The Girl Who Was On Fire

enelyasol

Management - Chutzpah, Hygiene, Moxie
Stealth - Concealment, Disguise, High Alert, Shadowing, Sneaking
Violence - Agility, Projectile Weapons, Thrown Weapons, Unarmed Combat

Hardware -
Software -
Wetware - Outdoor Life

Name: Jenny
Age: 29
Contact: pilot.jaina @ gmail.com | enelyasol @ plurk/aim
Characters Already in Teleios: N/A
Reserve: here!

Character Name: Katniss Everdeen
Journal: stillplaying
Age: 18
Fandom: The Hunger Games
Canon Point: After returning to District 12 in "Mockingjay," a couple of weeks after Peeta's return.
Debt:

Class A: 12 years
Class B: 4 years, 6 months
Class C: 20 years, 10 months

GRAND TOTAL: 37 years, 4 months

History: Hunger Games wiki entry: Katniss Everdeen

Personality:

Katniss Everdeen is a survivor through and through, rarely giving up in even the most extreme of circumstances. She often thinks of herself as selfish and purely motivated by what she needs to stay alive and Katniss easily tends to delude herself into believing the worst about her. But at the her personality that grows as the story progresses, as she learns more about love and being loved.

From even before the books begin, her father’s death highlights Katniss as a highly stubborn and motivated survivor. She easily gives up the rest of her childhood at age eleven to become the head of her family. She won’t let her family starve, won’t give in to self-pity or grief, however much she misses her father. She’ll do whatever she can for them, the rest of the District and Panem be damned. But a true self-centered survivor would only fend for themselves. Instead, everything she does is for her younger sister, Prim – easily one of the most important people in Katniss’ life, if not the most important in her eyes.

If it was in Katniss’ power, she would make sure Prim would want for nothing. And while there are various examples of this in the books – allowing Prim’s ugly cat to stay despite meaning it would be an extra mouth to feed, ensuring that Prim never has to take an extra tesserae in the Hunger Games to supply their family with grain and other supplies - nothing speaks more than her willingness to take Prim’s place in the 74th Hunger Games despite knowing full well it could easily mean Katniss’ own death. Her little sister must have every opportunity to live a fulfilling life that Katniss doesn’t have herself.

It’s with the 74th Hunger Games that Katniss learns that she’s so much more than a provider. She really is a survivor at heart. She doesn’t care what others think of her. She’s brash and self-centered, rude, rebellious, difficult to relate to. All Katniss wants is to do whatever she needs to in order to survive and make it back to Prim. And if it means killing all those in the arena with her, she will not think twice. Cold and calculating, maybe even scary in her ability to be a predator and not prey.

But at the same time, while Katniss keeps reminding herself of this, focusing on her own negative attributes, Peeta sees something different. The girl on fire, the girl who has no idea of the effect she can have on people. She’s proud and true to herself, noble in the way she fights for Prim and then to keep Peeta live, however selfish she claims her own actions are. And although Katniss never sees it, she’s far less heartless than she thinks. The nightmares she has after the Hunger Games attest to that. If she truly didn’t care about anyone but herself, then Katniss’ subconscious wouldn’t prey so easily on her guilt.

Katniss’ stunt with the poisoned berries in the arena of the 74th Hunger Games, her last ditch attempt to ensure both she and Peeta leave alive, is seen by most of Panem as the spark needed to ignite rebellion. Katniss is introspective enough to give thought to that, to see how easily others would see it as such. But she does it out of a selfish need to keep them alive. Because in the end of the games, she can’t bring herself to sacrifice this boy who would easily sacrifice himself for her. She has a selfish desire to keep alive his adoration – he doesn’t have to love her, but he does, and it’s something that Katniss doesn’t fully comprehend but does realize she needs. And in the end, she’s tired of being a pawn. Yet, she’s still cold enough to tell Peeta that she played up her love for him then as an act and a trick for the Games. It’s the lie she needs to survive at that point in her life, where she wants her best friend Gale (also in love with her) to be easy in her company. She wants her life to be simple.

