BREAKING } from Ace of Spades, the Wonderland blog of Georgia Mason, entry #7

[choosetruth]

As many of you have no doubt noticed by now, we are in the midst of what, for lack of a better word, I'll call an event. Not a normal event, though. Wonderland hasn't raked through anyone's memories and put bits of our lives on display. This is the doing of individual Reals and Mirrors, and the fallout of their actions, proving once again, our greatest enemies will always be ourselves.

Leopold Fitz and Cisco Ramon, two scientists that started out with the best of intentions, as so many scientists do, have been trying to create a way out of Wonderland, though they refrained from sharing this information with the public before running their experiment last week. "I don't think anyone's been that in the dark that some of us have been working on trying to find a way home. There's no sense in getting people's hopes up over something that is almost certainly destined to fail the first few, probably hundred times," said Ramon, when questioned.


Fitz and Ramon's portal. Photograph by Shaun Mason.
Fitz did put out a statement to the public, but only of the potential for noise pollution. "We won't be working with anything particularly dangerous," he stated, and when pressed for details would only reveal that it was "a mechanical stress test." Upon further investigation, the mechanism in question was a portal generator, made using technology and power sources from both Fitz and Ramon's worlds as well as technology from the recent space event and data from the recent event with the alternate reality tears. Fitz still maintained his stance on the level of danger the portal provided when questioned. To his knowledge, it was unfinished and incapable of taking them anywhere. Previous attempts had either failed entirely or only managed to take them elsewhere in Wonderland. "At this stage, we only want it to turn on without exploding," said Fitz.

And turn it on without exploding they did, but rather than pointing somewhere elsewhere in the mansion, as has occurred in previous similar experiments or leading actually home, the portal opened onto the Mirror Side. This was a surprise to Fitz, but Ramon, who was under the impression the Mirrors had kidnapped his associate Caitlin Snow, sabotaged the experiment intentionally using information gleaned from Fitz's Mirror. This allowed Ramon to access the Mirror side and switch places with his Mirror, who had at the time of our interview continued to impersonate the Real Ramon for the whole week. Mick Rory's Mirror also passed through, attacking a number of Real individuals to provide distraction.

The portal may have been a success, but the attempts to evade the Queen's attention were an abject failure. She ordered her Mirrors to cross over and apprehend the Mirrors involved in the attack. This may have been a more successful endeavor had she bothered to inform her agents which Mirrors were the traitors. They were also ordered to "punish" the Reals, involved or not, by messing with their minds and stealing possessions that held sentimental value to them. At that point, it became clear things had gone extremely wrong. "We've been running electronic simulations for over a year to make sure this would be a safe test," Fitz stated. "This shouldn't have happened. There's no explanation for it."

There is, of course, an explanation, and it lies with the real Cisco Ramon, who is obviously unavailable for comment. Fitz has spoken favorably of his intentions, but good intentions don't change facts. It's notable that catastrophic fallout or not, this is the first successful breach of the Mirror Side by Reals using methods other than the Rabbit Hole or the Mirrors. It is possible following this line of research could eventually lead us to more successful tests later, but Fitz won't be the one leading the research team. "Everything I try just hurts someone. I can't keep doing this to people," he said, "I'm not a hero. I'm not going to be the one who solves it." One can only hope that whoever does take up the challenge next has a better sense of safety procedures and is less inclined to listen to words written on mirrors.

Addendum: Mick Rory's Mirror, who prefers to be called Chronos, has made it clear that regardless of the intent of the mirrors involved, his motives were revenge, not furthering along their schemes.

[ooc: feel free to threadjack around and discuss with each other in the comments! Turn this into the nightmare comment section all articles deserve.]

Comments

text; (OTA come shitpost at him if you want to)

[hypoxic]

Please don't blame Cisco.

I did it.

I forced his involvement.

I'm responsible for everything that's happened.

I'm sorry.

[He should write more. He owes them all more. It's just that he's falling short here as well.]

text; private

[beatnomore]

[ Well this is certainly a level of guilt she recognizes well. She sends the message with a filter that keeps even George and Shaun from seeing it. ]

Taking responsibility after the fact doesn't do much. Do you have a plan for fixing things or are you going to wallow?

text;

[choosetruth]

Cisco is an adult who made his own choices.

text

[bravejemma]

Fitz don't say anything else.

text;

[thevulnerability]

You were trying to do something good. I know that might not count for much after everything that's happened but you were trying.

