#genre: fairy tale

[swsapphics-ao3feed]

by SteepedFoxgloveTea

Sabine comes across a white wolf in the forests of Peridea.

Words: 1016, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Ahsoka (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F

Characters: Sabine Wren, Shin Hati, Ahsoka Tano, Baylan Skoll

Relationships: Shin Hati/Sabine Wren, Ahsoka Tano & Sabine Wren, Shin Hati & Baylan Skoll

Additional Tags: Fairy Tale Elements, Inspired by Wolfwalkers (2020), Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Sabine Wren Needs a Hug, Shin Hati Needs A Hug, Secret Identity, Slow Burn, Tags May Change

[lionofchaeronea]

The Snow Maiden, Viktor Vasnetsov, 1899

[wormwoodandhoney]

genre swap: snow white as a gothic horror, requested by anon

the snow is cold, the blood is warm, and snow lives in the crypt with seven ghosts.

[wronghands1]

[tired-reader-writer]

Seriously what's w manhwa fans and cross-tagging? Do they not know how tumblr works or do they just not care?

I'm gonna start reporting every cross-tagged post I see under the “spam” umbrella.

Oh to not commit the same crime of cross-tagging myself I'm gonna make a list of which manhwas I have an AU of and which ones I don't.

The ones I have an AU for:

Who Made Me A Princess (my very first!)

Doctor Elise (unfortunately severely neglected no matter how fond I am of the AU somebody pls talk to me about it)

When The Villainess Loves (I have the basic premise down)

Villains Are Destined To Die (second biggest AU among my manhwa stuff)

The Villainess Reverses The Hourglass (kinda)

I Will Master This Family (ehhhh I probably need to rework it)

Actually I Was The Real One (Cosette I love you)

Beware of the Villainess (only beginning to form as I reread)

The ones I don't have an AU for:

Another Typical Fantasy Romance (practically perfect I love you)

The Monstrous Duke's Adopted Daughter (the side stories weren't my cup of tea but the main story was chef's kiss)

The Villainess Flips The Script (how could I possibly improve upon perfection LOL that thing is fucking hilarious)

A Stepmother's Marchen (I don't feel compelled to create for it, the story's great as-is)

There's probably a couple I'm forgetting in the yay department and definitely a lot I'm forgetting in the nay department (I have. read a lot. a lot of them suck.), it's been a long time since I killed my own sideblog, but oh well. Here's what I got so far anyways.

[4lph4kidz]

i was thinking about your dirk and hal poll and i want to mention that i think your concept for ink and iron where dirk creates hal from his reflection by enchanting a mirror is so cool 😌

thank you! hal's predicament and purpose within the canon narrative is so fascinating and i felt it was really important to find a way to explore what i find most interesting with him. i can't take full credit for the concept though i took inspiration from a few placees (one of my friends pitched the idea of the mirror accidentally dumping him onto jake's doorstop for example) but overall i think the idea is very fun and i'm really excited to write more hal stuff!!! also i'm going to take the opportunity to share this oldish doodle i found:

the mispelling of angel as angle was NOT intentional (<- dyslexia haver) but it probably explains a lot. he's pointy

[marwyn]

HOTD 2.04 and La Belle et la Bête (1946)

[fairytale-enthusiast]

*I realize a lot of fairytales have dark origins, but I’m referring to the most well-known versions of fairytales, which have been somewhat censored.

[theshowoffpod]

The Real Tragedy of SwanQueen/OUAT

Expanding on my swanqueen thoughts in our recent pod here (bc why not) :

Check out the pod for my initial rant (starts at around 1:17:30 if you want to skip there, but there are mentions of them throughout)

I think this comes across in the pod somewhat, but the point I really wanted to make about Emma and Regina and swanqueen as a ship, is that it's not just a letdown that they didn't get together for the gay of it all.

Obviously representation is important, and SQ would have been an insane leap forward for that in this era of media. But IMO, that's still not the real tragedy here (since we've made a lot of progress in that regard).

