fandomhigh | Sex And Candy, Wednesday, Second Period

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Sex And Candy, Wednesday, Second Period

"So, one of the problems of fairy tales is that they are sometimes contradictory in the messages they try to teach," Cindy said, as students filed into the Danger Shop, set up to look like a vast forest with a single path winding through the middle. "Some of them try to tell you that so long as you follow the rules and work hard, everything will be okay. Others make a point of life's unfairness, where people even decent people get the short end of the stick and children die for getting dirty. While most of them stress how important it is to be kind to those you meet, no matter how lowly or common they appear to be, some show how easily kindness can be repaid by cruelty. Sure, most of those usually end with the bad guys getting their comeuppance, but most of those endings seem tacked on at the last minute. It's the suffering that gets most of the attention."

Of course, part of that could be blamed on sheer human nature and what people found most interesting to hear about, but that was a lecture for a different day.

"So, today, we're going to experiment with the arbitrary nature of fairy tales," Cindy continued, and please ignore that little grin she can't quite get rid of. "Your job is to deliver this basket--" and with the click of a button, there were a stack of picnic baskets by her feet "--through the woods to Grandmother's house. Stay on the path and don't forget--" She clicked another button and stopped biting back the grin. "--Your little red hood."

[Many thanks to

furnaceface for helping me iron out the OCD!]

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In red!

Eye the hoods dubiously...wonder if there's anything good in the basket...

The forest itself is quite pretty, with birds singing and a river splashing somewhere ahead of you.

*Just a few yards down the path, there's a large spiderweb spun in a bush. Caught in the web is a small ant. "Help me!" it cries out to you in a small voice. A big, brown spider is busy trying to wrap it up in silk. "Go away!" says the spider. "This is my dinner!"

You can either stop and free the ant--though the spider looks like it might try to bite you a few times first--or continue on your way and let the spider eat.

*A little while later, you hear small cries of pain. Around the bend, you see a fox with its foot caught in a trap. It looks almost out of its mind with pain; if you help it, you will almost certainly get scratched and clawed? Do you free it or walk along?

*Ah, you've finally caught up to that river! There's a small footbridge that spans a river that looks rather deep, filled with rocks and water plants. You check under the bridge for trolls and don't find any, but you do see a fish with a hook in its mouth, caught by an unattended fishing pole. "Hurry, hurry!" the fish calls. "The old man will be back soon to fry me up for supper! Let me go before it's too late!"

The pole doesn't look very sturdy, so if you want to free the fish, you're going to have to wade out there and get soaked. Or you can keep walking and stay nice and dry.

Three encounters, several options. Make your choices!

After you cross the bridge and continue on, you hear what sounds like an old woman calling for help, off to the right. She doesn't sound all that far away, but you'll definitely have to leave the path to help her.

Do you follow the rules (http://fandomhigh.livejournal.com/2857460.html?thread=179603188#t179603188) and stick to the path, leaving an old woman in trouble? Or do you disobey and try to help (http://fandomhigh.livejournal.com/2857460.html?thread=179603956#t179603956), facing the perils of an unknown forest?

[This is an either/or. Once you continue on, you can't leave the path, and once you leave the path, there's no going back to it!]

Edited 2011-06-08 08:46 (UTC)

Sorry, old woman. Rules are rules.

You continue down the path towards grandmother's house, basket in hand, when a fairly disreputable-looking fellow darts out of the trees, snatches your basket, and dashes away down the path back towards the river.

Hey! You just got mugged!

So much for following the rules.

You need that basket! Try to catch him and get it back. Hope you're quick or very clever!

...Except the mugger is totally a jerk and even caught, he throws the basket into the river. Cindy will look the other way if you decide to rough him up a little for being ~~well, Jack~~ a pain.

[If you let the spider eat the ant, he & his family will help you catch the mugger by spinning a very big web and catching him! Otherwise, you're on your own!]

Man, your grade is depending on that basket. You know, the one that is currently bobbing along in the middle of the river. Hope you don't mind getting soaked.

[If you saved the fish, she will push your basket back up onto the shore. Otherwise, dive in!]

Forget the rules! There's an old woman calling for help!

Only when you get to where the noise is coming from, you don't find an old woman in danger--no, you find a hut on chicken legs (http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs41/f/2009/047/1/4/Baba_Yaga_by_YoitisI.jpg), with a cackling old woman sitting in a giant mortar (http://www.pastafairy.com/press/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/The_Baba_Yaga_by_Samolo.jpg) in front of it.

Great. It's Baba Yaga, and she wants to eat your face.

Maybe you should have followed the rules...

Edited 2011-06-08 08:39 (UTC)

Well, Baba Yaga is at least a little reasonable--she's not going to eat your eyes, for example--and is willing to let you go in exchange for doing two simple, easy, completely pointless tasks.

