Disney vs. 7 early fairytales 

The 1812 version of Snow White is even worse when you consider that the girl was only seven years old in the tale (plus her unconscious body ended up being carted around by the prince until one of his servants accidentally woke her up).  Also, in The Little Mermaid, the mermaid’s unable to speak because she had her tongue cut out >__<

But I’d love to see faithful adaptations of the original tales.  Especially Bluebeard.  We need a Bluebeard adaptation.

Actually, the original-original pre-Grimm Brothers’ stories that were passed around Europe via oral tradition are nowhere near as violent as the Grimm’s made them. Cinderella’s stepsisters were never ugly and kept their eyes, Snow White’s mother was not even a villain (instead a group of bandits were), and instead of spending the whole story napping Sleeping Beauty outwitted a dangerous bandit leader, wouldn’t let him sleep with her, and saved herself. 

The original oral stories were radically changed by the Brothers Grimm to fit their personal and political beliefs. Most notably, they often added in female characters solely for the purpose of making them evil villains and took away most of the heroines’ agency and intelligence. Both brothers belonged to a small fanatical sect of Catholicism that vilified women because of the idea of Original Sin and Wilhelm in particular had a particularly deep hatred of women. The Grimms were actually pretty horrible people. Those cannibalistic queens and ugly stepsisters and the mass amount of violence against women didn’t exist until the Grimms wanted them to. Their ideas stuck so soundly though that we now assume they were in the original tales and that these terrible characters and ideas come out of some perceived barbaric Old World culture. But in truth they’re really the Grimms’ weird obsession with hating women showing through. The original oral folklore focused on the heroes’ and heroines’ good deeds and used them as ways to teach cultural norms and a society’s rules and encouraged girls to be quick-witted and street-savvy instead of passive princesses, and the Grimms promptly stripped that all away. 

“Grimms Bad Girls and Bold Boys” by Ruth Bottingheimer is an excellent book on this

Something to add to my reading list.

So this guy Franz Xaver Von Schonwerth collected all these fairytales and in the 2000′s they were discovered in an attic and published. Unlike the Grimm brothers, he did not edit anything. The Grimms deliberately edited the stories to fit middle class tastes - they also were trying to create a national identity with these tales as a touchstone. Meanwhile Von Schonwerth’s goal was documenting the Bavarian oral traditions - which is why he didn’t edit the stories in his notes. 

And the stories are weird and intense. Some have the classic “beginning middle end + moral” - some are just “here’s stuff that happened….” 

And some of the endings…you know that story about a weary soldier who performs three tasks and gets to marry the princess? In this book, the soldier is continually rejected by both the king and the princess, so he brings an army to burn down the entire castle with everyone inside. The end, lol.

The other interesting thing is that while the Grimms tales had mostly female protagonists, Von Schonwerth’s have as many boys trying to escape nasty situations as girls. There are boys who cuddle up with frogs to discover that the frogs are princesses, there are boys called “King Goldenhair,” there are brothers fighting, and fathers sending sons out to stop being a burden on the family. In the introduction, Maria Tatar posits that the Grimms, having suffered from being orphans, may have avoided these types of stories. 

Anyway, if you like fairytales, The Turnip Princess book is worth the read.

end the concept that the grimms either invented or had the ‘original’ version

I love this meme

have you ever listened to the japanese ending theme for megaman x4

really love imagining a bunch a kids and teens on their pokemon journeys staying the night on the couches and floors in the lobbies of pokemon centers, having long talks about their experiences and feelings sharing funny and scary stories and myths about legendaries and trading items and sharing TMs along with sugary snacks and pokedex chargers all while their pokemon are out of their pokeballs and all bundled up in blankets sleeping soundly next to their trainers while they stare up at the stars shining through the glass ceiling over their heads

#this is what pokemon’s all about

#this is…so nice

I just…really like this idea man. So I drew a thing.

I recently found out that The Angry Video Game Nerd is surprisingly popular in Japan. His reviews get subbed, are thrown on NicoNico, and he’s earned somewhat of a cult following over there from it. There’s a Pixiv tag for fan-art and everything.

It’s just like Gamecenter CX over here. I love it.

I guess Japan is interested in watching an angry American swear and yell at bad video games, and we’re interested in watching a calm middle aged Japanese guy who is horrible at video games play really difficult ones for hours and hours on end because he’s forced to. I guess?

no fucking way

@catzgba

lest we forget….

masterpost

did anyone else do that thing way back in the skype days where you’d have a breakdown and just

You’ve heard of superwholock, get ready for

I’m never playing Isabelle again

https://twitter.com/metroetta/status/1062184086356209665?s=21

Me, crouched in front of the used games section for two hours:-

The thing to remember when watching Stardust Crusaders is that Jotaro is 17. He’s a child. Keeping that in mind, everything about him is funny. 

— C.S. Lewis (via quotemadness)