A Vlog Series that puts all your favorite fairy tale characters in college.
Walt University senior Ella Cinders, along with friends such as Rapunzel Cheshire, Rose Red, Belle Beaumont, Ari Waters, and Snow White, is part of a program called "University Ever After". Said program entails the involved students living together in a dorm, making a series of videos showing their lives at Walt U, and posting the videos online for prospective students to watch.
Ella doesn't expect the videos to be too drama-filled, until someone starts sabotaging her fashion projects for a competition to get an internship at the prestigious Charming Company. Meanwhile, the camera keeps turning on and off by itself, and no one who knows who's editing the videos or why they choose to keep in material that was not meant to be shared. And who's that princely guy Ella danced with that one night, when she had to leave at midnight before she told him her name?
The Character Sheet can be found here.
The videos can be watched here
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Tropes:
- Art Shift: Most Season 2 episodes are filmed in varying styles. For example, "Tale as Old as Time" is filmed in black-in-white, instead of the full color of most episodes, as an Homage to Film Noir.
- Bookworm: Belle is always reading a book.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Belle and Ben are apparently incapable of saying a civil word to each other, but perhaps there's something there.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Despite seeming perfectly sweet, Rose Red is secretly plotting their revenge against everyone for ruining their mother's company. And also for not inviting them to a party held the same night.
- Brainy Brunette: Like the Disney version, Belle is an intelligent, well-read brunette.
- Composite Character:
- Snow is also one of Ella's step-sisters.
- "The Captain," a.k.a. "Hook," has a real name — Eric.
- There's a reason the swimmer who dreams of leaving the water is called "Ari" instead of "Ariel." It's short for Arianna, and she's the beloved cousin of Elsie, a talented chemist whose gift can sometimes also be a dangerous curse.
- Dance of Romance: Ella and her Love Interest make their romantic connection while dancing.
- Disappeared Dad: It's unknown exactly what happened to Ella's father, but it's implied he died some time before she and her step-sisters went off to college.
- Falling-in-Love Montage: Ella and Eli get one.
- A Friend in Need: All of Ella's friends are willing to risk blackmail to help her when her project is sabotaged.
- Helicopter Parents: Rapunzel's parents manage to be controlling even after she gets to college, since they can pull her out at any time.
- Hidden Villain: Rose Red is the Big Bad of Season 2. And Olaf is helping them.
- Hook Hand: The Captain gets one after losing his hand when a building where he was partying collapsed.
- Hostage Video: Rapunzel's kidnapper has her make one, in which she reads a riddle giving her friends a twelve hours to figure out what the kidnapper wants and where they're keeping her
- Is This Thing Still On?: The camera picks up the characters gossiping about each other when they thought it was off.
- Laugh Track: Used in "Hooks, Hacks, & Singers."
- Mythology Gag: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is the name of Snow's band.
- ...Or So I Heard: After making a pun on the similarity of the names "Belle" and "Bellatrix," Hook is quick to deny being a fan of Harry Potter.
- The Outside World: Rapunzel views college as her chance at freedom, after being homeschooled and and having her activities heavily restricted by her parents her whole life.
- Prince Charming: Handsome and politically connected Eli Prince may not be literally royalty, but he sure is charming.
- Revenge by Proxy: Rapunzel had literally nothing to do with what happened to the Big Bad of Season 2, but still incurs their wrath. She didn't even know what her family was involved in.
- Satellite Love Interest: Eli's Ella's Love Interest and Prince Charming figure, is into film, and they both like the same band... but other than that, there's not much to him.
- Shipper on Deck: Rapunzel believes Ella and Eli are meant to be.
- Shout-Out:
- The name of the university the characters attend is "Walt," as in the creator of the company best known for its adaptions of many of the fairy tales the series takes its influence from, such as Cinderella and The Little Mermaid.
- In episode nine, the white board hanging on Ella and Rapunzel's room has "A Dream is a wish your heart makes" written on it.
- Rapunzel asks Ella and Snow to come with her to "see the lights" downtown.
- Snow met her crush "by a wishing well."
- Mulan's show is called "Dark Side of the Moon.''
- Shang tells Rose Red she doesn't look "tranquil as a forest."
- Ari asks Eric if he's going to "kiss the girl."
- Rapunzel mentions in one episode that Belle cooked some "gray stuff." Must be delicious.
- Detective Aladdin is always "one jump ahead" of criminals. He's solved about "one thousand and one" cases.
- The characters like to go to a bar called "The Woods," leading to one episode titled "Into the Woods." Other episodes include "This is More Than Just Malice", "If Only There Were Doors", "Sick of Swimmin,'", "Trials and Tribulations," "A Girl Who Gossips is a Bore," "Tale as Old as Time," "Mother Knows Best," "A Beauty but a Funny Girl," "Something There", "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister," "The Fairy Menace", "Things Fall Apart," "The Incredible Beast" ''Scandalous,", "The Good, the Bad, & the Collapsing Houses", and "Love Fell Out With Me."
- One character complains that wanted posters "always get my nose wrong." It might be written off as a coincidence, if this wasn't a show about fairy tales... and the character was addressing Rapunzel of all people.
- The scene between Belle and Ben in the series finale was written to to echo one between Pam and Jim.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Tink likes to refer to her "fans," although so far, she doesn't seem to have any, at least in-universe.
- Tempting Fate: Rapunzel confidently proclaims that the blackmailer can't do anything to hurt her. Immediately afterward, she gets a call from her mother, who isn't happy with her. At all.
- Wicked Stepmother: Ella considers her stepmother to be this.
