"My great grandmother, Queen Aurora. Gold of sunshine in her hair, lips that shame the red rose... that is how she's described in the old songs... Although there are many versions of her story, at the end she safely returned home and lived happily ever after with her true love."
Once Upon a Time, there was a beautiful princess cursed by the evil witch Maleficent to prick her finger on a spinning wheel, and die on her 16th birthday. In order to prevent this, she was sent off to live in the woods with three good fairies, but fell to Maleficent's magic and the curse came true. Luckily, her prince came just in time to kill the evil witch and save her with True Love's Kiss, and the two lived happily ever after.
Everything isn't well with Briar Rose. She's been having horrific dreams (not helped by her husband off fighting in a war) that she just can't seem to stop, no matter what she tries. Even returning to her old home with her "aunts" doesn't do anything. That is, until she meets an old witch, who offers to help her with all of her problems if she takes just one bite of an apple. She accepts, but proceeds to have an even worse dream, one that's shared with a queen from another world, one who seems to be having the same nightmares as her own.
Thus begins The Little Crooked Tale, leading not only Snow White and Aurora into a world of magic beyond their wildest dreams, but Belle, Jasmine, Cinderella, and Ariel as well. They discover that their greatest foes are returning with the help of an evil man known as Rumpelstiltskin (or Dorian Grey), and all the powers of Hell.
The story was originally written and illustrated by Sonne in 2012. In 2013, Breadfly joined as a writer, secondary artist, and designer. Since 2023, the current version features Sonne as the artist and Cyan Maelstrom as the writer.
There have been two versions of the story so far. The first one covered the initial arc until 2016. Then, a second version began to be created, which included a new adaptation of the first 14 chapters with updated art, writing, and new scenes.
Now it has a developing character sheet. Please move the appropriate tropes there.
The Little Crooked Tale provides examples of:
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Tropes that apply to both versions
- Adaptational Attractiveness: Ursula stays in her "Vanessa" disguise pretty much the whole time throughout the comic. She's only seen as her true self in a flashback. Of course,
she'd probably have trouble waddling around on tentacles everywhere. - Adaptation Expansion: The webcomic expands the royal families of some Disney Princesses and/or their respective husbands.
- All Just a Dream: Aurora's nightmares, at first.
- Or Was It a Dream?: In both versions, Snow White awakens with a massive gash on her hand.
- Continuity Cavalcade: You'd be hard-pressed to find some aspect of the Disney Animated Canon that ISN'T mentioned in here.
- Darker and Edgier: Nooooo, really?
- Death by Adaptation:
- The Webcomic does not shy away from killing the characters that are alive in the original Disney films.
- In one specific case, the prince from Rapunzel's original tale is thrown from her tower by Gothel and, instead of surviving and becoming blind, he dies.
- Snow-White and Rose-Red is heavily used in the backstory, but, in Version 2, Rose Red's incarnation killed Snow White's, and was killed by Rumplestilskin/Dorian after.
- Deconstruction: "You can't marry a man you just met!" taken to its logical conclusion. From Aurora's anxiety nightmares, to Belle ditching Adam when he refuses to stand up for her at their party, to Ariel's paranoia that her husband's cheating on her for somebody younger, only the bad guys could find a way to mess it up further.
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Fairy Tale Free-for-All: The webcomic interweaves several fairy tales into a larger storyline:
- Rumpelstiltskin and Snow-White and Rose-Red are used in the setting's Worldbuilding.
- The Evil Queen from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Grimhilde, is Gretel from Hansel and Gretel.
- Snow White's mother, Althea, is based on Donkeyskin, on a Greek-inspired setting called Arcadia.
- Cinderella sees in a "magical flashback" Kai and Gerda talking, and the Snow Queen taking the boy with her.
- Fantasy Kitchen Sink: Arthurian legend, Disney movies, and pretty much anything with a magic creature of some sort is smashed together into this (e.g., Undine).
- Fanservice: We see both Grimhilde and Berthalda topless, with Bethalda's hair barely covering her privates. There's also all the gorgeous dresses that the princesses wear, and Amira herself. Then there's Dorian, with his oh so tight pants and the fact we see him nude and surrounded by prostitutes for a single panel.
