♔ Ferris Alison ♔ Nicknames: Alice, buggy, a strange little man
Age: 24
Birthday: May 4th
Gender: Trans woman, loose with gendered terms and pronouns. Presents male while in public and working, female in personal settings, and skittish otherwise due to trauma.
Sexuality: Panromantic, somewhere between demi and asexual. Prone to innocent, aesthetic based crushes. Has not experimented with polyamory, or anything, for that matter.
Category: Citizen, Occasional Villain, Low Profile Antihero.
Birth Place / Hometown: London, England.
Occupation: Anything-goes courier, odd job worker with shadier leanings, inventor, part-time employee at the Alice's Wonderland bookstore.
Race/Species: Human, personification of Alice Liddell, from the original Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Voicecanon: Here. Ferris has a heavy British accent.
And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase 'Let's pretend.'
Appearance Description
`Well, this is grand!' said Alice. `I never expected I should be a Queen so soon — and I'll tell you what it is, your majesty,' she went on in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself), `it'll never do for you to be lolling about on the grass like that! Queens have to be dignified, you know!'
Ferris has been described as a 'handsome bug' before, and that likely sums up a lot. In all seriousness, of course, he's quite the mix of pronounced features and Victorian aesthetics, with a strong splash of head in the clouds-- in terms of color palette and otherwise. Despite being so dressed up and having pretty looks from a distance, Ferris is more on the short and sturdy side, five foot five inches tall with an athletic build.
One of the most noticeable parts of his appearance are his big, round, almost buglike sky blue eyes. Truly, they are excessively, unapologetically blue. The outward jumping lashes and visible purple bags only further serve to highlight his eyes. Ferris takes slow blinks and stares for a long time, without any effort towards hiding it. He doesn't get any less intrusive in looks as you go on, either. His brows are thick and dark, nose longer and hooked, ears undeniably sticking out and pierced, lips pouty and feminine. Ferris has two-tone hair, blond on the top and black on the bottom. It's in a pushed back style with a few loose strands, jaw length, and heavily wavy in texture, getting messier with length and neater at the roots. It isn't dyed, but does need a lot of product for it to stay down.
His clothing tastes are in blacks, whites, and blues, with pastels, psychedelic patterns, novelty accessories (and similar weird touches). There's clear Victorian inspiration shown many suits, vests, long coats, bows, buttons, dresses, and lace. Ferris makes odd fashion choices sometimes, but there isn't a time where you can find him being lazy about it. Even the outfits that make him look like a social experiment take dedication. He can regularly be found in dorky, colorful spectacles, to use his Looking Glass ability with, and white gloves. You could label him cute and get away with it, but only cute to those with unique outlooks on cute.
Ferris has a special, luring aura of peculiar to him not only with how his magic feels, but with the various quirky ways he moves, messes with his environment, interacts with others, and speaks in general. His default expression is a full on, constant deadpan, which can clash with the intense curiosity and even childishness in his voice and intentions. For some people, being around Ferris grows exhausting very quickly, too much all at once, too grating.
It's hard to tell at a glance if he's some form of harmless, whimsical artsy sort of weirdo, or someone entirely unsavory, and how far the unsavory really goes. Shoplifter and supervillain aren't on the same level at all. It's okay, though. Ferris is mostly the former, despite his lack of morals, and a little murder here and there hardly makes you that fancy of a baddie. However, buried underneath Ferris' normal aura, for the discerning or especially sensitive sorts, is a thick layer of unpleasant, sticky feeling black magic that can't be removed.
Personality Description
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'
The first, most defining, best and worst part of Ferris is his curiosity. He never stops asking questions, can hardly keep his mouth shut with them, and likes to learn a little about almost everything-- especially things he can be taught about through action or conversation. Stuffing his head with useless facts and pretty daydreams is his favorite hobby, along with making up his own explanations for things he doesn't understand. Ferris loves everything weird, grand, and fantastical, with an additional appreciation if it happens to be clever and snarky. As bright eyed as this makes Ferris, it also makes him incredibly nosy. His sense of boundaries and personal space is quite outweighed by his sense of entitlement.
