What if...

What if…

Photo by Christo Oberschneider

What if Disney princesses lived today…

How would their lives be like?

What if Disney princesses lived today . We did some research and found out that Ali Williams, the California-based cosplayer, wanted to show people that Disney princesses are just like everyone else.

We got inspired and decided to write some short stories about how their lives might be if they were alive today.

"By taking away the sparkly ball gowns and magic, and putting these characters into modern day they become more relatable," Williams said. "These are the same personalities except now they're living in our time.“

Like our JULIETS Disney princesses also say:

So, we chose some of them.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1…………………………........Snow White & Little Red Riding Hood

Chapter 2…………………....................Little Mermaid with a twist

Chapter 3…………………………………Rapunzel, the painter _Merida, the activist

Snow White & Little Red Riding Wood

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl known for being as white as snow. She loved to go hiking in the forest alone, until one day she met a lovely girl called Little Red Riding Hood and they started to meet regularly.

Meanwhile Snow White's stepmother was planning Snow White's wedding because it was about time for her to get married. However, Snow White was not ready for that and did not feel comfortable marrying someone she hardly knew.

Snow White tried not to think about it, but during her daily meetings with Little Red Riding Hood, she vented about what she was feeling. Little Red Riding Hood was her ideal of a perfect match. She began to see that what she felt for Little Red Riding Hood was not just friendship...it had become something more...

Snow wanted to tell her stepmother what she was feeling and wanted her to stop planning her wedding because she had already found her soul mate. When she finally got the courage to start the conversation with her stepmother, it quickly turned into an argument. Angrily she ended up confessing that she was gay. This was unacceptable to her stepmother. So, she decided to lock Snow White up until she changed her mind and agreed to marry a perfect, rich, brave, handsome prince.

Weeks went by and Snow White kept on saying that she loved a woman and didn't feel ashamed of it, and that she would fight till the end to have a life with her beloved. This went on for weeks.

Little Red Riding Hood, who already knew about the problems Snow White was facing with her stepmother, was worried because she stopped showing up in the forest as usual. Little Red Riding Hood went to her cottage and got to know that Snow White was trapped.

White's kingdom so as not to be found by her stepmother’s guards.

Photo by Kevin Zaouali

-I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, SHE CANNOT BE TRAPPED FOR JUST BEING HERSELF, she said.

After saying this, Little Red Riding Hood asked some friends for help and managed to save Snow White.

They fled into the woods and lived in an unknown location far away from Snow Snow White's kingdom so as not to be found by her stepmother’s guards.

Years went by and no one ever discovered the whereabouts of this couple, who lived a happy life. After some time, they decided it was time to take the next step... and adopted children! 7 little children!

A new phase had started! Living from farming, and finally having children... they were happier than ever.

Snow White could be who she really was, without being judged by anyone.

Years passed by, the children had grown up, had started going to school, and made their mothers very proud to have such loving, dedicated, and intelligent children. But what worried them the most was that they were not facing the truth. They were hiding themselves.

Hiding from the world was not the solution. They had to do something, they had to fight for what they believed. Their children had to know that everyone has the right to live free from prejudice and stereotypes. And so they did. They moved to the city where they met lots of people that thought just like them. Life started to make sense.

In fact, right now they are going to attend a conference by a young environmentalist, Ariel.

Does this name remind you of someone?!

Photo by Kevin Zaouali

Little Mermaid with a twist

veryone in the world, humans, animals, fairies, mermaids, wizards, knows the name Ariel, the infamous environmental engineer that changed the world.

Let us rewind a few years back when Ariel had just turned twenty. When everything changed for her.

It was a beautiful morning in Atlantis, the most beautiful kingdom in the ocean, and Ariel’s birthday. Ariel was the youngest out of seven sisters, daughter of Triton, the King, and a beloved princess.

The whole kingdom celebrated this day as it was theirs, with an amazing party that had magnificent decorations and outstanding birthday cake. However, Ariel, the guest of honour, was nowhere to be seen. So, the King sent Flounder, the fish, her best friend, to look for her.

To Flounder it was pretty obvious that she was in her secret place. Ariel had a secret spot in the ocean that only her and Flounder knew about. Whenever she was feeling sad or lonely, she used to go to that place to relax and hide from the world and her duties as a princess. She also had a very peculiar hobby, collecting human objects, such as forks, hairbrushes, statues..., everything that she could find in the bottom of the ocean that she knew was from up there, the surface, the world of people with legs.

On this particular day, even though everyone in the kingdom was celebrating, sadness was present in the hearts of Ariel and the rest of her family. It was fifteen years since Ariel’s mother, Athena, passed away. Athena was loved by her husband, daughters, and subjects. Consequently, every year Ariel went to her secret place to take some comfort and grieve in peace. After finding her, Flounder brought her to the palace and the party. She eventually cheered up and enjoyed herself, the best she could, and overall, she had a good day, considering the circumstances. This was until, in the evening, when the party had already finished, she noticed her father was missing. She decided to look for him and found him by her mother’s grave, and said:

- We all miss her. Me, too. I have had her in my mind all day long.

