#genre: retelling

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability, and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to become the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly, and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

#polls #book: wicked #author: gregory maguire #genre: fantasy #genre: retelling #year: 1990s

[paperbackd]

Book review: In the Lives of Puppets by TJ Klune

Klune is the king of ‘comfy’ queer fantasy and this might just be his best work yet. Set in the far distant future, In the Lives of Puppets follows Vic Lawson, son of Giovanni Lawson, a reclusive inventor. Together with a sadistic medical machine and an anxiety-riddled roaming vaccuum they live deep in the forest, in complete isolation from the outside world. But when Vic rescues a mysterious andriod named HAP from the scrapheap, dark secrets from his father’s past come to light.

‘Scifi Pinocchio retelling’ is a great enough concept, but Klune delivers an even greater twist - the android inventor’s son, Vic, is already a real boy. In fact, he’s the only human in the forest. Vic knows that he isn’t the same - mentally or physically - as his android family, and he struggles to understand and accept his place in a world of machines. Klune writes Vic’s character arc so beautifully and with such kindness, and I’m absolutely in love with the found family Vic creates for himself.

I knew to expect good queer representation from Klune, but I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of an asexual protagonist. Vic’s asexuality is even more meaningful considering that he’s the only human member of his family - a clever inversion of the outdated and insulting asexual robot trope. Vic’s asexuality also leads to worthwhile conversations surrounding consent and healthy communication as he develops romantic feelings for HAP. Best of all, Vic’s robot family are 100% supportive towards Victor and his identity is never treated as something strange or unnatural.

If I have one critique of In the Lives of Puppets, it’s that it did seem unnecessarily long. Not that I particularly minded spending extra time with these characters, but there were a few points where I felt that the plot was dragging.

That’s a minor issue though, given how much I genuinely loved the heartwarming, cozy vibes of this book. Equally heartwarming and hilarious, It’s the perfect rainy day read.

Many thanks to Tor Books for providing a review copy. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Publisher: Tor Books Rating:  4 stars | ★★★★✰ Review cross-posted to Goodreads

#book review #in the lives of puppets #booklr #the house in the cerulean sea #tj klune #r: tj klune #genre: scifi #genre: retelling #genre: lgbtq #4 stars

[rustchild]

desperately craving weird surrealist arthurania. Knights with no faces wandering through the mists. Seams between Christian and pre-Christian Britain gaping like open wounds. Beafts and visions. Maybe a monk. Maybe the monk is gay

#This post brought to you by remembering that The Green Knight exists #and longing to live in the alternate universe where it launched a whole genre of high quality queer indie arthurania retellings #craving themes of guilt honor repression wildness etc etc #bonus points if it includes critique of the whole divine right of kings English empire imaginary that can accompany Arthur retellings #I would write it myself but alas! I have no brain #Mine

[poisonbooknerd]

If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy

If the Shoe Fits by Julie Murphy

Meant To Be: If The Shoe Fits Julie Murphy A New Adult Contemporary Retelling Romance Published by Hyperion Avenue on August 3rd, 2021 If The Shoe Fits Rating: goodreads storygraph After having just graduated with a degree in shoe design, and trying to get her feet on the ground, Cindy is working for her stepmother, who happens to be the executive producer of America’s favorite reality…

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#book review #book reviews #Four stars #Genre: new adult romance #Genre: retelling #Genre: romance #Hyperion Avenue #If The Shoe Fits #Julie Murphy #raquel reviews #Reviews #Series: Meant To Be

[pimsri]

I’ve been playing the Hades game lately

#everyone keep encouraging me to play it so i finally did! #I enjoy it i think #not my usual genre of game but it's a nice change! #I love greek myth retell :) #this one is nicely done and an interesting way to adapt it! #I love that for once #the main character is a very obscure god #i thought i was quite familiar with greek myth #yet I know very little about Zagreus except that his thing involve rebirth and stuff #hades #hades game #pimsridoodle

[schibi12]

Greek Gods being desgined as colorful rainbow people my beloved

#schibi rambles #greek gods #greek mythology #osp #overly sarcastic productions #disney hercules #destripando la historia #dlh #i know lore olympus also does this i just havent read it thats why i didnt include it #also last 3 pic might be the most niche and underrated thing i have ever referenced #but i highly recommend it they are story/myth retellings done in song form each done with a different sound/genre #its all in youtube search destripando la historia and youre welcome

[brother-emperors]

HAPUNAN MO ANG AKING KATAWAN

I can't...stop thinking about Sulla dedicating his memoirs to Lucullus.......what the fuck.....

