Tank/Synopsis

## Before Forever After

Tank was living with his younger brother, caring for him like a parent. He wished his brother to grow up happy, so he kept him in the dark about things like their growing money problems and did everything he could to give him a good childhood, including reading him fairy tales and watching Disney-movies with him.

At one point he made the wish to be his little brother's hero and was transported to Forever After by the Fates.

### As a Prince Charming

Tank was made a Prince Charming by the Fates and sent to bring the fairy tales in Forever After to a happy ending. Tank did his best, but found he had bitten off more than he could chew with his task, as Forever After fairy tales turned out to be a lot more brutal and twisted than their movie-adaptations. At one point he encountered Alice and tried to help them leave Wonderland, but the two ended up separated.

Eventually, Tank fell into despair about his repeated failure to resolve the fairy tales and help. Not ready to completely give up, he relinquished his role as Prince Charming, but pleaded with the Fates to make him a guide instead, to assist the next Prince Charming on their quest. The Fates obliged and turned him into a fairy.

## Forever After

### Meeting Robin

Tank assisted a number of Prince Charming in trying to rescue Snow White, but every Prince Charming who attempted to wake her with a kiss was poisoned like she was and died.

Sometime later, the newest Prince Charming, a young adult by the name of Robin Jane Brown found her way into Forever After and the Snow White-fairy tale. Tank was skeptical of her at first, due to her less than heroic character and her lack of knowledge about Forever After. He tried to get her to kiss and wake up Snow White, but Robin refused, pointing out that a kiss was not what woke Snow White up in the original Grimm-story. She instead cut off one of the legs of the table Snow White was laying on, causing the princess to fall to the ground and cough up the poisoned apple she'd consumed.

This gained them the attention of the Wicked Witch, who had been watching the whole scene from his magic mirror. Tank attempted to warn Robin about him, but Robin in a mixture of overconfidence and underestimating the Wicked Witch's abilities and ruthlessness, paid him no mind. The Wicked Witch distracted both of them long enough to awaken the Demon Trees, who started attacking the cottage. Tank urged Robin to read the Happily Ever After from the book, which she did after some initial trouble with Snow White and the two of them were transported back to the Fates' meadow.

### Adventure in the Story of Little Briar Rose

After some banter, Tank and Robin were transported to *Little Briar Rose*. Tank attempted to get an apathetic Robin to start the story right away, but was shooed off by her. He eventually managed to get her to pay attention and the two had a conversation about the Fates seemingly not caring about the people they summoned to be Prince Charmings. Tank insisted that it wasn't always this way, as every Prince used to only be assigned one story and the villains played their roles like they were supposed to, until the Wicked Witch rose to power.

The conversation was cut short when Robin noticed a trail of people making their way to a castle in the distance and realized what fairy tale they're in. Robin managed to elude Tank and tried to sneak into the party by giving the servant her real first name. Tank interrupted her, instead introducing her as Prince Charming and gave her a lecture on not giving her real name to people, since names hold power in Forever After and can among other things be used to put a curse on someone.

At the party, Tank and Robin watched the twelve Wise Women bless the royal baby and had another conversation about how beauty was often used in fairy tales to discern heroes from villains. Robin pointed out how shallow that was and how one might be driven to evil out of desperation over not being accepted because of their looks. Tank teased her by asking whether that was supposed to be the reason for her own unpleasant attitude. Shortly after, the Thirteenth Wise Woman arrived at the party, angry over not being invited. Tank urged Robin to intervene, which she did after some hesitation. When Robin's attempt to defuse the situation failed, the Wise Woman cursed the child and turned both Tank and Robin into stone when they tried to stop her again.

