entranceway | text } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland Blog of Georgia Mason, entry #12

The Mirrors are watching us. This is common knowledge, one of the first things we tell newcomers. There is another Wonderland through the looking glass, and it's inhabited by the doppelgangers we call Mirrors. Calling them our "evil twins" would be an oversimplification, both because not everyone on this side would qualify as the "good twin," and because while these individuals are supposed to be our reflection and, in some ways, our opposites, that doesn't mean they're evil. Like us, they are complicated individuals and generalizations cannot capture all of them. They serve the Queen of Hearts, and the influence she has on the Mirrors cannot be understated. For one thing, she's their maker, though the Red Queen claims they would exist even without the Queen of Hearts' help. If they piss her off, she can also "unmake" them.

Sounds nice and bloodless when you put it like that, doesn't it? Well, take it from an artificial, imperfect copy with implanted memories that never really happened to me. I was made by mad science, not Wonderland magic, and I lived under threat of being "decommissioned," not "unmade," but the differences are negligible. It’s a pretty word for murder and a reminder that you're replaceable.

If the gun to their heads isn't enough, the Queen manipulates and lies to the Mirrors. She sets them at each other's throats, and she sets them against us. Wirt's Mirror carries a lantern with him constantly. He was convinced by the Queen that it held his brother. We examined it together and quickly proved that it actually contained some material tied to Mirror Wirt himself. It never had anything to do with his brother at all.

It's a lot of effort that shouldn't be necessary if she's as capable of instilling loyalty as she insists she is. She has their loyalty and fear, but their free will is their own. That's why she has to keep them divided. That's why she lies. And that's why instead of fearing the Mirrors, instead of bending to the Queen's wishes and being enemies, we need to become allies. We're all prisoners of Wonderland, whether we originated here or not.

Many of you may remember the portal incident from last year, when Leo Fitz and Cisco Ramon used a combination of technology and metahuman power to break through to the Mirror side. It was the first successful, intentional breach by a Real in recorded Wonderland history, and it happened because they consulted with Mirrors. Granted, the Mirrors in question were manipulating and lying to Fitz and Ramon, and the results of that experiment were in many ways disastrous. But this does not have to be how it is. Imagine what we could accomplish in a good faith partnership between Mirrors and Reals. We need to find a way to break the Queen's hold, both because it is the right thing to do and because it may be the only way we can take control.

A young Mirror once accused me of wishing death on the Mirrors because of the title of my zine. Shattered Mirror does have a violent sound to it. I can understand where she got that, but it was never my intention. I named my zine the Shattered Mirror because I want to destroy the barriers between us. We will never achieve anything if we continue to behave as they expect us to behave. Break the glass. It's time to rise.

Mirror Writing

[As usual, Georgia makes sure to leave copies within reach of the glass so that any interested Mirrors can snag a copy without actually crossing over and disobeying the Queen. Unlike usual, she very intentionally tugs down the curtain that normally covers her office Mirror. In big, bold, backwards letters she write ƧTͶƎMMOƆ next to a taped up copy of the article. Then she sits and waits.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[He honestly doesn't want to touch this with a ten foot pole. He doesn't like Mirrors, and he's made that pretty dang clear. And he really doesn't want to get into a fight with her again. He doesn't even necessarily disapprove of this plan, but...]

not that i'm a big fan of mirrors, but

you realize this kind of thing could start a war, right?

not between us and them, but between them

hell, if she suspected mirrors were turning against her...i mean, there's no reason she couldn't just slaughter every last one of them

and then make a new batch that's more loyal to her

it'd be genocide

I know. That's part of the problem. And something we need to correct before any actual actions take place.

how do you expect any of them to turn if she can kill them with a snap of her fingers?

I don't. I expect us to find a way to keep them from dying that easily before we make any moves.

she seems like the type to lose her temper if she catches mirrors just *reading* your zine

you gotten any responses from em yet?

If she even acknowledges I have that much potential power. And if the Mirrors don't immediately disavow my words.

Yes. It's been about what I expected. Most of them are pretty skeptical, as well they should be.

One defaced my mirror with alien porn.

i'd be willing to bet that most of the mirrors don't care. they're *designed* to love her. it's like programming. at least i prefer to think of it that way.

[Because otherwise he has to accept that there's a naturally occurring version of Sans who would emotionally abuse a Papyrus, a version of Papyrus who would happily kill a Sans, a version of Mettaton who would kill everything between him and what he wants, and a version of Alphys who would torture her friends without batting an eye.]

hehe wow. creative bunch.

[That strikes harder than Sans probably meant it to. But considering her brain is just as programmed as the Mirrors', she personally really doesn't want to think of it that way.]

We're all programmed in our way. Doesn't mean we can't be our own person anyway.

yeah, but just

[But she probably gets it, right? More than most.]

it's a hard thing to break, is what i'm saying. even without literal programming.

you can care a lot about someone and keep caring about them, even if they've done terrible things or hurt you.

i think a lot of them see her as their "mother," which makes it even more messed up.

She's not much of a mother.

[Kind of reminds her of Stacy.]

Hard to break doesn't mean impossible. I'm willing to make the effort.

aren't you always?

[For better or worse. Ah well.]

what if it turns out that their hatred of us isn't all just because they've been told to?

what if they really do just hate us all that much?

Then they'll be loyal of their own, free will. Even if it doesn't end up benefiting us, it's still the right thing to do.

is it still the right thing to do if we all end up dying permanently? mirrors and reals?

Do you have any evidence to suggest that will happen?

i don't *technically* even have evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow morning

i'm just thinking of the worst case scenario

prepare for the worst and be pleasantly surprised when it doesn't happen, right?

That's a bullshit comparison. You do have evidence the sun will rise tomorrow. Even allowing for the fact that Wonderland may not work along the scientific principles present in some other worlds, there's an observable pattern of the sun rising. Is it theoretically possible the sun won't rise tomorrow? I suppose, but there's no reason to think that tomorrow will be the day it breaks the pattern.

Just like there's no reason to assume everyone is going to die. That's not preparing for the worst. That's panicking.

man i could get into the science and the fact that the sun probably isn't even real but i don't think i want to have an argument about whether the sun's gonna rise

[The logic applies back home, too. There's no sun underground, the fact that it's rising and setting on the Surface has no bearing on life underground, and there's no such thing as tomorrow.]

[Arguing about it just boils down to philosophy, really, and he's not in the mood.]

nah, that's nihilism. there's a fine line.

My point isn't the science. It's the pattern. I honestly doubt the sun is real here, any more than the seasons or anything else is. Doesn't change the fact that there's a pattern, and you can use that to make a prediction.

Amazingly, a nihilistic outlook does not make you immune to panic.

[She always has to dig at every little thing he says, huh? Ah well.]

[He knows plenty about patterns. Wonderland breaks its own pattern several times a month, although that doesn't necessarily affect the sunrise. Does Wonderland bother making the sun rise and set during events that are set underground, or in illusory worlds? Seems like a waste of magic. The point of the sun is for people to see it. Maybe to put people at ease, make them feel like any of this is real.]

you ever *wonder* what wonderland would be like if it just dropped all the pretense

if it just got rid of all the illusion and fake stuff

Every fucking day.

heh.

talk to ya later, yeah?

Of course. Take care of yourself, Sans.

text } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland Blog of Georgia Mason, entry #12

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]

[text]