The first one is she needs your help in the pantry. Somehow it got infested with rats and she wants you to get rid of them. She's even got a broom you can borrow!

[If you saved the fox, she'll show up and kill the rats for you. Otherwise, it's up to you.]

Finally, all the rats are gone. Good job--not that Baba Yaga says that. Instead, she points to the floor, where the rats chews holes in several bags of grain. Now all the wheat, barley, and rye are mixed together! We can't have that!

For your last task, Baba Yaga demands you separate the grains.

[If you saved the ant from being eaten, he and a bunch of his friends are happy to help. Otherwise, well, good luck!]

Once you've either retrieved your basket or got away from Baba Yaga, it's a straight shot to Grandmother's cottage. You tap on the door and go inside to find Grandmother! (http://www.racheshop.de/product_images/images/big/117675_halloween-karneval-kostuem_big.jpg)

...Oh. There's an image that will linger.

Little red hood or no, you quickly realize that that is not Grandmother, but a wolf in disguise! Fight him or trick him to get away!

They won't tell you what to do, though!

Who was very good and did NOT use an image of Frau Totenkinder for Baba Yaga.

I was pleased by the number of ass-kicking icons I got to use! \o/

Also, feel free to use whatever powers/skills/ingenuity at your disposal! Fairy tails are built on tricksters, you know.

Raven

Raven didn't like the cruel stories naturally, especially when it was kindness repaid that way. The hood, on the other hand, didn't bother her, since she usually wore a cloak of a different color.

As Raven followed the path, of course she freed the ant. The spider did bite her once, but she simply healed the small wound. She knew it was the spider's nature so she didn't scold it, but she wasn't about to let the poor ant suffer when it was calling to her for help.

And of course she freed the fox. She sent it calm and soothing warmth at first so it would not scratch her, then pried open the trap and freed its paw. "Let me heal you, little one," she said, taking its injury into herself before it scampered into the woods.

And of course she freed the fish, not minding that she got wet doing so. She didn't relish depriving someone of their supper, but the poor thing was suffering, and there was no way she could ignore that.

There was no question. Someone was calling for help, and Raven would never ignore that. She didn't like disobeying, but the need to help was stronger than the want to obey the rules.

Raven could've just teleported, but she was curious to see what tasks she would be given. The fox returned to help her out with the rats, but she politely declined, since she would not be responsible for those deaths, even if they were rats. She simply summoned up her Soul-Self instead and swept the rats inside, depositing them elsewhere in the woods with instructions not to return to the hut.

On the other hand, she was more than happy to accept the help of the ants to separate the grains. "Thank you so very much," she said happily as they were finishing.

Take that, Baba Yaga.

Chloe Saunders

Chloe wasn't thrilled about the hoods and this was one of those stories she had never liked.

She liked it even less now.

Chloe's choices were made for her before she could even think about it. This happens when one of your best friends was a werewolf and you never knew what other people you would meet -- and she didn't want to deal with angry creatures as ghosts when she could have helped them from becoming ghosts.

It was enough to make your head hurt, really.

She freed the ant from the spider web and when she got bit by the spider, she had several curses that popped out of her mouth. She'd have to go to the clinic and get that dealt with if it turned out to be a real spider.

When she saw the fox, she moved carefully towards him, talking to him in a gentle voice. She only got clawed twice before she managed to get him freed from the trap.

The fish was the hardest one. Chloe couldn't swim. Like, at all. However, she couldn't just leave him there. So, being very careful so she didn't slip and go under the water, she made her way to the bridge to help the poor little fish.

She was never going to get to that cottage at this rate, was she?

Hearing the call for help, she sighed. Yes, there were the class rules, but she couldn't ignore someone so clearly in need of help.

This was going to bite her in the backside, she just knew it.

She knew it was going to be something like this. She knew that following a cry for help was going to mean trouble.

She took the broom, but was relieved when she saw the fox show up to help. (She had a problem with rats ever since that experience in the warehouse.)

She'd have to ask Derek later if there were such a thing as werefoxes.

It was a valid thought.

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Page 1 of 5

Sex And Candy, Wednesday, Second Period

Sign in (Week 5)

Listen to the Lecture

Random Encounters!

Major Decision Time

Sticking to the Path

Re: Sticking to the Path

Get the Basket!

Going to Help the Old Woman!

First Task--Rat Catcher

Second Task--Organizer Extraordinaire!

To Grandmother's House!

Talk to the TAs

Talk to "Professor Perrault"

OOC

Re: Sign in (Week 5)

Re: Listen to the Lecture

Re: Random Encounters!

Re: Major Decision Time

Re: First Task--Rat Catcher

Re: Second Task--Organizer Extraordinaire!

Re: Sign in (Week 5)

Re: Listen to the Lecture

Re: Random Encounters!

Re: Major Decision Time

Re: First Task--Rat Catcher