"It's good to see me, isn't it?"

I finally went back to London to see Wicked last night, and I don't even know if I have the words? The last time I saw this show was March 2020, a week before I left Europe to go live in Japan. And then, you know, something else happened. I remember feeling at the time like I was content to take a break from the show as I'd seen it so often by this point, but the old saying be careful what you wish for comes to mind as I didn't mean like this! It's almost the same cast as before it's temporary closure, with the exception of Sophie Evans now playing Glinda, and as she's my absolute favorite I couldn't be happier about that! I really think this current cast is perfect 💚

This is what I wore. This dress was one of the last things I bought in Japan before I left, I'd been admiring it on the mannequin in front of the shop for a couple of weeks but it was kind of expensive. Knowing it was the last time I'd ever have the opportunity to buy it made me go for it though, and it's probably one of my favorite clothing items I got while I lived there. I wore it with my Doc Martens sandals, which are not very comfortable but I'm persevering.An old punk in Camden called me 'Alice in Wonderland', so that made my day.

Dress - LilLilly // Sandals - Doc Martens // Headbow - Innocent World // Necklace - Tarina Tarantino

Turn and face the strange

I meant to post about this sooner, but I went to the antiques center last week! I last went in December 2019, and I always love taking photos and seeing how much it's changed every time I go. I used to come out of these places with armfuls of things, but I'm definitely more chill nowadays and I just really like looking at quirky old stuff and seeing how things have changed over time (or not!) and thinking about the kinds of people who maybe owned it before. Especially as these places always get me thinking about consumerism and how much old stuff exists and how much new stuff is constantly being made, and how all of these lovely old things often end up in garbage dumps or left to rot in attics and how unsustainable it all is. Which really bums me out so I try to only buy stuff that I want to give a forever home.

I'm really into bears lately, and I love old carved stuff like this that looks handmade.

I've been admiring this painting for years! It used to be at another antiques place locally, now it's moved to here, and I swear I've been looking at it for about 6 years so it always makes me really happy to try and spot where they've hung it up this time.

I love old packaging design, and this iron was tiny. I did think about getting it as it would literally be perfect for travel, but it was super heavy which isn't airline friendly.

I've never seen canisters specifically for different types of sugar before.

We'll make it beautiful

I went down to London yesterday to go to the theater and I can't believe how long it's been since I've been able to type that!! It all felt a bit weird and surreal all day as I haven't been to London since coming back from Japan. I haven't been much of anywhere really and I did feel anxious and a bit of reverse culture shock because I've become so used to navigating Tokyo and Japanese etiquette and customs that things kept taking me by surprise and I found myself unsure of what to do. I posted about it on my Instagram stories and I had a couple of my friends from Japan messaging me to say they've felt the same since returning home so at least it's not just me!

I went to see Heathers which is a show I've wanted to see for years as I really love the cast recording. To be honest I'm not often drawn to musicals based on movies, there's been a lot of them lately which is kind of it's own gripe. I think Heathers works better as a musical though as it's such heightened reality anyway, although to be fair I've never much liked the movie so it's not hard for it to be an improvement. The issue I often have with musicals I've only ever listened to and not actually seen is because I'm such a visual person I kind of make up my own version of it in my head because I don't know how it's staged (I don't like bootlegs personally, watching something through someone's shaky phone camera where they're constantly zooming in and out is not a fun time for me). So sometimes actually seeing the show can be a bit of a letdown compared to what I pictured, but I really enjoyed it! And I'm so glad it opened as restrictions have been so up in the air lately which has affected the theater and arts industries the most, so it just felt so important to be back.

There was so much I wanted to do in London before the show that I kind of didn't know what to do. I wanted to go to a museum or art gallery, but I also wanted to check out a few stores I can't get to locally. I was still deciding on the Tube when I suddenly decided to jump off at Tottenham Court Road and spent most of the day in various book shops, so I guess I'll go to the museum in a few weeks. I also stopped by the Japan Centre, which I've been going to for years but it really hit different this time as I recognized absolutely everything on the shelves from when I lived there. Especially as I'd been having that reverse culture shock anxiety all day too, it was comforting!

“Stop trying. Take long walks. Look at scenery. Doze off at noon. Don't even think about flying. And then, pretty soon, you'll be flying again.”

