20s | writer blog | she/her
"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before." - Poe
So this is my writeblr. I decided to start this blog as a way to push myself to write more consistently and hopefully make some connections with fellow writers along the way.
✦ Here for the community + to motivate me to write
✦ I'm queer, and as such, this is a queer-friendly space
✦ This is not an AI-friendly space (I will not knowingly post or reblog any art created with AI) <- you can't appreciate art without first appreciating artists!
About My Writing
✦ Ya, Na, and Adult
✦ Fantasy, fairytales, retellings, and romance
✦ Mostly novels and short stories
✦ I like writing stories about flawed (often morally-grey) characters in magical settings
✦ I gravitate toward darker themes
✦ Most of my fantasy worlds are queer-normative
Feel free to say hi! I love receiving book recommendations but would also love to hear about your own WIPs if you have any! Tags under the cut.
Tags:
#rin's writing
#quote prompt
#text prompt
#image prompt
Reblogs of others' stories/writeblrs: #writer appreciation
Tbh I don't understand anyone who denies their favorite character's flaws and acts like they've never done anything wrong when that is like consistently the most interesting part of any character ever
“I want to write a fic about this but I don’t think anybody will be interested in it” ummm hello excuse me ma’am what do you mean you don’t think anybody will be interested in it??? YOU. YOU ARE INTERESTED IN IT???? write it because YOU are interested in it and YOU want to write about it. fanfic writing should always be first and foremost about YOUR enjoyment, not other people’s.
I dunno, stop apologizing for your art. This includes not posting enough, too much, changing style, inconsistent style, repetition, subject. Its your art its your expression. Have fun.
A literary fairy tale published in 1697, presumably by Charles Perrault and François-Timoléon De Choisy (who spent a considerable amount of his life in drag, just like the protagonists of this story).
Translated by Ranjit Bolt, featured in Warner’s Wonder tales: six stories of enchantment (1996).
I used to try and resist what comes naturally to my writing, fearing judgement. I have learned that, through writing what I am passionate, I get stuff done. This is your sign to add that thing to your WIP. You know what that thing is to you.
I think that very much depends on your personal definition. Of course there are plenty of folktales that do not include romance, but for me that usually isn't quite enough to consider them aromantic. For me the folk- and fairy tales that feel the most aromantic to me, are the ones where the plot makes me expect there will be a love interest along the way or a wedding at the end, but instead there is neither.
Here are the ones I've taken a personal liking to so far:
The Shoes That Were Danced to Pieces
Source: Cape Verdian folktale, collected by E. Parsons from Antonio Soares Rosa in 1916-1917.
Content warnings: princess-shaming.
Character I read as aro: The hero.
Why: He answers a royal proclamation that states that whoever is able to find out how the princess wears out seven pairs of shoes every night can marry her and have half the kingdom. When he accomplishes this, however, he declines the marriage and returns home to build his mother a new house.
Read it: Full text online.
How The Devil Married Three Sisters
Source: Italian folktale, published by Widter and Wolf in 1866.
Content warnings: fairy tale violence, abusive spouse.
Character I read as aro: The youngest of the three sisters.
Why: While the first sister is pleased by her handsome suitor (the devil) and the second sister is also described as "wooed and won" by him, the third agrees to marriage only because he is rich. She proceeds to save her sisters, outsmarts the devil, and they all get away.
Read it: Full text online.
David Cotterson
Source: Danish fairy tale, collected by Jens Kamp, published in 1879.
Content warning: suicide contemplation, fairy tale violence.
Character I read as aro: The hero, David Cotterson.
Why: His biggest desire is to become a sailor and see the world. In his biggest adventure he defeats a seductive witch, saves a prince who has been cursed to be a dog. He then decided what he wants most of all is to got home to his loving parents, which he does.
Read it: Offline in this book, or my summary online.
The Squire’s Bride
Source: Norwegian folktale, collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe, published 1841-1844.
Character I read as aro: The heroine, a farmers daughter.
Why: She's being courted by an old, rich squire. She rejects him, not for a better (kinder, younger) suitor, but simply because she doesn't want him. He doesn't back down so she humiliates him to teach him a lesson.
Read it: Full text online.
The Three Brothers
Source: German folktale, collected by the brothers Grimm, published 1857.
