Themarchinghare - What's A Hatter Without A Hare?

Mad Hatter's quirks relating to the Lewis Carrol books

Traits directly from the book:

These are just a reference for me to look at for future Batman fanfiction and shitposts because I want to get them right, and perhaps for anyone who hasn’t read the book Alice in Wonderland. If Jervis is truly trying to mirror the Hatter to the letter, he should get all of these. 

If you want to see the traits alluded to instead, they’re under the cut. If you’re interested in some of my personal headcanons, they’re also just under the cut.

Anyways, here we go.

- According to illustrations, he’s small and wears a proper dress shirt, coat, and bowtie, along with a large hat with a card stuck in the top reading “In this style 10/6”

- The Hatter appears in chapter 7 and 11 of the book and not in Through the Looking Glass. He’s with the March Hare and the Dormouse, who can be percieved as his best friends.

- If you attempt to sit down uninvited at his table, he’ll shout “No room! No room!” even if there’s tons of room available.

- If you sit down without his invitation, he’ll be grumpy. Even though the Hare does this, Jervis can offer you wine even if there’s no wine at the table, calling you out for sitting without an invitation.

- He has an odd need to cut Alice’s hair. “Your hair wants cutting.”

- “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” This is the most common question he’ll ask people. Those who get it right will put him in good spirits with them.

- The answer to the riddle, by the way, is “I haven’t the slightest idea” or just saying you don’t know. There is no answer. Lewis Carroll never came up with an answer until a bunch of fans of his work wrote to him, so Jervis stays faithful to the book.

- He’ll easily confuse you if you contradict yourself. For example, when Alice says that “I mean what I say” is the same thing as “I say what I mean”, the Hatter replies with the notion that it’s like saying “I see what I eat” is the same as “I eat what I see”.

- He has a pocketwatch that tells the day, month, and year instead of the time. And it’s two days off.

- He can’t tell the time because he believes that it’s 6:00 all the time. This is because Time, who is described as a person, doesn’t like him, and thus stopped moving for him.

- 6:00 was British tea time back then, which explains his obsession with tea.

- He loves stories, and will demand one from others.

- He also sings. Yes, he sings. “Twinkle twinkle little bat, how I wonder what you’re at. Up above the world you fly, like a tea tray in the sky.” Luckily, that’s all.

- He’s also no stranger to rude remarks, even calling Alice stupid at one point.

- There’s a point where he tries to shove the oversized Dormouse into a teapot. I like this idea because I like imagining Jervis grabbing Riddler by the hair and slamming his head into a teapot.

- He collects hats to sell them, so he has a large variety.

- He has a large fear of the King and Queen of Hearts. In fact he gets extremely anxious in these situations when under a lot of pressure and fumbles when he speaks to the point where he even fucks up a few of his movements, biting a piece out of a teacup instead of his bread.

Jervis’ possible quirks according to the books:

These aren’t particularly attributed to the Mad Hatter, but can be used as references that are good to know. Most of these are about Alice or Wonderland in general.

- Alice prefers picture books, so, being in a place of imagination, it would make sense the Mad Hatter would like them more. However, being a genius, he will read regular books if he really must. He just finds them boring.

- Despite speaking more than proper English, there are some made up words sometimes from the book that Alice or the characters use, like the infamous phrase “Curiouser and curiouser,” which was a word made up and coined by Lewis Carroll. Though, it’s not considered a legit word. Examples also incluse “pleasanter”, Expect Jervis to use a few of those.

- The metaphors are very odd and almost always come from the books, and are hard to understand. For example, “shutting up like a telescope” means to get smaller.

- At one point, Alice gets confused about who she is, believing herself to be another little girl instead of Alice. It would make sense for the Mad Hatter to call other people he believes to be “Alice” by that name, believing they’re just confused over who they are.

- He’ll sometimes speak to animals as if they’re people. Does he expect them to answer? Maybe.

- Alice is actually learning French. It would make sense for Jervis to deliberately learn French for this purpose. He just might be bilingual.

- Alice carries around a box of comfits and enjoys marmalade. Jervis might be more favorable to sweets.

- Most of the denizens of Wonderland are animals, so it can be gussed that Jervis would have a love of them.

- “We’re all mad here,” says the Cheshire Cat. Jervis could very well know he’s nuts and just rolls with it. Hell, he might even desire it, possibly refusing psychoactive treatment.

Personal headcanons:

- It’s already been established he’s short as fuck, but hey.

- Jervis names every supervillian and hero in Gotham after a character in the book. For example, Jonathan is the March Hare, Batman is the Jabberwocky, Joker is the Queen of Hearts and Harley is the king, things like that.

- He has very proper English and uses complex vocabulary, as well as made up words from the book. The only ones who can really understand him completely are Scarecrow, Riddler, and Batman, who have read the books front to back to understand him.