Ferris is a childish soul, strongly and shamelessly. He enjoys things like chattering to himself, games, toys, and anything colorful and shiny. While he usually appears deadpan and apathetic outwardly (his actual energy doesn't match it at all), he's very prone to giggling like a schoolgirl. His attention span is wishy washy, and he's easily distracted or moved to boredom. When he really cares about something, his focus is like a laser, he could think and talk about it for hours (this carries over to people, and includes talking to them for hours, happy with any given topic)— but otherwise, could be as weak as a toothpick. Due to all of this, depending on how he feels towards something, he can switch back and forth from deep and understanding to shallow and careless.
Brought up as a proud, upper class English individual, Ferris can be extremely self absorbed, often rather oblivious to things that don't directly relate to him. He's very straightforward and matter of fact when speaking, to the point of being sometimes rude and insensitive, or even condescending and lowkey threatening, but those negatives aren't usually on purpose. He does, however, have an ego, and thinks of himself as an important person.
Ferris isn't all that malicious without purpose, never in a true bullying sense, not unless he was paid for it. If he doesn't care for you, he'll just be on his way, and not bother chit chatting-- except in cases where you've trapped him. He's not malicious, but he's certainly not one to lay down and not fight back, either. He's exceedingly brave from years of dealing with fussy, snippy, nonsense-talking animals, objects and monsters in Wonderland, and firmly doesn't take anyone's shit. He'll be polite at first to someone having a fit, but if pushed, certainly won't be submissive!
Now, Ferris cares a lot about putting up airs of being his version of 'proper' (which isn't always traditional, and which he can be terribly hypocritical with), and others doing the same, but as referenced with 'not unless he was paid for it', past those standards of acting proper, he doesn't have a set of morals. While Ferris doesn't go out of his way to be cruel, he wouldn't turn away from it, either, and it really makes little difference to him. What does and doesn't shock Ferris is often amusing, or unsettling, to people.
He presents male the majority of the time, due to trauma in his past and a concern of how he'd be treated while working, but there's absolutely no doubt here-- Ferris is female, through and through. It isn't to say that a person can only be a lady if they are ladylike, but Ferris is a very girly girl, mannerisms and tastes all bluntly feminine. In his Alice based memories, he was raised to be a proper young British lady. At that time, back in the Victorian era, his adventuring habits and strong willed nature left him seen as a little too boyish-- which clashes with his true history as Ferris, brought up to be a proper young British man, who was always viewed as too girly. With both selves, either way, and however he presents and uses pronouns, Ferris is one hundred percent a woman.
His imagination and strange outlooks can make him a very unreliable narrator. Ferris' memory and brain are a bit out of order, which adds to this. Sometimes, he has to correct himself on something mid sentence, and is rather prone to loopy tangents or acting like whatever he says is a fact. Some might call him ditzy. Ferris doesn't believe much of anything is impossible-- you just need the right mindset. To go along with this, it's difficult to predict if, at any given moment, Ferris will lean more towards looking before leaping or trusting his gut alone. His whole character can be perceived as either having a roundabout intelligence to it, or being rather stupid. He cries over simple things and gets over them just as fast. He scolds himself for his own amusement. He gives himself good advice, and rarely follows it. He alternates between the personas of little girl, young lady, and Underground criminal. It's all fickle and chaotic.
Powers
Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
Alice
As a very full blown personification, Ferris will feel exactly like the real Alice to any Wonderland creatures that'd be familiar with her. And he both is and isn't just that.Alice
Looking Glass - Oddity Sensing
Ferris can get a sense of when things are out of the ordinary in some fashion, though no specifics, and only when he peers through what he'd call a looking glass, but which can be any simple glasses and reflective surfaces-- and he needs to focus while doing so. Mirrors and novelty eyeglasses are the best of this, while any old random reflective surface will be foggy and vague at best, but better than nothing. While never specifics, he can see the intensity of how out of the ordinary something is, represented in how bold, varied, and warping their colors are through the glass.
Unfortunately, when using this ability, the out of the ordinary things with decent magic often notice Ferris right back, and are more drawn to him, whether in friendly or malicious terms.
It's an Invention of My Own - Crafting Talent
Tinkering with random nonsense and junk to make something useful, Ferris is pure magic at crafting, the worse and weirder the materials, the better. And he does use actual magic for it, able to exhaust himself if pushing too much too quickly. This needs material, nothing coming from thin air. He uses whatever strange objects are available for the recycling, and collects a lot of baubles and spare parts in his coat pockets for it.
