I love this story to bits. And it's definitely my longest Perry story yet, even without the lost scenes.
Parallels with Once Upon a Time
I love the current ABC fantasy series Once Upon a Time, in which fairytale characters end up in our world, most without their memories. My love for the series was partially responsible for the inspiration of The Case of the Broken Ties, but not entirely. The premise of everyone losing their memories and ending up living new lives is familiar to me; I've tried writing two other stories about the idea. The Perry version is, to date, the third one and the only one I've finished.
It was kind of eerie when I started thinking about the parallels with Once Upon a Time. Even moreso since hardly any of them were done on purpose! Take a look at this:
In Once Upon a Time
- Everyone has false memories.
- Two people other than the villains remember the way things are supposed to be. (August and Jefferson.)
- No one can leave Storybrooke. If they try, something bad happens, such as a car accident.
- Most people have been placed in capacities other than their previous ones.
- Snow White (Mary-Margaret) is a school-teacher.
- Snow and Prince Charming are being deliberately kept apart.
- The Evil Queen, Regina, has an irrational hatred of Snow.
- Mr. Gold, aka Rumpelstiltskin, is very quiet and calculating. He stays in the background, letting Regina control everyone's situations, but he is the one who is really in charge.
- There is an enchanted death at the climax of the first season's events.
- True love breaks the death curse, but for once it is not romantic love. It's familial.
- Breaking the death curse also breaks the spell over everyone's memories.
- Everyone now has two sets of memories: their lives in the fairytale world and their lives in Storybrooke.
In The Broken Ties
- Everyone has false memories.
- Other than the villains, only two people know the truth. (Hamilton and Paul.)
- No one can leave Los Angeles County. If they try, they wind up hurt.
- Some people have been placed in other capacities instead of keeping their current jobs.
- Della is a school-teacher.
- Perry and Della are deliberately being kept apart, although here it's because the villains are afraid that if they see each other the spell will weaken, not because of an irrational hatred on the villain's part. Nope, that angle comes in with ...
- Vivalene has an irrational hatred of Hamilton Burger, but rather than thinking he ruined her life she's just angry that he has rejected her multiple times and recently has been prosecuting her for attempted murder. In spite of all her evil, Once's Regina is still more sympathetic than Vivalene! At least Regina occasionally shows moments of humanity, mainly where Henry her son is concerned. Vivalene, to my remembrance, has never shown any humanity in any stories in which she has appeared.
- Vivalene's sister Florence is like Mr. Gold in that she is staying in the background and is more calculating in her plans. She only lets Vivalene think she's ahead. In reality, Florence controls everything.
- Enchanted death at the climax.
- Breaking the death curse involves true love, but not romantic love. It's friendship.
- Breaking the death also ends up breaking the other curse, although here it's because Vivalene deliberately set it up that way, thinking neither curse would be broken. On Once, I don't think anyone knew breaking one curse would break the other, unless Mr. Gold knew. He seems to know and plan for just about everything.
- Everyone remembers everything, both the false memories while under the spell and their true memories.
There is really only this one fully intentional parallel:
- Mr. Vann is the Mr. Gold equivalent, although he is mostly a visual counterpart only. As mentioned, Florence takes over Mr. Gold's role in the story.
And when I finally needed a first name for Vann, I chose "Carlyle", as in Robert Carlyle, the actor who portrays Mr. Gold.