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Ok so I have this IT au called "Derrytales" where each Loser is a fairytale hero and their stories end up colliding into one big plot (a la EAH, Into The Woods, ect.), and long story short I have no decided to add the WTD kids to it. So here's my Welcome to Derrytales aesthetics/lore dump post.

I have already gone into detail with the whole Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Red Riding Hood, The Little Mermaid shit with Bill and Georgie, Ben, Eddie, Bev, Stan, Mike, and Richie and the adventure they go on, so instead i'm going to take you to 27 years before those kids had been running around Derry land for their own happily ever after, to a different bunch of kids with problems of their own. Also, disclaimer, these are going more for darker versions of the Disney stories mixed with the source material, so don't expect the characters to be the Disney princesses in question.

okay, AU time, I really hope you like it, cause it certainly took me a lots of hard work to write and make. :)

Marge & Rich

"Once upon a time there was a shallow and spoiled princess cursed to be a ferocious monster, and the one village boy who was brave enough to look under the surface."

There was once a beautiful princess named Margaret with all the spoils of the world at her feet. She was elegant, graceful, pretty, and completely full of herself. Her ego was so massive it dwarfed even her heart, and Marge become well known through all the land for her lavish displays of vanity and greed all in the name of being liked. Worse even though, was that no one was around to make sure Marge's ego was kept in check, as her mother and father had both passed away in a tragic accident only a few years prior, leaving Marge, 13 and alone, to govern her kingdom of True-man under the title of princess until she turned 18. Naturally, when a 13 year old princess is in charge, the kingdom doesn't fair very well. She spent her peoples time and money like there was no tomorrow, with lavish parties they weren't invited to, gowns for herself and her friends, and any other kind of frivolity you could imagine. Deep down, Marge just wanted to be idolized and loved, but because of her lack of parents she'd never been taught any other way to attain that then increasingly over the top ways of extravagance. If she could not be liked for her personality or interests she'd be liked through fashion and wealth. Her most exuberant display of all came when she ordered her palace to be decked out in nothing but gold. Golden gates, golden wall paper, golden plates, golden clocks, golden tea pots, golden statues,- everything you could imagine, dipped and gold. And of course you couldn't forget her golden gown, gloves, crown, jewelry, and makeup! Honestly the only thing not absolutely beautiful in Marge's life was her glasses, of which she did not even bother to make gold as she thought even THAT wouldn't be enough to make them pretty. Not that it mattered much, she never wore them anyways. Sure she couldn't even learn to read cause her vision was so blurry, but a princess doesn't need to read! She needs jewelry you can see from space!

The princess's frivolous worldview came crashing down one night though, in the middle of one of her many grand balls with all her rich fairweather friends, an old leper intruded on the event, begging for shelter and food. Obviously, Princess Margaret was disgusted by his appearance and shooed him away- and when the leper tried to offer her a plain rose, she had to laugh and toss it aside. Marge only liked roses dipped in gold, they were so much prettier- AND they last forever. When the Princess dismissed him again, the leper issued her a warning "don't be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within". The leper began to shift right before her eyes into it's true form, three beacons of pure light and unleashed a curse on the Princess- transforming her into a HIDEOUS beast, with claws, hair everywhere, a snout, and even a tail. She burst forth from her ballgown, ripping it to shreds- causing everyone to flee in pure terror. The leper/deity left soon after, leaving the newly transformed princess alone with nothing but the red rose, which proved to be just as magical as it's owner. The curse spread to the castle keeping it and Marge locked in time, never aging or decaying, and Marge equally never aged mentally or physically in spite of the many years she spent there. Because the palace was out of time, it and Marge were forgotten entirely by the people she used to rule, and they were taken is as a province to another kingdom. This was all in service as to Marge's divine punishment. The palace would never decay and neither would she, she would stay eternally here and never age just like those gold dipped roses she loved so much. Here, in her fancy palace, with all the finery at her finger tips and no one to share it with- not even a servant, she'd rot. The only reminder of how how much time had passed being the enchanted rose the leper had left, as each of it's 27 petals would wilt off to mark another year spent like this, until the last petal would fall, dooming her to be a beast forever. In this stagnant, gilded cage, marge lost her mind. She ripped up old portraits of herself, she'd freak out at the slightest noise, and yes- she began to act more like a werewolf than princess. But of course there was still hope, a teeny weeny silver of hope- she wasn't sure how or even if this was the case at all, but almost all curses have some kind of cure. So naturally, hers must have one too? But she had no idea what could possibly cure her ailment, and it wasn't like the leper had told her himself. Looked like only time could tell...

And time sure did, because 27 years later, the answer to her prayers came through a very unexpected person.

