#turkish fairy tales | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

africanotaku92 · 1 year

Text

Winter and Spring: A Story of the Four Seasons.

HI!! I'm Sorry i haven't been really writing in a while but!!! i wrote a fairy tale!! Or at least fairy tale-esque story. It was fun to write, (to tell you the truth i've been in a funk for a while.)

I take constructive criticism! Just be polite about it!

@jessesblogg @baaaa-king @omniithe-deer @jadenoryuu

inter and Spring: A Story of the Four Seasons.

Once, when the earth was young and the people new, there was a king named Summer. He was a wise and noble monarch, who lived in the Palace of Sky. With his radiance he warmed the land, and with his wisdom, he gave council to the people. The King Summer had a daughter named Spring. She was a lovely young thing. Under the loving watch of her father, she danced on the fields of the earth, her joy and carefree nature giving reason for the festive moods, her sunset dress gliding through the earth, bringing forth the most beautiful of blooms, and the bees she kept provided the sweetest of honey. She tends to the new mothers, who welcome their children in her domain. When she is finished her dance, she retires to the castle, were she will watch her father walk upon the earth, his golden robes ripening the wheat and other crops, giving console to the people, and watches over the young ones as they grow and renew the peoples. The people loved their King and their Maiden, and the father and daughter loved their people.

One day, Spring had decided that she would take her dances further than the fields in which she knew. She went and begged her father for a piece of the wind, so he relented and gave her.

“This wind is a little weak, so it will only take you a bit further than you’re used to. If you stray further than you know, you must come back immediately. And beware the Knight of the first, for she is a dangerous thing.”

She thanked her father, promising not to stray too far, then hopped on the wind and rode North. However, the wind was stronger than her father had said, as the more she rode, the less she recognised the land. She saw a dense forest, with trees taller than she could imagine, with some having their leaves an assortment of colours, and others with barely any or no leaves at all. The forest floor was covered in vibrant reds and yellows and oranges, with plants and mushrooms and animals she had never seen before, and the whole place smelled of fresh blood. She was so amazed by what she saw, she forgot her father’s instructions and rode on. Eventually, the wind had slowed, so she knew it was time to land. She landed in front of the largest oak tree in the middle of the forest, and at the base of the tree, lay a woman.

Her crown was woven from bronze twigs, decorated with the fallen leaves and the seeds of trees. She wore a cloak and boots of animal hide and fur, covered in arrows and dyed red. Her tunic and skin made of the same brown of the oak. She was the most beautiful thing she had ever laid her eyes on. The woman then woke from her slumber, and got up from the base of the tree. Upon noticing her guest, she turned and with her head high, gave a demanding voice.

“Who enters the Forest without my permission? It is not yet my season, so who are you to walk upon so freely on my land?”

She curtsied. “I am Spring, daughter of the King Summer. I intended to go to the fields to the North, but I’m afraid that I strayed too far.”

The woman's eyes widened, and she quickly bowed. “My apologies, young Maiden. I didn't mean to be rude.”

“It’s quite alright, please rise. Though may I ask, who might you be? And why are you lying by this tree?”

She rose and replied. “I am Autumn, and my Forest grows and takes over the land when you and your father have gone to rest for the seasons. I am in charge of the cold North winds. I change the colour of the trees, and pluck their leaves once ready. I wither the crops of the last harvest and ripen others. I lead the Hunters to the best prey, and reap the spoils of the past seasons.I am the Knight of this land, and I protect the peoples in my domain. I was born of the mighty Oak and came to rest by my mother." She then bowed again.

“Young Maiden, your father must be worried. I will guide you back to the fields.”

She smiled, satisfied with her answer, and curtsied again.

“I accept your offer. However, I have one request for you.” She then extended her hand to her. “Grant me a dance!”

Autumn looked at the Maiden, dumbfounded. “Maiden, you truly are peculiar. Have you no fear of me?”

She smiled. “Noble Knight, you are kinder than your duties say. There is no reason to fear a heart who considers others. My original goal was to dance, so dance I shall. But, I'd much prefer dancing with a partner!”

The Knight was shocked, but she complied with the Maiden’s request. So they danced and danced and danced all day, all they way to the fields. Then she was given a piece of the North wind, and rose it home. From that day, the Maiden could not stop thinking about Autumn. Everyday, she would ask for the wind from her father, and everyday she would ride it to the Forest. Everyday, they had something to give each other, for Spring would bring forth strange, never seen before flowers and teach her how to play, and Autumn would gift her the finest furs and meats from hunts, and feed her the bounties of the Forest. And by the end, they would dance and dance until they got to the fields, where she would ride the wind back home. And, slowly but surely, sealed with a chaste kiss, Spring and Autumn fell in love.

Her father had been growing more and more suspicious of his daughter’s actions. So, when next she collected some wind, he secretly followed her, and what he saw filled him with fear and rage. He took the winds back home, and started plotting on how to separate them. He went down to Earth, and met a powerful witch called Koni living in a cave. He bowed to the king.

“Grand King Summer, Lord of all the lands, what can this humble servant do for you?”

“The Maiden Spring has been approached by and nearly sullied by the wretched Knight Autumn. I need a solution to this problem.”

The Witch looked around the cave and took multiple strange ingredients. He made a potion with them, and gave it to the king.

“Pour this potion onto the biggest fruit in the Forest. When it is cooked, it will become a powerful poison that will put her out of her right mind. The maiden will fear her, and she will come back to you then.”

The king thanked the Witch and left. He snuck into the forest and found a really large pumpkin, and poured the potion over it. The next day, when Spring and Autumn were together, she harvested the pumpkin, carved it and roasted the seeds. She gave Spring the seeds, but after she ate four of them, she lost her reasoning and all her memories of Autumn, and she ran away. She chased after her, wanting to know what was wrong, but as they reached the fields, the King Summer took his daughter and forbade the Knight from entering his domain.

“Wretched fiend! You have poisoned my daughter, and sullied her mind with your lies and deceit! For as long as I say, she will never see you again!” and with that, the king left. His daughter, who had heard all the commotion, became sick and fell into a deep slumber.

Swallowed with the grief of her love taken from her, the Knight fell and

Cried. For seven days and seven nights, she cried, and her tears caused a great flood on the earth, splitting the land apart and causing vast oceans and rivers to form. Then, as quickly as it consumed her, her grief turned into icy, hollow rage. Her heart became harsh, cold and uncaring, losing the very nature that made Spring love her. And with the bitter frost having overtaken her heart, so too did it overtake her appearance. Her hair, once fluffy and brown, now grew long and bleed white. Warm, soft green eyes now turn hard, icy and blue. She trudges the earth on the long, suffering journey to the Palace of Sky, her boots bringing death and starvation to the masses as she kills the harvest and makes the game flee, and her cloak of stars leaves the world a trail of ice and frost in her wake, her mournful wails bring about the North wind, who only feels her rage, and brings merciless blizzards. And with this new form, she was also granted a new name: Winter, the Prince of Snow, Harbinger of Death.

