#kitcedrise

Requested by @athena-xox! (This is the only time all three of them stand next to each other with nobody else in the entire show).

You know I HAD to include one of the best polyship options in the series! These guys fascinate me because they're super close in each individual pairing, but they almost never hang out as a group, and it's because of WHY they're close in pairs. Let's break it down!

Kitty and Cerise are close because Kitty is a shithead and I'm here for it! All of the Wonderlandians in the series are very unacquainted with social norms and have no desire to be. That means things that seem dangerous or unusual to the residents of Ever After are positively ordinary or mildly interesting to the Wonderland kids. In Kitty's case, this manifests as having a very. . .interesting moral code. Her moral compass is certainly pointed in a direction, but it's not one that makes sense to anyone around her. To Kitty, the worst thing you can ever be is boring. So when she sees that Cerise is actively hiding the most interesting part of herself, she obviously decides she's going to poke into that.

It's important here that while Kitty is being a jerk and knows that---Cerise is trying to keep a secret and Kitty is trying to expose it---she doesn't think she's endangering Cerise's life. I don't think she registers just how forbidden Cerise's situation is and just how badly people would react at the beginning of the series. Kitty just doesn't think about those things. She believes she's just harmlessly jostling the status quo, not lighting it on fire. And it does become evident in later parts of the series that Kitty does really care about Cerise and is friends with her. Once Cerise has someone who knows her secret and who she knows won't spill it on pain of Raven cursing her ears off, she's able to let down her guard, relax, and be comfortable around Kitty in a way she can't be with other people. And they get to bond over being half animal and feeling socially isolated from their peers!

On Cerise and Cedar's end, they start out very sad. They like each other so much. It's basically impossible to not like Cedar, and Cerise is no exception. She's being exposed to the full force of that girl's charming quirkiness at all times. And Cedar really wants to be friends and close with Cerise! She thinks Cerise is cool and is sad that she's so lonely all the time! But because Cedar is cursed to not just tell the truth but is compelled to spill her guts all the time, Cerise can't get close to her. No matter how much she cares. It's the thing the two of them fear the most in action. Cedar is kept in the dark by the one's she loves and can't do anything to help them because she's cursed to blab about it. Cerise can't have a normal life or normal friends not because of anything she's done, but because of who she is.

Which makes the fact that they are evidently close anyway all the more amazing. Cerise may not have come out and told Cedar "Hey I'm half wolf," but it's clear she's comfortable exhibiting those wolf behaviors around Cedar because she knows she'll just accept it and love it like she loves the rest of her. And she knows Cedar won't pry! Cedar accepts those boundaries!

Kitty and Cedar are an amazing pairing that lives almost entirely in the books. Once Upon A Time by Shannon Hale reveals that despite Kitty's very aloof attitude towards her classmate, and despite her being kind of a jackass, she really really appreciates Cedar. Before the school year starts, Kitty doesn't consider anybody friends except for Lizzie and Maddie (and Bunny and Alistaire). The exception to this is Cedar, who she has decided is an "almost-friend." Cedar's wonderful feature of just accepting people as they are without being weird about it is on full display again. The year before, when Kitty was sick, Cedar took it upon herself to take care of her and make her warm milk, and that was enough to fully endear her to Kitty. We see more of this relationship displayed in A Wonderlandiful World. Cedar is kind and respectful to Kitty even when she's being The Worst (TM), and Kitty is super protective of Cedar and is willing to do a lot to keep her safe or just because Cedar asked nicely.

So basically, their trio is formed by Kitty and Cerise mutual antagonism (even if Kitty started it) that they have fun with, Cedar and Cerise's casual friendship with it's unspoken boundaries, and Kitty and Cedar taking care of each other when nobody else will. While I do think KittyWood is the strongest corner of the polyship, it's important that they smooth out each others loose ends and rough edges. Where Cerise can't trust Cedar with her secrets, she can trust Kitty, and Kitty can trust Cedar, which solves the isolation problems for both of them. Where Kitty won't admit that she likes Cerise, she'll go to bat for Cedar. Where Cedar might get stepped on by Kitty, Cerise will stand up to her. Despite the three of them having zero screen time as a trio, they're so important to each other individually that it works anyway.

I do like them as explicitly romantic as well, I think it does something for them. Kitty is uh. . .very tsundere-esque towards these two in particular. She starts out cold towards Cedar and cruel towards Cerise but quickly becomes their number one supporters. In a way that isn't present with any of her other relationships. The categories for her are basically Wonderlandian (automatically trusted and deserving of respect), Other People (terribly boring unless she turns them into prank victims, not worth her time), and Cedar and Cerise.

Cedar also has a bit of a mini-arc with them about wanting people to like her. Since those two are so closed off, it means Cedar has to work at the relationship and gets giddy when she succeeds. That's important for someone who's usually everyone's second best friend. Maddie and Raven love her of course, and most people are friendly with her, but Maddie and Raven are still closer with each other than with her, and nobody else will trust her. And she usually just decides she's going to live with it and move on. But something makes her really want to try with Cerise and Kitty. And the fact that they DO trust her specifically when they trust almost nobody else is so so so important for Cedar.

Similarly, Cerise choosing to let people in is so very important and she really does not do it with most people. She does it with Raven, which is why Ravise is S-tier. She may not have revealed herself to Kitty willingly, but the fact that she stayed for that relationship and didn't just completely freeze Kitty out indicates that Kitty is extra important to her somehow. And of course, choosing to trust Cedar despite the massive personal risk is, as we discussed already, a big deal.

So I love this ship, they have a lot of great interactions with each other and function really well as a trio, but I can't put them in S-tier just because the three of them in a romance doesn't affect the rest of the story much. It makes great strides in their own personal arcs, but those strides don't have much bearing on the other characters. Easy A-tier though!