Morals Fabulously Mangled

On February 27, Morality Day was observed in Meliora Park with an event titled “Fabulously Mangled Morals.” Participants extemporaneously told new stories based on the morals of classic fables. (A log of the event is available here: Fabulously Mangled Morals Log).

Event host BunnyHugger, devilbunny, secretly and randomly assigned morals taken from fables by (or attributed to) Aesop to volunteers. The storytellers were asked to create a new fable without telling the audience the moral, then the audience attempted to guess the moral (or create a humorous new one). The fable creators included BunnyHugger herself (who went first as a demonstration); Morticon, wallaby; Austin, coati; Beltrami, balloon rabbit; Zenikus, dark renamon; Kroth, alien; and Azure, fox. The fables varied in seriousness and approach, with BunnyHugger giving the most straightforward telling, Austin and Beltrami concluding with shaggy-dog-style puns, Zenikus telling a very grim tale, and Morticon, Kroth, and Azure combining humorous tellings with serious morals.

At the end of the event, BunnyHugger presented two awards at her discretion. The first was for “Best Aesop Impersonation,” awarded to the person whose tale provoked the most accurate audience guess of its moral. It was awarded to Azure, whose moral of “Evil wishes, like chickens, come home to roost” was closely approximated by Jaxen’s guess, “What you do may come back to you.” The second award was for “Best Armchair Moralist,” given to the audience member with the most accurate guess. She declared a tie in this category between Jaxen and Kroth, who guessed “You often scorn that which you cannot have” for BunnyHugger’s moral of “It is easy to despise what you cannot get.” (BunnyHugger disqualified herself from receiving the “Impersonation” award because of her role as judge.)

A final award was given for People’s Choice: Best Tale, determined by an instant runoff vote. In the first round of voting, Austin and Azure tied, but in the second round Azure prevailed, and BunnyHugger presented him and the other award winners with certificates in a short ceremony on Friday, March 2. The certificates were decorated with a picture of a bunch of grapes, which BunnyHugger explained was in honor of the well-known fable, “The Fox and the Grapes.”