#neverafter finale

[andi-o-geyser]

fuck the fate of the very fabric of the universe, the scariest moment in the neverafter finale was brennan calling in the vice principal

[kittyoverlord]

That die really went full circle. What a journey.

[rokiie]

Not the ship i was thinking would happen, but I vibe with it Follow me on Twitter @/R0kiie [LINK]

[thislifewasneverours]

so um. the neverafter finale had me rolling and for some reason I spent my evening making this even though it’s a bit shit. ylfa and pinnochio are cute and so funny and bless this cast for making the past twenty weeks more bearable than before.

[picklesinabottle]

"And I love you both times" is going to be rattling around in my brain and making me cry for the rest of my life

[joanna-fake-name]

(Spoiler warning) Ok I know I'm late but I feel that now that it's cannon, Ylfa and Pinnochio's ship name should be Nokia. Don't ask me for an explanation but it's perfect

[marinecanary]

[sea-buns]

Headcanon that Pib visits everyone every now and then and mostly just chills.

He does that cat thing where you walk into a room and they're just on a very tall object and you have no idea how they got there. Rosamund walks into her room at the castle and hes sprawled out on the stone of her windowsill that's been perfectly warmed by the sun. None of the guards or servants ever see him enter and her room is at the top of a tower like 3 stories up. She acts like this is absolutely normal any time it gets brought up.

He lies under a tree with Timothy or sits in Henry's lap on the porch as he rocks in a chair. Sometimes he'll follow at Jack's heels during deliveries or just around town. Everytime Jack'll start to veer towards a not-so-great decision, Pib gives him a little nudge in a better direction and some advice.

He'll wander into Gepetto's workshop and just fuck with shit. The man is constantly having to put stuff back on tables, just for it to get knocked down again when his back is turned. He'll play games with Pinocchio as he grows older, offering him help and advice when it's relevant. Just spending time with him in general, whether it's hanging out at Pinocchio's house or getting into whatever shit he's schemed up that week.

He'll join Gerard on adventures and occasionally ask his help for something with the people of his kingdom. When he hears Gerard trying to start a gossip session with Timothy, he gladly chimes in with his own shit-talk about the various people he encounters. This quickly becomes a regular thing for them.

Pib schemes with Ylfa and joins her in her many endeavors to absolutely fuck shit up for adults and people in power. Anyone so much as breathes wrong in her direction and he's popping out of her hood like a second head to give the most seething, feral hiss. Anytime Pib, Ylfa, and the Baba Yaga are together, no one is safe. He'll occasionally join her, Gerard, and Pinocchio for gin rummy. As a rule, any game night at Baba Yaga's hut ends with toppled tables, holes in windows and ceilings, and at least one person sprawled out on the roof and/or front lawn with no memory of how they got there.

[marlinspirkhall]

I've just finished Neverafter, so here are my thoughts on The Big Bad Wolf and Ylfa and what their relationship reveals about The Neverafter itself. I think the most important reveal we get is in S1E9: Origins, when the group witness the moment when Ylfa consumes the wolf.

Brennan said "you think this is a version of Red's story which went very wrong", and the fairy with the turquoise hair (who is herself only an echo of the blue fairy she is supposed to be) tells them that Ylfa met "a version of The Wolf that was much older and ancient". This was caused by (and also foreshadowing) the reveal that the Baron of Bricks was boiling down the essence of The Big Bad Wolf: As the more recent, tamer versions of the wolf got stripped away, all that was left was this primal creature: the one that was most like a wolf.

When the characters question if some versions of their stories come from the Auroratory rather than The Ink, I believe this is true- the ink merely preserves the stories for longer so that other storytellers can read them, which, in turn, reinforces the narratives.

Anyone in the "real world' can be a storyteller: in The Auroratory, when Ylfa hears all the voices telling the different versions of her story, the first one she hears as she begins to panic and worry that she's corrupting the stories is a man's voice talking impatiently and hurriedly, saying “the little girl strayed from the path and got eaten”- which, of course, isn't what happened in the true tale of Red Riding Hood- at least, not in the one I heard as a kid. The little girl strayed from the path, and then she got eaten. The difference is important. She strayed from the path, yes, but she didn't get eaten until later.

