[F4A] beauty and the beast retelling
Summary: Beauty and the Beast where the beast is a woman and the plot is way darker. (I intend on writing for the beast)
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Taking place in mid 17th century France, poor common folk were worlds away from nobility. Word traveled slowly, so if an entire castle estate were to collapse due to some sudden tragedy, years would pass before anyone would know what happened. No one's heard of what's happened to the royal family ever since the queen has gone off to aid in war in another land, leaving the princess, her only child, alone.
Beauty is one of the adult children of a merchant, who loses everything in a house fire, leaving the whole family impoverished, having to become farmers to get by. Their last bit of hope comes when their father hears of one of his ships returning, so he embarks on a trip to retrieve his cargo. After getting hopelessly lost on the way, he comes across a seemingly abandoned castle in the middle of the forest surrounded by lifelike statues. Upon entering, he is taken captive by its resident beast. The merchant is unable to leave until the beast finds out about his child, Beauty. Intrigued, she offers to take them in his place as prisoner, and the merchant accepts, returning home then bringing Beauty to the castle as a prisoner.
The beast is an uncontrollable animal. It's almost like there's no person left behind those eyes. The castle is a husk of its former self, having been torn to shreds. The lifelike statues seem to stare indefinitely into the souls of passersby. Every inch of the estate has been overtaken by plant overgrowth and forest animals. Beauty doesn't even know what the creature even wants with them, and can only focus on survival and possible escape.
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This is all I want to write so far, as I want to leave it up to discussion on how we want the story to go. I'm hoping for elements of of a dark thriller and mystery, both Beauty and the Beast slowly revealing their backstories to each other. There wont be a simple positive character arc for the beast, as I intend for her to be on a constant rollercoaster of uncontrolled emotions. I'm hoping to build a fucked up, exciting piece of writing together!
Content I'm hoping for: NONCON/DUBCON, monster (can debate on exactly what type of beast she will be based on preference. leaning more towards werewolf or were-cat), violence, aggression, mood swings, mental instability, heavy trauma, psychological, minimal gore (such as cuts, bruises, biting, etc), abuse cycle, switch dynamics
Inspo: Antichrist (2009), the original fairy tale, the 1991 Disney film, Classic monster films like Dracula, Nosferatu, the wolf man, phantom of the Opera,
I am open to the role of Beauty being any gender.