#More Tales from Grimm

[coochiequeens]

Today In Women’s History Month we celebrate the birthdays of Louise-Florence-Pétronille Tardieu d’Esclavelles and Wanda Hazel Gág

Louise-Florence-Pétronille Tardieu d’Esclavelles, dame de la Live d’Épinay, byname Madame D’épinay, (born March 11, 1726, Valenciennes, Fr.—died April 17, 1783, Paris), a distinguished figure in advanced literary circles in 18th-century France. Though she wrote a good deal herself, she is more famous for her friendships with three of the outstanding French writers and thinkers of her day, Denis Diderot, Baron Friedrich de Grimm, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Mme d’Épinay interested herself in literature and the welfare of men of letters after the breakdown of her marriage to Denis-Joseph de La Live d’Épinay, a financier. She set up a congenialsalon in her country house at La Chevrette, near Montmorency, and offered hospitality to the Philosophes, the leading intellectual figures of the period immediately prior to the French Revolution. Her friendship with Grimm was long and untroubled, and Mme d’Épinay collaborated with him on his famous correspondence. Her association with Rousseau, on the other hand, was brief and stormy: in 1756 he accepted her offer of accommodation in the “Hermitage,” a small dwelling near her country house, and wrote his novel La Nouvelle Héloïsethere. But then he quarreled with his hostess, and the two became implacable foes. Mme d’Épinay was the author of several novels and works on education, but her writings are of interest now chiefly for their autobiographical revelations.

Her Wikipedia page had more information about her works

Her pseudo-memoires are written in the form of a sort of autobiographic romance, L'Histoire de Madame de Montbrillant, begun when she was thirty but never published in her lifetime. It intersperses fictionalized set pieces exhibiting the sensibilité of the earliest generation of Romantics,[6] with genuine letters and autobiographical material. Bequeathed to Baron Grimm, a mangled version of the manuscript was edited by J. P. A. Parison and J. C. Brunet (Paris, 1818) as Mémoires et correspondance de Madame d'Épinay with all the names changed to identify the supposed originals: Madame d'Épinay figures in it as Madame de Montbrillant, and René is generally recognized as Rousseau, Volx as Grimm, Gamier as Diderot, who is sometimes credited with major interventions in the text. The work has had a checkered career since.[7] The only accurate edition is George Roth, ed. Les Pseudo-mémoires de Madame d'Épinay, 3 vols., 1951.

Other works

Her Conversations d'Émilie, a dialogue recollecting the education of her granddaughter, Émilie de Belsunce, was published in 1774.[8] The Mémoires et Correspondance de Mme d'Épinay, renfermant un grand nombre de lettres inédites de Grimm, de Diderot, et de J.-J. Rousseau, ainsi que des details, &c., was published at Paris (1818) from a manuscript which she had bequeathed to Grimm.

Many of Madame d'Épinay's letters are contained in the Correspondance de l'abbé Galiani (1818), which provided material for Francis Steegmuller's joint biography,[9] and have since appeared in a definitive redaction.[10] Two anonymous works, Lettres à mon fils (Geneva, 1758) and Mes moments heureux (Geneva, 1759), are also by Madame d'Épinay.

In January 1783, three months before her death, she was awarded the Prix Monyon, recently established by the Académie to honour the author of the "book published in the current year that might be of most benefit to society"; it was her Conversations d'Émilie (1774).[11]

Wanda Hazel Gág, (born March 11, 1893, New Ulm, Minnesota, U.S.—died June 27, 1946, New York, New York), American artist and author whose dynamic visual style imbued the often commonplace subjects of both her serious art and her illustrated books for children with an intense vitality.

Gág was the daughter of a Bohemian immigrant artist. While attending high schoolin Minnesota, she helped support her family by contributing drawings to a children’s supplement to the Minneapolis Journal. She attended the St. Paul Art School on a scholarship, and from 1915 to 1917 she studied at the Minneapolis School of Art. In 1917 she traveled to New York City and entered the Art Students League, where she studied with John Sloan and other noted teachers.

A show of Gág’s drawings, lithographs, and woodcuts at the Weyhe Gallery in New York in 1926 brought her first recognition as a serious artist, and subsequent shows there in 1928, 1930, and 1940 increased her reputation. She was represented in the Museum of Modern Art’s 1939 exhibition “Art in Our Time,” which was presented at the time of the New York World’s Fair. At the suggestion of a children’s book editor, she wrote and illustrated Millions of Cats (1928), which became a classic children’s book. Her subsequent books for children include The Funny Thing (1929), A.B.C. Bunny (1933), Gone Is Gone (1935), and Nothing at All(1941). She also translated and illustrated Tales from Grimm (1936), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1938), Three Gay Tales from Grimm (1943), and More Tales from Grimm (1947). Growing Pains: Diaries and Drawings for the Years 1908–1917 (1940, reprinted 1984) is a memoir based on her journals.

[needle-rose]

Hi! We seem to have gotten off on the wrong foot. While I’m by no means an expert on German culture either today or historically, I’ve studied fairy tales both in academic and independent contexts for many years and am very familiar with the long and widespread history of certain tale types within the indo-European language group.

If you haven’t read it you might be interested in da Silva and Tehrani’s 2016 paper on phylogenetic analysis of tale types to determine their age! I’m happy to send you a link since it sounds like you are also someone who enjoys this kind of thing.

That was my error to assume you were coming from a place of pop-history without checking—I have a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to some of the more common “myths” around fairy tales and their evolution.

My studies with fairy tales are more comparative than culturally/linguistically specific. I was referring more to the developmental stage of adolescence, rather than the social construct of childhood or teenagers (which, as you pointed out, have not been universal throughout time and place).

I can see where we also may have been talking past each other regarding the specifically German elements of the stories the Grimms collected. As an American I still sometimes fall into the trap of using the Grimm’s stories as shorthand for “old-world-y ‘European’ fairy tales,” especially as they’re often presented as such in our schools with little reference to the context of the nationalist and romantic movements that motivated their collection in the first place.

I enjoy a joke about fucked up German fairy tales as much as the next nerd, but it's genuinely striking how often the source for the really fucked up stuff turns out to be "yeah, this is only in the Brothers Grimm version and doesn't appear in any extant oral tradition, and we're like 80% sure they added it themselves". To a large extent it's not German fairy tales that are fucked up, it's two specific German dudes.

[elalyn]

The child’s time with Rumpelstiltskin had left her different. There was no one to recognize this, of course, because the child they had lost was merely a baby, and the child that had been returned to them appeared as the same. There was nobody to acknowledge the change that had been done. Not even Rumpelstiltskin himself would have been able to register the effects of his actions, because he’d never met the child before him, and he’d long meet the child after. None of this changes the fact that the child left his home Different.

Had she never stayed in his home, she may have had the opportunity to be seen as normal. Likely, she would have been able to be a child. She could have played with dolls, gone to school, trained for the future she was expected to fulfill. This is, in fact, what her parents expected of her. A childhood, an adolescence, then an adulthood. They expected not to be present for anything past that. Their expectations would have been correct, had they not lost her. The child they got back would never be able to do those things. Her experience had exposed her to a magic they would neither be able to see nor imagine. The child they got back was stuck in a sort of limbo, of which she would not likely escape.

After her time in Rumpelstiltskin’s home had left her an impossibility: a fey child in the body and home of a human one. Nothing would fix her. Plenty could, but nothing would. Fate opposed her happiness. She was not the only one.

[canon-in-too-deep]

50 Free Typesets

New achievement unlocked! I now have 50 public domain books/typesets available for FREE in my library! 🥳 Above is a collage of all 50 title pages.

What does this mean? It means that these classic books have been typeset (typographic, book design, layout work done), and are ready as pdfs that can be used to read, print out, book bind, or burn at your pleasure! (Just keep it to personal use only!)

The full list (with page sizes now noted) of all 50 books available can be found here on my tumblrary directory/masterlist (which will update as I add more), and below the break of this post!

Please please feel free to request access to my library (aka, yee good ol' googly drive). I usually respond within 24 hours, and they are indeed free! Just leave credit if you use, and consider liking/reblogging!

Also, if you find any errors in the files, let me know! I made these in Affinity, not with an AI program, and typos are natural spawns XD

From Frankenstein to Pride and Prejudice, to Sherlock Holmes to a dude that wakes up as a bug, I've been honored to be able to typeset these books and share them with all of you.

