marlenesarchive

[marlenesarchive]

I have plenty of personal problems with how the writers/directors characterized the last of us characters, but one thing i CANNOT stand for is this idea that jesse is suddenly some huge asshole.

i made a post a while ago about what he probably had been mad about when he was being snippy with ellie and dina in episode six, and after seeing episode seven i feel like i was right.

Jesse was raised up in jackson and built up to become the next Maria. he was a good leader, a rule follower, and collectively minded for the community. he gave that up for ellie and dina, tommy gave that up to chase after ellie and dina. they gave up deeply important things for themselves to help out their friends/family on an issue they didnt even agree with themselves ("i voted no.").

Not even just that jesse didnt agree with dina and ellies journey, he felt exlcuded. he felt as though he was going out of his way and destroying his own reputation and throwing away his beliefs about protecting the community first to help two of the most important people in his life who he felt didnt even see him that way.

Jesse was still a deeply selfless character, and he didnt need a bunch of sappy dialogue in the show to display that fact. the fact that he was angry and in deep disagreement over the purpose of his friends journey and STILL went out to help them shows the selflessness perfectly to me.

moreover, he was still a smart voice of reason. he was being sensible the whole time, even if he wasnt quite understanding of ellies point of view. the community WAS more important than ellies revenge tour, no matter how much you side with her going after abby or defend her. protecting tons of families, children, and resources was tons more important than giving into one girls greif. jesse was right in standing firm on the idea that giving into ellies anger was a bad idea, that it was counterproductive to the very point she was trying to make.

and the fact that he was gonna be a dad? he only finds that out through ellie, driving an even larger wedge between his and dina and ellies relationship. dinas pregnancy affected him in a large way too, and his want to not die and do dumb shit just to assist ellies flawed plans was so fair.

Jesse was to Jackson what Abby was to the WLF (that isaac scene was 100% foreshadowing jesses importance!!! it was neccessary!!), he was smart, strong, and the next leader. if you can see how much isaac stressed how important abby was to the wolves, you can see how important jesse (and tommy tbh) was to jackson. his being gone was probably a huge deal, and his death will no doubt be a bigger one.

in conclusion, i think jesses character was safe from totaly mischaracterization and he was completely in the right to be angry at ellie and dina. jesses not some off hand asshole like seth was in the beginning, he was a young guy trying his best to do what he felt was right. r.i.p. jesse, youd hate how people took your words wrongly🕊

[marlenesarchive]

i ADORE fanfiction writers - underrated folks! completely amazing writing for free???!!??!?! show your local fanfic writers support!!

Fanfiction writers be like:

"here's the immensely time consuming 100K word novel-length passion project I'm working on between my real life job and family! It eats up hundreds of hours of my one and only life, causes me emotional harm, and I gain basically nothing from it! Also I put it on the internet for free so anyone can read if they want. Hope you love it!" :)

[marlenesarchive]

had me beyond shocked when i saw it but i cant wait for the really detailed and complicated and heartbreaking fanfic written about it💪

A Joel and Tommy flashback are you fucking kidding me

[marlenesarchive]

thisthisthisthisthis

if your gonna post work (artwork at that) and claim it as your own, you actually have to have made it!!!! proudly anti AI in creative writing spaces! i dont post fanfic (...yet👀) but anything i write on here will NEVER be any bit AI

NOTICE: As more and more fanfic writers are using generative AI for their works (you uncreative dweebs), I hereby swear on everything I hold dear that I have not and will NEVER use generative AI in ANY of my written work. Everything I post will be organically and creatively my own.

[marlenesarchive]

i literally have an adrenaline rush its like winning the lottery🙏🙏

How it feels to read a really good fic and find the author has dozens more like it 

[marlenesarchive]

Bob Dylan kind of the opposite of a siren in that I hear him sing and am like. Damn. Should we kill this guy ?

