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secrethiddenundercoverperson · 10 months

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Fem!Reader x TWDG Luke - Part 1.

All That Remains | Introduction

23yo , Fem!Reader , slow burn , long plot , reader is in place of young Clementine .

Fandom: The Walking Dead Game, Season 2 Reader pronouns: She/Her

Wc. 2.3K

IN THIS EPISODE | Comfort, no romance, introduction. A/N: This is just an introduction to immerse the reader and prepare them before meeting Luke. And to clear up the timeline of this fanfic... The reader is a 23 year old woman who has experienced everything Clementine had originally gone through in season 1, except, instead of being 9 years old, she was 16 when she inevitably loses Lee. It has been 7 years since that day, and now everything picks up the same as it does in the beginning of season 2, only she is now 23 years old. You have been surviving with Christa for 7 years, and haven't found a place to call home yet, but are planning to head to "Wellington". This story will thoroughly follow the original script, but with lots of new added scenes!

The pacing of my writing may be a bit fast at times, but be assured, this will be a slow burn.

Y/N: Christa, talk to me.

Christa sighs, stands up, and tends to the fire.

Christa: This'll never work. Look at this, it's pathetic. The wood's too wet to burn. There's more smoke than flame. At this rate, we'll be eating this for breakfast.

Y/N: What else can we do?

Christa: Find something that'll burn, maybe. I dunno. Won't be easy in the dark and in the rain.

Y/N: I might have something in my bag.

There is a period of silence, and before I get up to go look for something to burn, I feel the need to say,

Y/N: We need to find a group. People we can trust. We've been on our own for too long.

Christa: Trust? You think you can trust someone out here? Not now. Not anymore.

I wrap my arms around myself.

Y/N: I'm freezing.

Christa: I know. Me too. But if you think this is bad, wait 'til we get up to Wellington, then talk to me about cold. If we make it. We still have a couple hard months ahead of us. This rain will turn to sleet, then ice, then snow. It won't be easy.

Y/N: You think we'll even make it that far?

Christa: Maybe. I don't know.

...

Christa: We just need to keep moving north.

I stand up.

Christa: We sure as hell can't stay here.

Y/N: I miss Lee.

Christa: I'm sure you do.

...

Christa: Sigh I'm gonna go look for more wood. You just keep the fire lit.

Christa leaves and I grab my backpack. I need to find something that would burn. I have a photo of Lee, a drawing of Kenny and his family that Duck drew... a piece of paper, and my lighter. I take my bag and kneel at the fire. I burn the paper and throw it into the flames, making it burn brighter.

Y/N: Better. But still not enough. The flames are too low.

I look through my bag again. Do I dare burn any of these?... No. What am I thinking? I get up and find a damp log...

Y/N: A little wet, but it's good enough to burn...

Right after I place the log into the fire, I hear people talking.. I follow the noise through the woods.

Stranger1: Jesus, are you fuckin' kidding me?!

Stranger1/Stranger2/Stranger3: Out here alone? In the middle of nowhere? But we haven't met anyone yet. How many people are you with?

Stranger1/Stranger2/Stranger3: Hate to see someone get hurt.

Stranger1/Stranger2/Stranger3: Now, hold on, she's setting you up.

Christa: I'm by myself.

Stranger1/Stranger2/Stranger3: You're obviously with someone. Where's your group?

I see Christa... and she's surrounded by a hostile group.

Stranger1: Don't fucking lie to us!

Stranger3: Who do you think you're foolin'?

Stranger1: Give us the truth and you don't get hurt.

Stranger3: You fuckin' with me? shoves Christa Where's the rest of your group?!

Christa: I'm by myself!

Stranger2: Bullshit!

Stranger1: She's lyin'.

Stranger3: points gun at Christa Cut the shit, lady.

Christa: It's... it's just me.

Stranger2: Come on, guys! points gun at Christa She's not saying!

Stranger3: You expect us to believe you're out here all alone?!

I'm panicked... I have no weapons, and no idea what to do! I need to distract them or something. So I pick up a rock and throw it at this guy's (Stranger1's) face.

Stranger1: What the fuck?!

Y/N: Christa, run!

Stranger1: Hey!

I see Christa run away, but hear a gunshot. I'm sure she's okay... I run in the opposite direction.

Stranger1: Get the fuck over here! Now!

I hide behind a tree.

Stranger1: Motherfucker! Come out here, girl. I'm not fucking around. Look, girl, ain't no way you're smart enough to get outta this. Just come out.

I run, and the man chases me. He's large. Much larger than me... He's wearing a big hiking bag, and has a scary face... There's something real disturbing about him- besides the fact that he's attacking me...

Stranger1: Shit! Get the fuck over here!

I crawl under a fallen tree and continue running.

Stranger1: Goddamn it!

As I'm running, I'm dodging walkers. Hoping one of them gets a hold of this man...

Stranger1: Fuck!

He kicks the walker's knee and stomps on its head. I then break a branch off of a tree.

I step aside as the man charges forward at me, then I stab him in the shoulder with the branch.

Stranger1: Jesus, are you fuckin' kidding me?!

I continue running, but then stop. I'm suddenly at the edge of a riverbank. I can't go anywhere else, and the man grabs me.

Y/N: Leave me alone!

Stranger1: Then stop fucking running! Quit squirming!

I bite his hand.

Stranger1: Ah! Fuck! Ah! Ow, let go, you little bitch, Jesus Christ!

He releases me after I bite him. I quickly scan my surroundings and see a big hollow log. I crawl into it in attempt to get away.

Stranger1: Come out of there!

He grabs my leg. I try my best to kick him over and over. He drags me backward and I grab onto a nearby tree.

Stranger1: Jesus, are you fuckin' kidding me?! Come on, girl.

No matter how hard I tried to hold on, he ends up pulling me away from the tree. He grabs onto my wrists and I try to kick him away again.

Y/N: What do you want from me!??

Stranger1: You are on my last fucking nerve! Stop fucking kicking!

The thought of what he could possibly want from me... I gather my strength and kick as hard as I can. My kick forces him backward. Then a walker grabs him.

Stranger1: No, shit!

Just when I think I'm in the clear, another walker grabs my arm. I do my best to pull away. I'm just inches from a bite...

I break free, ripping off the walker's arm. I step aside as a walker approaches, and it attacks the man, ripping out his throat. I run through the woods, dodging more walkers.

But then, I trip and fall. There's dozens of walkers coming towards me. I am left helpless. I have nothing to defend myself. I'm crawling away backwards, then pick up a nearby rock. I throw it at one of the walkers in attempt to fight them off. It's no use. I keep moving backwards, then fall off of the cliff into the river below.