A part of me wants to ramble on about the behind the scenes and my continuing personal journey of amateur typesetting...but I think the most important thing I can say is simply thank you! to everyone that's stopped by! So thank you all! (And should I try for 100? 🤔 Hmmm...)

Warning! Wall of text below the break!

All 50 typesets available (some have alternate versions in library):

Persuasion by Jane Austen (Letter Folio)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (Letter Quarto)

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (Letter Folio)

The Merry Adventures of Robinhood by Howard Pyle (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (Letter Folio)

Dracula by Bram Stoker (Letter Folio)

The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft (Letter Quarto)

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (Letter Folio)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells (Letter Folio)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (Letter Folio)

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare (Letter Folio)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (Letter Folio)

The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

The Odyssey by Homer (Letter Folio)

Tales of Space and Time by H. G. Wells (Letter Folio)

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (Letter Folio)

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

The Book of Dragons by E. Nesbit (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare (Letter Folio)

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Letter Folio)

Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne (Letter Folio)

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

Leave it to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse (Letter Folio)

Lord Peter views the body by Dorothy L. Sayers (Letter Folio)

The Room in the Tower by E. F. Benson (Letter Folio)

Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse (Letter Folio)

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (Letter Folio)

Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (Letter Quarto)

Poirot Investigates by Agatha Christie (Letter Folio)

Grimms' Fairy Tales by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (Letter Folio)

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (Letter Folio)

Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen (Letter Folio)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (Letter Quarto)

Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare (Letter Folio)

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe (Illustrated) (Letter Octavo)

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery (Letter Folio)

A Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne (Letter Folio)

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (Letter Folio)

Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo (Letter Folio)

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (Letter Folio)

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (Letter Folio)

The Blue Fairy Book (Font Sampler Edition) edited by Andrew Lang (Letter Folio)

A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (Letter Folio)

Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott (Illustrated) (Letter Folio)

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (Letter Folio)

Emma by Jane Austen (Letter Folio)

Paradise Lost by John Milton (Letter Folio)

[cursecuelebre]

Top Recommendations for Norse Pagans that aren’t Problematic.

There is a lot of books by people who are racist and part of far right side of Heathenry and I’m going to try my best and list the books I have that helped me on my path that isn’t problematic and have questionable intentions. Books and YouTube channels.

Anglo Saxon Socerery and Magic by Alaric Albertson. He is very knowledgeable in his work and path especially on runes which includes the rune poem to make your own interpretation and witchcraft side of things. He even talks about the Elves which I appreciate because not a lot of Norse authors talk about them. It’s more Germanic than Norse but I can’t see any problem adopting certain aspects since they are very similar. I will say he does take himself a bit serious at times but his information is so good and worthwhile. I have not read his first book on Travels through middle earth but it focus on more the pagan side.

Poetic Edda and Prose Edda: it’s what every Norse pagan needs. It’s the foundation of Norse paganism not bibles but myths and tales that can help along our journey. There is tons of translations, but my favorites are Dr. Jackson Crawford Poetic Edda and Anthony Fawkes Prose Edda. But look into other sagas as well like Volsung which Dr Jackson Crawford also wrote about.

Beowulf. More of a Germanic tale but again includes it has roots of Germanic sorcery, traditions, religion like the concept of Wyrd (Fate), the runes, and values within his society like loyalty and mythical creatures. Again there is many translations even Jrr Tolkien did a incompleted version of Beowulf but I think Tom Shippey finished that version I could be wrong. Nonetheless explore more than one, the oneI have is by Seamus Heaney.

Grimm Fairy Tales this mostly German Folklore but it’s still quite important to learn about in German folk magic, creatures and entities in German folklore tends to be very real to the practitioner in their spellwork.

The Way of Fire and Ice by Ryan Smith a very progressive outlook in Norse paganism, he talks about creating communities in Norse paganism and calling out and denouncing Nazis in the community how Norse Paganism is inclusive and how to be open to all types of people. But he has a beginner approach to the deities, beliefs, values within Norse paganism.

Look into a lot of academic sources that’s where you will find a lot of information on Norse paganism and religions.

Tacitus Germania - A Roman historian talking about the Germanic tribes their culture and customs.

Saxo Grammaticus history of the Danes

The Viking Way by Neil Price it goes good in depths about magic in Scandinavia like Seidh

Dictionary of Norse Mythology a quick guide to northern myths, if you are trying to find a specific god and you don’t have time to look up in a book it’s in there with great information to each one.

Children of Ask and Elm: History of Vikings by Neil Price on Scandinavian culture during the Viking age

Some YouTube Channels

The Norse Witch: Bente lives in Germany and their channel encompasses all of Norse paganism more around magic. They do interviews with other Norse witches of folk magic like Icelandic and Danish. Even gives good book recommendations and advice on general spellwork as well!.

Dr Jackson Crawford he is an author but he also has a YouTube channel. He was a professor in Colorado on Norse culture, mythology, and language and now is a full time YouTuber. He did a series of videos on the runes which are more historically accurate. Discusses the myths and the language and what do they mean. Jackson Crawford isn’t a Norse pagan nor he doesn’t care if you are one but just letting you know he isn’t coming from a pagan perspective.

The Welsh Viking also like Jackson Crawford but still has really great knowledge on Viking culture.

De Spökenkyker who is a channel that focus on German Folk magic living in Germany who is a practicing German Folk Witch.

Please feel free to add on any recommendations that are helpful and useful to the Norse pagan Community!

[smashingveteransandnewcomers]

The Retold Tales of Team RWBY

@astral-multiverse

Legends. Stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown quite fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts, of a forgotten past.

"Do not worry...I will be fine..."

Man, born from dust, was strong, wise, and resourceful, but he was born into an unforgiving world. An inevitable darkness — creatures of destruction — the creatures of Grimm - set their sights on man and all of his creations. These forces clashed, and it seemed the darkness was intent on returning man's brief existence to the void.

"I'll show them...I'm not some little girl that needs to be looked after anymore..."

However, even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change, and in time, man's passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity led them to the tools that would help even the odds. This power was appropriately named "Dust".

"Just you wait! Soon, I'll be just as strong as you, Cloud!"

Nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness, and in the shadow's absence came strength, civilization, and most importantly, life.  But even the most brilliant lights eventually flicker and die. And when they are gone... darkness will return. So you may prepare your guardians, build your monuments to a so-called "free world", but take heed... there will be no victory in strength....Heh Heh...

"But perhaps victory is in the simpler things that you've long forgotten. Things that require a smaller, more honest soul...."

We find ourselves in the City of Vale, where Outside the shop 'From Dust Till Dawn' a lone figure walks up, clad in green, they look up at the sign

"Hey, a Dust Shop! We could use a restock!"

"Hope you know what your doing..."

As the lone figure walked in, the looked around, gathering what they needed before bumping into someone, which shocked them soo bad they stumbled back!

"W-Whoa-URGH!"

[thenightdance-if]

For many moons you have been escaping at night from the cold walls of the palace to a land of wonders through a magic mirror in your chambers. Every dawn you return, the soles of your shoes worn out from dancing and exploring, exhaustion set deep in your bones, however blissful.

Should you trust the perfect joy such a place has to offer? Or, better yet, the alluring heir that accompanies you each night? And how could you ever hide this idyllic escape from your father, the king, now that he has some lowborn knight on your tail?

♡ The Night Dance is an interactive story based on the Grimm Brothers’ tale, ‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses.’ Status: DEMO (TBA).

Customize your Main Character, referred to as The Cursed Heir. Pronouns, overall appearance, and personality (based on the choices made throughout the narrative).

Choose your romance. There are two possible romanceable characters in The Night Dance. You can romance each of them individually, opt for no romance at all, or cultivate a poly relationship.

Choose your destiny. Some choices can drastically change the course of the story. Upon revealing truths and unveiling secrets, will your heart or your mind speak for you?

The Night Dance is rated +18 for mature content, depictions of violence, depression, and eventual sexual themes.

