Through a Looking Glass, Darkly

Through A Looking Glass, Darkly is a Darker and Edgier fanfic retelling of Syfy's Alice, itself a Darker and Edgier retelling of Alice in Wonderland. Spoilers for that series will abound on this page. It follows a storyline that is pretty common in every version of a tale that takes place Down the Rabbit Hole: what if Alice had grown up in Wonderland?

The story follows Alice, mainly called Jelly or Jellybean, a Ten of Spades, as she turns to the Resistance when her father begins to go mad. It has plenty of flashbacks to Jellybean's childhood, and also does a lot to flesh out the Suits' way of life.

It was written for the Alice in Wonderland Big Bang. The master post is here.


 * Action Girl: Jelly, saved from being a Dark Action Girl by virtue of the fic being about her Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal.
 * Action Mom:.
 * Arranged Marriage: From a Certain Point of View, namely Jack's:
 * Ascended Extra: Sheila, Shakina, and Carlotta St. Delaware all have speaking parts.
 * Battle Couple: Hatter and Jelly.
 * Becoming the Mask: Subtle, but there: pay attention to when 'Jelly' is used as opposed to 'Alice'.
 * Black Best Friend: Othello is a bit of a subversion; he's a complainer, but ultimately, he follows along with whatever plan Jelly has come up with.
 * Brainwashed:
 * Bulletproof Vest: Hatter, Jelly, and the Spades in general have this.
 * Cain and Abel:
 * Child Soldiers: Suits begin their training at age fourteen.
 * Cold-Blooded Torture: The Tweedles.
 * Conditioned to Accept Horror: At one point, Jellybean realizes that she's built a life and career around the idea that a certain amount of executions need to take place, no matter what the people getting the axe did.
 * Conservation of Ninjutsu: Jelly goes up against a posse of Spades in the Forest of Wabe. Guess who wins?
 * Culture Police: A part of Jelly's job is to catch book smugglers.
 * Deadpan Snarker: Many. Carpenter evidentially deals with his job as an unwilling Mad Scientist by explaining to his superiors how they're just plain wrong. Ask a Stupid Question and Jack will give you a stupid answer. Hatter and Jelly banter around their Unresolved Sexual Tension.
 * Dude in Distress: Carpenter,
 * Even Mooks Have Loved Ones: Indeed they do.
 * Evil Matriarch: The Queen of Hearts.
 * Femme Fatal: Duchess,
 * For Want of a Nail: After all is said and done,
 * Good All Along: The Suits.
 * I Control My Minions Through...: Fear for their loved ones, drugs, and the power of Social Engineering. If it works for you, you can also kill people For the Evulz (with the Queen's permission, of course); if none of this does, it's either Brainwashing or off with your head!
 * I Have Your Wife: A integral part of enforcing the Suits' loyalty is the implicit, omnipresent threat against their less valuable/more vulnerable family members.
 * La Résistance: A somewhat fractured political body, divided into two main groups: country (led by Tortoise) and city (led by Caterpillar).
 * Magic Knight: Charlie.
 * Makes Just as Much Sense in Context: No amount of context explains Charlie.
 * Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Jelly's kicks off the story.
 * Mook Face Turn: En mass, with shades of The Dog Bites Back involved.
 * Non-Action Guy: Jack
 * Only Sane Man: Hilariously, Hatter wonders if this is his job at one point.
 * Out, Damned Spot!: Jelly has tendency to nearly rip her fingernails off trying to get the blood out from underneath them.
 * Police Brutality: Hatter gets a demonstration of this.
 * Reverse Mole: Jelly, in order to kick off The Mutiny.
 * State Sec: The Spades
 * Sleep Cute: Hatter and Jelly snuggle in front of Charlie's fire.
 * Stuffed Into the Fridge: This fic's favorite trope:
 * Deconstructed: A part of the Suit culture is that everyone is related to someone who was executed, making them all the more willing to obey their orders so that the loved ones they have left are spared the same fate. Many of these dead loved ones are women, because the Queen is more likely to find women, especially intelligent, outspoken, or assertive women a threat to her power.
 * Subverted:
 * Played Straight:
 * Defied:
 * Tarot Motifs: Each chapter is named after a tarot card, and includes a description of what the card could mean, for both upright and reversed drawings.
 * The Atoner:
 * The Mole: Jelly, during the food riots, acting as a Fake Defector.
 * The Mutiny: How the Queen is ultimately defeated.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Jelly to Jack . Hatter to Jelly  . Caterpillar to the Hamiltons  . Othello to Jelly  . Jelly to Hatter.
 * You Can't Go Home Again: