#cautionary fables and fairytales
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🌏 Tamamo the Fox Maiden and Other Asian Stories: A Cautionary Fables and Fairytales Book edited by Kel McDonald, C. Spike Trotman, and Kate Ashwin
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
A graphic novel collection of several fables and fairytales from Asian countries, including some famous and some lesser-known, while also including an array of countries!
When I got this book I was worried it’d only feature stories from Japan and China, but I was pleasantly surprised to find stories from Laos, Georgia, Iraq, and many others! Each story features an artist who has great talent in art and storytelling.
My favorite stories were “The Demon with Matted Hair” from India, “Urashima Taro” from Japan, and “The History of the Spectre Ship” from Iraq.
I highly recommend!
#godzilla reads#tamamo the fox maiden#Tamamo the Fox maiden and other Asian stories#cautionary fables and fairytales#book review#graphic novels#reading#booklr#bookworm#bookish#book blog#booklover#bibliophile#book blurb
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the scorpion and the frog
#hellsing#alutegra#i need period drama hellsing#the clothes might be historically inaccurate because i just shove every reference up together#did not have the time to differentiate between victorian or ewardian or regency something something#alucard hellsing#integra hellsing#the scorpion and the frog is my favourite fable#there are so many ways to interpret it more than just a cautionary tale#personally i see it as a tragic romance#all of my otps follow the same damn trope everytime#someone who believed that it is in their nature that they are unlovable#and someone who trusted them regardless even fully aware of their destructive nature#but as fairytales mostly go isnt true love can break the spell#so i think there are several ways that the tale of the scorpion and the frog can be retold#the scorpion and the frog
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The Girl Who Married a Skull and Other African Stories, A Cautionary Fables and Fairytales Book, 208 pages
I love folklore and have been trying to collect folk stories from around the world. This book seemed like an interesting, fun way to add to my bookshelf! There are 15 stories in this graphic novel and each story has unique art by a new artist. They run the gamut from mythology explaining how the world works to the classic "my husband is secretly a monster and I've been tricked into this marriage". Some stories are stronger than others, but the stories and artists selected for this book provide a very satisfying variety. This is perfect for a quick browse through African folklore.
#the girl who married a skull and other African stories#the girl who married a skull#a cautionary fables and fairytales book#book#books#book review#bookstagram#the book look#fable#fairytale#fables#fairytales#myth#myths#mythology#Africa#African#graphic novel
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i think part of the problem fundamentally is that religion in fantasy tends to receive the same treatment given to historical religion (and in christian circles, also any modern religion that isn’t the right kind of christianity) in that it’s presumed to be unserious: of course no one really believes in gods. it’s all just a complex game of pretend played by people who know it doesn’t really matter… so a character driven explicitly by god-fearing religious conviction gets memetically distorted into a lukewarm epicurean by people who insist upon treating the gods and the divine narrative as irrelevant flavor text.
“not many people are super religious these days” is taken as an absolute fact—never mind that qrow continues “this world's been around for a long time, long enough that people have created dozens of gods, but if you believe ozpin, two of them are actually real” and then tells the kids a religious creation story, never mind that the characters swear by God or by gods or by the brothers, never mind the religious statue in the atrium of the mistrali train station, never mind glynda citing religion as a reason the maidens must be kept secret, never mind that the village in ruby’s character short is built around a church, never mind that the plot of the story involves a war over divine relics, never mind that the god of light told ozma to unite humankind and end all conflicts and thousands of years later ozpin is singularly focused on unity and preventing conflict at any cost. never fucking mind anything ozpin wrote in ‘fairytales of remnant’ beyond the one line that can be partially quoted out of context to obfuscate his very obvious unspoken belief that magical power in the hands of a virtuous, carefully-selected few is the trump card that will win him the war.
it’s a disinterest bordering on outright disdain for the idea that religion is or can be narratively meaningful at all; and so ozpin must be faithless and salem must be petty and there are no real emotional stakes for either of them. ozma is profoundly traumatized but the religious nature of that trauma is elided because of course the gods don’t matter, and the lost fable is defanged and mangled into a cynical cautionary tale about domestic abuse and the danger of letting an ontologically evil woman corrupt you. pay no attention to the theological screaming match salem and ozma are having behind the curtain.
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MCM London, I am on my way! I'll have all 10 Widdershins books and a selection of Cautionary Fables and Fairytales with me: also the apothecary has been restocked with pins, more stickers and brand new keyrings, in both wooden and glitter shaker styles! see you there! :O
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Green Spring: The Big Bad Wolf
THE BIG BAD WOLF
Category: Fairy tales
Ah, the Big Bad Wolf… Who hasn’t heard of him? He is one of the most famous villains of fairytales, and keeps getting the spotlight in many works of fiction, from “Fables” to the most recent “Puss in Boots” movie…
What is truly fascinating, however, is the fact that this so-called “stock character” is actually a construct of popular culture, a sort of archetypal “Frankenstein-monster” made out by stitching together several different fairytales. And by different I mean VERY different. Because the origins of the Big Bad Wolf lie in four fairytales born of different contexts, cultures and eras.
The oldest of these fairytales would be “Little Red Riding Hood” – the “original” one, aka the ones written by Charles Perrault in his now world-famous “Mother Goose Fairytales”, back in late 17th century France. You know how the “Little Red Riding Hood” stories goes: a little girl, wearing a red hood, was sent into the woods to bring her sick grandma some food and wine. On the way she meets the “Wolf”, who wants to eat her but first asks her where she is going. Upon the girl revealing to the beast her projects, he misleads her to the longest path and runs himself towards the grandmother’s home: there, he pretends to be the little girl to sneak into the house and devour the grandmother. Then he disguises himself as her, and in her bed awaits for the arrival of Little Red Riding Hood, who marvels about how “great” or “big” the various elements of her granny’s body are – before being devoured by the hungry beast.
“Then she was saved by a hunter!” you say. Well… actually no. Not in the old version by Charles Perrault – in the French version, the little girl is not saved, and the story ends with the wolf devouring her. That is because Perrault intended it to be a cautionary tale about the danger of young, unexperienced women trusting seductive, male strangers. (A subtext still present to this day in the story of Little Red Riding Hood). The whole part of her being “saved by a woodsman” comes from the 19th century fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, who published the German version of “Little Red Riding Hood”. In it, a hunter that passes by discovers what happened, and enters in the grandmother’s house while the wolf is sleeping – he cuts open the beast’s belly, releases the unharmed girl and her grandmother, and then replaces the inside of the wolf’s stomach with heavy stones, so that when he tries to drink out of a well, he falls in and drowns.
This German version of the story is strongly similar to another “wolf tale” of the Brothers Grimm – which is another “ingredient” to the Big Bad Wolf, “The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats”. In this German story, a mother-goat leaves her seven children alone at home, warning them to be careful about the wolf and not open the door to strangers. They obey her orders, and when the wolf comes knocking at their door, they do not let him in. But when the wolf returns later, with a softer voice and a paw covered in flour (to look white), the young goats mistake him for their mother and open the door. Immediately the wolf devours the young goats – but only six of them, because the seven hides themselves. When the mother later returns she finds her hidden child who reveals to her the story – the mother searches for the wolf, that she finds sleeping after his meal. She quickly cuts open his belly, frees her seven children, replaces them with heavy stones – and so, when the wolf wakes up and tries to drink from a river, he falls in and drowns.
One last story served as the final element in the patchwork that is the “Big Bad Wolf” – a story just as famous as the other two. “The Three Little Pigs”. A story which is neither French nor German in origins, but rather English – being a late 19th century tale collected by Joseph Jacobs in England. The story goes as everybody knows: three pigs went out in the world and built houses for themselves. The first two built houses made of straw and wood, while the last pig made his house out of brick. The wolf came around, and used his mighty breath (“huff and puff”, a breathing power as strong as the wind itself) to destroy the first two houses. However, when he came to the house of the third little pig, he couldn’t destroy it – so he rather tried to climb by the chimney, by the pig had prepared a fire, which burned the wolf.
Now this story is truly interesting because what most people know is actually the sanitized, simplified version. The version in which the first two little pigs flee for their brother’s brick house, and where the wolf just leaves the house with his butt burned. This version was heavily popularized by Disney (and I’ll come back to that later), but in the original tale of Joseph Jacobs things were quite different. First of all, the wolf ate the two first little pigs in the original tale, only leaving the third alive. Second, in the original tale, between the wolf failing to “blow down” the brick house and him trying to enter by the chimney, there was a series of adventures. It was a repetition of the wolf inviting the third pig to various events or places, only for the pig to always escape one way or another. It is at the very end that the wolf, tired of failing to catch the third pig, tries to enter the house through the chimney… and in the original version the third little pigs actually prepares a cauldron of hot water to BOIL ALIVE THE WOLF AND EAT HIM.
I could talk for hours and hours about these fairytales, but we are here to talk briefly about the Big Bad Wolf so I’ll keep it short. Beyond these four main stories (since I count the two “Red Riding Hood” narratives as different), other pieces of media tied to fairytales also influenced or shaped the idea of the Big Bad Wolf – from the ancient fable of Aesop of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, which became a common idiom in Western culture, to the fairytale-inspired musical piece “Peter and the Wolf”.
As you can see, these stories come from wildly different eras, ranging from the 17th to the 20th century (for “Peter and the Wolf”), and from very different cultures (France, Germany, England…), and yet… and yet, these tales, becoming “popular fairytales”, were condensed and tied together in a sort of overall “Western fairytale corpus”, discarding the precise origins and nationalities of the stories. And by linking together these various wolf characters, a new one was formed, a new “fairytale archetype”: the Big Bad Wolf.
And the Big Bad Wolf then knew an immense success throughout various media, with different types of adaptations. You have the “sympathetic, anti-hero turning good guy” type of interpretation – with Wolf from “The 10th kingdom” or Bigby from “Fables”. You’ve got more comical, goofy wolves from “Shrek” or “The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs”. You’ve got wicked predatory wolves, in “Into the Woods”, or tragic victim wolves (in Pratchett’s “Witches Abroad”). The Big Bad Wolf was reinterpreted by all – from Roald Dahl, in his “Revolting Rhymes”, to the Looney Tunes. And more recently, you have the strange coincidence of the dual release of “Neverafter” (of the “Dimension 20” webseries) and “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (of the Puss in Boots series, a spin-off of “Shrek”) which actually pull off the same twist on the identity of the Big Bad Wolf (which I’ll keep secret for now). He is without a doubt one of the most popular and reinterpreted fairytale villains.
- - - - - - -
But we have to talk about Disney. Because Disney is actually… a big culprit behind the creation of the Big Bad Wolf “myth”.
