unforum

[jono]

Well considering we seem to be looking a versions (which is a nice touch) I decided to flick through the few versions I know of:


-Are you Alice? (Ai Ninomiya/Ikumi Katagiri): A wonderful Manga, basically in this Alice is a boy and goes to Wonderland to kill the White Rabbit. He goes there to understand who he is and compete with other girls to gain the title of Alice.




-Wonderland: Alice's New Musical Adventure- A musical version of Alice set in modern day New York with Alice having to save the day from the Hatter (who now runs a war room). Cheshire is not a major part having lost the power to teleport but "no one has the heart to tell him"

-Alice (Tom Waits)- Written for a never finished Alice stage show, this touchs on the darker aspects within Wonderland.

-Alice in Cyberspace (Lewis Carroll Society of Canada)- A modern version of Wonderland, first a radio play but later put out as a book. This is the most obvious link to us due to the use of computers in this game

But for the best link, I would suggest

-The Looking Glass Wars (Frank Beddor)- In this the characters of Wonderland are real and there is a war between the factions of White And Black. In this book Cheshire is Redd's top assassin with "butcher knife claws" and he kills Alice's Father during an attack on the home of her (adopted) parents. Also Hatters quest to find Alice could parrallel the idea of this race between our two.

We are looking for a version of Alice that features darkness and a male protagonist. Neither of these two are unusual (Alice is the perfect tale to overlay the concept of finding oneself in both personality and gender)

But Cheshire is hardly ever the villian, this makes it hard to find one that fits perfectly. But Looking Glass Wars seems to be the best fit for overall

Now our victims seem very random. Could the killer be using Wonderland logic? or if we use the Looking Glass Wars as our filter it could be the quest to find the true Alice and the Cat has so far been incorrect each time.

Also the poem from Cheshire is odd, its broken up in a way thats so hard to say, but I will point out "Scrambled IPs" could be a refrence to "intellectual property" which would show he understands he is fiddling with Alice symbolism.

[TheFallenenvoy]

Thanks for that Jono.

It would seem I pissed him off with my exhausted half-thought out theory xD. I really should have remembered factors like hair and age but eh, it was late and I was tired.

I've been trying to see if there's any hidden pages on Cheshire's tumblr by using keywords as extensions etc. but I've not had much of a result from that, so I guess my senseless paranoia is all for nothing D:

Though I think I might suggest Klaus takes a camera with him wherever he goes. If he comes across him, some sort of picture would be nice. Maybe even get a comparison shot between them just to check how similar they really are.

[jono]

Well it seems like Cheshire Smile/Glasgow Grin might be key, so a quick bit of history on the subject.

It came about due to it being common in Glasgow gangs (and Glasgow had a lot of gangs). It also became known as the calling card of Football hooligans who supported the Chealsea team in the EPL leading to it being called a "Chealsea smile".

Its most famous use is in the Victor Hugo novel The Man Who Laughed, where the main character was given it as punishment for his fathers crimes. He escorts a blind girl around (and makes money by showing off his wounds) until he nobel woman falls in love with in and it all goes downhill from there.

Another famous one is Kuchisake Onna a Japanese legend of a woman with such a smile who walks around asking people if she is pretty, if you say yes or no she will give you a copy of her wound. The only way to stop her is to say something that is neither positive or negative or give her candy or pomade.

[jono]

Sorry to double post but I just might have hit something.

Me and OWP have been looking at Cheshires poem both moaning about how the flow is utterly broken.

I then realised he only used capitals on some lines which is odd. The capitals are:

A B Y W S G

Now if we turn these into numbers we get:
A 1
B 2
Y 25
W 23
S 19
G 7


Which is perfect for an ip address: 12.25.23.197

Which when run through a look up gives you several results the most common being Worcester,Massachusetts

[TheFallenenvoy]

So...we have cheshire's voice and we know he plans on leaving a clue at the funeral... Anyone got anything to say about the poem? I would try to read into it but 3:15 am is not a good time to try xD

It has a pretty weird structure and quite a few misspellings

[jono]

Well the capitals make this:
OTYRCAKF
O 15
T 20
Y 25
R 18
C 3
A 1
K 11
F 6


Is all I have. The Carebears stuff is not useful as it has no links to the real world, it was produced in Canada if that is any help.

Of course the quote refrences "use your head" from the Jefferson Airplane song "White Rabbit"

Of course this has been refrenced, the Dormouse is the name Cheshire used to refer to our hero. Interesting/fun fact, the Dormouse was inspired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti's pet Wombat. Rossetti owened a lot of random pets durng his slightly more mad years (when he basically held mad parties and painted). This Wombat used to sit on the dinner table and would often climb into bowls and fall alseep (like the Dormouse in the teapot)

Possibly the most famous teeth within Alice would be that of the Jabberwock. The Alice books were first illustrated by Tenniel and his depiction of the Jabberwock was so grotesqute and scary Carroll decided to avoid using it as the front peice of the book for fear it would scare the young readers.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/TheJabberwocky.jpg

[anothergreg]

The first word of every other line forms "Only You Can Kill Me". I've also been playing around with forming the simplest grammatical clauses with the poem but I haven't had any luck. The misspelling of "Clause" seems like a clue so I figured it would come into play in how to decipher the riddle. I'm no good with the rules of english so someone else might have better luck. The "Clause" thing has to be driving the solution, though:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/clause

The killer also mentions "games", "clue" (in an enunciated tone), and "Monopoly" in his audio. He capitalizes "Red" in his poem. The line before it mentions the flick of a knife. Maybe some references to the game "Clue"? The red character is Miss Scarlett. Playing along this same line of thinking we see he escapes without chatter. One of the rooms available in the Clue board game is the library, a quiet library where chatter isn't allowed... Miss Scarlett with the knife in the library? We might have the name of our next victim and the possible location of the next murder. Might be a bit far fetched, but it's a possibility.

[giladren]

Been lurking, figured I'd try my hand at some of this...

Another poem from Cat:

[Gin]

Season 2 is here!

[OhWhatProvidence]

Hell yea! Thought it had died early.

I'm actually about to head out the door, but woot! Glad it's back. I'll check when I get home.

[specterseymour]

Alright guys, I just started reading, but I'd say that theory about Clue hit the mark dead on.
Remember the house of the first victim? Klaus found a revolver in the study there. Traditionally when playing clue, the revolver is placed in the study. Obviously the dagger is another weapon from Clue, though it wasn't found in its natural room, the lounge.
Finally, the Investigators only searched one room at a time. In clue, you narrow down your suspects by guessing one room at a time until you've only got one left. A somewhat loose association I know, but possibly significant.

As I've only just begun looking over the mystery, this is really just idle speculation. I'll add more as I go along if anything else strikes me.
Tl;dr the Clue connection seems legit.

Edit: Not much else that hasn't been mentioned, but that Scarlet business seems to add to the theory. It seems possible that knowledge of board games may become important, if Cheshire follows such a trend.
Finally, anyone else notice how in Cheshire's last post he seems to trip over his words a bit saying Isabella's name near the end? Almost like he said Is-Isabella, Eliz-Isabella, Alice-Isabella, or something. Anyone see any significance there?

[specterseymour]

So the newest post seems to back up the Clue thing. Also, in general really... weird. Not sure entirely what to make of it. I sent a submission, but forgot to copy it before I sent, d'oh. Here's the gist of what I sent.

[specterseymour]

A message from Klaus: