#houndsditch heroes

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Houndsditch Heroes AU (AKA, I Make An AU For A Show I've Never Watched)

. . . @dont-offend-the-bees, I hope you know this is all your fault.

If you're wondering what on earth I'm going on about, said friend has gotten into the Netflix adaptation of The Umbrella Academy, meaning I've been seeing a lot of posts and gifsets and the like about it on my dash. If I were anyone else, I would simply be happy my friend had found a new show to enjoy and go about my day.

Since I'm me, I've instead come up with an AU idea based on the information I've picked up from the posts and a look on TV Tropes. *deep sigh* I don't know why I'm like this, seriously. Anyway, just to get it out of my brain, the pertinent points of what I'm calling the Houndsditch Heroes AU:

-->It's set in the modern day, in a world where super-powered people are just born randomly instead of being the result of a strange mass pregnancy/birth -- mostly because I want to stick with the canon/highly accepted fanon ages for the team, and that puts them in a range between 17 and 20

-->Bumby has the Sir Reginald Hargreeves role, having rounded up a team of super-powered kids and raised them to become the titular Houndsditch Heroes; as you might imagine, he is just as bad a father as Reginald was, but fortunately his children are dysfunctional in a way that still lets them work together

-->The Heroes include:

Marty McFly -- I'm still deciding if his power is being able to mind-control people through his music, or using sound to manipulate his environment psychokinetically; either way he's never without his guitar as a result

Emmett "Doc" Brown -- obviously we're using the teenage model from Telltale's The Game, though given he has Five's role, he's much older underneath. He's got the ability to teleport and time travel -- the latter having flung him into a post-apocalyptic future before the events of the story

Victoria Everglot -- unsure what her power is yet -- I'm tempted to make it something related to sewing. Maybe she can manipulate cloth? Or I could give her a variation on Allison’s power, only the trigger phrase is “Please, may I/you/they” since she’s quiet, polite type

Emily Cartwell -- I'm also figuring out her power, though "control over butterflies" amuses me. She's died shortly before the events of the story, having been tricked into running away with Barkis in a combination "He's my true love/I want to get away from my asshole adoptive father" move

Alice Liddell -- everyone thinks she's the "normal" of the group, and as a consequence she has developed her melee combat skills with knives and improvised weapons to keep up with her powered siblings. In truth, she's capable of creating fully visual, audible, and tactile illusions. Bumby has been suppressing her powers through a combination of medication and hypnosis sessions for YEARS

-->Victor Van Dort is an outsider to the group, who also believes he's normal -- his parents have got him on the same medication Alice is on to suppress his powers. Reason being, said powers are he can see ghosts and bring them into the real world in a corporeal, if rather zombie-like form, and he freaked them out by trying to adopt a skeletal dog when he was younger

-->The plot is kicked off when Emmett, after years spent in the post-apocalyptic future, time-ports back to the present in the Van Dort backyard, and ends up dragging Victor into his attempts to stop the apocalypse with his siblings

-->Emmett thinks Bumby is somehow the cause of the apocalypse he saw; however, it's actually Alice, discovering the truth about herself and Bumby's crimes against her and her family (he still raped Lizzie and killed her and the elder Liddells in this world; he covered it up and took Alice in to control her) and manifesting her rage as the Queen of Hearts to kill him. Unfortunately, the Queen refuses to be dismissed after she's served her purpose, and she ends up killing Alice's original personality and using her body to wreak havoc

-->Victor, upon getting his own powers back (he starts missing doses of the meds while on the adventure, and everyone realizes he can see the dead when he sees Emily hanging around the group), becomes the lynchpin to stopping the Queen's rampage by bringing back Lizzie, Arthur, and Lorina to cool Alice's rage and make the Queen weak enough to be defeated

-->The time cops trying to keep the apocalypse on-schedule because reasons are still a thing, and I've just had the thought that the Commission should instead be Aperture from Portal (run by Cave Johnson, of course), and the two tracking Emmett personally are GLaDOS and Wheatley -- but Wheatley, who has been having second thoughts about this whole business, ends up falling in love with bakery owner Chell and defects to the good guys' side

