the
idea that none of them can possibly be given Heaven.
So yes, Barnhardt is right that infants do not deserve
the Beatific Vision, and that it cannot be taken as certain that they are given
it upon death. However, it must be acknowledged that there must be some possibility
for individual infants to be admitted thereunto. If there were no possible
hope, it would be imperative to develop surgical baptism, nanobaptism even, which
would make for a very cool aspect of a science-fiction story, but it is clear
from the Church's practicum through the centuries that this is not an
imperative.
And Barnhardt's basis for her speculation that miscarriage
is God intervening to prevent a worse outcome than Limbo for these souls: her
interpretation of Christ's statement that it would be better for Judas had he
not been born, yields some logical conclusions that are seriously faulty.
She takes this statement about Judas as evidence that in
other cases, God foresees that a person will damn himself and thus He causes him
not to be born, but that He didn't do this in Judas's case because of the
necessity of Christ's death. But if Judas is some kind of exception to a
rule, God's plan is imperfect.
The truth of the matter is, God's plan is perfect. Yes, He
came to die on the Cross and that was necessary. But it didn't absolutely have
to be via betrayal by Judas. And even after the betrayal, Judas could have
repented and not killed himself. Jesus' statement didn't lock him in. The
statement was contingent on Judas's final impenitence even though it preceded
it in time. Like the Immaculate Conception of Mary was contingent on the Cross
even though it preceded it in time.
If miscarriages are a smiting of the would-be damned, it
would be reasonable to conclude that no one who survives unto birth is
ultimately damned and that every person dies via smiting while in their best
possible spiritual state. This is the logic of "the best outcome"
without possibility of salvation for some. It is, frankly, semi-Calvinistic.
Not to mention, going by this logic desperately makes one question why God couldn't wait to
smite until right after babies are baptized, indeed, why He doesn't do just that in most cases!
Here's the thing. God does not operate so that "the
best outcome" overrides our free will. Our free will is of utmost
importance to God. He does not circumvent our free will to get us saved, nor
does He circumvent the consequences of our actions. Thus the Redemption,
atoning for our actions of sin, He allowed to be brought about by free human
actions including Judas'. And we should imagine that the eternal destiny of
unbaptized infants is, like the eternal destiny of everyone else, determined by
free will in response to grace, though we may not be able to tell how.
Here is what the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 has to say on
the matter:
The most difficult problem concerning
this Divine will to save all men, a real crux theologorum lies in the
mysterious attitude of God towards children dying without baptism.
Did God sincerely and earnestly will the salvation also of the little
ones who, without fault of their own, fail to receive the baptism of water or
blood and are thus forever deprived of the beatific vision? Only a few
theologians (e.g. Bellarmine, Vasquez) are bold enough to answer this question
in the negative. Either invincible ignorance, as among the pagans, or the
physical order of nature, as in still-births, precludes the possibility of the
administration of baptism without the least culpability on the part of the
children. The difficulty lies, therefore, in the fact that God, the author
of the natural order, eventually declines to remove the existing obstacles by
means of a miracle. The well-meant opinion of some theologians (Arrubal,
Kilber, Mannens) that the whole and full guilt falls in all instances not
on God, but on men (for example, on the imprudence of the mothers), is
evidently too airy an hypothesis to be entitled to consideration. The
subterfuge of Klee, the writer on dogma, that self-consciousness is awakened
for a short time in dying children, to render baptism of desire possible to
them, is just as unsatisfactory and objectionable as Cardinal Cajetan's
admission, disapproved of by Pius X, that the prayer
of Christian parents, acting like a baptism of desire, saves their
children for heaven. We are thus confronted with an unsolved mystery. Our
ignorance of the manner does not destroy, however, the theological certainty of
the fact. For the above-cited Biblical texts are of such unquestionable
universality that it is impossible to exclude a priori millions of children
from the Divine will to save humankind.
So, Barnhardt's speculation about the solution of this unsolved
mystery has clear problems and cannot be admitted.
As the conclusion of this essay, I offer my own speculation.