[ He seems to be getting enough shit from everyone else. She wants out of here more than anything, though, so she can't exactly blame him. ]

audio

[wriggedywrecked]

You're dead, Scotland. You're fucking dead.

voice; private.

[poppycock]

​​[ he hesitates. not out of uncertainty of what he is about to say, but of how he left the last they spoke. it only further complicates matters considering it was about this.

klaus has had time, since. he has had perspective. he has reconsidered priorities.

he picks up the phone to reply in voice. ]

What happened wasn't your fault.

( text | private )

[interpersonal]

( this comes way, way after georgia has posted her article. elena wasn't in the right frame of mind to check the network for most of the week, much less read the details of what facilitated mirror freya's escape. hadn't she wanted to go home? wouldn't she have tried anything to make that possible, once upon a time? )

You're Peter's friend. ( klaus' friend. )

private text;

[sorryitasedyou]

[ He's really lucky she's not looking for him to yell at him in person because she's pissed. ]

I sincerely hope we never meet back home because I have no room in my life for reckless people who selfishly obsess with a project to the point that they stop paying attention to the objections of people around them in place of putting them down or calling them stupid. You live your life here and I'll live mine. I'm gonna try to keep our paths from crossing too much for awhile because I'm not sure I can stop myself from decking you if I see you.

Why did you guys have to turn it on? Why did you have to believe you were gonna be successful in a fool's errand?

No, you know what? Don't answer that. Just tell me this: Are you guys gonna step up and try to fix it or are you just gonna walk away and make it someone else's mess to deal with while you hide somewhere safe and out of the way of your disaster?

audio.

[saved]

( this has been one hellish week. he's fought several mirrors, and some of them got some good hits in. elena died, and she wouldn't have if this portal hadn't been altered because of lies fed by mirrors. through the week, peter checked in to see if fitz was in one piece, but he couldn't stay long enough to talk because of the danger.

it's complicated. god, it's so complicated.

peter knew of this experiment before it happened even though he didn't know the details (and he still knew, and if he'd seen fitz's post, he would have blown the truth out of the water right then and there because he was afraid it'd be dangerous). there was this twist in his stomach where he was afraid it'd bite them back in the ass. and it did, but for reasons peter couldn't have anticipated. reasons fitz couldn't have anticipated either. it was cisco who trusted the mirrors despite common knowledge when it comes to those mirrors. it was the mirrors who planned and planned and used and manipulated, but he can read the guilt in fitz's words. and he knows how fitz becomes when he feels guilt despite how much peter wants to fight it, and peter knows the history behind it too. he knows who molded fitz into thinking the way he does about himself despite how wrong it is.

it drowns him. no matter what peter says, it doesn't break through even when the mistake was just hurting peter, betraying his trust. there's a lot of people hurt now. there are some who died. and peter can't take the guilt away from his friend now either like he can't prevent elena from dying, like- well, the list goes on. )

Unless you have mind control powers I don't know about, you didn't force anyone to do anything.

You're not responsible for everything that happened. The mirrors made their own choices. They chose to hurt, to kill, to take people's willpower away from them. Mistakes were made, but you are not defined by your mistakes. ( peter told fitz this before, but he was a kid then. it's something peter learned after his uncle died. he still has guilt over it, but when he defined himself by that guilt, he was obsessed with vengeance for his death. nothing else. he wasn't helping anyone. ) You learn from them. You do better.

text

[bravejemma]

How dare you.

text

[choosetruth]

Is any part of this article factually inaccurate?

text;

[beatupgrass]

Huh. So that's what I missed.

[he's debating whether that is better or worse than almost being eaten by a planet, losing ANOTHER FRIEND, and Taserface.]

text;

[choosetruth]

And that explains why you haven't been answering my texts.

[Considering everything that went down, it was extremely possible he was just kidnapped by Mirrors or something. She worried, but his name was still in the directory and so much was going on. If he was still missing after the event ended, she was ready to put out the search party.]