-->Victor suffers a fatal injury from the time cops during the final showdown and ends up in an entirely self-indulgent scene where he meets God -- aka me. I tell him everything's going to be okay and his powers actually include automatic resurrection from anything that isn't natural death from old age and send him back

-->I'm still contemplating whether Bumby should still be involved in the child trade like he was in A:MR; if he literally kidnapped some/ALL of the Heroes and has been using his hypnosis techniques to make them all forget; and if he's specifically given the power-suppressing medication to the Van Dorts and hypnotized Victor in the past because he realized someone with the power to talk to the dead could rat him out if he ever found the Liddells' spirits

*facepalm* We good now, brain? Can I go back to the AUs I'm SUPPOSED to be working on now?

[alice-liddell-is-mad]

Do you think Alice McGee insults mental ill people in some way?

I, personally, don't think so. And from what I've read by some other people, some who have mental illnesses/conditions themselves, neither do they.The reason why I don't think American McGee's take on Alice is insulting is that Alice, though seen brandishing a weapon and later committing murder, isn't seen as weak or evil or deluded. She's a girl like any other you meet on the street, who just has her own way of viewing life and handles it her own way. She has a good sense of morals, and good sense of (dry/dark) humor, and quite the back bone. She's a curious girl who is caring and kind, but doesn't let anyone step on her because of it, which is why she might come off as standoffish and slightly rude to people who are that way to her first.Her mental illness/condition isn't displayed as something horrible or evil, like in games that use asylums and their patients as the enemies in either the plot as a whole or just as beings to defeat on your way to your goal. She's shown as a girl who was always imaginative when she was young, maybe a bit distant to some, maybe a bit odd. But a smart girl. A little girl who suffered a traumatic experience and a tragic lost. She didn't cope with it well, and the treatment for asylum patients in her time were cruel and only served to worsen any effects she suffered.In the first game, she's mostly just in Wonderland, a manifestation of her mind that represents her childhood, her life in general, and the state of her sanity. In fighting enemies and defeating the queen, she's not just taking down some strange looking tyrant, but fighting the darkness clouding her mind. She's trying to fight for control of her life again. Fighting to heal herself so she can escape the abuse of the asylum. Her Wonderland is still there but now it's saved and so is she. From those who think they know best but are only making it worse.Then the second game comes and she's suffering again. Not because she's gone manic or psychotic or what have you. But because someone is taking advantage of her mind and twisting it. I'm not quite sure how to class Alice's condition, I'll be honest. I myself only have general anxiety and ADD, and so I can't relate to her on a specific level. But I can relate with someone using what you're diagnosed with to make your life miserable or gain something out of it. She's wasn't perfect, and she didn't need to be, but Bumby was that numbing sensation you can get sometimes. But it was a numbing sensation that gradually spreads and becomes more of a sharp pain. And his "treatment" only made the numb feeling spread more and the pain worse. He manipulated her mind, and the minds of others, to his own benefit.This game painted Alice, the "mentally ill", as both the victim and the hero. She suffered at the hands of others using her condition against her and she fought back, both against the darkness overcoming her own mind and also the darkness lurking in the shadows in reality. She took down the "respected doctor" and saved her life and the lives of the remaining children at Houndsditch.Mental illness wasn't played as a good thing, as a luxury, as a trait to brag about to all who'll hear. But it wasn't played out to be evil, to be a sign that someone is less than a person, that someone with a mental illness should be treated no better than a pet. Alice Liddell was just a girl with a different working to her mind that just wanted to live her life and not let anyone try to change her. And that's how I view people with mental illness, as people who think or live life differently, and some just need a little help so that their own minds can't be their greatest enemy, like Wonderland seemed to be before Alice could overcome some obstacles.It's not an insult. It's a step to proper representation and also a beautifully dark take on everyone's favorite curious little girl. But then again, that's just my opinion.Note: I hope I was able to explain myself clearly, as it's 4:30am and I should be asleep, and I'm on mobile. Now off to sleep!

