sirsealery

[sirsealery]

so glad buddy holly was released before the apocalypse i think tommy would teach ellie the weezer lick and she'd play it constantly to piss off joel. its dumbfuck in the morning and he gets jumpscared awake by his demon of a daughter playing "weeoooweeahweeahwooahhwoo" on the guitar he now very much regrets giving her

[sirsealery]

i feel like theres some kind of parallel to be made with joel telling tommy to take ellie in part 1 and tommy telling ellie to find abby in part 2 i cant figure out exactly what it is but there has to be SOMETHING

[sirsealery]

i cant lie i feel so dumb 😭 why did i find out literally today that THE ray chen was in arcane?? hello??? genuinely tweaking i have no idea how i missed this ... is this groundbreaking to anyone else or just me .. ray goddamn chen .... on arcane ... inconceivable ....

he was SO good though holy hell. alexander temple blew my mind and ray chen crushed my soul. learning "what could have been" and "the bridge reprise" asap (i dont even play the violin ..)

my fingers itch for my bow. goodbye.

[sirsealery]

hii !! i just wanna say thank you so much for all your thoughts !!!! i love your opinions and you reminded me of so many of the things i missed ! i think youre definitely right about the first point especially, i kind of thought about it but you for sure nailed it. said it much better than me :D thank you !! (sorry for such a short response to your wonderful wonderful talk, but i appreciate it soso much!!)

mentioned this a bit at the bottom of some comment thread in one of my hunger games fics and figured i might expand on it a bit here? to see what other people have to say, i think. sotr spoilers !!

fyi im wearing a homemade lorax costume right now as im typing this. happy world book day!

so, anyways, i wanna talk about the careers. i wouldnt call myself a career fan or lover, and frankly i dont have much love for any of the careers in the series, especially in the first book and sotr. the only exceptions are finnick and annie (and i suppose mags? is she a career?) because theyre written as actual people. which leads me to my first point, which is that so often, theyre just so cartoonishly evil. they remind me so much of those disney channel bullies but take it up a notch. they kill people instead of shoving them into lockers or flushing their face in the toilet. but like with the same energy and the annoying jock voice you know what i mean?? lmao

and i mean i get it. in the first book theyre like the main antagonists and we're not spending more than a couple of pages with them, so they dont need to be all that fleshed out. which is totally fine, i dont care, but in some of the other books? in sunrise, where silka is actively trying to be humanized? to me, it fell very, very flat. i felt absolutely nothing reading about her eat chocolate and cry at the foot of the tree. and panache being a cato 2.0 kind of annoyed me. i get it! dumb brutes exist, but how are there so many of them? i dont think ive ever met a single person like this. ever. i dont know though, maybe my experience isnt universal. maybe in other parts of the world there are plenty of laughably stupid hunks. basically all of the careers are complete idiots, just running around and stabbing babies.

okay now what i really wanted to talk about after ranting a bit. sorry gang. i wanna talk about how sad the career existence is. i mean, theyre needlessly brutal and mean. but they were also raised this way? id love for someone more articulate than me to talk about this too. i had a thought a while ago kinda comparing the careers to like .. the people who peaked in high school? id love to have an exploration of the career experience, either an essay or fanfiction (lmk if theres any youve found !!) cuz like .. of course youre bringing honor and glory not only to yourself but also your whole district, patriotism and all that. but i wonder if its still the same once you start killing kids? i mean its basically a given that theyre pretty desensitized to violence, gore and death at the point where they volunteer for the games, but i dont think its quite the same when youre actually like .. doing it??

and when you go home, youre celebrated and praised, but only like until someone new wins, which is next year. and theres gonna be the trauma of the games and potentially life altering injuries and while in the other districts theres some kind of sympathy for victors, but since in the career districts they idolize it, theres not really any/as much i think?? i imagine itd be really weird to work your whole life, achieve your goals, and then come to the realization that you basically have no purpose now but to watch kids under your care die and hope that at least one of them will survive. i wonder if thats why some of the careers in catching fire were so eager to rejoin the games? since its all theyre known for and theyve had nothing for the last like 10-20 years and they want a shot to do what theyre best at again? relive their glory days or whatever? im honestly not sure, but i think its worth thinking about. thanks gang 🙏

[sirsealery]

GOD I FUCKING HATE AI. im so sick and tired of ai garbage popping up everywhere. disrespectfully, get that shit OUT OF MY FUCKING FACE. do not show up, on my goddamn screen, in my house, GET OUT. im sick of my loved ones getting baited by ai generated nonsense and im sick of getting my sites flooded by it.

ai does not make the arts 'more accessible'. the whole POINT of art is that you put time, effort and LOVE into it. there is no love in a machine. its disgusting and such a disrespect to everyone who has ever invested themselves in their craft. hundreds and thousands and thousands of years of people making art, drawing, writing, making music, dancing. idk about ai dancing but all of the others especially.

