#except finesse? idk. I can see that potentially being a problem.

[forcedhesitation]

idc about the new survivor (no offense, just not a media I've ever really cared for) GIVE ME MY HUX BUFFS!!!!!!

[carmen-berzattos]

I'm really curious to see what you think of the episode once you watch it because I thought it wasn't that bad tbh

Hey nonnie, so I just finished watching the episode and I’m ... conflicted. I’m conflicted by my reactions towards this show since the Michael’s return SL ended tbh. In the first 7 episodes, I so obviously disliked the storylines and where it was headed but afterwards my reactions were not so resentful. I became a lot more ... conflicted because the writing is not obviously bad or bad bad, it just became confused, unfocused, rushed and somewhat inconsistent. Somewhat, being a generous qualification on my part tbh. So, I’m gonna try to break it down here. Keep in mind, though, that I haven’t given a ton of thought to what the show has had to offer in a while now. It seemed futile to me, primarily, but also, because I’ve been far too busy to actually spare too much energy here. Nonetheless, here it goes:

 First and foremost, the romance in this season fell on its face in a lot of way. Starting with the main romances of Petramos and Jafael.

1. Petramos: In a lot of ways, the trouble of Petramos is a lot easier to spot for me, a little more obvious, and a little less complicated than jafael’s, more contained than Jafael’s. Probably due to the shorter history of the relationship. I think the controversial revelation that Petra’s been lying to JR about Anezka this whole time was detrimental to the relationship in a nearly unfixable way. To fix it would need care and finesse and patience and build-up. JtV has always had some trouble with all of that, what’s with it being so dramatic and over-the-top, but I think it’s struggled to achieve nuanced writing especially this season. In that way, Petramos’s writing has been doomed since the very start of the season. Like fine, okay, you went ahead with the Petra lying, something that I won’t even get into how unlikely it seems to me, but the relationship needed a LOT more care than what they gave it. Having JR choose to get back with Petra so prematurely only to have them break-up later on did NOT do the writers any favor. Their reunion was rushed, their build-up was quick and a lot of it off-screen. And then their break-up was a disaster writing-wise. It wasn’t heartbreaking, it was angering and insulting to me as a viewer who has functioning braincells thank you very much. It was done for drama and did not really follow coherently, especially with the add-on of Petra wanting to propose and all that. It just fell on its face. For me, a much better way to deal with the situation would have been to let their season 4 break up land throughout the first half of the season, then come up with a reason for a rekindling, a tentative alliance, a careful build up that leaves me squealing like a schoolgirl when they reunite. Have Petra go through the journey of getting over JR in the first half, have her go through that character growth, and THEN reunite them. And here’s the thing, I’m still about 99% sure that Petramos is endgame, but we’re literally supposed to get the reunion and the endgame in ONE episode, an episode that’ll largely be about Jafael so like... IDEK man. This’ll be really hard to sell beyond the aesthetics of two gorgeous people getting together on your screen. 

2. Jafael: I have SO many conflicting emotions about Jafael this season. Don’t get me wrong, I love them, I ship them. I always will. And we did get some really good material over the course of the season, but boy oh boy, do I have problems with how this is all panning out. First and foremost, the treatment of this relationship with Michael’s return has been disastrous, and i think we can all agree on that. Like okay, fine, you want to reach this point of breaking up. Okay fine. You want to reintroduce the love triangle. Okay fine, but pray tell, what the actual fuck was that treatment of the storyline? I was genuinely excited about the potential for angst that this’ll give Jafael. I wanted the pain and the heartbreak, I wanted Rafael to be the one to break up with Jane because he just does not want to do this anymore, but the way they went about it was confusing to me. For example, I loved the idea of “Rafael got his memories back, too”. I thought that was clever, but to me the trigger of it was not as clever. Remember back in season 1 when Raf proposed and then he saw her laughing with Michael and that kind of contributed to sending him spiraling? Yeah, I needed something like that. Something to remind Rafael and the audience of this journey, a physical evidence of that trouble in front of him. We got none of that of course. And then we had to deal with the whole Mateo thing and Mateo’s feelings and involvement and it was so not the right focus. It lacked feeling, it lacked heart, it lacked things that were genuinely a part of the core of Jane as a show. The whole point of Michael returning was supposed to be the emotional baggage of it all, but it turns out JtV was truly not at all equipped to handle something with that complexity. So the break up was a bit of a mess in that regards and I’m just... yeah. Let’s just leave it there for now. 