Fifteen years later both Tank and Robin awoke in the royal gardens and were greeted by the relieved king and queen, as well as their now teenaged son, Briar Rose. Tank and Robin were shocked by the fact they were frozen for over ten years, an emotion that was exacerbated when the royals informed them that it had been fifteen years, to be precise. Robin eventually demanded to know what had happened to the curse, to which the king and queen claimed to have taken care of it, by burning every spinning wheel in their kingdom. Tank was skeptical, as he remembered the king and queen from the original story having made the same assumption and having been proven wrong later on. The king and queen then hoisted the responsibility of babysitting Briar on Robin and Tank, while they went off to an important royal function. Briar asked if he could touch Tank's wings, which Tank very decidedly answered with 'no'. Tank was as dumbfounded as Robin when they found out Briar's parents hadn't told him what a spindle or a spinning wheel was, leaving him even more vulnerable to encountering and pricking his finger on one. With little else choice, Tank assisted Robin with keeping Briar entertained, by playing hide-and-seek with him. The young prince proved to be quite the challenge, zipping all over the castle and putting himself in harm's way several times.

Sundown came around and Tank and Robin were completely exhausted by Briar's game, with Tank questioning where he got the energy. Briar requested one more game and Robin agreed, just as the king and queen returned home. Robin and Tank celebrated over seemingly having broken the curse, only to be informed by the king that Hira placed her curse at moondown, not sundown. The two panicked and searched all over the castle for Briar, unaware that Briar has already been lured into a secret room by Hira and had pricked his finger on a spinning wheel, just like the curse had foretold.

Though Briar's parents remained unbothered, Tank insisted he had a bad feeling about the whole situation. Said feeling was proven right when a thunderstorm formed over the west tower of the castle, signaling the curse. Everyone in the castle slowly fell asleep while being covered in magical briars. Tank managed to get Robin out of the castle, more or less kicking and screaming and they were forced to watch as the briars consumed everything. Robin's attempt to hack the briars to pieces with her sword proved ineffective.

Just then the Wicked Witch showed up, making fun of Robin and Tank's failure. Tank demanded to know what the Witch was doing in a story that was not his own, to which the Witch replied that he came solely to gloat. Tank was somewhat irritated that he admitted to it so freely. The Witch advised Robin to give up and go home before she "get[s] another teenager cursed" and Tank jumped to her defense, shouting that witches were the ones who cursed people. The witch smugly asked whether Tank wouldn't consider his current predicament a curse, prompting Tank to angrily tell him he didn't know what he was talking about, then try and get Robin to re-focus on their current task and ignore the Witch.

After the Witch left, Tank proposed leaving the story for later and regrouping in another one. Robin questioned how time even worked in Forever After, when people could be frozen for fifteen years and curses could last for a hundred years. Tank explained that the real world basically stands still while the princes are trapped in Forever After and that the timeline of the stories depended on whether a Prince Charming was present or not. He readied a bag of magic powder to transport them to the next story, causing Robin to make a number of pixie-related puns, annoying Tank. After fending off Robin's attempts to get some of the magic dust for herself, Tank urged her to pick a story. Robin turned out to be too downtrodden by her previous failure to make the choice, so Tank took the book and picked an already begun story. He then blew the magic dust into Robin's face, making her fall asleep as they were transported to the next fairy tale.

### Roadblocks in Rapunzel

Tank and Robin woke up in *Rapunzel*, in the middle of a forest. Tank shushed Robin when she spoke up and when she screamed because of a bug, due to having only seen the Disney-movie with Mandy Moore and believing Rapunzel's love interest was a wanted felon who a lot of soldiers were looking for. Robin, annoyed, informed Tank that Rapunzel's Prince Charming in the original story was just a regular prince without any kind of criminal record and that the felon-thing was something Disney added to the character. She mockingly commended Tank for choosing an easy story, with Tank telling her not to patronize him. Robin was optimistic about the story, as there were no greater monsters or villains in it, aside from the witch who kept Rapunzel prisoner, but Tank added that there had to be a reason the story had been left unfinished. He was mortified when Robin made the plan to simply woo Rapunzel out of leaving her tower, unwilling to believe that that was all there was to it, as well as dismayed over Robin's dirty jokes. Robin took off, ignoring Tank's yelling that she was going in the wrong direction. Tank decided to stay back and play cards with a friendly caterpillar for an hour before going after her.

