Marjory's story arc writeup
Jul. 11th, 2015 07:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stewinginitOKAY SO time to talk about the complete Marjory & June story arc now I'm done.
FIRST OF ALL, Thank you to everyone who played! Who played in every game they ran, of course, but especially this one. It went amazingly and I'm incredibly content with the results of every single group.
Okay. Okay, so.
The original Juniper Tree story
It pretty much goes like this: A guy has a son, but his wife dies; he buries her under the Juniper Tree out back. He remarries, and there's a daughter. Depending on the version, her name is either Marlene, Marlinchen, or Marjory. The wife wants her daughter to inherit, so she kills the son by beheading him in a chest of apples. She then ties his head back on, and convinces her daughter to box his ears if he 'pretends to ignore her' and 'doesn't give her an apple'. She does so, his head comes off, and she's both horrified she killed her brother and grieving him and terrified of going to jail. Her mother chops the body up and feeds it to the family and tells the father that his son went away on a trip. He loves the food, Marjory cries instead of eating, and sneaks a few of the son's bones out to bury them in apology. The bones turn into a bird, who flies off and sings a song about his death to workers around: "My mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my little sister Marlinchen, she buried me beneath the juniper tree. Tweet tweet, what a pretty bird am I!" but his song just makes people think he's a Cool Singing Bird, not that an injustice is done. He repeatedly sings and gets different gifts off them and brings them out to the family, red shoes for Marlinchen etc. The mother starts to feel hotter and hotter, and finally when she goes out for air/goes to get a gift too, and the bird drops the last item, a grindstone, on her head -- crushing her to death. His vengeance complete, he transforms into a boy again and he lives happily ever after with Marlinchen and their father.
What I wanted out of apping
When I chose to app, of course I had to pick the realms/concepts the persona would represent, and I picked basically a set of things that comes up to "dealing with unjust death". Marjory's area is "repentance/grief" and June's was "questing/vigilante justice" pretty much.
Speaking of which, I apped them very much as a two-in-one persona. They've always appeared in two in terms of their in-game appearances, but they were apped by one person, play off one journal, and only have one of them in the tag - "Marjory", not "Marjory and June". June, also, doesn't have a name in the original story and he doesn't have one here, either. 'June' just is short for 'Juniper', it's not an actual name, though neither of them said that.
I'll get to that in a bit. First I want to go over their three distinct stages in their story arc.
The First Arc - Exposure
Before their first game, Marjory and June never talked about themselves, not really. Marjory was always crying, and June was his usual outgoing aggressively friendly self, but June didn't say anything he was other than a 'pretty bird', and Marjory just answered vague things like " I always do this" when asked why she was crying. Later, she started to admit "my brother's gone" but didn't associate that with the bird at all (to my recollection, and that was my goal). Essentially, June couldn't talk about their story, and Marjory wouldn't.
Eventually, June ran their first game, while Marjory slept. The game's style was basically an old Text Adventure game/point and click game (but with no images). There was a set layout, and you started over a grave with "WHO KILLED ME" written on it. You went from area to area, gathering items, playing minigames etc, in a series of fetch quests to unlock the final room, where you saw a 'cutscene' of a mother killing a son quickly while nobody else saw. The format wasn't quite the same as the actual Juniper Tree myth - she broke his neck and pretended it was an accident, still, but no apple chests were there and no blame was ascribed to the daughter.
After the game was over, the secret was out and June sang his song, "My mother, she killed me" etc. The point of this was to 'reveal' that June was actually murdered and Marjory was grieving him.
The Second Arc - Guilt and Culpability
From this point on, they acted more like brother and sister. Marjory still cried constantly, and June was way more open about being Marjory's brother, while still being a spoiled, vain bird. Eventually, however, June ran a second game, again while Marjory slept (or, was she awake and just pretending to sleep? The post is deliberately unclear). The style of this one was much more free-flow, though still narrative. Players could direct either the girl or the ghost through a scenario as it occurred, and rapidly give suggestions on what they could do. What they did was a combination of what 'most people' told them to do, and what was 'In character' for them to do. This story followed the Juniper Tree story much more closely, with the apple chest and the girl knocking his head off, but focused on the feelings involved in it - fear and guilt and culpability.
The goal of this was for June to force Marjory to deal with the fact this wasn't really her fault. That she'd been manipulated and used by the authorities she should have been able to trust in her life, so she'd help cover up a crime and be the person her mother wanted.
