Weekly! thingy and the Ten of Pentacles/The Girl Without Hands

Have you ever thought, “Gee, I love Snow White, but I wish it was significantly more fucked up. I wish it was like an oddly religious Saw movie. I wish the villain was a shitty dad instead of yet another evil stepmom, and also the devil because, once again, oddly religious.” Hoo boy have I got a story for you, and I’m going to assume most of you won’t know it since I’m mildly obsessed with fairy tales and I didn’t. GIANT trigger warning for parental abuse and maiming and subtextual threat of rape in case you didn’t assume that from my intro, guys.

Full text is findable here – I’m not reprising the whole thing since it’s got quite a few twists and turns. Basically the father pulls a dumbass ‘what’s that, you just want whatever’s standing behind my house in exchange for enormous riches, mysterious stranger? I foresee no downside!’ and accidentally promises the devil his extremely lovely and virtuous daughter. She’s so clean and virtuous (apparently physical cleanliness really is the same as godliness here?) that the devil can’t touch her, so he orders dear old dad to keep her from being able to wash so that he can take her. She’s washed clean by her tears overnight, so next he tells Dad to CHOP OFF HER FUCKING HANDS ffs and he protests for like half a second, but as soon as it’s going to be him taken instead he goes and tells the daughter, forcing her to offer to let him do it to save himself. AND HE DOES. Look, I’m not saying I’m heroic, but I’d like to think that most people would not be talked into maiming their child so that they can go be – tortured more in hell? Raped by the devil? I’m pretty much assuming that one, it seems obvious.

Anyhow, the daughter washes her STUMPS clean with her tears again because apparently sacrificing yourself for your shitty dad only goes so far, physical cleanliness is what we’re into here, and she’s saved again and the devil leaves.

To her credit, she immediately nopes out of that house and away from the dad who thinks things will just be ok now, and goes off planning to rely on the kindness of strangers. It’s a big swing from someone who was just massively betrayed by family but that’s why she’s the awesomest good girl, I guess.

I really have to skip ahead some or I’ll be telling the whole story after all – an angel helps her get to a pear tree for sustenance, then helps her meet the king who owns the orchard, they get married and she gets pregnant (and a set of silver prosthetics, which, heavy, right? I would have thought wood might be more comfortable? She probably ended up with fantastic biceps from lifting them) and pregnant, and then the king has to go off to war and the devil comes back to fuck with the poor girl some more. There are a bunch of faked messages back and forth, the mother-in-law gets told to murder the girl and save her tongue and eyes as proof, and at least she’s not up for that – she gets deer parts as a substitute and sends the girl off with her baby tied to her back.

Aaaand here we are at the moment I picked for this card- the angel leads her to a house with a sign saying ‘here all dwell free’ and she lives there, well cared for, for the next seven years till her husband comes back from war, finds out what happened, and goes after her. Also, her hands grow back. It ends happily, but oof is it a trip getting there. The Grimm brothers, living up to their name!

Places to buy stuff!

• TEEPUBLIC: mostly t-shirts, a few other products.  Watch for sales, when shirts drop from $20 to $14!
• REDBUBBLE: Just, I don’t know, a ton of different stuff.  T-shirts are more expensive than Teepublic, but there are a lot more options.
• AMAZON: Home of the Geeky Gals Coloring Book!  Daydreams and Whimsies!  AND NOW, The Neurotic Owl Compendium!
• ETSY: paper dolls, a knitting bag pattern, and a bunch of vintage dolls of various sorts from my collection

Did I miss something?  I think that’s everything.

What’s making me happy this week:

My sewing room/craft room/whatever is usable! It’s still a mess, don’t get me wrong, but I am unpacked and organized enough to work in there.