The water is freezing, and the current is pulling me away swiftly. It all happens so fast... The cold water takes my breath away, and I couldn't swim out of this even if the current wasn't so strong. That's when everything goes black...

~~~

I'm not sure how... but I survive... my mind is groggy as I wake up ashore. My clothes are soaking wet and I have no clue where I am.

Y/N: Hello?

There is a canoe in the distance. It says "JR. TANUKI'S KIDS CAMP" and is split in two, the other half stuck on some rocks in the river. How sad...

I find a staircase. What's left of it at least... It's just a wooden platform now. I jump and try to grab the top ledge of the broken stairs. It takes me a few tries, but I eventually pull myself up.

Y/N: Christa, are you there?

I look around and see a grave. I look sadly at the grave made of sticks.

Y/N: Sigh

I walk along the trail ahead.

I see a sign that says: YOU MAY ENCOUNTER: BLACK BEARS COYOTES MOUNTAIN LIONS POISONOUS SNAKES OR OTHER SPECIES BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS

I shake my head. I don't see many animals anymore. I'd be kinda happy to come across one of these... I guess?

I climb over a fallen tree in my path and continue walking. Eventually I hear the bushes rustle, discovering... a dog! What crazy timing... He growls at me...

Y/N: It's okay, boy, it's okay...

I carefully check the tag on his collar.

Y/N: "Sam". Well, nice to meet you, Sam.

Sam walks a short distance away and sniffs the ground.

Y/N: What are you doing?

Sam barks and runs off.

Y/N: Sam. Sam!

I wonder to myself, if I should follow him.

Y/N: Where are you going? Wait up!

Of course I will! I've found a dog! I chase after him. He brings me to an abandoned campsite.

Y/N: Hello?! This place looks pretty run over, but you never know. Let's look around for some food.

I let Sam sniff my hand, and then I pet him.

Y/N: There you go... I'm not gonna hurt you...

I look around for something to eat.

Y/N: Find anything yet?

Of course the dog won't answer. But I talk to him to keep my spirits up... Then, I spot a frisbee on the ground!

Y/N: Hey! Wanna play? Wanna play catch?

Sam barks at me and wags his tail, so I throw the disc and he catches it!

Y/N: Okay, bring it back!

He drops the disc in front of my feet.

Y/N: Good boy Sam!

We keep playing until my stomach growls again, and I remember, I should probably be looking for food instead, so I end the game of catch and Sam walks away.

I find a big metal barrel full of trash. I need to know if there's anything good in there...

Y/N: Well... here we go.

I roll up my sleeves and digs in the trash, finding a full can of beans.

Y/N: Oh my God. Thank you! Look, Sam, a can!

Now I just needed to find something to open it with... I approach one side of the camp, and Sam barks.

Y/N: What's the matter, Sam?

Sam continues barking.

Y/N: Shh! We have to be quiet.

I approach Sam and try to talk to him. I eventually see that he's barking at a walker tied to a tree.

Y/N: It's okay. He's dead. Look, you can see the bite. Looks like he tried to cut it out.

I pause and think of Lee...

Y/N: But that never works...

Sam whines at the walker.

Y/N: It's okay. We're smart and he's not. We're smarter than all of them.

I look at the knife buried in the walker's shoulder and try to pull it out, but the walker almost grabs me. I pick up a nearby branch and prepare to smash in its skull.

Y/N: Stand back, okay?

I sling the giant branch over my shoulder, then repeatedly smash the walker's head with the branch until it dies.

Y/N: See? We just have to stay out of their reach.

I search the walkers pocket.

Y/N: I like to think that...if they were alive, they'd probably want to help you.

I find nothing in its pocket.

Y/N: Sigh Nothing.

I grab the knife and wipe off the blood.

Y/N: Still pretty sharp.

I look at Sam and smile.

Y/N: Okay, well, now we're getting somewhere.

I walk away from the walker and sit on a log, holding the knife and can of beans.

Y/N: Please don't be bad.

I cut the can open. It looks good enough to me.

Y/N: Thank God...

I eat the food with my hands. Sam sits down and whines.

Y/N: I guess you're pretty hungry too.

I couldn't just let Sam go hungry! I hold out some of the food.

Y/N: Here ya go.

Sam lunges at my hand and I drop the can. He tries to eat all of the beans.

Y/N: Hey! Don't eat it all.

I pick up the can. But then... Sam jumps up and bites my arm, dragging me to the ground. I scream in fear, and more so, pain!

I repeatedly punch Sam in the face, as much as I don't ever want to hurt an animal...

Sam takes a few steps back, and lunges at me again, but I kick him backwards, and he disappears behind a log... I grab my knife... I'm almost frozen in shock... As I'm shaking, I slowly walk over to him, where I discover... he is impaled with several metal spikes.

He whines and flails, trying to get free. The sight makes me sick to my stomach... How did I end up like this so fast? Why did he have to do it!? My eyes swell with tears as I think to myself... He is just a dog, he is just doing what comes naturally... But I wish it could have been different.

I snap out of my thoughts and quickly realize, Sam is suffering. I need to end it for him...

Y/N: I'm... I'm sorry, Sam.

I stab Sam in the throat, killing him. I roll down my sleeves to cover the bite and leave the camp.

I continue walking through the woods. All that is going through my mind is the burdening disgust at the nature of this world. I find a dog... then have to kill it because it attacked me? Why? Why couldn't we have just been friends?

It reminds me of everything else in this world now. I don't think I could trust anyone ever again after Christa... Her words run through my mind over and over, "Trust? You think you can trust someone out here? Not now. Not anymore..."

I whimper in pain and exhaustion and sit down, leaning against a rock. I can't go anymore... my vision becomes blurry. Walkers start to approach... I have to get up. I have to at least try to escape.

There are walkers everywhere.. and one walker knocks me over. I try to push it away; but then suddenly, it is decapitated by with a machete. Someone else fires a crossbow at the other walkers...

Stranger: I'm out! Grab her, let's go!

To be continued !

#twdg luke #twdg x reader #twdg #luke x reader #twdg s2 #twdg luke x reader #fanfic #luke twdg #part 1

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arcadiabaytornado · 1 year

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What did you think of Kenny and Sarita’s Relationship in TWDG Season 2?

I find their relationship really interesting. Especially on Sarita's end.

When we meet Kenny again he's buried his past. Sarita says he doesn't talk about before and was in bad shape when she found him. It seems like he's gotten better since that time, but seeing Clem again forces him to face his past.

A rage starts simmering as he's reminded of his wife and son. This leads to Kenny aggressively taking a box from Sarita's hands despite her saying she can get it. This isn't a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it is a sign of things to come.

Their relationship gets more complicated after Carver kidnaps them. Sarita agrees with the cabin group not to be rash about their escape. This frustrates Kenny, who feels like doing nothing puts them at further risk, and he snaps at her before apologizing and cooling down.

So small cracks are laid but they still care about each other. Kenny defends her from Troy's mouth and Sarita tries to save him while he gets beaten by Carver. She also protests the idea of leaving without him.

Yet, what really interests me is Kenny and Sarita's final interaction before she's bitten. If you leave with Sarita instead of watching Kenny kill Carver, she'll tell Clem this: "That's not the Kenny I know in there. I wish... I thought... I could save him."

