♫ character basics
skeleton: conch
character name: audrey esme wolfgang
age & birthdate: 25, august 21st
gender & pronouns: female, she/her
birthplace: port vale
length of time in port vale: lifetime
occupation: city council secretary
fc: jodie comer
♪ history
it has always been you and your mother. your father has been in the picture as well, you know, but off to the side. like a badly written character, left to only comment on events, never participate in them. at some point you are aware that this is a problem, the angry whispers that seem to seep out from under every closed door you pass. but you’re never sure what there is to do about it. your mother insists that everything is fine and she makes sure to attend your every school event. as long as he’s on time for the pictures that might decorate the pages of the local newspaper, the friendly handshakes with teachers and coworkers, everything for the sake of an image. you think, for a long time it was you and your mother by your own choice. an artful dance between the two of you, with lots of coded messages and hidden jokes. and you loved every minute of it.
you thought your father’s affairs were a natural part of their relationship. they didn’t spend time together anyways, companionship taking different forms. she was always busy with you, you were never troubled by the rooms booked at the inn. it seemed a casual fact that you let slip with the assurance that it was a mutual understanding. it was not, it was a bloodbath that they labeled divorce. you never thought of your father as particularly in the picture, but it’s not until your mother tells you that they’re getting a divorce that you realized leaving was an active choice. that he had been there for more than just a few quips in the kitchen and a father-daughter dance.
he moves away with the parting remark that you need to come with him, that there’s something wrong with your mother, with the two of you together. throwing around words like unhealthy, codependent, manipulative. asserting an understanding that you can’t possibly believe, he hasn’t been there. he’s only been in the spotlight for a few scenes. but he insists, he begs. he presses the money for a plane ticket into your hands, he says one day you’ll understand.
♪ present
all that’s left of you in port vale is the reputation that you built up. you’re a wolfgang, you’re a decorated student, you came back every summer and worked dutifully next to your mother because at it turns out it is not that you’re lucky to have her, it is that she only has you. the loss of the election is an implosion, the perfect image that she had worked so hard for is the last straw. she no longer has a husband, she does not have her title, she will not lose her daughter.
you have withstood the spotlight this long, it’s not going anywhere, even now as you grow to blister under it. the more time you spend with the label adult, the more the town around you shifts, the more it stays the same, the more you feel an itch under your skin that something is wrong. and the more your mother loses her grasp on it, the more she digs claws into you, the grasp that you thought was the secret handshake of two best friends starts to draw blood.
there are ways to hide this, to slip into a second version of yourself who hides in the rooms that your father once haunted. to climb up every step of the lighthouse, and call it research, call it anything but the truth. the money for a plane ticket sits in your account, you almost have the courage to spend it.
♪ personality
esme is of two minds. she knows the thought processes that built her up in port vale, followed by the reputations of a golden girl with a wild streak. the kind of thing that could be mentioned, but only in tandem with the fact that it was to be expected. the expectations too high, her father’s disappearance, one thousand excuses built to keep her in good graces. this has started to get worse, a downward spiral with no clear direction. she can still play the part, plaster on the proper smile, and keep up with the vacant small talk. but she’s finding the effort for it to be more and more exhausting.
she can be genuinely clever, even charming when in a one-on-one interaction. those who have known her longest will have sensed the hostility that is growing in her. you can call it maturity if you’d like, but she’s rapidly losing her ability to sustain an interaction that has anything to do with the town. as she finds herself working with the city council, she has become more and more tied to her mother’s temperate. she knows it now. and she hates it.