[victorluvsalice]

dont-offend-the-bees replied to your post “AU Thursday: Houndsditch Heroes AU (AKA, I Make An AU For A Show I've...”

this is twenty fandoms in a tua-shaped trenchcoat and i LOVE it- always happy to be a terrible influence <333 if you ever wanna ask more about the show or bounce around ideas you know where i am! ^^

*snork* I’m glad you enjoyed! And yes, I do indeed~ At the very least, I now have another ridiculous multifandom AU to draw on for potential gift fics. :P

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Fallout Of Darkness -- A Half-Decent Sum-Up Of The Pre-War Timeline

If you follow my RP tumblr, @thevalicemultiverse, you may have seen this before (barring a few edits I made just now) -- I wrote this up as background for putting Fallout of Darkness into play over there as an RP verse. It’s as good a write-up as I currently have for Alice and particularly Victor’s lives before the bombs fell, so might as well bring it over here for more general consumption! Enjoy!

---

Alice Liddell shares most of her backstory with her Londerland Bloodlines counterpart: she’s born in 1984, loses her family to Bumby’s obsession with her sister, hallucinates her way through the horrors of Rutledge and Houndsditch with Wonderland serving as a horrific psychological dreamscape for her to get her sanity back under her, realizes Bumby’s behind all her pain and is a child trafficker, kills him, moves to Los Angeles for a fresh start, and gets illegally Embraced by Malkavian Fish and ends up errand girl to Prince Sebastian LaCroix. In this reality, though, she lives through something much closer to the standard Bloodlines plot (albeit filtered through the “all tech is at least kinda 50s sci-fi” lens of Fallout) – including saving Heather Poe instead of Victor, and finding nothing in the Giovanni basement except regular old zombies. She pushes through all the bullshit of Camarilla vs Anarchs vs Kuei-Jin vs Sabbat, convinces Heather to leave when it transpires she’s being really badly affected by Alice’s Malkavian blood (to the point of luring a guy to the haven and then locking him in the bathroom for Alice to eat), and eventually chooses the independent life, killing Ming-Xiao, letting LaCroix blow up with his tower, and flipping off the Anarchs when they try to recruit her. She flees Los Angeles completely shortly thereafter, and spends most of the rest of the next seventy-odd years on the move around America, avoiding possible reprisals from the Camarilla and watching the world go to hell in a handbasket with resources running out and the war for the last great oil pipeline. She finds shelter in Boston in October 2077, and is sleeping away the day in a presumed-safe building when the bombs drop. While she’s luckily buried in a sunlight-blocking pile of rubble, she’s also staked by a falling beam. . .and remains so for the next two centuries. . .

Victor Van Dort, on the other hand, is born in 2050, to Nell and William Van Dort of Burtonsville. William is in the fish business, and moves his family to the USA when Victor is still just a baby to seek new opportunities. What he and his wife and son get is the New Plague, forcing them to stay in Massachusetts due to quarantine measures. Despite this, William still manages to become a fish cannery mogul, making millions off his automated factories. Victor himself grows up almost entirely confined to the house and gardens, cared for and taught by a variety of robots until he was fourteen and it was deemed safe enough for him to attend a normal high school. The gardens taught him to love nature, but his caretakers taught him to love science and technology – while still a hobbyist lepidopterist, Victor is much more a tinkerer and technician in this world. Having to help fix the family’s Protectron driver, Mayhew, when he falls apart almost right in front of you will do that to a boy! He’s just more comfortable with machines than people – a fact that doesn’t make him popular in school.

