#hansel dark parables

[mb-blue-roses]

I hate The Thief and the Tinderbox for a shitton of other reasons, but I also think Hansel and Gerda should've met. It would've been really funny

I think I'm gonna do that in my TTatT replacement. Hansel being the exasperated but still supportive elder figure to Gerda, along with Gerda going O-o when she realizes that the Original Golden Child (her ancestor) is still alive

[katlimeart]

Made in 2016 + 2017

If you’ve seen this anywhere else, I posted it back on my deviantArt when it was made.

Mario girls cosplaying as characters from the Dark Parables franchise

1. Amely - requested by moon-shadow-1985

2. Belladonna - requested by moon-shadow-1985

3. Brianne - requested by moon-shadow-1985

4. Gretel - requested by moon-shadow-1985

5. Harpy Queen - requested by moon-shadow-1985

6. Ivy Green - requested by moon-shadow-1985

7. Jessica - requested by moon-shadow-1985

8. Queen Melanie - requested by moon-shadow-1985

9. Queen of the Sky Kingdom - requested by moon-shadow-1985

10. Queen Valla - requested by moon-shadow-1985

[tiredgamergirl]

The predictions of Prince James came to reality, his final wife had been planning something that could put the entire world at risk. Days after a rare occurrence known as the Silver Moon, terrible snowstorms started to engulf the Bernese Alps of Switzerland, and the legendary Snow Queen is said to be the one who is the cause of that, along with the abduction of the local children. The Fairytale Detective is tasked with rescuing the kids and putting an end to the curse that befell the Snowfall Kingdom. The third entry in the Dark Parables series is rather a short one but introduces some new elements like the collectibles that unlock the lore in the form of short stories, revealing the larger plot that takes place underneath the surface although the relevant parts are never kept away from the player. It feels far less lonely than the previous ones, as the detective is able to interact with the guide that brought her to the entrance to the kingdom and many of the missing children, some of them will be crucial in future games.

Once again the detective’s journal is your best friend, although this time the game makes it much clearer when there’s a new objective and what the player should be doing, a notable improvement from Exiled Prince. Not enough to telegraph everything and lead by hand but clear enough that the backtracking isn’t as bad as the previous game. The game is once again a treat for the eyes, the cold exteriors looking oppressive and the castle is delightful, with hints of storytelling everywhere. The way the Snow Queen is handled is somewhat obvious in hindsight, which makes it clever. Sadly the hidden object scenes have more objects partially hidden underneath others and some are actually almost transparent, almost to the point of being eye-straining. Still, the repetition of the scenes isn’t as often as Exiled Prince so if a scene isn’t your thing you won’t be seeing them more than twice until the very end of the game. The puzzles are somewhat more “streamlined”, with many variations of the same puzzles over and again, with less variety than the previous ones.

The extra chapter tells a story of an event that took place years ago, back when the kingdom had another name. It is an adaptation of the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel, adapted for the Dark Parables universe. It is a brisk extra that doesn’t overstay its welcome and it is charming on its own, also offering its own extra parable.

Rise of the Snow Queen is an excellent hidden object title, although perhaps if you are interested in getting into the series you should play Exiled Prince first. The puzzles are a little on the repetitive side, but the well-crafted story and short length make it doesn’t feel stretched too thin.

[barbiestuffps]

Dark Parables: Rise of the Snow Queen, 2011

[blueteagames-blog]

Trick or Treat? There are inexhaustible candies in the gingerbread house of the crone. 

[haru-desune]

Grimmtober Day 25: Snow White and Rose Red

Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as much as they liked; and they got so used to him that the doors were never fastened until their black friend had arrived.

--

(I forgot to charge my iPad so we were working against the clock for this one) This story is an ATU type 426, and it's probably not the one you're thinking of. It goes like this:

Once there was a widow who lived in a cottage with two rose-trees n in front of it, a red one and a white one. She had two beautiful daughters named rose-red and snow-white, who were the closest of friends. Rose-red was brave and bold and spent her days exploring field and forest. Snow-white sat at home with her mother, preferring to help with the housework and reading.

They were loved equally by their mother, and they were good and kind. They would often spend their time collecting berries in the forest, where they feared no beast and no beast feared them. One winters day, as the girls and their mother sat by the hearth, there was a knock on the door. The mother bade rose-red to open it, for she believed it to be a lost traveler. However, much to their shock, it was a huge black bear, shaking with cold. At first, the three were frightened, but the bear assured them he meant no harm and just wanted to stay warm by the fire.

Though the two girls were scared at first, they soon became bold. They made a friend out of the bear, who came to visit every day throughout the winter. Then as spring began to thaw the frost, the bear said he had to leave. The girls were sad at losing their friend, but he explained that he had a great treasure, that he had to protect from a ready dwarf. Each winter the dwarf was trapped underground, but the earth would soften in the spring and the dwarf would escape. The girls reluctantly said goodbye to their new friend.

