Chapter Text
“Hey Idia, you like cats right?”
“Kitty cats are GOAT for sure.” Idia looked up from his gaming console.
“And you understand how I may be a little… frustrated that my login streak for my game back home has died.”
“Yuu, that’s a tragedy. F to pay respects.”
“So if I showed you my tablet and laptop that showed up at Ramshackle sometime last night, you could make charging systems for them?”
“I mean, it’d be EZ but you told me to touch grass so…”
“If you do this for me, I’ll show you my folder of cute cat videos from my world.”
“Bet.”
Yuu spent the first Saturday with her new chargers on her tablet gaming, making sure to send 50 videos to Idia of her favorite social media cats. Then she spent Sunday binging all the anime seasons that had finished since she got to Twisted Wonderland. Monday came around and she learned that Friday was apparently going to be a faculty service day, so there were no classes and she immediately knew was going to spend the whole day on Netflix with Wikipedia pulled up revisiting her favorite research topics.
But then she learned that Idia had shared the deal she made with Ortho, who then blabbed to the rest of the first years. The six of them decided to crash her party of one, and so now she was waiting for Jack to come back with snacks from Sam’s while Ortho hooked up a massive projector.
“So what we watchin'?” Ace lounged on her couch.
“I was going to watch some of my favorite movies while doing a Wikipedia dive.” Yuu sighed, mourning the loss of her Friday.
“What’s a Wikipedia?” Deuce came out of the kitchen with Sebek and Epel, the three having brought ingredients for dinner as payment for taking up her time.
“An internet encyclopedia.”
“Why do you spend your time on an encyclopedia?” Epel sat in a recliner. “That sounds super boring.”
“Sebek, besides Malleus, what’s your favorite topic?”
“I like books. And practicing my martial arts.”
“What’s your favorite animal?”
“I like crocodiles.” He offered.
“Okay so - hey Ortho can I project?”
“System operational! Yes you can Yuu.”
“Perfect! So I go to Wikipedia…” she missed this website “and I type in croccc-oooo-dialllllll. And boom. A bunch of info on crocodiles!”
“Fascinating. And you can do this with any animal?” Sebeck was already reading the entry.
“Sure. But the fun stuff isn’t the sciency things. It’s like… well lookie here. There’s an entire section on crocodiles in religion! Wanna see that?”
“Why are we looking up crocodiles in religion?” Jack came through the door with 3 large bags.
“Showing what Wikipedia is.”
“What?”
“It is an encyclopedia that contains information on everything.” Sebek said quickly, still focused in on the article.
“Wanna see cactus from my world?” Yuu offered.
“Really!” Jacks tail started to wag.
“Sure!” She went up to the search bar and typed in cactus . “So like… here’s some history on how cactus plants have been used in my world.”
“OH YUU, let’s look at barbecue!” Epel called out.
Yuu went up to the search bar and before she could click enter Deuce’s voice stopped her.
“Murders? What’s barbecue got to do with murders?”
She clicked on the suggestion.
“Looks like they were called that because the 16-year old killer tried to dispose of the bodies in a barbecue pit! Wanna learn about the death penalty?” Yuu offered.
“Uh. That seems illegal?” Ace’s face was white.
“ Fine but it’s super interesting. Here let’s click on… OH Richardson Family Murders. Let’s see here.” The page pulled up on the projector. “12 year old and her 23 year old boyfriend killed her parents. Oh she liked Jeffrey Dahmer! He’s fun!”
“Is this why overblots don’t freak you out! Cause you research murder for fun?”
“Not just murder Acey. Now, voting time: Dahmer or the Mansons.” Yuu looked at the amusingly startled first years. “And can you hand me a soda Jack?”
“Sure. And there’s only one Dahmer so I pick that one. Given the context one is better than multiple.”
“See I think that’s what Yuu wants us to think, so I’m going with Mansons.” Epel pulled an apple out of a bag.
“Preliminary searches on my databanks doesn’t show anything like those names in Twisted Wonderland.” Ortho had finally found a spot he liked sitting on the floor. “My random choice generator has picked Dahmer.”
“I refuse to choose.” Ace shook his head. “Why choose when I know both of them will be the things of horror movies!”
“Manson sounds like Malleus. So I choose Manson.” Sebek said proudly.
“You’re the tiebreaker, Deuce.”
“Uh. Can Ortho run the random thing for me?”
“Initiating. Manson.”
“Yes! One of my favorites.” Yuu kicked her feet. She pulled up the page and just let them read the basic summary.
“Yuu what the fuck!” Ace whispered.
“I know!”
“Why do you want to go back?” Jack held a pillow to his chest.
“This is nothing like Malleus.”
“Sebek, Malleus put the entire island to sleep because of a temper tantrum.”
“Sleeping is not murder, Human!”
“Mansons got nothing on Jonestown though.”
“It gets worse ?”
“Yuu I believe all this is illegal in some capacity in Twisted Wonderland.” Ortho offered. “We could keep you safe!”
“Come on! It’s fun, I promise. I’ll show you some of my favorite conspiracy theories after!” Yuu pulled up the page. “I’ll let y’all read. I’m going to put the perishables in the fridge.”
She was in the middle of making sure the sodas would fit in the door when she heard the comments starting.
Nine-oh-nine?
Mass-migration… why?!
This is insane! Sevens what the fuck?
I’m never drinking grape anything ever again!
A TOURIST DESTINATION!
“Your just scanning it now!” Yuu complained. "Actually read!"
“Yuu, I ain’t lettin ya go back!" Epel ran into the kitchen, gripping her shoulders tightly. "Your worlds a Seven forsaken screen door onna submarine!”
“Oooh! Wanna learn about OceanGate? It’s HILARIOUS!” She ignored Epel and ran into the common room.
“How many people died?” Deuce demanded.
“Five. But they tried to pilot a submarine with a video game controller to go see the Titanic!” Yuu waved Deuce’s concerns off, pulling up the Wikipedia page and jumping down to expand the details of the Titan and the incident section. “The entire internet was making memes of the whole thing for weeks. Public shadenfreude at its finest.”
They read and Ace started to chuckle. “So this is a bunch of super rich idiots conned into getting into a homemade submarine powered by a video game controller? And they were aware that it wasn’t like… safety certified?”
“Don’t tell Ashengrotto.” Jack huffed. “Hey Yuu… what’s the Titanic and why were people willing to pay that much to see it?”
“Oh. I know what movie we’re watching.” Yuu pulled up her folder of downloaded movies. “Hold onto your tear ducts boys!”
195 minutes later Yuu and Ortho watched as all the other boys were crying at various volumes. Jack was clearly the most effected, sobbing silently. “Jack? You okay buddy?” Yuu stood up, grabbing a blanket and wrapping him in it.
“They loved each other so much!”
“I have a bunch of movies about love with happy endings?”
“ Please?”
For the rest of the weekend, Yuu played through movies and TV shows she had access to on all her accounts. She explained the plot of one and if one person in the group wanted to watch it they did.
Sebek’s favorite movie was The Princess Bride . Epel actually had taken over her tablet, learning about her favorite cults and serial killers. Ace loved American Horror Story . Deuce, coincidentally, ended up choosing and liking every movie made by Mel Brooks. Jack and Ortho chose mainly TV shows - Jack seemed to prefer Survivor and Fringe when not watching a documentary on the Titanic , and Ortho regularly chose History Channel shows about aliens and other cryptids.
By Sunday night, they had learned so much about Yuu’s home-world that they also seemed to miss it. But, they all agreed as they headed back to the mirror chamber, Yuu was not going back there.
Not if they could help it.
Her world was insanely terrifying. Regardless of how good its movies were.