American Girl Items that Never Were
↳ Maryellen’s Scenes & Settings
Enter the world of Maryellen Larkin with Scenes & Settings, a sturdy portfolio of beautifully illustrated playscape scenes. It includes a bedroom, kitchen, school room, diner, and outdoor scene to recreate Daytona Beach, Florida as it was in Maryellen’s time in 1954.
I’ve always loved American Girl dolls, and I thought it would be fun to imagine what a Scenes & Settings book for Maryellen would look like if Pleasant Company had produced it. I love Molly’s Scenes but I wanted to see a midcentury home and colorful pink kitchen, and I liked the idea of a home economics class. I thought the bedroom could actually belong to Maryellen’s mother or her older sister, to showcase the glamorous yet materialistic consumer culture of the decade. I made a diner scene but it didn’t turn out very well so I didn’t include it here.
We’re celebrating my birthday with an ASOIAF Art Giveaway! This is the fourth year we’ve had an art giveaway for my birthday. I have a lot of fun hosting them, and I hope everyone who participates has fun too!
PRIZE: Commissioned ASOIAF art by chillyravenart of two characters from ASOIAF, subject to certain restrictions.
You can see some examples of @chillyravenart‘s beautiful artwork on her tumblr and on her deviantart. If you would like to reblog the examples of her art featured above, you can find them here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
RULES:
You must reblog this post to enter, and you must be following me. (I will check!) New followers are welcome, but don’t just follow me for the giveaway, that’s rude.
Likes count as an additional entry.
You get 1 like + 1 reblog = 2 chances to win.
No giveaway blogs.
The giveaway closes on my birthday, October 14! You have until 9pm PT on October 14th October 11th at 5pm because this drama has to end to reblog this post, at which time a winner will be chosen via a random number generator.
The winner must have their askbox open, and they must respond within 3 days, or a new winner will be chosen.
Read the detailed rules & restrictions.
Thank you all so much for following me, and good luck!
PINK CRINOLINE
↳ Margot Robbie as Joanna Lannister ♛ Shohreh Aghdashloo as Loreza Martell
↳ ↳ WLW midcentury AU
I was never spellbound by a starry sky
What is there to moon glow, when love has passed you by
Then there came a midnight and the world was new
Now here am I so spellbound, darling
Not by stars, but just by you
1945. Still reeling from her husband’s death, Loreza Martell knows her people have no time for grief. In San Francisco, delegates from 50 nations meet to decide who will lead the post-war world, and Dorne cannot--will not--be left behind. But as a charter to unite the nations is written, Loreza finds only loneliness in this cold, foggy city ... until a young translator for the Conference catches her eye. Joanna is quick and clever, and her hands are warm, but her husband is not one for sharing. The two women enter into a forbidden affair, with deadly consequences.
“I crossed a thousand leagues to come to you, and lost the best part of me along the way. Don't tell me to leave.”
“Leave me,” she repeated, turning away.
Nicole Kidman as book!Cersei ♛ Cary Elwes as book!Jaime
In 267 AC, Tywin Lannister returned to the west to attend his father's funeral and set the westerlands in order, and King Aerys decided to accompany him. The king took his eight-year old son Rhaegar, Prince of Dragonstone, and more than half the court. For the better part of the next year, the Seven Kingdoms were ruled from Lannisport and Casterly Rock, where both the king and his Hand were in residence.
Queen Rhaella was left behind in King’s Landing. After suffering miscarriages in 263 and 264, Her Grace was once again pregnant. However, the Princess Shaena was stillborn, much to the queen’s sorrow.*
Pitiful and pitied by no one, why have I come to the ignominy of this wretched state, I who am queen of seven kingdoms, mother to the prince? My guts are torn from me, my child is carried off and removed from me. My babes sleep in dust, and their most unhappy mother is compelled to be irremediably tormented by the memory of the dead. One son remains to my solace, but Casterly Rock is long leagues away, and his father the King guards Rhaegar jealously from my affections. In all things the gods have turned cruel to me, adding sorrow to sorrow. [x]
♛ Alexandra Dowling as Rhaella Targaryen ♛ Click for more info & to DL as a wallpaper
Discussion of Targaryen court fashion below the cut.
