D20 Neverafter - Tumblr Posts
You know, I thought Ylfa was tragic and sad like all the Neverafter characters are in their own way, but I think I'm wrong.
Hear me out.
Ylfa's story diverges from the canon of Little Red Riding Hood when the Woodsman doesn't come by. But he doesn't just not come by that day, he doesn't come by for weeks. Unheard of. He visits all the time, brings wood and forage for the Grandmother, she'd freeze to death at night if he doesn't come by, it's part of his job or just a dude being kind to an elderly woman, enjoying the sweets or soup she makes him as thanks. But he doesn't come by. For weeks he doesn't stop by. And we don't know why, maybe he was hurt or sick, but we know he wasn't dead because the Second Story Ylfa goes and kills the woodsman. Can't kill what's dead. So he's alive, presumably doing fine and healthy, but he doesn't come by. The one person in the story that's supposed to protect Little Red and presumably the village people from wolves just doesn't do that. The one Ylfa is told will always protect her if she finds trouble doesn't protect her.
She waits for weeks for a man that never comes. A hero that won't save her because he's too busy doing something else. And while she waits, the Wolf waits with her. He doesn't chastise her, doesn't provoke and antagonize her, doesn't jeer or make fun of her for waiting for someone he knows isn't coming. He kindly waits in silence, watching over her in that tiny cottage. He's honest when she asks what happened to her grandmother, tells her gently but firmly it was the old womans time to die, but not Ylfas. Death looks this little girl in the face and gently tells her it's not her time to die, even as she yells at him that the woodsmand will come and cut him open, he's gentle and kind with her. When she demands he kills her already, since no one is going to save her from him, he refuses. Death refuses to take Ylfa, even as she waits for it, even as she demands it take her, Death will not do it. What's more, he tells her how to save herself, offers her his own strength, provides a way for her to be her own hero in this story. Hunger and despair eventually drives her to obey, and later she is horrified of what she's done.
Ylfa then runs home, sobbing, terrified, crying out for her mother, her siblings, her grandmother, anyone at all to help her. She's drenched in Wolfs blood, body trying to transform against her will. And what does she find at her home when she gets there? Besides a rightfully terrified mother and siblings hiding in the dark home? Because we know, in the story, that the wolf can take someones shape and trick people into coming close so he can eat them too, of course they'd be afraid of Ylfa, their presumably dead Little Red Riding Hood, showing up drenched in blood begging to come inside and dragging jagged claws along the windows and door. How are they to know it's really her? No one ever survives the Wolf. No one. Let alone one sweet little girl or her elderly grandmother. So what does her terrified family do? they try to kill the Wolf.
What's worse than all that? What's worse than them being understandably afraid of the Wolf at their door? The fact that they didn't have a funeral for their beloved Little Red. That they didn't acknowledge her death at all. They removed her place from the table, didn't make her a place of rest, didn't go looking for her or her grandmother. Little Red didn't come home, they assumed she died and they moved on immediately.
Something terrible and traumatic happened to Ylfa, something that effected her for the rest of her life, something that completely altered her. She searched for someone to save her, but no one would. She reached out for help and understanding from her family that supposedly loved her and they forgot her, attacked her, ran away from her in fear and disgust. Something changed Ylfa forever, and everyone she ever loved left her behind for it. Everyone, except Death. Death which did this to her, which whispered her name, gently caressed her soul, and refused to claim her. Death that told her she would be all the stronger for it, that being monstrous isn't evil or bad. That she can use his gifts, his curse, to defy him, fight him, maybe even stop him.
"I'm the Big Bad Wolf," Death says calmly, his hot breath warming her as he speaks.
"I'm Big and Bad now too, though," Ylfa whispers back, lips still trembling and face damp with tears.
"Then you just may be able to stop me, Ylfa," Death smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges "I encourage you to try."
