app (deerington)

[coppelganger]

IN CHARACTER

Character Name: Sarah Manning
Canon: Orphan Black
Canon Point: 2x10, before she visits Marian Bowles' mansion

In-Game Tattoo Placement: This style but larger, following her collarbones
Current Health/Status: Alive & healthy
Age: Approximately 30
Species: Human

History: Wiki

Personality:
Sarah is all about fight or flight. Interestingly, she relies on both in equal measure.

With Sarah, her first instinct is to escape. She's always on the lookout for the next good thing. She runs from responsibility, from the fact that she's a clone, from the fact that she's a twin. She'll sometimes set a goal—a pipe dream, like getting rich and moving to Costa Rica—but more often than not it's the simple act of escape that brings relief for Sarah. The thought of committing to a person or a city or an idea brings anxiety—there's a definite fear of attachment with Sarah.

There's anger, too. Sarah grew up an angry kid in foster care wanting to punish the world, and that anger has never gone away—not really. She’s as quick to fight as she is to run, and she’s good at it, able to make weapons out of objects that other people wouldn’t necessarily think of as dangerous. She’s even been known to use sex as a weapon and a tool to manipulate others, and it’s implied that she’s been doing that since her early teens. In fact, her use of sex as a way to placate Paul was one of his first clues that something was not right with “Beth.” With Sarah, the anger and lashing out isn't out of a belief that the world owes her anything—instead it's from the knowledge, learned at a very young age, that nobody saves you. Nobody protects you. The only way to prevent getting hurt is to hurt everyone else first.

The anger she feels isn’t just for other people—she turns that feeling inward, as well. Sarah tends to gravitate toward people she feels she “deserves”: drug dealers, abusers, thieves, and other people who are on the outskirts of society through choice or circumstace. While Sarah may not act as if she regrets doing things like robbing people or using them in order to get what she wants, she feels deep guilt in the aftermath, and expresses it through more self-destructive behavior, believing that she deserves whatever she gets. She frequently says that she doesn’t think she’s a good mother, that she regrets many of her past decisions, and that she’s not a good person in general.

Above all else, though, Sarah is incredibly loyal to the people she loves. When the series starts, that number includes only two people: her daughter and her foster brother. After she first meets her fellow clones face to face, she insists to Felix that they aren’t family and that she still plans on escaping with as much cash as she can get her hands on. However, slowly, she learns to let her fellow clones in, as well as Beth’s old partner Art and her estranged foster mother Siobhan, and finds herself forming strong connections with them. Once Sarah trusts someone, she is loyal to them to the point of being willing to sacrifice herself for them. As someone who grew up lacking those familial connections to other people, when Sarah eventually does consider someone part of her family, she loves them unconditionally. Found family is something extremely important to her.

Sarah, on the surface, believes that it's a dog-eat-dog world. That nobody saves you, so you save yourself. You can't trust anyone because they'll only let you down, and it's better to use people than to be used yourself. However, there's a softer, more vulnerable side of Sarah that is perhaps her truer self—a person who has a huge capacity for love and kindness and who believes that everybody should be able to choose what they want from life, and who will fight to make sure that the people in her life are afforded that chance.

A big part of Orphan Black is the nature vs nurture question, and each of the clones have their own distinct personalities and abilities. Some small things that make Sarah unique among the clones are her resourcefulness and acting ability, things she relies on quite often during the series. However, there are also certain traits that the clones all collectively seem to share, things that are apparently more nature than nurtue: they're impulsive, can be frustratingly stubborn, and don't like to admit that they're wrong or apologize.

Abilities/Powers/Weaknesses & Warping: n/a

Inventory:
• Clone phone
• A baggie of cocaine
• This outfit
• A pair of innocent and yet slightly creepy looking garden gnomes
• Mrs S's scrapbook/photo album

Writing Samples: One from a previous game; Two from the TDM.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Player Name: Lor
Player Age: 18+
Player Contact: errorchord

Other Characters In Game: Brianna Berenson
In-Game Tag If Accepted: Sarah Manning: Lor
Permissions for Character: Here
Are you comfortable with prominent elements of fourth-walling?: Yes
What themes of horror/psychological thrillers do you enjoy the most?: Bodysnatching, disease (It Comes At Night), monsters that can't be fought or reasoned with (It Follows), not knowing who you can trust, Lovecraftian-esque "looking at it makes you lose your mind"
Is there anything in particular you absolutely need specific content warnings for?: n/a
Additional Information: