As a child, my favourite fairytale has always been The Little Mermaid. I mean, dude - there are mermaids - with like the whole tail/fin/living under the sea thingy. 'Nuff said. My favourite mythical creature has always been the mermaid and I even remember doing my Year 7 Visual Arts Project on them. I went around the class trading creatures with other people 'cause I originally ended up with "troll". Like WTF man - trolls aren't even pretty. Mermaids on the other hand, have that whole mystical allure thing which dragons, trolls and dwarves don't...

Weeeeeeee - mermaids :)

But I digress.

Point is, as a child, I always loved The Little Mermaid.

But as a teen? I think I'm being converted. True, The Little Mermaid will always have a place in my heart but I've recently realised that the story of Beauty and the Beast has the power to make me feel so incredibly sad and happy at the same time. This idea - of an ugly, deformed creature falling for a beautiful, kind girl is such a cliched trope but at the same time, never fails to entertain me. Do you guys remember my Phantom of the Opera phase? That time when I used to spam all your dashboards with my embarassing fangirling and gushings of the movie. If you don't, you can scroll down to the botton of the page and click on the Phantom of the Opera (POTO) tag. You have been warned though - it's not pretty. Anyway, I've just realised the reason I liked POTO so much was because it was a variation of the Beauty and the Beast story.

It's also why I kind of had a thing for Beastly when I first read it (the book - not the movie. Movie sucked shit, guys).

And it's also why I started wriggling on the couch from excitement whilst watching Once Upon a Time last night. They had a Beauty and the Beast themed episode and guess what? THEY PULLED IT OFF SO WELL AND I COULD NOT BE ANY HAPPIER. Plus, it helped that my favourite character of the series - the evil and deliciously-creepy Rumpelstiltskin played the role of the Beast. (Fair warning guys, this show takes a few massive liberties with the traditional stories). I couldn't have asked for more.

Other random fun facts: Emilie de Ravin (the actress who plays Belle) is Australian. She's also been on Lost and CSI and a whole other bunch of shows. Anyhow, in OUaT, she was allowed to keep her Australian accent. I didn't really notice it at first but on rewatch, it full came and hit me in the face. Belle must come from that part of Fairy Tale Land where all the Australians live. Funny that. I always though Belle was French.

I think this has been my favourite episode to date. I can't wait to see what *spoiler* does when he *spoiler* and omg *spoiler* cause *spoiler* is such an evil *spoiler*.

Also: EASTER EGG ALERT!! I see what you did there: