AIW One-Shot - Wonderland Turns Really Dramatic
I'm very technically behind 300 words today, but that surprises me anyway, because there's so much homework this week. I was starting to worry, even, that this week was going to ruin my chance at winning NaNo this year. I guess, for another day, I'm safe.
Chapter 44 is almost done, but it too has places where it needs improvement, so I'm thinking maybe I won't be posting anything new in November for He's There, but then editing what I got through in December and posting once a week.
13017 / 50000 words. 26% done!
Now, I don't know if this is cheating, but I would hope not, as I did it last year as well when I split my writing into two stories. I wrote almost a thousand words tonight doing an assignment for Creative Writing that turned into a little one-shot for Adventures in Wonderland, so I added that to my word count.
As for why it's an AIW fanfic, she never told us we had to come up with original people, and I figured my teacher wouldn't know this show and just think I was interpreting iconic characters. For those of you still wondering "why the hell are you writing AIW fics for school?", the answer is simple and I hope you can be sympathetic: the class is driving me nuts. It's my least favorite and our teacher is a grad student who doesn't know how to engage a class and stimulate their brains. So it was either shoot myself or make this assignment fun in some way.
The only thing is it's a little serious! I took an oooold idea that I once joked about with a friend about this jacuzzi Hatter made for the Dormouse in one episode that almost killed him. Our joke was that he went flying and actually died, and Hatter and Hare tried to cover it up. My assignment features them acknowledging that they killed him and wondering if they should tell the truth, but it's kind of sad. It's another part of that Wonderland I imagine when "the cameras are off" and truly bad things happen that can't be laughed off. However, it's still Wonderland, so there are still all of the zany things.
ANYWAY, posted it under cut. Tell me what you think, AIW friends.
On a normal day, the pink, drooping branches of the woeberry trees would sway in the wind, and the wind would be soft against their faces. It would be warm and playful, carrying the scent of flowers to them from far away; maybe all the way from the Queen’s garden.
Today, there was no wind, and Hatter noticed after his walk across the cemetery with Hare.
They had never before needed to understand death. It was as foreign as the other side of the Earth. The eulogy may as well have been in Chinese, but perhaps the main reason they couldn’t understand it was because the Dormouse’s mother wouldn’t stop sobbing in between words. Hare tried to appreciate this stretch of land, this stretch of crumbling tombstones, as an exotic work of art; like a rock garden with many, many stories, but it wasn’t working.
A taxi was supposed to arrive at the gates at 3:00. Hare checked his pocket watch and saw they were a few minutes early. He shoved both hands back in his pockets and watched down the street while letting a short, quiet sigh pass his lips. Instinct told him to glance at his friend, and when he did, he found him sucking his lip with his eyes glazed over.
Hare opened his mouth to speak, but Hatter had already been preparing a long, self-deprecating speech. He erupted accordingly: “I did this! It’s all my fault! I was the one who built the Jacuzzi! I was the one who gave it a 440 flakawitt spin cycle. I was too lazy to buy the right corabulator for a rodent who probably weighed less than a pound. A rodent who was my friend for over five years! I had to pick the one lying on the floor in my attic because ‘real inventors should have everything they need on their attic floors’!”
“Hatter, calm down!” Hare pled, taking back the arms the Hatter had shot towards the sky. “I had as much to do with this as you.”
“No, you did not. You and I both know you’re just my assistant.” Hare’s eyes, round like chocolate chips, dropped to his shoes.
“…I didn’t know that.”
They paused, and Hare withdrew his hands. He stepped backwards and looked for the taxi again. A pastel blue car had just turned the corner and they waited for it to come closer. This was the one.
They stepped in to each side of the back. Hare let himself fall like a sack of meat. Hatter sunk in very slowly and bent up his long legs. When the car started moving, he ran his gloved hand through his thick blond hair neurotically as he looked out the window. Hare pulled out his watch again and started turning it in his lap. Finally, Hatter said, “it’s the mercury poisoning. It has to be! There’s no way I’m that thoughtless naturally.”
