Rodney Majora (District Eleven)

Rodney is a slim, wiry, gaunt youth of sixteen years, having a bony frame where his skeleton is quite clearly visible as a result of the borderline starvation of District Eleven. He has dark olive skin and eyes of fiery amber, with short, curly black hair and a long, attractive face. He comes in at about 5'11 and weighing roughly 134 lbs. (BMI 18.7.) He has long extremities and a narrow build, and many scars from years of long, hard work. He is lean, limber, flexible, and swift in his motions.
Given his natural, track racing frame, Rodney is a notoriously fast runner. He is ambidextrous and has extremely keen senses which makes it easy for him to sense when someone is nearby or watching him. While nothing to write home about, Rodney is in his own way an attractive young man, he's just so used to living in squalor that even he scarcely remembers what he looks like under all the dirt and grim that routinely entrenches itself in his nails and on his skin. His movements are quick and agile, like that of an acrobat, and indeed, Rodney seems to have something of gift them, flying through the tall orchard trees with ease and with movements which would make him an excellent thief if he ever had the nerve or the dubious moral character to test out his abilities. His silent and smooth movements are at the same time very cautious, as a smart worker knows that reaching for the wrong branch while working could very well spell your end.

Rodney is shrewd, abnormally intelligent, cunning, diplomatic, and quite charismatic. Endearingly sarcastic and not afraid to speak his mind in front of large crowds, Rodney is a smooth operator through and through. Having been raised by his grandmother who died when he was fifteen, Rodney gained a notorious reputation for enjoying fights and living a rather carefree and laid back lifestyle. Always looking to have some fun, Rodney can be serious when the situation calls for it, but for the most part, he simply likes to sit back and enjoy the ride for all it's worth. When excited, he often finds himself showcasing his gift for acrobatics on the street or telling jokes to random strangers, being able to get along with just about anyone.

Rodney lives his life alone, and he prefers it that way, with no one being able to inhibit his fast and carefree lifestyle. And while he misses his grandmother dearly, he tends to take life in stride and keep moving forward, trying desperately to enjoy what fleeting life the Capitol allows him before his inevitable (and more than likely, he believes, premature death.) Knowing that sickness, hunger, and the games could very easily and quite foreseeably kill him while he is still young, he lives to enjoy life's every dear moment, and not spend what time he has worrying about what the future may bring. He himself has often considered just volunteering for the games "to try something new," especially if he could ever save someone else from that unwilling fate, seeing as how he doesn't fret over the safety of his life like many others do. In retrospect, Rodney is simply a light-hearted trickster who doesn't let the weigh of the world on his shoulders get him down.

While deep down inside an introvert, Rodney is quite jocular, never letting a good joke go to waste if he can help it. He is affable and kind, which makes him easy to get along with, and which draws people to him like a beacon. Rodney is also a superb strategist, which extends from mapping out the best route to work to even the witty retorts he seems to have a gift for coming up with. And he always tries to make light of stressful and tragic situations, sometimes to his detriment. Rodney is, in the end, still just a young adolescent who is desperately trying to cope with the dirt poor, miserable lifestyle he has and seemingly always will live.

His father having died in a work related accident when he was two and his mother having died of a fever three years later, Rodney was raised by his maternal grandmother for most of his life. When she passed away scarcely a year ago, Rodney tried to cope with his lonely existence with levity and a carefree existence, finding pleasure in both work and school and especially his down time, what little he had, and was spared the fate of being sent to a public house by be allowed to live with a friend of his late father's. A certifiable genius who's laid-back and calm demeanor often won him many friends, Rodney refused to believe that his life was all that horrible. Life to him is all just one big joke, and he sees himself as the only one who understands the punchline. Jokes and smiles saw him through the endless tragedy of his existence in a lower district, but on the inside, something inside him had broken.

Rodney uses his lanky, limber frame and gift for acrobatics to climb high into the trees and harvest were normally only children three quarters his age can climb. Sometimes he muses to himself his lifestyle and risk taking may be the result of some deep seated death wish, yet Rodney continues to do his job admirably and unquestioningly, trying to live his miserable life to the fullest while he can. He often finds himself upset and embittered by the miserable conditions and slowly decaying state of his district, but is too wise to openly speak about it. No, Rodney simply sees his life as a day to day struggle that can be enjoyed if you have the proper mindset, and that's just how he trudges his way through life, in stride and without a care. And while many people like Rodney for his kind, honest, and fun loving demeanor, Rodney is too emotionally scarred to form close attachments with anyone, leaving him for now, completely lacking any true friends.

With Rodney's carefree (or some might say, careless) personality, his natural talent for thievery, his intelligence, his love for brawling, and his unhealthy habit of always doing the right thing, it was inevitable he would run afoul of the peacekeepers of his district. While many might say District Twelve has it the worst of all the districts, Rodney and many of his fellow district citizens would be eager to argue that point, with their district possessing some of the most brutal peacekeepers in the nation. For striking a peacekeeper and knocking him out cold, Rodney was tortured, beaten, and starved in a cold, dirty cell for three days before being publicly whipped and thrown into the gutter as an example to others who might do the same. Indeed, many of the district's denizens believe that Rodney got off light, having managed to escape the incident with his life, which for assaulting a peacekeeper, was practically unheard of. In spite of it all, even the ugly whipping scars on his back, Rodney still maintains his prior, carefree persona, but the ordeal did have an unseen effect on him, an effect which he does not let show exteriorly at all.

Every year, Rodney watches as unwilling tribute after unwilling tribute is sent to their death, guaranteed to be gruesome and spectacular for the whole of Panem to watch. Sometimes he thinks maybe better him than them, that maybe he could succeed where so many others had failed and then maybe life wouldn't be so bad. Death or wealth, Rodney could really live with either, and it might be an experience worth living before the end, seeing as how he has known nothing else but poverty and starvation all his life. And why waste your life fretting over death, when life had so many things one could enjoy before it was time to go? Maybe he would volunteer for the games, save some poor slob from being chopped to pieces on national television...

...and whatever happens, happens.

Thanks Saph!