The Panem Victor's Breakfast Club (Haymitch, Finnick, Cinna)

I found The Panem Victor's Breakfast Club by electrumqueen through a great little rec list over at LJ by lylessweat. For some reason I thought it was going to be a funny fic, like Peeta's Honeymoon Survival Kit or something. Ooops! I shoulda known, coz it's electrumqueen, and she does dark like nobody's business.

The Panem Victor's Breakfast Club is an interesting look at the Victors and how the feel as they watch the Games, and how they feel about their tributes. I like that it's set in Katniss and Peeta's games-era because it gives readers a lot more to connect with. I've read a couple of fics set in the past, and I personally find OC's really hard to relate to (and often not terribly original...). Anyways, here's an excerpt for you:

In the 74th year of the Games, The Watch is held at Haymitch's Capitol residence (where it often is, for ease of access to alcohol: even amongst those-who-survived, Haymitch is The Alcoholic); they are playing a drinking game, while watching the interviews. You take a sip every time someone looks like they're about to throw up, and when they actually do (there's always one), you down the whole thing. Haymitch is a cheat; he never sips, only sculls.

Electrumqueen's characterisation of Haymitch and Cinna really stood out to me as I was reading this fic. She doesn't fall into the trap of making them one-dimentstional re-representions of what we see in the books, as many authors end up doing. I loved seeing Finnick young and not as confident as he is when Katniss meets him in canon. This fic is great in its brevity, characterisation and flawless writing style, with dark little asides to sweeten the deal.

Now I'm off to read her Finnick/Annie piece 'and we are shining'. I sincerely hope the title's from Florence's 'Spectrum'!

Happy reading,
Little Miss Mionie

PS. I'll be reccing femmeslash fics really soon. Send any you love to nightlockrecs@hotmail.com or tweet me @nightlockrecs.

Wisely, I Say, I Am A Bachelor (Cinna/Finnick) and Running The Spectrum: Orange (Wiress/Beetee)

Hello, everyone; I'm Hannah, and this is my first recommendation on Nightlock. Each week I'm going to be finding the "undiscovered gems" of the Fandom, especially in minor- or rare- pairings.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present:

Title: Wisely, I Say, I Am A Bachelor

Author: Mithrigil

Summary: How Cinna became a revolutionary, and other stories; most notably, how he deconstructed Finnick Odair.

and

Title: Running The Spectrum: Orange

Author: NoStrangerWouldItBe

Summary: "It's easy, being with Beetee. So little in life is easy." He knows what she's thinking and she gives him oranges. Wiress and Beetee through the years. Written for the Caesar's Palace Color Prompts "Orange"

My Reccomendation:

Starting with "Wisely, I Say, I Am A Bachelor": It took me a while after I read this the first time (staying up ridiculously late on a school night because I just had to finish it), to figure out what I actually liked about it; this was hard because there really wasn't a lot that I didn't particularly love. Finally, I came to my decision: the characterization. You get to know all of the characters, both the main ones of the Fanfiction and ones that are a bit more in the background, including OCs, very well by the end of it. I was particularly impressed by this as it's told in first-person. It was all such a brilliantly inspiring portrayal that despite it's length, I've read it several times since I just discovered it a few days ago. In a few words: sophisticated, real, humorous, and addicting.

For "Running The Spectrum: Orange": Wiress/Beetee was always an interesting pairing to me, and this Fanfiction did them both justice, while it was a nice take on the prompt provided: "orange". This, I think, captured what Fanfiction is supposed to: add to the cannon in a new way. Set before The Hunger Games, it's a unique take on the development of this relationship. It sort of makes you say, "Oh, yeah, I could see that happening." The little plot-devices used are not forced and really help move the story: the characters' interests in inventing, oranges, Wiress' habit of trailing off, their relationship with other victors, etc. While nicely detailed, the story is always progressing and keeping you interested. In a few words: adorable, free-flowing, and well-crafted.

That's all for this week!

Finnick Fics

Hey tributes!

My RL has turned as busy as a hive of tracker jackers lately, so forgive me for simply recommending rather than reviewing these Finnick Odair related fics. But be assured that they are all fabulously memorable, written with superb talent and flair.

Title: Only Through The Drought
Author: To Kill A Mockingjay
Summary: He doesn't like to play in the ocean, and Annie can't stand it.


Title: younger revolutions (it's getting colder by the sea)
Author: arbitrarily
Summary: they say: the winners write the history to be read; panem has been witness to other lovers.


Title: You're Always In The Right Places
Author: electrumqueen
Summary: "I need a favour," Finnick says. A history of Cinna and Finnick, in District Four and in the Capitol.


Title: Treading Water
Author: sabaceanbabe
Summary: They don't tell you that the lucky ones are the ones who die.


Happy reading!
~ Little Miss Mionie

/ (...Yay! Slash Fanfic Recs.)

I thought I'd post some Hunger Games slash recs; it seemed topical since in my film class we started talking about the oddity that is slash fan fiction (the oddity being that it's generally written by girls. Fangirls.) So, yes, Yaoi goodness in the form of Hunger Games characters. Like femmeslash, it's not too big in THG compared to het pairings, but considering fanfiction's track record with fandoms like Harry Potter, I expect as the fandom grows slash will have more of a readership (and writer-ship?). I have to say, I was really was actually surprised how hard it was to find good slash fics; you can't just google "hunger games slash" or even stuff like "Haymitch/Chaff" and expect heaps of results to come up.

Here's a few that I liked not only for these author's takes on these pairings, but for the fact that they are well written.