The real tragedy is that doing the enemies-to-lovers thing with Emma and Regina would have been the ULTIMATE manifestation of the concept of the show, which is taking fairytales and retelling them in a way that subverts your expectations. Subverting your expectations around what a fairytale is, how a happy ending goes, and what is possible for the genre. Making swanqueen the endgame for the OUAT fulfills its premise in a way that few shows can even hope to achieve, much less actually have the opportunity.

Built into swanqueen, you have these subversions of the original fairytale genre:

the "villain" gets a happy ending,

the villain is redeemed/redeems herself and in doing so acquires romantic/familial love,

the princess retains her agency,

the princess saves herself, everyone else, AND the villain,

the villain also saves the princess,

the princess does not find love with a prince,

the princess and the (former) villain live happily ever after together.

And that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more. I didn't even bring Henry into it either.

That's the real bummer for me. It's the absolute once-in-a-lifetime chance they had here to turn an entire genre of stories on its head and tell an even greater story from the pieces, and they didn't do it.

Even if they did it in a clunky way or it wasn't written the best, it still would have made the history books for the attempt alone. Not to mention the opportunity to tell a fairytale that completely puts agency back into the hands of women. Sigh. What an absolute waste.

But I guess that's why god invented fanfiction. :)

I hope you enjoy the pod!

[vanalex]

“Her soul belongs to words and books. Every time she reads, she is home.”

[doodlingcrayon]

Day 26 - Fantasy

"Oh, woe is meeee... if only a BIG, STRONG KNIGHT would come and save me from this toweeeeer... maybe if his name starts with L and ends with Ayth... 😇😚"

Fantasy can equal Fairy Tale Daydream, right?? (*°▽°*)

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Stars and Shadows: A Fairy Tale

An extremely experimental piece I've decided to submit for @inklings-challenge.

If you wait patiently, there will come a day--in a month, in a year, in a hundred-thousand hopeful days--when you will stare outside into the deep blue-black of a cold winter night and not be able to tell the snowflakes from the stars. It will call to your heart and pull you from the warmth and light of home--wrapped up in coats and boots, scarves and gloves, and one thick woolen blanket thrown over your shoulders like a cloak--in the hope of becoming, even for a moment, a part of the beauty of this moment of creation.

The cold of night will bite your face and steal your breath, but in a moment, you will find yourself racing across the white expanse, snow crunching beneath your boots, soul expanding toward the shining heavens in one upward rush of joy. As soon as home and family are safely out of view, you will slow from your sprint and find yourself content to amble, and wonder, and be, with the shy, slender moon watching patiently above.

You will carry no light, for the world will be light, with the moon and the stars and the snow wrapping all the world in bright illumination. Your breath will shine before you in delicate white clouds, your very life made visible for the fragile, lovely thing it is. In the silence you will hear the snowflakes fall, hear the hushed sound of your footfalls, feel every beat of your strong and pulsing heart.

And then, if you close your eyes and listen long enough, just at the moment when your heart is near to breaking from the beauty of it all, you will hear a cry. For a moment you might think it a phantom of thought, your own soul giving voice to all the aching loveliness that surges through you, but then, you will hear it again. Over and over, thin and wailing, the cry of a child newly born horrified to find the world so great and cold.

The sound will travel like an arrow in that crisp, cold air, and you will follow it without hesitation--over a rise, down a hill, through a twisting stand of trees and countless banks of snow, and at last to an old well, such as you've only seen in illustrations--a construction of wood and stones, covered with moss and aged with time, that you can say with certainty was not there a day before.

Standing by that well will be, not an infant, but a child. A little girl three years old, reaching desperately for the rim of the well and crying for water. Everything about her--her skin, her hair, her eyes--will be white as the snow she stands in, and she will gleam faintly with the light of the stars above, and she will wear nothing but thin, white rags, torn at the edges and singed at the ends, a ragged line of ash the only color in her form.

