Chapter 102: Witches in Wonderland
Art by Crash X Fusion: A whole new maddening realm to explore.
In Wonderland, Nina, Skara, and LOWTH travel to rescue Donna from the clutches of Jackson and his mother, the Queen of Hearts.Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- Adaptational Badass: The Queen of Hearts was all talk and no action in the film she was in. But here, her yells can send people flying, and she shows a surprising display of Super-Strength.
- Adaptational Karma: In Alice in Wonderland, the Queen of Hearts never receives comeuppance for trying to kill Alice. Here, LOWTH and the Cheshire Cat put her in her place.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- Jackson mentions that he had a sister who displeased his mother. Donna asks what happened to her and though Jackson doesn't say, the implications aren't good.
- Jafar is alive, and is currently serving as a court jester for the Queen of Hearts. The reason why isn't revealed, but Wonderland does have an alliance with the Underworld.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Both Jackson and his mother try to force Donna into a marriage with the former.
- Back from the Dead: Jafar has been revived from death, and he is now serving under the Queen of Hearts as a magician on her court.
- Backstab Backfire: After Nina defeats Jackson, the prince tries to strike her while her back was turned, only to get hit in the groin by a vine from Veronica/Florella.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: The two main antagonists of this chapter are Jackson and his mother the Queen of Hearts, who are setting up an Arranged Marriage between the former and Donna.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Wonderland Rescue Team successfully knocks the Hearts family down a peg and rescues Donna, LOWTH finds common ground with Nina and learn to trust her, and the kids return home to the Boiling Isles with Morpheus' help. However, Donna knows it'll take some time for her and Nina to become friends again and she now has to watch Nina continue seeing Lambi just as her feelings for the werecat start to grow. Meanwhile, the kids are unaware of the Queen of Hearts planning to invade the Boiling Isles in vengeance for ruining the wedding, and with Jafar on her side, she's going to have access to some very powerful magic.
- Call-Back:
- Luz's meeting the Cheshire Cat in "Mischief Gathering" is repeatedly mentioned, and it's how he learns about and aides the witchlings.
- Nina's visit to St. Epiderm in "Prelude to War: Part 3" is brought up.
- Skara suffers from a panic attack after remembering her illusionary visions that the Inner Demon made her experience in "How to Save a Life".
- Nina seeing Donna in bed surrounded by her friends in both "Nina on the Couch" and "A Very Special Donna" is brought up. Donna's former friendship with Eustace and Serpentina along with their hand in her drug addiction from the latter is also noted, as is Nina remembering her parents' belief that she wasn't good enough for Donna from the former.
- Emily informing Donna of Nina's actions in "The Gold Hexperience", which caused their falling out, is brought up twice.
- Chekhov's Gun: The "Eat me!" cookies and "Drink me!" bottle seen before the entrance to Wonderland are used in the battle against the Hearts, Tina using the cookie to grow giant-sized and Tyrone making the Queen drink the bottle to shrink her.
- Chekhov's Skill: Despite primarily being a Healer, Donna was taught magic during her time at Scooter Crane's Home and was shown briefly using bard magic near the end of "A Very Special Donna". This comes into play in this chapter where she literally uses her singing to give her friends a Heroic Second Wind during the wedding battle.
- Composite Character:
- The Queen of Hearts is also Drizella Tremaine, one of Cinderella's step-sisters.
- Morpheus from Hercules: The Animated Series becomes a combination of the character of the same name from The Matrix and the Beyonder from Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, both of whom were portrayed by Laurence Fishburne.
- Covert Pervert: Once Nina puts her over her shoulder and smacks her butt before getting away from the royals, Donna can't stop herself from blushing and hides a smile as she's carried away.
- Crossover: Acts as one to Alice in Wonderland, even though Alice herself never appears.
- Cuteness Proximity: Nina fawns a bit over Lewis when she sees him, to the surprise of LOWTH.
- A Day in the Limelight: The Wonderland Rescue Team are the stars for this chapter, but Nina takes more focus as she struggles to work with Donna's friends while they traverse Wonderland to rescue their mutual friend.
- Didn't Think This Through: Lampshaded when Nina discovers that Donna took what Emily told her about Nina's actions at Glandus at face value without asking for her side of the story.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Donna's friends, especially Veronica, don't trust Nina since they know of her criminal reputation, and she knows it but doesn't care about their opinions at first. When the quartet learn just how much the werecat cares about Donna and they fight the Queen's army to save her, they become friends.
- Flirtatious Smack on the Ass: After hoisting Donna up in an Over-the-Shoulder Carry, Nina hits Donna's butt in the heat of the moment. As inappropriate as it was, Donna seems to have liked it.Nina: This ass is mine!
- Freak Out:
- Seeing the party the Mad Hatter and the March Hare are throwing for the Dormouse causes Skara to freeze up, then panic and rampage in her wolf form after being offered cake. Nina soon learns of what the Inner Demon made her experience and why she acted out.
- Being ditched by the Duchess, who was their only way into the wedding, causes Nina to slowly start breaking down from stress over having no other way to reach the castle in time feeling like she failed to do right by Donna. This ends up helping LOWTH see that they have more in common with the werecat than they initially thought.
- The Ghost:
- Alice, the titular protagonist of Alice in Wonderland never actually appears, but she is mentioned and the impact she had on Wonderland is shown.
- The Clawthornes are repeatedly mentioned with everyone trying to find the Cheshire Cat on Luz's recommendation while Eda is namedropped by Donna.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Donna continues to show jealousy towards Lambi, being disappointed when Nina confesses that she's going to continue seeing her.