In short amounts of time he can only make cute trinkets. With more time, hours, days, months or further put in, he can make more ambitious and longer lasting things. However long they last, they're always surprisingly beautiful. His business cards are designed to look like real playing card soldiers, with handwritten contact information on them, and are very charming. The most magical thing about his basic creations (unless used with something else) are holding up despite looking like they shouldn't, such as with the card soldiers, which seem delicate but stand up on their own if set down. They're not enchanted in any more complicated light.
Ferris can't craft any sort of fancy electronic items, no computers, TVs, and the like (though he can strip those down for parts), but he's good with clocks and machinery similar to that. This doesn't carry over to food, and edible items need to be created normally. He's best with small, interesting things, and clumsier the bigger the item becomes, though that can be gotten around with time spent on it.
Lucidity, Drink Me, Eat Me - Three Potions
Potion creation with three strong recipes, one which only effects others, and two which Ferris can only use on himself. He makes these potions with magic energy use and mishmash grocery store ingredients that sounded like they could work out. The potions working on only others or himself also happens to be something Ferris decided just sounded correct back when practicing and settling on how to make them, and that ended up as the rules.
The first induces overwhelming vivid dreams, which can either be pleasant or torture depending on the person and their current amount of stress. This only lasts with full intensity for about fifteen to twenty minutes, then needs to be either drank again or will slowly wear down to nothing over the next few hours, but leave the memories of dreaming as intense as it was when first happening. Those with strong mental barriers will have lessened effects, though not none at all, with the physical intake required. Immunity to poisons will mean it'll be fluffy, fuzzy daydreams you experience, and that alone, not to mention daydreams that still leave you fairly conscious.
The second potion makes you smaller. He can take sips to control how small, but a full dose takes him down to roughly the size of a mouse. It wears off within an hour unless drank again. The third potion isn't a potion, but more of a cakey dessert item. It makes you bigger, but currently only bigger than what the second potion can leave you as, and which Ferris uses as an emergency way to turn back if he doesn't want to wait the full hour.
Species Traits
I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what CAN have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!
Wonderland Logic
Let's Pretend - Walking On Walls
I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what CAN have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!
Wonderland Logic
Let's Pretend - Walking On Walls
Ferris bends the rules of physics for his own whim and easy passage through bizarre areas. He can walk up walls and stand on ceilings upside down, and feel as comfortable as he would when upright on the ground, his personal gravity changing.
Thanks to the active manipulation in play, rather than simple climbing, if you were to throw something at Ferris while he was sideways, he wouldn't fall in the right direction. The best way to deal with it is by dragging him down. He's as weak to different textures, like slippery glass, as anyone else, but doesn't tend to break through delicate things unless purposefully focusing towards putting weight on them. Weather is also problematic.
It's All Just A Dream - Durability and Luck
Ferris has, though not full invulnerability, a powerful bit of durability and luck. Aside from occasional moments of terrifying clarity, he floats through life as though it isn't real, like all his sensations are floaty and faint. His pain resistance is strong, but will start to fade after a certain point. Hits are less likely to land on him, with how weirdly slippery and out of touch his existance is. Ferris shrugs off danger until it wears him down enough. Sometimes punching him makes people feel like they touched something kinda gross and mysterious.
He has to eat, drink, and sleep like anyone else to survive, though has trouble remembering to do so with how numb he usually is, and regularly ends up in more self-caused pain from the threat of dehydration, starvation, and insomnia than he otherwise would if properly sensitive to his body's needs. Self care on a more mundane level is difficult for Ferris to maintain.
I Am Real! - Curse
Thanks to the ritual Ferris underwent to become Alice and receive his powers, he has thick dark magic at the core of his being, hidden a little under his aura, but not at all invisible. Those properly familiar with it, or sensitive to the stuff, would notice it very quickly. This is a trace left behind from sacrificing two family members, one hated, one loved. Along with this, Ferris sold something highly precious to him-- the ability to dream fully. When Ferris sleeps, it is restless, unsatisfying, and empty. He has to experience his adventures through fanciful daydreams or real life, but the lack of true dreams will always be saddening. Lastly, in times of great stress, Ferris has guilt-filled, unpleasant hallucinations of his father and older sister.
