Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/22/21: The Best of Twittersnips (Christmas)

 

Noel and Helga, the Christmas Eve Narwhals, frolic across a COVID mask

I love randomizing Christmas things. Carols, scented candles, and various mascots (Rudolph, et. al) are all open to various possibilities. Here’s a list of the ones I posted on Twitter 2019 – 2020.

Oh, and if someone can point me to where I can buy Joyce the Three-Nosed Doll, let me know!

 

A Merry Twitter Christmas

Christmas Carols
 A Fireplace and a Pine Log
A Silent Candy Cane Caress
Give a Bright Gift of Mittens to Your Friends
Hossanah Holy Christmas Tree
I Saw the Grinch Kissing Frosty the Snowman
Let’s Lick a Midnight Candy Cane
Merry Christmas (The Silver Reindeer Sing)
Narrow Trails of Silver Thistles
The Lord Is Coming Above Us
Christmas
Characters
 Arthur the Winter Angel
Buddy and Chrissie, the Merry Flying Squirrels
Hans the Hungry Reindeer
Jingles the Happy Hedgehog
Joyce the Three-Nosed Doll (sent to the Isle of Misfit Toys)
Noel and Helga, the Christmas Eve Narwhals
Sleighbell, the Blues-Singing Swan
Christmas Scents
 Blackberry and Candy Cane
By the Comforting Fireside
Christmas Mahogany
Ho-Ho Aloe
New Sweater and English Shortbread Cookies
Santa’s Hot Tub
Warm Polished Country Mantel
White Poinsettia

Hurray for Mrs. Claus

Mrs. Claus is a second-string character in the annual Christmas story, behind Santa himself, his elves, and his reindeer. She is usually depicted as elderly, smiling dispenser of cookies. Except when she’s not. In the pic above she’s a vicious ax murderer (in advertising art for the Christmas horror flick Mrs. Claus) while below, she’s in the midst of a crime caper with her hubby.

You’ve heard of the black-eyed kids? Well these figures below are black-eyed Santas. If they should ring your doorbell in the dead of night, don’t answer it. They’ll drag away to some frozen hell where you’ll spend eternity varnishing poorly made wooden toys.

Alternately, Mrs. Claus is suffering from dementia (which accounts for her blank stare) and Santa, none too clear-headed himself, is leading her around by the arm.

Other times, Mrs. Claus gets to be a tattooed bikini babe or rubber vixen. Santa may take on many ghoulish guises, but only Mrs. Claus gets to be sexualized.

This isn’t to say, though, that she is free from Christmas horror or tweeness. The stuffed toy above, with its painted-on wrinkles and fused, mitten-like hand, is certainly disturbing, bringing to mind tales of Lobster Boy.

Then there’s this doll with its drop-dead glare.

In the Rankin-Bass stop-motion Christmas special Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, which purports to be the (entirely fictional) true story of how Santa Claus came to be, Mrs. Claus starts out as a blonde schoolteacher named Jessica. She falls in love with Kris Kringle (the future Santa) and even gets to sing a song of her own in the special. Later, she springs Kris from his jail cell in the vaguely Germanic town where they both live and runs away with him to the North Pole.

In contrast to pure-hearted Jessica, this Mrs. Claus looks like she’s up to something. Perhaps she’s planning a fling with the handsome male elf in charge of foddering the reindeer.

Look how tiny she is here compared to her huge-headed husband! Clearly she was his child bride. The strain of being married to him has, over the years, collapsed her shoulders, and she looks heavenward with eyes closed in pain.

Appealing or creepy? You decide. I think she looks a tad too simian.

Art by Red2870

“Lick my foot” said Mrs. Claus.

Santa’s having way too much fun in this motorized rocking chair that is being pushed by Mrs. Claus.

Photographer Cindy Sherman hams it up in this portrait of an about-to-vomit Mrs. Claus who looks like she pushed her left hand right into that cake on her knee.

Also inspired by fine art, this boxlike Christmas couple look like they’re been designed by artist Marisol Escobar. I almost said Louise Nevelson, but corrected myself.

And this one, Marc Chagall.