The people had not known such suffering before, and so pleaded with King Summer to help stop it. The King went out and saw Winter on the horizon of the fields, and demanded she stop. The newly formed Prince scowled, and then spoke in a stern, cold voice, one that even shook the king to his very core.

“ I will not end this suffering, nor will i ever forgive you, for your greed of love has blinded you to the happiness of others. For as long as she does not return to me, I will not relent. No crops shall grow and the animals shall remain in hiding. The sun will bear down but no warmth will come. The people shall suffer and they will have their foolish king to thank for it. “ and with that, the Prince turned and left.

For four months, the hellish season continued. For four months, the people suffered, and for each month, Winter came back to demand for the Maiden, with which she was always declined. The King grew more anxious by the day. Eventually, he had had enough, and went back to the Witches cave and asked for a cure. The Witch instructed him this:

“Find four items that has survived the wrath of Winter. Bring them to me and i will make them into something that your daughter can take. It will weaken the poison, and then she will be able to lift the curse of Winter.”

The King then made a degree to all the land in search of the ingredients. Soon, three warriors came back with their prizes: the firm skin of a fish that still swims in the frigid cold, the spun sugar from the juice of a crisp Apple that grew in Winter, and a singular Rose that bloomed through the snow. The fourth and final item was a lock of his daughter’s hair, which had not been affected by Winter at all. He brought them back to the Witch, who created a soft, sweet jelly wrapped in a thin piece of skin and tied with Spring’s hair.

“Feed this to both your daughter and the Prince, if there is forgiveness in his heart, the curse will be fully lifted. However, if not, then the Maiden will fall asleep every time for the same number of days each year.”

The king took back the jelly and fed some to his daughter. She woke up and, having regained her memories, immediately demanded her father to take her to see the Prince. She saw how different the world had become, and was deeply saddened by the pain her beloved was suffering.

The Prince saw her beloved in the fields by her Forest, and rushed to meet her. The reunion between her and her beloved was enough to melt the frost in her heart. And they danced in each other's arms, laughing wildly and clinging to each other so as not to lose each other again, the frost melting and the plants blooming with each step they took.

The king bowed his head to the returned Knight and offered him the jelly, but the rage in her heart burned fiercely and refused to forgive the king. He hung his head, fully accepting the shame of what he has done, and is said to still beg for forgiveness till this day.

So it is said: That Spring Dances the fields and brings new hopes and beginnings, That Summer Governs the world and brings a time of wisdom and gain, That Autumn Hunts the Forest and dances with her love, and brings happiness and abundance, and when Summer ends and Spring falls into a slumber, Winter brings survival and longing.

#fantasy #fairy tale #long post #original work #original content #the four seasons #sapphic #wlw #yes the jelly in the story is a turkish delight #in this universe they're not called that tho #idk what to name them yet #i'm open to sugesstions

8 notes · View notes

the-evil-clergyman · 6 months

Text

Illustrations from Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales by Willy Pogany (1913)

#willy pogany #art #illustration #golden age of illustration #1910s #1910s art #vintage art #vintage illustration #vintage #hungarian art #hungarian artist #books #book illustration #fairy tale #fairy tales #fairytale art #classic art

689 notes · View notes

publicdomainreview · 8 months

Photo

Forty-Four Turkish Fairy Tales (1913), a book of Turkish folk stories collected by Hungarian-born linguist Ignác Kúnos, with illustrations by Hungarian illustrator Willy Pogany: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/forty-four-turkish-fairy-tales-1913

60 notes · View notes

yvain · 2 months

Text

Since social arrangements in both the Grimms’ day and in our own have positioned mothers as the dominant figure in the childrearing process, it may seem logical to locate adult villainy in female characters—be they mothers, stepmothers, or witches. Yet the “abandoning impulse” emanates from both male and female parents, and children are just as likely to feel emotionally abandoned by a father as by a mother. Some versions of “Snow White”—a Turkish tale, for example—give us a male protagonist abandoned by his father. Another tells of a princess who sits at her window sewing, learns of an enchanted prince “with skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood and hair as golden as the sun,” and, with the help of three old women, frees the sleeping prince from the spell cast on him.

These tales along with other similarly “deviant” variants give the lie to the possibility that women have been slotted into the role of fairy-tale villains because of their greater involvement in the childrearing process. What seems more likely is that the men who recorded these oral tales—and for the most part the great collectors of the nineteenth century were male—showed, whenever they had a choice, a distinct preference for stories with female villains over tales with male giants and ogres.

Maria Tatar, Off with Their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood

#maria tatar #fairy tales #Snow White #feminism #readings #*

20 notes · View notes

agent-love-101 · 1 year

Text

silly Jack Horner headcanons

i think he would like Turkish delights; they give off his vibe (i have never eaten a Turkish delight)

also jam/jelly filled donuts/doughnuts!! <3

he wouldn't have stuffed animals, however he does cuddle a decorative pillow when he goes to bed. any staff or cleaning member that tries to share that information with the outside world will never live to tell the tale, so for now it's just a rumor.

he almost got sucked into a deal with Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpel now knows not to dare set foot in any proximity to jack or any of his property. Jack doesn't like being deceived.

he went through a huge lying phase as a kid. all the other kids had such impressive stories so he felt a need to impress + keep up with them. "i came across a giant wolf!!" "yeah? well I came across THREE!!"

he wasn't a good liar then. but he did it a lot. and with practice comes experience.

he loved to lie. it was a way to secretly spite Pinocchio.

he doesn't lie much anymore though. he prefers to "keep his word". aka trick people in a similar way rumpel does. Jack especially loves lying with the truth. let people's assumptions be their demise (afterall, he did give the serpent sisters' their weight in gold.)

before fairy godmother's demise, he was a banned customer.

If he really wanted to he could still get items from there by other means....by stealing

#jack horner #big jack horner #jack horner headcanons #big jack horner headcanons

109 notes · View notes

faintingheroine · 3 months

Text

@tis-the-fiction-fanatic

Of course I can :)

The book is a Turkish novel first serialized in 1899-1900 and it is set in 1890s’ Istanbul.

Bihter is from a formerly rich family fallen on relatively hard times. Her mother Firdevs is a woman from a family known for its loose moral character and she herself allegedly cheated on Bihter’s late father and caused his death. Now 22-year-old Bihter hates her immoral mother and wants to escape via marriage and to lead a honorable life but because of her mother’s reputation she has no suitors. One day a 50-year-old widower with two children, Adnan Bey, proposes marriage to her. He is extremely rich and Bihter doesn’t have any better prospect, so she accepts and they marry.

The novel basically is the story of this marriage. Bihter is seemingly the protagonist and is the driver of the novel’s plot as she embarks on an affair to escape her sexually unsatisfactory marriage with the middle-aged Adnan, but at least half of the novel is from the perspective of Bihter’s young stepdaughter Nihal who is deeply jealous of her stepmother. The novel can be said to be the story of both Bihter and Nihal and their rivalry, and Behlül, the young man who is involved with both of them, also gets chapters from his pov.