*The description up above is not a direct quote. The information can be found in TWOIAF.
The “Pitiful and pitied by no one” speech is paraphrasing Eleanor of Aquitaine.
@bidonica drew me the most perfect drawing of Rhaella wearing clothing like this, but for a while I’ve wanted to manip an outfit that resembled what @bidonica drew, something that was close to my headcanons about what the fashions were in the Targaryen court during the reign of Aerys II. I didn’t want it to look like the show. I imagined high boned collars or ruffs, like the bony frills of a dragon or triceratops and lots of pleats. Pleats were a luxury that wasted a significant amount of fabric, indicating that the wearer was a person of wealth and power. (I know this is show!canon, but I like to think that Tywin’s red pleated velvet sash is a holdover from an earlier (Targaryen) era, 20 years out of style, because none of the other Lannisters wear anything pleated.)
I like to imagine that cloth-of-gold was in high demand during this time (before the rift between Aerys and Tywin widened considerably) to represent the significant Lannister influence at court. (Please pretend Rhaella’s dress is more than just yellow and that it uses a lot of cloth of gold. I tried.jpeg)
I wanted to incorporate lots of purple in Rhaella’s gown, both to match her eyes and because Dany favors the color in the books, to make that connection between mother and daughter. You can’t see them very well, but I added purple “amethysts” to Rhaella’s gown, and to the gold jewelry thing hanging down.
The other thing that I wanted to include in Rhaella’s outfit was the (asymmetrical) snowy white cloak / sash thing pinned / draped over one shoulder. Supposed to be reminiscent of a bride’s cloak, I wanted to invoke the Westerosi wedding ceremony, in which the bridegroom drapes the cloak of his protection around his bride’s shoulders. However, as you can see, there’s a sort of irony to the way Rhaella is wearing it. It’s not wrapped around Rhaella’s shoulders here, it’s pinned / attached to one shoulder to keep it from falling off, a silent yet very visible condemnation of Aerys’s abuse, his adultery, his absence during her pregnancy (contrast to Tywin being present when Joanna gave birth (and Jaime for Cersei)), his taking Rhaegar away etc. It’s worn sort of like a half-cape but it’s full length, making the use of the left hand impractical, another indicator of wealth and status, as a person who doesn’t need to lift or carry or do practical things because she has attendants and handmaids and servants to do all that stuff for her.
Also, I could not manip a pregnancy here without it looking like demonic possession, so please just pretend this is the day Aerys departs and Rhaella’s pregnancy is not showing yet in this picture, ok, thank. This took a loooong time in photoshop and was cobbled together from a lot of different pieces and you can’t even see the details. So if you want to see it larger, please go to this post and follow the links.
Jaehaerys I, Good Queen Alysanne, and Septon Barth
↳ Happy birthday, @goodqueenaly!
Decisive in thought and deed, Jaehaerys was wise beyond his years, always seeking the most peaceable ends. His queen, Alysanne, was also well loved throughout the realm, being both beautiful and high-spirited, as well as charming and keenly intelligent. [...] For forty-six years, the Old King and Good Queen Alysanne were wed, and for the most part it was a happy marriage, with children and grandchildren aplenty. [...] the Old King outlived his beloved queen, and in his last years it was said that the grief of their parting hung over his court like a pall.
Yet if Alysanne was Jaehaerys’s great love, his greatest friend was Septon Barth. No man of humble birth ever rose so high as the plainspoken but brilliant septon. He was the son of a common blacksmith and had been given to the Faith while young. But his brilliance made itself known, and in time he came to serve in the library at the Red Keep, tending the king’s books and records. There King Jaehaerys became acquainted with him, and soon named him Hand of the King.
Donald Sutherland as Jaehaerys Targaryen ♚ Michelle Pfeiffer as Alysanne Targaryen ♛ Sean Connery as Septon Barth