and i fucking hate the argument 'oh but im not as good as the ai!1!!1!!" im not the greatest artist ever. im not a master of my crafts, and THATS OKAY. im a young writer and musician, ive spent most of my life writing, ive been writing since i knew how. ive been playing my instrument for almost as long as i can remember, and i still suck! and its okay!!! but ive spent so much of my time, years and years of practice, into my arts. im better than i was when i started, every year i look back on my works and i can feel proud of my progress. my fanfiction has improved so much since my warrior cat days, and i imagine so many of the wattpad writers back in 2014 can feel the same. everyone sucks in the beginning, and its fine! it means we're growing and improving.

but making ai art and generating ai fanfiction and making fucking ai songs (never in my life would i have thought)? thats disgusting. not only is it detrimental to the environment, but youre STEALING other peoples work for a robot to rip it to shreds and mishmash it together. and so often these ai fanfictions are taken from actual fanfiction, that people write for FREE out of the love they have for the media or community. ive written fanfiction since before i knew what it was, because i loved the book series i was reading so much, i wanted to make my own stories and use the world and express my absolute adoration for the original series in my creative, 6 or 7 year old way. i wrote it on scrap paper in pencil and doodled my characters in crayon and then went off to practice my instrument for an hour. no shit i was ass at all three of those things, but over time, ive improved. and you will too, if you put just a little bit of time and effort every day/as often as you can.

anyways, before i went off on a tangent, (sorry) but SO many fanfiction writers are so, so incredibly talented. i know dozens of amazing fic writers and im even lucky enough to get to know a couple personally. fanfiction and fanart is about community, and to steal somebodys work for- for what purpose?? because youre too lazy to make your own? fuck, nobody cares! draw like shit! write like shit! post it online, maybe get some hate, improve or give up, but either way, you HAVE to learn the appreciation for the people who are amazing at what they do! i have friends who are brilliant artists, and i cant draw myself, so watching them is like watching magic. watching them furrow their brow while trying to decide between two shades of blue that i cant tell the difference between, watching them draw effortlessly smooth lines, why would you want a robot to do that? the beauty of it is the love put in, and the insane amount of effort put into making them this good. five years ago, i thought my best friend was an amazing artist. time has passed, shes improved infinitely, and i feel so incredibly proud of her because i know that shes spent so much of the last five years doing art to get better. and i know that in five years she'll be even better! art is a journey of hard work progress and ai simply can never replicate that. to make any kind of ai 'art' is to disrespect the people that worked so fucking hard to get here. you cant take shortcuts on this, you can work hard and youll improve faster, but theres no ladder to the top! you can make as many ai images and ai textwalls as you want, but it doesnt make you an artist.

"oh but i want the results/make content for my ocs/fav characters/WHATEVER now without having to put years into it!" yeah, we all do, youre not fucking special. but effort is the human existence, so shut the fuck up and either learn to do it, pay someone to do it (AND APPRECIATE THEM.), or suffer with ideas in your head and no way to express them like god intended. if you want fanfiction, get on ao3 goddamnit. its free.

maybe youre older than twelve years old, and your writing isnt good, your drawing isnt good, your music isnt good. who fucking cares? cringe is dead. do art. its never too late to start, and i think i speak for everybody when i say we'd much rather have 'bad' new artists and writers than have a single more piece of ai slop.

(sorry for this long ass rant/vent where i basically repeat myself a dozen times, love you all and never stop doing art)

[sirsealery]

mentioned this a bit at the bottom of some comment thread in one of my hunger games fics and figured i might expand on it a bit here? to see what other people have to say, i think. sotr spoilers !!

fyi im wearing a homemade lorax costume right now as im typing this. happy world book day!

so, anyways, i wanna talk about the careers. i wouldnt call myself a career fan or lover, and frankly i dont have much love for any of the careers in the series, especially in the first book and sotr. the only exceptions are finnick and annie (and i suppose mags? is she a career?) because theyre written as actual people. which leads me to my first point, which is that so often, theyre just so cartoonishly evil. they remind me so much of those disney channel bullies but take it up a notch. they kill people instead of shoving them into lockers or flushing their face in the toilet. but like with the same energy and the annoying jock voice you know what i mean?? lmao

and i mean i get it. in the first book theyre like the main antagonists and we're not spending more than a couple of pages with them, so they dont need to be all that fleshed out. which is totally fine, i dont care, but in some of the other books? in sunrise, where silka is actively trying to be humanized? to me, it fell very, very flat. i felt absolutely nothing reading about her eat chocolate and cry at the foot of the tree. and panache being a cato 2.0 kind of annoyed me. i get it! dumb brutes exist, but how are there so many of them? i dont think ive ever met a single person like this. ever. i dont know though, maybe my experience isnt universal. maybe in other parts of the world there are plenty of laughably stupid hunks. basically all of the careers are complete idiots, just running around and stabbing babies.

okay now what i really wanted to talk about after ranting a bit. sorry gang. i wanna talk about how sad the career existence is. i mean, theyre needlessly brutal and mean. but they were also raised this way? id love for someone more articulate than me to talk about this too. i had a thought a while ago kinda comparing the careers to like .. the people who peaked in high school? id love to have an exploration of the career experience, either an essay or fanfiction (lmk if theres any youve found !!) cuz like .. of course youre bringing honor and glory not only to yourself but also your whole district, patriotism and all that. but i wonder if its still the same once you start killing kids? i mean its basically a given that theyre pretty desensitized to violence, gore and death at the point where they volunteer for the games, but i dont think its quite the same when youre actually like .. doing it??

and when you go home, youre celebrated and praised, but only like until someone new wins, which is next year. and theres gonna be the trauma of the games and potentially life altering injuries and while in the other districts theres some kind of sympathy for victors, but since in the career districts they idolize it, theres not really any/as much i think?? i imagine itd be really weird to work your whole life, achieve your goals, and then come to the realization that you basically have no purpose now but to watch kids under your care die and hope that at least one of them will survive. i wonder if thats why some of the careers in catching fire were so eager to rejoin the games? since its all theyre known for and theyve had nothing for the last like 10-20 years and they want a shot to do what theyre best at again? relive their glory days or whatever? im honestly not sure, but i think its worth thinking about. thanks gang 🙏

[sirsealery]

need to rant about some people in the arcane fandom ... some of yall are PISSING ME OFF.

ok to preface this ... you can have whatever opinions you want. i dont give a shit. think what you want, i dont care the slightest. obviously im biased when im gonna say this because im vi's #1 fan but FUCK anybody who hates her for hitting and leaving powder in the scene s1 ep3. i dont care about any other opinion you have about vi but if you think this ... DID YOU WATCH THE SHOW???? WERE YOUR EYES AND EARS CLOSED OR??????

look i dont hit kids, i promise. im not a violent person, and i dont go around beating kids around the face for no reason. but if you have a sibling, YOU WILL KNOW that everyone smacks their siblings at least once in a while. me and my little brother beat each other DAILY for nonsense shit like dishes and leaving the butter out too long. im genuinely surprised vi didnt smack powder earlier, but tbh shes a better person than me and is much more parentified than i ever was. call me controversial or whatever, but in the first couple episodes, powder WAS a bit of a fuckup. and vi was very forgiving about it but there very much is a point where you fuck up too much and you cant just 'let it slide'. and that point for vi wasnt powder hesitating on the rooftop, not her slipping, not her blowing up the kirammann place (did she know that was pow's fault?), not her losing all that they stole, but it was BLOWING UP THEIR ENTIRE FAMILY.

imagine your little sister BLOWS UP YOUR FUCKING FAMILY???? and runs up to you grinning???? id lose it entirely. respectfully, id beat the everloving shit outta that little girl, and then bawl my eyes out and rot into the ground. i love powder, i love jinx, shes like my second favorite character in the entire show (wowww im so special and unique for loving jinx woww), but i would NOT have dealt with it nearly as well as vi did. im not gonna talk about how vi deals with her feelings with violence cuz its the only way she knows how because thatd be its own ramble ..

uh yeah. powder would not make it if i were vi, which might make me a bad person instead of vi a good one, but whatever i dont care. im hard betting that nobody else would be much better than me either. vi, at FIFTEEN, was incredibly mature for hitting powder once, yelling at her, and then backing away. once she realized what she'd done, she did absolutely the right thing by taking a step back to take a breath. thats literally what she did, by the way. walk away so she didnt say or do anything else she would regret and give herself a MOMENT to process the unimaginable loss she just experienced before going back to being powder's protector/caregiver/big sister/parent. and then when she TRIED TO COME BACK BECAUSE SILCO WAS COMING FOR HER SISTER, because she still cared for her by the way, and that girl is the only thing she has left, fucking MARCUS yanked her away and threw her in jail for the next six or seven years. gang did you miss that part??

im tweaking im so tired. sick of the dumbass vi hate cLEARLY you have never been an older sister and it SHOWS. scratch that, not even older sister, just a sibling in general. and then all that about vi hitting kids and bringing up when she smacked isha?? gang. that little girl BIT her, of COURSE she would whack at her its INSTINCT. man if a toddler bites my leg that hard and i dont see it i am BACKHANDING that little guy into space before i turn to look at him. and she regrets it immediately after too !! and if she really wanted to beat kids, she wouldnt have hesitated in bashing ishas head in when she went to protect jinx in that fight in ep .. 3 i think it was, or letting caitlyn shoot at jinx. shes not a child beater are you stupid????

and dont get me wrong either, i do understand that powder never meant any harm. of course i get that. of COURSE she never meant to blow up all of the people she cares about, WHO THE FUCK WOULD?? as she put very plainly, she only wanted to help. and i sympathize with that. the whole situation makes me very, very very sad. she wanted to save them, and thought she finally did it right for once. but vi also DID tell her to stay away. powder didnt completely understand why vi was so upset and hitting her so hard in the same way that she hits her enemies, grabbing her and screaming at her, then getting up and leaving, ignoring her sobbing for her to come back. of course vi wasnt RIGHT for any of it. in a perfect world, she wouldnt have done any of it. but arcane very much isnt a perfect world, and vi isnt a perfect person. she has insane grief and trauma that she doesnt know how else to process and i really do think that her walking away was the best possible solution, if marcus wasnt involved. in a better world, she wouldve gone back to powder after a couple minutes, been mad at her again or apologized or WHATEVER, kept her close, and escaped together. maybe beat the fuck outta silco in the process, i dunno.

tldr; vi punching powder and then walking away was a valid fucking crashout. YOU try getting your family exploded.