One of the things I really wanted to do the most in Japan was visit the Studio Ghibli Museum as I'd missed it when I first went which I was super gutted about. Then Covid happened and it closed, and then while locked down they decided to do some renovations and keep it closed longer and it was basically shut for the entire time I lived in Japan and I thought I was going to miss out on it again. Until!! They announced they were opening mid-January, 2 weeks before I was due to fly back to Europe. Serendipity!

The building itself is completely magical, I don't know how else to describe it it's just so whimsical and full of tiny details even down to the doorknobs and Jiji shaped faucets. Some of its almost like a maze with tiny doors you have to crouch to go through and spiral staircases that lead to no where in particular. There's all kinds of different rooms, from detailing the history of the company and how the animations are made, to all of the behind the scenes artwork and research that goes into everything.

This was my favorite bit as it's set out like spaces where the artists are in the middle of working and like they just got up for a break, and the walls are covered in genuine concept work, story boards, and background art. I found it so, so inspiring, so much that I even bought a set of the watercolors the artists use (the Japanese brand Holbein of course). There were photo albums to flick through of the photographs the researchers had taken on locations, shelves of books they used as reference (nothing specific either, just books about birds or certain cities that are the kind of thing you'd probably overlook at the thrift store). I think the reason I found it so inspiring was because there wasn't any fancy expensive equipment or tools so it all felt really accessible and realistic. It made me want to thrift a bunch of books and paint from them as reference, and I loved seeing that all of the fantastical locations and creatures in Ghibli movies are based on things so mundane.

They also have a movie theater showing exclusive short movies that are only viewable at the museum, I think there's 8 or so that they rotate through, and t one I saw was about a caterpillar and you saw him hatching and experiencing the world for the first time and it was so cute! It also had no speech, just sound effects, so you could understand it in any language which I thought was smart although I don't know if they're all like this. 

“You must go on a long journey before you can really find out how wonderful home is.”

It's slowly feeling more and more autumnal here and I can feel myself approaching my hibernation phase. Oh to be a bear! As I can't sleep all winter I've done the next best thing and have mostly been holed up with my illustration work and crafts.

I've been rewatching one of my favorite TV shows, BrainDead, which I realized I'd last seen two years ago in 2018! I'm having to use the US Amazon to stream it (thanks VPN!) as I guess because it's currently topical with the US elections that they've started charging to watch it when it used to be free. Because it's been a while I'd forgotten some of the finer details of the show and it really is hilariously funny. 

I also finally finished my Snow Queen project. It's been a lot of work as I was bubbling over with ideas during lockdown and am still playing catch up and digitally painting it all. I'm feeling a bit done with it all to be honest and am itching to work on something new but I still have about 8 different illustrations to finish.

I'm still working on my sketchbook though, just at a much slower pace. I drew these two portraits with ballpoint pen last weekend. I'd watched Joker for the first time since I'd seen it at the cinema and met Todd Phillips, and that whole thing was just such an experience that I was worried my very non-cinema sized screen would diminish it somehow. And also it's just that feeling of wanting to savor your favorite things instead of over watching it, you know? It inspired me to draw the Joker though. I'm tempted to paint the drops of blood on his face and perhaps the clown make up too, but I'm worried about spoiling it and losing some of the detail. I also drew Aaron Tveit because of watching BrainDead which he's one of the main characters in (and is the whole reason I ever watched it in the first place, let's be honest).

This is what I'm currently working on in my sketchbook, using actual paint for a change. I've been itching to draw something from Wicked as I've been thinking about how I used to see it several times a year and how inspired I'd feel at the end of each performance and I miss that feeling so much! I dug out my old sketchbook to look at some thumbnails I'd messily sketched out in my car on the way home from London after a show, and this was one of the them so I decided to finally give it a go. I was a little worried the perspective wouldn't work, but it was one of those rare moments where the image in your head comes out exactly as you want it too! I love using gouache as it's so satisfyingly matte and flat once it's dry. I'm using a different sketchbook to my usual brand, and I do really miss my old one but I'm also enjoying being able to use more materials and paint in it. The only issue I really have is that because the paper is so much nicer I'm struggling to really fill it up as I don't want to 'waste' it - which is generally why I steer away from fancy sketchbooks in the first place!

