This is not a goodbye post. This is simply a long overdue post explaining what I’ve been doing, why I haven’t posted on this Substack, and what I’m going to do moving forward. I’m fully aware I’m not the most productive person when it comes to making posts — heck, most of the posts here are basically updates or list posts, which I’m considering privatising.
There are two main reasons for the lack of content on this Substack. First, I have been writing, but on a different Substack, Fairy Tales for Young and Old, in which I retell and adapt classic European folk and fairy tales, while simultaneously talking about their origins. If you’re interested in that, I highly recommend you check it out.
The second reason is a combination of me being an introvert (I spend more time worrying about if I should say something and what, instead of actually just saying it), and having a terrible attention span; I often get the idea of doing a new project, but more times than not I lose interest and move on to something else. The fact that I‘ve been fairly consistent with my posts on my fairy tale Substack should be a testament to how dedicated I am with that project.
Which brings me to my next point. In my very first post, which was an introductory post, I’ve retold a classic folk tale in order to make a larger point about me feeling hindered from expressing my opinions freely. Turns out that I enjoyed writing that story more than writing the rest of the post. It made me feel productive, like I had an actual purpose, rather than being just another culture warrior. So I decided to retell more folk and fairy tales. I was feeling ambitious, so I chose a famous fairy tale to retell next, “Rapunzel.” Although it took me almost a year to finish it (I was slowly figuring out my writing abilities as I went along), but I’m overall satisfied with the end result. You can judge for yourself here.
In the year 2024 I wrote 10 folk and fairy tales, each of varying lengths, and a very long essay on folk and fairy tales, as an introduction to my fairy tale project. In the process I neglected this Substack, a fact that I’m feeling rather ambivalent about. On the one hand, I greatly enjoy retelling classic folk and fairy tales and sharing them with the world. On the other hand, I also greatly enjoyed writing that fairy tale essay, so I will do something similar on this Substack moving forward. That is, I’m going to make informative and opinionated essays on various fairy tale-related topics, such as fairy tale films, including Disney films, fairy tale trends, individual tales, and even fairy tale academia (I have a lot of say but that last one, especially in regards to Jack Zipes, whom I view as detrimental to the present perception of fairy tales, something I touched upon in my fairy tale essay).
In fact, right now I’m working on a new post series on Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics. I already made a post about it, but I admit I’m not very proud of how it turned out. Actually, the only posts I made here that I’m really proud of are the one talking about the 2023 remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid and the one arguing that “The Little Mermaid” is not exclusively an LGBT+ story. Last Summer I only watched the English dub of the series; now I’m watching it in the original Japanese, and let’s just say that I have a lot of thoughts on it. And now I want to give this series the deep dive analysis I believe it truly deserves. So expect to see some posts (not just one) on this series fairly soon.
Here’s what else I’ve been doing:
I’ve gotten a new job, which requires me to do a bit of going around;
I’ve been learning German for almost a year now, and now I’m able to recognise some easy words and phrases.
I’ve been watching a lot of Märchenfilme this past year — films based on fairy tales produced in Germany, it’s basically a whole genre there; I might make a post about them, if I have enough interest to do it.
I said this already in a Substack note, but I’ve abandoned Twitter (nope, still not calling it X) because it’s a place that encourages rage bait; the more negative the post, the more traction it gets. To use a personal example, whenever I advertise there a new entry in my fairy tale series, I barely get any views, expect from the people that I tag to those posts. Recently, someone made a post on Twitter claiming that the two women who took care of the Grinch in the 2000 film are a lesbian couple, despite the fact that they are actually sisters, even though it’s technically not explicitly stated. I made a post calling out this false claim, and of course it got over a hundred likes and some short-term traction. That, and the general negativity of the site not doing any good for my well-being, were major factors in me leaving Twitter, and I’m all the happier for it.
Substack is a place that not only encourages much more good-faith discussions (the fact that it doesn’t have a character limits like Twitter attests to that), but is much more politically pluralistic: people from across the political spectrum are able to express their ideas without fear of censorship or shadow-banning (at least yet). I try not to get too deep into politically-charged topics, as that is not the focus of my Substacks, and frankly I don’t enjoy talking about politics in general. The fact that we’ve become a politically captured and tribalistic people is no source of comfort to me, so I’ll try to do my best in these times and bring some joy and much needed escape with my fairy tale retellings.
Again, because I’m a big introvert and procrastinator, I cannot guarantee how often I will make posts (or even notes) for either of my Substacks, but rest assured, I’ll still be writing about fairy tales in some capacity. Now that you’ve reached the end of this short post, here is a screenshot of Old Sultan from Grimm’s Fairy Tale Classics. Enjoy!