It is no secret that one of the most famous incarnations of the Big Bad Wolf is Disney’s own version of the character – from their various “Three Little Pigs” shorts. This depiction of the Wolf was MASSIVELY influential over America media and culture, and… one has to wonder if the very reason the “Big Bad Wolf”, this amalgamation of very different fairytales, doesn’t have to do with Disney. Because Disney was one of the very first – if not THE very first – to depict the wolf of “The Three Little Pigs” as the same wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood”, and the same wolf as “The Boy who Cried Wolf”. Now, I haven’t looked at older pieces of media, so I might be wrong… But I do believe that Disney, by expanding its own character using these tales, actually modeled the modern idea that all these wolves were just one wolf: the Big Bad Wolf.
And you want to know what is even more incriminating? The very name “Big Bad Wolf”. It is the name everybody uses to call the character, right? It is popular culture, isn’t it? Except… this name does not appear in any of the sources I quoted above. In Perrault’s, in Grimm’s, in Jacobs’, it is always “the wolf”, and that’s it. In fact, where does the expression “Big Bad Wolf” seem to appear in its earliest form?
… Disney’s “Three Little Pigs” short, for the now world-famous song “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”.
Again, I might be wrong – if you find a proof of an earlier apparition of the name, please warn me! But I am pretty certain that the Big Bad Wolf, in character and name, was actually invented by the Disney animated shorts. And from the Disney works spread itself throughout the American view and reception of fairytales…
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A Tipping of the Scales
ao3 link
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ship: batcat (reeves verse)
warnings: none, smut 18+
word count: 10.2k
Selina Kyle didn’t believe in fairytales. Fables? Sure. Cautionary tales and Bible stories were more up her alley. After all, she had walked into her former kingdom, the prodigal daughter returning to slay Goliath and steal his crown. But the Bat had stopped her, stolen her vengeance, just like he had stolen himself away from her.
Bludhaven was far more boring than she had expected. Despite housing the summer homes of the rich hedge fund types that she intended to knock down a peg, there were only so many jewels she could steal and resell. It didn’t bring her nearly the same amount of satisfaction as the Bat chasing her. Cat and mouse was the name of her game, or in this case, the cat and the bat.
She often daydreamed about that night in Mitchell’s house, him holding her against the wall, his hand slapped over her mouth. The smothering of his arms was satisfying, and although she hated to admit it, those thoughts eventually raced into her head as she slept.
That’s what had her returning to Gotham, and while she hated herself for being attention seeking, she couldn’t help herself. Something from the streets of Gotham would feel better than the empty loneliness she felt upstate. Even the strays she had found couldn’t fill the danger shaped hole in her heart.
Her first break in was a testament to her roots. Lowering herself precariously through a skylight on her trusty rope, she landed almost soundlessly on her feet into the home of one Harvey Dent. While he took over Coulson’s role as DA, Selina was more than sure he was just as corrupt as his predecessor. A few stolen items would be the perfect welcome to his new position.
It started with paintings. Forgeries of Rembrandts that were so close in detail that even curators couldn’t tell the difference. Somehow Dent never noticed, or maybe he didn’t even bother to check. She did replace the paintings, she wasn’t completely heartless. But… they were a tad explicit to say the least. Nudes of renaissance women were now completely scattered across the DA’s house. Maybe his coworkers would recognize him as a man with good taste. Or at least think he had a humorous interior designer.
This was her third time hitting Dent’s house. He was new in town so to speak, so his security protocols were nowhere near as intense as someone like Bruce Wayne. Sometimes easy options are the best way to get back into an old trade, and if she had to fish for minnows, she was more than willing to do so.
But the Bat caught up, something that both scared and thrilled Selina. Yes, he played into her hand, but she doubted he would chase after her so soon. Maybe it said something about both of them. Her desperation for him to arrive, his desperation for her to slip up.
“I didn’t think you’d stoop this low,” he said, revealing himself from the shadows of Dent’s dining room.
“Had to tell you I was back in town somehow,” Selina replied coolly. “Besides, a stolen inheritance only lasts for so long.”
“Then work with me again,” he replied. To anyone else’s ear he would’ve seemed nonchalant, but Selina had learned to read every little inflection of his voice and every single twitch on his masked face.
It was the same voice he used when he told her not to throw her life away. Those few sentences were the most vulnerable she had seen him and the most vulnerable she had allowed him to see.
This was his way of reminding her that she didn’t have to pay, no matter how she decided to do it.
“Now why would you want me to do a thing like that? Did you miss me Vengeance?” Selina tried to say coyly. The waver in her voice gave her away. He remained silent for a few moments, long enough that Selina felt the need to fill the silence.
“Yes,” he said. His heart was clearly pounding out of his chest. There was a crack as he said the word, both in his voice and in Selina’s heart. She felt herself step forward towards him, the Warhol she had intended to snatch ignored behind her.
“Yeah?” she whispered. Vengeance gave a nod so slight and short that she almost missed it.
“Okay,” Selina nodded, swallowing her pride and every little word she wanted to say to him. This was not the reaction she had expected. She had expected anger, a reenactment of that first night at Mitchell’s house, maybe ending with her bent over Dent’s desk.
She didn’t expect a confession between the two of them that only needed one word. Selina is snapped out of her thoughts as the Bat begins talking again.
“As in actually working together,” he said. “That means stopping… this.”
“A girl needs to make a living somehow,” Selina shrugged.
“Then I’ll pay you,” he said as though it barely meant anything.
“You really are a rich boy,” Selina scoffed, her eyes returning to the painting.
“I’m being serious, Selina,” he replied. “I’ll make you a real suit too.”
“Are you too scared to be associated with a cat burglar? You want a thief to play buddy-buddy with Gordon?”
“He saw you save my life and me save yours,” the Bat states. “If he doesn’t trust you, then he doesn’t get to trust me.”
“Wow, determined to lose one of your only friends if it means spending time with me, huh?” A smirk grows across Selina’s face.
“If that’s what it comes down to, I’d rather say I was trading one out for another.”
Selina refuses to acknowledge the blush that begins to spread across her face by staring at the Warhol, pretending to be intrigued.
“Can I take this one still? As a last hurrah?” The Bat simply shook his head.
“It’s not like you would listen to me, Selina. I know my place,” he said while walking towards her. A black leather glove tilts her chin up to look at him. “Do you know yours?”
Selina miraculously avoids leaning into the Bat’s touch. She thanks whatever God above is stopping her from doing so. She could get used to his hand on her cheek, used to someone pretending to care.
“I don’t go so easily,” she says instead.
“I wouldn’t expect any less of you,” Selina thinks that he gives her a hint of a smile. How is it possible that something so small could be so beautiful?
“You should leave,” Selina nods towards the skylight. “Before you’re accused of any implications.”
“You’re too smart to leave a trail behind,” he scoffs.
“And you’d ruin my life,” God, Selina thinks. As if he hasn’t already. He shakes his head.
“You don’t deserve that,” his hand trails down her shoulder, eventually gripping her own. “Especially after everything you’ve worked for.”
Her heart is in her throat, she’s mirroring the panic he felt the moment he landed besides her. She’s always seen him as nervous, as hidden. It’s unfair that she’s carrying those same traits because of him.
“Meet me at the signal, next time it’s on,” his voice is a whisper. It’s her final out, his final plea. She caves and gives him a nod. One motion, one silent agreement. Two people, one silent confession.
He goes right away, leaving her with her tools and the soon to be stolen Warhol. She sighs while she readjusts her gloves, carefully sliding the painting off of its place on top of the mantle. She puts a painting of a woman fingering herself in its place.
Just another day, but her final job. Her life was about to get much more interesting. To be fair, it was her own damn fault. Maybe she should’ve stayed in Bludhaven. Even cats have to be careful about what they wish for.
*
The signal is on the next night. Selina doesn’t know what she expected, he was spoken for, that was why he had stayed. Gotham needed its knight, and it looked like she was about to be his sidepiece.
She didn’t bother taking the elevator up to the signal, climbing the pulleys and scaling the building was much more fun. Gordon was already there, but the Bat was late. Typical.
“Well,” Selina sighed upon seeing Gordon next to the signal. She couldn’t think of anything to say to him. They had interacted only a handful of times, all of which were at a major low point of her life.
“You’re back in town,” Gordon nodded. “He didn’t tell me.”
“He only found out recently, even though all of the pieces were there,” Selina shakes her head. “He’s not nearly as smart as he pretends to be.”
She couldn’t tell if she said that to make her feel better about herself or if she truly believed it. The truth was that the Bat could have found her at any point. Hell, he could’ve been tracking her while she was upstate. He probably was.
“How… are you?” Gordon was clearly just as uncomfortable as she was. Thank God that was when the Bat decided to arrive.
His presence was not comforting, but it certainly made the tension in the air less thick. He nods at Gordon, who simply looks between the Bat and the Cat with a wary eye.
“What am I supposed to call you?” Gordon asks.
“... Cat,” she says, trying to stifle a laugh.
“Right,” Gordon turns his attention back to the Bat. “There’s been a series of robberies from Harvey Dent’s penthouse, would you happen to know anything about that?”
Bat’s eyes flicker towards Selina.
“The situation has already been dealt with,” he replies, voice steady yet full of gravel. “The thief has been apprehended, but the paintings will likely not be returned.”
“Let me guess, they’ve already been sold,” Gordon sighs. Selina has never had the urge to laugh this severely in her whole life. She notices Batman swallow. He clearly finds humor in this exchange as well.
“I would assume so.”
“And the thief?” Gordon says, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Even some criminals are too slippery for my hands,” Batman replies. “But I swear that the issue is resolved.”
“But what if-”
“I made a deal,” he said, cutting Gordon off. “The thief is a source of intel now. They have very quick hands.”
Gordon looks over at Selina, whose face is red as a tomato at this point. He nods.
“I see,” he turns back to the Bat. “And would this thief happen to be a cat burglar of some kind?”
“I think that’s an accurate description, yes.”
Gordon’s sigh somehow becomes deeper. It isn’t out of frustration, more a sense of disappointment. Selina was clearly important to the Batman, and shutting her out would mean losing him as a resource.
“I have to tell the department and the DA something,” Gordon rubs his hands together. “Otherwise they’ll go sniffing around like hounds.”
Selina resisted the urge to make a comment about cops and bitches. Instead she offered a half assed solution.
“Well, I won’t pull any profitable pranks for the time being,” Selina began. “So you don’t need to worry about me. Maybe mention something about an art burglar in some city nearby. Throw them off their trail. There are other art thieves, I’m willing to expose a few of them.”