You will notice all these things and think it strange, and then you will forget everything because the child is crying. You will find a wooden bucket on a chain by the well, and in sheer desperation you will throw it down, though there will be nothing but ice in an open well on a night so cold.

But to your shock, you will hear a splash, and you will pull up a bucket full of liquid water that looks like light itself. You will give it to the girl--you would not dream of taking even a drop for yourself--and she will drink with cupped hands and lapping tongue, and gaze at you with silent gratitude.

When she has drained the last drop, the faint gleam of light around her form will become a white glow. She will seem a bit taller--perhaps a bit older than you first assumed--and for the first time, she will seem to feel the cold. She will shiver and wail and curl in on herself, and you will suddenly understand--or at least bless--your mad impulse to take a blanket out into the night. You will take it from your shoulders and wrap it round her form, head to foot, with only her shining white face peering out. Then you will take her in your arms, settle her on one hip, and carry her across the vast expanse of snow toward your home.

It will be a long trip--you have walked a long way--and before you have gone far, the child will grow too heavy for your strength. You will look to her and find that the blanket you have wrapped around her no longer seems so large, and clings more closely to her form--like something between a deep blue dress and cloak--so you will feel safe in setting her on the ground and letting her walk beside you, her thin white hand in yours.

You will wonder for a moment if you've fallen into a dream, for all seems so strange and perfect--the light, the snow, this silent child--but the bite of the cold and the burn of your legs will assure you that you remain in the waking world. Yet you won't think to question the child--who or what she is, or from whence she arrived--because she is so like the snow and the light and the stars of this crisp, cold night--things that do not become, but simply are. Your wonder make peace with the night's mystery.

The way back will seem longer than you remember--the trees taller, the stars brighter, the air colder. The night will seem large and you so very small, but you will not be afraid, for there is one beside you too innocent for fear. You will walk in the tracks you left on your way, stretching between footfalls that seem much more distant than you expected. Yet the moon will look larger, and you will take comfort in that. You will need the comfort before long.

For just when you are in the very midst of the trees, you will hear a sound from the shadows--dark and dangerous, like the growl of a wolf or the rumble of a distant train. And then the shadows will seem to take shape, growing arms and legs, teeth and claws, and they will gather in a great black wall that blocks the way you mean to take.

The voice that speaks will be less of a voice, and more like the clench of fear in your chest, the monster that mocks you as you lay awake at midnight with all the shame and sorrows of your wasted youth.

We will have the child.

You will know that the voice promises death for disobedience, and you will know to the depths of your soul that you would rather die than obey. You will hold the child close, and she will cling to your neck, and you will sprint with all your strength back toward the well. The shadows will surge and swirl around you, grabbing at your clothes, tearing at your face, and once--only once--drawing blood that drips a red path upon the snow.

You will sprint through the snow and twine through the trees, each step seeming a mile, each moment a lifetime. The shadows will gather--closer, darker--and the light of the child in your arms will fade with fear.

At last, you will see the well at the base of the hill, seeming to shine in a circle of light. If you can reach it, you know, you will be safe--every childhood game seeming suddenly like training for this very moment.

And yet, at the very edge of the clearing--somehow you always knew this would happen--you will lose your footing and fall face-first into the snow. You will shield the child's face from the snow by holding her close, and you will shield her body with your own. The shadows will fall upon you, tearing you to pieces. Your very body will seem to dissolve in pain.

Through their snarling, the shadows will promise relief, if you will only relent--the child's life for yours. Not so great a sacrifice, is it, for a child you've known for mere minutes? These words will tear at your mind, but it is your heart that will reply, drawing strength for defiance from you know not where. And you will. not. move.

You will feel the night fading--the stars and the snow and even the cold growing distant, like some faraway world in which you have no part. Even the pain will seem like something happening long ago and far away to some ancient hero in a dusty, tattered book. Yet you will feel the child beneath you, her beating heart still alive against yours, and that hope will keep you clinging to the tatters of breath in your body.

