Q. What exactly are fractured fairy tales?

A. I first heard the term in "Rocky and Bullwinkle;" they had a section of the show by that name where they parodied traditional fairy tales. Fractured fairy tales often parody well-known tales by changing the story in some way, perhaps by altering a character or the outcome or by using modern language and events. They may also, however, be original stories that use common fairy tale elements, such as "once upon a time . . . " and " . . . happily ever after," princes and princesses, magic, talking animals, etc. Naturally, I enjoy fractured fairy tales because, as everyone knows, I love satire, parody, and irony. I usually attribute this to MST3K, Douglas Adams, James Thurber, Ambrose Bierce, Monty Python, etc., but who knows; perhaps it dates all the way back to when I was watching "Rocky and Bullwinkle" before I even had a clue of what the original fairy tales were.


Q. What's with the giant letters at the beginning of the stories? Did you create them yourself?

A. God, no; I didn't create them myself; I don't have anywhere near that kind of talent. I found them on a website, complete with a notice saying that they were copyright free; yea! Anyway, the giant, over-decorative letters are just a reference to the same kind of thing that you always see in fairy tale books, and kind of a joke because they're so ridiculously huge.


Q. What's with the Fractured Fairy Tales logo, on both the main page and here?

A. I thought it would be cute to have a "fractured" image instead of the traditional plain text titles I use on my pages. I couldn't decide quite how to go about it, so I got out my Phantom of the Opera soundtrack (the original London cast, if you really want to know) and looked at its cover. I decided that using light blue and white letters like they did would work better than the black and white I'd been trying to use (if you think the current logo looks bad, you should have seen what I created before). I messed around in MGI Photosuite, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft PhotoEditor trying to get the shattered look of the font just right, but I couldn't get the slight displacement of the characters right. Finally, I decided 'screw it,' and just put white lines through the letters so if you look closely, they kinda sorta look shattered. I had to put the image on a black background before you could really see the shattering at all, and then I figured fuck it; I've come this far; I may as well add a rose and a mask to continue with the Phantom homage . . . especially since I love Phantom too much not to do some kind of fractured version of it eventually. Heh.


Q. The font on the image totally doesn't look shattered, though.

A. Shut up.


Q. So . . . why did you decide to start writing fractured fairy tales?

A. . . . What the fuck kind of question is that? Why does anybody write anything? . . . Well, if you must know, the idea for "Prince Gaylord" came to me in a flash, so I scribbled a rough outline for it, wrote it, decided it was a lot of fun, and I really wanted to continue with the theme, whether they were original tales or parodies. I wrote the names of a shitload of popular fairy tales and Disney movies on the back of a notebook, and I intend to at least try to write fractured fairy tales for all of them. A lot of them will probably involve Aron, Justin, and me as the main characters, just like in the KP stories.


Q. Why aren't these tales in the KP Stories section?

A. Because they're not KP stories; duh. KP stories involve original plots and aren't intended as parodies the way these are.


Q. Are you ever going to do a fractured fairy tale version of [fill in the blank]?

A. If it's on my list of possible ideas; probably. If not, then probably not. There are a lot of popular tales I don't particularly like, aren't well-known enough to make sense if I parodied them here, or for which I just couldn't think of a good enough parody.


Q. Which are your favorite/least favorite fairy tales, popular stories, etc.?

A. Listing my favorites and least favorites would take too long and be boring, so let's just say that usually, my favorites are disturbing on some level (like The Phantom of the Opera); that's just how I am. I don't like stories that involve excessive amounts of excessive gooey-sweetness, bratty kids, or puppy love, at least not unless any of the aforementioned results in a serious ass-kicking or death of a character I don't like. That's why I absolutely hate Wendy in Peter Pan, because she was so infatuated with that scurvy brat, Pan and didn't even get killed. At least Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz liked the Scarecrow (my favorite) the best, and Alice in Alice in Wonderland was guilty of the occasional unnecessary act of violence. True, Alice's violence at one point resulted in the injury to my favorite character, the lizard Bill, so I didn't like Alice that much, but I digress. Anyway, suffice to say I like characters and stories that are a little bit creepy and aren't all that sweet.


Q. . . . So, you mean you like characters and stories that are like you?

A. WHAT?!


Q. Uh, I mean, you like stories with characters with whom you identify?

A. Hmm . . . I don't think that was rephrased very well, but yeah. Correct. (I'll never be accused of false modesty.)


Q. I have an idea for a fractured fairy tale, will you write it?

A. NO! Haven't you read the other FAQs on this site? Same damn thing; NO; a thousand times no!


Q. You're not very fond of happy endings, are you?

A. No. All it has to do is end.