It really sounds like she looses faith in Kenny in that moment. It also sounds like she had a bit of a savior complex when it came to him. She wanted to make everything in his life okay again...and too much has happened that he hasn't dealt with for it to turn out that way. This leads me to wonder if their relationship would have been changed fundamentally or even ended if she hadn't gotten bit.

So they're cute during Episode 2, and I find Sarita and Kenny both really interesting to analyze, but it seems like their relationship was on thin ice when he killed Carver. Which makes you wonder if they could have eventually worked things out or if they were doomed for a breakup. That also lets you ask the question if Kenny could handle a break up anymore then he could her death.

#asks #TWDG #The Walking Dead Game #liliothestich16

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

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Top 5 Character Deaths That Made Me Side-Eye the Writers

There are a lot of character deaths in TWDG... obviously. It a series about the literal dead walkin’ around and eating people, so as you’re playing, one of your favorite characters is bound to meet such a fate. To give this series credit, it does have quite a few well-executed deaths that, while I hate them, they have a purpose in the story that works.

The best example of this is Lee’s death-- we all hate that Lee dies, but it’s well-done. It serves its purpose, it acted as both a shock and a slow-burn for the player, and left us all an emotional mess.

However, we’re not talking about the “good” deaths today. No, we’re talking about the character deaths that are poorly executed, cheap, lazy, and just plain dumb... they’re the deaths that make me side-eye the writing team and wonder what the fuck happened there.

By the way, it was reeeeeeal fun narrowing it down to only five deaths, because it seems like for every great death, there’s at least two bad ones.

5. Mariana and her death that ruined ANF’s potential story

I’ve talked at length about Mariana’s death and how much I hate it. Like, I get it TWDG... you love your sudden deaths and you’re so edgy for killing off a child character because you’ve never done that before... but maybe consider things a little further before pulling the trigger?

Yeah, killing off Mariana the way they did got a reaction outta people when it happened, and we got the burial scene if you stayed with Clementine... but you didn’t consider the future of this storyline? You pretend you did by name dropping Mari when it’s convenient, but then throw it out the window when it comes to characters like David or Gabe.

Listen, I know that ANF is a mess and what’s the point in telling the mess that it’s a mess? Well, I’m still annoyed at the writers for wasting the biggest opportunity for this game’s story, something that could’ve saved it from being a mess.

And I get it, you gotta make a death quota, so instead of killing Mariana off... why not kill Kate off instead? Oh no? We don’t get the stupid love triangle that no one actually enjoys or is engaged in?

Instead of this dumb story about Javi falling in love with his sister-in-law but oh no David’s back.... we could’ve had a story about Javi losing Kate and being left to care for two children by himself. Mariana and Gabe are all he has left, and he going to do whatever he can to keep them safe all while the three of them are mourning Kate.

Then David comes back, and he immediately takes these kids away from Javi.

There is no stupid storyline with Kate, but an actual conflict between two brothers who were never on the same page and two kids caught in the middle.

Plus, Mariana herself as a character really could’ve brought something to the table. She could’ve brought out a lot in David’s character since she seems to be more like Javi.

Her death is just... annoying. It’s frustrating when you know they could’ve told a better story with her alive, something ANF desperately needed.

My side-eye is one of disappointment and annoyance.

4.Luke and his easily preventable drowning

Ugh.... where to even begin?

Luke really just gets butchered as a character throughout the second half of S2, and the writers end up demolishing the set up they placed at the beginning of the season for a Luke vs Kenny thing.

Why? Well, Luke vs Kenny was the initial ending they were gonna go with, but because this season went through all kinds of bullshit, they scrapped that and replaced Luke with Jane... and it’s so dumb.

Hell, it kind of ruins a lot. Not only did it ruin Luke, a character that many players loved, but it forces the new character of Jane, who we only get two episodes to get to know, so they can fade Luke out.

But that’s not all.

His death is so... ugh. It’s stupid, okay? Stupid and easily preventable, but noooo... we gotta kill Luke off for reasons because all we know is that S1 killed off a lot of characters and we’re gonna do that again but worse because we failed to understand what made those deaths impactful in the first place.

Lots of character death and despair = good game.

Yep, uh-huh. Okay.

So we all know that Luke’s leg is hurt, yeah? Great, so you’d think that the group that has an injured man and a new born baby would be extra cautious and go around the frozen lake. Yeah, Arvo says that it’s safe but let’s not take any chances.

But no. We gotta go across like a group of dingdongs and whattya know-- the ice begins to crack beneath Luke’s feet. Now, even here, we coulda got him outta there safely... if Bonnie wasn’t a dingus.

Think about it. If we shot the walkers who were coming towards Luke with all their weight, he could’ve slowly scooted away, even if he’s already fallen through. BUT NO. Bonnie either guilts Clementine into going towards him, adding more weight to the already fragile ice as Luke tells her to stop, or Bonnie will go over there herself... and she’s a full grown woman soooo her weight breaks the ice.

Good job, you dipsticks.

When you have to make your characters into morons in order to move the plot along and kill off characters....maybe do some rethinking, yeah?

3. Mitch and his shock-value death

This death is so dumb... so incredibly, dumb. Even now, I can’t help but give full side-eye to the writers every time one of them tries to justify this death.

I’m sorry, but this death didn’t have the impact you wanted it to have. And because there’s always someone who says, “Mitch didn’t die for shock value, you just can’t tell the difference between a good and bad death” lemme tell you a thing.

What was the point of killing of Mitch? Well, according to those who worked on TFS, it was to show that Lilly and the delta are serious. This is when shit gets real, and when Lilly is established as a bad bitch who will do whatever it takes to get what she wants. We should be scared of her now.

Except no.

This scene doesn’t tell me that Lilly is a bad bitch. It tells me that she has good reflexes, and going off her reaction after killing Mitch.... I’m not fucking scared of this dumbass. If anything, this scene says more about Mitch than it does Lilly. It says that Mitch is also a dumbass for running at her like he did.

Y’know what would’ve been more impactful? If Mitch didn’t immediately get stabbed in the throat, but instead, actually got her on the ground and struggled with Lilly. Then, Lilly gets the upper hand and when you think she’s about to send Mitch to the cart, she fucking murders him in front of everyone to prove a point.

There’s no remorse, it’s slow enough for Lilly to actually process what’s happening and show that she does know what she’s doing. That would scare me. That would show me that these people aren’t fucking around and they’re willing to kill some of them if that means getting the rest for their army.

You still get your shock value death but it actually does something other than kill a character off.

I’m really supposed to believe this is the same Lilly who can order to have Louis’ tongue cut off?

But it doesn’t end there. No, no... there’s another part to Mitch’s death that annoys me, and it’s how insistent everyone was that his death is going to have a greater impact on the second half of the story. It had a purpose within the story, we did it for a reason.

...I mean, it has an impact on Willy and his arc for the second half.

But that’s it.

Oh... oh, what’s that? Oh, you were referring to those throwaway lines about Tenn? “He was screwing up again, just like when he got Mitch killed.”

OOOOOH.... I see, that’s what Mitch’s death was really amounting to... some lines dealing with whether or not AJ shot Tenn. Well, I guess I was wrong. Mitch’s death wasn’t just shock value. It really had a big purpose. In fact, Mitch’s death has the biggest impact on the series. Fuck Marlon and Brody’s deaths, and Lilly and James, and hell, fuck Tenn’s death, too. They’re meaningless compared to Mitch’s death. You did it, guys. You really did it.

....Okay, I’m done. I’m just... salty, I fully admit.

Being serious again, Mitch’s death is probably the worst in TFS as far as unpreventable deaths go and the real reason I side-eye the writers is because they tried to tell us it was going to have this huge impact in the future and it just... didn’t.

2. Nick and his offscreen death.

I’m sorry, but what the fuck happened here? Why- what are you- how the hell did this happen??

I’m actually baffled.

Someone wrote this.

They set up at the end of ep3 that Nick is shot.... then ep4 comes and we find him like this. I just... did someone on the writing staff not wanna do their job that day? Someone was working on the story and at the last minute forgot Nick was a character, so they were like “Eh, he’s not important anyway, and it adds to the shittiness of everything so we’ll pretend this was 100% intentional.”

Nick was one of your more interesting characters and you really thought killing him off like this was the way to go, huh?

Like, his first death is shitty, but in the very least it kind of makes sense.

But this?

This is horrible. If I wrote this, I’d be embarrassed.

I just... I’m so tired of S2 right now.

This is at #2 because it’s just lazy, bad writing. At least with Luke, Mitch, and Mariana, we got to see their deaths and they had some, even if just a little, impact on the story afterward.

But Nick?

Nothin’.

Even Luke, who is the closest person to Nick, name drops him maybe twice? It’s just.... nothing.

And yeah, you can come at me with the “oh well not every death has to have meaning!”

This is a story, okay? This is a story crafted with characters who have arcs by people who wanted it to be a success, and usually that means having satisfying conclusions.... or, intentionally unsatisfying if that acts as a natural conclusion to their story or is a reoccurring theme.

Nick’s death is just the writers falling flat on their faces and hoping no one would notice.

1. Sarah and both of her shitty deaths.

Ugh. UGH.

Okay.

I’m not even side-eyeing anymore-- I’m fully glaring.

I don’t have to tell you how shitty both of Sarah’s deaths are. We all played S2, we all know that no matter what you do, Sarah dies in ep4. You can try to save her, she lives a little bit longer, and then falls to her death... and both deaths have her being devoured alive by walkers.

Now, this is enough to annoy me. First off, I guess my choices don’t really matter. Sure, you can justify this as one of those “sometimes you can’t save someone, no matter how hard you try” ...and fine. Sure, if they had bothered to execute that point well, then great.

But I disagree that the writers had that in mind when they were killing Sarah off.

In fact, I know what what going on in their brains-- “God, can’t wait to kill Sarah off! Give us any reason to do it! She’s so damn annoying!”

The writers have openly admitted that a lot of the team were just waiting to kill Sarah off, waiting for any reason, so when the major part of the community who take everything at surface level because why think? kept complaining about Sarah, they jumped on the opportunity to kill her off.... but the deaths are dumb.

Listen, this isn’t like when the writers planned on killing Lee off. You can plan a death and even be excited about it because you’re excited about the story and execution of it all. You can be excited to see the heartbreaking end of this character’s story that you crafted because you know you put everything you had into it.

These deaths were lazy and the product of a team who didn’t care about the character. Sarah dies and no one cares.

Sure, you leave her to die the first time and Jane does her thing about how you can’t save everyone, she talks about Jaime, and then Luke exposes himself as the fake Luke by agreeing that leaving Sarah behind was probably the right thing. Like what?

Now as much as I hate that first one, the second one is even worse.

For some reason, Sarah is standing in the corner while they’re trying to fight off the walkers instead of being inside with Rebecca... y’know, where she would be if this was logical.

Then the deck breaks and Sarah falls, trapped under a pile of wood. Jane, despite being the one who sees Sarah as a liability, goes down there to try and help her after Clementine begs her to.

But because the writers don’t know what they’re doing, Jane gets hit by a random piece of wood and can’t get Sarah out in time, leaving her to be eaten alive by walkers.

Then AJ is born and no one cares about Sarah ever again.

I just....

Could’ve had an interesting story arc with a character who just lost her father in such a gruesome way, a character that already deals with anxiety and other problems that you never bothered to explain other than “she isn’t like Clementine” and you could’ve had her grow.

But I guess that would’ve taken effort.... and screen time away from Kenny, and god forbid we ever do that.

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Honorable Mentions

-Ava falling to her death in the most comedic way possible, made even more hilarious by David’s two seconds of mourning. -Omid.... because hope is dead. Do you get it? Hope? is dead? Because Omid means hope? Do you get it?? -Honestly you could put most of S2′s deaths on this list because oh my god. -Ben because I’m still a salty bitch. -I also wanna add Louis and Violet’s deaths on the bridge mostly because they die, Clem is sad for two seconds, Tenn says sorry, and then no one cares. Yeah, yeah, they mourned off screen and I call that lazy bullshit. -Hell, throw Tenn’s death on here, too, for similar reasons-- no one but Louis/Violet and AJ seem to care. Even Clementine is like “whatever” after it happens.

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Y’know, picking this one seemed like a good idea at the time, but by now I’m just annoyed by all these dumb deaths. So, what are your thoughts? Are there any deaths that make you question the writers that didn’t end up on the list? Do you agree or disagree with my list? Lemme know, we can have a friendly discussion about it.

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

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Next week’s T5F Top 5 Favorite Louis Moments

#twdg t5f #twdg clementine #twdg javier #twdg kate #twdg mariana #twdg gabe #twdg david #twdg luke #twdg jane #twdg kenny #twdg nick #twdg sarah #twdg mitch #twdg willy #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg tenn #after this i need to talk about muh boy #louis content coming next friday

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kareofbears · 3 years

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take this as a free card to ramble about the walking dead 👉👈