Then, at last, there will be light. So bright that it blazes white even through your closed eyes. The shadows will crumble like ash, retreat like the dark from a flame, and the destruction of your battered form will cease. The child you shelter will cry with joy.

A gentle touch will lift your shoulder so you lay on one side, and attempt to pull the child from your arms.

With a cry of defiance, you will hold her with what remains of your strength.

But then a voice will flow through you, lovely and feminine, like water and winter and moonlight given tongue. Peace.

Peace will come, perfect and pure, and you will release the child without fear. But without her presence, your need for strength will fade, and all your pain will come rushing in upon you, dark and hot and crushing, and you will have no strength to hold it back.

Absurdly, you will be most aware of an all-consuming thirst. Tears will pour from you--precious, wasted droplets. Then it will be you, and not the child, who cries for water. Then it will be the child who will draw water from the well and put the shining liquid to your lips.

You will drink, and the first mouthful will bring the cold climbing back upon you. But you will welcome it as re-entry into this world, and drink deep, again and again, until you find yourself freezing, but wholly alive, your wounds as if they never were. You will sit and gaze up at a woman dressed in midnight blue, as white and glowing as the child, who clings to her as she would to a mother, and you will find yourself alight with the same glow.

You have served my daughter well, that lovely inner voice will say again. Come and be at peace.

She will turn your eyes toward the heavens, and offer you a place there in the shining light, far from the troubles of this dark world. It will draw you as the snowflakes drew you from the warmth of home, so many long moments ago. Yet you will find yourself standing, and bowing your head, and with utmost humility refusing the honor. You will not leave this world, be there ever so many shadows, while there is still more beauty to behold.

The woman will smile, pleased with your answer, and the light surrounding you will fade. And you will see your home alight on a nearby hillside, waiting for your return.

You will say your farewells to the child--who embraces you with gratitude--and turn your path toward home. The child and her mother will do the same, fading as the sunset fades with the coming of night. And you will notice two stars in the sky above where you had noticed none before.

You will smile up at them and walk home--warm, alive and fearless. There will be no more shadows lurking along your path. But high above, and all around, you will know there is--and always will be--light.

[lionofchaeronea]

A Crowned Merman, Arthur Rackham (1867-1939)

[wormwoodandhoney]

genre swap: the 12 dancing princesses as a mystery, requested by anon

set in the 1930s, a noir style mystery about a detective to solve the disappearance of 4 dancers who have seemingly robbed & skipped town on their angry employer. the detective realizes patterns in the case similar to previous disappearances in the 20s & 10s. the detective follows the clues, becomes obsessed with these women and their pasts. determined to find them and save them from their wicked ways, he's in for an unpleasant surprise when he uncovers their lair in a literal underworld with the previous disappeared women. these women have found a way to dance forever without the judgment of men, and all they need to add more friends is a simple sacrifice every ten years. and what do you know, the detective is right on time.

[chemicalarospec]

I never was into Monster High and the younger-demographic reboot appeals to me even less tbh, but honestly I have half a mind to seek it out in the faint, vain hope that it might encourage Mattel to reboot Ever After High. But on the other hand Ever After High's original design was so charming because of the elements which are now becoming charmingly dated to the early 2010s, so I just know an official redesign would just always be disappointing even though fan redesigns are always super cool. And the whole fairy-tale fad is over, I guess -- I bet there are still little kids who love it like I did, but the market is saturated (and apparently Descendants is still active, and I know they're still publishing their Disney fanfiction AU books...) -- so there's little hope on that front. But I'm bringing Ever After High back into my life myself anyways. Wayback Machine saves of the old website and my books will suffice <3

Edit: wait something is GOING ON right now?? something peculiar and iffy but SOMETHING!!

[toanunnery]

Snegurochka

Viktor Vasnetsov, 1899