Talia Mignonette

''“I am an excitable person who only understands life lyrically, musically, in whom feelings are much stronger as reason. I am so thirsty for the marvelous that only the marvelous has power over me. Anything I can not transform into something marvelous, I let go. Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”'' -Anaïs Nin Talia Mignonette is a tribute who belongs to FrostyFire. Please refrain from using this tribute without permission. If you do wish to use this tribute, you can leave a message asking. Talia lives in District Five and her district partner is Cecil Thayer. The two do not need to be submitted into Hunger Games together, or in a special order.

Basic Information
Name: Talia Mignonette

Age: Fifteen

District: Five (Six, Eight)

Gender: Female

Personality: Talia, although having years of therapy, reflects distinct attributes to her social anxieties, such as shyness and avoidance. She becomes extremely self-aware of herself whenever she meets someone new, afraid that she may appear as undesirable. While she usually never starts a conversation with someone she doesn't know, she doesn't do it to be rude, but as a result of her fear. On the contrary, she is incredibly kind and caring, always trying to help others out, although being afraid to do so. Whenever Vivienne or a close friend of hers is around, though, her social anxiety traits seem to vanish, as she is courageous and outgoing. As an artist, Talia views the world with a deep understanding, believing that there is always more to everything. She finds confidence in her artwork, although she usually doesn't verbalize it. Ultimately, Talia is a nice, caring person, whose actions typically reflect how comfortable she is in certain situations.

Weapons: Talia has never used any sort of weaponry before, including knives, and she absolutely hates harming other people. Of all the skills and weapons she tried in the training center, the only skill she excelled at was camouflage, as she is a great artist. In less than an hour, she could easily disguise herself in any type of environment using any materials, including paints, dyes, or any type of the natural surrounding. She could practically disguise herself using anything. Since she isn't very good with weaponry, but would have to use it eventually, she would settle for a bow and arrow, the weapon she was the least bad at. Her accuracy seems to vary from time to time, as she sometimes is able to hit the target spot on, while other times, she can't hit the target at all. But as long as she can sort of manage to use it, she's fine with it.

Appearance: Unlike most beautiful girls, Talia doesn't like to flaunt her beauty, as she truly doesn't see the beauty of herself. With fair skin and an unblemished face, boys would be drooling over her if she wasn't so anti-social. Her wavy, brown hair tends to be a shade lighter towards the edges, and goes past her shoulders. She usually doesn't bother brushing it or putting it in a ponytail, as it becomes frizzy and irritating when she does. Her bright blue eyes resemble her purity, while her eyebrows are neatly plucked and her eyelashes are of decent lenght. Her chin is more round than it is pointy, and her semi-chubby cheeks are typically pink due to her blushing. Like most girls from her district, she has a small build, as she has no physical signs of muscles whatsoever. She is on the smaller half of the height spectrum for the girls of her age, yet she isn't a midget compared to them.

Backstory: During a horrible thunderstorm, Clarissa Mignonette gave birth to her third child in the comfort of her own house. Only her husband and neighbor were there and able to help her, yet neither of them had any medical training whatsoever. The neighbor, though, had given birth to seven children, so she was "trained in giving birth." Nonetheless, without any professional assistance, giving birth to Talia was incredibly painful, with stress only adding on to the pain. Clarissa's two other children, Asher and Clementine, could hear their mother screaming from their bedrooms, which they would use to make fun of her.

As a little child, she always enjoyed playing with her family cat, Misty, and all the birds that would sing beautiful songs as they flew around the district. She also constantly talked to trees, flowers, and other parts of nature, believing that they could hear her. It wasn't unusual to find her having a conversation with a tree for hours. Due to this, her older siblings would always make fun of her, claiming that she was delusional and in need of professinoal help. Over time, these words really brought her down, and gradually, she would refuse to talk.

By the time Talia attended school for the first time, the teacher thought she had a medical condition that prevented her from talking. Talia would never raise her hand, never talked, and always avoided the other children during recess. When the teacher notified Talia's parents, they didn't know to do, except for confront Talia themselves. However, she even refused to talk to them, so they asked a doctor to examine her. The doctor concluded that there was no medical condition preventing her from talking, but instead, she most likely had selective mutism as a result of social anxiety.

Although the doctor also suggested Talia start going to therapy, her parents weren't entirely convinced on that solution. Talia had already started to vent her emotions through painting, so her parents hoped that maybe she would eventually start talking on her own. With a child on the way, her parents also didn't want to waste money just to speed up the process. For years, Talia still refused to talk, her paintings expressing all her emotions and showing her potential of being an artist, even at such a young age. What drove her parents to finally take her to therapy, though, was when they overheard her singing, the combination of the heartfelt lyrics and the emotion in her voice driving them to tears.

