Down the Plot Hole: Author's Notes
If anyone wants to suggest another hole for me to fill, I'd be happy to give it a go. The only other one that really stood out to me was what the Cheshire Cat dream sequence was all about; and I'm pretty sure it's there because the idea of Wonderland without a Cheshire Cat is like a vegetarian BLT, with even more false advertising involved. I did try to come up with a halfway reasonable explaination, and had some quasi plausable theory about Cheshire Cats needing dreams to live, and not being able to live off the dreams of Teaheads, but the story itself never quite solidified. So...yeah.
Anyway, step by step process:
1) Dyeing for Your Country
I think everyone adn their little brother watched Jack Heart's introduction and went "the hell?" It was so blond! So shiny! I had to come up with a good reason why it hadn't been like that before, so I figured he'd dyed it to blend in. I also imagine that his mother was not impressed, and somewhere down in his little rebellious soul, he sort of wished he'd gone for turquoise instead of brown. But, my Jack is kind of strange like that.
2) New Math
Basic math skills are important. For example, were you aware that two numbers that end in a zero will never add up to a third which ends in three? It bugged the hell out of me.
So, I wrote this, partially to explain why the idea of going into that study scared Head!Alice so much, and partially to try and rationalize why it could have been the two of them in that apartment for ten years and Alice could have been ten when her father left, and still be twenty-three. It also ended up adding to Alice's drive to find her father and her massive trust issues of suspicion and mistrust.
3) Italian American Sauced Bread
I blame Andrew Lee-Potts' delivery of this line for how fandom has latched onto it. He said it like Hatter wasn't entirely sure what he was suggesting, but had a vague idea that it was something you could do if you wanted to have fun with a girl whose relationship status with you was 'it's complicated'. So, I had it be something Alice had bought up earlier. Occam's razor works wonders in this situation.
4) The Lone Knight
I love Charlie. I do not understand how it would be possible not to love Charlie in all his insane, kooky, fridge horror filled glory. And I feel that, while the idea of his dragged the army up from the woods piecemeal and setting it up was certainly awesome... it made no sense from the viewpoint of both time constraints and the need to lure Suits out. So therefore, he must have done something even more awesome to pull it off. I was, as my end-of-the-chapter author's notes said, inspired by another piece of fanfiction which was a reworking of the entire mini. I had fun writing it, because this is pretty much the plot hole for this fandom.
5) It Got Worse
One of the things fandom tends to jump on Alice for is not helping Hatter when he was trying to save her from the Suits. I tend to think that this is a bit unjust: while they never showed her going into handcuffs, her hands are restrained behind her back the entire scene. Judo isn't something with a heavy focus on kicking or stomping: most of the footwork involved is so that you can unbalance the other person with being unbalanced yourself (note: handcuffs do throw off your balance, which isn't going to help either). After writing this peice, it occured to me that they were close enough to the edge that her 'heights thing' might be kicking in as well. So I don't think it was a lack of will to fight, so much as a lack of ability to do anything effectively. She also seemed pretty sure that Hatter was dead when they met up at the Casino, so I added that to it as well.
6) Knights of the Old Republic
This wasn't exactly a plot hole so much as an embellishment. One of the things this series did to varying effect (and one of the reasons I adore it so much) is that it does tend to just expect the audience to accept things without comment. We're never told that Alice's father is a scientist: if we haven't put it together by the time Carpenter's identity is revealed, the picture of a younger Robert in his lab ties that together nicely. Likewise, we're never told that Alice and her mother moved from the yellow house, but we've seen where they live, and if it's been ten years, it's probably not something worth comment upon. Of course, there are several instances where this doesn't exactly come off well, hence this entire series, but you can't have everything, and I do like a show that expects me to think while watching it.
There are also several character-defining moments which are very good at showing development without actually telling us how they're developed. Alice spends most of the story focusing on her points of reference with her life on Earth, and that's what keeps her afloat now that she's in Wonderland and sorely lacking in a frame of reference. Then she's confronted with a reminder of the consequences of her inactions, and decides to move anyway. Duchess' eventually loyalties are hinted at in everything but her opening scene: her conversation with the Queen and King is tense and she is clearly acting under considerable pressure, and when Jack fakes being poisoned, she sounds and acts genuinely distraught. Jack spends most of the part two getting beat over the head with reasons why reassurances are occassionally necessarily, and eventually he seems to more or less get the point.
On the other hand, Hatter's character defining moment is when he decides to work with the Resistance, even though they are, at present trying to kill him. Before, everything he's done can be written off as selfishness; this is the first thing we've seen him try and do that is hard to put down to self preservation. Helping Alice to the Great Library was supposed to turn a profit; standing between her and Dodo's gun was just protecting a very valuable asset; he thought he could fight Dodo off fairly easily before making his escape with her, and when that failed he might as well spite Dodo on the way out. He was planning on leaving Wonderland behind, and that probably would have been the safest thing he could do. It's an abrupt change from that to 'no, I've got to stay, there are people depending on me'. While Andrew Lee-Potts did a good job conveying how enthralled and unbalanced Hatter was during the introduction to the City of the Knights, it was largely done in the background of a scene which was about Alice and Charlie. I felt like it needed more emphasis, and so I wrote it.