#MAN i love neverafter it’s so good

[darth-does-stuff]

what i really love about neverafter is that every character feels that they all have significant importance. you have the obvious ones, mother timothy goose with his book that seems to be the centerpiece of everything in the neverafter, princess rosamund with the fairies coming after her, but the others are just as important as well. ylfa with her realizations of ‘once upon a time’, pinnochio with his stepmother who is fucking just. yeah. there’s pib and his trickster ways, his purpose to disrupt the forces who intend to control the story, and gerard with the golden ball and his connection to elody. with a fairytale story it’s SO easy to make one person the main character of it all, but brennan made every character feel no more important than the others and it’s fucking fantastic

[jackklinemybeloved]

love how for gerard’s new story murph just makes him a messy bitch who loves drama and is very divorced. so true king.

[companionsofusall]

[id: traditional fanart of Rapunzel from Neverafter, ow scrapbooked onto a larger piece of paper.

Rapunzel is hanging from her hair, her knees bent so her feet are drawn up behind her, and her hair is pulled extremely taut at the scalp. She has her arms open wide, for a hug, and she is giving a closed mouth smile. Her eyes are wide, her pupils small, but her face is relaxed. Around her her hair surrounds her, some in waves, some twisted, some in braids. She is drawn almost monochrome- mostly black and white except for her hair and eyes, which are a pale pale yellow. There is a border of bright yellow paper. Behind that is black paper with gold strands, and behind that is another matching bright yellow border. End id]

Okay but ive been going OFF on my scrapbooking this evening. I found the perfect black page for my Rapunzel and I love it EVEN MORE now

[mongeese]

Gerard pulling Red aside after the spider fight to assure her she isn’t a monster and that she’s doing good things is so sweet I’m gonna cry

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

man I love the communal dice interactions in Dimension 20. Griffin asking whose been rolling good so he can use their d20 in Tiny Heist and Jasper desperately cycling through dice in Burrow's End and Murph retiring Emily's dice in Neverafter and the cast of Mentopolis swapping so they each have a full set made of each other's dice and "send your kids to camp" and the thrill of the box of doom. it's so good dude I love when people get so invested in the story they tell together that the roll of a die is the most important thing in the world.

[killerboyratzmp3]

gerard of greenleigh most character of all time.......

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 1D, MATCH 1 OUT OF 16!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Dimension 20:

Knight in invisible glass armor who turned the heel of her slipper into a spear and impaled the Fairy Grandmother with it to escape her false happy ending. Part of a team of princesses who want to destroy the entire fairy tale world to spare themselves and everyone else from eternally suffering. Gives weirdly good life advice.

A badass warrior in glass armor who stabs her fairy godmother with the heel of her glass slipper

Neverafter sweep!!!! Also, she is cool. Wears glass armor, tried to kill her fairy godmother with a spear, also tried to kill her stepmother.

She wears armour of glass and fights against a prewritten destiny

This Cinderella's story takes place in a world where all the fairytale characters exist but their stories have all gone wrong. It's a horror Dnd campaign, and there's also a multivariate concept where if people die, they're basically just reborn in a worse version of the story. Cinderella here is an NPC and is part of a faction called the Daughters of the Crown, which is a group of rebel nialaistic princesses who want to destroy the Neverafter to be free. She stabbed her fairy godmother in the chest with a glass shard from her shoe and she's a crazy powerful fighter. She wears full plate armor made of reflective glass so that she's essentially invisible when standing still. She's super badass but still is caring and funny. In the final battle when the PCs are fighting the Daughters of the Crown and other bad guys, she turns to their side after the other princesses are defeated and other giant villains come in, including her step mother, who became an eldritch horror. She stabs her stepmother through the heart with a shard of glass after dismissing the stepmother statement that she hurt her because it was destiny, saying that it doesn't matter if it was free will or destiny, she didn't like it. TLDR: She's a badass black woman/princess/knight