She was eight years old when she went to her first therapy session, and refused to talk for the first two sessions. Instead, to try to understand why Talia was refusing to speak, the therapist would have Talia nod or shake her head if a certain scenario applied to her. By the time she had her third session, she was able to actually talk to the therapist, and describe how her siblings caused her to feel nervous about embarrassing herself in front of other children. After the session, the therapist suggested Talia attend one of his group session with children of similar social anxieties.

It was during the first group session that Talia met her first friend, Vivienne, who would later become her best friend for the rest of their lives. The two bonded over their wonderful imagination, and through how they would express them. While Talia would express her emotions through artwork or singing, Vivienne would express hers through dancing. Neither of them had actually shown their creative skills to anyone besides their family members, but once they started hanging out together, they became more courageous. In fact, their attitudes shifted so greatly that their mothers decided to transfer them to the same school.

At their new school, they decided to participate in the talent show, being the youngest contestants at ten years old. However, despite being the youngest, they ended up winning it, with the combination of Talia's singing and Vivienne's dancing earning them a standing ovation. As a result of winning, their popularity increased, and they become the two of the most popular girls at their school. Although they believed most of their new friends weren't very sincere, they did make three close friends, who would stick with them when their popularity from the talent show died down.

Although their three friends would never become quite as close as Talia and Vivienne, they almost always brought a smile to their face. Rosanne was incredibly shy and thought to be nerdy, as she always wore large pink glasses. However, she was the sweetest person Talia had ever met. Landon was always cracking jokes or doing something stupid, but he was actually the smartest of the group. Lorelei, Landon's older sister, was always watching over their group of friends, and never resisted to physically harm someone who was bullying one of them.

During Talia's first reaping when she was twelve years old, her group of friends decided to have a sleepover to try to relieve their nerves. They slept over at Landon and Lorelei's house, yet Vivienne suddenly became incredibly sick. She had a terrible headache that wouldn't lessen from any medications, a high fever, and was constantly throwing up. Lorelei believed that she was causing herself to be sick due to the stress and fear of being reaped. However, when Vivienne's neck completely stiffened, Talia truly believed her best friend was going to die.

Vivienne's mother brought her to the district doctor early the next morning, who diagnosed her with bacterial meningitis. Fortunately, she was able to diagnose Vivienne early that her chances of dying were slimmer than they would have been if she had waited. Yet she still had to attend the reaping with an infusion pump in her arm and while under the influence of cortisone medications. Following the reaping, Vivienne was forced to stay at the hospital, as the medication wasn't immediately curing the disease.

Talia visited the hospital with Rosanne, where they saw how Vivienne looked like she were going to die. Seeing her best friend in such a terrible state brought Talia to tears, and she left the hospital before she was able to have an actual conversation with Vivienne. Talia refused to talk to anyone, and instead, went back to her old habits of expressing her emotions through paintings. She ended up drawing a wonderful painting of the two of them when they first met during the group therapy session.

When she brought the painting to the hospital for Vivienne and her family, Vivienne had recovered from the meningitis, and was prepared to return home. Talia nearly cried when she saw her best friend with color back in her face, and when Vivienne saw the picture she painted, she nearly cried as well. Their embrace seemed to last years, and when they finally broke apart, tears were dried on their faces. Later, Vivienne convinced Talia to continue pursuing in her paintings, and eventually, she became one of the best artists for someone her age.

Another year would pass before something interesting happened; Talia's mother was diagnosed with cancer. Talia and her four siblings spent a lot of their free time with her, trying to make her feel better, but she was quickly dying. If it wasn't for the medication her father was able to purchase, her mother would have been dead in a matter of months. Instead, the medication slowed down the spreading of the cancer, so that she could survive for possibly two more years.

When Talia was fourteen years old, Landon, one of her closest friends, was reaped to participate in the Hunger Games. Lorelei was completely devastated over her brother being reaped, and started to heavily drink or do drugs to detach herself form reality. Talia, Vivienne, and Rosanne all tried to help Lorelei out, but it was to no effect. Before her brother even died in the Hunger Games, the friends found Lorelei dead as a result of the deadly combination of the drugs and alcohol she consumed.

Landon placed seventh in the Hunger Games, surviving pretty far in the arena under terrible conditions. He was injured during the bloodbath, which led to an infection. If the victor hadn't beheaded him, he would've died from the infection within a few days. Landon and Lorelei's family was crushed by the deaths of their children, and started to blame themselves. Their parents were filing for divorce, but Talia wanted to do something to help them out. So she decided to do the one thing she excelled at: painting.