Because what was even more aggravating than the break-up, is their reunion. I’m not gonna get into the whole thing about Raf’s depression here (see below the section about characters), but what I will get into here is, how in fuck’s name did we get a whole reunion SL without even a glimpse of what, exactly, was going through Raf’s mind as he went through therapy? Like just how? How did he come to not trust her? How did he come to realize that he’ll always love her? What the f was going on in his mind this whole time? Was he pining in his own way, too? Okay, fine, you don’t want to give us this storyline about his depression (why thank you, fuck you too), but can you uhhh, IDK give us a SL about them getting through their issues. Remember Jafael in season 1 and 2 going to therapy to hash out their trouble? I miss those days. I’m honestly beyond flabbergasted that they did not immediately march into a therapist’s office and try to fix their trouble. That would’ve made their whole journey come full circle. It would have helped dissect their problems. His and hers. How they’l move on. How they’ve grown together. You know, the kind of stuff you do when you tell a person that you don’t trust them anymore but you also really love them? Remember the proposal episode? Yeah, how the F did we not get a we’re going to therapy SL afterwards? And now, in 5x17, Raf is like I’m not worried about MIchael trying to win you back again, anymore. And I’m like, k, cool, but why? We have seen very little development in that regards, can you please explain it better? Can you please show me more? PLEASE? But I guess not, and it is what it is now. 

In a lot of ways, Jafael’s trouble is that the show is trying to cram 2 or more seasons worth of buildup and SL into half a season, half a season whose focus has been disastrous to say the least. So yeah, the reunion has been tainted for me with a lot of trouble. And now, thinking about it, I actually can’t find very clear ways in which Jafael’s journey this season could have been fixed wih easy and simple shuffling of certain events. To truly make it pop, they NEEDED to delve deep into Rafael’s mental health, which is not a simple fix in itself. Otherwise, this only partially satisfactory stuff is all we are left with. In my mind right now, I think I would have gone much farther back, though, and tweaked their story to maintain the Michael returns SL without it making the story so bland and aggravating. I think I wouldn’t have let Jafael get together at all in season 4. Rafael, following that breakdown he had with Jane in 4x05 goes to therapy. Jane has a romance with Adam that runs its course. Jafael rebuild their friendship and start to catch feelings again. They’re really falling in love and about to get back together when BAM Michael returns. I think that would have worked for the purposes of the triangle more. Jane is not really committed to anyone, except now she’s in love with Raf. And it would have made even her choice more powerful. But alas, it is what it is. But even more ideally, IDK, come up with a more creative obstacle than Michael’s return. 

3. Villadero: Honestly, I’m only gonna talk about them to vent, cause I’m MAD, you guys, so MAD and I don’t even ship it. But I’m MAAAAAD. Like just... okay, okay, you take all of season 5 and it’s literally just Jennie shitting on M/J and I’m like what the actual fuck? The blows never stopped coming? Michael returning only to have his heart broken all over again not enough for ya? Having to see Mateo say that he hates him not enough? Oh, no, it’s not. We gotta not only make the book about their relationship a flop (which like, fine, as an aspiring writer it’s cool to see this being a more complicated journey for Jane than an immediate hit) but to also have its publication be a literal bribery? Why?? JUST WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYY? And then to imply that M/J where just a step for Jafael and M/C now?????????????????? WHY WHY WHY???????????????????? Remember the show that had Jane worry that her moving on with Raf would make it seem as if Michael is just a step? I want that show back. I just... UGH. 

