Everafter: From the Pages of Fables is a sequel series to Fables, focusing on the adventures of the Shadow Players, a covert association of Fables that try to keep law and order in the new world of the Everafter, the state of Earth after The Masquerade the Fables upheld for so long was broken. Earth is now developing its own new brand of magic and creating new Fables as well, leaving the Shadow Players to try and keep order amidst all the chaos. The main group of spies is Connor Wolf, Bigby and Snow's son now all grown up, Peter Piper, his wife Bo Peep, Hansel, and Bobby Speckland.
Everafter provides examples of:
- A God Am I: Garrett and his friends think they've become this but they're little more than petty dictators and are seen as such by the enslaved students. The real god turns out to be Bobby, who is a much more benevolent take on the trope, given he actually needed to invoke this trope and gain their belief to reach such a status.
- Aborted Arc: Due to the series being cut short, there's a number of storylines hinted at in the final issue which are not followed up on. The main one is whatever the deal with the resurrected Hansel and the mysterious girl Mikki he has a connection to was going to turn out to be.
- A lighter example is hints of a possible relationship between Ayesha and Safrin forming.
- The last issue reveals Jordan is creating an army of the dead to conquer Earth and Tanner decides to help instead of the two of them trying to become better people. This was clearly setting them up to be antagonists in the future.
- Accidental Murder: Jordan eventually reveals she didn't mean to kill her whole family, her powers were just out of control. Judging by the fact she resurrected them and keeps them around as zombies, she clearly still loves and misses them.
- Achievement In Ignorance: Bobby, Earth's first Fable and therefore one of the most powerful, is easily defeated by the trio at the high school. As he explains, he was taught the rules of magic that created self-imposed limitations on him, while they didn't, allowing them to access much more powerful magic because they didn't realize that shouldn't have been possible.
- Action Girl: Bo Peep, who is nearly as competent as Cinderella was in the original comic.
- All for Nothing: Tanner joins forces with the Shadow Players despite having directly worked against them in the past in order to save her son Garrett from himself, as he's been corrupted by dark magic. It doesn't matter in the end. Due to Time Dilation thanks to forming a black hole around the school, he's been dead for thousands of years by the time the barrier is broken open. She even acknowledges all the morally-grey things she did afterwards don't matter now because she did it all to get Garrett into a good high school and give him a college fund.
- Bobby swears he will stay in the high school until he saves the students, and eventually, the next generations. In the end, eventually they all die out after being stuck in the bubble for thousands of years, leaving him the only survivor.
- Badass Adorable: Schrodinger's cat appears literally in the form of Erwin, an adorable kitty who is a walking paradox. He's both there and not, plus going through the entire cycle of life, a kitten one moment, a walking skeleton the next, dead another, and then alive again. Because of his very existence, he's strong enough to break down a magical barrier made of a black hole by doing nothing more than touching it with his paw.
- Badass Bookworm: This is shown to be Ayesha's job, making sure that all of the new "canon" that's appearing on magic in the world is automatically written down and categorized into an encyclopedia sorted by the alphabet.
- Badass Normal: Kara, Bobby's guardian, is just a normal woman but apparently is ridiculously knowledgeable about almost any myth, legend, or story there is out there. She even saves Connor's life when she and Ayesha combine their knowledge together. Thomas is so impressed he falls in love.
- The Beastmaster: Peter Piper's flute is shown to be able to control animals if he plays the right song.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Jordan forms a bond with Bo and agrees to go to Nibiru, mainly because she's the first person in a long time to be nice to the little girl.
- Being Evil Sucks: Michaela Yaresh, the mysterious young woman who has a connection to Hansel, is shown to be very unhappy when he passes the torch to her to continue hunting witches as something called the Witchhunter General. There's tears in her eyes when she kills her witch boyfriend and she clearly takes no pleasure in the act.
- Body Horror: Hansel is resurrected from what's left of his body, which is gooey enough to fill a bucket. He's brought back looking like a flayed corpse with one eye.
- The rotting zombies that Jordan creates look absolutely disgusting, especially the ones made from her own family.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: At first it's suggested that Garrett and his two friends are merely being controlled by the dark magical items they've acquired. But the situation is revealed to be more complicated than that.
- Breather Episode: Issue six a bit more light-hearted than the two storylines it runs in between. It's the tale of a stage magician acquiring real magic and has a lot of humor to it, even being drawn in a more cartoony style compared to the rest of the issues.
- Brick Joke: When Peter tames the Chupacabra with his flute, the rest of the squad asks if he's on their side now. Peter assures them he's really quite sweet and he'll have him snoring by Feathertop's desk if they take him back to their headquarters. Guess who is seen later on after the action is over snoring curled up on a rug in Feathertop's office when he talks to Tanner?
