marauders4evr:

yesiamsleepy:

marauders4evr:

soldierofgeekdom:

marauders4evr:

I honestly don’t know what’s worse: the fact that the new life-action remake of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast felt the very random need to have Beast and Belle travel back in time so that Beast could lift a plague mask and claim that the plague had killed Belle’s mother or the fact that in the original book, Beauty’s mother was implied to be a fairy who was caught up in a political scandal with several other fairies including the fairy who raised the prince when the queen was away at war before trying to seduce him and ultimately turning him into a monster with the promise that he would turn back if he admitted that he was truly in love [with her].

Like I get why Disney couldn’t show the original story, even in the more ‘mature’ remake, but it baffles me that instead they were like, welp we still have to find a way to scar these children forever so…plague mask?

(Anyway the whole point of this is that you learn a lot of shit when researching for your book series, shit that you have to live with for the rest of your life, and either Disney completely missed that shit or they, responsibly, decided that they couldn’t show it in front of children but, irresponsibly, that plagues were an Okay Thing to show instead.)

Okay, now I need a B&B retelling with all that back story worked in. I never knew that the witch wanted the prince to fall in love with her.

*Waves hand impatiently*

I’m working on it, I’m working on it…

Well I’m working on an adorable fluff-filled series that combines many elements of various international fairytales but Beast is a main character so the backstory is definitely a main focus.

But even if you don’t want to wait for my books, the original Villeneuve version is on Amazon for $2.00:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I9IEK9M/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

The Villeneuve version, not the Beaumont version.

Beaumont essentially committed story theft, took the idea, hated the female-to-male misconduct, and reduced it down to the version that most people know. Which is a shame because the original (okay I know not the original, similar stories with similar themes have been passed down for centuries) was way ahead of its time. 

Wait. So are you telling me that stupid ass curse that made no sense (because why would the prince have to fall in love to learn a lesson in humility especially since he falls in love with the fucking embodiment of Beauty) is actually because the fairy was sorta evil and wanted the prince to admit he loved her but failed to specify it had to be her and aha, loophole?!

#still stockholm syndrome though

YOU CLOSE YOUR MISINTERPRETING MOUTH

1.) You are right about the loophole. It’s the best part of the entire original story and it’s the point of it all. In my series, the loophole is going to be that he forms a fatherly love for Gretel and Hansel but the original is just as good and again, way ahead of its time for reasons I will get to in a second.

2.) The reasons it’s ahead of it’s time: The fairy wasn’t just ‘sorta’ evil. She was pure evil. She raised a child and when that child was old enough (fortunately he was an adult in the original and will be in his mid-thirties in mine), she attempted to seduce him and when he refused, she cursed him and branded him as the villain for not putting out and honestly, would we be even having this conversation about how horrible this is if a sorcerer did this to a princess? No. But Villeneuve wanted you to have that conversation.

And I know what you’re thinking (or should be thinking):

Wait a second.

A villain in Beauty and the Beast who tries to seduce another character, gets turned down, and tries to get everyone to see that they’re the one in the wrong? Yeah. No one steals other characters’ roles like Gaston. 

3.) There. Is. No. Stockholm. Syndrome. The merchant (”Maurice”) steals the rose and when Beast and is like, “Dude, what the actual f—” the merchant offers one of his daughters up instead of him and Beast is like, “Dude…what the actual f—?” and so Beauty sacrifices herself and shows up to the castle and the merchant just begins badmouthing Beast and Beauty calls him out on it and reminds him that this is his fault and when the merchant leaves her, Beast is just like, “I…have no idea what just happened but as long as you’re here, you’re going to live in luxury” and at no point does he ever act anything but nice and courteous to her and literally her entire time there is basically a prolonged Be Our Guest segment and what’s interesting is that he frequently asks if she will marry him and when she says no each time, he shrugs and says, “Fair enough” and walks away with absolutely no grudges because he’s not going to be like the enchantress that’s lusting after him. 

The rest of the book descends into the madness of fairy politics but the point is that Beauty was the first person to see that ‘Beast’ was not a monster but was really the victim in all of this and she’s the first one to treat him with kindness and love instead of greed and lust and that’s what ends up breaking the curse.

So basically Beauty and the Beast is the story of a victim of manipulation and unwanted seduction being villainized by society before being saved by the one person who was kind enough to give a damn about what he went through.

(via mechna-prime)