Just A Professional Hooker Here To Lurk

- Brim is so wide that I stay BONE DRY taking walks in the rain

- Brim can be positioned to block the sun from ever getting in my eyes AND keeping it off the back of my neck

- The pointed top part creates an air pocket, keeping my head from getting hot or squishing my hair as it might in a ball cap

- Hat can easily be pulled down over the tips of my ears without looking dumb, protecting them from wind chill

- Strangers say they like my hat, giving me the chance to tell them that I am a wizard

- When you’re wearing a wizard hat, ALL OTHER FASHION CHOICES become secondary, allowing you to branch out with style

What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself

She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.

All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.

Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.

He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.

The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.

And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.

Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.

And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.

You start seeing society as it is: a collection of flawed, limited, man-made institutions that can be ignored, reshaped, or abolished. You see your environment as something that you’re free to improve and beautify. You see items on shelves as common property which is unjustly hoarded and guarded. You see cops as violent oppressors upholding the unfair demands of the ruling class - but you also see them as human, able to be avoided, fooled, and fought

like people want to think any disabled person who is after money is morally suspect some way, because they're not asking for "treatments" or "accommodations" like a lot of our issues can be fixed way more easily with money. can't drive? paying for a taxi is often one of the more accessible alternatives. can't cook? you can pay more to have prepared food delivered to you. food restrictions? that food straight up costs more money. can't clean? you can pay for someone to do that. house inaccessible? having (lots) of money can help with that, you get the gist.

The Tiny Me in OSHA-approved Hi-Vis Gear Who lives in my brain and pulls all the levers: Boss, it's the fascism. You're completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you're also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you're going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances.

Me: BUT I HAVE A BULLET JOURNAL AND I MEDITATE NOW.

There was one episode with a trans woman getting different gender-affirming operations, including breast implants. It showed the procedure, and (what I found so fascinating that it's stuck with me for decades), as soon as the doctor put the implant in, a censor blur popped up on the nipple.

And you just know there was a meeting between the TLC lawyers and the editors and producers of the show to discuss what the difference was between a "man nipple" (can be shown) and a "woman nipple" (no no must obscure, 'tis naughty). And they decided that as soon as the implant goes in and the nipple has more mass behind it, that's the moment when it becomes a woman's nipple and must be hidden to comply with TV rules.

But it's the same nipple. On the same person. I know what it looks like; I just saw it. But TV and obscenity rules are rules, and the rules say woman nipple = sexual and therefore explicit, but man nipple = neutral, just fine.

(This post is a summarized version of some of my previous posts, and made in an attempt to briefly explain the labyrinth that is the Alice series to new fans.)

The first thing one should know that the Alice series is originally a Japanese otome game series by Quinrose that has led to a large number of manga and novel adaptions and one movie. So far a significant portion of those manga and one light novel has been translated to English, and the first game has received an official English release in the iOS/ android platform.

The games are the original canon of Alice series that involve the actual writer who created the whole concept of this franchise. Manga adaptions have been made in order to spread the fanbase, but they’re all written by different satellite writers and are more like an officially approved fanfiction archive. XD None of these adaptions can be considered an universal ‘canon’, as every manga author has a different approach to the storyline and the characters and their interactions, with each other and with Alice.

GAMES: There are 10 games in the total in the Alice series (7 if we don’t count the remakes). Only the first game, Heart no Kuni no Alice, has received an official English translation on the iOS and Android platforms in the name of Alice in the Heart ~Wonderful Wonder World~. You can download it from iTunes or Google Play. You pay for the full routes, but you get to have the first chapter and prologue for free! And believe me, it’s very generous of them since the prologue is like almost long enough to be 25% of the game. The translation is rather bad, so you should download the app and once you’ve gotten through the free content, buy the routes if you have money and you can handle the translation. Every character costs $7 ($5 without voices), and a set of all characters costs 38$ ($25 without voices). Getting the voiced version is highly recommended because the high-level voice acting truly adds to the experience.

OFFICIALLY LOCALIZED MANGA: By Yen Press:   ‘Alice in the Country of Hearts’ encompasses the entire first game of the Alice series and was the first Alice manga to be licensed in North America by Tokyopop who published 5 volumes before shutting down. After that the series was re-released by Yen Press. Yen Press has only one other manga of this series called ‘Alice in the Country of Hearts: My Fanatic Rabbit’. That manga is also based on the first game of the Alice series, but it features an Elliot/Alice pairing.

By Seven Seas: Seven Seas Entertainment has been releasing a lot stories that come from all the different Alice series games. Like Yen Press’s My Fanatic Rabbit, most of the other manga of this series are focused on a romantic relationship between a character and Alice, instead of being an equal focus on all the characters like Hoshino’s manga (Circus and Liar’s Game being the exception). None of the mangas have any chronological connection to each other. They are alternate versions based off different character game routes from the Alice series games and should be considered independent of the ‘Alice in the Country of Hearts’ manga in case of everything but the world setting.  Their “Alice in the Country of Heart” books are all based off of the first game mentioned before, “Alice in the Country of Clover” titles are based off of the second game in the series and Alice in the Country of Joker: Circus and Liar’s Game encompasses the entire third game. Alice Love Fables: Toy Box is a collection of stories featuring different pairings. The officially published manga list so far is:

Alice in the Country of Hearts:The Clockmaker’s Story - Julius/Alice Alice in the Country of Hearts:Love Labyrinth of Thorns - Julius/Alice Alice in the Country of Hearts:The Mad Hatter’s Late Night Tea Party - Blood/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: Cheshire Cat Waltz - Boris/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: Ace of Hearts - Ace/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: Knight’s Knowledge - Ace/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: Bloody Twins - Twins/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: Twin Lovers - Twins/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: March’s Hare - Elliot/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: March Hare’s Revolution - Elliot/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: Nightmare - Nightmare/Alice Alice in the Country of Clover: The Lizard Aide - Gray/Alice Alice Love Fables: Toy Box Alice in the Country of Joker: Circus and Liar’s Game - Blood/Alice Alice in the Country Of Joker: Nightmare Trilogy - Nightmare/Alice Alice in the Country of Diamond: Bet on My Heart (novel) - Blood/Alice

Recommended order for reading: Please see this post.

