We are deep in the midst of these cool and quiet February days, my friends, and for me February means FAIRY TALES.

National Tell a Fairy Tale day is February 26th and, as such, a lot of people choose this month to take part in much fairy tale goodness. (Plus that alliteration—February Fairy Tales—you gotta love it.) Over on the fairy tale blog I cohost, Fairy Tale Central, we are absolutely embracing all the fairy tale goodness this month. One super extra fun thing we’re doing?

A fairy tale themed choose-your-own-adventure blog tag!

Last February we did one and it was so much fun we just had to do it again! But THIS YEAR we’ve got a special spin to the tag: every prompt is based off a specific fairy tale! That’s right, fair folk, time to pull out all your charms and tricks, because we’re about to be transported into Fairy Land straight into the shoes of some familiar characters…with some rather unfamiliar spins to their tales.

I’m pretty sure I’d die by page 3 if I was an actual protagonist or any sort of character in a fantasy book buuut let’s put that theory to the test and see how well I’d survive taking on the challenges of some fairy tales!

FTC’s Choose-Your-Own-
Adventure Fairy Tale Tag 2022

RUMPELSTILTSKIN: You’ve just heard news that a poor girl has been taken by the king to spin straw into gold or suffer a beheading. Well, you just happen to be able to spin straw into gold and would like to help. The problem? You can only awaken your ability by someone relinquishing their greatest desire to you, thus you never like to use your ability. But if you don’t now, an innocent girl dies. What do you do?

First, I’d wonder why on earth our king thinks some random girl can spin straw into gold (despite the fact that I can, but that’s not the point, Bob). I’d also wonder why she’s going to get beheaded if she can’t. I mean, my goodness, what is up with our king wanting to behead people? Buuut a plot to overthrow the tyrannical king can be considered another day…

Second, I’d hop into town and start doing a survey, perhaps pose as a journalist for a local tabloid (the Fairies, Fae, and Faux Pas magazine or some such), and ask people what their greatest desires are. The dumbest, most insignificant one I find shall be my victim. I’ll probably start with small children. Say there’s a 5-year-old whose greatest desire is to have a lollipop bigger than his head. Well, it wouldn’t hurt him to have that relinquished and, hey, I like lollipops. This benefits all. I desire a lollipop, save this kid from getting a cavity, and am able to tap into my ability to spin straw into gold for the peasant girl. All in a day’s work.

Now about overthrowing the king…

RAPUNZEL: As crown prince, your father the king gives you a task to prove you’re worthy of the throne. You’re to go slay a witch and rescue a girl who has been locked away in a tower by the witch’s hands. Except when you get there…the girl has absolutely no desire to leave the tower and claims she’s quite fond of the witch. If you don’t kill the witch and bring the girl back, the crown will be given to your ruthless younger brother who will no doubt bring ruin to the kingdom. What course of action do you take?

THE. SMOLDER.

I’m a very charming prince, right? Surely a good ol’ smile will bring the girl flying into my arms.

…No?

Right, she probably doesn’t want to marry a man sent to kill this witch who seems to be like a mother to her. Well, this is awkward.

I guess this is a fairy tale where the whole instalove thing isn’t going to kick in, so it’s time to play the long game. Hopefully my father doesn’t have a time limit on when I’m supposed to kill the witch, because I think the best course of action is to attempt to befriend this girl and the witch. See what they’re all about. Inquire the witch on why she’s causing mischief in our kingdom and thus prompting my father to want her demise. If this is any kind of YA fantasy novel, it’ll probably end up where my father is the true villain and the girl, the witch, and I take him down in a blaze of glory and free the kingdom and live happily ever after.

(Apparently overthrowing kings is the theme of today. Granted, there are a lot of messed up kings in fairy tales.)

ALADDIN: You’re the son of the vizier and soon to marry the princess, your friend whom you grew up with. Only a mysterious Prince Aladdin comes and claims the princess as his own. By luck, you discover Aladdin has a secret magical lamp – but also that the princess is in love with him. What do you do with the lamp and the secret you now know?

Wellll, if the princess is my childhood friend, I’m sure I’d want the best for her. But some guy showing up out of the blue and using a genie to get a girl seems awfully fishy to me. I certainly wouldn’t want my friend to end up with the wrong guy. So it’s time to do some investigation work.

