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simplyshelbs16xoxo · 2 years

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'Madder Than a Hatter' Chapter 8: are you, are you coming to the tree?

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Jack awoke still lying in the middle of the woods by the old hanging tree. His aunt could have chosen to do away with him, but she left him intact. He supposed she felt the real threat was the legendary trio he practically helped hand over to the Queen of Souls. The skies finally lightened up, no darker than a typical evening now. It was most likely due to Catherine unleashing the most dangerous ruler Wonderland had ever seen, his own mother only second to her.

From the distance he could hear leaves rustling. Someone was approaching. It sounded like horses. Jack was quick to stand, giving himself a head rush. He leaned against the tree to keep himself balanced.

“Your majesty!” Charlie shouted with vigor. The horses skidded to a halt.

Hatter eyed him and the cut noose suspiciously. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“Do you truly think I’d be foolish enough to do such a thing?” Jack shot back. Before he could step any closer, he took notice of Alice sitting behind the former con man appearing to be in one piece. “Alice?”

Clenching his jaw at the softening tone Jack used when speaking her name, Hatter willed himself to not let the bubbling jealousy get the best of him. Besides, the current King of Hearts was married to the Duchess, and it was clear they eventually grew to love one another. But, despite that, it bothered Hatter that Jack would most likely always carry a torch for Alice.

“Jack?” she greeted him with hesitance.

He approached them, looking up at the girl who turned his proposal down…twice. “Are you alright? What did she do to you?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” she replied. “Well, except for the whole missing memories thing, but they’ve been coming back piece by piece.” His look of concern had her elaborating a little more. “I was being drugged in the asylum. I thought it was the pills, but turns out it was the water.”

“…Right.” It was all Jack could muster.

Hatter impatiently tapped his fingers against his leg. He cleared his throat. “We best be gettin’ out of here while it’s still light enough to see.”

“She’s been released,” Charlie spoke up, fear plain on his face. “The Queen of Souls…she’s heading for the palace.”

Jack appeared unsettled. “It’s true. Catherine Thorpe”—he pointedly looked at Alice—“your ‘therapist,’ freed her from her imprisonment here.”

“What else aren’t you telling us?” Hatter asked, clearly not willing to let Jack off easy.

“Her real name is Catherine Heart. She’s my mother’s sister.”

It was a quiet ride through the woods, only Hatter and Alice exchanging words every now and then. No one knew how long it had been, but it was clearly daylight outside of the Wastelands as they finally found the exit up ahead. For whatever reason, they were no longer being held prisoner here. It was a relief to be getting out.

The wind raged once more making it difficult to keep upright. The sound of wood snapping alerted Alice. She turned back to see the trees lifting their roots, using their branches as makeshift arms. “We need to go faster!” she shouted. Hatter glanced briefly behind. Some of the trees were trying to grab for them while others were bending forward over the path closing it off behind them.

Charlie and Hatter had the horses speed up, the exit so close, they could smell the fresh Wonderland air. Alice held on tight. A scream reverberated through the woods. The Queen of Souls was coming upon them. The spindly shadows she commanded were now following after them. One caught up, latching onto Hatter’s wrist.

“Hatter!” Alice tried to pull his arm free. She looked ahead. Almost there. A snarling growl introduced the appearance of a beast with a long neck and snapping jaws. It was incredibly fast, keeping up with them. Unhinging its jaw, it snapped its teeth at the shadow, devouring it, and freeing Hatter’s wrist. “What,” she breathed heavily, “was that??”

“A Bandersnatch,” Hatter answered. “It’s a shadow-eater.” Before he could explain further, he had to get Guinevere to speed up more just as Ophelia kicked it into gear. Their opening was quickly closing up due to the hedges lining the path. Knowing what they’d have to do, he warned Alice. “Hold on!”

Alice closed her eyes just as the horses jumped over the tall hedge blocking them. Once outside of the Wastelands, they skidded to a stop, noticing a couple of scarabs ready to be boarded. Duchess was waiting for them.

“When you didn’t return as soon as I expected, I knew exactly where you went,” she explained. “Come aboard, all of you. There’s room for the horses on the other one.”

Jack explained that they needed to get to the palace as soon as possible. If not, who knew what kind of damage could be done.

The skies were growing dark by the time they returned to the palace. Despite the head start, the Queen of Souls didn’t appear to have played her hand yet. Jack let out a sigh of temporary relief.