Rich Santos was not from this poor village originally, there was a time he had been neighbors with the likes of the Bainbridges and enjoyed a decently well off lifestyle- til his father died along with his business partner Mr. Bainbridge and they lost their family fortune in their fleet of ships. Unfortunately that left his momma destitute and forced them to emigrate, but thankfully rich wasn't one for materialism. He was fine with the lack of finances, so long as he had his mother. If they had to live on a little farm with chickens and stuff he'd gladly do the chores in between his drumming and reading. Unfortunately his mom was not quite as okay with that, and attempted to marry the first person she could find and met Clint Bowers, who had two shitty kids named Butch and Dale Rich found annoying. Rich did not like his new brothers, that was evident, and his new step father was always running off on "secret business" that kept him away from his new wife and, in retrospect, probably worried her sick given how her husband passed away. Dale and butch were always quite jealous of Rich, and pretty much everything rich said or did would piss them both off. One time Clint asked them what they'd like as presents after he returns from his little trip, and Rich ended up asking for a red rose purely because he knew if he asked for something normal they'd call him spoiled, and if he asked for nothing they'd say he was being snotty and trying to impress them all by being selfless, so MAYBE if he asked for something stupid they wouldn't care? Yeah, no, they still made fun of him. They suck.

And you know what it wouldn't even be so bad if it was just them, but pretty much everyone in town likes to make fun of him too. They call him odd and make fun of him because he likes to read and play music instead of normal masculine stuff. The only person who's even nice to him is Patricia Stanton, who is this popular pretty girl with more money than anyone cause her dad and brothers are all hunters. Pretty much every guy in town would kill to be wit Patricia, but for some reason patty REALLY wants rich. She says its cause hes handsome, but rich is pretty sure its also cause he is notably not interested in her. No matter how many times rich politely tells her no, Patty will always end up scheming with her side kick Elaine to try and wear him down. It's quite grating.

On one of his aforementioned travels, Clint bowers got a bit turned around and would up at Marge's castle. Clint had a bit of history with this place, and out of some morbid curiosity, decided to step inside and take a look around. In his search of the place he found the titular red rose and almost snatched it, so in turn Marge tried to attack him. Clint, sniveling coward he is, begged for his life by offering up Rich's life instead, since he's the one who asked for the rose anyways. Marge does not want to get a third party involved, and in fact, she does not want to eat him at all, just scare him away so she can sulk in her loneliness in peace, so she lets Clint go. However, Clint does not get that and instead takes that as the go ahead to go get rich and offer him up to the beast.

He plays the victim when hes home, manipulates the hell out of rich by pointing out how important he is to his mother and kids, how sad it is that the monster absolutely MUST take somebody, how Dale can't go cause he's the youngest, and butch can't go cause dale needs his brother, yadda yadda yadda. And unfortunately rich falls for it. So he agrees to let Clint offer him up as prisoner, but when hes dropped off outside the palace and finally head in to meet marge, she's pretty disgusted to find out this Clint guy was willing to just sell rich out and remarks that she really should have ate him. Rich is naturally quite surprised to find that Marge doesn't want to keep in him a tower with no food or water for a week, but instead offers him a perfectly nice bedroom faaaaaaarrrrr away from her side of the palace. She'd send him back right now but there's a lot of wolves around these parts and it's probably not safe to just leave right now, and besides, not like Rich is missing much being without his step bothers and Clint's cowardly ass.

Rich naturally gets curious about where he's staying and who marge is, at first he's shocked to find out the beast is female cause he really never would have been able to tell, and he didn't even know beasts COULD be girls. When he tries to snoop around and gets caught marge is obviously pissed and loses her shit, but she ends up apologizing anyways. It's just... embarrassing to have someone know things about her these days. She can't afford to be vulnerable anymore. Rich says he understands and the two end up growing very close. Marge tells rich her whole story. Rich tells marge about his life. They end up bonding over being the odd one out in a community and having once had money and status but lost it all due to tragedy, oh and ofc having dead parents. Rich also brings up Patricia and marge relates it to all the phony marriage proposals she used to get.

The longer they spend together the more marge begins to change for the better personality wise, she's no longer nearly as selfish or haughty as she was before, and she feels like she owes him a bit of gratitude for that. So she gifts him a library, one that she never used before cause she couldn't read but still had installed for status reasons. Rich is elated and uses this as an opportunity to finally reach marge how to read and write, and they begin to geek out together over stories of pirates and knights. Marge attempts to kill all the wolves in the area so rich can go home and loses an eye in the process, so rich bandages her up. Before he goes he does some research on curses and tries to do a summoning ritual to see if he can capture a fairy to reverse it for her- it doesn't work, but hey, its something.

When he gets back home butch and dale are soooooooo pissed he's still alive. While he was gone Clint wasted no time telling everyone that there was a beast in the woods that threatened to murder them and probably killed rich too. There's been a very frequent string of missing kids around Derryland and Clint gets everyone riled up to blame the beast, even tho rich knows fully well that marge would never hurt a fly, even at her most selfish and bratty and vain. Someone else is taking those kids for a nefarious purpose, and he wagers its probably the same thing that got marge in this situation to begin with. And hes pretty sure Clint knows that too.

Rich tries and fails very desperately to convince them all marge is innocent and its all just a misunderstanding, but everyone disregards his opinion as Stockholm syndrome. Clint outright threatens to send him to Juniper hills if he doesn't stop spouting crazy stuff about the monster. Patty quickly joins in on the hate mob, motivated the fact Rich seems to be in love with some random furry beast over her- which is a blow to her ego she simply cannot bare. It makes her go so nuts, even Elaine seems aware that Patty's lost it. Still, there's nothing rich can do to stop the hate mob. There's only one solution, go get marge so they can lay low and, possibly, work together to find out who cursed her, why, what this has to do with missing kids, and why the hell roses seem so vital to this whole story.