Alistair ⋆ he/him or Alis ⋆ she/her. A lowborn knight making their way home. You don’t know why someone in their position would return after being knighted, or the reason why they took the challenge of unveiling your secret, but you know enough to be wary of them. Valiant, observant, and witty, they’re what anyone would picture when thinking of a knight. Except for the look of sadness that takes over their face whenever they think no one’s paying attention. [+ more]

Cianan ⋆ he/him or they/them. The mysterious dance partner you encounter every night. They have been there from the very first moment you stepped onto the grounds of this otherworldly land, offering their guidance and hand whenever you needed. Curt, cultured, and gentle, they remind you of princes you’ve read about in fairytales. But in fairytales, princes don’t keep their intentions unknown or hide obvious secrets behind tired eyes; it appears, after all, that nothing is as perfect as it seems. [+ more]

The idea for this IF came to me when I was playing @swansong-if, a lovely game that’s become one of my all-time favorites, so I’d definitely have to mention it here. I’d never think of adapting my favorite fairytale into an IF not for it. ♡

[zaycheese]

The Mechanisms from someone who has never listened to The Mechanisms

There's an album where it's all the brothers Grimm fairy tales but now it's futuristic space fantasy and war crimes

gay space pirates

There is a sentient ship

The sentient ship and it's engineer are in a gay wlw relationship

Things keep going into the sun apperantly

Some dude forgets trans people exist, this causes problems

There's a character named like, tinker toyman or something

Everyone dies all the time

In Ulysses dies at dawn, Ulysses dies at dawn

If you have a mythology, congrats its mechanisms now

Everything is a mechanisms reference, you're gay? Mechanisms refrence

More gay people

The ship goes into the sun, everyone dies this may happen more than once I don't know

The Ship x Engineer Yuri gets broken up tragically

Seriously forgetting trans people exist causes more problems then you'd think

[onyourowndaisymae]

when mammon falls in love

content + warnings: mammon x gn!reader, fluffy, just mammon getting rescued from hanging in the stairwell and realizing he's smitten // [masterlist]

word count: ~1.5k

mammon really fucked up this time. most times, he fucks up pretty bad. his greedy fingers snatch and take without discretion and his brain allows it, entranced by the allure of his favorite reward: grimm. he should know better by now than to let his greed get the best of him within the demon lord's castle, but it's just so tempting--

he tried to wander off with priceless treasure. barbatos caught him. lucifer was punishing him. tale as old as time.

hours had passed. his body hung from the ceiling of the stairwell, each miniscule movement making him sway slightly in the air. all the blood had long since gathered in his head, making his brain soggy and useless. his thoughts blurred together into a pile of mush. he wasn't having fun. his head hurt. his arms were tired. lucifer is a bastard. he misses you. if he could muster up the brainpower to count, he'd start counting the stairs on each flight to cure the boredom that came with hours of hanging still. he'd given up on calling for help long ago-- that only seemed to piss lucifer off more, and sometimes encouraged a brother or two that was really fed up with his antics to come spin him and laugh.

the house of lamentation grew bitingly cold at night. his jacket kept him warm enough, but the way his shirt rode up left him shivering in the overwhelming darkness. he could hear the drip of the kitchen's leaky faucet, and... what was that?

shuffling. slow and quiet, like someone who didn't want to be seen. the faintest of lights reached his eyes, like something was around the corner.

"mammon?"

his world is engulfed in a bright light, and mammon flinches away from it. you curse, and that's when he realizes you just shined a flashlight through the darkness and accidentally blinded him. he hears hissed apologies and shuffling as he blinks rapidly, trying to regain his bearings.

"what are ya doin' here?"

"i couldn't sleep thinking about you hanging out here all night," you explain, carefully leaning over the railing to reach for him. he gladly takes your hand and lets you lead his to a solid edge. he grasps at it tightly and tries to restart his body after hours of swinging dormant and bloodless. "so i came to get you. you can sleep in my room for the night."

once he's got a secure hold on the ledge, you begin to tug and pull at the ropes binding him. they're tight, but you persist. when he's finally free enough to save himself, he hears your footsteps scurry up to the next flight and mess with the rope up there.

riiiip!

the rope collapses with a loud groan, and suddenly the pressure on mammon's body loosens. he yanks his body towards the ledge, quickly, before gravity makes him splatter at the bottom of the stairwell. his body flings limply over the railing and he collapses on the smooth floor in a heap. your footsteps, muffled by your socks yet still urgent-- not that mammon would ever admit to memorizing the sound of your footsteps-- get closer and closer until you're by his side. your voice is a gentle coo as you help untangle him from the slack ropes clinging to his torso.

"lucifer told me not to come get you but... you always look so miserable up there."

he slurrs out something akin to a thank you, but you don't let him speak much. his chest is warm as he fumbles to stand. you're an angel. his beautiful, loving savior. his heart thumps in his chest, in part to get his blood flowing again but definitely also because your arms are now wrapped around him, gentle and steady as you help him to his feet.

"shhh, it's okay. c'mon, don't push yourself too hard. you look like shit."

you assist him to your room. he feels like an idiot stumbling down the steps and across the house, but with you he doesn't mind as much. his brain slowly returns to him as his body gets moving. you're in a big sweatshirt and comfy sleep shorts-- fuck, you look pretty cute like that. he can't seem to keep his eyes to himself as you walk him across the house, but you're too concerned with making sure you both get to your room unnoticed to care.

you nudge the door closed with your heel and coax him up onto your bed. even though he can stand just fine now, you don't seem to trust him to remain upright all by himself. when he spreads out on the bed, you begin lecturing him-- firmly, so he knows you're disappointed, but your heart's not behind it. your eyes are soft and forgiving as you look at him.

"-- just," his thoughts finally clear, and he tunes back in to the lecture, "stop... doing stupid shit, okay? i hate seeing you get in trouble like that."

he nods dumbly, but you don't seem convinced.

"i mean it. watching you hang there makes me anxious-- i know you're not gonna fall or anything but i still can't help but worry about you. it makes me sick, mammon. just... come to me before doing something stupid, okay? and i'll talk you out of it."

"okay." his mouth feels like cotton as it forms around the word. he'd agree to whatever you said as long as you keep looking at him like that. this kindness is not out of character for you, but it makes him hot and bothered under the collar.

how long have these feelings been festering inside of him?

before he can even process what you're doing, you pull him into a tight hug. your body is warm against his, situated nicely between his legs as he sits on the edge of your bed. he wraps his arms around you on instinct. he nuzzles his neck into your shoulder and breathes your scent in. you're so you. so unapologetically human, so flawed, yet so wonderful all the same. his arms tighten around you.

he's never had as much fun as he's had when you're in the devildom. whether it be at home in his room or lost in the lights of poker tables and slot machines, as long as you're there, he's feeling unstoppable. he likes passing you notes at RAD and watching your lips curl into that sneaky smile. he hates sharing you with his brothers-- they don't understand you like he does. you have an unshakeable bond, formed by that first pact inked in your skin. you're his human, his best friend, his-

that's the moment that it hits him.

mammon is completely, utterly in love with you.

his face burns at the realization, and he nearly pushes you away when he straightens up suddenly. you blink up at his hurried movement, startled, and ask him what's wrong.

what's wrong? what's wrong? dammit, he's in love with you! his hands tremble as he nervously pulls at his jacket. he hears himself mutter some lame excuse about being tired and shaky after a long night of hanging upside down.

you climb onto your bed and coax him to lay next to you with a soft smile. his limbs feel heavy but his head is swimming through cotton. love. love. he loves you. he loves you when you curl up under the covers and when you lift them up to invite him to join. he loves you when you nuzzle into the sheets and when you lay your head down and when you scooch a little closer so he can feel your heat and--

relax. breathe. mammon's thoughts are racing as fast as his heart and he needs to take a moment before his head explodes all over your bed.

you cuddle closer and he takes a moment to wrap his arms around you. there's a content sigh that leaves your lips. he's smitten.

you, who he babysat in your early days at RAD. you, who tricked him into a pact. you, who defends him from his brothers even when he's wrong, clearly wrong. you, who came to rescue him even though you know it'll probably put you on the receiving end of a lecture.

your breathing steadies out and he can tell you're on your way to sleep. just like that, huh? mammon is having one of the biggest realizations of his life, and there you are, falling asleep. you must feel really safe in his arms to do something like that. his lips find the top of your head and he presses a soft kiss against your hair.

morning will come in a few hours. soon lucifer will notice that mammon's spot is empty, and he'll come searching for him to instill a new punishment. soon the day will begin again and he'll have to give you up, let you out of his arms where the devildom is harsh and unforgiving.

but tonight, you're both here. still, quiet, drifting into unconsciousness while intertwined. tonight, mammon is all alone with the human he's fallen completely, desperately, unequivocally in love with.

taglist for this series: empty

[literaryvein-reblogs]

How do I write a scene where a previously “dead” character comes back and faces their friends who mourned for them, looking physically different than before? It’s been a few years since their death, but I don’t how to write the scene.