I hope you've been having more fun than we have.

text

[directed]

[So far as Rip can see, there's a single error in the article: he highly doubts Chronos' distraction had been done for any purpose other than his own, given just whom the Mirror had attacked. But this mistake allows the Legends privacy in the matter, so Rip isn't going to correct the assumption.]

Thank you for this. It's quite informative.

[And has given Rip a great deal to consider while he recovers.]

You mentioned that Mr. Ramon's Mirror attempted to impersonate him. How did you discover the difference?

text

[choosetruth]

He didn't laugh at my brother's jokes.

[She isn't even kidding that played a serious part in the reveal process.]

FUCKING VIDEO

[wriggedywrecked]

THAT FUCKING F-F-F-FITZ GUY? AGAIN? H-HE PULLED THIS SAMEASS SHIT LAST YEAR! WHO THE FUCK IS THIS RAMON GUY?

[He sort of yells and throws something off-camera.]

Swear to fucking God I'm gonna kill them both.

FUCKING VIDEO

[choosetruth]

Murder won't solve anything.

[She is pretty sure he's not being sarcastic.]

What did he do last year?

[video]

[punful]

...a portal. someone built a portal again.

[He can't believe this. Or actually, he can, because this is just one of the risks of science, especially when science is at the disposal of people who don't know when to Quit. And this one fucked up the world a hell of a lot worse than Ford's portal ever did.]

how did they think this was a good idea?

[He doesn't even really sound angry or even all that upset. He just sounds...resigned. Tired.]

[video]

[choosetruth]

How is it not a good idea? It's a potential way out. The problem comes in secrecy and allowing yourself to be manipulated by Mirrors.

[If people would just fucking tell the truth all the time things would be so much simpler.]

text

[odiosus]

I prefer Chronos.

And I'm no one's distraction.

text

[choosetruth]

Mr. Rory, I presume?

How would you describe your motives for coming to this side, then? I regret I didn't have a chance to interview you before I went to press, but I suspect there'll be a follow up article before long.

text

[dustiest]

lol

Thanks, Mason. Now we all get to stick around long after we're gone!

text

[choosetruth]

I hope you mean metaphorically. Otherwise that sentence doesn't make any sense.

text;

[sorryitasedyou]

Look, Fitz may be a stubborn asshat who didn't like people telling him what he was getting into was dangerous and shouldn't be a thing or called people stupid or idiotic when telling him to stop before they kicked his ass, but people make big mistakes here. That's the problem with having access to literally anything they can imagine from multiple worlds and multiple resources from other people. The last thing they need is someone going banana balls all over the story before they can speak for themselves without your blog interpretations.

[ Because as far as she's concerned, some of the phrasing seems inflammatory and a little exaggerated to make a good story given she knows at least one of the parties invovled in the disaster. ]

Don't get me wrong. I'm beyond pissed at Fitz for pulling this shit and he's gonna be hearing all about it from me. But this isn't a fair way to let them try and do some damage control before you go and add fuel to the fire and paint some nice huge targets on their backs.

[ Now, would Fitz have done damage control? Probably not, but hey, he still should have had at least a little more time to step up and deal with it. ]

text;

[choosetruth]

[She tried, as always, to keep everything as objective as possible. But she's human. She has her own biases and even being aware of them some things crept through. Considering one of those biases is the product of being created in a secret government lab, it was a challenge in this case. Scientists deciding they knew what was best without the input of anyone else involved. That's never ended badly before.]

They had the entire week. Fitz even had time after I interviewed him but while I was still consolidating facts and writing it up. How long do you think would have been fair?

text, private.

[crisised]

while i don't disagree that wonderland in general could use an explanation for the chaos, did you really have to air one man's self-loathing while doing it? or put the onus of an explanation on the shoulders of another who can't even speak for himself right now?

text, private.

[choosetruth]

[Did she have to? Maybe, maybe not. It's a hard question. She didn't put half as much self loathing into the post as Fitz put out himself. She wrote the truth as she understood it. Like she always does. All she can hope is that the truth is enough, that it can make the difference, that it can make things better.

Is it the right thing to do? She doesn't even know anymore. But it's what she can do. For all the anger and pain she's causing, at least people know what's going on. That's something, right?]