The novel is generally known as the “Turkish Madame Bovary” or “Turkish Anna Karenina” both because of its adultery plot and it being a pioneer of Realist Turkish novels (it is sometimes called “the first accomplished Turkish novel”) but I think it also has a genre-defying edge in its descriptions. I sometimes think that it shares more with a fairy tale like Snow White than with a book like Madame Bovary. Here is how a well-known thesis on this book describes the use of paradisical imagery in it (below) and @literatureismyentirepersonality had written an interesting meta about the aesthetics of this book.

The book doesn’t have a professionally published English translation but it has an English translation on the internet:

The English translation does have the occasional mistake, especially in swapping pronouns. Turkish doesn’t have gendered pronouns and thus you have to know which character is being talked about to know their pronouns. The translator mistranslated some of the pronouns in the text, presumably because they translated the book sentence by sentence. And the sentences are long and descriptive, this is the book’s style and it doesn’t always flow easily in English.

But plenty of my mutuals have read this translation of the book and enjoyed it, so I think the translation is still enjoyable to read and I am grateful that it exists.

Still, if you know German, Dutch, Croatian or Italian you could get an official translation in these languages too since the book has been published in these languages.

Can I guarantee that you will like this book? No. You might love it but you might also most likely think it is just an eh okay typical 19th century novel. While it is unlikely (since it is not a book like Wuthering Heights that invites very extreme responses) it is also possible for you to hate it. I did get one hateful Anon hating on the book and my posts about it back in July. Fiction is very subjective, not everyone will see the depth I see. But I would recommend giving it a chance. I genuinely think that it is a very good novel and that it is at least worth giving a chance. You can always stop reading it if you dislike it.

And yes, it has a soap opera adaptation but it takes place in the 2000s and doesn’t have much to do with the book beyond the very basic outline of the plot.

#aşk ı memnu #aşk-ı memnu #translation

12 notes · View notes

capricorn-0mnikorn · 7 months

Text

youtube

Summary: Red, of Overly Sarcastic Productions, retells the Turkish Folktale "The Boy who Found Fear at Last" by way of Andrew Lang's Olive Fairy Tale Book. The boy of the title doesn't know what fear is, so he goes off on a journey to find out what it is. But because he's never known it, he doesn't know when he's supposed to feel it, until (spoilers).

Spoopy. Under six minutes. Human edited closed captions. Eye Contact (cartoon face)

#overly sarcastic productions #fables and folktales #Turkish folktale #ghost story #humorous #proper closed captions in English #Youtube

19 notes · View notes

ariel-seagull-wings · 2 years

Text

Assista a "Borëbardha dhe 7 Xhuxhat - Kolona Zanore (Turqisht)" no YouTube

youtube

The Well Song from 1970's Pamuk Prenses ve Cüceler (Turkish Snow White).

@faintingheroine @princesssarisa @grimoireoffolkloreandfairytales @the-blue-fairie @superkingofpriderock @softlytowardthesun @angelixgutz @themousefromfantasyland

#turkish snow white #pamuk prenses #snow white and the seven dwarfs #snow white #fairy tales #fantasy #turkish film #Youtube

13 notes · View notes

duckprintspress · 1 year

Text

Celebrate World Folktales and Fables Week with 10 of Our Favorite Folktale Collections

This week, March 19th to 25th, is World Folktales and Fables Week! Duck Prints Press is celebrating with two blog posts: today’s, which focuses on the folktales, fables, and myths that influenced us as creators, and tomorrow’s, about our favorite folktale-inspired fiction (queer and otherwise).

Love folktales and fables? Join us now and learn about the ones we love – some you may know, some you may not!

D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths by Ingri d’Aulaire & Edgar Parin d’Aulaire (an inspiration for Shadaras)

The first book that comes to mind is D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths (I had to look up the title, but the cover is burned into my memory). While there may be other collections of fairytales and folklore that struck me, this is one of the first ones I read, and it set the stage for my love of mythology in general.

The True Story of the Three Little Pigs! by Jon Scieszka & Lane Smith (an inspiration for Veronica Sanders)

I remember being really inspired by the genre of “a well-known story told from a different perspective” after reading the Jon Scieszka/Lane Smith books in 2nd grade, like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. I always really liked thinking about folktales and fables from the POV of the “villain.”

Folktale-Inspired Disney Films (an inspiration for Adrian Harley)

I was a Disney-loving child of the 90s, so I am still unpacking the ways that shaped my view of folk stories, stories as a whole, and the world—and reconciling the positive ways these stories shaped me vs. the harms of the Disney corporation.

The Onion Girl (and other stories) by Charles de Lint (an inspiration for Anonymous)

He did an amazing job of blending American and European folklore with ordinary life in all its highs and lows. I don’t know if I could point to a specific story that’s retelling any one folktale, but I can absolutely point to the author as a whole for his folkloric style and tender exploration of magic, queerness, and being outcast. He helped invent the Mythic Fiction subgenre. The Onion Girl lives in my head rent-free.

Folktales of the Amur: Stories from the Russian Far East by Dmitri Nagishkin (an inspiration for Nina Waters)

A collection of eastern Russian folktales that really had a huge impact on me. 30+ years on from when I read them, I honestly couldn’t relate a single one of the stories, but they burrowed so deep into my psyche that when I imagine “folktales that really mattered to me” the first image that comes to mind is the cover. The art throughout the book is just absolutely gorgeous.

The Rose-Beauty – a Turkish Fairy Tale (an inspiration for Alessa Riel)

This is a Turkish fairytale that impressed me because it was cruel even for a fairytale. It‘s about a young woman who is blessed from birth to grow roses in her hair, cry pearls and grow grass wherever she walks and the cruel fate she is dealt because people are jealous of her gifts. It has a happy ending but only just.

A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz (an inspiration for Sebastian Marie)

It had a HUGE influence on me as a kid, for two main reasons. One, the events of a lot of European fairytales are told as happening to the same two kids and their parents, which creates a really interesting story structure. Two, it’s unabashedly mean and gory and cruel and well, dark and grim. It says that sometimes people are terrible and sometimes bad things happen to decent people. It’s one of the things that made me want to write fairy tales, or at least stories that are a bit gruesome and meant to be told to children.

The Swan-Maiden – a fairy tale (an inspiration for Alessa Riel)

This is a variant of the selkie tale as far as I can tell, only that the women don‘t turn into seals but beautiful swans. It was the version of the lore I first encountered and the unfairness of the women being forced to marry their captor and abuser and then also being cursed for abandoning the children these men forced onto them always resonated deeply with me.

The Blue Light by The Brothers Grimm (an inspiration for Alessa Riel)

In this fairytale a veteran soldier is unjustly treated by the king and then a witch sets him three challenges. The third one is getting her a blue light from a deep well. He refuses to give her the light and she drops him into the well along with the light. It turns out the light can fulfill wishes. Up to this part the veteran looks like a sympathetic person, but he uses those wishes to have the princess dragged to his room three nights in a row to do his bidding against her will. He is finally found out and sentenced to death for this transgression but manages to escape that fate by using the blue light and he gets the kingdom and the princess to boot. I always found this supremely unfair.

