Evan And Jammer, Raphaniel And Deli

When Aesop told the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf to Pinocchio, it really got to me how everyone immediately became protective of him and started snapping at Aesop, defending this abused little boy's right to lie and make mistakes. Those things that are so universally punished in the morals of stories like that. Those things that any person should have a right to do, especially a kid, and especially a kid in a really bad situation.

It really brought home for me how much of Neverafter is about kids misbehaving or disobeying their elders, as kids tend to do, and getting disproportionately punished for it with cruelty. Pinocchio, Red, and even Gerard and Rosamund. Jack, in Timothy's story. And I think it's really heartwarming to see those ideas rejected. No, actually, sometimes you need to lie in order to save someone. No, sometimes, your elders don't know what the hell they're talking about. Sometimes they don't have your best interest at heart. And really, you should be given grace and allowed to make mistakes and learn and grow either way, without being horrifically punished and traumatized for it. Especially as a child.

Idk, something about how viscerally angry it made everyone at the table to see this story preached to a little boy who has suffered more than enough for things that he should've had the right to do in the first place. It felt very beautiful and comforting. What a loving and kind story that is

You bury your child. Distant land, unfamiliar territory within your own homeland, and yet so far from home. You stand at the crown of this insignificant hill, unfit for a princess, your heir, your twin, your friend, your child. And the last time you saw her war-stricken face, you didn't even know it would be your last, and the determination lining the ferocity of revenge and exhaustion in the creases of her eyes, her brilliant intelligence and curiosity lighting a torch down the broad and dark path called Death.

You lay her down in the sickeningly sweet earth, your dwindling people by your side, your queen by your side, your now singular daughter by your side.

“You continue to teach me“ —and the Bulb’s light casts dancing shadows through the trees on a gravestone upon a hill too humble for a King and his family.

And then they sail away from that nameless place, their dearly loved one now lying still, and cold, and so so quiet beneath this land of churning blood and gore and the stink of war in which no tears or love can save her anymore.

Ame is a child when she first wonders through Grandmother Wren’s cottage. She wakes to the stomps of a fierce rooster, the smell of juk, the chorus of small sounds that builds the cottage.

Ame is a child when she falls in love with magic, the scent of it, the purity and the heart that lives at the core of it. Magic, the ability to connect with the earth, to provide for the animals and the trees, for the Spirits and honour their works. To help humans with sickness and mending.

The humanity in magic, the spinning of life to vow service to all that breathes on Umora.

Yet Ame is still a child as other children scowl at her, throw piercing gazes and words, “you’re a witch!” and see nothing but body, a little girl disconnected from the flesh of their own, a witch, nothing but a witch, an orphan, a stranger, a child. All but human.

But Ame had never thought herself anything other than human.

Ame, a child that never was, never could be, and forever will be.

She is a child when she is given to Grandmother Wren. Unwanted, strange child. She is a child when she is othered by the other children. Witch and apprentice, and still a child.

Ame never experiences childhood. She knows the wonders of magic and medicine, of healing and earth. But she never experiences the wonders of friendship, of connections in childhood. Ame never experiences the wonders of playing make belief, the warm hug after a heated argument, the small secrets shared in childhood.

But Ame is a child when finds more to her little family. A wizard, a witch and a wild one. Each child with a deep and profound sadness etched into the core of their beings and yet all too young to form the words to it.

Ame is still a child when she waves goodbye to her best and most True Friend. Tears wet her cheeks and the summer falls to her feet in a sweet breeze and a distant memory unforgotten. Ame is a child when she whispers her final goodnight to her brother, her True Friend, without and fully knowing so. She wakes up to the smell of moss and nothing but moss. She finds the cottage all too quiet.

Ame gains more than childhood during one summer and looses more than it when it is over. She finds fellowship and family in two True Friends. A secret and bond in childhood that cannot be simply broken. A thread that stretches across over water and mountains that no matter how far they are, they know they have a piece of themselves, of a simpler yet complicated summer in childhood somewhere across the lands. A small shard of childhood, of their true humanities stuck in memory of the scent of honey and magic and fur, a time long ago.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

the horrors persist but so does brennan lee mulligan and guess what he's got even more horrors for you

"The Years will go by and everyone will find someone that matters more to them than you" is such a way to point out the one fear all ace-spec, aro-spec people have. Thank you Brennan Lee Mulligan

I don’t care what story it is, if there’s a small talking fox with infinite wisdom, never ending trust and a love of trickery, I will love them.

The Wizard, The Witch and The Wild One’s Fox

The Little Prince’s Fox

D20 Neverafter’s Fox

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’s Fox

All very beloved by me and I’m sure I’m missing a few of them

acofaf you absolute legend of a campaign

I am absolutely enthralled and if it wasn’t for an assignment I haven’t started and due in (checks non existent watch on my wrist) ahem, less than 6 hours, I would binge watch all the rest of it right now

bishop takes queen

"because you were lied to, does not mean that everything is a lie. do not take the crimes of those who have manipulated us and put them at the feet of the world."

brennan lee mulligan sometimes you say shit like this during a campaign and it makes me want to tear my hair out