This woman has been through so much Shit. She has to go through the usual suffering of Cinderella (dead parents, abusive step-family) and then find out her entire life is a lie, just a story where she has no agency over her life? Her suffering is for someone else's amusement? So she's doing bad. Her stepmother also tries to destroy the ENTIRE universe after snapping. And okay. Maybeeee Cinderella tried to kill some people (mainly the campaign's party) but after she lost everything I can't help but feel a little bad for her. Thank you for your time.

shes ANGRY shes a WARRIOR she has GLASS ARMOR THAT SHE NEVER TAKES OFF she’s trying to END THE WORLD AND KILL EVERYONE she’s EVERYTHING to me

Once Upon a Time (in Space):

She spent decades searching every moon and planet trying to find her wife (Rose), who was kidnapped on their wedding day. Eventually, she found Rose, and they embraced, only for Rose to die in Cinder's arms. And so Cinder killed the king who had kidnapped Rose by punching through his chest and into his heart.

And then Cinder got a somewhat happy ending, in which she met Rose's clone who had Rose's memories.

What if Cinderella was a Sci-Fi lesbian? Well here she is. She has a whole love song about searching the stars for her girlfriend after their wedding was interrupted and she was taken away. She spends years searching only to when she finally finds and embraces her watch her be shot. Cinders is so devastated by this that she plunges her wedding ring into the heart of the man who shot her love killing him.

Lesbian space princess who elopes with the terrifying soldier who was previously conquering her planet and spends decades searching for her when they're separated. Listen to her song https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6w9V-gMgBF4

I think the way she punches the evil king through the heart as revenge for her wife is pretty neat.

She’s a revolutionary married to a woman, what’s not to love? From Cinders’ Song: “ When I was a little girl, my mother always told me / "Someday your prince will come, my love" / But as I grew, I knew it was a princess who would hold me”.

her girlfriend got cloned and most of said clones were brutally slaughtered in war and she searched for her girlfriend all throughout the galaxy and when they were finally reunited on the battlefield her girlfriend died. and a clone of her girlfriend who due to technical errors retained her memories, so does that count as the same girlfriend? theseus's girlfriend? anyway vote for cinders she's been through hell

Lesbian!! Has to search for her lost love Rose with her glass wedding ring that changes color when its near its partner!! Gets to embrace Rose once again for one final moment before the villain kills Rose right in front of her!! So Cinders kills him in return!! And she's left as (almost) the only surviving main character from her own album but!! She is eventually reunited with a clone of Rose, and while they cannot have a truly 'happy ever after' together they are the ones graced with the closest thing to it

SPACE LESBIANS (she's in love with Rose Red, who gets kidnapped on their wedding day and Cinders searches the galaxy to find her, waiting for her white ring to turn crimson, indicating that its twin was near) She took her name from the ashes of her burning planet <3 She also killed Old King Cole >:)

shes a tragic lesbian and killed a violent dictator shes literally the best

shes gay shes traumatized she dates both rose red and sleeping beauty. badass space wanderer looking for her wife

Her wife Rose gets kidnapped on their wedding day and Cinders spend the next thirty years looking for her. She finds her (:D) and then Rose dies (D:) and then Cinders kills the guy who killed Rose (girlboss).

shes a lesbian. she lost her wife, Rose (yes, as in sleeping beauty) the day they got married bc she was kidnapped. she spent 20 YEARS looking for her. as soon as she found her wife, Rose DIED IN HER ARMS. Cinders has gone through Too Much to lose this poll

(Her info from the wiki) the Princess of a planet burnt by King Cole's army, after it is ceded by her stepmother. She is imprisoned, meets Rose and plans to marry her. She is released by her godmother for the wedding, then flees when the attack happens, spending thirty years looking for Rose. Her half of the wedding ring will light up when she finds Rose.

