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The Odd DUck Society
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Jessamy Aubertine is too much for her university classmates, too little for her overstressed mum, and nothing in between. Then a mysterious letter signed by Jane Austen brings her back to her family’s fading tea shop and a pair of unlikely comrades. Will they find the letter writer—and perhaps discover themselves along the way? Or will their friendship fade with The Muses?
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about rachel
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Rachel Leitch is a certified weird girl who writes young adult/new adult fantasy. Right now, she writes novels that walk the line between dark-ish fantasy and weird little cartoon.
Rachel lives in northern Indiana with her family. During the school year, she tricks students into being bookish as an elementary paraprofessional. During the summer, she volunteers at an off-Broadway theater (no, not as an actress). In her (very limited) free time, she’s trying to fit all her reads on her shelf in a somewhat organized manner, consuming a level of chai that borders on hazardous, or nerding out over her fandom of the week. |
Latest on the blog
Disney Heroines Who HOld Up Surprisingly well: Wendy
November 28, 2025
Classic Disney movies get a lot of flack. And sometimes it’s deserved. Outdated and hurtful cultural representation can pop up out of nowhere. Heroines are subjected to sexist interpretations. And I still want to shake some sense into Ariel’s head. Classic stories can at times be a land mine.
But sometimes, classic films surprise me. Sometimes they seem to know how to craft characters and stories better than we do today, or at the very least, in a different way than we use now.
We live in a different time, and therefore the tools at our disposal and the effect they have are different. But we can still learn a lot from the classics, both things we shouldn’t do and things we should start again.
And I found some in the 1953 Disney classic Peter Pan, of all places.
I’m talking about none other than Wendy herself.
If I’m truthful, Wendy always irked me just a little bit when I was younger. Peter and the other boys got to have sword fights and outsmart pirates and Wendy got to sit there on the rock and watch. It seemed like she was pushed aside and forced to look on while the boys got to have the real fun.
And yes, a Wendy sword fight would have been epic.
But on my most recent watch through, I realized that Wendy is an especially strong heroine, and in many ways counter cultural to the era that she was created in. She might have a few things to say about our own heroines as well.
But sometimes, classic films surprise me. Sometimes they seem to know how to craft characters and stories better than we do today, or at the very least, in a different way than we use now.
We live in a different time, and therefore the tools at our disposal and the effect they have are different. But we can still learn a lot from the classics, both things we shouldn’t do and things we should start again.
And I found some in the 1953 Disney classic Peter Pan, of all places.
I’m talking about none other than Wendy herself.
If I’m truthful, Wendy always irked me just a little bit when I was younger. Peter and the other boys got to have sword fights and outsmart pirates and Wendy got to sit there on the rock and watch. It seemed like she was pushed aside and forced to look on while the boys got to have the real fun.
And yes, a Wendy sword fight would have been epic.
But on my most recent watch through, I realized that Wendy is an especially strong heroine, and in many ways counter cultural to the era that she was created in. She might have a few things to say about our own heroines as well.