Lilly & Matty

"Once upon a time there was a girl who's memories of an insane world had landed her in a psyche ward, and a little white rabbit that beckoned her to come back"

Among the other rich but not quite royal citizens of Derryland, the Bainbridges were rather easy to skip over. A family of 3, which was quite small crumbs compared to the massive dynasties of their neighbors, living in their own cushy little world fueled by the fortune Morris Bainbridge had acquired through trading (mostly pickles) with other kingdoms across the sea. Teresa Bainbridge was as stern and but loving as any woman of her time, and their daughter, Lilly, seemed to be growing into quite a formidable young lady in her own right. Everything seemed to take a turn when Lilly turned seven, and the unthinkable happened- Lilly went missing, along with a slew of other children right around her age. It through her parents for a loop, but it wasn't a totally unlikely thing for a girl with Lilly's fortune to her name to be kidnapped and ransomed- although no ransom letter had come. There were rumors of the fey, fairy folk who kidnapped children for nefarious means, those types of legends were all over Derryland. Although, some still remained skeptical of the whole curses, mystical lands, and other outlandish claims. It was one sunny after noon that Lilly had popped up again, innocently standing in the Bainbridge's garden, her starched pinafore dress covered in dirt and animal scratches- but still, Lilly seemed innocently unaware of how long she'd really been gone. There was no discussion of how she came back, who had taken her, if she had seen any other children, for Lilly couldn't remember a thing. Of, course, this was quite troubling to Lilly's parents- but Morris and Terri elected to celebrate Lilly's home coming than ruminate further on what horrors she could have seen. They were lucky to have her back, especially when so many other parents still had yet to find their children.

But then came trouble. Really bad trouble. Lilly started to have strange dreams.

Every few days, sometimes multiple times a night, Lilly would find herself plagued with nightmares of some strange and nonsensical place- a place where a turtle could smile at you, where some flowers can talk (quite rudely mind you) while others are just regular flowers, and where a tea pot was expected to have 6 handles, 3 1/2 spouts and one little bed at the bottom in case a mouse friend wants a place to nap while you drink tea. All of it nonsensical, confusing, and just plain mad. Sometimes, the nightmares would be so vivid and pervasive, Lilly would be forced to bother her father during his nightly work meetings so he could put her back to bed. Thankfully, Morris was a good enough father he'd never say no to Lilly if he could help it- and that's where Lilly created some of her most precious memories of her father, through hushed, candlelit conversations as he tucked her back into bed.

One night in summer her father asked her the one question Lilly always dreaded during these little talks: "What did you dream about this time?", and lilly answered honestly. "A man with six arms, some... half human half caterpillar hybrid, smoking a root from some strange device... said it was part of a ritual? A turtle in a tree who told me to duck and cover... and... twin girls- in matching blue dresses, telling me different directions to go in down a winding corridor. And clowns. Lots and lots clowns, all lurking under the surface. I fell down into a sewer man hole to get there.". Her father just laughed it off, making jokes about how he'd never seen a turtle talk before or a man with six arms. Lilly was a bit more concerned though. "Daddy, do you think I've gone mad?", she'd ask, eyes widened in a kind of... whimsical profound horror. And Morris would laugh. "Of course, bonkers, absolutely beyond repair. You are mad indeed- but let me tell you a secret Lilly... all the best people are. Every good thing was once something impossible, and every good impossible thing was only made possible because some crazy person thought it could be. Sailing used to be impossible, we thought we'd fall right off the earth, and now look at me- sailing day and night, and i've only fallen off the edge of the earth once.". That got Lilly to burst out laughing, in spite of how heavy the conversation was. Still, she was a bit worried about her mental state. "I wish i could forget about these dreams daddy, all they do is terrify me when i'm awake." She'd sigh. Morris shook his head. "Don't wish that Lilly, it's good to remember things- even bad, gory, traumatic things. That's how you learn from your mistakes, and rectify them. People like you and me- we remember things everyone else forgets. We dare to dream of all the mad things no one else will. You know on my ship, we have saying- there are two kinds of people, anchors and life boats. They'll either drag you down or keep you afloat- and you know what? The raving lunatics like you and me, the ones who remember everything and dare to dream of the impossible, are usually the latter. But it is still just a dream Lilly, nobody can hurt you there- you're only as powerless in it as you think you are. Okay?".

And you know, what? That was good enough for Lilly for quite a while, until her father perished in an awful collision with three other ships. Then things got quite dark in Lilly's life. She completely snapped, went totally off the deep end. It was the embarrassment of the century for high society- and when she finally returned to her "normal" self, the nightmares were ten times as worse- and Lilly found herself almost living in her dreams more than reality. She soon began to ponder all sorts of strange things, until she would often catch herself thinking over over ten impossible things before breakfast. This was quite troubling to her mother, enough so that she ended up being contacted by the head of a mental hospital and Lilly was promptly admitted.