[marlenesarchive]

sobbed reading this book and sobbing once more😭 this fandom is a prison💔🥀

// i'm always looking for you //

[marlenesarchive]

saw a joellie shipper the other day😦 scary scary stuff out there - also they compared it to DBF!joel and Stepdad!joel fics as if those both arent both hella creepy (at least the stepdad one is always weird ash and dbf can easily go downhill)

there is no way tlou fans are shipping ellie and joel together..

are y’all okay?

[marlenesarchive]

yes yes yes yes yes yes

i 100% agree with all of this, shane walsh is a creepy pos. everything you said are things i have thought, this was an absolutely amazing take. i saw this because i was gonna respond to your other post about rick and shanes friendship (because, i really dont believe that rick is completely innocent in their friendship) but i wanted to read this before i posted it and this is a masterpeice.

ily for writing this, its exactly what i think of when people compare them/shit on lori only for her and shanes affair when she was the vulnerable widow between the two of them. keep writing critically, people need to realise how weird it is to write (practically) love letters/defend a guy who on screen clealry manipulated a vulnerable woman and her child, went crazy, then sexually assaulted the woman.

^also sort of me just being beyond annoyed that people ignore how shane innapropirately touched lori when she didnt not want to speak to him, much less be in that position with him (that scene also leads me to believe that your theory of him starting their first romantic/sexual encounter is true, that his mindset in that moment was that he could get her to be with him that day the same way he did the first time they got together) and only stopped when she hurt him. this propoganda that shane was some amazing leader and perfect guy will always grate on me!

In Defense of Lori Grimes

"Michonne is so much better than Lori because she searched for Rick for years while thinking he might be dead when Lori got together with Shane after a few days of Rick being dead"

Something I am so disgustingly sick of seeing in The Walking Dead fandom is the intense sexism in comparing the female characters to each other and pitting them against each other (especially on the basis of those female characters being love interests to the same man or potential love interests to the same man) - the kind of misogynist mindset that the show itself tried to take apart and guide us away from in the most hand-holding way.

I am so sick of seeing characters like Beth and Lori being shit on for being "weak" and seeing characters like Lori and Andrea have their deaths literally celebrated and cheered on by fans just because they were in a relationship with a male character that you didn't approve of.

And genuinely, I think it is intensely unfair to compare Lori and Michonne when their circumstances were so entirely different.

(Potential TW for discussion of Shane's canon assault on Lori.)

Can you genuinely imagine Lori - someone with 0 weapons training, whose ultimate priority was to take care of her young child, marching into a place that was full of Walkers (and active chaos because the outbreak was still so new) and was shown to be full of military personnel actively shooting at innocent civilians because they were afraid that people were infected - just because she herself had to check that Rick was alive and somehow had to rescue him. Rather than trusting the word of someone she had known for years who had no reason to lie to her about Rick's death, and, as far as he was concerned, fully believed that Rick was dead.

And I know that a lot of people get pissy because they think that Lori and Shane engaging in a sexual and/or romantic relationship so soon after Rick's death was tasteless - and I think you are fucking annoying and braindead for having this take. First of all, mourning looks like a lot of different things for a lot of different people. For Hershel, it was drinking, for Beth, it was wanting to take her own life, for Rick after Lori's death, it was experiencing hallucinations - and for some people, mourning might mean seeking comfort in another person.

And I don't understand why people seem to blame Lori for this inappropriate relationship more so than they do Shane? I think Shane is a fascinating character to dissect, and right from the get to, his very first speech shows how he is inherently sexist, and one of the core parts of his character is how he views Lori and Carl as a prize. He never truly loved them as people - which is why he finds it so easily to sexually assault Lori out of anger rather than leaving her alone, trying to claim her as a piece of property he feels rightful to, and later in Season 2 when he is further emotionally devolving, he doesn't truly care to watch over Carl and care for his safety, he only runs around talking about the things he has already done to keep Carl safe.

