#this isn’t a Joel/ellie thing basically imo

[faultyconscience]

I’ve seen some discourse on the lucy/cooper situation and I understand folks at either end of the spectrum on why they do/do not like the pairing. However, one thing that I’m like ehhh about is interpreting things in a fatherly sort of way (slightly alarming ppl find his behavior more acceptable from him as a father figure to her than as a romantic suitor) and imma explain why and it’s not just bc I ship it (of course I do, I’m me)

Point being cooper already has a daughter. And he’s not looking for another one tbh. He wants HIS daughter. He’s not on the lookout for some replacement bc he’s looking for his daughter still. So I genuinely don’t think he sees lucy like that at all.

And while I think he absolutely sees her as naive I also don’t think he thinks of her/sees her as a kid. It’s not a childlike naivety that she has. It’s a naivety of privilege and having been sheltered. And there’s a world of difference between those things.

REGARDLESS tho their dynamic is already so fucking compelling even and especially outside of the context of a romantic ship. Like they’re just interesting. In any sort of way u look at it.

[silentsockfeet]

tlou hbo s1 ep2 thoughts (w/ spoilers)

the opener for this ep was honestly scarier than the first imo, seeing the woman inspect the dead body and find all the signs of infected were SO creepy, and then the slow dawning of fear in her throughout the scene, the quickness with which she both proposed bombing the city and accepted her death. such a good building of suspense throughout

and then also the way her bomb suggestion was a lead into the later conversation with joel tess and ellie about how the cities were bombed. i love that we don’t actually know if jakarta was bombed or not, the idea that everyone came to the same conclusion without following from example is even more harrowing of a reality

ellie all curled up in the grass comfy and asleep i would kill for her i would die for her i want to hold her in my hands and protect her from the world

“fine i’ll just throw a fuckin sandwich at them” I LOVE THIS GODDAMN KID

joel and ellie’s back and forth throughout the ep is so fun i think it does such a good job of setting up their chemistry without getting them to connect to early

the little giraffe toy in the weeds :’(((

tess basically immediately adopting ellie im obsessed. i love that we get to see a bit more of their dynamic than the game bc it really highlights that tess is a good person at heart even if she says otherwise. she connects with ellie quickly, and the way her empathy and hope slowly starts shining through as the ep progresses (and even as she begins to accept her fate) really says so much about her character

“there’s no boyfriend that’ll come after you?” “…..no.”

the foreshadowing of ellie guessing at the infected types is awesome, i love the fact that she technically got them both right. related but i wonder how they’re gonna do infected types like the shamblers if spores aren’t gonna be a thing

that little frog vibin on the piano what a talented little guy

THE HOTEL SCENE IS TOO EARLY i wonder if they’re gonna have a hotel basement scene now?? probably not which kinda makes sense, it’s a scene better played than watched. but it would’ve been cool to see how they did it

love the expansion of the fungus lore, the interconnected-ness of the tendrils is so cool and so goddamn creepy

the entire clicker sequence was SO GODDAMN GOOD. the way tess and joel don’t tell ellie (or the audience) anything about what’s going on really forces us to put ourselves in ellie’s shoes so that we’re as terrified as her. and the fact that there doesn’t need to be a word of dialogue said to get us to figure out how the clickers work is so goddamn impressive, a shining example of ‘show don’t tell’ i think

am sad that no bricks or bottles were thrown tho

the rooftop scene. i could cry with how faithful this show is

the change in dialogue at the capital building,, “i never asked you for anything… not to feel the way i felt…” i am in so much pain.

on that note it’s scenes like these that really make me love this show bc there really is something for everyone. connecting back to the infected lore from earlier was so fucking cool and felt like such a natural change and the changes to tess’s dialogue make the scene so fresh and still impactful for people that already know the game

i love the specific line “save who you can save” because i feel like it does the perfect job of emphasizing how much tess buys into the cure while also setting the stage for joel’s decision down the road. like at the end of the game, joel really does save who he can save, it just isn’t in the way tess intended. it’s a way for him to still hear her words and connect with them but also have the intention twisted

okay bear with me but i actually liked the inclusion of the cordyceps kiss, it takes something that is so normal and even beautiful to us but then perverts it like that’s textbook horror baby!

general overview: how in the hell was this ep even better than the first

[dalekofchaos]

Making peace with Chloe Price

So I can honestly say in recent months, especially after playing TLOU 2 and replaying ME2(specifically around Jack’s story) I can safely say I don’t hate Chloe Price anymore. 

I have been learning to understand Chloe as a character more and I think what really helped me with understanding her more is that I see similarities between her and Jack, Ellie or possibly Abby especially with them both acting irrationally and sometimes mean due to emotional struggles and how deeply they may feel their pain at times.