Egyptian Mythology (an inspiration for Dei Walker)

I think one of the first books of folktales, legends, or fairy tales I can remember reading repeatedly is a copy of Egyptian myths and legends I used to get out of my local public library when I was young. It was already an old edition in the 1980s and its pages were yellowed, but I would borrow it regularly and lose myself in the stories of life and (un)death along the Nile.

What are some folktales and fables that have inspired YOU? We’d love to hear about them, and maybe find some classical stories to add to our To Be Read piles!

Who we are: Duck Prints Press LLC is an independent publisher based in New York State. Our founding vision is to help fanfiction authors navigate the complex process of bringing their original works from first draft to print, culminating in publishing their work under our imprint. We are particularly dedicated to working with queer authors and publishing stories featuring characters from across the LGBTQIA+ spectrum. Love what we do? Want to make sure you don’t miss the announcement for future giveaways? Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get previews, behind-the-scenes information, coupons, and more!

Want to support the Press, read about us behind-the-scenes, learn about what’s coming down the pipeline, get exclusive teasers, and claim free stories? Back us on Patreon or ko-fi monthly!

#duck prints press #rec list #folktales #fables #myths #mythology #world folktales and fables week

33 notes · View notes

princesssarisa · 2 years

Text

The Different Types of Evil Queen in "Snow White" Adaptations

Since @ariel-seagull-wings recently shared a list of the different types of Snow White characterizations in different adaptations of the fairy tale, I thought I would share a list of the different portrayals of Snow White's nemesis, the evil Queen.

There tends to be more overlap between the different types of Queen than between the different types of Snow White: several portrayals belong to more than one category. But I was still able to narrow the various portrayals down to the five most popular "types."

This covers the Queen's true self only: to discuss the various portrayals of her disguises too would require a separate post.

The Grim Sorceress

This Queen is sinister at first sight. Her beauty is cold, and she contains it in severe styling and dress, wearing sleek, dark-colored gowns and with her hair in a tight updo or hidden by a medieval cowl. Nor does she bother to hide either her ruthlessness or her witchcraft. She's feared throughout the kingdom for her awesome magical powers and for her cruelty, and we see hints of just how she's earned that fear, with dark dungeons in her castle that contain skeletons and/or suffering prisoners. Her transformation into an old hag (or into some other creative form) is done with sinister magic, not just the makeup and prosthetics that other Queens use. Nor are her vanity or her temper ever played for laughs. This is a calm, stern Queen, who rarely smiles except in grim satisfaction when her plans succeed, and who never (or almost never) goes into hysterics over Snow White's superior beauty, but responds with hard, icy resolve to be rid of her. While she might occasionally use her beauty for seduction, she mainly seems to want to be the fairest for the sake of her own pride, as she's generally a solitary figure who uses magical brute force to get what she wants. The quintessential Queen of this type is the very first Disney villain, voiced by Lucille La Verne in 1937's immortal Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Other examples are Suna Selen's Queen in the 1971 Turkish Pamuk Prenses film, Queen Chrystal in the anime series The Legend of Snow White and Charlize Theron's Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman... although she combines it with another type of portrayal, seen at the very bottom of this list.

The Venomous Lady

This is a more human Queen than the Grim Sorceress, although she shares much of the same dignity. She's not overtly evil at first, but wears the facade of a refined lady who seems kind and generous, if slightly cold and aloof. It's easy to see why Snow White's father trusted her and thought she would be a good wife. But beneath her amiable facade is deadly jealousy, rage, and cruelty. The phrase "silk hiding steel" comes to mind, describing a woman whose gentle, refined facade hides great strength, but instead of steel, this Queen's silk hides venom. When she reveals that venom to Snow White (for example, by imprisoning her, or by confronting her about her beauty and threatening to banish her), it's almost more horrifying than if it had come from a more blatantly evil Queen. This Queen is also less likely to know witchcraft herself and more likely to have a witch or wizard ally to supply her disguises and poisons. But if she is a witch herself, she's careful to let no one know it. Examples of this type of Queen include Patricia Medina in Snow White and the Three Stooges, the Queen in the anime Grimm's Fairy Tale Classics, and the Queens of the mid-century live-action German versions, Addi Adametz in 1955's Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge (although she skirts the line between this type and the Grim Sorceress), Marianne Christina Schilling in 1961's Schneewittchen, and Herta Kravina in the 1971 Schneewittchen short.

The Prima Donna

This Queen is usually – though not always – a more comic portrayal of the character. She's a glamorous overgrown "mean girl" who devotes her life to enhancing her beauty and showing it off. She typically wears lavish, eye-catching gowns and headdresses, sometimes laughable in their gaudiness, and receives luxuriant beauty baths and other cosmetic treatments in her chambers. If her hair isn't too lavishly styled, she'll be seen constantly brushing it as she gazes adoringly into her mirror and boasts to herself about her own beauty. And woe to any servant who doesn't perfectly cater to her thousand daily whims! Far from the calm, collected Grim Sorceress or Venomous Lady, this spoiled brat of a Queen typically bullies her castle staff and throws tantrums when she doesn't get her own way. She tends to be something of a woman-child... yet this doesn't stop her from being truly sinister, cunning, and dangerous when she wants to be. Examples include Queen Brangomar in the 1912 stage play and its 1916 silent film version where she's played by Dorothy Cumming, Vanessa Redgrave in the Snow White episode of Faerie Tale Theatre, Diana Rigg in the Cannon Movie Tales adaptation, the Queen in Luigi Zaninelli's opera adaptation (because of course an operatic soprano Queen should be a Prima Donna), and Sonja Kirschberger in Sechs auf einen Streich.

The Femme Fatale

This Queen is a sensual being. She wears brightly colored and/or revealing and provocative clothes, devotes her life to lavish parties full of admiring guests, and takes a narcissistic sensual delight in her own beauty. She also makes her beauty serve a purpose: manipulating men. Her specialty is seduction, whether subtle or overt, and her magic likely includes love potions or seductive hypnosis as well as poisons. In this way she captivates the likes of Snow White's father and the Huntsman, and typically she wants to captivate the Prince too. Whether for himself, for his kingdom's wealth, or both, she wants him, which enhances her jealousy of Snow White with romantic rivalry. It doesn't matter if he's twenty years her junior – I almost named this type of Queen "the Mrs. Robinson" before I realized that not every example targets the Prince. Examples (both those who target the Prince and those who don't) include Gudrun Landgrebe in Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge, Jeri Aredando's Sly Fox in Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, Jane March's Queen Gwendolyn in Grimm's Snow White, Julia Roberts' Queen Clementianna in Mirror, Mirror (although she combines it with a more lighthearted Prima Donna portrayal), and Nadeshda Brennicke in Schneewittchen und der Zauber der Zwerge. Vanessa Redgrave in Faerie Tale Theatre and Miranda Richardson's Queen Elspeth in Snow White: The Fairest of Them All are partly this type of Queen too, although the former combines it with the Prima Donna, the latter with the Venomous Lady and with... see below.

