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— you see, he is on the street…alone, bleeding. now the only question is whether we'll find him alive or dead

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if you don’t have an issue with abby’s body being erased for the show you don’t understand her character. it wasn’t for gameplay mechanics. it’s the core of who she is. also neil and craig are zionists and misogynistic freaks who wanted all the women to die in the game until other people intervened. they’ve lost the plot

You don't have to agree with the choice to cast someone/change Abby's body type. That's your prerogative. But to call Abby's physique the "core of who she is" is genuinely laughable.

Abby is not bound by her body type. Of COURSE they had a reason for her having the physique she does in the game, but Neil has said, multiple times, that the biggest reason for her looking the way she does in the game is that they needed a body type that was different to Ellie's to make the two halves of the game really seem separate. He has SAID that it was interesting to make her physically like Joel, so that the player was forced to see the similarities between their playstyles.

I know you didn't really take in my other post, why would you? You're a hate anon, but if you had read it, and if you had taken it in, you would have understood that my entire point is that Abby in the show will be, at least to me, a completely different character than Abby in the game. You cannot compare them, they are not making a 1:1 adaptation.

To reduce Abby to the way her body looks, to how much space she takes up, to the size of her muscles, diminishes her journey. Sure, she kills infected by choking them out in the game and almost rips a Seraphites' jaw off...but is that who she is to you? Is that the core of who she is?

To me, who Abby really is shines through in her moments with Yara and Lev. With Manny and Owen. With Alice. Abby is Abby in her humor, in her willingness to step in front of a gun to save Lev's life, in her realization that her quest for revenge didn't get her the closure that she wanted, that the nightmares didn't go away when she killed Joel.

Abby is Abby in her messiness, her anger, her sullen silences, her rage.

But I have never once, not in my 600+ hours of playing the second game, have thought about Abby simply through the way that she looks, any more than I did Ellie, or Joel.

To your second point, yeah, Neil has said a lot of stuff that I do not agree with. And there are many people who choose not to engage in media that he is involved in because of his, in my opinion, incredibly misinformed thoughts about the genocide in Gaza. If that's you, I understand.

As for Neil and Craig being misogynists who "wanted all the women to die"...let me just quote Halley Gross (cowriter of TLOU II):

"I'm afraid of being turned into a token rather than the truth, which is: we are being thoughtful about the female narrative. These characters are more than just their vaginas. If you wanna have a serious debate about feminism and feminism in video games, and female depiction of violence, then you need to not see it as a binary conversation. It is an incredibly nuanced conversation, you cannot make blanket statements. And you cannot make presumptions."

You do not have to like The Last of Us Part II or the HBO tv show. God knows if the game or show themselves didn't convince you, I certainly won't, but do not come into my askbox and try and act like these people do not care about their narrative, and do not care about their characters.

Because at the end of the day, you and I? We didn't write this story, we didn't come up with these characters. We can love them, we can discuss them, we can question the situations they put themselves into, but we cannot say that we created them.

Neil, Craig, and Halley haven't lost the plot; they created it. And if you don't like the story, fine, but I'll give you one last quote, this time by Troy Baker, Joel himself,

"Any time someone comes up to me and says, 'You know, I didn't really like what they did to Joel,' I was like 'Great. Awesome. Tell me a better version of the story.' And to this day, they still can't."

You can be angry all you want, but don't try and diminish the love I have for these games and for this show, because it won't work, and it'll just make you upset that I can't be swayed.

I hope you have a better day.

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I honestly don’t know how some people don’t find Bella absolutely gorgeous.

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So baffled by some of the S2 takes I've seen. Has the show sometimes gone in directions I personally wouldn't have chosen? Sure. Were the writers ever stupid in their choices? No.

For Example:

The number of people who seem to have No Clue what was happening when Abby referenced Joel's handsomeness is actually insane. Do they *really* think the writers were having Abby flirt with him in some sick way? Like, where are your critical thinking skills, people???

Abby brought it up because:

1) The description was her only way to find Joel again, and accuracy Kinda Matters. That description became BURNED into her memories over the years, with the way she clung to everything she knew about Joel.

2) She was flabbergasted and disgusted that Joel, the 'monster' who killed her dad, was being described that way to her. Her saying that wasn't flattery, it was mockery.

3) She reiterated the description when she met him as a way of confirming that it was Actually Him. Aka, does he meet the criteria. SHE WAS QUOTING, NOT RANDOMLY COMMENTING.

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I love this beautiful and talented woman so much!!!!

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I LET YOU LIVE AND YOU WASTED IT

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how long have I waited for them to finally show Ruairi in the image of Orpheus!! And I HAVE WAITED!! They're so beautiful.

