The Blacklight: From Professor Von Spooky via Lewis Carroll's "Sylvie and Bruno"
A long time ago a fanfiction author who called himself "Professor Spooky" or "Professor Von Spooky" - I can't remember which - wrote an epic novel-length fanfiction for American McGee's Alice which was magnificent for the first 14 chapters or so. Then he had Hatter drill a hole in Alice's head and I stopped dead in my tracks reading. The scene was that bad. I tried to convince him not to do it, and was only successful after I had thoroughly ticked him off. He did eliminate the scene, but failed to eliminate traces of it in later chapters. The story now seems to have disappeared completely. The Professor must have deleted the story and changed his account name. Nevertheless, his story had what is probably the most original invented weapon for Wonderland I have ever encountered: the blacklight which comes from Lewis Carroll's little-known novel Sylvie and Bruno (both books). Since I can't find the excerpt from our disappeared Professor's story which introduces his blacklight, I'll instead show an excerpt from its original source, the second half of "Sylvie and Bruno."
"Our Second Experiment", the Professor announced, as Bruno returned to his place, still thoughtfully rubbing his elbows, "is the production of that seldom-seen-but greatly-to-be-admired phenomenon, Black Light! You have seen White Light, Red Light, Green Light, and so on: but never, till this wonderful day, have any eyes but mine seen Black Light! This box", carefully lifting it upon the table, and covering it with a heap of blankets, "is quite full of it. The way I made it was this—I took a lighted candle into a dark cupboard and shut the door. Of course the cupboard was then full of Yellow Light. Then I took a bottle of Black ink, and poured it over the candle: and, to my delight, every atom of the Yellow Light turned Black! That was indeed the proudest moment of my life! Then I filled a box with it. And now —would anyone like to get under the blankets and see it?"
Dead silence followed this appeal: but at last Bruno said "I'll get under, if it won't jingle my elbows."
Satisfied on this point, Bruno crawled under the blankets, and, after a minute or two, crawled out again, very hot and dusty, and with his hair in the wildest confusion.
"What did you see in the box?" Sylvie eagerly enquired.
"I saw nuffin!" Bruno sadly replied. "It were too dark!"
He has described the appearance of the thing exactly!" the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. "Black Light and Nothing, look so extremely alike, at first sight, that I don't wonder he failed to distinguish them! We will now proceed to the Third Experiment."