Fairy tales are an elemental part of our culture, our world, and the way we tell and experience story. But for some twenty-somethings, tales about losing your way in the forest and getting tricked by wolves don’t really have any resonance — didn’t Little Red Riding Hood have Google Maps? Enter the awesome new Tumblr Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings, pointed out to us by the fine folks at io9, which imagines your favorite characters from fairy tales and children’s books as they might face the world today, embroiled in their quarter-life crises. Luckily, unlike wearing novelty t-shirts, hanging unframed posters on your walls, and staying out all night every night, you’ll never get too old for fairy tales. Click through for a few of our favorites, and then head on over to Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings, or well, follow them on Twitter to see more.
The crazy thing is that eventually even Alice began to doubt whether what she’d seen down the rabbit hole had ever really existed. And it didn’t make her sad, there was nothing overly dramatic about it, it was just that now she understood how the world actually worked.
But then she was tagged in a photo by an old friend, by the White Rabbit. It was a faded picture of her and the Cheshire Cat, and, wow, it just brought her right back.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
Beauty wanted to bring the Beast to meet her friends but she was nervous because they all had these super-hot boyfriends who worked in finance. She loved the Beast for who he was, she really did, but her friends were shallow and judgmental.
“Maybe you should get some new friends,” Siri advised.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
Little Red Riding Hood was getting hit on by some wolf at the bar. She kept her beer close to her, and politely brushed the guy away.
“Are you okay?” asked the huntsman who approached her next.
“Ugh,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Can’t a girl just go out for a drink and be left alone?”
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
Thumbelina never got much bigger but she did get her own reality TV show, so that’s cool.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
The prince and the pauper unfriended each other on Facebook because neither one could stand the other’s political status updates.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
After pulling the sword from the stone but before becoming king, Arthur went on a cross-country road trip / vision quest. He crashed on friends’ couches or, on a few nights, the back seat of his car. He went to Burning Man, stayed in the mountains of Montana for a few weeks, and learned to build a cigar-box guitar from some guy on the street in New Orleans.
When he finally arrived home, a wiser man, he thought, “That shit was awesome. I gotta find a way to do that all the time.”
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
The tortoise and the hare Facebook stalked each other. He might have a lot of money but I bet he doesn’t feel alive when he goes to work, thought the tortoise. The hare looked through the tortoise’s photos and thought, Being a writer in Brooklyn is so pretentious. The truth was that a part of each of them longed for the other’s life. How are you supposed to know you’ve chosen the right path?
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
Sleeping Beauty was inexplicably depressed and spent the entire day checking her email. But then she somehow ended up watching YouTube videos of regular people covering Mumford & Sons songs, and, okay, that Taylor Swift song “Begin Again,” and something about it was really beautiful and made her feel like she’d connected with someone and someone understood how she felt and she wasn’t alone.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
Peter Pan decided it was time to grow up, get serious, and work towards something substantial. So he started a blog of funny anecdotes from his life. The lost boys thought that shit was hilarious.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.
The ugly duckling read obscure works of literature in other languages and listened to indie music even the guys in the record store had never heard of. If I’m not going to be prettier than anyone, she thought, I’m at least going to be better than them.
Text and image via Fairy Tales for Twenty-Somethings.