#dpointtask01

Task #001/??? People who have influenced your character’s life.

Lana Viper was raised by her father. She barely remembers what her mother looks like at this point. Her father taught her from the start what it meant to be a Viper. She’s used to late nights, long walks home, and nice things. Despite the toxic environment she has grown up in and the crass way in which she interacts with her father, the love between them is pure. She knows that he will always have her back regardless of what she has done or where she has been.

With The Viper Room as her father’s legacy, she hopes to one day inherit the family business, but she has a lot of growing to do. She has seen her father come home with different people every night, drink himself silly, and then reprimand her for the same actions. The back and forth and bitterness is something that she resents but she knows that when it comes down to it, he loves her. And she loves him. Though she’ll never say that out loud, not if she can help it.

Task #001/?

Things that your character finds important.

Alcohol presented itself as a familiar taste calculated in sips at the dinner table, never allowed in amounts that could offer any level of inebriation to a growing body. It was bitter, it burned, and it created conflict among the same people who offered it, but it was followed by the comforting sense of home and reward. It was the only thing shared between family.

Cigarettes came in a half-empty pack handled without care, pressed tightly into the adolescent hand against the body of a near-empty lighter. The smoke that filled the throat and lungs was enough to feel warm and whole for a split second, followed by unwelcome emptiness upon exhale. Learning to hold the fumes in offered momentary solace, and breathing was recognized as survival.

Task #001 People who have influenced the life of Sarah Norcross.

Sarah Bethany Norcross was raised, at least in part by five people; the first and foremost being her father and his strict, Focus on the Family - led corporal punishment methods. “The Reverend”, also known as “Reverend Doctor Norcross”, was how, much to his dismay, all his female children now refer to him, all having picked this up from his eldest adopted girl (and Sarah’s oldest sister), who used this overly formal manner of referring to their father as a means of subtle disrespect, which, unfortunately for The Reverend, gained the respect of all her younger siblings, including his two sons, even though they only called their father “The Reverend” behind his back.  

Though Sarah’s three older siblings, Mercy (adopted), Jordan and Leah, were pivotal in the raising of the younger children, including Sarah, as was Sarah in the raising of her three younger siblings, they aren’t included in this particular collage, being that it was The Reverend and his religious influence that framed Sarah’s psyche more than anyone else; The Reverend was absorbed in his church and parish, and Mother was a passive lady, who poured herself into the foster kids, most of whom were babies.  The submissive pushover of a ‘role model’ that she was didn’t gain her the respect that her biological kids had for Mercy.  High expectations were held of Sarah’s mom, much like they were for the Norcross children; she was expected to provide elaborate home cooked meals in a timely manner on a strict schedule, and the kids were expected to pull their weight.

Strict housekeeping and babysitting responsibilities weren’t the only things imposed on Sarah and her sisters; a major emphasis was put on their sexuality, or, more specifically, their virginity.  Sarah suspected that she wasn’t the only Norcross child who was actually wearing her promise ring when she lost her virginity... she would’ve given it to the guy she’d first put out for as a trophy, but chose instead to wear it up until she moved out of her parent’s house.

The second person featured in this post’s collage was the guy Sarah swapped v-cards with.  After latching onto one of her foster brothers who was placed with the Norcross’s multiple time as his folks repeatedly lost and and then regained custody of him, this guy considered Sarah his “rock” because of her (relatively speaking) “well adjusted” upbringing, coming from (what he perceived, anyway, as) an “idyllic” home.