#just like in fairy tales where you have to pretend you can't see the faeries or they'll gouge your eyes out

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

Tam Lin Saiou AU

Ves: okay please consider. saiou tam lin (osp link if you're not familiar w the fairy tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF3O6Xkpscs&list=WL&index=1&pp=gAQBiAQB) i left the prompt vague because i can't decide who should be who. both options are SO funny to me why do saiou always end up pregante in my fairy tale aus i do not know ALL THE BEST FAIRY TALES INVOLVE IT OKAY I STILL CAN'T DECIDE…probably tam lin!kokichi though, i suppose it makes more sense it's not as easy as lindwyrm for me. who tf do i make the queen,,,

Me: the heroine is just like Shuichi going to the love hotel She Knows What She Came Here For [as for the queen] Angie maybe? it's a bit of a step up from asking for blood but Ves: WHY SHE LIKE THAT she's not asking she's giving remember

Hina: See in my head I lean toward Kokichi Janet with the way the video described the two I'm just in my head imagining the hilarity of Kokichi pretending to be all "Oops i forgor" while Shuichis like. "Hold up wait you don't actually. Like. Actually it's fine I can take something else it's fine."

Ves: i tip towards janet shuuichi just bc he's the one i hc as being able to get pregananante Hina: See I was just. Ignoring that. DIDNT HAPPEN I just can't imagine Shuichi being all cool with that if that's the outcome Me: Do it I knew it! You and your anti-children agenda Hina: WHAT DO YOU MEAN Me: exactly what I said, I knew you're going to try to erase the child out of the story, but not on my watch Ves: allister is in hina's walls Checkers: Hina how else would you explain the baby daddy part Hina: Maybe you just have an agenda for children smh Me: that's not mutually exclusive heroine just wanted a hook up, she wouldn't come back if it didn't happen Hina: Easy, Janet was intrigued by what happened and wanted to come back Ves: you'd have to completely cut out the part about the father and the knights Checkers: no the the tam lin can't hurt her bc he's her baby daddy part Dra: Hina has the single father Shu au Defending the bestie and leaving djfjd Me: that's because it's a pre-existing child, alive for narrative purposes, he doesn't let saiou have children together tho and takes any opportunity to get rid of fetuses Hina: If they're mutually each other's firsts that's another way to connect them Ves: i mean, we could have him hurt shuuichi… Hina: OR THAT I FUCKING GUESS Checkers: ves he turns into fire like "can kill people" fire Hina: Fireproof cloak Checkers: how about the red-hot iron Ves: i've always thought the newer versions where she clings to him even though he burns are sweet Hina: Is standing in water when the fire is cast

Ves: but could kokichi manage a reputation as a bodice ripper. i think no actually yes he just lied 'ooooh don't go to carterhaugh or fair tam lin will take your maidenhead' tam lin has never felt the touch of another he's shaking Me: he was just being silly, securing the gifts he actually wants, he didn't expect horny people to seek him out, he doesn't even have a known appearance! Ves: he's a little magpie, he wanted the shinies, he was not prepared OOO new thought. the two headed rose as a metaphor the first thing janet does in carterhaugh is pick a two-headed rose, which is what tam lin shows up to bitch at her for initially. for shuuichi it could be a representation of his curiosity, his fascination with strange and mildly dangerous things kokichi is the rose. i've connected the dots /ref what direction are we heading with the faerie queen? depending on ur adaptation she's treated either like a mother figure or a toxic gf and that affects what character we pick

Checkers: what if she just sees him as more a toy and less a lover? Ves: so junko then? or moogi O MY GOD YOU GUYS DID YOU KNOW THAT IN SOME VERSIONS THEY'RE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS THEY KNEW EACH OTHER BEFORE HE WAS TAKEN BY THE FAERIE QUEEN I- this provides more justification for the baby actually THEY KNEW EACH OTHER BEFORE MAYBE WERE EVEN IN LOVE BEFORE KOKICHI WAS STOLEN…

Hina: What if Nobody was stolen Ves: THAT IS THE ENTIRE CONCEIT OF THE FAIRY TALE?? Hina: Ran away And got caught Ves: no. THAT'S JUST ANGST FOR ANGST'S SAKE, IT DOESN'T EVEN FIT IN THE STORY!! THEY'RE ALREADY GOING TF THROUGH IT WHY MUST YOU CRAM IN MORE Hina: LISTEN Ves: listening. Hina: I just I think it'd be funny (I had an idea but it doesn't work so nvm)

Ves: is it not MORE angsty for shuuichi to think kokichi finally got bored of him and bolted, meanwhile he's held captive as a future sacrifice Hina: I had an idea if Tsumugi was the queen or whatever but I realized it doesn't work with Kokichi Ves: imagine heading into the woods to fuck and meeting your long lost childhood love queen tsumugi still works with kokichi i think? Hina: In general it does but I had an idea hinged on Shuichi and Tsumugi being siblings skskskske Ves: yeah that doesn't work they're different species ndsjghsgf maybe in a tamlin!shuuichi variant? Hina: The idea was kinda Tsumugi snatching herself a brother Ves: TSUMUGI. THAT'S NOT FREE Hina: YEAH BUT SHE WANTED A SIBLING They keep getting sacrificed for being human smh

[princesssarisa]

Character ask: The Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Is

Tagged by @ariel-seagull-wings

Favorite thing about them: The sheer comedy of his nonchalant responses to terrifying things. Not only is he never afraid, he doesn't even treat the ghosts, goblins, and horrors he faces as anything out of the ordinary. That's the key to the story's humor.

