Character USERNAME: AceOfHz OOC: Actual character name: Lorelei Metunias FACTION: White JOB CLASS: White Rabbit GUILD: N/A SPECIAL CARD NUMBER: 6 of Clubs FRAGMENTS COLLECTED: 2 CARDS OBTAINED LOG: Link to all the areas where you got cards/ loot. This is PROOF you own these cards!
CURRENT DECK
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RP Stats
[quote="MY STATS"] [b]My character's username:[/b] AceOfHz [b]My character's level:[/b] 11 / 50 exp [b]Character's HP:[/b] 30 [b]Character's Job Class:[/b] White Rabbit [b]Current party:[/b] N/a [b]Current Guild:[/b] N/A [b]Location:[/b] Tulgey Woods [b]Small IC description of character:[/b] A pale, waifish character washed out by the reds of her White Rabbit class outfit. Long, silvery hair in an elaborate french braid. [b]Character journal:[/b] [url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?page=1&t=24278505#363753117]Here[/url] [/quote]
Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 2:15 pm
logging in solo
Lorelei didn't really get computers. It wasn't to say she didn't try -- her father was some technology mogul, after all, and the thought of the simple geocities sites she had used to code (with flashy java applet intros, lime green backgrounds, and as many animated gifs she could cram onto a single page) to try to get his approval still brought an unhappy blush to her cheeks. No, going on the computer was reserved for doing research for papers, and when there was absolutely nothing else to do and no way to get outside.
She turned her head to look out the small hospital window. The faint strip of blue sky visible between the tall skyscrapers surrounding the city hospital only made her unhappy. She personally felt that only rain was appropriate while she was bedridden here, prepping for surgery on her ankle -- she felt, yes, that the world should grieve for her.
The window could only sustain her interest for so long. Her mother had dropped by earlier with her computer, the latest Mac something-or-other her father had bought her, a sleek thing with an uncomfortably clacky keyboard and one of those too-sensitive touchpads that frustrated her. It rested now on her lap, where she had been intent to leave it as some kind of hot water bottle replacement, but eventually she conceded that if she had to watch one more minute of spanish daytime soap operas she might also go loco and strangle one of her nurses.
She pried it open and waited for it to come out of sleep mode, absent-mindedly chewing on the ends of a strand of her hair. She could just browse around on Facebook, but even the thought of coming across pictures of the latest ballet production she had bombed made her wince and attempt to wiggle the toes of her broken foot. She settled for merely opening her music application, settling back into her pillows and plugging in her earbuds after she, with some effort, double-clicked on the first song she could get the mouse to settle on.
She slung an arm over her face, shading her closed eyes with the crook of her elbow, and hoped either sleep or death would claim her soon. Unfortunately, the first thing to come after the song ended was an ad -- something about a brand new long-string-of-letters game that was taking the internet by storm. Lorelei didn't consider herself a gamer, either, not having the attention span for pressing buttons and watching things quietly, but admittedly there was something sort of intriguing about the premise of the advertised game. Alice in Wonderland had been one of her favorite childhood stories; she had fond memories of when she was smaller, and cuter, and when her father would read it out loud with her. Her mother had told her a story once about how she'd begged so badly for a dress just like Alice had worn, white pinafore and all, and when she'd finally gotten it, she wore it everywhere. Apparently the thing had to be destroyed, it got so dirty...
She didn't think she was dreaming. She hadn't realized somewhere in the middle of all of her sleepy reminiscing that she had indeed slipped into her own version of Wonderland. She dreamed that she pried one eye open with the intent to click on the game to find out more, but instead of a computer and a hopsital background, found herself instead falling down a rabbit hole. She dreamed along to the song still playing from her computer in the real world, humming a few bars of 'Mirage' to herself as she fell carelessly, easily avoiding obstacles.
A few dream-moments later, Alice herself seemed to approach her to ask her name. She found herself at a loss: this was the most basic of questions, what could the pentalties be to getting it wrong?
"If you don't know who you are," said Alice, "You can be anyone."
There was music playing in the background. She thought of a deck of cards, and what one of the most valuable cards could be. She wanted to win. She wanted to be a thing that could win.
Desired Username: AceOfHz
"And now," Alice said, "What are you?"