[sirsealery]

ARGHHDHDDUDJBDKSKJDJDBD CALLIE RIV AND ROSA !!!!!!! THE GIRLS EVER !!!!!!!! IM CRASHING OUTTTTTTTT I CANT BELIEVE THIS IS REAL. THE DETAILS. THE DETAILS !!!!!!!!!! callies actually three feet tall gang she's my baby 🙏🙏🙏 ughhhhh i love every part of this so much im going to actually explode

been writing a little bit abt these ocs and have been debating posting it as a series..currently like 4 chapters,, i dunno..lmk if u would read it..

ANYWAYS ABT HER GAMES‼️‼️ possible spoilers for SotR if u haven't read it yet, but if there r spoilers then u probably wouldnt even be able to tell....

@radkatzzstuff

OKAYYY

river linley is from d4 and volunteered for her games at 15 bc her brother, who was in earlier games, lost and brought "shame" to her family..

stuff happens at the reaping, river volunteers. omg shocker‼️‼️

her arena is a semi-aquatic underground cave system. so kinda a win kinda a loss bc shes tall and keeps hitting her head..

she immediately separated herself from everyone, especially her districtmate, even tho it was advised against.

games go on, stuff happens

blah blah blah

river ends up becoming allies with...drumroll please..

EIRA LATIER‼️‼️

last name sound familiar? it should. beetee's daughter. (when i attach the fanart, trust me when i say.. she HEAVY takes after her mother. heavy. heavy.)

they fall in love teehee (not teehee.)

not gonna say much more in case i decide on posting it as a series / u guys want me to

but it ends up being oc x oc x canon..

and now me shoving art for my goobers down ur guys throats.

[sirsealery]

chasing a ghost

crossposted/originally posted on ao3 under the same title (find me @therissotto_man)

written for @vicwritesfic , thank you for everything on 'open in time' <33

The Everdeens have a penchant for singing, dancing, and on occasion, archery. Burdock may be the world's best father to a little girl who adores him more than anything else.

warnings: ermmmm none i think. just a cutesy little thing because i love and miss the everdeens so very much (fic starts under the line) (2.3k words)

Our feet scuff against the floor, tapping to a beat that only we can hear. His hands hold mine up tightly, gently, guiding my movement. My father’s gray eyes are bright, his smile that I inherited splitting into an infectious laugh. We are dancing, just the two of us, my father and his most favorite little girl. 

He begins to sing in his smooth voice, clear and soft as the ripples on the lake. “You can’t take my past, you can’t take my history.” It's a song I recognize, but can't remember. The words start quiet, our feet slow as he leads me through the steps. “You could take my pa, but his name’s a mystery.” He twirls me and I giggle, clinging to his fingers. “Nothing you could take from me was ever worth keeping. Oh, nothing you can take,” He looks in my eyes, giving me a playful grin. “Was ever worth keeping.”

It picks up, his boots tapping and sliding across the floor in a fluid, practiced dance that I attempt to copy. My braids flounce about my face, hitting my shoulders gently as we move about. He told me once that a long time ago, we used to sing this song in the Hob with instruments and a great mass of people dancing. I can imagine it now, a whole host of those plucky instruments I’ve seen before all playing together with the rhythmic stomps of an eager crowd. My skirt laps against my knees, and my father very nearly lifts me off the ground with the strength of his arms. I squeal, and he laughs his sweet laugh before continuing his song.

“You can’t take my charm, you can’t take my humor.” We spin around the room, and he twirls me as he sings, making me shriek and grow dizzy. “Can’t take my wealth, ‘cause it’s just a rumor.” He looks me dead in the eye for the next line, mischievous and so full of joy. “Nothing you can take from me was ever worth keeping.” 

The melody is buzzing in my throat, already ingrained in my head. My father sings the next line, and I can almost predict the one after. “Thinking you’re so fine, thinking you can have mine. Thinking you’re in control-” He stops suddenly, his whole body freezing before jerking back to life. “Thinking you’ll change me, maybe rearrange me. Think again if that’s your goal!” 

We are humming, my father steering us about the house as he croons the melody and I try to match his notes. The cold floor patters beneath my feet as my body begins to understand our dance. It is not as complicated as my small, uncoordinated body seems to think, alternating between tall stamps and little steps that are almost shuffling. 

Our music reverberates off of the shaky walls, reflecting the sound back at us and making it seem almost like there is a whole choir alongside us. It's days like these that are my favorite days, when it is just me and my father. He knows me, far more than I know myself. 

The front door swings open and my mother’s voice calls through the wall. “Burdock?” My father doesn't stop his tune, pausing for only a moment to answer. “Yes?” 

She emerges through the doorway and we both turn to face her, still twirling. “Oh, we're dancing.” Her hand stretches out and my father takes it without missing a beat. My mother holds my other hand and joins our steady pulse. She is not as good as my father, but she does not fumble through her movements, easily flowing one step into the next. 