Tank heard Robin scream when Mother Gothel cursed her and rushed to see what was wrong. He was horrified when he discovered Robin had been cursed with blindness. He informed Robin that the blindness curse was not permanent, but that now there was no turning back, because the only way to lift it was to finish the story, otherwise the curse would just follow Robin.

Robin was eager to get moving and solve the story, fretting that she was much too shallow to choose her future husband by voice alone, to which Tank agreed. They discovered that Gothel had pulled down Rapunzel's hair-rope down behind her, leaving Robin trapped in the tower. Tank teased Robin over her former assumption that the story would be easy and suggested she woo her way down the tower. Robin chastised him for making fun of a blind person to which Tank retorted that she herself had punched one of the Fates. Robin dismissed this as hearsay, then sunk into self-pity over being a "trash person". Tank told her that admitting to being a bad person was not the same as actually changing for the better and Robin asked if he would help her anyway. Tank agreed to do so if Robin would start calling him by his actual name instead of various demeaning nicknames. Robin gave in and called him "Tank" for the very first time. Satisfied, Tank flew down to gather the rope and brought it to Robin, who wondered how he was able to lift something that was several times his body weight. Tank secured the rope around Robin and pushed her out of the tower window. When he cheekily asked if she didn't like roller coasters afterwards, Robin threatened him, to which Tank responded that Robin ought to be nicer to him because not every Prince Charming was granted an assistant fairy. He mused that the Fates must have had decided Robin was in sore need of help as Robin clumsily untangled herself from the rope. Tank retrieved the book from Robin's belt to read where they should head next and read the passage about the prince stumbling through the lands in search of "his lost love". Tank expressed surprise that the blinding curse was part of the original story as he thought it was part of a different fairy tale. Robin and Tank set off into the woods, with Tank yanking Robin around on the rope so she wouldn't injure herself by walking into trees or the like. They eventually reached the end of the forest and the edge of the desert behind it. Tank was skeptical about venturing into the desert, but Robin insisted that this too was part of the story and continued walking.

Tank and Robin wandered through the desert for a long time, until Robin tripped on a rock and, tired of stumbling around, decided to take a rest. Just then, the Wicked Witch once again appeared to taunt the duo. After some further teasing, the Witch admitted that the blinding curse had been his idea, shocking Tank. Robin asked what else the Witch wanted besides making fun, to which Tank asked her not to give the Witch a set-up. When the Witch tried to goad Robin into giving up, Tank jumped to her defense, pulling on the Witch's horns and yelling at him to shut up. He lectured the witch on how no one was fully prepared for the challenges that came with life and that being a hero was about facing those challenges head-on and doing one's best in spite of the difficulty. The Wicked Witch mocked that ideology, claiming only a fool would welcome hardships to prove their worth. Tank shouted that the Witch didn't know anything and that if the witch had what it took to be a Prince Charming, he wouldn't currently be a villain. The Wicked Witch countered that both him and Tank had given up their roles as Prince Charming because they had realized it was hopeless and that the only difference between him and Tank was that he was honest about it. He then disappeared, leaving Tank and Robin to deal with what he'd just said.

Robin demanded to know what the Wicked Witch had meant, thinking the Fates had never expected her to succeed from the beginning on. Tank urged her not to think like that and said that the problem wasn't her, but him. Robin took this as him confessing that he was actually working for the witch which Tank was shocked by, clarifying that he'd been a Prince once too. He told Robin about his past and failed ventures as a Prince Charming. Robin was horrified that this was how the Fates treated people who failed, angering Tank who asked if that was the only thing she had gathered from his story while throwing another poisoned apple at her. Tank asked Robin if she had any questions after hearing his backstory and Robin asked when she would get "superpowers" like him. Tank, exasperated, explained that his strength and carrying capacity was the result of the Fates letting him carry over both from his human form, not superpowers and added that the Fates did not turn everybody who failed into a fairy. Tank revealed to Robin that he would stay a fairy until all the stories were closed and that he preferred his current state over settling down in a peaceful story and eventually forgetting about his brother. Robin expressed relief over Tank's revelation, dumbfounding Tank who thought it shameful because it was an admittance that he'd given up. Tank broke down into tears, confessing that he thought Robin's predicament was his fault and that by giving up he had hoisted his responsibilities onto her. His tears ended up falling into Robin's eyes, curing her blindness. Tank was confused as to how this was possible and they discovered that the story in the book had changed to Tank's tears lifting the curse instead of Rapunzel's, with Tank being insulted that the book referred to him as Robin's "faithful lackey". With newfound courage, Tank and Robin resolved to find Rapunzel and give her the happily-ever-after. Tank told Robin that he was glad the Fates chose her to be his successor and the two set off once again.