Least favorite thing about them: The fact that he has seemingly no interest in working to help support his family unless it will teach him how to shudder. Of course laziness is a typical trait of rags-to-riches peasant heroes in fairy tales, but I'm glad the adaptations tend to downplay it and just make him quirky instead.

Also, while the ending is funny, with the princess finally making him shudder by drenching him in cold water filled with wriggling minnows, it's slightly disappointing that he never does learn to feel fear. It's no wonder that adaptations tend to change the ending so that something finally does scare him: whether touchingly (e.g. in The Storyteller's episode "Fearnot," when he finds his sweetheart dying of grief from his absence) or humorously (e.g. in Faerie Tale Theatre's "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers," with his nervousness about getting married).

Three things I have in common with them:

*I tend to feel different from other people. (autism)

*I sometimes don't understand things that most people understand perfectly well. (again, autism)

*Sometimes my different way of thinking causes problems, but at other times it's actually helpful.

Three things I don't have in common with them:

*I'm far from fearless.

*My parents have never kicked me out.

*I'm female.

Favorite line:

When he sees the half-man fall down the chimney:

"Hey, you need another half still; one is not enough." 

From the 1947 Let's Pretend radio adaptation, after the princess "teaches him how to shiver" with a bucket of ice water at the end:

"W-w-well, f-f-f-for Pete’s sake, t-t-t-teach me how to stop!"

From the Faerie Tale Theatre adaptation, in response to a zombie trying to scare him:

"One other thing. About your howl? I think you're using your voice wrong. You want to build from here. (points to his stomach) Right? You want to build from here. (pokes the zombie in the stomach - his hand squishes right through his skin) Sorry... Listen to me. From here. AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!! You try it.

brOTP: None in the Grimms' tale. But in the loose adaptation from Jim Henson's The Storyteller, "Fearnot," there's Mr. McKay, the cunning tinker who leads him to the scary places, initially just for money, but who eventually becomes his true friend.

OTP: The princess, or in Storyteller adaptation, his village sweetheart Lidia.

nOTP: Any of the monsters he meets.

Random headcanon: He's autistic. Now of course this is an anachronistic viewpoint; he's just meant to be a lucky fool, like so many other peasant boys in fairy tales. But the fact that he specifically can't relate to an emotion which comes naturally to everyone else, that he doesn't pick up on the emotional vibes that other people do in key situations, and that he has a hyperfixation (learning to shudder) and no interest in practical things that don't relate to that fixation... well, all those things sound familiar.

Viewing him from this perspective, I feel better about the fact that he never learns to feel fear: he'll always be different and that's okay.

Unpopular opinion: I don't think I have one, because his story isn't particularly well known. The best I can think of is that it deserves to be retold more often, especially around Halloween: its blend of spookiness and comedy is underrated.

Song I associate with them: None at the moment.

Favorite picture of them:

This illustration by Albert Weisgerber, showing him riding in the moving bed:

This illustration by H.J. Ford, showing the scene where the sexton tries to scare him disguised as a ghost:

This picture of the same scene by Maurice Sendak:

This illustration of the bowling scene (I don't know the artist):

This illustration by Arthur Rackham:

This illustration by Dagmar Hermann:

Peter MacNicol in the 1984 Faerie Tale Theatre adaptation, "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers":

Reece Dinsdale in the 1987 adaptation from Jim Henson's The Storyteller, "Fearnot":

Tim Oliver Schultz in the 2014 adaptation from the German series Sechs auf einen Strech:

[littlestarprincess]

Also, um. . .possibly a bit TMI but wrestling with sexuality stuff / mental illness stuff / specifically my selfship with Bam under the cut; kind of messy real life stuff that I’ve been wanting to get off my chest a little bit, I don’t think anything too dark? But definitely potentially uncomfortable.

So, basically, about eight or nine months ago, I finally Snapped and admitted to myself that I’ve had a crush on this guy that I know very vaguely if at all for like . . . four years (though I guess with the passage of time we are now approaching Year Five of my having a horrifically intense crush on a strange grumpy probably-politically-incompatible guy; there are pros and cons but it still feels very alarming in general); for those counting, I’ve been open about shipping myself with Bam for about . . . two years, and secretly selfshipping with him for like . . . a couple years before that. If you go through my blog all the way to when I first entered the tag, you might see evidence of my liking Bam alongside a myriad of other characters from a few months before this, because I’ve always been Like That -- but I really seriously started selfshipping with Bam about a year into my crush on This Strange Guy (who I’m going to be referring to as Spidereyes from this point forward.)

It turns out that this is not a coincidence. This was, in fact, definitely me displacing my emotions for Spidereyes onto Bam in order to not deal with them. As one does.

