The Lady Explorers of the Persephone Society

     In 1666 an English duchess received a psychic visitation.  Her contact identified herself as an immigrant in an incredible frontier, a Blazing World which she had discovered while lost at sea, where she was now worshipped as an Empress by fantastic beings.  The Duchess eagerly documented the exploits of her amazing new friend, hoping to enlighten civilization and memorialize their achievements as cosmic pioneers.

     However, her writings were quickly dismissed as fantasy.  Nothing could persuade a patriarchal society, especially when seasoned  adventurers were unable to replicate any such expedition.  The suggestion that women might be more inclined to inter-dimensional travel  than men was deemed laughable at best, and the Duchess ultimately decided that Earth’s authorities were too close-minded to truly grasp  the implications of alternate reality, and far too materialistic to trust with the dangerous temptation of limitless resources.

     Thus, on the advice of her friend the Empress, the Duchess founded an institution to find, assist, accommodate, and commemorate any and all  lady explorers who may, either by intention or by accident, manage to  slip the bonds of Earth and touch alien ground.  Their project grew in secret, and to this day the Persephone Society continues to seek out new  members, joining under the roof of the traveling Newcastle to map and  safeguard the invisible countries which surround our narrow perception….

Currently Active Members (clockwise inward spiral from bottom left):

Jane “El” Hopper (of the Upside Down)
Coraline Jones (of the Other World)
Dr. Susan Who (of Tardis)
Diana Smith (of the Realm)
Megan Williams (of Ponyland)
Lydia Deetz (of the Neitherworld)
Sarah Williams (of the Labyrinth)
Daria Morgendorffer (of Holiday Island)
Jennifer “Mary Sue Parker” (of Pleasantville)
Tulip Olsen (of the Infinity Train)
Anne Boonchuy (of Amphibia)
Regina “Twelve” Abbott (of Endless)
Luz Noceda (of the Boiling Isles)

Not Pictured:

Sasha Waybright and Marcy Wu (of Amphibia)
Jackie Trent (of Aruk)
Haru Yoshioka (of the Cat Kingdom)
Penelope Victoria "Penny" Sanchez (of ChalkZone)
Princess Daisy Reznor (of Dinohattan)
Esther Hopkins (of Endless)
Julie Winston (of Eternia)
Hitomi Kanzaki (of Gaea)
Sarah Brightman (of God’s Video Game)
Camille Duciel/Ewilan Gil’ Sayan (of Gwendalavir)
Martha Kaply and Bethany Walker (of Jumanji)
Valerie Felicity Frizzle (of the Magic School Bus)
Nita and Max and Max Blellison (of the Many Place)
Kagome Higurashi (of the Sengoku period)
Shasha Prince (of Under My Bed)
Chihiro “Sen” Ogino (of Yubaba’s Bathhouse)

Past Members:

The Duchess of Newcastle (of the Blazing World)
Alice Liddell (of Wonderland)
Marie “Clara” Stahlbaum (of the Land of Sweets)
Polly Plummer (of the Wood between the Worlds)
Wendy Darling (of Neverland)
Dorothy Gale (of Oz)
Mytyl (of the Past, the Future, and Everywhere)
Jane Banks (of Bert’s Drawing)
Fanny and Elizabeth Blyton (of the Faraway Tree)
Carla Bennett (of the Flipside)
Eglantine Price and Carrie Rawlins (of Naboombu)
Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser (of 18th Century Scotland)
Lucy and Susan Pevensie and Jill Pole (of Narnia)

Hyppolyta “Orithyia Blue” Freeman (of Earth 504)

Juliana “Jules” Crain (of the Neutral Zone)
Barbara Wright and Louise Who (of Tardis)
Joanna Russ (of Whileaway)
Kim Cherrywood (of Care-a-Lot)
Carol Anne Freeling (of the Other Side)
Jenny Barker (of the Halloween Tree)

Inactive, Retired, or Otherwise Engaged:

Melissa Gimble (of Schmigadoon)

Helen Knable (of Hellevision)

Sheila Leigh (of the Realm)

Debbie Maddox (of Yonderland)