During 18 Miles Out, Shane says to Rick "I swear I never looked at her before that, man" - talking about how (supposedly) he never had romantic interest in Lori before Rick's 'death', and I think that the only reason this line was put into the script is because Shane is lying here. Because he knows Rick is suspicious that it was a long term affair or at least, that it was a some kind of scheme on Shane's part, and Shane is trying to exonerate himself - especially because he's trying to lure Rick into a false sense of security right before he kills him.

I do genuinely believe that Shane admired Lori from afar for a long time, not only because she's attractive, but because she represents everything he wanted in a woman - she is a stay at home mom, she's a house wife. She fits very easily into that little box that Shane wants to put all women into. Especially because during his opening speech, he says "every woman I ever let have a key" - he denotes the women in his life as roommates. He's clearly never gotten past the stage in a relationship where he lives with a woman for more than a few weeks because he wants a cooking, cleaning house wife - but nobody will put up with him and his attitude for long enough to give him that.

And then there's the fact that he purposefully kept Lori close after Rick 'died'. When (who they don't know is Rick) comes through on the CB, Lori asks if she can go off by herself to put up signs on the highway to warn people away from the city (and she doesn't know it, but doing this would have guided Rick to their camp a lot faster and easier). And Shane refuses to let her go off by herself. He claims that it's because he doesn't want to leave Carl as an orphan, but he ends the conversation with a kiss - cementing that he is her caregiver, her authority and that she needs him.

Imagine how intensely vulnerable Lori was after Rick had just 'died' and in her mind, she was a widow. Her son would never have a father again and she was now living in a scary, dangerous world where her protector was dead. And Shane is lingering around her, keeping her close by - we do not get to see their first kiss in the show, but every single romantic touch between the two of them is initiated by Shane. And I think it is a bit of a psychological power imbalance that she was mourning and scared and he was straight headed enough to lead the entire quarry group, and somehow they ended up in a sexual relationship together.

I would be willing to bet that Shane is the one who started that first romantic/sexual encounter. (And for the record, I am not calling all of their encounters rape or assault, I am just saying that he took advantage of her vulnerable emotional state.)

And comparing that to Michonne - who (when Rick 'died' on the bridge) was someone intensely skilled in combat and survival and perfectly okay to go out on her own to search for him, and had someone else to take care of her children in the meantime in a steady, stable community while she was gone... I feel like it's a totally unfair comparison. Especially because Michonne didn't have a predator that she already had a trusting established relationship with waiting over her shoulder to bounce on her vulnerable emotions.

I love Michonne and Lori both so much, but saying that Michonne better because she searched for Rick and Lori didn't is SO UNFAIR.

Also if you are one of those people who cheers when Lori dies, I am severely judging you

[marlenesarchive]

i always think about how funny it is that the only immune girl was a die hard lesbian so no one would ever know if it was a hereditary sort of mutation

[marlenesarchive]

the mischaracterization of my beautiful aphrodite princess piper mclean KILLS me! end this 'pick me' propoganda!

i havent read the books in a while so forgive if im mixing up fanon and canon or leaving things out, but yall HAVE to realise that piper was just a teenage girl.

with annabeth, the vulnerable, scared moments came later. shes introduced to us as a smart, well adjusted, leader of a character. with piper, shes introduced as worried, scared, and deeply caring. because, shes a daughter of aphrodite not just for looks or because shes rich, but because she feels her love and care so deeply. shes romantic in every aspect (ex. people calling her scene with annabeth 'super lesbian'), platonic or not.

i think people hated that vulnerablity thats shown to us with piper, how shes so truly a teenage girl going through hard things. i think it scared a lot of people off to have that mirror held up to them, instead of being about live vicariously through a strong character such as annabeth or percy.

pipers character, even if rick mightve not written her to her whole potential, has SO much nuance.

one end of the extremes people take with piper is that shes deeply connected with her heritage (ie. the fanart drawn of her in various traditional articles of clothing or with regalia like dream catchers - some of which isnt even cherokee) and super confident. but, thats not who she was.

