Sotr - Blog Posts
The haymitch x reader fics boutta go crazy
I just started reading Sunrise on the Reaping and I've had some initial thoughts
Bear in mind this may change as I read further...
So one of my friends started reading Sunrise on the Reaping and said she doesn't like it because it feels like there are too many call backs to other parts of the series that feel gimmicky and like they are catering to fans. Partially, I agree. Especially with Lenore Dove being covey. The amount it's mentioned feels a little gimmicky but it also serves a purpose in that it answers questions the readers had about what happened to these people.
Similarly the inclusion of characters that we see or hear about in the original trilogy serves the function of answering readers questions. I also think that because we know what happens to these characters it shows that Haymitch had a similar upbringing and could just as easily have ended up with a similar future to them.
What is truly tragic about this novel is that while you can see how the young Haymitch we are presented with becomes the Haymitch we know, we can also imagine all the other paths his life could have taken.
Quite similar to how Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes offers alternatives foe who Coriolanus could have been. It shows that Snow was presented with choices and ultimately chose power over everything else. For Snow the key word is choice. To some extent Haymitch has less agency but to another extent his story is about choices of when to rebel and when to stay quiet.
SOTR spoilers
As a Hayffie shipper (Lenore Dove rocks I just still love hayffie) I love the fact that SOTR has established that Effie is like six years older than Haymitch. Because I’ve always imagined in my head that after the rebellion the two of them get married and have babies (I know it’s not canon let me dream) and now I know that the children conversation would go something like this:
Effie: Haymitch, dear, I’ve been wondering…how would you feel about having children?
Haymitch: *bewildered* Effie you’re forty-eight.
And then Effie gets super offended at Haymitch’s implication that she’s too old to have kids, while Haymitch just gets increasingly confused because the absolute oldest woman to have kids in Twelve was forty-five when she gave birth, and he always just assumed that after that point it was impossible for a woman to get pregnant. Anyway, they still have kids with the help of fertility treatments and live happily ever after the end.
How I picture Lenore Dove
5 of my SOTR hcs:
1. Lenore Dove is taller than Haymitch. Like, significantly taller. Real Amazon vibes coming from her. She has to bend down slightly to kiss Haymitch, who has to stand on his tiptoes.
2. Haymitch may not be much of a singer, but if he’d ever tried he would make a really good banjo or guitar player, or an above average pianist.
3. Burdock never hated Haymitch, he just realized that there wasn’t anything he could do to help him. Still, he kept an eye on Haymitch from afar until the day he died.
4. Prim was reaped entirely by chance, but Haymitch will never believe that. He will always believe that Snow rigged it to hurt him. Same with Burdock’s mine accident.
5. Maysilee is a femme lesbian and had the most massive crush on Asterid.
Haymitch and his ducklings
botany lore drop time w ur local biologist: burdock root is a medicinal plant with anti inflammatory and antibacterial properties. it’s family? asteraceae. order? asterales. clade? asterid.
suzanne i’m in ur fucking walls
how do y’all think haymitch felt when katniss came back to him all “i want wiress, beetee, and mags as allies” in catching fire? hand-picking his two and a half men(tors)!!
“of course you do” as his response now means so much more bc he’s not just exasperated he’s like “you really are me with a braid”
haymitch being repeatedly told not to step off the plate once he's in the arena until 60 seconds are up, haymitch reminding himself of this fact, only to immedietly get distracted by a bunny he wants to pet.
I know for a fact the entire team started screeching at the tv when he reached for it
shoutout peeta for being the only one actually reaped from the d12 victors. real bad luck u got there bud
holy trinity of haymitch is just like katniss-isms
Sorry, but you have the bad take here. You made a public post on a public platform, and people are allowed to disagree with you on it. Plenty of people in this story have irrational moments of anger based on their traumatic situation. Its literally stated in the book by katniss that Gale knows that tesserae is just another tactic by the capitol to divide the districts. But in this moment he is scared because his odds are infinitely more likely. Hes behaving irrationally. Thats a thing human beings do, especially when under duress. Its a mistake on his part, but holding it against him knowing what he went through is just looking for a reason to hate. We dont know if he ever apologized to Madge offscreen, but he could have.
