IBSEN, Matilda Lisbette

[matilda lisbette ibsen]

MATILDA LISBETTE IBSEN

FULL NAME: Matilda Lisbette Ibsen.
NICKNAMES: Mattie, Tilly.
AGE: Twenty-nine
GENDER: Female
SEXUALITY: Straight.
STATUS: Single.
GROUP: Citizen.
GRADE: N/A.
MAJOR: N/A.
JOB OCCUPATION: Children’s Illustrator.

HAIR: Brown, mid length and wavy. She usually tousles it up more, too, or it’ll grow far longer than she intends when she’s working towards a deadline.
EYES: Brown.
SCARS/BIRTHMARKS: She has a few small ones from her rebellious days as a teenager, but none of importance. She’ll touch them when she’s nervous though.
TATTOOS: None, but she will draw on herself in pen when she’s bored or waiting for someone.
PIERCINGS: Just her ears once – though wearing earrings is a chore.
PLAY-BY: Mary Elizabeth Winstead!

LIKES: New pens, pencil cases, her desk, ramen noodles, citrus scents, chocolate milk, hot dogs, pins, yoga, solitude, antiques, coconut oil, sleeping in, beanies, winter, hot chocolate, chocolate anything really, children, doodling on napkins in bars, whiskey sours, dogs, reading at night, oil burners, tarot cards, tea, ‘ugly’ sweaters, libraries, movie nights, ink work.
DISLIKES: Pretentious artists, cooking, needles, the gym, styling her hair, her apartment’s heating breaking, people coming over unexpectedly, short skirts, pecan pie, early nights, going out too much, people getting her name wrong, cleaning up, explaining herself for no justified reason, her answering machine being full, liars, things breaking on her.
FEARS: Needles, balloons, being abandoned.
SECRETS: Her fear of abandonment is somewhat unfounded, but comes from being adopted. She doesn’t talk about it, and acts far too casually about the matter for anyone to believe she’s fine with it, but Mattie instead chooses to leave before people can leave her and keep people at arms length.
PERSONALITY: Mattie is almost painfully independent. She’ll question those who offer to help her, and it takes some time before she’ll accept that some people are just kind hearted. A solitary type, Mattie sometimes needs to be dragged from her apartment, else she can spend weeks within her own walls with only her dog for company. She’s stubborn, but strangely hopeless, for example; she never ever learnt how to cook, and she’s something of a slob unless she knows for certainly that she’s expecting company. Mattie is artistic and that has helped her through most of her life, and helps her pay the bills now. She leans on the pessimistic side, but that’s one of her defensive features; she’s not the type to get her hopes up about anything. She sort of thrives on chaos and is the last person to be organised, despite knowing she probably needs to be. A nightowl, Mattie can only function in the mornings if she’s been up all night. She can be easily frustrated, but her anger is channelled into her work. Obviously, not the work that goes to print, but the work she keeps for herself and that might one day be seen somewhere. Deep beneath the surface is actually a sweet core, but Mattie rarely lets it be seen; it’s that fear of abandonment. Instead she’ll keep it dry and act disinterested, when in reality her insides could be all aflutter. It’ll take a patient man to counter her impatience to melt Mattie’s walls. When it comes to romance, she’s just scared of another person having the chance to leave her.

MOTHER: Caroline Yvette Johnson, 50.
FATHER: Vinnie Dedrick Lampard, 55.
SIBLINGS: None.
OTHERS: Josephine Annette Ibsen, 60, adoptive mother.
PETS: Charlie, Daschund of six!
HOMETOWN: North Bergen, New Jersey
HISTORY: Caroline was not the sort who ought to be a mother. She was attracted to bad boys, latched onto their hip like a shiny gun, and then left whenever she needed to be discarded; much like a shiny gun after something bad went down. That was typically when Caroline left, too. She wasn’t as hard as she tried to be, but there was still enough bad in her that she was hooked on any kind of high she could get her hands on. She was young, from parents who had given up on her, and often didn’t care where she woke up. Vinnie had cared for her, more than most, at least until she found out she was pregnant. Then he was out there like a bat out of hell. He wasn’t ready to be a father, and Caroline had it in her head that this baby had to be born. She was superstitious, believed in all kinds of things, and had seen it in her cards, though she knew the baby could not stay with her. It was a simple decision to put her daughter up for adoption, and even met the sophisticated young lawyer who would be adopted her. Josephine Ibsen was unable to have children of her own, but the adoption process was something she had started with her husband…before he had decided that the blonde student in his statistics class was a better choice all round. Josephine was resolved to go through with everything and have someone in her life who wouldn’t up and leave her.

Matilda was born a week later than expected, and it was Josephine who named her. She was something of a snob, and had no time for Caroline back then, but couldn’t refuse the woman access to the daughter she was adopting from her. Caroline, however, didn’t show up for a number of years and Josephine began to assume it would just be her and Mattie.

Mattie was always drawing, scribbling, doodling. In truth, she had no other interest. Not really. She enjoyed her books, but mostly she kept to herself. It was no secret that she was an adopted child – Josephine never hid it from her – and that opened the door to bullies and harsh comments, especially when Caroline showed up when she was six. She had gone away to get clean, but relapses happened, and it was obvious to so many what Caroline’s past had been. Even when she was back, Caroline was something of a new-age hippie, always drifting between lovers and jobs, never a stable character for a child to look up to. Josephine could never approve of the woman, but at the same time she knew the adoption had been an open one, and she knew that for as long as Mattie had questions and wishes she had a responsibility to honour them as her mother. Still, the women would argue when they thought Mattie was out of sight. Caroline was never alone with Mattie, but she would show up on the weekends, interrupt dinners and plans like it was all alright. It infuriated Josephine who had to remind her that she wasn’t her mother, that her rights had been thrown away at birth. Hearing all this made Mattie closed off and defensive. One parent wouldn’t let another close to her, and one had already cast her aside once; what if it happened again?

She grew up as a loner, but with an awkward independence. Unable to ask for help she learnt very little about what she might need for the future. There was a rift between herself and Caroline thanks to both Josephine and the mother in question, and also one between Mattie and Josephine for quite the same reason. She didn’t wish to be close to either of them. So, when she was eighteen, she left home and moved into the old apartment she still has now. There were arguments and pleading, but Mattie wanted out at the first chance. She needed to be away from both of them, to have her own space where no one could invade or fight unless she gave them leeway to do so.

Mattie attended art school, and lived in New York City. It was a reflective time in which she made a few friends but mostly kept to herself. The friends she made dragged her out when she was being too reclusive, and made sure she didn’t starve or live solely off food that could be cooked in a microwave. After graduation, she obtained freelance work as an illustrator and soon that work became regular, and Mattie found herself as a children’s illustrator, bringing to life the stories of picture books, and children’s favourites before they hit the shelves of bookstores. It was a therapeutic job, and one she could mostly do from her apartment, which suited her to a tee. She had a soft spot for kids, but she rarely showed it. People caught a glimpse of it when she was forced into accompanying authors to signings, or taking their places when something came up, but Mattie mostly kept to herself in the years that followed, keeping only a pet dog for company.

That brings us to now, where things are mostly the same. She still doesn’t have much of a relationship with either of her mothers, only reluctantly seeing them when the phone calls become incessant or one of them shows up at her door and won’t leave again. Beyond that, Mattie revels in her own company, which she insists she enjoys, but surely there’s something else for her out there.

YOUR ALIAS: Kim.
RULE WORDS: kidnappedbykim.
WHERE YOU FOUND US: In a bucket.
SAMPLE:

no, I’d rather not!

[kim]