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   Gwen the Trans Balrog (youshallnotpass@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jun-2025 13:18:04 JST Gwen the Trans Balrog

   Let me tell you a fairytale.

   Once upon a time, there was a poor farmer and his wife who lived on a poor farm in a kingdom of little note. Now this farmer was getting older, and all he wanted, his dearest wish, was for a son to help ease the burden of his farming. But he and his wife had no children, and it was beginning to look like they never would. But at night the farmer would silently wish his one wish, that he would have a son and heir, long into the night when he should have been sleeping.

   Well, you know how fairytales go. A passing fairy heard the farmer's silent wish and decided to grant it, but fairies are flighty, winged things with very little conception of humanity. Still, the next morning the farmer's wife awoke with the sure knowledge that she was going to have a child. And sure enough, the farmer's wife's belly grew and as this is a fairy tale there were no complications or gruesome details, and in the prescribed time the farmer's wife gave birth to a healthy baby. I guess if it had been one of a certain sort of fairytales, the child would have grown out of a flower or something, but it isn't.

   Unfortunately, it turned out that the baby was a girl.

   Yeah, it's one of those fairytales. It's a sexist romp. Stick with it for a bit.

   The farmer was beside himself. It seemed like fate was torturing him. This was worse than having no child at all. He was all set to throw himself into the nearest river or volunteer for military service in the arrow-blocking division of the kingdom's not-insignificant armed forces. But his wife, who was miraculously totally unfazed by having recently given birth, calmed him down. "So it's a girl. You can still have your heir. We'll just raise her as a son. We'll call her... HIM Michael. No one will ever know."

   So they did. Michael was a small boy who stayed home to help his parents, but it was several centuries or millennia or maybe eons before the invention of public schooling so it wasn't hard for his parents to keep up the facade. Michael certainly didn't know better. He was a happy enough child and if the farm work was hard, his parents were kind and did all they could to make sure he wanted for nothing much that a poor farmer's son could want for. He was a little lonely, perhaps, but hey, it was a fairytale and he managed not to die of dropsy in infancy.

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   • GreenSkyOverMe (Monika) repeated this.
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     Gwen the Trans Balrog (youshallnotpass@chaosfem.tw)'s status on Sunday, 08-Jun-2025 13:18:05 JST Gwen the Trans Balrog

     in reply to

     Of course, at a certain point he had to meet other people, but he'd reached the age where people in fairytales didn't ask to examine his genitalia, so for a while, his parents were safe. But eventually, well, the natural progression of things made it so that they had to explain a few things. Michael was a bit confused about the changes taking place in his growing body, as it were, but it's a fairytale so if I were going to talk about menstruation, I'd do it metaphorically anyway. Michael's mother taught him to bind his chest with linen bandages, his father taught him to shave, various other things happened, and Michael was prepared for polite society as best as they could.

     Now, in the same kingdom there was a king, obviously, and as kings in fairytales typically do, this king had a son, Prince Gideon, who was coming of age. But because this is a fairytale, the prince was deeply vain and refused to choose a bride, despite his father's insistence. "There is no girl in the kingdom who is worthy of me," Gideon said whenever he was asked.

     So the king had, you guessed it, one earnest wish: that his son would find a worthy wife. And wouldn't you know it, his wish was also heard by a passing fairy. Maybe the same fairy from earlier, or maybe a different one. Who knows? Fairies are complicated and confusing. Well, whichever fairy it was heard the king's wish and decided to grant it, but fairies are flighty, winged things with very little conception of humanity.

     Prince Gideon awoke the following day with the sure knowledge that a girl existed who was worthy of him, and a vague idea of where to look. She wouldn't be a princess or a lady. She would be one of the common folk. But beyond that, he had only her name: Dahlia.

     So the king sent messengers all over the kingdom looking for girls named Dahlia. They turned up more than a few, some of whom had mysteriously come into being just days before the messengers arrived, seemingly. They often wouldn't respond to that name immediately until their fathers or mothers cleared their throats or kicked their newly-minted Dahlias under the table where they thought the messengers couldn't see. The messengers shrugged and brought the girls anyway. Better safe than sorry.

     But none of them satisfied the prince. Not that way. This is a respectable fairytale. He didn't like the look of them, that's all.

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