Using my resources as the vizier’s son, I’d have Aladdin followed and spied on. If he’s genuinely a good guy that the princess truly loves, well, I’ll just have to let them have a happily ever after. If he’s some creep with far too much power due to a genie, I’d go straight to the king himself and I’m sure he’ll send out an army to take this boy down. This is the king’s daughter on the line, after all.

Unless it turns out I’m an evil vizier’s son. Then I’d probably attempt to steal the lamp and gain PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS.

SLEEPING BEAUTY: As the youngest fairy, you’re still trying to learn the tricks of the fairy trade. When the vengeful oldest fairy curses a poor baby princess, it’s now up to you to give her one blessing that will somehow counteract this curse. What is it?

Assuming I can’t simply cancel the curse, which is a probability since I am quite the young fairy going against the magic of an old one, and also assuming this curse involves pricking one’s finger on a spinning wheel, as per custom, I shall gift the child with: an absolute hatred for spinning wheels. Such a strong and vile hatred, that when she sees one as a baby she bursts into tears, when she comes across one later in life, she runs away, unable to even look at it, much less get anywhere near it or, worse, touch the horrid thing. It becomes so severe, that spinning wheels are banned from the kingdom and become an extinct oddity.

Sure, the old fairy will probably find some way around this. Getting rid of spinning wheels never proved to work in any version before. But, you know, I’m a young fairy. I tried my best.

SNOW WHITE AND ROSE RED: You are living peacefully with your mother and sister in your cottage in the woods when there’s an urgent knock on the door. Upon opening it you find a dwarf, and he’s holding a chest full of treasure. He begs you to hide it for him because a wicked and greedy bear is hunting him down to steal the treasure which the dwarf says are his family heirlooms they have spent generations digging up in their underground home. Not wanting the poor man to be mauled by a bear, you agree to hide his treasure for a time. That evening, there is another knock. It’s a bear. Except he seems quite friendly and says he is simply looking for a warm place to sleep before he returns to hunting down a dwarf who has stolen his treasure. Now you don’t know who to believe, the dwarf or the bear. What actions do you take to solve this mystery and return the treasure to its rightful owner?

I think it’s time to pull out the good cop, bad cop routine. With my sister’s help, I interrogate the bear and the dwarf, separately, and possibly multiple times so I can cross reference their stories. Since they clearly seem to trust my sister and me, I suspect we’ll be able to get to the truth after a while.

Because, really, over half of the problems in fairy tales could be solved with a few simple questions. Not everything needs magic and swords. (I mean, we should have them anyway because magic and swords are awesome but ya know.)

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD: You’re a wolf in the forest, minding your own business, when that airheaded girl Red Riding Hood stumbles through your territory again. And it looks like she’s lost on the way to her grandmother’s house…again. Wolf though you may be, you’re not particularly inclined to eating humans, especially little girls, like the rest of your pack. In fact, naïve though she is, you’ve grown rather fond of this particular little girl. The problem is, your pack is nearby and will no doubt spot her at any moment. But if you help her, she may get in her head that all wolves are nice and not be cautious around them. Worse, if your pack spots you aiding her, you’ll be shamed and banished from the pack for sure. How can you help Red find her way back to her grandmother’s house without her or the pack knowing about it?

The first step is to get my pack far away. I’m thinking a game of the, er, wolf who cried…boy? I good howling session and darting into the woods, opposite Red, claiming I’ve found some prey, should lead them off. That solves that problem. I then sneak away and return to Red for the next step.

I could attempt a convoluted heist in which I break into Grandmother’s house, steal some of her clothes, disguise myself so neither my pack nor Red recognizes me, and pretend to be an old friend of Grandmother’s to Red and walk her to the house. (Who knows? Maybe that’s why the wolf stole her clothes in the first place.)

Orrr since, erm, that’s probably an absolutely terrible idea and will cause more problems than I already have, I’m thinking going Hansel and Gretel style. Find some food, or just something pretty Red likes such as flowers, and leave her a trail of bread crumbs leading straight to Grandmother’s house.

And since I’m probably a talking wolf, while Red is away I may make a visit to her parents’ house and ask them why in all of Fairy Land are they letting their little girl traverse a wood full of wolves alone??? Sheesh. Parents these days. Though I may need to disguise myself for that too since, well, I’m not sure how kindly they’ll take to a wolf knocking on their front door.

