beyondtherift Progress: Accepted

[moveswithoutsound]

About You - The Player
Name: Jig or Jiggy
Age: 23
Contact: Utharsrevenge@gmail.com, PM this journal or Plurk: MovesWithoutSound
Past Role Playing Experience:
New Players (completely optional), if you'd like tell us how you found BTR: From firegirl on dear_mun

The Character
Name: Gale Hawthorne
Age/Birthdate: 18
Species: Human
*Type: Wanderer
Canon: The Hunger Games

*Pre-existing powers:

Competent tracker, hunter, tactician and able to move silently, proficient with a bow and knife. The latter more as a secondary means of killing an animal or prepping it to be eaten. Nothing supernatural, just a normal human who had to learn to survive from a young age.
*Rift Change, if applicable:

Gale's eyesight will be increased, only to a few decibels, nothing that would even come close to superhuman or supernatural. He'll find himself able to see things from further away than he should be able to over his already keen hunting sense or even see smaller things such as insects more clearly.

Livejournal: moveswithoutsound
Played By: Liam Hensworth
Icon: Gale Hawthorne

Appearance:

Gale is over six foot tall, in good shape if a bit undernourished. He is at least in good physical condition due to the hunting he has to do to keep his family eating what meager amount that they do. He has dark black hair, olive skin and gray eyes. It is remarked many times in the novels by both written thoughts and comments from other characters that Gale is handsome, with a camera ready face.

Personality:

Gale is a passionate young man, a passion that tends to show in a rather quick temper. Examples of this would be his regular ranting in the woods with Katniss about the Capitol and his anger at Madge when she makes what she thought was a harmless comment but for Gale only made him think of how unfair their place was in the world compared to hers. He is quiet, yet not afraid to speak his piece and will do so in a very blunt, to the point manner.

Gale cares for his family and Katniss, as well as her mother and sister. Truthfully these seem to be the only people he cares about and there is nothing he would not do to keep them safe. Taking the place as the man of the house when his father was killed in the same mining accident that took Katniss' father, Gale began helping his mother take care of his younger siblings by signing up for Tessare and hunting illegally in the woods. Showing that even at a young age the part of Gale that is and always will be a fighter and survivor was present.

Truth be told, it is hard to sum Gale up into a few words, fighter, provider, protector, survivor and born rebel all apply to this young man. Despite his young age, he has lived a hard life and is mature beyond his years, complicated with facets most will never begin to understand because he will not let them close enough to do so. He feels deeper than his outward demeanor would ever possibly show as anyone who did not know him would not know that the anger was the emotions he could not stop from rising to the surface.

Vocal and opinionated, he does not easily open up personally. His trust is hard earned but when you earn his trust and loyalty they are things you can count on. Except, all I can say is good luck earning them. His circle is small and Gale is fine with it that way, interference to his way of thinking has only made things that much worse.

He believes with all his heart that the Capitol should pay for what they have done, that if they take a stand they can make a statement and stop the tyranny they have all been forced to live under.

But, he cannot do that while he has his family, Katniss and her family in the Seam to take care of. He even entertains the idea of running away but again, not with people depending on him. Gale has a desire for more, for freedom but his duty comes first. To the point the young man who is only ever happy in the woods, hunting, free willingly confines himself to twelve hours a day in the mines because it will support his family. He will not give up, no matter how many times he is knocked down Gale will get back to his feet and keep fighting, even if it means taking another person's life to do so. He has one thing that drives him, that fuels the passion and fighting spirit in him. To keep the people he loves safe, to make the world better because they all deserve that.

If you are an obstacle or a threat to those people, Gale is a calculating hunter who will do whatever he has to protect them and to win the fight he knows must be waged to make anything right in the world again.

Gale is a born tactician, showing how calculated he is, while he can be passionate and do things without thinking. Majority of the time, Gale will have a plan within a few moments of finding himself in a predicament and most times, those plans are solid. He has a deep pride, that when wounded can cause him to lash out in anger and then shut down into a stone cold silence peppered with no more than a few caustic comments.

Gale is his own worst enemy sometimes, his quick tongue, blunt manner and that driving passion that is fueled to anger so often can and has got him in trouble but he will not curb them. While they can be a great asset when in the right scenario, they are a hindrance many times.

Gale is an accomplished tracker and trapper, he is proficient with a bow as well as able to handle a knife, though more often than not he has used that for skinning and cleaning or delivering a final blow on an animal he has wounded. He is a natural tactician, able to revise traps to work more effectively based on the prey he is hunting. Gale is a master of silent movement, his tread so light that even in the woods with leaves beneath his feet he cannot be heard by average ears. He is a survivor and will be able to take his situation to mind and come up with one way or another to get through it, to stay alive and survive, even if he has to sacrifice to do so.


