JUNEAU MOTTA ➝ FOURTH SIBLING
❖ FULL NAME: Juneau Sage Motta.
❖ PRONOUNS: She/Ze.
❖ AGE: 22. (October 17th).
❖ BIRTH ORDER: Fourth. Twin to Third Motta.
❖ GRADE: Senior.
❖ MAJOR: Art Therapy, with a minor in Business.
❖ SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Homosexual.
❖ ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Demiromantic.
❖ FACECLAIM: Vanessa Lengies.
I'LL FOLLOW YOU UNTIL YOU LOVE ME
[TW: MEDICAL JARGON, HOSPITALS, TUMORS, SEIZURES]
Juneau Sage Motta, better known as Sage (or Junie, but only if she loves you), was born as the quintessential middle sibling to Al and Stacy Motta. Not only was she stark in the middle, but she was the middle triplet. Sage had always been quiet, unsure of herself, but generally an internally vibrant and kind girl. Losing her place in the world made her soft. She didn’t find her gifts immediately like Dena, nor did she have her personality completely figured out like Maddox. Sage was her own person, even if she had no idea what that was.
While her triplet found solace in front of the camera, Sage rather liked to be behind it. She would always hover around the shots, either during filming or photoshoots, gazing in awe at the way certain lighting or camera angles or editing could make the scene look completely different and absolutely beautiful. Sage’s love of all things visual stemmed from there, and she would often accompany her sister to shoots in order to practice her own style of photography. From the time that she was about twelve years old, Sage began to experience intense headaches.
An emotional headache would come in the form of their mother, Stacy, walking out on them. It was hard enough to comprehend the death of their grandmother, but Sage wasn’t sure what to make of her mother leaving, either. Dena took it the hardest, and while Sage tried to be there for her sister, she found it more difficult to watch her family slowly unravel. Always the sort of background caretaker, she did everything in her power to make sure that all of her siblings were alright. Of course, there are some wounds that cannot heal, and the aftereffects of being abandoned so young have resonated quite visibly in Sage.
However, she didn’t have much time to grieve. It wasn’t very long after Stacy walked out on the family that they were thrown with another hardship. Reports from Sage’s schoolteachers quickly reached Al Motta, informing him that Sage’s performance in school was very quickly deteriorating. Her vision was poor, she seemed to be in another world during class time, and her personality had very gradually been turning for the worse. The only class she willingly participated in was art, something that has stuck with Sage from the beginning of time. Al and the rest of the Motta’s chalked it up to Sage’s grief from dealing with Stacy’s departure and a need for glasses, but things were much more serious than they could have imagined. Everything came to a stopping halt when Sage had a seizure during an assembly at school. Humiliated, she was immediately rushed to the hospital where a neurosurgeon sent her in for an MRI and CAT scan that revealed the truth: A benign tumor had formed within Sage’s skull. Thankfully, it wasn’t cancerous, but it was in a part of her brain that would prove to be tricky to remove.
Petrified, Sage had no choice but to go through with the surgery. It wasn’t cancer, they said, but she still had to endure radiation treatment and was constantly on watch in the hospital. In some ways, it was worse than cancer, as the surgery was a delicate process and one that somewhat made her not want to live through it all. Combined with the anti-seizure medication, the radiation, and the various therapies (art, plant, music) Sage managed to find her will to live again.
The downside of all of this was that because of the tumor’s location, it had an irreversible effect on her personality. Gone was the girl who was bright, full of love and laughter, and in her stead was a hollow shell of a soul. Nothing fazes Sage, as it should, but she exudes a terrifyingly calm and chilled demeanor. She has little patience for those who irritate her, and you can never really quite tell what she thinks of you, which is how she prefers it to be.
Sage was about sixteen when all was said and done, and after spending the majority of her tween and teenage years from the inside of a hospital, she opted to be homeschooled instead, so she could take advantage of art classes at a nearby community college. Some might have been weakened by such a near-fatal blow so young, but not Sage. She threw her heart and soul into trying to make a difference. Sage was seventeen years old when she founded her charity, Carpe Diem (a sick wordplay on seize the day, in honor of her own illness) and became a spokesperson for brain injury and seizure treatment. The charity works to provide treatment for those patients whose medical insurance cannot cover the expenses of brain surgery or seizure medication, as it can get quite astronomically expensive.
She was accepted into Pacific State a year early, having finished her homeschooling, but instead chose to take a year off to really launch her charity with the knowledge that she would eventually return as head of it. She’s currently an art therapy major and business minor at PSU, and just launched a line of zen coloring books. All of the proceeds go to her charity, as the Motta’s are rich beyond all reason and she would rather put the money towards something that is more worthwhile.
BABY, THERE'S NO OTHER SUPERSTAR
Sage, for all of her faults, is very much a sight to behold. She is always dressed from head to toe in black, even in the dead of summer. She always wears a black choker around her neck, and she can usually be found wearing some kind of hat in order to cover the scar on her head from her surgery. Regardless, she always wears her hair down for this same reason, even though her hair covers it. Sage’s posture is poor, and even though she tries not to make herself much of anything, she tends to stick out due to her drastic wardrobe choices: leather, combat boots, etc. Sage has three tattoos: a feather on her left wrist, an ankh on her right hip, and Isis, the ancient Egyptian goddess on the back of her neck.
YOU KNOW THAT I'LL BE YOUR PAPARAZZI
Stacy has not been in the picture in a long time, but she was once an extra on a movie with Al Motta, who is a very well known actor and has been since he was a teen. Their youngest daughter, Caila, has been acting since she was five months old, and is still an active actress, singer and judge on both the X Factor and America’s Got Talent.