“Who knew that cats could become rats,” Gordon muttered. The joke didn’t seem to be out of malice, but Selina’s skin began to crawl.
“I prefer to catch them,” she said defiantly. “If I reveal someone, it’s a bitch that deserves it,” Selina stares pointedly at the Bat. “Are we done here?” Vengeance looks at Gordon in response.
“Yes,” Gordon nods, sighing at the two vigilantes in front of him. “I’ll see you next time the signal is lit. Get some rest.”
“Gotham never sleeps,” the Bat replies.
“Rich kid and you had an emo phase,” Selina grumbles. “Actually you’re still in your emo phase.” Ever perceptive, she notices a half smile on Gordon’s face as he takes the elevator down.
“Is it alright if I take your measurements?” the Bat asks quietly.
“I’m sorry?” This question hits Selina from left field, stunning her out of the witty quips she had been planning.
“For the suit,” he clarifies. Right, the suit. The special matching suit. The suit that he would make for her. His suit for her. And he would have to touch-
“Yeah,” her response thankfully stops her from overthinking too much. “That’s totally fine.”
The Bat had a goddamned measuring tape on his utility belt for some reason. God knows if he’s diligent enough to measure foot prints at crime scenes, trying to match shoe sizes with criminals. Selina wouldn’t put it past him.
“I need you to raise your arms,” his voice is too soft. Why is it so soft? Selina obeys his request so that her head will hopefully stop racing. Unfortunately, her heart begins to instead.
The tape goes around her throat, his lithe fingers carefully marking off the number of centimeters that would be required for the turtleneck hem that she'd grown to prefer. He’s careful every step of the way, from arm measurements to the tightness of her waist and hips. Selina prays for the first time in years that the Bat can’t magically sense her pulse as his hands gently touch her chest. It’s supposed to be a very clinical procedure, simply a girl and her caped seamstress. Yet every brush of his gloves against her body makes a part of her tense.
He shouldn’t have this effect on her. It’s not as though he’s special in any way. The Bat is a man that hides behind a mask and beats up thugs in tight fitting kevlar. Just because he wants Selina to help him with work does not mean he wants her in any other way. He saved her so she wouldn’t sin. He saved her from herself. That was all.
But it’s clear to Selina that touching her is having an effect on him as well. The Bat always tries his damndest to seem stoic, untouchable, unmovable, but Selina is more than sure that underneath his mask is a scared man. He was scared on that catwalk, enough to shoot his leg full of adrenaline to save her. He was scared that she’d say no as he found her in Dent’s dining room. And he was scared now, that she would leave, that this was too far.
“Are you almost done?” Selina asks sweetly, trying to not let her voice warble. It’s the same voice she uses on the strays she finds in street alleys, coaxing them towards her gently. Little does she know that she pulled this stray in a long time ago.
The Batman nods, putting the tape back into some unseeable part of the belt. Despite being around him for so long, Selina still couldn’t wrap her head around his equipment or how he got the funding for it. Maybe the rich kid theory wasn’t so far off.
“Any requests?” he asks.
“About the suit?” Batman nods. “Then no,” Selina replies. “What do I call you?”
“Excuse me?” Despite not being able to see them, Selina knows that his eyebrows are knitted together.
“I can’t call you Bat all the time. Or Batsy, or Vengeance. The nicknames clearly annoy you, and while annoying you is one of my favorite pastimes, I’d like a piece of you that’s exclusively mine,” she finishes.
Selina lets her nails trail up the Bat’s chest, running her hands slowly across his shoulders. She’s reaching up to him, like a sinner up to heaven. He’s so tall, she wonders how it would feel to cower under him.
“I-”
“It doesn’t have to be too much,” she says, her voice once again turning to honey. “I understand the secrets. I kept mine from you, and yours certainly have more weight.”
“Secrets always matter,” he whispers. “No matter the size. No matter who they protect.”
Did he mean her or him? Did he mean Gordon? Did he have anyone else to protect at all? She doubted it. Cracks of loneliness broke out of him every time she was near. He needed a way to get it all out. Not only was he clearly touch starved, he needed some form of love to fill in the gaps.
“I’ll call you whatever you want,” Selina smiles. “It can be as ridiculous as you like. Honey-bunches of oats, sweetie pie, pumpkin, twat waffle, banana-”
“B,” he finally cuts her off before she can say something even more dumb. “You can call me B.”
“Not V for Vengeance? B for Batman,” she teases.
“No, B for me,” he says. It’s one less secret for him, and one more for her. She nods.
“I’ll see you at the next light, B,” she whispers. He disappears into the shadows.
*
Selina turns over a single initial in her head. B is what she has been allowed to call him. B is her name for him. It’s also clearly the start of his first name. Not B for the Bat, B for him.
Her thoughts are disrupted by a knock at her door. She rushes to answer it, but is tentative as she peers through the peephole. A man walks away with a parcel in front of her door. She quickly opens it, trying to get a better look at the man.
“Hey!” she calls, stopping him in his tracks. She picks up the parcel, looking at a sticky note on the front. The man doesn’t make any moves to run away. He simply stares as she reads the note.
“Let me know if it fits, B.”
“You know him?” Selina stares at the man. She gets a closer look at him. Salt and pepper hair and a clearly pressed suit. This was not her Bat.
“Yes,” his British accent startles her.
“How so?” she asks right away. Everyday her theories about the Batman were becoming more plausible, yet they were always an inch or two off.
“I’m an associate of your partner, Miss Kyle,” the man says. He seems to be very straight forward, not hiding behind words like the Bat often does.
“So he talks about me,” Selina says, inspecting the box. “I’m flattered.”
“Well, he does not get out much. I would be remiss not to notice a new person in his life.”
“What do I call you?” Selina asks, trying to ignore that she must bring some sort of comfort to the Bat. “I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you around much more.”
“Alfred,” the man says with a curt nod. “I look forward to working with you Miss Selina.”
“Likewise,” she replies. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” Alfred says. He walks down the shabby hallway, his oxfords the only nice thing to be seen in her apartment complex.
Selina walks back into the apartment, opening her new package with care. Even the box seems special, not a reused Amazon parcel. It feels like she’s opening a gift from Tiffany’s as she pulls at the rope like twine holding the carefully wrapped box together.
The suit is much more lightweight than she expected. The Bat must pay more attention to the way she works than she thought. The suit is paneled with kevlar in the most vulnerable and damageable places. It reminds her of the shoulder and knee pads she would wear as a child while roller skating. Of course the suit is heavier, but it’s breathable. She’d be able to move in it swiftly and wouldn’t have to adapt her style of attack. The Bat’s fighting strategy fit the bulkiness of his suit. Strong and armored to match the hard hitting punches he pulled.
It fit perfectly, hugging her body skin tight. She didn’t ask for this specific fit. Perhaps the Bat was being self indulgent. Selina shook her head, he was just being practical. Something that hung off her even slightly would be uncomfortable, clinging to her skin with sweat like a wedgie.
The material was so soft that part of her wanted to fall asleep in it, but she knew if she didn’t return the suit back into its box, it would be covered in cat hair in no time. Selina put away her suit, placing it with care at the top of her closet before going to feed her harem of cats. They were constantly needy, but she didn’t mind. She needed them just as much as they needed her. She wondered if the Bat was the same way.
*
Another day and she was back at the signal, sitting cross legged on the concrete floor as she and Gordon waited for the Bat to arrive.
“Is he always this late?” she asked.
“Yes,” Gordon says. “I don’t mind, he’s likely in the middle of a street fight.”
“I wonder if the Bat was this tardy at prep school,” Selina says off handedly as she inspects her nails.
“What makes him so sure that he’s rich?”
“When you don’t grow up well off, you tend to notice the little details. Besides, his budget seems insane,” Selina says all of this as though it’s incredibly obvious. “Also I think I met his butler the other day.” Gordon nods throughout her explanation.
“I can see that. Any ideas as to who he would be?” Selina simply shakes her head.
This is a lie. Every night she tries to pair the letter B. She thinks of bright blue eyes emphasized by black makeup. His jawline is sharp and his body is likely littered with scars. Selina isn’t sure whether or not he’s lean yet built underneath his armor or simply awkwardly bulky. It’s frustrating to her in a way. She can’t picture him clearly when she. . .
The sound of the elevator snaps her out of her thoughts.
“I got your message,” Gordon says.
“You get actual messages from him?” Selina replies, mildly incredulous. “He just shows up at my house unannounced.” The Bat ignores her.
“Have you heard anything else about the gas?” he asks. Gordon nods.
“There’s been a few incidents on the Eastside of town. The standard green type poison.”
“Care to fill me in?” Selina looks between the two of them.
“Mysterious gaseous poison is showing up around town, usually around poorer neighborhoods,” the Batman explains.
“Do you think the targeting is intentional?” Gordon asks. Some detective he was.
“It wouldn’t make sense after the Riddler’s message. If it was a follower of his, the chemical weapons would likely target the upper class.”
“Do you know the effects?” Selina didn’t live on the Eastside of town, but she could already tell that she would be sent there as an on the ground scout.
“It’s been different for the victims so far,” Gordon says. “All have been sent to Gotham General Hospital and are being monitored 24/7. The most common symptom is disfigurement, which makes sense. That being said, many of the victims are gaining… for a lack of better words, powers.”
“What, like superheroes?” Selina lets out a singular short laugh. “What lame fanboy is behind this shit?”
“I reckon it’s a scientist,” Gordon replies. “The goal is clearly experimentation. Maybe making some sort of army to infiltrate Gotham’s streets.”
Selina watches the Bat close his eyes for a moment, too fleeting for Gordon to notice. He had inspired the Riddler. He had inspired thugs. Maybe he was still Vengeance. Maybe he was too late to become Hope.
“The chemical composition is particularly advanced,” the Bat says before he can overthink. “I’ve been trying to analyze samples at home, but I’ll need more. Since different types of gasses have different effects on victims, I should try to breakdown every type.”
“GCPD forensics is also on the case,” Gordon replies. “I’ll try to snag different samples of the variants for you.”
“I’m assuming you want me on the ground?” Selina says with a raised brow. Gordon nods, but the Bat’s jaw tenses.
“I’ll take care of it,” she confirms before heading to drop down from the pulley. The Bat snatches her hand as she turns.
“Can I have a word with you?” he asks softly. Selina nods.
“I’ll see the two of you later,” Gordon says, looking between the pair. The Bat does not release his grip on Selina until he hears the elevator begin to creak downstairs.
“I don’t want you gathering samples,” he says immediately.
“I’m sorry what?”
“You’ll be put in danger.” Selina looks around in confusion, half of her wanting to scream ‘what’ and the other half wanting to scream ‘the fuck’.