- Broken Masquerade: The main crux of the series is exploring what happens on Earth after the existence of the Fables are revealed, which has allowed the world to start developing its own brand of magic.
- The Cameo: Bigby and Snow appear in the first issue to see Connor off after he's recruited by the Shadow Players.
- Cannot Tell a Lie: Thomas of Erceldoune can only speak the truth. Rather than seeing it as inconvenience or being Blessed with Suck, it's just a part of his everyday life, and he can even weaponize it to an extent. He tells himself things every morning like that he won't die and no one he cares about will die, which helps the Shadow Players know how bad a situation is going to get. Humorously, he shocks even himself when he blurts out he's going to fall in love during the mission at the high school.
- Chekhov's Gun: There's apparently "Glamour In A Can", which when sprayed changes the appearance of whatever it coats. Bo Peep uses to give herself a policewoman outfit. She also uses it to turn a pig into a double of Jordan which she then pretends to execute.
- The Chosen One: Joan becomes this for Bobby's cult, both due to her mother's and her own belief in herself. She becomes so infamous she's known as the Apostle Joan even long after she's dead.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Thanks to the Earth now developing its own brand of magic and Fables, all the local urban legends, myths, and stories people have talked about for years are becoming reality. Pretty much everything Jordan first conjures up comes from legends and folk stories based out of St. Louis where she lives.
- In a more specific example, Bobby is too weakened by the trio to take them on directly for many years. It takes a cult forming around him seeing him as a demigod from the students trapped in the high school for decades to give him enough power to try once again once he realizes the only way to defeat the trio is for the entire enslaved population to come together and show a united front with no fear against them. As it turns out, their belief in him was so strong it eventually allowed him to resurrect from the dead and regain a physical body. Given his cult lasted four thousand years, he was around for longer than Jesus had been at that point!
- Comically Missing the Point: Bobby yells at the trio they've turned the high school in a slaughterhouse. Vad protests it's also a sex palace as well as a slaughterhouse.
- Compelling Voice: Vad's amulet gives him the power to make anyone do anything when he gives them a verbal command.
- Continuity Lock-Out: There's almost no chance of understanding anything that's going on in this comic series if one hasn't already read Fables. Even things like Connor's very existence are the result of having to get pretty deep into the comic's run.
- Continuity Nod:
- Connor turns into a giant wolf several times in the series, a reference to the fact he's both part human, wolf, and wind spirit thanks to his parents' heritage.
- He also looks uncharacteristically upset and hurt when Ayesha dismisses his shapeshifting with a few cutting words. In the original comic, he's revealed to have some self-esteem issues from his brother Darien dying at age ten, leaving him feeling pressure to live up to what he feels his brother could have accomplished had he lived.
- Connor mentions being surprised Peter's flute has new magic thanks to the Everafter to it since it was previously all used up. This is a reference to the events of Peter & Max: A Fables Novel.
- Tanner asks Bo Peep if she has kids during a chase and Bo replies no, looking a bit tense at the subject. This is a reference to the novel as well, where Max put a curse on all the Fables to make them infertile and nearly impossible to have children.
- Dead All Along: Bobby never survived his first encounter with the trio and had no idea he was dead for years until they reveal his body to his followers. Fortunately, their belief in him tethers his spirit strongly enough to the world inside the high school that he is able to eventually live again.
- Dark Action Girl: Tanner, the woman working for the group collecting magical artifacts called Acquisitions.
- Determinator: Even being eviscerated and with most of his outsides on his insides, Connor still manages to find enough strength to shapeshift into one of La Llorona's old lovers to calm her down.
- Bobby declares he won't leave the high school until he's freed the students from the trio's control and gets them back to the real world. While he eventually succeeds in the former, he's unable to do the latter before the entire population eventually dies out, leaving him as the sole survivor.
- Didn't Think This Through: Garrett forms a barrier made of a black hole around the high school so no one can get in.....unfortunately that also means they can't leave either. He's too ignorant on how magic works to undo the spell either. It's shown he and his friends get into an argument about it early on.
- Disappeared Dad: Garrett's father barely calls or visits him, something Tanner gets pretty pissed about
- Drunk on the Dark Side: Garrett and his friends go from slaughtering bullies and raping the female students to declaring themselves gods all within about twelve hours.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Though it doesn't stop him from trying to kill Jordan, Hansel openly weeps at the thought of doing so, and tells her he feels no pleasure in what he thinks he has to do.
- When Joan's mother is mortally injured by a falling row of lights, she's barely clinging to life and begs Vad to kill her, saying he owes her that much after all the misery he's put her through over the years. He's clearly horrified at witnessing her slow, agonizing death and agrees. Unfortunately, the magic the trio have doesn't work on those that are not afraid of them, and with her death looming, Joan's mother no longer is.
- Exact Words: With the Fables well aware of this trope, it goes back and forth. Hansel says his signing bonus was to be granted a wish and Feathertop points out the contract states that will only happen when he chooses it. Hansel tells him the wording he chose was extremely specific, as it was to happen upon his death. Since he'd technically died before being resurrected as a walking corpse, his wish has already been granted, much to Feathertop's annoyance.
- Peter's signing bonus was to take on any pain Bo experienced, something he hid from her. While at first she's mad as hell when she finds this out, he explains the exact wording of the spell meant it would be transferred to the one she loves the most. This utterly charms her.
- Extreme Omnisexual: Connor is confirmed to be pansexual. He's shown to have sex with other Fables, humans, and even a ghost during the series run. Not hard to see why given he can shapeshift himself into different forms, which means he has a relaxed view on sex as it is.
- Evil Redhead: Kellen is a redhead and the most brutal of the trio, generally using his clawed glove to eviscerate people.
- Faking the Dead: Bo Peep fakes Jordan's death by transforming a pig to look like her and executing it. She really sends the girl to Nibiru to help resurrect the dead world.
- Fat Bastard: Kellen is shown to be an overweight teen and a brutal one once he starts killing people. He never loses it either as he's still fat decades later.
- Feels No Pain: Bo Peep never seems to notice when she gets hurt. This is because there's a magic spell in place that transfers it to Peter instead.
- Happily Married: Peter and Bo have a rock-solid relationship.
- Heel–Face Turn: Garrett is shown to be the most reluctant of the trio to use his powers to harm others, being the last of the three to start using them to take over the high school. Bobby tells his mother he eventually went through one and turned on the other two. It turns out it's complete bullshit told to make her happy, for Bobby says he was an irredeemable monster that had to be executed because he couldn't turn away from evil.
- Ignored Epiphany: When Jordan is sent to Nibiru so she won't cause anymore trouble on Earth, it appears she's going to restore the world to its former glory using her powers for good now after Bo was kind to her. Come the last issue and it turns out she's actually reviving the dead to take over Earth. Likewise, Tanner acknowledges her part in Garrett's death, even saying "I killed my son" to Jordan and looks like she's going to turn over a new leaf, but immediately decides to help the young girl take over the planet when Jordan mentions her plan.
- Jerk Jock: Being subjected to bullying by these is what causes Garrett and his two friends to snap and start using their magic recklessly.
- Jumped at the Call: Connor is ready to become a Shadow Player spy from the word 'Go.'
- Kiddie Kid: Jordan is twelve years old but is shown to have a talking stuffed unicorn as a companion and wanting to have tea parties, behavior that would be more becoming in a child half her age. Given she's gone through quite a bit of trauma in a short amount of time, it's possible she's regressed into what she sees as more safe behaviors when the world wasn't as turned upside down.
- Living Lie Detector: What Thomas's other power is. He can tell when someone is telling a lie or the truth, even emotional truths rather than literal ones.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Jordan explodes Hansel so thoroughly the entire train car is soaked in blood and guts.
- Meaningful Name: Joan's more names her after Joan of Arc. Just like her namesake, Joan becomes a leader and source of inspiration among their people as they put their faith in a high power, namely Bobby.
- More than Mind Control: Even after their magical artifacts are destroyed, it's shown that the trio's natural personalities were only enhanced by them, not corrupted. They're such monsters Bobby's cult executes them offpage.
- Naïve Newcomer: The series is seen through the perspective of Connor, who joins in the first issue, which allows the set up of the Shadow Players and the exposition of how they work to happen more naturally.
- The Needs of the Many: Feathertop is more than willing to kill Jordan despite her being a child, stating that if he doesn't, she could wipe out the entire planet with how powerful her magic makes her. If it will save Earth, he will do what he must.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bo Peep is reluctant to kill Jordan since she's just a little girl despite Feathertop's insistence she has enough power to destroy the entire world. There are hints throughout the comic Jordan can still be a good person. But as it turns out, Feathertop was right. Sparing Jordan's life and sending her to another world only gives her a lot of time to slowly raise an army of the dead to conquer Earth.
- Noodle Incident:
- The entirety of issue seven is pretty much Maddie alluding to nothing but these in the seven years she's been teaching her students how to use magic, including how she apparently failed them in many ways. This includes not keeping them safe and making many mistakes that put them all in danger while she taught them. The most prominent of these is why Bobby killed Ivan. This is given out as a throwaway line at the end of the issue but never further elaborated on.
- Heck, Bobby Speckland's past in general as Earth's first homegrown Fable. A lot of throwaway lines give out hints about what happened when he first gained his powers, like how he had a hard life and was bullied, how he struggled with his magic at first, or that he's so famous J.J. Abrams made a film on his life, but it's never elaborated on how he got to the point he's at in the present as a teenager.
