chicken little knew she was supposed to be in a good mood while out with her friends, but she just didn’t feel it. she had this certainty that something was wrong even though she couldn’t name what it was. then she started going to therapy and realized all these things about her childhood she’d never thought of in that way. she also started doing hot yoga.

the emperor bought a new fedora but all his friends thought he looked really stupid in it.

yeah, the princess could feel the pea under twenty mattresses, but she was also starting to feel every little ache in her back. oh my god, even after three advils? this was insane.

after the whole wolf incident, the ideological differences between the three little pigs only strengthened. the first little pig went into the arts, the second little pig got a stable desk job, and the third little pig became a republican.

robin hood and little john were walking through the woods looking for some rich people to steal from. robin hood wanted to tell his friend about some things on his mind, but they were the same things he’d been stressing about since they were teenagers, and he thought he should really be over them by now. they kept walking silently and it hit robin hood: is this how you get old? you slowly just stop talking about things?

one day, rumpelstiltskin started getting a weird feeling. instead of wanting to steal babies he saw with their families, he wanted to raise them. maybe having a baby would finally make me feel whole, he thought. but then a fellow imp said to him, “you’re already whole, rumpelstiltskin. there’s nothing you need that you don’t have already.”

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?”

arthur and lancelot moved to a railroad-style apartment outside of camelot. arthur didn’t even want to look at the sword he’d pulled from the stone, which he now kept wrapped in an old cloth in his closet. it had become a symbol of his shortcomings.

one day merlin appeared at their door. “stop running away from your future,” he said to arthur. “accept responsibility for who you are capable of becoming.”

“damn,” said lancelot from the couch, exhaling a bong rip. “shit just got real.”

snow white was standing on her balcony one night, just thinking. she had the castle and the prince but a part of her was nostalgic for living with the seven dwarves. everything just seemed more alive then. 

the next day she tracked down the phone number for their cottage and invited everyone over for a party. they stayed up for hours telling old stories and at the end of the night they all put into their calendars right then when they would get together again.

Peter Pan was sitting by the river, questioning his choice to never grow old. All my friends are getting engaged now, and some are having kids, he thought. I don’t even have a steady job.

hansel and gretel got entry-level jobs at a major corporation run by an old witch. the witch said she wanted to give them more vacation days but there was just too much work to get done. one day, hansel and gretel were like, “fuck this,” and they pushed their boss out her office window. then they got jobs as bartenders and snuck sips of whiskey all day.

sleeping beauty wasn’t waking up till noon or even later. “i guess i’m depressed,” she told a friend. the friend took her out to a big party that night and sleeping beauty got a little drunk and made out with a cute prince on a couch. it was pretty great. the next morning, she woke up early, took some aspirin, and headed out to enjoy the day.

the ugly duckling always felt gross compared to everyone else. but then she got instagram and there’s this one filter that makes her look awesome.

jack be nimble, 

jack be quick, 

even shitty jobs on craigslist are going really fast so just email them right now and tell them you’ll work for whatever they’ll pay. you’ll work for anything. whatever it takes to move out of your mother’s basement.

cinderella was working on a photography project she hoped would get her some attention so she could convince her stepmother it wasn’t crazy for her to chase after her dreams. but no magazines or websites were really that interested in her work.

finally, one night, she wrote a note to herself in her journal: stop waiting for other people’s permission, cinderella. follow your heart and don’t look back.