Denver Samuels, D11 [DONE!]

Main
"Speech"
Thoughts
"Others' Speech"

Denver is taller than average and skinny, standing at six feet, six inches and weighing a hundred and fifty pounds. What little muscle tone he has is in his arms, but the rest of his body is fairly anorexic-looking. Denver is a bit like a puppy that's in an awkward stage of growth. His legs are awkwardly long in comparison to his torso, and his waist is so tiny that he often will wear a belt fastened as tightly as possible and still have problems with his pants being baggy. His hands and feet are disproportionately large in contrast to his whippet-thin limbs and trunk, so that he is clumsy when handling small objects and has a little bit of an issue finding shoes that are big enough. Denver's skin is pale by nature, and burns easily in the summer. He doesn't tan, ever, he just burns and peels. The only places where his skin isn't milky-white are the huge, raw pink burn scars that cover his chest, shoulders, and upper back. He isn't horribly self-conscious about them, but usually covers them up in public and doesn't even take his shirt off to go swimming. He's more afraid of grossing people out than he is embarrassed at his own appearance.

In fact, on the contrary, Denver has quite a bit of pride in his looks. He's quite the stud, at least in his own opinion. He has a rather masculine face (although the jaw is a bit too square for his liking), and slightly-too-large ears that are usually covered up by his hair, which is brownish-blond in color and usually shaggy and hanging in his eyes since he's too lazy to go get it cut most of the time. His lips are a little thin, and his smile is really more of an amused smirk. He has well cared-for teeth that are very white, but usually doesn't openly smile too much because he doesn't like the way his canines are crooked and cause his front teeth to have a slight gap. His nose isn't large, but the bridge is very strong and straight, making it stick out in a noticeable triangle from his face. Denver's eyes are a slate blue color that is either sparkling with humor or clouded over in thought, round and expressive with blonde lashes that are longer than they appear rimming them. His eyebrows are somewhat darker than the rest of his hair, and are often quirked up in a cocky fashion.

He hates dressing up more than anything. Denver loves to be comfortable, so he will usually be seen wearing jeans and a worn tee shirt. He isn't too fond of jackets or outerwear, so he typically goes around without a coat even in the winter. He gravitates towards darker colors, grays and navy blues, because a pretty girl once told him that colors like that made his eyes pop. He only owns a few pairs of jeans because it is difficult to find ones with long enough legs, so most of his pants have a hole or two in them. He also has a much-loved pair of gray high-tops that are almost worn to pieces from age and overuse, held together with duct tape along the soles in places, but he wears them with everything despite their shabby appearance. Those shoes have taken him places he doesn't want to forget. He never really bothers with fixing his hair, finding that letting it air-dry in honey-colored tousles on its own makes it look attractive enough. In the event that Denver is forced to dress up, he'll comb his hair so that it lays straight, the beginnings of curl only showing at the ends, and he'll still stay comfortable. He adamantly refuses to wear anything more than khakis and a polo shirt, and even then he still wears his beat-up high tops.

Denver's very charismatic. He likes making friends and meeting new people, especially pretty girls. He's quite the flirt, but he does it more for fun than to actually be serious. He has a sunny, carefree disposition that typically makes him pleasant to be around, although when he's upset he tends to sulk. Most people find him funny, even though he's rather soft-spoken. Denver doesn't necessarily talk a lot, but when he does, it's usually hysterical. He can be sarcastic when he's irritated, but his style of humor is usually good-natured and something that everyone can enjoy. He does, however, have a great ability for playing pranks. Denver's tricks are never something that would hurt another person physically or emotionally, but can be irritating and inconvenient to someone who falls victim to them.

One trait of Denver's that people find a little grating on their nerves is his arrogance. Denver thinks very highly of himself, and won't hesitate to sing his own praises to other people. He loves to be the center of attention in whatever way he can. His self-pride is typically focused around his looks, and he somewhat views himself as God's gift to women (part of the reason he's such a flirt). Despite this fact, he's very respectful to girls because that's the way he was raised, and he can be downright chivalrous when he wants to be. Denver typically doesn't consider the consequences of his actions or their potential effects on others, so he usually rushes into things for his own enjoyment, sometimes unintentionally doing damage. However, he's not malicious in the least. He's just looking to have a good time.