oh anon, there’s no one i love more than you.

shoving this under the cut because i don't really think a lot of people would care what i have to say about this, since this isn’t really what my blog is about at the moment but wow is the walking dead a brilliant game that's mastered the art of story telling

just throwing this out there, i am currently listening to “Louis’ song” because he is my third favorite character in this whole game and also “Clementine’s suite” because its killer

okay okay so, why am i suddenly so up in arms about this game? let me tell you!

i first became interested in this game right when it came out, sometime in 2012. i was 11 at the time, and my family was pretty poor so i had to rely on YouTubers to watch this game and i absolutely fell in love with it. loved the characters, the twist and turns. but i only watched the first season.

and coming back to it now, as someone who’s consumed a lot of media, who avidly criticizes games and story telling, this game has the absolute best story telling I've seen from any game I've ever seen before.

this isn’t a new statement--people talk about telltale, revere telltale even now that their characters and storytelling is untouchable, and its true. you can tell that its about the story the minute you see the graphics of this game: a comic book. this isn’t about the gameplay at all, or the mechanics of killing walkers, no. its a story. a simple story of a girl who had to grow up in the world of a zombie apocalypse.

season 1 is a prequel to the rest of the game. it introduces us to a man named lee--lee who killed his wife in a fit of rage and was going to prison when hell breaks loose. and season 1 is brilliant because in a typical survival game like this, people go ape shit. they'll kill whoever they need to, steal whatever they need in order to survive. but the fact that they introduce clementine into this, a young girl who thinks the world of you, it holds you back. it reminds you that there’s actions to your consequences, that even in this lawless world, there are still things that we should keep and treasure and preserve in order to want to live in a world like this. and when lee dies? it teaches you, the player, to love clem as he did. because we are now in charge of clem. not lee.

in season 1, i killed lee

season 2 rolls around and honestly its kind of my least favorite season. the characters made me mad and it felt like my choices were weightless. but hold on, i think telltale actually did that on purpose. if season 1 is to show you that you need to preserve good and heart in order to fight in a horrible world, season 2 shows you how to fight in a horrible world--what you need to survive, who you need to be to gain allies, how to be strong. its purpose is to show you the underbelly of this nasty apocalypse, to show you that the world is shit and clementine had no choice but to grow up and catch up to speed with people four times her age. its not a happy season. pretty much everyone dies depending on your choices. as the player, there’s visibly no consequences to your actions: everyone’s an idiot and you’re the only competent one. there's no lee to watch you, no clementine to take care of. and that was done on purpose because that shit, as james put it, breaks you as a person. you don't come back from that. and she didn't.

in season 2, i killed jane and went with kenny and refused to go into wellington without him

season 3 is everyone's least favorite and for that, screw yall because i loved season 3. season 3 introduces the character to the consequences of what we put clem through in season 2. it shows an outside perspective of who clementine has become, who she needed to be in order to survive. it introduces the concept of having a family and a group that stuck with you from the very beginning rather than finding people along the way--this created a new group dynamic that we haven't seen before in this game. it also introduces conflict for the player: as javi, the player has to juggle whats best for his literal blood family and having to earn clementine’s trust. its a hard thing to do. season 3 has incredible characters, concepts, and it does something new by having little to no walkers--if anything, it’s a character study on how people react to an apocalypse without actually being directly affected by the apocalypse in that moment. (id talk about this more--i literally debated whether or not i should talk about what i learned in my English class about pandemics lmfao--but this post would get too long and its one am). season 3 is the cementation of who you chose clementine to be. there's no changing clementine at this point. whats done is done.

in season 3, i went out to look for aj rather than staying in Richmond

season 4 is incredible. characters were the best they've ever been, the plot was amazing (if not a little too grandiose sometimes). season 4 is a direct homage to season one, except instead of having to protect a sweet girl in a zombie apocalypse by teaching her how to survive, its having to teach empathy to a boy who knows nothing but violence and survival. its brilliant, i don't even know what to say about this. aj is obviously an amazing addition to this game and i think its what telltales been leading up to this entire time (even with their shut down). the idea of having no adults for a base is brilliant since these kids don't have the hesitation and beliefs and feuds that adults have from their days of norm. i thought i would hate it but both of clementines love interests have no right being so amazing. honestly i would love to make a separate post about season 4 in order to break it down, but the gist is its amazing. its the perfect end for clementine as a character.

in season 4, clem was romantically involved with and saved Louis

twdg might be my second favorite game of all time? right under p5r.

quick lists i wanted to make because i love making lists

favorite seasons

1. season 4 (but tomorrow this might change, since season 1 is just so brilliantly contained and simple and holds a lot of nostalgia for me)

2. season 1

3. season 3

4. season 4

top four favorite characters

1. clementine (shes probably my favorite female fictional character of all time)

2. lee (truly, he is my second favorite comfort character next to ryuji, so do with that info what you will)

3. my main man louis (god i love him so so so much)

4. javi (look i love him okay)

thank you anon for giving me an outlet to yell about this amazing game!!! i could just talk about this game forever and ever because there is soo much to say about it

#twdg #mine #ask #asks #spoilers for twdg obvs #ily anon

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aesthetic-survivor-of-twd · 4 years

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Have you heard about those new TWD S5/Fatal Frontier leaks ?

I have indeed!

For anyone curious, this information was posted on r/GamingLeaksAndRumours on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLeaksAndRumours/comments/gklgp8/tales_from_the_borderlands_redux_the_wolf_among/

(However, I would take this information with a grain of salt)

For anyone who doesn’t want to click the link, here is the direct quote from the page referencing the game (potential spoilers for a future season of TWDG, so don’t read if you would rather remain oblivious in case it’s true):

“The Walking Dead: A Fatal Frontier/Season 5

The game's name won't be called Season 5 but it is meant to "be" the 5th season of Telltale's The Walking Dead. Currently its subtitle is A Fatal Frontier but it may change.

-Game is not episodic, just a straightforward game, but should be about the same length as a normal Telltale game

