Some recs...
I hope to do a better job about keeping up with all the wonderful fic coming out for OUAT, but here are a few of my favorites so far. I'd love to hear what gems other people are enjoying!
Cyprith http://www.fanfiction.net/u/454361/ is turning out tales at an amazing rate, but these are finely crafted little gems where each sentence shines like a line of poetry. Go, read them and weep! I actually signed up for tumblr because she was posting first over there and I just couldn't wait for the pieces to hit ff.net.
A bit of humor to cut to the angst http://randombattlecry.livejournal.com/255910.html#cutid1. Just who were Vera and Margie anyways? :)
A great look at the curse http://auri-mynonys.livejournal.com/81274.html#cutid1
A story on the power of names http://skye-white.livejournal.com/20045.html I'd love to see more pieces playing with the theme of names and naming with this ship, I can never get enough of that...
Belle finds a hobby :) Some grand dialog in this one http://randombattlecry.livejournal.com/253742.html#cutid1
Lately I've been so busy with real life work that I fear I haven't been doing a lot of mental work outside of that. I've not had the time or energy to do the sort of ponderings over stories and books that I really enjoy doing.
So I'm going to try and start writing out a few thoughts on fairy tales now and then. I really want to get back in the habit of thinking that way and am worried about how much of my "English Major Mind" I've lost lately. So I want to start making myself write down a few notes about fairy tales, even if these thoughts are coming out as rough and half formed.
One of the most fascinating things about fairy tales is the way audiences tend to latch onto different aspects of the stories so firmly that even a very brief tale yields wildly different readings. Is Cinderella a story that encourages young girls to pin their hopes of a happy future on princes and to see themselves as victims in need of rescue? Or is a tale that displays the importance of hard work and the willingness to graciously accept assistantnce in attaining goals? It depends not only on the slant the particular telling takes, but also the angle our own lives have set us up at. These stories are too big for any of us to really look them square in the eye, and our own perspectives skew our readings.
I've always loved fairy tales, but Beauty and the Beast was the only one I ever really believed in. I was enchanted by pumpkins that turned into coaches and shivered deliciously at glass coffins, but I never felt those tales to be true on the same level as Beauty's story. I grew up strongly conditioned against marrying in haste--my mother may have married the first man she ever dated, but she took 13 years to do it. Much of my extended family frowns on the idea of re-marrying after divorce, so it was always considered very important to get it right the first time. As a child there was always a part of my mind that worried a bit about Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. How could they be willing to spend the rest of their life with someone after only one kiss, one dance?
But I never once doubted Beauty's happy ending. I saw her and her Beast as having a real happy life together, not some mindless haze of cooing"you're perfect, no you're perfect!" back and forth for ever after. We've seen this couple disagree, even fight with each other. These two aren't perfect--the Beast reacts irrationally to having one rose plucked in his garden and Beauty fails to keep her promise to come back when she says she will in order to spend more time with her family. And that's all right, the story says, they don't have to be perfect to have a good life. Partners can get snippy when the other person rearranges their stuff and even happy, tight-knit of familes can have moments where it seems the in-laws are not sensitive to the new couple's needs. And "Beauty and the Beast" holds out hope that you can still go home, and even if it turns out you are a bit late the locks won't have been changed in your absence.
To me the "imprisonment" aspect of the story was just a device to get the tale moving, it was just the mice pulling the carriage. The important thing in my mind wasn't that Beauty was locked up in a castle, but rather that she had time to get to know her prince before ever kissing him. To me this wasn't a story that said if you love someone enough you can change them, but rather if you love someone you're willing acknowledge the good and the bad in them. I'm certain if my background was different, if I grew up in a household of more than petty disagreements I would be looking at this story with very different eyes. But in my world as a child, the idea of a real fellow actually locking up a real lady was as outlandish and impossible as singing teapots and so that part of the story didn't register as having a practical counterpart in my world. And I'm thankful for that.
Cyprith http://www.fanfiction.net/u/454361/ is turning out tales at an amazing rate, but these are finely crafted little gems where each sentence shines like a line of poetry. Go, read them and weep! I actually signed up for tumblr because she was posting first over there and I just couldn't wait for the pieces to hit ff.net.
A bit of humor to cut to the angst http://randombattlecry.livejournal.com/255910.html#cutid1. Just who were Vera and Margie anyways? :)
A great look at the curse http://auri-mynonys.livejournal.com/81274.html#cutid1
A story on the power of names http://skye-white.livejournal.com/20045.html I'd love to see more pieces playing with the theme of names and naming with this ship, I can never get enough of that...
Belle finds a hobby :) Some grand dialog in this one http://randombattlecry.livejournal.com/253742.html#cutid1
Lately I've been so busy with real life work that I fear I haven't been doing a lot of mental work outside of that. I've not had the time or energy to do the sort of ponderings over stories and books that I really enjoy doing.
So I'm going to try and start writing out a few thoughts on fairy tales now and then. I really want to get back in the habit of thinking that way and am worried about how much of my "English Major Mind" I've lost lately. So I want to start making myself write down a few notes about fairy tales, even if these thoughts are coming out as rough and half formed.
One of the most fascinating things about fairy tales is the way audiences tend to latch onto different aspects of the stories so firmly that even a very brief tale yields wildly different readings. Is Cinderella a story that encourages young girls to pin their hopes of a happy future on princes and to see themselves as victims in need of rescue? Or is a tale that displays the importance of hard work and the willingness to graciously accept assistantnce in attaining goals? It depends not only on the slant the particular telling takes, but also the angle our own lives have set us up at. These stories are too big for any of us to really look them square in the eye, and our own perspectives skew our readings.
I've always loved fairy tales, but Beauty and the Beast was the only one I ever really believed in. I was enchanted by pumpkins that turned into coaches and shivered deliciously at glass coffins, but I never felt those tales to be true on the same level as Beauty's story. I grew up strongly conditioned against marrying in haste--my mother may have married the first man she ever dated, but she took 13 years to do it. Much of my extended family frowns on the idea of re-marrying after divorce, so it was always considered very important to get it right the first time. As a child there was always a part of my mind that worried a bit about Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. How could they be willing to spend the rest of their life with someone after only one kiss, one dance?
But I never once doubted Beauty's happy ending. I saw her and her Beast as having a real happy life together, not some mindless haze of cooing"you're perfect, no you're perfect!" back and forth for ever after. We've seen this couple disagree, even fight with each other. These two aren't perfect--the Beast reacts irrationally to having one rose plucked in his garden and Beauty fails to keep her promise to come back when she says she will in order to spend more time with her family. And that's all right, the story says, they don't have to be perfect to have a good life. Partners can get snippy when the other person rearranges their stuff and even happy, tight-knit of familes can have moments where it seems the in-laws are not sensitive to the new couple's needs. And "Beauty and the Beast" holds out hope that you can still go home, and even if it turns out you are a bit late the locks won't have been changed in your absence.
To me the "imprisonment" aspect of the story was just a device to get the tale moving, it was just the mice pulling the carriage. The important thing in my mind wasn't that Beauty was locked up in a castle, but rather that she had time to get to know her prince before ever kissing him. To me this wasn't a story that said if you love someone enough you can change them, but rather if you love someone you're willing acknowledge the good and the bad in them. I'm certain if my background was different, if I grew up in a household of more than petty disagreements I would be looking at this story with very different eyes. But in my world as a child, the idea of a real fellow actually locking up a real lady was as outlandish and impossible as singing teapots and so that part of the story didn't register as having a practical counterpart in my world. And I'm thankful for that.