"When I was a little girl, my mother always told me 'Someday your prince will come, my love' But as I grew, I knew it was a princess who would hold me I looked to the stars for you, my love" She's lesbian Cinderella IN SPACE. She fell in love with her wife in prison and they ran away to have a secret marriage but the empire kidnapped Rose on their wedding night and Cinders had to leave her behind. She searches for Rose for decades with the glass ring that guides her to its twin on her wife's finger. She finally reunites with her love after Rose rips three supersoldiers to pieces with her bare hands (hot) but then then the evil king kills Rose so Cinders fucking punches through his heart. And then a clone of Rose (who is also lesbian Sleeping Beauty IN SPACE) finds her cradling her wife's body and they have a happy reunion(?) and maybe they didn't have a happy ending BUT WHAT IF THEY HAD EACH OTHER? HUH? AAAAAH

she’s everything. she’s a princess from a long since conquered planet. she was imprisoned to make a statement of the brutal reign of old king cole. she met her wife while she was in prison, a beautiful brutal soldier covered in scars from battles. cinders and rose fell in love, so cinders’ godmother in white broke her out of jail so rose and cinders could be together. they were going to be married, except that OLD KING COLE intervened and kidnapped rose to make her the genetic base of his unholy army. so cinders spends THIRTY YEARS searching the galaxies for her love (and sings a really cool song about it called “Cinders’ Song”) until finally she arrives during the final battle just in time to see old king cole SHOOT ROSE DEAD. so cinders punches the king so hard (with her wedding ring) that he just Crumples Into Dust. the end! (no we do not talk about the fiction.)

lesbian, for one, and for two i don't really care i just think it'd be cool if she got in/if she made it past the first round

[theoddowldoodle]

I am randomly again thinking about D20:Neverafter how great the characters and their curses are in relation to their arc and story.

Pinocchio is a warlock being controlled by his patron he is physically and spiritually a puppet of The Stepmother. How he overcame this by being the boy of destiny and taking hold of his own strings and learning he doesnt need to be of flesh to be an actual boy.

Ylfa's relationship with Death aka The Big Bad Wolf how they're in a cycle of consuming each other, her journey of growing out of girlhood but still that little girl being there even as the she becomes Death leaves her. (I can't articulate my feelings for her but her story makes me scream inside my head)

Gerard's curse of turning back into a frog and him thinking that his wife's love is starting to fade and him realizing unlike the other Princesses where they're the main character of their stories Elody is not. Elody supported him through being a frog and loved him with all her heart but he was a bad husband and somewhat a coward during the war. Him sacrifing his own story so she could write her own is so good.

Rosmund's motivation of only finding the Prince and her one true love and her realizing that she doesnt need a prince ( not in a im a bad ass princess that dont need a man kind of way) but in a romantic love is just another type of love and I can be happy with the people I choose. And her basically saying to the othe Princesses that they dont need to destroy the Neverafter can have better stories.

Mother Goose's kindness to all children and him being their for Ylfa and even Pinocchio. Him giving Jack so many chances and trying to rectify Jack's mistakes by making the deal with he Gander. Him and the Golden Goose basically being the same being and ultimately him being the steward for good in the Neverafter.

PIB being a trickster and him being true to his character of being a cat and a theif. Him stealing back their Items from the Baba Yaga and just being in so loyal to his friends doing everything he can to make them have their happy ending.

I probably missing some arcs that make them so great but the story is just so good that i wanted to rant about them.

[dimension20npcofalltime]

Preliminary Round G

Propaganda under the cut (May contain major spoilers for one or more of the campaigns listed above)

Kalina - She was such a well done villain, incredibly unnerving, and so fascinating in her ties to Riz and Pok. I love her with all my heart.

Barry Nyne - Poor man, killed his family under the control of a brain slug

Em - An iron statue atop the Bethesda Fountain. She guards and protects the waters in and around New York City, a source of neutral divine magic, designed by a woman (has a womans touch), besties with Sofia

Master Ipskix - hes a dirty little freak

Primsy Coldbottle - Love her accent, love that she's both young/innocent and incredibly competent as a leader, love that she's a sassy independent woman, who doesn't need no man, even on the brink of death.