“B, you’re the one who asked me to be your partner.”
“Yes-”
“You literally attract danger B,” Selina says. “If you didn’t want me in danger, you wouldn’t have asked me to be here.”
“That’s different,” he insists.
“How?” Selina almost yells. Her voice grows louder by the sentence. “You asked me to be a part of this team, that means contributing. You want me to be your bait every single time? Put me in the club to drag out the goons under Oz? What do you want from me B?”
“I want you safe-”
“Then why did you ask for me back?” Selina cuts him off. “The other day you asked me if I knew my place. I do, and that’s here.” She walks closer to him, trying to sooth herself and hide the rage that had bubbled up moments ago.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers back. “I promise I want you here, I do, I just-”
“Just what?” There is no malice in her interruption this time. If only people could see how truly expressive the Bat was. Everytime he and Selina meet, she notices the cracks within him growing and growing.
“I almost lost you during the flood,” his voice still low. That softness is back, the kind that contradicts his entire appearance. “I almost lost so many people, and that is a sort of fear that I cannot let constrict myself while I protect this city.”
“B,” Selina walks closer, the two of them almost chest to chest. “Whether you like it or not, you are danger, and the people around you know that. They would willingly risk everything to be by your side.”
“Why do you think I keep my circle so small?” She can’t tell if this is a joke or a sad confession.
“Either way,” Selina says, shaking herself from her thoughts. “I’m honored to be a part of it. And I want to be. I want to be here.”
He knows this, no matter how much she doubts herself. Selina is a stubborn woman, and like a cat, she does not come quickly. He had given her several outs, but the Bat always had a way of talking himself down.
“Okay,” he whispers. Selina is satisfied with his answer for the time being. She resists the urge to touch his face. To test him in the same way he had tested her at their reunion. Would he lean into her touch? Would he fail the task that she had succeeded?
She gives in, her gloves in her back pocket long ago. Her skin is on his, and despite the December chill, his face is warm. His scruff pricks at her fingers and Selina knows that her thoughts will be full of this interaction for the next few weeks. The Bat swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing at the sudden touch. She can tell that he’s starved of this. If his inner circle is as small as he suggests, there’s likely no one else tending to his physical needs.
“I-” he begins, voice half choked from such a simple touch. He clears his throat, hoping to get rid of the noise. “Alfred wanted me to give you something.”
His comment doesn’t deter Selina. Instead she trails her hand down from his jawline to his chest, resting her hand over the sharp emblem plastered across it.
“And what would that be?” The Bat produces an envelope for her from God knows where.
“I don’t know what it says,” he promises. Alfred has insisted that he not read it. Somehow, his self control won.
“I’ll open it later,” Selina stares at the stationary. “You can always reach me.”
“I know,” he nods. She feels dumb for stating the obvious. They both knew that she still had the contacts. The moment is over, they both should leave. Neither of them moves to do so.
“I’ll be safe,” She only says it to reassure him. It doesn’t work.
“You’re too curious for your own good.” Selina lets a puff of air come out of her nose.
“Well you know what they say…” She trails off.
“I don’t want you to kill the Cat.”
“You do know the rest of the saying? Right?” It’s a genuine question on her part.
“Of course.”
“Then you know that I’ll put myself in harm's way despite your warning,” Selina says. “I’ll keep putting myself in danger.”
They both know what she means. There’s far too many of these between them. These unspoken promises. But there’s a sense of relief in knowing that she will stay. That she won’t run off to Bludhaven again. Selina hopes that she won’t break that promise, but fleeing is unfortunately in her nature. She flees now, nodding and trying desperately to ruin the moment. To ignore the feeling blossoming in her cheeks, her heart, her stomach.
The two of them don’t say a verbal goodbye, simply scaling down the building. It’s better practice than taking the elevator. It’s much more practical.
She opens the envelope when she gets home. Selina isn’t quite sure what she expected. Envelopes remind her of long meandering letters and missed bills. There’s only a small note inside with a phone number scrawled across it in perfectly neat cursive.
“For emergencies, Alfred.”
“Thanks Alfred,” she whispers to herself. She’s sure that the Bat would disapprove if he knew she had this information. Not because he’s worried about risking his identity, but because it was one more tug into his world. Into danger.
Selina promised herself she would only use the number in emergencies, just like Alfred had asked. She only wondered how much trouble the two of them would get into
*
The next time she sees him is two days later. Gordon has her number now. Not only is it a way to keep her in the loop, but it also seems like a way to keep her on a leash.
They start planning simple patrols on the Eastside of town. The Bat has designed a mask to go with Selina’s suit that should filter any toxic gas she comes in contact with. He fusses over her suit, worried about how breathable the fabric is. Something about gasses seeping through the material and touching her skin.
She doesn’t let him alter it, embarking on the mission with only the face mask as her newest wardrobe addition. It goes off without a hitch. She manages to capture several of the toxins successfully. Gordon takes any duplicates with him to the forensics lab for study, while the Bat takes his own samples home to analyze himself. Selina thinks he’s anal retentive, but understands his suspicions. Corruption does not go so easily.
The third mission, he insists on going on the ground with her. It’s clearly a protective part of him. Despite their conversation, her words have not comforted him completely. It’s disappointing to Selina, perhaps she misread the level of trust in their relationship. Would there ever be a day where he could open himself up to her completely?
The two of them stake out on different parts of the Eastside. Selina stays north while the Bat remains south. Selina tries to rationalize why he was doing physical work with her instead of analyzing her movements behind a computer screen.
Part of her understands, he hasn’t done any ground work since Gordon, him, and Selina had started looking into this case. He was probably itching for a fight and in a sense, redemption. Being on the street means protecting the victims of Gotham’s brutality. It means gaining the faith of the city’s population. The flood was just the first step. Every day she sees the guilt behind his eyes, the thought that he has yet to do enough. As often as she calls him Vengeance, she knows that he is trying to distance himself from the moniker. Calling him Hope feels too personal, no matter how much she wants to know more about the man behind the mask.
He is distant. He is the watchful eye at the side of rooms, calculating every single move, hearing every single whisper. Selina prefers to be in on the action, collecting the information first hand. She supposed that was why he eventually caved in to her pleas of doing groundwork. To be fair, he had given her that position first, long ago when she put on her earpiece at the Iceberg Lounge for the first time.
Coms are set as they prowl the town, his voice in her ear and hers in his. Selina had always thought of the Bat’s voice as gravel. Hard yet small rocks that could cause you to slip, crafty enough to stick in your skin for days on end. She now realizes he is sand. Some call it coarse and rough, once again clinging on in the most irritating of ways, making its mark on those who dare touch it. But Selina has always loved escaping to the beach. Keeping the sand between her toes, soft like a blanket despite the heat of the sun.
Cats did like to sunbathe.
“See anything on your end?” his voice startles her from her thoughts.
“Nothing of note. The blocks seem fairly clear at the moment, nothing rising up from the sewers just yet.”
Victims had described the way that the gas had surrounded them, coming from potholes and sewer grates as they walked to corner side bodegas. The Bat had theorized about the creator of this weapon before. Experimenting on members of Gotham’s higher society would cause too much attention. However, the chemist's attempts had been successful so far, with almost every victim gaining some sort of ability after their attack. The disfigurement was the one constant among the patients.
“I think I’ll move back to your side of town,” Selina says. “He’s been striking over here most often. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wants to test a different sample size.”
The Bat makes an affirmative noise in response, giving Selina the go ahead to jump on her motorcycle and speed across the Eastside of Gotham. All was well, the engine of her motorcycle the only noise comforting her as she rode.
Suddenly there was a yelp. The Batman does not yelp, he barely even winces through pain unless he is knocked down flat on his back.
“Baby?” Selina says. She is not panicking, there is no need to panic, she’s simply overthinking.
“Selina,” he almost whimpers. The reassuring lies she had told herself immediately disappear. She can panic now.
“I’m coming baby,” she says, voice steady. “I’m coming, tell me where you are. I need to know where you are.”
The Bat lists off street names, teeth obviously grit together. Selina weaves through cars, her speedometer rising and rising and rising. She literally dumps her bike when she sees him lying down in an alley. A green liquid seeps through the mesh parts of his suit and realizes the horrible smell that’s wafting over her is the scent of burning skin.
“B,” she practically screams as she runs towards him. “Oh my god. Okay, this is gonna be okay baby, you’re gonna be okay.” She still can’t tell if she’s telling herself this or him.
She realizes what she must do. Her fingers swiftly dial the phone number Alfred gave her.
“Miss Selina,” Alfred says after the first ring. “Is everything alright?”
“There’s been an incident with the chemicals. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go-”
“Are you safe?” His voice is surprisingly level.
“It’s not me, it’s him,” she tries not to cry.
“Who, who are you talking, t-to-” her Bats manages to spit out.
“He took the car, correct?” Alfred’s voice still sounds calm, but there’s a hidden fear behind his sterile words.
“Did you take the car?” she asks him. He only nods in response, the movement jagged and sharp. She doesn’t bother asking him if he can move.
Selina drags him towards the Batmobile, his arm draped over her shoulder as he limps along to help her carry his weight. She finds his keys on his belt before hauling him into the passenger seat and putting it down in a lying position. Selina straps him down in every possible area. By this time, the poison is no longer visible, likely soaking into his bloodstream from some unhealed open wound on his body.
“Where do I go?” Selina chokes out to Alfred. He’s silent. He has a choice to make.
“Turn on the car, plug your number into the touch screen,” he orders. She obeys at once. “I’ll send you directions. I’m sure you know how to drive a manual car?” Selina nods before she remembers that Alfred can’t see her.
“Yes.”
“Good. The mechanics of the vehicle are simple despite its appearance,” the directions suddenly appear on the screen. Alfred’s voice suddenly runs through the speakers once she starts driving.
“Alfred,” Bats’ voice growing raspier by the minute. The poison must have some control over his airways as well. “Don’t let her see, don’t let-”
His eyes begin to close and Selina silently prays that he’s merely passing out. With the amount of times she’s prayed to God recently, she might have to take up mass again.
The map leads her down into a subway system and she speeds despite the bumpiness of the tracks. She’s driving too fast to notice the name Wayne Enterprises plastered across the walls. Alfred is waiting for as she pulls in. The only sounds keeping her focused is the stall of the mobile’s engine and the screeching of bats.
Alfred rushes over to the passenger side, unbuckling the Bat. Selina moves towards him, holding his feet as Alfred carries his head. He’s placed on top of a table and Alfred begins to dismantle the kevlar suit of armor that hides him from Selina.
“How can I help?” Selina forces herself to ask. Focusing on the task at hand may help her forget the severe extent her emotions are having on her.
“There’s charcoal water in the fridge. We’ll need to force feed it to him. If not, an IV. Hopefully it will bind it to the poison and stop further absorption into his blood,” Alfred says as he takes off the shoulder pads. “There should be a ventilator in the closet door by the elevator.”
Selina does as he says, pushing the ventilator on rolling wheels towards the table before dashing to a mini fridge close by. When she arrives, the Bat is completely shirtless. Her eyes widened for a split moment as she took him in. He is lean like he had suspected, but defined and bulky around the muscles that he most often uses while fighting. She shakes her head before setting the water on the table next to Alfred, who has begun to run blood tests. He stops once a needle is placed into the Bat’s vein.
He stares at Selina. He looks as though he is about to cave in.
“I need to run upstairs,” he says, looking between the body on the table and Selina. “I…”
“I won’t look at him,” Selina swallows. No matter how curious she has become, she knows that curiosity would kill her. And her curiosity could also kill him. “I promise.”
“That is the issue Miss Kyle,” Alfred says. “I need you to check for head wounds.” Selina tries and fails to stop her mouth from gaping.
“I, I-” Selina begins to stutter. She berates herself. This was not the time to be at a loss for words and she quickly attempted to pull herself together. “Why can’t you do that?”
“Either way you will see his face, Miss Kyle,” Alfred says. “This is a two person job and our maid Dory is squeamish around blood.”
“I can’t break his trust like that,” she says, tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes. “I can’t take a secret with that much weight. He isn’t ready-”
“We have no choice,” Alfred says firmly. “I will gather supplies upstairs while you check. I know you are far too intelligent to run off with this information.” Alfred begins to head towards the elevator before stopping in his tracks. His eyes soften as he turns around to look at her. “I also know you care far too much about him to tip the scales in your favor.”
Selina nods and waits for Alfred to go upstairs before turning back to face her Bat. Her B.
“Please forgive me,” she whispers. “I understand if you never can. You have given me bits at a time and now I have to take this, for your sake.”
She slowly removes his cowl, much like a child refusing to rip off a bandaid. Selina doesn’t dare look into his eyes once it is removed, making herself move around parts of his hair to look for blood. There seems to be none as she maneuvers his head in her hands. After five minutes of avoidance she forces herself to finally look at his face.
Selina gets to swim in those blue eyes up close. His makeup is smeared down the sides of his cheeks, raccoonish in a way that would be adorable if not for the circumstances the two of them were in. His hair is flopping down into his face now, covering his eyebrows. The Bat does not move at all as she investigates him. His skin is still soft despite the familiar stubble.
There’s a flicker of recognition as she stares and stares and stares. Whatever could the letter B mean? He has a maid, he has a butler, and he clearly has connections. The rich part of her theory is correct.
It hits her all at once. A man that she had once despised pops into her mind. This is Bruce Wayne.
This is where the money goes. After the flood, the Wayne Foundation began to rebuild, donating millions of dollars to the rebuilding of Gotham. Wayne made frequent public appearances, moving onto the front lines to pull civilians out of the wreckage. His waders and mask made him fairly unrecognizable, but the media soon caught wind. It was clear that his actions weren’t meant as a publicity stunt. He gave no comment of his on the ground work when pestered by multiple journalists at press conferences. These small acts of kindness were what turned the tide on Selina’s opinion of Bruce Wayne. She had not been completely won over, but his dedication certainly made her heart crumble.
It seems that the Batman was not just a nocturnal animal, but rather a lonely child trying to fix his family’s broken legacy. The Bat began it all and the flood began to finish it.
“Bruce,” she tries the name on her tongue. Despite her attempts to deny it, she had always found the man quite handsome.
“Bruce,” Alfred whispers from behind her. She turns to face him, heart in her throat.
“I…” Selina doesn’t know what to say.
“Any head injuries?” Alfred may be asking out of concern for his adopted son, but also to distract Selina from the thoughts racing in her head.
“No,” she says.
“Well,” Alfred replies before changing into a new set of gloves. “Help me stitch him up.”
*
Bruce wakes up with a gasp and the weight of the world on his chest. Needles are pressed into both of his arms and he can feel cool sweat dripping down his forehead despite feeling overheated.
He does not care about his condition, he only cares about-
“Selina,” Bruce yells, whipping his head around the room. Alfred, who had been sitting beside him, wakes up with a start. His hands instantly push Bruce back down on the table.
“She’s safe,” he says. “She’s upstairs. I told her to go to sleep.”
“She knows, doesn’t she?” Alfred nods. “How could you?” Bruce’s voice cracks. “Do you understand what you have done? The kind of people that she hates? I am dead to her now. I am nothing to her because that is what I have always been.”
“If you are nothing then why did I have to drag her upstairs?” Alfred asks. “Why did I have to force her away from your bedside so she could finally rest? Bruce, that woman has been beside you since she dragged you from that alleyway thirty six hours ago.”
Bruce swallows, looking down at the burn marks scattered across his chest.
“Drink,” Alfred hands him a bottle of water. Despite wanting to spite the man, thirst takes over.
“Were you able to take any of the poison?” Asking about the case will distract him from Selina.
“I was able to separate some from your bloodstream. I wasn’t able to get much, but I sent a vial over to your friend at the GCPD and put the other in your lab.”
“Thank you.” Bruce says. He genuinely means it, but his voice is still flat. Selina won’t be able to leave his mind for quite some time.
“I’ll leave you alone for now,” Alfred says. “You should get some more rest before we move you upstairs to your room.”
Bruce stares at the wires and tubes extending from his body. He knows he has no choice but to comply.
“Bruce,” his head snaps up to look at Alfred. “She cares about you.”
“She cares about the Bat,” Bruce says definitively.
“No,” Alfred shakes his head. “Miss Kyle did not stop once she saw your face Bruce. She did not stop once. That worry she had when she took you home remained level the whole time. I dare say it increased once she saw the complete state you were in.”
Bruce tries to find comfort in Alfred’s words, but once again fails. Alfred leaves before Bruce can get another word out. He remains anxious until sleep overtakes him half an hour later.
*
He sleeps in his room now. Alfred checks his vitals every day and brings him breakfast in bed. Selina has not visited despite living in the tower for several days. Part of Bruce wants to leap out of bed and confront her in his guest room, but cats spook easily, and miraculously he has yet to scare her off. He’d like to keep it that way.
There’s an old episode of Buffy playing on the TV in his room. He’s too lazy to change the channel. Thankfully Alfred no longer forces him to have the IVs in at all times, giving him the chance to toss around in his sleep like he usually does. He tends to curl into a ball or sleep on his front, murmuring about case information as he barely gets rest.
It’s while he turns over to the side that he hears a knock at his bedroom door.
“What, Alfred?” Bruce grumbles.
“Not Alfred,” Selina replies, taking it as her cue to enter the room. Bruce’s head shoots up instantly, staring wide eyed at his partner standing in his room as though this was something that happened regularly. He might be clothed, but without the mask on he felt naked in front of her.
“Selina,” he whispers.
“B,” she whispers back, walking towards him. She carefully sits down next to him on the edge of the bed. There are words coming up her throat and she’s terrified they will come spilling out without rehearsal.
“Why didn’t you leave?” Bruce’s voice cracks. Her eyes soften, just another tear for her to patch up.
“You’re someone I care about,” Selina says, her hand reaching for Bruce’s. Her fingers carefully wrap around his. “I took something from you without your say. Secrets shouldn’t be stripped away like that.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Bruce replies. If this was the only reason she was here, he’d prefer for her to leave.
“I’m here because you are a solace,” she admits. “You are a rope to cling onto while we race through the streets and I cannot let you go.”
“You can’t let him go,” Bruce says. Selina shakes her head, a breathy sad laugh leaving her.
“No,” she replies. “I can’t leave you. Not the Bat, not Bruce, I can’t leave you.”
Her hand moves from his back to his cheek. She’ll never get tired of touching him, never get tired of his reactions to the feeling. He gives instead of holding out like the two of them have done before, leaning into her palm. He has some control, as he tells himself not to nuzzle into it.
She rubs her thumb gently over his lip before pulling herself completely onto his bed, legs folded over each other. Bruce lays back down from his upright position, head on the pillow as she plays with his hair. It’s tender, it’s sweet. The sound of the television makes the whole exchange feel domestic and Selina can’t help but to place a kiss on Bruce’s forehead. He audibly sighs at the feeling of her lips touching his brow. It makes her laugh just a little.
“You truly are touch starved, aren’t you?” Bruce scowls at her words. “I’m just teasing you. Besides, I can change that.”
A sweet sigh leaves Bruce’s mouth at Selina’s words.
“You’d like that wouldn’t you baby?” Bruce can only nod. “Let me know if I hurt you, or if it’s too much.”
He once again nods, too nervous to say anything. Selina pulls the covers off of Bruce gently before straddling his waist. She’s still cradling his head in her hands like a delicate piece of china. It’s then that she decides to kiss him. A small press of her lips against his, her hands moving down his chest as she leans into him. Bruce is quick to reciprocate, wrapping an arm around her waist, trying to find a way to deepen it. Selina laughs against his lips. A part of it is out of joy that she’s with him, the other at his endearing eagerness.
“Slow down cowboy,” she mumbles, her smile still pressed against his.
“I’m trying, I swear,” he presses a kiss against her jawline to emphasize his point. The soft presses travel down her neck, nothing open mouthed, no teeth in sight. He’s simply applying pressure to one of the most modest yet sensitive parts of her, and it seems like he can’t get enough.
“You can give me more,” Selina softly sighs. “I can handle it.” Bruce blushes.
“I’m not entirely sure I know how,” he mumbles into her skin. God was his inexperience cute.
“Let me show you,” Selina all but purrs, pushing Bruce gently against the headboard and pulling his shirt off. Bruce freezes slightly once the shirt is off, but doesn’t make any effort to stop her. Selina herself decides to stop moving her wandering hands.
She stares across his chest. A treasure map of bruises, scars, stitches and the recent burns. She understands now why he stopped. Bruce looks down at her to see not disgust, but pleading eyes.
“You’re not hideously scarred,” she whispers. Her fingers trail across a prominent scar just under his collarbone. She kisses it gently before moving onto one mark after another, almost as if her love could heal every single one. Bruce runs a hand over her short hair as she travels across his skin, trying not to tear up at her actions.
“I want to take care of you,” he says, hands moving down her waist. “Let me take care of you. You’ve taken care of me.”
