Comment Wall

Gandhari. Source: Quora Quora.
Click here for a link to my storybook.

Comments

  1. Hi, Hannah! I love your story topic! I’m doing a similar story topic, but with a couple of different characters. It was really neat to read about the women that you are writing about! I especially like that you focus on the central theme of these character’s being princesses without a perfect ending. I love the prompt to read more of Uloopi’s story at the end of the paragraph! Such great writing! I agree with what you said in Sita's paragraph about exile not being “fun for a princess”. Maybe even more to the point is that it is not what we as an audience would expect a princess to willingly subject herself to? Just a thought! I actually am not familiar with Gandhari, but she sounds like a really fascinating character. My one critique would be to choose a more descriptive adjective than “sad” to describe her ending. She sounds like such an amazing character! I am so excited to keep up with your storybook! Your introduction really has me intrigued! Also, you have the coolest images!! Great job!!

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  2. Hi Hannah,

    I think your introduction does a great job of introducing each of the women you plan on telling stories about. I really like that you had a picture of all three women in your introduction. I think that my favorite intro was the one on Uloopi because you left me interested and wanting to read more about her. The other two intros were good as well but I think you should try writing them as if the reader has never heard of these women. Assuming the reader has read Ramayana takes away some of the story you could tell about Sita. I like the set up of your intro with a small intro on each woman and think the topic is great!

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  3. Hey Hannah!

    Intelligent and strong women, I already love it. I also love the first thing you included what a picture of each of them with their name right below. It put a face to the name right away before I even started reading your introduction. Also, each of your paragraphs gave enough insight to the overall story background without giving away how you were going to tell it specifically. I thought the part where you said to go check out the story was smart because it did make me want to go read it immediately.

    One thing I noticed in the Sita paragraph is that you said you were going to focus on her origin story and her love with Rama. I thought those two were different things. Rama was not around when she first became Sita, so I think you should focus on one or the other rather than both.

    Overall, I think your storybook is going to amazing and I will definitely be coming back to read these stories.

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  4. Hi Hannah! First of all, I love the physical layout of the intro page. It makes it easy to identify what your three stories will be about. I like the three pictures side by side on this page. I really like the end of Uloopi’s intro where you tell the reader to find out more in her storybook page; this definitely sparked my interest. This seems like it is going to be a really interesting storybook!

    You mention that Uloopi is from the Mahabharata, but don’t mention that Sita is from the Ramayana or that Gandhari is from the Mahabharata. I think this is useful information for all three characters in case the reader doesn’t remember which story each character is from.

    The phrasing of the third sentence is a little awkward. It might be better phrased as, “Each of these women has unique characteristics and a unique story that make studying them worthwhile” and then list their unique characteristics under each character.

    I like the second person POV at the end of Uloopi’s intro because it's vague and can apply to any reader, but since the other instances of second person only apply to those in this class, I think it would be more affective if this was written consistently in third person with maybe an exception at the end in second person to entice the reader to continue reading.

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  5. Hey Hannah! To start out, when I first went to your storybook page, I found it to be easy to navigate and loved the layout. I think with a storybook it is important to have a clean looking website and yours definitely checks that box. I loved your theme of having three women all that had love stories that are not traditional in the sense that there was not a clear happy ending. I loved the idea behind each of the women you picked to be strong and independent characters. I think it was also very beneficial for me (as I am not as familiar with Uloopi or Gandhari), to have introductions of each of their stories as well as pictures of each of them side by side so I was able to visualize who I was reading about. Overall, I love the message of each of the characters being strong and intelligent. My only critique is to possibly make it more clear what her story is about for someone who has never read the Ramayana. Can't wait to read more though!

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  6. Hey Hannah! I really liked the website that you have so far. You're homepage is easy to navigate and I really enjoy the color scheme. I also really enjoyed how you set up your intro. I liked how it not only described who these women were, but also described what direction your story was going to go. I also liked the personal aspect of you describing why you liked/were excited for each story. The only suggestions I have are small navigation ones. I would suggest making the link to your wall more accessible from your intro page and then would also suggest having links to your stories somewhere on your homepage besides the home tab. I also think it would be cool if later on you put links to your stories about each women underneath their pictures or when you first mention their names within the introduction. But, like I said, some pretty small changes. Really good job overall and I can't wait to see what your storybook looks like!

