#neverafter gerard

[saphic-with-t]

Gerard almost instinctively hating toy island has such an interesting and good layer to it for me. Like yes, of course the idea of an island full of 10-14 year olds drinking and being rowdy is a nightmare. But deeper down, it’s a place that gives children everything they ever wanted and then punishes them for being children who wanted to play and have fun with stuff. And they are specifically punished by being turned into animals. Both of those have to be massive triggers for him. Not to mention that we haven’t seen him interact with any large body of water, but I have to imagine that after his life stuck in a cold pond that being surrounded on all sides by a giant, dangerous body of water would bring back some sour memories. I feel so bad for our poor, sweet, frog prince.

[millacm]

What if bad end Timothy?

jk happy family!! and then back to the beginning my last neverafter sketches, I've been marathoning ACOC so i'll be posting doodles from that soon~

[nightfaeses]

"You ask why I had loved her,

I ask; how could I not?" ☀

[gruvu]

The truth will set you free.. Or so they say. I cannot wait to be emotionally trampled guys. I haven’t watched the newest episode but I saw these screenshots and I am like “yes. Yes I am gonna cry over a frog and his future divorce.” 

[radiocrypt-id]

Elody is tragic, I think, in a way that feels very close to home?

She's a woman that met someone interesting and strange and became friends with him, happy to have a friend around, since her parents are too sick to be in her life all the time. She was a little girl forced to grow up so fast, to take every type of class and feel the weight of her station on her shoulders every day, growing closer to the time she has to step up and take over, desperate to be deserving of the title. Desperate to do her parents proud.

And she's got this friend now, this sweet, gross little frog that talks and says he's a prince. His story is a strange and sad one, one she maybe can't fully understand but offers what support and sympathy she can. If she even believes him, I'm not sure she really does. And he's funny. He makes her laugh, reminds her of the fun of the world, encourages her to take care of herself and enjoy things as often as possible, reminds her to be young and happy and live freely. And she needs that. She needs someone to look her in the eyes and tell her it's okay to be a kid. It's okay to play with her ball in the woods and it's okay to sing and dance and get dressed up and do the fun parts of being a princess. He brings her joy that she hasn't had in a long time. She loves that about him, how fun and silly and clumsy he is, it's charming. She falls in love with that silly frog.

But then Snowhold comes. They have no allies, their armies are failing, their people are dying and she's up all night going over maps and strategy at a table of advisors and generals and is so stressed and trying so hard. But her silly frog is still a silly frog. He thinks about balls and good food and safe castle walls. He tells her to relax, enjoy a meal, gossip about the nobles, have fun. He hasn't changed. But she's being forced to change. Now that silly levity isn't charming and fun, it's frustrating. She doesn't have time for games and can't see how hard he's trying to make her smile. She needs a Prince, a man to stand beside her at the war table and talk tactics and look for ways to save their home and people. She needs a fighter, a hero. But Gerrard has never been a hero, he's a frog. Elody was the hero. She saved him. And she's so exhausted by being the hero. She's always taking care of someone else. She just wants to be taken care of. She just wants help. It's hard to love someone the same way in times of trouble. It's hard to find the space in all the stress and work to love Gerrard the way she did when they met.

Elody does still love him though. She does. It's a painful sort of love, in believing that he's never going to change and be what she needs him to be, in that she's always going to be the hero for him. But she loves him. She carries a shield with a lillypad on it, she wields a mace with the golden ball as part of it, she's actively carrying him with her. She's thinking of her silly little frog and hoping he's safe, where ever he's gone to hide and when it's all over, when she's saved everyone and made everything better, she'll go find him again. And then she can take him to a ball, like he wanted. She wishes he was different, but doesn't think he'll change.

Imagine what she'll find, when they meet again? Her silly little frog is still silly and clumsy and thinking about her constantly, but he's a hero now. He fought and died with his friends. He's twice upon a time. He's been Outside, in The Lines Between. He's a fighter now, he's brave, he's friends with death itself. He's a commander, great at group tactics, vital to their group. And he's got a couple kids around him, that he's exhausted by but loves in some way. He scolds them and encourages them and he's kind of a dad? And he's been looking for her, not hiding. He's been trying to find her since he left, regretting leaving her behind but really not sure how he would have helped. And he loves her, god he loves her. Even as he turns into a frog from her falling out of love with him, Gerrard loves Elody. He loves her enough to be brave, to learn the things he never got a chance to learn before, to take care of others.

Elody is so loved, and she has no idea. She loves him enough to take care of everything by herself, holding onto what parts of him she has space for during this horrible time. But Gerrard loves her enough to die trying to find her.

She has to be his hero, she never had a choice in that, but unlike most cases in life, he's trying to be her hero too, and she has no idea.

[foggybear42]

gerard and elody have such an interesting dynamic, ‘cause elody is someone who had to grow up too quick, and gerard is someone who never had the chance to grow up in the first place

[maybeimmac]

Gerard my sweet

[hamable]

Gerard not wanting to go back to the way things were during happily ever after because he realizes what he’s feeling is growth and growth is good and he’s growing up which is what he should’ve been allowed to do in the first place, grow up and learn from mistakes and work with people to live happily together but he got turned into a frog isolated from any communication for years as a child into his teens and thats a massively important development stage he just didn’t get god Gerard makes me so emo

[nuclearspaghetti]

Portrait I drew tonight of Cinderella from d20 Neverafter looking badass af in her glass armor

[ID: digitally painted color portrait of Cinderella looking at the viewer with a noble/bold expression. She is surrounded by a golden border, backed with storybook pages, and her name is written in big cursive letters above her head.]

