Okay... I have been planning out this story, but have never really gotten to working on it until now. Don't know why; it's probably one of the longest planned stories I have other than that Supernatural AU one, though that one is private since I'm sure most people wouldn't be interested in it. I am, however, stoked to work on this one.

I can't say much on the story without spoiling it in anyways, but I'll say this: the story is a bit of a deconstruction. On what? I can't really say since there will probably be a lot of deconstructing going on in a number of ways. But you might pick up on it as the story continues to advance. But enough of me chattering, I'm going to start typing out this story so that I can get something out and not just have my story and ideas stew in my brain.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Diamond/Joker/Clover/Heart no Kuni no series. That claim goes to QuinRose. I do, however, own the main character who is not only our new heroine but the narrator of this story. Now watch as she turns all of Wonderland upside down.

Prologue

Why were people so obsessed with being special?

That question came up time and time again whenever I encountered people who bitterly admitted to me that I had no idea what it was like to live a perfectly mundane life where nothing exciting ever happened. To be forced to live day after day acknowledging that they were just a single face in a huge crowd of people. Just another person or somebody.

No one special.

I may come off as callous when saying this, but I had no sympathy for anyone with that kind of mindset. Probably because most of the people who said that right to my face had delved into things that they shouldn't have or decided to involve themselves in situations they had no business being in.

What I meant by that is they messed with outside forces that most people with common sense knew better than to screw with. Or they decided to play hero even though their instincts were practically screaming at them that they should stay far, far away from whatever trouble was brewing and made things worse, good intentions be damned.

Both those choices often led to disaster, which was something I knew from experience. Not my experience, but the experience of watching people face the consequences of trying to set themselves apart from the crowd through such means. The desire to be 'special' and or 'unique' was something I found incredibly ironic since people who stuck out were treated like pariahs rather than worshiped for their uniqueness.

Years of observation and experience of watching such people eventually led me to conclude that people were too obsessed with trying to be different from everyone else. Being part of a bigger picture rather than just sitting on the sidelines and being an ordinary bystander. Though I suppose that was one thing I couldn't blame them for; ordinary bystanders who got caught in the crossfire tended to die. Brutally so. Better to be a main character destined for greatness rather than a side character.

What a lot of these people didn't know is that they took the ordinariness of their lives for granted. I wonder how they would react if the very people they tried to become or envied desired the lives these ordinary people led. That they wondered what it would bd like to be an ordinary person. One of the crowd. Someone who at the most had to worry about paying bills or acing their final exams or getting that job.

And not, say, a rampaging supernatural creature who had to be stopped before they killed more people.

But before I go any further, I should probably explain my side of why I was so critical about one of humanities most stupid and pointless obsessions that were right up there with appearances, wealth, social status and reputation.

The easiest way to put it would be that I was one of those people. People who were not the same as everyone else (I refuse to use the word 'special' to describe myself in any capacity whatsover as someone once told me that no one could consider themselves as special). And in case no one's caught on yet, I use both those emphasized terms with as much dislike I could muster.

To put it bluntly, I was different. I was different from the people around me and it wasn't something that I really noticed immediately until the kids in my class started calling me names and making fun of me. The adults on the other hand insisted that I get psychiatric help since they thought that there was something wrong. By the time I realized that what made me different was something I should have kept my mouth shut about the damage was already done. I had managed to mark myself as that girl.

That girl who became the school outcast and who everyone picked on when they wanted to make themselves look good in front of their peers. Everyone's whipping girl. That reputation followed me from elementary school to high school... up until the point that circumstances beyond my control forced me to drop out. If there was anything that public schooling taught me in between the moments I was the go to girl for bullying and other forms of harassment, it was that humans were petty and shallow creatures who trampled over everyone else in their desire to be on top.

For them life was just one big competition. A completely pointless one, but a competition all the same. Who was the most beautiful? Who had the most money? Who was the smartest? Who was having sex all the time? Humans were constantly in competition with each other and any chance to put the other person down was always taken.

As a child it struck me as a very silly thing to be up in arms about and it only evolved to complete and utter disgust as I got older. What was up with people constantly having to one up each other in everything in general? Why did it matter if someone's child was at the top of the honour list? What was it with always being number one?

Thinking about humanity always made me shake my head. I was human myself, but that didn't mean I couldn't be critical about my own race. Last I checked, there was a saying about individuals being their own harshest critics. It wasn't too far of a stretch to say that humans could be just as critical of their own species. Especially with the the amount of damage they were inflicting on the environment around them.

With life being one whole big competition where everyone was obsessed with beating the other person, was it any wonder people were so miserable?

I guess the one good thing about having been an outsider within my own community was that I never got swept up in that wave where people had to act a certain way befitting of their class, gender, ethnicity, ect. Knowing that I could never be one of them or that it was too late to pretend, I observed as the people around me changed and started dividing themselves into different groups based on the traits they possessed.

And of course within the many groups, there was that one group that people always paid attention to. The group everyone aspired to join and who would literally give away a leg or arm just to be a part of. The group that made me want to bang my head against a wall as I tried to figure out just what was so great about them.

Anyone who read YA Novels would know what I was talking about. They were that group of kids whose families held prestige, who had wealth (the older the wealth, the better), the ones who could buy the latest fashions with a snap of their fingers, and the ones who had looks they often used to charm their way through anything.

They were also often self-centered, vain and shallow. And one of their favorite pastimes tended to be to look down on everyone themselves, thinking that they were above other people because of the family they were born to.

It baffled me. I may have never gotten a chance to officially complete my high school education (and my undercover jobs didn't count), but I was far from stupid. The more I hung around and observed people, the more they made less sense to me. And the less said about the observations I made on them, the better.

My observations on society and the people who lived within it are probably why I preferred working in the background unnoticed (of course my experience with being scrutinized by not only the adults, but my peers and people in the medical profession helped influence by thoughts). Or a single face in the crowd who people just looked over before moving on with their own lives. Honestly, it just seemed easier not to deal with people in general.

But of course life was a complete bitch. A ruthless bitch who got off of making me miserable.

Because one day I found myself in a world where blending into the crowd was impossible and I was the center of attention, whether I liked it or not.

Alright, done! I could have made the prologue a little longer, but I felt that would have just dragged the chapter on and I seriously want to start on the other chapters and expanding on the first arc of the story. Unfortunately, that won't be for a while as I have essays and a project to work on.

But with this you should get a good grip on what the main character will be like. And how well she'll get along with the Roleholders... at first. While this is an otome game where the whole point is to pick a guy who will fall in love with the protagonist, the whole point of this story will be character development for both the protagonist of this story and the Roleholders. I have Card of Spade to thank for inspiring me to write this kind of story, because the whole concept of character development is more interesting to me that pure on romance.

And that's all I'll say on the subject. I hope you'll enjoy this story.

Leave lots of reviews! I find reviews encouraging and they make me want to type out the story and get the chapters out for you to read!