a few personal questions about miss dermark on her birthday

Of course I am being HONEST about all these questions -- Sandra Dermark for beginners, you may say, right?

• Sweets or savouries? - sweets, definitely
• Straight, queer, ace...? - ace, definitely
• Early bird or night owl? - definitely the latter. Some holidays I wake up at one pm! I have delayed sleep phase disorder. Some days I wish I were more of a morning person...
• Hogwarts house? - Ravenclaw, and fiercely proud of it!
• Faction? - Amity, that's how it is -but I have never been into Divergent outside Amity, to be honest
• Enneatype? Seven, most surely Sexual Seven with both wings
• Favourite singer's voice? - Freddie Mercury (male) and Ana Torroja (female)
• Favourite fairytale characters? - the prince and the princess in the Fourth Story of The Snow Queen
• Favourite Shakespearean characters? - Cassio from Othello and Portia from The MoV
• Favourite deities of any mythos? Loki and Uzume (I assume the latter is far less known than all the other characters I have mentioned before, so I'll give you readers the buzz: meet a Japanese lesser goddess who stars in only one myth, the one in which she frees the Sun, but her MO is equal to anything outrageous Loki has ever done -- basically, the Sun personified has had a bad day full of sibling squabbles and sulks in her locked room, eclipsing herself. After a long period of endless dark gloomy winter, the intelligent and adorable and besides plucky perky Uzume, who had been sipping her sake all along, sets her cup aside and has the bright idea of putting a large mirror and a bathtub at the entrance of Miss Sun's locked door, dressing in the scantiest kimono she has -think of those translucent Dornish silks!-, gathering an audience 800 strong out of all the protesters -gods, catfolk, merfolk, snow queens, ogres, you name it- who are gnashing their teeth and/or ranting in front of the Sun's locked room, splashing bath-water on her own dress till it's drenched to make the silk stick to her skin, and performing for this audience risqué songs to a provocative dance that involves striking lots of risqué poses as well as boob jiggle and hip waggle and flirtation with the audience of all species and both genders... all the while taunting the Sun that outside there's a goddess who is garnering lots more of attention -ie Uzume herself-! And the audience echoing her approval and proving that so it is... So: at the crowning point of the performance, the Sun huffs out in a rage (feeling that they have replaced her with someone else), is dazzled on the threshold by her own radiant reflection in the mirror, and they lock the door to the empty room behind her. As the Sun joins in the celebration (I picture her flirting with Uzume, who is still the star du jour), sunlight comes back to the Earth, springtime will soon return and there is much rejoicing. Then Uzume, who rules over sunrises and revelry and entertainment as a reward for her achievements, fades back into the background - but her story, basically a gender-flipped cosmic-horror version of Achilles and Patroclus without the war, has inspired countless episode of anime series! Including one where Uzume is a ferret...).
• Fetishes? - brightly-coloured period military uniforms, prep school-boarding school uniforms, Victorian porcelain dolls (both girl and boy dolls), the art nouveau aesthetic, males with queues (low ponytails), bifauxnen/otokoyaku/reverse trap anime characters, brightly-coloured frogs (poisonous or not), Scandinavian counterpart cultures...
• Favourite musicals? - Les Misérables, Beauty & the Beast, Great Comet (and, if operas count, Verdi's Otello and Un Ballo in Maschera)
• Favourite comedy? Classic British comedy: Monty Python, Black Adder, 'Allo Allo, Eddie Izzard, Fools and Horses, Carry On Up the Khyber, Carry On Jack, Carry On and Don't Lose your Head...
• A question they have asked you so often that it wearies you? How many languages do you speak?
• Any flaws you ashame yourself over? Well, being a LOUD TALKER!!! And an attention whore who wants to feel that all eyes are upon her. And unable to wait without distractions, and prone to look before I leap, right? There's also my tendency to drown my sorrows in liquor or in ice cream when I'm feeling down...
• A guilty pleasure? White chocolate with berries, absinthe, and watching animesque cute-and-psycho perky female minions (most lately, Ty Lee, Entrapta, and Paper Star on Netflix on my laptop). Not necessarily all three (ie white chocolate and berries+absinthe+animesque cute and psycho PFMs) at the same time.
• If you had any supernatural power, what would you pick? Optimism inducement. Sometimes people are too stubborn and/or too stuck in their negative emotions for your own natural merry mood to spread to them - plus, it might not seem like it, but optimism inducement also has its perversion potential... hehe... 
• Any underlying themes in your fiction? - Relationships, youth, fulfillment, human weakness, altered states... 