Life in the hospital was hard. Lilly was given pills. Electro shocks. Extensively questioned about the same thing over and over again until she gave them the answers they wanted. Invasive therapy. Alll of this under the watchful eye of the head of house keeping, Ingrid Kersh, and the doctor in charge of the hospital- Clint Bowers. Neither of these two had any business taking care of a mentally ill child, but both of them posited themselves as the ones who cared about Lilly most in the world. The first thing Clint did when he met Lilly was take away her white rabbit toy that her father had given her, claiming it's presence fueled her delusions of this "Wonderland" she spoke of. From then on they began their therapy sessions which mostly consisted of Clint triggering Lilly by forcing her to relive certain things in the name of forgetting them. Ingrid was often present for these sessions, for no other reason than he thought Ingrid provided "interesting insight". The official diagnosis Clint gave Lilly was of a maladaptive day dreaming disorder that began as a result of her kidnapping, losing her friend Matty under mysterious circumstances, and the disturbing way her father had died, and the key to fixing her? Forgetting, obviously. Forget it, forget it, forget it. Forget about your father. Forget about Matty. Forget about your father. And most importantly, forget about wonderland. That was hard though, no matter how badly Lilly wanted to forget her memories, she was trapped in her past. It seemed as though she'd always be in this psyche ward, stuck under Ingrid and Clint's "care", her only contact with the outside world being the occasional letter to her mother as she spent all her time lying that Lilly had been merely sent to a special school for the summer. How dreadful.

But then, one morning, during her daily outside walk, someone had intruded the psyche ward garden. A... somewhat familiar stranger, with tall rabbit ears, a bushy tail, and pocket watch in his hands. Was that- Matty? It couldn't be. That was impossible. But then again, impossible things were Lilly's strong suit. The guard that had been asked to supervise the inmates had just dozed off, leaving Lilly an opportunity to hop out of sight after her furry friend. She chased after the rabbit Matty. Calling for him, grabbing at the air, pleading for him to just slow down at tell him what happened to them all those years ago. But she wasn't fast enough to catch- in fact, he disappeared down a manhole before she got the chance to even say hi. Faced with a horrible decision of either jump down into the unknown depths of the sewers or go back to the ward with Clint and Ingrid and the shock therapy and the horrible pills that were supposed to make all her fears melt away like magic but just got her high instead- she made the jump, but the manhole was far deeper than she could have ever expected- in fact she was barreling down an endless black void at an unprecedented speed. She soared past many doors, objects, and even a flurry of red balloons that obscured her vision, until she hit the ground in nearly an inch thick of water. She should have realistically died with only a puddles worth of water to catch her fall, but that wasn't the really weird part- the REALLY weird part was that she was sitting on an upside down ceiling, and her hair was standing up!

This was, of course, totally insane, and it took poor Lilly quite a bit to get her barrings. She was now surrounded by an inky black void with many locked doors all around her, and only one open door that was about a foot tall. Just as Lilly was thinking about how she'd like to be smaller- she turned to see a randomly materialized table with a little brown bottle labeled "air force coke" and a cap on top that said "drink me". Out of options, Lilly chugged it (after all, she'd drank/ate much worse at Juniper Hills) and suddenly began to shrink down until she didn't fit her clothes anymore. She had to resort to using one of her socks and a ribbon as a makeshift dress before she continued. And, to her amazement- as she stepped out of the now, regular sized (from her perspective) door, she was faced once again, with her wonderland.

As she trudged through her old stomping grounds she came face to face with all of the familiar folk she'd seen in her dream. The Grady twins. Dick the caterpillar. The Cheshire turtle. She even wound up attending a mad tea party with all the kids who'd gone missing years ago- and they hadn't aged a bit! Susie Malkin's disembodied hand had been found in the woods, and yet here she was- a bandaged stump on one arm and a fantastical six spouting teapot in the other as she babbled on nonsensically to the other missing kids about... hats. Safe to say Lilly did NOT want to have tea with a bunch of insane children, but they gave her directions to Matty in exchange for her playing a round of trivia with them. She'd won simply by saying "i don't know" to "why is a raven like writing desk" because, and i quote, "correct! we don't know either!!".

Everything about this is utterly insane, and to tell you the truth, Lilly is sick of it. It's like being in the psyche ward with no guards to protect her from this madness- and every time she complains, everyone just tells her that this madness is perfectly sensical and she's the crazy one. It's all summed up pretty well in her conversation with the Cheshire turtle: "you're floating Mr. Turtle. Turtles are not supposed to fly." "Maybe in whatever backwards place you're from, but, we all float down here Lilly." "More like you're all mad down here..." "well yes, that too, we all float, and we're all mad- and you my dear lilly are already one out of two.".