The Spiraling Madwoman

This is more of a subtype than an individual type of Queen characterization, as it's usually combined with one of the above. But whether she starts out as a Grim Sorceress, a Venomous Lady, or a Femme Fatale, her defining feature is that as Snow White repeatedly survives her attempts to kill her, she becomes increasingly unhinged. She might be slightly unhinged from the start, showing anxiety each time she consults her magic mirror even before she gets an answer she dislikes. And the prospect of losing her status as the fairest in the land doesn't just make her jealous, but gradually sends her into a full-blown emotional and mental breakdown. She typically has a reason for this. Maybe she was born ugly, but made beautiful by magic, and is afraid of losing the beauty that was never really hers; maybe she has a traumatic backstory, which she only survived thanks to her beauty and resulting power over men; or maybe there's a prophecy that a woman more beautiful than she is will cause her death. But whatever the reason, this is the most pitiable version of the Queen. Without making her any less of a villain, her final scene – which typically inflicts both of her worst fears on her, the loss of her beauty as well as death – contains real pathos, as she swings from savage rage to collapsing in a weeping, whimpering heap. One Queen who partly embodies this type is Miranda Richardson's Queen Elspeth in Snow White: The Fairest of Them All (who combines it with the Venomous Lady and the Femme Fatale), but probably the ultimate Spiraling Madwoman is Charlize Theron's Queen Ravenna in Snow White and the Huntsman (who combines it with the Grim Sorceress).

Which type of Queen – or blend of types – is your favorite?

@ariel-seagull-wings, @superkingofpriderock, @themousefromfantasyland, @faintingheroine, @the-blue-fairie

#fairy tale #snow white #the evil queen #the wicked queen #characterization #adaptations #portrayals

113 notes · View notes

josefavomjaaga · 1 year

Text

Murat in Königsberg, December 1812

While looking for more information of a certain general Loison I came across something much better: A Saxon report of Murat reviewing troops in Königsberg, while he was at the head of the Grande Armée, after the retreat from Russia and after Napoleon had gone home to warm cuddly Paris. Enjoy.

(Translated from: Karl Geissler, Geschichte des Regiments Herzoge zu Sachsen unter Napoleon mit der großen Armee im rußischen Feldzuge 1812, Jena 1840)

Even though the King of Naples, who immediately had the troops take up their arms before he descended, won everyone's heart at this inspection by his immense affability, he was particularly friendly towards the regiment of the Dukes of Saxony.

He first greeted it with the call: "Ah, ces braves Saxons!" and then expressed unconditional praise for its previous conduct towards Colonel v. Egloffstein.

He was less friendly towards the other regimental commanders, and as far as the 6th Regiment in particular was concerned, one even thought to hear the words: "que vous méritez des reproches", which perhaps referred to the above-mentioned, partly unsuccessful escorting of some money sledges.

Murat then had the regiments paraded before him and his brilliant entourage, with the remnants of the French and Italian regiments No. 1, 3, 29, 105 and 113 leading the way accompanied by the thousand-voiced cry of joy, "Vive l'empereur!"; then followed the Frankfurt and the ducal Saxon regiments, also shouting, "Long live the emperor!" and finally the 5th and 6th, both of which marched by in silence.

During this revue we had a very good opportunity to get a close-up view of King Murat, who attracted everyone's attention with his stature, expensive costume and rich harness. His face, his beautiful black eyes and black curly hair, which fell down on his kurtka, - a Polish suit, whose tight sleeves had an opening under the armpits - captured the eye. The collar was richly embroidered with gold, and a golden belt was fastened around this garment, from which hung a light sword with a straight blade, Roman style, without edge or guard. He wore wide amaranth-coloured trousers and yellow gold-spurred boots. -- The splendour of these clothes, which were covered by a green gold-embroidered coat, was further enhanced by a square red Polish chako with broad gold embroidery and a plume of four large ostrich feathers falling back, from the centre of which rose a magnificent heron feather. The saddle and stirrups were gilded and of Turkish shape. The horse was covered with a gold-embroidered sky-blue saddlecloth and the bridle, appropriately, was truly magnificent. Murat's entourage, of course, was also rich and brilliant, but it was nowhere close to him. He, the only medieval character of romantic poetry in the French army, outshone them all and in his tight-fitting kurtka, in his yellow or nanking-coloured riding boots, with his ostrich feather ornament proudly swaying around the Polish sammet cap on the Andalusian steed, stood out wonderfully against the heavy gold-embroidered marshals' uniforms and the soldiers of the French army. Napoleon, however, appreciated these distinguishing elements of his brother-in-law, who, like a knight of the Round Table, like a modern paladin of love and honour, shone with his dark eye and long hair among the heroes who surrounded the Emperor. Murat was, as mentioned above, the soul of French cavalry, a true Chevalier reminiscent of the Troubadours, with all the charm of romanticism, all the courage, daring and bravery of earlier times, as graceful as it is sublime in legends and fairy tales.

I’d say Murat, in those final days of the empire, still managed to get himself some fans.

#napoleon's marshals #joachim murat

27 notes · View notes

tilbageidanmark · 5 months

Text

Movies I watched this Week # 152 (Year 3/Week 48):

7 more with gorgeous Belgian actress Virginie Efira:

🍿 Continuing with the rest of Justine Triet's work, In bed with Victoria was a study for Triet's later 2 films. Like 'Sybil' and 'Anatomy of a fall' it is fascinated with the process of elaborate legal machinations, a strong women's sexuality, great kid performances, intellectual analysis and delightful sensuality.

Virginie Efira is a single mom and a powerful criminal lawyer here trying to balance her work and love life, but she is confused, and so is this movie. Still, they are both a delight to watch. 5/10.

🍿 A boilerplate, fast-paced romantic comedy of a hot "cougar" falling for a 19 year old boy, It Boy, predictable and formulaic, but she's such an eye candy, it's impossible to hate.

🍿 An Impossible Love, my second challenging film by Catherine Corsini (After 'Summertime'), 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. A difficult and elusive drama about a beautiful woman who passionately falls in love with a dashing young man. But as soon she becomes pregnant with his child, he leaves her, and refuses to take responsibility for their daughter. What starts as a romantic fairy-tale, turns in the course of 30+ years, into a nightmare of cruelty, abuse and heartache. The dynamics of a horribly narcissist father and his hold of the women who wants to trust him are very hard to watch. Beautifully sad and brilliantly dark. 9/10.

On the other hand, in every one of the 8-9 movies that I've seen with her so far, she always have some 'steamy' sex scenes (but they are usually perfunctory and all are similar in style). I am absolutely not complaining, but is it part of her contract?

🍿 Just the two of us, her most recent film from 2023 is similar in parts to 'An impossible love'. This one too is about a gaslighted, terrorized wife, whose cruel, possessive husband is a disgusting, hard to watch abuser. For some reason she plays here a double role of twin sisters, and her laugh (when she does) lights up the screen. But this was an ugly and unpleasant experience.

