Falco Montecristo

Falco Montecristo is a tribute made by Xax. Please don't use Falco without his permission. "I'm the violence in the pouring rain; I'm a hurricane."

- Halsey

Falco Montecristo



Musical Inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkFVMDlcJF8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3xcybdis1k

Age: 17

District: 11

Gender: Male

Height: 6'01

Appearance: Endowed with a lightly bronzed complexion and an athlethically-aesthetic build, Falco is one that gets hardly lost within a crowd. His elongated frame and near-perfect posture aid in giving his walk and movements a look of exceptional grace, character and balance. His face, while not blissfully proportioned, has strong and masculine features, such as his sharp jawline and straight nose. Falco's dark green eyes and plump mouth are a tad smaller than expected in someone as attractive as him. His skin is somehow notably soft and devoid of any blemishes, despite his days of hard manual labor. His back, however, is an exception, as it bears long, fading scars across it from whip cracks. Falco's hair, other than being black and a bit greasy, is otherwise not very noteworthy.

Personality: Particularly conscious about the extents and limitations of his abilities, Falco is someone excruciatingly realistic. He doesn't take any crap from others and is hardly ever insulted. While not arrogant (or at least not enough to be noticeable), his aforementioned awareness of his aptitudes make him someone that won't doubt at accepting a challenge, be confident enough to excel at anything he knows he is good at, or, on the other hand, admitting to having a weakness.

Even though he is not blessed with the gift on persuasion, he can be quite manipulative through other means. He is best at psychological and emotional manipulation, which he manages to pull through with relative ease. A very trustworthy individual, Falco is brutally honest and loyal, and even though he lacks a witty sense of humour, his innate kindness, generosity and warmth make up for it. He is strictly disciplined and will go lengths to finish anything he starts, and with great quality, at that.

Falco's most intriguing characteristic is perhaps his odd behaviour when envious. Just like he knows exactly what he's capable of doing, he can easily tell others' strengths and weaknesses, and when someone else is better than him at something, his natural response is to become suddenly very interested with said person, to the point of said interest bordering obsessive. Make no mistake, he won’t get clingy, extremely talkative or annoying with them. He’ll just study them, befriend them, and eventually, maybe get somewhat touchy. He is strictly heterosexual, but in these cases, the feelings and emotional connections he develops to the person he is envious of (whether they are male or female), can be almost romantic and/or of borderline infatuation. Whether he does this to try and be like them, become even better than them, or is just a quirk of Falco’s, not even he knows.

Family:
 * Enrique Montecristo (father)
 * † Delia Felrose (mother)
 * Cassian Montecristo (brother)

Weapons: He’ll most likely find a comfortable grip on swords, specifically scimitars. If he can’t get his hands on one of those then, given his graceful build, he’ll use a rapier. If neither of those are available for him, then Falco will go simple and use his brute strength and brass knuckles.

Strengths:
 * The fact that he’s so determined and aware of his limitations and abilities help him to easily calculate realistic risks and make quick and assertive decisions.
 * His athletic build aids him in many physical aspects, such as agility and strength.
 * Falco’s ability to quickly study, analyze and assess other people’s strengths and weaknesses.

Weaknesses:
 * He is not very fast.
 * He can become a bit distracted from the reality when envious.
 * His brutal honesty gets him in trouble on a frequent basis.

Fears:
 * Arsonphobia: With some reason, since his house burned down, he became scared of both fire and explosions.
 * Given all the times he was whipped, he is naturally scared of whips, but even more than them, of loud cracking noises.
 * While not very relevant, Falco has an irrational fear of the number 8 and things that relate to it.

Token: A small hand-carved marble domino piece with six dots on one side and three on the other. He used to play domino with his mom. This was the only of his mother’s possessions that he managed to salvage from the fire where she died.

Backstory: You came to our family when I was two years old, Falco. We weren’t that influential back then, I must admit. Not that I remember perfectly, but it wasn’t until much later that we could afford for the childish luxuries that you and I both always longed for. Dad’s alabaster skin made him a pariah in District 11, and so did mine. We were always gazed at, and I couldn’t understand quite why until I was 7. Don’t get me wrong—we were never poor. If anything, the fact that Dad hailed from the hard-working District 4 got him a very decent job and we lived on the verge of mediocrity. But he was never mediocre. No. Not Enrique Montecristo.