Eventually Lilly finds Matty and asks him what the actual fuck is happening, to which he seems incredibly nervous but hesitantly pulls her aside to give her some help. He feeds her a jar of pickles that says "eat me" on the front to help her grow back to regular size (which, unfortunately makers her grow a whopping 11 feet tall), and he starts to tell her what's happening. Wonderland has a magnificent beast here, one that constructed this world a very long time ago with the express purpose of luring in children and keeping them there like pigs being fattened for the slaughter. Because it is a creature not of this world the world it created is hardly an accurate representation of reality. The pure essence of the creature, the deadlights, is enough to drive anyone insane- and wonderland reflects that. The magic that is in Derryland itself is merely a result of things from here leaking out into there. That's where fairies, witches, and everything else comes from. And once you're inside wonderland you never really grow up, and at the absolute worst, you start to change yourself. Susie was once normal, but its influence has driven her bananas. Matty himself was once a child, but now this place has made him sprout rabbit ears and crave carrots. The creature that inhabits this place goes by many names, Pennywise, Bob Grey, IT, the jabberwock. It takes on many shapes and forms, you cannot even begin to understand how powerful it is. And the most insane thing is that... Lilly already knows this. Or at least she should. Because shes been here before. Down the manhole. At the tea party. With dick. Only difference is she managed to get out through her own wits and grow older. And that must mean something, right?

Lilly wants to deny this all as just a stupid dream, another nightmare she can just wake up from, she even ties pinching herself. It's just like doctor bowers said- all she has to do is forget it through force of will and she'll be fine. But she doesn't wake up, and in fact, mysterious guards come swooping in to capture Lilly and Matty. At the dark tower of the red queen, Lilly and Matty are dressed in new clothes that are both far too fancy to be prisoner outfits but also way too impractical to be actually fashionable- they look like a high fashion version of clowns. They are then brought to the throne room of the red queen, and Lilly is horrified to see that Queen Periwinkle bears an awful resemblance to a certain someone she knows, and her cherished Knave of hearts guard ALSO looks very familiar. Could it be, are they one in the same with the ones who'd tried so hard to make Lilly forget this place?

Oh god, could it be that the reason they'd done all of that- all the brainwashing, pills, shock therapy, and everything else was all simply because she knew too much? This was no dream. It never was. This was a memory. She'd PAINTED those roses in the garden. She'd came to this castle and played croquet. She'd sat and chatted with Dick, and the turtle and all the rest. Lilly expects periwinkle or Ingrid or whatever to immediately kill her because she's here again, but when Matty says she's someone else that just looks, sounds, and acts exactly like Lilly, periwinkle seems to buy it. Which ofc, doesn't make any fucking sense, so it makes sense here. Duh. So Lilly is safe... for now. But now that she fully understands the plot in which she's been caught in, she cannot help but get involved and try to figure out how to stop whatever is happening here. She's got a whole myriad of questions about pretty much everything about this place and not a lot of answers. Questions like, who? How? What? Where? And why? But most importantly of all: maybe her father's death wasn't as accidental as she thought? He disappear before he died, and all they found o him was his chopped up head... and that seems to certainly be Ingrid's favorite method for murder.

God, what was that he used to say about falling off the face of the earth?

Ronnie & Will

"Once upon a time there was a downtrodden princess bitterly determined to save her father from certain doom, and a prince willing to help her in exchange for a kiss."

Princess Veronica was born the sole heir to the thrown of Cappiteltheatar, one of the better provinces in all of Derryland, and her birth was a truly remarkable occasion, marked by celebration and gratitude for such great luck- if only her birth hadn't cost her mother her life. For all the riches and power being monarchs can give a person, defying death is not one of them. But, as horrible as Queen Ida's death was, at least she didn't die in vein. Before her demise the idea of having an heir distressed good old king Henry to no end, as he'd been basically expected to do it his whole life, as his father and mother had been expected to before him, but the longer he went on without one the more frantic he became. Hank of course wanted kids, but princess Veronica's birth was mostly due to an obligation, as was his and his fathers and so on and so forth. Never the less, Hank loved Ronnie more than anything, and the loss of her mother only made her all the more precious to him. And with a missing piece in the family, and his job as king keeping him away from home more often than not- Hank quickly turned to anything that could fill the void.

He spoiled Ronnie, not rotten, Ronnie was always too smart, stubborn, and independent to become a rotten brat- but he spoiled her with gifts from all of his travels, even tho most of the time Ronnie didn't care for any of it. Ronnie didn't like her expensive gifts, not because she was ungrateful or too good for any of it- the issue was not that she needed a prettier ball gown or a more bejeweled tiara- the issue was that all Ronnie really want, was for her family to be together. Hank was too busy off trying to fill the void with stuff, and Hank never realized that he was adding to the void by doing such. Ronnie understood why her father always needed to be away- he was king, that's what kings do- and when he was here he was as perfect and loving as any father ought to be, which only made it hurt more.

And while King Henry was off doing god knows what, Ronnie was left in the care of her grandma, the queen dowager Louella, who took to turning Ronnie into a ~☆◇♡Real princess♡◇☆~, by giving her etiquette lessons, dance classes, beauty tips, finding a suitor, pretty much all the junk a princess is expected to adhere to as part of the old outdated views of womanhood, all of which Ronnie didn't really give a shit about. She didn't want ballgowns, tiaras, gifts, princes, or anything of the sort- all she wanted was her daddy. And so, Ronnie began to hate being a princess. She really, really, REALLY, hated being a princess. And when her grandma started to introduce her to the princes she was supposed to choose from? Eugh.