- Flower Motifs: Considering that the tale of Snow-White and Rose-Red makes up a huge part of the webcomic, images of a white rose and a red rose abound. Example: in the revamped version, after Snow White discovers the Magic Mirror, she uses her own witch blood to open a door decorated with a twinned red and white rose motif.
- Foregone Conclusion: Aurora will make it out alive in order to sire Eilonwy's grandmother. She's gonna go through hell to get there, though.
- Framing Device: Eilowny is telling the story to Taran.
- Good Princess, Evil Queen: Zig-zagged. While the main Disney heroines are still princesses or primed to assume the throne as queen of their countries, some of the antagonists involve the Evil Queen (from Snow White), Queen Althea, and the Snow Queen (for now, uninvolved in the main plot).
- Grimmification: Well, half the characters are slaughtered (on-screen!) in some horrific fantastical way, incest abounds, and a pretty gruesome reference is made to the Grimm's original ending of Cinderella's fable when Lady Tremaine gains Maleficent's power.
- Hotter and Sexier: There's a lot of nudity, sexual and otherwise.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Between the Disney Princesses and the Disney reimaginings of some literary characters (e.g., Alice from Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan from Peter Pan).
- Meaningful Name: Being a webcomic based on the Disney Princesses movies, which are based on traditional fairy tales, this is inevitable:
- Snow White (and her lookalikes/reincarnations) has ebony black hair, ruddy cheeks and lips, and extremely pale white skin.
- Rose Red, her daughter, has red hair of a vibrant shade.
- In a scene featuring Rapunzel, she plays with two dolls, one named Snow White (black hair and white skin) and another Rose Red (with red hair and of a more ruddy complexion).
- Men Are the Expendable Gender: Sure, the women get run through the ringer about a trillion times mentally, but it's usually the men who are brutally killed off.
- Original Generation:
- In both versions of the comic, a man named Argus joins the princesses' group, but he first appeared in a vision to Aurora. He also mentions he is the son of a sorceress.
- The Evil or Nightmare Prince Philip, drawn from Aurora's dream into reality.
- Related in the Adaptation:
- Pulling either a Fanon interpretation or the plot thread from the musical, Ursula and Ariel are related in both versions of the comic: the sea witch is Ariel's aunt, alright, but on her mother's side.
- In both versions of the story, Eilonwy is related to Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, whom she refers as her "greatgrandmother".
- Grimhilde, the Evil Queen, is actually Gretel, and her brother is Hansel. Grimhilde is also Snow White's biological mother, and Rumpelstiltskin (not the small-sized imp he is traditionally known as) is the princess's father.
- Pulling either a
- Sister-Sister Incest: The twin goddesses who created the earth were lovers, and created two girls who were also lovers. They look horrifyingly similar to Camilla and Rose Red...
- Take That!: Wendy's husband and children are dead, which was explained as the author hating the sequel film, and preferring Peter with Wendy anyways.
- Many side comics mock the current looks and redesigns of the princesses. To quote one:
Ariel: Your dress is damaging to the eyes of the children!
Aurora: At least I match, Miss "Red Hair in a Pink Dress!"
Cinderella: [seeing an official render of herself] Goodness! I'm a botox monster!
Tiana: Don't worry, Disney says you look better that way. - Tragic Villain: Some of the Disney villains are reinterpreted to present a tragic backstory for them.
- The Unfair Sex: Humanity was doomed the second the male God made rapists. Though, the women ain't exactly angels, either.
Tropes that apply to Version 1
- Adaptational Dye-Job: Within the same story, no less! Rose Red's dark black hair becomes... rose red.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: Queen Grimhilde used to be Gretel before she escaped from the evil witch, but was renamed when Dorian rescues her.
- Body Horror: Let's just say Tremaine got a little overzealous with her magic.
- Easy Amnesia: Cinderella, after her fairy godmother sacrifices herself.
- Fountain of Youth: Most of the villains get this after joining Dorian and Carmilla.
- Hypocrite: Berthalda hates everything that comes from the water, and mocks Ursula constantly for being disgusting. She ends up stealing her modus operandi by by marrying Eric.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Cinderella's prince feeds himself to a monstrous version of Lucifier, and her fairy godmother is turned to stone and shattered in her place. Let's just say she has it pretty rough.
- Killed Off for Real: Phillip, Charming and his entire court, Fairy Godmother, Attina, a good amount of Agrabah...
