Marik Shadow District 12

Marik Shadow despite the hardships of his district is a good looking young man. Although it used to be much longer, his brown hair is cut short. His blue eyes, while still bright and sparkly, show severe hints of the hardships he has faced living in District 12. His facial hair consisting of a beard, which he keeps neatly trimmed with help from his mother, gives him a rugged appearance. Because of his family's circumstances, he has been forced to become the man of the house at an early age and he seems older than his 18 years of age. Outwardly, Marik Shadow looks almost like every other poor kid from the seam in the district; he wears the same-type clothing, keeps his hair in the same style as the other young men; however, underneath his good looks, is an angry young man. The lack of good quality food, and food in general, and the hardships within his district, have made his physical build slim, but yet his 6' frame holds his 200 pounds well. His upper body and arms, while slim, are toned and strong from years of from doing whatever odd jobs he can find to help support his family, and caring for and playing with his little sister. His hands are weathered from helping around the house. Yet it is his smile, which you didn't see very often because of the anger that is inside of him, that is one of his most noticeable features.

The one thing that has happened to Blair is the burns on his face. Though the burns don't dominate his face, there is streaks of bad burns which he has not been able to find the medicine to heal it due to the cost it would take in order to heal his face. He got the burns on his face when he was just a child. The burns don't bother him too much except on days when the heat is beating down on his face. Marik isn't entirely sure if he wants to heal the burns, because it would mean accepting medicine shipped from the capitol and he would hate the fact that if his face was healed it was due to the capitol's help and not his own doing.

Marik has a deep hatred for the capitol. When Marik was just a child his father was killed by peacekeepers for trying to escape the fence from the district. Blair doesn't know to this day why his father tried to escape, but he believes the peacekeepers and by extension the capitol drove his father to do that and now Marik wants to avenge his father in whatever way possible. His hidden hatred for the capitol doesn't seem to be doing any favors towards Marik in any way as his family remains poor, he remains extremely underfed and overall what little food there is for his family usually isn't that fresh and more often then not it has been tough for Blair eat his food without wanting to throw his plate of food away.

Due to Marik's hatred for the capitol and wanting to make sure no one has to go through what he has been through, Marik has taken to stealing what little money his mother makes as a Geologist he goes around and buys food for the people who are near death due to starvation. This has led Blair to consistently stealing money from his mother and Blair hides the fact that he steals the money by eating less and less food in order to create the illusion that the same amount of food is being served each week. His friends in the district know of his deception but his mother seems oblivious or that is what she has lead Marik to believe as she knows full well what he is doing and it saddens her to know that Marik is doing that.

Marik sees the hunger games as an abomination. He hates the hunger games and feels it is the Capitol's way to inflate their ego of superiority. Seeing twenty three children die year after year is sickening and Blair definitely hopes he doesn't make it in. Killing another person even if is to survive is horrifying, but the worse part is that Marik probably wouldn't hesitate to end someone's life in order to live and that is something Marik is having trouble accepting. Marik truly is afraid of the hunger games as well for that exact fear of ending someone's life. He hopes to avoid the games altogether and live out his life instead of being reaped and going through an extreme marathon of killing while changing who he is. Marik has refused to take tesserae in order to increase his shot of avoiding the games as some children in the district has chosen to take the price of extra names in the bowl in order to get more food. If he doesn't get reaped then he wouldn't have think about killing someone in order to live and that is one thing Marik wouldn't be able to handle. Ending someone's life in order to live would be too much to handle and even if he wins he would have to accept the fact that he is a monster and that in order to live he killed innocent people.

Marik's family is pretty small with just himself his mother and one sister. His father died trying to escape the district fence many years ago when Marik was only a child. Marik doesn't know the exact motives of why his father would try and escape when it is obvious that attempting to escape would mean death. Either way the peacekeepers/capitol killed him and ever since then Marik holds a deep hatred for the capitol inside himself.

After his father died and when his mother told him, Marik had struck out at a lit lantern in his house in anger. Part of the resulting flames burned his face and for years he has tried to get the money to heal his face, but the cost is so enormous that Marik thinks he will ultimately go the rest of his life with burn marks on his face. Due to the nature on how he got his burns his hatred for the Capitol continues to grow.

The hunger games. Marik sees it has a ego booster for the capitol. They want to show the districts that they have no say whatsoever in the system and if they do then they will be killed. And the reaping system he especially despises because it is meant to favor the rich. The poor always have to take tesserae in order to get food and oil for their family, but at the cost of having extra slips of paper with their names on it entered in the reaping. Marik refuses to play by the capitol's pathetic attempt to help them and will never take tesserae even if it means dying to defy them. He hopes someway somehow that if he was reaped which he hopes never happens that he can find a way to win the hunger games without playing by the capitols rules. He would do his best to survive without killing someone and if he made it to the finals he would hope that mutts would be around to kill off the other tributes.