some headcanon for ya, wassup

[gingerbeard]

2024: since blight is basically an OC anyway I'll just go ahead and make him one. same personality (quiet, nice, apologetic lumberjack/carpenter). I'll flesh his history out later but essentially replace the games with war and the capitol with the military industrial complex, and victory for survival and then a medical discharge due to PTSD.

• reaped at 18 (54th games)
  
• full name blight espenson
  
• his arena was a frozen forest. trees were available to make fires but many of them were deathtraps or released poisonous smoke when burning. most of the tributes died of these traps or exposure. he survived because he knew how to distinguish trees, make a shelter in the forest, and make sap popsicles. he took down anyone who came for him with brute strength
  
• his tour talent was carving. yeah, he whittles. take a number, ladies!
  
• he's reserved and nonviolent, earnest, polite, canadian as fudge, resourceful, humble, literal, trusting but only a touch naive, sincere, carefully generous, socially stilted and a better judge of character than a reader of people
  
• not school-smart. he's a hands-on learner and also the panem education system isn't stunning (he's just gonna be a lumberjack who cares)
  
• his addiction is working. he'd rather be chopping wood, thanks
  
• he has worked with a lot of tributes' parents but his hardworking and apologetic nature have made him one of the more sympathetic victors in the districts
  
• he has two twin sons and is widowed. no it wasn't the capitol. sometimes life is just shitty all on its own (also logging is like super dangerous did you know)
  
• his kids' names are ash and elan. they are eleven during the year of the 75th
  
• his wife (remy) had been his best friend and childhood sweetheart. after the games they decided not to have children or even marry, but accidents happen. sometimes twice at the same time
  
• he was raised by his grandmother so yeah that explains a lot. she took him in with the approval of his emotionally abusive father
  
• victors whose company he enjoys: wiress, annie, mags, cecelia, anyone else quiet and not substance-dependent, and johanna for whom he feels responsible but doesn't overburden with his presence
  
• pb: will tentatively be joel edgerton. may switch to kristofer hivju. WATCH THIS BEARD. no it's definitely joel edgerton
  
• 50 questions you've only convinced yourself you need the answers to

career au: cw: usual THG warnings, domestic violence, APKAB

blight was raised in two to compete in the games. he wanted to be a peacekeeper instead but was ineligible due to his imperfect vision. because to his physical strength he was second on the roster of volunteers each year. the boy before him fell ill days before blight's last reaping and he took his place. he had sponsor favour over the female tribute as in his interviews, when asked what he would do if he got to return home, he answered that he still wanted to be a peacekeeper and would use a portion of his winnings for corrective surgery. he made good on his promise and joined up after the games. the capitol made him both an envied and feared figure in society. unofficially he is the face of the peacekeepers, though he does as little PR as possible and refuses to be taken out of the field.

blight's parents were both peacekeepers who died in a riot incited in a five factory over dangerous working conditions. he was raised by his grandmother like in seven, who made him work for everything and was emotionally withholding. he's been imbued with a strong sense of ownership and possession. he's fiercely loyal to two, both as a result of capitol propaganda, and his caretaker ensuring a sense of empathy wouldn't get him killed like it did his mother and father. (they ended up defending the rebels when the pk's got the order to lock them in and burn them down. blight is aware of this.)

as a peacekeeper, blight's addiction is still working. it's just guns instead of axes and people instead of trees. he's kept on killing people his whole life and his reluctance to engage socially isn't so much due to a lack of understanding but a lack of relation. he has little to no empathy for other people. they're disposable and fragile and he doesn't find them very interesting, besides. when he does make friends he keeps them. as in, like pets. being an object of blight's attention might make you the safest person in panem, just not from him. he's still attracted to earnest emotionality but he's covetous where he was nurturing.

he's still honest but in an offensive manner. he'll speak bluntly to cut an interaction short and they know better than to put him in front of cameras too often. in every other way he cooperates with the capitol. given the amount of victors in two, he only mentors every couple of years and has never brought home a victor of his own. he hasn't had nightmares in years. in place of guilt, there's a rarely touched but very volatile anger he keeps locked up that he would direct at the capitol if he could (by the 75th he's still obedient but nonetheless tired of following their orders especially after they can no longer dress up "help enforce your own oppression" and he can no longer hide from how brainwashed he's been by it). since he can't, he directs it at the people closest to him when he can't control it. though his restraint is not inconsiderable, he can get violent.

his grandmother died a few years after his games. he has no wife or family; he does have a bastard. his dirty little secret. he doesn't provide for him or his mother but he looks after the boy from afar and makes sure he's pushed hard in order to deal with everything the world throws at him and hopefully come out on top. he protects him by making sure no one knows about their relation and would kill in order to do so, but blight has no emotional attachment to him. he merely feels materially responsible.

so yeah. essentially mirrorverse.