- I know darling. She would have loved the person you have become. Kind, loving and thoughtful. - said her father, with a melancholic look on his face.

After this tender moment between her and her father, she got the courage to ask:

- I know you don’t like to talk about mother’s death and how she died. Attina only told me she died because of an illness, but I know that’s not how she really died. So, I ask you father, please, how did mother really die?

- Ariel, love, it’s time. It’s time you know the truth. You’re old enough to know and to understand it. Fifteen years ago, your mother didn’t die of an illness. She died because of an oil spill. You know, the world up there, even though we have been at peace for twenty-five years, some of them, humans, do horrible things to the planet and the environment, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose. Remember when you found Flounder with his head wrapped in a plastic bag? The bag wasn’t supposed to be in the ocean, but humans just didn’t and still don’t care much about the consequences of their actions. - said her father.

- Yeah, I remember. But wait. You’re telling me that mother died because of something that the humans might have done?!? – asked Ariel furious and confused.

- We don’t know for sure, but oil spills usually happen not because someone wants to do that on purpose but by accident. So, it probably was an accident. It had to be an accident! It had! – her father stated.

A few hours later, she went to her room, but the real cause of her mother’s death was still on her mind. So, she thought the best thing she could do was to go to surface and take matters into her own hands.  Fortunately, due to her hobby, she knew much about how the surface worked, the horrible things they do every day but also how they have jobs to protect the environment, specially the ocean.

After making this decision, Ariel went to her aunt Ursula, to ask her if she could turn her fish tail into legs. Ursula gladly did what Ariel asked, as she had turned into a mother figure in Ariel’s life and everything she wanted was Ariel’s happiness.

So, against her father’s wishes, Ariel went to the surface and there it began, her life as a university student, studying to be an environmental engineer, in order to protect nature’s ecosystems and her home.

In todays’ world, with princesses in all shapes and forms, fairies, mermaids and wizards, universities had special programs to accommodate these types of people, that came from all sorts of places, and in this case, Ariel came from the ocean.

She had high hopes for the course, and at first she only found frustration and difficulties but with an objective in mind, she learned to love it. Her university years weren’t easy, the course she chose is a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) course, therefore a male-dominant course. This is what Ariel didn’t know about this world: the harsh reality of being a woman in a field dominated by men and their misogynistic ways of thinking.

While in university, she started advocating for the environment, by going on strikes, organizing fundraisers for non-governmental organisations, beach and ocean clean-ups and tree planting days.

At first it was hard because most of her peers didn’t support her, but as time went by they learnt to respect her. Even though she was doing many things for the environment, she didn’t forget the other thing that made her come to the surface, her mother’s death.

- What is going on darling? Why are you calling me to come to the surface? – she asked with a worried look.

- I need to go to Atlantis! There has been an oil spill near it, and I want to know if everyone is safe, the subjects, the animals! - Ariel yelled desperately.

As soon as she listened to this, Ursula gave Ariel her tail back and off she went to Atlantis.

- Father! Father! Is everyone alright?!?

- Oh Ariel, how good to have you back! – her father said.

- Was anyone affected by the oil spill?!?

- Oh no, you needn’t worry. Everyone is safe. The oil can’t get this deep.

- Oh! Thank goodness!

- And Ariel, do you mind me asking about the ship that sank? The colours of the ship?

- Oh, sure. The ship was dark blue on the bottom, and light blue at the top.

- Oh, my goodness! That’s exactly like the one that killed your mother! Did it say Eric or Brown on the sides?!? – said Triton almost in tears.

- Oh! Oh!

And then, suddenly, the bad feeling she had when reading the name of the president of that organization finally made sense. It was one of his ships that caused her mother’s death!

Ariel didn’t know what to do with this discovery, but she knew she had to go back to the surface. Back to the humans.

As soon as she got back, she went straight to the library to do some research. And then she found out that the company that had that oil spill, was the one that had the most ones.

Suspicious”, she said to herself. With this bugging her mind, she decided to go to the police and tell the police officers what she had found.

After a few months and after she had finished her master’s degree, she saw something on the news that made her jump with joy and relief! Turns out the non-governmental organization, that principally advocated for oil spills, presided by Eric Brown was a façade! It only existed to cover up the fact that Eric Brown was the CEO of an oil company!

What actually made Ariel jump with joy and relief was that the police had also found out that Eric caused on purpose numerous oil spills that harmed and killed a lot of sea life. Fortunately, he was arrested and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the awful crimes he committed.

Ariel continued advocating for the environment and eventually created a non-governmental organization to defend marine life, the ocean, and the environment. And while presiding an NGO, she did her PhD. Ariel’s NGO became the first NGO presided by a woman on the top ten best NGOs and one of the most funded NGOs in the world for their outstanding work defending and protecting the environment. In the end, the hard work that she put in her course, paid off.