its not that piper was super connected to her heritage, in fact, its a focal point that shes feels disconnected. though, she feels like its one of the only ways shes truly connected to her dad (through his dad, her grandfather - see: the flashback chapters of her grandpa telling her stories), and hangs onto it. it also proves to be a point of strain on their relationship, how she feels that its unfair that her dad ignores or denies his indigenous heritage and their culture, neglecting to provide the context of pipers bullying to her. she feels hes embarassed of what he is, and thus, her in return. she thinks its unfair that he gets to ignore it so easily and move on, while she spends her time at boarding/juvie schools being relentlessly bullied for it.

and, while she has a strong voice, shes one of rhe most vulnerable characters around.

her main power is her charmspeak, and there are several monologues she makes about feeling less worthy for only having skills with her dagger (and even those were so-so) or her voice while others have so much more. she had several moments of pep talking and being able to sway people one way or another (ex. boreas' sons, and annabeth) but shes also very open, at least to the audience, about feeling less than.

shes not hyper confident, and despite how you might think of being raised in riches and hollywood, it is largely attributed to her upbringing. (<the second extreme - that shes hyper confident, rich, and disconnected despite her attempts at defiance. basically, a stereotype of a rich girl, which ignores all that went into her character.)

piper had a hard time with only being raised by her dad, feeling like she was lacking traits or experiences with feminity and being girly (hence, her aversion to it and why people call her a 'pick me'). it a thing that she doesnt have close women or girl friends in her life, her bestfriend being leo and the only consistent woman in her life being her dads assistant whom she hates. shes drawn away from her role as a daughter of aphrodite and has such a strong reaction to the whole dressy get up shes put in because she feels out of her comfort zone, suddenly dropped in a world shes spent her whole life feeling pushed away from.

moreover, she takes on a tomboyish style so as to defy her dad and grasp his attention. shes being raised by a famous movie star in peak early-mid 2000's y2k, hyperfeminine, skinny culture hollywood. she sees the feminine style and the way its caused women, famous or not, to spiral and drop off the face of the earth and relates it all to horrible events shes seen. its only natural for her to stray from that narrative, chasing a different ending.

on top of using her tomboyish, lowkey style to defy her father, she also steals. shes introduced to us on a bus surrounded by juvenile deliquents, placed there by her dads assistant for being a kleptomaniac. leo even makes a comment about her 'stealing' a car.

while we later learnt hat she truly wasnt stealing things, and she was telling the truth about convincing the people to give her the items she stole, she still continued the cycle to grasp her dads attention. it didnt matter if she was stealing or not, if her dad thought she was, hed give her attention so as not to ruin his reputation. shes just a girl, wanting to be noticed by her dad, her only real parent, whos always away, while also dealing with harsh bullying, a bad record, and teenage happenings.

this whole idea that piper is either of these extremes hurts my brain, and shows to me that people will always have a hard time showing sympathy to teenage girls who are rocky in the way they deal with things.

(^note: --teenage girls who are rocky in the way they deal with things AND dont get an explicitly happy ending or are healed by a boy/relationship of some kind. we are shown rocky reactions to things with annabeth (a key character) but we are also shown how shes healed from it with percy and his family. with piper, we arent shown that. only, or largely, the difficult bits. i think that makes it even harder to grasp onto the idea that shes not so bad. because, shes not saved by jasons existence, she doesnt fall for a boy, she doesnt get an in with her family or someone elses, her problems run deep, and arent fixed 'on screen'.)

this illusion that shes either of these extremes, i think, is broken fairly well in TOA, both with her moving away to oklahoma and jasons death.

her relationship with jason is a good reminder of who they both were. they werent ever actually together, and as we come to learn, never actually in love. but they stayed together not just because jason is raised a loyal soldier, but because piper cared for him so deeply. its not that she was some obsessed teenage girl, but rather that she was worried of straining or breaking the close relationship they had by breaking it off. the relationship wasnt just a tool for jasons character, but pipers aswell.

she was jealous of other people, girls particularily (internalized homophobia? maybe crushes? whos to say....) like reyna or annabeth because they could act friendly and loving to jason without the need or compulsion to stay or be in a relationship with him. she knew that they could continue to be friends without problem, whereas their breaking up (which proved to be a true worry, given how they act in TOA) could hurt the closeness they shared.