Plutarch, Lucullus (trans. Scott-Kilvert)

Lucullus: A Life, Arthur Keaveney

I will probably redesign Lucullus the next time I draw him, but we are. getting somewhere. I want to give him darker hair, I think. but mostly this comic is because I've been playing U-Know's Reality Show album pretty regularly since it was released and Vuja De is one of those songs that really hits when I think about relationships people had with Sulla (either in the positive, negative, or generally kind of messy). it Inspires, it Compels, and I also just wanted to do a 9-panel grid layout because it's been awhile since I've done one. they're Satisfying

#me reading plutarch's lucullus bio for real this time: oh so you were sulla's other wife #anyway ive spent the last half hour re working my yakuza film-gangster genre retelling of the late republic and lemme tell you #lucullus. ohhhhhhh. he's. he's fun #i have never thanked sulla for anything but i AM thanking him for lucullus. the themes we are unlocking. the fashion decisions #i FINALLY get to indulge in. hell yea #komiks tag #roman republic tag #lucius cornelius sulla felix #Lucius Licinius Lucullus #drawing tag

[prolibytherium]

The Song of Achilles is one of the most garbage books I've ever read and I kind of want to talk about it but I'd have to reread The Song of Achilles to do that in a cohesive manner, which is garbage

#I went through a phase of reading the like... Feminist-ish adaptations of Greek mythology genre . Which as a whole is absolute dogshit #Like almost everything I read was outright BAD. #Silence of the Girls is the only one I read that I would describe as 'good'. Which I have issues with but still think is overall solid #Which if you are looking for a good novel with Achilles story is the only thing I could possibly recommend #(It really isn't about that (It's the Iliad from Briseis' perspective) but happens to have the only depiction of Achilles and Patroclus tha #I did not absolutely loathe) (And also it kind of feels like the author couldn't decide what kind of Iliad retelling they wanted to do #because it starts switching to Achilles POV randomly around the middle) (Which is one of the problems with the book but after #the absolute garbage heap that was Song of Achilles I appreciated it anyway)

[inklings-sprint]

I just had a thought about something that could be interesting and/or fun. Not something necessarily for this year, but it's still early enough that you could still do such.

But now that we all have our teams, it would be neat if there was a story that had multiple parts that were contributed by people on the same team. I know it's not a team challenge like that, but it would be kind of interesting to see.

#you don't actually want to know all the thoughts that I have about working a collective story together #it would take so much work and coordination with other people #but at the same time could lead into such an epic if there was a team crossover story #where potentially 3-6 people (1-2 from each team each doing a different genre) managed to combine/crossover their stories in some way #but also the original thought of just two people on the same team working together to create one story #it wouldn't even have to be retelling the same scene #inklings challenge #inklings brainstorming week #inklings-challenge #inklingschallenge #inklings brainstorming session

[slaygentford]

when the lair becomes a house... this has been on my mind recently cuz I've been thinking about how the past is a gothic romance and the present is functionally w/o genre like have you noticed that. that the past is in a different genre from the present. when the New Yorker or whoever said Jacob is essentially double cast as two different roles because that's part of what Louis is convincing us of like he's trying to be like I was a gothic heroine and Daniel (a character who, like modern Louis, is not inside a genre) is like she (real life, not genre) would not fucking say that. LIKE YOU CAN LITERALLY. IF YOU MAKE IT GENRE. YOU CAN SAY THAT idk Dracula dir Coppola, mina harker was in a tragic dark centuries-long romance, a twisted fairytale, a seduction. WHEN YOU TAKE IT OUT OF GENRE. when you take it out of genre. when you take it out of its convention. well when you take it out of genre mina was not seduced. was she.

#inside -> out of genre is what every 'retelling' is essentially doing IN MYYYYYYY OPINION. #wait I have to think about that more I'm not sure. but I'm sticking to it for now

[allisonreader]

So this is the story I jumped ship from to write Grandfather's Story. Which came out of almost nowhere. As for this one, well this was my SECOND idea for @inklings-challenge based off of a dream that I had in September and then shared about.

Yes folks, for those of you who know, this is the Selkie Cinderella Little Mermaid story idea. Simply called by the working title of The Selkie Story. The basics is that it's The Little Mermaid smashed together with Cinderella with a dash of loose Selkie lore. Right now there's no obvious signs of Little Mermaid and more Cinderella and Selkie vague than anything else.

If you're interested in how it all started, here's a link to that post.

I was going to try and fit it into team Chesterton whether it truly fit or not. Anyways, here's the beginning of that story.

Once there was a lonely man named Lucas, whose wife had died and left him childless.

He had heard a story; once, being passed around by sailors. Claiming how one of them they knew had gotten themselves a Selkie bride; by stealing her coat and keeping it from her.

