#danish fairytale

[have-you-heard-this-fairy-tale]

[marine-indie-gal]

Inktober 2024 Day 21: The Ugly Duckling

Another Fairytale, this Time from Hans Christian Andersen (in which that the Story itself was based on his Childhood Life that came to inspire Many Other "Ugly Duckling" inspired stories like Rudolph or Dumbo).

The Long-Lost Swan Cygnet was born to a Duck Family but he wasn't loved by his own Foster Family since his Parents & Siblings mocked him for being Too Different, even Other Animals would mock him as well.

The Poor Baby was all lost & alone after his Duck Family abandoned him, he was so broken in Sadness as he wandered all by himself. However, as he woke up & found himself older, he found himself all Beautiful as he realized that he had been a Swan this whole time when he discovered his own kind, he reunited with his Biological Family after all of these Years (even his own Foster Siblings couldn't believe it).

The Ugly Duckling (c) Hans Christian Andersen

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

The Ugly Duckling

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustrations from Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales by Kay Nielsen (1924)

[fairytale-poll]

WINNER ANNOUNCEMENT POST!!!!!!!

The finals are over, so it's time to announce the winners for the Little Merpoll!

As always, thank you to everyone who participated! If you submitted characters and/or propaganda, if you reblogged the polls, even if you just voted, it was a pleasure having you! I've done fairytales poll before this & hope to continue for a while after this, and it's been a pleasure having you guys along for the ride!

Now, for our 5 winners.

The first winner to announce is the winner of the Mod's Choice poll! The Mod's choice poll is the "least important" of all the polls, as it has the least amount of contestants (this one had the last of any of the previous Mod's Choice polls) and are nominated simply based on which ones I like, but it holds a special place in my heart regardless.

This time, the winner was Sayaka Miki from Puella Magi Madoka Magica, who was also notable for being the runner-up for the Loser's Bracket. While I'm not as big of a fan of Madoka Magica as I used to be, I still love Sayaka, so it was delightful for her to do so well in the Mod's Choice poll & almost win the Loser's Bracket. Congratulations Sayaka and Sayaka fans!

But while Sayaka was the runner-up for the Loser's Bracket, she was not the actual Loser's Bracket winner. That honor goes to Mira from Dimension 20: Neverafter. While I haven't ever listened to Dimension 20, I was pretty about to see her take the win. After one Dimension 20 character won Red Riding Poll, no character from it ranked at all in Cinderpoll or in the main tournament for Little Merpoll, which is why I was glad to see Dimension 20 make a comeback for this Loser's Bracket. Mira's design is pretty cool, too, I love the pirate look. Congratulations for the win!

NOW, onto the MAIN TOURNAMENT WINNERS...

For our two bronze-place winners it's The Little Mermaid from the original Hans Christian Andersen fairytale & Ariel from Disney's The Little Mermaid 1989! To my surprise, it was actually the first time both the original fairytale and the Disney adaptation ranked! Honestly, these are some pretty good ones to rank, too. The original fairytale is a great read (and super short, so if anyone hasn't read it already, you should go do so) being both beautiful and poignantly tragic. Whereas the Disney adaptation holds up surprisingly well and is a beautiful piece of animation. Congratulations to these two bronze-place winners!

For the runner-up of the tournament is Bug from Starship by Team Starkid! I know that Team Starkid is very popular in certain parts of the Internet & the Starship itself did very well, but even then it felt like Bug was an underdog going up against giants like Disney, Studio Ghibli, and the original fairytale the tournament is based on, so I have to congratulate this guy for getting so far regardless! Good job, and I hope your fans are happy for you getting the silver!

Now, finally, the moment of truth-- the winner of the Little Merpoll, the certified best Little Mermaid as voted by Tumblr--

CONGRATULATIONS TO PONYO FROM STUDIO GHIBLI'S PONYO!

I watched this movie for the first time during the course of the tournament and it is truly a breathtaking marvel of animation, one of the best visuals I've ever seen for a movie ever. I will quote the propaganda submitted for Ponyo and say this little ham-loving girl deserved the win simply for the fact that there is no force more powerful than 5-year-old girls!!!

Our next tournament will be Best/Worst Modern Fairytale Adaptations. I'll open submissions up after a short hiatus, as I am in midst finals & will be graduating soon, which will take up most of my time in the next 2 weeks. See you for the next tournament at the end of May!

[homeisaplaceinthehills]

Den lille Havfrue København, 2008

shop | flickr

[sassafrasmoonshine]

Kay Nielsen (Danish, 1886-1957) • The Story of a Mother from Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales • London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. • 1914

[have-you-read-this-short-fiction]

[thiziri]

Princess Anne, Crown Princess Victoria, Crown Prince Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark, during a dinner to celebrate King Harald's & Queen Sonja's 25th wedding anniversary, on 28 August 1993.

[atalantethewaldfee]

Fairytales

I kind of noticed a big misunderstanding of German fairytales.

There are two kinds of fairytales.