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  7. Hi Hannah,

    First of all, your introduction page really caught my eye. I appreciate how you have three separate pictures depicting the three female characters you will feature in your storybook. The images itself already give the reader an idea of the theme of your webpage. Moreover, I also appreciate your thorough, yet simple explanations of the female characters that follow your central theme. Not only do you give a good summary of the female characters and what is to come, but you also add your own insight via one sentence in each descriptive paragraph. One thing I may suggest is that you also explain what style of writing you chose in order to depict the characters. Overall, great introduction!

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  8. Hi Hannah!

    First thing, I really like your story book layout, it is really clean and easy to navigate to find everything. The pictures that were added to the introduction page were great to a face to each of the characters that you will talking about in each of your stories. On the introduction page I feel you did a good job on giving us a good background on each of the three women that your using for the stories. I also think the introductions to each of the woman are good and then the background you give to how each of the stories is going to be outlined was really nice also.

    I also read the first story about Uloopi, it was well written and the story line was easy to follow. There was a typo that I saw where you bring in Ajurna's son into the story, other than that I didn't really see anything that really caught my eye on grammar. I realize the story is suppose to be around Uloopi, but I feel like the ending could be grown upon when Ajurna is revived and they are making the peace deal. I think branching on the peace deal and what it involved would be nice to know.

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  9. Hi Hannah! I really like that you chose to focus on the untold stories of the women who are really important to the narrative events of the epics we have read in this class. On the introduction page, I think you did a really good job of explaining who each of the women are and why they are important for you to write about. You do a good job explaining that they have roles to play outside of the narratives which confine them, and you give the reader a good sense of who they are and what the reader can expect from your stories in your storybook. In your first story about Uloopi, you do a really good job of describing who Uloopi is at the beginning, but I feel that the story shifts focus away from her and instead to Arjuna and his son. I think that focusing more on Uloopi and how she handled that situation, rather than on the men, would improve your story.

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  10. Hello,
    I want to start off by saying I like the way your website looks. I think it fits with the central theme. I also really like the images you used. I find your introduction to be well put together. I knew where you were going with the following stories. You also informed the reader a bit about all three of the women you would go on to write stories about. As for your story I found it to be very interesting. I felt as though this is what it would be like if people were to have multiple partners. I like the kindness that Uloopi had for a boy that was not her own. I was however confused when it says that Babhruvahana saw his mother running onto the battlefield. Babhruvahana is the son of Chitrangada not Uloopi. I think you may want to fix that in the story. Other than that you wrote a terrific story!

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  11. Hey Hannah!

    I already commented on your home page and introduction, but I wanted to read your first story and comment on that as well! I will probably be reading and commenting on all your stories, hope you don't mind.

    I said this in my other comment, but how you format your blog is amazing. Mine is so lame compared to yours. I love you have the picture on the side and the first introduction paragraph next to it. Allowed me to read while also see the picture which prevented a break in the storytelling.

    As far as the story goes, I loved it! It was engaging and easy to read. There were a few minor things, like I saw you call Uloopi the mother of Babhruvahana, but I did not think that she was his mother. I also noticed the authors note was not very long. They have to be 200 words I am prety sure, but do not quote me on that.

    Overall it was a great story, except that I did not get a good sense of Uloopi as a character. I did not get any sense of who she was as a powerful woman in Indian Epics. If you could incorporate her and how she feels more into the story, I think it would benefit your overall storybook.

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  12. Hi Hannah! Your Storybook seems to be coming along nicely! Each page is full of warm colors and artistically detailed pictures with descriptions that makes it very welcoming, eye-catching, and enlightening all in one. Your introduction reveals just enough about each character to come yet still leaves a little to the imagination. You have good opportunity here to build upon those explanatory paragraphs as you write each story related to whichever character. I wonder if you had it in mind to enhance each of their introductions as you write? For example, I read your story about Uloopi and loved the surprise factor that she has the ability to revive the dead. Perhaps you could give a hint of her supernatural ability without exposing what it is. This ability of hers makes her even more majestic and you can really play with this curiosity her character brings in the story by building suspense in some way related to this gift she has been given. Just a thought!

