Corinne Brightman, D2

I am plain. Not exceptionally good-looking or hideously ugly. I simply am. I'm the forgettable face you see in the crowd, the nameless stranger who you pass every day on the street. Everything about my appearance is the epitome of average, a fact that infuriates me to no end. I stand at an average height of five feet, five inches, at a weight of one hundred and thirty-five pounds. The female figure of my body is proportioned typically, my hips and chest neither too large nor too small, in relatively good balance with one another, the form of my body more athletic than feminine. I have the muscle tone of any female Career, giving me the ability to lift just about thirty pounds over my own body weight easily. My limbs are in normal proportion to the rest of my body, the larger-than-usual hands slightly toughened from years of training. The skin that covers my body is an olive tone that matches the majority of District Two citizens', somewhere between Caucasian and Hispanic in appearance. This is the giant bundle of average that you can see from a distance.

Get a little closer, and you will find still more mediocrity in and around my face. My hair is an average, dull brown that falls in curls that are neither immaculately sleek nor uncontrollably frizzy. My face is your typical oval, the jaw neither strong nor weak, the nose neither squished nor protruding too much. The lips that make their occupancy an inch or so above my chin, which has my father's aesthetically detrimental cleft to it, are not overly thin or full, sitting with a neutral tan color in a straight, deadpan line, only rarely broken by a smile revealing teeth that are slightly crooked, but not hideously so. My eyes sit under slightly too-thick brows, their watery blue not entrancing or memorable in the slightest. Like most normal teenagers, I have a few problems with acne, occasionally getting minor breakouts on my forehead and chin, but I have no facial scarring to show for it. I could perhaps put on a little makeup to improve my looks, I suppose, but I don't have time for such things.

My voice falls somewhere between soprano and alto, such a quiet tone that you have to listen hard if you care to hear what I'm saying. I am a person of few words, typically only speaking when spoken to or asking a question. I am not one to contribute ideas, preferring to keep thoughts to myself. Mumbling is a real problem for me when I'm under pressure, and I sometimes speak too fast to be easily understood.

The clothing I wear is unobtrusive and functional, serving not as a fashion device but simply as a means to keep me decent during school, training, home, and everything in between. I usually wear earth tones, gravitating towards browns, khakis, grays, anything that isn't too bright. The actual construction of the garments, of course, varies on what I am doing. I'll usually wear a pair of jeans and a button-up blouse to school or at home, my hair falling freely down to just below my shoulder blades. When I head for the training center after school, I change into a pair of snug-fitting leggings with cargo shorts skinned on over them, well-broken-in tennis shoes wrapped around my feet. The top of my body is typically covered by a simple, dull-colored tank top, hair held back in a haphazard ponytail from which stray curls often escape.

Overall, I am easily forgettable. Average. Mediocre. Plain. Not good enough.

My purpose in life is to get better at life. I am constantly striving to improve myself, never stopping, never believing that I have achieved my goal. I guess you could say that I have a bit of an inferiority complex. Nothing I do is ever good enough, not for my father, not for my mother, and certainly not for me. From the moment I wake up to when my head hits the pillow at night, I am pushing myself as hard as I can, at school, at training, at work, everywhere. The scary thing is, I don't know what I'm pushing towards, or if I'll ever get there.

My own mediocrity is the only thing that can ever anger me. I don't get mad or aggressive unless I'm in a fight during training or if I fall short in some area of my life. I am my own worst critic, followed closely by my parents and my sister. I can't stand failure, and I loathe the fact that I am average in almost every way possible. I see myself as a disappointment, a disgrace to my family, even though I am constantly doing the best job I can do. And no matter what, I will not give up. Because quitting is the biggest failure there is.

I'm not good with people. I'm downright socially retarded, actually. It confuses me so greatly to interact with people who accept their own inadequacies that I choose to shut them out rather than attempt to deal with them. I find common ground with a few people who are like me, constantly striving to improve, and we give each other a certain amount of support, I suppose. Generally, however, I tend to keep social interactions down to my family, partnered activities in school, and sparring matches at the training center. I just don't have time for anything or anyone else.