Just like she did, Bruce carefully removes her top. He seems to be a student who responds quickly by watching and learning. She guides his hands up and down her chest, moving one of his hands to unclasp her bra. It takes him a few tries but soon enough it’s off and discarded, leaving her torso completely exposed to him.
He stares. It’s the only thing he knows how to do. Selina remains a patient teacher, moving to lay on her back so he can kiss down her chest just like she did to him. His tongue swirls a nipple, experimenting gently. Blue eyes watch her every move, searching for every little twitch and whine. His hands grip her closer, a desperate plea to make sure she doesn’t squirm away. He can’t have her escape now.
They move down to the waistband of her leggings, teasing and snapping as he places kisses along her stomach now. Selina moves her legs wider in anticipation, not truly expecting him to make a move, but preparing in case he gathered the courage to pull her bottoms off.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You can do whatever you’d like.”
“Do you promise to teach me?” Selina melts.
“Whatever you want baby,” she rises back up to give him a soft kiss. “I’ll help you with whatever you want.”
That’s all Bruce needs to desperately pull off her leggings and panties. He spreads her legs, hands gripping her thighs tightly, already leaving red marks against her. He falters a bit, clearly realizing the situation he’s in.
“You don’t have t-”
“I want to,” Bruce nods enthusiastically. “I want to taste all of you.” Those words should not leave a shiver running down Selina’s spine, but they get to her nevertheless.
Bruce situates himself back between her legs, pressing a kiss against the curls guarding her. He licks once, ever so slowly up against her cunt and feels Selina’s thighs begin to clench around his head. He takes this as a good sign, moving to do the action once again. This time Bruce stops at the little pearl at the top of Selina’s pussy. He was a smart man, he knew basic female anatomy, so Bruce decided that his best course of action was to suck. His tongue swirled around Selina’s clit, gathering the taste of girl onto his lips, leaving Selina to moan and beg and put her hands in his hair.
“Fuck, you’re doing so good,” Selina whimpered. “That’s it baby, such a good boy.”
Bruce tries to ignore the way her praise goes straight to his cock. He distracts himself by tracing little figure eights on her hips, spelling her name out with his fingers. He kisses her hip bone, nipping at the fat of her thigh before tugging with his teeth. His tongue immediately soothes the red spot that follows.
“Fingers?” He whispers against her skin.
“Please,” she gasps out. “Fuck, please B.” Even as she lays in her bed Selina uses his name. Not the name he was given at birth, not the name that Gotham had given him, Selina uses his name.
He fulfills her wish, his index finger breaching her and slowly moving in and out. He begins to explore, ever perceptive, ever the experimenter. Small crooks of his finger have her gasping and moaning the most. Her breathing halts when he touches a particular spot and that’s when he decides to abuse it. Adding a second finger into her, he pries her way open. The way she clenches around his fingers is delicious, but the taste of her is so much better.
Bruce decides to dive back in, her clit on his tongue as his lithe fingers continue to play with her.
“Jesus Christ baby,” Selina groans. “Gonna cum if you keep touching me like that.”
“Isn’t that the goal?” Bruce replies, face slick with her. Selina nods vigorously.
“Yes, yes please, ye-” Bruce laps at her before she can continue to beg. She sounds like the crescendo in a symphony, rising higher and higher and higher before one final crest. Her breathing is a whole rest. Her sigh, the end.
“Are you sure you haven’t done that before?” Selina asks with a breathy laugh.
“Don’t feed my ego like that,” Bruce says, chin still glistening. Selina kisses him then, the taste of her shared on their tongues as she grinds on his lap. She can feel his cock salivatingly hard through his boxers.
“It’s unfair that I’m completely bare for you and I don’t get to see…” She plays with his waistband just as he had played with hers. Bruce gulps, simply out of nerves and the pleasure of being teased. “We don’t have to go further-”
“I need you to go further,” Bruce whispers. Selina obliges, taking his cock out with a gentle pull and tugging him up and down slowly. She doesn’t bother looking, she’d prefer to see this sight. Bruce Wayne in front of her with his eyes closed, head only supported by the headboard behind him. The first moan he unleashes at her first touch could easily be her favorite sound. She needs to ride him.
“Where do you want me baby?” She asks sweetly. She knows exactly where she wants to be.
“Wanna feel, w-wanna-” It’s Bruce’s turn to stutter now. A time for him to get a taste of his own medicine.
“Feel what angel?” Selina coos. “You can’t get it unless you tell me.”
“In you,” Bruce manages to sigh out. “Wanna be in you.”
“But where in me?” Selina asks coyly. She’s playing with her food just for the fun of it. “Come on baby, tell me.”
“Wanna feel your pussy,” Bruce whimpers, truly and beautifully whimpers. Selina has no choice but to say yes.
“Of course baby,” Selina says, moving to put him inside of her. “How could I ever deny you?”
It’s then that she decides to finally look at his length, and God was it just the way she liked it. A little bit thick, a few extra inches, and enough for her to take everyday without being in pain.
She sits herself down slowly, enjoying every single bit of the stretch. The noise Bruce makes when she gently puts the tip of his cock in is unhinged. Part growl, part gasp, Bruce swears that he is in heaven. Selina is the closest he would ever reach to it, and that was more than enough for him.
“You want me to move B?” Selina asks when she’s fully seated down. Bruce can only nod, too scared at what noise might come out of his mouth. She doesn’t tease him this time, merely beginning the slow bounce up and down as she rests her hands on his shoulders.
Bruce reaches out to pull her flush against his chest, a hand on her back as he begins to thrust up into her, matching her rhythm. Selina sighs into his shoulders, clutching and desperately grabbing at his back. Despite her resolve, she claws at him. Long red marks traveling across his shoulder blades and spine. The pain seems to only encourage Bruce. It’s a sign that she’s more than enjoying herself.
“Don’t know if I can-”
“It’s okay baby,” Selina coos. “You can cum in me.”
“Should’ve asked if-” Bruce gets out. “If safe, if-”
“I’m safe Bruce, I promise,” Selina presses a kiss to his shoulder. He was far more considerate than any man had been to her before when it came to protection. “You can cum in me, I want you to. Can you do that for me B?”
And Bruce could never deny her, just as he could never deny him. He finishes inside her with a sob, feeling slightly embarrassed at how soon the pleasure was over. Selina strokes his hair as he comes down, making no attempt to get off of him.
“You okay baby?” Selina caresses his face. It’s become one of her favorite things to do. Bruce is unable to speak, he only nods. “Do you wanna sleep?”
“Yeah,” his voice comes out hoarse.
“Okay babe, let’s get you cleaned up,” Selina goes to move off before she’s tugged back against Bruce’s chest.
“No,” he grumbles. “Just stay.” He pulls the sheets up over them, maneuvering the two of them on their sides. Bruce’s cock remains in Selina as she wraps her legs around her waist. She’s too pleasure drunk to disagree, and if she felt this fuzzy, she could only imagine the high Bruce was going through.
“Okay baby,” Selina pressed a kiss to Bruce’s head. “Sleep now.”
“Sleep now,” he mumbled.
Selina remembered tragedy. She remembered her mother and Annika and the flood. She remembered the Waynes dead in the street and their son watching them carried in caskets down Main.
She remembers that it brought the two of them together. That the scales would not have been balanced if not for their secrets.
Selina Kyle may not believe in fairy tales, but maybe she could finally believe in the kindness of familiar yet distant strangers.
She could finally rest.
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How is it already April?
crossposted from my newsletter.
Thanks to everyone who came to Emerald City and stopped by! While I did recover from my sinus infection before going, my throat/voice didn't come back until like a week or 2 ago.
This month I'm redoing the Fame and Misfortune live reading. If you don't remember, when I did it in February my mic was broken. I have a new mic! So take two of the live reading is happening! Tune into my twitch on April 22nd at noon PST.
This month is also the release month of The Lizard Prince and Other South American Stories. This is the last Cautionary Fables and Fairytales volume. Iron Circus told me they will get the warehouse at the end of the month. Then it can start going out to backers and stores!
Also, I want to give a shout out to my pal Matt Wilson's Zoop campaign, Imposter Syndicate. It's about folks who are hired to take over supervillian mantles after a supervillian dies or goes to jail. It has 11 days left to fund.
Also this month's full moon movie is The Wolf Man, the one for the 40s. If you'd like to join we'll be watching it on April 6th at 4pm PST. Just click here to join the discord.
As always I'll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:
Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
Wednesday 8pm-10pm PST
Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)
March kicked my ass. Between Emerald City and being sick, I had a lot to catch up on. Both from Seven Seas, Iron Circus, and my comics all had a stack of work to finish up. Honestly, I'm kinda depressed about the fact that I still haven't been able to finish Blue Moon. While Spike is understanding about the delays (given that organizing crowdfunds for her is part of the delay), I'm frustrated at the lack of progress.
I'm also kinda frustrated with my art lately. Last month I mentioned I might have to put You are the Chosen One on hiatus after the current chapter, but I think I might switch to every other week. It's only way I'm gonna have time to push myself on it the way I want. Regardless, I'd rather wait for Chapter 3 to wrap up before making that schedule change. Until then. I'll just be tired I guess.
But because I don't know any better, I started learning Japanese from Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. I appreciate that they are small enough lessons that I can do them little bit by little bit.
Anyway, while working this is what I've been watching and reading:
History of the World Part 2 - I basically grew up on Mel Brooks movies. I've seen all his movies before graduating high school. So when Hulu said it was making a History of the World Part 2 series, I had to watch it. I didn't quite know what to expect, but had to check it out. Like many sketch shows, the sketches are hit or miss. But when it's funny it's REALLY funny. Johny Knoxvill plays Rasputin in a jackass parody that shows all the way Rasputin is killed and it's so much funnier than it has any right to be. It's definitely worth a watch if you like Mel Brooks.
Palm Springs - This is another comedy where I didn't know what to expect. Groundhog Day but starring Andy Samberg didn't strike me as super original but the trailer looked funny, so I put it on while drawing. It was not only funny but much more heartfelt than I expected. Andy Samberg's characters starts the movie as having already been in the time loop for a long time. He has to relive a wedding he's a guest at over and over. The movies starts when the sister of the bride gets trapped in the timeloop with him. Having two people in the time loop gives it more interesting dynamic than the usual timeloop story. Both characters' different approach to the timeloop adds push and pull to the relationship. And it is just really funny.
Tár - Right before Emerald City Comic Con a youtuber I like, Maggie Mae Fish, made a video about this movie. And how it examines how people abuse power. The basic summary of the movie is Tár is a conductor at the top of her field and she keep abusing her power, mostly to sleep with/date/groom young attractive women that work for her. It's an interesting movie because if it was about a man it would be a cliche. But because Tár is a woman, the movie can focus on the details and specifics of her abuse of power. There is a lot of attention to detail that helps the movie work on another level. I think if I say anything more, then I'd end up getting into spoilers/would basically be writing an essay about it.