Why oh why must these stories always involve wearing grandmother’s nightgown…?

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: As a fairy godmother, you keep track not only of deserving individuals, but of delinquent ones as well. You’ve heard rumors of a spoiled prince deep in the woods and decide to check out those rumors yourself. When you arrive in disguise as an old beggar woman, he sends you haughtily away with a variety of insults to boot. What punishment -if any- will you bestow upon him to give him a lesson?

Would you believe it, my cousin a couple of kingdoms over just so happened to have this exact same problem! She chose to curse the prince into a beast until he learned about true love or some such. I suppose I could do that but, ugh, I don’t want to straight up copy my cousin. I’d never heard the end of it.

There was this other fairy though… I heard of some fun trick she did to a couple of girls. It wouldn’t exactly be copying her if I put my own spin on it, would it? Of course not.

I crack my neck, give my wand a flourish, and relish at the shock on the prince’s face at the sight of this “old beggar” transforming into a beautiful fairy before him. His eyes grow like a toad’s. Heh. Toad indeed. With another twitch of my wand, I give him his curse: with every mean word he says a toad shall fall right from his mouth. With every good word, he shall spill out gold and diamonds. EXCEPT he will only get riches if he truly means the good words. Nothing will happen if he simply says lots of good things in order to try to get a river of gold out of his mouth, it has to come from the heart. Of course, I give the whole “true love will break this spell fully” spiel. It’s a fairy godmother magic requirement, you know.

Good thing I don’t mind toad’s. I suspect the kingdom shall be running rampant with them for a while.

THE FROG PRINCE: The prince whom you love has turned into a frog and tells you that only the first kiss of his true love can break his curse. However, you never told him that a fairy cursed your first kiss to be to the man who will destroy your kingdom. What do you do?

If we’re going with the theme of the day, chances are my father, the king, is tyrannical and his kingdom probably needs to be destroyed anyway??? So I say let’s smooch and get this overthrowing the king party started!

THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA: After your engagement to the prince is announced, you learn that his mother, the Queen, put a pea under your mattress to check if you were really a princess. You’re upset and decide to get some revenge on this petty royal family. You declare you must prove that the prince is really a prince. What will your test be?

Definitely super rude of them. Goodness knows there are an infinite amount of princesses in Fairy Land—we take up over half the population! Of course I’m a real princess. Sheesh. They’ve insulted me and made me lose a restful night’s sleep. Those peas under mattresses are killer to my back.

I suppose I could just look at his family records or something? But PFT. What a silly idea. Instead I’m going to lose one of my shoes and if he finds it and returns it to me, then obviously he’s a real life prince. Way more practical.

TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES: As the king you have 12 daughters you wish to teach how to run the kingdom. Your days are numbered and you must leave the kingdom to one of them. However, your daughters are mysteriously dancing every night and are so exhausted during the day they fall asleep through all their lessons. What do you do?

Coffee. Coffee will fix everything. I just need to order a few gallons of coffee to keep in the castle stores and my girls should be fine for their daily lessons.

I mean, I gueeess I could try to put together some contest or something to solve the mystery of why they’re tired all day and wear out their dancing slippers every night?? But meeehhh. That just sounds like a lot of work when coffee would be so much easier. Besides, I’m far too busy for all that; for some reason, I keep hearing about plots to overthrow me. I can’t begin to imagine why. I’ll need to order some more random beheadings to put an end to this nonsense.

And thus ends my takeover of fairy tales!

Okay this was ridiculously fun! Now I seriously want to write a story based off of all these prompts. Ah, the fairy tale plot bunnies never end…

If you want to do this tag, you can find the info and clean list of prompts HERE!

There’s also a linkup where you can add your link so we can see your post! The official linkup closes at the end of February but you are 100% welcome to do this tag absolutely any time! As well as our tags from 2021 and 2020. Lots of fun fairy tale goodness to participate in!

What did you think of my answers? Do you think Fairy Land is doomed under my control or…? And are you going to do this tag? Because you shoooould! *wriggles eyebrows*

P.S. I have an extra post coming your way next week with something special and fun and I’M ALL THE EXCITED.