Ace looked on in interest as marionettes dangled from the non-existent ceiling, sporting clothes and titles reminiscent of Wonderland characters. Should she base it on what she was already good at? But none of them seemed like they'd be characters found in a ballet, or winning chess matches. What did she want to be good at?
Wordlessly, Ace pointed at one labelled White Rabbit, and everything seemed to blur again in the way dreams did.
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 2:36 pm
Zone: Tulgey Woods Solo
Ace (as she imagined others would refer to her, even though her actual assigned card was neither an Ace nor even a Hearts card -- she was in spirit) found herself surprisingly delighted by the somber colors of the Tulgey Woods. The sort of honky noises that occasionally emitted from the trees surrounding her were just as she imagined they would be, and although there weren't as many flowers as she had always imagined, the game did a fine job in its depiction.
Perhaps this would be enjoyable after all.
She breezed through the character generator, choosing a look that was pretty much an idealized version of herself. The thinness of the puppet base appealed to her in a way she didn't want to think about for too long. It took her a few moments of reading through the pop-up tutorials on her pocket UI guide before she finally made her way towards the yellow exclamation checkpoint.
Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 3:08 pm
Zone: Tulgey Woods Quest: Main Quest Day 1 Rewards: +2 Fragments, -5HP
So her quest was to look at trees. Seemed simple enough. Ace spent a few moments frozen in the same spot as her player held staring contests with the tree graphics visible on her computer screen; eventually she seemed to realize that 'inspecting' the trees implied actual interaction with them, and making a wide berth around the other player characters in the area, the White Rabbit ran straight up to the first tree in front of her.
1: The first tree is a long tree, and bends down to look at you with hollow sleepy eyes as you reach over. "Oh, please, you're not putting your hand in my nose are you? That's so very disgusting, and I'm afraid I haven't cleaned up yet. Very disgusting indeed. Come back again when I'm clean."
When you come back the tree is gone.
Ace hadn't realized that apparently inspecting trees meant putting your hands up their noses. But if that's what it took, by jove she was going to shove her arm so far up their noses she would stir their brains. Unfortunately, when she returned to the tree after giving it a few moments to freshen up, it had disappeared. Maybe a glitch or something? There did seem to be quite a few players around....
Oh well. It was on the next tree! Ace ran up to another one, arms outstretched and ready to dart up its nose.
1: The first tree is a long tree, and bends down to look at you with hollow sleepy eyes as you reach over. "Oh, please, you're not putting your hand in my nose are you? That's so very disgusting, and I'm afraid I haven't cleaned up yet. Very disgusting indeed. Come back again when I'm clean."
When you come back the tree is gone.
Unfortunately, this one disappeared too. What was with this game?
Public chat: Am I doing something wrong? All my trees seem to be disappearing.
Ace waited a while, but it seemed everyone was too busy running about the Tulgey Woods to respond. How like the real world. Everyone's only out for themselves in a virtual one too.
The only thing to do was to keep trying. She sighed and approached the next one, more cautiously this time.
The second tree is a wide tree and doesn't look too happy to see you. It crosses its arms. "I don't think so, the last people who were here were terribly mean about it. Terribly, terribly mean and it just won't do anymore. If you come any closer I will have to resort to violence I mean it! Don't come any closer!"
If you move closer it hits you for -5 damage with its branches.
This one reacted differently, at least. It seemed to shrink away from her as she approached, and whined about other people being mean to it.
"Tree up!" Ace shrieked at it, waving her dagger at it as menacingly as she could. "And let me at your nose!"
The good part was that it didn't disappear this time. The bad part seemed to be the negative number that floated above her when after she ran at the tree and it responded by hitting her with its branches. It was only a piddly amount of damage, it seemed, but Ace wasn't in a hurry to try harassing it again any time soon.
Frustrated, Ace immediately moved on to the next tree.
3: You reach a tiny tree and it looks up at you and only has a row of smiling teeth. "Guess what I'm hiding!"
If you cater to it then it tells you "I'm hiding something in my mouth!" It sticks out its mouth and lo and behind it is a fragment! +1 Fragment.
If you don't guess the tree looks disappointed. "Oh, okay..." It does not give you a fragment.
"Guess what I'm hiding!" The tree greeted her with a toothy smile much displaced on a plant.
"Your mom?" Ace responded grumpily without thinking, her player starting to go through the help files on battling and healing.
