Cheshire Crossing
Crossover fantasy webcomic in which Alice Liddell, Wendy Darling and Dorothy Gale are brought to an Extranormal Institute-style Boarding School run by Ernest Rutherford, so they can be taught to master their latent superpowers by Mary Poppins. Action and adventure ensue.
The comic also features the Wicked Witch of the West, Peter Pan, Captain Hook and Tinker Bell, the Knave of Hearts and the Mad Hatter and Lemuel Gulliver.
Hasn't updated in a looong time, and is unlikely to be revived, but the first four issues can be found here. They form a pretty self-contained story arc.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Alice isn't knocked out by the Wicked Witch's magical poppy field as she has built up a tolerance to laudanum while sectioned in a series of mental institutions.
- Action Girl: All girls display some tendencies, but Wendy most of all.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: The Wicked Witch of the West.
- An Axe to Grind: Jack's Weapon of Choice.
- Barehanded Blade Block: Wendy Darling, of all people. But at least she cuts herself doing it...
- The Baroness: The Wicked Witch of the West, and, from the look of it, the Queen of Hearts.
- Big Bad: Captain Hook and/or The Wicked Witch of the West.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: Hook's namesake. He uses it both for Sword Fighting and cutting his steak...
- Cheshire Cat Grin: Naturally, any time the Trope Namer shows up.
- Cloudcuckoolander: The Mad Hatter, appropriately enough.
- Cool Airship/Cool Ship: Hook's levitated pirate ship.
- Crossover Ship: In-Universe;
- Captain Hook and the Wicked Witch of the West. See Unholy Matrimony.
- Just after Peter Pan finds reason to like girls, he starts hitting on Alice. To get him to concentrate on the task at hand, Alice tells him she'll see to his physical needs later. She's got other plans in mind[1], but those few lines are sure to be breeding plot bunnies as we speak.
- Cut and Paste Comic: So very, very much.
- Cutting the Knot: Peter knocking out the keeper of the Vorpal Sword instead of answering the riddle.
- Deadpan Snarker: The Cheshire Cat; once, when he appears to give Wendy a hand, Wendy says something along the lines of "Holy crap, a talking cat," at which point the cat makes a sarcastic remark about her priorities.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Jack conscripting the Winkies, and later on Hook's crew.
- Even Evil Has Standards: "Beating prisoners is 'bad form'..."
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Alice snicker-snacking the fairy-ball with the Vorpal Sword.
- Expospeak Gag: Rutherford's Shout-Out to Mary Poppins:
"I've isolated a catalyst—sucrose! And if my calculations are correct, we'll only need a very small amount of it. Roughly a teaspoon."
- Fairy Companion: Tinker Bell.
- From a Single Cell: Apparently all witches can do this—West and Mary Poppins do so after meeeeltiiiing (and we even see it through a microscope).
- Grimmification
- Hands-On Approach: Captain Hook teaching the Witch of The West to steer a ship. Despite, you know, the hook.
- I Believe I Can Fly: Everyone seems to work out some way of managing it—umbrella, ruby slippers, fairy dust or just plain Magic.
- Immune to Bullets: "I'm a card. Poking holes in me won't kill me."
- Kill It with Water: The Wicked Witch isn't personally vulnerable to water; rather, it has the same effect on any witch who happens to be in Oz —unfortunately no-one warned Mary Poppins.
- This actually helps with a Fridge Logic point from the original Oz: Just why did the Witch have buckets of witch-melting acid around? In case of Glinda!
- Knife Nut: Wendy Darling is apparently very attached to her throwing knives, but, while she fences all over the place, she has yet to throw a single knife.
- Not quite true. In the first issue, she's seen practicing with them as the girls get settled. It's true she's yet to use them in combat, though.
- Lost in Imitation: The comic's interpretation of Oz is clearly based entirely on the film version, with ruby slippers and a green witch.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Evidently magic works differently depending on where you are-in Oz, Mary Poppins is melted with a splash of water, which is apparently just what happens to magic users who get wet in Oz.
