{From Promise to Promise} // D9 Colburns, OPEN

The Colburn family has always been close. Dr. and Mrs. Colburn raised their six children well, despite their frequent struggle to get enough food on the table. If you ignore the fact that they're fostering a stranger who lost her memory, their daughter litters flowers across the district while her twin makes birdhouses from the petals, their son knew more words when he was six then you'll ever learn in your lifetime, and their oldest son runs into walls on a daily basis while their second-oldest is angry enough to break one down, you've got an eternal Kodak moment. ...Or not quite. Even beneath these strengths, flaws, and quirks that keep them close, will the secrets they each hold end up loosening the seams that once sewed them together?



COULSON "COLIN" COLBURN – 18 – MALE – KIRE

Colin has spent his eighteen years trying to be everything that he will never be able to be. He unfortunately experienced brain damage during birth resulting in akinetopsia, otherwise known as motion blindness. No one noticed it at first; it was a rare occurrence. For many years, he didn't even know that what he was—or rather, wasn't—seeing was abnormal. Sure, his eyes reacted a little slower than most, but it didn't do much more than diminish his reputation to “the clumsy kid.” However, it's getting worse now. He sees his entire life as just a chain of photographs that updates every several seconds, making things as simple as walking across the street or pouring coffee difficult. He is by far the most responsible person in the family and is constantly pushing himself to work harder, yet he's continually making mistakes in the factory and can't seem to hold up on his own. What's wrong? He doesn't feel as though it's appropriate to tell his parents, and has instead deemed it as a personal weakness. His most prized possession is his camera, which René constructed for him for his birthday years ago. He takes photos and then lines them all up just so he can see the moments in between, or rather, the moments he misses.

GRAHAM COLBURN – 17 – MALE – RESERVED FOR CAIT

There is nothing subtle about Graham, or so everyone thinks. He always argues with his parents, complains about the Capitol right in front of their face, and starts fights without thinking. “He's not going anywhere.” For a while, the peacekeepers even knew him by name. He's not very enjoyable to have around the house, so the lack of time that he actually spends in it is silently respected by the rest of his siblings, although Mr. and Mrs. Colburn repeatedly nag him about what takes him so long to get home. Graham's gone through every excuse, taken the blame for multiple situations, given up his cigarette stash—anything so that his parents don't find out the truth. He's a father. Whenever he can, he visits his infant son, Seth, in one of the district's poorest neighborhoods. He's been stealing some of Colin's earnings and dedicates his own salary to supporting his son. Despite his reckless personality, he feels like he owes it to both Seth and Seth's mother, Shivani, whom Graham has found to look a lot like Echo. Hm. Odd. A lot of people are wrong about Graham; although he often makes rash decisions, his heart is in the right place—at least halfway in the right place.

JUNIPER COLBURN – 15 – FEMALE – CICI

Ever since she was born, Juniper was always the sunshine of the family. Her optimism is almost overwhelming. With her enthusiasm and Rene’s imagination, the two of them came up with the best childhood games. However, her fantasies were horrifyingly spoiled the day she watched her first hunger games. She suddenly felt obliged to make up for this dark reality by bringing life to a world full of death. She began planting a flower for each lost life and has continued the tradition until today, thinking that by creating a new life, it will somehow replace the old one. René is even nice enough to steal some seeds for Juniper when she needs them. However, lately she's been planting many more than just twenty-three flowers per year. Mrs. Colburn's stress over her recent unemployment has led Juniper to believe that she has to get her way into the games, and she has to win to support her family. She's become obsessed with the idea and now secretly carries around a knife, gradually training herself to overcome her fear of killing. It all started with flies and spiders, but now it's progressed to squirrels, birds, and mice—who knows what's next? Juniper's sickened by it, really, but then she plants a flower and it's all okay. A life for a life; that's how the world works.

RENÉ COLBURN – 15 – FEMALE – SHINE

René is an artist. When she was younger, she used to turn carrots into flutes and old socks into stuffed animals. With her wild creativity, she brings life to things that are otherwise useless—she's good at it too. She constructed a camera for Colin's birthday years ago from simple metal items, a box, and some photo paper, and her side of the room is completely entrapped in her own innovations. There's something both clever and artistic about the way her brain works, but also very impulsive, and when I say impulsive, I mean that René doesn't just get her supplies from anywhere. She's a kleptomaniac. She can't keep her hands off. She steals trash, factory materials, others' valuable possessions, and so much more, it doesn't even matter. She hides the items in her mattress, in the flowers that litter the backyard, and most significantly, in the hollowed books along her bookshelf. She fears that people will find her treasures, but when she transforms them into artwork, her worries wash away.

MALACHI COLBURN – 14 – MALE – RESERVED FOR DANNY

You can't pull Malachi out of a book. He's been stuck in one ever since he was two years old. When he isn't reading, he has a lot of opinions and isn't afraid to share them, in a civil manner of course. He has a rich vocabulary, having practically memorized the dictionary, and notices a lot of things that others don't. He's actually an extremely valuable person to go to for advice, because of his level-headed perception of the world. He's watches people a lot—more out of curiosity than anything else. What's his secret? He knows the others' secrets, or at least he's getting there. It started when he found Echo's metaphors written across the page of a book he found at the library. He knew it was her handwriting, and the message wasn't difficult for him to decipher; there's something he likes about her. He's also taken notice to Colin's clumsiness and Graham's disappearances. He's put down his books for a while, just to figure out what really is going on with his family. However, beneath his thick layer of maturity, there is a boy, and that boy does not want to see his family come crashing to the ground.

ECHO COLBURN – 13 – FEMALE – CASS

Echo was never originally part of the family. In fact, just last year she was involved in a factory accident in which she suffered a bad head injury and went unconscious. No parents showed up when they handed her over to the doctors, and when she awoke, all she had to say was, “What happened?” The doctors diagnosed amnesia after running some tests, but couldn't find any record of the girl. She couldn't even remember her name. Doctor Colburn, despite the family's imminent debt, along with the fact that he'd already had to deal with one brain-damaged son, agreed to foster the girl until she regained her memory. She still hasn't, or so the Colburns believe. It took Echo—the name they've given her until she recalls her own—only about a week until she'd recovered her memories. However, she has no intention of telling the Colburns this. She loves them much more than her birth family, and she'd rather play pretend than go back. And for the record, she never did forget her real name. However, Echo often sits between some of the more abandoned bookshelves in the library, where they have the old science textbooks that nobody reads, and writes in them—things she can't quite say out loud, secrets about who her family really is. You'd be lucky to get a spoken word out of her.

SHIVANI– 18 – FEMALE – RESERVED FOR LEI

Seth's mother, but also Echo's half-sister. Basically lives in the slums, yet still dedicated enough to raise her child. Most likely a prostitute. Lives on her own? Lives with her parents? -- Up to you. Bitter and hard on the outside, but desperately trying to prove she can be better than the life she was born into. Expand and elaborate as much as you want, be creative. <3 Last name up to you.

NOTES

- I'm flexible with names if you want to change them, but quite a few of them actually have names symbolic to their character.
- Feel free to really expand on things, especially if you're applying for Echo because I didn't say anything about her past family, except that Shivani is her half-sister. Or sister. Or something. Be creative! That goes for all of the characters, really.
- This plot is application-based. It is not first-come, first-serve.
- Please feel free to apply for a second choice character, although it is not required.

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