Characters and characterization is another thing that the show really struggled with this season. Like a LOT. 

1. Petra: I’ll start with Petra because I honestly think she got the better deal out of everyone. This season has really managed to highlight and showcase how much she’s grown and how far she’s come. I think aside from the supposed plan to propose to JR, Petra has been the least inconsistent this season. Though she did have lines that showed real amnesia on the writers part, like telling Jane that JR is the reason she doesn’t lie and manipulate anymore. But oh well, she did well. 

2. Jane: I feel like Jane has lost a lot of her vibrance this season. I can’t really pin point why, but I think it’s a combination of reducing her to her bouts of guilt, the weird way that they’ve dealt with her career this season, fluctuating between utter disregard and then literal cramming of episodes worth of her writing development into half an episode (I mean Ro has FAAAAAAAR more build up towards This is Mars than Jane has with her book) it’s been really hard to see the life that Jane exuded in the past. 

3. Rafael: I’m tired. I don’t wanna talk about it. I’m just tired. 

4. Michael: Also tired. I just wanted him to feel like a person with emotions and trauma but like... *rubs forehead*

5. Xiomara: This makes me the MOST tired. She faded into the background so much I want to ram my head through a wall. Like what the fuck man just what the fuck? The build up of her going to nursing school came from no where. Now she’s willing to go to NY so quickly? No struggle? All the struggle is on Ro’s part? Why just why I don’t understand how the writers who gave us Xo from season 1-4 can just suddenly forget. Even the wrap up of her cancer SL was anticlimactic. It’s just. 

Also, Luisa deserves better. 

Another thing that season severely struggles with is focus. So much screentime for Jorge and Alba and it’s just not that interesting of a SL. So much time for River Fields and literally no one I know gives a flying fuck. So much wasted time, time that should have gone to Raf’s depression, more Luisa, and definitely more Xo. But NOOOO we had to deal with River’s relationship with her daughter and I’m like... who even gives a damn? 

One last thing I’ll say cause I’m too tired to say anymore about this, though I could: where are the magical realism elements in the show? Where has that magical feeling about them gone???????????????

Anyways, let’s see how they wrap it up I guess. 

[apatheticaria]

my spoilery thoughts on the last of us part ii

i apologize in advance for this super long post that you have to scroll past because i don’t know how to do the “keep reading” option thing

the only reason i’m writing this out is because i’m literally going insane from not being able to talk about my feelings for this game to anyone since no one i know actually cares lmao so this is mainly just for myself and anyone who wants to read this

the intro:

as i played through this game, i also watched a few playthroughs up until the point where i stopped to take a break. this was a game i couldn’t binge just because it’s so heavy and intense and sometimes you just gotta step away and take a breather

one of the playthroughs i followed along with was jacksepticeye’s and at the end he gave his review of the game like he normally does. i didn’t completely agree with everything he said, but for the most part i thought what he said lined up pretty well with my own opinion.

in particular, one thing that stood out to me was when he said that the introduction to this game shouldn’t have been Joel talking to Tommy about what he did at the end of the first game, but rather the whole flashback of Ellie’s birthday at the museum. then at “one” during the countdown to liftoff, the screen should’ve went black and fast forwarded to four-years-older Ellie opening her eyes in her home in Jackson (idk if i’m explaining this well, but Jack’s editor, Robin, edits this together and really sold it to me. if you wanna see it, go to the last part of Jack’s playthrough and look for it towards the last 30 minutes). i think this would have given us the time i think we all needed with Joel before he died and all the following flashbacks would be more focused on how/why Joel and Ellie’s relationship turned so distant - or hostile on Ellie’s part - and could’ve helped the pacing a bit.

Joel’s death:

potentially an unpopular opinion? but i actually like how Joel died. or uh lemme rephrase, i like the way they wrote his death. in this world of violence, hate, and brutality (actually doesn’t sound too off from our world but ahem moving on), i think the way he died was realistic, especially since he doomed all of humanity by saving Ellie in Part I. it just makes a lot of sense that someone would go after him and hunt him down

from the moment Abby and Owen stood over Jackson from the cliff, i was thinking: well theyre gonna kill Joel and since we’re gonna probably be playing as this girl for some (emphasis on some) of the game, they’re gonna go hard on the grey area of perspective in terms of revenge. which i was super on board with, but we’ll get back to that

when this game was first advertised, i didn’t know how i felt about a revenge story. it’s been told so many times and i’m never as hell-bent on revenge as much as the character is because it never feels warranted enough. that is, until i saw Joel die. watching Ellie pinned to the floor with a perfect view of his body, his face, beat to shit as she screams and begs for Abby to stop? haha that’s fucked Naughty Dog, thanks. but i do appreciate that they were able to make me just as mad as Ellie because of just how brutal his death was and how much i care, cared, about that character. no story has ever made me so incredibly enraged to the point i was with the main character full-stop to just destroy the perpetrator and take revenge. that’s why i think the way Joel dies is perfectly done. the fact that that cutscene is so horrible to watch for so many reasons just proves that it does it’s job.

Ellie’s half:

i actually don’t have too much to say about Ellie’s half of the story. this was what i both expected and wanted from the game, the whole game. while i can’t say i was having “fun”, because this isn’t really a fun game to play, you know what i mean when i say that this part was fun to play and follow.

side note: Naughty Dog’s improvement of your NPC buddy is so good, Dina and Jesse were both actually helpful, still not perfect, but also they’re not supposed to do all the work for you. i think the added layer that they could also get caught/seen and alert the enemy was completely unexpected and such a good addition to the gameplay (ofc this goes for Lev as well).

throughout the whole story, there’s kinda a problem with the pacing, and i know i’m not the first person to say that. however, i think the only big pacing issue i had with Ellie’s perspective was that kinda weird attempt of an open world map that they did with the gates. it felt a little unnecessary since i, and most other people, are playing for the story, not an open world with various side quest-like things. i missed the guitar cutscene with Ellie playing the guitar and singing to Dina (which kinda sucks, but i obviously just watched it after) because i just wanted to get back to the story rather than explore a large area. it was an attempt at something different so i won’t fault the game for that too much, but also stay in your lane lol so that section was a bit of a miss for me personally. i really liked the rest of it though, it had me engaged the whole time

Abby’s half:

ok. i have a lot to say about this half of the game since this is where most the problems occur.

first, let me preface this by saying that i don’t hate Abby. as i said, from the very beginning i knew she was going to have a, not justifiable, but an understandable reason for murdering Joel and that the game was going to be about seeing two sides to the same story. except, at the same time, i came here for Ellie, so why am i playing as this heterosexual? im mostly kidding. but fr i didn’t need the entire half of the game trying to get me to sympathize with Abby. i really didn’t need the message to be so spelt out for me, i got it from the moment i realized she was going to kill a favorite character.

i think my main gripe with the way they told this story is the way they formatted it. this story has all the elements to be amazing, but the execution just lacked the...finesse? idk if that’s the right word.

rather than splitting up the game into two halves, they could/should have integrated Abby’s story into Ellie’s so that when we cut from Abby holding the gun at Ellie in the theater to suddenly Abby as a young girl, it won’t feel so jarring when we have to start all over again with the upgrades and the timeline.

i really liked how we switched between them in the very beginning so why couldn’t that have just continued? in a book with multiple povs, the author often switches back and forth between every or every few chapters. you never see a book that starts with one perspective, then at the climax you have to start all over again from the other. at least, i’ve never seen this in any books i’ve read and i’ve read a lot ngl

maybe they forced us to stick with Abby for so long because if we’re forced to play as her, then we’re forced to get invested into her story. while this makes sense, it also really degraded at my enthusiasm for the game. it took me so long to just give up on the idea that we would be going back to Ellie relatively soon and when i did actually realize that was what was happening i was really disappointed.