But the version of the story Ylfa experiences isn't similar to that, either.

The original story of Red Riding Hood existed as oral tradition long before it was written down, but it's thought that the first written version was penned by Charles Perrault, in 1697. In his version, the wolf tells Red that he'll race her to her grandma's house, and makes sure to take the shorter path so he gets there before her.

Ylfa's version of the story is never told in its entirety, but, from the snippets we get, it doesn't seem to match this story (aside from Ylfa's comment about watching “a caterpillar chase a butterfly”, because in the Perrault version she slowed down to watch burterflies). It seems that Ylfa never met The Wolf until she got to her grandmother's house, and we all know the woodsman wasn't nearby to deter him. So, what would have happened if Ylfa hadn't strayed from the path and gotten to the house late?

Ylfa often talks about how most versions of her story discuss the importance of not straying from the path, but, the truth is, if she hadn't strayed from the path, she wouldn't have survived.

Death is a Big Bad Wolf, but- in this instance- Death waits for her, and Ylfa becomes The Wolf.

In the finale, the characters (protagonist and antagonist alike) all worry about the nature of free will and predestination, but- through their ending- they choose to commit a different version of themselves to paper: a version which will then be retold and reinforced by someone reading it. Their stories will change again, with time and retelling, but, for now, they are in control of a tiny piece of their narrative.

Ylfa strays from the path, but she doesn't get eaten.

And that's where we'll end our story.

[supernaturalcharlie11]

Ylfa has never been the type of girl who follows the path that stretches out in front of her. So when she was confronted with writing her story anew, she could only bring herself to write a few lines:

Once upon a time, there was a young girl who loved her grandma very much. Her name was Ylfa Snorgelson. But she was better known as Little Red Riding Hood.

She tucked the page away. There was no need to write more. She would stray from the path anyway. And she knew exactly what was waiting for her at the end of the story. An old friend. A part of her lost in the final battle.

The Big Bad Wolf continues to provide an end to all the stories, but she does so in a kinder way than her predecessor. She too has remnants of memories of an adventure that she went on when a part of her was still a little girl.

The day comes, when Death meets the first of her companions again. She finds Timothy Goose surrounded by his husband and son, falling asleep peacefully.

„Old friend“, he greets Death kindly. „Thank you for joining me on this last path.“

„Of course.“

And they walk together, away from something and towards something else that no one in the world could ever understand. Tim tells death about everything he lived through. A life filled with ink, love and an occasional pickle that Tim cherishes very much.

The next two familiar faces meet the Big Bad Wolf shortly after each other. Gerard had lived a life of adventure, finally laying down his life to protect a new ally. Next to death he makes his way down a path that leads into a similar direction as Mother Goose‘s.

Pib, on the other hand, has a lot of reincarnations left. Death, to him, is merely another stop along the way. But when he meets her, he looks a little wary.

„Rest here as long as you want“, the Big Bad Wolf offers. „You deserve a little rest.“

„Thank you“, Pib meows and jumps onto the back of the Wolf that he once knew so well. Prodding his paws into the soft and warm fur, he prepares a little spot to lie down and sleep without an open eye for the first time in his many lifetimes.

Rosamund greets Death like an old friend, bowing deeply as she leaves her life behind. A life filled with wonder and grace, with adventures and saving as many young maidens from what she once knew as destiny. Now she knows it’s nothing even close to that.

„I‘m not the first, am I?“

Death shakes her big head.

„Will I see them again?“

„I don‘t know“, Death admits. „Where this path leads is hidden even from me. But that doesn‘t mean it will be bad. Quite the opposite, I believe.“

And Death turns so that Rosamund might look upon her old friend again, who is still nestled in the warm fur.

„I don‘t think this path is meant for me“, Pib says looking down the road that some of his companions have already taken.

„Then let‘s stray together“, Rosamund smiles and opens her arms. Death watches as Rosamund carries the little cat down a way that even Death herself can‘t tread.