It is only speculation, and should it be proven to be likewise contrary to the
logical conclusions of Catholic doctrine, I will readily withdraw it. I cannot
fully explain my reasons, since some it of derives from the religious
experiences of someone I know that I do not have permission to reveal, but here
it is:
I speculate that there is a battle.
For the soul of the child, between angels and fallen angels,
which humans can aid.
The aid that can be given is analogous to spiritual
influence, such that of parents on surviving children. Kierkegaard was a heretic;
no soul is alone. Christ founded a Church and gave us means to aid in each
others' salvation. While, as stated in the quote, the idea that parents can
give proxy consent for Baptism of Desire has been disapproved (though not
anathematized), their intentions do make some kind of difference I am sure.
Other humans, especially the parents, can alternatively aid
the fallen side. Sins do damage even to the innocent; think of all the parents
presently having their children injected with genetic agents made from aborted
babies, one of the reported side-effects of which is lessened function in the
parts of the brain that respond to religious experience. And recently, the
Satanic Temple issued a ritual for women to recite while procuring an abortion.
It is clear the main purpose of it is to ensure the mother's full knowledge and
consent and thus mortal guilt, but I fear it may have some dark spiritual
effect on the baby as well. However, it is always possible for Divine Light to
overcome darkness.
Finally, I note that just as the Church does not order
surgical baptisms, She does not forbid the reception of Holy Communion by
pregnant woman. It is another matter of mystery how minutely the Eucharistic
species can be dissolved while retaining Christ's Substance, but I find it
suggestive that a pregnant woman nourishes her unborn child through sharing
blood.
Bonus art for Chapter 12 of Part I of Paper Doll Veronika,
which is now posted on Arktoons! You
can also read it on my own
website. (I recommend my site for PC and Arktoons for mobile.)
I'm working on drawing trees better, particularly giving them enough little branches and twigs.
I just read Underlake by Kia Heavey. It's an enjoyable paranormal romance, with decent morals and lovely evocation of rural lakeside summers. It does have a significant flaw, which I discuss below, but I had to draw this fanart because it answered a wish I never thought would be granted!
In Twilight: New Moon, (referring to the film; I never read the book) there's the scene where Bella went cliff-diving and hit her head and starts sinking, and an apparition of Edward floats up from the depths. My sister and I always thought that image suggested a better story, where he's the ghost of a drowned man, pale in the dark cold water. Well Underlake was that story!
Spoiler Warning for the following.
The best parts were descriptions of the lake, both above in the warmth and light of summer and below when John and Katie are magically suspended between life and death in winter.
But it did have a big flaw. When the time comes to return to the depths, Katie refuses to keep her promise. And we are only really given selfish reasons for that, but for some unexplained reason that's what breaks the spell and resumes the flow of time for John. That doesn't fit with the moral framework of a Cupid & Psyche/Beauty & the Beast story, which it is. In those tales, the woman breaks the spell on the man by ultimately keeping her promise, even if she broke it at first. It would have been much better if Katie was willing to go back under the ice, but then she started drowning, and John took her out despite believing doing so would cause his own death. That would have been a perfect redemption for his earlier act of suicide, and then their complementary sacrifices could have broken the spell, rather than her unwillingness to sacrifice!
After languishing for many months, the Paper Doll Club for my webcomic, Paper Doll Veronika, is swinging into action!
It's a way for readers to support the comic--my first goal is cover the web-hosting--and members get many extra bonuses! Most importantly, I just made a way to join that is not through Paypal: Subscribestar! It's like Patreon but fairer with the money and without its active enmity towards Christian morality.
Presently, there's more bonus material on my own website than on the Subscribestar page, but I'm working on getting everything in both places. Here's a list what there is so far:
Customizable paper dolls, both stationary and movable
Stationary dolls of Veronika and Stade
The first set of Veronika's dresses, both stationary and movable
Opportunity for a character cameo
Gallery of backgrounds
Gallery of sketches
And here are some things that are coming soon:
First set of male clothes
Stationary and movable dolls of special club characters Rosila and Burton
A very useful tool for understanding human behavior is the
sociosexual hierarchy (SSH for short) formulated by Vox Day. It categorizes patterns of male behavior and ranks them according to how
attractive they are to women, but it's useful for far more than just courtship
purposes. If one can correctly identify to which rank a man belongs, one knows
more or less what to expect from him and what effect he will have on others.