“Yes, there is, but you weren’t this time!-“
“I’ll give up hats! No more hats!-“
“It was an accident! It was fate!” Hare tried, clenching his fists and shaking them, but Hatter’s eyes were off in space, reliving the moment over and over again.
“He would have survived if he’d just let the centrifugal force whirl him around long enough - we could have stopped the machine somehow - but he had to jump! Oh! The poor little guy! His own sense of self-preservation killed him!”
The taxi-driver was clearly discomforted by this talk, but Hatter and Hare didn’t notice because they had scooted to the center of the seat and started bawling in each other’s arms. They had pent up just enough angst for the wailing to last the entire car ride. When the taxi finally came to a stop near 1608 Teapot Terrace, Hatter, who had curled into a ball and completely soaked Hare’s shoulder with tears, pulled himself up and clutched the front of his tailcoat. Hare looked him straight in the eye, and spoke with a voice hushed by guilt: “Do you think… we should tell them the truth?”
“No!”
“I don’t mean now, but some day.”
“I don’t know.”
“I have a feeling Rabbit already figured it out, Hatter. The way he was looking at us during the ceremony-”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m just not ready,” he said. He stepped out into the still world beyond the windows and the blackness of his suit made him look like a paper cut-out. Hare wasn’t used to seeing him in black. He knew that it wasn’t the clothes that changed their personalities, but he felt like all he wanted to do was go home and change as soon as he was there. He wanted to wear his bright past again.
He watched his poor friend pass the tea table, where a large, empty pot sat. Before he went through the swinging “IN” door, Hatter removed his hat and held it to his chest. Hare knew that somehow, for the both of him, he would need to convince him that, tomorrow, the tea would be just as sweet. Tomorrow, Dormouse didn’t want to be interrupted. Dormouse was working towards his doctorate, and he loved his cartoons. He did spring cleaning every month and needed at least three naps a day. He would be busy. Busy, for an eternity, and this made a lot more sense than death.
Chapter 44 is almost done, but it too has places where it needs improvement, so I'm thinking maybe I won't be posting anything new in November for He's There, but then editing what I got through in December and posting once a week.
13017 / 50000 words. 26% done!
Now, I don't know if this is cheating, but I would hope not, as I did it last year as well when I split my writing into two stories. I wrote almost a thousand words tonight doing an assignment for Creative Writing that turned into a little one-shot for Adventures in Wonderland, so I added that to my word count.
As for why it's an AIW fanfic, she never told us we had to come up with original people, and I figured my teacher wouldn't know this show and just think I was interpreting iconic characters. For those of you still wondering "why the hell are you writing AIW fics for school?", the answer is simple and I hope you can be sympathetic: the class is driving me nuts. It's my least favorite and our teacher is a grad student who doesn't know how to engage a class and stimulate their brains. So it was either shoot myself or make this assignment fun in some way.
The only thing is it's a little serious! I took an oooold idea that I once joked about with a friend about this jacuzzi Hatter made for the Dormouse in one episode that almost killed him. Our joke was that he went flying and actually died, and Hatter and Hare tried to cover it up. My assignment features them acknowledging that they killed him and wondering if they should tell the truth, but it's kind of sad. It's another part of that Wonderland I imagine when "the cameras are off" and truly bad things happen that can't be laughed off. However, it's still Wonderland, so there are still all of the zany things.
ANYWAY, posted it under cut. Tell me what you think, AIW friends.
On a normal day, the pink, drooping branches of the woeberry trees would sway in the wind, and the wind would be soft against their faces. It would be warm and playful, carrying the scent of flowers to them from far away; maybe all the way from the Queen’s garden.
Today, there was no wind, and Hatter noticed after his walk across the cemetery with Hare.