For the Quarter Quell and the 75th Hunger Games, former victors are selected to return to the arena and once again fight to the death. This time, Katniss actually stops being a survivor in favor to a different mantra that she can never breaks: keep Peeta alive. It’s easy to dismiss as a result of her love for him, or her selfish desire to keep alive someone who cares so much for her, but in many ways, it’s also her way of clinging to morals and humanity. Time and time again, she points out that Peeta’s almost too good, shouldn’t be in the Hunger Games, is nothing like her when it comes to how easily she’ll take a life. It’s something knows she can never be like but, perhaps, in keeping Peeta alive, she can be good, too.

Like in the Games itself, she becomes a pawn in a much bigger game when the Districts rebel against the Capitol. The rebels use her as a sympathetic spokesperson to garner support and she knowingly lets herself be used, especially after Prim points out she can bargain for the other victors’ amnesty. But even then, she can’t stick to the rules and, although not necessarily on purpose, finds herself breaking them left and right. To do what’s right by her instead of others. It’s why she uses her position as a spokesperson to gain amnesty for the other victors or to allow Prim to keep Buttercup even though life in District 13 is a life of strict rations. And the way she runs into the heat of the attack during District 8 to help protect the hospital rather than hiding in safety as Haymitch wants her to do.

During these rebellions, she also finally does learn how to break. She falls into a deep depression a number of times due to various events and her inability to cope with them– Peeta’s kidnapping by President Snow, Prim’s death, etc. But these depressions also show that she’s become a far more empathetic character than she once was, even though she still can’t see it. She’s a young girl put into impossible events that would reduce any less stronger individual to pieces. But most importantly, though she survives as she always has, she learns that there are more important things to survival. That there could be political causes, that there could even be people that you must put ahead of her own self. It is this lesson in itself that motivates Katniss towards President Coin’s assassination. She will not let all her struggles and loses be in vain, allowing another power-hungry leader with little regard to human life to assume control. Katniss must be the one to do this because, by this point, she will not put anyone else she remotely cares about at risk.

In the end of the trilogy, what can be said most about Katniss is that she lives through. She goes through the motions, finds ways to distract herself, plays games to remind her that there is good in people. Even in herself. She’s not the monster that caused all these deaths. And she learns how to really love and let herself be loved.

Strengths and weaknesses:
Katniss is a strong individual with so much backbone and determination within her. She’s the girl on fire, and not just because of the outfit she wears in her introduction to the Games. She literally has an unquenchable thirst to live her life – for herself and, by the end of her canon, for all those who died. And she will do whatever it takes to honor this promise.

Although slow to trust, she does make a steadfast and loyal friend once this trust is gained. She’s resourceful and skilled and self-reliant, a quick thinker on her feet. And in many ways, her own selfishness makes for her strength in keeping those she cares about alive. It’s easier for Katniss to see all the negatives in her personality, but at the same time, she adheres to them. She reacts without thinking and is next to impossible to mold – as both Haymitch and Coin find out during their time with her. Lying is far from a strong suit. Without a doubt, Katniss is first and foremost true to herself.

In many ways, a lot of Katniss’ strengths are balanced by her weaknesses. She can be very socially inept: keeping to herself as a child, unaware of the friendships she’s made. Even Gale, her best friend, is someone she sees as a resource after their initial meeting and does not become a friend until much later on. Madge, the Mayor’s daughter, is another example of someone she’d spend time with without truly understanding the impact of that time. Prior to the Hunger Games, she considers Madge just another lonely girl to sit with at lunch. Specifically, one who won't expect Katniss to talk. (Unless otherwise motivated, Katniss is ultimately far better at being an observer than a participant, especially when conversation is involved.) It's not until Madge gives her the mockingjay pin as a token that Katniss really realizes what her friendship meant to the other girl. And with both Peeta and Gale, their romantic intentions towards her go unnoticed until the boys act upon them.

When Katniss does allow herself to feel, it often overwhelms her – a source of many of the breakdowns she eventually has after the 74th Hunger Games. It’s easier to be logical and to push aside feelings than to acknowledge them. But when she does, she feels everything - every single death that she’s caused, however indirectly, she takes responsibility for. And a lot of the times it’s too much. She would rather avoid than face problems of emotions, as seen when she initially ignores required phone sessions with her therapist at the end of Mockingjay.

Even then, she’s not very book smart and does not have a very good education. It’s not something she considers much of a fault, though she does acknowledge it, but it is pointed out again and again. Katniss has survival skills, but Katniss would never have won the Hunger Games based on wit alone. And while she comes across as very mature, at times she can be moody and prickly – a true teenager in many ways. Someone still learning much about the world she lives in, and how to be a part of it.

In Teleios:
Due to her self-degrading nature and overwhelming sense of guilt, Katniss will have no problem believing that she has crimes in which she must redeem herself. In general, Katniss does not consider herself a good person worthy of compliment or praise. She owes all those who died because of her so much more.

That said, she will also be suspicious of Teleios and those in charge. As much as she believes that she belongs there, it’ll strike her still as something of a game. That she was brought here at the whim of someone else will make her suspicious. She’s been used as a game piece by those in power too many times before (both in the Hunger Games and afterwards) to be capable of thinking otherwise.

Powers/Abilities: Katniss is an amazing hunter, especially with a bow and arrow, capable of killing squirrels and rats by shooting an arrow in their eye without tarnishing the rest of the carcass. She can also sing beautifully, much like her father. In the books, it's stated that when Katniss sings, even the birds fall silent to listen.

Appearance: Katniss' PB is Jennifer Lawrence. Images for reference can be found here. Katniss has dark black-brown hair, grey eyes, and olive skin. It should also be noted that Katniss is of shorter height than her PB (somewhere probably between 5'2"-5'3") and currently still a little bit underweight. She's covered head to toe in scars from burns and ripped tissue grafts, though her face is described as being mostly spared. Hair is carefully plaited to hide unevenness of hair growing back in from fire bombs.



CR AU

Game You’re Transferring CR from: N/A

How has your character changed from their canon self?

Are they gaining any abilities from their time in game? Did the game setting take something from them?

Samples:

Actionspam Sample:

It's not exactly actionspam, but it does have actual dialogue within it. She tends to be more on the quiet side canonically.

Prose Sample:

On days like today, when game is scarce, it's harder. She might not be the only hunter in District 12 anymore, but she knows she's still one of the more frequent. After all, she's out here every day. Sometimes she wanders further in than other days, checking traps, gathering plants, losing herself in almost a ritualistic manner. It's the best way to keep memories at bay.

Still, she remembers. She lists the dead in her head, all the faces that haunt her in her dreams. The way they still all come together some nights to bury her alive. It's a recurring dream, always the same. One by one, they each take a handful of dirt and drop it on her prone body. Even as she walks through the forest, she’s lost in the nightmare. A nightmare of remaining still, unable to move, watching Prim and then Rue and Finnick and Boggs and so many.

Without realizing it, she's quietly begun to whisper that list to aloud, that list of all those people she's killed. All the deaths she's been responsible for. And she knows once again that she has no right to be alive. She should be as dead as the rest of them. She deserves to be. But she isn’t. She lived, even when so many far less deserving died.

"Cato." The list continues as she continues to walk quietly in the forest, bow in hand. "Marvel. Glimm-"

The breaking of a twig stops her. She falls silent and looks around until her eyes fall on a young buck a few yards down, not even mature. The antlers are in velvet, barely little more than nubs sticking from the head. He looks as startled to see her as she is to see him. But a year or two older than any yearling. Perfect game. An arrow is drawn before she realizes what she's even doing.

There's only one moment of hesitation. When she remembers the last deer she brought down, with Gale's help, back before the twisted tragedy that became their lives. She's never attempted to kill one on her own. And a deer this size, it'll be too big for her to take back on her own. But District 12 could use the food. And it’s no longer taboo. Anyone can hunt, provide meat and sustenance for them and theirs.

Her arrow goes flying, piercing a lung. The buck bolts and her second shot isn't as true, hitting it in the midsection. And then she's running after it. It's not a long run. The animal stumbles over a log in its desperate flee and falls. She gets in one final shot, right in the heart.

There's a sense of grim satisfaction as she watches the deer exhale his final breath. Then she's on her knees, carefully removing and wiping her arrows. She places her bow on the ground and pushes the animal onto its back. She takes out her knife to make a small incision by the genitals. It's followed by a longer cut up towards the chest. Field dressing first. Then, she'll figure out how to get it back to town.

One move at a time.

One game every moment.

It’s the only way to keep moving forward.