In his senior year of high school, Victor is pushed to date Victoria Everglot by his parents, seeing her family’s noble history (some relative way-back-when in England was a Grand Duke) as a good way to improve their own social standings. Victor goes along with it after realizing he likes Victoria herself a fair bit, and the two soon become boyfriend and girlfriend. A few months into the relationship, though, Victor comes across a gravely-injured Emily Merrimack-Cartwell in the park, the victim of an elopement that turned out to be an excuse to rob and murder her. Victor is able to rush her to the hospital in time, and the two become friends in the aftermath. Victoria, noticing that they seem to have a growing attraction, decides she doesn’t want Victor to feel obligated to continue dating her if he’d prefer to be with Emily and actually encourages them to go to prom together. They agree after confirming she’s okay with that, and that she won’t be missing out herself. They start out having a good time together, but midway through Victoria goes to the ladies’ room and doesn’t return. Victor and Emily, concerned, go looking for her and find her being menaced by none other than Emily’s ex Barkis – apparently not satisfied with what he got off Emily, he’s now trying to rob and possibly kidnap Victoria. Victor and Emily take him down and get him carted off to jail, to Victoria’s eternal gratitude. The experience bind them all together as a trio, and – coupled with the discovery that Victoria and Emily feel much the same about each other as they do about Victor – they decide to just all date each other and see where the chips fall.

And then the draft comes and Victor is yanked into military service. He ends up a combat engineer in the Engineer Corps, and is assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry Regiment, aka “Fox Company.” While he makes some friends in fellow soldiers Nate Howard and Sam “Bonejangles” Thatcher, Victor loathes his experiences as a soldier, especially as his unit is protecting the Alaskan Pipeline on the Alaska border and watching as the US annexes Canada. Things come to a head when his commanding officer tries to get him to shoot two Canadian kids who were throwing rocks at their camp – an enraged Victor shoots the officer instead, then gets wrapped up in a sudden enemy attack on said camp (a small company of Chinese infiltrators in stealth suits -- one accidentally decloaked in his surprise over Victor killing his target), spiriting the kids to safety before managing to save the rest of his company via fast fixing of their defenses and rigging up some explosive power armor. The chaos makes it impossible for the upper brass to know for sure Victor killed the officer (though they’re deeply suspicious), and the fact that everyone else is calling him a hero (plus his father being willing to pay good money for his son’s safe return) leads to him going home for good. Having married Victoria while on leave earlier, they take in Emily as a “live-in friend and help around the house” (wink wink), and the three move to the little community of Sanctuary Hills. They have a good couple of years there, culminating in the birth of Victor and Victoria’s son Shaun. Victor, despite his worries about the resource shortages, the war with China, and his own government possibly looking for a way to silence him whenever he makes his opinions about same known, starts thinking that maybe things can be all right for him and his family at least. . .

And then, on October 23rd, 2077, the bombs hit. Victor and his family get to Vault 111 just in time, and are processed and cyronically frozen as per the experiment. However, things go bad with a security staff revolt, and the frozen family is left easy pickings for some mysterious scientists to come in, shoot Victoria, and kidnap Shaun right before Victor’s horrified eyes. When he is revived again, he finds that the life support failed for the rest of the residents (including Emily, whose pod partially thawed her and left her half-rotted), leaving him the sole survivor – apart from his missing son. He escapes the vault and returns to what’s left of Sanctuary Hills, vowing to find Shaun.

Finding Shaun turns out to be more difficult than imagined – the world above is a dangerous place, and Victor is ill-prepared to deal with it. Fortunately, he makes some friends right off the bat – his old Mr. Handy Codsworth; a German Shepherd waiting for him at the local Red Rocket, who is later revealed to be named Dogmeat; and Preston Garvey, last of the Commonwealth Minutemen, whom Victor saves from raiders at the Museum of Freedom in Concord while looking for other signs of life. Victor welcomes Preston and his settlers to live in Sanctuary, and joins up with Preston’s efforts to revive the Minutemen and make it a force for good in the wasteland (being named General by Preston in the process, a move that baffles him and his 2 Charisma). Helping settlers leads him down to Diamond City, where he was told by slightly-psychic Mama Murphy he could find some help. He befriends reporter Piper Wright there, and ends up getting her help to find her missing friend detective Nick Valentine when it transpires he – and with him, Victor’s best hope for finding Shaun – has vanished.

