Someday, I swear, someday...
Someday I will write down why not just the story of Cinderella but especially the dynamic between Cinderella, her evil stepmother and stepsisters is one of the most important stories that has lasted thousands of years for a VERY GOOD REASON
Not just regarding child abuse, feminist literature and literature of female (coded) life experiences
But one of the most important stories PERIOD.
SOMEDAY I will fucking explain why Adrien and Gabriel are a brilliant and extremely important depiction of that story, and a phenomenal gender swapped variation of it for modern feminist story-telling that is very much breaking some grounds. If only Marinette's own girlboss 'knight in shining armor' narrative wouldn't constantly undermine that, making them seem "lesser" bc Adrien is "just" her little damsel she will save "easily" because we can't allow for her to be seen as anything else but one of the "STRONG" modern female heros.
SOMEDAY I will explain why Cinderella and Lady Tremaine are NOT fucking jokes and outdated female (coded) archetypes to be laughed at for how "weak and backwards" they are, but if well utilized one of the most raw and gut-wrenching archetypes of the non-romantic interplay of love vs hatred that grabs you by the most intimit connection a human can have and potentially breaks down the very root of who you are and why.
I will fucking explain why despite how misogynistic our society is, Cinderella and Lady Tremaine are still one of the most iconic protagonist and villain pairs in all of fiction and will continue doing so for many ages to come.
Why Cinderella, no matter how much society will tear her down, will never stop rising from her ashes victoriously. And why Lady Tremaine, no matter how underutilized and slandered she's depicted, will never ever stop dominating 99% of any other villain she's put against.
Both entirely without special powers, status, or whatever. Just through their very presence and dynamic.
I swear to God this fandom...
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ok if acceptable I'm dropping one more before closing time
"I remember you" with a reader being the reincarnation of someone the Horned King once loved
*Clutches chest* ROOOSSEEE-
This hurts me. In like, the best way. Here we go, modern reincarnation because I low-key would like to get lost in the Welsh Mountains forever (I have deadlines).
Also please forgive the Google translated Welsh at the end I did not have the time to look up proper medieval Welsh and asking someone real to translate would have been good to think of before I started operating on 5% brain. If anyone following me is a native Welsh speaker pls DM me or leave a comment and I'll correct Google's attempt.
The Horned King x Reincarnated!Reader : 'I Remember You'
You have no fucking clue why you're here.
'Here' being the Ass-End of Nowhere, Wales. No phone reception, no services, no people and no tourists. Except, uh, yourself. Obviously.
You got up, drove out, picked a random direction between two hills and. Started walking. You don't even know why.
You just know that there's something further into the mountains that your soul is ITCHING to get to. You've always felt it, but recently ignoring it has started to feel like being pulled through barbed wire.
The ground is rough and uneven, tussocks and hidden rocks threaten to turn your ankles every other step. The trees that twist their way along the crevices of the high moorland are all but draped in moss and thorns. The mountains arching up behind them are unwelcoming, cold and cragged.
It's...eerily quiet. No birds, no people...even the sheep seemed to stop at some hidden border a few miles back. Just the low moan of the wind accompanies you.
As you walk, you find yourself stealing glances at the sky. You tell yourself it's for birds - Kites and eagles maybe - but you have to keep a strange disappointment down that it's nothing larger. What are you expecting for fucks sake? Dragons??
You're so busy scanning the skies that you topple arse over tea kettle down the next scree slope like a graceful spaghetti mannequin with a screaming feature.
You manage to scrabble and hiss to a stop, skin on your arms and legs scraped raw. And upon looking up suck in a breath that has nothing to do with your sliced up hands.
It's as though a giant scooped the earth away and set it on fire for good measure. Bare reddish black rock contends with a bitter snarl of dead grasses and lonely tree corpses. Beyond lies a dessicated crevass that looks like a lake drained away overnight.
Beyond that, is a castle.
You blink and tear the vision that seared across your eyes - of a fully fleshed gothic fortress - away. What lies before you is a ruin. The bones of the structure, at best.
The barbed wire in your soul is all but yanking you toward the ancient structure. You don't notice that the path you tread towards it is one you can find without looking, despite the terrain.
The bridge, rotted and rusted as it is, is mostly secure. You keep your weight to the bolted metal crisscrossing the wood as you make your way across, slow and steady and feeling as though phantom archers have their sights on you from atop the wall.
As you pass under the archway to the courtyard, you shiver violently. The feeling of passing under so familiar that it almost clawed it's way out from your skin.
The very air seems to hold it's breath as you make your way deeper into the crumbling structure. Water drips from the stonework, the doors all long since rotted from their hinges. Tools lie forgotten on the cobbles. If it wasn't so creepy it would be an archaeologists dream.
Why does no-one around seem to know this is here? Why is this place so undisturbed?
You stumble into what must have been the Great Hall.