To her surprise, the tree responded positively, its teeth jutting out and away from it to reveal something shiny: one of those fragments the tutorial had talked about. Closing the help files, she immediately darted forward to grab it, and ran away before the tree could change its mind and attack her.
There was only one tree left to inspect before her quest was complete, and Ace managed to wander a little bit further into the Woods. It wasn't that she had a negative experience so far, but it was definitely... random. She tried to remember what the first three trees had in common, but failed to come up with any common characteristics. Holding her breath, Ace approached the last tree she needed to inspect.
8: You reach a tree with stripes. Trees with stripes, how silly!
"I beg your pardon," says the tree with stripes, "but I am not silly at all. In here everything is possible and anything is impossible and therefore a tree with stripes is completely within everything and anything." Its stripes change colours. "Now, give me a good, good shake. I want to get some more colour out. Shake me really well, if you do I'll reward you."
If you shake the tree it laughs happily and then spits out a fragment. It bids you your merry way as you continue walking. +1 fragment.
As she approached it, she realized it had stripes -- did any of the other trees have stripes? Wait, did trees even have stripes? How silly.
"I beg your pardon," said the tree, because of course a tree in Wonderland would talk and have pardons to beg of besides, "But I am not silly at all. In here everything is possible and anything is impossible and therefore a tree with stripes is completely within everything and anything."
Ace waited for the tree to continue. It didn't. She hoped this wasn't another game or riddle like the last one, which she was sure she had only solved because the game itself seeemed... Well, was it even fair to call a game about Wonderland glitchy, when there weren't supposed to be any rules? Perhaps the tree was right.
"Sorry," said Ace hesitantly.
The tree's stripes changed colors, which she hoped was a good sign. "Now give me a good shake," said the tree.
"Aye aye, captain tree," she responded, reaching forward to wrap her arms around its trunk and lean her weight into it to shake it vigorously. This really was preferable to sticking her arms up trees' noses -- perhaps she had learned something from this quest. Perhaps her heart had grown three sizes this day.
If it had, she was too distracted by her shiny reward of a fragment to notice.
+1 Level
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 3:42 pm
Zone: Tulgey Woods / The Lake Quest: Daily Quest Rewards: + 1 level, + 1 Loot
With her main quest complete, Ace hungrily searched through the tutorial files for the next quest to undertake. There was one specifically marked 'easy' so she made a beeline for that, navigating the twisted turns of the Tulgey Woods towards the lake.
It only struck her how real all of this felt once she arrived, staring incredulously across the surface of the lake. Something heavy settled in the pit of her stomach, something provoked by the flashes of imagery that splayed across the water: imagery that looked, sometimes, a little like her family, like people she'd known in her past, like her.
Talk to the voices in the lake, urged the quest text, and so Ace moved forward, arms outstretched, to brush her fingers across the surface of the water.
Rewarding
She remembers her first chess match.
Kind of. Sort of. She was actually too young to remember. And she doesn't think of her father as being nostalgic -- eyes on the future, never look back, he so loved his platitudes and pretty phrases -- which is probably why she keeps this story so close to her heart as one of the few memories he willingly talked about.
She was young, so young, couldn't even read yet. Three, she thinks. And her mother apparently was against it, because what three-year-old could sit down long enough to play chess, much less enjoy it, much less their boisterous little girl who was always knocking things over or pouncing on the cat or running around screaming? But the way her father tells it, chess changed her. Her mother said that he was always having to remind her of the exact rules at that age, but her father merely waved his hand as if to dissipate a bad smell and said that she was just always looking for a weakness, and in any case, he didn't have to remind her for long.
He said there was something in her eyes, something sharp, something hungry. He said she moved her chess pieces with clear focus.
Every time she played chess after that, she tried to play it like she had with her father.
Loss
But lately, she can't think about chess without thinking about the fact that she ultimately lost. Her mentor still emails her sometimes, tells her that they all miss her and that she should come back but she understands her ballet schedule keeps her busy, but all Ace reads is we feel sorry for you. You could have been great, but you weren't.
Hatred
And now, maybe, she has finally lost at ballet, too, despite it not even being a game. There are set rules, though: you have to have working legs to dance. Sure, she's seen those diversity movies about people in wheel chairs, and she's cordial at least to the girl with Down's Syndrome in the younger class, but she had danced like she had done everything else in life: to win.