- Less focus on choices. This game even picks a specific “timeline” of events. The game mostly focuses on survival horror. There are plenty of dialogue options but true narrative choices are not the focus this time. Plenty of inspiration from games like Resident Evil and The Evil Within 2 in terms of how the game plays.

-Javier returns, pretty much everything from Season 3 is scrapped but him

- Basic premise is Richmond has fallen, you are the only survivor, all characters that are still alive since Season 3 die early on during the fall of the city

- Alone and nowhere else to go Javier decides to find the ranch Clementine went to

- Kenny is retconned into the story super hard. He appears no matter what, this game’s timeline is “fixed” in the Kenny story route, which I suppose means it is "not cannon" for some players. Javier and Kenny cross paths as they are both following leads to find Clementine.

- There is a cult of older members from the New Frontier long before Javier showed up who were radical and kicked out ages ago who are responsible for the fall of Richmond and are now hunting down Javier and Kenny. Allegedly a lot of the game is inspired by the original story of Season 3″

I will go more in depth with my thoughts if people want, but in short: If this turns out to be legit, then i’m definitely interested in seeing another season from Javier’s story. However, the possible retconning of certain paths from previous seasons I do find to be questionable and unappealing.

With that said though, I feel like if this story is legit then I think it would be an interesting game if we treat it from the perspective of an “alternative story” as opposed to actual “canon” (so a “what if” based on certain choices). I do greatly like the idea of a survival horror take on the series and I think it could be something really interesting. Skybound taking a different approach to the series without Telltale would be neat to see.

Some of the information does make me quite skeptical towards the validity of it, but at the end of the day, who knows? I suppose we’ll find out when we get more info on TFTB and whether that ties in with the leakers information as well.

I’m assuming the “Kenny route” they refer to is perhaps the Wellington ending in S2 as the actual Kenny route leads to his death and the other one gives him an ambiguous ending.

#twdg #me saying i'm going to keep something short and still go on a 4 paragraph tangent? nice to see i'm still on brand lmao #the walking dead game #twdg anf #skybound #asks #twdg leaks #twdg spoilers

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rosetintedbeanie · 5 years

Text

My Review on TWDG: The Final Season

Buckle up folks because it’s going to be a bumpy ride with some unpopular opinions added. This is a little overdue.

So before I start, I want to say that I didn’t want to put this into the tags because we all know how this fandom can be.

I’ll start off with the good. The season started off really, really strong, and it was a good way to introduce all the new characters. I didn’t necessarily like Marlon at first, but after looking back, he’s grown on me a little bit. His voice actor did an incredible job. I’ll admit, after two seasons of disappointment and annoyance, I had low expectations for the first episode and the season as a whole, but I was pleasantly surprised. The ending to episode one, atmosphere and all, was one of the best final scenes in the game’s history, and it genuinely gave me chills all the way up until the last minute. THAT was some good shit, and it felt like the writers were finally realizing what they were doing.

The season had likable enough characters, and although there are a few that I’m indifferent with, there wasn’t anyone that I totally didn’t like. The bisexual representation made me incredibly happy, and partially helped me a bit more with my own sexuality. Before anyone asks, I personally went with Louisentine, but Violentine is pretty damn adorable and both ships are totally valid. And I know it wasn’t a shipping option, but in my opinion, Clem would have been cute with Ruby, too.

Minerva’s downfall was really well done. I didn’t necessarily like her, but I did feel sorry for her. She was a victim of brainwashing and bad leadership and she and Sophie didn’t deserve that. You could even see her trying to come out of it at times in the third episode, when she mentions Tenn to one of the guards (Dorian I think her name is?). The scene on the bridge was probably one of the best, if not the best scene of the last episode in my opinion. There was a lot of tension, and Minnie singing to draw walkers to her brother really added to that. If anything I actually forgot about her up until that point and thought she’d just died. Also, can we get a cover of her VA singing the entire song? I have a new need.

Now before I dive into what I didn’t like and my unpopular opinions, a disclaimer: These are just my personal opinions. I tend to be nitpicky at these things, and I didn’t hate the season at all whatsoever.

I...couldn’t get attached to AJ in any episode. I tried to, I really did. I didn’t hate him by any means, and I even defended him when people were wishing death and hating him for killing Marlon. But there were times that I felt that he was just too much, even for a hardened survivor. I get that he was born into an apocalyptic world, but I didn’t exactly like how he turned into the same temperamental, edgy kid no matter what Clem taught him. I wasn’t a huge fan of the many parallels, either. Some were fine, but after a while they started to get a bit old.

Alright, here’s the biggie that y’all probably expected: the way they handled Lilly this season. If you’ve been following me for a while then you’re probably aware that I love Lilly and have defended her for years now. So naturally I was extremely excited to see that she was returning after years of being right about her fate (because come on, there’s no way she just died). And I just want to say that as much as I wanted a redemption arc for her, I wouldn’t have minded her being a villain so much had she gotten more screen time, a better explanation, and a more meaningful way to go out on both parts. I really didn’t like how she still appeared to have humanity in her first appearance, totally hesitating to kill Clementine and damn near CRYING if she’s told that you were family once, and then pretty much tossing all that out the window when she (determinately) orders a kid’s tongue cut out. Then in the finale she gets two minutes tops of screen time and can suddenly feel remorseful again? Ooookay. We also got pretty much no explanation on why she’s this way except for “my dad melted my ice cream so I kidnap kids now lol.” I just feel like we were robbed of something more involving Lilly, and no matter how you feel about her, she deserved better than to become what she did, better than to be handled the way she was. I’ll always stand by my word that she was not bad from day one, and no one can convince me otherwise.

Something else that felt weird to me was that there was no mention of Kenny outside of a determinant choice in the first episode??? Like no matter how you felt about him, he was important in Clem’s life and it’s especially strange how he wasn’t even talked about during Clem and Lilly’s chat. You’d think Lilly would bring up the guy who killed her dad.

The way that the deaths were handled in the finale bothered me. Like, really bothered me. There’s maybe a couple minutes of grief (which I get that in the moment you had to get away, but there was time for that later), and basically no other mention. Louis was the one who died in my game, but I’ve seen playthroughs and I couldn’t stand how Violet can pretty much justify Tenn’s death if it happens. The way she said, “He was always getting into trouble and messing up,” brought me back to Season 2 and the way Sarah was treated, and it was even worse because Tenn reminded me a little of her and to hear that again made me feel ill. Like girl...did Jane possess you there for a minute???