Blinding Desire by Sunset Songbird

Ship: Gale/Peeta

Summary: Peeta never expected to see Gale on the Victory Tour. He especially didn't plan on sharing a room with him. The real quesion is, can they get along, or will they end up killing each other?

Obsession by Princess Alyra

Ship: Peeta/Cinna

Summary: He still loves her, but he loves Cinna more. And that isn't going to change.

*I've recc'd this previously, but I think it deserves to be in this post too.

15 Pairings (Drabbles 007 and 011.) by aimmyarrowshigh

Ships: Haymitch/Brutus and Haymitch/Chaff

Summary: None given.

you let your grace enrapture by eudaimon

Ship: Cinna/Finnick

Summary: Before he was a stylist, Cinna met a victor at a party. The rest isn't quite history.

Two Shots Too Many by Mithrigil

Ship: Haymitch/Chaff

Summary: “Tell you what,” Haymitch groans, more because it’s annoying than because Chaff is taking too damn long to get Haymitch’s pants open with one hand. “Next one to mention the Games doesn’t get off.”

I'm probably missing some major everyone-reads-this-fic because I don't read any slash (I'm more of a femmeslash reader), so if you're like o_O why haven't you listed such-and-such?! leave the fic's name and/or link in a comment :)

~ Little Miss Mionie

PS. The next few recommendation posts I will be making in the coming weeks are:

Tips of Brushes, Blades of Arrows by KaKaVegeGurl - A Prim-Centric Post - Erotica/PWP/Smut Recs

The Ultimate Faves/Rec List: Why THG Fandom Needs To Utilize del.icio.us

Hi! I'm V.

The fact of the matter is this: in most fandoms outside of Twilight, the majority of high-quality fanfiction is posted outside of Fanfiction.net. That is not to say that fic posted to FFn is necessarily bad, or that fic posted to other venues is necessarily good. The real fact of the matter is that there is no surefire way to glance at a URL and tell whether a fic is good.

But the truth is that any fic writer who has come to THG from a path other than Twilight probably isn't posting their work to FFn as a primary source, so if you're not exploring the Hunger Games fic posted to Livejournal, Dreamwidth, and AO3, you're missing out on some of the highest-quality, best-written fic that the fandom has to offer.

And that is where del.icio.us comes in.

Ah, del.icio.us. It's not just what Katniss would say upon sampling Peeta's cheese buns, it is the most useful fandom resource for fic fans... ever. I MEAN EVER. It's like a global Favorites list, an international Memories page, and a universal rec list all in one. And it couldn't be easier to use!

So what is it?

According to Fanlore,

Delicious is a social bookmarking service that allows users to save, tag, manage and share bookmarks from a centralized source. A significant aspect of the site is that, like many Web 2.0 sites, its tags are user-generated, non-hierarchical, and uncontrolled. Users create and apply their own tags in one step, and they can apply as many tags as they like to each bookmark.

Fannish Uses of Delicious

Fans who use Delicious use it to save fandom-related links or meta and find recommendations for fannish reading material. Some fans maintain multiple accounts; others might throw fannish and non-fannish bookmarks into one account. The following is a list of major fannish uses of the site:

• Bookmarking favorite fanworks on their personal accounts


• Creating and maintaining their own tags (hours of fun!), using either shared fannish vocabulary or their own system


• Maintaining an easy-to-update rec list for self, friends, fandom at large, and/or specific communities and projects. Delicious is well suited for themed rec list.
  • Keeping track of links for a fandom newsletter community
  
  
  • Providing a searchable archive for Kink Meme prompts and fics.
  
  


• Sifting through a trusted reccer's delicious tags for fanworks to consume.


• Browsing or subscribing to site tags related to certain fandoms, pairings, genres, or other fannish keywords. The number of users who have bookmarked a given webpage displays prominently and can be an indication of its value; using the "popular" function in particular serves as an automatically generated rec list.


• Searching for your own name so you can see how many people have bookmarked your posts or stories and what they're saying about you.


• Other searches?

Looking at tag clouds also allows statistics-minded fans to analyse fannish trends, as well as discover new content.

What does that really mean? It means that any time someone saves a Katniss/Peeta fanfic to their bookmarks on del.icio.us, it gets tallied and added to the universal databank of awesome Katniss/Peeta fics for you to peruse, choose, and consume with some lovely lamb stew. It doesn't matter whether the fic is hosted at FFn, LJ, AO3, DW, a privately hosted site, WHEREVER: if the link is saved to del.icio.us, it gets tallied. And you can tag them and categorize your links however best suits you, so there are no restrictions to the ways you can search for and rec fic.

The del.icio.us account for Nighlock Recs is located here: http://www.delicious.com/nightlockrecs -- it's pretty sparse so far since my fellow Nightlock rec bloggers have largely stuck to FFn for recs, so if you want a more complete example of how a delicious account for THG fandom would look, you are more than welcome to check out mine: http://www.delicious.com/aimmyarrowshigh/fandom%3Athehungergames

See the little blue numbers at the right-hand side of the recs? That is the tally of how many people have saved the fic. The more people save the fic, the higher the number and the darker the shade of blue.

Since THG fandom hasn't discovered the wonder of del.icio.us fully yet, the highest-rated THG fics are in the 20s and low 30s for the number of tallies. But for thriving, fic-heavy fandoms that understand the true power of a delicious account (like Merlin, The Social Network, or Supernatural)?

Imagine logging in and seeing a new fic with 200+ bookmarks.

AUTOMATIC WIN. YOU KNOW IT'S GOOD 'CAUSE EVERYONE ALREADY LOVES IT.