And during their adventures to track down Nick’s precise location, they come across a raider base, are attacked by a raider who yanks a bloody stick out of a pile of rubble – and are introduced to Alice when she bursts from the rubble and sucks the guy dry. Alice hastily informs them that she’s not a threat to them (she was just thirsty after, you know, two centuries of being staked), and they end up trusting her enough to take down the rest of the raiders with her. Victor does his best to explain what’s happened to her, and she does her best to explain her vampiric nature to him. Feeling bad for her, and like he’s finally found a kindred spirit in all this (uh, no pun intended), he invites her to travel with him, switching to a night time schedule to accommodate her. . .at least, until they go to a certain quarry mined by Dunwich Borers to clear out the raiders there. . .

[victorluvsalice]

Forgotten Vows Friday: Favorite Moments, Part IV

It's my BIRTHDAY! :D And much like the 13th was the perfect day to talk about the darkest moments I love in this series, I think today is the perfect day to talk about the brightest moments -- aka, my absolute favorite favorites. I don't think any of you are going to be surprised by this list:

1. Forgetting You, Chapter 9: Splatter Gets What He's Owed -- Victor punching Jack Splatter and rescuing Alice from the burning Mangled Mermaid -- Okay, first of all, I like this chapter in general because it was one of the first I did after getting some solid writing tips from reading the first book of the Riverworld series (namely, "I do not want to write like this"), and I feel it represents a big jump in quality in my storytelling. And this particular moment -- oh, it was satisfying to finally give Splatter exactly what he deserved for hitting Alice! (Which is, uh, kind of why I kept doing it. XD) Not to mention I threw myself into properly describing the burning Mermaid and Victor's rescue of Alice, and I feel it turned out beautifully. (I still like "If the exterior of the Mangled Mermaid was a glimpse at Pastor Galswells's favorite vision of Hell, the interior was the full Time-Of-Judgment-Featuring-Dante-And-Virgil experience.") Not to mention I liked letting Victor play the hero for Alice, as she was going to be playing the hero for him for much of the rest of the verse!

2. Forgetting You, Chapter 24: Confrontation At Moorgate Station -- Victor punching Bumby during the brief moment he broke free of his control -- Speaking of satisfying moments where someone gets what they deserve. . .ooh, this felt good to write after Chapter 22! Bumby obviously deserves worse, but that moment where it becomes clear he never truly broke Victor -- well, Alice wasn't the only one bouncing up and down in delight. XD

3. Forgetting You, Chapter 25: Into Londerland -- Alice shoving Bumby in front of the train -- Obviously I have to include what is also one of my favorite moments in Alice: Madness Returns itself. I was so worried that he was going to get away scott-free, and then Alice took matters into her own hands, and it was great. And I think I did a good job in translating the moment into text, particularly Bumby's shock as Alice turns to face him as her Wonderland self. (Which he definitely saw her as, thanks to my Alice having a natural talent for a certain disguise spell. . .) Not to mention the exchange right before she shoves him:

"Could you kill a fly?" echoed in her head, the Dollmaker trying to get in one last shot from beyond the grave.

I can kill a lot more than that, she replied, and used her free hand to give Bumby one good, hard shove.

Eeee~ So good.

4. Remembering You, Chapter 13: Taking Back The Crown -- Victor defeating the Bumby Heart within the Wall, and regaining his memories -- Again, more satisfying moments against Bumby -- or, at least the remnant of him still left in Victor's head. The whole fight against the Wall, with Victor wielding Alice's weapons against the Ruin, was great to write, but the final battle? Victor clawing his way back from the edge of oblivion thanks to remembering Alice's eyes? The memory of getting the fork from Ms. Plum becoming the initial form of the Vorpal Fork? Victor staring the Heart down as it starts panicking? The "MY! NAME! IS! VICTOR!" line right before he stabs it?! *chef's kiss* That was so good, both to write and to read afterward. :D And then afterward, designing the first form of his Otherland -- the sweet little forest where his memories come back? That was a great way to destress after the fight. Just what Victor and I needed.

