#ATU 425c

[chaos-has-theories]

I am working on a Girl Genius AU in which Agatha essentially gets raised by the Castle, and -

listen. LISTEN. I have a plan with this one so she has to be alone. But I keep cracking up at the idea of the prisoners still being sent in like normal. First of all the castle is fucking enormous - they're making their way in and through veeeeery slowly, they haven't found the master kitchen OR the bedrooms OR the library. Clearly the Castle could hold the prisoners AND one strange little girl in her private wing.

But also. The hilarity of everyone going hm this kid is really young to be sent in here and her splodey collar looks kinda different to ours but I'm sure it's fine? But how does this ditz who isn't even a minion to any of the sparks here KEEP SURVIVING??

and then my brain travels further. Megamind AU

Girl who has been born into a Atrocities family and was raised in a prison. Girl who DOES manage to break through. Girl who decides to leave the castle and explore the world and immediately becomes Crimes Georg.

Boy who has been trying really hard to prove himself to his father and be a hero. Boy who keeps arresting this girl. Girl who keeps being sentenced to Castle Heterodyne.

Prisoners who at this point just cheer whenever she comes back home

[krsonmar]

For those asking for a full version translated to English, this one in an anthology of fairy tales translated from French might or might not be the exact, correct one (I haven't read the whole thing yet) but it is roughly 100 pages long and has de Villaneuve's name on it. Scroll down to the Table of Contents and then you can hop right to the story from there. It is 100% free because public domain and also because, as always, PROJECT GUTENBERG AND INTERNET ARCHIVE FTW!!!

What we really need is an adaptation of the original 1740 The Beauty and the Beast

So were you aware that the The Beauty and the Beast story we all know is a heavily abridged and rewritten version of a much longer novella by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve?  And that a lot of the plot holes existing in the current versions exist because the 1756 rewrite cut out the second half of the novella, which consisted entirely of the elaborate backstory that explains all the weird shit that happened before?  And that the elaborate backstory is presented in a way that’s kind of boring because the novel had only just been invented in 1740 and no one knew how they worked yet, but contains a bazillion awesome ideas that beg for a modern retelling?  And that you are probably not aware that the modern world needs this story like air but the modern world absolutely needs this story like air?  Allow me to explain:

The totally awesome elaborate backstory that explains Beauty and the Beast

Once upon a time there was a king, a queen, and their only son

But while the prince was still in his infancy, in a neat reversal of how these fairy tales usually go, the king tragically died, leaving his wife to act as Regent until their son reaches maturity

Unfortunately, the rulers of all the lands surrounding them go, “Hmm, the kingdom is ruled by a woman now, it must be weak, time for an invasion!”

And the Queen goes, “Well, if I let some general fight all these battles for me, he’ll totally amass enough fame and power to make a bid for the throne; if I want to protect my son’s crown, I have no choice but to take up arms and lead the troops myself!”

(Btw, I want to stress that this woman is not Eowyn or Boudica and nothing in the way her story is presented suggests that she had any interest martial exploits before or in any way came to enjoy them during these battles.  This is a perfectly ordinary court lady who would much rather be embroidering altar covers for the royal chapel and playing with her child until necessity made her go, “Oh no, this sucks, I guess I have to become a Warrior Queen now” and she just happened to kick ass at it anyway.)

And the Queen totally kicked ass, but the whole “twice as good for half the credit” thing meant that no matter how many battles she won, potential enemies refused to take her and her army seriously until she had defeated them so no sooner would she fend off one invasion than another one would pop up on a different border.

So she spent the majority of her young son’s life away from the castle leading armies, but it was OK because she left him in the care of her two best friends, who just happen to be fairies!  This was an awesome idea because a) fairies have magic, and therefore are like the best people to protect the prince from any threats and b) fairies consider themselves to be so above humanity that the lowest fairy outranks the highest mortal, so they’d have no interest in taking a human throne.  Good thing they were both good fairies instead of one good and one evil one!

(Spoiler:  they were not both good fairies.)

So the two fairies basically take turns raising the prince until he’s old enough to rule.  And on the eve of his twenty-first birthday, the evil older one comes into the prince’s bedroom.

“So listen, kid.  You’re about to become king, your mother’s on her way home from the war to see you crowned, and I have a third piece of good news for you!  You see, I’ve actually been spending so much time here lately because Fairyland’s become a bit too hot to hold me for reasons totally not related to me being secretly evil.  And if I have to hang in the human world, I might as well reside in the upper echelons of it, so even though as a powerful fairy I completely eclipse your puny human status in a staggeringly unimaginable way, since you’re about to be king and since my premonition that I should stick this whole guardianship thing out because you would be hot one day has totally proved accurate (go me), I will graciously lower myself to allowing you to marry me.  Please feel free to grovel at my feet in gratitude.  (Btw, we can totally start the wedding night now, we’ll tell your mother about it when she arrives tomorrow.)”

