Linnet Odell *d6

Unfortunately, Linnet's physical features are usually what attract people to her. A lot of her genes were edited by her father, which she sees as a curse since he didn't change much else about her. She has icy blue eyes and long, platinum blonde hair that sets her apart from a normal circle of people. Her almost white hair is actually her natural color, and therefore her eyebrows are the same snowy tint as well. Her nose is elongated, but round almost to the point of bluntness at the end. Her chin is also rather prominent, almost masculine of one stares at it long enough, causing her quite a bit of discontent since she's obviously not a normal beauty. Her skin is pale and ghostly, only a few shades darker than her hair, and burns easily when exposed to the sun. Her teeth are also noticeably larger than the size of her lips, causing her to keep a neutral face at all times.

The girl would rate her body as passable, in other words she can look in the mirror on an early morning and tolerate what she sees instead of sending glass shards everywhere. Her arms and legs aren't lanky at all, instead slightly muscular from all of the running she does. She tries to stay away from shorts and skirts that go higher than her knees, because no one would want to see those thighs. On the other hand, her hips are quite wide in comparison to other girls, which she's very put-off by. She's of moderate stature at 5'5" while weighing in at one-hundred and twenty-five pounds.

Linnet often roams around in different colored tank-tops and pants, she doesn't own any skirts or tights. More than anything else she’s the type that would just roam around nude, white body making a bigger statement than any clothes. Her hair is usually allowed to blow free as the wind pleases, though she will tie it back on more important occasions. She has several clean lab coats kept in the dresser by her bed and will wear one when she's experimenting. Linnet hates formal wear, the confining nature of it, and only has one dress that she uses when it's time for the reapings. It's a simple cloth maroon dress that stops just at her knees with a strange matching collar on the front. There are a few plastic buttons painted brass on that shirt, but she doesn't really mind and will sometimes scrape the paint off when she's bored.

What you see is what you get, most of the time. Linnet is bitter; she doesn't even bother to fake a smile. Her attitude is that of an adolescent boy's, generally lazy and tired. She often lounges about, stretching and slinking like a cat in the sun. She doesn't ask much of other people, they do what they want and she won't bother getting on anyone's case as long as no one's on hers. It's a mutual relationship. Tough shit if someone doesn't want to hear her opinion, she'll say how she feels and cut the pain of a lecture in half by summarizing in a few sentences. Waking up is a difficult enough problem alone, but she's also her father's daughter and enjoys working until her mind is satisfied.

Despite what others think, her skills in tracking and survival are something to be admired. Linnet gained a majority of the information from her father, since she loves him so. She displays a certain amount of pride while finishing a spear or following prints. Uncovering the unknown, exposing what's there. She loves that, and will act nonchalant to analyze every word someone says and throw it back at them just because she can. If that person doesn't stand up to her? She'll continue to say unkind things in her own passive-aggressive manner, because she loves to push limits (and it always has to be gracefully). Once she knows the right buttons to press to get someone to react, don't think she'll stop while she's ahead. She's not that surprised a lot of the researchers in her district might want to do some less credible testing on her, corruption is an every-day thing.

Even with Linnet's magnificent bitch status, most of the time she doesn't intend to be overly mean. Selfish and a bit touched in the head, absolutely. If she wanted to be she could be downright cruel. It's just not her style, and honestly she doesn't worry too much about someone trying to use her as a puppet either. She does what she feels is right in that split second, and will often dance across the line several times just to prove her point. Switching sides is pretty common as well, sometimes she picks one strategy when she clearly knows there's a more intelligent option just to mock them. It's no fun to be labeled as predictable, so she would change her mind just to piss someone off. Yet she does care about children and has shown weakness toward them before.

Although Linnet’s sloth could be attributed to her snobbish manners, it also ties into how she feels about herself as a person- she's not. She's a freak. The genetically altered, mutant guinea pig. There's nothing she can be proud of, even if she accomplished something amazing and found the cure for a terminal illness it would all be contributed to her genes. She's a monster and there's nothing beautiful about her, it's all fake anyway.

Linnet wasn't lying when she said she knew everything about her father. Galil Parker Odell age seventy-six, blonde hair and blue eyes, one hundred and seventy six pounds. His blood type was O negative; the beverage of his choice was white tea, which came from the Camellia sinensis. He was born for greatness, everyone knew that. Her grandparents Amir Odell (maiden name Brenner) and Hafina Odell were the head scientists in the Department of Genetics hosted at District Six. They were both indoctrinated by the Capitol a few years later and were the main builders in something called the Society of Genetic Engineering and Monitoring (for the Capitol, in big subtitles). A lot of the people in those parts shortened it to SGEM-Cap. There weren't nearly as many scientists around as there used to be, but some pieces of shit still wandered around after the incident.