Death wanted Ylfa to live. When everyone was fine with her dying, or preferred she be dead to what she became, Death wished for her to live. When even Ylfa has wanted to die or stay dead, Death lead her home to life, comforted her, encouraged her, forgave her for wanting to die before her time. Death was so kind and gentle with this sweet little girl, so honest in his answers, so soothing to her grief. He empathized with her confusion and pain, told her it was normal to feel the way she does, not just for the loss of her grandmother, or the abandonment of her family, but for what she's become. Because Ylfa is grieving herself as well. What she had been, what she could have grown up to be had the Wolf not come. Ylfa mourns for herself as much as she mourns her Grandmother.
He promised to take her one day, but only when it was her time, not a second before or after. In that way, she would never die alone, because Death would be there with her. The Wolf would always be with her now, forever and always. He would never find her monstrous or evil, he would never run from her in fear, never curl a lip at her in disgust. And Death, too, would never be alone as a result. Some of him is always with Ylfa, in some way.
I think some of us need this specific kind of comfort. Some of us need Death to look us in the face and say "No, not yet little one, try again, you can do it... Here, let me help you."
Some of us need someone, even Death, too look at how monstrous we've become because of what's happened to us, or how we were made, and be kind, and gentle, and meet us with such patient love as to refuse to let us go, even when we want to let go, even when everyone else has.
Ylfa met Death, and he wanted her to live. Death was dying, and Ylfa saved him.
Death met Death, and together they decided to Live.
guillermo del toro’s pinocchio is a beautiful film but my god no one has adapted that story like neverafter. you can never look at it the same way again after listening to lou wilson, a black man, explaining that he chose to play as pinocchio because it’s a story about a little boy who isn’t allowed to make mistakes. that in pinocchio's story, he is fundamentally barred from childhood at once upon a time. he must earn something that everyone else is granted from birth. the other boys get to tell lies and play and get into trouble, but when pinocchio does the same thing there are grave and violent consequences. his pinocchio is trying to understand why the world is so unfair, why the rules are so different for him, why everyone else gets to be a real boy.
and I think about it every day.
Everything is totally fine
Cinderella shanked the fairy godmother with a glass spear. She wears glass armour. Seems like she's on the warpath. Who wants to bet this is an elaborate setup for a joke about a glass cannon
Don't think about the next time one of the party dies. Don't think about them gasping out "no. please. not again" as they fail their final death save.
Especially don't think about what happens if only one of the party dies. Moving ahead to a crueller Once Upon A Time, leaving their companions behind. Leaving them behind with a decision to make: whether to follow, and how to get there...
I don't want Rosamund to die again but I do want to see her wake up so mad she just bites off the briar growing out of her mouth
Mother Goose's book: preserves stories; seems to have its own prescriptive opinions about the 'correct' form of those stories, but does allow Tim to make his own decisions about which stories to preserve and which to leave walking the world
The Stepmother: voraciously (indiscriminately?) devours stories to empower herself at their expense, trapping and torturing them in a screaming amalgam; inserts herself into stories, warping them to her own ends
The Stepmother is kind of the extreme horror version of how corporations treat stories - as IP, fodder, something to consume and recombine and change to enrich themselves (if it's Brennan, the villain is capitalism). So could the book be contrasting that with curation? The responsibility to record the truth of the story, and the curator's choice of which stories/versions to include?
This is true: the Wolf is Death, The End, Endings.
This is true: the Authors have of late taken to changing the Wolf.
This is surmise: the Authors no longer see the value of Endings.
This is surmise: the Goose and Gander are trends, tastes. Sometimes our tastes turn to the grimdark and gritty, sometimes to the bright and hopeful.
This is true: something is preventing the Gander from moving on from the Neverafter.
This is surmise: something wants the Neverafter to remain in Times of Shadow and never know Times of Plenty. And the Authors never want it to End.
we're not the Authors in Neverafter, gang, we're the voices in the Auroratory
the Authors are about taking all the possible versions and retellings and preserving the 'correct' ones in Ink to make them canonical, does that sound like us to you?
