Alexander Hood {d7}

Name: Phoebe Lionel Alexander Hood
Age: sixteen eighteen
District: Seven
Gender: female male

{history}
I'm just an honest man, provide for me and mine...

The second in a slew of bastard children, each sharing and raised by only their mother, Elaine Cornwall, Phoebe Lionel missed out on much of her youth looking after her younger siblings with the help of her older half-brother Alex. Their mother was promiscuous, alternating between selling her body for scarcely enough to put a full meal on the table and simply giving it up for free. Each of the six "Cornwall" children bears a different surname — although this seldom has any indication as to who the father is; Elaine herself professed to Phoebe at one point that she had no idea.

'Working' nights, Phoebe's mother was all but unable to tend to her children during the day. When it was just Alex, Phoebe, and Owen, the third in the clan, this often left them in the care of a neighbor; however, by the time Phoebe turned five (Alex was seven) their dysfunctional family had grown to be more and more of a pariah, disregarded and scoffed upon by the neighbors. "Too many mouths to feed," they'd say to one another, "and each time she tries, she ends up with more mouths and less money."

It was true, though, and as the neighbors lost their pity for the Cornwall clan, the responsibilities of tending to the toddlers and infants that followed them landed primarily on Alex, although Phoebe was forced to give what help she could. They scraped by — barely — on what Elaine Cornwall could whore herself out for until Alex and then Phoebe hit tessera age. The government grain and oil that was supposed to be supplementary food became their sustenance. The two eldest tried in vain to get jobs, willing to do anything — but who wanted to hire a fourteen-year-old bastard son of a harlot and his scrawny little sister? Some nights, they'd alternate going without food so their siblings could eat. Some nights, they'd have to bolster the meager grain supply with tree bark collected off the ground by the saw mill, with the roots and weeds that hadn't already been dug up by the district's lumberjacks.

Things only got harder in the year that followed. Fifteen-year-old Alex fell ill, too unwell to get out of bed on most days. Their mother was no help, her body aged and no longer suitable for the only job she'd ever held and without practical skill that could be applied in any other way. The burden of tending to four children approaching their teens, to making sure their mother didn't die in the meantime, and, suddenly, trying desperately to nurse her closest friend, her idol, and her protector back to health all fell to Phoebe.

Her first instinct was to search for a job where her mother had found it. She tried. Twice. Two clients, one a peacekeeper and the other an affluent mill foreman. Never again. The experience traumatized the thirteen-year-old, and she retains a distrust of authority to date, despite the fact that she had been the one to offer herself to them, and despite the fact that the profit from the two encounters payed for a bag full of butcher's scraps with which she made a meager soup and a painkiller for Alex, who'd been doing the best he could to muffle the occasional shrieks of pain caused by his affliction into an old boot, unrecognizable from age and teeth marks.

Alex lived to be sixteen, but Phoebe didn't have enough time to be crushed after his death; she had business to take care of. She had mouths to feed, less Tessera coming in, and still no other means with which to do it. Still no one wanted to hire her, despite the fact that she was reasonably strong and more than competent, with employers alternating excuses about her gender and her age; Alex, on the other hand, had been ill throughout the time period in which he could've been hired, Phoebe reasoned, and that was a shame.

It was only as she was filling out the report of death to take to the civic building along with her brother's ashes that Phoebe decided what must be done. Without even thinking the ramifications all the way through, she hacked off most of her hair with a knife from the kitchen and returned to the paperwork: Name of the Deceased: Phoebe Lionel. It made sense, in the moment, anyhow: had he not been ill, Alex would have had a much higher chance of being hired somewhere — anywhere — over Phoebe, who had been turned away from what seemed like every job in the district. After all, District 7 was labor-intensive, and as it was politely explained to her, "No one's got a place for a little girl like you. Can't be counted on to lift, and ain't gonna make it through the day when half our men can't hardly do the same. Everyone's starving, kiddo, and ain't nowhere for anyone to put you."

