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Ezra Mariposa

Possible FCs: PoC/Latino/mixed heritage/I don’t know yet.

Son of Absolem (Alice in Wonderland)

early twenties range/22?

Ezra Mariposa Age: Twenty-three Family: Absolem Mariposa (Father) Hometown: Wonderland Occupation: Currently a Student at Auradon University, majoring in Literary Arts and Sociology. Also works part time at a bookstore near campus. 

Doesn’t believe in fairy tales and happily ever afters in spite of living in Wonderland his entire life. He does very much enjoy writing stories, and is very good at it, as a sort of release of tension but holds a very strong distance between the idea of stories for the sake of entertainment and the real world outside of them.

Is a published writer in several small publication papers around the area, mostly fantasy stories, where he writes under his pen name Cate Pelose (French term for caterpillar.)

When he writes he has to do so with his ink manipulation powers, hates the idea of speaking to a computer to write so he has someone who takes his manuscripts and types them for him.

Ezra’s father had a long-standing friendship with Alice, but when she moved on to other things the man grieved the loss of it. There were dozens of his father’s stories that revolved around impossible things and the woman, of course most of them Ezra has come to shrug off as simply that, stories, but he does recognize how the distance that grew between the two of them deeply hurt his father and was the reason he remained alone for some time after Ezra’s birth.

Ezra’s father raised him as a single parent the first four years of his life, his biological mother was never known to him and so far as his father recounts she could have been one of several women he knew in his days of more heavy drinking and drug use. The man only learned he had a son when he received a call from the hospital that named him as the father of child who had been given up there. Only a few months old at the time, he came to claim him and was proven to in fact be his biological father but was denied any information about his mother as part of her terminating parental rights on her side. 

When he was nearly five his father started a relationship with a woman he met at a local bookstore. She eventually married into the family and became his adopted mother; Ezra was endlessly fond of her and she taught him how to read and love the idea of writing. While she had no magic of her own she was quick to encourage him to learn about his, seeing it as something that made him special, a gift. She was a very creative sort who was in love with the idea of magic and fantasy, and very affection towards him; being the only mother he had ever known she was very important to him.  

The relationship fell into a strain when the couple tried to have more children and were unable to so do, at that point his father fell back into the habit of drugs and she tried time and again to get him help but he refused. 

It was during one of those late nights that she had no choice but to pick him up from a bar, and unable to find anyone to watch Ezra she took him along. The two got into a heated argument on the way home that resulted in an accident that put Ezra in the hospital for several months with traumatic head injuries and resulted in her death while his father survived mostly unharmed. 

While Ezra did recover otherwise the trauma damaged his optic nerves too badly and resulted in his sight deteriorating. At first doctors were hopeful that as swelling when down his eyesight would return but the opposite happened; over the course of months Ezra’s vision grew darker as the nerves lost function from compromised blood flow. It was a terrifying time for the boy, barely ten, watching the world slowly go black around him. But during that time, determined not to simply give up, Ezra focused more on controlling his magic so that he could at least retain his connection with words, and also learned braille as a backup. 

After the devastating accident Ezra’s father fell worse into depression, began to depend more and more on drugs to tame the guilt he felt. He did maintain his job as a high school literature teacher in Wonderland, but only barely. Was not really enough to maintain their lifestyle however and eventually Ezra lost his childhood home as well when the pair had to move and cut down on their living costs.

Shortly after relocating to a less expensive area of Wonderland Ezra began high school and took an after-school job at a local bookstore. Despite the hardships of bills and the like Ezra maintained a fairly optimistic life, made friends with his peers in school and carried on a rather normal teenage existence. He did at that point began to explore drugs though because it was just such a normal part of life around him. 

He was never exactly a wild child but did have his share of late nights and hangovers to mark off. But, being very intelligent by nature, his grades really didn’t suffer much and he graduated with little issue.

Ezra had a handful of off and on relationships in high school. Nothing overly serious, but mostly due to his own inability to put himself into the situation of getting too committed after seeing how easily that could fall apart. He still hangs on to that idea a bit now, not really invested in relationships as long term situations.

Ezra was in his senior year of high school when his father began showing signs of mental illness and memory loss. By the end of the year he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer disease. It was a rapid progression before doctors could get it under control and by graduation Ezra had decided to put off college for to take care of his father.

The man’s condition has stabilized for the time being, but with the progression being so rapid he no longer can live at home. Ezra cared for him for two years before his father was moved into a full time care institution; most of Ezra’s money from writing short stories or anything extra from work goes into keeping up with his father’s medical bills.

Along with his decline Ezra’s father has developed Dementia and often returns back to memories of earlier points in life. Very often when Ezra goes to visit him weekly he spends most of his time sitting and listening while his father tells him stories about the past along with a blurry mix of drug hallucinations and stories; there really is no telling with him what was real and what wasn’t but Ezra has come to accept that and appreciate the fact that his father’s mind still is active enough to craft such rich tales.

