millsheat

[millsheat]

that little fangirl in me refuses to admit the fact of liam's demise. i am in a state of denial. afraid it will never go away.

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apparently in hbo universe, you can find fully functioning dyson in apocalyptic seattle, fight hordes of infected with no physical strength and have a therapist. the world is your oyster basically.

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wait till i write post about what they had done to my girl dina

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finally its the ahh haah haah season

happy first Bella From Twilight Depression Month

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rip buff abby 2020-2024 we had a good run

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padre

PEDRO PASCAL as JOEL MILLER HBO's THE LAST OF US SEASON 2

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also forgot to mention my new autumn playlist! it's melancholic, you're welcome

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we better get "you're my people" or i'll riot

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i know pedro and bella's chemistry will cause me to have therapist on speed dial every sunday evening.

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kind reminder that you are allowed to criticize something you love. in case someone needs to hear it.

revisiting the series, so many scenes in the show, that had big impact on the story in the game, fall flat because of bad pacing and need for shock value.

[millsheat]

revisiting the series, so many scenes in the show, that had big impact on the story in the game, fall flat because of bad pacing and need for shock value.

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buckle up because this might be my most controversial -- i do not even know how to phrase it without sounding like a pathetic loser. but i am not really sure about the direction they had chosen for show joel. now, let me elaborate.

joel is a very closed off man, given the circumstances. when he meets ellie, she awakens the part of him he had buried twenty years ago. joel is not exactly good at expressing his emotions. but when he does, it means something. it shows how deeply he cares for ellie, how quickly she becomes so important.

joel did not have many emotional moments in the game, but when he did, the writers chose very specific situations where it left the right impact. for example, the porch scene. it is the very first time we see joel get openly emotional (in a good way!). it is still subtle, yet it shows the player just how significant ellie is for him. that he would do it all over again. the scene hits all the marks and says so much with so little words.

so, i am afraid that, forgive me the phrasing -- with joel weeping in so many scenes, even not ellie related, the important moments, those moments with ellie fall flat.

it is a minor detail, i suppose. but the last of us is built on minor details! there are never big, love gestures and emotional conversations. no, it's hidden in the small details that build up the whole story. that's the magic of its storytelling, for me. the subtle expressions with so little words.

and i feel like the show is lacking in this department. by details, i don't mean joel's cracked watches. i mean the way tommy looks at joel when they visit them at the power plant. tommy does not need to hear a long speech in order to realise how important ellie had become for joel, therefore how hard it is for him -- the idea of losing her. he just does not know how to say it, but tommy understands.

i understand the show is, of course, taking a different direction. i just feel that without these subtle, hidden details, it does not have the right kind of magic or impact, if you may.

again, these are just my thoughts.

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just want to clarify -- me talking about the show does not mean i support it nor side with zionists. despite coming from family with jewish ancestry, i do not condone israel's brutal actions and ongoing genocide towards palestine. what israel is doing is unforgivable and anyone who supports or decides to stay quiet is agreeing with their horrific violence. that's all, peace out.

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you know i was always the one defending the show real hard. but to be frank, the trailer left me really skeptical. i don't want to be the devil's advocate, because of course -- we saw a short montage, not the whole thing. but there are few things that left me puzzled and i would like to point them out.

a lot of people, based on the trailer, assume that joel tells the truth to the supposed jackson therapist and not tommy. if that were to be true, i don't think it would have the same impact. joel telling a secret he was willing to die for to tommy shows how strong their bond remained even, after all those years. also, the whole idea of therapist in the jackson is definitely a strange one, but i am not opposing that, rather speculating of the impact this role will have. hopefully, not just the shock value.

lack of infected in the trailer -- i guess this one could be simply explained by saying that they are keeping them as a surprise. hbo offered a significantly higher budget so.

abby being buff. ah, this caused riots on twitter, and you might hate me, but i agree with them. abby's revenge journey is literally built on her appearance. it's a great example for us, viewers or players, how immersed she had gotten into her plan. she has been training for four years, just to be ready. her revenge quest eventually costs her the relationship with owen, as she refuses to spend time with him, being too focused on trailing and hunting joel down.

so, yes. abby's appearance plays an important role. no one is asking for abby to be a buffed three times more than she was on the show. but we are supposed to believe she fights off tommy, fights infected. her main skill is combat fight. i am aware that video game characters possess power that are in many aspects unrealistic. but the second game includes a lot of fights that are important for the story itself.

dina's faith. dina's jewish ancestry gets mentioned a few times, especially when ellie and dina come across the synagogue. actually, some guy on twitter was giving me shit, saying that it is unimportant for her character. i disagree. might sound odd, but we get to know dina through her faith -- when she tells ellie what is means for her, how she still says little prayers. how proud she is because she comes from a long line of survivors. she mentions her favorite traditions (apple dipped in honey). how her and her sister used to visit synagogues on the road. it shows us that dina, despite the world and despite the circumstances, pushes through. i don't think it is fair or right to erase that part of her.

these are just my thoughts. perhaps, the last one is very subjective because i, myself, come from jewish family. anyways, would love to hear your thoughts.

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what if they’re gonna show another shot of joel’s mailbox only this time it will be closed and surrounded by condolence flowers and cards

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i can't believe we are still having this conversation after four years but no -- ellie was not living some kind of idyllic life at the farm. you get the glimpse of it just by looking at her -- ellie can't sleep, she can't eat, she cannot focus. one look into her diary and you see that ellie is dealing with ptsd, survivor's guilt, the list goes on.

she does not talk to dina -- about anything related to this, or joel, or jesse. she avoids what'd happened, regularly deals with traumatic flashbacks and struggles with insomnia. she is portraying, loudly and clearly, signs of someone who is, still, trapped in the pain and trauma that she had endured.

second of all, dina was not happy either. even though, you, as a player, are led to believe that at first, once tommy shows up, you realize that neither dina has dealt with what went down in seattle. but she does not talk about it, she follows ellie's lead because she knows there is no point in forcing her to speak.

moreover, she sees the state ellie is in. and, perhaps, she is trying to fool herself that she will get better -- of course she does not want to admit the worst, despite the feeling in her gut. she is trying to hold her shit together because she sees ellie falling apart.

however much they both wanted to get some peace, it just does not work like that. you cannot hope that the trauma and pain you went through would simply vanish.

ellie was severely depressed. and no, tommy is not a bad guy who forced her to go hunt down abby. ellie would have gone after abby, but she did not have the guts to do it on her own. she needed the push.

i strongly believe, if she was not forced to confront this reality and leave to end the cycle, she would have taken her own life. as dramatical as it might sounds to someone, she would have. one look into her diary on the farm tells you enough of what ellie's view of life had been at that point.

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also! i updated my ellie/bella playlist!