then, with his death, she clearly feels that topple down on her. she feels guilty for him dying for her (and co.) when they had been so awkward, when she hadnt had a chance to make things up. he got a last moment to show how much he loved and cared for her beyond their romantic relationship, and she didnt. in that moment, the one where jasons body is brought ashore, you can see that she wasnt shallow, nor was her breaking up with jason taken lightly. they were close in a way they werent with others, both feeling deeply disconnected and distant from their paths and where/who they come from.

with her moving to oklahoma, we see that she wasnt dependent on her riches nor faking her forms of defiance. we can also see the healing she is clearly able to do ( finding out she likes girls, getting closer to her dad) now that she is away from the spotlight and has time with her father.

in conclusion, piper mclean is not the viscious pick-me girl everyone makes her out to be. shes a complicated, caring, deeply feeling, sensitive teenage girl going through a lot. yall need to give her time and space.

this isnt to say that shes perfect or written perfectly but, then again, i think that can also be credited to the times her character was mostly was written in (2010's) and by who (a grown man). her experiences wont all be perfect and sometimes wildly cliche, but it also requires understanding that the things you deal and struggle with affect how you act and think. the whole internalized homophobia bit is a whole other rant/rabbit hole i could go down.

[marlenesarchive]

hate to say it but jesse isnt mad (most likely) at the fact that dina and ellie got together (given the context of...everything.) but rather, angry that he probably had to give up a lot if not all of his good reputation and council spot to chase after dina and ellie.

joining the council and bring an influential guiding voice was clearly important to him, and giving that up for his friends, no matter how willingly loyal he is, is probably beyond frusrating.

he can probably see this being a bad idea, and he knows dina and ellie well. he probably understands that they wont give this up, and that its his duty as both a protector of jackson and their bestfriend to stick around for it.

not to mention what he mustve dealt with on the journey with tommy, and how hes taking everything. its difficult to say, with how theyve changed tommys character, what he mightve been like. having to leave his wife, kid, and town behind to chase after his neice on her revenge tour to find his brothers killer mustve been a whirlwind of emotions and big decisions.

like?? i appreciate the humor, i love it. but this story still has depth despite whatever the hell is going on in this season, and its important to hang onto that ESPECIALLY with characters (like jesse!) whos entire personalities havent been nuked.

[marlenesarchive]

i got some lovely input last time i posted this (praying for more) but in epsiode five???!!? WHAT is going on with the guitars? those guitars had been sitting out in the open for god knows how long without protection and coverage (save for the building it was in which was suprisingly untouched - another gripe of mine?) and with no control over humidity or anything and those guitars were perfectly fine???

i have an acoustic guitar that i have been taking care of (case and all) and it cracked in less than a year cause i didnt give it enough moisture. your telling me that those guitars could be sitting out in the open and be okay??

what is going on in episode five.

why is no one mad about the fact that ellie found a guitar in PERFECT condition 20+ years into the apocalypse with only a silica packet and guitar case to keep it safe???

maybe its just because im the daughter of someone who used to build guitars/has been hounded by my dad about keeping my guitar safe and in good condition. but there is NO way the guitar wouldve been without warping/cracks.

silica packets only last about a year or so at best, and are used to suck up moisture. but, guitars need moisture, they need humidity. its why if you go into a guitar store, the acoustics are stored in their own special room. its so that they can all be kept at an apropriate temperature.

there is NO way the guitar would be safe and sound and in damn near perfect 'just needs a tuning' condition. a case will not be an end all be all for safety of the guitar.

even if it was left some years into the apocalypse, guitars need taking care of. extreme temperatures or temperature changes (like what might affect the guitar, case or not, within an abandoned building with broken windows.), lack of proper or too much humidity, and tension on the wood can all cause it to wear, break, or warp.

in conclusion, either i am being a dummy and getting some sort of fact wrong, or that was dumb asf.

