PART I: CHARACTER BASICS
Name: Calista Hearting Nickname: Callie, Cal, Lissa (Cato's nickname) Age: Twenty-Three Gender and Pronouns: Cisfemale & She/Her Home: District Two Personality Traits: Reserved, Responsible, Aimless, Soft, Complicated Occupation: Currently Unemployed Song: This is me trying by Taylor Swift
PART II: CHARACTER BIOGRAPHY
Mentions of child abuse, blood
In District Two, the Hunger Games are a source of pride. Families of fallen tributes are revered, and to have a Victor in your family? That was even more of an honor. The Capitol’s propaganda machine was strong in District Two, and it was highly effective. Children were told that volunteering for the Games was a great honor and the best of the children were taken to be trained to be tributes one day. In District Two, they were spoiled for their loyalty and for their complete faith in the games. Starvation was rare in District Two, but a more cynical person would realize that that was because they provided the Capitol with soldiers to become Peacekeepers and for tributes that would make the Hunger Games more entertaining. It’s been said before that District Two is up there in number of Victors.
Even though District Two was set up for success from the beginning, that wasn’t always the case for their citizens. In a family full of personality, Calista often felt like she was the odd one out in her family. The Hunger Games was the center of her life from the moment that she was born. Calista’s father, Ajax had lost out on volunteering for the Games and he never got over missing his chance. He joined the Peacekeepers on his twentieth birthday and served in District Four for his twenty years. Returning home to District Two, he married Anamelia, the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the District. Together they had two children; Cato and Calista. After a traumatic labor, Anamelia was not able to have more children, and Calista had been sick as an infant, but she pulled through.
Some of Calista’s earliest memories are listening to her father talk about the Hunger Games and how he should have been a Victor. He spoke about the Hunger Games as if they weren’t a death trap waiting to happen. He spoke about the honor it would bring their family to have a Victor. He started training early with Cato, and it became clear to them all that he would be a strong contender for the games one day. Calista wanted nothing more then to be like Cato, and to get the attention of her father too. But Anamelia said no, that Calista needed to get stronger before she was allowed to join Cato and her father.
When Calista was five, her mother finally felt comfortable allowing Calista to train, and she was so excited. After all the propaganda machine from the Capitol was strong in their family, so Calista was overjoyed. But there was a problem. In a District full of warriors and people literally willing to die for the honor that it would bring their family, Calista couldn’t stomach the sight of blood. There was an accident in the training center, and it traumatized Calista. Before that day she had been able to tolerate blood because it was on the tv and it wasn’t up close, but after that day, she couldn’t stand it, it made her physically ill.
Watching the Hunger Games made her feel ill, and she would turn her head everytime a tribute died. It was shameful, her weakness, and she hated it and herself. The Capitol propaganda was strong with Calista and she hated that she couldn’t be like the others in Two. Having a weakling for a daughter wasn’t acceptable to Ajax Hearting. After all, some of the strongest tributes had been women. Being a girl wasn’t an excuse for weakness in her father’s mind, and Calista was forced to watch hours of past Hunger Games until she could watch without looking away. She saw it as a way to punish herself. He made her spend hours training even though she had been deemed weak by the trainors. That wasn’t acceptable either.
Over time it looked like her father’s constant drilling had worked. Calista didn’t look away during the Hunger Games, but instead she found a way to almost…disappear into herself during the games. The only one that noticed was Cato, and he never would have told on her. He was really the only one who truly understood her. They would spend hours hiding in the shadow of the Nut, Calista worrying that she didn’t fit in in District Two, and Cato sharing the burden that their father put on his shoulders. Cato was her best friend, and she knew that one day he would volunteer and she would have to learn how to handle it.
The seventy-fourth Hunger Games changed everything. Calista had watched in horror as Cato volunteered. It wasn’t supposed to be his time. He had always said he wanted to volunteer for the Quarter Quell, and Calista had thought that they would have another year. But one look at her father’s face and she knew he had convinced him that it was time, and Cato had never been one to go against their father. Calista barely ate and slept from the moment that Cato left until the moment that he was killed. She had been so sure that Cato was going to come home once there were only four tributes left. She had been so certain that she began to make posters to welcome him home.
And then Cato died. And Calista broke. How was she supposed to go on without her brother? He had always been the stabilizing force in their family and without him…things fell apart. Her father retreated into himself after losing Cato and her mother tries to act like things are the same, but it’s just…not. There is a giant hole in their lives and Calista has no idea how she’s supposed to continue to go on when her family is so…broken. And with that brokenness the mystique and the glamor of the Capitol has broken in her too.
PART III: EXTRA DETAILS
I plan on using resources of Grace from Tell Me Lies.
Pinterest Board
Headcanons
Calista doesn’t want to go to the Capitol for the Quarter Quell, but when her family received invites to the Capitol, it was decided that she was the only one in the best shape to go. She has ulterior motives though, and is looking for the rebellion, or for something to take this pain away or to channel that pain into something productive.
She has very mixed feelings about Katniss and Peeta. Logically she knows its not their fault that Cato is dead. But the emotional part of her is so angry and devastated that her brother is gone and they are still here.
Her relationship with sleep has always been complicated. She has always struggled with nightmares but they’ve gotten much worse since Cato was killed. But she’s also had some of the most comforting dreams where Cato visits her in her dreams. It’s a toss up of whether she will have a nightmare or if she will have a good dream.
Things at home are really strange now. Her father barely talks, and her mother talks too much, trying to fill the Cato sized silence that fills the house. Most days Calista doesn’t have it in her to do anything differently than what she already did before Cato was gone.