The Third Arc - Identity
They stayed very quiet after this point, partially because there was very little time after and partially because Marjory was trying to deal with what had happened and understand it and come to terms with some things. They only came out for plot events, I believe.
However, eventually, Marjory ran their third and last game, while June slept. The goal of this one was for her to finally examine and look at who and what June was to her, and what role that had in her processing of the crime she was both victim of and party to. This game was narrative, but more heavily structured. The players could create their own 'toy' (the goal of which was so the players would feel a sense of attachment to it), which they could then use to 'influence' Marjory but not actually act. With each page, the story went through, but it wasn't quite the juniper tree story. The same basic elements were there, but sans the absurd head-knocking-off etc, and with the issue of culpability put to rest as not being Marjory (or Marlinchen, in this story), even if she was never sure it was her mother. So it was just 'what happened' combined with 'What part of dealing with this is me, and what part is June'?
Essentially, this is a form of separation, stepping back, and acknowledging that she hasn't been dealing with things, that June has been dealing with things for her.
The Truth and Results
Of course the situation is complicated by the fact that personae are either stories created by Story to bolster, er, the Story, or have a real, human base that was taken over by the Story when Aather's Story was created. Marjory and June are one of those personae that doesn't know which they are. They know the Juniper Tree story, but the main question I wanted raised from this game was "If it was a real kid, what could they even do in this situation?". That's why this game was more realistic, even while just a story - a mother poisoning her husband's child so her own can inherit. If you made it to page 5, the father died too, before he could catch on.
And the answer is a terrifying 'not much'.
As a persona, Marjory and June cannot trust authority, so even if you told your Father in this, nothing happened. Going to the police may or may not have had results, if you could even make it there. In the Juniper Tree story, nobody listens. The Father is ignorant of the truth, maybe willingly so. Marjory's confused and believes she's guilty. Nobody listens to the bird and believes him; he's just a neat trick. The only thing that works is taking justice into his own hands. In the 'real' story, she loved her mother and her father and her brother and still wasn't even sure if her mother was telling her the truth -- if her brother was just sick, was taken care of but it wasn't enough, saw a doctor when she didn't see, was buried quickly from the heat. She doesn't know, but she can't trust anyone. She's scared and alone.
So she creates a protector. Perhaps this is just her projecting into a toy. Perhaps he's a second personality, and not really there at all. Perhaps he really is the ghost of her brother. In Aather, he's certainly a separate self, June, the Bird, based on the Juniper Tree. In real life, he's either a ghost or, well, an attempt to handle what she's going through.
The purpose of this game was: Which is it, what does that mean, what should I do about it? How best should I cope with it?
The final round asks what to do with this toy that's been absorbing all the damage for Marlinchen in the story, what to do with this dingy, damaged thing you created at the start of the game. She offers three (four) options: 1) Will you destroy it, and its damage along with it, and be rid of it? 2) Will you keep it exactly as it is? 3) Will you change it in some way - [4] Your choice.
Obviously, this will affect how Marjory decides to move forward as an individual. The planned outcomes were: 1) June vanishes, and Marjory learns to move forward herself. 2) June remains a bird, and Marjory and he continue as they were, albeit with more information. 3) June becomes a separate being, and they move forward as a pair but genuinely, completely separate individuals, even if, perhaps, they weren't before.
The final breakdown, when narrowed to those options (though I advise reading them, there was lots of good advice Marjory took to heart, including a lot of emphasis on trusting herself, on accepting the good of what was there but not continuing with the unhealthy parts, and so on), was:
DESTROY: 0
KEEP: 2
CHANGE: 6
WHAT YOU WANT: 4* (These all go into 'change').
So. June transformed, and Marjory has her brother back at the end of the story. She's done grieving, and he's done just existing to help her handle the things she hasn't dealt with through games. They can move forward.
(Btw, if 'destroy' won, the memory form would have been a doll filled with juniper berries; squish the doll and destroy the berries inside to receive, one use. If 'keep' won, it would have been a plush yellow bird toy, play with to receive, two uses.)
LET ME KNOW ANY QUESTIONS o/
FIRST OF ALL, Thank you to everyone who played! Who played in every game they ran, of course, but especially this one. It went amazingly and I'm incredibly content with the results of every single group.
Okay. Okay, so.
