DNA Doesn't Make A Family, Love Does

OOC: Name: Taylor, but please feel free to call me Tay. Pronouns: She/Her  Age: 19. Timezone: PST. Activity level (1-10, with 1 being inactive and 10 being very active): My active will be anywhere from eight to ten. 

IC: Desired character: Mariana Foster. Second choice: I’m unsure at this time.  Ships: Mariana/Zach, Mariana/Matt. I also would be open to her being in a relationship with a female.  Anti-ships: Brallie, just ew. Character bio/background: Mariana Adams-Foster is the twin sister of Jesus Foster and now the adopted daughter of Stef and Lena Adams-Foster. She’s a sophomore in high school and an excellent student. Dancing is a passion of her’s and she’s recently started her own dance team, an activity that is semi-helping some of her insecurity issues. These issues have stemmed from her difficult childhood and confusing feelings about her birth mom whom has caused her to have severe abandonment issues. Though self-centered at times, Mariana can also be very compassionate when a situation calls for it. Family is very important to her. 

RP Para sample (can be any writing sample of 10 sentences of more; does not have to be from the point of view of the character you’re applying for):

To Allison, it felt like it had been months since she’d last fogged up her car window to see when and where Scott wanted to meet. Really, the girl had just done it out of habit, on some frayed string of hope that there would be a message waiting for her in his writing. She hadn’t expected to see anything but her own breath obscuring the clear glass. But there it was, his note appearing on the window with a sigh.Midnight. At the rock. it read, and Allison couldn’t help the schoolgirl of a smile that lit up her face. Shifting the Mazda into drive, she hastily pulled out of her driveway and sped to the entrance of the Preserve. She knew they shouldn’t, not with them no longer being able to call each other their own. Scott had kept his distance, just like he’d promised, and Allison had fought herself day and night to keep her resolve. But she missed him, so much.  More than anything, she just wanted to feel connected to him again, instead of the constant suspension she found herself in. Now, that unwinding thread seemed to tie itself back together as her feet carried her through the damp leaves of the woods, toward the one thing she wanted most.

OOC: Name: Sssssam (lol) Pronouns: She/her/hers Age: Old (Okay, 27) Timezone: EST Activity level (1-10, with 1 being inactive and 10 being very active): 6-7ish (I dunno, whatever I am now, that same amount) IC: Desired character: Charlotte “Charlie” Sawyer

Face-claim: Caroline Dhavernas Second choice: - Ships: Whatever Anti-ships: I dunno Character bio/background:

Charlotte “Charlie” Sawyer is a 39 year old ecologist who currently works for the Environmental Protection Agency. If asked, people would generally describe her as kind, patient, and calm (most would attest to never even having heard her raise her voice).

Charlie met Ben Sawyer, a funny, charming, mechanic, who stole her heart, when she was twenty-four years old. They’d been dating all of 6 months when Ben was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Despite him urging her to leave, she chose to stick around, chose to kiss him in elevators on the way up to chemo floors, and to hold his hand tightly while poison raged through his veins destroying cancer cells, his appetite, his hair, and his energy level, but not his sense of humour. In those six long months of treatment, where others might have grown apart, they grew together, and, a year to the day of his last treatment, they got married surrounded by their closest family and friends.

Four years later, happier than ever, they celebrated Ben’s five year ‘cure’ mark and turned their focus to the next chapter of their life – children. This next step, however, proved more difficult than they’d hoped. Chemo had left Ben sterile and the alternatives were expensive, especially given the lingering medical debt that made the balance in their savings account never quite high enough. After considering all of their options, they decided that the best choice for them was to become foster parents – Ben’s enthusiasm for that particular idea was contagious. Over the next three years they fostered a number of children, the last of which was a 9 year old boy named Max. It was because of Max that Charlie and Ben met Lena and Stef, who were fostering a set of twins in the same therapy group as Max. Bumping into each other frequently at therapy and at other events for foster kids eventually extended to the occasional play date. Then, after 10 months with Max, just when Charlie and Ben were starting to allow themselves to dream about adopting him, the state deemed his birth parents fit to be parents again and, just like that, he was gone.

It was less than two months later that the next crushing blow came, Ben, despite having surpassed that ‘cure’ mark, was relapsing (a rare, but not unheard of, occurrence his oncologist explained somberly). There was no ‘cure’ to be had this time - not that they didn’t try one grueling treatment after the next, leaving little room for friends and certainly no room to bring another foster child into their home (neither could stand the thought of subjecting a child to the slow death march they were on). Within two years Charlie was burying Ben and trying to figure out how to live in a world that didn’t include him. Because living, not just being alive but living a full life, was what she’d promised him, both before he’d become a shell of himself, existing half in this world and half in whatever came next, and then again on that horrible night in the hospital room where “live” became the last word he would ever utter to her.

At first, when literally everything, even simple things like watching a movie (what was the point without Ben’s ridiculous, unnecessary, commentary?), were hard, it seemed like the promise might be too difficult to keep. But then, slowly, things got better. The pain didn’t go away but it became bearable. It started with work, her leave of absence ended and a funny thing happened, she went back to work and she remembered that she loved her job, remembered that she could be passionate about things like conservation. And then more time passed and she started volunteering with a cancer organization that supported young adult cancer survivors and their caregivers (an organization that had once helped her and Ben) and it gave her some sense of purpose that she hadn’t realized was lacking.

Now, three years after saying goodbye to the man who stole her heart, she’s ready for something new, to try and give more purpose to her life and to keep living it to its fullest, like she promised Ben she would (and, okay, maybe also to add a little noise to a house that is always just a little too quiet). She knows that, of everything she’s done since his death, this newest idea, to start fostering again, is the one that Ben would love the most. When she happens to mention this idea to Lena (who she’s kept some casual contact with all of these years), it sets a ball in motion. Once she hears about Lillie, a teenager who could certainly use a break, her mind is made up. She knows she can provide Lillie with at least some of the things she needs, like a stable home, and access to the people the girl calls her family.

RP Para sample (can be any writing sample of 10 sentences of more; does not have to be from the point of view of the character you’re applying for): Skipped (second character)