She came into existence seventeen years ago on February 20th. She never remembered much about her birth aside from the freezing air prickling her tender skin. Bright lights hit her face and people in funny masks gazed down at her. That was pretty normal for children born in genetic research facilities. Since she was little the nurses always reminded her she was special, and not in the way parents always coo over their kids with the 'oh you're unique and special just like everyone else' stuff. Linnet knew when two peacekeepers had to go through the rooms and labs every day, something was different. The scientists were being searched because they could be hiding information, but the kids like her were locked in one room all together. She was pretty sure it had an air-tight seal, because she remembered one day the boy they called Bugger because his eyes bulged out of his sockets suffocated once from wandering too far away from the ceiling vents.

All of them were a little weird, though the one who Linnet thought was the worst off was Skinner. There was never a moment she wasn't in pain because she was born with a rare genetic skin condition. Apparently a lot of the babies they had with that sort of disorder didn't live past a year, never mind to childhood. She had a second layer of skin that was constantly shifting and tearing, causing other parts of skin to break loose. It surrounded everything, even her eyes. The skin was hard too, unless it ripped. When the peacekeepers tried to touch her scales they caused her to hemorrhage, and then the cracks spread through the rest of her body the way the ground fractured during an earthquake. They spent forty-eight hours trying to save her before realizing it was a lost cause.

Linnet got used to that sort of thing, jaded from it. She could tell they had their genetics tampered with, but when she looked at herself all she saw was a pale kid with blue eyes. She wasn't in pain, or crying, or screaming. The scientists that watched her for years through a glass window noticed that as well. Maybe she wasn't better than the normal child, but she wasn't dying. If they gave her a foam stick, Linnet could hit other children. It only took her a few weeks to learn how to read and write. The hesitant thought that perhaps this experiment wasn't a failure crossed their minds. Maybe it was something worth showing the Capitol, but they didn't want the other districts to notice. Especially the first, second, and fourth.

One day while Linnet was reading with the few children still alive with crippling illness, the door that had been sealed shut unlocked. They had seen enough development of their patients to know who would be useful to them. At the head of their team of scientists was a middle-aged man with several wrinkles in his brow. He introduced himself as Galil Odell, and said that each of them were his 'children'. He was their 'father', the one who created them. Seeing as each of them had overcome their genetic dysfunctions, the group of scientists next wanted to see if they could train a couple of them for the upcoming games. It was immoral, but that wasn't really a problem since none of the kids had been made the humane way from the start. The more vicious route would be to kill them all off and then start over from scratch now that they knew what they were doing. Besides, it would get more funding for their building if one of them survived. At eight Linnet started training to participate in the games and possibly become a career. The scientists fed the children their own edited versions of the truth, so the beginning of the training plan went off without any problems.

Linnet didn't really get along with the other kids. In fact, she often spent time with the man named Galil. Even though the man was kind, he obviously looked down on his co-workers. He often taught her formulas and brought microscope slides in to show her, and wouldn’t give the attendants the time of day. She almost thought it was because he really thought that he was their father, but she also knew they were his subjects. Yet a mystery lingered in her mind. What was she made for? What sort of genes did he use to make her? Linnet never found out until she turned sixteen.

All most all of the other children died, leaving a couple behind that never concerned their guardian. Galil’s steel eyes were on her, always watching if she needed help. He was more than content to spoil her, ignoring everyone else. One day the scientist offered to take her out of the facility for a while, he walked her down a hallway. They talked about frivolous things, of this and that and Linnet never really thought anything was wrong until she felt his entire weight slam into her body, pushing her into a dark room. The confining nature of the walls, limbs pushed against them as she struggled to find a damn switch and – what was he doing? The blonde felt a withered, icy hand slide up one thigh. His lips awkwardly searched for hers as he murmured names: Tabitha, Felisa, Aeronwy, Celia. His sandpaper thumb brushed her lips and eyelids lightly, like he was beholding a great piece of art. Linnet kicked him, teeth tasting his blood as they sank into his shoulder but the fucking idiot just wouldn’t let go! It was only after the ordeal when she stumbled into the starch clean halls with blood streaming down her thighs that she knew. Linnet Odell was made of four different women that older man had copulated in the past and he wanted to combine them all into one person so he could do them all at once.

Skinner and Bugger ran through her thoughts and perhaps they knew they were going to die but she’d never felt so alone before, empty and fake. There was only a plastic doll with no insides, no past or future. A few weeks afterward Galil and the rest of the scientists were arrested for keeping information from the Capitol (though she didn't know what specifically got them in trouble, there was a long list), but the test subjects were basically left to do their own thing and starve. Linnet takes care of them and continues her father's research, because she has no reason to do anything else.