🍿 Night Shift, my second by Anne Fontaine (After 'Adore' with Naomi Watts), It's a police procedural, a somehow-updated, French version of Hal Ashby's 'The last detail'. 3 police officers must escort an illegal immigrant from Tajikistan back to his country, knowing he will probably be killed there. I did not expect it to be so captivating. 9/10.

🍿 Paris memories, my second by French director Alice Winocour (She co-wrote the Turkish award-winner 'Mustang'). Efira plays a lovely woman traumatized from having survived a mass-shooting in a Parisian bistro. Going through similar mental agonies as Jeff Bridges did in 'Fearless', this one felt like banal film-making with no real depth. Some moments of pathos when the POV shifted to a couple of the other characters. (Photo Above)

🍿 Because I'm a completist (and sometimes a masochist), I checked out one episode (S2 E1) of Call my agent, a fast-paced French serial of the Netflix kind (i.e., slick, shallow, "funny" with constant muzak in the background). It's about a Parisian entertainment talent agency, and each episode stars a real celebrity. 2/10.

🍿

Young Picasso, a simple British documentary about the early years of the 20th Century's greatest artist. From his birth in Malaga to 1907, when he created Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, "The first modern art masterpiece". Absolutely riveting. 9/10.

🍿

2 by Alexander Payne, both starring Paul Giamatti as an unsuccessful teacher with an unfinished manuscript in his drawer:

🍿 The holdovers, Alexander Payne's 8th feature, and my favorite of all of them (Even more than 'The Descendants'). Absolute pleasure from the very first chords, like listening to Simon and Garfunkel for the first time. 10/10.

🍿 "...If anybody orders Merlot, I'm leaving. I'm not drinking any fucking Merlot!..."

Rewatch: Sideways, the film that helped cause a real growth in pinot noir sales worldwide. I forgot how wonderful it was: It really got better with age... With "Gretchen Schwartz" as Miles' Ex-wife.

[It reminded me of one of the happiest summers of my life, in 1974, when I worked the grape-picking 'vendange' season in the south of France. I started in Perpignan, and together with other free-spirited hobos, hitchhiked north every two or three weeks to a different vinery, and ended up in Champagne. We were housed in worker's quarters, worked long hours in the field, were fed fantastic rustic French food, and received (beside the meager wages) two bottles of red wine each - every day.]

🍿

'The Holdovers' was a modern adaptation of a 1935 French drama, Merlusse, directed by Marcel Pagnol. It also tells of a reclusive teacher assigned to watch over some pupils over the Christmas holidays. And he also has a glass eye, and stinks of codfish, etc. The new version was much superior.

🍿

Re-watch: Umberto Eco, A Library of the World, a wonderful documentary about the private library of the Italian medievalist, philosopher, semiotician, novelist, cultural critic (and flutist).

Roaming through the many rooms hosting his vast MIlanese library of 1,200 rare books, and 50,000+ newer ones is any bibliophile's masturbatory wet dream.

It features the same Carl Orff cover that Hans Zimmer adapted to 'True Romance' under the name 'You're so cool'. 9/10.

Now I want to watch an adaptation of Foucault's Pendulum if there ever was one. Or at least re-watch his 'The name of the rose'. I also wish there was a movie about Eco's favorite writer, Athanasius Kircher.

🍿

So instead of reading all of Borges books again, I was looking for movies based on his stories. Bertolucci's The Spider’s Stratagem, made in the same year as 'The Conformist', is the first that came to mind. An operatic web of truths and lies, symbols of murder & betrayal. "Athos Magnani arrives at the sleepy town of Tara, where years ago, his father—also named Athos Magnani—was assassinated by Fascists while attending a performance of Verdi’s opera Rigoletto." Memory, identity, stagecraft, a trip to the kingdom of the dead.

🍿

From a recent list of '30 best mobster movies', The Traitor, an epic Italian saga about Tommaso Buscetta. He was the first Sicilian Cosa Nostra boss to turn informant, and whose collaborations were used at the big anti-Mafia trials of the 80's. Not as great as 'The Godfather', but a solid entertainment piece. 7/10.

🍿

I struggled with the new disjointed psychodrama May December, my 5th film by Todd Haynes. I found it pointless, confusing and lacking emotional focus. Not close to the pathos of his two earlier masterpieces, ‘Carol’ and ‘Far from heaven’. Natalie Portman was an unreliable narrator, and Julianne Moore‘s family was unconvincingly flat. It felt unnecessary. 3/10.

🍿

The platform is a cruel Spanish horror / science-fiction story, with an unusual hook: Prisoners are held in a 300-floor vertical tower, two to a cell. Once a day they receive food lowered on a platform to their level, and they have only two minutes to eat as much as they can, but the lower you're in the system, the less you're left with. This is not something I usually enjoy, and indeed I despised this unpleasant, disgusting parable of inequality.

🍿

First watch: I kept reading that the sequel Hot Shots! Part Deux was better than the original, but really not by much. A few funny jokes in otherwise lame and lazy spoof. 3/10.

🍿

4 more documentaries:

🍿 Innocence, a painful Israeli documentary by Guy Davidi about Israel's compulsory military industrial-cultural complex. How it indoctrinates, brainwashes and overwhelms (nearly) all its children to become cogs in the war and oppression machine. Told from the prospective of some soldiers who had committed suicide while serving in the army, it's a depressing, evil and unjust story. But it is told in an irritating 'poetic' voice-overs, and I hated everything about it. 3/10.

🍿 Memories from Palestine, a Danish documentary about a tiny museum in the refugee camp of Shatila, Lebanon. It’s a rather small, decrepit room, where the elderly caretaker Mohammeds had been collecting some old keepsakes from 3 generations ago.

🍿 Coded, a lousy documentary about gay illustrator J. C. Leyendecker. The famous commercial artist cloaked his sexuality while producing popular magazine covers for 50 years. 1/10.

🍿 Bob and Don: A Love Story, a light 20-minute documentary by Judd Apatow, about the friendship between the two comedians. Not much meat on it, but OK.

🍿

Summer in Tyrol, a 2010 Danish short about an old couple who argue with each other, even as the old lady dies in a hospital room.

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

#movies

2 notes · View notes

erenozturk · 5 months

Text

EREN ÖZTÜRK INTRODUCTION.

meet eren; private investigator banshee

GENERAL

FULL NAME: Eren Öztürk NICKNAME(S): N/A AGE/DATE OF BIRTH: 54 (appears 29), 01/04/1969 GENDER: Cisman PRONOUNS: He/Him OCCUPATION: Private Investigator, and owner of Tower Treasure Detective Agency SPECIES: Fae, Banshee

BIOGRAPHY

TRIGGERS: death, haphephobia, racism, xenophobia, gore

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a boy who fell into a hole.

It’s not a normal way to start a fairy tale, but in the case of Eren Öztürk this was the way his literal fairy life began. Falling face-first into a dark, seemingly endless hole. It was that night that his banshee powers had manifested themselves for the first time within this specific timeline, as well as the defining moment which led him down the path to his current life. Seated in a small office above a laundromat on a corner in Downtown Lunar Cove, surrounded by case files, grainy photographs, and dozens upon dozens of takeout cartons, the banshee often reflects on that pivotal moment way back on that early 80’s autumn day in middle-of-nowhere Pennsylvania and how everything changed forever after.