 PS. An omedetou to fellow kindred spirits and eccentric Cupbearers in fiction ;)

 Entrapta

 Lloyd Asplund

 And of course Luna Lovegood!

And the Cute and Psycho Rhiannon (and her more responsible minder-twin Tristan)!

And this little essay from a zodiac book that pretty much nails my personality:

31st of January 

- the birthday of the bright spirit

People born on this date have an overwhelming need to be noticed, heard, and taken seriously. And because more often than not these bright, appealing people achieve this goal with ease, they are admired by others for their creativity, vision, and originality. 

Strong willpower, steadfastness, and an emphasis on self-expression define people who are born on this day. They can also be quite progressive, with a touch of genius about them. Although they can appear absent-minded and chaotic at times, this is only because their thoughts are always on fast-forward, their minds filled with original and ingenious ideas and concepts.

When they feel they have made some kind of breakthrough they run the risk of getting overexcited, but others tend to find this endearing rather than annoying. In fact people born on this day are generally well liked for being so inventive and entertaining in their never-ending quest for knowledge. They are magnetic personalities but harbour a tendency to be occasionally oversensitive, reading hidden meanings into the deeds and words of others. When they feel upstaged, put upon, or let down they may overreact and either withdraw completely and become depressed, or startle others with their sharp tongue. They need to learn to be a little less intense in their relationships and to accept that sometimes other people want to share the limelight.

Occasionally people born on this day may feel pressured to conform to others' expectations of them in order to be liked; by so doing they run the risk of losing their unique charm. Fortunately, around the age of twenty there is a turning point which suggests they are able to develop greater self-reliance; at the age of fifty there is another turning point which highlights their fighting spirit and emotional resilience.

Above all, people born on the 31st of January are bright spirits who have the ability to light up the world with their bubbly personalities and brilliance. Once they learn to truly value themselves they have the potential not only to bring great happiness to the world but also to influence and inspire.

Your greatest challenge is to stop losing interest quickly if others don't give you their heartfelt support.

The way forward is... not to try something else but to trust your instincts and make your own decisions about what is or is not right for you.

On the dark side

Uncertain, suspicious, grovelling

At your best

Appealing, original, strong

FADQ #1: WHY FREDERICK AND FREDERICA?

Yevgenia Yeretskaya, 2013.

Reader: Why did you name the Prince and Princess in your Snow Queen spin-off play Frederick and Frederica? Is it for another reason than having matching names only a sound apart (masculine and feminine counterparts), or because both names mean "peaceful ruler..." or something else?
Dermark: It IS for having matching/counterpart names and ALSO for their meaning, but there's also an intertextual reference here. It happens to be a tribute to the stage version by Charles Way. (The crows were named JJ and Lil and made humans: in my version, I retained them as avian crows and gave them the names of Odin's.)
Nota bene:
Frederica: The Queen of Spring and a princess on the verge of marriage.
(JJ: Fred’s best friend and an instigator in getting him into trouble.
Lil: Princess Frederica’s best friend, but cannot tell her no.)
James Russell does well as the quirky Prince Fred. Claire Sundin as the endearing Princess Frederica, complete with temper tantrums and speech impediments.

PRINCESS FREDRICA A beautiful Princess - in love and about to get married to Prince Fredrick. Loves a giggle and having fun. Self-assured and bossy, thinks she can always have anything she wants.
FREDRICK A young Prince - “impossibly charming”. In love and about to get married to Princess Fredrica. Confident and successful with the ladies. Loves a good party. He assumes his Prince-like responsibilities.
(JJ Prince Fredrick’s best friend and secretly in love with Lily. Very proud of his rich friend - he wants to keep him happy and entertained and is always up for a laugh.
LILY Posh best friend of Princess Fredrica. A snob who means no harm. Secretly in love with JJ.)

Here are costume designs for Frederica and Fred in a Charles Way production.

Why do all the aristocratic characters in Story the Fourth speak in pentameter?

I used pentameter as a tribute to that everlasting bard that is known as William Shakespeare. Sadly, I didn't use pentameter in the Travesty of Othello, but (good news!) this springtime, hopefully, there will be a retelling in pentameter of the Travesty!

In my English-language Gustavus Adolphus, by the way, there's a narrator who speaks in pentameter alongside a prose-speaking cast. This divide, like the one between courtiers and smallfolk (the latter speak in prose, though Frederick and Gerda are unafraid of shame and manage to pull off some impressive pentameter, it's with Maria, the robber maiden, that the divide is most pronounced), is used to put some very interesting contrast, not to mention that all the descriptions of setting and costume in Story the Fourth are in prose (and in ALL CAPS as well).