Of course Ronnie was in a position of super privilege that many girls would die for, so any outsider would pretty much dismiss her as a spoiled brat who didn't realize what she had, but how could she not hate being royalty? Her father was always away. She didn't have anyone to talk to. Most people she knew only wanted something from her. Her grandma was more preoccupied with teaching her how to curtsy than take care of herself. Her "future husbands" were boorish, brainless, pieces of shit who assumed she must have been just like them just cause they were both royalty. But... what was she to do? Princess aren't really active. They usually just... do whatever they're told. That's how her grandma was raised. Maybe she needed to stop fighting it so much. Perhaps this was how it was always going to be...

And then... one really weird thing happened.... her dad didn't come back. He just... vanished. He'd said he'd come back at some date and the date had passed, and rest assured, even tho Hank was always away- he was also NEVER tardy. When he said he'd be back he would come back. So the fact months had passed without a sign from her father, not even a letter back no matter how many she sent to him. This didn't just destroy her, it ignited a great fire inside that was hot and angry in no way anyone had seen a princess be before. And the anger only got worse the more she tried to talk to strangers about how concerned she was, they'd all brush her off. It was always "Aww, don't worry Ronnie, your dad will be back soon, i know you're eager to see what new pretty thing he buys you." Or "Ronnie kings often have to go away, don't worry about it- surely you should be more preoccupied with finding a husband.". It was a bunch of bullshit, it made her sick, her dad was missing and possibly dead or kidnapped and they didn't even fucking care??? They just expected her to go to tea parties and shit like this was normal, and that was when Ronnie started to suspect there was something seriously foul going on, and yet, she was pretty powerless to figure out how. It was just so frustrating! The only person who even gave a damn was her grandma, but all she could do was worry and hope. No action. Ugh.

One day Ronnie was going for a pissed off stroll by herself in her royal garden (the only good part of being a princess is you get to order people to leave you alone and they mostly cant do shit about it), tossing around the last present her dad gave her before he went missing, a shiny golden ball. Yes. A stupid, gold sphere, specifically made just to be tossed around and look pretty when you stuck it on the mantel. It was like, the perfect metaphor for Ronnie's life. Just a stupid shiny decoration with no actual value beyond how it shines or the price tag. In all her frustration she just had to find a way to let it out, so in a fit of petulant anger she smacked the stupid thing right into their nearby well, where it dumbly smacked against the water and sank to the bottom. Good riddance.

Ronnie ranted and raved to herself, looking like a total crazy woman yelling at no one in particular in the middle of a big fancy garden. In the middle of her rant tho, a voice she had never heard before interrupted her. "You know, if you're gonna yell can you take it somewhere else. I'm reading.". Ronnie stomped to the other side of the well, fully preparing to tear this intruder a new one- only to find a really strange sight: a fucking frog reading a book. What. And even weirder, a frog reading a book that could talk. After Ronnie's initial horror and disgust washed away, the frog introduced himself as Will- much to Ronnie's lack of enthusiasm. This began a quick back and forth between the too- Ronnie says he doesn't have the right to be here cause this is her garden and shes a princess so she can kick out anyone she wants, will says he could tell she was a princess cause she's so pretty and rude, Ronnie says she has the right to be rude cause she's got a lot of shit on her mind cause her dads missing, and points out that a frog wouldn't know the first thing about stress, and will says he has lots to worry about- like snakes and gators. The two are quarreling, but honestly- it's actually kind of a nice moment. This is the first time Ronnie's had a genuine conversation with anybody in god knows how long, most people outside of her family don't care about what she says, and obviously- Will being a frog doesn't really have many people to talk to you. It's nice even tho they're not being all that friendly.

Will asks Ronnie if she'd like her golden ball back, cause he can get it since hes a frog, and Ronnie tells him to knock himself out. Will seems disappointed that Ronnie doesn't care, as though he was hoping he could use it to bargain, but he does it anyways cause he's nice like that. Then, out of curiosity, Ronnie asks why he can talk if he's a frog. Will tells a very strange and surreal story about how he's actually a prince and wasn't always a frog. His parents wanted a kid so bad they made a deal with some weird monster that if they did some kind of awful thing they'd have a perfect little baby, but after Will was born they realized it was too disgusting and wrong and tried to walk back on it, and uh, well you'll never guess what IT decided to do as penance. Poof. Frog baby. Ronnie is, somewhat, skeptical of this story, but she supposed if a talking frog could exist anything is possible. Then she asks what he's reading and Will says his dad started documenting weird stuff around Derryland and putting it in a scrap book after his son turned into a frog, it's full of all sorts of interesting and cool stuff and he plans on giving it to will once he's gone so he can pass it onto his grand kids- ya know, for when will has some talking tadpoles. Ronnie takes great interest in this, because, obviously, this could be just the ticket to figuring out what happened to her dad. Will notices this and immediately wants to use it to bargain. There's a quick back and forth where the two are skeptical of each other and kinda attempting to bargain, until Ronnie flat out asks him what he wants. She's got money, power, connections, literally anything he could want- just name it. And Will puts it pretty simply: He wants a kiss. Ronnie is disgusted and turns her back on him, but she eventually realizes that she doesn't exactly have an option.

