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Ugh. Singed told Viktor if he started this transformation "they" (anyone not like him) would hate him. And the first person who saw him was so grateful he was alive and loved him so much and. There wasn't enough of Viktor left to care. I bet Singed would expect jayce to hate him one day because he'll never have Viktor back the way he knew him. Joke's on him. Jayce will take any part of him he can. If there's a shred of Viktor left in there, jayce loves it.

#Arcane spoilers

I think what burns me up about tlou is the fact that the showrunners/writers were so dedicated to doing a whole "both sides of the issue/everyone is secretly awful actually" shtick to manufacture discourse about the ending of the show that they failed to realize that Ellie was never a consenting adult and Joel took care of her exactly as an adult should have taken care of a child. They wrote that. They made the fireflies as bad as fedra as a gotcha commentary on human nature and made it extremely clear that Ellie never had a choice for Joel to take - literally Marlene said those words with her mouth, that they didn't tell Ellie she was going to die - and that renders all of the arguing about Joel moot. Methods? In poor taste. Intent? Correct. The show tried to take Ellie seriously as an informed adult through Joel, but whatever of that facade remained after Jackson fell apart after David. Just because she's had to be tough doesn't mean she's not still a child with a guardian who, even before he gave a shit about her, was doing his best to shield her from the worst parts of the world.

The writers don't know what they have. There was a whole commentary WAITING about how the world was losing to the fungus because the infected are the only damn community in the show. Jackson does not count. Not when it also isolates as a response to the horrible world the show keeps showing us. There was something great waiting to be said about the fact that what was damning the world was the fact that nobody would fucking work together or trust each other. The writers kept talking about how dark everything was and about the inherent nature of humanity to be predatory and domineering and I just. That's why it's never going to be a Queer story irrespective of having gay and trans characters. There is no community but the infected and THEY WROTE THAT. This isn't a mirror of humanity, it's a mirror of what a bunch of straight white dudes think about humanity. And now that the show is over I think of new things almost every day that frustrate me about its messages. Which are both far fewer and far more than Craig and Neil intended. The most consistent thing they did was have Joel lie to her about what he did, because they intentionally set him up to be very bad at identifying and expressing his thoughts and feelings. It wasn't a good choice, but it was one of the few consistent ones not predicated on how everyone is terrible, actually. Or maybe that was the point after all. It's hard to say because they have been so dedicated to "both sides." Say something with your whole chest for once, guys. This refusing to take sides is so much more annoying than any possible bad take. Bad takes can be analyzed and understood if not endorsed. Some of those do exist. But the rest is just obtuse.

#the last of us #I don't necessarily feel like watching it was a waste of time or anything #But what the fuck

gottagobackintime

Ellie is 14 years old. And while she's, in some ways, mature for her age, she should not be asked to sacrifice herself for the whole world. "She should have been given a choice and we all know she would have been fine with dying if that meant there is a cure." Absolutely not. You do not ask a 14 year old to make a choice like that. Hell, I'd argue that it's not even a choice. The fact that it's adults that would tell her that makes it even more messed up. These cool adults who are out there trying to save people tells you that you are special, that you're the key to save humanity. Of course you're going to listen to them. Especially if you've gone through the things Ellie's been through. If she as an adult wants to make that decision, sure. But not when she's a scared, vulnerable child.

Should Joel have told her that he killed all of them to save her? Probably. Then he could have explained that she's valuable, not because she's possibly the key to a cure. But because she's a human being that has feelings, that deserves to live. And you could argue as much as you want that she's old enough or mature enough to make that choice. But I don't agree. Yes, she seems to be like that, we see her being snarky and tough but the more Joel shows that he cares about her, the more she lets that mask slip. And she acts like a child would act with their parents.

If her only goal was to reach the fireflies so that she could give herself to them to do whatever with her so that they could find a cure. She wouldn't have been so angry/upset that Joel didn't want to take her, why would it matter who took her there? Because Joel cares about her, and having him let her go hurt her. She could have left Joel to die and gone to find Tommy so that he could take her, like Joel asked her to do. But she didn't because she cares about him. The way she clings to Joel when he finds her and he calls her baby girl should tell you that she isn't ready to make a decision on whether she should sacrifice herself or not. SHE IS A CHILD. And Joel allows her to be a child.

I honestly have no problem with him killing them all to save her. "He took the choice from her!" What choice? They didn't give her a choice, they didn't tell her what would happen to her. And do you really think that they would ever give her a choice. If she'd said no, do you actually believe that they would go "Ah, well. Nothing we can do then, off you go with your new dad. Bye!" Don't make me laugh. They would have just done what they did now. Sedate her and begun to harvest her for what they needed. That's not a choice. She NEVER had a choice, Joel didn't take the choice from her because it was never there. It would have been an illusion of choice. She's also traumatised, most recently from her run in with David. And you want her to make a literal life or death choice?? I completely understand why Joel decided to go on a killing spree, he's protecting a vulnerable traumatised CHILD from people who doesn't care about her, who just wants to use her body for spare parts.

It's not about choice or not having a choice, it's about being valued as a person and not having your life taken away from you by vultures.

#Yup

Wonder what Marlene thought when Ellie got bit and didn't turn, thinking back to Anna insisting she cut the cord before she was bitten and just quietly like yeah. That fucking tracks.

