𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐒 - upright meaning nurturing, creative, radiating a kind of warmth and abundance that is both comforting and inspiring, often being the person others turn to for support. reversed meaning, grappling with feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, or a sense of being emotionally overwhelmed.
basics.
name: magnolia june blake
nickname: maggie, mj
skeleton: the empress
age: twenty-five
gender & pronouns: cis woman she/her
birthday & sign: march 15th , pieces
sexuality: pansexual/romantic
languages: english, latin
education: bachelor’s in literature history
occupation: archivist/novelist
family: simon andrews (father), isabel blake (mother)
place of birth / current location: brooklyn nyc, wrenstead
character references: Jane Eyre, Chloe Price (life is strange), Nina Zenik (six of crows) & Opehlia (Pan's Labrinyth)
personality.
positive: creative, passionate, graceful, warm, resilient, & loyal negative: emotionally guarded, stubborn, conflict avoidant, self-sacrificing to a fault, & sensitive
about. triggers: abuse, parentification, stalking, grief, death
If you ask Magnolia Blake where she is from without missing a beat she will answer Wrenstead. The little town had been home since the tender age of six. But there was once a time where Brooklyn was home. A time no matter how brief that she had two parents. Her mother Isabel was a native who gave away her future, scholarships and dreams for love that stole her away. When Magnolia was a child her mother told her stories of a princess stolen from her kingdom who fought to get back there and Magnolia listened with baited breath as she slayed the fire breathing dragon to reclaim her autonomy. Her mother was quite the storyteller, weaving details so crystal clear that Maggie recognized the princess’s kingdom in the quaint town of Wrenstead. A place they visited in secret whenever her father was away on business trips. A place that was just theirs, a secret, Isabel always said. Maggie would have kept all her mothers secrets.
So when Isabel lied about her bruises Maggie never told anyone what she saw. When her mother smiled on her fathers arm Maggie pretended she’d never seen her mother cry or heard her father yell such cruel words. The secrets piled up and up and in her little arms Maggie held them all, placing them down only when they were safely in Wrenstead. Her own personal princess kingdom where they were safe from the shouting and hitting. Safe from the dragon. Maybe Isabel would have stayed with him forever. Endured the abuse herself. However, when he laid his hands on Maggie a plan that not even Maggie knew went into motion. Her mother kept secrets from even Maggie. But all things said in the dark eventually come to light. In this case Maggie was gathered up in the cold of the night and placed in a car she’d never seen. Just herself, her mother and a single bag between them. Everything else was left behind. A sacrifice made for them to escape. Isabel sacrificed financial safety for the safety of Maggie. Worked herself to the bone in a diner working multiple shifts to pay for the hotel room they lived in until something more stable came along.
Maggie thought things would be better now, they could live in the princess’s town forever. Her mom wouldn’t get any more bruises, she’d be safe. They’d be safe. She thought this would make her mom happy but the harder she worked the more angry she seemed to be. It was expensive to raise a daughter alone. Maggie needed so many things. She grew so fast and nothing was affordable. Maggie tried to make things easier for her mother. Be agreeable, need less, want less. Ask for nothing. Confused and sad, she wanted to be enough for her mother. But Isabel was overworked and never once let her guard down. Maggie’s mother traded softness for survival. Once the divorce was finalized Maggie foolishly believed her mother’s light would return but her father was tenacious. Unrelenting.
Though he had never cared to go to Wrenstead or even know where her mothers home was he found them three times. The first time had been scary. The second he had been arrested. The third he went to prison and never physically darkened their doorway again. Isabel worked even harder to afford the lawyers to make this possible. Safety further bred resentment and her mothers light only ever flickered into dim glows. This life hadn’t been the one she told stories of when Maggie was a girl. She had learned the hard way her mother wasn’t a princess. Life was not a fairy tale and safety needed to be enough. The rest she would make up for by giving and anticipating her mothers needs. Anything to make it easier for a glimpse of the softness she had always adored in her mother.
She made it her personal mission to be her mothers rock, a codependency formed that awkwardly filled the gaps of maternal love. If Maggie squinted it was good enough. If Isabel needed her daughter Maggie needed her to need her more. Her love was measured in how much she could give. A question answered with three words, all of it.
Day to day Maggie belonged to all those who needed her. All the people she could help when she could no longer help herself gave meaning to a life that at times felt heavy with ache. In private she had art. Paint speckled jeans, fingers smudged in ink, her water color heart bleeding bright, beautiful, never not heavy nor running all over the page overflowing with the weight of endlessly giving empathy. When she isn’t giving herself over to the people she loves Maggie spends the rest of her life in the folds of her imagination. A secret garden of her mind where she was free from the painful parts of her life. Escaping into her mind, into art and pages of her books it was no wonder she grew up to be a writer. Crafting fantasy and love in such a way it became a need, not a want. Maggie watched how survival hardened her mother. How people grew callous as they aged with experiences that chipped them down. Maggie never wanted that to be her. Magnolia spends her days attempting to out run the fall out of her fathers abuse, of her grief and secrets.
She attempts to outsmart the inevitable. Be stronger, better than it. To save people from themselves knowing there is nothing she can do to save her mother or to give herself the father she deserved. It may be too late for herself, too late for too many but if she can change the outcome for someone. Just one someone then perhaps that will be enough. She tried with Peyton and failed. Fell in love with Eliza…and they took and returned nothing. Falling easily into the affections Amelia came with, telling Maggie without saying a word that she was not enough. Maybe in some ways Peyton's death pushed Maggie to do something for herself. Leaving Wrenstead for travel, for chasing a career in writing to find more for herself only to continue to give pieces of herself away time and time again. Coming back to Wrenstead now was as unavoidable as a bird that flies back to next. It was in her blood and bones, her soul. Tragedy falling all around made staying more inevitable. The only question now is how much longer can Magnolia outrun herself?
tldr: A young woman whose life has been marked by tragedy learns at an early age to be a source of light for everyone she loves. She sacrifices pieces of herself over and over in the name of love hoping to be enough. To keep the ones she loves the most safe never once thinking of how much of herself she is giving away.
head canons.
Maggie apologizes even when she has done nothing wrong.
She is hypervigilant and reads micro expressions well. If someone she loves is upset at her, it consumes her thoughts, and she can’t sleep or focus.
She cries privately to never become a burden for those she loves.
She keeps every piece of art she has ever done. Leaving everything behind in Brooklyn has led to hoarding tendencies around the things she feels sentimental about.
The book she has published is complete of themes that rewrite the things she can’t change and feels the most guilt over.
She always gives deeply meaningful gifts.
She falls in love slowly but deeply.
The first moment someone chooses her can outshine the rest of the imbalances and red flags. She clings to that moment.
She emotionally disassociates in conflict, often appearing calmer than she feels.
She speaks softly but quickly. She walks slowly and quietly. Takes up as little space as possible.
Her MBTI is INFP-T.
Her sun is Pisces, Moon Cancer, and rising Virgo
After her father lost custody, her mother changed her surname so they would have the same surname and not her father's.
Has an emergency stash of “get away” money.
Never buys anything at full price if she can avoid it.
Her enneagram is a type 2w1 - “The servant”.
connections.
tbd