Hallariel Seacaster - A wine mom, an expert swordswoman, she cut a man's eye out of his head and he proposed on the spot. Milf.

Woman in the Moon - moon lady

The Tornado - It was such a great bit, I hope we meet the tornado properly in Junior Year

Justin Fication - Conrads best friend

Cinderella's Mice - The way "We was turned into men" was said with such horror will always like rent free in my head. Love a good existential crisis. Especially one that humorous. It's almost Lovecraftian, the way Brennan portrayed it.

[adarkrainbow]

Spooky season fairytales (4)

This series of posts is supposed to be about movies and a few television series, but given it is about dark, spooky, creepy or eerie fairytale-inspired works, I am bound to explore some non-movie pieces. More specifically three works.

The Book of Lost Things

I talked previously about my great love for this 2006 book. John Connolly had already proven his talent at making teenage fantasy mixed with dark comedy (not to say burlesque horror) with his series of "Samuel Johnson" series, but with this book he also left his mark within the world of fairytales. Dark fairytales.

There is still a bit of humor and comedy in this book - but not much. One chapter maybe. The rest is dark, creepy, sad, disturbing... but also very touching, very poetic and very beautiful. "The Book of Lost Things" tells the story of David, a young boy living a hard life in 1930s England. He had to live with the long sickness and death of his mother, he cannot stand his stepmother and her new baby, his father is away from home due to his work involving him with the nascent World War II, the threat of said war forces the family to move to a remote countryside house with a tragic past... And David thinks he is going insane because strange things are happening. He can hear books talk for example, and a strange shadowy "crooked man" keeps appearing at the corner of his eye...

The culmination of these supernatural events results in David entering the world of fairytales, a gigantic forest filled with knights and princesses and talking animals and dwarfs and witches... Except that it is a world where fairytales went wrong. Very wrong. It is a dreadful and horrifying world where all the grimmness and terror of the original tales are played at full force, and David only has one hope to return home: find the good king's magical "Book of Lost Things"...

This book deals with a lot of serious topics - which is what makes it at the same time hard and beautiful of a read. It is a book that doesn't just twist fairytales for the sake of it (though there is a perverse game about reinterpreting the folktales in the most shocking ways). But it does so to help us, and David, explore themes such as grief, disease, war, the loss of the people you love, the desire to return to a nostalgic past... It is a great book.

(And how come I just learn TODAY upon writing these lines that Connolly just RELEASED A SEQUEL! 13 YEARS AFTER THE ORIGINAL! I'm going to buy this for Halloween)

Dimension 20: Neverafter

"Dimension 20" is a web-series by the team of CollegeHumor. In the same way as "Critical Role", "Dimension 20" is a D&D role-playing show, with each season following a campaign where the members of CollegeHumor, using their talent as stand-up and improv comedians, make their reole-playing adventure as entertaining and engaging as possible for the viewer.

Each season has a different theme, setting and universe, and the season known as "Neverafter" is, as you can guess, the "dark fairytale" season. Neverafter takes place in the world of fairytales and nursery rhymes - but things are starting to... be wrong. Happy endings go missing. Gruesome deaths spoil the magical happiness. The peace of the kingdoms is troubled by monsters popping out left and right. Armies are rising up. A storm is coming. The Time of Shadows falls on what was supposed to be a "happy ever after", and in this upcoming chaos, a group of travelers gather together to try to survive... Before discovering a cabal of manipulative fairies, tyrannical lords, creepy princesses, ancient witches and other abstract monsters trying to deal with world-threatening troubles, plunging a simple dark fantasy tale into a cosmic horror epic...