- When the barrier comes down around the high school, Bobby is the only one left alive, surrounded by skeletons. The skeletons of the trio still have their magical artifacts intact despite them breaking down once the cult surrounding Bobby had no more fear of them. And Bobby himself has somehow regained a physical form made of pure magic despite the fact the belief in him ran out after four thousand years when the last member of his cult died, which was the only thing originally keeping him alive. How and why these things have occurred in the time he spent in there is never explained.
- None of the side characters' backstories are explained, leaving it ambiguous how people like Kara and Ayesha have gotten so good at their jobs.
- Pet the Dog: Jordan has immense powers as a young witch and is not afraid to use them. But she lets her grandma live despite the terrified woman calling the cops because she still loves her granny and even fixes Bo Peep's leg because Bo was being kind to her.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Garrett, Vad, and Kellen become this over the years. They never mature or grow up to become full adults despite spending their whole lives in the high school bubble because their magical artifacts allow them to do whatever they want, keeping them caught up in the mindset of stunted teenage nerds who want to keep lording over everyone who bullied them that they're the ones in charge now. Everything they do comes from the minds of angry teens and it shows. It's also another reason Bobby's cult defeats them. They've grown and matured over the years, allowing their faith to help them become adults, while the trio's magic is only powered by an arrested development teen mindset.
- Only Mostly Dead: Hansel is killed in the first issue but Feathertop resurrects him anyway, implied to be for a purpose never revealed due to the series ending early.
- Ontological Inertia: Even after he's long dead, the barrier Garrett creates is still in effect around the school without a way to break it.
- Questionable Consent: Connor sleeps with a target in the form of a woman he knows in order to get close to him. While a bit surprised at the reveal, the man is not upset at the fact that Connor essentially committed rape by deception by making him think he was sleeping with someone else.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The trio is shown to be quite vile, though one of their works acts is forcing the girls of the high school to sleep with them whether through using their magic to compel or just intimidate them into doing so.
- Really Gets Around: Connor sleeps with a lot of people throughout the issues.
- Really 700 Years Old: While most of the Fables except for the new Earth ones obviously count as this, Bobby also does by the end of the last issue, now being thousands of years old while still looking like a teenager.
- Rookie Red Ranger: Played with. Connor is the most powerful of the Shadow Player spies out in the field in terms of sheer magical power but considering he's only been with the organization a week, the others are much more competent at their jobs, and either have to tell him how to use his powers to their fullest extent or fix the messes he makes using them.
- Sixth Ranger: Bobby joins the Shadow Players in the last issue as Maddie declares he needs no more tutelage after what he went through.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Connor, Bo, and Peter all humorously think of the same idea to combat the evil flying goat heads with the Chupacabra at the exact same time, even all saying the same phrase simultaneously.
- The Power of Love: What fuels the spell that transfers Bo's pain to Peter. It was specifically worded so that the pain would be transferred to the person she loves the most, in this case her husband.
- That Came Out Wrong: Ayesha mentions she's been so busy and isolated by her work she's started to forget what her own voice sounds like. The person she's telling this to is Safrin, a Shadow Player who is mute.
- Time Abyss: Bobby is possibly the oldest Fable alive by the end of his time in the high school, given he spent somewhere close in the range of up to 10,000 years in there.
- Unexplained Recovery: Hansel was last seen in the Fables comic being booted off a cliff by Old Sam after getting a tremendous head start. Here he's back to full health and working with the other Fables again. Possibly justified in that it's been shown many Fables can recover from even the most horrendous injuries if given enough time and if they aren't completely killed, especially if they're from a popular story. Given almost every child in the world has read Hansel and Gretel, that would give him a tremendous Healing Factor.
- Unishment: Jordan and Tanner are both sent to Niridu, an isolated dead world where they're the only two people alive to think about the evil acts they committed. All this does is give them a world to play with and create an undead army from so they can try to conquer Earth.
- Unskilled, but Strong: The trio at the high school, due to never learning the rules of magic, are able to perform amazing feats using their magical artifacts. The problem is they don't always know how to undo them or see the possible consequences of their actions.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- Samantha, the second Earth Fable created who is a sapient fox that wears a blouse and talks but still walks on four legs, is badly hurt and still unconscious once Maddie and her students acquire Baba Yaga's hut. She's not seen again even in the present day, making it unclear if she died from her injuries.
- Mikki is last seen hitching a ride to parts unknown, ready to carry out Hansel's crusade in hunting down witches, This is never followed up on and the series ends before the plot point can continue.
- Weak, but Skilled: When compared to the trio, Bobby is this. They have more magic in terms of raw power but he's had so much training that he has more finesse in how he can use his own to combat them.
- Would Hurt a Child: Hansel and Feathertop.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Thanks to the black hole barrier surrounding the high school, at least five thousand years and even up to ten thousand have passed in a single day before they can break it down.