Speaking of which... Why is the robber girl called Maria?

It's a tribute to the tragic heroine in Esaias Tegnér's poem Axel and Maria, a feisty and fiery dark-haired orphan tomboy able to bring down a bear or a pack of wolves, and to join the Russian Army in drag to go to war in Sweden and meet her delaying fiancé (it doesn't end well). It also sounds, like Gerda and Kai, like a more popular/less aristocratic and shorter name.

Familiar faces among the suitors... I spy Enjolras, one of your favourite male characters ever, for instance, in the queue. Still queer and über-patriotic...

That's right, I wanted to put in some of my favourite nineteenth-century male characters (minus Drummle, who is definitely the like of Joffrey and on my black list, but I put him in the queue to roast him) as failed suitors, but the three first ones, the fop, the lieutenant, and the student, are actually stock characters in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fiction.

There are so many references to all kinds of works outside the various versions of The Snow Queen in Story the Fourth that I fear I might only have got a few of them, such as the Little List song, here courtesy of Frederica, René Descartes, Othello and Desdemona...

That's only the tip of the iceberg. I challenge every reader of this story to a drinking game. A drink for each reference, a shot for the most obscure references. The play is rife with Easter eggs, I warn you. So some of you may plunge into an ethyl coma if they spot every single non-TSQ allusion.

We've also seen that you collect pictures and retellings of Story the Fourth, and also that you've penned a few. What draws you towards that subplot so much?

I identify with the clever princess since childhood. I'm whimsical, eccentric, intellectual, and lonely myself, as well as self-assured and good at heart, so it comes as no surprise that Frederica is a self-portrait of mine, with some Portia and some Christina Vasa thrown in for good measure. The subplot has always been a stock childhood fantasy of mine, alongside those when I am Rapunzel, Portia, and Salmacis.

To put my perchance most extreme example of Story the Fourth crossed over with The MOV and Swedish history (in a tale set in the Stormlands!), my Westeros OC Elysenne of Tarth, an ancestor of Brienne's, blurs the line between the clever princess, Portia, Christina, and me.

You even made the dreamcast, I can see. Starring Lily James or Mia Wasikowska and Richard Madden, featuring Natalia Tena as Maria...

I couldn't resist the dreamcasting. Mostly to see what the characters would look like in live action. Tena, whom I adore as Osha and Tonks, would do great as the robber girl in any Snow Queen (or Axel and Maria) adaptations.

Othello, Story the Fourth, and now the Austro-Swedish phase of the 30 Years' War as Gustavus Adolphus. What do you find about this real-life narrative that is so exciting, that drives you to wish to retell it, that gives you the passion? For Othello, it's the plot and the way it unfurls, and the fact that evil, though vanquished, has the last word. For the Andersen subplot it's these two characters who were meant to have each other and get each other. What makes you passionate about the 30YW?

The plot itself, ostensibly (at least as the Victorian POV on the war goes) the classic "freedom fighters vs. oppressive empire" story that has been told across the ages, from Moses and Ramses all the way down to Starks and Lannisters? It's already a cliché as old as time itself. What attracted me was not the dead-horse ostensible plot, but the real-life cast used in this variation of the plot, and the variations of the theme this real history makes. The mid-seventeenth century was an age of badasses. Every single warlord of those days, no matter rank, age, or nationality, was a sheer badass, on both the Imperialist and Protestant-French sides. Taste the rainbow when it comes to badass characters: there's the deeply religious aged one, the dark and aloof one, the sunny one who irradiates charm and is always passionate, the hothead who will not stop at anything to achieve his goals... And there are the casualties and the grey areas in which I depict the conflict, an echo of Westeros, and an effort to detach myself from "Good Gustavus vs. Evil Empire" manichaean 19th-century historical fiction.

Any author avatar of yours in this play (Gustavus Adolphus(? You had Cassio and then Frederica...

There is the story's narrator, in fact,

who happens to speak in pentameter.

In the original German, 'twas in rhyme

along a prose narration, like a rap.

But that rap would only in German make sense,

and thus, I changed it to pentameter

for my English translation. For my awe

for Avon's Bard is yet another cause.

A Lemony narrator, as you 'spect,

who, goddess-like, knows everything on stage,

and whose verses make my war play worthwhile.