Author's Note:

Hello! Long-time lurker here! I've read numerous stories on the site but this is the first piece of writing that I've ever uploaded and published myself. I hope you enjoy it! My plan is to write Tangled from Rapunzel's point of view, with the theme of seeing beyond people's appearances (hence the title)

Thanks for reading!

Disclaimer: I do not own Tangled, Rapunzel, or anything in the movie, including the dialogue

"Things are not always what they seem; the first appearance deceives many; the intelligence of a few perceives what has been carefully hidden..."

-Unknown

Prologue

It all started one ordinary and normal day. Well, as normal and ordinary as a day can be when you have seventy feet of hair, your best and only friend is a chameleon, and you've lived in a tower for eighteen years without any contact with the world outside. But if there's one thing I've learned in my life it's that there is no definite standard for normal. What seems normal to one person might be strange to someone else.

You know that time-old phrase, "don't judge a book by its cover"? Well, it's true and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I myself have learned the meaning of that saying in my own life. Throughout my life, I learned that people are not always what they seem to be, including myself. And in my case, it is a good thing that people were not as they seemed. Things could have turned out so much worse than they did and, for a few moments there, things turned out badly enough.

But as I was saying, there is no complete and definite standard for normal. So it is important to see beyond what people appear to be. They might seem normal at face value, but are they really? For instance, someone might seem to be an unrepentant thief, but underneath it all, they might have a warm and loving heart. Only when you try to see beyond the surface can you find what is really in a person's heart. And seeing beyond appearances is really what my story is all about. My story. Me. Rapunzel.

You are no doubt familiar with my name, because I have been the subject of numerous stories told by numerous authors in numerous different ways. But their accounts cannot be considered complete because they did not live the story, as I have. So I've decided it's time for me to tell my own story myself, so that the lessons that I learned can be passed on to others.

This is my story.