It’s a bit unfair to compare Jack and Chloe’s upbringing since Chloe really wasn’t tortured to the degree Jack was, but I felt Chloe and Jack handled their trauma in similar ways.

Ellie is a character who despite not liking or disliking a few of her actions especially her irrational ones, her irrational behavior is understandable and something you may empathize with or even feel similarly to her due to Joel's passing and how traumatic that was for her. Revenge consumes her entirely and she wants to honor Joel in a way that he imo wouldn't have approved of especially considering the bittersweet consequences she has to pay in the end. But she does irrational things and acts irrationally only thinking with her emotions and if this would please or honor Joel. Hell, tbh she can act like asshole sometimes and I don't like her when she acts like that, blowing off Jesse to go after Abby, leaving Dina, torturing Nora, I don't like that she does these things and I know she doesn't like some of these things but I have to understand that she is her own person and will react in her own complex and complicated ways in whatever the story throws at her or whatever she goes through and her current state of mind.

Same with Abby because she is majorly hated for her actions and rather her lack of sympathy or regrets for her actions that she believes she was justified in. Abby was hypocritical when she did beat and ultimately torture Joel in front of Ellie but I'll give her a little bit of leeway by saying she didn't know Ellie was his daughter or someone in that role. But people often shame her for not regretting what she did to Joel which she does feel but she never openly expresses it or expresses it in the same or similar ways to Ellie who is far more expressive and you can sympathize with her more. Abby imo is the more unlikeable or unsympathetic side of Chloe, the side that will park in a disabled spot with no regard for disabled folks, the side of her that is fine guilt-tripping Max if she doesn't like the outcome of what Max did. Abby isn't a terrible person in my eyes, some may think she's bad and some may think she's good and I respect their opinions though I may not agree with it. For me, Abby is shaped by the military-style life she has been accustomed to and has grown up heavily in and is a soldier, especially a very loyal and capable soldier, one of Issac's strongest. Hell, David and. so many other characters who have served in the military who are mostly cold and being in the military or living a similar life can deeply change people. It's not an excuse for her actions but explains them more. Abby isn't liked by the fandom for many reasons but all are valid because they don't have to like her at all but like I said at least understand or empathize with her. I am not sure if what Abby did killing Joel was right in any way or form but all I know is that it was karma coming to Joel for his actions that had changed and or hurt the lives of many. But Abby is a very imo complex character who tries to not show too much emotion or struggles deeply with these emotions that she's feeling. But one thing a lot of people don't like is she basically doesn't regret some of her morally wrong actions, for example, she doesn't regret what she did to Joel, she doesn't ponder on what she did to Ellie and Dina as well as Tommy, maybe she believes they deserved it or she's genuinely trying to move forward is something for us to think about. But Abby imo comes across as a very standoffish, reserved, and uncaring character when imo she's rather complex and not regretting something she doesn't see as bad shouldn't be something she should be punished for or praised for. It's just how she saw the situations she ended up in.

I felt the reason I somewhat disliked Chloe was because I didn't understand or respect that she is complex, flawed, traumatized, and her own person with her own reactions and actions she will do. Hell, I don't like some of them and how she reacts to some things and how she responds to some things not going in her favor but it doesn't make her a terrible character, yeah she reacts and responds in ways that can be seen and or are toxic and they shouldn't be praised especially the emotional-manipulation sometimes. I don't like how Chloe focuses on herself or how reckless she can be at times putting herself and others at risk but all I can do is either hope she changes and minimizes that behavior or respectfully dislike her. I am empathetic towards her, I don't love love her, but I don't hate her much anymore and I am trying to respect she is her own character and she's gonna be complex with her own responses and reactions towards what happens in her life.

I especially feel like I understand Chloe more since my own father is dying from cancer and I have had a pet that died and the pandemic has doubled my abandonment issues. And replaying LIS 1 and BTS has helped me cope.

I honestly deleted all the Anti Chloe posts I’ve made in the past two years as I no longer feel that way(and I feel embarrassed) about Chloe and to any of the fans I’ve rubbed the wrong way about my past views, I am sorry. 