In 20 episodes, the campaign depicts the adventures of six characters. Princess Rosamund du Prix - the Sleeping Beauty princess, who had to free herself from her thorns when her prince failed to come, and is now searching for him. Ylfa Snorgelsson, Little Red Riding Hood, whose fairytale went off to a very traumatic end and left some of the wolf inside of her... Prince Gerard of Greenleigh, the prince from the "Frog Prince", who is now returning to being a frog as the love of his wife wanes... Puss in Boots, forced to return at being a scheming and scamming scoundrel after his kingdom and master were destroyed by giants... Timothy "Mother" Goose, an old man who inherited a magical book after the death of his son Jack and is haunted by a terrifying black gander... And Pinocchio, the magical puppet-boy, now a warlock who uses as a staff his own broken nose and whose patron is a disembodied and mysterious "mother" figure...

Little Nightmares

Ah, Little Nightmares... Who hasn't heard of this groundbreaking video game that marked 2017 with its unique, eerie story?

A little girl in a yellow raincoat wakes up in the dark and humid depths of some sort of industrial area, near the corpse of a hanged man... She wanders with a little light throughout pipes and cells, infested with deadly vermin, filled with the remnants of the presence of other children, overseen by mechanical eyes turning flesh into stone... And soon she discovers herself inside a nightmarish, impossible structure inhabited by child-killing giants, deformed monsters that are out to get her.

Little Nightmares is primarily an attempt at capturing and translating into a video game primal childhood fears and the type of nightmares a little kid can have. It is about a small, helpless child, confronting monsters that are grotesque caricatures of adulthood, in a world too big for her and designed to destroy her... But Little Nightmares also take a strong inspiration from traditional fairytales, making the video game a dark fairytale epic. I don't think it will be a spoiler by now due to the game's huge success but...

... A little girl exploring a dark and haunted supernatural world. A blind giant looking around for his victim using his other senses. A pair of monstrous cooks killing and preparing children for the gargantuan and repulsive feast of obese clients. An intense focus on food and hunger and cannibalism. Helpful little gnomes straight out of a children's fairy book. A beautiful but evil sorceress with a special relationship towards mirror, antagonizing the female protagonist while having some maternal untertones towards her... What if the evil queen of Snow-White was the head of a restaurant for ogres? And no need to add that the games has strong Del Toro tones evoking his fairy-related movies (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy II), while also disturbingly twisting the Ghibli movie style, making this the horror version of "Spirited Away".

The game received an acclaimed sequel, but I couldn't see very obvious fairytale tones in this one, much more focused on a dystopian feeling and ambiance.

[polarsirens]

ALL OF YOUR STUFF IS SO FREAKING GOOD AND COOL IM LITRALLY GOING TO EXPLODE WAAUGH

hello thank you! and is this reaction image something you've drawn yourself because i am loving it! it's me with every new episode of neverafter. just, melting in a teary puddle on the floor because man.

[noddaduck]

Wish Rumplestiltskin had been in Dimension 20’s Neverafter. He’s the one of few villains whose name is the title. It’s technically his story. He might be powerful enough to know he’s in a story and have memories of other Once Upon a Times. He canonically rips himself in half in some versions of his story.

Honestly, he was my self insert as I watched Neverafter. I always make up a character and imagine they are in there when I’m watching D20, and little Rumplestiltskin, AKA Eiman Imp always holds on to that glass necklace and glass ring he takes from the miller’s daughter. He’s grown attached after all this time, he always wants to help her normally but can’t. Whenever he doesn’t die by his own hand at the end of the story he has to flee the country.

He’s got the hermit background so he can have already died and gone through other Times before the story started and the characters met. He has to break away from his innate deal magic to make his own unselfish decisions every new Time, but after all this time he’s learned magic through science and is a wizard. When the whole group dies he’s already done this before and might actually know the rest of them are doing it too now. He hops into the new Time right at the end of his story and manages to get the ending where he just flies away on a comically large ladle, so now he gets a magic item for flying.