For whatever reason, that story had struck a chord with our lonely man. He decided that he too wanted a beautiful Selkie bride and made plans to find one.

What he didn’t expect was to come across the coat of a young Selkie girl of maybe three or four. Surprising him greatly when she came looking for her coat, which he had ready secured away in a chest. Throwing away the key into the ocean.

He watched the girl for a bit, regretting that he had thrown away the key prematurely. It was too late now, but perhaps the girl could fill the hole in his heart.

He pretended to come across her, and told her that he’d help her look for her missing coat. When they couldn’t find it, he offered for her to come home with him for the night and that they could come back the next day and do just that.

He followed through and did that for a few days, showing her jackets and sweaters that weren’t her coat.

After a few days more, he asked if he could call her Cordelia and if she would be willing to be his daughter. Since they couldn’t find her coat that would allow her to go home. She hesitantly agreed, still longing to go home.

He wasn’t cruel to her, and did treat her exactly as if she had been the daughter his wife had not given him. He always made sure she had enough to eat and drink and clothed her in the most up to date fashions of the day. Playing with her and trying to make her laugh, while keeping her oblivious to the fact that her coat was kept in a chest in the attic and that the key for it was lost somewhere in the sea.

After a few years together, he happened to find himself a wife, a mother for his sweet Cordelia he thought. The woman had two daughters about Cordelia's age, what perfect playmates for her. For a few years everything was fine, until he became sick and died.

In his will, he asked that Cordelia continue to be looked after for. Meaning that she could not be thrown from her adoptive father’s house. So Cordelia remained, much to her stepmother Helena’s chagrin.

Since the girl could not be thrown out and left homeless, the stepmother decided that Cordelia should become the household’s maid. Cordelia was of no relation to the man she had married, and she had never adopted the girl, so now Cordelia could make herself useful to her and her own daughters. And so Cordelia's life as a servant began. Working for her step mother and sisters.

Life for Cordelia had changed fast after her father’s death. She had hardly been given time to grieve properly before being removed from her room. She was allowed to keep some of her dresses, but not her fancier ones as she was told that she would not be going anywhere where she would need them.

At first they still had servants around to help teach her everything that she would need to know to take care of the house. But over time the staff were slowly let go and Cordelia was forced to try and make up for all the work.

Just as slowly her step sisters Phoebe and Natalie began to forget that the three of them had been friends and sisters, as they started to tease Cordelia about her being forced to work and live in/near the kitchen. Their mother encouraging the behaviour from her daughters.

Cordelia ignored the taunting in favour of remembering the good around her. The kindness of her adoptive father and the fun she had had with her sisters before step mother decided that she was to become their servant to earn her keep.

She was kept busy enough to not have a lot of time to think. Helena wasn’t afraid to strike her on occasion if she did something that was considered particularly egregious. Leaving deep bruises those times. The sharp biting words that sunk into her soul were almost worse. She fought to keep herself respectful as possible when facing her stepmother; as disrespect would bring bigger punishment. Overtime the physical punishment stopped, in favour of my chores being added to her work load.

Before her adoptive father had passed, she had never fully realized how much he had meant to her. She missed their trips to the sea to look for her coat. An activity that was just for them. The coat looking never lasting long before they both were enjoying just being at the seashore.

#the selkie story #inklingschallenge #team chesterton #genre: intrusive fantasy #genre: adventure #theme: clothing #story: unfinished #this is probably more in line with a retelling initially I was a little disappointed in myself because I have written Cinderella tales #but I thought I would share this anyway #I'm also going to share what I have for my original idea but it needs to be typed up yet

[haveyoureadthispoll]

Deadly storms have ravaged Mina’s homeland for generations. Floods sweep away entire villages, while bloody wars are waged over the few remaining resources. Her people believe the Sea God, once their protector, now curses them with death and despair. In an attempt to appease him, each year a beautiful maiden is thrown into the sea to serve as the Sea God’s bride, in the hopes that one day the “true bride” will be chosen and end the suffering. Many believe that Shim Cheong, the most beautiful girl in the village—and the beloved of Mina’s older brother Joon—may be the legendary true bride. But on the night Cheong is to be sacrificed, Joon follows Cheong out to sea, even knowing that to interfere is a death sentence. To save her brother, Mina throws herself into the water in Cheong’s stead. Swept away to the Spirit Realm, a magical city of lesser gods and mythical beasts, Mina seeks out the Sea God, only to find him caught in an enchanted sleep. With the help of a mysterious young man named Shin—as well as a motley crew of demons, gods and spirits—Mina sets out to wake the Sea God and bring an end to the killer storms once and for all. But she doesn’t have much time: A human cannot live long in the land of the spirits. And there are those who would do anything to keep the Sea God from waking…

#book: the girl who fell beneath the sea #author: axie oh #genre: retelling #genre: mythology #genre: fantasy #genre: romance #year: 2020s

[prosebushpatch]

still reeling from the one agent saying they want "subtle" fairy tale retellings like Cinder, and idk if we're thinking about the same Cinder there are literally quotes from the og fairy tale before the corresponding chapters?????? so you know exactly where we are in the plot??????

