Yakob Talom - District 7

Yakob, having worked on forestries for nearly four years now, and with good genes on his side, is a highly intimidating person physically. He stands just shy of 5'11”, but what he lacks in height his long limbs make up for both in length and in strength. Hours of back breaking work splitting tree after tree has left him highly muscled, but a dedicated stretching regime, forced on him by his father soon after he left school to work, has ensured he isn't stiff like many of his workmates.

He's also fit, and isn't overly muscled to the point where he can't run for long periods of time. A year after he started to help out his family and work for a wage, Yakob decided that he would be better off running to and from work; a distance of 6 miles each way. At first he was exhausted, but now the distance is unnoticed by him, and given his ambitions, he considers himself lucky that he has such an all round physique because of his random inspiration .

For all his overwhelming physicality, he does have some flaws. His left arm was greatly weakened two years ago when he was underneath a tree when it was felled, though he has steadily worked to return it to its former strength. It will never be the same, however, and he notices it every time he has to lift anything heavy. He hides this from his co workers and his father as best he can, so as to keep his job, and he has changed the way he uses an axe to suit this disability. He tries to ignore it as best he can, but it does get painful after a long day at work. The weakness is in the bone, which hasn't grown back fully as he is malnourished, so it doesn't look noticeably different to other people, though he does see that it isn't as heavily muscled.

Also, various scars mark nearly every inch of his body, some larger than others, and one on his stomach is large enough that it causes him some lack of movement. He was lucky not to be killed when he was knocked backwards by a log falling off a truck, and the scar tissue that remains reminds him to be happy with his lot.

He is a good looking person, with deep blue eyes, clear tanned skin – except for the scars – and short curly blonde hair. When he cares to flash it around, his smile it actually quite nice, though more often than not there is a slightly disturbing animalistic touch to it. He appears ferocious when handling axes and saws; either reverent to the point of obsession, or on fire with adrenalin. Neither expression is overly comforting to behold.

Yakob has got to be one of the only people in District 7 his age who actually wants to be chosen to enter the Hunger Games. The oldest child of 11, he has known intense hunger so that his younger siblings would not starve, but being selfish, he wants to solve this problem by getting out, not by working hard to earn more money so he too can eat. Even with his and his parents best efforts to have sufficient food on the table, there are only 5 remaining Talom children.

Yakob is fascinated by death, and frequently wonders what it would actually be like to kill someone. He isn't a murderous person, far from it, but because the only way he can see to extract himself from his life is to win the Hunger Games, he realizes that death will play a role in his life, in ways it hasn't already. Working at such a dangerous job when he was still only very young has taught him to be brave, and also how to make himself do rather extreme things for safety. He would choose the mortal danger and high possibility of dying, which he certainly doesn't relish, over a normal life in District 7 because of the potential for his life to be made better by possibly winning the Games.

He is quiet, and not given to talking much, but even if his lips are silent his mind never is, and he is always planning. Yakob works things out, not overly quickly, but he is good at innovating and improving systems already in place, and while he isn't book smart, he knows a lot about life. He can seem slow, and indeed he occasionally chooses not to display his intellect, but he is clever. Suspicious of everything that moves and most of what doesn't, he has never allowed himself to trust anyone.

He isn't an overly loyal person, but he sees this as being because a relationship should benefit both those investing energy, and he views his family as giving him nothing. He has few friends, being somewhat dark in nature, and appearing shy, and he doesn't welcome people approaching him.

Despite his rather morbid personality, Yakob has several good qualities. He is like a large river; it runs deep, and though he can seem quite calm and collected most of the time, every now and then he loses it and gets so angry he almost can't control himself. As much as he hates to admit it he always cheers for the underdog, and as he feels all emotion either intensely or not at all, he can become obsessive about love, or rather he could; he has yet to meet anyone who stirred any passion in him.

Yakob was born first of 11 children to his two parents, both poor woodcutters. His father worked long hours at a saw mill, felling trees and splitting logs, and his mother, before she left to raise her many children, was a kindling cutter. They had both moved up in society, and were relatively happy with what they had, but this sense of calm was not instilled in Yakob. He didn't have their calm personalities, at least not really, though he does appear content a lot of the time. This difference has made him less appreciated by them in terms of as a child, though they of course appreciate his monetary assistance. His siblings are in general kinder and easier to get along with, and they almost fear him, for what little they know of his ferocious ambitions.

From a young age he was restless and independent, wanting to explore without someone watching over her. He never seemed to fear the veritable weapons his father worked with every day the same way his brothers and sisters would run screaming from even the smallest axe. They all got over this fear, they couldn't help it, they were District 7 kids after all, but they didn't obsess over the near weapon like tools of the trade like Yakob.

Life was always hard for him, with home not being the overly welcoming place he needed it to be, though he would never admit that. He didn't do well in school, his mind on other, more important – in his opinion – things, so when he finally turned 14, and was judged old enough to find work, he was happy to finally be unleashed on the forests he had once played at being a woodcutter in.

Despite his youth he fitted in better with the stoic comradeship of his crew, as they accepted his silence and his odd exercise habits without question, whereas his old classmates had questioned him over them. In some ways this was good, as Yakob no longer felt like such an outcast and became a happier person for it, but on the other hand, perhaps it would have been good for him not to be so supported in his darker tendencies. The men he worked with didn't mean to allow his mind to formulate the dangerous plans it did, but they accepted his vague answers of what they wanted for the future without wondering if he meant something different.

He is approaching the end of his time for being up for reaping, and unlike any sane person he is worried that he might not be chosen. He knows that it is better tactically for him not to have been chosen as soon as he was able, and that he stands a much better chance of winning now, but still, he would probably lose his mind if he wasn't chosen this year, his second to last.

Ryan Phillippe

I'm hoping to use him as a fc, but I'm just going to pop it here to check whether or not it would be approved. I can photoshop out the tattoo.