The Universal Genre Savvy Guide / Fairy Tales

• I will be polite, kind, charitable, virtuous, honest, caring, etc. Karma will reward me. However, I will not pretend to be any of these things expecting a reward.
• I will be polite and helpful to anyone or anything I meet, especially old people, talking animals, and not-so-inanimate objects. I will graciously accept any gift they give me. It will come in handy later on.
• I will listen to and follow the advice of a mentor character like a talking animal or magical old person.
• If I am given a choice between a plain object and a fancy, valuable, shiny object, I will not take the shiny one, especially if I was warned against it by the talking animal or magical old person.
• I will not make deals with mystical beings if I can avoid it, especially if it involves me giving up something important like my firstborn child. If I do make a deal with a mystical being or anyone else, I will hold up my end of the deal.
  • If I am the mystical being making the offer, I will ask to be invited to the wedding rather than take the firstborn. It works out better.
• In fact, I will go out of my way to avoid mystical beings, unless I'm absolutely sure it will help me on my quest with no Devil's-deal catches on my part. I will always wear my iron bracelet. If I ever see beautiful girls dancing in the meadow, I will turn around, ride away and never look back.
  • If I must encounter one of The Fair Folk, I will make it my top priority to learn its real name. This will give me leverage should I have to make a deal with it. In turn, I will remember to call myself by an alias. (Note: I will check my setting to see if I'm allowed onomantic powers before I try this.)
  • I will also pay very close attention to their Exact Words.
• If I am an eldest or middle child, I will be extremely nice to the youngest child and let them go ahead with whatever quest or something needs to be done, instead of trying it myself first and inevitably failing.
• I will remember that if a being is immortal and incapable of lying, they have had a long time to figure out how to twist the truth, abuse loopholes, use Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, etc.
• If I am the hero, I will be persistent. The Determinator always wins.
• If I am king and looking for a way to find the next king, I will use a series of impossible tasks. The hero will be the only one who completes it. However, if I am putting out the impossible tasks so that no one will be able to marry my daughter or become the next king, I will be aware that it won't work and there will be a hero who completes them. Adding more tasks after they've completed the ones I originally set out is just delaying the inevitable, and may have ugly consequences.
  • Also, make sure that at a few of the impossible tasks also include some element that makes it harder, if not downright impossible, for "heroes" who are not at least mostly morally and ethically upright to complete. Ending up having to leave my legacy to a particularly intelligent but completely despicable heir will not bode well, especially if this is one of those medieval fables teaching about the price of arrogance or pickiness or something.
• No matter how sweet my governess or my neighbor is, I will not suggest that my father marry her.
  • This goes double if I have a Wicked Stepmother, and this governess or neighbor gives me an idea on how to kill her so that it looks like an accident. It can indeed get worse.
• If I know that I am prone to extreme jealousy, I will not marry someone who already has a child, particularly if their child is my gender. I will also check for whether we are in Fractured Fairy Tale before marrying.
  • If I do marry, I will treat the child as if they were my own and seek therapy immediately if my jealousy of them manifests even once.
  • That includes if their child is a son, I have a daughter, and my attempts to match-make them don't succeed. I will look for other matches. Turning him into a bear doesn't encourage him to marry her, and even if it happens, my grandchildren will suffer for it.
• If I am the child of the Wicked Stepmother, I will be perfectly nice to my step-/half-sibling. True, I'm more likely to be the supporting character than the hero, but it's better than the villain—and hero is not absolutely impossible.
• I will never kick, punch, or otherwise damage The Hero with any sort of object. Chances are, someone is going to need him the instant it happens.
• Similarly, I will never get into anything with the Damsel or the Princess except what is absolutely necessary. Plenty of time for that when it's all over.
• If I really have to kill my beautiful step-daughter I will do the deed myself. And I will use a dagger instead of feeding her a poisoned apple and leaving her not quite dead to be awakened by her true love.
• I will never stand on the way of True Love. It never works.
• If my beautiful step-daughter falls in love with a prince, I will fully support their relationship and enjoy benefits of being (legally) mother of the future queen. I will also ask my step-daughter to arrange good marriages for her less fortunate, less beautiful step-sisters. Preferably with the king's younger sons.
• If I have a magical mirror that seems to know everything and always tells the truth, I won't waste it on asking if I'm World's Most Beautiful Woman; I'll let the Evil Empress do that. There's plenty of more practical things, chief among them wise political decisions, I can use it for.
• If I run into an angry feline beast, I will check its paws for splinters.
  • From as much of a distance as possible, mind, just in case there aren't any.
• I will use a nickname when introducing myself, especially if I'm not 100% sure that the person I'm introducing myself to is human, to avert I Know Your True Name.
• If a person gives me instructions to help my problem, I need to follow it to the letter. Any deviations will just end with me or someone else eventually getting hurt. But watch for the person who gave me these instructions; the point of many fairy tales is to be good, sharp, and resourceful, not reckless and overly trusting.
• I will get really good at my household chores and other duties. Like, really good. You never know what skill may come in handy later.
• If I am taking extreme measures to accomplish some goal, I will first consider whether the goal is actually, like, sane. Being the most beautiful person in the world shouldn't matter as long as my life-partner loves me, for example — and if they don't, I should be working on our relationship rather than murdering everyone nicer-looking.
• When a mystical talking fish/genie/whathaveyou grants me a free wish without strings attached, I will not get greedy and keep asking for more, or let other greedy people cajole me into making more and greedier wishes. I will certainly not persist in making more wishes when the weather keeps getting progressively worse with each attempt. I will consider myself very lucky if I get away with just the status quo if I do.
• If I suspect I am in a Christian fairy tale, I will watch my manners at all times, especially around beggars and talking fish. There is a good chance Jesus is standing (or swimming) right in front of you.
  • If something that is not otherwise known for talking begins speaking to me, especially if said talking object is a conflagrated shrubbery, I will listen very carefully to its words and obey its commands. The exceptions to this rule are serpents and things that try to convince me to give into base temptations for some reason.
• I will not attempt any dangerous or difficult task until exactly two others - preferably older siblings - have already failed. Likewise, if two others have already succeeded at a seemingly difficult task, I will not make a third attempt.
• If I have a goose or similar egg-laying animal which lays eggs made out of valuable materials, I will treat that animal like fucking royalty and ensure it has as much as a long, happy, egg-laying life as is possible.
• If a scorpion or venomous snake asks me for a ride across the river, I will capture it in a bucket, put that bucket into a burlap sack, and then huck the entire caboodle across the river. Under no circumstances will I let that thing within stinging/biting distance, and you know damn well why.
  • If I am not a creature capable of capturing and/or hucking vipers or scorpions across rivers, I will ignore the request and get the hell out of there. If that snake/scorpion/what-have-you is smart enough to ask for help, it's smart enough to build itself a goddamn boat. What do I look like, a ferry service?
• Small-statured Irishmen wearing green are not to be trifled with. At worst, they're a Leprechaun to whom I just wrote a blank karma check, and at best...I just pissed off an Irishman.