Fear of being recognized as someone who was not Alex followed her the whole way to the civic building, culminating at the point when it was the very peacekeeper that she sold her body to who processed the death certificate of Phoebe Lionel. Her hands shook, and she knew she must have looked exceedingly nervous, but it must have been attributed to nerves, as she was sent home, no questions asked.

It wasn't until she returned home to have a talk with her siblings about how they must now refer to her as Alexander, and as a boy, and that Phoebe had to be dead that she actually realized the permanence of her swap. She couldn't go back to being Phoebe, not even if she wanted to. Phoebe Lionel was dead. She would have to be Alexander, or suffer the consequences of the Capitol. The week that followed, she was cut up by fear of the future and grief over the death of Alex — the real Alex. But knowing that she absolutely needed to work, given that she'd just thrown her life away to feed her family, provided just enough push to get out of bed and go about the day as best she could. Though the neighbors hadn't seen much of Elaine Cornwall or her kids in recent days, Phoebe — Alexander — still pressured their submissive mother into moving them across the district into an area equally as poor but where they were even less head of. Elaine obliged, and in what was simultaneously the best and worst parenting decision she'd ever made, moved her children in with her alcoholic and occasionally abusive boyfriend.

Not a people person in any respect, Gareth Cross was less-than-happy to shelter the bastard children of the woman he was boning, putting up some resistance to Alexander's status of head of the house, while Alexander was resentful of the additional useless lump of a mouth to feed — the little money Gareth was occasionally able to drag in as a laborer always went to his booze. Skittish around adults who portrayed themselves as authority figures and smart enough to avoid confrontation where possible with an angry man twice her size, Alexander tried to disregard most of what Gareth did and said whenever possible.

But on one night, several months after the Cornwall children moved in, the plastered Gareth incited an argument about food rations and demanded an extra roll from their diminished tessera ration, insisting that he take the remaining half of five-year-old Orville, the youngest of the lot. When Alexander refused to allow him to take food from her baby brother, he turned violent, aiming a threw drunken punches that were easy for the wiry girl to sidestep. Gareth, however, lost his balance and stumbled into the small fire that was easy enough for the citizens of the lumber district to fuel on no budget. He probably wouldn't have died had he not been soaked with alcohol, or had he not blacked out into the fire; as it was, things actually had worked out in the favor of the Cornwall family for the time being.

However, the peacekeeper investigation that followed had set Alexander on edge, as she was uncomfortable with authority rooting around in the family's affairs, convinced that they would discover her true identity. She had a good reason to be paranoid, however, as she had concluded that they would imprison her, avox her, or even kill her if they found out the truth, leaving her younger siblings almost completely in the care of their useless mother. Only Owen was old enough to take out tessera aside from Alexander, and the family was hardly getting by on the two they'd had in the meantime; she still hadn't found work.

At her official age of seventeen, (though biologically, she was still fifteen) Alexander managed to get work where most men found it, despite her size — skinny going on emaciated, and though tall for a fifteen-year-old girl, still a bit short for her purported age and gender — at a sawmill, hauling planks and logs from one conveyer belt to the next. The hours were long, the wages were slim, and the hazards and strain of the job took a toll on Alexander's health and physique. With a somewhat larger amount of food on the table and a strenuous work out from dawn until dusk (she had dropped out of classes, as many of the poorer residents had been forced to do) in the factory, Alexander managed to add a slight bit of muscle to her build. Not a lot, but just enough to make it that much easier to pass off as a guy. This was perhaps the only positive side effect: her hands received numerous scars and callouses, her lungs filled with sawdust and she coughs at regular intervals.

Despite the initial hazing of the other factory men — actual men, unlike Alexander — and how difficult the work proved over and over to be on a daily basis, she has still kept her job into her eighteenth legal year, even receiving a pay raise at one point. Still wary of authority and uneasy about making any social connections for fear of being exposed, Alexander continues slaving away at the sawmills to feed her younger siblings.

{appearance}
and your eyes were shifting dials like AM radios...

