Kia ora,

This series has grown and developed beyond anything I expected when I first came up with the idea of sticking three stories which didn't end as they were supposed to (and that I didn't think were particularly well written) into a series in the hope that quantity would allow people to overlook quality. A few years later, and a couple of these stories are some of the best I've written, go figure.

The FAILeds are not unified by genre, tone, theme, or even narrative style – the only thing which binds them is the fact that they don't turn out the same way as the original fairy tales they are based on (except for the one that does). So I thought I might add a contents list here to give new-comers a better idea of what they're getting themselves into.

1. Perfume Beauty and the Beast; angsty, aloof in tone with a really annoying narrative voice

2. Waking Up Sleeping Beauty; a quiet not-quite-perhaps tragedy

3. She Left on a Monday Cinderella; a comedy of manners and pride, dialogue-heavy

4. Frankly, My Dear BatB; a frank comedy and the beginning of the Franklin Epic

5. Daddy Dearest BatB; the vainglorious ramblings of a drunken sot, chronologically set before Frankly

6. Despite Appearances Dazzling Falcon Finister (East of the Moon); a quiet one

7. I Don't Give a Damn Golden Curls and How She Slept (Bluebeard); Franklin the Second

8. Perfect Cinderella; first-person, light-hearted, very cute and chatty

9. Digressions Snow White; of signifiers, thoughts, and words, one of my very favourites

10. The Fairy Tale of the Third Assistant of J. Alfred Prufrock Sleeping Beauty; nice and pedestrian

11. Iron Shoes Dazzling Falcon Finister; girl-power, another favourite

12. The Nature of the Beast BatB; implications of child abuse, neither happy nor easy

13. Sky Blue Snow White; überly cute and happy to make up for the previous

14. In the Tradition of Lear BatB; high-stakes and a little bit full of itself, not a tragedy

15. Best Kept The Frog Prince; at once very sweet and unbearably tragic

16. Farewell, My Lovely Roses and Coal; an experiment in pulp fiction, highest concentrate of narrative detail

17. 29 Twelve Dancing Princesses; about tragedy and the media and real life

18. The Importance of Being Maniacal Rapunzel; great with muffins

19. About My Bad Reputation Jack and the Beanstalk(ish); the third instalment of the Franklin Epic

20. I am Learning to Abandon the World Sleeping Beauty; tendancies towards the poetic, but short

21. Her Eyes were Green Beauty and the Beast; epistological, mostly, not so comic

22. Silence and Other Love Poems The Six Swans; just about the worst thing I've ever done to a character

23. Dulce et Decorum Est Twelve Dancing Princesses; war is hell

24. The Bloody Chamber Bluebeard; a story about stories, particularly Gothic ones

25. Beauty and Beauty and the Beast; vaguely written around 'Gracie' by Bic Runga

26. Oh No, Not Me Jack and the Beanstalk(ish); Franklin goes fourth

27. Central Rapunzel; a story about home

28. Love Shook My Heart BatB; pro-rainbow but hopefully not preachy

29. song of the open road Dazzling Falcon Finister; a sequel-ish to Iron Shoes written on tumblr

30. Pro Patria Mori 12DP/Godfather Death; all about the sequels, this time to 'Dulce Et Decorum Est'

31. Mildred's Choice Rumplestiltskin; choices and decisions, the fifth part of the Franklin Epic

32. Badass The Goose Girl; third person and littered with rock lyrics to pick a person up from rock bottom

33. Baby Talk Sleeping Beauty; maybe a horror story about talking to babies

Perfume

The house she passed each day had once been her own. I mention this only so that you will understand why she was so at home among the roses.

She passed the house when walking to and from the market. To market she carried a large wicker basket and at the market she would fill it each day with milk, butter, cheese, eggs, meat, and perhaps a fruit tart. I mention this only so that you will understand why it was no small matter to stand half an hour, with the heavy basket on one arm, smelling the roses.

She stopped to smell the roses each and every single day without fail. I mention this only so that you will understand that she loved the roses with all her heart.

Smelling roses is no simple act; she understood this. It is a multi-sensorial experience; I hope you know this.

First is the sight of roses: frothy white, innocent pink, blithe yellow, and red – red that glows with inner warmth and tattoos itself to the insides of eyelids. Reds were her favourite.

Second is the smell of roses: the tracery of scent on the air, permeating but subtle. A delicate come-hither to the knowledgeable lover until their nose is pressed deep in its petals and it invades their lungs, their body, their mind, and their soul.

Third, and most important to her, is the feel of roses. No, no, no. I would beg a little more elegance than to begin homilies on beauty bearing thorns (all ye be warned). A true appreciator of roses knows its thorns and is never pricked. She was never pricked.

No, no, no. The feeling I speak of, that she loved, is of the roses' soft flesh against the nose. A stranger touch but welcoming. Tickling, gentling, loving – odd and yet a caress she could not do without.

So she stopped and smelt her roses every day for half an hour at the house where once she had lived because she loved them.

But then her father's fortunes declined still further and she had to retire to the country far from her roses. The village she came to live in was famed for its sunflowers – brash flowers with no scent at all. So when her father asked what he might bring her from town and his returned ship, she replied without hesitation a rose.

For weeks she waited and weeks again, longing for her rose. And the sunflowers filled the air with smells of absence.

Then one day, her father was there again – a cold, white-sky day. He smiled at her, pleased their separation had ended, and handed her a small glass bottle with a golden cap.

He explained, "It is winter, dearest, roses don't grow in the winter. So I bought you an ounce of rose perfume; I didn't think it would make a difference."

She replied, smiling, "No. Thank you, father."

Fortunately, her father never thought to check if she used his present.

Because what she had meant was of course it does.

There's this rose garden I pass on my way home.