The theory that Brennan Lee Mulligan himself will be the final boss of Dimension 20 Neverafter doesn't ring true to me, and I think I've unpacked why. Let me show my work.
1. Lazy
"What if it turns out the big bad is the Dungeon Master themselves?" is an idea most DMs have when planning their first campaign. Brennan Lee Mulligan is a professional, DMing on a show that people pay money to watch. It's too route 1 of an idea for someone in that position.
2. Cheesy
This is the horror season, gang. Plopping down a mini of yourself and telling your friends "now your PCs have to fight ... me!!" is inherently goofy and would go against the tone of the series.
3. Inconsistent
It doesn't fit the lore! For one thing, The Authors are described as fundamentally unknowable: unthinkably vast, Lovecraftian entities operating on a plane of consciousness that makes their minds utterly unfathomable to the players' characters. To then say "and here's the Author you're gonna fight, it's me, your pal who does bird facts on command" would undercut all that (see point 2. Cheesy).
And another thing: yes, Brennan Lee Mulligan is a storyteller. But he's not the same type of storyteller as The Authors. The Authors are all about canonicity. They take their own preferred versions of stories and fix them in Ink, trapping the characters into a destiny they have no control over. That's not how BLM tells stories! He runs roleplaying games! He willingly gives six other people control over where the story goes, and flings dice about to take it even more out of all of their control. To then put himself on the board as the avatar of The Authors, upholders of 'this is how I've decided the story goes, you just shut up and listen', would be a funny gag but wouldn't ring true.
You know what would be funny
You know who's an Author
Whose most famous stories feature riffs on fairytales and folklore
Who wields Canon like a weapon - using her status as Author to change characters' stories after the fact, so they can more effectively defend her from her 'enemies'?
we're not the Authors in Neverafter, gang, we're the voices in the Auroratory
the Authors are about taking all the possible versions and retellings and preserving the 'correct' ones in Ink to make them canonical, does that sound like us to you?
All Rosamund's princely suitors died in the briars, Snow White's prince never showed up and she had to punch her way out of her coffin, Mira's prince didn't love her back - genuinely (Rosamund voice) what is going on with these men???
The Neverafter Baba Yaga mini is the coolest thing I've ever seen, I'm in awe, I'm in love
"the one brave thing I've ever done."
Its him, its our boy , his wife loves him everything is fine
ylfa snorgelsson you only ever needed to be a little girl and I'm sorry that you didn't get to
(ib: @polarsirens because user polarsirens art is INCREDIBLE)
(lyrics: the bridge from seven by taylor swift)
The princesses are such a compelling study in trauma. After you’ve been traumatized it does feel like everything you do is in reaction to that trauma. You can never go back and undo it. Nothing will ever be the same after it. And they’re right to be angry at the authors for putting them through it. They didn’t deserve that.
But the part they haven’t figured out yet is learning how to live with that changed version of yourself. They can still mourn who they used to be, or who they hoped they’d become in a trauma-free life. They can still be angry that was taken from them. But they can’t let that mourning and anger consume them, or they’ll never become a version of themselves that they can live with. They can’t throw away everything because they lost something.
And that’s a hard pill to swallow. It’s easy to convince yourself that the people telling you that are full of shit and don’t understand how deeply you were damaged and you shouldn’t have to fix the damage that you didn’t cause. But you gotta swallow it, with whatever spoonful of sugar it takes to get it down.
la bête thoughts
all brought on because mid-doodling the princesses i finally realized that boy her design is so fun. putting this out there before they fight with all the princesses or something (hope they don’t. hope they ‘talk it out’ to quote gerard)
siobhan doesn't get enough credit for her roleplay this season. she starts talking as rosamund and im immediately transported to a 1900s disney animation. birds a' chirping and brooks a' babbling baby sing those vines to sleep
i haven't caught up on nva yet so no spoilers!! here's a baba yaga from before brennan said she was 8 feet tall. idc. monstrous women are my jam