Keep reading

[shoezuki]

this is totally hypothetical and not something im going thru rn but . say that. theoretically. i read an aventio beauty and the beast au fic and it is really fucking good in a way that has me remembering all the beauty and the beast-type fairy tales (ATU 425C) i read before in my classes and i am fucking overflowing with a desire to go Off bout how i really love these fanfic's interpretation of 425C. is it cringe to do that in a comment

[monstrous-femme]

Welcome to another round of Two Truths and a Lie! In this one, we'll explore the ATU index, which classifies folktales into various tale types. This allows scholars to identify which stories count as the same story. Similar folktales have similar tale types, and many are subdivided into subtypes (a, b, c, etc).

Many familiar folktales have subtypes that are... let's just say less familiar. Here are two true examples and one lie:

Cinderella is tale type ATU 510a. In ATU 510b, the end of the story follows a similar arc, but begins with her escaping home after her father tries to marry her.

Rapunzel is tale type ATU 310a. In ATU 310c, she lives in an island at the middle of a lake, and her lover climbs up from the sea realm.

Beauty and the Beast is tale type ATU 425c. In ATU 425a, she is married off to an animal instead of a beast, and after inadvertently betraying him, she must go on a journey to get him back.

[rapha-reads]

So I'm reading Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer, and I absolutely adore how it's a mix of all these tales I spent five months studying for my thesis. It's the entire ATU 425 tale type category at once*. A bit of Beauty and the Beast, a bit of Cupid and Psyche, a bit of East of the Sun and West of the Moon... When you know what you're looking at, it's so interesting to analyse it all.

*ATU= Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, a classification of as many of the folktales and fairytales indexed around the world and the centuries, catalogued after their structures (their type). ATU 425: "The Search for the Lost Husband". ATU 425A: "Animal as Bridegroom" -> East of the Sun and West of the Moon (and The Serpent Prince, the Pig King...). ATU 425B: "Son of the Witch" -> Cupid and Psyche (also The Son of the Ogress, Tale of Baba Yaga...). ATU 425C: "Beauty and the Beast". There are a few more types (it goes to 425E), but these three are the main ones.

[donewithmygracelessheart]

Please suggest me ATU 425 books (specially 425c)!

[horizon-verizon]

Big unpopular opinion - I really dislike the saying, "Laena tamed the rogue prince," especially the people who still use that saying for show daemon. They had viserys say, "daemon and rhaenyra share the blood of the dragon they are restless and chaotic" and I feel like that goes for both book/show daemon and rhaenyra and it really describes daemon perfectly. I love daemon and Laena's relationship especially book version but I wouldn't describe it as she "tamed him" it gets worse when i see the nettles and daemon shippers say the same thing that nettles "tamed daemon"

A) Agreement

I dislike it as well, since it makes Daemon seem more an animal than a human AND in the show we see Daemon broken or worn down by his separation from Rhaenyra and his dreams of Targ dragonriding glory, himself driving that glory for his house.

He wasn’t tamed, he seemed to lose a huge chunk of drive. Canonically, you could say Laena gave Daemon room to really indulge and explore his tenderer side, thus his leeway and becoming a father. But he never actually lost his quintessential "fire". Like Harwin for Rhaenyra, she gave him emotional safety.

B) Myth and Storytelling

The idea that anyone can be "tamed" through a relationship comes from people looking at the oversimplified or just misunderstood stories adapting from the tale of Beauty and the Beast archetype (not Disney; ATU 425 “Animal as Bridegroom”: ). Tales where a woman “taming” the bestial, undesirable behavior of a man or removing those qualities that the audience/society does not want or list as taboo.

Here is a description of “Animal as Bridegroom” (the super category) indexed as “The Search for the Lost Husband” in ATU:

refers to a group of folk and fairy tales about a human woman marrying or being betrothed to an animal. The animal is revealed to be a human prince in disguise or under a curse.

“Animal as Bridegroom” [ATU 425A]:

In folktales classified as tale type ATU 425A, "The Animal as Bridegroom", the maiden breaks a taboo or burns the husband's animal skin and, to atone, she must wear down a numbered pair of metal shoes.