He knows how bad it is to be a villain, even if he doesn’t know what it’s like to be a side character. Once he gets his book, he figures out how to make deals with his villainous role. He tries to heal the Little Mermaid, writes out a whole contract. Maybe it works. He sacrifices the party’s memories of him to Baba Yaga, but makes sure to leave whatever character growth they might have gotten arguing “it belongs to them now, they used me to make it, I don’t own that so I can’t give it”. He wanted so badly to choose to be kind and be loved for it, a life made by actually being the self that has grown outside the narrative.

When the story is over and everyone is traveling toward the new story he veers of just a little bit to the very beginning of time, saves the dinosaurs and becomes Arthur Aguefort but with ADHD instead of Autism. He goes up to the very first sentient beings as soon as they have the basics of communication down and hands them business cards with Eiman Imp on them.

When the Miller first starts bragging about his daughter spinning straw into gold Eiman dumps a pile of gold fibers on his head and ensures the story simply never happens. He gets deal magic back but he can use it for good and be creative with prices. Somebody dies while Eiman is hanging out with the Big Bad Wolf and Eiman brings him back in exchange for all the “interesting times” in his future, thus ensuring the man can go back to his family and live the most normal, non-disastrous life ever. Somebody else has to figure out that’s what Eiman did cause he never tells. If any of the other party members reach out for his help he is already there. Roselyn wants a spinning wheel for practice? Button of Summoning Infinite Spinning Wheels. Ylfa can have a dinosaur.

[daddyissuesducks]

Neverafter live watching thoughts

-Owl body guard is so fucking good. I'm guessing they're using a reskin of swarm of bats off the top of my head but that rules

-ylfa taking druid tracks themewise even if her stats don't but I'm certain this was just Emily going "oh fuck we barely have any healing, I'll grab some support in the level up" which is a sort of decision that as a former wizard tank player I relate to deeply

-emily is so fucking funny Christ

-rouge with stealth advantage is going to be a lot of fun

-Pib's new art is crazy, I love it

-Gerad is so done, I love him

-emily accidentally making the child flirt with the 40 year old man because she loves her husband and then having to retcon it is hilarious, adorable and DARK

-lou has fucked up this child so badly, great character work but I want him safe

-bullying Gerard is very very funny

-i love the dish so much, great NPC work from Brennan as always but this campaign especially given that they have to be based off rhymes and stories. Pinnocico trying to eat off him and fighting with tim who wants him in the book was hilarious

-my twisted fan girl is very excited at Scheherazade, love her art too

-non chronicle but I do wonder if ally is using a bard homebrew that users wisdom not charisma because Tim's charisma is waaaay to low for a bard. I wonder if Emily is doing something similar with wisdom and the druid levels

-aesop is exciting too

-i genuinely had to look up a weird hey diddle diddle kids video because my high school maths rhythm has over taken it completely. Hey diddle diddle, the mediums the middle, you and and divide for the mean, the mode is the one that you see the most and the range is the difference between. We had to recite that like every day for a month and that is why I have top grades in maths and like the math rocks hobby.

- I miss senator too, Pinnocico. I miss him too.

-wait is he actually coming back!!!

-SENATOR!!!!!

-i typed that just as Lou did the exact same thing

[thisisnotthenerd]

Neverafter Episode 14: Daughters of the Crown thoughts and musings. Spoilers Ahead.

Well, I got my wish for a gerelody reunion, almost verbatim.

I’m glad that it wasn’t cut-and-dry. That both of them had the opportunity to say the things they needed to say and had the time and space to process a reunion. I think a truer aspect of Gerard’s curse is coming forth--that the ratio of frog to man isn’t really dependent on Elody and how much she loved him, but more on his own sense of self and what defines his nature, after having lived so long as a frog.

Elody got into the meat of her issue with the world, being that the simplest parts of her life are the only things being preserved in story. That the person she is and the struggles she has experienced beyond that aren’t worth remembering. I think her motivation there is definitely closer to the party than it is to the princesses, but who knows how that will change.