“We need to rally together,” he told them as they walked into the palace. “Alice, Hatter, stay here with Duchess. Charlie, you’re with me.”

The knight bowed his head. “An excellent idea, Your Majesty.”

Alice looked between them. “Wait, where are you two going?”

Charlie smiled at her warmly. “Do not fret, Alice, we are merely going to recruit our usual players in this mad chess game.”

“Caterpillar? Dodo?” Hatter asked. He received a nod in response. “Well, good. While you’re at it, try to get that bloody feline to cooperate, yeah?”

Jack shook his head. “That cat is unreliable. I’ve only ever seen him once. He’s more or less a legend in this world, or as some believe, an ancient Wonderland god. He’s too elusive.”

He kissed Duchess before parting with Charlie, leaving her with his ex-girlfriend and her…Hatter.

Catherine Heart admired the storm brewing in the skies. She glanced to her left at the shadowy figure, the key to her destiny. “Won’t be long now; we both shall have our thrones.”

“Yessss,” the shadowy monarch hissed. “We shall.” She cackled as the world darkened around them. The Queen of Souls threw her head back, practically howling with laughter. Naïve fool, she thought.

From afar, thunder crackled, echoing across the land like an omen. The Wonderlandians had no clue just what was around the corner. Some may be running scared, locking themselves away until the danger has passed. Others were oblivious, sleeping soundly on their last night of freedom. The worst was yet to come.

#syfy alice #alice 2009 #madder than a hatter #my fanfiction

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cuephrase · 2 months

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Of the DC comics you've read so far, what would be your top recommendations for people to check out/what have you enjoyed the most?

when i tell you i have been thinking about this all day- i have been thinking about this. all. day.

so disclaimer, as of writing this, i have only read 31 runs from start to finish and 18 arcs/events outside of those runs. on top of, everything i've read so far has been strictly robin-centric, so dick, jason, tim, and damian. (i have read all of steph's robin appearances lol, but i haven't gotten to reading material for her, like say batgirl 2009, yet.) i've also decided not to rec from any run i'm currently reading, so for example, you won't see any batman: gotham knights recs here. because i'm most well-read on the robins, i'm only going to rec for them.

also, i'm going to operate under the following assumption: you've got a basic knowledge of the robins. none of these are where i would necessarily recommend anyone start reading about the boys, but i do think they'd be pretty interesting if you're already somewhat familiar with them and don't want to commit to reading whole character backlogs. does that make sense? i hope that makes sense.

alright, let's do this!

DICK GRAYSON

oh god. this one is actually so hard because he has so much great stuff, but then also i have like a love/frustrate relationship with so much of it. like for instance, i really enjoyed The New Teen Titans, but also lowkey can't stand space adventures so whenever that went down i was like 😀👍. but okay. hmmmm.

i have two preboot recs, with explanations + caveats.

devin grayson's mob!dick arc, so Nightwing 1996 #99-100, 107-117. caveats: it doesn't really get to finish playing out/wraps up weird because of editorial changes/infinite crisis. but!! it's a super interesting look at how dick handles...failure. how he values himself in light of that failure.

tomasi's run, but specifically #147-153. (listen, i love the dick and tim moments in 'freefall' but the whole eternally pregnant lady thing was too weird.) this is classic, hyper-competent dick, okay? he's such a bad-ass. and an idiot- bro literally flops his severely injured ass over the bars of his glider and rides it UNCONSCIOUS back to the batcave. i can't with him. poor alfred. anyways, he deals with two-face, always a good time. and then at the end, as a treat, he cries because bruce is dead. so fun!! what was my caveat here? oh yeah, he has a girlfriend. i don't remember her name, she serves like...very little purpose, the whole relationship is very minor/background okay, but like it was so unnecessary. he can be single, dc, it's okay.

for post re-boot, just read tom taylor's run!! it's the best thing ever!! zero complaints!!

HA. yeah, just kidding. that run is very like/frustrate for me lol. oh man i'm struggling here. it's not all bad okay, i'm just really picky, and i haven't re-read any nightwing n52 and onwards since my first foray into comics (8 months ago) so my memories of these are the foggiest and i'm not sure how i feel about all of it in light of what i've read now. yk what, i'm just going to...not rec anything. sorry!!