The folk fairytale:

This are your classic fairytales, born from a thousand years of oral history. Most of the Brother Grimm's fairytales are folk fairytales. Folk fairytales end well for the Heros and terrible for the villains (example: snow white- the evil queen is forced to dance in hot iron shoes till she dies, in snow whites Wedding)

It plays in an unknown land and in an unknown time. (starting phrase of fairytales in German : For langer, langer Zeit, in einem weiteren entfernten Land [A long, long time ago, in a far away land]) and features stereotypical characters like 'big bad wolf' and 'beatiful princess'.

It often uses magical numbers like...

7 (seven dwarves behind seven mountains, 7 ravens, seven flys killed' at once, seven Kids(?)/ little goats)

3 (three taskes, three ways to kill Snow White, three Balls in 'Aschenputtel' (German Cinderella))(examples for this are a little hard to explain in few words because they're so specific)

13 (thirteen fairies in sleeping beauty)

These stories are often uses to explain morals or rules of survival. (Don't abuse your Kids/ step Kids, don't just Run into the woods, don't let strangers into the House)

The Art fairytale:

This fairytales was written by an author and is Not meant to explain a rule or bring hope.

Most of these are very tragic. The little Mermaid (from Hans Christian Andersen) would be a good example.

Others would be 'The Steadfast Tin Soldier'(also from Hans Christian Andersen) or the 'girl with the matches' (ALSO from Hans Christian Andersen)(goodnes he wrote a lot of these, this poor man's mental health really was bad)(Spoiler: the solider and the girl die)

Hans Christian Andersen wrote 156 Art fairytales. Remember: they all endet badly! I think the guy set in Stone what an Art fairytales is?!? I did Not know that? I Just wanted to teach about fairytales, I did NOT want to learn about this man's tragic live.

Like this are two books, full of fairytales (mostly Art fairytales) from the guy.

TWO books.

And the title reads ' Die schönsten Haus- und Weihnachtsmärchen' (The Most beautiful home and Christmas fairytales)

Beautiful fairytales my ass. The guy kust did therapy but as written stories. I mean, he wrote Snow Queen, which kind of ends well? But that doesn't really make it better.

So before I end this, to mull over Hans mental health:

Fairytales are not the only type of German folk Story. They are a very specific Type, that follows specific rules. Other types follows other rules.

Not every German folk Story ist a fairytale. And other very old Stories can end badly, but then it's not a fairytale. Not a folk one at least. But maybe it's danish and actually from this depressed Gay Poet that seems to have written all the Art fairytales of my childhood. Further more, there are many folk fairytales that do not come from Germany, but those also follow These rules more or less. (There are also a lot of different versions of the same fairytale all over Europe)

[gennsoup]

"One must not mind slight inconveniences when one wishes to look well."

Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

[phosphorus-noodles]

suggestion for if you pick up a language course: songs!

find a song you like the sound and story/premise of, then learn how to sing a few lines from it! it's wonderfully fun to learn, and can be a bit more forgiving with pronunciation since singing distorts words artistically and intentionally. it's also a great way to find a sense of pride, since it's a pre-determined quantity that you can proud of making progress on! plus, it lets you explore a new range of music you might not have tried out beforehand

I've changed my mind I'm learning Swedish so I can sing Caramelldansen.

[eiiskonigin]

it's a million degrees and I made myself sad so you know what? fuck it, I'm going to finally write out the Kai headcanon / lore / whatever you want to call this nonsense. I kept putting it off because I was never happy with it but fuck it.

When Winter joined Atlas Academy, she was assigned to a team with three other people. Among those three was her partner, a young man by the name of Kai Troldenglas. The pair quickly proved a force to be reckoned with in their year, their fighting styles blending together almost seamlessly.

Despite the fact that Winter could be cold and standoffish even back then, Kai insisted on growing closer to her -- doing little things to break down her walls. Remembering the things she preferred to eat in the mess hall and saving her the last of them should she be running late. Taking an interest on the rare occasions that she did open up about herself, her home life.

If you had asked Winter, she would have said that Kai was a reliable partner. Someone she was growing to trust, someone she would begin to call a friend.

Over their first year at the Academy, their friendship blossomed into something more. Truthfully, Winter had never put much thought into romantic relationships: she knew that her father was insistent that marriage in a family like theirs was a tool to be used to move up in the world, so she had tried to never consider that sort of thing, had closed her heart off to avoid being hurt in the way her mother had been.

Kai had changed that. Kai, though his presence and patience, had wormed his way into her heart.

Winter had fallen in love, or at least whatever a teenager believed to be love.

So, when he asked her to be his girlfriend, she accepted. When he took her to his bed, she let him.

And when he proposed to her during the summer break, she thought that this was how things were supposed to happen. Weren't they? When two people found one another, this was the natural next step. Winter's own ignorance to how relationships were meant to work worked against her, accepting his proposal. She would marry him, and be happy, and that was how things would play out.

Happily ever after.

She'd never liked those stories.

It was during her engagement party that the cracks in Kai's facade began to show. It was as if a switch had been flipped: the calm and sweet boy she'd met at school replaced with a haughty, snobbish young man. Snapping at the staff working the event, acting as if he were above them. Talking to her as if he were someone completely different.

The truth revealed itself behind closed doors, a conversation she was never meant to hear. When stepping away from the party in an attempt to clear her head, Winter found her father in his office having a conversation with Mr. Troldenglas -- her father-in-law to be -- about how their business arrangement had worked out perfectly.

It was a lie. Everything she had believed about Kai. He had paid his way into Atlas Academy, buying out another student for their place. While being placed on a team with Winter was purely by chance, his getting close to her had not been.

He wasn't marrying Winter. He was marrying the SDC heiress.

Furious, Winter stormed back into the party and shut it down. Mortified at being so foolish as to believe he could have actually liked her, could have loved her. The ring was thrown back in the Troldenglas's faces, and she screamed for them to get out of her home, out of her life.

Sure enough, when the semester started in the fall, Kai was no longer enrolled in Atlas Academy.

Winter went through the rest of her schooling with no partner -- her own request, honored by Headmaster Ironwood -- and held the rest of her team at arms length. Over the years, it simply became an accepted fact that Winter Schnee was a cold, heartless person who wanted nothing to do with other people.

The wounds from her first love still show, now and then. That fear at being fooled again, the hatred of her own heart. Still desperately trying to heal.

[the-evil-clergyman]

Illustrations from The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen by Kay Nielsen (1924)

[oneiriad]

Getting distracted from idly checking if there's any interesting Yuletide fics by the fact that AO3 apparently does not know something as basic as the order of the alphabet.

Ø goes after Z, guys! (Well, after Æ and before Å).

[fairytale-poll]

SEMIFINAL ROUND, MATCH 2 OUT OF 2!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Bug:

Their a bug that falls in love with a human they rescue and becomes human, but even when they don't get to keep their human body, they still get to be with their love. It's a sci-fi fairytale musical.

Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers musical starring awesome puppets and the most trans coded main character ever. Please. Please vote Bug Starship I love him. Go watch Kick it Up a Notch from Starship. Go watch Status Quo from Starship. You will understand.

He's a bug and he lives in space on a bug planet but he really wants to be a starship ranger which you can only be if you are a human and then one day a spaceship lands on his planet and so he goes to an evil bug called Pincer who then helps him become a human. And Bug falls in love with a human on the spaceship and it's very sweet. The musical and storyline are based on the little mermaid story, the creators themselves called it "the little mermaid but in space". Bug wanting to be a human/a starship ranger and achieving that and falling in love with a human is very much like the little mermaid

Starship is a musical that can only be described as The Little Mermaid meets Starship Troopers. It follows Bug, an alien bug who dreams of being a Starship Ranger, a galactic explorer/soldier, but the rigid confines of bug society keeps him trapped in a job he hates. He reaches a Starship Ranger named February from the hive and immediately falls in love with her. In order to be with her and pursue his dream, he makes a deal with a giant scorpion named Pincer who through sci-fi bs gives him a human body. Near the end of the second act he sacrifices his human body and returns to his bug body, and saves the day and wins February's heart. It's truly the ultimate Little Mermaid. He has multiple songs, and his bug body is portrayed by a puppet!! Vote for Bug!!

“It's a big, big, universe So many dimensions And unanswered questions Not to mention Life What an invention Life There's no choice involved in what you are given One mind, one voice, one body to live in It's a short, small thing we lead With so much potential Pointless or essential Which one can I be? Where do I fit? Where do I stand? Who are they to say what I am? And how can I stay inside this awful world I know? I need a way out I need an escape I'd rather be dead than to live in this place I wish that something or someone could just take it all away Someone take me away” dear god….. can anybody hear me…. (song from starship)

They are the purest little mermaid adaptation done in the most unuque way. An alien insect gets turned into a human, a race he has always loved and admired, to be with the woman he fell in love with. Also just a great musical.

Bug's whole arc is so so in tune with that of the little mermaid. He is an alien who has fallen in love with humanity through a crashed spaceship and trades his place in the hive for a chance to be with both with the human he's falling for and to be a Starship Ranger. He body swaps with human in a cryogenic pod! It's literally sci-fi Little Mermaid!

Original Fairytale:

The OG, she suffered so much more than Ariel in the Disney version, and gave up her love for Christianity. When she's turned into a human her feet are in agony with every step, but she dances anyway to enchant the Prince. The Prince marries a princess who found him after the Little Mermaid rescued him. The Little Mermaid is distraught at the prince marrying another, so her sisters give her a dagger from the Sea Witch that will turn her back into a mermaid if she kills him. She refuses to kill him, and then she turns into sea foam and dies, but because she was a good person she becomes a spirit of the air and does good deeds for 300 years until she dies again, gains a soul, and goes to Heaven.