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  13. Hey Hannah! One quick note is on your introduction. You accidentally said "make" instead of "makes" in your second sentence. I really liked how you gave an interesting piece of information for each of the characters that your stories focus on in your introduction. It helped draw me in to want to learn more about the stories. Have you considered adding more visual details to your stories about each character? I have struggled with creating good visual details in my stories, and have found it helpful to use Professor Gibbs's "Visual Details" revision strategy. Maybe you would find it useful during a revision week to check it out.
    I really enjoyed your story about Uloopi! I thought your choice in images was really, really good. I especially liked the placement of the images alongside the text. I thought the story was very well written. What did Uloopi do while Arjuna was continuing his journeys and marrying other women? Was Uloopi doing anything of note in her father's kingdom? I think it would be beneficial to your story about Uloopi to learn more about giving more details about her life. But overall, the story is great and I hope to read more of your stories in the future!

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  14. Hi, Hannah! It was so fun to get to read your storybook! I was really excited to see the direction you took with it. I really appreciated the background that you give on the Nagas at the beginning of the story. It’s just enough to give the reader some context about Uloopi’s background! The concept of an underwater palace is so cool! I would love to read more details about a couple of the places that she and Arjuna explored. Maybe Uloopi has a favorite secret hideout that she only shared with Arjuna? Or maybe she has some really wonderful childhood memories in a particular area of the palace? There doesn't need to be a ton of details, but just a few more might add to the love story between these two! I appreciated that you included the amrita stone at the beginning so that it could be used at the end. That detail seemed subtle at the beginning, but was actually very important and was a nice way to tie the beginning of the story to the end of the story! Overall, I really enjoyed reading your re-telling of Uloopi’s story! Great job!

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  15. Hey Hannah! I'm glad I finally got a chance to see this Storybook, it looks great!
    With respect to the design/layout: I love how in the Intro page the first thing we see are the three women in a row, it instantly gives a visual to who you're introducing us to. I do think the pink of the top part of the pages clashes with the red of the pages themselves a bit. Overall it's very clean and easy to follow though, and I like how you have multiple pictures on each page!

    With regards to the writing itself--you did a really good job drawing me in with the Intro and making me want to click to the next page to get more of the story. I like the adjectives and foreshadowing you use in Uloopi's story. This is like the nitpickiest thing because honestly the story's great, but if someone dies and you bring them back to life is that considered saving their life? Or is it more restoring it? It's a strange thing to think about for sure.

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  16. Hey Hannah! I really like what you've done with the website since I last looked at it. I really like the story you added and think that the Author's Note does a great job of explaining why you picked the story you did and what you were trying to tell within the story. I also like how you wrote about her finding out her husband had married another women and how that all played out. I think you did a great job of conveying her emotions, while not letting it overtake the whole story, since it is about Uloopi. I also think the two images you had in your story really helped to make the reader see who Uloopi is and what she stands for. I really like that your project is focusing on the power of the women in Indian Epics and think you did a great job with this story with conveying that message. Overall, an amazing job!

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  17. Hey Hannah! I think your website is looking great! I really like that your background colors mesh very well with the picture that you included on the introduction page. Further, in your introduction, the vibrant background colors work well with the images you chose to bring out the vivid colors of each image. I also really like the navigational buttons at the top right of your page. I need to add some of those to my storybook. The only recommendation I have for the design is to consider adding links on your home page to each story as well. I don't think it hurts to have multiple ways to navigate through a website, and it can only help. I read your story about Uloopi again and it looks like you've made some revisions. I focused heavily on your author's note this time and think that clarifies some things for me. I really like that you rewrote the story to make Uloopi an even more powerful character, and I like that you gave Uloopi the ending that she deserved.