JASON TODD

his comics either go so hard or they're absolute ass, why is there no in between. istg, i can't figure out why writers struggle with him so much?? well. i mean, i do have theories. but you didn't ask for those!

pre-boot:

detective comics #569-574. robin!jason in the hands of writers who like him is so much fun. which, don't get me wrong, i don't flat-out hate how starlin writes him, but i think you get a more well-rounded view of jason as robin when you also see him in 'tec. jason and bruce tangle with the joker, scarecrow, + mad hatter, and all of those adventures are...idk if they were intentional foreshadowing okay, but reading those and knowing where the story goes? oof. especialllllly #574. caveat: #572 is pretty light on jason, but he is great when he's on panel!

reboot:

probably a very basic answer but rhato rebirth (2016) #1-13, annual #1. i abhorred n52 rhato so i almost skipped rhato rebirth since it was still written by lobdell, but i'm really glad i didn't. i really enjoy jason's relationship with bizarro + artemis, but especially with bizarro because i think jason struggles a lot with feeling like a doomed creation, so yk, parallels. i want to say more but i know i'll get too wrapped up in discussing jason so i'm just going to stop myself.

i actually really enjoyed task force z, too. i think about tfz #8 so much, jason is such a manipulative little shit and i love it. he's so- i can't. i can't get into this rn, it deserves its own post(s).

overall for jay, i need people to read something other than utrh/lost days/b:ul 1-6. i love those, i do, but they aren't the only good pieces of jason content!!

TIM DRAKE

MY BELOVED!!!!!!!!!! in my heart of hearts, i just want to rec his whole robin run lmao. dick was my intro, okay, he is why i decided to start reading comics, but tim, specifically his robin solo is why i'm still reading comics. hooked me fr. and young justice 1998, ugh love. but it has been a minute since i read these as well, so hmm. okay okay okay

pre-boot:

batman: prodigal. short version, tim is robin to dick's batman. super fun. there's a solid amount of dick and bruce angsting too, which, love. tim is honestly just thrilled that jpv is out of the batsuit and even happier to working with dick. very cute.

robin #46. listen. they're all superheroes okay, they all feel pressure to save people. but tim...losses get to him. the amount of times that he gets shoved to a breaking point and then...gets back up. keeps going. *screams*. anyways!! this is not tim getting back up, okay? this is him being shoved way, way down. it's so good.

teen titans 2003 #20. tim's dad has died. he shows up for his weekend at the tower anyways. he is not okay. that's it, that's the pitch. i did not like...mmm at least 80% of this run okay, but a few of the issues HIT and this was one imo.

reboot:

*deep sigh*. look. tim is not tim for like basically all of n52, although there are moments here and there were he feels like himself. i did not like his 2023 solo, the best parts of young justice 2019 imo are the character designs, (except for his drake costume, what was that omg), and i haven't read any rebirth batman/'tec yet. except for zdarsky's run. which. tim is good there! but yeah, not really a whole lot of material to work with + very limited reading experience atm.

DAMIAN WAYNE

god, i love this kid. nature vs. nurture fascinates me, and so much of his story digs into that on top of trying to figure out who he is apart from all of that. i will say, i'm not a huge talia fan and by that i mean, i have no idea who she is "supposed" to be, like i have no frame of reference for that atm, so if you are a huge talia fan these recs might not hit for you because from what i've observed from her fans she is not well portrayed a whole lot since becoming his mother? i think one of the things that is normal is dick absolutely disliking her though, which cracks me up. there's this older batman story (batman #322-335) where bruce works with talia and dick goes running to selina and i was so entertained. what were we talking about? oh! damian!

preboot:

batman and robin 2009 #10-12. damian is struggling, with a lot of things. the fact that bruce might be alive, what that means for him and dick, and his mother's puppeteering. there's this line that kills me: "can't you just love me for who i am? not what you want me to be?" and the thing that gets me, is the use of who vs. what. because he could have said, "not who you want me to be", but he doesn't

reboot:

batman: shadow war. this is post-alfred's death, and honestly, most damian stuff post city of bane is pretty juicy, but there's this specific moment in shadow war: alpha #1 that had me speechless. just like 😧 i love bruce, but that man has some of the most chronic foot-in-mouth disease. oh but fair warning, for whatever reason they don't draw dami's mask connecting?? it's so- it drives me nuts.