Content warning: ends with natural death.
Characters I read as aro: The protagonists, three brothers.
Why: Their father tasks them to learn a trade to show who deserves to inherit their family home. They become a master barber, blacksmith and swordsman, and the third inherits the house. But because they love each other so much they decide to share the house. They live happily and grow old together, after which all three die close together and are laid in the same grave.
Read it: Full text online.
Diarmaid and Grainne
Source: Celtic legend, Scottish variant collected by H. MacLean in 1859, from Alexander Macalister.
Content warning: tragedy, coercion, murder of protagonist.
Character I read as aro: The warrior Diarmaid.
Why: He has a love spot on his face, which he keeps hidden to prevent women from falling in love with him. Grainne (who is married to his lord Fionn) sees it and falls for him, but he refuses to go with her until she outsmarts him and places him under obligation to do so. He goes with her but they live in a house with separate beds. Grainne betrays Diarmaid for yet another man and Diarmaid ends up being killed by Fionn before he realises that Diarmaid has never touched his wife.
Read it: Full text online.
Slawa
Source: Romanian fairy tale, found in a German collection from 1977, sadly unsourced.
Content warning: attempted kidnapping, fairy tale violence.
Character I read as aro: The heroine, Slawa
Why: She is a poor young woman so beautiful that the cruel tsar wants to marry her. She keeps refusing and he gets violent, so she resorts to defeating him with magic (which she has because she was once a doll brought to life through the love of her parents), so she is free to go see the world.
Read it: You can download my translation here.
King Bear
Source: Danish folktale, collected by Jens Kamp, published in 1879.
Content warning: animal death.
Character I read as aro: One of the two protagonists, the eldest of two brothers.
Why: The older brother doesn't fully understand why his younger brother has fallen in love with an imprisoned princess, but helps him win her hand anyway. He stays happily at the royal court, but never marries himself.
Read it: Offline in this book.
And just because I still love them, I did write two literary fairy tales with aro protagonists myself some years ago:
The Man and the Mermaid, in which a man meets a mermaid after losing the woman he thought he wanted to marry.
The River Sprite, in which a woman helps a river sprite who is determined to repay her.
Hope there's something on this list that makes you happy!
A witch puts a spell on a girl, a sleeping spell that promises the girl shall wake through true love’s kiss. Men come and kiss her. She slumbers. Women come and press their lips to hers, but still she sleeps. Many years past, and the girl remains still. One bright morning, a lost little boy finds her resting spot and clears the dust and grime from her face. He offers her a kiss on her forehead, and her eyes flutter open. She never feels romantic love for a man nor a woman, and she cares for the boy until the day she dies.
A young woman is imprisoned in a castle by a monstrously formed prince. The servants of the castle hope for them to fall in love, and when the spell is broken they assume their prayers have been answered. They are all surprised, but nonetheless pleased, when it is revealed to them that the young woman and prince are the truest of friends, and nothing more.
They say the kingdom is ruled by an evil queen, a woman who is incapable of loving. She is unmarried, she has no consorts, and she wishes for no partner. She is the wretched queen, the heartless queen. She must hate her daughter, for her daughter is beautiful, and women are incapable of liking another woman who’s prettier than themselves. It must be for this reason that the princess was sent away, not for how she was attacked by a man in the woods. They say the kingdom is ruled by an evil queen because she cannot love. The queen loves her daughter, and that is enough for them both.
There lives a prince who is forced to choose a bride at the ball. He meets many beautiful women, but find none which he loves. He spies one in a gorgeous gown and wonder in her eyes, and he dances with her all night long. The kingdom is sure he has found his bride. When the clock strikes midnight he tells her how he will never love a woman, or a man, in the way he is expected to. The beautiful woman smiles and tells him she expects nothing from him. The next morning the prince and the beautiful woman are missing, having run off together to see the world. They leave their shoes behind in their haste.
Many kinds of love exist. It doesn’t all have to be romantic.
In august 2020 Forbes published an article about how writer and illustrator Pete Jordi Wood had uncovered a “charming gay fairytale” that “has been lost for 200 years”. In particular a story where a sailor wins the hand in marriage of a handsome prince. Wood is quoted as calling it an “unbelievably and fabulously gay” plot, and: “an ancient tale with a positive portrayal, of a guy who can be read as gay or asexual, but certainly queer”.