As far as positive traits go, I suppose I've developed a few over the course of my life. I feel that my work ethic is unrivaled anywhere. Once I begin a task, I will not stop until it is done to the best of my ability. I am loyal to the few friends I have and to my family, willing to stand up for them in my own quiet way if it is necessary for me to do so. I am intelligent, but my intellect doesn't come naturally. I have had to study extremely hard for my entire life. Really, I've never been naturally gifted in anything, excelling only through my own work, which means I have a healthy respect for those who toil to better themselves. In fact, I am only friend with people for whom I have this deep kind of respect.

I guess you could say that I don't have much of a personality. I'm so emotionless and stoic most of the time that most people actually find me rather creepy, if you want me to be frank about it. I could walk around pretending to smile and be happy all the time, but I find that I don't have the ability to be something I'm not. And really, I'm not sure what I am. It's like there's a world of different Corinnes running around out there, Corinne the Student, Corinne the Daughter, Corinne the Sister, Corinne the Career, and I can't find a suitable way to combine them all into one person. All of these people have warred so much for supremacy in my life that I've been left numb on the inside. Completely dead, unfeeling, destroyed by the fact that nothing I do is ever good enough for anyone. The only thing really keeping me going is my undying desire to get better, whatever it takes.

In my family, falling short in any area of life is a mortal sin. With a father who's a wildly successful military officer, a mother who's one of the most popular socialites in the district, and a sister a few years my senior that won the Hunger Games, it's unfortunately easy to be mediocre. From the time I had my first seizure at age eight, I wasn't good enough for my family. When my father found out his daughter, who he wanted to be a son anyway, was severely epileptic, it was all downhill from there. He wanted me gone. My mother wanted me gone. My arrogant, obnoxious Victor sister wanted me gone. They all did. They didn't want the blemish of an imperfect family member. So one day, my parents offered me a deal. They'd get me anti-seizure meds, top-of-the-line stuff from the Capitol, in exchange for me entering Career training. It would be easy for them to get rid of me if I took the deal. I'd go into the Games, being able to at least fight admirably because of my training, but the seizures and withdrawal from my medicine would debilitate me so much that there would be no way I could win. I couldn't figure out this ulterior motive when I was so young, so I blindly took the deal.

My first day at the training center, I was beaten up so badly that I had to be carried home on a stretcher. The older Careers called it "initiation," but I had a feeling they just wanted to fight with the Victor's sister, see what I was made of, which was apparently not much. Even though it had been one little eight year old me against at least five burly teenagers, I still felt my father's disappointment following me around for weeks. Yes, I got good grades, yes, I was acceptably good-looking enough, but I wasn't perfect. And so I was punished for my imperfections. Every less-than-perfect grade, every lost fight, every lack of a dazzling smile when presented to the public earned me a day without my medicine, which my parents started to keep under lock and key. I began to associate failure with seizures, dreading messing something up because I knew it would mean a day full of pain and disability where I would still be expected to function. Wanting to keep the medication that I so desperately needed, I began to push myself harder, taking more challenging classes and excelling in them, taking down kids twice my size at the training center. None of this earned me a speck verbalized of praise. Only on a rare occasion would I get an approving nod of my father's head, a pat on the shoulder from my sister, a lingering caress of my cheek from my mother's hand. I lived for these moments, the only reassurance I would ever get. I wanted more.

Desperate for more approval, I exerted myself to the point of exhaustion in my teenage years, averaging about an hour of sleep a night between training, studying, keeping in shape for public appearances. I began to look ill, my skin becoming taut-stretched over my cheekbones, dropping weight even though I was eating a hearty Career diet. Whatever beauty I had possessed as a child faded away in my first year of high school, causing my mother to pitch a fit about having an ugly daughter that earned me a week without my medicine. I started taking sleeping pills after that, forcing myself to rest so I could bring my looks and health back up to par. I had to drop a couple of my more challenging classes, which also earned me quite a few seizures, but I had everything in fairly good balance by the time I turned fifteen. Now the only thing there was to do was improve. I continued pushing the envelope, becoming top of my class, fighting against boys three times my size in training once I hit sixteen. To this day, I have never heard a single "good job," not a solitary "I'm proud of you."

Maybe they'll finally be proud when I win the Games. I certainly plan to. Either that, or go down swinging.

I think they'd still be happier with the latter.

FC is Carmen Lavigne