Writing Ideas: Back from the Dead

a list of resurrection tropes

Accidental Resurrection: A deceased character/s is brought back to life without having been intended to.

Attending Your Own Funeral: A resurrection happens when people are gathered together to mourn for a character's death.

Came Back Strong: A resurrected person is more powerful than they were before they died.

Damaged Soul: A resurrected person comes back in a worse mental state than before.

Death Amnesia: A resurrected character remembers nothing about the afterlife.

Escaped from Hell: Someone refuses to stay dead even though they're already in the afterlife, so they break out and head back to the land of the living.

Inhuman Human: A character is resurrected with their mind/soul intact but their body in bad condition.

Refusing Paradise: A dead character chooses resurrection over entering the peaceful afterlife.

Resurrection Revenge: A character comes back from the dead to avenge their own death.

Resurrection Sickness: Someone suffers physical weakness as a result of resurrection.

Resurrective Immortality: A form of immortality where it is possible to kill the individual, but they keep coming back to life afterwards.

Rotten Reincarnation: The cycle of death and rebirth is seen as heinous.

Unwanted Revival: A resurrected person isn't happy about being brought back to life.

Waking Up at the Morgue: When a resurrectee comes back to life, they're likely to find themselves wherever their dead body was stored.

We Can Rebuild Him: Saving a person's life by converting them into a cyborg.

Examples

In Classical Mythology, before Sisyphus 'died', he told his wife not to do any burial rites. When in the Underworld, he appealed to the queen of the underworld, Persephone, if he could go back up to earth to haunt his wife for not giving him the proper rites. She agreed and he came back from the dead.

Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert from Tangled. From the time that he says in the opening, "This is the story of how I died," it only leaves the viewer guessing until the climatic part, when he is fatally stabbed In the Back by Mother Gothel's dagger and, rather than let Rapunzel risk her freedom for his life, cuts off her hair with a broken mirror shard in a Heroic Sacrifice before breathing his last in her arms. Thankfully, Rapunzel's magic tear brings him back to life. This is justified, since in the original tale, Rapunzel healed her beloved prince's eyesight with her tear.

In The Brothers Grimm's "The Three Snake Leaves" the hero uses the titular leaves to bring his wife back from the dead. At first it seems fine, but after being resurrected her love for him has turned into hate and she tries to murder him on a sea voyage. He is rescued by a faithful servant and she is executed.

The basic premise of Pet Sematary is that what you bring back is not what first died. To disastrous degrees. Specifically, while they stop decaying and can pass for alive if cleaned up, what comes back is a moving corpse that cannot heal, saddled with whatever injuries may have killed it. To further worsen the deal, while the corpse has all the memories and echoes of their personality, what "comes back" is not the soul of the deceased but some form of Demon or Monster from Beyond the Veil bent on making the one who resurrected it suffer through killing those they hold dear, and then them.

Game of Throne's Jon Snow. Seemingly averted, for the most part. Despite his resurrection coming from circumstances similar to Beric Dondarrion's, the only marked change in him is a (more) melancholic demeanor and a new hairdo. His willingness to interpret the preceding events as an out from the Night's Watch may also count.

Inuit Mythology: Sedna is just an ordinary woman until her father chops off her fingers and throws her into the ocean. She becomes the goddess of the ocean, the most important goddess of the Inuit cosmology because it's only with her on their side that the people can avoid starvation. Her fingers turn into seals. Another version has her being thrown in the ocean first, followed by the chopping off of her fingers (which turn into seals), hands (which turn into walruses), and finally her arms (which turn into whales) to get her to stop clinging on to the boat.

Merlin (2008) has had a few resurrections, all of which went wrong. Tristan du Bois: undead wraith, Lancelot: Soulless Shell, Uther: Took a Level in Jerkass, which is quite impressive considering he was a genocidal tyrant in the first place.

The Twilight Zone (1959): In the episode "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank", a man comes back from the dead, but the townsfolk notice some things are off about him and decide that he's possessed by a demon. He manages to shame them away… and then lights his pipe without a match or lighter.

Osiris from the Ancient Egyptian pantheon died repeatedly only to return a short while later, suffering several indignities such as being resurrected without a penis, which was eaten by fish before it could be found and reattached. He averts the Trope in that he never came back in some monstrously horrific form, but true to it in that afterwards he was usually worse off than he was previously. And green.

The Lord of the Ring's Gandalf the Grey dies and comes back as Gandalf the White with augmented powers and authority. He is a lesser-angel figure on a mission from greater-angels and hasn't completed his quest so he is sent back and the restrictions previously placed on his power (to prevent overreliance or corruption) are relaxed.

Writing Template: Resurrection Scene

PART ONE

What is the purpose of this resurrection?

Is it based on the prophecy or is this resurrection random?

In prophecy usually a group of people, a village or more patiently waits for the prophecy to happen. Whether the person being resurrected will save the world, save their country or is a symbol. The prophecy can either be welcomed or feared. How has the people prepared for this resurrection? What is promised in the prophecy?

For a random resurrection, who decides to bring back the person or the deity. Do they have their own power or easy given to them? Why did they decide to wake up from their…. rest?

Describe the signs of the prophecy happening. What takes place right before the resurrection or during the resurrection that shows the reader something important is about to happen or is currently happening?

The skies can part, crows can gather, a national disaster such as an earthquake can occur. Maybe the prophet who spoke of the prophecy is dying or says it’s happening within three days. Depending on the sign it allow your reader to know whether the person who is being resurrected will be good or bad.

During the resurrection things may or may not go as planned. But that does not mean the person being resurrected is a bad person. There could be an evil force preventing the person from being resurrected. What are the witnesses doing in order to make sure the resurrection is going well? Do they close their borders or their gates to prevent outside from entering?

Who notices these signs and who prepares after noticing the signs. Is there a way for these people to rush the signs? Do they create their own signs as well such as using fireworks for celebration, going to a church to pray, dancing in the rain,etc?

PART TWO

Who witnesses this resurrection and what does it inspire them to do?

Who are the chosen people to witness and do they already have an idea this was going to happen? It doesn’t even have to be human.

Could only be family or friends, or random people, no one at all is worthy, or perhaps someone who is dreaming. Do they want to be better people after seeing this? Do they want to tell everyone they know after seeing this? Do they question the world around them and their existence? Or do they wish they never saw it?

For a random resurrection there must be a random people to view it. Because no one knows that it was going to happen. How are these random people taking it in? Do they run and hide. Rejoice? Scream and shout? And maybe they heard something about this but they didn’t know it was true. Now that they see it before their very eyes are they are shocked, and standing still like stone.

If the witnesses aren’t human but animals or creatures that you created, what do they do after and during the resurrection? Assuming that the person being resurrected is the main character, how do they feel about no one being meant to see this?

What are they inspired to do now? Do they wait until the resurrection is completed or do they start right away? What device,if any, do they have available?

They can be inspired to spread the word about the resurrection. Maybe do what ever the character being resurrected did so that they can resurrect too. Whether it’s sacrificing themselves or changing themselves for the better. Do they want to worship the resurrected person?

Some people may not even be able to finish the resurrection for whatever reason. Whether it is because they are fainting or they’re afraid or because they can’t wait to do with what they are inspired to do. Maybe their in a trance or were told specifically by the resurrector to go forth and do something. Also, if they have electronic devices they can use that to their benefit.

PART THREE

What does the person who is being resurrected look like? What are they doing?

Note their clothing, and their hair, and how their skin looks. Use some adjectives to describe them. What point of view is it? The witness’s point of view, the resurrector? Each person will have a opinion of what the resurrection looks like.