After that, Death spends a lot of time with people she doesn‘t know, but cares about deeply nonetheless.

Then, one night, an older man finds himself by her side. He looks at Death with love in his eyes, recognising something in her that the Big Bad Wolf has already forgotten.

„Will she join me?“, Pinocchio asks, lovingly running his now human hand through the dark fur.

„Was one lifetime not enough?“, Death asks, genuinely curious.

Pinocchio smiles: „Is it ever?“

The last one to join the other side is an old woman in a red cape. She has a spark in her eyes that tells of a lifetime filled with love, crazy decisions along no path anyone could ever form, and an absence of the pain that was once destined for her.

She looks at Death with kindness, not recognising her. But Death does. She looks behind what everyone else could see directly at the young girl who had once been her.

Many upon a times ago.

„Let‘s just sit for a while“, Death offers and the girl gladly accepts.

„Are you waiting at the end of every story?“

The Big Bad Wolf turns to look at her, memories of adventures and friendship returning in a way that Death never thought possible.

„This is not the end, Little Red“, she whispers quietly. „There are a lot of stories left to be written.“

[eveningdawn222]

you know, i do think the story would have been better if they all died for the cause. if there was no 'after' and if they had to live with the changes they made to themselves, if there was no going back for them because they had changed too much. i think the sight of everyone falling: the parallel to their first deaths: except this time they don't get to come back. i think timothy struggling to hold the spell as his friends fall one by one, and finally he can't anymore, when  scheherazade falls taking a blow for him, he releases the spell. maybe he's left being the only one to remember, and he sees his friends not remember eachother, not remembering him. and it's better that way because then they're not suffering, not traumatized. and he wakes up in a cold sweat to remembering the crack of wood as pinocchio fell, red's snarling as she fought to her last breath, elody's desperate screams as gerard fell.

or maybe his friends don't get to start over, maybe their stories end altogether. maybe he sees a little girl wandering in the woods and almost tells her not stray from the path. maybe he sits by the pond and watches the frogs as they croak away. maybe he digs up his rose bushes until his hands are bloody, he's always watching the edge of the trees, for the eyes of a wolf that's never there.

maybe they all die, the spell consuming timothy, and there's no one left to remember them, even as every other story, every other person gets a 'and then they lived happily'

but that's the point of it: it would have been a better story. the point of the end is that they get to rewrite their stories and so the narrative i want doesn't matter because i'm not writing their stories. the neverafter was a good story: tragic and compelling and horrifying, but in real life, who would choose that over 'they lived happily.' who would write themselves tragic and compelling when they could write themselves alive and free to make mistakes without the threat of the world ending around them.

[andi-o-geyser]

DM scolds his adventuring party like a principal chiding a bunch of middle schoolers: more at 12

[saingirl101]

So I thought Lou was the Nat 20 King, Ally was the Narrative Nat 20 Magic User, but I think Zac ended up being the true MVP of NeverAfter

He quietly just kept rolling amazingly clutch nat 20s in combat and just honestly putting in the underappreciated work of helping land enough damage to get Destiny's Children out of combat. + ROLLING THE CLUTCH 18 TO ALLOW THE PLAN TO TAKE EFFECT.

Plus his moves. rolling a +30 stealth roll but stepping out to play smoke on the water. iconic.

Having a bit where he continually steals or lies and it coming back around to literally stealing from the Baba yaga and her respecting PIB for doing so. Amazing.

Having a story where he gets to be the lazy cat in the end but still help others. including a bunch of sad middle aged princes. Perfection.

Honestly I could just go raving on and on about zac he was so good this season and honestly might be my fav character ever from him.

[feelingtheaster99]

Pinocchio’s speech to Mira/The Little Mermaid has me in TEARS

[box-dwelling]

I made my jokes about Tom Thumb x Gerard as a crack ship but with that last episode who the fuck thought green thumb would be the ship that would be the closest to being canon

[sapphicfog]

I'm emotional about Timothy - played by a trans person - using his wisdom as a storyteller to help other people tell their own stories, and how trans people are leaders with so much wisdom to share on how we can tell our own stories outside of the rigid boxes society designed for us.