He's actually far more intelligent than he appears. While Denver isn't all that book smart, typically averaging B's and C's in school (he'd do better if he didn't skip all the time), he has a fairly good measure of common sense. He's very perceptive when it comes to other people, and he knows instinctively when he's being lied to. Denver has a thing about lying, about trust really. He'll trust someone until they give him a reason not to trust them. If they give him such a reason, he wants nothing more to do with them. Denver can't stand liars or backstabbers, even though he holds a slight double-standard on that matter seeing as he's been known to lie to adults to get himself out of trouble before.

Denver has the mind of an artist. He has an intense passion for photography because it captures life in action. He takes pictures of everything, nature, still-lifes, but his favorite subjects are people. Denver is fascinated by social interaction and human emotion, so he does his best to capture these things in his photography, be it a laughing child or a couple holding hands on the street. He used to have a dark room in his house, but now he frequents the basement of the community home where he lives for the purpose of developing his work.

He loves people watching, simply because the way humans interact intrigues him. Denver is content to sit and watch people for hours, actually preferring to observe rather than be the center of attention when he is feeling particularly contemplative. He's been known to take his camera and spend any given day sitting in the square and watching the people pass by, snapping photos of anything he finds particularly interesting. Because of this habit, he's very observant and has a sharp memory. He's able to recall almost everything he's ever seen or read, which would help him in school if he ever bothered to study.

Denver and his twin sister, Lydia, were born to a single, unwed mother seventeen years ago. Their family was a tightly-knit one, loving and supportive of one another. They never had much money, living in a four-room shanty on the outskirts of District Eleven. Both siblings as well as their mother worked in the orchards near their home around harvest time, but winters were especially hard as there was no steady source of income. Still, their mother always made sure that Denver and Lydia had good clothes and plenty of food, even though it meant working five or six odd jobs to make ends meet.

Lydia had been shy where Denver was outgoing, serious where he was fun-loving, but the twins were nevertheless thick as thieves. They were one another's best friends, confiding in each other in ways they never did with others. They knew each other's secrets, hopes, fears, weaknesses. Even though they both had friends from school and work, the twins were still the most important thing in the world to each other, and this dynamic was something that helped them make it through the roughest times in their lives.

The roughest of those times was the winter of Denver and Lydia's sixteenth year. It had been cold, so much colder than usual, and the family had no money for coal or firewood and would surely be punished if they were to sneak any out of the bare-branched orchards. They were forced to burn piles of the twins' old homework for warmth. That was what caused the fire, or at least that's the official explanation. A stray piece of paper had blown from the fireplace, igniting the house's wooden floor immediately. The tiny dwelling went up in flames so quickly that the entire family was taken by surprise as they lay in their beds. Denver escaped, although he was burnt horribly along his chest, shoulders and back from a failed attempt to reenter the burning building to save his mother and sister. He was believed to be the only survivor, although the few remains found in the burnt fuselage of the house were charred beyond recognition.

Denver spent a long time in the homes of various apothecaries around the district, recovering from the burns and smoke poisoning that had almost claimed his life. He was fully healed by the end of that spring, even though his spirit was broken. He still blames himself for the deaths of his mother and sister, convinced that he should have found some way to save them. Denver was recently sent to live in a small community home run by one of the Eleventh District's few affluent women, a matronly lady that ran a large house full of about ten or eleven parentless kids.

He tries very hard to cover up the inner pain he still carries around, convincing himself that if he can suppress the emotional trauma that it might all just go away one day. Even though he smiles and jokes and laughs with the other kids in the home, Denver finds that he still has an ache somewhere deep inside him that never really goes away. He never lets it show, though. Feeling sorry for themselves never got anyone the attention they wanted.