*cues whimsical music.* The light from the rays of sunlight brightens the leaves’ greenery and grass — casting shadows against the trees’ dark wood. Bare-foot and alone, my dress and locs flairs out around me as I spin in circles on the balls of my feet. I threw my head back, my eyes are closed, and there are no cares in the world I could give. Suddenly, I stop gracefully, not feeling dizzy or sick, to listen to the song of the birds. My lips turn up into a smile as I open my mouth and—
Yeah, no, I don’t sing, and if I did, it would not be in harmony with the birds. I would scare them away.
Anyhow, hello world from my corner! Based on my title and (maybe from how I opened this post), I am talking about one of my top favorite fantasy subgenres, Fables. I have mentioned this before, but Fables are fairytales. This subgenre is the jam to my toast, the honey to my tea, and any other matching food example you can think of. We’ll be here forever and get completely off-topic if I keep going. Saying that, you get the point. Fairytales, for me, are what dreams and wishes are built off of.
You have something you want to do with all your heart and soul and have no way of making it happen? Make a wish upon a shooting star or any overly bright star in the sky; it doesn’t matter which. Or don’t have any time to stare up at the sky? Dream about what you want, and it’s like making a wish in your heart. Disney Cinderella sang a song about it. She would know.
Fairytales are those stories that have some grains of truth in them. Granted, magic has a way of twisting the story, but what’s a story without embellishment? And no matter how dark these stories really are or how some of them don’t even have happy endings, they have endured. There are thousands of translations of these tales. It won’t get old, and no one will stop rewriting them. Like romance, the fairytales written today give the reader (me) that happy ending. Yeah, there is a problem or a challenge or conflict, but that makes the reward all the sweeter in the end.
So, why do I keep rereading the same tales told in different styles and fashions with the same outcome? Because I want to see into someone’s imagination. Yes, I could read an original story that isn’t a fairytale and get that. For me, it takes some real creativity to take something that has been already done and put enough flair for it to draw me in. Even if that tale has been repeatedly done — and we know the ones on repeat: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, the Little Mermaid, Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and Snow White, to name a few.
Doesn’t matter if it’s written with magic, written as a period piece, placed in modern times, has some smutty situations, become an erotic dream, given it a harem twist, or the genders have been switched. Stand-alone or in a series. It’s been done. We know how it ends. Yet, I will still read it. Well, not Snow White. I have a serious eye-twitching problem with that one. A close second is Beauty and the Beast. I have to love the author to read either of those. Trust me. I have issues, but I won’t bring them up here.
Now, since I know the tales on repeat, I look for the stories not told too often. There are a lot of fairytales out there. It’s a good thing I enjoy hunting for a good book. So I have a question for ya. Do you read fairytales?