“Son of the Witch (The Witch's Tasks)” [ATU 425B]:

This category of tales involves the heroine performing difficult tasks for her husband's family (more specifically, her mother-in-law). In this type, the heroine reaches the house of a witch (sometimes, her mother-in-law; sometimes, another female relative of her husband), where she works as her servant. One of the tasks is to go to another witch's house, and fetch from there a box, a casket, a bag, a sack of something that her husband warns not to open, but she does.

And “Beauty and the Beast” [ATU 425C]

Zipes summarized the tale thus: the third or youngest daughter asks her father (a merchant or king) for a gift (bird or flower). The only place he can find such a trifle is the garden of the beast or monster, who demands the merchant/king's daughter in return. Richard MacGillivray Dawkins, in turn, remarked that the heroine's sisters asked their father for material possessions (e.g., dresses), whereas she asks for a simple token that will lead her to the enchanted prince. 

Uther remarks that this type contains the "presents for the daughters", lacking, however, a quest for the lost spouse.

But GRRM tends to subvert tales, not retell them 1:1, and we see it in Sansa’s story of always being paired with the conventionally unattractive, bestialized man.

And the idea, when focusing on how there is taming, is very metaphorically murderous. Check out rhaenyragendereuphoria’s post HERE. 

[vesperlionheart]

February is for Fairytales

Maybe you do or don’t know that I’m a hardcore sucker for fairytales and love them dearly like I do my creative writing. (Sources: The Black Bull, Lindworm & the Tam Lin Love a Changling, The Spirit of the Oasis.) February is a short month perfect for short works. Other months may (or may not) have their own themes for me to work on but February is for Fairytales.

Here are some of my fav tropes organized by the ATU index. Pick one out and send me one along with a pairing. I’ll choose a couple to work on during the month of February.

Aarne–Thompson-Uther type #

425— the search for the lost husband

510A —Cinderella

507A— The monster's bride

330 —The Smith and the Devil

300 —The dragon-slayer

302 — The ogre's /(devil's) heart in the egg

433A — The prince as serpent: A serpent carries a princess into its castle

451 — The maiden who seeks her brothers

471 — The bridge to the other world

400 — The man on a quest for his lost wife  

425C—Beauty and the Beast

Do you have a favorite fairytale or myth? Maybe a favorite trope or theme? Maybe just a setting or maybe just a pairing? Feel free to get a little creative and ignore the bullet points.

[intothestacks]

This isn’t entirely accurate. (It’s not entirely wrong either.)

I’ve taken a university course on oral storytelling traditions (aka folktales), so let me explain something:

Folklore can be categorized based on theme and plot. 

“Beauty and the Beast” is categorized as a 425 tale, aka “The Search for the Lost Husband” (or more specifically, a 425C tale) by the ATU index system used by folklorists, the oldest of which is the tale of Cupid and Psyche.

However, one of the several French versions (The Story of the Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, if memory serves) was inspired by real-life events as well as several of the already-existing versions of the tale.

[chaos-has-theories]

ALSO also i promise this isn't just the brainworms talking but. His Majesty's Dragon is a Beauty and the Beast narrative

[chaos-has-theories]

Villeneuve Accurate Beauty and the Beast AU (yes this is a phrase nobody else uses but I make up for it in frequency), but for Miraculous Ladybug.

You might say, yeah yeah Marichat, we've seen it, but AHA! It is only TECHNICALLY Marichat. Yes, Adrien is the Beast. Yes, Marinette is just Marinette. But!!! For Villeneuve reasons, their dynamic comes up much more Ladrien than expected.

Adrien hasn't seen his father for years. He's been touring the world, doing shoots and public appearances, all while glued to Lila Rossi.

He is afraid of her.

She's been getting worse and worse as they've been getting more famous, and sometimes it feels like the entire world is wound around her finger, and of course - well, they're not dating. Half the world thinks they are, but they've never confirmed it one wqy or the other.

Until Lila asks him, out of the blue: "When are you going to ask me to marry you?"

She's already planning the specifics, the most media-friendly location for the proposal, and what time of year should the wedding be? And he can't just - he can't just say no, she'll go to the next reporter and tell them she's pregnant, and then his father was going to kill him.

His father.

"I'm sorry," he says. "You know I need permission from my father for things like that."

It's the perfect solution. Adrien hasn't seen his father in years, not even on a video call. He's always too busy. He won't ever be able to ask for permission, and so he can continue as they are: vaguely miserable, but at least with something like a future.

Lila smiles and says, okay!

Three days later they are in Paris.

