Gather around, friends, as Emerald tells the tale of how she once turned a group of middle school theatre kids into pro conspiracy theorists.

*opens storybook*

Once upon a time, Emerald was helping her old middle school drama club put on Alice in Wonderland Jr. It was a Saturday, and they had just finished putting on their afternoon matinee. Everyone decided to stay at the theatre because no one really wanted to go home in between shows. The Flowers had decided to give Emerald a makeover, so she allowed them to drag her into their dressing room.

While the girls crowded around her, Emerald chatted with them and the others hanging out in the dressing room. Their conversation eventually drifted into a discussion about the characters of AIW and the plot itself. (Most of the girls were dead-set on the idea that Alice was totally high on something.)

Emerald made a comment about one of the lines the Queen of Hearts said to Alice upon their first meeting; the Queen commanded Alice to tell her who she was, and Alice introduced herself politely as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum had taught her to. Upon hearing her name, the Card Soldiers gasped and the Queen of Hearts exclaimed, "That's impossible! Everyone knows Alice doesn't live here anymore!" Alice brushes the comment off awkwardly, and the declaration is never elaborated on. Why were the Cards, the King, and the Queen the only ones in Wonderland to react so strangely to Alice's name, Emerald wondered aloud. Who was the Alice that doesn't live in Wonderland anymore?

The dressing room fell into silence until the tall actress playing Tall Alice uttered a single "WHOA".

Within the hour, the entire cast came in and out of the dressing room, wanting to discuss potential conspiracy theories all over that single line. They ranged from the Queen and King of Hearts being Alice's parents to the Queen being the future Alice to the Cheshire Cat(s) slowly drugging everyone in Wonderland with the assistance of the March Hare as they work in part of a secret rebellion against the monarchy. The young, strange little dude playing the Doorknob came up with that last theory. There was a lot more to it, but I honestly don't even remember half of it, it was so complicated. The cast spread the conspiracy theories until even the directors and their spouses were coming up with their own.

Emerald watched on as her children became conspiracy theorists right before her very eyes, even bringing out their worn-out scripts buried at the bottom of their bags to analyze other lines even vaguely relating to their theories. They were overanalyzing everything, and Emerald couldn't have been prouder. One of the directors, an English teacher, would later inform her that the cast members in her classes got a lot more into analyzing symbolism and other plot elements while reading books and short stories after that fateful weekend.

And so that is how Emerald's protégés learned how to be expert conspiracy theories (and how to be prepared for potential fandom life), and Emerald got her hair done, nails painted, and face applied with pretty glittery face paint. The end.

*closes storybook*