The three of us are tapping about in a ring and it takes a moment for me to notice my father’s steps gradually lessening in intensity, slowing it all down to accommodate my mother, who by now is very visibly pregnant through her dress. After a few minutes, it stops altogether, leaving me breathless and aching for the dance. 

“Burdock?” My mother says, turning to him with a hand cupped under her belly. He kisses her cheek in answer. “We need some garlic.” 

My father turns to me, beaming. “You hear that, Katniss? Ready to go out?” 

I immediately perk up, body straightening eagerly as I nod. He holds my mother for one more moment before putting a hand on my back, leading me to the door to help me put on my boots. 

“Bye mama!” He calls as we step outside, and I echo him. 

“Bye mama!” 

I am bouncing ahead of my father along the beaten, coal-lined road. We live on the edge of the Meadow, so it doesn't take long to end up on a smaller, grassy path that leads us right up to the not-so-electric fence. My father holds up the bottom of the fence for me, taking a hasty, careful look around to make sure no one was watching. I crawl through the bottom and wrap my small hands against the wire, huffing as he makes his way through as well. 

The forest is alive and buzzing with little critters in the trees, and I immediately feel at home. Despite my fear of the dangers of the wilderness, that my mother very determinedly instilled within me, my father is the smartest person in the world (even though he will always say that it's mama’s title) and I trust him wholly and unwaveringly. He tells stories about the things he used to get up to when he was a kid in the woods, everything from eating fruits off the tree and making makeshift flutes out of sticks and singing to the mockingjays, which he does now. 

He doesn't use words, just intones a light, bouncy tune that I find myself swaying to. The mockingjays around us begin ceasing their chattering and instead fall silent, as always enraptured by his voice. My father repeats the verse two more times before they start to catch on, mimicking his music back at us as we amble along further into the forest, my hand in his. 

The melody continues to ring out as we reach the place where my father hides his bow and bag, and he lets go of me for a moment to retrieve them. With all the noise he is making, I know that he cannot expect to be able to shoot anything now, and he must know it too, although he does not silence. Our boots scatter loose earth with each step, and I chase a pebble that skitters to elude me. 

It does not take us long to reach a familiar little patch of garlic. My father kneels, calloused hands scuffing at the dirt to remove the bulbs by the roots. I scrabble at it too, tugging with all of my tiny strength at the stubborn plant. He laughs, pushing away my hands to clear the dirt around it, murmuring quietly. 

“Katniss, honey?” He asks as he shakes excess dirt from the roots and stuffs the garlic into the bag. I look up, fingers freezing. “Can you keep a secret, do you think?” His face is bright, and I know immediately that if I promise to keep his secret, he will tell me something wonderful. Nodding eagerly, I search his gaze for any hint of what it could be. 

“Good.” He says, uprooting more garlic. “I’d like to teach you while I still can, but I need you to be very mindful. Do you understand, baby?” 

I nod again, and he grins. “Alright.” My father leans back, dropping to the dirt as he looks up at the sky. “There’s this song, an old song. We can’t sing it with mama though, and you’re not allowed to sing it anywhere except in this forest. You hear?” I watch him very carefully as he begins to sing again, a melody I have never heard before ringing softly into the air. “Are you, are you, coming to the tree?” 

The mockingjays around us hush almost immediately, as if they recognize the song. “Where they strung up a man, they say who murdered three. Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be, if we met up at midnight, in the hanging tree.” 

My father pauses for a moment to let the verse hang, the words weighing on me even though I do not understand them. He continues to sing and I am enraptured, fixated on his lips and the sounds that escape them, that start to get picked up by the mockingjays and passed around the branches, carrying the song deeper into the forest. It's a simple melody, short simple verses that repeat, almost identical to the one before save for a line of change in the middle. 

In my mind, the song begins to paint a picture. The notes are haunting and low, slow like a gentle dance or a steady march. As my father finishes, he takes a deep breath to watch the birds around us, singing in a fractured choir that seems to try desperately to do his voice justice. It's mesmerizing to watch, and the beauty of the cacophony makes my eyes well with tears. 

My father notices immediately. “Oh Katniss, baby.” He wipes his dirt covered hand on his pants before moving it to cup my face, brushing my tears away with a warm thumb. “It's alright, honey, I'm sorry.” 

Gazing up at him, I sniffle into his hold because I lack any other way to show him how I am feeling. He watches me, worried, ignoring everything around us. I beam into his palm as high pitched cries break from my throat, keening and small. My father wraps his arm around me, lifting my little body into his lap and dampening his sleeve with my tears. 

The mockingjays start to pick up on my sound, and my crying reverberates in the air, repeated by a hundred birds in the treetops. I laugh wetly, looking up to spot one on a branch, its black body almost hidden in the shadows if not for its white-tipped wings, which catch the light very prettily. 

I fall still after a few minutes, my father’s soft touch and warm body soothing me. He picks me off him and pulls himself to his feet, tugging me up with him. My father does not say anything, just holds my hand and lets me wave goodbye to the mockingjays, who are quickly getting bored of repeating my voice. The forest hushes as we move away, and my father pulls out his bow in anticipation of game. 

