Fairytales Tell Tales
One upon a time, there was a fairytale or a legend. Perhaps it came from the texts of the Brothers Grimm. Perhaps Beedle the Bard recorded the story. Or perhaps it is a legend told by a hermit on a mountain about how the Toclafane tried to cheat death. The point is that it is a fairytale, with a narrative path and characters, something that a lot of people know. And stories like these, that have been written again and again, are often rumoured to have a certain weight for all their repetition, as if they have etched the lines that others haphazardly follow.
So they will.
The Improv Fairy Tale
The process is fairly simple: characters are thrown headlong into fairytales, complete with their own fairytale setting. If they need a blue beard for the look, they'll get it; if they have to become a big bad wolf, then a big bad wolf they will be. Evil wizards will have magic powers and princesses in towers will get all the long hair they need.
Do they know what is happening? Yes. Say Mu was dropped in as the Fairy Godmother of Cinderella. He will still know he is the Aries Saint Mu, and he will still remember his history, but he will have the abilities of the Fairy Godmother rather than his Cosmo. He can consciously decide to go along with the story, or he can try to fight it and change the path it takes.
But only to a certain degree. Because what if Mu had always been the Fairy Godmother? Then he would be following the script perfectly, in his own, Mu-like way, because he would have no idea that he should change it. As noted, the stories that are told again and again have a lot of weight. The fairytale version of a character has its own will to deal with.
As characters go along through these fairytales, they will be subject to moments of being mentally hijacked by their pure-fairytale counterparts to greater and lesser degrees. Their personalities can become subsumed into the personalities of the fairytale versions, completely or partially, and they may need to fight for control. Characters can even choose to let go of themselves entirely, consciously or not, and let their fairytale counterparts take complete control over themselves.
Fairytale Gone Bad
Detaily nitty gritty things:
Characters are moved to an entirely different fairytale setting. They don't have to be with the people of their reality, and not all the people of their reality have to participate at all. In that case, their reality may go forward in time without the hijacked-by-fairytale characters. Fairytales can be ones from our worlds or fictional ones from fictional worlds.
The plot begins on June 21st. That's right, this is our Solstice Plot! Happy Solstice, everyone! The plot ends whenever a character manages to bring their fairytales to the end. This might be the proper, 'canonical' ending with people turning to sea foam, or it could be a diverted end-of-the-story created by characters trying to change it. It has to be some place that would be accepted as the end of a story in a fairytale; what that means is up to you.
Any characters who die during the course of the story canonically (for example, Red's Grandmother in versions where she doesn't come back) and end up actually dying during the plot accordingly will actually suffer a Plane death, with all the usual consequences. But characters can try to fake out death and escape their untimely ends. Any character who manages to die as part of the story, whether a real death or a faked death, is released from their fairytale and returned to their usual world, as they were.
You can use this post or make plotting posts to decide what you want to do with your characters, to make suggestions, to ask people to join up in the fairytales they want for theirs.
So they will.
The Improv Fairy Tale
The process is fairly simple: characters are thrown headlong into fairytales, complete with their own fairytale setting. If they need a blue beard for the look, they'll get it; if they have to become a big bad wolf, then a big bad wolf they will be. Evil wizards will have magic powers and princesses in towers will get all the long hair they need.
Do they know what is happening? Yes. Say Mu was dropped in as the Fairy Godmother of Cinderella. He will still know he is the Aries Saint Mu, and he will still remember his history, but he will have the abilities of the Fairy Godmother rather than his Cosmo. He can consciously decide to go along with the story, or he can try to fight it and change the path it takes.
But only to a certain degree. Because what if Mu had always been the Fairy Godmother? Then he would be following the script perfectly, in his own, Mu-like way, because he would have no idea that he should change it. As noted, the stories that are told again and again have a lot of weight. The fairytale version of a character has its own will to deal with.
As characters go along through these fairytales, they will be subject to moments of being mentally hijacked by their pure-fairytale counterparts to greater and lesser degrees. Their personalities can become subsumed into the personalities of the fairytale versions, completely or partially, and they may need to fight for control. Characters can even choose to let go of themselves entirely, consciously or not, and let their fairytale counterparts take complete control over themselves.
Fairytale Gone Bad
Detaily nitty gritty things:
Characters are moved to an entirely different fairytale setting. They don't have to be with the people of their reality, and not all the people of their reality have to participate at all. In that case, their reality may go forward in time without the hijacked-by-fairytale characters. Fairytales can be ones from our worlds or fictional ones from fictional worlds.
The plot begins on June 21st. That's right, this is our Solstice Plot! Happy Solstice, everyone! The plot ends whenever a character manages to bring their fairytales to the end. This might be the proper, 'canonical' ending with people turning to sea foam, or it could be a diverted end-of-the-story created by characters trying to change it. It has to be some place that would be accepted as the end of a story in a fairytale; what that means is up to you.
Any characters who die during the course of the story canonically (for example, Red's Grandmother in versions where she doesn't come back) and end up actually dying during the plot accordingly will actually suffer a Plane death, with all the usual consequences. But characters can try to fake out death and escape their untimely ends. Any character who manages to die as part of the story, whether a real death or a faked death, is released from their fairytale and returned to their usual world, as they were.
You can use this post or make plotting posts to decide what you want to do with your characters, to make suggestions, to ask people to join up in the fairytales they want for theirs.