History:
Event One: Gale's father is killed in a mining accident when he is 13. This event left Gale as the eldest the one responsible to help his mother and protect his younger siblings. Thus, he began hunting and signing up for tessarae to make certain his family survived. This event shoved Gale, who had already not had the easiest of lives directly into adulthood as he became no longer a child but a man with three kids and a mother to feed. It brought out a maturity and survival instinct in him and began him on the path to the strong young man he becomes.

Event Two: Gale meets Katniss in the woods when he is 14. At first they are wary of each other, but over time they develop a trust and friendship that comes to mean a good deal to Gale. This event changed him in that it helped Gale to open his world a little, brought Katniss and her family in and gave him something more in his life than just the daily struggle to survive. It gave him companionship and someone he could truly be himself with.

Event Three: Katniss volunteers as tribute in the Hunger Games: While perhaps not as significant as the others, this event alters Gale in that the trust he has in Katniss is tested during the games. He never did reveal his feelings for her, but some part of him felt she should know or believed she felt the same and when he was made to watch her profess love for Peeta a part of him broke and became bitter, hurt and angry. But not so much that he would give up on her entirely. It makes Gale a little more closed off, inwardly drawn and less open as he tries to cover his broken heart. It also strengthens his resolve to do something when the offer to take on the Capitol comes along, because if not for their Games these things would not have happened.

Event Four: Katniss pulls out the berries and suggests that if they both can't go home alive as promised she and Peeta will kill themselves: This event is significant in that Gale feels betrayed most at this moment because if she kills herself to save Peeta then Gale is left behind in the Seam with their families to care for. The hurt he feels at seeing someone he loves willing to die for another clouds Gale's better judgment and leaves a hurt, dark spot deep within him that does instigate itself to be known through his temper from time to time.

I choose these four events because to me each of them show how piece by piece his world changed and Gale could do nothing but try to survive it, leaving him to follow the path of War, a rebellion and strengthening his resolve to fight, to save what he has.

Writing Sample:


He had watched it end, he had no choice, The Games were mandatory viewing. And while part of him was thriving to see Katniss alive another part of him shattered into pieces that Gale was too closed off to let fall to the floor in front of his family, beyond a tightened jaw, a waver in his steel gaze. He watched as Katniss threatened her own life in order to save Peeta's. It did not fit with the girl he knew. Not if she did it for love as had been claimed all along, the Katniss he knew would not abandon Prim for love. However, his judgment was clouded by his own feelings and as he stood there, fingers that suddenly clenched nearly trembled from the effort not to lash out.

She had won, there was joy in that, her small rebellion had won and Katniss and Peeta would both return to District 12. But, as he felt a small hand touch his clenched one, Gale had to wonder, would she have done it? Killed herself in order to save the baker's son? Left him here, alone to take care of the kids and their mothers? Had she even thought of any of them in that moment? The anger nearly won, he nearly threw a punch at the nearest thing. That is till the small hand registered and Gale looked down to see his youngest sibling, his only sister Posy who beamed up at him with a child’s innocence "She's coming home Gale!" His heart ripped from his chest as he patted his sister on top of her head, barely able to choke the words out around the pain and anger "Yeah, I told you she could do it."


It was then his mother spoke , trying to protect her eldest from the shame she knew he would feel if he lost control right here, right now "Gale, didn't you need to check a trap you were worried about, should probably go do that." He looked up at his mother in surprise and then nodded his head "Right, I'll be back."

He headed out the door, still dressed from the day he was already prepared for the woods and in no time he had slipped through the fence and made his way through the meadow and headed for the woods, to the spot where he and Katniss had met the day of the reaping.

When he reached the spot, alone in the woods, he dropped to a seated position and hung his head, hands clenched as inside a battle waged. Was his instinct right, was something off about the sudden romance between those two or was his broken heart right?

Gale did not know and so instead he rose to his feet and wandered the snare line he had set, even if he knew it was futile, he had only just cleared it a few hours ago.

Each step brought his pain closer to the surface till his blood nearly boiled with it. Had he been thinking clearly he would have known her move was calculated to survive. But, his head was anything but clear and in a sudden violent outburst Gale slammed his fist into the nearest tree. His knuckles cracked and blood welled to the surface.

Seconds later he heard a sound that made him whip his head around, the low growl of a wild dog. He pivoted on his left heel and found himself face to face with the animal.

Clearly that animal was intent on taking a piece out of him as it smelled the blood coming from his injured knuckles. He did not have time to scale the tree and so Gale did the next best thing. He grabbed a large stick on the ground, threw it so that it hit the wild dog in the side of the head and he turned and ran as fast as he could.

He had to get just far enough ahead of the stunned animal to find a tree, climb it and hide out so that he would not be stuck cornered all night and leave his family alone and worried.

As he takes a zig zag dash to the left Gale slips through a rift. He feels as if they air has been sucked from his lungs as he is plunged into darkness. His hands fly to this throat so that when the rift spits him back out in Chicago he is dumped onto the street, on his knees. Eyes wide as he finally drew in that much needed rush of air