The original Juniper Tree story
It pretty much goes like this: A guy has a son, but his wife dies; he buries her under the Juniper Tree out back. He remarries, and there's a daughter. Depending on the version, her name is either Marlene, Marlinchen, or Marjory. The wife wants her daughter to inherit, so she kills the son by beheading him in a chest of apples. She then ties his head back on, and convinces her daughter to box his ears if he 'pretends to ignore her' and 'doesn't give her an apple'. She does so, his head comes off, and she's both horrified she killed her brother and grieving him and terrified of going to jail. Her mother chops the body up and feeds it to the family and tells the father that his son went away on a trip. He loves the food, Marjory cries instead of eating, and sneaks a few of the son's bones out to bury them in apology. The bones turn into a bird, who flies off and sings a song about his death to workers around: "My mother she killed me, my father he ate me, my little sister Marlinchen, she buried me beneath the juniper tree. Tweet tweet, what a pretty bird am I!" but his song just makes people think he's a Cool Singing Bird, not that an injustice is done. He repeatedly sings and gets different gifts off them and brings them out to the family, red shoes for Marlinchen etc. The mother starts to feel hotter and hotter, and finally when she goes out for air/goes to get a gift too, and the bird drops the last item, a grindstone, on her head -- crushing her to death. His vengeance complete, he transforms into a boy again and he lives happily ever after with Marlinchen and their father.
What I wanted out of apping
When I chose to app, of course I had to pick the realms/concepts the persona would represent, and I picked basically a set of things that comes up to "dealing with unjust death". Marjory's area is "repentance/grief" and June's was "questing/vigilante justice" pretty much.
Speaking of which, I apped them very much as a two-in-one persona. They've always appeared in two in terms of their in-game appearances, but they were apped by one person, play off one journal, and only have one of them in the tag - "Marjory", not "Marjory and June". June, also, doesn't have a name in the original story and he doesn't have one here, either. 'June' just is short for 'Juniper', it's not an actual name, though neither of them said that.
I'll get to that in a bit. First I want to go over their three distinct stages in their story arc.
The First Arc - Exposure
Before their first game, Marjory and June never talked about themselves, not really. Marjory was always crying, and June was his usual outgoing aggressively friendly self, but June didn't say anything he was other than a 'pretty bird', and Marjory just answered vague things like " I always do this" when asked why she was crying. Later, she started to admit "my brother's gone" but didn't associate that with the bird at all (to my recollection, and that was my goal). Essentially, June couldn't talk about their story, and Marjory wouldn't.
Eventually, June ran their first game, while Marjory slept. The game's style was basically an old Text Adventure game/point and click game (but with no images). There was a set layout, and you started over a grave with "WHO KILLED ME" written on it. You went from area to area, gathering items, playing minigames etc, in a series of fetch quests to unlock the final room, where you saw a 'cutscene' of a mother killing a son quickly while nobody else saw. The format wasn't quite the same as the actual Juniper Tree myth - she broke his neck and pretended it was an accident, still, but no apple chests were there and no blame was ascribed to the daughter.
After the game was over, the secret was out and June sang his song, "My mother, she killed me" etc. The point of this was to 'reveal' that June was actually murdered and Marjory was grieving him.
The Second Arc - Guilt and Culpability
From this point on, they acted more like brother and sister. Marjory still cried constantly, and June was way more open about being Marjory's brother, while still being a spoiled, vain bird. Eventually, however, June ran a second game, again while Marjory slept (or, was she awake and just pretending to sleep? The post is deliberately unclear). The style of this one was much more free-flow, though still narrative. Players could direct either the girl or the ghost through a scenario as it occurred, and rapidly give suggestions on what they could do. What they did was a combination of what 'most people' told them to do, and what was 'In character' for them to do. This story followed the Juniper Tree story much more closely, with the apple chest and the girl knocking his head off, but focused on the feelings involved in it - fear and guilt and culpability.
The goal of this was for June to force Marjory to deal with the fact this wasn't really her fault. That she'd been manipulated and used by the authorities she should have been able to trust in her life, so she'd help cover up a crime and be the person her mother wanted.
The Third Arc - Identity
They stayed very quiet after this point, partially because there was very little time after and partially because Marjory was trying to deal with what had happened and understand it and come to terms with some things. They only came out for plot events, I believe.