I've also been working on my memory journal, currently creating a spread for BrainDead as I like to record things I've enjoyed. I've also fallen down a rabbit hole of watching people journal on YouTube which is incredibly addictive! Including k-pop journals, which really isn't my thing but I just love their enthusiasm and I admire it really. When I was a teenager being passionate about anything was sneered at, particularly if you were a girl, and it's something that really stuck with me and made it difficult for me to express my interests as I constantly felt like I had to dial myself down to fit in, and I'm still trying to unlearn all of that. So although I don't like the topic personally I really admire how unabashed these girls are, and how creative it makes them! Creating journals and scrapbooks of things you like is nothing new, people have been doing it since the 1950s, but it's become much more aesthetic now and I love that. And it's just really fun keeping track of stuff you're watching, which songs you're particularly into right now, and your general feelings on it all. Our interests shape who we are so much that it makes sense to have a place to record it in a creative way.

This was not as nice as I'd hoped but I liked the packaging!

Otherwise I've mostly been trying to keep up with all of my other hobbies. The trouble with having so many is that there's always something to do, which is a blessing as I've never been bored in my whole entire life, but I can get a bit overwhelmed at how much I want to do and how few hours there are in the day. I'm currently trying to get back on track with reading as it's a hobby I've really missed and I've finally settled into a great book after a few duds. I'm also halfway through a knitting project, which I didn't take any photos of as it's not very exciting to look at right now but it's a triangle shape and learning how to shape knitted items feels pretty exciting as I'm still a beginner. And I've taken up hand sewing after discovering Bernadette Banner's channel over summer. I've sewed for years and made loads of my own clothes, but as much as I love the finished result of wearing the things that I've sewn I've always hated the actual v frustrating process of sewing and seen it as just a means to an end. So seeing Bernadette hand sew full clothing garments kind of blew my mind as I've always associated hand sewing with mending or finishing a hem. I was particularly inspired by her Lady Sherlock waistcoat and decided to attempt it for myself, so I've also had that on the go in the background. I've loved seeing it slowly take structure as I quietly sit with it on my lap in front of a movie rather than hunching over a sewing machine, and it's gotten me thinking about all kinds of things I want to sew next!

Tokyo Disneyland

Beware the frozen heart

When listening to the Frozen Broadway cast recording the other day it really got me thinking about the original fairy tale of The Snow Queen and how the two compare. This isn't anything I've done any research on as I want it to be my own theories without outside influence, and I'm sure it's not a new topic at all but it's something I wanted to share my own thoughts on anyway!

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen is probably my all time favorite fairy tale, and it's something I go way back with. I'm Danish and grew up on Andersen's works as a child and so they hold a lot of personal significance to me, and when I was in my foundation year of art school for my big final project I decided I wanted to illustrate my own version of The Snow Queen.



The artwork is really old and kind of embarrassing to me now (I actually plan redoing it entirely as a personal project for my portfolio) but it was a labor of love as The Snow Queen is an epic in length for being a fairy tale, and a lot of background research went into everything and it got me one of the highest grades in my class. Which is all to say that I'm intimately knowledgeable of the original story.

I've been a huge fan of Disney my whole life and was hugely involved in the fandom in the early '10s when it was all forum based (I love forums, I wish they'd come back! They were so perfect for fandoms as they were so community driven but had the benefit of being moderated by people and not automated systems so no one could be an asshat or be unfairly censored). I knew Disney had a long history of trying to adapt The Snow Queen dating back to the 1930s, and multiple times it had come into production only to be shelved due to the dark and episodic themes of the novel. So when it was finally released in 2013 I could hardly wait and went to the very first screening that I could. And I hated it!! Yeah, big twist - what is now one of my favorite movies I did not get along with on first viewing. I remember people gushing about it and I just did not get the hype as all I could see was a bastardization of my favorite story.

Obviously I expected Disney to alter the source material but I couldn't see any of the original story in Frozen and that was what put my nose so out of joint. It wasn't until I saw it again by chance in 2015 that it really hit me emotionally and I was able to separate it entirely from the source and appreciate it as it's own thing. Since then I've collected all kinds of merchandise, cosplayed as Elsa at cons and at the Disney parks, Disneybounded as the characters and collected limited edition dresses based on their costumes, and traveled all of the way from Europe to see it on Broadway (OK it wasn't my main reason for going to NYC, Aaron Tveit in Moulin Rouge was, but I still paid an obscene amount to see it!) In fact it's probably fair to say at this point that Frozen has come to mean more to me than the original Andersen tale which just feels nostalgic to me now more than anything else.



