Hello! I was reading your Yuletide letter (because reading Yuletide letters is an excellent procrastination tool) and thought you might like to know that the book The Princess Curse fits parts of your 12 Dancing Princesses request, if you haven't read it already.
Ooh! You don’t say? (excuse me while I take a quick jaunt to the land of google)
(back)
This looks delightful! This is why I need to keep up with my old favorite genres better. One of my favorite things about fairy tales is that they provide such a bare-bones framework for an interesting story that so many, wildly variable stories can fill them in. I’ve read a bunch of 12 Dancing Princesses re-tellings, and yet there are always more and they always take such new, interesting angles. I appreciate you sending me one - feel free to throw any more my way (and I will read them all…one day…when I am no longer in school…oh that that day would come…)
In related news, I am truly thrilled that you read my Yuletide letter and I very much hope you enjoyed it :) :) :)
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tl;dr: I want to read The Princess Curse and this also makes me want to revisit Wildwood Dancing and The Night Dance and see how they hold up to my older sensibilities (it’s been so long!) and also read all the Yuletide fairytale stuffs and it’s possible that I’m currently writing a 12 Dancing Princesses retelling too but I won’t confirm that one way or another (but if I was it would be focusing on a how-it-works-if-they’re-not-cursed at all premise, because I haven’t seen much of that, but that’s only if I am writing something which I won’t confirm no way no how).
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P.S. I am answering this publicly partially in hope that more people write me 12 Dancing Princesses/fairy tale stories. Hint hint, nudge nudge.
so I realize your friend's username is probably supposed to be "as soft as" but I always read it as "ass of tas" and then I think you have a friend named tas who really likes her butt
THIS IS THE PROBLEM THAT EVERY SINGLE PERSON HAS WITH ASSOFTAS. Eugenia reads it the way you read it and I read it as "ass oftas" (whatever that means) and I for real did not know it was "as soft as" until she herself said it aloud.
assoftas asked for comics that don’t use bold+italics in the dialogue because she finds that distracting. I’ve gathered some of the comics that use them less and ranked them by how many words are bolded within a twenty page sample. Excluded speech bubbles where the characters are clearly yelling.
Also, apologies for how biased I am in favor of comics that are dark and gory and/or written by Brian Michael Bendis.
Sex Criminals actually doesn’t bold at all?? Sometimes words are italicized but with the font choice it’s barely noticeable. Otherwise, everything is conveyed through capitalization, punctuation, and spelling. Anyway, Sex Criminals, by Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, is one of the greatest things to grace this earth. When Suzie and Jon orgasm, time stops. They use this power to do crime. Except that it’s actually a slow burn throughout the first volume as they discover their powers (sexually), themselves (sexually), and each other (sexually and not). It’s a beautiful exploration of sexuality and how sex can be isolating as much as it can bring people together. It’s HILARIOUS and heartwarming and good god PLEASE read Sex Criminals it’s Time’s #1 comic of the year.
Powers: 1 word
Sci-fi police procedural by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Avon Oeming from Icon. Follows two homicide detectives who specialize in the murders of superheroes. Deena Pilgrim is a rookie when it comes to Powers cases, and her veteran partner Christian Walker isn’t big on sharing. Very much about media and celebrity. Canon poly ship that was only really in one issue but is important to me. This series has a mature rating: really violent and lots of nudity, and pretty much every character you encounter dies I’m just sayin’. 14 volumes, ongoing but now titled Powers: Bureau.
Alias: 6 words
Detective series by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Gaydos from Marvel. Follows Jessica Jones, an ex-superhero-turned-private-eye and human disaster. Jessica Jones is one of my favorite Marvel characters because she is so fucking real and ungendered and incapable of taking care of herself. Series also features my husband Luke Cage. (Both of these characters have Netflix mini-series in development.) Mature rating; I believe this was the first Marvel comic to include the word “fuck.” 28 issues in total, complete. Please read Alias.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales: 6 words
An anthology of stories that take place in the Buffyverse. The first half is stories about Slayers throughout history. The second half is stories about vampires. It’s all different writers and artists, and the storytelling tends to be unconventional; one is told entirely in rhyming couplets. (Jane Espenson has one about a Slayer in Regency England.) One of the Slayers is Navajo and rides a horse, and another one Nazi Youth. There’s a chapter about the First Slayer and also a chapter about Nikki Wood.
Gunnerkrigg Court: 8 words
Supernatural coming-of-age by Tom Siddell, all available to read online. Follows Antimony Carver, who has just begun school at Gunnerkrigg Court after the death of her mother. Very Neil Gaiman meets Harry Potter. (Neil Gaiman is, in fact, a big fan.) Wonderful female friendships, queer teenagers of color, ghosts, monsters, psychopomps, robots. Spooky but not scary or violent. Really quirky humor. All-ages rating probably? First couple of chapters are standalones, now has an ongoing plot interspersed with oneshots. Please read Gunnerkrigg Court. Updates thrice a week. We are on chapter 48 now.
Morning Glories: 11 words
Supernatural/sci-fi thriller and long-form mystery by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma. Six teenagers attend the prestigious Morning Glory Academy only to find their regular school days much more deadly than they had anticipated. Amazing diverse cast with so many wonderful ladies and characters of color and queer characters. Every issue is a punch in the gut but it’s also hilarious? HOWEVER 1) answers to the many, many mysteries are hard to come by (or demand close reading) and 2) very, very violent. Some consent issues early on but not in the last 20+ issues. (We’re coming up on 39.)
Saga: 11 words
Y’all know what this is and how much you should read it. Putting it here for comparison.
Scott Pilgrim: 12 words
Action comedy by Bryan Lee O’Malley, from Oni Press. Scott Pilgrim falls for Ramona Flowers, the Amazon.ca delivery girl who takes a shortcut through his brain. But in order to go out with her, he must defeat her seven evil exes. I don’t know how to describe this except that Scott Pilgrim is definitely not Michael Cera. REALLY FUNNY. Great characters. The story is somewhat different from the movie. Manga-style-ish in terms of format. Story is somewhat different from the movie. Six volumes, complete.
The general rule seems to be that superhero comics do the bold+italics thing more than comics of other genres. So Supurbia, which is a superhero parody from Boom, does the bold+italics thing a lot, whereas Alias, a non-superhero Marvel comic, really only bolds when someone is yelling or a word needs to be emphasized.
I just stayed up an extra hour and a half, reading this.
Never have I been happier to be the Merlin and Stephanie to be the Arthur, but there you have it.
FayJay once compared us to this fic, and the Parishes are always bothering me to read it so I finally remembered, tonight, and Stephanie gave me the link and YOU GUYS IT'S /US/.
One day we'll write a Merthur AU, together, in which it's the literal story of how we got together. There will be a lot of H/C and angst but I promise it has a happy ending. <3
I love the internet and the fact that it's given us each other.