While there was a few years in his teens that Ezra was angry towards his father for their living situation that anger has faded with seeing the man decline to disease. He has a large amount of respect for him and a great deal of love, still speaks highly of him and tells his friends that his own creative spark came from his wise father.

In the years of caring for his father Ezra became more involved in drugs and drinking himself to offset the stress, he likes to think himself careful with those vices but addiction is addiction and it was a crutch during that point. Since he saw little harm in it he still continues those vices, thinking them something that just helps him get through rough spots in life.

Ezra does’t fully believe that magic is unnatural and it can be explained by science. In part this conviction comes from having so little faith in fairy tale notions. His desire to want magic to be explained by science is also a desperate want to cure his father - if he can find the right sort of person with the correct magic to undo disease then maybe he can see his father’s illness reversed and the man returned to who he used to be.

Knowing that in time he would need more money than he can currently make, Ezra enrolled in college when he was twenty, deciding to study literature and literary history. His intentions are to get a degree that will allow him to work both writing professionally and possibly teaching as his father had.

Ezra lives on campus, the apartment where he used to live with his father is gone because he couldn’t afford to keep it. Everything he owns is with him in his dorm or otherwise in storage. Since he has no other family to speak of when holidays come around he either stays on campus or stays with friends if he doesn’t have the option of remaining at the dorms.

He works part time at the near-campus branch of the bookstore he’s had an ongoing job in since high school. He’s happy there, loves to read and it’s such a familiar setting. Much of his school is covered by a scholarship he gained by testing in very high, so his paychecks go first to his father’s medical bills not covered by his retirement pension from the high school, then to necessities, and after that fueling Ezra’s vices.

While one would think he might be wary of the idea, given how much damage addiction has caused in his own life, Ezra still is actively willing to drink and use recreational drugs himself. His distraction of choice remains cannabis because it’s very mellowing, but he does also drink at times, and harder drugs than that are a rare, but not unheard of, indulgence. 

Personality-wise Ezra very often comes off as calm, sometimes to a fault. On the surface he seems like the type that nothing bothers and takes life as it comes. He’s friendly and comfortable with most people, and a bit lazy by nature. Under that surface he’s very insightful though, and mature, the type that often plays the adult in situations and looks after those around him. Ezra grew up a bit fast and while he does settle in well with his peers he’s often more introspective than many of them.

Ezra loves conversation, loves debates and introspective views; he will hold an involved conversation with most anyone and approach most any subject. He’s very intelligent but not pushy about it, enjoying very much hearing the viewpoints of those around him. Very often he finds himself speaking in metaphors of stray notions the way his father used to, his dreamy ideas often sneaking into conversations.

Ezra is a vegetarian, he believes in being a pacifist and doing no harm to others. It sometimes makes him seem like a pushover in that he won’t fight, but he will speak his mind, firmly, and let the words stand for him. When people push him he stands resolute and if the other person is just unreasonable he just walks away rather than carrying a fight.

One of the things that Ezra has held a fondness for his entire life are butterflies. As a child he would watch them for hours, careful to never touch the creatures and damage them, and now he still holds those memories close. He has always kept them as pets, allowing them to grow from caterpillars and releasing them when they gain flight; they seem to have a strange fondness for him as well and a trusting nature, often willing to crawl on his hands and be held. 

Music has, in the last few years, become a point of escape for him. The sounds set off his magic and he has favorite songs, mostly soft classical music, that are very calming or energizing. Of course when he does listen to music he basically has to be somewhere he doesn’t need to focus otherwise because it drowns his senses and makes it nearly impossible to keep any sense of his surroundings. 

As much as he wants to cling to logic as a safe spot, Ezra is very prone to fits of fantasy. His mind wanders, especially if he’s high or drunk, and at those points his real desire to believe so many things he can’t allow himself to shows. He very much wants the world to show him magic and beauty, but has seen so much of the rough edges that he can’t have faith yet.

Pansexual by nature, it’s more the intellect of a person that attracts him. He is drawn to points of beauty in others that have little to do with their physical appearance; their outlook, their interests, their ability to stir him in a conversation. Since the loss of his sight Ezra weighs attraction on the scale of how much a person can ignite that feeling of making the world light up around him.

Along the same lines, however, when he does find something of interest in people and they show interest back he’s not uncomfortable with the idea of physical contact. Sex is an outlet, and while he does value it as more than just a chance encounter in many cases, he prefers to enjoy the company of others and not expect more than good sexual chemistry where he finds it. It’s still a bond, he still holds affection during, and after, for his partners, but doesn’t see sex as a basis solely for a relationship, or limited only to being something found in one.