ALICE SULLIVAN | DISTRICT THREE

Take a chance you stupid hoe
Like an echo pedal, you're repeating yourself
You know it all by heart
Why are you standing in one place?

NAME: Alice Beckett Katrina Sullivan
GENDER: Female
AGE: Fifteen
DISTRICT: Three

Born to blossom, bloom to perish
Your moment will run out
'Cause of your sex chromosome
I know it's so messed up how our society all thinks
Life is short, you're capable

Maybe I'll dye my hair blue this time, like dad's favorite color. Or maybe I should dye it gold like his hair. Or maybe I should just dye it purple because that's mom's favorite color and it'll cheer her up, she ponders as she sits on the bathroom floor, boxes and boxes of hair coloring surrounding her like the populace at the amphitheater (and she's the main attraction). It's as if the lion's sleeping, only this time instead of a lion it's her dirty blonde hair that's due for a wake-up call. Mangy, unkempt from days spent running with the gang, finally rinsed and washed and wrapped up in a towel.

Brown eyes blink and narrow as she tries to read the label - she probably needs glasses as her eyesight is starting to fail her but she's too proud to do so - and her tongue sneaks out to lick her chapped lips. Gold it is. She tosses the package up, easily catches it and heads towards the tub, her tall, lanky body easily avoiding the other boxes scattered across the floor.

Look at your watch now!
You're still a super hot female!
You got your million dollar contract!
And they're all waiting for your hot track!

It's not that she doesn't care, it's that she cares too much. She knows her word vomit isn't politically correct, but it's what should be said - no, what needs to be said - and she's the only one with the balls to do so. Everyone else cowers in their little check-marked lists of "I can't offend anyone" or "Everyone needs to like me." To Alice, that's complete and utter bullshit. Nothing gets done because everyone's scared shitless of hurting someone's feelings. That's just bull.

Her voice has given her power that she doesn't even understand. Alice isn't the traveler who fell down the rabbit hole; she's the goddamn Queen. Her throne is the teacher's desk when he disappears with an "If I catch any of you doing anything other than sitting there and questioning your life choices, you're going to have to come again tomorrow", and her subjects are the ones who are rejected from society, the ones who can't live up to the expectations of their genius district, the ones who'd rather be doing anything but learning insignificant facts that just don't help them in life.

In Alice's case, it's not that she thinks the facts are pointless. On the contrary, she has a curiosity that can't be tamed, always asking why? and how? But her teachers' nonchalant answers of "It just happens" or "Don't question it Alice, that'll only confuse you more and you won't do well on the test" infuriate her because life isn't a test. It's a choose-your-own-adventure, it's a winding spiral of what-ifs and should-have-dones that culminate in a life well spent. It's not filling out multiple choice questions and memorizing every single type of arena used in the Hunger Games. And so she argues until she gets her answer, but she never does.

She's just too stubborn to see this, too stubborn to see when she's wrong (which she is, often) and too bigheaded to accept it and apologize. Reputation is everything to the girl who talks the talk but never truly wants to walk the walk, and once she loses that she'll be thrown into the heap of fodder that's eaten for breakfast by those she once ruled. She can't let that happen.

What you waiting for?
What you waiting for?
Take a chance, you're capable

For years she's always been known as the blunt one, the dumb one, the strong one, and she's allowed herself to become that person because it's just easier that way. Adhering to one's impressions makes it simpler to get what you want, to hide what needs to be hidden. She may not get the grades, but she knows that to achieve her goals she can't lay out all her cards at once; the trump card must always be within arms reach - that's what her father taught her. Good ol' Mr. Sullivan, not the fairest of the bunch but certainly the most successful.

Sometimes she wonders what it would be like, to just instantly get things and not have to act like the dumb old girl that she is (or isn't, you'll never know and she'll never really tell you). Perhaps that's why whenever she sees Maddy Dewitt, her stomach ties up in knots and she wonders what would be the right thing to say to get him to smile, get his nose out of a book and really talk to her. They've been "friends" for ages, longer than she can truly remember, their late fathers setting the children up for playdates and maybe more, if arranged marriages were still a common practice.

Unfortunately, these earnest attempts at reconciliation only wound up in blood trickling on the floor as Laurence Mercury stepped in his father's life-wine and her own father's murder, being taken away before his prime. She's developed a hatred for the Dewitts, or maybe just something akin to pure fury, glaring at them in the hallway, tripping them as she walks past. They caused her father's death, it's them who took him away and it's them who want to leave them all to rot with the treasure trove all to themselves. But not Maddy, never Maddy - she couldn't possibly hate him because he truly has nothing to do with this mess, always stuck in his books. It's kinda cute.

Of course, when push comes to shove she'll back up her family until her own throat is cut - blood is thicker than water (but that doesn't even make sense as some kind of analogy. Why should it matter? You need both to live), and she'll fight until the bitter end so her family can rightfully retain its throne, already stained with rusty liquid.

FACECLAIM: Tallulah Morton

SONG: What You Waiting For by Gwen Stefani (Marina Diamandis cover)

PASSWORD: odair

THE BLACK ROOK in THE CHESS PLOT