As you must know, he’d always wanted to become a politician back in District 4, but love had blinded him and he’d come all the way to District 11 to marry Mom. As to why anyone’s desired career would be to get involved in corrupt politics is beyond me, but I’m not here to judge. While I was closer to Dad, you were always found at Mom’s side. Goodness gracious, was it annoying. Her chocolate skin was beautiful, and I remember being jealous of it during my pre-teen years. It seemed much easier just to blend in back then.

You know, I recall a few instances when Mom’s friends would be passive-aggressive with her for marrying a ’Capitolite’. She would always explain that he wasn’t from the Capitol, but then they would counter that anyone from a Career District was also part of the Capitol. Mom would stay silent after that.

Just when Dad was starting to develop an actual positive influence within the District (and we began to live a more economically-comfortable quality life), you started with your rebellious nonsense against our country. I know you did it because you wanted Dad to be successful, and it seemed unfair that he had such a hard time at it just because of District 11’s relentless stereotypes against lighter complexions. Still, it didn’t quite aid Dad in his cause as it did to tarnish his decently-built reputation. Why would you ever spray-paint the school’s facade with a white man? To many, it seemed like you not only supported dad, but also every other man who thought had power over District 11. It seemed so, very stupid. But you were barely 12, so what was there to do?

Besides, you got called by the Peacekeepers to the Main Square, either way, so everyone thought you must’ve learnt your lesson. I mean, ten whip strokes? I can still recall the loud noises of the whip splitting both air and flesh as it cracked loudly for the first time. And then the other nine times that followed. I bet you must remember more vividly. At first it was a very hard thing for me to watch, but the one that suffered the most while at it was Mom. She’d always had a soft spot for you. I’d like to believe it had nothing to do with how your skin was a tad more similar to hers, but it remains plausible. Guess we’ll never know.

The second time you were lashed was a consequence for stopping a woman from getting beaten for not being able to meet her daily quota of maize harvesting. Such a pity. You were only given five strokes then. Even then, your screams filled the air in agony, and I winced so many times watching you get hurt that I had to look away. Maybe you don’t know it yet, but Mom developed some self-harm habits back then; looking to take her pain away of having to look at her son being beaten with a lash.

Dad chastised you time after time about how things had to be managed in other ways but you wouldn’t listen. At least not until after you got your punishment for vandalizing the Mayor’s Manor. 20 whip cracks against your skin. Luckily, they were given to you when you were quite young, so with time, most of them faded. Only the marks of the mightiest strikes managed to remain on your back. Mom didn’t even attend the whipping, and the Peacekeepers, out of mercy for her, let her be. I kept my eyes fixed on Dad that day, as he watched his son get flagellated with a stern expression and a few runaway tears.

You were sent to a hospital. Not even Mom’s miraculous herb remedies would heal as quickly as you needed it. At least people in the District learnt to respect you for your ‘bravery’, which I’m sure was more of a prepubescent recklessness, but whatever. People started being reverent when you were around, and up to a point, you became a beacon of hope for them.

That came in handy when you started organizing your peaceful protests. Many would join you and your friends, and these protests eventually led to father being able to run for mayor on the next candidacy. Even for us, his family, it was quite surprised when he won. By then, you were already 15, and I, 17. Being your older brother was never easy, Falco. Especially when many looked up to you, but down upon me.

Other protests against Dad started two months after we moved into the Mayor’s Manor. At first, they were peaceful, as well, but as Dad continued to tolerate them, they only became more and more volatile. They became viruses. So much so that one fateful night, a small group of five rebels decided that, if the Mayor wouldn’t abdicate, then the next logical course of action was to, well, off him.

And his family alongside him.

I don’t know what wrong thing was going on in their sick brains, but the fire that they started in the Manor consumed Mom. My mother, and yours, too. Dad, you, and I survived. You and Dad practically unscathed, while I left that fire with a large burn in my shoulder that would never heal back into soft skin. Dad went crazy after that. The Manor was burnt down, but even worse than that, our mom had died in it, and was never found among the debris. Dad went on a literal witch-hunt with the Peacekeepers to find the culprits. To find the murderers of his wife.