JUST FOR FUN

these are just two issues that i enjoy for the brother content!

nightwing 1996 #25. dick and tim's relationship makes me ILL. *ahem*. this issue is mostly just super cute and fun, (there's like 0.2 seconds of angst when tim asks dick if he ever thinks about jason 😭) and i adore it sm. fun fact, it's actually one of the first comics i ever bought!

batman 2016 #16. unfortunately, tim is not here for this, but duke is! jason and damian's interactions in the background of bruce's Very Serious Speech are excellent. bruce is so dramatic and his kids are so unserious.

what i've most enjoyed

i've enjoyed the majority of what i've read, even titles/events i wasn't particularly looking forward to but had on my tbr for whichever character. i'm going to break down most enjoyed into two catergories, arcs that i loved top to bottom and then the guilty pleasures. this is not an exhaustive list, just what immediately came to mind.

top to bottom

bruce wayne: murderer?/fugitive. shocker, ik. but it's just, it's just so frickin good. i've said before, and i'll say it again, gotham war could NEVER. this right here is peak batfamily drama. the tension? the mystery? the angst? i knew nothing going into this okay, and truth be told, when i started it i was like "oh joy. another event." because i was just trying to read the 1996 nightwing run, but i'd committed to reading in full all the events it crossed over with. but i was invested so quickly. and like, i loved how the narrative supported the possibility that bruce was the murderer, because like, you know there's no way, but the more that comes out the more damning it is, and so you're like really dying to know what actually happened and i feel like the reveal was satisfying.

batman: city of bane. i'm going to cautiously put this here, because there might have been something i didn't like but i cannot recall it for the life of me right now. something about me is i love when the heroes lose. infinity war, empire strikes back? love. and ik bruce takes back gotham, but they lose alfred, okay, they lost. i also didn't expect to like this arc, i decided to read it because i wanted to know how alfred died. and first of all, i was shocked, even though i knew it was coming because i expected it to like happen towards the end. but nope. just *snap*. and then later when bruce is back in the manor and is confronted with alfred's body and his good-bye message? oh. my. god. i was bawling. despite my penchant for sad narratives, i don't tend to cry that much, but this got to me so bad. like i had to pause because i couldn't see. amazing.

red robin. his cowl is so ugly, but i really do love the run. i see a lot of discourse about it and also a lot of...interesting fanfic takes, so i don't really talk about it a lot here because it feels like most people are kind of tired of hearing about this run, which fair. i really enjoyed it as a sequel to his solo robin run. tbh, i almost put this in the guilty pleasure catergory, because there are a couple things i don't totally love, but like if the others are 10/10, this is 9/10.

young justice 1998. i love this comic so, so much. i don't even know what to say, i get so overwhelmed with joy when i think about this comic. nothing has hit the same way with this group since either, which is a crime. i need a title with this team so badly.

guilty pleasures

these are all runs/events i know some/most? people cannot stand and i totally get why, and i have problems with them, so i'm probably never going to rec them in good conscience but also like i can't lie and say i don't like them. these are not recs, okay? okay.

robin war. is it a hot mess? yes. but there is not a whole lot of canon content out there with all the boys working together, okay? so much of that event had me banging my head into a wall, but for me, there were a handful of pearls in there. i mean honestly, if i listed out pros and cons the cons list would be way longer but those pros are very precious to me.

batman and robin: eternal. very similar reasoning overall to robin war. plus cass finally came back!! i missed her. i love robin!dick and batman content, and the kids working together. this is probably my least favorite guilty pleasure though, okay, it's on thin ice.

grayson. listen, i love janin's art sm. i'm pretty neutral about spy stuff, so like i don't engage with it a whole lot. meaning, although i've heard it's tropey af in regards to the genre, i'm not familiar enough with the genre to be like trying to dig my eyeballs out with blunt spoons at the cliche of it all. the constant sexualization of dick got old super fast, and her name may have been helena but she wasn't- my list of dislikes is lengthy. but idk, i had fun with it. and imo it does have some genuinely great moments, i love dick in the desert with the baby, the ache i felt when dick wanted to come home and couldn't get ahold of bruce, issue #12 stabs me in the heart- the dick and dami reunion? stoppppp. i feel like this run and the ric grayson era are dick's most out there lmao

so yeah!! thank you so much for this ask, i had sm fun answering it. if you have any recs for me, feel free to drop them :)

#dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #damian wayne #nightwing #red hood #red robin #robin #dc comics #i almost included a fave panel from each rec but i didn't want the post to be even longer #cue answers #anon asks

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