THG fic: "Spin Control" [22/24]

[trovia]

Title: Spin Control
Pairings: Finnick/Haymitch, Kat/Peeta
Characters: Finnick, Haymitch, Chaff, Peeta, Gale, Kat; plus appearances by Mags, Johanna, Caesar Flickerman, President Snow, Effie, Claudius Templesmith, Beetee, Prim, Thresh, Rue, District Twelve ensemble and various OC
Rating: adult
Warnings: forced prostitution & non-con; people dealing

Comments

[roguedemon]

Okay, this was awesome. I just wrote a whole comment which got lost because the system logged me off at the exact moment I posted it. Now I want to kill myself. I just have no more time today. I'll have to come back later on and try to recreate it. But anyway....Peeta's cave painting was genius. My favorite moment. And, yep, he actually killed Foxface. Also loved the way you reframed the gift of bread to show what it actually meant for Thresh. Well done

[trovia]

Oh, I must have forgotten to reply to this. Apologies. And guh, that sucks when the comment vanishes, there's nothing more annoying. Thanks for writing it again. :)

Peeta seems to have hit home for a lot of people with his criminal energy. ;) Heh, I've been getting so many comments on that.

Finnick and Haymitch have pulled through so far, but we'll see about the next chapter. They're too used to the Games cirucs - hah - though to fall apart when there's success looming on the horizon. It's a powerful motivator.

I remain forever intrigued by Cherry, whenever I write a new tantalizing line about her. ;) Finnick feels like she's so close to him but at the same time, he's acutely aware of how she belongs in the Capitol.

Again, thank you. :))

[roguedemon]

I only have a few minutes, but I thought I would get started on my comments for this chapter. You deserve ALL the comments after all your hard work

[trovia]

Um, if she's actually read and paid attention to the fic, it's pretty obvious that blowing off your mentor is pretty stupid.

Heh. There's two kinds of fans, I think. The ones who love a character for their flaws and the ones who are unable to see that they have any, therefor everything about them has to be awesome by definition. I'm just noticing this all over again as I'm watching House and finding myself madly in love with this character Chase. Chase is a wimp. He has no backbone. He sucks up to people with authority. It's terrible. Yet I find myself so very entertained. He's just so interesting. It's his complex psychology that's doing it for me, of course. It's the opposite of that kind of Everlark fans

[roguedemon]

Re: there being two kinds of fans, that pertains to a lot of stuff I have been thinking of lately regarding fic. I have read a lot of HG fic by this point, and I think this is a fandom where those issues are especially relevant because all the characters are flawed in their own way, and there is a lot of fic where characterizations are hit or miss. For instance, you'll see people that nail Joanna and Finnick but portray Annie as this frail girl because they want to concentrate on J/F or they just don't understand mental illness and didn't think about Annie beyond Katniss' dismissal of her. Or fics that want to highlight the heroism of certain characters and end up erasing their flaws. That is one thing that is wonderful about your portrayal of Haymitch, for instance. He's overweight and slowly dealing with withdrawal and sobriety and that's okay. You highlight his intelligence and compassion but you don't make him into an action hero. For instance, it's really unlikely that Haymitch is going to be able to detox, work out for a couple

[trovia]

You absolutely need to read all the THG fic by lorataprose (lorata on AO3). Her fic is very oriented towards plot and worldbuilding, not as much with the psychology as me, but her characterizations are extremely sound as well. She wrote a great Rue/Prim thing where Rue won the Quell. That's the only 74th HG one that I can recall at the top of my head, but I'll tell you more as they occur to me.

For instance, you'll see people that nail Joanna and Finnick but portray Annie as this frail girl because they want to concentrate on J/F or they just don't understand mental illness and didn't think about Annie beyond Katniss' dismissal of her.Ugh, yeah. But I do think you hit on something there when you say they want to focus on the one thing, so they dismiss the other. I think that's really the big problem. Annie isn't what they're there for, so they refuse to put any thought in it. (there's a fairy tale AU out there somewhere in which Annie is a poor orphan married off to Finnick without ever getting to give consent. I'm told the writer is an

[roguedemon]

My personal headcanon is that in comparison to Capitol people Haymitch just plain feels good to Finnick: more sensual, more comforting, etc. depending on the mood at the time. In my head, Finnick never really gets over being cold in winter, given than he has about 5% body fat and grew up in such a warm climate. He always needs to use Haymtich as his personal heater/pillow during cold weather. And Haymitch is totally okay with that. ;)

I just needed to think happy Finnick/Haymitch thoughts today, you know?

[trovia]

I love everything about that. :) Haymitch would be so very fine with that. ♥

[roguedemon]

BTW, we are totally brain twins. Chase was always my favorite character on House, and this comment inspired me to go on Netlfix and rewatched a bunch of episodes. I really thought he had the most interesting journey on the show, they really allowed him to struggle throughout the series and I think he changed the most of all the characters while still, of course, having a long way to go when the series ended. Also, I really loved Park, she made season 8 better, she was a different kind of female character (i.e., different from the thin pretty woman that is a requirement of American network TV shows), I loved that she was a geek that stood her ground even when she was struggling to find her way. I also think S8 was a great season for Chase. Anyway, any time you want to obsess over that show I'll be happy to do so.

[trovia]

There are so so many things I'd like to discuss with you about Chase! Guh. Especially now that I've seen some House fic and people have... interesting ideas about this show. (to be fair, it's hideously hard to write fanfic about it, I bet) This is very awesome

[roguedemon]

Chase's seminary background was very intriguing to me, because I love to explore religious issues. I do think that it's always there for him, even when he rejects it. I think that in later seasons, he is working for House more because he realizes that he loves to "do crazy shit" than for any other reason. Once he sorts out some other personal issues, I think he does realize that he likes being able to engage in creative problem solving. I do like the way the creative process is depicted on the show. Medicine is definitely not an exact science. I like seeing how House and his team sweat through the diagnostic process until they finally get a break. It's a lot closer to the actual creative process: you work and work and your unconscious processes let things cook until you finally make a new connection. You don't just get brilliant ideas out of nowhere

[roguedemon]

I loved the title, and I loved the imagery because of course Finnick sees the world in terms of swimming and storms. :) The title can really have a double meaning. One one hand, Finnick is just trying to keep swimming long enough to weather the trials this Games keeps throwing at him. The whole thing is a big storm inside his head, he's off kilter and just trying to keep his head above water. And then of course there is the storm Katniss inadvertently kicked up which can drown them all. It's great to see how acutely aware Finnick is of the danger they are in, it's a completely different perspective on the books and runs contrary to the Katniss stans. Without knowing what she's doing, she's put everyone's head in the noose along with her. And I loved the call back to Annie's Games. Btw, I loved the Annie ficlet you wrote on Tumblr a while back. It was great to see baby!Finnick before everything happened to him. Scared, awkward, but still having the instinct to reach out to the crowds. I loved the "fisherman's brat" description. And I

[trovia]

You know, I was so pleased with myself when the "swimmer in a storm" metaphor occurred to me. Obviously I'd been using the swimming metaphor before, most notably in the kissing chapter named for the title of the fic, in a positive way. So you just know you're screwed if the leading metaphor of the story comes back in a negative way

[roguedemon]

I always go to coffee shops to write, and they tend to close by 8:00 around here. I invariably end up taking much longer to write up my thoughts than I think I will, so I'm always typing away until they turn the wifi off. :)