Thatcher Josep Scythe | District 10

Soft hazel eyes - a trademark appearance for the Scythe boys - aren't lost on Thatch. His mahogany hair compliments his weathered skin nicely. Despite being forced to provide for himself, Thatch doesn't really resemble one who has starved most of the last eleven years of his life. Not as strong as his older brother, Deane, Thatch isn't a weakling either. He's definitely been shaped by the numerous fights he's had in school, first going down each time easily; now, though, a good deal of respect is paid him in and outside of the schoolyard.

Thatch is more interested in his appearance than his older brother. He took an interest in hairdressing a long time ago and whether it is sheering the sheep or being allowed to cut Deane's hair, Thatch has been practising this trade when he has the opportunities to (which usually happen during work hours or after school). As such, he is in tune with the dyers, veal-cutters and most importantly with the Peacekeepers in his stomping grounds of dusty District 10.

Positive; Up-beat; Sensitive: Thatch may be his brother's brother, but he doesn't have as many of the hard qualities that Deane possesses in spades. Whereas Deane looks at life for all its shortcomings, Thatcher can see only the positivity that exists around him. Much like the stray dogs that wander around the canyons of District 10, Thatch looks for the brightness in his district's residents, and a smile is rarely off his face whilst he can spare it. His up-beat manner reflects a deep need among the residents for a break from the bleakness of their daily lives. For this, Thatch is well liked (even loved) by his neighbours and friends (especially their mothers!). But there is a dark side too. Ever since being abandoned at so young an age, Thatch has been very sensitive to what other people think of him, and he can get distraught when those thoughts are unsavory or distasteful.

Cruelty; Disloyalty; Bullying: these are traits Thatch will not tolerate. He's not as resolved as Deane to rid the district of "bad people" since he can see the need for balance in human behaviour, but unnecessary and excessive acts of cruelty really dampen Thatcher's spirits in a bad way. Maybe it's because it reminds him of the cruelty he had to endure in being abandoned? No one knows. Also, when he sees others being disloyal to him or his friends, something inside him really ignites and sends him over the edge. Disloyalty and loss of trust are the most odious of traits Thatcher believes a person can possess. In the same vein, bullying and picking on the less fortunate sets Thatcher on edge as well. He had spoken freely about how this effects him regarding his parents leaving him for dead, particularly how he learned to be tough from that weakness (as it led to much bullying against him in school).

Overall, Thatcher is deeply shaped by his experiences of his early years, the abandonment when he was so young, being brought up by his hard-nosed brother who taught him to survive, not to love; being stubborn enough to become his own person despite his hard life, dealing with the bullies of his past and the bullies of the present. Thatcher is a good kid who likes to smile and be happy, to kid around as often as he can but not at the expense of anyone but himself. He is as creative as Deane is resourceful, as loving as Deane is loyal.

Birth:

Slasher Scythe and Sive Quarrynan were little more than peasant ranch hands when Thatch came into their lives. Deane, their oldest son, was almost ten when Thatch came, and for a long time, Deane was the perfect babysitter. But the hard truth faced them: they had nothing to give their sons. Slasher had learned how to craft things out of wood, and among these were miniature snake spears that would occupy Thatch while Slasher and Sive were in the fields or stables and Deane was at school. Terrible ideas are thought when the body is desperate and the mind is famished.

Abandonment:

On Thatcher's fifth birthday, Slasher invited his sons out into the fields beyond their hovel. Catching snakes at midnight was one of their favourite pasttimes, and Slasher was blithe to partake in it on this evening. After several hours of fashioning little knives of reeds and sharpened stones, both Thatcher and Deane began the hunt for snakes. There was a big one in the thicket some metres from their starting spot. Thatcher gleefully went in pursuit of the serpent, careless of how reserved his older brother was. They chased the snake throughout the reeds and lower canyon land up to the very extreme fence of the district before ensnaring it and thrusting a miniature spear through its body. After that, everything happened too fast for Thatcher to grasp, and only bits and pieces remain in his memory. First, Deane was calling out for their parents, then they were running back to the hovel using the midnight moon as their guide. Next, the hovel was empty and there was no trace of their family anywhere, and finally, Deane was carrying Thatch deep into the bush and reeds, fighting off stray dogs and coyotes until at last they reached an abandoned terra-hut. Most horrific of all these disjointed memories is seeing his strong, stoic brother weep.

Life in the Bush:

Deane insisted on Thatch going to school, so though it was a trek of nearly 5 kilometres through the unyielding terrain of the District 10 bush - which froze in the winter and baked in the summer - Thatcher made that trek into town twice a day during the school years. Within a year, Deane had constructed for them a home of both reeds and turf, and they'd even adopted a stray dog who Thatch named Chau-Chau. But that life, while tranquil, ended abruptly when a pair of Peacekeepers visited them following school one day in Thatch's tenth year. It could've gone pretty nasty what with Deane's anti-authority attitude and the super-power authority of the Peacekeepers. But Thatch managed to step in and offer a shave and haircut to one of the shaggy Peacekeepers, and the relationship between them and Thatch brightened (as it is still rather scintillating to this moment). Eventually the terra-hut was evacuated and Thatch and Deane moved to a cottage where Deane was able to get work as a stable-boy.

The Possibility of the Games:

Deane was already ineligible to be entered into the Games when they moved, being nineteen then, but the amount of tesserae he'd signed for had entered his name into the drafting far more often than most boys his age. He continued to worry about Thatch being a recipient of flak from that, but through the first two years of eligibility, Thatch survived the Reapings. At 13, however, Deane began to prep Thatch for being in the Games, whenever he could, of course. Thatch never saw much of a point in this exercise as he knew that each time he was consigned to give a shave and/or haircut to the Peacekeepers, it came in favour of his name being withdrawn once from the draw. While he could, of course, he also requested Deane's name to be withdrawn but he never said anything about this to anyone. The truth was: Deane and Thatch had something that most of District 10 lacked - complete and total dependence on each other.

face claim is: Charlie Rowe