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Prince Adam, good god.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Puns not withstanding, Gus and Jacques disappear despite being very much alive after Chapter 12.
- Anastasia and Drizella are seen in one of Cinderella's nightmares, but they seem to have moved away from their mother.
Tropes that apply to Version 2
- Affectionate Nickname: Under her guise of "Dutchess Rougelle", Carmilla calls Ariel "Rose Red", for her red hair, and places a white rose with red veins in her hair.
- Animal Motifs:
- Grimhilde, Snow White's stepmother, is associated with the peacock:
- In the cover to her Septem Peccata Mortalia side-chapter, she is depicted next to a peacock.
- In chapter 4, Snow White carries with herself the key to Grimhilde's studio, the key head in the shape of a peacock tail feather.
- In chapter 7, she is wearing a purple dress with a peacock-feathered corset.
- Lady (Agatha) Tremaine gains powers over crows and ravens:
- During her attack on Cinderella's castle, she commands a murder of crows. Also, she turns the King into a large humanoid crow.
- At the end of her side-chapter, she is seen doing... something to the corpse of Cinderella's husband, which is floating inside a sort of magic field and attached to a large black wing.
- Mulan attacks Cinderella in Wendy's house and Tremaine turns the Chinese warrior into a large human-crow hybrid.
- Grimhilde, Snow White's stepmother, is associated with the peacock:
- Animorphism: In chapter 3, Bellenuit (Odile)'s father perches on a window from Eric's castle in the shape of an owl, then changes into a white-skinned human shape.
- Back from the Dead: This is Quetzal's ability: she places souls inside large mannequin-like bodies, which, for all intents and purposes, seem to operate like normal bodies. On-panel, she has resurrected two people at least: Rose Red (Snow White's daughter) and queen Althea.
- Bed Trick: The spirit of the Magic Mirror somehow manipulated "The Golden God" (aka, Rumplestiltskin) into taking the form of King Gerald and sleeping with Grimhilde. Neither knew about it, save for Althea.
- Born from Plants: Per Alice's exposition of the backstory, the twin goddesses planted a bush of red roses, from which sprang Rose Red, and a bush of white roses, from which sprang Snow White. Other women were also born from different rosebushes. The male creator deity tried his hand at creation too, but, instead of bushes, he planted a tree of golden apples, which originate men from its fruits.
- Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: After Grimhilde kills Althea with a poisoned comb, the woman's spirit comes back as a blueish butterfly that accompanies Snow White through her childhood and, later, the latter's daughter, Rose Red.
- The Cameo:
- Merfolk Urchin and Gabriella, from 1992 The Little Mermaid cartoon, cameo at Melody's party.
- Inside the Snow Queen's castle, when Kai spies on Snow White and proclaims he shall marry her, a black-haired Elsa lookalike (based on a concept art
), from Frozen (2013), appears at the scene. - A white-haired, red-eyed Dracula appears at the tail end of Chapter 9 and kisses a mannequin of princess Aurora, muttering about finding a reincarnation of a beloved one.
- In Grimhilde's side-chapter, Cruella De Vil appears as "Madame de Pompadour", Carmilla's personal seamstress, wearing Pongo as a boa around her neck, a frilly 18th century dress made of spotted dalmatian fur, and Marie's face as a dress ornament.
- Cast Herd: The comic cast is also shaping up to be huge:
- There's the Seven Sins gathered by Dorian.
- There's also the "witches and mages", who may or may not be completely allied with the Seven Sins. These include Rothbart, Odile/Bellenuit, Berthalda and other unnamed characters.
- Jafar and Maleficent are shown on panel in the villains' citadel, and, at first glance, are also allied with them (no reference whether they are part of the "witches and mages").
- There are also mentions to a group of four "Dreamers". Quetzal, whom Dorian mockingly refers as "sleeper", and Alice (as in "... in Wonderland") are two of them.
- In chapter 8, Rumple/Dorian inducts the Sanderson Sisters into their alliance.
- Kai and the three Snow Queens.
- At the end of chapter 8, the three sorceresses once apprenticed to Merlin: Morgana, Queen Guinevere and Maleficent.
- Finally, the Disney Princesses and adjacent heroines: Alice, Wendy, Mulan, Anya; Amira, the djinn-carpet.
