A storyteller is rarely original.

Sometimes they make new ones, but more often than not, what they tell are old ones, memories passed down from generation to generation. Stories are original they say, storytellers are not.

The thing is, is that stories rarely are original though.

All buildings start from the base of a floor. All life copies from what came before it. Plants grow to a blueprint edited by countless iterations in their family trees. Things are shaped by their circumstances. Water takes the form of its container and fire burns down a path given to it. At the crux of things, all things are made up of small circles. All of these things seem unrelated, but all of them detail how stories are made.

That it is original in origin, starting in familiarity of the human mind.

It is the middle, the end, and perhaps even the intent when one begins that makes each story unique.

In a roundabout way, a storyteller is unoriginal in their originality, copying tropes and cliches and plots, but in changing the how and the why, the when and the where, the who and the what, even the performance of telling the story and the audience whom they tell it to, a storyteller can become quite the original performer, telling old tales.

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Tell the same story over and over and at the end of eight, ten, a hundred and eight retellings, you will have created eight million new ones to those listening. Then they will go on to tell the tales, to themselves and to others, and in this way gods are made and killed, youkai birthed and died, and humans thrive and survive.

A new angle, a new perspective, a new theme, a new end and a new beginning, a story told over and over will change, whether it be itself or its listeners, who knows.

And in Gensokyo, a land where stories given form are called Yokai, where tradition becomes reality and common sense, where myths are Gods, and all that dwell within its realm are an audience, a storyteller who merely describes what they see is both leader and follower in this group performance.

A Storyteller’s tales is often shaped by the tales that surround them, and in telling these stories,  the teller themselves become a tale amongst the tales told.

To tell a tale is a tale in and of itself after all.

Tell us a story.

Gensokyo Welcomes You.

Oh, Storyteller.

Today’s Proverb:

One time spoken, creates a beginning.

Two times repeated, distorts that origin.

Three times spread,, changes the middles again.

Four times remembered, buries that ending deep ,but not forgotten.

Five times reminisced, solidifies the story.

Six times hidden, the tale grows a life of its own

Seven times changed, it begins to tell its own myth.

Eight times told, an idea becomes being.

Nine and more is for all to find out what legends are left.