Despite my love of both, I haven't really thought too much about how the two stories cross over and share similarities as like I said, I prefer to keep the two separate as they are so different. Other than Elsa being a Queen with ice powers, two of the background servants being named Gerda and Kai, and there being a reindeer as a main character, there really isn't anything immediately obvious that points it as being an adaptation. Even the overarching themes aren't really the same; in The Snow Queen the main message is good verses evil and the importance of innocence - the Snow Queen represents temptation, and Kay only becomes vulnerable to her when the mirror shards have entered his heart and eye and changed his view of the world to a more adult, cynical version. This is hugely important and actually really relevant to Frozen when you look a little closer, but Frozen is generally about true love and the effects fear and isolation can have on both a person and a community. The Snow Queen also has a lot of Christian influence, but I'm not mad that Disney took that aspect out.

The Snow Queen (which can be read here) actually begins with a magic mirror that distorts everything it reflects by reducing everything pure and good into nothingness and magnifying everything ugly and evil. A group of trolls (!!) try to fly the mirror up the Heavens to "make fools of the angels" but as the mirror gets higher and higher into the sky it shatters and falls back down to Earth.

Kay and Gerda are child neighbors who have grown up playing together and are as close as brother and sister. Shards of the magic troll mirror fall onto Kay, one piercing his heart which turns it to ice (!), and another that gets caught in his eye and distorts his view of the world into something ugly and contemptible. He's mean to Gerda and is generally a bit of an asshat for seemingly no reason, which is possibly why no one but Gerda seems to care when he suddenly goes missing. When Kay is out playing on his sled by himself, the Snow Queen pulls up in a carriage and kisses him so he can no longer feel the cold and takes him to her palace in the North. This is the only real appearance of the Snow Queen in the whole novel and her motives are completely ambiguous. In her palace she gives Kay a puzzle of broken ice shards and tells him that if he can spell out the correct word then he can become his own master, so he settles down on the frozen lake and gets to work.



Gerda's distraught at the loss of her friend and decides to go find him. She begins by boat but soon loses her paddles and is left to float until she meets land and is greeted by an old woman who erases Gerda's memory of Kay so that she'll stay with the woman as an adoptive daughter. Which works well, until Gerda spots a rose which reminds her of playing in the flowers with Kay and she bursts into tears, but the flowers confirm that Kay can't be dead as they haven't seen him in the Earth so Gerda runs away. Next she meets a crow who thinks Kay may have married a local princess which turns out to be a false alarm but the Prince and Princess are kind enough to provide Gerda with a carriage and some servants to take her on her journey, but it results in Gerda being taken prisoner by a band of thieves further along. The Robber Girl forces Gerda to be her friend by holding her at knife point which upsets Gerda a lot, but the Robber Girl's captive pigeons tell Gerda that Kay has been taken by the Snow Queen, and the captive reindeer tells Gerda that he knows where her palace is located. The Robber Girl lets Gerda and the reindeer go free and he carries Gerda to Finnmark, meeting the Lapland Woman and the Finn Woman along the way, but Gerda must make the rest of the journey alone as otherwise she won't be able to enter the palace. Kay is unable to recognize Gerda as he's obsessed with the ice puzzle and has turned black with cold, and the sight of him in that state reduces Gerda to tears and she tries to hug him. The warmth of her tears melts the ice in his heart, and now able to feel again Kay cries as he recognizes his closest friend and his tears dislodge the shard in his eye. They leave the palace and travel home together, and although they are grown they keep the innocence of youth in their hearts which is what saved them.

This is a very abridged version, and you can tell that it's very different from the plot of Frozen which I'm not going to detail as I'm assuming that if you've read this far then you already know it, but I wanted to give some background of the original in case you're not familiar.

At first glance there don't seem to be many similarities. It's kind of obvious that Gerda and Anna could be said to be the same character - Anna keeps her innocence, which often comes across as naivety in her agreeing to marry Prince Hans and charging off into the wilderness alone to look for her sister, but it's very clear that her heart is in the right place and like Gerda she meets people that help her along the way even if the cast of characters look a bit different. I've seen Kristoff compared to the Robber Girl which always leaves a bad taste in my mouth - the Robber Girl literally murders people and rubs a knife along the throat of the reindeer to stop him from running away. I can't imagine Kristoff treating Sven like that, and as Kristoff is directly inspired by indigenous Sámi cultures comparing him to the Robber Girl starts to jump headfirst into blatant racism so please consider don't.