Wolf Pack - I thought this was a sequel to MTV's Teen Wolf. And it is not. It has the same show runner and effects team, so it LOOKS like it should be connected to Teen Wolf, but instead it's much more serious. Which is kinda a shame. The show is kinda stiff in its seriousness. There are interesting bits here and there, like all the werewolves only get one werewolf power unless they are all together. But in its attempt to be series, it also tries to throw in one too many twists and then ends the show by taking a sharp turn into ableist messaging.
Witch Hat Atelier Volume 1 by Kamome Shirahama - Last month I mentioned I've been listening to the podcast Mangasplaining. This and the next pick are the first of what will probably be several manga I check out based on that podcast. I had been recommended Witch Hat Atelier before and just put it off because time. Mangasplaining reviewing it was the final push I needed. They basically mentioned that magic in this series is 100% a metaphor for art. And appropriately, the art is just so beautiful that it's inspiring. I think it and Ghost Cage were part of what made me think I need to take the time to level up my art.
Delicious in Dungeon by Ryoko Kui - This series I read a bunch of before the pandemic and then the library stopped being up to date on it/interrupted me checking em out regularly. If you aren't familiar, it's about dnd style adventurers exploring a dungeon and experimenting with cooking the monsters they kill (so they don't have to go back for supplies). It's almost over so I went and grabbed the books I hadn't read yet (like 5 I think). This one is really cute and I've liked how the plot has developed from the original premise to something with more complicated.
Ghost Cage by Nick Dragotta and Caleb Goellner - I picked this up because I know both Nick and Caleb. They had the first few issues at SDCC and I made a note to grab the trade when it's out. The premiss is this little robot guy has to fight personifications of what humans use for power (above is Fossil Fuel). The art is the real star of the show. It looks cool as hell and it is the star of the show. The paneling is really rad and interesting. Like I said with Witch Hat Atelier, it left me inspired to try and up my art.
Backpacking through Bedlam (Book 12 in Incryptid series) by Seanan McGuire - The Incryptid series is about a family of Cryptozoologists. This books picks up right after a semi cliffhanger from the last book. It's kinda hard to talk about it on its own. I liked it but I kinda wish it and the book right before it were one book.
That's everything I've been from me this month. I hope I can get a little more time to focus on stuff.
#newsletter#kelmcdonald#comics#werewolves#twitch#the city between#you are the chosen one#witch hat atelier#nick dragotta#ghost cage#tar#history of the world part 2#palm springs#delicious in dungeon
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ʚĭɞ ― CHARACTER SPOTLIGHT : THE PIGEON.
The Fae Prince —— long lost, forgotten, abandoned, betrayed. A bride scorned, he was once among the faefolk of Diamond Kingdom, long before the dastardly reign of Queen Beatrice. He stood in line as a potential successor to Her Majesty, Queen Bill, whenever she saw fit to step down from her role as ruler over the fae domain. Young and naïve, he was among the idealistic youth of his kind, head in the clouds & lost in fairytales of old. He was tricky, mischievous, and playful, but never particularly cruel, even to outsiders who wandered into the domains of the fae. His story goes like so :
There once was a fairy who lived in the woods and across their path did a dapper young lady pass on her way through Wonderland. Into one-another’s company each of them became entangled and deeply in love did they two fall. Despite their differences, they pled to be together. Upon them, the Fae King refused to impart their blessing and so together, the pigeon and the girl planned to run from the kingdom of the fae and seek solace instead within the walls of Heart Kingdom, where they would be wed in secret. One night did the fae await his beloved, and so did she come : but his love betrayed him, a knife to his back, and to the nightmares did his corpse return.
Thus was a cautionary fable of love passed throughout Wonderland’s society : though, secluded as Diamond Kingdom was, none beyond its walls ever truly knew if the star-crossed fae prince, poor broken hearted Vaeril, ever truly existed.
—— VAERIL LAUREMIÈRES. The Pigeon. The Fae Prince. Though now his tale is but fable within the world of Wonderland, he was once a prominent figure within the fae court of Diamond Kingdom. His story has since been romanticized as it has been passed down over the centuries, but truth lingers in the tale itself, regardless. Once a naïve and hopelessly romantic prince, he fell in love with an outsider who had fallen into Wonderland hundreds of thousands of years ago : a woman who, upon being manipulated by darker forces in Wonderland, was led to believe that if she imprisoned him within the Infernal Train and sacrificed his heart, it would save her from being sacrificed at the hands of the Jabberwocky. This, of course, was a false story crafted by the hands of whomsoever saw to set the stage for Beatrice’s coup de’tat by throwing Diamond Kingdom into chaos : as a result, the Pigeon was falsely imprisoned within the Infernal Train, his only crime his broken heart, and the Alice of that time was sacrificed to Wonderland shortly after.
Since then, the Pigeon has remained within the nightmarish realm of the infernal train, becoming twisted and corrupted by the dark magicks that make up the world within it. Presumed dead to Wonderland, he has taken over control of the train, unbeknownst to all within Wonderland’s realm, including Beatrice herself. He is the conductor of the nightmare realm, the one who sets the itinerary and leads the train through Wonderland so that it may similarly wreck havoc among its citizens as well as worsening the nightmares the Jabberwocky has plagued them all with. He only stops the train to pick up passengers: a rare occurrence, but one that happens at random nonetheless. He seeks those who are like him : brokenhearted, betrayed, jaded, bitter, and hurt.
Although jaded and cruel on the surface, Vaeril still very much suffers from the pain of Alice’s betrayal. His heart is literally broken : visible through the glass window that has grown across his chest to showcase the corruption of his heart and soul. In truth he is greatly in pain, eternally damned to suffer in a prison intended for the worst of Wonderland’s degenerates : his crime being that he had once had the gall to fall in love. Betrayed by his people and betrayed by love, he holds no remorse for those in Wonderland : nor for the outsiders who fall into it.
#vaeril got a HUGE rework so here's his character spotlight !#i rlly like his rewrite tbh i think he came out a lot better#🥺🥺🥺#ʚĭɞ ― character study: pigeon ˊˎ-#ʚĭɞ ― lore: wonderlandians ˊˎ-#ʚĭɞ ― lore: nightmare domain ˊˎ-#ʚĭɞ ― character spotlight ˊˎ-
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📖 The Nixie of the Mill-Pond and Other European Stories (A Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales Book) edited by Kel McDonald and Kate Ashwin
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
The third volume of the Cautionary Fables & Fairy Tales graphic novel series is a wild romp through some of Europe’s most famous fables and lesser known favorites, ranging from sly humor to dark fireside tales.
I really enjoyed the book in this series on Asian stories, so I thought I’d give the other books a read. I didn’t enjoy this one as much, a lot of the art was just ok and the stories felt like they went by pretty quick.
The three I enjoyed the best were “Hamelin’s Piper”(Germany) by Jose Pimienta, “Tatterhood”(Norway) by Kate and Shaggy Shanahan, and “Kid Brother”(Russia) by Carla Speed McNeil.
“Hamelin’s Piper” is about a Piper who is not rightfully treated after serving a great act, so he takes vengeance on the ones who mock him.
“Tatterhood” is about two sisters, one a perfect flower of a child, and the other a wild beastly thing. But they love each other and fight trolls!
“Kid Brother” is about a girl whose younger brother gets turned into a goat.
#godzilla reads#the nixie of the mill pond#the nixie of the mill pond and other European stories#a cautionary fables & fairy tales book#book review#cautionary fables and fairytales#graphic novels#fairy tales#folk tales#reading#booklr#bookworm#bookish#book blog
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The Adventures of Pinocchio
Book Information
Title : The Adventures of Pinocchio
Author : Carlo Collodi
Rating
Was the story engaging?
The Adventures of Pinocchio was engaging. As a book meant for children, there is never a dull moment in the adventures that the story details, jumping from one situation Pinocchio falls into to another with an incredibly quick pace as to not lose the audience’s attention. That being said however, the situations that Pinocchio manages to get himself into over and over again begin to become repetitive, causing the overall story to drag in terms of new emotions and materials.
Rating: 4/5
Were the characters enjoyable/developed well?
As a cautionary tale, many of the characters that are introduced within The Adventures of Pinocchio are meant to either help move the plot along or serve an additional purpose to Pinocchio himself as he goes on his different journeys. Because of this short timeframe in which many of the characters are involved with Pinocchio, their characterizations are short and straightforward, searching exactly the purpose that they were placed within the story to do.
Rating: 5/5
Was the plot developed well?
I have to say that the plot was developed decently well, although quite repetitive. The Adventures of Pinocchio is aimed at a child audience, and while it is important to recognize that, it is also important to recognize the plot on a storytelling baseline. There are many events and situations that Pinocchio is a part of throughout this story, with many events being completely unique in characters and environments. However, these events begin and end in very similar fashions, creating this sense of an ever-repeating story.
Rating: 4/5
Was the audience kept in mind?
Considering The Adventures of Pinocchio, I have to say that the audience was kept in mind, but not necessarily understood. Knowing that The Adventures of Pinocchio is meant to be a children’s story, many of the events that take place within the story make sense when considering the purpose of the story being told and its target audience. However, this audience has to be kept in mind when creating the flow of the story, of which The Adventures of Pinocchio seems to forget as the story continues on.
Rating: 3/5
Would I recommend the book?
I’m not too sure I would recommend The Adventures of Pinocchio to most readers. While I do understand that Pinocchio’s story is meant to be told primarily to children and should be read with that in consideration, there’s an additional layer that all good literature should be able to be enjoyed at any age - regardless of target audience. I would say that I would recommend The Adventures of Pinocchio to those who would like to further expand their knowledge of fairytales and fables (which I’m not 100% this story would fall under if I’m being honest), but most likely not to many others. Even to children, I can see this story becoming boring and frustrating as it continues on.
Rating: 2/5
Overall Rating: 3.6/5
Review
Warning: Spoilers!
I want to talk a little bit about why this book is so strange - stick with me here. The Adventures of Pinocchio is a children’s story and it always will be. It tells the tale of a wooden puppet that is, overall, very naughty with a good heart who eventually wishes to become a real boy. I’m sure that we’ve all heard of the story of Pinocchio in some way before, and we all recognize it as a children’s story, but we’ve also started to categorize it as a fairytale. Because of the way that it is typically approached in the media, the story of Pinocchio seems to have slowly become more and more separated from its original story, which is part of the reason why it's starting to be considered more of a fairytale than a children’s story. And you can’t consider fairy tales in the same way you do other literature - the same goes for myths, legends, and folklore. Because of how these types of stories are traditionally spread, whether or not they are documented a very specific way from one point in history and forwards in time, they are no longer unique stories. The Adventures of Pinocchio, however, is different because we have an original version that was specifically written and then published with the intent of being literature, and this distinction has to be considered when thinking through the story.