Cold sunlight shafts through holes in the ceiling, the corners in absolute darkness. Skeletons lie in piles across the floor, roughly around where large tables should have been, weapons scattered akimbo as though they didn't even get a chance to use them before they fell.
Your eyes are dragged to the dias. There's a body on the throne.
It's slouched, slumped, as if whoever this was had thrown themselves back on the seat and collapsed in exhaustion. The mothbitten red robe and fur stole is strung with spiderwebs connecting them him to the throne, but this isn't what yanks on the barbed wire in your soul.
The pair of great, regal thorn like horns protuding from the figures hood are angled towards you.
Your feet carry you forward.
The figures face is obscured but you know it, the fingers curled loosely still with flesh, after all this time, no weapons around the dias but no evidence of wounds on the body as if he would need them, as if they could ever lay a finger on their King-
Your hand trembles, reaching out to touch the nearest horn irrestisably, not even daring to breathe.
The corpse lurches.
An arctic vice closes on your wrist, bones grinding as he yanks you to your knees on the stone. His fist is impossible to pry loose even as you scrabble at it, nails ripping at leathery hide- heart pounding-
His second hand closes on your neck and you freeze.
Twin red lights blaze from under the hood. Pupils in a black socket that focus hazily on your face, blinking as if rising from a dream that still has its hooks in him. The hand on your neck squeezes and you gasp, eyes bulging, wrist forgotten as you plead with your hands against the unstoppable force around your neck.
Brows twitch as he watches you struggle. Marginally, the fingers loosen and you suck in air, sounding like a broken bellows compared to the cathedral-esque empty quality of the air passing through his chest.
Gently, reverently, knarled fingers parse hair from your forehead. You didn't even realise he'd released your wrist. Your throat remains in his grip.
You meet his gaze as the last of the fog clears from his sockets. His voice, rusted and broken from disuse, still rumbles from his throat like a shuddering landslide.
"Rwy'n eich cofio, fy annwyl."
"I remember you, my dear."
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I rewrote the villain song from Wish
(spoken)
I gave these citizens everything
And what do they do? stab me in the back
but i know what i can do
to get the thanks i deserve
(sung)
Look at these poor souls
cursed to these wishes
unrealistic goals
thinking they are worth more than the dishes!
I don’t charge them a single cent
they never have to bet
or even repent
And this is the thanks I get?
Those wishy washy whiny babies
They yell what they think they should get
I let him get all the ladies
and this is the thanks i get?
I get them all they ever wanted
letting them never regret
i make it all granted
and this is the thanks i get?
Now look at me
What do you see?
This body that gets the queens
yeah, you gotta thank my genes
Not a single spell
or a potion
look you can tell
i only use water from the ocean
When it rains all day
Rosas never gets wet
the clouds move away
and this is the thanks i get?
Those wishy washy whiny babies
They yell what they think they should get
I make them all celebrities
and this is the thanks i get?
I get them all they ever wanted
letting them never regret
i make it all granted
and this is the thanks i get?
They’ve forced my hands
giving me selfish demands
to keep them all safe
and catch that disgrace
i look across the lands
with this book in my hands
the power it holds
dangerous i know
but them and their marigolds
must be kept down low
on the list of hurt
that villain will sure regret
their heart must somehow subvert
even if they are beloved guard Bert
I break a massive sweat
and this is the thanks i get?
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Look, with very few exceptions no one sets out with the intention of being a shitty abusive parent. A lot of shitty parents think they're doing it right. A lot of shitty parents think they're doing their best. A lot of shitty parents think that abusive shit they do is not really abusive and for the greater good of their child.
A lot of shitty parents love their kids, and would die for them, but they can still be abusive and shitty parents because they do shit they learned from their parents and don't pause a moment to think they may be doing it wrong because "I love my kid, abusive parents don't love their kids, so I can't be an Abusive Parent, not me, I'm good". A lot of shitty parents have their good moments, their good sides, and their kids can love them for it and then be doubly hurt when the good moment ends and things are shitty again.
Shitty parents are complicated people, the kids they raise are complicated people, and human relationships as a whole are a complex hot mess. There is not one right or wrong way to respond to abuse or choose how to handle the relationship to a shitty parent. No we don't wanna hear how you'd personally handle it in our shoes. You're not in our shoes. STFU.
BTW this is not some weird defense of shitty and abusive parents but for Christ's sake, this attitude that Shitty Parents - either real or fictional - are monsters out of a scary story who are contractually obliged to be shitty 100% of the time, all around, in every aspect of their lives, is actually harmful. It's untrue. It's stupid. It will lead kids of Shitty Parents to think that well, THEIR parents are not 100% evil and dastardly all the time, therefore they're not Actually Abusive, I must be exaggerating.
Shitty parents are not old school Disney villains breaking into song about how they love to do evil deeds to hurt their own children. They're people. Learn to tell the two things apart, for fuck's sake.
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