Biography
'Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!'
tw: child abuse, transphobia, murder
tw: child abuse, transphobia, murder
Ferris is and isn't Alice.
His mother died in childbirth, and his father was the headmaster of a private college in England. He had an older sister, but was held to higher standards and pressure, as their father's only 'son'. Expected to take over some day, even-- not that their father planned on following his late wife or retiring anytime soon. Didn't mean he had to work any less.
He suffered greatly under these conditions, clumsy and foundering in rigid academics, bright and friendly but too forward and continually putting people off. This only really meant he was pushed harder, and had to find a good coping method, a way to escape. And so, when not having lessons or trying to sit still at fancy events, Ferris absolutely buried himself in fantasy books and his own imagination. He didn't have any real friends to speak of, seen as far too odd, so he clung to his fairytales and sister. His sister was more serious than he was, like their dad, but kinder, too, and tried to have a bit more patience with Ferris.
Ferris read everything he could get his hands on, but there was one book that he read over, and over, and over again, memorizing all the details as if desperately hoping they'd become his reality in place of what he had. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through The Looking Glass. They were simple stories, but Ferris found everything in them. The main character, a little girl by the name of Alice, reminded him so deeply of himself that he thought they must be twins, or soulmates, or much the same person. She was curious, and too much, and adored adventures, with an imagination that never slowed or bothered to explain itself. She had an older sister, just like his, and was clearly on the richer side. She dreamed like he did, without even needing a point to it all. She dreamed simply to dream.
After being left so enamored by this book series, Ferris incorporated it more and more into himself. He repeated, and giggled over, the many silly poems heard from the characters. He started to dream of Wonderland himself, and new places, and new people, and always found himself to be Alice in these dreams. And finally, he started practicing being like a lady, as he thought he was quite certainly meant to be.
At some point in that early childhood haze, Ferris was caught playing with his sister's makeup, and his father beat him severely for it. The young girl was so shaken that no more dreams of Wonderland were to be had. Not for a very long while. It was something of a wakeup call, and he shut down a bit, going into a survival mode. He'd already been getting hit, slapped, kicked, and other such things for messing up with his studies. He couldn't afford to do this anymore, even if it'd been keeping him sane thus far. It'd clicked that way, and so it was.
Ferris shaped up over his teen years. He was positively miserable, but he shaped up, learning to memorize what he needed to by thinking of it in strange ways, using silly comparisons, and so on-- along with his sister's friendship. By the time he was finally in college, his father's college, he could almost be mistaken for the upstanding sort. He'd decided to study literature, and funnily enough, now that he appeared to have changed for the better, there were no objections to that. Ferris was a tired soul, for all his youth, and quite happy to go back to book hoarding and pondering when not being dragged around or forced into other education. He'd already worked his ass off through his teens to get this far, and didn't consider finally going back to his passions any danger, but a well deserved reward.
Of course, he'd nearly forgotten, in his trauma, how much he'd loved his favorite series of books, and what feelings of identity bloomed from it. He found that he didn't enjoy it any less, reading with more excitement than ever, if anything. He read them every chance given, taking breaks from other books if only to peek at a passage from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland again. It gave him more energy, so he didn't see the problem. And there wasn't any problem, until it really did start getting in the way of his work.
Ferris had started having the dreams again. And they were marvelous. Lit up his entire world, made him feel like a child. Made him feel like her. Alice. It'd been harder to grasp, when he'd been younger, but now it was harder to ignore than ever. And, he told himself, he'd built himself up as being a proper son and heir. Surely that meant he could get away with having a personal life, in secret. He'd gotten used to balancing these things, at last, he was sure.
In the nights, after classes had ended, and on the weekends, Ferris went off campus to the city, visiting special clubs and resource centers, wearing a long blond wig and dressing up in pretty blue dresses. Being known by 'Alice', making real friends, and being happy, happy, happier than anything. But once you have something better, why would you ever devote as much time and energy to something you'd always hated? Ferris had been barely on the line of managing for a long while, and this was what broke it. Over a year or two, Ferris' grades dropped, as did his attendance rate, until his father could no longer turn a blind eye and give gentle warnings.