She grabs a lipstick and puts as many layers as she can on in hopes it might make the sensation on her lips not feel so gross. She bends down, puckers her lips, lifts him up- and uh... nothing. He's still a frog, she's still a human. Kind of boring. Will cannot BEGIN to describe his disappointment. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it was more than that for sure. Ronnie brushes it off and asks if they can just go now and will asks if she can really just go on a journey with no one noticing and Ronnie says her "friends" wouldn't care if she dropped dead, and she'll just tell her grandma she's having a romantic rendezvous with a prince, which is sorta kinda true. Using the last location her father had sent a letter from and Will's little book as a guide, Ronnie sticks him in her purse and they head out on their journey for answers: Ronnie, to find out where her father is, and will to figure out why his curse didn't break. Only one problem tho.

Will is sorta, kinda... lying to Ronnie. I mean, he is indeed a prince- or at least used to be. But he's not one currently, his kingdom got absorbed into another one upon the frog thing, and now his parents are just regular old farmers out in the woods. They seem happy like that, but will always felt guilty about it- like his existence costed them everything. But Leroy and Charlotte always maintained that they would be okay no matter what, and that they didn't really mind having a non human son these days- I mean, if they did care that much they'd probably try for another kid and replace him or something. Will is trying to hold onto it as a sort of last piece of dignity among other humans, cause he mostly just gets overlooked as another stupid animal even if they know hes human in the mind. It's about the only claim to importance or respect he has and he thinks if he tells Ronnie the truth it'll make her even more disgusted by him than she probably already is. I mean, aren't all princesses like that? They want a prince, and pretty clothes, and a happily ever after in a big castle? He likes her enough he can't bare the thought of anything else.

Little did either Ronnie or will know that both of them were far more alike under the surface than they could have ever thought. Both of them believed their birth had brought tragedy and disgrace. Both were often over looked and misunderstood based on preconceived notions of their identity. Both were seldom listened to. Ronnie doesn't want to be a princess because it's brought her nothing but disrespect, while Will wants to be a human prince so people might finally listen to him. They both just want to be seen as people with thoughts and feelings and valid concerns. It's kind of sweet. :)

Oh, and about Hank, i have good news and bad news. Good news is: he's alive!, bad news: He's with Periwinkle. Yeeeeaaahhh. Periwinkle had played him for a fool and is planning to use him as part of one big scheme cause he's a king. She's got him held captive at her palace and is going to use him as a pawn (pun intended). The really bad news tho is that poor Hank's under a spell where he thinks everything's okay. He's been cursed to have 3 metal bands wrapped around his heart, which has turned him into a vacant shallow husk that's more so Ingrid/periwinkle's plaything than anything. Gotta give it to Ingrid, her dedication to making her dad's whims come true is quite impressive. She'll even seduce a king for him.

Phil & Teddy

"Once upon a time there was a boy who left home to never grow up, and a boy who dared to follow him out of his bedroom window"

It's hard to imagine a more posh upbringing a child could experience in Derryland than that of a prince, and among all the princes in the world- Teddy and Donald Uris probably had it the roughest. Donald seemed fine with all of the insurmountable lessons and endless studies they had to do about their family history, but Teddy was always more off with his head in the clouds more than anything. It was a bit strange, their parents were more lax than other royals in some areas, like them having to wear fancy clothes or crowns all the time, while in others, like studying, they kept their expectations high. Teddy was fully aware of his status as a royal spare- just someone who was on standby in case of Donald getting sick or injured. It's a role Teddy takes with gratitude, relief, and fear. It's very important to keep tradition going, and he knows that very well, but the fact he DOES know that so well is what makes him so scared. He knows Donald is the favorite, the one people are counting on, and he fears what kind of life he'd have if something were to happen to him. Would his parents go mad and start calling him Donald instead? Act like Teddy had been the one to die? Maybe they'd force him to dress in Donald's clothes and prance around like him. Obviously, that was crazy talk, but with all the heavy expectations levied on him, irrational fears were bound to come out. And even worse, on the odd occasion Teddy showed an actual childish interest- he was chastised.

On a random night that their parents were both busy doing whatever the hell kings and queens do, Donald and Teddy were getting ready for bed in their shared bedroom. Typically, royals do not share bedrooms with each other unless they are married, their parents had merely let Teddy room with donald as a toddler so he wouldn't be afraid of the dark- but his fear never quite disappeared and so,Teddy never got a room of him own. His parents weren't too pleased by his clinginess to his brother and childish fears, and urged him to just grow up already, but Teddy just wasn't ready yet. Sure, everyone has to grow up at some point, but Teddy would try to fight it if he could.

As they get ready for bed Teddy expresses concern for the recently missing children across Derryland, and out of curiosity asks if he thought the kids could have disappeared somewhere underground, to which Donald remarks that that was a fantastical and quite stupid thought.