After wandering the desert for some time, Robin complained about them not getting anywhere and Tank replied that they were supposed to walk until the story gave them a time-skip. By declaring her unwillingness to give up, Robin managed to set said time-skip in motion and the two came across an oasis with a small cottage, with Tank wondering over it not having been there before. Upon knocking on the cottage's door, they were greeted by Rapunzel, revealing that this version of Rapunzel was a man and that he was a father. Rapunzel inquired about the whereabouts of his lover, whom Tank speculated had been the Prince Charming who had come before Robin, swooning over his good looks. Robin expressed second-hand embarrassment over Rapunzel's behavior and asked Tank whether that was what she sounded like, which he confirmed. Rapunzel stated that Tank and Robin would do as rescuers, inviting them into his cottage, where Tank was delighted to find that Rapunzel had two small children instead of one. Rapunzel fretted over the fact that Robin and Tank had only come to give him his happily-ever-after and not to take him to the castle his late husband had promised him, with Tank commenting that the cottage seemed like a perfectly good living space to him. Rapunzel agreed to let himself be given the happily-ever-after if the heroes would make him some more princess-like furniture. Robin was upset over this entitled attitude, but Tank convinced her to do what Rapunzel wanted to end the story. Tank also gave Rapunzel some additional childcare lessons while Robin worked on the furniture, making Rapunzel very happy. Once the furniture and lessons were finished, Rapunzel finally agreed to letting Robin read the end to his story, which a very relieved Robin proceeded to do, while Tank jokingly told her to watch her language around the kids.

### Turbulence in The Little Sea Maid

Tank and Robin returned to the meadow to find it empty of the Fates, Tank remarking that the Fates did have other duties to attend to.When Robin complained about the difficulty of the stories, as well as the spoiled attitude of the princesses, Tank sarcastically remarked that it was hard to imagine anyone that entitled. He told Robin that she hadn't just been brought to Forever After to go against the Wicked Witch, but to learn a lesson as well. Tank was surprised to discover Robin was aware of her own hypocrisy and Robin pointed out that seeing people like her get all they wanted despite their rotten behavior didn't make her want it any less. Robin showed annoyance that all the easier stories had already been completed, to which Tank answered that her time in Forever After wasn't supposed to be a vacation and advised her to pick a fairy tale without a desert. Robin eventually discovered that *The Little Sea Maid* was still open and with some reluctance confessed that she'd always wanted to be a mermaid, to which Tank reacted by calling her "pretty lame". Tank brought out his magic powder again, with Robin making a dirty joke about how Forever After's censoring magic would handle *The Little Sea Maid* and Tank becoming embarrassed by this train of thought.

The two of them were brought into the kingdom of the sea-people, getting turned into a mermaid and merman in the process. Tank chastised Robin for attempting to get past the censorship again by trying to shake off her sea-weed top.Robin wanted to relax in the water, but Tank used his trident to spurn her on, as he wanted to see his brother again as fast as possible. They made their way towards the palace, where a long line had formed. Robin's attempts to cut the line by invoking her royal title failed, leading to Tank and Robin being forced to wait like everyone else. Robin grumbled that the line was probably a trick and that the palace was empty inside, to which Tank retorted that Robin's head was empty inside.