I'm not sure if I could have told the story without including it. Though I don't know how much more the Real Cisco Ramon can explain, past the details of how, and that would get more technical than most people care about.

text;

[screwedontight]

That explains all my fun times hanging out with Richie who isn't. Thanks for the info.

text;

[choosetruth]

Sorry I couldn't give it sooner. I was trapped on the other side of the glass with Shaun who isn't.

text;

[mimic]

Thanks for the info.

It's good to know that efforts have been made to try to find us a way home, but I'd appreciate it if the science team or whoever else would keep us better informed in the future. Some of us might have useful input/suggestions even if we can't lay them out in scientific terms, but more than that since this affects everyone, the residents should have the right to voice their opinion. Maybe a committee could be set up so proper measures can be taken the next time someone decides to embark on a project of this scale. I understand this was a mistake, but having an elected group involved and the people's voice heard will be a good thing in the long run. Even if certain things have to be kept secret in order for things to progress, we at least know that it's being handled by a trusted party. Right now, I'm definitely concerned that just about anyone with the right tools will try something else in a desperate bid to get out and we might wake up tomorrow having lost another one of our five lives.

Re: text;

[directed]

You are aware of the numerous problems with this suggestion, aren't you?

TEXT.

[manipulative]

[ for someone who wasn't entirely negatively affected by what's occurred, katheirne can peer at it with a detachment many others seem unable to approach it with. after all, she's all about making a bad situation good for herself. ]

This has to be the most interesting thing I've read in a long time, and I read the first ever article about penicillin.

Will there be an update in this epic saga?

TEXT.

[choosetruth]

As soon as I have more information. Check the next Shattered Mirror. If it's something everyone needs to know urgently, I'll crosspost it here, but I think I got everything important.

( text | private )

[demonstrate]

( iris doesn't answer this right away. she knows if she does, she won't keep a cool head, and the post itself is already getting out of hand. but she can't not say something. it would be a disservice to herself, and a disservice to georgia. ) Was publishing their names really necessary? Whatever their mistakes, it puts them in more danger.

( text | private )

[choosetruth]

[She's a big enough girl that she can certainly take it, and she respects Iris enough that she even wants to hear it. But damn, has it been a long day. She misses home, where she could just let other people deal with the comments.

That Iris waited, at least, she appreciates. Even if it's the same damn question she's gotten a bunch of times. Iris, at least, gets a thorough answer.]

It really was, and I really doubt it put anyone in more danger than they already were. I understand people's doubts, but it only takes the barest ounce of deductive thinking to figure out the person who made the post about a science experiment right before everything went to shit is responsible for what went down. I do reveal that Cisco and Mick Rory's Mirrors are the traitors in question that the Queen is looking for, but I can't feel bad for putting them in more danger. Fitz and the Real Cisco were manipulated. The Mirrors weren't.

And to do otherwise would have been withholding information.

[There are times when she can consider doing that, but she needs a way better reason than more danger.]

[Video]

[cisskabob]

[Cissie read the article, and then she made the Cardinal Sin of the Internet: she read the comments. So when she clicks on the video, her expression makes it clear exactly how unimpressed she is.]

If I ever thought that "don't read the comments" might not apply here, where we have a lot less people and a lot less anonymity than we do on the internet back home? I've been proven wrong.

[She blows out a sigh and shoves a hand through her hair.] Thanks for this, Georgia. We need to know what's going on. I mean, it's one thing if it's Wonderland messing with us, because then we generally know it means it'll end sooner or later. But if it's not Wonderland, and it's something one of us did? That's a completely different ball game.

[Video]

[choosetruth]

Ah, yes, I've got a fan club now. Makes me miss my moderators. [Not that they'd necessarily have much to do here since the comments haven't really been out of the bounds of civil discourse. Anger and disagreement are allowed.

She nods grimly.]

It's not really an event, even if the Queen is behind it. It's an invasion brought on by human folly. No one fucking knows what the fallout will be. Now, at least, we know a little more.

text;

[beatnomore]

You know, I didn't really miss watching unmoderated comment sections go nuts.

text;

[choosetruth]

And here I thought I missed the internet. Isn't it great there are so many lovely people here to remind me why that's dumb?

[........nah she still misses the real internet.]