If you are already familiar with this hierarchy, you can
skip the following set of indented paragraphs. The SSH expands on the
Alpha-Beta dichotomy developed among pickup artists--referring respectively to:
dominant and attractive male behavior, or submissive and unattractive male
behavior--rather than just a binary, this hierarchy has six categories.
Alpha: the most attractive and dominant,
alphas are ambitious, successful leaders. They are boastful, charismatic,
aggressive, and tend to be promiscuous.
Bravo: the right-hand man type who
supports an alpha or one in an alpha position. They are loyal and fun.
Delta: a normal, decent sort of man,
hard-working and competent. They often are not given the credit they deserve
and when it comes to women, they might aim too high and/or be too easily cowed.
Gamma: a man who can't stand to be seen
as inferior to anyone despite not having achieved superior status. Deathly
afraid of failure or being shown up, he lies to himself and constantly tries to
undermine others. Nowadays, often nerdy. Repulsive to women.
Omega: a social reject, reviled and
reviling. Withdraws from society as much as possible because it disdains him.
Often unkempt and filled with resentment and misery.
Sigma: a man who doesn't care about
leading or following, pursues his own ends regardless of what others think of
him. Despite not seeking status, is attractive to women.
Many have sought for an equivalent female hierarchy. In
response to requests for one, Day has said it should be developed by a woman.
The following is an attempt to do so. The difficulty is that the attractiveness
of a woman to men is not nearly so dependent on her behavior as is a man's
attractiveness to women; being primarily based on her looks.
(A necessary aside: people often protest that the
attractiveness described in such analysis is no determiner of how good a spouse
a person is. It was never claimed to be. It should be common knowledge that the
most attractive people are not always the best mates. Unfortunately there is a
mistaken notion that because men's attraction is based more on appearance,
women's attraction must be somehow wiser or more based on virtue. It is not.
While attraction is important, it should but sadly cannot go without saying
that neither sex should select a spouse based on attraction alone without
consideration of virtue and other factors.)
Since female attractiveness is so determined by looks,
simply ranking women by their beauty is an insufficient tool for categorizing
and predicting behavior and mindset. But it is a factor. The interplay of
beauty and chastity, or beauty and bitchiness, has been discussed.
This theory is humbly submitted as a possible system for
categorization and analysis of female behavior. The author finds it thus
useful. Since it is about matters which many are likely to take personally, she
anticipates that many readers will not find it harmonious with their own observations
or feelings, but such readers should ignore it and formulate their own theories
rather than attempt to persuade the author to alter hers. She will not be doing
so.
The basis is a dual axis of beauty and niceness, yielding
four ranks.
The titles of the four ranks derive from the following
cartoon, Teen Girl Squad:
The rest of the series may be found here. It does not
explicate this theory, being mainly merely the source of the names, but does
accord with it at significant moments.
In this system, Cheerleaders and So-and-Sos are pretty,
What's-her-Faces and Ugly Ones are not. So-and-sos and What's-her-Faces are
nice, Cheerleaders and Ugly Ones are not. Note that 'nice' means exactly that, compatible
with but not the same thing as kind, friendly, charming, or good.
Cheerleader
Pretty and not-nice.
The highest ranking of women, the Cheerleader possesses
beauty and knows how to use it. She is good at manipulating people and can be
very captivating and very cruel. This is needful for her own sake, since almost
everyone she interacts with, male or female, treats her either with special
favor or with enmity. She is good at guiding the female herd by encouraging
imitation and shaming nonconformity. Many Cheerleaders are vain, selfish, and vindictive, getting whatever they want through flattery, calumny,
and detraction, and engaging in flirtation with men pledged to other women.