Eren Öztürk was born to a mechanical engineer and a children’s book writer in Istanbul in 1969. He doesn’t remember his homeland, at least not back in that time, because shortly after in the early 70’s his parents made the decision to migrate to the United States. Settling in a small and charming town in the foothills of Pennsylvania, Eren was set to have a pretty idyllic childhood. Being the only child the Öztürks would ever have – as far as he knew – he had a warm upbringing full of love and everything a young kid like him could ever ask for. Everything seemed absolutely perfect… That was, until it wasn’t. Being an immigrant to the United States in the 20th Century wasn’t exactly the easiest thing, and being one of the only Turkish families in their small town made things worse. When Eren started attending school, he quickly found himself growing into an outsider and began hiding his sweet and warm demeanor behind a stoic and socially anxious exterior. The kids at school made fun of his homemade dishes, a stark contrast to their pizza and chocolate milk carton lunches bought at the cafeteria. They mocked him and his family as they spoke in their native tongues at the supermarket, and they found every way to let him know he was “just too different” from them.

As a result, Eren had only a couple of friends – Frank, his brother Joe, and their oftentimes collaborator, one Nancy Drew. While the other kids ran about the playground playing freeze tag and hide and seek together, Eren spent his recesses in the library, checking out Hardy Boys book after Hardy Boys book. He delighted himself primarily with the mysteries at the core of each adventure, but also the brotherly bond and camaraderie between its main characters – something he always wished he had in his own life. These novels were the first signs of an inquisitive and curious mind, having bred a love for anything mystery and crime detective related, and when Eren was going through puberty and feeling woefully alone, he began to act out. Combined with a bad attitude, which was undeservingly flung at his parents, Eren began sneaking out of the house and running off to a local art theater late at night when they began showing Noirs from the 40’s and 50’s. Films which he quickly became addicted to. Out of the Past, Murder, My Sweet, Kiss Me Deadly — these movies and so many more all became quick favorites for the young boy, who soon after began daydreaming he was a detective in a trench coat and fedora, on a hot case with a femme fatale in a dark and smoky city.

After one such late night excursion, and imagining himself as the quick witted detective at the center of the narrative, Eren left the theater on his bike and cut through the woods which lead to his backyard. It was supposed to be a shortcut, a quick way to get home so he could be tucked back in his bed before his dad checked in on him to ensure he didn’t sneak out again. But one sharp turn turned a simple bike ride through the woods into him stumbling face-first into a barely concealed hole. One that felt like it went on forever, endless and dark. He woke after an indecipherable amount of time in the pitch black, sore and covered in scrapes and bruises. As Eren tried to feel around for something to help him up, his hands felt something softer than the hard, cold ground. Adjusting to the dark, he was able to make out a silhouette of what looked to be an oddly shaped object, which his hand reached towards. Moonlight piercing the clouds revealed it to be a corpse, and as his hand sank into the decomposing flesh, Eren let out the loudest, piercing scream he had ever made or even heard in his entire life. His vision clouded as a chilling vision unfolded, depicting the deceased's final moments — a visceral connection to death that marked the onset of his supernatural gifts.

This was the first time his abilities as a banshee manifested themselves.

The trauma of that encounter lingered, overshadowing the remainder of his youth and impacting his relationship with his parents. The banality of life faded into the background, replaced by the manifestation of even more peculiar abilities – a debilitating scream, the ability to transfer an injury inflicted by his bullies to them, and retractable wings which made for many an awkward moment. But all of those were eclipsed by the even more horrifying ability to witness moments of death from just touching a person. It all made adolescence a confusing and isolating period. He was desperate to escape whatever was going on with him, but especially his parents who were stuck between wanting to help their son with whatever was happening to him and horrified as stranger and newer symptoms of his unknown curse made themselves known. He couldn’t stand the terrified look on his mother’s face, or his father’s confusion which quickly turned to frustration when Eren lashed out when they tried to make sense of everything going on with their teenage son. Or the hurt that crossed their faces when he refused their touches, caresses of love and concern from a parent watching their son become undone. The last thing any kid wanted was to see how their parents would die, long before the event itself happened.

The second that Eren came of age in the late '80s, he had made a rather difficult choice. He couldn’t stay there, with parents who would likely never understand what he was going through and in a town where he wasn’t accepted when he was at his most “normal”. So he left home – without farewells, leaving behind the tearful visage of his mother as his last memory of her. His search for answers regarding his strange abilities propelled him into a nomadic existence, hopping from place to place, country to country, continent to continent, searching for something he wasn’t quite sure of, avoiding attachments all along the way. It seemed all across the world there were many places with their own myths to explain what was happening to him, but nothing concrete beyond old wive’s tales. No documented cases of another going through what he was, from what he could find. His existence quickly became the one mystery that Eren had no way of solving.

With little to nothing to work with, he gave up on his soul searching for a moment and made his way to Turkey, his homeland which he only heard about in stories and in faded memories from when he was really quite young. All his life he had felt like an outsider looking in, only feeling a sense of belonging within the pages of old children’s mystery novels. When he arrived in Turkey, things were instantly somewhat different. For once, he didn’t feel like he didn’t belong, he felt like just another face in the crowd, blending in fully to the environment around him. It felt like maybe things would be alright, maybe he found some happiness despite all the strange occurrences surrounding his existence. He still had the premonitions which haunted him any time he came in contact with people and sometimes objects which formerly belonged to others. This gave way for a severe case of haphephobia, which made him awkward and anxious when out in public. This being the only thing that marred his time home in Istanbul, he didn’t think of it as a major tell as to the supernatural things which had been going on in his life. But he was wrong, there was someone who was able to notice something was off about him and was able to quickly deduce what was going on.

When Zehra first approached him, he didn’t know how to take her boldness, especially when she began asking him about his wings and if this was his “first life”. Of course it was his first life – as far as he knew, this was his only life – but her vagueness gave way to more transparent explanations and soon Eren was getting the explanation he had longed for for a handful of years now. According to Zehra, he, much like her, was a faerie, only he was one called a banshee whereas she was a siren. Suddenly everything about himself made sense, and all because of this stranger who was able to recognize the shared struggles of their kind. Slowly, they forged a profound friendship, and Zehra became Eren's guide, helping him understand his banshee abilities, introducing him to a supernatural world within their own. With her he found his first family outside of his parents, and they worked on his trauma and helped him make sense of his past. Eren knew he was finally with someone who understood him when Zehra gifted him with his first pair of leather gloves. “You know,” she had said warmly, “To help you with your fears.”

