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Folktales you can read as queer without squinting

Happy Pride everyone! Here is a selection of folk and fairy tales that I enjoy for both their plots and their queer vibes. I speak of vibes only, because I cannot say I have insight in the historical intention of these tales, but I do vouch for me presenting them to you unaltered, as I found them.

I will give the titles with links to the full texts here and summaries under the read more:

Gold-tree and Silver-tree Scottish fairy tale, collected by Joseph Jacobs, published in 1892. [Cw: abusive parent, murder.]

The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces Cape Verdian folktale, collected by Elsie Clews Parsons in 1916-1917. [Cw: attempted poisoning]

The Unicorn Spanish fairy tale, collected by Aurelio Espinosa in 1947. [Cw: murder, attempt at being outed, awkward use of pronouns.]

The Tale of Tamamizu Japanese literary folktale, written by an unknown author between the Muromachi period (1336–1573) and the beginning of the Edo period (1603–1867). [Cw: tragic ending.]

The Tale of the Marquise-Marquis of Banneville French literary fairy tale, published in 1697, authorship contested (suggested: François-Timoléon de Choisy, Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier, Charles Perrault). [Cw: gender dysphoria, age difference.]

Bisclavret French literary legend, written by Marie de France in the 12th century. [Cw: wolf-violence]

Keep reading

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“And then, one fairy night, May became June.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Midsummer-Eve. Edward-Robert-Hughes, Artist.

The Heirloom Gardener John Forti

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FUCK. honestly just FUCK. We missed a very important day yesterday.

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Truth, justice, freedom, reasonably priced love, and a hardboiled egg. Did Ankh-Morpork get those things, in the end?

They got truth, there was a whole book about it. Vimes didn't want it when he got it, or at least he didn't want the political cartoon section of the newspaper, but Ankh-Morpork got the free press whether anyone liked it or not.

They got justice, thanks first to Carrot and then to Vimes, forcing the City Watch to reform into an organization that helped the citizenry and would arrest the patrician or a whole invading army if it had to. Vimes had to wage a constant war with himself not to turn into just another gang leader, but he waged it.

They did not get freedom. Pratchett was very clear on that. Things got comparatively better, and immigrants flocked to the city despite it being a hellhole, because the dictator didn't care about persecuting any minority groups or whether or not people made fun of him, but it was still a dictatorship. When Pratchett was alive, fans speculated that he was subtly training Moist von Lipwig to become the new government leader- the Lipwig books always had an emphasis on Vetinari getting older- and Lipwig would have had nothing to fear from an election by popular vote, but that's all fanwank and speculation.

They got reasonably priced love right away. That may have even been one of Vetinari's first acts as patrician, since Mrs. Palm is leader of the Seamstress's Guild at least as far back as the early Watch books.

John Keel's grave got a hardboiled egg every year.

Four out of five ain't bad.

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Catch of the day

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Purrsephone

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Welcome, Spring!

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[image: a tweet from Boog at bewgtweets "I forgot to connect my daylight savings account to my daylight checking account and now it's over dawn."]

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Drummond Castle & Gardens in the January snow.  A view resembling embroidered silk.

Sources: Katielee Arrowsmith, HHE

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anyway happy birthday to me I guess 🥳

Every birthday after 35:

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getting a note on a super old post

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I could not not share this.

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