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By the way "Ellie is pissed that her choice got taken away by Joel but actually the fireflies took it away first" isn't the take you think it is for one simple reason: she doesn't care and she would have said yes.

"Hey we're 100% gonna make a cure but you're gonna die in the process" sign her up.

"We might be able to make a cure and you're for sure going to die while we try" sign her up too.

Joel tells her she would have died in the process and her answer is "then my life would have fucking mattered". Even if the cure wouldn't have worked it mattered that they, that SHE tried.

She's not only dealing with survivor's guilt in the second game. It's already there in the first: it's Riley, it's Tess, it's Bill's boyfriend, it's Sam, it's Henry, it's the people turning cannibal cause society collapsed and they have nothing to eat, it's all the infected she has to kill and the people who shot themselves because they didn't want to turn.

So if she has to die to potentially save the world and prevent anyone else from dying? Like I said: sign her up. Sign her up a thousand times over.

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Even more things that were said In the BTS segment of this episode that I absolutely ADORE:

“What Ellie's confronting Is the *fundamental* Injustice of life” ~ Craig Mazin

“I think, as an audience, we want karmic justice, to say “The bad people should pay the price for what they've done and the good people should live happily ever after”. But that's not how the world operates. And, the most moral character of the story, Jesse, dies In an Instant” ~ Neil Druckmann

“There Is a tragedy to the fact that his selflessness and so many characters’ selflessness Is the reason that they end up falling.” ~ Halley Cross

“For Ellie, If we thought she was broken before, now she Is completely broken. And If Joel Is gone and Jesse's gone, what does she have left? She has this realization, finally, “If I give myself up, then maybe Tommy & Dina will be able to live”. And I think Ellie needed that redemption” ~ Nina Lopez-Corrado

“Ellie Is looking at herself. Ellie Is looking at Abby and seeing the rage and the pain of “You took somebody I loved”. And there Is this full-circle moment, but now It's too late and Ellie has to reap what she's sown” ~ Halley Cross (OHHHHH, I love how she worded this!!)

“We're used to telling “good guy, bad guy” stories In Hollywood. What *we* try and do with ‘The Last Of Us’ Is tell “people” stories. And In this case, *everybody* no matter which side they're on, has a strong case to be *very* angry at someone. And that anger comes out as violence. It comes out as retribution. It comes out as lies. And the question Is, where does It all end? *Can* It end? And If so, *how*?” ~ Craig Mazin (The editors focusing on Dina with ‘retribution’ and on Tommy with ‘lies’ was SO fucking good, btw, omfg-)

God, these people really do know their fucking show because I ADORE how they're handling the story as a whole for television. It truly Is amazing

All In all, I loved this finale, I loved this season, and I CANNOT wait for Season 3. Abby's story Is gonna be amazing to watch and finally getting to see her, Lev, AND Yara In action Is gonna be so fucking great

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THE LAST OF US 2.07 THE LAST OF US Part II

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how it feels to watch The Last of Us without some fuckass complaining about tiny changes

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see this is how it’s so prevalent that tlou fans have no media literacy bc i saw a post that was referring to the moment where abby says “you killed my friends” and ellie says “i didn’t mean to”

the overwhelming response (from men mostly but what’s new) was “why did they make ellie so weak she would never say that, she has no remorse for killing abby’s friends 🙄”

no, she doesn’t have remorse for killing abby’s friends. but if you idk, put on your thinking caps, you’d know that ellie is referring to the guilt she felt over killing Mel, who was nearly full term pregnant. THAT’S the guilt she’s feeling, for taking a life that played no part in her overall plan.

AND YES MY GOD!!! ellie DOES feel remorse for that in the game 😭 yall are trying to make game ellie seem so heartless and ruthless but she has SO many moments of remorse & hesitance. no season 2 isn’t perfect but it doesn’t have to be an identical 1:1 copy, it’s still an adaptation

not to mention in the after episode “making of tlou” section the creator & director literally go over what decisions they made and why they made them, like you know this from going in that there’s gonna be differences to stop whining about it and just don’t watch at all if it bugs you that much

PRAYING these “fans” don’t return for S3 👋

*AND WHILE I’M AT IT!! people complaining about ellie going to the seraphites island when that actually just sets up foreshadowing for abby’s season bc you can see the rope marks on her neck in the last scene. like y’all need to remember this is a TV show and a large part of the audience hasn’t played the game. PLUS the creators talk about how they wanted to have that scene in the game while playing as ellie but couldn’t fit it in, so as a bonus they adapted it into the show like THATS COOL IMO !!!

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“HBO are afraid of making Ellie unlikable!”