(credit to @AFantastique on pinterest for the reference image and the grimm brothers version of Cinderella for the story pasted behind her. )

[dontmixpaintinyourcoffee]

i am thinking extensively about the frog man and how to draw him. When can't draw frog draw muppet and that philosophy has worked out for me so far

Also! Everybody go show some love to @polarsirens who has some of my favorite Neverafter designs period the end full stop, and @lightningidle who has a hilarious post about the time Gerard got chucked at a wall (which was the version I grew up reading so of course I had to do my own take). Both artists massively inspired this post and deserve all the praise!!

[glassrooibos]

Neverafter is SO good. Every single one of them, totally insane.

[syb-rooks]

Yeah no, I completely respect Murph's and Brennan's choice to have Gerard and Elody get divorced, I- *fanarts of them together fall from my pockets*, yeah sometimes people are not good in a relationship *my notebook with gerelody fanfics falls out*, no i swear those are not mine I am completely ok with the finale

[alienwrld]

CUT THOSE STRINGS LITTLE WOOD BOY!!! DO IT!!!

[beckyblah]

Super quick Gerard concept

[radiocrypt-id]

Gerrard is painful in a way I didn't really understand at first. He's like, 30. He's grown. A handsome prince, married to a wonderful woman that's trying to do her job and prevent the deaths of her people. But all he thinks about is the ball. he offers to look through a sword form book as a way of "helping", or to appear to be helping anyway. He's a coward. He hides with the children and escapes through a secret tunnel and runs away. He's desperate to convince anyone, including himself, that he's a handsome prince who is in love with his wife and their marriage is going great.

And I didn't get it, at first. I thought he was funny and probably more like the average person in a terrible time, not a hero. He's a grumpy adult that feels like the world he was promised got taken away from him when he did nothing to hold onto that world in the first place.

And then they played through his story. He was 9 when he was turned into a frog. 9. A baby, unable to understand what it was he'd done wrong. He was a spoiled little prince with absent parents that was 9 and didn't want to interact with a random strange old woman at his door asking for stuff. An adult could have been gotten. His parents could have been summoned by a servant and brought to the door or a higher servant could have handled the talk but no, no they let a 9 year old boy open that massive door to a random stranger asking to come inside out of the rain. Any child would have said no. Any child. Because an old woman he'd never met was asking to go inside his home. I would have said no, any of the other characters at the table would have said no. She's a scary old lady on his doorstep! And yeah maybe he said it in a dickish way. Maybe he called her a peasant or said 'how dare you' to her face, but he was 9 years old, what 9 year old isn't a weird little dick? Especially when they don't know what's going on? Stranger danger is literally a thing taught to children as soon as they can walk! Any one would have said no. But Gerrard said no, and was turned into a frog for it.

But you know what's worse then being turned into a frog and dropped in a pond a bit away from your home? Never being looked for. Not once. He was out there, he could see hunters and soldiers. A tiny Gerrard must have waited months, just staring out into the woods, straining his ears, listening for his mother or father calling his name. And then just listening for his name at all. And then just listening for any sign of humans at all. No one was looking for him. For all the servants charged with taking care of a young prince, not one saw what happened to him and not one went looking. It's hard to be small and scared and alone, waiting for someone to come get you but no one ever comes to get you. It's hard to learn that the people that are supposed to love you just... don't.

And later on, after becoming a handsome man and marrying Elody, Gerrard spent more years of his life as a frog in a pond than a prince. Day dreaming about balls and gossip and feasts and all the fun things about being a prince because it's all he can remember about his time as a prince. He didn't have the classes he should have had. He missed out on etiquette, and sword play, and politics, and war. He missed those lessons, because he was just a little frog in a pond during the years he would have learned all that. But he's expected to know. Elody loves him, but she expects him to know how to be a prince. She expects him to understand war and strife and taxes and all those important things and doesn't once stop to ask if he actually knows these things. Of course he didn't want to talk about the war effort. Of course he asked about the ball and offered to read a book about sword play. It's not that he could give more and chose not to, he genuinely didn't know how to do more than that. He was taking what initiative he could. He could teach himself how to fight, sure! but he can't teach himself how to be a general. All he wants is to be safe, and for the person he loves to be safe. And he assumes that anyone would run away from a losing battle because he would. He grew up a frog that had to survive by running away and letting someone else die so he could live. But even once he ran, he went looking for Elody. Because although Elody is falling out of love with Gerrard, he loves her fiercely. And as he goes on his adventure and fights and dies and fights more, he gets it. He gets what Elody wanted from him and what she needed him to be and that he failed to do that.

So he's learning better now. He learning to accept personal sacrifice, like with the glass shard. He's learning to be diplomatic, like with the pig. He's learning to be dangerous and capable, like in the fight against muffet. He's learning what it means to rely on people and be honest with them about his failings so they can cover his ass, like with the party. It's hard to learn these things. It's hard to try and sus out who is helpful and who isn't. It's hard to not hand off his problems again for someone else to fix. Because even though he's 30 now, he spent an unknown number of years as a frog, and he's desperately trying to catch up without letting anyone know he's behind because they might not like him anymore if they know how far behind them he is. He's doing his very best and, terrifyingly, the person that's supposed to love him is loving him less because his best isn't good enough for her. Once again, he's missing and no one is looking for him.

But that's okay, because this time, Gerrard can do the looking.

[spiralofdarkness]

Everyone out there like "early Gerard does suck" when he's actually doing pretty good for being a frog for so many years. The mouse who got turned into a man was only for a few hours and he was not okay for several years after that. Gotta hand it to the mental resiliency because based on how messed up that mouse was it must be FUCKED being turned into another creature