Their appearance:

Clothing: None, Robe, Torn clothes from when they died, Clothing restored from when they died, Wings

Hair: White or silver; Natural color; A bright color such as yellow or orange; Styled very long; Styled messy or clean; Like it was before; Flowing in the wind; Silky, thick, smooth

Skin: Clear; Still dirty from when they died (if they were in battle); Younger; Older

Adjective to Use: Glorious; Radiant; Superb; Extraordinary; Amazing; Awesome; Unimaginable; Promising; Inspiring; Flawless; Peaceful; Perfect; Timeless; Awe-inspiring

Depending on whose point of view it is, how is the person being resurrected seen? Is there envy, remorse? Example: An enemy just finished off the main character but he is resurrected shortly after. Also, what does the facial expressions of everyone in this seen look like? Does it match the way they look? The person who has risen from their… slumber may look like an angel but has a nasty look on their face. Or vica versa.

Does the look change? The person being born again can go from happy to mad in an instant. So can whatever they are wearing or his/her hair. Example:

From clean white rob, bowl-cut hair, and brown eyes — Torn robe, spiked hair, red eyes.

From Torn clothing, messy and dirty hair, and red shot eyes — Clothing fixed, hair fixed and eyes back to normal

These changes can be temporary or permanent.

Are they already doing magical things? Are they doing things they wouldn’t have done in the previous life? Are they better or worse off? What interaction do they have with the witnesses?

Do they now have powers? How do they use of these powers? At first do they scare the witnesses because they don’t know how to use their power? The may accidentally hurt someone or burn a tree down. Are they floating while being resurrected? Do they disappear after being resurrected or even fly?

Do these powers change them to be better than before they were dead or worse? Can they control their powers? Do they even want the powers? What are the power intended for?

PART FOUR

What message is sent to the people who are witnessing the resurrection? What is the person being resurrected thinking?

Is the witnesses being ordered to do something? Are they able to have a conversation with the person being resurrected? Are there any warnings or other prophecies?

They are probably told to tell people what they have seen. Or may not. Maybe they need to keep quiet about it for a while in order for the resurrected to attack the enemy with surprise. May they have risen only to tell one last message to the people. If that’s the case it has to be something important. For example: How to win a battle, how to create something, take away something, restore something, or improve something.

There does not need to be a conversation, however, they can still communicate. Whether it’s with gestures, with a song, showing the future or another prophecy using powers…. If a conversation does take place, who is doing most of the talking and are questions being answered not only for the reader but for the witnesses?

What thoughts are in mind of the main character, whether they are the person being resurrected or a witness? What do they see that no one else sees?

Maybe they want to go back to…. sleep. Or ditch and figure out their new powers. How about if the resurrect isn’t the correct resurrected or a fake. Can a witness see that? Do they notice? What if the resurrected see a witness that is a trader. What do they do?

PART FIVE

What is the next step for the person being resurrected?

How does the future look; what changes forever

After all is said and done, where is the resurrected going? How do they plan on getting there and are they going alone?

What is promised, what is warned, what is happening as the resurrected says his/her goodbyes?

What is left behind, given as a gift, or what words are repeated? How has this moment changed the history of your story? And who would believe it besides the witnesses?

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Here are some tropes and examples you can use as inspiration. When facing their friends, what are their reactions? Is it positive/negative? Are they accepted or treated like a stranger in this new form? Similarly, when they look physically different than before, is it a positive/negative change? Are they decomposing? Do they look the same or are they "better" now? Do go through the links as well for more examples. Or you may use (and alter as needed) templates, like the one I found above to help guide your story. Hope this helps with your writing!

[kabr0ztrousers]

fem reader finds a mysterious book that summons different monsters or creatures that takes care of human needs and reader chooses to summon the demon and they have sex and make out thats all-

ima be butterfly anon 🦋 so you know that it's me as I will be requesting more in the future.

You can absolutely claim 🦋 if you like, and I do love an opportunity to make another demon. Now without further ado, here's

Kabr0z Writes Episode 33: The book

Find the rest of the Kabr0z Writes anthology here!

CWs: Excessive cum; demon summoning; long preamble; monstrous genitalia; butt stuff

A/N: This is the last ask at time of writing, so if you have an idea for something you wanna see, or just want to call me a perv, please reach out! I feed on engagement, after all

##################################

Antiques filled your flat. Mostly worthless tchotchkes, the odd chair or end table missing the rest of some hypothetical set, one particular lamp constructed mostly from a taxidermised heron. You loved them all, but most of all your carefully climate-controlled bookshelf. Your collection wasn't particularly valuable; there weren't many first editions amongst the ranks and what you had were in pretty uniformly terrible condition. The spoils of estate auctions and charity shops.

This time was different. You weren't going to be in Bristol long, so decided to stroll down the alleys of the older parts of the city, far from the university students and the train stations. This shop was barely a hole in the wall. It was only about twice as wide as its own doorway, but it went deeper than made sense. Crowded on all sides with stacks and shelves of books, mostly well-thumbed paperbacks with peeling spines or the odd book of fairy stories from the 60s or 70s, more penguins than you could shake a stick at. One in particular caught your eye. Leather bound, stained a deep royal purple, and with an embossed sigil on the spine. 'The Book of Creatures and Calling' You hadn't heard of this work, and couldn't find any author or attributions on the first few pages. It looked handwritten, a flowing looping hand filling the work in neat, dense rows of text and painstakingly drawn diagrams.

You put it atop the pile of volumes you carried and bought your haul. Vintage copies of Grimm's Fairy Stories, Robin Hood, Tales of Arabian Nights, and that book.

You got home and put away your haul, minus the oddball. That you set about reading, googling passages from it and trying to get some inkling on who wrote it, was it published, or did you just wind up with a random manuscript?

The internet, predictably, produced nothing of use. The book seems never to have been published, or at least nobody had put any parts of it on the web. It was fascinating at any rate. Step by step directions for calling forth all manner of creatures, even organised by difficulty with simpler rituals at the start, and the more daunting ones near the end.

You opted for a simple one to start. A brownie. You drew the circle and left out offerings and a worn-out pair of shoes then went to bed.

When you checked the ritual in the morning, the offerings were gone, and the shoes were as good as new. Better, in fact.

You realised what you had. An honest-to-god grimoire. And you've successfully summoned a faerie.

You checked the book again, making sure to read and re-read every sentence. The compact was simple, the offerings were to pay the faerie back for coming and fixing a broken thing. You didn't owe it anything more, and a pair of shoes was specifically recommended as an example of 'a broken thing'. You sighed in relief. The last thing you needed was to owe something a debt.

Over the next few weeks you tried tougher summons, and got more confident in your abilities. You called forth a dryad who gave you some fruit in return for a song, a walking broom who cleaned your flat, even a golden goose once, though it didn't lay anything for you.

The day you really found the potential of the book came later. You'd been drinking pretty heavily, your boyfriend had just walked out on you. Wine and ice cream wasn't cutting it, you needed something more substantial. You reached for the book and turned to the last summon. An incubus. For the low, low price of a sliver of your soul, you could get the best fuck of your life. You shrugged and finished your wine. Worth it.

The ritual was much more complex. Carefully tracing sigils within sigils, lighting candles and incense, making sure that the protection and binding spells were perfect (It would be disastrous if they failed) before using a kitchen knife to cut a slit into your fingertip.

A single drop of blood welled up from your finger, then lifted off it, drifting to the centre of the ritual. A smell of iron joined the sweet incense and paraffin in the air. The candles flickered for a moment, and he appeared.

He was tall, brass-skinned, and well dressed. He wore a pair of tight black leather trousers and a black silk waistcoat, covered in brocade embroidered in fine gold thread. His feet, each toe tipped with a knifelike black claw, were bare and in a pointe stance about an inch above the floor. The burnished metallic skin of his arms and face reflected the soft candlelight, sending fluid reflections across your walls as he took in his surroundings. Atop his head were a pair of black horns, twisting out, then in, then straight up. His hair was the same metal as his face, a coif of impossibly thin brass wire. His eyes were the only part of him that wasn't polished metal or charred bone, black scleras surrounded glowing red irises and horizontally slitted pupils.

"A professional job, well done young summoner" His features twisted to a smile, revealing silver teeth and a forked silver tongue "I can see you know your craft"

The book had warned you about this, that he would try to beguile you, twist you into agreeing to something you didn't want. You wordlessly proferred a scroll to him. A contract. It was carefully worded: no verbal contracts would be binding for the rest of his time with you, he would give you an evening of carnal delight, and in return he would get a sliver of your soul equivalent to an hour at the end of your lifespan.