There was a confrontation, loud and passionate from both ends. And Ferris, an honest, optimistic girl at heart-- naive, despite it all-- hoped that since he was older, and his father was as well, and they'd gained a sort of truce, he hoped if he could better speak and explain things, who he was, what he was, that his father would give in and understand. He was the only parent Ferris had left, and it was terribly lonely to never have him understand. Of course, his father was already livid, and Ferris was too oblivious, too unsure of himself in everyday social interactions, to know how to navigate this or wait for a calmer time to win him over. Not that he could've won him over at all. That much was clear, after what happened.
It was a repeat of Ferris' childhood trauma, and made everything he'd ever experienced sore, and very, very sad. There were too many words, this time. There'd been words for him as a kid, but it was different now. It was different now that the event had repeated, seen as more dire, and that he could understand what the words meant. His father said things that Ferris didn't ever want to hear again, that ripped and tore at his seams, made him feel small in ways a bite of a mushroom could never fix. Made him feel like he'd drank too much of a drink me potion, and that now, he was going to go out, much like a candle, and that'd be that.
With a no tolerance lecture and a threat of disownment out of the way, Ferris was like a broken record, seemingly back on the same path he'd been on before, of hollow improvement and a joyous fall. Only, he wasn't sure he could afford to fall even once more. He feared it'd be his last. Despite his fears, Ferris was broken into little pieces, and it was all he could do not to have sobbing breakdowns in his classes. So, he went about on a special task, to distract and heal himself.
That summer, he was going to visit every bookstore and library he could. This was something he was still allowed to love, and he wasn't about to forget that. This excitement was perfectly related to his major, too, so his father allowed the trip without fuss. Ferris had a good summer, and got a few very interesting books to bring back with him, along with the opportunity to talk to the bookshop owners and library workers about a lot of worthwhile things. His father would be pleased he was using his vacation time well.
One of the bookstores, Ferris heard, was a little magic. It was out of the way, and in the bad part of town, but he couldn't skip it. He put it off until last, so he could scold himself into not visiting, but that never succeeded. He hadn't truly expected it to. That wasn't how he worked. And however broken he was, however much he could taste the danger mixed with the adventure, he couldn't turn away from things like this. He was starting to grow resigned to that.
Here, in this last bookshop, a tiny place with a million funny looking lamps and cluttered books, Ferris met a charming fellow. As charming as a smooth, slippery eel, and with the same look to them. They talked into the night, and Ferris fell in love, despite knowing he shouldn't have. It made him feel giddy, to have his breath taken away, because this person treated him like a proper lady. In what had been a quiet moment, a break from their mutual rambling and conversation, the charmer held both of Ferris' hands tight, dim colored light from one of the lamps making their eyes glitter. Their skin was warm, and Ferris' cheeks must have been dreadfully pink. And in that second, they asked one question:
"What do you want, more than anything?"
And as someone in love, as someone optimistic, and naive, and a step away from his last fall, Ferris told them exactly what he wanted.
"To be Alice."
And they told him that dream could come true, with just a few, easy steps, and a firm handshake.
Ferris listened. It was the opposite of what he should've done, he knew, but... he'd learned something from one of his favorite books. Sometimes, to go forward, you had to take a few steps backwards. And this world certainly felt like the worst sort of senseless mirror dimension to him. It was time to end it.
The instructions were simple. Ridiculously so. Easy, not so much. He asked a lot of questions, and agreed with the consequences, the side effects, the promises still sounding appealing. Ferris waited to think it over, going back to his normal life once summer break had passed, but time only made him long for it more. A thirst, a starvation, a need. He had to end this story on his own terms and move on to the next book, else his father would surely end it for him, and there wouldn't be sequels.
Ferris spent the remaining days up until the finish with his sister, cherishing, reading together, pretending they were young. He nearly reached out, clutched onto her, and sobbed apologies whenever he saw her, but miraculously, didn't do it. Despite his honesty, Ferris was too focused upon his goal by now. It was too late to turn back, and it was too late for apologies.
And so, to keep an already long story shorter, Ferris ended the lives of his closest family members, and gave away something irreplaceable of his own. His father, hated, murdered, brutally and with coldness. His sister, loved, killed gently and with emotion. Lastly, dreams exchanged for dreams, and all in the name of a demon.