However, eventually, Marjory ran their third and last game, while June slept. The goal of this one was for her to finally examine and look at who and what June was to her, and what role that had in her processing of the crime she was both victim of and party to. This game was narrative, but more heavily structured. The players could create their own 'toy' (the goal of which was so the players would feel a sense of attachment to it), which they could then use to 'influence' Marjory but not actually act. With each page, the story went through, but it wasn't quite the juniper tree story. The same basic elements were there, but sans the absurd head-knocking-off etc, and with the issue of culpability put to rest as not being Marjory (or Marlinchen, in this story), even if she was never sure it was her mother. So it was just 'what happened' combined with 'What part of dealing with this is me, and what part is June'?
Essentially, this is a form of separation, stepping back, and acknowledging that she hasn't been dealing with things, that June has been dealing with things for her.
The Truth and Results
Of course the situation is complicated by the fact that personae are either stories created by Story to bolster, er, the Story, or have a real, human base that was taken over by the Story when Aather's Story was created. Marjory and June are one of those personae that doesn't know which they are. They know the Juniper Tree story, but the main question I wanted raised from this game was "If it was a real kid, what could they even do in this situation?". That's why this game was more realistic, even while just a story - a mother poisoning her husband's child so her own can inherit. If you made it to page 5, the father died too, before he could catch on.
And the answer is a terrifying 'not much'.
As a persona, Marjory and June cannot trust authority, so even if you told your Father in this, nothing happened. Going to the police may or may not have had results, if you could even make it there. In the Juniper Tree story, nobody listens. The Father is ignorant of the truth, maybe willingly so. Marjory's confused and believes she's guilty. Nobody listens to the bird and believes him; he's just a neat trick. The only thing that works is taking justice into his own hands. In the 'real' story, she loved her mother and her father and her brother and still wasn't even sure if her mother was telling her the truth -- if her brother was just sick, was taken care of but it wasn't enough, saw a doctor when she didn't see, was buried quickly from the heat. She doesn't know, but she can't trust anyone. She's scared and alone.
So she creates a protector. Perhaps this is just her projecting into a toy. Perhaps he's a second personality, and not really there at all. Perhaps he really is the ghost of her brother. In Aather, he's certainly a separate self, June, the Bird, based on the Juniper Tree. In real life, he's either a ghost or, well, an attempt to handle what she's going through.
The purpose of this game was: Which is it, what does that mean, what should I do about it? How best should I cope with it?
The final round asks what to do with this toy that's been absorbing all the damage for Marlinchen in the story, what to do with this dingy, damaged thing you created at the start of the game. She offers three (four) options: 1) Will you destroy it, and its damage along with it, and be rid of it? 2) Will you keep it exactly as it is? 3) Will you change it in some way - [4] Your choice.
Obviously, this will affect how Marjory decides to move forward as an individual. The planned outcomes were: 1) June vanishes, and Marjory learns to move forward herself. 2) June remains a bird, and Marjory and he continue as they were, albeit with more information. 3) June becomes a separate being, and they move forward as a pair but genuinely, completely separate individuals, even if, perhaps, they weren't before.
The final breakdown, when narrowed to those options (though I advise reading them, there was lots of good advice Marjory took to heart, including a lot of emphasis on trusting herself, on accepting the good of what was there but not continuing with the unhealthy parts, and so on), was:
DESTROY: 0
KEEP: 2
CHANGE: 6
WHAT YOU WANT: 4* (These all go into 'change').
So. June transformed, and Marjory has her brother back at the end of the story. She's done grieving, and he's done just existing to help her handle the things she hasn't dealt with through games. They can move forward.
(Btw, if 'destroy' won, the memory form would have been a doll filled with juniper berries; squish the doll and destroy the berries inside to receive, one use. If 'keep' won, it would have been a plush yellow bird toy, play with to receive, two uses.)
LET ME KNOW ANY QUESTIONS o/
no subject
Date: 2015-07-12 03:13 am (UTC)Group Three had a break down and didn't even make it to page 5 oops...Did that inability to get there have an effect in any way? :o
no subject
Date: 2015-07-12 03:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-12 03:26 am (UTC)Thank you again for the game. I've enjoyed all three of the Marjory & June games I've played in and I'm really glad to have been able to see that arc wrap-up. .///.
no subject
Date: 2015-07-12 03:28 am (UTC)And thank YOU! I was really excited to see you sign up for it for that reason tbh ////