#rose and rambles #i will probably delete this one later but like?????????? #like?????????????????????? #i would not describe that one as subtle #it is different and imaginative because it takes place in a sci-fi dystopian future BUT IT IS LITERALLY #A CINDERELLA STORY?!?! AND DOES NOT LET YOU FORGET IT FOR ONE MOMENT???? #im pretty sure it has the quotes from the fairy tale i might be misremembering but the Cress one does for sure #like the chemical makeup is just full on the fairy tales i feel like if you want subtle it would have to be like #less obvious that it's a retelling? like just echoes of the key moments or imagery #but Cinder by Marissa Meyer is so fully cinderella even in the different genre #im going to be so stupidly bitter about this BUT IM RIGHT #whats also funny is the agent could be talking about a different cinder idk #she diDN'T PUT THE AUTHOR but the one by Marissa Meyer is popular and the only one i know at the top of my head #subtle #that was not the word you were looking for i think #just to be clear i love cinder and the lunar chronicles so so so so much #but THEY ARE WHOLE-HEARTEDLY FAIRY TALES #EMBRACE IT????? PLEASE????? #the only subtle retelling example i can think of is Ella Enchanted or Fairest #both by Gail Carson Levine. More so Fairest because it's like one specific moment where the apple comes in that you're like oooooooooooh #this is snow white #but Ella Enchanted is more like Cinderella i think it would be hard to not see the parallels #Cinderella is hard because you just need a mean stepmom and two stepsister and that's an instant give away #but Ella Enchanted has its own Vibes that it comes off as its own thing ya know ya know?

[jewfrogs]

Irks Me when people dismiss classical adaptations as all being, like, YA hades and persephone or #girlboss retellings or whatever when there is in actuality such a rich history of incredibly interesting reinterpretations of the classics especially by marginalized groups. i promise the world is wider than madeline miller

#‘no more classics retellings we’ve moved past the need for classics retellings’—guy who’s never even heard of the gods are not to blame #i am mostly thinking of black classical adaptations because they’re on my mind. but there are ALL KINDS of these adaptations i promise #i should be clear. nothing against madeline miller. i read galatea a long time ago and i thought it was good #but when people (both in praise and protest) act like she Invented the classical retelling or Defines the genre. agh. #ribbits

[viscericorde]

adaptations born from spite will always feel Off that is just the fate they're doomed to. even if people outside the "audience" of whatever you're riffing on like it, people who have a deeper knowledge of that thing will always be able to clock the shortcomings

#reboots and remakes. mythological retellings. genre parodies. doesn't matter what it is #someone will always be able to Tell #textphelia

[chemicalarospec]

I never was into Monster High and the younger-demographic reboot appeals to me even less tbh, but honestly I have half a mind to seek it out in the faint, vain hope that it might encourage Mattel to reboot Ever After High. But on the other hand Ever After High's original design was so charming because of the elements which are now becoming charmingly dated to the early 2010s, so I just know an official redesign would just always be disappointing even though fan redesigns are always super cool. And the whole fairy-tale fad is over, I guess -- I bet there are still little kids who love it like I did, but the market is saturated (and apparently Descendants is still active, and I know they're still publishing their Disney fanfiction AU books...) -- so there's little hope on that front. But I'm bringing Ever After High back into my life myself anyways. Wayback Machine saves of the old website and my books will suffice <3

Edit: wait something is GOING ON right now?? something peculiar and iffy but SOMETHING!!

#AI songs????? #mattel #EAH #ever after high #It's a little tragic that Descendants wasn't just awful #I mean it stole from EAH and it's inferior to many of the other fairy-tale mashup-retellings and #EAH will always be the best of the genre (though the Lunar Chronicles is a strong contender... #it's very actually original though and targets older -- I usually don't think of it as part of the fairy-tale fad) #but Descendants had good aesthetics too (SOMETIMES) and the lore had its moments #I said this #like i'll be real 'we put them all on one island. one generation' is marginally better than 'ummm they had kids b4 dying and this cycle #lasts forever but also um the parents all have the OG names...' #as a kid i came up with the headcanon that every-other generation they had to use the original storybook names to explain that lol #(the ever after high lore just barely dodging incest at all times...)