For me, it's actually the character of Kay that I find the most intriguing in all of this and how he fits into the cast of Frozen. I've seen people say that Elsa is both the Snow Queen and Kay combined, but that never sat right with me as I don't see any of Kay in Elsa - she has no sudden switch of personality, no task she obsessively feels she must undertake, so I really don't see what that comparison is even based on. But as I was sat listening to the Broadway soundtrack on the train and listening to John Riddle enthusiastically sing Love Is An Open Door with Patti Murin it suddenly struck me - Hans is Kay (I know, several paragraphs in and I finally get to the point of the post, but I had to set it up!)


Hans is a very complex character within Frozen, I'd argue the most complex and it's why he's my favorite as there's so much to unpack and interpret with him. I've always been of the opinion that Disney did him dirty in the movie as one of the reasons he's so complex is because he wasn't originally written as the villain - Elsa was. But after the songwriters wrote Let It Go and discovered Elsa's motives they couldn't comfortably place her as the villain anymore, so made a last minute decision to switch it to Hans. That's why there is no foreshadowing and it's really poor writing and he's generally considered to be such a weak character (which has been analysed many times before and I won't go into, but you can read more here if you need the receipts). With the release of Frozen II Disney made it pretty clear that they now want to portray Hans as a simple black and white villain by calling him an "irredeemable monster", which is sad as it turns his backstory from something complex that could of opened a discussion about his descent, into the Freudian Excuse trope and jeering at him. This feels incredibly tone-deaf to me considering the story arcs of Elsa and Anna and the main themes of personal growth in Frozen, and even goes against statements made by writer Jennifer Lee.

If you're not a fan of Hans and aren't fully aware of his backstory - he grew up the youngest of 13 sons and was abused throughout his childhood. He states this himself in a throwaway comment to Anna about how his brothers "pretended I was invisible, literally, for two years.", which has been followed up in official releases by Disney such as a comic strip and a book called A Frozen Heart which also shows his father as an abusive sociopath. This isn't sympathizing a villain or trying to excuse his actions, but it does add to the layers of his character. It's exceptional and unheard of for a Disney villain to display any degree of self-doubt or ambiguity, so why did Disney originally go to such lengths to give him a traumatic back story just to make him a throwaway villain? Because he wasn't the villain.

There's long been a theory in Frozen fan circles that the trolls are the true villains of the story. They're the ones who encourage Elsa's parents to hide her away and force her to conceal her feelings which leads to her own traumatic experiences, and while they heal Anna they state "the heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded." This is an example of genuine foreshadowing, and could point to why Hans does a complete 180 after Anna meets the trolls with Kristoff and they sing lines like "Her quote “engagement” is a flex arrangement" and "Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed!". Also remember the magic mirror in the original Snow Queen belonged to the trolls!

Which brings us back to Kay. Sweet, kind, innocent Kay who got a frozen heart and a distorted view of the world when two pieces of troll mirror fell onto him from the sky. Who could no longer see goodness and acted selfishly and obsessively until Gerda melted his frozen heart. And as Anna states to Hans towards the finale of Frozen:


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I'm not saying for definite that the trolls had any part in it but it's definitely interesting, and there are certainly a lot of parallels between the characterizations of Kay and Hans and how it changes their behaviors. One aspect of Hans' character that I've always been intrigued by is how it parallels Elsa - a character who also grew up in an abusive household, although not through malicious intent like Hans experienced, but rather due to over protection and shortsightedness by her parents - and how they both show how abuse can shape a person. For Elsa, it caused low self esteem, isolation, and self punishment, whereas for Hans one could argue it made him act outwards and present himself as he thinks others want him to be seen whilst being emotionally volatile. Or maybe he was just genuinely trying to make a better life for himself away from his abusive family and sensed Anna was looking for the same deal and was happy to marry her until his heart and eyes were frozen by magic trolls which distorted his view and made him behave like a jackass. Maybe.

I guess we'll never truly know, but it's fun to mull over and I enjoy any links I can find between my favorite movie and my favorite fairy tale. And it's why I'll forever be mad that Hans got such a rush job treatment as he has the potential to be an amazing character. He’s emotionally damaged and an arrogant and vindictive dick, but this doesn’t make him evil. I like that he's ambiguous and morally grey and how that forces the audience to question whether they can trust him. As in reality, most people are like that.

Yet another scene that parallels Kay and Hans - at the beginning of The Snow Queen Kay looks out of the frost covered window and sees the Snow Queen beckoning to him, and here was have a big pointed scene of Hans looking out of the frost covered window at the storm Elsa created - whilst being an ass to Anna, much like Kay was to Gerda (who we've already established is Anna!)