Later as they were gathering berries in the forest, they came upon a little man with a great beard, who was cursing up a storm. The man's beard was trapped in a tree, and he rudely demanded that the girls help him get free.

The girls tried to pull him out but to no avail. Finally, they decided to cut him free, but the man was ungrateful and angry that they cut his beard. They would come across this man with his beard entangled several times, and each time, they would help him, and each time he would be ungrateful.

Then one day, they come across the dwarf as he is cornered by a bear. The dwarf sees them and tries to convince him to eat the girls. But the bear knocks him out with a big swipe of his paw. The girls take off at a run, fearing they will be next, but a voice calls out to them to wait. A voice they recognize as belonging to their friend the black bear.

When they return to the spot, they see not the bear but a young man dressed in gold. He explains that was a kings son, and that the dwarf had stolen a treasured possession from him. As a result, he was transformed into a bear. But now with the dwarf dead, he could resume his true form.

Snow-white would go on to marry him, and Rose-red to marry his brother. They, and their mother, would live happily ever after, and the rose trees in front of their cottage would continue to bloom a beautiful red and white.

Not the Snow White story you were expecting, right? Disney's Snow White was based on a completely different tale, with completely different motifs. Really the only thing the two have in common is a character named Snow White and the involvement of at least one dwarf!

Unlike Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, this tale doesn't have too many direct adaptations, but you can see allusions to it in media like the Dark Parables videogames or RWBY. If you do want to see this story adapted (sort of... I mean, they're in it), check out Once Upon a Time in Space by The Mechanisms. A retelling by a band of steampunk cyborg space pirates in which Rose Red is the greatest warrior in the kingdom and Snow White a gifted politician and diplomat. Things go pear-shaped for them very quickly and it's down hill from there (plotwise at least, the album is fantastic).

They appear in this space opera alongside other recognizable characters like Old King Cole (no longer a merry old soul), Doctors Hansel and Gretel (Scientists in his employ), and our boy Jack Spratt (of giant killer fame), and many more. I promise you've never heard their stories told quite this way before.

You can check out the album on Spotify (x) Youtube (x) Apple Music (x) or Bandcamp (x).

[ladynorbert]

For that 'Send in a Character thing' The Fairytale Detective from Dark Parables.

Ooh. That’s one I did not expect to get! Thank you!

Sexuality Headcanon: I honestly hadn’t given it much thought tbh. We never see her showing interest in anyone so it’s hard to say. Maybe she’s ace. Gender Headcanon: She’s confirmed to be female. A ship I have with said character: I like the idea of pairing her with Hansel, because they both sort of serve the Moon Goddess, but I know I’m probably alone in that. A BROTP I have with said character: Jack, totally. A NOTP I have with said character: Don’t want to see her with Ross or Rapunzel, since they obviously belong together. A random headcanon: She’s in her forties.  General Opinion over said character: I honestly have no idea what any of the general opinions of her are, since the fandom is tiny and I barely know anyone in it.

[ladymetroland]

My mum’s boyfriend doesn’t tell his kids fairy tales. She had to explain about the girl with the red shoes, the original little mermaid, hansel and gretel. He doesn’t tell them fairy tales because he thinks they’re too dark and scary for his daughters, but it freaks me about because there is a solid, unbroken chain of sharing these old stories back and back and back, no just Grimms but all the Greek myths, 1001 Arabian Nights, all the stories and parables and fables and whenever I think about someone just deciding to break the chain because they’re too ugly or not important or ‘silly’ it kind of makes my heart hurt a little bit. I can’t imagine trying to contextualise the world around me without those stories.

[barbiestuffps]

Dark Parables: Rise of the Snow Queen, 2011

[haru-desune]

Grimmtober Day 11: Little Red Riding Hood

When Little Red Cap entered the woods a wolf came up to her. She did not know what a wicked animal he was, and was not afraid of him.

--

This story has an ATU of 333, and is popular fairy tale in pop culture. The Grimm’s tale isn’t the original, but it’s the one that most of these retellings are based on. The interesting thing about the Grimm’s version is that both brothers were told different versions of the tale. One went into the main story, and the other went into the sequel. The first one goes like this:

A young girl was asked by her mother to take a basket of wine and cake to her ailing grandmother who lived in the woods. She gave her strict instructions to stay on the public path and not wander into the woods. The girl grabs the basket, fastens a red velvet cap gifted to her by her grandmother, and sets on the way.

As she skips along the public path, a hungry wolf spots her and approaches. Little Red Cap is not afraid, for she does not know how wicked the wolf is. He asks her where she is going and what she has in her basket, and she answers innocently. He then asks where her grandma’s house is, and she replies honestly. The wolf gets to thinking how delicious the little girl would taste, and if he was lucky, he could get the grandmother too and fill up his belly.

He asks Little Red Cap why she isn’t enjoying her trip to the woods, drawing her attention to it’s beauty, and slips away while she is distracted. Little Red Cap, convinced by his words, strays from the path when she sees beautiful flowers. She begins plucking a bouquet for her grandmother, each flower taking her deeper and deeper in the woods.