I uhhh might be in quite the minority here, but I was unsatisfied with the overall ending. The big thing was Clem getting bit and her leg amputated; okay, yeah, sure. But let’s look at what happened before: her foot was cut pretty badly, and I’ll even give that the infection could have taken the spread of the bite out of her. But people really seem to ignore that she still lost a lot of blood on the way to the barn??? Like, I’m not a doctor or anything, but losing blood even after a short period of time can still be very dangerous. Even with the explanation given by one of the writers, there’s no realistic way that Clem would have survived that amputation with the amount of blood already gone. I’m sorry, but it really felt like plot armor. I would have been happy with her being determinant, with the ending we got being the “alive” ending. But I feel like there should have been multiple endings, considering the last two seasons were known for that. I don’t know, I just wasn’t feeling it like most everyone else was. There was a lot I just wasn’t feeling.

One last quick thing about the ending: we never did see the Delta. The Delta’s leader, who is NOT Lilly as confirmed by Kent Mudle, would wonder why their people didn’t come back. They’d probably send out to find whoever was responsible, especially if they knew about the school beforehand. You’d think the school would prepare itself for future attacks, because it’s kind of a new potential threat. It’s something I figured out kind of recently, and it’s weird that no one would question it.

My overall opinion of the season was that it was good, but not great. In terms of writing, it blows A New Frontier and the last half of Season 2 out of the water. The story itself is an interesting idea, but there are a few directions that I wish had been taken differently. The season, as I said, started out strong, and there were moments in every episode that I genuinely liked. I just wish there had been multiple ways to conclude Clementine’s story. The ending we got just felt...a bit off. To conclude this essay-length review, I in no way disliked this season and I have to give credit to the writers for putting more of an effort since A House Divided. If you’ve read this far down, thanks! This was fun to write.

**MIC DROP**

#So yeaaaah I wanted to get this out #I know not everyone will agree with me but I hope it puts something into perspective #Ask to tag

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poppymadness · 6 years

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💖 HQ, Knb, All Out, Free, BNHAand DnA I think you watched at least a little bit of it, didn't u? And since I know who some of your favorites are already u can just rant about why u love them

@naturalpeaches said:💖 can i be an ass and say twdg even tho ik the answers p much OH the last kingdom. bring it to ur blog amber. talk about it. accept it.

💖 listen those 2 weren’t enough. give me the raven cycle. give me the foxhole court. give me six of crows. giVE ME CRIMINAL MINDS HAAAAA BITCH. why not throw the 100 in there too. also talk abt ur boo in the sun is also a star. give him some lovin

💖 N A R U T O

hope it’s cool just to throw ya both in here bc i’m lazy

haikyuu: (3) kuroo tetsurou - iiiiiiiiiiii fucking love kuroo sO much, a huge tall not so dumb dumbass god. i don’t know what to say dfkhka i fuckin Love him thanks dude. i nEVER FORGET THE FUCKIN LAUGH GOD FUCK FOR FUCKS SAKE skjfd. whenever i get in Kuroo Moods they last SO long i can’t get a break. and gamer au kuroo is killer it’s too good. listen he’S A BIG FOOL and i LOVE him want the best for him bc he’s great, good, good dude. i also rlly fuckin love terushima man ooooo my god, imagine him and kuroo bein buds hORRIBLE

kuroko no basket: (1) kiyoshi teppei - mY BOY KIYOSHI AAAAA. hE’S EVEN T A L L E R mmmm 6′4″ the fuck mann. we know my love for this dumbass i love him so so muuch fuck. thought it was kuroko at first, bitch no. I LITERALLY DIDN’T KNOW I LOVED HIM TILL AFTER I FINISHED THE WHOLE SHOW. like, just, the more i saw stuff involving him the more i was like ooo no no waiT i LoVE HiM i screamed when he showed up in the second opening when we rewatched it oooommggggg. he’S SO GOOD I HOPE HIS KNEE IS HEALED I HOPE HE GETS TO PLAY BASKETBALL AS A LIL SIDE HOBBY OR SOMETHIN HOPE HE’S FUCKIN HAPPY!!!!! whY DOES HE SELF-SACRIFICE SO MUCH BOY OOO MY GOD WHEN HE REALIZED THE TEAM GOT HIS BACK TOO BITCH HE SO CUTE. mmmmm i love hiiiiim bois. also love akashi i keep finding it funny ur intimated by him cj

all out: (4) ebumi masaru - i can’t. i can’t explain why i love him oR WHY HE’S SO HIGH A FAVE GOD. this whole fandom is like Those Thighs and make ebumi all about fuckin sex like what a Tough Boy like yA HE BUYS (rents? whatever) PORN THAT’S FUCKIN SO FUNNY TO ME BUT MMMM he. more. i nevER STOP THINKIN BOUT THE EP WITH ISE THAT EMO SHIT DO U SEE HOW MUCH EBUMI CARES BOUT HIS FRIEND GOD Fuck. like yeah, just take the money. this is what was left for me but idc here take it u need it i stg season 2 better be in the works i want more of his backSTORY. oh hE FUCKIN BLEACHES HIS HAIR WHAT A PUUUUNK, HE TRAINS SO HARD HE CARES SO MUCH ABOUT RUGBY GETS P I S S E D WHEN PPL HALF-ASS IT LIKE?? FAIR ENOUGH. OH THETY ACTUALLY DREW HIS HAIR DOWN RIGHT ADJHF A OoO FUCK TAHT. i’m good it’s cool alright bye gion, raita & ise are my best friends thank

free: rin matsuoka - i. thought it was nagisa at first. i wanna cry fuckin nagisa jesus. good boy but hell no. rin?? is so sweet i’m sorry fuckin flew haru to australia & shit he’s so good i love him. i gotta do this i’m srry FUCK whoever thinks rin would be abusive with haru thx. i havE A RIN POSTER G O D

boku no hero academia: todoroki shouto - i literally didn’t have a fave in this show until one (1) specific episode in season 2 with him. thought i was gonna live forever not having a fave in this show. i had actually been growing to like him and was like No, i told myself to not like him bc he’s so popular hdkfa. and then that ep came and i was like,,,oof i Love him, love love love what a goOD BOY. he’s…so cute..comin to terms with his powers still can’t get over he interned with his dad he just…..wants to improve…is improving…..so good.

daiya no ace: ? - ok, i never developed a fave while watching it, at least not where i got to. i don’t even remember where i stopped oof that’s bad. but i had thought at that time that i rlly loved chris?? eijun is precious, i fuckin love him. miyuki is great i love him too. also really loved kuramochi?? so if i had continued i think it would’ve been one of em.

the walking dead game: kenny, luke, clem, gabe - pls don’t make me choose… kenny…tried his hardest to be good, worked his ass off till the last moment to improve himself and didn’t get the redemption he deserved. that man is good, he was just pushed to his max and couldn’t get back down. luke, luke is a sunshine boy who was too good for the world, a positive outlet could make anyone happy, did his best, didn’t deserve to die. cleM MY BADASS B A B Y HAS GROWN SO MUCH I LOOOOVE HER AND CAN’T WAIT FOR HER HAPPY ENDING TELLTALE YOU FUCKS I AM BEGGING YOU1!! gabe…annoyed me at first…stole my heart….just a boy thrown into the apocalypse tryin to be happy…he’s doing his best, he’s learning, truly not such a brat as assholes make him out to be. nick my boy i’m so sorry i would’ve included you ur so close

the last kingdom: uhtred & alfred - i love uhtred the godless and king alfred of wessex very much indeed. uhtred is just a wreck honestly, this danish bro got a lot goin on he just wants the land he deserves i just say he’s bein greedy, go be happy under alfred’s rule i still love u tho uhtred u dumbass. alfred! got the peace he wanted! i love alfred so much he wants to be a king without war unless he’s not given the choice, cares about his family so much, afraid he’ll be punished for the crown that’s not rightfully his own. alfred is so good, i love this man.