5. Remembering You, Chapter 14: So Kiss Me – Victor and Alice's first kiss -- It's their first kiss I'm not supposed to pick this? XD More seriously, this was a sweet and wonderful moment to finally write. And it probably helps that I took some inspiration from one of my favorite Disney movies, Enchanted -- you know how Victor picks up Alice and spins her around a bit? I had in mind Giselle getting spun around by Prince Edward when they reunite in Robert's apartment. (Yeah, I know, wrong couple, but I still thought it was a cute moment!) After so much time spent with them either pining but shoving down their feelings, or being utterly oblivious, or being in love but struggling past lingering mental issues. . .damn, it just felt good to have them finally smooch.

6. Fixing You, Chapter 7: Heck Though Ain't It Grand – Alice's reunion with Lizzie in the Land of the Dead -- I know this was one of the two "big moments" everyone wanted to see in the series, and I was more than happy to deliver. Mostly because it was a moment I wanted to see myself. Setting up the surprise of Lizzie being Burtonsville, not in Oxford, was a lot of fun in-universe, and the actual moment when the two sisters saw each other again – even I "awwwed" internally when they flung themselves into each other's arms. :) It was just so heartfelt. . . The follow-up hug between Alice and her parents when they finally reach the Ball & Socket is great too. Just – I know this is the thing Alice has wanted most ever since the series began, and I was thrilled to give it to her. (And this leading to the final defeat of that damned Jabberwock was a great bonus! Call that an "honorable mention" on this list.)

7. Fixing You, Chapter 10: The Grand Wonderland Tour – Victor and Alice's tour of Wonderland – Yes, the entire chapter. This is the other big thing everyone wanted, and, again, more than happy to deliver. This whole chapter is probably my favorite in the whole series, just because I had so much fun coming up with stuff for Victor and Alice to do in all the various domains! It was like a "greatest hits" of every fun "Victor and Alice in Wonderland" scenario I've ever thought of! :D Personal favorites within the chapter itself are the mine cart ride in the Village of the Doomed (it was fun going back to AMA, coming up with a special suit and dress for the mains for the "domain," and it was very interesting to look up stuff on early roller coasters!), Victor and Alice building a sand castle in the Music Fish's "Choral Coral" spot (that's my personal favorite bit in the Deluded Depths when it comes to the scenery, and it brought back fond memories of being on the beach and watching Mom make sand sculptures), the battle against the Army Ants (more fun with AMA stuff, and a good opportunity to show the pair's battle skills – not to mention, I love the way they got the Ants to back off in the end), and Victor and Alice's race through Cardbridge (again, my favorite level in A:MR, and them just getting to play like kids in this beautiful world was -- I swear, I was smiling and squeeing so much writing that bit. . .). But the whole thing was fantastic, and I think well-worth the wait!

8. Fixing You Chapter 16: Round Three: The Conglomeration. . .and Thirteen – Victor redeeming Thirteen, and the full creation of his Otherland afterward -- I like the whole sequence in Silent Burtonsville (Victor going Hysteria to kill the Colossal Nell when she threatens Alice is definitely an “honorable mention” moment), but the final confrontation definitely makes favorite. Victor and Alice finally recognizing just what it is he's struggling with, and Alice convincing Victor that the only one who sees himself as a monster is him, leading to him forgiving himself. . .ooooof. It just hits you right in the feels, doesn't it? The moment of him hugging his corrupted self, whispering that he doesn't hate him? How could you not sniffle, seriously? And then, after Thirteen's redemption back into Desire, the whole bit where Victor starts getting into what he actually wants his Otherland to look like. . .once again, had so much fun doing the descriptions! I was as enthusiastic as Victor about the whole thing! And Victor's joy at seeing the Living Dead Forest come to life outside the window? So much squee, seriously. Love it.