And if you want to create your own Mrs. Claus, her heads are in the middle.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/15/21: Knights of the Round Table

Like the origin and location of Camelot, the number and names of The Knights of the Round Table varied with who was telling the story. Some writers went with a dozen, others, a cast of hundreds. All of them came with their own extensive backstory, sometimes featuring each other as cousins, sons, lieges, or squires, the relationships convoluted. Modern retellings stick to the best known: Sirs Lancelot, Galahad, Percival, Tristan, Kay, and Sir Gawain and his foe, The Green Knight.

The knights were headquartered at Camelot and the round table was created so no one man counted higher  than another, as he would if he sat at the head of a traditional table. In the early years of Arthur’s reign the knights kept the kingdom in peace and, later, went on the quest for the Holy Grail, the chalice used at Christ’s Last Supper.

The names of the knights tended to sound French, which was no surprise as the first chivalric romances were written in French by Chrétien de Troyes. But the origins of some of those names were from Welsh and British myth, Chrétien merely Francophiling them, in a way.

Anyway, what’s a few more knights to add to the mix?

 

Other Knights of the Round Table

Sir Bleonor of the Blue Apple

Sir Luthelant of Spearcomb

Pallgant the White Knight

Sir Peiravaine

Sir Boreius

Sir Salgavene

Sir Murois of the Amethyst Rose

Sir Brandhault of Millkaster

Sir Lactavale

Friar Glesmere

The Hermit of Kingswood

Sir Pastrivaine the Dignified

Sir Triesnor

Sir Blamisvere

 Edulreeve the Scarlet Duke

Saint Bedaeus

Sir Lyravaunt

King Gandybor

Sir Peiris the Fat

Sir Sisgrede of the White Moors

Sir Hectorlarke

Sir Umrieth

Sir Embrynant

Alymder of the Wood

Squire Jolenor the Valiant

Pendimont the Rapt

Sir Anelraise the Red Knight

Sir Murishault the Eager

 

Alien Mrs. Claus

It’s wearing a skirt, so it must be the Mrs!

Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/8/21: Let’s Talk About Camelot

“On second thought, let us not go to Camelot, for it is a silly place.”

The British comedy troupe Monty Python famously skewered the legend of King Arthur in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, destined to live forever in the minds of a certain generation who encountered it first during a fundraising drive on PBS. **  The Pythons did not have much of a budget, so there were no real horses, just prancing squires clopping coconut shells together following the fabled knights. Lack of funding became absurdist humor at its finest. Yet, even through all the mayhem, satire, and silliness, the grandeur and mystery of Arthur’s Britain shines through, in spite of the boys’ efforts to eradicate it.

Camelot was not, in fact, an actual artifact of that early Medieval era. It was invented in the 12th century by the French, who had begun to perfect the form of literature known as the chivalric romance. Camelot was both the name of King Arthur’s castle and his court and the French spellings were varied, ranging from the familiar one we know today to Gamalaot and Kaamaloth. Some scholars think the writer who first mentioned Camelot, Chrétien de Troyes, cribbed it from Camlann, the place name of Arthur’s last battle in Welsh myth. Other scholars cite Camulodunum, a city name  from Roman Britain, as the writer’s  influence. Whatever the case, Camelot was entirely mythical, despite tourist literature from contemporary English towns who attempt to associate it with their local bog, tor, or neolithic hill fort.

But. There are also ancient place names in England from which the name may come, such as the river Cam in Somerset, and the Celtic place name cantmael and its derivative camel (not the animal, which wasn’t known in those times.) Cantmael is a mashup of two Celtic words, canto, meaning district, and mael, a bare hill. It doesn’t take much imagination to get Camelot out of that.

Camelot appeared off and on in the French romances, but it took 15th century English writer Thomas Malory to truly bring it into prominence when he wrote Le Morte d’Arthur, a retelling of the earlier stories. The legends in the English-speaking world took off from there.

Want a name like Camelot, but not too Camelot-y?

 

Other Camelots

Castelhoff

Carconalle

Cathobir

Zhamilot

Capradot

Cammelos

Catrenor

 Caffilot

Trazemlot

Chiamelior

Chanelion

Carmassulk

Khyosmelot

Calihorn

** As I did as a young teen. I tuned in during the “Knights who say ‘Nih’ ” scene.

A Charming Steed

I can picture a future age King Arthur riding a horse like this.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 12/1/21: The Best of Twittersnips (Real World Locations)

Sometimes real world locations, built by human sweat with human dollars, can be as fantastic as any of those of fantasy. Take this pyramid at the river’s edge in Memphis, Tennessee, for example. Or these imaginary, yet plausible, places below.

