Name: Harriette Moore
Age: 26
Arcana: The Empress
Appearance: InspirationHariette is thin and on the taller side for a woman, standing about 5'7'' (170cm). She is traditionally good looking, with large eyes, symmetrical facial features and long limbs. Her hair is kept long, and it is a deep auburn color. She enjoys dressing feminine, in skirts, blouses and dresses. She wears make-up and accessories and in generally presents herself in a clean and professional manner. Lately she's gone heavier on the make-up to cover the dark circle under her eyes.
Personality: Once, Harriette was a spunky girl. She was friendly and open, but also headstrong. She's still headstrong, trying her hardest not to snap under the current pressure she finds herself under and hold her head up high, but currently the spark of her personality has nearly gone out. Over the years she's grown reserved and secretive. She still isn't the quiet girl her parents tried to make her into, as she will let her thoughts be known, but there is a weariness to her words as if she spends a lot of time choosing them carefully. She doesn't want anything to be misconstrued.
Harriette can easily come off as cold. She isn't rude, she just tends to keep her distance. This is a facade to protect herself. Deep in her core, she wants to be close to people. To make friends, have someone she can confide in. She's been working toward a teaching degree, so she enjoys helping others and to her there is no greater happiness than the expression on someone's face when she helps them, or a student's words of gratitude when they grasp what she teaches. Lately, because of her aloof demeanor and certain rumors going around campus, these moments of happiness are few and far between.
Bio: When Harriette first moved out of her overbearing parent's home before she'd even turned 18, she indulged in her new found freedom. They'd tried to raise her to be quiet and meek because they shared the same "seen and not heard" mentality that the rest of their little church town did, but Harriette had fought them with uncooperative brattiness. She had been the type of child whose scowl alone could spoil her Sunday best. So when she'd left that small town behind and moved to the city, intending to put herself through school, she thought it would be a dream come true. Over the next few years it spiraled into a nightmare. It started with little things: the struggle of trying to make ends meet in the city on her own, cat-calling on the street while she walked to work. Unruly patrons, the wrong bar at the wrong time and a drink left unattended. It was hard to meet people or make friends when the world was slowly making you mistrustful, and even harder to focus on work with financial worries hanging in the back of your mind and the gazes of strangers stressing you out.
While worrying about how to afford classes, a coworker recommended Harriette to look into gig work. People were always hiring pretty girls to stand around and promote their product, or stand in the background of a commercial. Taking that advice led to the current events surrounding Harriet, and to the meeting of a couple of people that steered the course of her life from there on:
Jaden Greenman, an "agent" that Harriette had worked with a couple of times while seeking some short term work. When one night he gave her a call and suggested doing video work with a large, under the table payment she went to meet with him to discuss details. To say she was surprised when she arrived and figured out it was a skin flick was an understatement, but he told her there so no harm if she didn't want to do it. Harriette thought it over, and in the end she agreed. The lump sum would fast track her savings so that she'd be able to start school the next semester. It was only the one short film, and though it was awkward at first it was done fairly professionally.
Brian Moore, a man she'd met during her freshman college year and quickly fell for. They rushed their relationship for sure, and were married within a year of dating. He had a charm to him that was hard to resist, and with their combined income the couple moved into a little apartment not far from campus. They seemed to be a good match and even planned to start a family.
Leanna Rowen, a professor at Barclay Waterfront University where Harriette was attending. She took a shine to Harriette, and because Harriette showed interest in someday becoming a teacher herself Leanna helped her to get a job as a teacher's assistant after she'd achieved her associate's degree.
That was three years ago when things were starting to look up. Now, taking only part time classes while on the cusp of a bachelor's degree, Harriette feels she might not make it. Apparently a student had found that short film late last year and, while disrupting the lecture, Professor Rowen had caught wind of it. She'd convinced the student to keep quiet, but rumors were bound to spread regardless. Most were vague, and some were outlandish lies, but it put a strain on Hariette's relationship with fellow staff and students regardless. Most shocking of all was Leanna's change in attitude. The older woman became cruel, blackmailing Hariette into acting as all but her personal secretary. She shoved her own responsibilities onto Hariette, had her complete errands even outside of work, and bullied Hariette into anything she felt like, such as giving the other woman her own jewelry if she'd seen Hariette wearing it and taken a shine to it. After all, Leanna was responsible for getting Hariette the job in the first place, and if Leanna brought the video to the Dean personally it would mean she would lose it.
Worse was the state of her marriage. After the honeymoon phase, things settled and though they had their disagreements things were generally good. Hariette had managed to conceive and it brought a brief happiness to them, but the stress of her work situation worried the both of them. Though Brian didn't know what was going on, he noticed the mental toll it was taking on Hariette and grew increasingly frustrated with his wife's refusal to open up with what was wrong. Distance was already growing between them when Jaden called to see if she had any interest in a bit role for a local ad. Completely innocent, nothing risque, but when her husband asked about it and Harriette brushed him off, the man did some digging and didn't like what he found. Their relationship soured even more after Brian's own discovery of the video, as he took it as evidence of imagined infidelity. He insinuated that the baby probably wasn't even his. After one night of fighting that was beginning to become the norm with them, Hariette miscarried. It was the last straw and the once bright relationship now dimmed. They stayed together, because for Hariette she simply had no one else. She'd left her family long behind, and what friends she'd managed to make all seemed to look at her a little differently once they caught wind of the rumors. Her partner was slowly chipping away her self-esteem, making it harder to leave when she was being convinced that no one else would accept her if he, her husband, couldn't. She was afraid if she left she would be alone and homeless. For Brian himself, it might have been appearances' sake, or maybe inside he enjoyed the power he held over his wife now, but either way they remained married.
This is where Hariette finds herself now. Stuck in limbo, hanging at the end of a rope being held by two people more than willing to drop it. At work there is a potentially disastrous cloud hanging over her, while at home the ghost of what could have been haunts every room and seeds loathing. All over a stupid video that Hariette can't even bring herself to regret making.
Scars: Hariette is struggling with depression, anxiety, mistrust, and the very real threat that not only her career, but her home and livelihood could come crashing down at any moment. She has been dealing with self-image issues, stemming not just from her bitter husband's comments but from the moment she moved to the city and encountered the inherent sexualization of "pretty women" like her. Most of her scars are mental, heavy stress pressing on her brain and body, but there is a large scar on her stomach that was given to her the night she miscarried.
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