I had a couple of griefs with The Adventures of Pinocchio when I was reading through it (as you could probably tell based on my rating). Overall, The Adventures of Pinocchio tells the story of Pinocchio getting into troublesome situations over and over again due to his own decisions and behavior, which he is constantly advised against by those who care for him. With each situation Pinocchio manages to get in, he finds that if he had simply listened to what his father, or teacher, or even the cricket had said, he would not be in a situation where he or someone he cares for is in danger. This is where my main issue with Pinocchio’s story arises.
The Adventures of Pinocchio serves as a cautionary tale for children, advising them to listen to their parents and behave as good children to avoid the dangers and consequences of not doing so - and this element of the story should not be ignored as it serves a huge purpose as to why the story was told in the first place. Pinocchio is a child and he acts like a child who does not understand discipline and the consequences of the world, and therefore he is exposed to exactly that. This method of storytelling would have allowed the children who had read it to understand these consequences and the confusion of the world around them without having to experience these situations directly, allowing them the opportunity to learn life lessons in a much safer environment than Pinocchio did. Additionally, having Pinocchio, a character that is described as carefree and fun-loving, be the center of this story allows child readers to potentially connect with the story being told, allowing a chance of better understanding. This is all wonderful, and something that we still see (and search for) in children’s literature today. But there’s something that The Adventures of Pinocchio did not quite hit when telling Pinocchio’s story - children are not dense.
Pinocchio’s story carried on far longer than need be for most children to understand the consequences of their disobedience and actions, with each situation Pinocchio ended up in holding the same reasons for existing. Pinocchio would choose to disobey his authority figures that had good intentions for him (and that he knew had good intentions for him), he would end up in a situation, either he or someone he cared for would suffer as a consequence, and then he managed to escape the situation before then getting right into another one. This occurs over and over again, becoming highly repetitive and - dare I say it - boring. Again, we need to consider the target audience for this story, and remember that this is a story targeted to children to teach them to behave without having to suffer the consequences of misbehaving directly. If you lose their attention, you run the risk of not getting that lesson through and possibly even developing a distaste for the story itself.
Overall, The Adventures of Pinocchio does what it set out to do, which is tell a cautionary tale of disobedience and the consequences of this through a childlike character to encourage children to obey within their own lives. It does run into a problem, however, when the plot becomes too repetitive and the target audience begins to be forgotten in exchange for attempting to instill a lesson.
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December 2023 Reading Update!
Despite how busy November was, I finished a bunch of things (though there were two short novellas and a DNF in there, to be fair)! So there's a bunch of mini-reviews ahead, balanced by the fact that December is a quiet month for publishing, so I don't have anything big to highlight coming up.
So here's the Keep Reading break for the Long Post ahead!
November Mini-Reviews
The Forest Brims Over by Maru Ayase - 4 stars
Each of the chapters is told from a different perspective, circling inward to Rui herself at the end. There's a lot of examination over gender roles and iniquities, though it plays a little softball with the subject for my taste. I tend to prefer when women are allowed their full rage, and kinda feel some folks were let off the hook a little easy.
Lone Women by Victor LaValle - 5 stars
This was a wild ride; I understand why folks can't say too much about this one, because the journey takes many unexpected turns. What you can expect is for the chills to come from human sources at least as often as supernatural ones. I'm more interested than ever to pick up The Changeling from LaValle now, as I've heard it's incredible, too.
Fresh Dirt from the Grave by Giovanna Rivero - DNF
As much as I enjoyed the first couple stories, there were iffy things in the next two or three that put me off, particularly with portrayals of Indigenous folks and disability. Chose not to finish and to leave it unrated.
The Crane Husband by Kelly Barnhill - 4.5 stars
Heartbreaking. Hard to say much without revealing too much for this short novella. Just be warned it's a lot of parental neglect and abuse for the main character.
Feed Them Silence by Lee Mandelo - 3 stars
I could make a full post as long as this one about my thoughts on this little novella. I will say the main character's already a mess going in, and the time spent with the wolf is actually not a whole lot. I could see the points the book was making, but the execution wasn't quite there for some of them. The prose was good, and I'm still interested in their novel, Summer Sons, for now.
Current December Reads
Speaking Bones by Ken Liu
Almost halfway through! Just got through a battle that lasted 100 pages, due to interludes about the development of the technologies involved, and that's delightfully typical of this series. 😹
Loot by Tania James
Almost 1/3rd through. Pleasantly surprised by how much I'm enjoying this, so far. As a history nerd, I personally recommend looking up the situation in Mysore, India around the time of Tipu Sultan's reign for extra context and immersion.
Organ Meat by K-Ming Chang
Less than 50 pages in, but already noted down so many bits of prose I adore. This is absolutely not for everybody, both for sheer quantity of bodily fluids and functions mentioned, but also its shifting narrative style. So far chapters have been in first person POV, third person POV, and pure dialog written in a script-like format. Absolutely loving it.
Recent Acquisitions
The Lizard Prince and Other South American Stories
I forgot to mention I received my copy of this from Iron Circus Comics a couple months ago, after backing their crowdfunding for it last year! This completes their Cautionary Fables & Fairytales series, covering the stories of six continents!
Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang
My pick from Book of the Month for December! It's an anthology of short fiction spanning the US and parts of Asia.
There's a lot to do this month for the holidays and preparations for the new year, so I'm not loading up my reading radar for now. If I finish Loot, I'll likely pick up my other giveaway win, Our Shadows Have Claws, so I can review it. If I finish Organ Meats, the next library read will depend on a few things, including how accessible my preferred branches are with holiday hours and inclement weather concerns 🙀
Until next time, look forward to my posts for my Favorite Reads of 2023 and Favorite New Music of 2023, which I'll migrate here in lieu of the traditional Twitter threads.
Thanks for reading, and happy holidays!
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Mail Call!
The Lizard Prince and Other South American Stories: A Cautionary Fables and Fairytales Book, edited by Alberto Rayo, Kate Ashwin, and Kel McDonald
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A quick note about folktales
The stories, folktales, fairytales, mythology and other lore I share here tend to be quite old. Stories and sharing them is as old as language itself. People used stories to explain the unexplainable like why there is night and day. They also use stories as cautionary tales to others including children to help enforce proper morals and ethics. However, our understanding of human rights has evolved quite a bit over time. Many of these stories and the morals they try to teach (not to mention the language or symbolism used) can be...problematic.
So why do I share stories with the subtle misogyny, bigotry, and over the top violence? Why don't I find versions with these parts altered or edited; or maybe edit them myself? Well, there's a few reasons. Since fairytales are about teaching children morals, it's an interesting snapshot about what is considering morally right from country to country and timeframe to timeframe. What is the happy ending? Is it the evil step sisters getting punished or does the evil step sister get a second chance? A story of a peasant girl being forced to work in the castle kitchen and later wins her freedom by agreeing to marrying the prince; today is a horrible premise for a children's story. But 200 years ago could be seen as very empowering to women as it showed they can work hard and endure. They deserve a good life after all that hard work.
Another reason is because the symbols in the story can be very important to the people of the time. Why things are phrased a certain way can be crucial. How symbolism with food, animals, fashion, colour, nature, and such was used. The way things are set up and how things are said. These things can provide insight to figuring out why a cabbage is considered lucky, or why the pig can be a symbol for family. These meanings will vary from culture to culture, but stories can give and outsider some insight.
One last reason is it's nice to look back and reflect on how far we've come. Words and phrasing that if used today would not be deemed acceptable. But 100 or more years ago, it could of been the norm or even ground breaking in it's political correctness. I think it's fascinating to open a story from another time and compare just how much the wording conflicts with the standards of today. And then I wonder how literature of our era will be received in another century. Will something in the stories of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson make people do a double take? Maybe. Will the uplifting song Firework by Katy Perry be forced to change it's opening lyrics by any cover artist, because plastic bags will be controversial? I'm not gunna say no.
Regardless, this is not to say I share fables as they are because I support the language used. I support the fact that we don't use such language any more. We are able to look at a centuries old story, and deduce which parts were likely said with bigotry, which parts were said out of ignorance, which parts were social etiquette/norm, and which part was just supposed to be an interesting story.
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Has anyone read the cautionary fables and fairytales series by Kate Ashwin and Kel McDonald
Are they good?, and are respectful and truthful to the original stories?
Many thanks
#booklr#booklover#have you read#kate ashwin#kel mcdonald#books#booksbooksbooks#booknerd#book recommendation#bookish#comics#fairy tales#folklore#series#info#information#help#help wanted#culture#storygraph#storys
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Lol, true origin of fairytales were cautionary tales (closer to horror than Hallmark or Harlequin HEA). I remember the ending of The Little Mermaid was that she became seafoam. Lol, it’d be sad if she went this route. BTW, the actress DO wished Happy Birthday has a couple of projects relating to Fairy Tales & Fables. She’s also on Euphoria (Drake project?). Not sure if TS related- but with books from GdT in those themes. IDK.
a friend said to me a couple of days ago (unfortunately not a swiftie friend or i'd tag her, but what she said is still relevant): "succeeding in fairy tales is very rarely about having power (which makes sense when you consider who was telling fairy tales, historically, and to whom they were being told)", and yes, many of them leaned towards cautionary tales and moral fables. the little mermaid feels excruciating pain, like walking across broken glass, every time she walks on her legs, and she doesn't succeed in the end, as you said, she turns to seafoam (and her soul ascends to heaven bc eurocentric christian morality). the original folktale that corpse bride is based upon has a similar ending, which in the burton film is represented by emily turning to butterflies. the original version of sleeping beauty is...very disturbing. even with the happier endings in grimm, there's often a dark side - the queen's and the stepsisters' fates in snow white and cinderella, for example. it WOULD be sad if she went that route, but i can see her exploring some of the melancholy in such a tale, even though i don't think it would be entirely without relief.
(drake acting like such a child when his album charted, and mocking megan, are things i don't imagine taylor appreciated lol but that likely would have no bearing on anyone else involved with euphoria!) editing this hours later to say: i just saw dylan's tweet and "fables" in the actresses' upcoming projects, i'm excited if there's about to be a renaissance of fairytale media.
the most telling thing with gdt to me is that he gave her the science of fairytales. it feels like she was seeking that guidance for a reason!
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