9. Fixing You, Chapter 18: A Day For A Glorious Wedding – Victor and Alice's wedding – Again, this is their wedding, I wasn't supposed to pick it?! XD I'm pretty sure we were all VERY READY for this to finally go down by the time it happened, and I was just thrilled to finally put it to paper. I mean, I'd had Victor's reaction to Alice's dress stored away in a "notes" file for ages, but to actually get them in front of that registrar, do the vows, go back to Houndsditch and have that cake. . .it did my heart good, seriously. Especially that moment when Victor hears Alice say her vows back to him, and all he can think is that he didn't want to cry. . . Even if it wasn't necessarily the most "romantic" way to get married, I still just wanted to sweep them up in a big hug and weep for a while. XD And then the reception afterwards in the Land of the Dead, with Victor and Alice getting a surprise party from their dead loved ones, Victoria finally getting a chance to see the place, June reuniting with her mother and meeting her brother, and the kids giving Victor his pictures back? I don't think I could have ended that story any more perfectly.

10. A Wedding, A Wedding, We're Going To Have A Wedding, Chapter 7: In A World Of Our Own – Victor and Alice's Wonderland reception – Honestly, the whole fic is a win for me (as probably evidenced by the way it kept growing chapters), but the last bit, which was a complete last-minute "oh hey, if I did a Land of the Dead reception for Victor and Alice, I should do a Wonderland one too!" is just – so full of fluff, I swear. I wasn't expecting it to be so squee-inducing and squishy when I first came up with the idea, but. . .Alice's Wonderland and Victor's Otherland merging like they do, with the inhabitants of both their minds teaming up to give them a party? Showing once and for all they've stopped beating themselves up about stuff for the most part? Awwwwww. . .the bit that really gets me, though, is the very last part:

[. . .] Victor turned to offer Alice his arm as the various citizenry hurried off through the combined woods –

Then paused. A playful grin crossed his face. "What?" Alice asked, raising an eyebrow. "What are – Oh!"

Alice automatically grabbed for his neck as he suddenly scooped her up into his arms. "Oh," she repeated, trying to get her bearings. "Er – any particular reason for giving me a lift?"

"Well, you're my new wife," Victor told her, adjusting his grip. He nodded at the join between their two worlds, the Vale of Tears and the Living Dead Forest mingling in perfect harmony. "Aren't I supposed to carry you over the threshold?"

Oh, he was such a sap – and she loved him for it. "You are," she confirmed, snuggling into him. "If you would, Mr. Liddell?"

"My pleasure, Mrs. Van Dort."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH – no I DON'T know why that affects me so much but it FREAKING DOES. It just – ooof. *flops* Best way to end anything about their wedding, I swear.

And that covers it! All my favorite moments in the Forgotten Vows Verse! :D Hopefully you guys saw a few of your favorites in here as well. . . I'll see you all in the New Year! With any luck, we'll get some more content for this world, and maybe even a few more favorite moments. :)

[victorluvsalice]

Hows this for a reason? The Time Cops are from a far future where Earth is a peaceful utopia where there are no longer any problems to solve. All nations of the world have merged into one, and there are no wars, no pollution, and bacon is good for your heart. But in order to keep the future like this, history must go exactly as it should, so if history said there was an apocalypse in the Hounditch Heroes point in time, better make sure it happens.

I feel this would be a reasonable motivation for them to have. . .but my brain is stuck on the fact that I designated Aperture as the Commission’s (the actual Time Cops in The Umbrella Academy) counterpart in this verse. And I have a VERY hard time believing any utopia would ever hire Cave Johnson. I mean, I suppose there is a possibility, but still. . .

[victorluvsalice]

Valice Shipping Week, Day 7: Justice!

As the Secundus story at the beginning of this week was followed by one from Queen Wins, so too must the Forgotten Vows story be followed by Catch Us If You Can! I would be doing my favorite murder couple a disservice by neglecting them. And besides, I’ve always wanted to write a little more for them. Today’s entry tackles the aftermath of the Great Rutledge Break-Out (aka Alice busting Victor out of the asylum) and them killing the Monroe twins. The two are hiding out after escaping the asylum grounds, and Victor has a question for Alice. . .

"So. . .what happens now?"

Alice bit her lip, letting the curtain drop back into place. "I'm – not quite sure," she confessed quietly. "I'm afraid my plans extended only as far as getting you out of Rutledge. I didn't think much farther ahead." She turned to face him, rocking on her heels. "And, of course, they never included us killing those awful twins."