Once he found them, his rage took the better of him. He convicted those four teenagers to 40 public lashes in the main square and to serve a very long prison sentence. He made it compulsory for everyone to watch the event, whether it be via television at their homes, or to attend the main square and watch it live, with the promise that whoever chose the latter option would be given a month’s supply of grain for one person.

With the promise of food, the Main Square became packed to the seams, and everybody suddenly adored Dad. You didn’t know which punishment would await the culprits until you saw the five Peacekeepers brandishing identical whips as they stood behind the teenagers that burnt our house down. Did you have a regression of sorts? Of, you know, when you had been whipped? Why did that suddenly make you cry? I don’t know, but you made a tantrum just as the event was about to begin. I’ll admit, I found it amusing until you started screaming at Dad and made a scandal in front of everyone. That put Dad in a tight spot. He couldn’t just stand there and act like nothing had happened. To seem fair, he’d have to give you a punishment, regardless of how much he wanted against it.

He reminded you of how they had started the fire that killed our mother. That made you reevaluate your choices, but it wasn’t enough for Dad. He told you to not only grow up, but to grow a pair, and decided to change the culprit’s punishment. He sentenced them to death by whipping. He asked to the teenager’s who’d been the bright mind to come up with the whole plan, although we all knew none would answer. To everyone’s surprise, the one in the far left raised his hand and took credit for the whole idea with haughtiness coating his voice. The following phrase was one I’d never thought I’d hear come out of our own father.

“Very well,” he started, “Then, Falco, my dear son, I commend you to be his executioner.”

You went mad. I mean, completely mad. You didn’t know whether to cry, or laugh, or crack a nervous smirk. You said that you wouldn’t do it, but Dad had to make sure you would. He leaned into your ear and whispered something than only you and I heard. If you didn’t do it, then he’d sentence you to 20 strokes for challenging the Mayor. He knew you wouldn’t take it. Maybe would’ve if you’d never been whipped before. But you knew how bad they hurt and he knew this. He knew you wouldn’t take the offer.

And in that moment of your cowardice, you became a murderer.

I don’t know what was more pathetic that day: watching the lead culprit cry in agony as you whipped, beat, and cut him, or you; crying and cringing and with eyes wide open as you did it. It took 97 stroked for the guy to stop moving. He looked around your age. Had you seen him before? Now that I know the rest of the story I know that you hadn’t. Or at least you hadn’t properly met him.

You hated Dad for making you do such an atrocity, and I know for a fact that you couldn’t sleep for the following month. And when you managed to sleep, you’d have Night Terrors and start screaming out of nowhere. I guess you always thought that Dad had something personal against you but that wasn’t the case. He was merely a strict man that held his power equally over everyone. Dad continued being mayor and we lived in our old house while the Manor was reconstructed. Luckily, it only took six months for it to be completed again. We moved in back again a week after my 18th birthday.

All the collective respect you’d gathered when you’d been flogged was slowly wiped away as some started calling you ‘The Grey Executioner’. You didn’t know of this until later, though. Apparently, calling you ‘Grey’ was a form of saying that you weren’t neither black nor white.

The only one that wouldn’t call you so was a classmate of yours, Tamika. You’d always talk about her when you got home, and after some time, started to ask me questions about how to woo a woman. Now, if anything, that was something I was good at. I always thought it had been a natural attraction. But then you confessed that you hadn’t really noticed her until you saw how her grades were the only better than yours. I didn’t know what that meant, but I just went on with it.

Tomika was a darling. A real sweetheart, she was. And you had her head-over-heels for you in no time. Dad didn’t know about your recent female interest, so one day he casually invited you to consider having a girlfriend. You, desperately wanting to ‘win his approval’ back, and blinded by whatever sick envy you had for Tomika, decided to ask her out.

That’s when I knew there was something wrong with you.

You were sometimes so infatuated with her and talked about her all the time, while others, you claimed that you weren’t really in love. As soon as you became an official couple, you started losing interest in her. And don’t argue with me here, because we both know it’s true, Falco. You guys stopped going out. You stopped answering her calls. And this was also conveniently around the same time that your grades overpassed hers. I really doubted it had anything to do at first. Emphasis on ‘at first’.