He freezes after a few minutes of quiet stalking, dropping behind an outcrop of rock and putting a finger to his lips. Knocking an arrow, he slowly takes aim, pointing with his nose at a small hog that wanders on our path. My father lets the arrow fly, landing perfectly at its target. The hog screams horribly before falling to the ground, twitching for only a moment until it becomes very, very still. 

My father gestures for me to remain behind the rock with a still hand and carefully approaches the beast, removing his arrow from its body with a sick sound. “Your mother will be pleased.” 

I make my way to the creature, inspecting its bleeding form. It's a small animal, still quite young, which makes me a little sad. I look away. 

“S’alright, Katniss,” my father tells me, putting a hand on my back. He withdraws it after a moment to sling the bag off his back, dragging the animal inside. There's still a small stain of blood on the ground, and my father kicks at it with his boot. “Ready to head on back?”

I nod, eyes still lingering on the bag that he has thrown over his shoulder. He takes my hand, and we trek slowly down to stow away the bow and arrows, our pace only slightly hindered by the weight my father is carrying. 

As we reach the fence, he pauses for a moment to check if it is electrified, and tells me to listen too. It is silent, as it always is. He holds the bottom up for me to crawl through, before pushing the bag through and squeezing in the gap. 

We pass the soft grass of the Meadow to make our way to the Hob, where my father takes my hand again because he knows I am afraid. I hang on to it like a lifeline as he greets almost everybody, starting up small conversations with people I only vaguely recognize while I cower behind his leg. He only lets go of me when we reach a table, where he pulls out the hog we killed. 

Nothing needs to be said between him and the woman behind the stand, and she makes quick work examining the creature. “Come back tomorrow morning.” She tells him, and my father nods, shaking her hand. 

He turns back to me, a brilliant smile spreading across his face. My father is always so happy, and it makes me smile too. The Hob is starting to get crowded, so he lowers himself to my level, beckoning for me to climb onto his shoulders, which I do eagerly. 

My sudden altitude is dizzying, and I cling to my father tightly as my laughter rings around the space. A few customers shift to face us, smiling a little as they look at us. We stride outside on my father’s long legs, before he sets me down. “Wanna race?”

I know that it isn’t fair. He beats me every time regardless of how fast I run, by sheer virtue of height, but I will always accept, and I do this time too. Dust kicks up around our feet as we sprint in the direction of home, laughing ourselves double. Somewhere in the distance, a mockingjay is still singing my father’s song. I reach out to grab at him, but he stays just a few paces ahead of me, forever evading my grasp as his coat slips through my fingers.

[sirsealery]

watched episode 1 of tlou season 2 .... have some thoughts ig (line break for no spoilers) (for potential upcoming events too)

sooo like. im kind of in shock tbh. opening scene with abby was .. good, i think. kind of a smidge miffed that it exists, to be honest?? i mean i know most people watching will already know what will happen next (played the game or just like. know.) but i feel like it kind of ruins the whole thing where joel saves her and like we dont have a proper opinion of abby yet? i think? i dont know, like at the start of the game we dont know why abby is there or anything but right off the bat we know immediately what she is going to do. which. hm. i dunno. definitely gives a very strong feeling of foreboding though, which is nice.

yall already KNOW im gonna talk about the music. WE GOT 'the last of us part 2' LETS GOOOOO. very happy handsing about it i love that we got some of the soundtrack !!! a little bit confused about the intro?? it was the same, which of course is fine since its a great intro, but i kind of expected the part 2 theme to play instead? and the whole thing just doesnt quite fit the story anymore since it isnt really about joel and ellie, its about abby and ellie (i mean. it is about joel and ellie. but you know what i mean okay). but whatever.

MORE ON THE MUSIC !! THE PARTY SCENE. AAAAAA. IM LIKE 99% SURE IT WAS GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA ON THE GUITAR IM FLIPPING OUTTTTT. IM FREAKING OUT !!!!!!!!! ITS LIKE A STAN LEE CAMEO. BUT IN THE LAST OF US !!!!!! also i wonder if it was jessica mazin who was singing again? it sounded kinda like her although i could be very wrong. would be cool if it was, wouldnt mind if it wasnt. you know how it is.

joel and the therapist was so funny to me i was so taken aback by the way she started talking to him about her dead husband i did NOT expect that at all. i was so confused for a hot second and i thought he killed him during his time as like a crazy murder dude but then my brain put two and two together and now i feel much better. good times.

kinda grieving the loss of seths line in a weird way??????? like. what he said was bad. but loudmouth made it kinda funny ykwim. im not homophobic i promise .. im a lesbian ...

also joel bowling that man over was UNREASONABLY funny to me. like damn he put him right on his ass as he should. but then in this version it kinda makes more sense for ellie to be mad at him over it??? it doesnt feel the same as in the game because in the game joel just like pushes him a lil so ellie getting mad OBVIOUSLY has less to do with seth and more to do with him getting in her way, whereas here he literally knocked him over and ellie could be mad at him for that (i know she isnt. but still.)

also i was veryyyy worried when ellie started walking towards joel's house and he was playing the guitar. i was afraid that theyd put that scene right at the start of the show which. hm. no. but thankfully they didnt phew.