The demon read the document, and laughed "I'm not used to you people being so well prepared. Very well. An hour of your life, taken from the very end, in return for my services for the evening. This ought to be fun." He bowed deeply "I am Kamilik, lesser demon in service to Simizel and denizen of the Ashen Pit"

You told him your name, being careful to phrase it as how he could address you, which only made him chuckle further.

Once you had both signed the document, you led him to your bedroom. Your hands shook as you started to undress for the creature you had invited in to your home. He touched your waist, and stroked your hair. He must've been able to smell the wine on your breath as he pulled you towards him, easing off your top and expertly unfastening your bra, casting the garments into the corner of the room. He sat on the bed and pulled you on top of him, one clawed hand on your back, the other cupping your face before he drew you into a kiss.

His breath smelled of metal, and his skin was hot, but his lips were soft as you melted into his arms. Sat on his lap, eyes closed and running your hands through each others hair, feeling one another's bodies. You unfastened his waistcoat and he pulled it off, keeping one hand on you, then the other, never breaking the kiss.

It was like making out with a radiator, if the radiator was soft and receptive to the touch. You pushed your tongue into his mouth and he gently sucked on it, the heat even more intense, but never painful. Then his tongue entered your mouth, the forked muscle flitting in, tasting like how a 9-volt feels. You gasped with surprise at the sensation, but relaxed into it as his needle-sharp claws drew intricate patterns on your back. You pressed yourself against him, feeling your tits flatten on his burnished chest and enjoying the warm wetness spreading between your legs.

You pulled away, and knelt off the side of the bed. You yanked his waistband down, before he cut a slit down his trousers and they burned away, leaving him nude on the bed in front of you. His cock was fleshy and vascular, red veins criss-crossed pale flesh, coming to a gentle point at the end. You admired it for a moment, before taking it in one hand and jerking it. You heard him sigh as your hand pumped his shaft, even more so when you started to lick and suck on his balls. You felt a drop of precum start to leak from him, getting on your hand. You pressed a fingertip against his brass asshole, intending to gently work it in, but his eager butt swallowed it up to your knuckle with no resistance. You curled it up and touched his prostate.

You heard him groan and felt his cock pulse in your hand. He was cumming already. You felt drops of hot liquid on your face and pulled away, watching him pump a fountain of golden cum into the air. Eventually the pulsing stopped, your hand was coated in the hot, sticky gold liquid. He wasn't going soft

"I'm a demon. We're done when you say we are"

You smiled, this is going to be fun. You reached into your bedside drawer and produced a toy, long and curved, designed to seek out a man's prostate and press against it mercilessly. You pushed it up the demon. As soon as it found its mark, he started spurting again. This time you were ready.

You pushed the cock into your mouth, gripping his pulsating balls in one hand and rattling the toy inside him with the other. He filled your mouth almost immediately, and you gulped him down.

Your cunt was starting to tingle in anticipation, but you wanted to indulge yourself a little more like this. You bobbed your head, taking in the warming cum and the demon's moans and gasps as pleasure turned to pain and back to pleasure. Every few dips you'd push his tip into your throat, causing him to spurt harder and cry out louder.

You eased up on the toy, the flow slowed but didn't stop as you pulled his cock, twitching and leaking, out of your mouth. The demon was already lying flat on his back, hands either side of him, clenching his fists against the shaking. You straddled his cock and started rocking back and forth on it, adding his cum to the lubrication on your pussy before pushing him in.

He felt bigger on the inside, the pulsing mass of flesh pumping cum into you already. You started to ride him. Every rock of your hips spilled cum out of you. You leant forwards to work his frenulum inside you. His face screwed up as he grabbed you. The sharp nails on his hands marking your skin, but not cutting. You couldn't reach the toy pressed against his orgasm button, but that wasn't stopping him now. Every thrust into you, every roll of your hips, every touch of your hands on his skin made him spurt more and more into you until it was flowing out of you and onto the bedsheets. You pushed a hand between your distended belly and his twitching one, pressing against your clit for only a moment before you gasped and realised your oen climax.

You bucked harder against him, your abs pushing and pussy clenching. He came even harder, cum squirting out of you. He released you and you leant back. His cock was against your g-spot now and still spraying that hot cum into you. You grabbed the toy and fucked his ass with it. He screamed as you punished his rear, riding his cock into you and you orgasmic clenching redoubled as you came again. Your belly bounced on him almost comically, full of the golden semen he seemed to have an endless supply of.

You pulled out the toy and slumped forwards onto him, spent.

He kissed your lips again, and you kissed him back.

You grinned "Give me ten minutes, then round 2?"

He chucked "Whatever you want"

#####################################

Post script: Once again, my ask box runneth dry! Please, oh reader, toss an idea to your Kabr0z and something will likely come of it!

[uwmspeccoll]

French Fairy Treasures

Around the World Treasures: Famous French Fairy Tales by the father of the French fairy tale Charles Perrault (1628-1703) and collected and adapted from the original Perrault by David Stone, was published in New York by Frankin Watts Inc., a division of Grolier, in 1959. The book includes The Picture Story of Perrault's Famous French Fairy Tales, illustrated by British artist and teacher Charles Mozley (1914-1991), a book illustrator and designer of posters, book covers, and print. Along with these striking color drawings are black-and-white illustrations depicting key moments within each story. Noel Streatfeild (1895-1986), an English children's book author, provides an introduction to the book. In it, she details the essential moments in Perrault's life that led him to write these stories. According to Streatfeild, before Perrault's Contes, nobody had ever read a fairy tale! Before that, these stories were passed down and enjoyed through oral tradition.

Perrault played a significant role in the literary controversy called the "Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns." At 23, he became a lawyer, following in his father's footsteps, before embarking on a political career, which led him into the court of the Sun King, Louis XIV of France. Spending time in his court is where Perrault garnered inspiration to write his stories. His simple, unaffected style breathed new life into half-forgotten folk tales. Interestingly, some of his versions influenced the German tales collected by the Brothers Grimm more than a century later.

So, whether you find yourself wondering in the woods like Little Red Riding Hood or dreaming of glass slippers like Cinderella, Perrault's timeless tales remain a delightful part of our childhood imagination, capturing the magic and wonder of storytelling for generations to come!

-Melissa, Special Collections Graduate Intern

-View more posts from our Historical Curriculum Collection

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Fantasy 1

Warnings: non/dubcon, stalking, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Characters: Curtis Everett

This AU is called Watcher Anonymous and will include different series for different characters. This is our introduction to Curtis and Whimsy.

Summary: the bookshop window holds intrigue for both buyer and seller.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

The door creaks shut as another customer enters. Curtis looks up, greets them with a silty, hey, then goes back to reading. His business isn’t extravagant. He doesn’t need one of those paperback mills selling mass-produced ‘Now a Feature Film’ shills. He works for himself, by himself, and he likes it that way. 

The sunlight traces the outline of the marquee painted on the window onto the table of fiction classic and ripples over the floor. A silhouette appears on the other side of the glass, another passing by. He looks without lifting his head. He’s honed the skill of looking without looking. 

It’s her. She passes everyday, twice a day. Once alone, and once with that man. As she admires the cover he hand-painted to display on the ledge, her escort comes back to hurry her along. Her disappoint darkens her eyes and tugs at her lips. She turns and walks away with him. 

Curtis sighs. She deserves better. Almost a year of her stopping and staring and she’s never set a foot inside. It’s not the business he mourns, it’s the smile that faded at least nine months ago. She used to point out the displays to that other man but after he shrugged her off enough, she stopped trying. 

He can’t claim sainthood. He’s not the most enthusiastic person but he never blights out someone’s passion. He has his own, it’s his business fortunately enough, and he keeps it locked up to keep it safe. Some might see him as stoic but he’s really just cautious. 

He closes the book. He’s not in a mind to read anymore. He can’t follow the dialogue. The customer comes up to pay for a three for five combo and he packs it in a paper bag before sending them off. 

As he sits on his stool, he pulls out the old anthology of Grimm tales he found on eBay. He can restore it but he’s not sure he should just fix the binding or replace the cover altogether. He has an idea, a princess and a cad, robbing her away from her tower... 

Hm. 