[marlenesarchive]

SOUTHERN ELLIE WILLIAMS SUMMER!!! COWBOY ELLIE WILLIAMS SUMMER!! PLEAASEEEE I NEED TALENTED WRITERS TO FEED ME MORE SOUTHERN ELLIE!!! ILL DO ANYTHING FOR MY SCRUMPTIOUS COWGIRL!

(and maybe shes butch?!? i dont know...🤷‍♀️ i heard thats pretty in this summer...)

i know you love farm ellie just as much as i do. but i also really love the idea of cowboy ellie williams🤭

the southern accent. the cowboy hat. the short hair. her hands. her smirk. omg.

i need more people on this cowboy!ellie kick as much as i am. i need more fics😭

i’ve been wanting to do a farmers hand / cowgirl ellie fic for very long but so many ppl have done it already (n beautifully so!!!!) goshhhh her southern accent id die. that texas twang liiiike :(( “howdy, pretty girl” n her stupidly tipping her hat!!! messy cowboy ellie who’s constantly covered in dirt and mud but has that tan on her n her freckles are ten times more prominent. i wanna eat her.

[marlenesarchive]

why is no one mad about the fact that ellie found a guitar in PERFECT condition 20+ years into the apocalypse with only a silica packet and guitar case to keep it safe???

maybe its just because im the daughter of someone who used to build guitars/has been hounded by my dad about keeping my guitar safe and in good condition. but there is NO way the guitar wouldve been without warping/cracks.

silica packets only last about a year or so at best, and are used to suck up moisture. but, guitars need moisture, they need humidity. its why if you go into a guitar store, the acoustics are stored in their own special room. its so that they can all be kept at an apropriate temperature.

there is NO way the guitar would be safe and sound and in damn near perfect 'just needs a tuning' condition. a case will not be an end all be all for safety of the guitar.

even if it was left some years into the apocalypse, guitars need taking care of. extreme temperatures or temperature changes (like what might affect the guitar, case or not, within an abandoned building with broken windows.), lack of proper or too much humidity, and tension on the wood can all cause it to wear, break, or warp.

in conclusion, either i am being a dummy and getting some sort of fact wrong, or that was dumb asf.

[marlenesarchive]

people saying the slowburn takes away from dinas character is insane! even without the time changes (how people viewed homosexuality in 2013 vs. 2003), a confident character can definitely have questions about their sexuality! especially if they are (clearly) totally in love with their bestfriend after having on and off dated the same guy for YEARS!

in fact, i think it makes more sense to help build up slight moments of hesitation within dina (a totally normal thing for a young woman, especially about feelings (gay or not) regarding their bestfriend) to support the hesitation we see with her and jesses relationship or even her pregnancy anouncement to ellie! i get this! there are definitely different problems to be focusing on.

dina is definitely still a confident character, even more so if your comparing her to ellie and how ellie approached the New Years kiss - thats to say, ellie didnt! dina confidentally brought up a topic neither had acknowledged since that point! thats not a thing shy characters do! dina still has character integrity!

And one more thing! You can be confused about your sexuality and IN LOVE, down bad in love. I’m sorry people are upset that Dina and Ellie aren’t immediately banging, but you can clearly see they are coo coo bananas for each other. It doesn’t cheapen the romance or make it mean less.

Sorry. I’m crashing out over all these surface levels takes on their relationship.

[marlenesarchive]

this this this this this

reminder that yall can not love a casting choice and also not take your shallow hatred out on someone just trying to do their job (a great job, might i add!) !!!!

Fuck you Bella Ramsey haters, just fuck you, you pathetic pieces of shit! All over the net I see people making fun of how they look JUST FUCKING FUCK YOU, FUCKING FIGHT ME. ITS ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC AND LOW. if you don't like the casting, it makes no sense hating them.

Bella gave me no reason to question their talent, I had fucking goosebumps to their scenes in S1. They are an amazing actor, and I understand that they might not look like video game ellie but again, that doesn't justify the hate.