FAN TRANSLATED MANGA: Mad Hatter Scans has published a lot of Alice manga and doujinshi, and while they recently have taken a break from this fandom, their sister group Country of Clocks has continued working on Alice manga projects, accompanied by the recently surfaced CF translations group. Once you have have read a couple of the official titles you can jump into the sea of fan-translated stuff.  Other than the full chapter releases below, you can also find a large number of translation snippets of Alice mangas/comic strips/drama cds done by many tumblr users in my Alice series resources page.

By Country of Clocks and Mad Hatter Scans:

1) Full-length Manga: Alice Love Fables ~Rose Petit Coeur~ (Blood/Alice main,other pairing oneshots-Ongoing, Blood/Alice portion finished) Black Lizard Bitter Taste (Gray/Alice) -Finished Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Toeki Usagi to Gogo no Koucha wo~ (Peter/Alice) -Scanalation finished until release of next volume Sangatsu Usagi no Kakumei (Elliot/Alice) -Finished

2) Oneshots: Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonder World~ Fanbook (The Mansion Gardens- Blood/Alice) Shinsouban Heart no Kuni no Alice Visual Fan Book (Nightmare/Alice) Shinsouban Clover no Kuni no Alice Deluxe edition Booklet (Nightmare’s Story- Nightmare/Alice, Pierce’s Story- Pierce/Alice) Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Twin World~ Fanbook (Julius/Alice) Clover no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonderful World~ Fanbook (Voiceless Call- Peter/Alice) Heart no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonder World~ Theatrical Version Anthology (Black or White-Slight Joker/Alice, Elliot Story-Elliot/Alice, Julius story- Julius/Alice) Diamond no Kuni no Alice~Wonderful Wonder World~ Anthology (Blood/Alice) Omochabako no Kuni no Alice - Joker Story (Black Joker/Alice) BlackxGold anthology (That Which Can’t Be Said- Gray/Alice, Before One Knows- Blood/Alice,The Children Complain- Twins/Alice) WhitexSilver anthology (A troublesome thing- Blood/Alice) Expectation is Better Than Realization Anthology (Nightmare/Alice) Toybox no Kuni no Alice Deluxe Edition Comic (Elliot/Alice) Gluttony Kills More Than the Sword Anthology (How to Get- Blood/Alice) Tastes Differ Anthology (Fated Encounters- Peter/Alice, Blood Story -Blood/Alice) Love is Blind Anthology (Be Your Last- Vivaldi/Alice) Live and Let Live anthology (The Usual Daily Life with the Queen- Vivaldi/Alice) Excess Sugar anthology (Sweets Sweets- Twins/Alice, Time Limit Valentine- Blood/Alice) Divided Equally Chocolate anthology (Beware of Valentine’s!- Blood/Alice) Hard to End (Blood/Alice) Alice in the Country of Diamonds Maker Tokuten (Sidney/Alice) 3) Doujinshi: East Castle Doujinshi (Blood/Alice,Gray/Alice,Julius/Alice) Komadori Doujinshi (Nightmare/Alice) Flower Doujinshi (Peter/Alice) Mini Mini! Doujinshi (Cuteness, no pairing) J Scramble A Doujinshi (Julius/Alice+Ace/Alice) (*doujinshi refers to fanmade comics and aren’t necessarily canon)

Other groups: Joker no Kuni no Alice ~Circus to Usotsuki Game~ One volume done by CF translations. Renai Otogibanashi - Toy Box - Dropped project by Otome Cafe, scanlated ch 3,5,6 (Blood, Peter, Elliot). Happy Style (BorisxAlice) by Atsuki Ryokuka from Clover no Kuni no Alice ~Wonderful Wonder World~ Official Visual Fanbook. Scanalated by Forest Whale Scanlations. Alice in Junk Box -Applause- JokerxAlice oneshot by CF translations. Download link here, courtesy of ikareta of CFT. Alice in Junk Box ~Dia~- AcexAlice oneshot, joint release between CF translations and Country of Clocks.

MOVIE: A movie adaption was released in Japan by the end of July 2011. You can watch it subbed online here, although I wouldn’t recommend watching it right away if you wish to get into the series. One needs a thorough understanding of the game plot to spot all the symbolism, and even for people who do know everything it is still pretty much a bunch of randomness. 

MUSICAL: Alice in the Country of Hearts got a stage musical adaption early this year that ran from February 4 to February 11 in Tokyo. You can get the DVD from cdjapan or pre-order from AmiAmi. No English subtitles, but it’s worth checking out if you enjoy musicals or just want to see the cast being portrayed by real people. The masterpost with pics/information on this musical is here, and the blog hosting the unofficial translations of tweets from the HnKnA character Twitter accounts being run by QuinRose is here. (The accounts were created as part of an advertising campaign for the musical.)

DRAMA CD: There are a number of drama CDs, most available as special bonuses with deluxe versions of the games and a few sold separately. Drama CDs don’t get official translations, but a few have been translated by tumblr users (available in the drama cd section of Alice series Resources page.