So I guess this alone is not so bad. It might be a little creepy depending on how one looks at things, but I also have a very low threshold for creepy, so I dunno. It could just be that I think everything involving RL feelings is creepy and overwhelming and awful, because I’ve been . . . numb? For a really long time? And I’ve reached a point where I can like . . . talk (?) to Spidereyes/say hello to him when I see him instead of turning and walking the other way and just generally being very averse to him (and given that there’s a handful of people I react to like that who I definitely genuinely Do Not Like, sometimes I wanna tell myself that it’s just That and I don’t have a crush, but like . . . it’s definitely. A crush.)

And I mean, for the most part I can reconcile this with my ace/aro identity -- I’m still like. Mostly aro and mostly ace and this doesn’t actually stand out, because I do occasionally get crushes, they’re just like . . . super rare and it’s even rarer that I have a desire to act on them. I think this is the first time I’ve actually ever wanted to act on a crush that wasn’t motivated by other factors (potential loss of friendship, needing to prove myself to be mature/human, outright manipulation etc) but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have previously if those factors were removed . . . The problem is, a) I live here now, and historically my crushes don’t resolve themselves until I move towns. I recently bought a house so this is a permanent arrangement, and like . . . seriously, moving towns to avoid romantic feelings is probably not productive in the long run and b) I uh. Historically don’t get over people? Unrequited love isn’t a big deal to me, but like . . .it seems to be to other people, and I can’t like . . .force myself to “like” someone else. Even if I remove my code of honor from consideration, rebounding . . . would definitely be a level of self harm, because that’s how fucking repulsed by RL romance I am, much less sex. Like it’s cute when it stays between people who don’t have anything to do with me, but I can not maturely handle other people having crushes on me, much less like . . .actively getting involved with someone in that way. And I mean, part of this is due to like. . . shitty experiences in the past, and I’m working on recovering from those, but rebounding would still definitely be a Huge Fucking Step Back.

OFC some of the people who know I have a crush on someone who doesn’t return my feelings tend to really push me towards rebounding/finding someone new to admire, because of course when I like someone or something I can’t keep my fucking mouth shut |||orz So now certain people who shouldn’t know about these kinds of things know . . . .

And then there’s . . . the delusional part. Like, I don’t know if it’s just because I’m hyper aware of these things due to needing to be in the past, or if it’s like . . . seeing what I want to see, but . . . 

I know he doesn’t like me, because he asked out one of my coworkers, and I’m super not his type anyway. (He also rejected me previously, though I’m hesitant to use that as evidence of him not liking me because he was in a difficult circumstance at that time and like, in addition to people having tastes and preferences for romance, they should also be able to be like “yeah, I can’t do romance right now” without more being read into that. But I have other evidence of him not liking me so it’s a moot point!)

I know he doesn’t like me, but there have been . . . interactions I’m not able to parse as anything but romantic attraction. Which is frustrating? Am I just really dumb? I don’t know. But like, there are specifically interactions that got folded into my selfship with Bam previously because they were so difficult not to read as non-romantic (the most notable being one time when his girlfriend needed help at the customer service desk and I went over to them, and he raised his sunglasses to watch as I talked to his girlfriend. Which could have been any number of things, right? I just . . . am dumb. . . ) and then some that happened recently enough that I didn’t have a chance to dump them on Bam bc I was already accepting that I have a crush on him so now I just get to feel Delusional instead. All the time!!! But like, one time he came in and he was in a Mood (as he is pretty often? He’s a bit moody, and seems intimidating at first, but when you actually talk to him he’s pretty friendly and sweet. I think? I guess it depends on who he’s talking to. . . and I think he’s gentle with me specifically because he’s sympathetic to my unrequited feelings. Who knows how long that will last though haha since they’re not. . . going anywhere. . . ) and as soon as he saw me, his whole body relaxed and like . . .this isn’t stuff that could be an Act in order to Mess With Me (which certain people IRL are convinced must be the case) because it’s stuff that people don’t fake -- it’s stuff like his voice when he talks to me being close to tenor range but when he talks to other people around me it drops to upper baritone; he turns his body towards me when we talk and opens up, but if I don’t initiate conversation he remains tense and closed up and I don’t think that’s something that people keep a handle on when they’re manipulating people -- unless they’re like. Super skilled con artists. Which he’s definitely not. Like, PUA don’t even keep an eye on that kind of stuff.

I feel delusional just acknowledging things . . . and it’s weirder when I take into account that other people have seen him giving me furtive glances. Like two other people, who also knew I liked him, but still just . . . I dunno. I’m not completely imagining things. I just can’t . . .parse them properly, and so it’s reading as crush like behavior, even though I know for a fact that he’s confident enough to approach people he likes (he was . . . kind of a player when I first met him, and again, he asked my coworker out recently (and got rejected, which I shouldn’t be happy about, right? But I kind of am) and I’m not his type and . . . I just don’t know how to deal with it.

And then on top of it . . . there have been at least two occasions in the last month where I’ve had a literal actual vision of him that was followed by him showing up so like . . . .hhhhhh not a good time for my weird relationship with ESP stuff to resurface but here we go . . .