The Nerdy Neko

So a bit about Magnolia (mild content warning for mentions of the topic of death):

Her specialisation is in anatomy and physiology, often dealing with life, illness, and death as the Eridian equivalent of both a medic and an undertaker.

Unlike Rocky and most other Eridians (who are explicitly terrified of death), Magnolia separates the concept of death from the emotional aspects out of necessity since her roles do involve witnessing and confronting death (she's partially an undertaker after all).

As such, she often hides her own emotions regarding death out of the belief that it's "a necessary evil" (however, that does NOT mean she desensitised to it in any way NOR does it mean her empathy gets suppressed) - preferring to be vulnerable with these emotions (either grief, fear and/or sorrow) in private.

Magnolia takes great confidence in her knowledge, but she does occasionally need to be humbled by the fact that there is more to learn beyond what's simply on Erid.

She's an ambivert, enjoying both socialising and being alone.

While incredibly appreciative of Grace helping out with sorting out the Astrophage problem in Erid, Magnolia was a bit wary of him at first.

The first reason for her initial wariness is because she had a theory that, if Eridians are considered the apex predators of Erid, there is a not-impossible chance a "much-bigger predator" exists on another planet that could eat Eridians - long story short, upon meeting Grace, she mistook him for the "much-bigger predator" in question (cue Rocky trying to explain to a very-frantic Magnolia that Grace is not capable of eating Eridians 🤣).

The second reason is because the mere sight of Grace's human anatomy completely upended her entire understanding of anatomy that day.

Grace gave her the name "Magnolia" because he noticed her forelimbs resembled the petals of magnolia flowers, which I like to think reminded him of the ones that grew on the campus of the middle school he taught in.

Magnolia eventually gains a fascination for botany - especially botanical medicine - after stumbling upon the human knowledge aboard the Hail Mary.

Since then, she's become attached to both the name and the human who gave it to her.