- He has a copy of Alice’s Adventures with him at all times. He’ll hand it to someone if they can’t understand what he’s talking about. Scarecrow dubs it “Jervis’ dictionary”.

- To calm himself down from a particularly harsh schizophrenic episode, he hums some of the rhymes from the books.

- The rhymes and phrases he mutters to himself when it gets quiet also dictate what mood he’s in. Usually he’s pretty cheerful, but the poems get darker as the more disgruntled or sadistic he feels.

- He’s prone to suddenly stopping himself in random conversations and quiet situations to squeal that he’s late or something like that. He’ll continue to freak out for a good thirty seconds before calming down and continuing to talk like nothing happened.

- No one actually knows what he’s late for, but reminding him of it is a good way to stop him in his tracks for a good few seconds. The only time this doesn’t work is with a serious event going on or if he’s upset.

- His most prized possessions are his hat and his copy of Alice in Wonderland, but in case those are every destroyed, he has, like, twenty other duplicates at home.

-He is bilingual in both French and English.

- He’ll take a hammer to any copy of the Burton movies he comes across.

Day 5 Team up

Notes: Sorry this is late! Team up with Tetch and I have NEVER written for Music Meister before so be gentle!

“Think of it Tetch, with my beautiful voice and your mind control it'll be fantastic!” Meister grinned. “Batman won't stand a chance!”

Meister was an interesting sort, singing, prancing and seducing about. However his idea was odd. Well combining mind control was curious the plan was -

extravagant.

“The thoughts nice Mr.Meister but the idea is weird .” Tetch said carefully, not wanting to upset him.

“What! Jerv this is fantastic! How can you possibly question it, Alice is involved!

A yes, if Alice is involved of course Tetch will leap into the fire. Obviously.

“But don't you think a musical Wonderland is a bit uhm big?”

“WHAT! Nonsense she'd love it! Haven't you ever thought of how beautiful and melodies the poems are in the book?”

“Name one.” Jervis stated, flatly in truth he wanted to work with Music Meister BUT he had to be sure they understood one another.

“Well theirs the Jabberwocky and uhm the one about Alice.”

Jervis knew it he hadn't even read the book just saw the movie or play. At least Meister was trying and as Jervis had already reapted to himself, had a good idea. Standing slowly tetch headed towards the door, quickly Meister attempted to seduce him back into the plan.

“Listen Tetch I'm determined to make our plan a success that's why I need you. It'll be gre-” Meisters words caught in his throat when I book was shoved towards his face.

“Read this, I also put some nice poems that I think you might be interested in this bag.” Jervis stated thrusting the bag in the dumbstruck Music Meisters hands.

“Wait so you'll do it?” Meister finally said grinning.”

“Of course”, Tetch said “but while we work you MUST read the book AND the poetry.”

“Deal.”

I’ve never seen or read LOTRs and never got into the Harry Potter books

@deaths-maiden @toofabuloustobelabeled

@jonathan-cranes-mistress-of-fear

Tell me one thing

A hare trying its best to be invisible.

We interrupt today’s programming to show you this

Thank you for your time 

Can you imagine Bruce Wayne having the private residences of his various rogues tapped? Like he could log on to one and hear a live audio stream of their actions. Imagine:

Ivy quietly making soft ‘cooing’ noise to the various plants which she keeps in her home to nurture and for her protection. Sometimes Harley can also be picked up but she soon disappears after a few weeks or so.

Joker seemingly being aware that Batman has his home tapped and is happy to hold long provocative conversations in the hope that the Bat is listening at any given moment. Bruce hates it since Joker seems to have a sixth sense about when he is tuned in and uses it to his advantage to get under his skin.

Catwoman being the only other rogue who seems to be aware that Batman is listening to her but she is rarely home (and is intelligent enough to not discuss her business) so she uses it as an opportunity to flirt and give hints as to which expensive gifts she would not mind receiving.

Scarecrow’s line is pretty much silent most of the time since he tends to conduct experiments elsewhere but the occasional hummed lullaby can be heard along with mad cackling and it unsettles Bruce more than he is willing to let on.

Edward Nygma being, by far, the loudest of them all. Between the cacophony of creaking and grinding that his various electronic projects make as he constructs them and his incessant need to hear his own voice and practise riddles it can be very grating. Plus he sings. A lot.

The Mad Hatter seeming to have a habit of holding daily tea parties which are almost unintelligible as Tetch fully descends into the madness which has a great hold of him. Bruce can only hear the story of the Walrus and the Carpenter so many times.

Bruce having to force himself to check the feed assigned to Harvey Dent as there is always a chance that instead of picking up Two-Face barking instructions to his henchmen over the telephone, he may pick up pure silence only broken by the occasional sob of the man whom he was once best friends with.

