v stradhoffer - d1 - FIN

vienna "v" cassidy stradhoffer

seventeen

female

district one

ODAIR

A P P E A R A N C E

Everyone has flaws. There are two sub groups of this massive umbrella; the people who admit it and dirty, dirty liars.

I know my family would say they're perfect ( to everyone else, they might as well be ), but I, on the other hand, am everything but flawless.

My eyes aren't anything. They're dank and dull, a sort of muddy mesh of green, blue, and brown. They don't have the same precise differences like my father's. It's just like my genes were thrown into a blender, leaving me with an unclassifiable hybrid. ( my mother assures me they're beautiful. but that's a mother's job, isn't it? ) My nose is too long, balling up at the end, and it looks almost beak shaped if you look at it write. My mouth plunges into an ever permanent semi frown, my bottom lip just a tad too small for its partner. Needless to say, I don't have many any appealing features.

A crown of curling, unruly hair spills from my scalp, always cut an inch or two longer than my freakishly large ears. It's always a pretty an insane color that drapes from the corkscrew strands, due to my bad habit of changing it every month or so. I like it, but people say the vibrant bob makes me look childish. Fuck them. The bouncy locks can be horrifying when I wake up or they can be beautiful. If they're terrible, I just cover them with a hat.

I wear a hat almost every day. Do you think anyone notices?

I was blessed cursed with my Father's height. I stand at a strong and overbearing 5'11", which I utterly hope is my final height. It doesn't help that I have a willowy, long frame that seems to accentuate and emphasize how tall I am. I am almost hilariously thin, my fingers too spidery to be any good for anything but my jewelry making. The rest of my extremities are a useless jumble of limbs, always getting tangled up amongst themselves. Although I have the body of someone who should carry elegance and grace, I'm quite the opposite, too awkward and clumsy for my own good. Being a career was never my thing, but even if I wanted to, the rest of my body wouldn't allow it. I have basically no potential for muscles or fat. I am a stick.

I am made of flaws.

P E R S O N A L I T Y

I was never too good with people.

They're such confusing creatures, humans. No matter how long I people watch, the only trend I can pick out is that we eat, sleep, breathe, and, on occasion, let out some gas. Practically my fifth grade biology class without all of the fancy names no one will ever use. But, getting back on track, I'm never quite sure when they're being literal or sarcastic, or if I should enter my input or just listen. They are too many variables of rights and wrongs, do's and don't's, I've basically given up on any and all attempts on communication. Not that I ever wanted to, though. I've found that people seem to suck more energy out of my than I can handle, and so I generally stay away. A bad habit, is what my mother says. She doesn't understand running away from people is just easier.

And I'm all about easy.

I'm a lazy girl. While most people would go stir crazy with the kind of job I have, I'm perfectly content sitting around all day working on rings and necklaces. Efficiency and laziness get easily mixed up, I've come to find. Even I'm not one hundred percent sure which one I'm representing, but I've called it laziness for a long time, and as always, I am loyal to my labels. Besides, efficiency doesn't include waking up half past ten or not wanting to do anything bas on the fact that it's raining.

If you do a job similar to mine, you'll find it's easy to get lost in you own mind.

Sanding and polishing are one of the more boring jobs of jewelry making, except for me. For me, I sit there and just think as my hands make absent, idle movements across whatever I'm working with. I think of beautiful places full of happiness and life. I dream of something other than this world, where everything is so strict and set in stone. I've never minded the games too much, but I feel as if they are an unnecessary evil. I'd rather stay cooped up at my bench than go around with a knife. I feel as if they are better things to do with my life that don't involve stabbing.

Sue me.

H I S T O R Y

I was born in heat and taken to a world of the cold.

It was a summer day, late in the morning. I came out crying, screaming, as all babies do. I'm told I was the worst, barely ever letting my parents sleep and being too pick of an eater. Apparently, my sisters were nice to me back then, all excited about their newest sibling. Funny how all that has changed now. I barely ever annoy my parents, I'll eat anything, and my two older sisters, Renée and Tori, have grown from hovering to hating. And, contrary to the time of my birth, I was always more of a night person.

I never got the rush from training like my sisters did. They looked alive when they took a blade into their hands, but I looked soon to be dead if no one helped me. So, after a torturous year at the training academy, my parents decided to keep me working at our jewelry shop, where I did much better. They figured that someone need to carry on Stradhoffer's anyway, so while the two oldest were training for glory, I would beep stones or solder metals. I felt a lot more comfortable working at a desk with a torch than I did in a mat with only my two fists to save me.

My youngest brother was born late, around when I was twelve. Renée was sixteen, Tori was fourteen. Xander was the reason I got the nickname V, because that's the only part of my name he could say when he was little. He is a very lucky child, I think. My sisters have been too busy and maybe too mature to pick on him. He's only five years old, possessing a naïve mind that could easily sculpted by way of words. I secretly hope as I watched him crawl around that he would follow in my footsteps, but I'm not exactly sure. Ne has my body type, and not my sisters' athletic one. Good sign. I hang out with him the most anyway.

But once he grows up, he'll realize it was a mistake to admire someone made of flaws.

So, that's my life, as of now. Nothing much, just a girl with cotton candy hair and a wish to be more. A girl who lives in a nice, decent sized house physically, but in a giant world mentally. Boring little V living in a boring little world. And, although people might think that's the worst kind of life to live, I think nothingness is beautiful. I think being bored means there's something you can do, something you can dream. I love and hate being bored in the same I love and hate having flaws.