- Magical Nanny
- Magic Feather: Dorothy's ruby slippers. However, the slippers must possess some intrinsic power, since other characters can use them normally.
- Magic Mirror: Subverted—it turns out Alice has the power to walk through any mirror or reflective surface.
- The Magic Was Inside You All Along: The basis of the comic. All the plane-shifting experienced by the three heroines is down to their own powers, to Dorothy's surprise.
- Mama Bear: Mary Poppins.
You threatened a girl in my care, and I'm afraid I simply cannot allow that.
- The Mean Brit: Alice.
- Mega Manning: Dorothy's shoes accomplish this whenever somebody else puts them on—they get the ability to use the abilities of who wore them last.
- Nice Hat: Hook—the Mad Hatter thinks so when he loots it.
- And of course his own is fairly spectacular itself.
- Orphaned Series: The comic hasn't updated in two years, with no information from the author in that time. See also Casey and Andy, which was orphaned in favour of CC...
- Only Six Faces: Or, you know, only one face.
- Overnight Age-Up: Peter Pan gets a taste of some Wonderland berries, which cause him to grow bigger...and grow up. He's still got the same personality, mostly, but starts having physical urges he has absolutely no idea how to deal with.
Peter Pan: Say... Your body's got a real nice shape. You know that? And I especially like your chest. Wait a minute! Why is your chest so interesting all of a sudden?
- Parasol Parachute
- Portal Picture
- Portal Pool: Alice using her ability with a puddle of water.
- The Professor: Ernest Rutherford.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Played fairly straight with the aloof Rutherford, but a bit of a subversion with the affable Cloudcuckoolander Mad Hatter.
- Shipping: In-Universe; In addition to the Crossover Ship mentioned above, Peter Pan gets shrunken down and apparently hooks up with Tinker Bell. Impossible in canon but, given the circumstances here, totally believable.
- Shout-Out: "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty human!"
- Mary Poppins, to the Wicked Witch about Tinker Bell: "Say hello to my little friend!"
- Sword Fight
- Sky Pirates: Hook and Crew.
- Sword of Plot Advancement: Alice and Peter's quest for the Vorpal Sword.
- Symbol Swearing
- Talk Like a Pirate: Hook's crew be doin' this unashamedly, but the good cap'n be a very posh-spoke gennleman indeed, yarr.
- Techno Babble (or is it Magi Babble?): Lemuel Gulliver suggests to Rutherford that they dilute the melted Mary Poppins with distilled water in order to remove impurities and help her regenerate.
- Throwing Your Sword Always Works: (Alice).
- Took a Level in Badass: All three of the girls: Wendy has acquired impressive fighting skills and can fly under her own power, Dorothy's been taught lateral thinking and knows how to punch, and Alice has become relentlessly pragmatic and knows exactly how to use Wonderland's items to her advantage.
- Three Faces of Eve
- Unholy Matrimony: Captain Hook and the Wicked Witch of the West.
- The Unintelligible: Tinker Bell speaks in jingles, of all things. Lampshaded at one point by Wendy saying, "Slow down, I can't understand a word you're saying!"
- Not to mention the line "Jingle jingle #%&@ing jingle!"
- Up, Up, and Away: The flying monkeys.
- Visual Pun (also Stealth Pun): The answer to the Red Bishop's riddle is "Punch." Which is precisely what Peter does.
- We Need a Distraction: Alice provides a particularly honest one.
- The Worf Effect: Peter Pan seems to exist to prove how tough the Wicked Witch is.
- You Fight Like a Cow: Jack and Hook:
Hook: Nice eyepatch. You'd make a good pirate.
Jack: Nice hook. You'd make a bad masseuse.
Hook: All those pink hearts don't exactly inspire terror.
Jack: ...Shut up!
- ↑ which involve shrinking him to Tinker Bell's size