However, the most important thing for Ariel wasn’t the success of the NGO but that she was finally at peace with her mother’s death. After 6 years of knowing how her mother really died, her death was finally avenged!

Rapunzel , the painter

Merida, the activist

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Rapunzel, she was a wise and beautiful girl. She had golden hair and green sparkly eyes. Rapunzel’s passion was art, more specifically painting. Her love for art has always been there since she was a little kid, her mum would always buy her new paints and materials as gifts.

Her second love was Pascal, her chameleon, he was her only friend, since she didn’t attend school. She was homeschooled because her mum was very protective and was too scared to let Rapunzel go out into the world. This situation made Rapunzel very upset, she wanted to be free and independent. She wanted to sell her art, make her own money and live the way she wanted. You can already presume this wasn’t exactly what her mother, Gothel, wanted though.

Every day, after school, Rapunzel would go into her backyard to paint. Her paintings were a mirror of her soul, she liked to express her emotion through it. She found it helpful, especially because she had no one to talk to. That day something different happened, there was someone in the forest behind her backyard, someone unlike all the people she had seen before. She had voluminous ginger hair, blue luminous eyes and beautiful pale skin. Rapunzel knew she had to paint her; she marvelled at such beauty. The girl was practicing with her arrow and bow, so Rapunzel decided to portrait that as well.

Days passed, and the girl kept coming back so Rapunzel kept on painting her and improving her painting every day. She decided to give her the painting when she finished it and try to talk to her, she was hoping to make a friend. The day came and she had never felt so nervous in her life, so she climbed the fence of her house and left. When she saw the girl from up close, she noticed she was even prettier than from a far and that gave her a weird felling in her stomach, something she had never felt before:

-Hi, hm… I’m Rapunzel and I live down there and I’ve been admiring you from there, I thought you were really pretty, so I painted you. - Said Rapunzel in a hurry.

-Hi, that’s so sweet, can I see it?

Rapunzel shows her the painting feeling nervous:

-Do you like it?

-Wow…I love it, I don’t even know what to say…thank you!

-Do you want to keep it?

-Yes of course! How much do you want for it?

-Oh…its nothing.

-I can't accept that, I'll pay. Where do you usually sell your paintings?

-I don’t sell them, my mum doesn’t let me.Says Rapunzel with a sad expression.

They talked for hours, and Rapunzel felt like she had known her for her whole life. Her name was Merida, and Rapunzel knew she would be coming back every day to talk to her. Merida told Rapunzel to bring some of her paintings and she encouraged her to sell them and to go to an art school. They talked about her mother and how overprotective she was, and Rapunzel gained courage to talk to her mother when she got home for dinner:

-Hi mum.

-Hi, my love, how was your day? -Says Gothel affectionately.

-Hm…I did some thinking, and I would really like to enroll in an art school, I want to pursue my dream of becoming an artist.

-Rapunzel, we have talked about this. I’m afraid of you going into this cruel world.

-Mum please, this is my dream!

-I can’t forbid you from that, but I’ll be the one choosing the school.

-Oh mum, thank you so much! –Says Rapunzel hugging Gothel.

After that the time moved on quickly and before she knew she was already in her first class.

Gothel was in a business trip when one of Rapunzel’s teachers tragically died in a car accident, Rapunzel had gained a great affection for him, so she felt very upset. The school was fast finding a substitute and right in the first-class Rapunzel felt like she knew him from somewhere. His name was Frederic and she decided to do a little research about him, she found some amazing paintings of his wife and a portrait of a beautiful baby girl, with golden locks and beautiful green eyes. Rapunzel felt kind of emotional looking at it, she didn’t really know why… it was a weird feeling that filled her body, she felt goosebumps all over her skin, it was almost like…she knew her.

After some weeks of thinking about the baby portrait Rapunzel couldn’t take it anymore so she decided to speak to her teacher:

-Hi! I was wondering if you have a minute.

-Yes, of course.

-When I saw your painting, I felt like I knew her.

-Sorry, I can’t remember your name.

-No problem, it’s Rapunzel.

-Rapunzel…? -Says Frederic, getting emotional.

-Yes, why?

-That’s my daughter’s name… can I ask your mother’s name?

-Of course, it's Gothel.

-Oh my god…it’s you? Gothel kidnapped you when you were a baby.

-What! How? I don’t understand…

-I know this is too much, we can do some DNA test to confirm it if you agree.

-I just don’t know what to think but sure.

When the test’s results came, they showed that Rapunzel was in fact Frederic’s daughter. Rapunzel confronted Gothel, who was later on arrested, and left. Rapunzel met her true mother and created a really good bond with her biological parents. They encouraged her to follow her dreams and today Rapunzel is a well-known artist, she has permanent exhibitions in the most important art galleries and she’s finally free. She’s also a very influential activist, the funds of her art galleries are all for Meridas’ LGBTQIA+ organization – Colour is Life!

What if…

Photo by Christo Oberschneider