༉˚*ೃ 𝐁𝐈𝐎𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐇𝐘 ; 𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄
ᵇᵉᶜᵃᵘˢᵉ ʷʰᵃᵗ ᵐᵃᵈᵉ ᵃⁿ ᵉⁱᵍʰᵗ⁻ʸᵉᵃʳ⁻ᵒˡᵈ ᵈᵉᶜⁱᵈᵉ ᵗʰᵃᵗ ᵗʰᵉʸ ʷᵉʳᵉ ᵍᵒⁱⁿᵍ ᵗᵒ ᶠⁱᵍʰᵗ ᵐᵒⁿˢᵗᵉʳˢ ᵗᵒ ᵏᵉᵉᵖ ᵗʰᵉⁱʳ ˡⁱᶠᵉ?
( tw. mentions of self-harm )
𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘 ;
when alice was seven, she escaped through a mirror in the lab and stepped into wonderland. there, it was terrifying, but it was no worse than the place from which she'd came. she was raised in the hawkins laboratory, with no knowledge of her family, her true name, or that there was even a world outside of the lab's walls. she called it 'the cold place', 'the white place', which is why such a miraculous, strange place such as the upside-down became her 'wonderland'. and once she was there, alice refused to go back. she believed that the entirety of the other world was only the lab, and here, she was free.
surviving in the upside-down was hard for a seven-year-old. there were monsters, cruel and terrifying, that would do anything in their power to kill and eat her—but alice was determined in a way that was unusual for such a young child. she spent eleven years there, against every single odd, clinging to life out of sheer stubbornness and spite and bitterness alone. she learned how to fight them, learned how to survive without staying in one place for too long, and though at first her lungs and heart suffered from the alien wonderland air, she grew accustomed to it over the years. in a way, alice became the newest, most fearsome monster there.
rarely, alice thought about the cold place, because she prefered it in her wonderland. it may have hurt and scarred and nearly killed her, but never would she go back to that life in doctors' rooms and white dormitories. alice was okay at surviving on her own; she was good at it.
until she notices a corruption forming in wonderland—one that stems from the existence of a new and horrifying monster—that forces her out and through another mirror. if she'd been expecting the cold place when she went through the flipside, she'd be frighteningly wrong—for there was no cold place waiting on the other side, but a boy with long, floppy brown hair no older than her brushing his teeth and hardly expecting a dirty girl to climb out of his bathroom mirror.
𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄 ;
alice is a relatively short girl, standing at 5'5", and has a body that's lithe and muscular from exercise and fighting, but also boney from malnourishment in her childhood. her face is angular, and though pretty, is constantly set into a stern look of stern hatred. her dark eyes especially contain a harsh coldness. she cut her hair short the moment it had grown long enough for a monster to snatch it—because it was a liability in her wonderland, and one that could easily get her killed. she's kept it above shoulder-length ever since.
alice is completely covered in scars—some large, some small—all across her body and limbs and face and skull. some are self-inflicted, but most are from the monsters of the upside-down. her worst is a long, deep scar that runs wickedly from the top of her shoulder down the front of her chest. it's twisted and horribly jagged, and the wound nearly killed her. the skin never quite healed properly (never did on any of her scars, so they all look mangled) and the skin is raised and deepend at various points, like perhaps the wound never knitted itself back together or healed properly at all. the second worst scars are on her wrists, in a similar, mangled state to the scar on her chest—but those were caused by her when she was seven and twelve and fourteen, and they're so bad that they almost cover the 005 tattoo on her left arm. they're so deep and jagged they look as if they could have been done by some terrible monster. several more litter her face: one by her brow, one across her lip, another cutting through her cheek. even more litter the less noticable parts of her body, such as the soles of her feet from where she's stepped on shattered glass, long ones spanning the length of her ribs, across her back, slicing ones on her shoulders and biceps, even crisscross scars on the palms on her hands and fingers. eleven years in the upside-down will mark you up.
𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐘 ;
alice is closed-off and unkind, unused to human interaction and the atmosphere of a town that isn't abandoned. her tendency is violence-first, an attitude which was picked up due to only spending her time with monsters that wanted to rip her throat out, and it's been that way since she was seven years old. she's stubborn and fierce and terrifying when angered, so much so that she can scare people off with just a harsh stare from her cold eyes. it's not that she hates people, necessarily—just that she knows she's better off alone. alice has never laughed before, never truly felt large amounts of joy, because there's never been anything there that's shown her that life is more than just fighting viciously to live another day.
part of her fears becoming close with anyone, because in all her life she's never been loved, never been in love. it's foreign to her, to be cared about, and to care about other people. and as alice is a survivalist, anything that is foreign to her, she'll do her best to keep away from, even if it is through aggression. alice hates being touched and will often become physically violent if a hand is placed on her, purely out of reaction. the only people who have touched her in the past have been to hurt or torture her, and she's never known what it's like to be touched in a caring manner. she despises it for a long time—it makes her feel disgusting and gives her an involuntary reaction.
over her time spent in right-side hawkins, though, alice begins to soften. it's very gradual, something she and everyone else thought wasn't possible, but it does happen. she starts to understand that there is good in the world, and she has people other than herself. she begins to understand what it's like to have a home. she laughs and she smiles and she starts to feel happy—in all her life, she'd never felt truly happy. and though she'll never be an optimistic, cheerful person, even though she'll always have that aggression, that coldness, that stubbornness, alice realises that maybe there are people who will love her for it.
𝐅𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐎𝐍 ;
alice has never cared about fashion—for her, it's about practicality only. in wonderland, she wears jeans that she scavenged from the drawers of houses, dirty and worn and rarely warm enough, but they suit her just fine. For a shirt, she wears a woman's tank top that she found in the same way, with a warm jacket thrown over the top. alice also makes do with various materials like leather, metal and plastic to create forms of 'armour' on her wrists and hands and ankles, to protect her most precious arteries and muscles. she also wears strong boots that she's attached long metal nails to the front and heel of, in case she ever needs to kick at an enemy. alice is rarely—if ever—seen without her crowbar weapon stuck with nails and broken glass.
when in hawkins, she wears clothes borrowed from nancy and robin, but never dresses. she only accepts jeans from the two of them, and wears colourful tops and t-shirts. they all feel strange on her. but she keeps wearing her same boots—they've grown worn and moulded to the shape of her feet—though the others attach duct tape over the nails in an attempt to make them at least a little bit safer.
𝐅𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐋 𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐖𝐒 ;
ʰᵒˢᵗⁱˡᵉ— alice is incredibly hostile and cold. she hates human contact and dislikes being around any of the others. she refuses to trust any of them and is rather aggressive. being so used to having only her own back since she was incredibly young, alice seems to hate all of the newcomers she meets.
ᵃⁿᵗⁱˢᵒᶜⁱᵃˡ— alice is unused to the social ways of human beings. she would rather be silent and brooding, or talk to herself, than strike up conversation with any of the others. it's difficult for her to communicate effectively or kindly. due to this, she often comes off as quite weird or rude—and doesn't understand how aggressive or frightening she may be being.
ᵉᵐᵒᵗⁱᵒⁿˡᵉˢˢ— alice is not one to show emotions. she rather conceals and swallows them down, expressing only cold blankness. this can mean it's difficult to get through to her, and her emotions tend to spill out in anger and hostility rather than anything genuine. she is unused to the feelings of love, fear, sadness or happiness—she has not laughed in all her life.