On the subject for apologizing for content that I have made, I am sorry for generalizing the majority of Chloe/Pricefield fans for hating on LIS 2, it is really the only toxic aspect of the fandom and my comment about white passing was wrong and I am sorry. Back to LIS 2. If it’s not your thing, fair, but it’s really shitty to insinuate that the Max and Chloe cameo pic was the only good thing to come out of the game.(also on subject of the cameo, fuck David. Why does he get to live but Kate doesn’t??? no I will never be over this BULLSHIT) 

To be clear, I still don’t like the ableism that comes with Chloe whether it was intentional or not and while it’s not Chloe’s fault persay as the story is focused on Max and Chloe, I still hate the fact that DONTNOD had an amazing cast of characters and did fuck of all nothing with them or did anything to develop said characters(particularly Warren, Kate and Victoria) and did the bare minimum with even giving any of them nuance(not saying Nathan needed nuance, just saying I wish they completed the planned story instead of killing him off screen). But that’s the fault of lazy game designers not the character. I also don’t like that some of the die hardcore toxic aspect of the fandom have harassed and bullied my friends just for shipping Grahamfield or admitting they aren’t a big fan of Chloe or at all or even suggested Rachel deserved her fate(yes let’s victim blame the girl who was gaslit, used and lied her entire life and groomed by two predators).  Like my problems with Chloe when I think about it are minor and not really the character’s fault and more so to do with the toxic aspect of the fandom.

Chloe’s life would’ve honestly been better if Joyce wasn’t her mother or if she had been the one to die(yes I’m serious) it would’ve been still tragic, but William would not have neglected her needs and introduced someone who was abusive in her life and certainly would not have done so while Chloe was still in obvious pain. Joyce was a terrible mother and Chloe deserved better.(there I got that out of my system)

While I still prefer Amberprice, Marshfield and Grahamfield, I do love Pricefield. 

While I am still learning, I do love Chloe Price and I’ve made peace with her.

[iwasraisedfromperdition]

If you don't mind me asking, what about The Last of Us 2 story do you dislike so much? I'm not trying to attack you (I've been pretty iffy on it myself), I'm just curious to your thoughts on it.

Hello ! woo-ee there are a lot of things. Lemme explain.

First of all I need to say that technically, this game is great. The graphics, gameplay elements, level design, accessibility features... everything is incredible. Which makes me pretty sad, that I can’t enjoy the actual game because of the story. Imo it’s a technical prowess, on par with RDR2 and God of War, easy.

Also, disclaimer, I haven’t finished the game yet - I do know of pretty much everything that happens, but I didn’t experience the whole thing myself.

[TLOU2 SPOILERS AHEAD] (i’m sorry i’m too lazy to do a spoiler-free and a spoiler-expensive (im hilarious) answer)

I’ll try not to ramble on too much, because I tend to do that when talking about TLoU2.

First of all, let’s put aside our feelings for the first game and pretend this isn’t a sequel. Even for a standalone story, it’s a pretty bad story. The structure is sloppy : every story ever is supposed to have rising tension launched by an incident at the beginning of the story. About halfway through, you’re supposed to reach the midpoint, where everything just accelerates and the tension is running high ! And to end this story, a final showdown, and a denouement where all the tension is released, and every loose end tied up. This is the basic structure for almost every piece of media - games, novels, movies.

TLoU2 does not follow this very well-known rule. You play half the game as Ellie, where on her side, the tension rises constantly ! You finally reach the midpoint, where you, as a player, are on edge because of everything that’s happened, and then -- nothing. You play as Abby for 10 hours, and for at least 6 of them, her story has nothing to do with Ellie’s. What are you, the player, supposed to do with all this tension, when Abby’s story is so goddamn slow and has no direction ? The second part of the game (before the final part) is very underwhelming.

Next up (still putting aside this is a sequel) : Abby’s story. From the start, Ellie is driven by revenge (not saying that’s a good motivation - we’ll get to that later - but at least there’s a general motivation for her actions). During the 10h with Abby, it’s mostly glorified side quests. I’ve played RPGs, I’m fine with side quests, but in a game like this, you can’t have a THIRD of the game made of shallow goals!! A THIRD!!! This is a story-driven game, so imo that’s just lazy. And it feels incredibly slow, and long, and boring, because it is obvious Abby does not have a true motivation for most of her gameplay. I don’t feel engaged.

Another big issue imo is that the side characters aren’t nearly as challenging and interesting as they were in the first game. Don’t get me wrong, I love Dina and Jesse, but they’re just not as deep as the first game’s characters! Tess, Bill, Henry & Sam - god, they interacted with Joel and Ellie in such a way that they felt human, they brought conflict and reflection and made the dynamic between J&E that much more interesting. Here the characters don’t challenge each other imo, at least not as much and not as deeply. They could’ve been so much more - it feels a lot like a wasted opportunity. I felt genuine empathy for all of the side characters in TLoU1, I don’t here.