Holly Marshall (of the Land of the Lost)

Tina Miller (of the Fourth Dimension)

Meg Murry O’Keefe (of the Tesseract)

Gina and June Sterling (of the Otherworld)

Sarah Whittle (of Jumanji)

Molly Williams (of Ponyland)

Currently Missing (presumed alive but displaced after an expedition to Hanging Rock, Australia):

Captain Natalie Artemis (of Astera)
Lara Croft (of the Cradle)
Jane Lane (of Holiday Island)
Casey Newton (of Tomorrowland)
Dora Márquez (of Troll Land)

Status Unknown:

The Empress (of the Blazing World)

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SURPRISE!  Didja have a happy Independence Day?  Bet you didn’t think  you’d hear from me again so soon, given my usual rate of posting!

     Well, this set-up is a very roughly finished side project that I’ve been toying with for a year or so, sort of a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for movies, TV shows, and cartoons in a particular genre.  It  struck me that there are a whole lot of stories about young women going to other dimensions!  Especially lately, as great shows like Infinity Train, Amphibia, Twelve Forever, and The Owl House have brought the “isekai” heroine into vogue in modern western animation.

    The premise is classically embodied by the holy trinity of Wendy Darling (from Peter  Pan, by J.M. Barrie), Alice Liddell (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,  by Lewis Carroll), and Dorothy Gale (The Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank  Baum).  Tied together by their shared traits of youth and otherworldly  adventure, it’s not uncommon for the three heroines to meet up in a shared universe setting.  I wanted to build on that, and after some research I found out that one of the earliest applicable examples of the theme is considered by some to be the very first science-fiction novel ever written!

    Published in 1666 by Margaret Cavendish (Duchess of Newcastle and all-around renaissance woman), The Blazing World tells  the story of a nameless young lady who crosses from the North Pole to  another whole universe.  The first isekai heroine!  Though the writing  style is difficult to penetrate and it never received any great amount of critical praise or recognition (it’s pretty clearly a self-insert story and the heroine is arguably the first “Mary Sue” to boot), I think it’s fair to say that it’s a seminal work which took the first steps into modern fantasy as we know it, and it surprises me that it hasn’t garnered more attention.

    Anyway!  I doubt that I’m going to  devote much more work to this, but if anyone has any questions (or even wants to contribute to the project), then have at it.  I originally started writing expanded histories for the current members, how they  work together as members of this special club, and especially what’s happened to some of the older members since their respective TV shows or movies ended.

    For example, Dr. Susan Who is based on actress Roberta Tovey, who appeared in the 1965-66 Dr. Who films which  starred Peter Cushing as a version of the British icon.  I originally thought about incorporating the main canon of the TV series, but that  would’ve gotten WAY too crowded!  Adapting the obscure movie continuity  made much, much more sense.  Here Susan has long since taken up her grandfather’s title as “Dr. Who”, maintaining and upgrading his Tardis  and the scientific resources of the society, including an all-purpose  tool which she jokingly calls her “sonic screw-driver”.  I could go on like this about most of them!  If you're  curious about anyone, just ask.

    As for the four kids in the middle, Tulip, Anne, Reggie, and Luz, I roughly guessed what they might look like after they survive their own adventures and are inducted into the Society as its youngest members.  What actually becomes of them will  almost certainly be different, but that’s the nature of fan fiction.  They’re sort of the main characters in my conception, but now I’m  talking too much.  I only wanted to get this off my chest!  Hey, just  take it where you want it.

    I’ll provide explanation or links to any unfamiliar characters mentioned that you might have trouble tracking down, like Sasha Prince (some last names were extrapolated from actors or authors).  Some of these are pretty obscure, and I surely have overlooked many potential members elsewhere in the ocean of pop culture.  For the most part, I  kinda hope you find them on your own!  That’s half the fun, right?

     I made it a rule to omit comics and video games as sources, because a shared universe can take only so much before it buckles.  And I gotta be just a little economical or I’d never be able to stop!  Though adaptations are fair game so long as the starting point of the heroine’s  journey is a baseline “Earth” similar in perceived mundanity to our  own.

-Joe