"Right." Victor picked at a stray thread sticking out from his sleeve. "I. . .is it – b-bad that I'm not sorry about that? At all?"

"Maybe." Alice dropped back down with a little bump, sending up a puff of dust from the creaking floor. I suppose I should sweep if we're going to be living here for the time being. . .though maybe not. I don't want the police thinking anyone but the usual squatters have infested this place. It must already be of interest of them, given it's the former house of my family lawyer. . .Mr. Radcliffe, you were a liar and a thief and an all-around jackass, but I thank you for leaving your home so conveniently open to fugitives. Even if it's just for a night. "But I'm not a good person to ask. I shoved Bumby in front of a train, after all. And I've never felt prouder of anything in my life."

Victor's lips quirked upwards in a vague approximation of a smile. "Wish I'd been conscious enough to see that."

How could one sentence crack her heart so neatly in two? "Victor – I am so sorry," she whispered, forcing herself to meet his eyes even as a familiar, awful burbling started up in the shadows. "I never wanted to – to just leave you there. If that bloody woman hadn't seen everything, I would have stayed in that station as long as it took to get you back. I almost stayed anyway, but Cheshire – he wouldn't let me be, was insistent I go–" Alice, this game of Hangman is one you cannot win! You have no letters, only your legs and your mind! You do him no good swinging from the gallows! RUN! "And i-idiot me thought, 'Hightopp seems fond of me, and Fred too, surely I can trust my beloved to them. . .'" The burbling grew louder as two yellow eyes poked out of the black, glaring with the heat of a thousand suns. . . "I never dreamed they would – or that your parents – a-and then I was spending so much t-time avoiding people I never even looked at a paper until–" CANNERY HEIR CONDEMNED TO RUTLEDGE – Recovers from mindless state, refuses to recant story of walking dead! "I never – Victor, if I'd had any c-clue–"

His lips crushed against hers, killing the rest of her tearful confession. "I know," he whispered as he pulled back, eyes intense. "I don't blame you, Alice. I never did. I knew you had greater things on your mind." He swallowed, eyes wet. "Besides, c-considering what I. . .what I c-could have. . .you should have just s-shoved me on the tracks for a-almost–"

"Never," Alice replied, cutting off that awful thought with her fingers against his mouth. "That wasn't you, Victor. That was the – the wind-up doll Bumby made out of you. And you didn't, remember? You snapped out of it when you saw me."

"But I didn't stay snapped," Victor mumbled, staring at his shoes. "I just. . .it t-took two bloody months for me to even. . ."

"Don't," Alice whispered, running her fingers through the bare fuzz atop his head. Oh God, his poor hair, shaved down almost to the bone. . .was he as cold as she was whenever that happened? "I know Rutledge, Victor. I know what happens there." Her hand ghosted down to his arm, to the tiny forest of not-quite-healed red Ys marring his pale skin, and the impression of thick leather straps still cutting into his wrist. "Finding yourself isn't easy. Just surviving is task enough." Back up to his chest, to the ribs that were so prominent even through the shirt. . .how could he have gotten any thinner, he was barely there before. . . She swallowed back a fresh sob. "I wish I'd been there to save you."

Victor pulled her tight against him. "You did," he murmured, soft and close to her ear. "You did save me. When it counted the most. And you saved all those children in Houndsditch too! In one fell swoop! Alice, you're a hero!"

The shadows sneered, one lengthening into a long bony claw. "Am I?" Alice muttered, watching it. "I disposed of Bumby, sure. . .but there are hundreds of men just like him, all over the world. Dozens just in London alone. I don't know who has control of the Home these days. If anyone's looking after them. They could have been left to just fend for themselves." She buried her face in his shoulder. "They're easy pickings for the leeches of the world. A single good deed does not a hero make."

Silence hung over them for a moment. Then, slowly, Victor pulled away, just enough to look her in the eye. The Jabberwock hissed at his expression, retreating to the safety of his corner. "Alice," he said, voice low and dark and about the most unVictorish thing she'd ever heard. "I think we've just proved we're very good at killing people. . ."