bella toscana ; dtae

Instructions

dtae the dream of wonderland of long ago _____ do not repost outside of scratch without permission. art by @-707 (one alice icon image by @sharkdog_) scroll code by @-707 music (bella toscana) by wayne jones & amy hayashi-jones characters designed by @sharkdog_ drawn on procreate _____ BACKSTORY (this was originally going to be presented in pmv format but i ran out of time so im just gonna type it weeee) tl;dr - escapist makes philosophical mind goobers to cope with reality and the queen makes a callout post wonderland theatre is a stage that exists in a dream. it's a nonsensical place with inhabitants that are even more eccentric than the world itself, and yet seems too real to be merely a dream. . . alice - the dreamer - is, unbeknownst to all but herself, the creator of the stage and its main protagonist. taking the form of a 12-year-old wanderer, she retreats into a fantastical world that exists in her own mind in order to cope with the stresses of reality. she's not entirely sure of who she is or where she is or what she is meant to do, and the world, with all its peculiarities, makes no sense at all, but she strangely finds comfort within its absence of rhyme or reason. she sets off on her journey after encountering a white rabbit, who seems to be in a hurry. carrying a sack of important letters that both fall out of and fly away from his messenger bag, she catches their anxious ramblings about "the queen" and realizes one of the letters they've dropped is addressed to.. none other than the queen himself! she calls after the rabbit, asking him to slow down, but they keep their pace and won't listen to a word of reason. he fears the queen and the implications of authority, insisting that he may not enjoy what he does nor agree with the queen, but obedience is necessary. they (unintentionally) pose the question of complacency and whether it is worth neglecting one's own values and morals to bend before the whims of an authority figure, whether by way of greed, fear, or anything else. then they speed off, so she follows after the rabbit with the intention of returning the letter to him. alice loses the rabbit after some time, but finds herself in front of a tea party set for four, despite the fact that only three sit at the table: a hare, a dormouse, and a tiger cub wearing a large hat. she asks if they've seen a rabbit carrying a messenger bag running about and they refuse to answer her question until she's sat down and had some tea. the cub pours alice a cup of tea - of the strangest flavor she's had in her life - and introduces herself as a hatter. upon conversing with her, alice comes to find that the hatter rambles like a lunatic - and nothing she says seems to make sense at all! this mad hatter spurns conformity and norms, rejecting laws and rules set in place to stifle the self and breed nothing more than another cog in the machine of society. she says what she likes, she does what she wants, and she lives for none but herself. she raises the question of the value of conformity versus individuality, and whether it is worth sacrificing oneself to be accepted by society. the dormouse, who has been napping the entire time, complains in his sleep of a trample of footsteps heading westward, to the mushroom forest. the hatter and the march hare seem to forget alice is there entirely and start another nonsensical conversation with the sleeping dormouse, who can't hear them anyway, and alice takes the opportunity to slip away to the west. sure enough, there's a trail of letters weaving through the towering mushrooms, and she can even see the rabbit hurrying past in the distance. so she follows after him, until she can't see him anymore - not because he's getting further away, but because the mist is.. thickening into a fog? alice stumbles blindly through the dense fog for some time until she comes upon a caterpillar, who seems to be asleep at first until they blow a few bubbles out of a toy pipe. alice asks the caterpillar for a way out of the forest but they give a vague answer. further questioning seems to get alice nowhere; they deflect her answers by asking what the point of anything is, when there's a nice thick blanket of fog and plush, squishy mushrooms to rest upon rather than continuing on her journey. they force her to confront the topic of escapism, and whether ignoring and running from one's problems is truly a solution, or whether it simply leads one to reject the world for a false truth that is "easier" to deal with. the sound of fanfare breaks through the fog, and alice wanders towards the sound of it until she reaches a large castle. the trumpet announces the start of a trial of the court, of which both the judge AND the plaintiff of the case happens to be the queen himself, and the defendant is.. the white rabbit?! (continued below) _____