Joanna McNiven: District One

A lovely young woman born into relative comfort, Joanna is happy, healthy, and a life-long Career. Her body, already naturally willowy by the grace of God (and her gene pool) is made even trimmer by her training. She spends most of her time indoors, and when she is outside, it's running early in the morning, so her skin is rather pale. Her smile is wide, though her front teeth are slightly large, and hair is a rich honey and slightly longer than shoulder length. She rarely does anything with it unless there's a special occasion. Her eyes, which are rather large, are brown, and rarely have more than light liner decorating them. There's a crescent shaped scar on her hip from when she and her now deceased twin were conjoined, and a large port wine birthmark on her forehead, which she generally keeps hidden with a generous amount of makeup. She's a bit self-conscious about it, ever since a girl in her school teased her mercilessly about it by implying she had it because her mother owned and ran a bar. Despite the cultural similarities between District One and the Capitol, Jo prefers a simpler look, and she takes a bit of flak for it.

Her preference to simplicity extends to clothing. Nice jeans and a fancy t-shirt are as far as she goes to be dressy, and torn jeans and an ironic t-shirt are her everyday dress. She takes to dresses the way small children take to baths, and her mother occasionally considers tranquilizing her for formal occasions. No matter what, she puts her foot down on shoes. Heels, sandals, etc. are out of the question; no matter what, she will wear comfortable running shoes.

Jo has grown up in a fairly toughening environment, being both a Career, a child with a single parent, and a child of a single parent who runs a bar. She has a fairly dim view of men as a result of her seeing them drunk half the time, and it takes her more time to warm up to a guy than it does for her to warm up to a girl. Tough and rather tomboyish, she dreams of being a Peacekeeper.

Her relations with people are strange. To people she's just met, she'll be charming and polite, if a bit sardonic. To old friends, she maintains a policy of tough love and blunt force trauma to the Hurt Feelings gland. She has no qualms with telling someone they're being stupid, as long as she knows them well enough to predict how they'll react. Her sense of humor is manic and uncontrollable. She'll often laugh far more than a joke really deserves because she expands on it in her head to the point of hilarity.

Joanna is a Career, but her reasons say a great deal about her personality. Unlike most of the other Careers, she doesn't train for the chance of glory or fame, and she'd never volunteer. She trains so that, on the off-chance that she gets chosen, she'll survive and get back to her mother. Family is very important to her, and anyone that she considers family is solidly fixed in her radar is someone who she'll stand beside till the end, regardless of their choices. Few have joined this prestigious list, and none of preformed so badly that they've been kicked off. If you make her mental list, you're there for life, no questions asked.

Joanna's father was a Peacekeeper, but was killed by rebels when she was eight. Her mother owned a bar called the Blue Sun, and while her mother was barely able to keep the bar afloat immediately after his death, they managed to maintain a living once the shock of it wore off. Both her parents were Careers, so they personally trained her since she was young. She's also received some training from Misha, an old colleague of her father's.

She actually used have a twin: a brother whose name was Sam. They were conjoined twins, connected at the hip, and while the doctors managed to separate them, Sam didn't survive the operation. Jo plans on naming her child, male or female, after her long-dead twin, who was her imaginary friend and training buddy in her early years.

She works as a waitress at her mother's bar, and occasionally as a barkeeper. She spends her off hours reading, listening to music, and training. Sometimes all three at once. Her dream is to inherit the bar from her mother, which is very likely to become reality.

Misha the Peacekeeper may be created soon. It really just depends on how focused I am.