The paintings took months to perfect, but when they were finished, they were beautiful. The first painting was of Lorelei looking off into the distance as she tucks strands on her black hair behind her ears. The second painting was of Landon making the contorted face he usually made after making a joke. Althoguh the paintings were beautiful, Talia wasn't prepared for Landon and Lorelei's parents to start tearing up when they saw it, and she definitely wasn't prepared for them to embrace her. It was after that experience that she planned to paint a portrait of all the tributes from District Five who are put into the Hunger Games.

In the next six months, Talia perfecting the painting of the female tribute during the previous Hunger Games, and was planning on starting a business to sell her paintings. Her mother had started to gradually become worse as the medication was no longer having any effect on her, so she was trying to earn money for better medication. However, when the reapings came around, she was reaped for the Hunger Games, preventing her from painting the portraits of the tributes of District Five as she was one.

Reasons for Winning: Talia wants to win the Hunger Games for two main reasons. Firstly, she wants to win because it would allow her to purchase the expensive medicine in the Capitol for her mother. Surviving would also allow her to pursue her potential career as an artist, and her profits would skyrocket as a result of her victory. The other reason she wants to survive is so that she could help the families of the tributes. She would have personal experience with the tribute, and feels that if she can't directly help the tribute, helping their family would be the closest she could get.

Strengths: Talia's biggest strength is her skill with painting and singing, which actually has a lot of benefits. She could easily camouflage herself with the environment using any materials, ranging from paints to muds. Her artistic skills has also made her pick up on specific details, allowing her to memorize things somewhat easily. After viewing the different plants during training, she can remember specific details of which plants are poisonous and which ones are edible, giving her a decent advantage in a forest setting. Her abilities to sing allow her to mimic another tribute's voice, leading to confusion which she could use to her benefit.

Weaknesses: Talia's main weakness is basically anything involving physical activity, especially her strength. She has absolutely no strength whatsoever, and will undoubtedly lose in any hand-to-hand combat she engages in. As she has no muscles, she is unable to climb trees, mountains, or any steep slope. However, she usually doesn't have to worry about other tributes finding her due to her camouflage. She also isn't the fastest tribute, and, while she isn't extremely slow, her endurance is limited. With her always wanting to help people, she could never imagine killing another human being, yet she knows she must in order to win, it just might internally scar her for life. Her social anxiety also prevents her from making alliances, but she usually doesn't make enemies either from not communicating to anyone.

Strategy: Talia's main strategy for winning is to avoid confronting tributes at all costs. She will try to grab little supplies from the cornucopia, not daring to go further into the bloodbath than the outskirts, and will run away. If anyone tries to attack her, she'll simply flee instead of engaging in a fight. Depending on the amount of supplies she gathered from the bloodbath, her next move would be to find a source of food and water. However, instead of camping right nearby the water, she would try to stay about a half of a kilometer away from it. She will use any nearby plants as a source of food, as she can identify the ones that are edible. After finding sources of food and water, her main plan is just to camouflage herself and avoid all the other tributes. If a feast were to occur, she would simply avoid it, unless she is in absolute need for something. Other than that, she will avoid contronting any tribute, unless it were during the final battle or another purpose. If she ever does confront a tribute, she would try to use distance as a tool, as she would have a better advantage with a bow if the other tribute was at a further distance.

Typical Alliance: Loner.

Height: Five Feet, Three Inches

Fears: Pathophobia, fear of disease. After having her best friend suffer from bactorial meningitis, she developed a huge fear of being sick or getting a disease. Whenever she had the littlest of coughs or sneezes, she would pressure her parents into bringing her to the doctor or a medic, although it was always just a minor cough or the flu. Her fear was increased once her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Token: Her sketching pencil. Since it would be too big to carry her sketching book, Talia settled for bringing the pencil she uses for sketching, as a simple reminder that she is still the artist she was in District Five. She just needs to remember that she does have some purpose in life, even though she simply views it as just being an artist for the dead.

Participated Hunger Games

 * Oneders's The 475th Hunger Games: Dark, Darker, Yet Darker - 18th out of 32, killed by Posia Courtier, 1 kill (Grant Sawyer)
 * YourFavoriteSalmon's The Wrath of Winter (704th Hunger Games) - 4th out of 34, 2 kills (Basil Winters and Taligelia Rendervault)

Trivia

 * Talia's backstory contains 1,623 words and averages 22 words per sentence.