love love love dina and ellies dynamic !!! theyre so cutesy and i adore them my friend was screaming in my ear that this was they gayest shit theyd seen hehe. i think the show is making me like dellie a lot more than i did before.

tommy and benji !!!! i was so happy to see them theyre so cute ughhhhhhhhhh (it will hurt when he leaves so much more.) also i saw a corona ad with gabriel luna before the ep started and like??? lmao??????? gabriel luna on a corona ad of all things was not something i could come up with in my wildest dreams lmfaooo

also irrelevant to anything but ellies room is so goals like. damn. the posters and the music and the LAVA LAMP !!!!!

all in all im pretty happy with the episode. i was worried that the season would be a letdown but this episode bodes well. :)

[sirsealery]

brain worms are actually the most frustrating thing ever my mind will be jumping from fandom to fandom character to character like its fucking parkour or some shit god LOCK IN !! im writing a hunger games fic while reading arcane fic while playing the tlou soundtrack while thinking about all and none of them at the same time UGHHHFUHRFHBFUBFBFBUH. i cannot focus on any one of them for more than about 20 seconds and its PISSING me off. how i manage to pass as functioning on a day to day basis is beyond my understanding because at any given waking moment im bound to be thinking of one of my franchises i kid you not they follow me into my sleep too last night i had a horrifyingly not that scary dream that was some kind of cross between tlou and the hunger games if nothing made sense and my friends fatass cat was there too for some reason. id love if the brain worm gods could give me just ONE worm for a couple of minutes. would appreciate it.

[sirsealery]

if i dont hear the last of us part 2 by gustavo santaolalla in the intro for the show TODAY i will legitimately throttle somebody.

need the part 2 soundtrack so desperately i have "eye for an eye" ON REPEAT

[sirsealery]

one thing i loved about the first season of the show was the cold opens in a few of the episodes. everyone loves the very first scene of ep 1 and i think its brilliant but my favorite for sure is the one of ep 2. i get it isnt the most universal experience, especially for my people in the west, but the beginning shot where the doctor was eating in the restaurant was immediately very familiar to me, which made everything after much, much scarier.

for the first couple minutes, we dont really know whats going on (but we kinda do, of course) and neither does she. its scary, its tense, and watching the dr ratna cut open the body and it being full of shroom as opposed to meat is just .. eughhhufrhbdenju its gross. and the MOVING tendrils???? i wouldve screamed the first time i saw that if i had any less self control at all. legitimately horrifying.

when she tells the officer that the only solution is to BOMB the entire city .... chills. genuinely terrifying because nobody WANTS this solution but its the only way. and even then, it doesnt work. and then you see a similar attempt back in boston with all the falling buildings and shit.

also very nice to see academics in countries outside the west on tv that arent portrayed as bumbling and stupid

id be interested to see if season 2 will also have cold opens but im not sure what theyd put ... we'll see i guess

ugh its early in the morning and im struggling to articulate but i love the episode 2 cold open

[sirsealery]

"oh episode 7 was basically useless we didnt really learn anything" "ew why does she have to be gay" first of all FUCK OFF. second of all .... FUCK OFF !!!!

nyeh nyeh nyeh waste of time boo hoo i dont fucking care do you KNOW how happy it made me to see ellie and riley on my screen??? do you know how happy it made hundreds and probably thousands of other little closeted kids/girls??? i remember watching them for the first time and even though i couldnt say or do anything because my family was nearby, it made me so, so unbelievably very happy. it was like seeing myself on the screen, because i think if i recall correctly i was having my first actually realized crush on a girl (or i started liking her shortly after .. idk oops). ive never watched much queer tv/movies but this. this hit me. bella and storm so perfectly captured that look of teenage love, loving someone youre so sure you cant ever have. ohhh they make me sick. its a sweet, terrible, heartwrenching story of two kids who wanted to be happy and love and be kids for the first (and last for riley) time. my sweethearts.

also hate to be controversial but i like ellie/riley much more than dina/ellie. maybe cuz ive never played tlou2 (im a fake fan guys, sorry for not owning a game console to play tlou, my bad) (ive also never played the dlc .. ive watched playthroughs guys i swear i know lore) but i think its because ellie and riley resonated so much harder with me because it was like looking into a mirror. seeing someone else with the same exact expression i wore every day looking at the girl i liked. its such a raw and heartbreaking feeling and the acting .. the acting. ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

sorry for being annoying and personal but this episode meant (means) so much to me. i love little lesbians.