Day 5: Headcanon

Finally, day 5 of the Jervis Tetch appreciation week! No time wastin’, lets go:

My headcanons for this character mostly build up on his Batman the Animated Series originating backstory. Its honestly the best for his character, though I believe it can minorly improved.

Backstory:

I see him starting out as a gentle minded spirit with a definite interest in the human mind and an, at first, unrecognized desire to control, coming from his not very demanding, insertive nature. Being a socially awkward introvert, he’s very lonely, but when the woman he has a crush on broke up with her boyfriend, he actually tried to impress her, not with his mind controlling devices however. As to be a little braver in his approach, he took on a persona from the many books he reads that he emphasizes with most, the Mad Hatter. It goes decent(I bet he can be adorkable in a way), but she still ends up getting back together with her boyfriend. Jervis by that point started to lose himself more and more into his own fantasy, something he already liked to do to escape his lonely existence through literature. Which is when the darker side of his personality he had kept dormant for so long takes over. With Jervis Tetch stuck only half aware in his own imagination, he ends up putting his earliest functional mind control device on his beloved, managing to avoid suspicion for a long time due to his not very outgoing nature. Wether his beloved Alice survived the encounter is uncertain, but its likely that if she survived, the device Jervis had used on her left her brain short circuited and her in a vegative state.

His villainous behavior and other details:

I overall like to think the Mad Hatter isn’t a villain like the Joker is, more easily able to disappear in crowds, despite distinctive facial features, and generally having not that many big schemes including the harm of several people. He prefers to stay undetected and further improve his devices, so he wont have to constantly tell his victims what to do or be permanently brain damaged, as for changing the size, control range and battery life of his devices. He’s the scariest when thinking of him constantly changing estate and the general lack of certainty of who and who isn’t under his control at any time. Any time, once he becomes the Mad Hatter, anyone in Gotham could suddenly start crying, happy to finally be free to act on their own again or be given a permanent mental illness, like say Alien Hand Syndrome, just because they were once under the Hatters control. And while his devices can influence ones senses and motor functions, they don’t change reality like as seen in the Arkham games(Like seriously, that stuff looks great and all, but how does it work within reality?).

Jervis himself:

As already mentioned, Jervis is stuck only half aware of reality. If he was to be snapped back to reality, he would have a breakdown most likely. He’s also pretty unstable within his imagination, because of the many thoughts criss crossing through his mind at any time. This can cause mood swings, some of which can get violent. Otherwise, he remains on the more polite and oblivious side of character. He also tends to make literature references, more than just Alice in Wonderland(’cause seriously, this guy could use some variety). I imagine he calls anyone of the other Rogues by some literature name and treats them as whatever character he assigns them. Which can be hilarious, given that he downtalks Scarecrow because he thinks Scarecrow is the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz or calls either Joker, Harley or both by either Pennywise or IT. Likely still provides some help to other villains if they manage to find him and use the right words.

Anyways, I believe that’s it… If not, I’ll do more.

But for now, this is my contribution to day 5 of the Jervis Tetch Appreciation Week of 2018.

Y’all have a frabious day as always~

Riddler: Tell me a secret.

Scarecrow: One time Tetch, who's all about not killing animals, accidentally stepped on a ladybug. He froze up and slowly cradled it in his hand, and he was so heartbroken she started quoting Hamlet.

Scarecrow: I didn't have the heart to tell him that it was a red M&M.

Hares head shot up at the unfamiliar voice. Quickly she untied the apron from her waist and quickly scrubbed her hands. Tetch having guests over without notifying her was unheard of, he always wanted her to make some kind snack for his guests. Additionally she had never heard that voice before. Grabbing her Kama, she stepped into living room.

"Hello?"

@themarchinghare

“Jervis? Are you here?” Music Meister poked his head through the doorway, looking around before stepping into the Hatter’s latest hideout. Between composing and organising his next ‘performance’, the maestro had grown bored and decided to visit his acquaintance. However he didn’t seem to be around at present.

March paused upon hearing the friendly voice and grinned. "Hello, Hatter I suppose I got all turned around."

March paused in her steps when she noticed the other hare sitting next to the Hatter.

"I suppose I have a clone or maybe I'm the clone. Hmm you also don't quite look like my Hatter. Don't suppose you have tea for another, the more the merrier right?"

● { @themarchinghare} ●  | { Pour a new cup! }

✂ - - -   “ Wait–wait! Hold everything– SILENCE March! ”

March was not making any noise.   “ Do you hear that? Someone is walking in our garden… The roses are talking about them behind their back– as they do… ”

He pauses. “ …March Hare is coming? What? –Did I send you two invitations, March? If so this other you is terribly late indeed… Oh, March Hare! Over here you silly lagomorpha!  ”