- Compressed Adaptation
- Chess Motifs: In another dream sequence (in Chapter 2), Snow White plays chess against a lookalike, on the board a white Queen piece and her army against a red Queen piece and hers, while a golden King piece stands off board.
- Color-Coded Characters:
- Dorian/Rumplestiltskin is associated with gold and yellow.
- Also, the name of a group of 4 characters, "Les Chevaliers d'Or" (French for "The Knights of Gold"), implies they are in league with Dorian. In this regard, during their stay in London, Alice's fiancé, Lewis (Carroll?), passes by Snow White and mutters under his breath a mention about the "Four Chevaliers d'Or" keeping an eye on her.
- Color Motif:
- The major characters are associated with a colour: red (for Rose Red and assorted characters), the tricolor motif red-white-black (for Snow White and assorted characters), and gold.
- Some magic users are symbolized by the colour green: Maleficent (by default), Lady Tremaine (who was bestowed magic by the evil fairy), and Grimhild (who has piercing green eyes).
- Composite Character:
- Rapunzel is present in the story, but her design seems to draw from a concept art for Disney's Tangled, while her backstory seems to mirror the original Grimm's fairy tale.
- Cinderella's Fairy Godmother is also the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio, and Cinderella's own mother.
- Anya (Grand Duchess Anastasia Romanoff) shows her family's pendant to Cinderella. Instead of saying "Meet me in Paris", the pendant shows the name Baba-Yaga written in Russian Cyrillic alphabet.
- As part of the Arthurian Mythos, Guinevere, Lancelot, Morgana, Arthur and Merlin figure/will figure in some capacity in the story. Lancelot, for instance, is called "Argus" by Morgana (per Eilowyn's narration in Chapter 8) - the same Argus that Aurora meets in the tower.
- The Coup: As of Chapter 11, Ursula is planning to take over the villain's headquarters, the Citadel, and drags other disgruntled villains into her plans.
- Dark Reprise: Aurora's nightmare has an evil clone of Phillip brutally beat her as he sings a demented version of "Once Upon A Dream".
- Does Not Like Men: In Chapter 11, Althea and Ursula talk about how Carmilla brought in poor girls to act as personal maidservants to the Seven Sins, since Carmilla does not like men.
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: In chapter 3, after mocking Ariel (Melody's mother) and failing to seduce Eric (despite their sexual encounter), Bellenuit (Odile) has a secret meeting with her father, and changes her hair colour from flaxen to raven-black. Combined with her black dress, red eyes and pale white skin, this highlights her otherworldly nature.
- Enfant Terrible:
- In Chapter 4, after Rapunzel's failed escape attempt, two of the Snow Queens, the blue-skinned one and the raven-haired one, discuss that Kai would have chased and killed Rapunzel, implying him to be this after becoming infected with the mirror's shard.
- In Grimhilde's backstory, Hilda is the owner of the gingerbread house, lures Grimhilde/Gretel and her brother Hansel into the house and devours him. She later appears alongside the other incarnations of the Seven Sins gathered by Dorian.
- Entitled to Have You: In a scene with a gathering of Snow Queens in their ice palace, Kai (who, by this time, is affected by the Devil's Mirror from the original tale) comments that Snow White belongs to him, and him alone.
- Excalibur in the Stone: In Chapter 2.5, Aurora has a dream where she finds a large sword stuck in a heavy stone in a clearing.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- Fille Fatale: In Grimhilde's flashback side-chapter, the Magic Mirror began to plant in Grimhilde's mind the idea that a seven-year-old Snow White, her step-daughter, was enticing men of their court to side with her.
- Finger-Licking Poison: In Grimhilde's backstory, after she kills Althea with a poisoned comb, she marries King Gerald (Snow White's father) and asks him to read her a book. Unbeknownst to him, its pages are laced with poison.
- Food as Bribe: In Chapter 11, Ursula, in her human Vanessa disguise, gives her handmaiden, Farah, a cupcake for her to keep mum about any guests in Ursula's chambers.
- Foreshadowing:
- In chapter 5, Aurora is mentally tortured by Maleficent, grabs a sword and is ordered by the fairy to kill Phillip. Suddenly, she has a vision of a redhaired royal woman mockingly call someone "Maleficent", deriding them as "the nobody of the ''Le Fay'", while claiming to be "the great sorceress" and "queen of all Britain".