He was content to stay there in Turkey with Zehra, but as quickly as he learned about the broad supernatural world they were part of, he learned there were those who wanted to destroy it. Hunter activity was growing across Europe and Asia during that time, and so the fae duo knew they would need to keep moving if they wanted to survive. At Zehra’s insistence they began moving westward. She had heard talk of a supernatural haven back in the States which many of her compatriots had either come from or escaped to. While the thought of going back homeward gave him anxiety, a sense of self preservation prevailed and the pair began slowly making their way towards Lunar Cove, Rhode Island. Between 1988 and 1991, they found themselves settling in towns here and there, meeting others like them and of different species, and trying to find some sense of normalcy wherever they could. Wherever they stayed Eren would pay keen attention to the local goingons, and Zehra was surprised to see the young banshee quietly following and even solving some of the local crimes which were being documented by the public, talked about in small coffee shops and diners.

During a particularly long stay in a town in the Southern US, Eren went as far as crossing paths with detectives on a cold case and made light comments after touching something he was supposedly not allowed to touch. He may have been the anonymous tip to help things progress to justice. While talking over coffee in the middle of the night at a Waffle House in Alabama, Zehra made a throwaway comment about them opening a Private Investigation agency together when they settled in Lunar Cove. At first he shrugged it off, but as they continued their northward travel the thought became more and more appealing. When they finally crossed the barrier into Lunar Cove in the spring of 1993, Eren decided he would make that vision a possibility. Working days bussing tables at an Italian restaurant while he spent nights getting his criminal justice degree at the local college, it seemed like this was the cherry on top of Eren’s life turning out just as it was meant to be. So much so that he stopped aging in 1998, finally feeling his true self. When he got his PI license, Eren began renting out a small office space above a laundromat in Downtown Lunar Cove, and thus the Tower Treasure Detective Agency was born – aptly named after the first Hardy Boys adventure which started his long journey towards amateur sleuthing and now real detective work. Things were going great, perfect even, and after skirting around their feelings for so long, Eren and Zehra finally progressed their friendship into a romantic connection.

The turn of the century brought with it many changes. Tower Treasure was doing well, mostly dealing in smaller crime cases that the local authorities didn’t pay as much attention to, as well as targeting cold cases in the greater local area in order to earn some extra big cash. With his banshee abilities, Eren began taking on more and more cases regarding inexplicable deaths, using his premonitions to help families get a glimpse of exactly what may have happened when their loved ones perished and providing much needed closure and even a bit of grief counseling as a result. It was simple and sweet, it made those visions which oftentimes plagued him and scared him as a youth into something good for the community, at least he tried to think of it that way. It didn’t always pan out that way and in his seemingly perfect life, there were some cracks which exposed a less happy underbelly. No matter what positive spin he tried to put on things, Eren still suffered with his phobias and fears, as well as an unending guilt for having never reconnected with his parents who likely would always wonder what exactly happened to their boy. Zehra had been supportive of everything he went through, but every person had their individual needs and soon enough she wasn’t feeling as fulfilled as she hoped. And despite himself, Eren pulled away from most everyone and everything. The visions of death began having a toll on him once again, and he found himself pulling more into himself after years and years of detective work. Solidarity has always been his best coping mechanism.

Eventually Zehra left, citing a desire to go back to Europe and find some of the others they used to commune with. Eren knew she didn’t want him to feel bad for not being adequate for her and he comforted himself with the thought that she was back in Europe or Asia, living out her vivid and interesting life and hopefully in the arms of someone who could love her properly. It felt better to think that way than to imagine hunters found her and she had regenerated, or worse. Since she left, Eren never took on another partner in his detective work, or personal life. Left alone, aside from his only lasting employee which was an eternally middle aged vampire secretary with a nasally voice and penchant for knit cardigans decorated with woodland creatures, his agency continued on — still bringing closure to Lunar Cove’s residents in death whenever it’s needed, but with his somewhat dreary case load he’s lost a bit of love for the work over the past couple decades. Now it seemed he was just robotically going through the motions of work and life, as he has been over the past couple decades now. His social life remained minimal, not interacting much beyond his clients and the other members of the fae court, and he shied away from forming new attachments, being haunted by the fear of another heartbreak. Life reached a standstill, a boring downhill slide…

That was, until the Catalyst arrived.

With the chaos and turmoil enveloping Lunar Cove due to the mysterious Catalyst, Eren has found himself contemplating the unfolding mystery between his usual lighter case load. Alone in his dimly lit office, surrounded by the remnants of takeout and mountains of case files he ought to be working on instead, he often reflects on the facts laid out before him on a board hung up on his wall. Photographs, newspaper clippings, and anything he could find about the town’s biggest adversary, pinned up on a corkboard with red lines crossing over all of it, connecting invisible dots he’s yet to figure out, but delights in seeing. The prospect of a tumultuous mystery has been slowly rekindling Eren’s passion for detective work, as the promise of more danger and chaos looms on Lunar Cove’s horizon and ensures that something bigger than they’ve witnessed yet is surely on its way. And Eren Öztürk welcomes the developments, taking in each and every thing that comes up, and prepares to face the shadows that he hopes will soon darken his agency's doorstep. In the meantime, he continues paying close attention to the goings on, doing what little work comes his way, and keeping a careful eye on every new face that shows up in Lunar Cove. In this new chapter of his dark fairy tale life, everyone is suspect. That is, until he can prove their innocence beyond a reasonable doubt.

HEADCANONS

Typically wears all black, a mix between casual and dressy, in particular is usually in a suit and tie but sometimes rocks a tee and leather jacket. The one thing Eren is never without are his gloves. Black or Brown leather racing gloves which he wears to help him interact with the world without a fear of seeing things he doesn’t want to (outside of work) or direct touching with others

Doesn’t invite and has never invited a single person into his home. If you want to see him privately, go to his office, but don’t ever expect to make a house visit.

Has a very dry sense of humor and delivers teasing banter in a very monotonous voice. If you didn’t know him, you may construe this as mean but he is actually a very sweet person. He just rarely shows that side of him to others.

He appears young, but he’s an old man at heart. He loves sitting at the park and playing chess with others, his favorite show is the nightly news, and he will complain about nonexistent back pains. His sensibilities skew towards older interests, namely with music and media. He loves noir films from the 40’s and 50’s but also loves his 80’s coming of age films, and carries a Walkman and mixtapes of 80’s hits on any case. If he’s doing a stakeout there’s a 100% chance he’s listening to Tears For Fears or Spandau Ballet.

No hookups, no romantic relationships, nothing beyond professional (even for his few platonic relationships) — he’s afraid of touch and there isn’t a single exception to the touch rule. Aside from his dog. He needs cuddles somewhere, the poor man.

idk more will come to me I’m sure lol

MISC

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Demisexual ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic FAMILY: a dog named Hardy HOMETOWN: TBD, Pennsylvania FACE CLAIM: Emin Günenç HEIGHT: 6’2” EYE COLOR: Brown HAIR: Dark Brown DISTINGUISHABLE FEATURES: STYLE: ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: capricorn PINTEREST: (x)

WANTED CONNECTIONS

Past clients

Acquaintances

Few close friends

Maybe you were one of his cases / he had to trail you at the request of a former flame/loved one

Unwanted Partner In Crime

‘It’s Always You, Seemingly Caught Red Handed At The Scene Of The Crime’

#&& about.

3 notes · View notes