The doctors are hopeful about her full recovery, but hope is not a set thing. You can't make a move in a chess board and merely hope to win -- life doesn't work like that.
After the unexpectedly and emotionally grueling challenge of the Lake sidequest, Ace had no idea what to expect from the game anymore. There was the option to pursue some other easy sidequests, but she wasn't in the mood for internal reflection anymore. She was hoping for something where she could battle -- nothing would release her frustration more than beating on something, she bet -- and so it was that she chose the sidequest labelled "DIFFICULT".
"A maze?" She mused aloud, shifting her weight impatiently from one foot to the other. "I know how these things end up. There's going to be some giant beast in the center." Or maybe, given that it was Wonderland, it was going to be a cake?
Cakes could be beaten too...
...Her patience for navigating dumb, confusing roads had long run out. She'd come here wanting to beat up things, not follow stupid signs. She could come back and try this again when her brain wasn't such mush.
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 4:56 pm
Zone: Tulgey Woods / Caterpillar Side Quest Rewards: (still a WIP) --
The smoke cleared to reveal only shadows punctured by spots of dim, aqualine light. Ace unsteadily made her way towards the nearest patch, discovering it to be emenating from what she guessed to be fungi, as it was soft and spongy to the touch. When she pulled her fingers away, they too glowed in the darkness. What was curious was that sections of the glowing seemed to come and go in unison, like Christmas lights programmed at a certain pattern. She groped around the fungi to see if there was some secret passageway or door nearby, but only felt the smooth chill of -- of what felt like glass. There were no telltale bumps or patches of roughness to even indicate that it could be extremely glossy rock.
Pull yourself together, said someone, or something. Ace straightened, the tender flesh of her ears prickling as she strained to pinpoint the location of the voice. She guessed now that she must be in some sort of cave, given the lighting situation. Her eyes adjusted slowly to the dimness, and immediately alighted upon a shadowy figure that seemed to be her reflection in some kind of mirror cavern.
Her reflection's lips moved. No one's going to save you. Ace's hands flew up to her own mouth, steadying her fingertips against her quivering lips. You're the only one who can. Was she even speaking in English? The more she listened, the more she couldn't understand the oily sounds that was echoing in the cave around her --
Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden motion. Reflexively she threw her hands up around her face. Her reflection had leaped forward towards the glass and was angrily pounding at it now. The glass began to splinter underneath her fists as if it were a barrier now between her and... herself.
She had to get out of here.
Turning her back to her reflection, but still able to catch glimpses of her at angles in the surface of the other mirrors in the cavern, Ace hunted for any sign of an exit. The pounding grew louder as her breathing came to her in shorter and shorter gasps. There came a crashing sound, and she screamed and dove to the floor; the fungi dimmed for the last time, and all was still, and dark, and cold.
She waited for a long time for the blows to start. When they didn't, she very carefully untucked herself and glanced upwards towards where her reflection had once been. The hole that had been shattered into the mirror now glowed with a warm, orange light; without even glancing around to try and locate the other figure, Ace immediately got to her feet and lunged for the new entryway, scrambling through it and as far away from the creepy cave as possible.
--
The heavy, odorous smell of rotting grass greeted her with a slap across the face from the hands of a musky, warm breeze. Ace squinted against the fading sunlight, finding herself in some sort of clearing in... a swamp?
The clearing was more like an island. An extremely tiny, muddy island, no bigger than the cavern she had found herself in before. Across the island was a single tree with a door carved into its wide trunk, and to the right, parting the tall, spiky grasses and cattails growing where the mud met the dark waters of the swamp, was the body of a girl she didn't recognize.
Ace swallowed, and forced herself to divert her longing gaze from the entryway to the girl. Perhaps she would much rather be following signs -- at least then she knew there was an actual path to follow. She approached her slowly, taking in the reddish tint of her dark brown hair and dark skin with curiosity but a definite lack of recognition.
She squatted down next to her, wincing at the sensation of her skirt and stockings soaking in the wet squelching mud. "Excuse me, are you...?"
Dead. She was. Dead.
"I'm..." Out of here. Clearly. This zone was crazy. Ace stood up and turned to the tree, fighting through the stickiness of the mud to get through the open door.
--
There was something exhilarating (and unfortunate, a small voice said) about punching herself in the face.
