Monáe Thorne, District 8

x | x

( N A M E ) Monáe Caspia Thorne
( N I C K N A M E S ) The Stitch, or simply Stitch.
( A G E ) 16
( G E N D E R ) Female
( D I S T R I C T / A R E A ) District Eight

( A P P E A R A N C E )

Monáe is the daughter of her own obsessions, almost as if her body were simply one of her weavings. Her ash blonde hair would fall to her elbows if she ever allowed it to hang free, but that would be a waste of perfectly good weaving materials. Instead, every morning she wraps it up in braids, twists, and knots, looping it into itself until the hypnotic sounds of her mother's loom call out to remind her that her hands have other work to do. Then she'll close her pale grey eyes, the same quiet shade as the thread she mends her winter stockings with, memorizing the swift audio patterns of the shuttles as they skid back and forth between the heddles. These are things she wants to remember, so she can replicate them if one day they fall silent.

Each click and shift is built into her, reflected in the easy swing of her arms and the long, thin fingers she inherited from her mother. Like spiders grown from her wrists, threads twist through her touch as if sharing a natural understanding with her. They pass the long winter evenings together, Monáe's skin growing pale by the fire as her father chides her not to let sparking embers reach too close, until spring comes to remind her of everything that exists beyond their small store. A rush of over-excitement and sunshine burns the color back into her skin, scattering freckles across her shoulders and blistering her bare feet as she experiments at braiding thin-limbed saplings into sculpture and crop circles into the grass.

At five foot, two inches, she is small and slight of frame, weak in physical strength, but quick and precise with her movements. Too many years have been spent lifting little more than needles or bolts of fabric, the heavy machinery of the textile factories would overpower her in a moment. Clothing herself in dresses handmade by her mother and fingerless (so she can work easily) lace gloves that were one of her first forays into lace-making, she attempts no pretenses to disguise her fragility. She finds inner strength in her sentimentality and has no interest in pretending otherwise.

( P E R S O N A L I T Y )

Despite, or perhaps because of Monáe's tendency to get wrapped up in her own thoughts and become easily distracted, she is quite sociable and enjoys the company of others. Strangers are friends and friends are family, as far as she's concerned, and enemies are a foreign concept that she is unable to comprehend. It's one part naivety and one part turning a blind eye to the flaws of the District 8 community that she loves deeply. Loyalty is extremely important to her, but her impulsive and flighty attention span can make her unreliable despite her good intentions.

Prone to rambling that borders on full-on narration of her thought process, she talks before thinking and crosses lines of social appropriateness before she realizes they were even there, her conversations wandering almost as much as her hands. Bits of thread are stashed in all of her pockets, the subject of her subconscious impulses to knot and twist, especially when she's nervous. Then it becomes a coping mechanism, a familiar habit to literally pull comfort from, and it's no secret that the faster she weaves, the more worked up she is - which can be quite comical, as Monáe can work at a dizzying pace. If she finds herself caught up in her nerves, but empty-handed, she's prone to mild panic-attacks, feeling as though she's suddenly missing an integral piece of herself.

While she inherited her mother's natural skill, she also has her father's curiosity, an inclination to work out how things are made or what allows them to function. Hours will disappear as she studies spider webs and bird nests, whiling away her time mimicking their creations. His innate understanding of mechanisms does not come so easily to her, but it gives her a craftiness that allows her to create beyond simple woven fabrics. Growing up wanting to prove she was worthy of learning her family's craft, she taught herself to mend anything — torn clothing, nets, or even flesh — and that ingenuity has never left her. If she doesn't understand something, she will push herself to learn with a near single-minded stubbornness, regardless of what responsibilities she may unintentionally neglect in the process.

( H I S T O R Y )

Monáe is the only child of Desmond Gaspard Thorne and Imogen Temperly Thorne. The Thorne family owns, operates and resides in a small, independent textiles store, specializing in hand-woven fabrics and lace. The success of their business depends greatly on the ever-changing fashion trends and demands of the Capitol, which are unpredictable and inconsistent at best. To compensate for periods of slow income, they also take on mending and seamstress work.

Desmond, Monáe's father, is fond of wood carving and inventing and they often joke that he was really meant for District three or six. The looms and much of the other weaving equipment are made by him and he is constantly tinkering around, looking to make improvements. One of his odd creations is an eight-stringed instrument designed on the concept of a cat's cradle. It can be played by two people sitting on opposite sides (or by just one, holding it on their lap), each wearing wooden and/or metal rings on their four fingers and a thumb pick. It's played by weaving and wrapping your ringed fingers in the loosened strings to change their tension, formation, and therefore the pitch of the notes, while strumming with your thumb. He often plays it to accompany the sounds of their weaving.

Imogen, Monáe's mother, will sing along (and often Monáe will harmonize with her), although rarely with words. Most of her songs sound like her loom: nonsensical verses of gibberish, a sprawling hum, or upbeat percussive patterns. In celebration of finished work, she will often dance, flawed but enthusiastic folk dances, whirling around with her daughter in haphazard circles. She is otherwise soft-spoken and her mind tends to wander, her voice and thoughts drifting even further away than Monáe's. Yet, a piece of her is always present, anchored to her family.

As a young child, Monáe began learning to mend her own clothing. Constantly insisting that she wanted to work the looms like her mother, but being told it was too dangerous, she set out to prove her own capabilities. In the beginning she helped an elderly neighbor mend his old, worn fishing nets, but as she worked she began to discover how to improve upon the knots. Soon she was remaking the nets entirely, working out increasingly complex designs until she was chastised for making them too decorative, a trend that quickly became a signature of her handiwork. That's when her mother began teaching her lace-work, the concepts of which consumed her thoughts and sparked an even deeper determination within her.

Although her obsession led her to focus on increasingly specific weaving techniques, neglecting some wider textile knowledge for the sake of her specialization, she began to apply her skills in more unconventional ways. Friends, neighbor children and women preparing for their weddings would come to her to braid their hair — requests that she enthusiastically accepted, regardless of whether or not they offered to pay her for her help. In a large accident at one of the fabric mills, when the wounded greatly outnumbered District 8's medics, she went to work with her mother and some of the other seamstresses of the community to help stitch up injuries. To this day, she continues to lend her mending skills to cuts and gashes, the sutures efficient, yet obviously applied with her unfailingly decorative hand, earning her the nickname The Stitch.

( C O D E W O R D ) Odair
( F A C E C L A I M ) Lindsey Wixson and all blonde girls with braided hair

( C O M M E N T S / O T H E R )

Monáe is autistic (Asperger's syndrome), although she and her family are unaware, as it's undiagnosed.

Monáe's gloves: x x x

( O T H E R S P E A K I N G ) 885544
( S P E A K I N G ) CC8877
( T E X T ) 997766
( T H I N K I N G ) DDAA99
( O T H E R ) EEC5B7