Underleaf's Tree of Woe

[Skiplaurel Hayjer - D7a]

Name: Serelis C. 'Sera' Yossarian

Age: Fourteen

Gender: Female

District: Three

Appearance:

Sera works in an industrial environment, and so she wears her hair short as a matter of course. Her family is not dirt poor, but they are hardly better than working class, so she cuts a lithe figure and has calloused hands from years of blue-collar assembly line work.  She is taller than is typical from a girl of her socioeconomic class, which she views this as a blessing as smaller children are often utilized in crawlspaces in the factories of District 3. Being a factory worker, she is often dirty and her blue eyes contrast her sometimes blackened face. She wishes she had more capacity to style herself, but it is just not in the cards right now and she has to make do mostly with hand-me-downs.

She has the odd burn scar on her body, but has mostly lucked out because she still has all her fingers. She is on the track team at school, and frequently wears an uncomfortable mask whilst working to avoid smoke doing too much damage to her lungs. While she lacks in upper-body strength, her legs and core are more toned. She was already pale, but too much time indoors and smog frequently blotting out the sun has turned her into a borderline vampire. She is an emotive person and often gestures when she speaks.

Personality:

Life in Panem has beaten Sera down, but she still tries to maintain a positive outlook. In contrast to many of her fellow citizens in the Districts, Sera enjoys watching the Hunger Games every year because it is a distraction from her tedious, miserable day-to-day grind. Life in in the Districts already has plenty of horrors to offer without having to go the games to find them. She resents her position in society, thinking she could achieve better for herself if she was not handicapped by socioeconomic realities within the Districts. She has considered becoming a Peacekeeper as a means to achieve a higher standard of living, and looks bitterly upon talk of rebellion.

Sera is no genius, but she is a smart girl. She fails to stand out in most any particular category, but she has a good head on her shoulders and manages to make the honor roll each quarter. Her parents are both alive, and she has five siblings whom she certainly cares for. She has a bad track record with animals and prefers plants instead. She composes sheet music in what little spare time she has.

Sera is an amiable enough person when interacting with others, and she is good-natured enough to have established friendship with girls above her own class. She is direct and tries to avoid situations where she will become the center of attention. She has a decent grasp upon the handling of firearms, but only because she worked in a munitions factory for a time, one which produced arms for the Capitol's peacekeepers. (She has never fired one, though, of course) Her favorite food is lemons, but she cannot come close to affording them. She has a talent for recreating music within her own head, which is good considering the limitations of her circumstances.

History:

Sera comes from a working-class background, growing up in one of the many slum areas of District 3. Sera does not know too much about the subject, but she knows that she has multiple distant relations in the rebellion against the Capitol who were killed-in-action or executed, and the subject is something of an unspoken taboo in her household. She suspects her family were originally more well off, but that aiding the rebellion ended up costing them when it ended in failure. These days, her family scrape by as factory drones, although her father has risen up to foreman. Sera has worked since she was eleven years old, and she still has two younger siblings who have yet to reach that cutoff.

Sera has taken an interest in music, but it is a hobby and people in her circumstances cannot afford hobbies. She instead spends much of her time supporting her family, something which she has taken gracefully and tries not to resent. She has two older brothers and an older sister, and a younger brother and sister, and her paternal grandfather also lives with the family. She finds the living situation claustrophobic and finds reasons to spend time outside the home. She has bet money on the Hunger Games before, but lost and intends upon giving this habit up.

Sera is still young, but longs to improve her station in life. She plans on putting up with factory work for a couple of years longer until she can get to the point where she has better options. She is considering becoming a Peacekeeper, but has also held down minor jobs in more affluent sections of the District. For now, the majority of time she does not spend at school is spent working in a factory that produces mining equipment. Sera wonders if she will have to search for a new factory job soon, as the mining industry that was once so lucrative in District 2 has seen better days.

Other: Faceclaim is Mina Sundwall

[Skiplaurel Hayjer - D7a]

[Skiplaurel Hayjer - D7a]

Name: Skiplaurel V. Hayjer
Age: Fourteen
Gender: Female
District: Seven
Appearance:

Laurel is very tall for a girl her age, coming from a family filled with broadly built blondes. Her hair is platinum blond and her eyes are an eerie pale blue. She has nice facial structure and is considered naturally beautiful. Her body is lean and supple from years of outside labor. She often wears flannel, overalls, a wool cap, and gloves to work.

She is built sort of delicately, meaning she is ill-suited to strength-based tasks better served by bigger, more muscular people. She has stained yellow teeth from years of poor dental hygiene. She keeps her greasy hair short because she does not wish to tie it up every morning to fit it under her wool cap. Her hands are rough, with minor scars here and there from both splinters and sanding. She has an off-putting habit of staring intensely at other people without smiling.

Personality:

Laurel is the most physically attractive of her siblings, and she resents that her parents consider this an asset in marrying her off. She tries hard to prove that she can contribute to the family, without having to be pawned off to somebody else. She is not so much a tomboy as she lacks the opportunity to be more feminine. She is sarcastic and knows that good looking people more often get away with this type of behavior. She often sings while she works.