- In chapters 7-8, Aurora has a vision of Maleficent working at a spinning wheel. This can be a nod to some depictions of La Belle au Bois Dormant (Perrault's tale), wherein the evil fairy works on a spindle and lures the princess to prickle her finger, but it also works as foreshadowing for the revelation at the end of Chapter 8: Guinevere and Morgana, from Arthurian Myth, are said to be two of Merlin's former apprentices, and they are part of a triad of sorceresses working at a spinning wheel. The same page shows Maleficent as the third of the trio.
- Gambit Pileup: As of chapter 11, the story is shaping up to be this:
- Dorian gathered the Seven Sins to find the Goddesses' Relics, but is also acting on his own interests.
- Ursula and some of the "mages and witches" are planning a coup to take control of their headquarters.
- Carmilla is acting on her own as well, either she or a lookalike has joined the Disney Princesses in London.
- In the backstory, Queen Althea , with the help of the Magic Mirror, engineered the birth of Princess Snow White (the Disney version), her kiss of salvation given by Prince Frederick, and their daughter's, Rose Red, birth.
- Harmful to Minors: Little Rose Red is taken to a funeral for her beloved aunt, and overhears she was murdered by her own husband. She quietly vows to never fall in love.
- Human Popsicle: In Chapter 4, after escaping her room with her dolls, the blue-skinned Snow Queen intercepts her and turns her into a beautiful ice statue.
- Ice Palace: The three Snow Queens and Kai are holding a meeting in a room of an ice palace. Chapter 4 reveals Rapunzel was also a prisoner in the same palace.
- It Always Rains at Funerals: In chapter 1, Snow White, her husband and her daughter Rose Red go to the prince's family mausoleum to bury his sister Beatrix. They journey by carriage under heavy rain.
- Legacy Character: Snow White, Rose Red and the Seven Sins are the latest in a long line of incarnations, also named Snow White, Rose Red and one of the sins.
- Legion of Doom: According to Quetzal, Rumplestiltskin assembled incarnations of the Seven Deadly Sins, as well as "a group of witches and mages".
- Literal Split Personality: In Chapter 4, the raven-haired Snow Queen, named Marshmallow, tries to help Rapunzel escape and meet Alice, but the blue-skinned Snow Queen freezes the girl. Then, she declares Marshmallow to be "one of her best parts", implying they are separate parts of the same person.
- MacGuffin / Plot Coupon: The Twin Goddesses created "relics" with parts of their souls. The "Second One" (one of the Twin Goddesses) cast the objects throughtout the universe, and they eventually found new owners. One of the Relics is Cinderella's glass slipper, and at the end of Chapter 8, Ariel is mentioned as having her own.
- Meaningful Rename:
- In a flashback in Chapter 4, the Grand Duke comments with Cinderella that, as the prince's consort and future queen, she is to choose a coronation name, since "Cinderella" will not do. Instead of choosing her former birth name, due to bitter memories, Cinderella chooses "Eleanor" as her new name.
- In Chapter 10, after Cinderella remembers how she was saved from her stepmother's attack on her kingdom, she retakes her birth name: Elizabeth Alexandra Tremaine.
- Named by the Adaptation:
- Some of the princesses' kingdoms are named: Snow White says she is from "Gutenberg", and Aurora from the Kingdom of Ys.
- In Chapter 11, Bellenuit screams in surprise that "Ariel, from the Kingdom of Polais", is seen with the other princesses in London.
- Cinderella is referred to as the daughter of Edward Tremaine, so this means that Lady Tremaine (first name Agatha) adopted his surname after they married.
- Rapunzel's prince from her fairy tale - not the Disney movie - is given the name Bastion in Chapter 4.
- Once More, with Clarity: In Grimhilde's side chapter, she gives Rose Red a grimoire with memories of her childhood and her time in court, including her friendship and eventual falling out with Althea. After Althea's ghost is summoned under an oath not to lie, some scenes are presented from Althea's perspective, showing she was grooming a still innocent Grimhilde to be a tool in her plans.
- One-Winged Angel: At the end of Chapter 10, Lady Tremaine uses her magic to distort Mulan into a large human-crow hybrid.