Obviously I was wild to read it, but sadly Wood’s adaptation of the fairy tale had been published as a limited edition children’s book and virtual exhibition that I could not access. Even more disheartening, the folklore sources were not named on his website, and his research was only available in a limited edition essay collection and zine that I would have to buy.
To make matters worse, the Forbes article said that Wood had translated variations of the story from Danish, German and Frisian. That was absolutely too close to home for me not to go looking for it! Except I had very little to go on, because again, Forbes didn’t give sources.
The article said only this:
Wood called the story “The Dog And The Sailor”
The protagonist is an adventurous sailor with an overprotective mother who defeats a beautiful evil witch and wins the hand in marriage of a handsome prince.
Wood found it in the Stith Thompson’s six-volume Motif-Index of Folk-Literature under a tale type called “The Dog and the Sea” which existed in multiple languages (Danish, German, Frisian and others), but not in English.
It was first written down in the 1800’s.
I could find only one mention online with more information, on the Simmons University website:
“Originally a Danish folktale documented by the folklorists Nikolaj Christensen and Jens Kamp, this story has been translated into English for the first time by Pete Jordi Wood.”
The consequence of all this is that I have been hunting for this fairy tale for a very long time and with the help of two amazing Danish followers and a lot of frantic internet searches, I’m finally convinced that I have! So, if you want to follow me into my obsession, you can find it all under the readmore.
This thing was promoted so much as the legitimate proof of a suppressed “gay fairy tale”. And it’s just…a less know European fairy tale where the lead doesn’t end with a princess trophy.
You can still read it as a queer, but it’s obviously something that’s being pushed on the text and not something coded on it.
Sorry for your disappointment but that is the truthful pain of fairytale research: a lot of queer reading when it comes to folktales has to be brought up by modern viewpoint or outside context. When it comes to the “folk” type of fairytales, unlike literary fairytales or old mythologies… well these were stories told in countrysides and by people of relatively modern eras, and despite Tumblr’s deep, DEEP desire that all “folk” things must be queer… the truth is your 19th century countryside old woman telling fairytales is probably very bigoted against anything queer. Cause you know… The fight against homopobia, or even the acceptance of non-hetero lifestyles, is a relatively recent thing.
Mind you, if it can console you, I ended up discovering a full PDF of the “Queering the Grimm” book - so I thought of maybe sharing the content of its articles with you lovely people who follow me on my blog! What do you think?
This whole discussion about Caeneus (AKA the Trans Hero of Greek Mythology) reminded me of a famous romanian fairy tale. It's called "Ileana Sînziana" (usually translated in English as The Princess Who Would be a Prince, Iliane of the Golden Tresses or Helena Goldengarland) and it's about the youngest daughter of an emperor who then becomes a man and marries the princess from a neighboring kingdom.
If you don't believe me here's the Synopsis of the story:
The tale introduces an emperor with three daughters, who is sad that he didn't have a son. The oldest daughter goes to the emperor and asks him what problem he is having and tells him that she will go to serve another emperor as a soldier only to make him happy. Then the emperor makes a copper bridge and turns into a wolf. The oldest daughter gets scared and goes back to the palace. The same happens with the middle daughter, who also gets scared of the wolf. The youngest daughter goes on a journey with her father's old horse, and defeats him on three bridges, first as a wolf, then as a lion, then as a twelve-headed dragon. The girl arrives at the court of a "great and strong emperor" and he tells her to rescue Ileana Simziana, his daughter, who had been kidnapped by the giant. The youngest daughter rescues her, and the emperor asks her to retrieve his herd enchanted mares, the girl succeeds in this spree. Then Ileana Simziana asks the emperor's daughter to bring the Holy Water kept in a small church above the Jordan and guarded by nuns who neither slept in the day nor in the night. The girl succeeds but the monk who takes care of the church prays to God and asks him if the thief is a man to make him a woman and vice versa, so that the princess becomes a prince - Făt-Frumos (Prince Charming figure). Now a prince, He marries Ileana Simziana and they live happily ever after.