The oppression of the Districts is not something Laurel thinks about very often, just accepting things as the reality she lives in. Talk of rebellion does not seem very relevant to her. She mostly concerns herself with day-to-day survival in her District, although her family is what passes for middle class. She doesn't particularly enjoy watching the Hunger Games but sees it favorably as a national holiday that gets everyone out of work. She dislikes the cold of her own District and wishes she lived someplace warmer.

Laurel is not particularly close to her three siblings, but she does care about them. Laurel is an average student in school and does not think she has the makings of an intellectual. She is assertive and will take the lead if others will not. Laurel enjoys creature comforts and is not afraid of admitting so. She is very competitive and likes to turn mundane activities into competitions.

History:

Laurel's family is middle class, but this is only relatively speaking by District standards. She comes from a large family, and many relatives both consanguineal and affinal live with the nuclear family she is a part of. She is one of the younger members of her clan, and she has kinship ties to other families in her area. Her family feuds with another clan named the 'Raleigh's' but Laurel does not understand why, nor does she particularly care. She is aware that both families are distantly related.

Laurel lives in a township of District 7 where there are two major families, the Raleigh's and her own. The Raleigh's supported the Rebellion and it cost them greatly, while the Hayjer's largely did not and so ended up coming out of things is better shape. These days, there is not much tension between the two families other than occasional drunken brawls. Almost everyone works in the same lumber-related fields and possesses the same (lack of) affluence. The community takes one big simultaneous trip to the District Square to observe the annual games.

Laurel resents her more parochial background, but at the same time thinks there are worse existences. She does occasionally consider leaving for a denser population center, though. Her community is stable and the Peacekeepers are relatively even-handed. She enjoys traveling to the more commercial area of the district (where the Capitol promptly seizes most of their output) because there is more going on there. She finds the endless forests a little depressing.

Other: Faceclaim is Ivanna Sakhno

[Skiplaurel Hayjer - D7a]

Name: Poena L. Dresnik
Age: Twelve
Gender: Female
District: Two

Appearance:
Poena is a short, slight girl lacking much distinct muscle mass. Her hair is usually done up in a well to do bob cut that does not go below her shoulder line. She has golden blonde hair with a lightly freckled face. She has curious, perceptive blue eyes and healthy, unblemished skin. She has uncalloused hands and a healthy body weight for a girl her age, both of which indicate an upper-class background.

Poena has little choice in her wardrobe and often wears well-made, feminine clothing that leans on the formal side of things. She is fidgety and frequently shifts around uncomfortably if forced to stay in one place for any degree of time. If she were to shave her hair off, it would be difficult to tell if she was a boy or a girl. She is still small enough that she can fit into spaces that other children cannot. She often puffs both cheeks out when she is annoyed with somebody.

Personality:
Poena is a shy, awkward girl who does not like being pushed outside her comfort zone. She is easygoing and sweet natured, but somewhat starved for attention. She has been trained as a career tribute starting from when she was eight, and she has never been particularly comfortable with any of it. Still, she sees her training as a way to impress and earn praise from her emotionally unavailable parents. She has a toddler brother and an infant sister, and that idea that they will be pushed to participate in the games like herself terrifies her.

Poena is a hyper girl and this has always been an asset during physical activities. If not for her training, she would regularly require sleeping pills to fall asleep at all. Poena loves and yet at the same time deeply resents her parents in a manner she is perhaps not mature enough to fully comprehend. She does not like the Capitol much, as her father has often ranted at her about how poorly District Two has been rewarded for its past loyalty. Poena is blue-blooded and has been raised with certain expectations that she will live up to this pedigree.

Poena is forbidden from interacting with other children beneath a certain socioeconomic class, and is slow to make friends. She does not get along with most other careers either, as the process involves much hazing. She would probably go into a STEM field if she were allowed to choose a career for herself. Poena is a bright child who always wants to learn. Physical abuse from her parents has taught Poena that, in a dictatorship, some questions are not asked out loud.

History:
Poena is the great granddaughter of a tycoon whose claim to fame was inventing a kind of plastic explosive that is still in use today. Her family does not need to worry about money, and they live in an upper-class, gated community far from the smell of trash that permeates some other places in the District. Her family has traditionally been very loyal to the Capitol, even through the Rebellion. These days, the relationship is more frayed, as her relations privately seethe that District Two has been turned into what amounts to a waste dump. Poena has been trained as a career by her family, hoping that a victor in the games could perhaps reverse the District's fortunes.

Poena does not agree with any of this, but is really quite powerless to do anything about it. She lives in dread of the day she might finally get an opportunity to participate in the Hunger Games. She would rather another career from her District be chosen instead, not in the least of which because she is at a developmental disadvantage at her current age, and she knows it. The fact that District 2 is the laughingstock of the career Districts these days does nothing to bolster her morale. Her situation enrages her, but she does not see a good way out of it.

Poena's life is a gilded cage. Her position in society and status as a career has afforded her many perks, (she knows how to swim, for one) but that fact that it comes with a cost always weighs heavily on her mind. She knows the days of relative childhood innocence for her are coming to an end. This has all left Poena with an amount of psychological strain that is hard for a child her age to bear. She fears the kind of adult she will become even if she wins.

Other:

[Skiplaurel Hayjer - D7a]

[Skiplaurel Hayjer - D7a]