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]

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 loved getting inside Annie's head. I'm sure your Annie would really be something.

I am intrigued by what you said about Cherry. What's her story? And how does Finnick actually feel about her? I see the stylists being like the escorts in many ways: their careers are based on dressing kids up for the slaughter, often in really inappropriate clothing. Later on, they get to prepare Victors to be sold off to the highest bidder, or in the best case scenario just to act out their role in the whole genocidal farce. Cherry constantly dresses Finnick in demeaning whore costumes, yet remains determinedly ignorant of the real story. So I'd like to know how he deals with her, since we haven't seen her enough to get a sense of what their day-to-day interactions are like in the Capitol.

Well, I'll have more later. I am getting kicked out of yet another coffee shop. ;)

[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. ;)

Chibi!Annie and Chibi!Finnick were fun. ;)

I know exactly as much as you do about Cherry. I compare her to Effie: Kat sort of likes Effie because she's spent enough time with her to get her on some level. I think it's hard to hate a person if they aren't treating you badly in a direct way and if you spend a lot of time working with them. I think it's similar between Finnick and Cherry. Intellectually, he knows the role that Cherry plays. Practically, he has to get along with her, and frankly he doesn't think about his complicated reactions to her much because it's just not that relevant. They have... a good working relationship? It's not a very personal one. Finnick can handle it like that, and Cherry is a very professional stylist who knows what's her job and what's not. I first introduced her in MOTR, when Finnick remembers how he first met Cherry. She redid all the costume designs the moment she met him and worked herself into exhaustion because she recognized she could do really great things with him, and then she took him to the Training Center roof and talked to him and told him she'd wanted to see who he really is before she made him someone else. I think she's a very smart person, but much like millari's Lucilla, she has developed a very complex rationale for what she does.

Those coffee shop owners should be nicer to you, with all the money you spend there. ;)

[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. :)