#tlou spoilers #tlou hbo #the last of us

clarasghosts

i know that the discourse is primarily about whether or not joel made the right call. and that's, of course, a very compelling question. the horror and uncertainty and love in that question make it such a beautiful and profound example of negative capability (at least when you don't immediately jump to and defend and answer).

however, there's another question that only asking the above overlooks. were the fireflies right? i'm going to argue that the answer is no. clearly, this was a group of people who wanted to save the world in anyway they could. but they are also largely a group of people who grew up before the world ended, and so they could only conceive of solutions that they thought could recreate what they lost. marleen says that ellie will still be in danger because the world is still broken; she says it like making a cure will somehow unbreak the world. but the whole series we've seen that the uninfected people were far more frightening than the infected ones. a cure wouldn't suddenly turn the raiders and the slavers and the people like david into good people. it wouldn't give you a fighting edge over them.

ellie was born after the end; the world as it is in the series is her world. for better or worse, it isn't right to sacrifice her in the hopes that you can regain what can never really be gotten back. what the fireflies should have been trying to work out was how to build something better in the world that existed; how to create solutions that look forward and not backward. the people in jackson built something good, even with the issues they still face. bill and frank built something good by opting out of all the miserable systems of power and control around them. if the only change you ever try to make is to return things to some status quo, then you won't really accomplish change.

#I will hand this to the show #It's bleak as fuck and sometimes I'm frustrated by how bleak it is #But this is true #Rolling back the world was never going to be the answer #The people who aren't infected are themselves horrors

maxbegone

okay.

THE LAST OF US (HBO) → (1.09) Look For The Light

#the last of us #tlou hbo #tlou hbo spoilers

counterspelling

Endless TLOU

#tlou spoilers #tlou

Putting 7 minutes of bonus material at the end of every episode was just so cruel. The end jumpscares me every time like no, it's not time yet.

#tlou spoilers #tlou hbo

You ever get so distracted you deliver a baby without realizing it

#tlou spoilers #tlou hbo #the last of us

andrew-garfielld

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey Behind the Scenes of The Last of Us (2023)

#pedro pascal #bella ramsey #the last of us

hail-dondus

The fact that Ashley Johnson has always been supportive of Bella Ramsey being cast as Ellie speaks volumes to me. Ellie is not just a character, it’s HER character that changed her life and she loves. If she says Bella is perfect as Ellie, that’s good enough for me.

#And she was right

inkedferngus

My thing about episode 8 is just. The reasons Joel keeps fighting. He rests when Ellie is there, hovering over life and death, and the only thing that gets him on his feet is understanding that she's gone. Been taken. He finds the strength - literally given to him via syringe and figuratively given to him by rage and love - to knife a guy, then catch two more to get information on where Ellie is. He walks for miles to the town to find her, is too late to save her but it's okay, she saved herself. That should be Joel's cue to sit down and rest again. But she's alive and that's not the same as okay and so he hauls his wounded ass over and grabs her because he doesn't have the wherewithal to understand how violently she's going to react to that. His voice is so faint when he speaks to her. He's better, sure, but he's still warmed over death. He's still Not Doing So Hot.

And it doesn't matter. Ellie needs him. In a different way now, a way that demands he push past yet another barrier, this one deeper, and set aside his own 20 years of grief and pain to just hold her and promise everything's okay. It's not. He's not. She's definitely not. But she still needs him, and so he is there. Pulling off his coat, wrapping her up, guiding her out and trying not to put more of his weight on her than he has to. He doesn't matter until she is safe in every sense of the word.

God help anyone who would threaten that safety.

inkedferngus

The other part of this is that Joel is the only person who ever would or could call Ellie "baby girl" in this entire world. She has never been anyone's baby girl. She's been a scrappy spitfire bounced from place to place since she can remember and what's more, she would have bitten anyone who would dare to imply she was anything less. That she needed anything from anyone. This isn't a world where baby girls survive. This is a world where you hunt or be hunted. You fight. You don't sink into anyone's arms and let them half carry you and call to you like a frightened animal. The amount of trust it took for Joel to call her that, even unconsciously, is matched only by the trust it took Ellie to accept it and the care that came with it.

My thing about episode 8 is just. The reasons Joel keeps fighting. He rests when Ellie is there, hovering over life and death, and the only thing that gets him on his feet is understanding that she's gone. Been taken. He finds the strength - literally given to him via syringe and figuratively given to him by rage and love - to knife a guy, then catch two more to get information on where Ellie is. He walks for miles to the town to find her, is too late to save her but it's okay, she saved herself. That should be Joel's cue to sit down and rest again. But she's alive and that's not the same as okay and so he hauls his wounded ass over and grabs her because he doesn't have the wherewithal to understand how violently she's going to react to that. His voice is so faint when he speaks to her. He's better, sure, but he's still warmed over death. He's still Not Doing So Hot.

And it doesn't matter. Ellie needs him. In a different way now, a way that demands he push past yet another barrier, this one deeper, and set aside his own 20 years of grief and pain to just hold her and promise everything's okay. It's not. He's not. She's definitely not. But she still needs him, and so he is there. Pulling off his coat, wrapping her up, guiding her out and trying not to put more of his weight on her than he has to. He doesn't matter until she is safe in every sense of the word.

God help anyone who would threaten that safety.

#tlou spoilers #tlou hbo #the last of us #joel and ellie