However; they are capable of using their abilities for good ends and many have,
especially in past eras when society was more ordered toward the Good. They are
highly desirable for high-status men, and a man needs a strong frame to keep
them in line. With a low-status man of weak frame, they become discontented and
make his and their own lives miserable. They cannot understand the mindset of
not-pretty women and often speak as though the attention they receive is
something to which all women are accustomed.
Examples: Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind, Emma
Woodhouse from Emma, Amy March from Little Women, Inara Serra
from Firefly (albeit imperfectly written by a noted Gamma). Mean
Girls is about a group of Cheerleaders, Regina, Gretchen, and Karen,
adopting a So-and-So, Cady, as one of their own, her transformation into a
Cheerleader and her learning, through failure, to use Cheerleader abilities for
harmony rather than discord.
So-and-So
Pretty and nice.
Women who possess beauty, though often not as much as Cheerleaders,
or are not as skilled at appearing to their best advantage, but still enough to
strike most men as noticeably pretty. They are also nice, meaning generally
patient, tolerant, and agreeable towards others. In an orderly group
of women they reinforce the guidance of Cheerleaders, with some risk of being
sycophantic. They make good relationship prospects for both high-status and
low-status men.*
Examples: Melanie Wilkes from Gone with the Wind, Jane Bennett from Pride
and Prejudice, Meg March from Little Women; Jane Fairfax from Emma
is less characteristically friendly than many So-and-Sos, but her beauty
and attainment of an Alpha confirm her status.
What's-her-Face
Not-pretty and nice.
Woman who lack beauty but are not actively repellent, their plainness
makes them effectively invisible to men. They try to be pleasant, but often
don't know how to dress well or use makeup and may have poor hygiene and/or be
a little overweight. They regard pretty women with bewilderment and can't understand
how they capture male attention. Their attempts consist of actions like
greeting a man to whom they are attracted and then spending a subsequent time
isolated, wallowing in discouraged embarrassment. Ignorant as to how to attract
notice, agitated if it occurs, many give up on romance entirely. Possessed of
low self-esteem, those who do land a man tend to be insecure, sure that he
could do better. This may lead them, on one hand, to try to be especially
pleasing and accommodating, or on the other, to succumb to bouts of
self-loathing-based emotional drama.
Note that in Teen Girl Squad, What's-her-Face, not
the Ugly One, is the one who does not have a date for the prom.
Examples: Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter; Deb from Napoleon
Dynamite; Sarah from Labyrinth is written like one but is far too
pretty; Marie Melmotte from The Way we Live Now but with situational
Cheerleader status due to her father's money.
The Ugly One
Not-pretty and not-nice.
Women who lack beauty yet make themselves visible to men
though positive ugliness and/or obnoxious attitude. Unable to get the male
attention through beauty or charm, they get it however they can. Gross obesity,
piercings, tattoos, unnaturally-dyed hair, fringe fashion, and/or loud, crude,
and/or aggressive demeanor. Some of them, such as the young woman in the above
picture, have a face which could possibly be pretty, but have disfigured themselves.
They do in fact attain men more than What's-her-Faces do, but said men are
often Gammas and the relationships are often unhappy. They despise pretty women
with a burning rage, and will undermine and backbite any Cheerleaders and
So-and-Sos who possess any kind of leadership role in a group. They lord it
over What's-her-Faces, flaunting the attention they do get or deriding
What's-her-Faces for not being as assertive, "real," or feminist as
they are. What's-her-Faces may become Ugly Ones out of frustration and
bitterness.
Examples: Ugly stepsisters from various fairy tales, Mary
Bennett from Pride and Prejudice, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter;
Janis from Mean Girls.
As final notes, group dynamics, or "pecking order"
has been touched upon, but the author believes she cannot fully address it,
having little experience thereof. As to courtship strategies, the author is
unqualified to give advice, but thinks it likely that one should endeavor to be
a So-and-So if one can.
Images in this post are copyright to their respective
owners.
* Lest this essay be accused of following the Law of Female
Journalism, the author states for the record that she is not a So-and-So.
