the abernathy family + lenore dove in darkness before the dawn:
disclaimer: the goal of this rewrite is to tell sotr as I wouldâve told it, not qq2.
my abernathy family notes doc was unfortunately lost in the purge. I spent most of my evening piecing it back together. hope you enjoy!
willamae was a community home kid. as such, she picked up a lot of skills: cooking, baking, gardening, mending, weaving, foraging, trading, bargaining, animal husbandry, even some midwifery skills (which came along with the animal husbandry). that's how you earned your keep in the home: you became useful. living in the home also caused a lot of resentment and anger at how the district is run/towards the capitol. learning when to hold her tongue was also something willamae learned to do at a young age. so, too, was learning to reel in her emotions.
willamae greatly values hard work, and is incredibly resourceful. she is also practical, to a point where she may be considered cold at times, even though it usually comes from a place of caring and not selfishness. though she knows when to hold her tongue, she doesn't like doing it. this gives her a rather sharp and often bitter sense of humor. since her husband's death, she's also been more cautious/closed off emotionally.
she knows the hob, its patrons, and other sellers very well, which she deems a crucial skill. though she has a reputation for being strict, she is well respected around the community. she is confident in her work and wonât undersell herself when she trades at the hob, but backs it up by providing a consistently good quality productâand a wide variety of products, as well. unlike her boyfriend glen, sheâs not a master of any one skill, but sheâs pretty good at a lot of skills and always making an active effort to improve.
her late husband, douglas, was always on the more reserved side. quiet, observant, and level headed, he balanced her out well. she helped him come out of his shell and stand up for himself more, while he helped her feel more comfortable in expressing her emotions and venting her frustrations in a productive way. he didn't die from a mine explosion directly, but rather succumbed to deep burns some time after the initial accident. willamae would never say it out loud, but a part of her wishes she'd just died in the explosion itself.
to her chagrin, haymitch is more like willamae than she'd care to admit. he inherited her sharp tongue, wit, and sense of humor. he also struggles to hold back his anger towards the capitol/the district itself, which leads to that characteristic smugness/arrogance of his. unlike his father, who was more calm and productive with his anger, haymitch and willamae often explode, sometimes at each other. they're both holding in a lot of built up anger. he inherited some of her more positive qualities, as well, in that heâs practical and resourceful... but he is still a teenage boy. he wants to have fun and let loose a bit, especially as willamae makes that increasingly more difficult.
like in canon, a big part of why haymitch was so drawn to lenore dove in this story is because of her rebellious nature, in the sense that she grants him a sense of freedom he doesnât have at home. he's allowed to be himself around her. he can rant all he wants and she listens intently, encouraging him to express himself instead of shutting him down. he also admires how steadfast she is in her beliefs, even if they don't always see eye to eye and even though it does her into trouble. secretly, he really admires her idealism/optimism and her ability to envision a world worth fighting for, even if her idealized futures are hard for him to imagine and often cause a lot of conflict between them. he sees her as braver than he is. he just wishes she didn't worry so much about what other people thought of her as a person. while she is unshakeable in her beliefs, she struggles with her identity quite significantly. he wishes she was as comfortable being herself around other people as she is around him.
side note: as it turns out... maysilee secretly admires those same traits of hers and is jealous of it, too. in all that implies ;) but Iâll get more into her at a later date.
as I stated earlier, my LD struggles a lot with her identity. she has a hard time finding a balance between her covey heritage and her seam upbringing, which has only gotten more difficult as sheâs gotten older. at her core, she's incredibly lonely and longs for community. she's insecure and prone to jealousy, and can be quite clingy at times. she often comes off as a know-it-all, even if she doesn't mean to. as sheâs gotten older, this has caused her to get quieter and quieter. she retreats into her books and into nature to try and gain a better understanding of people.
haymitch tries to her that not everyone is going like her and that she has to learn to be okay with that. if she just could just find the courage to be herself, the right people would find her and defend her against any naysayers. despite her frustrations at the isolation from her peers, LD still cares about her community deeply. she is steadfast in the belief that no one deserves to live in fear, no one deserves to be reaped, and that no one deserves suffering.
I made sid a little older here: 11, going on 12, with his birthday being in october. he's started acting out more as he and his friends get closer to reaping age: getting into fights, talking back to teachers, playing pranks (which he does in the opening scene of the fic, alongside his best friend/partner in crime hazelle clearwater). part of it comes from him being an energetic little boy, but part of it comes from that fear of an uncertain future. willamae fears letting him out of her sight, and he works with her around the house/in her garden a lot. haymitch, meanwhile, does odd jobs around the seam/the hob, while also being mentored in carpentry by willamae's boyfriend, glen. sid also thinks haymitch is the coolest person ever and has started to copy some of his mannerisms. this is another reason why haymitch and willamae have been biting their tongues more lately.
haymitch runs to let out a lot of his energy. sid, on the other hand, is more skilled at climbing.
side note: speaking of running, haymitch and woodbine (will probably change his name) have a very playful rivalry. I thought that would be a fun dynamic for them. they're not quite friends, exactly, just friendly rivals. willamae has a very similar dynamic with one sadie mcdermott down at the hob.
why greasy sae, pillar of the community, wasnât in sotr, I will never know. it confuses me even more than chaffâs exclusion does. we got hattie and fucking⌠bascom pie (what kind of name even is that) but not sae??? what??? theyâre getting the boot in this fic because they do not matter and their roles in canon are fulfilled more organically by other characters.
of course, the family wouldnât be complete without sissy. sissy is the real main character of dbtdânay, the whole franchise. she's haymitch's buttercup, essentially. willamae rescued her as a gosling not long after her husband's death. she's the family guard goose and takes her job very seriously. she hates all men, but especially haymitch (and glen). get too close to her mama and she bites your shins.
speaking of sissy, in this story, LD has a love for all animals, not just geese, or even just birds (though she must admit that birds are her favorite). it just feels right for her, especially in this story where Iâm highlighting how much she cares about people and believes everyone in her community deserves a better world, despite how isolated from them she feels.
in a similar vein, she also has opinions on mutts that kinda freak people out. she cries when they get killed. she isn't angry at the tributes for killing them, though. they were just defending themselves/needed to eat. she's angry at the capitol for creating them, only to be used as weapons, and either put in zoos or exterminated after the games end. she also frequently wonders how much free will they have. part of it just feels right for her character, as it shows how deep her compassion flows and how much she values life itself, but also exemplifies how much she values agency and free choice.
anddddd thatâs all for now! I lost my doc about haymitchâs friends/other relationships, but in truth none of his friends were very well developed, save for one. lo and behold, she was one of two I remembered (the other being hazelleâs older brother, artie, purely because he was hazelleâs older brother).
for anyone curious for further information about willamaeâs boyfriend glen and his daughter ruthanne, check out this post! the information about the universes themselves has changed, but their personalities and backstories are the same.
please do let me know what yâall think about anything Iâve mentioned here! see yâall later!