There are also lots of variants of this story in many balkan countries. Which is kinda ironic, considering the fact that many balkan countries are against or have negative views on gay people, let aside trans individuals. At this point I'm slowly starting to believe that reality is a multi-layered joke.
But hey, it’s interesting to see that many cultures have their own Caeneus in their mythology/folklore as well.
For those that remember, I posted a Greek variation of this tale-type not so long ago, and I said on this occasion how this was an entire category of fairytales!
I’ve gathered some new gender nonconforming folktales since making part 1, so it’s time for a new post! Again, please keep in mind these are all translations and products of their time. I will still attempt to put some modern-day labels on them to make them easier to navigate:
The Story of the Maiden-Knight
Indian legend, published in 1916, based on the Mahabharata.
[Cw: being outed, threat of violence, awkward use of pronouns.]
A king prays for a son to go to battle his enemy, but the god Shiva reveals to him that he “should have a son who should first be a daughter”. Accordingly the child born to them – Shikhandi – is raised as a boy and married to a princess. When he finds out the situation the bride’s father is furious however, and wants to go to war over it. Shikhandi goes into the forest, in the hope that without him there will be no war. There he meets a kind Yakshas (nature spirit) who is willing to lend Shikhandi his manhood until he has saved his father from this threat. But when the king of the Yakshas finds out about this he decrees that the Yakshas will not get his manhood back until Shikhandi’s death.
The Stirrup Moor
Albanian folktale, published in 1895.
[Cw: violence, king attempts to steal son’s wives, some uncomfortable descriptions of a black person.]
A prince, through his many adventures, wins the love of three wives: one human lady, one jinn princess, and one Earthly Beauty (a type of fae-like spirit from the underworld). The latter of the three regularly changes between her supernatural female shape and her chosen human form, that of a black man. In this male shape he is a formidable warrior and helps protect both the prince and the other wives. All four eventually live happily ever after.
The Boy-Girl and the Girl-Boy
A Gond folktale from Central India, published in 1944.
[Cw: attempt at being outed, awkward use of gendered terms and pronouns, some doubt as to whether the AFAB protagonist is completely happy with the physical change.]
An AFAB child is adopted by a Raja, who accepts him as his son. Near the palace an old woman raises one of her many AMAB children as a girl and arranges a marriage for her. The young couple is very startled at finding out they have “the same parts” but there are not other repercussions. Later the young wife doesn’t dare to go bathing with the other women and meets the Raja’s adopted son, who has run away and changed himself into a bird. The bird offers to “exchange parts” and both protagonists end the story with a body matching their presented gender.
The Girl Who Became a Boy
Albanian folktale, published in 1879.
[Cw: preoccupation with sexual ability, attempts to kill protagonist.]
AFAB protagonist answers the king’s call for warriors, dressed as a man. After several great deeds the young man wins a princess’s hand in marriage in another kingdom. He is liked at the court, but they feel obliged to get rid of him because he seems unable to consummate his marriage. He survives every dangerous task, however, and finally is sent to confront a snake infested church. The snakes curse him to become a boy, after which he returns to the court and all ends well.
With an affectionate mention for the 13th century French poem Yde and Olive, which was brought to my attention by @pomme-poire-peche. You can read about this brave princess-turned-knight married to a loyal princess here.
"Roundja, la jeune fille plus belle que lune et que rose", "Runja, the girl fairer that the moon and rose" from Taos Amrouche's collection of kabyle tales "le grain magique", "the magic grain". I don't know if there's an english translation, but it was translated into italian as "Fiabe Algerine" by Vermondo Brugnatelli.
Amrouche never specifies whether or not any of Sheik 'Smain's spouses is human or not, they all posess magical powers.
I think ao3 is literally the only site where no censorship means no censorship. you can post the most vile things on there — things that will get taken down on any other platforms — and ao3 will protect you, your works, and your rights to create whatever you want, however you want.
and no, this isn’t me saying “write that messed up, disgusting thing” because while, yes, write it if it’s what you want (I myself enjoy writing dark fics, something I believe would be considered “vile” to a lot of people), this is me saying in a world of censorship and capitalism, ao3 really is a treasure.
Tbh I don't understand anyone who denies their favorite character's flaws and acts like they've never done anything wrong when that is like consistently the most interesting part of any character ever
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