It's the smallest thing maybe but it's funny to me Sunrise on the Reaping has given me another reason to dislike Gale.
Thinking of Madge on reaping day, wearing her nice dress and Gale giving her shit for it. Like she has a choice. Like she has say. Like it's her fault who she was born to. It's such an interesting example of class vs culture wars. This idea that the people up the road who have a nice house are the enemy and not the faceless people thousands of miles away who profit on their poverty.
Thinking of Maysilee who was very conscious of the way she dressed. Who liked looking nice and dressing up. Who is Madge's aunt that she never met. Who Madge heard stories of growing up about her moms twin sister who always loved fashion and knew the importance of masking and the power of how you present to people. Don't let them treat us like animals.
And when Madge lifts her head and says "I want to look my best if I go to the Capitol" and Gale has the audacity to scoff at her.
It also speaks to how quickly history is lost. He probably doesn't even know her aunt died in the games. Doesn't care. You never ever ever know what hurt people are carrying. What their history is. What their familial struggle has been. Don't punch down. Don't punch sideways. Don't even punch up. Break the chain and destroy the person holding the reins.
Real. I know haysilee got sunk with the “sis” comments but they were infinitely more interesting. They didnt have to be written as love interests in any manner but the sis stuff feels shoehorned…altho maybe thats the middle school haysilee shipper in me talking lol
Also i thinkn Lenore being a watered down Lucy Gray kinda hurt her. They are very, very similar, and it takes you out of the story if youve read both. When i pictured haymitch’s girl, i pictured a regular seam girl with simple dreams, and i cant help feeling that approach wouldve been better.
Additionally, idk how i feel about making lucy gray, lenore dove, and potentially even katniss all covey. I read somewhere that it showcases the poerr of culture as a resistant force to oppression, but it does also feel a bit insular snd chosen-one ish.
lenore dove doesn't haunt the narrative, she suffocates it.
Some concept art for an assignment and current pet project: Spirit of the Red, story pitch under the cut:
"After a mysterious explosion that wiped out the city of Nirashi, the race is on to find the secret behind ‘The Red’, the unimaginably destructive force that was somehow able to break one of the most foundational rules of spiritualism, and destroy life energy itself.
10 years later, one of the survivors, Sen, discovers he holds the secret to unlocking the mystery, and fearing its misuse, is now on a mission to destroy it within himself. Hopefully, before anyone else finds out it could happen again if he isn’t careful, and maybe take the world out with him."
haymitch saying “I don’t drink” hahaha so funny I have a gun in my mouth
Send help, I'm trying to dodge every SOTR spoiler on Tumble but y'all keep talking 😭😭😭
Ahhh I cried so many times in sotr but never as much as I did right at the very end in the prologue. Cause wdym Katniss and peeta were the first people he let in and he had to see them almost die a hundred different times and watch peeta get turned into the thing he opposed the most.
Side note that fact that he did all that work to defy the capotal and none of it was shown
And the call back of both Lou Lou’s and Louella’s deaths being humanised by haymitch like rues was by Katniss.
And the miscarriage of the twins so he never had sisters to the fact that Mayslie ask to be her sister just before she died.
And Wyatt being the son of a booker boy and his dad feeling so much guilt that he took his own life
And Ampert and beetee and the pearly white bones and the line “somewhere beetees heart breaks into fragments so small it can never be repaired”
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but Susanne Colin’s is an awesome writer. Her use of themes and coralations throughout the entire series is amazing
Lenore Dove Baird
Art by: @/revslie on twt
Wyatt Callow
Artwork by: -@lyra_nii