The Fifth Annual Writer Games: The Fall

District Nine Male: Blair Setaria [starches]

Name: Blair Setaria

Age: 16

District: Nine

Sex: Male

Physical Appearance: At certain moments and in certain lighting, Blair looks quite old for his age. He looks like his mother, with quiet, confident beauty swimming beneath the surface of hard edges and furrowed brows. Then, in other moments, he appears quite young, with a pink-lipped pout that gives him a soft look and a baby face. He's two inches shy of six feet and is convinced he's still growing, with long, thin arms to match a long, thin body, slightly toned from work. He's got poor posture and large feet that often betray him. He has very dark, curly hair that he doesn't style and dark brown eyes that smile when he smiles and make him seem unapproachable when he doesn't. There's a patch of sunburn on the back of his neck that never gets better, and his skin is dry and aged by the sun.

Personality: Blair often loses. Loses his train of thought, loses his bets against his siblings, loses his interest in whatever new project has recently commandeered all of his attention. He has most recently lost his interest in life in Nine, which has gotten him into trouble--the fault of his restlessness and insatiable curiosity. But he doesn't mind this, because Blair believes that we reap what we sow, and he figures that he, a 16-year-old kleptomaniac who acts before thinking and often escalates conflict and danger only for the sake of finding out what happens next, is entirely deserving of the consequences of his actions. He is the least reliable of all his siblings, though the most personable and energetic. He is hands-on, musical, private, and unpredictable. He is the flour dust cloud suspended in the air that is never absent and always ignitable, one spark away from an explosion though never truly spared a second glance.

Background: The Setarias are croppers who live in a hut next to the fields they farm, and they are very private people. There are things that they don't know about each other, things that they are afraid to discuss. Blair knows that, somehow, his parents and grandparents were among the rebels during the first rebellion--his mother's brother and his wife as well, though they have long since gone missing--but knows few details regarding the extent of this involvement. His eldest sister, Fey (22), used to tell him stories about the raids and mutations swarms that occurred in Nine that she had heard the adults whispering about and he didn't fully understand. They were supposed to give Blair nightmares, but young Fey always sounded quite proud when she relayed the tales to him. "They won't boom another mill, and they'd never touch the farm. They'd be destroying their own food source. We keep them alive, after all." Now, Fey is mature, Capitol-fearing, and seven months pregnant. Blair has three younger siblings, also: Jelena (14), Wren (11), and Cael (11). The younger two were born just before the very first Hunger Games and do not remember life without them, though Blair cannot claim to remember much of life Before, either.

Blair's father Giorgio (45) was born into harvesting and that is all he knows. He does just as he needs to to be a father to his family and is often miserably stoic. Hadley Cowan-Setaria (47) is cautious, well-spoken, fair, and realistic. Her brother Caelen (43) and his wife disappeared during the Dark Days and are not discussed. Blair's grandfather Lei Cowan (67) does not communicate well anymore, often confusing members of his family. He sits and stares out at the fields and the mills for hours at a time and occasionally has violent, thunderous outbursts, shouting incoherencies and cursing and drooling all over himself. His wife Prue Cowan (70) is the oldest woman in District 9, and she is the head of the Setaria household. She keeps facial expressions very calculated and Blair is certain that there are many truths she hides from the children.

Reaped or Volunteered: Reaped

Weapon of Choice: Blair has never wielded a tool with the intent to use it as a weapon, though he has grown particularly comfortable with scythes and machetes during harvest season.

Token: N/a

Other: Blair is paranoid that he is losing his vision like his mother.