instead of separating their stories, i would’ve liked to have Abby maybe one step behind Ellie the whole time so that while we play we’re just anticipating when Abby will finally catch up and it builds to this whole thing. instead, when we actually got to the point where everything was supposed to go down, we’re hit with whiplash and back to the very beginning with tutorials?? like did they just expect us to forget how to play since we switched characters?

i’m thinking, after Ellie and Dina jump over the barbed wire that explodes and Ellie’s knocked out, we could have switched over to Abby waking up in the WLF stadium. after Abby sneaks out of the stadium and you have that interaction with Jordan where he mentions Leah at the tv station, then we go back to Ellie waking up and tied to the table and we see Ellie kill Jordan.

after this i think Abby should have met Lev and Yara way sooner because i barely even remember what happened before Abby was caught by the seraphites it was so boring. so she gets caught by the seraphites AFTER we meet them through Ellie being shot through the shoulder (i still want to get all the first impressions of new stuff with Ellie because then it still makes her feel like the main character) and we meet the siblings and blahblahblah.

as a follow up, after Ellie kills Nora, which by the way, Ellie’s facial expressions are just so good with the red light while she’s just beating Nora to death? wow that entire interaction was so well done. anyway, after Ellie kills Nora, and Ellie gets back to the theater and the scene ends with her and Dina hugging, then we would switch to that whole section with Abby and Lev traveling to the hospital to get the meds and it would be cool if on her way in, Nora helps Abby and then on her way out, we run into a door we have trouble opening so we push and when it opens, Nora’s beaten up body is right there.

you get the gist. Abby’s story was barely intertwined with Ellie’s until the very end where she finds Owen and Mel dead. she doesn’t know that literally everyone else, except Leah, is dead too. i feel like that would’ve made the impact of Abby and Ellie’s fight at the theater more effective. affective? whatever i’m not an english nerd

i also think we should have gotten the flashback with Abby’s dad a little later when we’re expected to understand her character a bit more.

overall, i’m not mad about getting Abby’s side of the story, but i am mad that the way it was told felt so disconnected from Ellie. we could still get that whole arc of Abby going to the island to get Lev, she can still get her own story apart from Ellie, but she needed to have more of a interaction with Ellie’s actions.

Abby vs. Ellie, Abby’s pov:

i absolutely hate this fight. i really hate the way it was written and the way it happened. i get that the game is trying to give us Abby’s perspective and to show that in her point of view, Ellie is the villain in this story.

except, AGAIN, i don’t need this spoon fed to me!!! i KNOW that the world isn’t black and white and that people’s perspectives are different, but also? i don’t really care. both characters have gone through shit and both have done shitty things. neither of them are innocent, no one in this world is innocent (hence why i really dislike Mel, but that’s not really relevant), so it really comes down to which character you value more. in my - and most other people’s - case, it’s Ellie. i know the whole point of this fight is to make the player uncomfortable, but i wasn’t just uncomfortable, it made me legitimately start to dislike this game (spoiler for the end of this stupid-long review: i don’t completely dislike it)

the game really emphasizes that this is Abby’s story as much as it is Ellie’s and i get that, but this fight did not need to happen the way it did and the game didn’t need to be even longer after this. a lot of people say that we played from Abby’s perspective because Ellie would have killed Abby and that would be that (and she did, by the way, i relished watching Ellie get her revenge because while i don’t hate Abby, it was still so satisfying even if that wasn’t how the game wanted me to play). however however however, Abby wouldn’t have showed mercy either. she was absolutely going to kill Ellie if Dina hadn’t intervened then she was going to kill Dina if Lev hadn’t intervened.