The wolf, meanwhile, heads straight to the grandmother’s house, and pretends to be Little Red Cap when he walks through the door. The Grandmother asks him to enter, and in one swift jump he ate her up. Then he dresses in grandma’s gown and cap, gets into the bed, pulls the covers up to his chin and waits.

When Little Red Cap finally arrives, she feels a strange dread. She reaches the door only to find that it was open. She calls out to her grandmother but receives no response. Pulling back the curtain she sees her grandmother in bed, looking very strange.

(You all know this bit)

“Oh, grandmother, what big ears you have!"

"All the better to hear you with."

"Oh, grandmother, what big eyes you have!"

"All the better to see you with."

"Oh, grandmother, what big hands you have!"

"All the better to grab you with!"

"Oh, grandmother, what a horribly big mouth you have!"

"All the better to eat you with!"

And with that the wolf jumps out, and gobbles up Little Red Cap. But now, with a full belly and comfortable bed, the wolf gives into his desire to go to sleep. A passing huntsman hears wolf’s snores and grows suspicious. He enters the cabin to find the wolf, who he had been hunting for a long time.

He’s about to shoot the creature when it occurs to him that it may have eaten the grandmother, so he takes a large pair of scissors and cuts open the wolf’s stomach and both Little Red Cap and grandma came crawling out. They then fill up his stomach with stones and sew it back up. When he woke up and tried to runaway, he was weighed down by the rocks and fell down dead.

Little Red Cap never strayed from the path again.

In the sequel (Wilhelm’s version), Little Red Cap stays on the path despite the wolf approaching her. When she reaches her grandmother’s house, she tells her about the wolf, and the two lock themselves in. When the wolf finds the cottage, he is unable to enter, so he decides to climb to the roof instead. He plans to catch Little Red Cap on the way out. The Grandmother is wise to his plan though, and instructs Little Red Cap to fill a stone trough with boiling water that was used to cook sausages and place the trough outside the door. The wolf smells the sausages and is lured forward. He slips and falls into the boiling water and drowns.

Pop Culture’s fascination with Little Red Riding Hood (and affiliated stories) is interesting. It’s up there with Hansel and Gretel as a don’t talk to strangers PSA, but the latter is adapted nearly as much. Little Red has seen retellings, poems, movies, even cameos in video games. And each interpretation seems to take something different from the story.

There are several common interpretations of the tale. There’s the idea that it is coming of age story about girl entering puberty (the supposed reason behind the red cloak), or as an allegory for romantic/erotic/sexually coercive relations. Little Red’s arc in Into the Woods alludes to this theme. On a more positive note, there’s Scarlett from Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles, which takes the romance angle mainly because werewolves hot.

Speaking of werewolves hot, Teen Wolf did a fun play where main character Scott wears a red hoodie on the night he gets bitten. This ties until another common interpretation - rebirth. Many people view Little Red's escape from the wolf’s stomach, and her better understanding of how the world works, as this. The game Dark Parables is kinda on the same theme with Little Red acting as a mentor for young girls, reshaping them into warriors. Some interpretations even frame the story as a fight of good versus evil, even when the evil comes from within — i.e the Little Red quest in the Witcher 3, or Ruby’s story in Once Upon a Time (SPOILER:werewolves again... I'm sensing a theme).

So what do we take away from one of the world’s best loved fairy tale and possibly first recorded phishing scam? Be wary of strangers, wolves often seem kind at first. But also, werewolves hot, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ladynorbert]

Hi Dragon Lady, I've been wondering this for a while now, What made you fall In love with the Dark Parables Series? (Besides the Art and the Music of course, Everyone knows those are always amazing.) Thank you for reading! Also Please stay safe and healthy and have a nice rest of your day/Night! ^_^

Hi yourself, and thank you so much for the kind ask! 

Well, besides the art and music, I just really thought they were incredibly unique, and the characters are wonderfully crafted. I actually started with the second game, The Exiled Prince, because I happened to see it on Big Fish Games during the week it launched. I did the free trial and was so completely enthralled by it that I had to buy the full game as soon as possible. It remained my favorite in the series for a long time; Prince James is a rarity for me, since I don’t normally care much for villains, but I really like him. I also loved Jack and the Sky Kingdom because Jack was so compelling, and I love both Ross and Rapunzel in Ballad of Rapunzel. My actual favorite NPC, however, is Hansel - I kind of low-key ship him with the Fairytale Detective, to be honest. And speaking of the FTD, I love her to pieces, and it makes me very happy to know that she and I are around the same age. I have actually cosplayed as her! 

I own all of the games currently in existence, but I admit I haven’t played any of the ones released since the series returned to Blue Tea Games. I keep meaning to do it and then... not. My county won’t be opening up for a few more weeks, though, so I still have plenty of time before I go back to work.

Thank you again, and you stay safe and healthy too! <3