They had never before needed to understand death. It was as foreign as the other side of the Earth. The eulogy may as well have been in Chinese, but perhaps the main reason they couldn’t understand it was because the Dormouse’s mother wouldn’t stop sobbing in between words. Hare tried to appreciate this stretch of land, this stretch of crumbling tombstones, as an exotic work of art; like a rock garden with many, many stories, but it wasn’t working.
A taxi was supposed to arrive at the gates at 3:00. Hare checked his pocket watch and saw they were a few minutes early. He shoved both hands back in his pockets and watched down the street while letting a short, quiet sigh pass his lips. Instinct told him to glance at his friend, and when he did, he found him sucking his lip with his eyes glazed over.
Hare opened his mouth to speak, but Hatter had already been preparing a long, self-deprecating speech. He erupted accordingly: “I did this! It’s all my fault! I was the one who built the Jacuzzi! I was the one who gave it a 440 flakawitt spin cycle. I was too lazy to buy the right corabulator for a rodent who probably weighed less than a pound. A rodent who was my friend for over five years! I had to pick the one lying on the floor in my attic because ‘real inventors should have everything they need on their attic floors’!”
“Hatter, calm down!” Hare pled, taking back the arms the Hatter had shot towards the sky. “I had as much to do with this as you.”
“No, you did not. You and I both know you’re just my assistant.” Hare’s eyes, round like chocolate chips, dropped to his shoes.
“…I didn’t know that.”
They paused, and Hare withdrew his hands. He stepped backwards and looked for the taxi again. A pastel blue car had just turned the corner and they waited for it to come closer. This was the one.
They stepped in to each side of the back. Hare let himself fall like a sack of meat. Hatter sunk in very slowly and bent up his long legs. When the car started moving, he ran his gloved hand through his thick blond hair neurotically as he looked out the window. Hare pulled out his watch again and started turning it in his lap. Finally, Hatter said, “it’s the mercury poisoning. It has to be! There’s no way I’m that thoughtless naturally.”
“Yes, there is, but you weren’t this time!-“
“I’ll give up hats! No more hats!-“
“It was an accident! It was fate!” Hare tried, clenching his fists and shaking them, but Hatter’s eyes were off in space, reliving the moment over and over again.
“He would have survived if he’d just let the centrifugal force whirl him around long enough - we could have stopped the machine somehow - but he had to jump! Oh! The poor little guy! His own sense of self-preservation killed him!”
The taxi-driver was clearly discomforted by this talk, but Hatter and Hare didn’t notice because they had scooted to the center of the seat and started bawling in each other’s arms. They had pent up just enough angst for the wailing to last the entire car ride. When the taxi finally came to a stop near 1608 Teapot Terrace, Hatter, who had curled into a ball and completely soaked Hare’s shoulder with tears, pulled himself up and clutched the front of his tailcoat. Hare looked him straight in the eye, and spoke with a voice hushed by guilt: “Do you think… we should tell them the truth?”
“No!”
“I don’t mean now, but some day.”
“I don’t know.”
“I have a feeling Rabbit already figured it out, Hatter. The way he was looking at us during the ceremony-”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m just not ready,” he said. He stepped out into the still world beyond the windows and the blackness of his suit made him look like a paper cut-out. Hare wasn’t used to seeing him in black. He knew that it wasn’t the clothes that changed their personalities, but he felt like all he wanted to do was go home and change as soon as he was there. He wanted to wear his bright past again.
He watched his poor friend pass the tea table, where a large, empty pot sat. Before he went through the swinging “IN” door, Hatter removed his hat and held it to his chest. Hare knew that somehow, for the both of him, he would need to convince him that, tomorrow, the tea would be just as sweet. Tomorrow, Dormouse didn’t want to be interrupted. Dormouse was working towards his doctorate, and he loved his cartoons. He did spring cleaning every month and needed at least three naps a day. He would be busy. Busy, for an eternity, and this made a lot more sense than death.