(A cat also happened to be fetched, as an extra favor, when Ferris was asked what companion he'd most prefer to have. He didn't ask any questions about that one.)
As with most demonic deals, it wasn't exactly what Ferris had wished for, but it wasn't not, either. He became Alice, his old memories mostly tucked away but not gone, powers granted, some of his appearance tweaked. The newly born Alice agonized over the changes to her body, and being away from her family, her London, but not in Wonderland either. She'd never been here before, it was much too dull, and she couldn't deny being a bit lonely.
But she had her cat Dinah with her. And she must have dreamed it, the last dream she would have, but that cat told her there was a new magical place to go. Manta Carlos. Through this cat's guidance, she was able to awkwardly make her way there, and has been slowly learning how to function and cope ever since, even with all her oddities. But, even then, she was something like... happy. Happier than she'd been, she felt. And that, at least, was good. Manta Carlos wasn't such a bad place at all, despite missing her homes, and it had a lot of colorful characters of its own to make her feel a little less homesick. Alice was a strong, brave girl, who'd been through worse, so she knew she'd be okay.
Ferris currently assumes Alice's 'memories' are his own, and that he was torn from his original universe in some kind of magical freak accident. He wasn't, of course. He also manages to keep assuming, aside from in flashes of nasty clarity, that his cat Dinah is the same cat he's always had. It isn't, and instead, is the demon he made his deal with, now having an anchor to the physical world through Ferris. (The demon is a rather lazy thing, and pleased to eat food, take catnaps in the sun, and watch Ferris go on adventures for entertainment, though, so not any threat.)
Thanks to his adventuring habits, topsy turvy sense of morality, and powers, Ferris began a life of anything-goes courier and odd job worker, while spending his free time seeking out weird things to stare at or working at crafting neat inventions. Ferris arrived at twenty-one years old, and has nearly been on the island for four years. Despite this, due to his head in the clouds nature, it's not strange at all that's there's always more to discover, more people to meet, more things to do.
His mother died in childbirth, and his father was the headmaster of a private college in England. He had an older sister, but was held to higher standards and pressure, as their father's only 'son'. Expected to take over some day, even-- not that their father planned on following his late wife or retiring anytime soon. Didn't mean he had to work any less.
He suffered greatly under these conditions, clumsy and foundering in rigid academics, bright and friendly but too forward and continually putting people off. This only really meant he was pushed harder, and had to find a good coping method, a way to escape. And so, when not having lessons or trying to sit still at fancy events, Ferris absolutely buried himself in fantasy books and his own imagination. He didn't have any real friends to speak of, seen as far too odd, so he clung to his fairytales and sister. His sister was more serious than he was, like their dad, but kinder, too, and tried to have a bit more patience with Ferris.
Ferris read everything he could get his hands on, but there was one book that he read over, and over, and over again, memorizing all the details as if desperately hoping they'd become his reality in place of what he had. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Through The Looking Glass. They were simple stories, but Ferris found everything in them. The main character, a little girl by the name of Alice, reminded him so deeply of himself that he thought they must be twins, or soulmates, or much the same person. She was curious, and too much, and adored adventures, with an imagination that never slowed or bothered to explain itself. She had an older sister, just like his, and was clearly on the richer side. She dreamed like he did, without even needing a point to it all. She dreamed simply to dream.
After being left so enamored by this book series, Ferris incorporated it more and more into himself. He repeated, and giggled over, the many silly poems heard from the characters. He started to dream of Wonderland himself, and new places, and new people, and always found himself to be Alice in these dreams. And finally, he started practicing being like a lady, as he thought he was quite certainly meant to be.
At some point in that early childhood haze, Ferris was caught playing with his sister's makeup, and his father beat him severely for it. The young girl was so shaken that no more dreams of Wonderland were to be had. Not for a very long while. It was something of a wakeup call, and he shut down a bit, going into a survival mode. He'd already been getting hit, slapped, kicked, and other such things for messing up with his studies. He couldn't afford to do this anymore, even if it'd been keeping him sane thus far. It'd clicked that way, and so it was.
Ferris shaped up over his teen years. He was positively miserable, but he shaped up, learning to memorize what he needed to by thinking of it in strange ways, using silly comparisons, and so on-- along with his sister's friendship. By the time he was finally in college, his father's college, he could almost be mistaken for the upstanding sort. He'd decided to study literature, and funnily enough, now that he appeared to have changed for the better, there were no objections to that. Ferris was a tired soul, for all his youth, and quite happy to go back to book hoarding and pondering when not being dragged around or forced into other education. He'd already worked his ass off through his teens to get this far, and didn't consider finally going back to his passions any danger, but a well deserved reward.
Of course, he'd nearly forgotten, in his trauma, how much he'd loved his favorite series of books, and what feelings of identity bloomed from it. He found that he didn't enjoy it any less, reading with more excitement than ever, if anything. He read them every chance given, taking breaks from other books if only to peek at a passage from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland again. It gave him more energy, so he didn't see the problem. And there wasn't any problem, until it really did start getting in the way of his work.
Ferris had started having the dreams again. And they were marvelous. Lit up his entire world, made him feel like a child. Made him feel like her. Alice. It'd been harder to grasp, when he'd been younger, but now it was harder to ignore than ever. And, he told himself, he'd built himself up as being a proper son and heir. Surely that meant he could get away with having a personal life, in secret. He'd gotten used to balancing these things, at last, he was sure.
In the nights, after classes had ended, and on the weekends, Ferris went off campus to the city, visiting special clubs and resource centers, wearing a long blond wig and dressing up in pretty blue dresses. Being known by 'Alice', making real friends, and being happy, happy, happier than anything. But once you have something better, why would you ever devote as much time and energy to something you'd always hated? Ferris had been barely on the line of managing for a long while, and this was what broke it. Over a year or two, Ferris' grades dropped, as did his attendance rate, until his father could no longer turn a blind eye and give gentle warnings.
There was a confrontation, loud and passionate from both ends. And Ferris, an honest, optimistic girl at heart-- naive, despite it all-- hoped that since he was older, and his father was as well, and they'd gained a sort of truce, he hoped if he could better speak and explain things, who he was, what he was, that his father would give in and understand. He was the only parent Ferris had left, and it was terribly lonely to never have him understand. Of course, his father was already livid, and Ferris was too oblivious, too unsure of himself in everyday social interactions, to know how to navigate this or wait for a calmer time to win him over. Not that he could've won him over at all. That much was clear, after what happened.
It was a repeat of Ferris' childhood trauma, and made everything he'd ever experienced sore, and very, very sad. There were too many words, this time. There'd been words for him as a kid, but it was different now. It was different now that the event had repeated, seen as more dire, and that he could understand what the words meant. His father said things that Ferris didn't ever want to hear again, that ripped and tore at his seams, made him feel small in ways a bite of a mushroom could never fix. Made him feel like he'd drank too much of a drink me potion, and that now, he was going to go out, much like a candle, and that'd be that.
With a no tolerance lecture and a threat of disownment out of the way, Ferris was like a broken record, seemingly back on the same path he'd been on before, of hollow improvement and a joyous fall. Only, he wasn't sure he could afford to fall even once more. He feared it'd be his last. Despite his fears, Ferris was broken into little pieces, and it was all he could do not to have sobbing breakdowns in his classes. So, he went about on a special task, to distract and heal himself.
That summer, he was going to visit every bookstore and library he could. This was something he was still allowed to love, and he wasn't about to forget that. This excitement was perfectly related to his major, too, so his father allowed the trip without fuss. Ferris had a good summer, and got a few very interesting books to bring back with him, along with the opportunity to talk to the bookshop owners and library workers about a lot of worthwhile things. His father would be pleased he was using his vacation time well.
One of the bookstores, Ferris heard, was a little magic. It was out of the way, and in the bad part of town, but he couldn't skip it. He put it off until last, so he could scold himself into not visiting, but that never succeeded. He hadn't truly expected it to. That wasn't how he worked. And however broken he was, however much he could taste the danger mixed with the adventure, he couldn't turn away from things like this. He was starting to grow resigned to that.
Here, in this last bookshop, a tiny place with a million funny looking lamps and cluttered books, Ferris met a charming fellow. As charming as a smooth, slippery eel, and with the same look to them. They talked into the night, and Ferris fell in love, despite knowing he shouldn't have. It made him feel giddy, to have his breath taken away, because this person treated him like a proper lady. In what had been a quiet moment, a break from their mutual rambling and conversation, the charmer held both of Ferris' hands tight, dim colored light from one of the lamps making their eyes glitter. Their skin was warm, and Ferris' cheeks must have been dreadfully pink. And in that second, they asked one question:
"What do you want, more than anything?"
And as someone in love, as someone optimistic, and naive, and a step away from his last fall, Ferris told them exactly what he wanted.
"To be Alice."
And they told him that dream could come true, with just a few, easy steps, and a firm handshake.
Ferris listened. It was the opposite of what he should've done, he knew, but... he'd learned something from one of his favorite books. Sometimes, to go forward, you had to take a few steps backwards. And this world certainly felt like the worst sort of senseless mirror dimension to him. It was time to end it.
The instructions were simple. Ridiculously so. Easy, not so much. He asked a lot of questions, and agreed with the consequences, the side effects, the promises still sounding appealing. Ferris waited to think it over, going back to his normal life once summer break had passed, but time only made him long for it more. A thirst, a starvation, a need. He had to end this story on his own terms and move on to the next book, else his father would surely end it for him, and there wouldn't be sequels.
Ferris spent the remaining days up until the finish with his sister, cherishing, reading together, pretending they were young. He nearly reached out, clutched onto her, and sobbed apologies whenever he saw her, but miraculously, didn't do it. Despite his honesty, Ferris was too focused upon his goal by now. It was too late to turn back, and it was too late for apologies.
And so, to keep an already long story shorter, Ferris ended the lives of his closest family members, and gave away something irreplaceable of his own. His father, hated, murdered, brutally and with coldness. His sister, loved, killed gently and with emotion. Lastly, dreams exchanged for dreams, and all in the name of a demon.
(A cat also happened to be fetched, as an extra favor, when Ferris was asked what companion he'd most prefer to have. He didn't ask any questions about that one.)
As with most demonic deals, it wasn't exactly what Ferris had wished for, but it wasn't not, either. He became Alice, his old memories mostly tucked away but not gone, powers granted, some of his appearance tweaked. The newly born Alice agonized over the changes to her body, and being away from her family, her London, but not in Wonderland either. She'd never been here before, it was much too dull, and she couldn't deny being a bit lonely.
But she had her cat Dinah with her. And she must have dreamed it, the last dream she would have, but that cat told her there was a new magical place to go. Manta Carlos. Through this cat's guidance, she was able to awkwardly make her way there, and has been slowly learning how to function and cope ever since, even with all her oddities. But, even then, she was something like... happy. Happier than she'd been, she felt. And that, at least, was good. Manta Carlos wasn't such a bad place at all, despite missing her homes, and it had a lot of colorful characters of its own to make her feel a little less homesick. Alice was a strong, brave girl, who'd been through worse, so she knew she'd be okay.
Ferris currently assumes Alice's 'memories' are his own, and that he was torn from his original universe in some kind of magical freak accident. He wasn't, of course. He also manages to keep assuming, aside from in flashes of nasty clarity, that his cat Dinah is the same cat he's always had. It isn't, and instead, is the demon he made his deal with, now having an anchor to the physical world through Ferris. (The demon is a rather lazy thing, and pleased to eat food, take catnaps in the sun, and watch Ferris go on adventures for entertainment, though, so not any threat.)
Thanks to his adventuring habits, topsy turvy sense of morality, and powers, Ferris began a life of anything-goes courier and odd job worker, while spending his free time seeking out weird things to stare at or working at crafting neat inventions. Ferris arrived at twenty-one years old, and has nearly been on the island for four years. Despite this, due to his head in the clouds nature, it's not strange at all that's there's always more to discover, more people to meet, more things to do.
Additional Information
'But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, 'to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!'
'But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, 'to pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!'
Ferris has ADD, and memory issues, on top of that. He was born with the former, given the latter.
He's very hirable for a great deal of work, though he's freelance and prefers to remain with few or no particular loyalties, offering business to anyone that'll pay him. He doesn't want to turn down any chance at exciting activity.