There are a million interviews to give. "Paris' darling returns home! Keeping up with the Agrestes - is Gabriel releasing a new fashion line?" He's almost glad to have Lila by his side, throughout it. The sight of the old skyline makes him so homesick that it hurts, but she keeps the conversations running smoothly.

It's been years since he's been in the same city as his father. The same country, maybe. He'll do something wrong to embarrass him, and anyway, Lila is so competent. Gabriel will give his blessing, and he'll be chained to her forever.

Gabriel hears the proposal and scoffs. "Marry Adrien? Certainly not. You should be grateful you've been allowed to be the setting to this Diamond for as long you have.

Lila argues. She's the one who turned him into a diamon, she says. Do you think he'd have gotten this far on his own?

Gabriel looks her over, tells her that she's fired, and turns away.

“So it is the beauty of this precious son of yours that makes you so vain,” she told her, “and this is what exposes me to such a scandalous refusal. You believe me an unworthy spouse. Well, then,” she continued, raising her voice to a furious pitch, “after taking such pains to render him charming, I must now crown my own creation, and give you both a new and visible reminder of what you owe me. Go, wretch,” she told me, “and boast that you refused my heart and hand; go and offer them to the woman you find worthier than me.” (Madame de Villeneuve, 'The Young American Girl and Tales at Sea', translated by Aurora Wolfgang)

[chaos-has-theories]

People think a Beauty and the Beast relationship chart is a simple matter of

but actually it's more like a big ball of. Um

[chaos-has-theories]

[The Amazon Queen] scoffed at the imaginary honor that this Intelligence offered her. . . Thus, without responding as the old Fairy desired, she stood motionless and fixed her eyes upon me. I was as astonished as she was; we exchanged glances with the same look on our faces, and the old Fairy recognized quickly from our silence that our feelings were the exact opposite of the joy she expected to inspire in us. “What does this mean?” she said bitterly. “Why do mother and son remain silent? Has this delightful surprise deprived you of the ability to speak? Or are you blind and brazen enough to reject my offer? Speak, Prince,” she said to me, “will you be ungrateful and imprudent enough to despise my kind offer? Do you not consent at once to give me your hand?”

Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve: Beauty and the Beast (trans. Aurora Wolfgang)

Old Fairy: i want to marry my godson

The Prince and his mother, having not seen each other in years and yet sharing the exact same side-eye:

[chaos-has-theories]

According to Freud, the family romance first takes shape at a time when a child begins to liberate himself from parental authority... He fancies himself the child of a prominent statesman, a millionaire, an aristocratic landowner-of a person appointed with the very qualities in which his own parents seem most wanting... Freud further observed that although the new, exalted parents are equipped with the attributes of the actual, humble parents and that the child's family romance thus reflects nostalgia for the days when his own mother and father seemed the most noble persons on earth (and when he basked in the light of their glory), he identified an element of revenge and retaliation in the minds of these young romancers. Nostalgia and revolt, exaltation and debasement, reconciliation and revenge: these are the twin motors driving the family romance.

Tatar, Maria. "3. VICTIMS AND SEEKERS. The Family Romance of Fairy Tales". The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales: Expanded Edition, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019, pp. 74

--

Giving Siegmund Freud access to a Tapas account just to see what happens

[chaos-has-theories]

Hey, did you ever finish ACOTAR?

I did! I only ever read the first one, since it was for a paper and at the time I had other things to read.

I saw the post you liked just now, and I do have to give it some credit. I ended up enjoying it enough that I might even consider reading the next one. I also do really appreciate some of the worldbuilding in there, and could also hold an entire speech about ACOTAR against the backdrop of by Villeneuve B&tB instead of just Beaumont, or heavens forbid (*shudders delicately*) Disney. (Don't take me seriously here. I enjoy being a snob about this specifically for the express reason of it does not matter.)

I didn't love it. I understand that Maas tries to write strong female characters, but on occasion it feels like she does it at the prize of letting them be fully rounded characters. She's so careful not to damsel them that she doesn't give them the space to be afraid, you know? And just personally, if you're doing Beauty and the Beast, the razor's edge between Fear and Fondness is where it's AT.

What I really enjoyed was the family backstory. Feyre's emotions about THAT are very real. I like that. The romance just left me utterly cold, which - I understand that it doesn't even stick, so I guess that's fair. (This is why I am willing to single-handedly build the hill that Maas doesn't write romances. She writes Bildungsromane that happen to include romances, and also swords. I respect that.)

ANYWAY. Did you have any specific questions because apparently I do have a lot to say gsggagsgsg

[chaos-has-theories]

Personally I think that, having written it out like that, I should be able to just call my paper finished and get an automatic A