Birchwood Isle Family Roleplay

Basic Information

Where do you live? Orphan Village
Are you married? If yes, to whom? Yes, to Adam [surname TBD]
Do you have any children? If yes, list them. Ian James Fletcher (24), Derek Anthony Fletcher (17)
Is your family open to adopting children or adolescents? Possibly in the future

Appearance
Height: 6'1"
Build: athletic
Hair Color: dark blonde
Eye Color: blue
Distinguishing Features: deep dimples
Brief Description: The first thing most people notice about Tex is that he smiles. A lot. His teeth are white, his smile shows dimples, and he oozes charm in a way that's almost physical. His hair is long, cut to his chin, and he wears it loose most of the time. He doesn't shave often and he almost always has at least a five-o'clock shadow, if not a little bit of a beard (which he does not keep trimmed). His style of dress is almost always country casual and he often wears a cowboy hat and boots. You'll almost never find Tex without his signature belt.

Personality
Strengths: charming; confident; cool under pressure; approachable; accessible; great listener; good with his hands
Flaws: controlling; arbitrary; explosive; impatient; surprisingly reserved; hot-tempered
Likes: horses; animals; smooth cigarettes; long baths; Sunday lie-ins; flying planes; working with his hands; whittling; a good knife
Dislikes: snow; traveling over water; the sound of dogs barking; shoddy workmanship; long car rides; running; exercise; gyms
Vices: cigarettes/smoking
Fears: snakes; plane crashes; dead bodies
Personality: Tex has a smile that lights up a room. He shines. His confidence enters the room before he does, and instead of making people uncomfortable or instead of him coming across as cocky or arrogant, it always seems to set people at ease. He's very quick with a compliment, which helps his cause. He knows just the right thing to say to a person to make them feel like the most important person in the room. In short, Tex has remarkable social skills for a former cowboy who has spent a lot of his life and time alone. The truth is that he enjoys being liked and works hard at it. Learning to be the person his own kids sometimes dislike has been challenging. He has to push himself to be the bad guy sometimes, but Tex has found that, like a lot of things... Well, he's good at it.

Relationships & Discipline

How do you normally get along with other adults? Great. Tex is charming. Most other adults like him a lot. He's genuine and it shows.
How do you normally get along with teenagers? Normally pretty well. He sparks curiosity in a lot of teenagers, and especially in teenage boys. Heterosexual teen girls and homosexual teen boys crush on him, and heterosexual boys want to be him. In general, he engenders trust in teenagers the same way he does in adults.
How do you normally get along with children? Tex is a little bit wary of younger children because he worries that he's going to break them. He's still learning how to be a good father and since he's learning on his own boys who are 17 and 24, he's missed a lot of years being a father to them when they were younger. His wariness around younger children doesn't seem to affect the children at all, though.
Link to your discipline sheet: click here ✅

Orphan Village

What is your role at the Orphan Village? Co-Head of Cedar House
Which house or building do you work for? Cedar House
Do you live in the Village or commute? Tex lives in the village
Do you have any special training, certification, or skills relevant to your role? ...no. None.
Do you prefer to work with a particular age group? Which one? Teenagers
Do you struggle with a particular age group? Which one? Younger children

Briefly describe your caregiving or mentoring style. Tex is extremely hands on with the kids. Cedar House is all about hands-on learning and making things, and Tex has just jumped into that role with both feet. He believes firmly in the "See one, do one, teach one" model of teaching, and so he always starts out by demonstrating what he wants someone to do, then observing them doing it, and then having them teach someone else how to do it, passing on the skills. He's quick to express pride when one of the people he mentors gets it right.

Describe how you see your role in the village. To be honest, Tex is a bit all over the place and he's still figuring out where he fits in within the village. He loves kids more than he ever thought he could, but he's not exactly sure what his place is. It makes sense to him that he's there to parent the kids at Cedar House (and his own two boys, of course) but he's not really certain where the boundaries are elsewhere in the village. Most of the time he doesn't act when he thinks he should, then beats himself up for it later on. He's still figuring everything out.

Is there anything else we should know about your role in the Village? Because he startles easily, Tex can be... a lot for some people. If he's triggered, he may lash out, even if the child or adolescent he's lashing out at isn't in his house.

Background

Education: high school
Work History: former army; former cowboy; former pilot
Current Goals or Challenges: Tex is dealing with PTSD
Reason for Living on Birchwood Isle: initially, communion with other veterans, since there are a lot of them living on the island; he stayed for the culture -- and his hubby
Brief History: Tex spent the majority of his life planning. For a bigger life, for a bigger impact, for something that would make him a star. Most of his life, he didn't take the time to live in the moment he was in. So when his wife became pregnant on his first military leave, he didn't know how to stop his momentum. Their marriage was convenient. He'd never loved her, but he was instantly taken with his son. Seven years later, during another leave, Maggie became pregnant again and Tex knew it was time to go home. He had a plan, of course. When his tour ended and he was given the chance to retire from the Army, he did. He moved back home to Texas and took up a job working as a cowboy on his cousin's ranch. That was the plan he'd always had in mind.

But then Adam happened. He was a couple of years younger than Tex, convicted of a set of beliefs Tex was quick to dismiss with a snort. But Adam talked about the future like it mattered while somehow keeping Tex rooted in the present, and before he knew what was happening, Tex was falling in love with Adam. The divorce was brutal, but Tex and Adam were married almost as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce. He got to see his kids every other weekend and on holidays, and that was fine for him; He'd been in the military most of their lives anyway.

It didn't last that way. Maggie, who had always been the type to live in the past, "found God," or religion, or the new age or something. The boys were a burden to her, she said as she rode off into the sunset on the back of her girlfriend's motorcycle. The next thing Tex knew, he was taking care of a sixteen-year-old and his 23-year-old was moving in with him because he couldn't find anywhere to work following college. Adam was the one who suggested Birchwood Isle. Tex had no plan, but when he learned of the strong military support on the island and the opportunity to make a difference with kids, he leaped at it. Thanks to Adam's background, they were both hired on quickly at the Orphan Village, where they now work as heads of the Cedar House.