PUGGY'S HILL

I'm pretty easy to manipulate.  If you know which buttons to press.

I'm also pretty easy to invent:  Over the years, several people have clearly been playing to (sometimes unflattering) versions of an Ellen-Shaped-Object, which is not very pleasant, I can tell you!

Unless you are  TRICKSTER!!!

Which I AM NOT -- BUT JESSICA CAMPION IS!!!!

This insight brought to you by a person I know who keeps trying to manipulate a (fairly nice, for once) version of me who does not, in fact, exist - and it is utterly hilarious to watch them try.

So if you were Jessica at age 15, of course you would figure this out, and create different versions of yourself for all the people in your world, and then watch them try to manipulate that construct - while you stand off to the side, laughing your fool head off and then doing exactly what you like.

Wow.  I'd sure rather write about her than be her legal guardian - poor Katherine!

So I come into Delia's study to find her dressing up this Tudor chick.

The conversation, had you been overhead to overhear, was something like this:

--Oh! Oh! Oh!  I want hanging sleeves!

-- No, they look like this, see? (click)  The problem is, I know how it actually should be [historically]. 

-- Oh. Right.

-- And you can change scenes, see?

--- Ooo! Ooo!! You can put her in the Tower.....

--- (Click) With a floating monkey.

-- A floating rat.

-- It's a monkey. (Click)  And you can give her friends....

-- She doesn't want friends.

-- Yeah, yeah, I know; she's got a monkey.

Still confused?  

OK, I just gave it a go:  Decided to see how close I could get to Jessica Campion.  Age, about 22. Home on leave, and Katherine must have commissioned a portrait - and Jess must have wanted something from Katherine and therefore agreed to sit for it.  But in the Riverside House.

And now you see why I don't describe the clothing in my books!  I'm not that visual:  I know what the effect should be, but I'm not great on colors or exact cuts of anything.  So please don't hold me to any of this, or even think this is how I really picture it!!!!!  It was just a little fun play:  Given what the program offered me, I kept clicking on stuff, pausing to ask my Inner Jessica, "Would you be willing to wear this?  ....OK, well, howbout this, then?"

It is, like my books, a mishmash of periods.  And I think she looks pretty good!

Ohhh, god - now I wanna do the Black Rose.  In that famous portrait of her as The Empress.  Must.....Resist.........