Your Rewards: +5 levels + 3 loot cards you can redeem HERE + 5 people have already claimed the special card so you get a very special tree hug and also you can roll one more loot card.
Please quote this pm to validate it during claims for loot!
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 6:42 pm
Zone: Cheshire Cat's Tree Reward:
"Hello, Cheshire," greeted Ace, who was quite amiable now from her success at the Endless Woods. "How are you?"
She was not surprised to be asked a riddle. "What goes around and around but turns quite slowly?" There was a period of time where she was good at them, too, though she hadn't done one in a long while.
Thinking a moment, Ace was tempted to answer, 'Myself, doing that maze quest in the Endless Woods', but guessed this wasn't the sort of pertinent answer the NPC was looking for.
"A clock," she said finally, "Its hands move around and around, but for someone waiting for a specific time, it can be quite slow."
Ace gave the Cat a stern look when he chuckled and purred, "The answer is time," and as tempting as it was to argue with him, she knew this was a pointless battle to wage.
When the Cat asked her to tell him a riddle, this gave her equal pause. Now what was something that she remembered from her childhood...?
"How is a raven like a writing desk?" She blurted out, before remembering that this was actually in the Alice books and thus the Cat was likely to know the answer. And he did.
Her turn to answer a riddle again. "What can chew you but never swallow?"
This one seemed less obvious to her. "A stern mother?" She guessed, thinking of her own.
"The answer is a tongue of course, for a tongue you always chew on, accidentally maybe, but never can swallow. Assuming you are still very much alive, that is."
"Oh... Right. Well, I was sort of on the right track."
My turn?"
The Cat nodded.
"Okay." Maybe the trick was to think up a riddle that no one had ever asked before. "What strikes but never leaves a mark?"
"Lightning," the Cat answered smoothly.
"Errr..." She hadn't even realized there was an answer. Ace sighed. "Okay. Ask me yours."
Her next riddle came quickly: "What is flat but sharp at the edges?"
"A knife," Ace said immediately, too impatient to consider other possibilities.
The Cat chuckled again, to Ace's surprise as she wasn't expecting to actually be right. "Quite a simple question this one, it's almost not a riddle at all."
Since her instincts had apparently been right, Ace immediately launched into the first thing that came to mind, "What's black and white and red all over?"
"A newspaper. And that's not a riddle, it's a joke."
Ace shifted impatiently from one foot to another as she waited for the Cat to ask his next riddle. "What's flat and sharp at--"
"A blade," she said, eyebrows furrowing. "You just asked me that."
The Cat coughed delicately. "Your riddles were so uninspired that I wanted to check that you were not a bot."
"Oh yeah? Well, what's pink, and wet, and... impervious to rain, and is invisible when you look at it?!"
"Hmm. Well, what's the answer?" The Cat calmly turned back on her, blinking each eye individually.
"Oh. Err..."
The Cat asked her the time riddle again, and Ace responded but struggled to keep her language polite. "I am not a bot," she grumbled, crossing her arms across her chest. "What do I have to do to prove it?"
"Ask me a real riddle." Was the response.
Ace sighed, and actually tried to think this time. "Lots of white horses, dancing on a hill," she started, struggling to remember the exact wording. "First they stamp, then they champ, now they stand still. What are they?"
"Teeth. But much better in terms of quality." Purred the Cat. "You mustn't get discouraged. I've heard quite a few by now from the other players."
Ace looked at the Cat sideways when he asked her the blade riddle yet again. "Maybe if you've heard so many, you should try asking me some of those, rather than these same two over and over."
"I am merely trying to help you out. Very few have remained in front of me for as long as you have trying to think of a decent riddle."
It was her turn again. Trying not to let the Cat's subtle jabs get to her, Ace remembered an old one from a math class of hers.
"How many sides are there to a circle?"
"Two. Inside and outside," came the answer, and Ace couldn't help but groan in frustration as she awaited the Cat's next riddle.
"What has three legs but only uses one?"
"A blade," Ace said without thinking, and immediately regretted it when the Cat grinned smugly at her. "Err, I mean--"
"The answer is death," announced the cat, "But I'm sure you don't need me to explain that one."
"...Right." She wasn't going to question him. She could be here all day.
This time, Ace paused for more than a few minutes, trying to think back through all the riddles she had ever possibly heard.