here’s how i wouldve wanted it to go: we go back to Ellie’s perspective once Abby has the gun pointed at Ellie in the lobby and during their fight, Ellie would get the upper hand because she has weapons and shit (let’s be honest, Ellie would not win in hand-to-hand combat with fully-healthy Abby, we saw that first hand). Lev would try to jump in, but then Dina would disarm him and prevent him from escaping her grasp. then eventually Ellie would have the barrel of the shotgun pointed at Abby’s face and she would hear Lev tell her to please stop don’t kill her and Ellie would listen because the same exact thing happened to her (we could get a short flashback or something for more emotions, idk). so instead of killing Abby, Ellie would knock her out and her and Dina would leave and Lev would run to Abby’s unconscious body. this would end that cycle of revenge and because Abby has something more important to her than revenge (Lev), they would move on.

the ending:

if the game went how i just imagined, we probably wouldn’t get an ending that’s as depressing and open ended as it is, but i’m sure Neil and his team could figure something out, such as Ellie still has to deal with PTSD and Tommy’s really pissed at them and Ellie still looses her two fingers. so we get that little domestic sequence and the PTSD flashback and Tommy coming with his eye missing and showing the map. he leaves and when Ellie is about to leave in the middle of the night, Dina convinces her this time to stay and the next day Ellie tries to play the guitar one last time before giving up since she doesn’t have her fingers (i still want that last heartbreaking flashback, that one fucked me up i love it) and she goes out to leave it somewhere in the woods with it all ending with her walking away from the guitar that Joel gave her to symbolize her letting him go. idk man something like that, still not that open ended, but i’m just talking out of my ass rn

anyway that’s not how it went so we’ll stick to reality.

an open ending isn’t supposed to be unsatisfying, because that’s what this ending was. Part I does an open ending perfectly as we still get closure even though we don’t know exactly how things go afterwards (until now obviously).

after playing from Abby’s perspective for so goddamn long, it was weird to play as Ellie again, even while it was also a relief, and that makes me really sad. in the end, i did feel bad for Abby when she was literally left to starve and “hang” (but again i didn’t need 15+ hours in order to feel basic sympathy).

from the way they wrote the story, i knew Ellie wasn’t going to let it go and she was going to leave Dina and JJ. it made sense and i don’t think it was out of character for her, but the fact they did that in the first place and that Abby was the one to let go first? Abby got her revenge, she killed Joel, but Ellie never got that closure so of course she was going to go after Abby.

in the very end, Ellie is left with no one and Abby still has Lev and a group of fireflies to run to. Ellie’s biggest fear was being alone as she said in the first game, but that’s exactly what she’s left with. yeah life is unfair and i do like that the consequences feel real in this story, but i don’t think Ellie deserved to be done so damn dirty while Abby is living her best life. sure all of Abby’s friends were murdered because of Ellie and Dina leaving is Ellie’s own fault and i don’t blame Dina, but i mean we have no idea what happens to Ellie after this, where she goes. it at least feels like she’s on the road to eventually being relatively okay, as okay as you can be in this world.

i can’t completely articulate how i feel about this ending, even after three days having finished playing. all i do know is that while it’s realistic how Ellie’s story ended, i would’ve liked for Abby to get the same treatment. for her to not actually find the fireflies through the radio and escape from the Rattlers only to have no where to go so that, just like Ellie, revenge cost her everything and we don’t know where she went after.

maybe because Abby’s story was pretty much wrapped up and Ellie’s wasn’t, they’re planning for a trilogy, but i guess we’ll see.

the tldr;

this game has all the elements it needed to be amazing overall imo, i just wish they were all utilized Better. the reason it’s so hard to figure out how i feel about this game is because it has so much potential that just never came through and i’m really jealous of all the people who were blown away by this story. it’s still a good game though, but a 7/10 seems too high and 6/10 seems to low. ig it’s a 6.5/10 for me.

thanks for reading if you made it this far