- Our Mermaids Are Different: Everything about Ariel and her family's backstory: Triton and the royal family from Atlantica are sea merfolk, and can be identified by their normal-shaped ears; Harmonia (Ariel's mother), Ursula and Morgain (Ariel's aunts) and Galene are lake mermaids, and their ears are shaped like fins.
- Pimped-Out Dress: In their original movies, the Disney Princesses wore beautiful dresses. In the webcomic, particularly version 2, the princesses are shown in flashbacks to their silver screen adventures in more elaborate versions of their iconic dresses. Their present day outfits are also extremely ornate.
- Plot-Relevant Age-Up: Rose Red, Snow White's daughter, dies as a young girl, but Quetzal resurrects her soul into an older body (late teenager or young adult).
- Primary-Color Champion: In Grimhilde's flashback chapter, Snow White wears her iconic red-blue-yellow dress, but a more extravagant version.
- Race Lift: During their sojourn in London, Cinderella uses her Fairy Godmother's magic wand to change Ariel's and Jasmine's appearances: Ariel's vibrant red hair is changed to blonde, and Jasmine, from an Arab/Middle Eastern woman, has her skintone and hair changed to white and blonde. She didn't like the change at all!
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Red-eyed Odile, the black swan, assumes the identity of Bellenuit, a false friend to a teenaged Melody, on her father's orders to seduce Eric.
- Reincarnation:
- Snow White (from the Disney movie) is heavily implied to be the latest in a line of Snow White reincarnations.
- The Snow White and the Rose Red creations of the Twin Goddesses have been reincarnating ever since their "death". According to Queen Althea's ghost - summoned by Grimhild and under an oath not to lie -, Rumplestiltskin told Althea that Snow White and Rose Red's first incarnations were a pair of sisters that "played with a bear and a dwarf" - a reference to Snow-White and Rose-Red.
- A group of villainesses, some of which from Disney, are incarnations of the Seven Sins.
- Related in the Adaptation: Alice is Wendy's niece, and John Darling's daughter.
- The Reveal: Several:
- In Grimhilde's side-chapter, she and her step-grandchildren Red Rose summon Althea's ghost. Under an oath to tell the absolute truth, Althea explicitly refuses to be addressed as Rose's grandmother and tells the girl Grimhilde is her biological grandmother.
- In Lady Tremaine's side-chapter, it is heavily implied that Cinderella, her Prince Charming (named Alphonse) and Lady Tremaine, respectively, are reincarnations of the princess, the prince and the queen from The Princess and the Pea.
- Revision: As of 2024,
Word of God states that they are reuploading previous chapter pages with revised text and expanded scenes in order to accomodate later plot developments. - Rule of Three:
- In the setting's backstory, the twin goddesses and "The Third One". Each of the goddesses created a girl, and "The Third One" created Dorian/Rumpelstiltskin.
- In chapter 8, Merlin tells princess Eilowny he taught three female apprentices/sorceresses, among which Morgana (as is usual) and Queen Guinevere!
- At the end of chapter 8, Aurora faints and enters a dream, where she kisses a sleeping Guinevere and the latter awakes. Morgana chastises the princess and suddenly Aurora is being burned at the stake, as "the three sorceresses" (Guinevere, Morgana and Maleficent) are seen spinning, each on a spinning wheel.
- A scene in chapter 9 shows a gathering of three Snow Queens in their ice palace and Kai.
- Rule of Seven: Dorian enlisted incarnations of the Seven Sins, some indicated by their side-chapters (in Alice's Info Dump, the original seven sins were Always Female):
- Queen Grimhilde (from Snow White) representing Vanitas (Vanity);
- Lady Tremaine (from Cinderella) representing Invidia (Envy);
- A conversation between Ursula and Althea in Chapter 11 makes a passing mention that each of the Seven Sins has a personal maidservant. Ursula comments about hers, which implies she is also one of them. In Chapter 8, Rumple/Dorian kisses Ursula's hand and refers to her as "Greed".
- In chapter 8, Rumple/Dorian introduces himself to the council of villains, and Ursula mentions that Maleficent represents the sin of "Rage" (Wrath), while Quetzal is "Sloth".
- Berthalda has her own maidservant, Goldilocks, and Dorian introduces Melody, Ariel's daughter, to his daughter Hilda as the latter's maidservant. With this in mind, and by process of elimination, Berthalda represents "Lust" and Hilda "Gluttony".