I remember when one day you suddenly came home after going out with her. Your eyes were wide-open and the shock in your face was evident. Or as evident as it could be to your brother, who’s known you since forever. I tried to comfort you. To make you confess what had happened, and you did. Apparently Tomika had told you that you that the guy you’d flogged to death at the Main Square a year ago had been, in fact, her older brother. She’d told you how she’d forgiven you and how she wasn’t looking for revenge, or anything, but you didn’t know whether to believe her or not. How such an important detail of your girlfriend had gone past you beat me, but to be fair, we’d never even bothered to learn her brother’s name.

Still, you claimed that Dad wouldn’t approve of your romance with her, and to that, I couldn’t argue anything. Because he really wouldn’t have liked it. Apparently you never really loved her because that, and your recent lack of investment in her made you dump her a week afterwards. You claimed to still want to be her friend because you ‘appreciated’ her, but she wasn’t going to buy any of your condescending and sanctimonious crap.

I can’t say I blame you that much, because throughout your relationship, it didn’t seem like you felt that much for her. You only seemed to feel a lot. I don’t know if that makes sense.

But you know what was hilarious?

That Tomika confronted you about being pregnant! Just yesterday. How’d I find out? Because she told me, too. See, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she and I have become alarmingly close the last two months. Don’t worry, it was all after you two broke up. Either way, I’m sure she’ll ask you to take care of the baby alongside her as whatever you guys had was closer to real love than what she and I had. That was purely physical, I guess.

Either way, given that we don’t really know whose child it is, I’m sure you won’t mind staying with Tomika and raising a family with her. She’s a real sweetheart, I’m telling you.

I know I seem like a douchebag throughout the most part of this letter, but I’m writing this to you now so that you know that I love you, dear brother. You are a jerk, yes, and I’ve been jealous of you for some time of my life, but I really do love you. I write this to you so you know our story before I leave. Yes. I already left to the Reaping and I’m not going to see you again. I don’t think I’m going to be reaped. Given how our father is the Mayor I find it likely that he’s managed to find a way to take out our names from the urns.

After the Reaping I’m going to move out. I don’t know where. Well, I actually do. I just don’t want you to come after me so I’m not going to tell you. I’m a grown guy and I am old enough to take my own decisions.

Take care of yourself, as I know you won’t stay with Tomika. I know you never really loved her, and that’s okay. Just don’t let the child be left forsaken.

I’ll see you again someday, I promise.

Your beloved Brother Forever & Always,

~Cassian Montecristo

Alliances: It depends a lot on who he is placed with, but he’ll most likely will ally with someone who he envies, or a small custom alliance. His last resort would be becoming an anti-career.

Interview Angle: He won’t use his looks, that’s for sure. He knows he is quite good-looking, but he finds the practice of purposely exploiting good looks utterly disgusting. He’ll try to go for the ‘boy-next-door’ angle while trying to come off as a bit mysterious. If his looks help, then that will be a plus.

Training Strategy: Falco will make sure that his presence is known, and he’s recognized, but will purposely avoid becoming a threat—yet. Given that he’s from District 11, he knows a lot about herbs, natural remedies and survival, but he’ll still try to ‘practice’ in these sections. In reality, what he’ll do in these easier stations is look at other tributes and study them. The station he’ll practice the most though, will be the weapons station, as, besides scythes and sickles, he doesn’t know how to wield any weapons. He’ll find himself more comfortable with the aforementioned weapons.

Private Display: Here is where he will take a big risk. Instead of showing off his physical and/or survival abilities, he’ll hopefully state at least one strength and weakness that he manages to find from each tribute. He’ll then thank the Gamemakers, kick down a hologram lazily and leave.

Bloodbath Strategy: If he does find an alliance, then he’ll make sure to reunite with it as soon as possible. This might be during or after the bloodbath, depending on his proximity to the rest of the alliance. In any case, he’ll be very wary and try to find at least one of his preferred weapons and a bag of supplies. Once that’s set, he’ll try to run away from the bloodbath as quick as possible with his alliance. He won’t actively attack someone, and will only use his weapons if confronted by another party.

Games Strategy: His strategy is simple. Overall, he’ll try not to be stupid and stick with his alliance and possibly develop a stronger connection to them. He’ll stay with his alliance until the other threats are eliminated. This may change throughout the course of the Games depending on more current events.