Finally, she thought back to one that her mother had told her once. It was more of a joke than anything, but she had a feeling the Cat knew all the conventional riddles. "How does the man in the moon cut his hair?"
The cat paused. Ace waited. The Cat guessed, and was wrong. "Eclipses it!" Ace crowed, pumping her fist up towards the sky.
"A surprising twist, but I love surprises. You are quite the..." The Cat cleared its throat, "Clever one, and for that, you deserve a small prize. Just this time, of course, just once."
Searching for treasure, eh? Seemed right up her ally. Ace happily accepted the side quest, and then investigated the mushrooms.
Who would possibly need to be tiny? Ever? It had gotten Alice in trouble in the original books, and she had no intention of repeating her mistakes. Ace chose the normal mushroom and the large mushroom, then set out on her path.
Unfortunately, she had apparently failed to consider giant bluebells as a reason to prevent her from her actual quest of becoming Godzilla. Not having the right mushroom to proceed, Ace turned around and went back to the starting location.
Ace considered the mushrooms again, but stubbornly held on to her previous choices of the large and normal mushrooms. She set out again in what she thought was a different direction, but turned out to lead her straight back to the bluebells again. In desperation, she chucked the normal mushroom at them, but when nothing happened she had to admit defeat and go back to the start.
"I hate you, tiny mushrooms," Ace fumed as she gathered another normal mushroom into her arms to accompany her large mushroom from before. Re-checking her path this time, she wandered straight into a forest.
A while of walking later, Ace realized she lost the path. She just happened to glance sky-wards when she noticed that what she assumed were just funny-looking trees were in fact giant blades of grass. Which meant...
"GO TIME," she cried to the heavens, and crammed a large mushroom in her mouth. Several moments of chewing later, and she finally achieved her true dream: towering above everything. Which turned out to look exactly like being at her normal height, because the grass was also giant-sized.
Being Godzilla was not as cool as she thought it'd be.
It didn't take her much time at all to locate the lily-pads that apparently indicated the treasure trove, although they were tiny and only the size of her pinky finger. She was about to give up and head back for the start again, cursing the tiny mushrooms for their uselessness in making their usefulness apparent to her, when she remembered that she was technically a giant now.
Taking the normal mushroom out of her skirt pocket, Ace took a thoughtful bite, and soon found herself at her normal size. "What an unpleasant sensation," she sighed, striding forward into the treasure room and claiming the chest therein.
+ 1 Level + 1 Loot Card:
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Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2014 10:42 pm
Zone: Battle Zone Mob: Cranky Tree Reward: +1 Loot:
Hiding One of the things that she enjoys best about this game-dream is the mirrors. She has never before had the experience of catching a glimpse of her reflection and not immediately averting her eyes. If she were awake, she would be ashamed of the amount of attention she paid her hair, neatly pinned back in a french braid she'd never be able to achieve in real life, or the way her eyes and thin mouth look doll-like and delicate rather than harsh and bird-like. But she's not, so she revels in the daintiness of her ankles and the way her pinafore smooths over her hips.
She's not vain, not really. To be vain, you have to be proud of your looks.
Grey She didn't start dying her hair until she came back to America from Japan. She chose blonde because -- well, because no other color looked good on her. She secretly pines for soft pink and lavender, but there's a certain girliness and fragility to the colours that she's too ashamed to wear. Platinum blonde is as close as she'll get to ethereality, and she pretends to like the way it throws her features into sharp relief.
She did it the first time because she could, because it was weird to come to a land where the uniform standard of beauty was not Japanese. She did it because her father wouldn't have approved. She keeps dying her hair because -- she didn't know. There was something poetic about stripping away her dark roots. She supposes.
She knows it looks sort of weird. Her hair is almost white, and her eyes are gray, and her skin is a weird blotchy sort of ashy pale, and she normally doesn't wear anything that isn't direct shades of black and white. Being monochromatic was a side effect, not her goal. "You need to be the color of water," her father had said to her once at a dinner party.
Wisdom
It wasn't that she thought she was better than her best friend (well, former best friend) -- she just knew more about the world. Amelie was the kind of pretty girl everyone wanted to do things for. She didn't have that kind of power. If she wanted things done, she had to do them herself. After a while, it became a habit.
No, she wasn't better, just... smarter. She thought.