Now, let’s talk about the story, considering what the first game was like. The first game was all about hope in a ruthless world - hope, the beauty of nature, friendship and found family. So what the fuck ? Why the MASSIVE shift in tone ? When you’re making a sequel (especially to a game that was loved so much), you have a responsibility to make the sequel FIT. Druckmann made the conscious, and incredibly selfish decision to have a drastic shift in tone and make a game that was essentially a Depression SoupTM with nostalgia on top. He did that, knowing full well it would alienate about 50% of his audience, just to satisfy his dude power fantasy of a cruel, cynical world with no humanity left. @silenthill made a great analysis abt the game, in which they said that the shift b/e TLoU1 and TLoU2 is the same as the Walking Dead shift where it went from ‘found family hopeful community’ to ‘ha ha neegan kill everyone no haven everybody dies’. A lot of people stopped watching TWD because of this, and obviously, a lot of people hated TLoU2.

Druckmann had a responsibility with this game, and he voluntarily fucked it up. Did you know the revenge plot was actually a discarded plot idea for the first one ? That Bruce Straley, Creative Dir. for the first game, said that it wouldn’t make sense for a character in this kind of world to be driven by anger, when every day is already a battle to just survive ? How would a character get away with it ? I quote, “you just don’t buy into it”.

Imo, he was right. It was a bad plot then, and it’s a bad plot now. Who on earth would want to see a beloved character go through hell for a motivation you, as a player, don’t understand ? I personally can’t accept the gratuitous violence when in the end, the moral is ‘Revenge is bad’. I mean fuck, man, I know that. That’s a shitty take ! RDR2 is an example of a game with a revenge plot (that’s not the entire thing) that did great. RDR2 had a beautiful story. You did get a moral at the end, that revenge could not end well for its seeker, but at least he did. get. his fucking. revenge. God, how shitty does it feel to spend literally 25hours of your life stewing in misery and sadness, only for you to be robbed of your ONLY satisfaction and not get revenge ? GOD what a shitty take.

And just to finish with all this cause I’m getting worked up again - Druckmann is a literal psychopath to want us to empathize with Abby. Once again, what the fuck ? She beat up one of the most beloved characters in video games with a fucking golf club, 2 hours into the game. At this point, my mind was set. I hated her, and would hate her for the rest of the game no matter her motivation. How could I not ?? And you want me to feel sad because she lost her dad and her dog ? Her dad, who wanted to murder a 14 year old girl without giving her the chance to say goodbye to her loved ones, without giving her a choice ? I don’t feel sad for this guy. I honestly don’t care. Joel had every right to do what he did - and god knows Jerry would’ve done the same for Abby.  And she smiled at the idea of knowingly killing a pregnant woman !! That’s just - no ! Just a massive fucking no.

And i can accept having a psycho character, alright, but don’t make her out to be the victim. The thread is so thick in this story. It’s obvious Druckmann wanted to make Ellie out to be a bad person : she acts incredibly out of character. this Ellie is a fake Ellie, a version that Druckmann created in hopes that we would turn against her. Same for Joel, who for the entirety of the first game, would literally run over someone who looks injured because he doesn’t trust them - but apparently who will walk unarmed in a roomful of armed strangers and let himself be surrounded, give out his real name ? Bullshit. Manufactured bullshit.

This game came from the selfish and cynical endeavor of an idiot to make a ~~subversive~~ story, when in reality it is a poorly written self-insert, and a slap in the face of the first game and its audience. Nothing in it feels authentic to me except the nausea I got from Joel’s murder scene, the numerous tears shed during Joel & Ellie flashbacks because of the insane betrayal i felt, and the flashes of white hot fury whenever I wondered why on earth they had to write this rather than literally ANY OTHER STORY. That’s not the kind of emotions you want your game to elicit.

But i guess Druckmann doesn’t care - he did his shit game while underpaying his employees, and now he can discard any criticism as ‘hurr durr ur sexist and homophobic and antisemitic and transphobic’ when literally a lot of LGBTQ+ women hated the game as well ! Including me !

I’m very sorry for the rant. If you had the courage to read up to here, I admire you. I’ll just finish this by quoting, again, @silenthill : “this game is an exercise in misery exclusively”, and who needs that ? Why would you inflict so much pain and sadness on yourself ? Go play Horizon Zero Dawn, or Journey, or God of War, or literally any game that wasn’t purposely designed to make you feel like absolute shit.

EDIT : Also, if this game wasn’t a sequel ? Even if it was taking place in the same universe, but with entirely different characters ? I would not care at all about the game. I just wouldn’t have bought it because it’s not necessarily my style (and because i think it’s in poor taste to make a game like this, considering the times we live in). But the fact that he did this to characters we know and love is the only reason I’m so angry - the sequel just doesn’t fit with the first one. It was a dick move to make a game like this. That is all.