They head to bed but in the middle of the night Teddy is awoken by the ruckus of something busting through his window. When he peers his head over the covers to see what it was, all he finds is a confused looking boy in bright green tights crumpled up on his floor. Teddy did not immediately run to wake up his brother, who was surprisingly still fast asleep even after all that noise, but instead asked the boy why he seemed so sad. The boy tells him his shadow is being an asshole and won't stay put, and Teddy notices the shadow is hopping all around his bedroom and making funny faces at them. When Phil tries to grab the shadow again Teddy tells him to hold it while he gets some needle and thread. It was at this point, mid sewing, that Donald finally woke up- and boy, what a strange sight to wake up to. Teddy gives Phil the sewing kit and a thimble for next time his shadow goes away, and Phil immediately feels bad that he has nothing to give to Teddy, so he grabs an acorn from his pocket and makes a necklace out of it using the kit he just got. Donald is insanely confused.

Just then, a beautiful fairy- only about five inches tall and glowing like a light bulb- smacks into their bedroom wall. Phil seems delighted to see her, and shows her off to Teddy proudly. The fairy, apparently named Rhonda, is extremely annoyed to be here, and won't stop chewing gum or rolling her eyes at either of the two princes. Donald says this is all very ridiculous and impossible, because he doesn't even believe in fairies, and that heavily offends Phil and Rhonda, because, and I quote "Every time someone says I don't believe in fairies, a fairy somewhere drops down dead.". Teddy tries to compliment Rhonda by saying she's really pretty. but Rhonda seems unimpressed. She communicates through a series of jingle sounds that Phil says are insults about Teddy's looks. Donald cracks a smile for the first time all night.

Phil flies around the room, hither and thither, to and fro, zig zagged and zag zigged. He says he likes the brothers and wants to invite them to come party in Neverland, which is a connected to wonderland, but unlike wonderland is reached through the sky. According to Phil he often comes back to Derryland with the sole purpose of bringing kids to Neverland so they can have fun together, and surely most of them must like it- cause hardly anyone's ever left. He promises Teddy and Donald that they'll have tons of fun there because in Neverland nobody ever has to grow up. It's just fun and games and silly stories all day long. Teddy is delighted by the idea, and with a sprinkle of pixie dust, they're off. Donald insists that if Teddy's going though he has to come too or else he'll get into all sorts of trouble. So together they fly off over the whole of Derryland, and it's so magical Teddy doesn't even realize that Phil basically just admitted to being the reason kids are going missing.

Once in Neverland Phil tells Teddy how he got here. He and his sister Susie were just like Donald and Teddy, bored, burdened with adulthood, way too serious, and then some magical entity scooped them up and brought them here. Phil, admittedly, hasn't seen Susie in a very long time, in fact, Phil hasn't seen any of the kids he's helped bring to Neverland in a very long time, he's had many lost boys come to play with him, but they all eventually leave and get replaced by new ones- like Teddy and Donald. Phil assumes he's doing a really good thing for these kids by taking them here, i mean- Neverland IS a nice place, it's just that... it's only a nice place to keep him pacified. The thing Phil doesn't realize is that he's been unknowingly bringing kids to a land that they will eventually get lost and die in to feed the eldritch monster that lives here. It's not his fault, he's just been purposefully mislead and manipulated into believing it's all sunshine in rainbows. When you fly and live your life up in the clouds, you don't really see the bad things on the ground. And sadly, Teddy and Donald are none the wiser to the disturbing reality right now either.

From then on just... a lot of crazy stuff happens. Phil takes them to go see mermaids. They try to drown Teddy. Phil and Teddy have some awkward romantic chemistry. Rhonda is so jealous she tries to get the lost boys to kill Teddy. Phil and teddy encounter some pirates. They try to shoot teddy. It's a pretty good time. Meanwhile Donald meets Rose, who is a little native girl who lives with her tribe here in Neverland and they become such good friends they end up just vibing together the whole time. They're shooting bottles with a sling shot and it's sweet but also really ironic that Donald said he had to keep Teddy out of trouble and is now partying with people he just met.

The closest thing to a real genuine threat this place has is Captain Shaw, the leader of a band of pirates who, although quite terrifying, are really only there because Periwinkle needed someone to stay there and keep Phil occupied. If their little pied piper gets too bored he might end up poking his head in places he doesn't belong and finding out he's basically a honey pot for them. So Shaw spends his time mostly going in circles trying to attack Phil just in hopes Phil will find it too fun to realize it's all very staged. Rest assured tho, Shaw does genuinely hate Phil and lowkey want to kill him, i mean, he did cut off his hand and feed it to a godly space turtle. so there's that.

But like I said, 'tis not all fun and games here in Neverland/Wonderland, even though it may appear that way. Someone has to realize something is up here and take some action, and mercifully it seems like Teddy, Rose, and Donald might help Phil do just that. And maybe, perhaps, a frog prince, a princess looking for her father, a half boy half rabbit, an escaped mental patient, a beast, and bookworm might run into him some point and lend hand as well.

And together, maybe all of these kids can find some answers as to who, how, and why everything seems so bad, and perhaps even find their own little happily ever afters along the way?

Ehhh, probably not.