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  18. Hi Hannah,
    I love your storybook! I'm in the Mythology class, but I was compelled to check out your website! The design is eye catching and simple to navigate. We chose the same theme for our websites! (Mine is sites.google.com/view/the-labyrinth if you want to check it out.)
    I love the pictures you chose to go with your profiles too. They are beautiful and paint a vivid picture of each character. I would suggest, however, choosing a different one in the opening of the Uloopi story because for me it came out very pixelated. It's a great illustration, but a higher pixel ratio would really keep up consistent quality.
    Also, I love your cover design -- would it be beneficial to you to match the background color to that of the cover? The background looks very red where the cover looks more pink. You can use an eyedropper to match the exact color code using a browser extension at this link: http://instant-eyedropper.com/. I use it all the time!
    Keep up the good work!
    - Cate Howell

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  19. Hi Hannah,
    I really enjoyed reading through your storybook! I'm actually in the Mythology class, so it was really interesting to see one from the other class! I thought your site design overall is really strong. Everything is easy to access and navigate. Your choice of photos is also really strong, especially the three women on your intro page. I thought that really set the tone for the following stories! The only image I might suggest swapping out would be the sketch of Uloopi on that story. Since the other images are full color and larger image files, it might help to find a picture of her like that to maintain consistency. Other than that, I like the boldness of your design, it's really impactful right from the start!

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  20. Hi Hannah!
    I really like the navigation of your page. I think the images of the different women really help set the tone of what we are going to read. I also believe your introduction page sets a clear expectation of what we will be reading. I liked how you changed the focus on Uloopi's story and showed how much she cared for Arjuna, but was also wise enough to let the curse be broken and then save him. It was a nice twist, and I love a good happy ending. The changes in Rama and Sit'a story was neat to read. Starting out I wouldn't have thought to have Sita in the garden and them have tea together. I would be interested to know how or where she saw Rama. Was it right outside the garden? Did her notice her? I can't wait to read the final story.

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  21. Hi Hannah, this is the first week that I drew your name and I'm glad I did! I'm hoping to have the next section of my storybook about Sita and Rama's relationship, so having your story about Sita is helpful! She is an incredibly interesting and special character that plays a backseat role in the Ramayana. I wish there was more time dedicated to her troubles and how she endured, although Sita Sings the Blues does a good job of illustrating this. I would have liked to see more of Sita's story in this post. I'm not sure if that would have required you to write shorter sections over the various parts of her life or if there is another method. In the Ramayana, Sita's willpower becomes highlighted in the last half of the epic when she is kidnapped by Ravana. Being in the demon lord's kingdom and later suffering separation from Rama produces a wide range of emotions that are ready to be explored!

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  22. Hi Hannah! I am very happy that this week I got to revisit your page! Just like last time when I first visited your page I liked how everything was set up. The graphics were all very clear and the whole website was easy to navigate through. I got to read more of your stories this week, and I think you did a great job writing them! This week we were suppose to focus on paragraph layouts and I think for each of your stories you did a great job. I like that for when a scene changes or a new character begins to speak, you spaced the paragraphs out. The separating of paragraphs made each story easy to read. You also spaced out your author's note appropriately to show it was not a part of the story. I really love the theme you have picked for your portfolio, and am glad I got to read the rest of your stories. Overall, great job this week!

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  23. Hi Hannah! Right off the bat I must say that I love your storybook! What a great idea! The pages themselves all look really good. Your use of color is very unique and adds a sense of style to your project. The Introduction perfectly sets up the reader for what is to come, especially with the added information about each character and your thoughts behind the project itself. All three stories are very well written and feel like something straight from Indian mythology. Seriously, for a while I thought I was reading some of our assignments from class. Of these three characters: Uloopi, Sita, and Gandhari, who is your favorite? If you were going to write any additional stories for your project, who are some of the women that you would feature? Overall you have done an excellent job with this project! Well done!

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  24. Hi Hannah!
    I read your Uloopi story a while back, and I loved getting to read your Sita and Gandhari stories this time! I love that your Sita story has a happier outcome for Rama and Sita, and that it creates the possibility for Rama to defeat Ravana and fulfill his purpose in a way that doesn’t harm Sita as much. Gandhari is such an interesting character; not many people would voluntarily give up their eyesight. I’m glad you offered some insight into her thought process behind it. I recently read Devdutt Pattanaik’s book “Jaya” for the free reading weeks, and it retells the Mahabharata with an emphasis on the deeper philosophical layers of karma in Hinduism. One of the things he added in his story is that Gandhari felt partially responsible for the war that happened because if she hadn’t blindfolded herself, she would have seen the evil in her children and wouldn’t have fought so hard to put them on the throne. But for the sake of love, Gandhari’s gesture was very meaningful and I think she definitely had good intentions like in your story.

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