I've Always Been Madly In Love With The Story Of Tam Lin And Your Description Of It As Beauty & The Beast's

I've always been madly in love with the story of Tam Lin and your description of it as Beauty & the Beast's older cooler cousin is 100% my favorite thing, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to talk about your feelings on the matter a little bit.

don’t get me wrong, I love beauty and the beast, I could happily read/watch/etc. nothing else but beauty and the beast adaptations for the rest of my media-consuming days

but.

if beauty found herself in a tough situation and went “well, I guess I would bang a monster born of magic and bad decisions, that’s something I did not know about myself!!!” janet went ahead and put on sensible boots and marched into the enchanted castle pulling every rose she sees up by the roots and going “WHERE’S A GIRL SUPPOSED TO FUCK A BEAST AROUND HERE”

…also, when Tam Lin tries to tell her she’s trespassed on his magic castle, her response is That’s Not How Property Rights Work You Mystical Maidenhead-Taking Squatter, which I think we can all agree is amazing.

(for extra lols, you can imagine Tam Lin as Coming Out Of The Well To Bang and/or Steal From Womankind)

Anyway, my actual favorite part of the entire story is that presumably Janet just wanted to get rid of her pesky virginity in the most epic way possible and had no intention of sticking around past the initial banging-of-an-elf, because she goes home directly afterwards. This is the part I always like to imagine Tam Lin Languishing For Love Of Janet (The Best I Ever Had), and like. Sighing a lot, and looking forlornly into his well, and being a generally useless Romantic poet about everything.

He probably writes sad poetry about it. The rhymes are terrible.

Anyway, the only reason anyone brings it up again is because a few months later, Janet’s hugely pregnant and her dad finally, tentatively asks, “so uh….this baby. who….?”

“NONE OF YOUR STUPID KNIGHTS THAT’S WHO,” Janet says, because Janet has no chill at all, no chill at all has she, and so she hies to Carterhaugh—

Anyway, she shows up on Halloween, because Janet has an appropriate sense of gothic timing, and Tam Lin is ecstatic to see her. He mentions super casually that actually he might die that night, presumably because he thinks this will convince her to bang one last one out.

(“About to be sacrificed to Hell by the faeries” is a pretty good fuck-or-die scenario, incidentally.)

Except Janet’s response is “UM EXCUSE ME WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH THIS ELDRITCH MAGIC BABY IF YOU ARE DEAD, ASSHOLE,” and because Janet has no chill, no chill at all, she demands to know how she’s going to break the stupid curse and get him back from the faeries.

At which point Tam Lin finally comes through with the iconic line, “hold me fast and fear me not” which everyone should quote over-liberally. Plus, you get the mental image of a very pregnant Janet holding onto Tam Lin as he turns into a wild wolf and a lion bold and a snake—

Afterwards, the Fairy Queen appears and admits defeat and lets them go back to Janet’s father, who presumably was cowed into accepting this weird ex-changeling knight as his son-in-law.

Which just goes to show what any woman can accomplish if she has a sensible pair of boots, a proper sense of gothic timing, and goes around fucking whoever or whatever shows up when she weeds the garden.