The hours tick by and customers come and go. A few children flurry in with their mother only to be disappointed by the lack of Dog Guy or whatever the new fad is. Their guardian pays for a copy of Bronte and goes, promising ice cream to her unsated brood. 

He closes up at six. He has routine. He balances the till and locks everything up. His stomach stirs as he stands outside the door. That night, he has other plans. 

He did it one time. Once. He followed her and that man. He locked the door and left a sign, back in twenty. It was an hour. 

He retraces the steps he made all those weeks ago. The ones he strode in his dreams. He should be doing this. He gets to her building and turns back. He stops himself at her corner. 

He opens Discord. He pulls up the chat with Jake. 

‘You there?’ 

A minute then it shows his friend typing. 

‘Sup?’ 

Curtis doesn’t know how to explain. He knows he can tell Jake anything; Jake tells him everything. 

He gets his thoughts together. He leans on a pole and taps the keys. ‘I’m here.’ 

‘At my place????’ 

‘Hers’. He sends and a shiver rolls over him. 

‘Everything ok?’ Jake asks. 

‘Don’t know why.’ Is all Curtis can come up with. 

He puts his phone away. It doesn’t matter what Jake says. He's there and he’s not turning back. Besides, it’s not like he’s going to do anything. 

He walks by her building. She’s on the second floor. He saw her in the window the first time. It’s hard to see up but climbing a tree is a little much. He sees the lamp light and her shadow, but not much else. He’s annoyed. He didn’t think this through even though it’s all he thought about. Ever. 

He lingers, retracing his steps, wandering around the building, avoiding odd looks. It’s almost nine. The side door opens on his twentieth lap of the block. He pauses at the jangle of cans. He knows her by her gait, even as he can only see her legs behind the big bin of recycling. 

She goes to the taller bins lined up behind the dumpster. She struggles to get the lid up before she dumps the contents. She leans the empty container on top and sniffles. She wipes her eyes and winces. She pulls away but lingers at the corner of the building. 

She touches her cheek as if checking it. It must be tender as she lets out a squeak. He doesn’t know many ways she’d hurt herself there... 

His sole scuffs and she flinches. She looks over at him and hikes up the bucket. He’s been caught. 

“Nice night,” he says and tries not to cringe. He sounds as cheesy as Jake. 

“Sure is,” she agrees with a croak. 

Silence. Awkward and unfurling. She teeters as if afraid to move. He can tell she wants to flee. He doesn't want her to be afraid of him, not like she is with that man.

“You okay?” He asks. 

She twitches again, “f-fine,” she ekes out. 

“Sorry to bother,” he says, “have a good one.” 

“Thanks... you too,” she turns and flops away in her slippers. 

His chest is tight. He makes himself walk away. That was too close.  

He takes his phone out at the end of the street. Jake sent him several messages. He assures him everything is alright. He knows his friend won’t read it for a while. It’s late and he’s doing his ‘surveillance’. All the better, Curtis doesn’t feel like talking. 

[opbackgrounds]

The Romanticism of One Piece II: Fairy Tales

Part I Part III AO3

“I long to see the blue flower” --Novalis

In 1812, brothers Wihelm and Jacob Grimm published their first volume of fairy tales. The book was not initially meant to be read as purely children’s stories, but as a collection of tales they felt reflected German culture. They weren’t alone in their study of folk culture and stories, as interest revived throughout the Romantic period, particularly in Germany.

Later editions of the Grimm’s fairy tales, however, were changed to be more suitable for younger audiences. There was something about the stories that captured the mind of a child, and the expansion of children as their own demographic to be catered to encouraged publishers to specifically produce works for younger audiences. I feel like CS Lewis said it best while defending his own use of fairy tales, “He [the person reading fairy tales] does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted”. The Romantics of this era were themselves enchanted by the power of these stories, and utilized them to great effect in their works.

Romanticism gets its name from the medieval ballads that were popular during the time period, themselves written in the romantic languages. Artists drew heavily from a mythologized past for their paintings, and writers such as Goethe and Novalis wrote literary fairy tales of their own inventions, drawing upon allegory and metaphor to express their philosophical ideals. In 1813 Percy Bysshe Shelly wrote a revolutionary and radical tract in the form of a poem and fairy tale, named after and heavily featuring Queen Mab. These men, along with the Brothers Grimm followed a tradition set by the “discovery” of Ossian, an epic poem that presented itself as the Gaelic equivalent of the Iliad or Odyssey, but was largely an invention of the poet James Macpherson.

One Piece is chalk-full of allusions to fairytale and myth. The manga opens with the grand execution of Gold Roger, his final words the sort of promise that you could easily see becoming a campfire story today, a whispered rumor and legend of impossible treasure for any person brave enough to go looking for it. 

Oda starts leaning into real-world myth as early as chapter 23 with Usopp’s introduction, his name in part derived from the Greek storyteller Aesop and the plot a loose retelling of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, with his trademark nose being a clear reference to Pinocchio. 

When looking at One Piece’s use of real-world myth and story, the thing that strikes me is how often Oda will borrow from the iconography of a story without simply rehashing it. Just about every major arc borrows in some way from real world children’s tales, but you’d be hard pressed to call Oda’s usage derivative. Even with the broad pool of references Oda draws from, the manga never would have lasted as long as it has if he’d just copied from the stories we’ve all heard since childhood. 

For example, on Drum Island Chopper is a clear reference to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Much like the Syrup Village before it, it draws directly on the themes of the original work, ostracization and rejection being primary motivators when developing Chopper’s arc. 

But more than that, Hiliruk is introduced entering his unwitting patient’s houses through the chimney, just like Santa Claus, and Chopper’s repeated journeys up and down the mountain using the island’s rope system while pulling a sleigh is clearly borrowing from the iconography of Christmas. But you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would call Drum Island a Christmas story, even though it’s set on an appropriately wintery environment. 

There are more examples. Laboon eating the Straw Hat’s ship could be seen as a reference to Moby Dick, Pinocchio, or the biblical story of Jonah, yet Reverse Mountain doesn’t share themes with any of those stories outside of the use of a mythical whale. The Skypiea Saga kicks off with the introduction of shadowy “giants”, before moving to a treasure hunt while befriending a young girl who plays a harp, and ends with the felling of a giant beanstalk. But does anyone really think of Skypiea as a retelling of Jack and the Giant Beanstalk?

My favorite of these has to be Alabasta, since I see so few people pick up on it. The entire climax of the arc involves a devilish crocodile, a man with a hook for a hand, a ticking clock, and the imposing presence of a giant clock tower that looks suspiciously like Big Ben in a setting otherwise influenced by Egyptian archeology. Why or how Oda decided to mix Peter Pan with his epic tale of friendship and betrayal amidst a war on a desert island is beyond me, but he did. 

These examples aren’t only found pre-timeskip. I saw people able to guess who would live and die during Wano based solely on how closely Oda was following various Japanese fables, with broad plot elements being based on the famous story of Momotaro.

Of course, Oda doesn’t limit himself to fairy tale and myth. He frequently draws from history and pop culture at large, or, at least, the pop culture of his youth. Sanji’s design is based on Reservoir Dogs. All the Admirals share a face with Japanese actors. Thriller Bark is named after and directly homages—more than once!--Michael Jackson. Somehow you can have music video references sitting next to yokai, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man, and the Island of Dr. Moreau without cognitive dissonance, because that’s just how Oda writes. The Tree of Knowledge (the ‘of good and evil’ is implied) can coexist with Adam and Eve—which here are also trees—which can in turn overlap with Yggdrasil. The biblical ark Noah can exist in the same island as the Flying Dutchman, while the most biblically-coded of all the sagas can have an ark of its own while drawing many of its names and iconography from Eastern religions such as Shinto and Buddhism. That’s not when it’s drawing on Meso- and Native American iconography and religion instead. And somehow…somehow…it all gels together with the stories of El Dorado and Jack and the Giant Beanstalk.

Once one starts going down the rabbit hole of references and homage it becomes hard to stop. The interweaving of so many references, both obvious and not, while still maintaining an original plot boggles the mind. How Oda got the idea to mix Alice and Wonderland, Power Rangers, Aladdin, and fascist iconography while also turning Sanji into a Disney Princess is beyond me, and in my opinion, a large part of his creative genius. 

But the question remains…why? Why reference Santa Claus on Drum, or Jack and the Giant Beanstalk in Skypiea? Some allusions make sense with the surrounding story, but others seem to be placed at random just because Oda could. 

