Faery tales (NO, I did NOT spell this wrongly)

What type of Fae are you?

An elf! :D (Think Lord of the Rings, tall, pale and slender people with long, pretty hair, either black or silver. Everything I'm not.) They're sometimes known as the Fair folk.

Lately, I've been obsessed with Holly Black's "The Modern Faerie Tales". (FYI, Holly Black is the author of The Spiderwick Chronicles".) Yes, faerie tales.

I've always been obsessed with the fey and all things supernatural, for as long as I can remember. I did grow up reading Harry Potter y'know. And I was reading Lord of the Rings when I was 10. I have the first three Deltora series by Emily Rodda. (15 books)

Fairy tales. Remember all the childhood stories and the Disney renditions? Cinderella, with her singing birds and talking mice, Ariel (The Little Mermaid) and the absolutely fascinating undersea witch Ursula. There was Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, etc. etc.

However, how many of you realise just how morbid fairy tales are? I mean, please. You call me disturbing? In the original Grimm Brother's version of Cinderella, Cindy didn't have a stepmother, but little birdies that watched over her like guardian angels. ("You talk to birds?") Then stepsisters had to cut off their big toe and the heel of their foot to fit into the dainty little glass slipper. (There was a lot of blood. Trust me.) And when the stepsisters went to Cinderella's wedding, and the helpful little birdies pecked the stepsisters blind. And they lived happily ever after.

Little Red Riding Hood. The man cut open the wolf's stomach, fished Little Red and Granny out, stuffed rocks in and then sewed the stomach shut. Need I say anything else?

Jack and the Bean Stalk. Now, what kind of story is that? One that teaches you to steal? And then you kill the giant (no matter how indirectly) at the end.

I liked the original Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson. Y'know, whenever she walked on land, it was as if she was walking on knives. And at the end, when the prince fell in love with another woman (fickle asshole) she's given the choice to A) Die and become the foam of the sea or B) Stab him and let his blood wash over her so she could become a mermaid again.

And Snow White. Ah, sweet sweet Snow White and her seven dwarves. Well, sorry to shatter your childhood memories, but the original dwarves weren't all "Heigh ho heigh ho"; they were grotesque misshapen little creatures. And the evil queen ordered the hunter to bring back Snow White's heart for her to eat, so that her own evil heart could be sated and put to rest. And in the end, sweet Snow White had her revenge. When the evil queen went to Snow White's wedding, (not knowing her stepdaughter was still alive) the queen was made to step into a pair of heated iron shoes, and made to dance in them until she dies.

These ladies and gentlemen, are the original fairy tales. Not so pretty now, are they? (They were written by GRIMM Brothers...)

Of course, they've all been edited and censored these days. Oh sure... You can watch violent movies, play gory games, but these fairy tales are just too disturbing... (Please note the sacarsm.)

This is why I love Holly Black's writings, The Pillowman (Only the best play ever, written by an extremely talented Martin McDonagh) and Kaori Yuki's Fairy Cube (The dark side of fairies was what Chaung Yi Comics called it). These are the closest you can get to the old fairy tales, only with a modern twist. Okay, so The Pillowman doesn't really have fairies in it, but it's style is so much like fairy tales. (Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pillowman#Katurian.27s_Stories. I dare you to disagree.)

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I WANT TO READ IRONSIDE BY HOLLY BLACK. T_T

Someone go with me to Kinokuniya to get the books?