As for the princesses, I’m concerned about the next action they will take. The suicidal nature of their mission to destroy and restructure the Neverafter is unsettling and speaks to a lack of regard for stories and people other than themselves as well as a deeply sad reason for their mission. They all want a better future for themselves by whatever means necessary; at the very least, those that have been in on it the longest don’t have a regard for other stories and/or people if they stand in their way. Emily hit it on the head: we didn’t know if they were right or just young, hot, and good with magic and weapons. Now we know their interests diverge, and a fight with them will not go well for the party.

The prehensile hair on Rapunzel is terrifying, and only knowing that her persona is performative on a nat 20 perception check tells me that there’s a lot more going on under that hair of hers. Also, they know that Cinderella is more of a frontlines person, but have no idea the extent of la Bête’s power, and Snow White literally has an army. Elody and Mira are newer--not Twice-Upon-A-Time. I think they’re unlikely to do battle against Destiny’s Children unless they’re heavily coerced. They’re hostages, whether they’ve realized it or not.

However, Destiny’s Children has been collecting power and information in a way that somewhat destabilizes them; each party member has something they could do to dramatically change their course of action.

From a terrestrial perspective, while Gerard and Elody aren’t in a perfect place, I have a feeling that a proper conversation with her could deeply influence her perspective on the princesses, especially if the party is advocating to get her out. Rosamund’s first loyalty isn’t to the princesses; if she refuses to commit to the plan, and Elody or even Mira choose not to as well, the princesses are going to lose their advantage in numbers and probably seek to take them back by force, which detracts from their greater goal.

On a multiversal scale, four of Destiny’s Children are working with a power set was specifically granted to them by a higher power, greater than the princesses or fairies. Ylfa has the blessing of Death on her--my theory being that if the Wolf was not saved, she was being unknowingly set up to take on the role. He wanted her to live even when she was killing herself before him. There’s a little inconsistency in that she didn’t gain a greater awareness upon consuming the Wolf the way the Baron of Bricks did, but that could come down to a few things: he wasn’t boiled down the way he was in the soup, she was still confined to her original story and thus could not become aware immediately, or even that he simply wanted to preserve her remaining innocence with regard to the Neverafter, when she had already lost so much.

Pib, while technically only functioning with the memories of a Twice-Upon-A-Time, is fundamentally a trickster archetype. Theory time: he may not have the power that the BBW or the various Geese do, but being an archetype grants these characters a certain amount of power and perspective that the ‘protagonist’ characters don’t have. Pib has been the one to make discoveries on a wide variety of fronts--he got the true books out of the Lines Between, which gave the party a major advantage in terms of figuring out the Neverafter and gave Pinocchio the opportunity to seize his own destiny. He can make big swings without compromising his role and thus isn’t as constrained as the other party members. We know that the Stepmother, who gains from consumption of other stories, is a powerful threat; however, though she was a warlock patron, I don’t think she’s quite on same axis as the bigger players like the BBW, the Geese, or the Baba Yaga. She doesn’t have a universal awareness. Pib could theoretically take that on.

Pinocchio, on the other hand, is the boy of destiny. He’s wielding his story like a weapon. There is a great deal of power to that--I think he’s one of the party members they’d try to control immediately aside from Timothy. He can call on parts of his story that are actively dangerous i.e. il Terribile Pescecane--maybe not consciously, but it’s a risk they’d have to take with him around. For all that Pinocchio suffered in his tales, there’s a lot that could come out of that book.

Speaking of books, I think Timothy is going to be in a tight spot after this. Knowing that all they have to do is get the ink to him, I think the princesses may be gunning for him as a tool. There’s no way he would put it down, but I’d be willing to bet that the prehensile hair would be in the room while he’s sleeping, just waiting for an opportunity. Also, if they know he’s on his last wish, the idea may be to trigger that into killing him and then just take the book for themselves. The princesses are certainly ruthless and I wouldn’t put it past them, Cinderella, Snow White, and Rapunzel especially, to do that.

[notstilinski]

Neverafter Starters !

