"Once Upon a Time, two princesses fell in love and they might have lived Happily Ever After... if not for the Fairy Godmother."
🍄 The UNFAiR PRiNCESS is a new LGBTQ+ Fantasy series by Gina Biggs focusing on Folklore & Fairytales.
Series launches Dec 6, 2026.
🍓 https://tinyurl.com/mr8acwrb
I’m looking forward to sharing this next adventure with you!
[image description: The Unfair Princess by Gina Biggs. Cover art shows a very large fairy with green skin and a mushroom cap hat looking down with a spritely smile at a small princess looking angrily up at her with her very large sword. The small princess stands defensively in front of another princess with deer features holding a letter with a heart printed on it.]
Original fiction/"Sleeping Beauty" adaptation
Status/Word count: A possible snippet from a longer story that I would like to write one day. 199 words.
Author's notes: Did you know the original French title for this fairytale is actually "The Sleeping Beauty in the Forest?"
The prince kept having the same dream.
It was in a forest that he remembered from his childhood, the one that bordered their summer estate. There was a girl, and she was running away from him. He couldn’t see what she looked like—or maybe just couldn’t remember when he woke up—but he knew that she was beautiful. He also knew that she was in trouble, and that he needed to help her. He could never understand why she was running from him. When awake, he reasoned that maybe she mistook him for whatever it was that threatened her.
As she ran, and he called for her to stop, that he was here to help her, the forest suddenly changed. The green sunlight filtering through the leaves became blackness, and the pretty trees were twisted vines, each as thick as a man's body, dark and covered with thorns as long as his fingers.
The change was so sudden, and one of the deadly spikes was right in front of him. He had no time to stop before he impaled himself.
And suddenly he was sitting up in bed, clutching his chest and confused why there wasn’t a gaping hole there.
So for fun I decided to give Cinderella a Pokémon team. More specially, I decided to give the Brothers Grimm Cinderella (Aschenputtel) Pokémon. If this interests enough people I could possibly do this for more fairytale characters (I.E. Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, The more famous Perrault Cinderella) or even possibly fairytale-adjacent characters. Also keep in mind this wasn't based around any battle stuff, just how well I thought they fit the story.
If you don't know what the Brother Grimm Cinderella is like, here is a link so you can read for yourself.
For starters, I intentionally picked ghost types for Cinderella. This is because death and mourning play a big part in the Brother's Grimm Cinderella. Cinderella's mother dies and tells her to be good and pious.
A rich man's wife became sick, and when she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, "Dear child, remain pious and good, and then our dear God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you." With this she closed her eyes and died.
And Cinderella mourns her.
The girl went out to her mother's grave every day and wept, and she remained pious and good. When winter came the snow spread a white cloth over the grave, and when the spring sun had removed it again, the man took himself another wife.
There's other details I'm intentionally saving for later on, but suffice to say there's a large theme of death which is why she gets ghost types.
For those curious, I'll list the specific Pokémon under the cut. I'll warn you that the post is long.
Mimikyu
Trevenant
I chose Mimikyu because it's a lonely Pokémon that wears rags in order to be more loved.
It wears a rag fashioned into a Pikachu costume in an effort to look less scary. Unfortunately, the costume only makes it creepier.
This fits with how Cinderella is forced to wear rags by her family and only wants to be loved.
They took her beautiful clothes away from her, dressed her in an old gray smock, and gave her wooden shoes. "Just look at the proud princess! How decked out she is!" they shouted and laughed as they led her into the kitchen.
This is a huge stretch but both have also worn "disguises" in order to be loved by others (Mimikyu with the Pikachu costume, Cinderella with her ball gown). I think they'd get long pretty well.
Remember when I said that there were other details I was saving later on? Well, there is no fairy godmother here. Instead, the Brothers Grimm have a tree that is planted on the mother's grave take on that role.
Cinderella thanked him, went to her mother's grave, and planted the branch on it, and she wept so much that her tears fell upon it and watered it. It grew and became a beautiful tree.
I figured Trevenant would fit well here as it's literally a ghost tree.
This Pokémon is said to devour anyone daring to ravage the forest. To the creatures dwelling in the forest, it offers great kindness.
Bonus points if it's female, like how some people interpret the tree to be the mother's spirit helping her daughter out.
Sensu Style Oricorio
Honestly, this was a really difficult decision between this and Decidueye, and I could definitely see an argument for the latter over the former. Both are ghost type birds, which reflects how Cinderella was also assisted by birds in the Brothers Grimm version.
Cinderella went to this tree three times every day, and beneath it she wept and prayed. A white bird came to the tree every time, and whenever she expressed a wish, the bird would throw down to her what she had wished for.
However, I went with Sensu Style Oricorio because not only is it said to curse its enemies (paralleling how Cinderella's birds peck out the eyes of the Stepsisters)...
It summons the dead with its dreamy dancing. From their malice, it draws power with which to curse its enemies.
...But it's shiny is more white, and the bird which is found at the tree at the mother's grave is described as white at one point.
Chandelure
Of course, you can't have a Cinderella story without a ball or festival for Cinderella to meet her prince in. And I figured that Chandelure would be a great Pokémon to represent the ball itself, considering that there are often chandeliers in fancy places where grand balls are set.
Gholdengo
At first glance, Gholdengo seems like a random Pokémon to associate with Cinderella. But you have to remember: The Brothers Grimm Cinderella's slippers aren't glass like in the more famous Perrault version...they're gold.
This time the bird threw down to her a dress that was more splendid and magnificent than any she had yet had, and the slippers were of pure gold. When she arrived at the festival in this dress, everyone was so astonished that they did not know what to say.
Considering Cinderella's dress is also gold and silver, I figured this would be a good fit.
Ceruledge
The reason I chose Ceruledge was simple: it seemed to fit well for Cinderella's prince, as according to Pokédex entries it'll do whatever it takes to reach it's goal and make it's trainer happy, not to mention the obvious "Knight in shining armor" parallel (even if Ceruledge is a darker take on this concept than, say, Armarouge).
The fiery blades on its arms burn fiercely with the lingering resentment of a sword wielder who fell before accomplishing their goal.
It swears loyalty to its Trainer. Should anyone dare to show that Trainer hostility, Ceruledge will cut the offender down without a second thought.
Similarly, Cinderella's prince famously did a search to find out who fit the glass slipper because he loved Cinderella and wanted to find her.