- Groin Attack: Just after Nina gets Jackson to submit and agree to never come after Donna or return to the Boiling Isles again, he attempts to literally stab her in the back only for Veronica/Florella to bean him in the crotch with a vine.
- Heroic Vow: Nina throws herself into finding Donna and saving her from Jackson due to their childhood promise to look out for each other. On the other hand, the rest of Donna's friends swore to always look out for her after her seizure at Veronica's party.
- Heroic Second Wind: Donna's rescuers receive one courtesy of Donna's singing.
- History Repeats: Like Amity and Willow, Nina and Donna agree that their relationship can't go back to how things used to be but they decide to start over, not yet friends again but being back on good terms for now.
- Idiot Ball: Donna admits how hasty she had been in trusting Emily's word about Nina's criminal past without giving her a chance to explain herself.
- Immediate Sequel: The chapter picks up from when Nina, Skara, Beocrow, Tina, Veronica, and Tyrone jumped down into the rabbit hole last chapter.
- Incredible Shrinking Man: Inverted with anyone who eats the cookies and grows, but played straight with those who drink the potions.
- Internal Reveal:
- Skara tells Nina about the nightmare that the Inner Demon put her through in Hexside.
- Nina learns about Donna's history with Eustace and Serpentina.
- Donna reveals to Nina that Emily told her about her past actions.
- It's All About Me: The Queen of Hearts declares revenge on Donna and her friends for ruining the wedding, claiming they ruined her joyous day before she corrects herself and says that they ruined her son's joyous day.
- Karmic Death: Lady Tremaine is revealed to have been killed by her daughter Drizella, whom she abused.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Jackson is left greatly injured by Nina and takes a low blow to the crotch from Florella after his Backstab Backfire while Queen Drizella is shrunken by a "Drink Me" potion Minos shoves down her throat and chased off by the Cheshire Cat.
- Lazy Bum: Jackson keeps trying to find a girl to marry him because he doesn't want to get a job, being completely incapable of even considering life without his luxurious royal amenities.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Skara never knew about the werecat habit of kidnapping love interests until this point.
- Luminescent Blush: Donna blushes from Nina carring her on her shoulder, smacking her butt, and getting embarrassed when Nina apologizes for it, to which the werecat also blushes.
- Moment Killer: As LOWTH comes to understand Nina's reasons for caring about Donna, Beocrow asks if werecats actually do kidnap people they're attracted to. Veronica immediately scolds him for doing this.
- Must Make Amends: As mentioned last chapter, Skara's reasons for helping Donna is to make it up to Nina for Donna rejecting the werecat a few days back. Likewise, Nina and Veronica see saving Donna as their chance to make up for not doing so in the past.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Nina and LOWTH become Fire-Forged Friends because they all share the goal of saving and protecting Donna.
- Over-the-Shoulder Carry: Once the fighting's done, Nina hoists Donna over her shoulder and carries her away until the rescue party is far from the castle and Tina tells the werecat to put Donna down.
- Pet the Dog: After Skara's Freak Out, Nina carries her piggyback style when they regroup with LOWTH and head back to the Duchess'house.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: As it turns out, Nina kidnapped Eve when they first met since she thought Eve was cute.
- The Reveal:
- The Queen of Hearts is actually Cinderella's step-sister Drizella, who ended up in Wonderland after she murdered her mother sometime after the events of Cinderella III: A Twist in Time.
- Jackson previously tried to marry 15 other girls before Donna, all of whom were killed by his mother either for not meeting her expectations or reminding her of Alice.
- Calypso taught Skara how to deactivate Nina's collar earlier in the week in case of emergencies. This means that Skara turned it off before they faced Mel's gang.
- Jafar has been brought Back from the Dead and is serving in the Queen's Court as a magician.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When the chaos of the wedding being crashed becomes too much for the White Rabbit, he books it.
- Sequel Hook: As revenge for LOWTH crashing the wedding, the Queen of Hearts intends to invade the Boiling Isles.
- Shout-Out:
- The events of Cinderella are shown in flashbacks while those of Cinderella II: Dreams Come True and Cinderella III: A Twist in Time are mentioned.
- The Duchess is based off of Duchess from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends
- Nina performs the "This ass is mine!" smack on Donna that Millie did to Moxxie in Helluva Boss.
- Jafar of the Aladdin franchise debuts at the end of the chapter.
- The Cheshire Cat parodies The Stinger from Ferris Bueller's Day Off in this chapter's stinger.
- Sizeshifter
- Suddenly Speaking: Jimmy, Skara's cricket palisman, advises her to not give up on maintaining peace between Nina and LOWTH.
- Trauma Button: Skara's experience in the tea party reminds her of the nightmare that the Inner Demon put her through.
- The Un-Reveal: How did Jafar get brought back to life and end up serving the Hearts family?
- Villains Want Mercy: After being pummeled by Nina to the extent of having his legs broken, Jackson begs her for mercy. Initially she refuses, but seeing how pathetic he is gets her to change her mind.
- Wham Episode: Skara, Nina, and LOWTH successfully save Donna from marrying Jackson and return home, Donna's friends befriend Nina with Donna apologizing for the way she ended their friendship, and the Queen of Hearts begins planning to invade the Boiling Isles with Jafar being revealed as a living ally of her.
- What Does She See in Him?: Among the brides that failed to meet the Queen's expectations is a fish girl, even Jackson has no idea why he fell for her.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Veronica and Tyrone are not amused when Beocrow kills the bonding moment LOWTH has with Nina by asking about the whole "werecat kidnapping" habit.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: As Morpheus explains, hardly any time passes between when the Wonderland Rescue Team first entered Wonderland and when he sends them and Donna home since time works differently in said realm.