[sirsealery]

might be tlou posting cuz the new seasons coming out and im thinking about it ..

kinda wanna ramble about episode 3. i like it a lot, dont get me wrong, but i think that it was an interesting change to the game (which ive been able to start playing for the first time recently, EEK !!). anyway, i get that bill and frank were always implied to be lovers in the game (which i didnt realize for a long, long time) (haha get it) (sorry.) but i like the way the show let them love. a win for the gays, finally.

what was i saying.. oh right. the show takes a complete 180 from the game which, im gonna say this word a lot, was interesting. i really cant decide whether i like it more or not. in the game, bill is, as smarter people than me have said before, joel's ghost of christmas future. hes a warning, what could happen to joel if he continues to keep himself closed off and refuse to let anybody in. hes paranoid and shifty and angry and isolated, and i feel that the takeaway from that section is to, uh, not be bill. frank, not unexpectedly, is beyond sick and tired of his sketchy ass and dies trying to escape the town.

on the other hand, in the show, despite a couple seemingly not-that-important disputes, all is more than well with frank. they get old together in their sweet little firebomb-fortified-town and die together peacefully in their bed at the young age of .. i have no idea actually. 60something? 70? its probably not relevant but i will be thinking about it .. ugh i know this is gonna be haunting me ... WHATEVER. MOVING ON. bill and frank live pretty much the perfect possible life in the apocalypse, they eat strawberries and steak all sweet while raiders and zombie fungus monsters fucking explode outside. nice. their life is good. they can think about more than just day to day survival, they can live, love AND laugh.

aaaaaanyways before i lost track of what i was yapping about, bill in the show is an example of what can happen to him if he DOES choose to open up. and its good. its really good. bill dies happy and not alone. score! so while both the game and the show give the same general line of "open your heart the fuck up, joel, you gotta learn to love again", they go about it extremeeely different ways. the game, dark as ever, shows the consequences of staying the way he is, while the show demonstrates to us what COULD be if he chose to love again. very sweet.

in both mediums, bill is like an alternate universe joel and is very very i forgot. fucks sake. you get what im trying to say. i wonder if the new season is gonna have stuff like this too.

[sirsealery]

look i know the people of panem didnt know but every time i think about snow and his fuckass shenanigans with victors im just like "?????" this guy is up to such NONSENSE i mean sending haymitch milk and bread constantly??? what the fuck??? im imagining hes calling the head peacekeeper or some shit like "dude. look. i know it sounds weird. but listen to me here. you gotta send that haymitch abernathy guy milk and bread and leave it on his door every day. its gonna be real funny, trust me bro" like what???? doesnt he have shit better to do????? this man is so petty and ridiculous its just astounding.

and burning the house down?? he sure as hell didnt do it himself, imagine THAT phonecall "yeah i know its the dead of night but i need you to set the abernathy house on fire. cover that shit in oil and burn it the fuck down i need it GONE." imagine being the head peacekeeper or whatever i would be SO over this man what is he even DOING

and the gumdrops. the president of the goddamn country walks into the kitchen like "hey. i know youre busy making pastries or whatever. you have to make candy, but hear me out here, you gotta put poison in that bitch. and make em blood red too." and then he mails(????) it to whoever in d12 and gives them like ten bucks to throw the packet on the ground WHAT is going on

its just like the roses for katniss. imagine telling the pilot of the bombing plane to have one that doesnt have bombs but instead just fucking flowers. shouldnt the president of an unstable country IN THE MIDDLE OF A LITERAL WAR, have better things to do than fuck with teenagers in the strangest, most annoying and weird ways ever???

i have to wonder if he does this weird shit with other victors too. did he do it with all of the ones he didnt like?? can you imagine him sending beetee .. shit idk like a fork everyday or johanna a box of fucking tissues i just .. how did this guy even make it this far how did he become such an unquestioned president like no one notices ??? or cares????? im genuinely in awe how does he manage to stay in power for like .. 50ish years what is he up to how does a month long situationship fuck you up THIS bad

sorry just a ramble

[sirsealery]

i feel like i cry about this at least once a week but that one scene in catching fire with thread whipping gale and then katniss gets in front of him and then HAYMITCH gets in front of her .... hes literally her father you dont understand .... im literally bawling and pulling at my skin AND THEN PEETA TURNS UP AND HAYMITCH JUST PUSHES HIM BEHIND HIM?????? HES LITERALLY THEIR DAD. HE IS LITERALLY THEIR DAD. sobbing katniss whose dad is dead and cant protect her anymore and peeta whose dad never protected him YOU DONT GET IT I AM LOSING MY MIND. haymitch :(((( you were always my favorite and as an itty bitty eleven year old i didnt understand why but now i do i love found family i love found fathers NOBODY talk about the haymitch&katniss/joel&ellie/vander&vi comparisons within twenty miles of me i will immediately burst into tears and explode ..... i love them so so so much i will legitimately never get over it

and effie :(( effie i love you oh effie who was almost like a mother to kat and peeta especially in the movies :( she loved them so so much even when katniss's mom was absent and peetas mom was abusive effie my girl ... my girl effie. i dont even ship hayffie but they are literally their parents i refuse to let a single person say otherwise

back to haymitch cuz hes always been my fav and always will be i just. he loves his kids. in his own, kind of weird way he loves them and they love him. i love the way he holds katniss i legitimately sob every time one of those scenes comes up when hes holding her i know haymitch realistically probably would not be the greatest father to a child but i need to be held like that so bad ... tweaking ......

and then the hovercraft scene where katniss attacks haymitch im not even angry im just so so sad it upsets me very very much because he saved his little girl but she didnt wanna be saved she wanted him to save his little boy instead and he wanted to save him but he couldnt- DO YOU UNDERSTAND???? IM CRASHING OUT. and then them in mockingjay. i just. haymitch i love you.