(I really beg for someone to name their Los Angeles coffeehouse The Wrecking Brew.)

 

Real World Locations

Malls
 Vandermoor Square
The Terminal at Circle Chapel
Prairie Pond Place
Pubs
 The Old Bishop’s Royal Rectory
Vilpuri Brewery
The Siren’s Cove
Mansions
 Gloucester Coomb
The Amberlay Beeches
Dambersheath
Rachele Park
Schools
 Sarpensky Polytechnic
Caravae School of Fine Art
Other
 The Wrecking Brew (Coffeeshop)
The Prince Charles River (Canadian location)

Worst Dressed Superhero

I’m aware that the list is very long, as comic book heroes and heroines have been doing their thing in questionable costumes for decades. But 1973’s dystopian gladiator Killraven takes my vote for worst-dressed: black leather boots with over-the-knee epaulets and modified slingshot thong (with lacing.) I feel dirty just by looking at him. Not that there’s anything wrong with feeling dirty.

Yet, despite his misuse in the Marvelverse, Killraven inspired a better-loved character in 1980: Thundarr the Barbarian.

From left to right: Ookla the Mok, Thundarr in a fur onesie, and Princess Ariel, one of the few POC heroines on Saturday morning TV at the time

Thundarr was the mighty-thewed star of a Saturday morning cartoon by Ruby-Spears productions, the masterminds who unleashed Scooby-Doo on American wavelengths a decade earlier. In Thundarr’s universe the Earth was destroyed by a “runaway planet” in 1994 and thousands of years later “a strange new world rises from the old” with “savagery, super-science and sorcery” to paraphrase from the show’s opening narration. If you can tell I watched it, and loved it, you’re right.

A picturesque background from the show. The runaway planet had broken the moon in half like a bathbomb, but gravity drew the pieces back together.

Like Killraven, former slave Thundarr and his pals Princess Ariel and Chewbacca stand-in Ookla the Mok wander across a devastated earth encountering the ruins of 20th century landmarks and modern (as of 1980) technology put to odd uses, with a lot of sly social commentary on consumerism and the like that probably went over younger kids’ heads. (Thundarr, despite being a barbarian, never actually kills anyone or uses worse language than “Slime-dweller!”)

There’s a wiki on the show here.

Worldbuilding Wednesday 11/24/21: Russian Names

 

Russian-themed fantasy was the hottest thing in YA in the 2010s, of which Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha books are the best known. At least a dozen others were published following the trend, some fantasy, some contemporary, some historical. It’s hard to tell with COVID still hanging around, but the trend may not be over.

Want a character name that sounds exotic and Russian, without it actually being Russian? I randomgenned a list below. (You can also check out my pseudo-Italian and German names.)

 

Russian Names

Female

Ashina

Damia

Elsnira

Emerscha

Iska

Izhanka

Kytasja

Lainka

Mischila

Osserina

Othia

Pabrina

Petrinka

Shevadra

Tasmina

Tatmira

Tatpa

Tytia

Verya

Vshinka

Yaina

Zdonya

 Male

Antonady

Bravan

Elszar

Gevscha

Ivak

Kiraen

Ladan

Mormir

Oshka

Patrark

Smohadn

Steltoi

Stralya

Svobai

Terlentin

Tratslav

Vorlya

Vropav

Zarnik

Zdavan

Zmetzyer

Zvaya

 Surnames

Agriev

Alyesky

Borovka

Byakuk

Drakaya

Dutsova

Gretkoy

Gruzhuvna

Gyudotsova

Ivriov

Lydyuk

Mitrevich

Nikolyevich

Priev

Shmov

Stovna

Sukslav

Trovich

Tshyuvrovny

Yachuk

Yuriev

Zhvutov

Whatcha Dune?

Projected poster art for Jodorowsky’s Dune, the movie that never was. Paul Atreides/Muad’dib is at center. The names of the designers are at lower left, and if you follow their work, you can pinpoint what elements of the illustration they worked on: Foss the spacecraft, Giger the sandworm, Moebius the characters and perhaps that landscape. At upper right there’s a flaming giraffe. No idea why that is there. Note the director’s first name is misspelled.