Jessamine Black, District 2

Jessie is pretty in an unorthodox way. Being from one of the richer districts in Panem, she’s not thin. In fact, her face, even though she’s older, still has hints of baby fat. But she doesn’t look at all innocent. On the contrary, there’s a mischievous glint to the way she smiles at people and the way she holds herself. She’s good at hiding things behind plain brown eyes, not wanting to draw attention to herself. When she smiles, her laugh lines make her look genuinely happy, adding to her almost constant mask. The only emotion Jessie hasn’t quite been able to hide is when she’s thinking about something. She purses her lips and squints her eyes slightly, giving her a calculating air. Another slight is, under times of stress, Jessie tends to bite her bottom lip. The pain helps her concentrate and, now, it’s a habit. Her hair she keeps short but cut in a jagged and disorderly manner, letting uneven bangs fall over her eyes.

To make up for her relatively small stature, Jessamine walks around with her head held high. Given the fact that her father’s a Peacekeeper, Jessie can walk with a certain amount of pride in her step. Since Jessie trains for the Hunger Games, she’s muscular but in the wiry kind of way, with muscles that are only evident if someone is looking for them, her legs especially. They're long but almost like bird legs, delicate like.

There is no baby fat anywhere but in the chubbiness of her cheeks and she likes to show that fact off, usually wearing skintight jeans and t-shirts, usually revealing relatively pale skin underneath. Even though she loves the sun, it seems she goes straight from pale to sunburned and back. The only thing marring her skin are a few bruises and scars here and there, nothing that anyone would see with just a glance. Jessie's clothes are usually darker colors, like blacks and browns. They're a bit eccentric but nobody dares say anything because of the fearsome reputation her father has. She doesn't really like dresses or skirts, but wears them with little complaint when the occasion demands it. There's just something annoying about how breezy it gets down under in skirts. In the way of shoes, Jessamine doesn't really care. A pair of comfortable sneakers or boots works just fine but one thing she can't tolerate are high heels. She'd never been good at walking in them and, being as prideful as she was, falling on her face in them would be mortifying.

Jessamine's most striking and evident trait is her pride. She walks with her head held high and doesn't hesitate to look anyone in the eyes. It's not her reputation though, it's her fathers. Being a Peacekeeper, and a damn good one at that, he has quite the notoriety and so people treat her with deference so they don't have to deal with her father. She uses this to her advantage and manipulates it to work for her, whether it's by threatening someone into doing her bidding or even blackmailing them. She's also spoiled for one in her district and she knows it, looking at others that have less with a certain disdain. Her cockiness also sprouts sarcasm and a mouth. She's quick to lash out with her tongue, using wit as a kind of defense to keep people from getting close.

Behind her ego, Jessie hides a certain amount of resentment for her father. She, and the rest of her family, live in his shadow. She absolutely hates it when people immediately relate her to him on their first meeting. It's hard for her to get her own spotlight and live up to and beyond the standards he's set, not that they're particularly good ones. Jessie has no desire to be known as a supreme thug who does the bidding of the Capitol without question. She wants to make her mark on history by herself and so she spends a great deal of her time thinking about ways to achieve that.

This leads to a lot of scheming on her part. Jessamine is definitely one who sees the forest for the tress, or rather, the benefits that forest has to offer. Having the upper-hand suits her and she'll do almost anything to get it. Every time Jessie meets someone new, she immediately thinks of how being associated with them will benefit her. What they're like as a person has no effect on her what-so-ever. Though, she does try to avoid those people who look like they'd pry into her life. There's things she wouldn't prefer to discuss with anyone. For the most part, Jessie demonstrates good judgement and knows when to call it quits and go do something else.

There are times, however, when she loses all judgement and because as impetuous as any teenager. She's emotionally unstable and only her family knows it. Like her father, Jessie is quick to anger and is constantly flickering between extremes. She just does a good job of hiding it. Most often, what will happen is she'll just become closed off very suddenly and get away as quickly as possible. Then, when alone, she explodes and basically looses control. Being as smart as she is, she knows these outbursts do nothing for her and so she keeps them to herself, adopting an emotionless mask to cover up the turmoil underneath. With practice, she's managed to cover up all but her most intense mood swings. It's a weakness, her greatest weakness, and she fights her hardest to keep it under control.

Jessamine's father, Kyle Black, has the same temper as her. Even when Jessie was a little kid she remembers when he'd lose it and would start hitting her mother, Melissa till she was cowering on the floor. Then Jessie would run into her brother, Collin's, room and the two of them would cover each others ears till the noise downstairs stopped. Kyle was hard on his two kids, always pushing them to do their best, warning them that bad things would happen if they didn't. Collin grew up under his father's tough regime a subdued child and much meeker than his sister, a lot like his mother. He was happy to stay out of trouble and, now that he's 18, he plans on following in his father's giant footsteps as a Peacekeeper. Collin is the only one who really knows Jessamine and anything she doesn't tell him, he can tell anyways. He's the only one she absolutely trusts and they're very close.

Jessie's father forced both of his children into training for the Hunger Games at age 10, paying through his teeth for the best trainers in the district. He did it as a precautionary step, repeating to them all the time that he didn't want either of them to volunteer for the games. Now that Collin's not eligible for the Hunger Games, Kyle has switched his training to that for being a Peacekeeper and intends to do the same for Jessie. Jessie get's good grades and is always at the top of the class in everything. Ever since preschool, she's been very competitive and there hasn't been one competition she hasn't lost. She wins like this only because she knows Kyle would be displeased if she didn't.

All of this pushing on her father's part has made Jessie a bit rebellious. She desperately wants to prove her father wrong, to shove something in his face and tell him how horrible he is. She hates him and struggles to keep that from him, just like she finds it hard to hide the fact that she's scared of him as well. The only one who knows is Collin and he feels the same way. Jessamine hates him partly because of that, partly because he pushes her so hard and partly because of what he's done to her mother. On Jessamine's birthday, Kyle beat her mother till she could barely walk. Since then, she's been getting sicker and sicker, and everyone knows what's going to happen next.

Jessamine may have been more like her father but she'd always been closer to her mother. It was Melissa who gave Jessie her bear necklace and she wears it every day. Jessamine keeps it as a reminder of what she's planning to do, as far as her father's concerned. Recently, Jessie's taken to doing more troublesome things, like sneaking out and partying. Luckily, she hasn't gotten caught but she's come close on numerous occasions. It'll happen one of these days but hopefully, by then, something will have changed.

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