I think the answer falls back to the Romanticism of One Piece. Oda has said in many different interviews that he writes with an audience of children in mind, particularly young boys. By pulling from the stories of childhood he creates a frame of reference, and because Oda draws from a wide pool of sources that frame of reference can have a more universal appeal, fitting with his world-spanning, swashbuckling adventure. I was never told the story of Momotaro, but I know about the Boy who Cried Wolf. My grasp of Norse mythology is shaky at best, but I recognize the image of a reindeer pulling a sleigh through the night sky. 

As I’ll get into later, the Romantics were obsessed with the innocence and experience of childhood. That was one of the reasons they were drawn so much to fairy tales. To them, stories that were spread amongst the common folk were the most pure form of culture, and it was from these stories that they strove to create a shared identity. 

One Piece is a world-spanning tale, and the stories it references reflect that. But for as different as culture can be from country to country, or island to island, there’s a shared humanity in the stories we tell. A fairy tale will always feel like a fairy tale, whether it’s from Japan or Germany. And by immersing itself in these memories of childhood, Oda carves himself a place amongst these ancient stories 

Marking the end of One Piece’s prologue, chapter 100 draws back from the immediate story to call attention to its own internal myth. Utilizing some Oda boxes quoting Gold Roger, the narrator writes, “These things cannot be stopped. An inherited strength of will, one’s dreams, and the ebb and flow of ages. As long as people hunger for freedom, these things will always exist”.

The name of chapter 100? The Legend Begins. 

This isn't a coincidence. The Grand Line in particular is described in-universe as a land of fairy tales. The Little Garden and Elbaf arcs start with quotes from the explorer Louis Arnot. The cover of Brag Men, where these quotes come from, labels the book romantic fiction. Oda revealed in the SBS for volume 42 that the stories within the book are so outrageous and unbelievable to ordinary people that they’re believed to be untrue, much like the story of Noland the Liar. 

And yet, these are the stories that Luffy goes chasing after. 

Now, I could send an age quibbling over the difference between a myth, a legend, and a fairy tale, but in the case of One Piece there’s enough overlap to be irrelevant. One Piece draws upon fairy tales because in many ways it is a fairy tale. It’s easy to imagine the entire story being told from Usopp’s perspective as he sits around the fire, telling his tale to a wide-eyed audience of children. Whether he’s telling the truth or not doesn’t matter, because it feels true, and for the first time the woods start to feel enchanted. And perhaps it’s that spark of magic that’s enough to stir the imagination of the next generation of dreamers to go out on adventures of their own, no matter how absurd and impossible. 

[alicenpai]

"Lament! Terror! Despair! I shall kindly teach them all to you! And in your final moment, I... shall kill you by my own hand!!"

pandora hearts print for anime north this weekend 🥀🖤🤍

I also put this up on my inprnt! there's a sitewide sale for 40% off right now 🌟

For this drawing, I really wanted to emphasize the gothic and chaotic, convoluted nature of the series. Pandora Hearts has become a lot of things to me, as someone who's read it since I was like, 14 years old. but I eventually found the perfect words to sum up the series - a cross between a Shakespearean tragedy and a Grimm fairy tale.

The ink brush + watercolour brushes I used turned out so well together!! I wanted the style to be kind of a nod to like the manga cover art you'd see from the late 90s to 2000s, kind of like Mochizuki's early approach to traditional art.

A lighter approach to both the lineart + coloring also helped me not strain my arm too much - besides work, I stopped doing full illustrations due to the amount of work being heavy on my arm/shoulder T__T. my last full illustrations were the TGAA/DGS zine + WHA zine pieces back in Dec-Jan, but my heart really lies in illustrations more than anything and I definitely want to get back into it!! (as long as my physical health allows it!!)

anyways, above is the thumbnail/inspiration board for this drawing! I also did some quick chickenscratch studies of others' drawings to help me get a sense of their composition. I started on the top left and then made a sort of meandering curve through... definitely went through a lot of ideas for this one. If I explained the intended symbolism.. I would be here.. all day..............

the candles were definitely first inspired by an animation of a lighter I did during art skool... and then I did this AA Dahlia animated illust... and then this OC charm (below) I did in 2022...? maybe I should draw fire more often. it's like, the way that fire looks in animated keyframes that I really like drawing out, and I guess I kinda really enjoyed translating that into a non moving visual medium??

This drawing simultaneously took SO long but I also sped through it?? I had to like... not dwell too long on certain parts... like for example I think some individual character compositions really could be a lot stronger... because I knew this would be a beast of a drawing, I didn't want to spend an unnecessary amount of time focusing on details when I should be looking at the big picture. and I know that's a bad habit of mine!! I'm trying to unlearn my perfectionism!!

thanks for reading if you got this far, hope ya enjoy it!! and I hope I'll keep drawing Pandora Hearts in the future (clearly I haven't stopped since high school omg) and I hope to draw some more Vanitas someday beyond just chibis!

[ljubimaya]

𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐌'𝐒 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒

With the weather getting colder, you might find yourself cuddled up in blankets and sipping on some hot chocolate. Perhaps you would have an old, rugged looking book right on your coffee table waiting to be picked up. With fairytale season being in full swing, perhaps you would like to indulge in some nostalgic stories of enchanted forests, wicked witches, cursed princesses and bloodhungry beasts?

But oh, were your favorite fairytales always this 𝔡𝔞𝔯𝔨?

𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓

GRIMM'S NIGHTMARES is an exclusively dark content collab inspired by the dark fairytales collected and written down by the Grimm brothers.The central theme of the collab are dark fairytales, but you are more than free to enter the collab with mythical figures (werewolves, vampires, ghosts, etc) without any fairytale in mind. Despite being inspired by the Grimm brothers, you are more than free to be inspired by other classic tales from around the world. 

𝐑𝐔𝐋𝐄𝐒

𓆩𓆪 You have to be over the age of 18 to enter

𓆩𓆪 This collab is strictly a x reader collab

𓆩𓆪 All fandoms are welcome to enter

𓆩𓆪 Aged up characters are allowed, but please don’t age them down 

𓆩𓆪 Your entry has to be a minimum of 500 words long, otherwise the sky’s the limit

𓆩𓆪 Be aware that this is a dark content collab first and foremost. You are allowed to go as crazy as you would like, but make sure to tag all the trigger warnings accordingly

𓆩𓆪 As mentioned previously, you are free to enter with a mythical figure instead of a fairytale

𓆩𓆪 To enter, you need to send me an ask or message with the character(s) and the mythical figure/fairytale you wanna base your fic on

𓆩𓆪 You are allowed to submit up to two entries

𓆩𓆪 You are allowed ro write one fic with up to three characters (character x reader x character x character)

𓆩𓆪 No double entries!Meaning I won’t allow the same character in the same fairytale au (for example, I won’t allow two people to write about vampire Toji). First come, first serve

𓆩𓆪 I take the right of not accepting your entry. To ensure the best possible experience for me as the host, and you as the writer, I will have to make sure you don’t fit my dni criteria 

𓆩𓆪 Make sure to tag me and use the tag 𝐆𝐑𝐈𝐌𝐌'𝐒 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁 so I can reblog and add your fic to the masterlist

𓆩𓆪  The soft deadline for the collab is the 1th of April 2025. Please notify me if you need more time or if you would like to opt out of the collab  

𝐅𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐎𝐌𝐒

TOKYO REVENGERS

Werewolf! Baji Keisuke x Fem! Reader (Inspired by The little red riding hood) by @/ljubimaya

Mad hatter! Hanma Shuji x Reader (inspired by Alice in Wonderland) by @6ronze

LOVE AND DEEPSPACE

Demon King! Sylus x Reader by @aztecbrujeria

JUJUTSU KAISEN

Vampire! Gojo Satoru x Reader by @avatarofstars

Death! Geto Suguru x Reader by @sugurouge (Inspired by Death's messengers)

ARCANE

Warwick/Vander x Reader by @fortluocha (Inspired by Beauty and the Beast)

MY HERO ACADEMIA

WHO HAVE I REMEMBERED? Dabi x Reader by @amalainse (Inspired by The Frog Prince)

HAIKYUU

Oikawa Tooru x Reader by @amalainse (Inspired by The Little Mermaid)