- Save This Person, Save the World: When the princesses arrive in Wendy's house in London, they learn they must protect Snow White from Dorian.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: Ursula explains that Triton changed her into the caecilia shape she was in the original film and created the sea monster skeleton around her as her prison. Trapped there, she uses Flotsam and Jetsam as her eyes and ears in the wide ocean.
- Secondary Color Nemesis: In Grimhilde's backstory chapter, after she becomes the Evil Queen, she is depicted with extravagant dresses in purple and green.
- Shout-Out:
- Twofold in a scene with princess Jasmine in chapter 3: she sees her cousin Yum-Yum off and thanks the latter's gift, a peacock, saying she is not a "Peacock Princess" (a reference to her sketch in Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams).
- While in Victorian London, Belle finds an old watch with the initials L. O. among Alice's belongings. She explains L.O. are her mother's initials, Laura O'Hara (a possible nod to Paige O'Hara, Belle's voice actress).
- In an Extra, Odile (as Bellenuit) is seen wearing a black ball gown and red ballet shoes (her ensemble to Melody's party), as a possible nod to the The Red Shoes, another tale by Hans Christian Andersen.
- Rapuzel's prince and love interest from her fairy tale is not Flynn Rider (as in Tangled), but Bastion. This is the name of the love interest in a previous treatment of Disney's adaptation of the tale.
- Slut-Shaming: During the gathering of the Seven Sins in chapter 8, they begin to trash talk one another and accuse Berthalda (who is Lust) of lying with every man she sees.
- Story Arc: The last page of chapter 8 declares, as its ending caption, the "end of the first arc".
- Succession Crisis: In Chapter 7, Eilowny talks to Merlin in secret and mentions that after princess Aurora disappeared, the kingdom suffered a succession war. Eilowny also mentions to let the people think she is Aurora's direct descendant, which implies she is not her great-granddaughter, as she previously stated.
- Supernatural Gold Eyes:
- Snow White's eye colour are "hazelnut brown" in the original, but here their colour is highlighted to appear more golden-brown. This has in-story importance: she is in fact the daughter of Rumplestiltskin!
- Bellenuit/Odile's father has a pair of these. During their night meeting in chapter 3, his irises glow with a golden shine, as he beats his daughter for failing to seduce Eric, Ariel's husband. The man is also able to turn into an owl in the previous panels.
- Surveillance as the Plot Demands: In chapters 10-11, Ursula and her assemblage of villains spy on the princesses in London.
- The Swarm: In chapter 4, Cinderella's stepmother, Lady Tremaine, commands a murder of crows to attack the castle and murder its inhabitants.
- Take That!: In Mulan's introduction, she kills the father-son duo of her sequel.
- Tempting Apple: Snow White's iconic red apple is shown in the story. A golden apple also appears, in connection with villain Rumplestiltskin/Dorian.
- Textile Work Is Feminine: The last page of chapter 8 shows three sorceresses using a spinning wheel: Morgana and Guinevere (from Arthurian Myth) and Maleficent (from Disney's Sleeping Beauty).
- Three-Way Sex: In chapter 8, Grimhild pays a visit to Berthalda's chambers and finds her in bed with the Dark Phillip and Dark Gaston.
- Villainous BSoD: In Grimhilde's flashback chapter, after Althea's hurtful, yet true revelations, Grimhilde comes to the realization that she tried to kill her own daughter, Snow White.
- Villainous Incest:
- Eric's older brother offers to marry his own niece as a bluff, which enrages Eric to the point where he clocks him across the face.
- In Althea's backstory, based on Donkeyskin, her father gives her the hide of the kingdom's donkey, and manages to consummate his incestuous desire.
- King Gerald, Snow White's father, makes his moves on Grimhild, his adoptive niece by his sister, Lady Briar, Dutchess of Alsace.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: Since the first chapter, Aurora, Snow White and the other princesses have been manipulated individually by the villains, until the heroines appear together in the dark tower in Chapter 8 and decide to work together.
- Yuri Girls: In chapter 8, Carmilla introduces Snow White's daughter, Rose Red (who has been resurrected in an older body) as her fiancée. Berthalda and a young Tremaine mock the pair for their "sapphic tendencies".