Alexander actually does a good job at making sure people believe she's a guy — her clothes, for the most part, are baggy and loose-fitting enough to conceal her minimal cleavage even if she didn't tie it down. Her bright blonde hair has been trimmed up beyond her initial hack job, and is often worn pushed up or pushed back, revealing the widow's peak inherited from her unknown father.

This heart-shaped hairline sits over a serious countenance — because how could it not be? — that is truly where Alexander sells her masculinity. Dark eyebrows seldom relax out of their tense and weary scowl. Her eyes are a vivid blue and, while by no means a manly color, per se, always seem to have an intense — if unfocused — look on them, from the coupling of exhaustion and slight social anxiety. Although by no means friendly or inviting, Alexander's gaze does have a softness to it where her siblings are concerned.

It is Alexander's height and build that poses the most difficulty for her masquerade. Five foot seven is certainly a reasonably tall height for a girl, but certainly is on the short side for the gender she is supposed to be. Working at the sawmill has given her a good deal of muscle, but is still quite scrawny by male standards. Though they are rarely the subject of conversation (especially considering that Alexander seldom converses with anyone) these attributes are the two that cause her to be the most self-conscious since adopting her brother's guise.

For the most part, however, her traits have molded themselves into the masculine mannerisms that Alexander was forced to take up. The sawmill played a large part in that, callousing and scarring her already-thick hands, chipping the nails, leaving them rough and always coated with an irremovable layer of grease and sap and sawdust. A once-twisted knee from improperly catching a slipping log as it fell altered Alexander's gait to a temporary limp, which was effectively turned into a more commanding saunter. Perhaps even more subtly, the debris in the air helped her voice take on the husky quality she'd been trying to nudge it towards, and although her inflection had been a tad on the lower side before she became Alexander, practically all softness and tone is gone, leaving an empty, gruff mutter on the occasions where Alexander engages with anyone in conversation.

{personality}
She bargains like a lawyer, sacrifices like a martyr...

I mean, you'd be a bit on edge too, right, if your whole family's livelihood depended on your ability to pass off as a man several years older than yourself? Considering the circumstances, Alexander does an excellent job of keeping her cool on a day-to-day basis. She's grown used to her new place in society, but still is not comfortable enough to allow herself to make friends beyond acquaintances. It's a real shame, too, as Phoebe Lionel was irrefutably a people-person. Paranoia, however, prevents her from having meaningful conversations with anyone outside of her immediate family, and even then has trouble talking to anyone else, as most of her siblings are significantly younger than her.

Alexander gets lonely because of this — she loves her brothers and sister, but little kids do not provide an adequately therapeutic outlet for a teenage girl who does not have the option of dropping the guise of her deceased older brother, forced to work grueling shifts as the sole provider for her family of six. However, be it fortunately or unfortunately, she does not have the time for any sort of socialization; some nights, she's too busy to do little more but eat and sleep (cooking had been delegated to Owen as soon as Alexander had been hired at the factory)

If it wasn't already blatantly obvious, Alexander Hood is a very strong girl. She does not shy away from responsibility, and is not at all quick to give in when something seems hopeless. She's been the head of her large and dysfunctional family since age thirteen, and is quick to assume leadership of any group or task, and reluctant to share duties with anyone, unless she is absolutely at the breaking point.

Coupled with her constant need to prove her masculinity, this familiarity and comfort with power makes Alexander come off as pushy and bossy to those around her that have not resigned themselves to her command — or, she would, if she often interfaced with anyone outside of her immediate family, all of which regard her as the head. On the other hand, she does not enjoy calling any unnecessary attention to herself, as she is still exceedingly cautious about being found out. If this were not the case, it would be very easy to classify Alexander as assertive and perhaps even charismatic, but the desire to remain low-key does a lot to negate her outgoing tendencies.

{codeword}
odair

{notes}
perhaps I could've expounded upon her appearance or personality a bit more, but it's the most frustrating thing to have a character in your head with a voice and everything and still need to elaborate more before you can use them. ah, well.