Ellie:

- is characterized as reckless and having issues with authority to a fault

- gets pissed at Dina for withholding information on Abby and her crew while she was in the hospital

- chooses to allow Dina to keep going through the dangers of Seattle for the sake of getting revenge knowing she’s pregnant and continuing on when going back is the better choice for her girlfriend and future family

- pregnant girlfriend then gets shot with an arrow in the leg and she goes after Nora instead of ensuring that her best friend and girlfriend are safe

- beats Nora half dead and leaves her down there to turn, not giving her the mercy of dying

- finds out one of her last remaining family members could be in danger but she just found out where Abby is so “we don’t know that’s him” “Tommy would want me to do this”

- calls her best friend selfish and a hypocrite

- kills a man which inadvertently kills a pregnant woman as well

- after all the shit she did and has gone through, when asked if she can make peace with Abby still living she responds “I guess I’ll have to” like Dina being injured and pregnant is an inconvenience and had Dina not become injured she’d rather stay and finish the job

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I think Ellie and Jesse's fight in s207 is really important, well done, and is one of the best scenes of season 2.

This got incredibly out of hand but this scene has stuck with me and I haven't stopped thinking about it all day. So here's my analysis on the fight and what I think it means.

Jesse is upset because Ellie is being reckless. He's angry because she's being selfish and he struggles to comprehend why she would put herself and others in danger like this. He knows that she's smart, and that if she thought everything through with a clear mind that this entire thing wouldn't be as unnecessarily risky as it is. But she hasn't, and she's putting others in danger.

And this is because he's been raised by a community. Jackson brought him in, raised him, took care of him. He's grown up with the love and support of an entire town, and he does his best to give back. He organises and takes lead on patrols, he steps up and rebuilds Jackson after the attack. He gets elected to be on the council because he works so hard to keep his community safe. He is fiercely loyal and protective, and that's what Jackson needs when Maria steps down. Someone who is willing to put other people first.

But it's this loyalty that has led him here to Seattle. The man who voted no to the Seattle trip snuck out the next day to go after Ellie and Dina. Why? Because he wants to make sure his friends are okay. He wants to bring them home. And this is once again putting other people before his own needs, but I would argue that this is a more selfish decision than the one before. Because the community didn't send him after them. The community didn't send Tommy, either. They both decided to risk their lives to bring two people they love home.

And I think there's guilt in Jesse for that. I think he's upset with his own obligation to go after Ellie because it's conflicting what he was raised by. He feels like he's letting Jackson down, but his friends' problems are his problems.

On the other hand, Ellie is angry at Jesse because he calls her out on her selfishness, but doesn't give her the grace or understanding that she thinks she deserves.

Because not once has Ellie ever had community. She is an orphan that has never had anyone stable in her life who genuinely loved and cared for her apart from her best and only friend who died and left her behind. Then she is handed off to Joel who does the unthinkable for her, and sure she's incredibly and justifiably angry with him, but he is the only person in this entire world who will ever understand what she has been through. And they're living in a nice and protected town where they're meant to live out the rest of their natural lives, where they can be Ellie and Joel, and Joel and Ellie-- until he is brutally murdered in front of her as she is forced to watch.

And when she goes to what is meant to be her community? The one that Jesse thinks she should be grateful to have because they took her in just like how they did him? When she attends the council meeting and stands up in front of everyone and practically begs for help? They tell her no, that Joel was one man and we need to think of the many-- never taking into account that that one man was all she had.

And she feels like Jesse is such a hypocrite for saying all of this because he would do the same as her, right? But it turns out that he was one of the people who said no, and it breaks her heart. It feels like her community just got so much smaller.

I much prefer this scene to the one we get in the game. It's messy and it's loud. Ellie cracks in front of Jesse in a way that she hasn't yet with the people she loves. She's sick and tired of being told what to do, of being made lesser than because she's doing this. Made to feel like she is a bad person like Abby for wanting this. She's so far gone at this point that she doesn't care that her anger is bleeding into her relationships in a way that she can't just shove down and repress.

And it's all going to make the decision that Ellie makes at the very end have so much weight, right? Because Dina wanted to leave, Jesse never wanted them to go in the first place and Tommy has abandoned his family and town to go after her-- and now they're all here because of Ellie.

Dina is pregnant and hurt, Jesse is dead, Tommy has been disabled and Abby is here just like Ellie wanted, but she has the upper hand. And Ellie is scared, because she was fine (she wasn't) when she was the one hunting, but now she feels hunted and she is just a girl.

She's always been just a girl.

And her community is getting beaten to death in front of her as she is forced to watch.

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Abby is so fine in every universe... Kaitlyn they could never make me hate you.

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kaitlyn dever and bella ramsey behind the scenes of tlou hbo s2ep7

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Ellie/Abby/Tommy jam sesh??!

from Gabriel Luna's instagram