Taken from the first episode (The Times of Shadow) of Dropout's Dimension 20's series, Neverafter! Some of these have already been edited. You can change them however you see fit!

Any moment now, my true love will come and kiss me and help me to escape.

I thought we were joking, dude! You didn't say there were going to be thorns, dude!

I'm already scared! I'm already scared

Babe! Be smart, babe!

Please, no, don't leave. It's not safe.

No. I'm telling you, no.

You ain't a monster? What do you look like that for?

How could things be well here if they are not well out there?

Is that a joke? Because if it was, it was hilarious.

You know, when you don't have much, you want to keep what you have looking good.

I swear, if you have to tilt your head to let us know it's a good joke, it's not a good joke!

(Name), I think we're in real trouble.

I have a list of my 10 best friends, and I want you to know that you just bumped up four places.

Would you like me to braid your hair again? I could try a little bit harder.

I just feel like between the two of us, we could execute a proper braid.

Thank you so much for protecting me, (Name).

I suppose we shall break bread with some of the other commoners.

Do you play bridge? That's what grandma likes.

I'm a cursed man!

We all have our curses. You saw it?

I saw him die. I saw him die.

Who put that on you? Did you put that on yourself?

I like to have someone policing my fashion.

Maybe it's the pinkeye, but you look bad.

I mean, it's definitely a child's hat on a full grown man.

I have a sense for these things. I work with children. Some of them are scary and bad and you can see a bad future, but some of them are beautiful and good, and this child is beautiful and good.

I'm taken but, just, you're large. 

You're both bad, so we got you.

Chaotic entitled alignment.

But we have a beefy babe.

(Name), this is really serious. Something really serious is happening.

I don't know what you are. I don't know what you are, but my daughter is dead.

We know that the wolf can wear the clothes of others. We know it can mimic their voice.

How good a hug do you give?

I can fix it, I can fix it. I can fix everything. Something's gone seriously wrong. I can fix it.

You lured me in with your own love? You fucking scam of a person.

Did you have a nice dinner? Did you all sit down to a nice dinner while you presumed I was dead? 

If I was so dead, where was my funeral? Where’s my headstone?

What have you done to me?

Look, in the times of shadows, we have done many things to survive and, you know, we're not bad people.

I am, to my knowledge, the last survivor of (Name).

(Name), there's somebody in there. I think, get back to the fire. Go back to the fire. Just go, go, go.

[dimension20quotes]

Neverafter Episode 20 Quotes

Back to all Neverafter quotes

“Death has such a fashionable hat.”

“Does it count as an action to put on the hat?”

“I don’t deserve your kindness, but I will take your bubblegum.”

“I haven’t heard your story yet, and if you stick around, I’ll never hear your story. I want to know where that top hat came from.”

“I know you’ve always wanted to help me. You’ve always through you’ve known what’s best for me. Now I know what’s best for me, and it’s this, and it’s what we’re doing.”

“I want you to explain to Rick Perry, who built this box, and who built this little orange hat, why this was okay that you did this.”

“I will remember this.”

“If you don’t hit a five, Murph’s gonna leave.”

“I’m a divorced man getting ripped.”

“I’m going to level with you. They’re not always good, and I think having an honest parent is better than me just saying they’re always good. So sometimes they’re good and when they’re not, they’re just not, and I love you both times, and I hug him.”

“In defiance of destiny, you get a cool orange hat.”

“‘Little girl.’ Hat down the arm. ‘You’ve been struck by a smooth criminal.’ Goes horizontal and moonwalks straight into the pages.”

“Oh no, please! I respect you so highly!”

“What? I don’t have context for what your journey has been!”

“You can still be married, be about to be divorced, and still be friends.”

“You lean in for a kiss, and you look through the window, and you see the Big Bad Wolf gives a big thumbs up, puts an orange hat on the head, sack over the shoulder and walks off into the sunset.”

“You need to leave here. And leave your top hat.”