the raven cycle: (5) adam parrish - mmmmmmm what a good boy. an important boy, a very much loved boy. iiiii hate havin his pov sometimes, some relatable things in there, i love him so much. he’s not. his father. thanks. gotta say that a lot wanT HIM TO KNOOOOOOOW. he’s so good he’s improving himself he’s doin it!! go adam!! goD ASHLETY I KEEP THINKING OF THINGS YOU HAVEN’T GOTTEN TOOOOOOOO. mmmm it’s ok to still be stuck and to have bad days he doesn’t have to get over it right away!! it’s not somethin that’ll just be over!! dhfad smALL STEPS my boy i love u…. all bc, he…legally free (tryin not to spoil dfhjdaf).. don’t mean he has to be over it…take ur time adam. i’m thinkin of the emo thing in trk fuck wrong devil dkhfad. i just wanna cry he’s so good worth so much ronan & i will fight any and all fucks who wanna Go. i!! love him!! he deserVES TO FEEL LOVED AND TO FEEL HOW TO LOVE MMMM COOL i’m gonna stop i’ll just repeat myself - i just thOUGHT OF THE ‘FUCK YOU GANSEY’ WOW FIRST BOOK FUCK B YE

the foxhole court: …andrew minyard… - idk man?? it’s so lowkey?? it’s chill i literally don’t even have anything to say. nicky, neil & dan are my squad love em.

six of crows: jesper fahey - idk what fuckin bitch ass mood i had to be in when i read soc but if i wasn’t in it jesper would totally have been my fave. i wouldn’t take him away from wylan anyways (statement kiiinda counts for the two aforementioned also whoop). jesper?? deserves the world, but so does everyone else they all deserve the world even u bitch ass brekker who would not deal with my bullshit ever.

criminal minds: aaron hotchner - god ashley screw off askin me for cm. love hotch, would die for him, too good of a guy.

the 100: bellamy blake - is a fuckin whore. iiiiiii love bellamy so much. bitch ass goes from a punk i hated to a good dude to a punk ass influenced by some huge ass prick dick and then struggles with himself for the next season and will now hopefully feel a bit better at least for gods sake. all bc you’ve done bad things doesn’t mean ur bad bell… i still never get over fucking pike taking advantage of him when he was vulnerable fuck off i just want him to feel better!! take responsibility but don’t let it push you down fucking get up!! you’ll get up!! mmm he’s so good he just wants to make everything right but clarke makes everyTHING FUCKIN GO WRONG. i just…not everything is excusable but he can make up for it he will and he’s worth it,,,, people gotta forgive him at some point he’s trying his hardest to make up for everything and he keeps beating himself on it mmmmdfahdf i love him

the sun is also a star: daniel jae ho bae - idk what to say about him ashley god fuck. he’s so cute though?? what a cheesy dude. ugh literally so cute i gotta reread it

naruto: kiba inuzuka - what a prideful ass i fuckIN LOVe him thx. i mean i was fuckin doomed from that start he has best boy akamaru & fuckin has a jutsu where he turns into a wolf?? and his fuckin mom and sister have wolves?? doomed before i even fuckin knew it. he’s soooo cute, never take his fuckin hoodie off idk what’s cuter him trying to look tough in that hoodie that everyone literally thought was hair or havin the hoodie off and showin his actual hair that somehow makes him cuter,,, what’S HORRIBLE IS THE LEATHER JACKET OR WHATEVER IT IS HE WEARS IN SHIPPUDEN fuckin idiot. imagine him as hokage i can’t believe he wants to be hokage it’s so funny i’m sorry kiba i’ll support u just give me a minute to catch my breath. guys he’s just so cute, trains so hard, he’s so good i love him enthusiastic boy

#this is so long i'm srry #i didn't even rant in all of them either #also like #clarification not prob needed but numbers- where the top five r in the top five #i didn't rant enough about kuroo even tho i'm in a kuroo mood now lOL #idk what to say about him?? i just love him so deeply #and so many things are more headcanon-y #so idk

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 3 years

Text

Top 5 Brotps

Ahh... to be a pair of bros trying to survive the dreadful world of the apocalypse together...to have a bro who watches your back so that walkers don’t get the drop on you, and to have a bro who is willing to actually listen to you when things are extra rough and you need support.... to probably watch your bro die a super shitty death because it’s twdg and you have no control over the situation...

Good times.

So yeah, I wanna talk about some of my favorite brotps across this series. We tend to put more focus on romantic duos rather than friendships, so why not shine a spotlight on some platonic love, y’know?

Also wanna note that I’m more talking canon brotps... as in I’m using what the actual games gave us rather than going off of headcanon... if that makes sense. So like, as much as I could like to put something like brotp Clementine and Mitch on the list since they’re one of my favorites to write, there isn’t enough in the actual text to justify putting them in a top 5. Understand? Cool? Cool.

5. AJ and Tenn

I have such a soft spot for these two... which is super unfortunate since Tenn always ends up dead whenever I replay TFS because I refuse to have a dead or tongueless Louis by the end..... but that doesn’t mean I don’t love the friendship between these two before tragedy strikes.

If you’re brave enough to not trust AJ, therefore sacrificing Louis or Violet, Tenn survives to the end of the season where he and AJ have a really nice heart to heart. If you haven’t at least watched how the scene plays out, I recommend it.

I love the idea of AJ having someone closer to his age that he can have as a buddy, and I love the idea of Tenn learning how to be a better survivor from AJ. They can teach each other how to be better, y’know?

Plus, it’s cute to hear AJ say that he likes Tenn the most, that he’s his first real friend. Somethin’ real wholesome about that.

...Which again, adds to the tragedy of trusting AJ. Sigh.

4. Javi and Tripp

I know I’ve said in the past that I wish these two could’ve had an actual romance, but y’know, we gotta accept that it’s never gonna happen in canon.... sigh.

However, it’d be a sin to overlook the bromance these two have.

Sure, they got off to a rocky start after Clementine kinda murdered that dude, but that doesn’t stop them from developing a friendship over the course of the season.

One of my favorite moments between the two is when Tripp confides in Javi about his feelings for Eleanor, and in turn, Javi can explain what’s going on with him and Kate. While I disagree with the love interests actually being talked about, it’s still a quiet, real moment between them. Tripp isn’t afraid to be a bit of a poet when talking about his feelings, and Javi is supportive of that. Two bros who listen to each other? Love that.

Also there’s something so damn tragic about Javi wanting to save his bro when Joan decides to be a proper antagonist and does the ol’ switcheroo on him.

All in all, love this bro dynamic and will be forever salty that Tripp has two unpreventable deaths.

3. Lee and Doug

I won’t talk too much about this one because I already covered it in my Top 5 Reasons Doug's Pretty Great, but I gotta put them on the list. So, to summarize:

Lee and Doug are the real bros of S1. Y’all thought it was Lee and Kenny? Nah man. When you’re friendship is so fragile that it could totally break with one single disagreement, then I can’t say it’s all that great. And yeah, you could argue that Doug is only Lee’s bro is you save him, and that’s true because otherwise, he’s super dead.

But after saving him, if you disagree with Doug on anything, he doesn’t immediately get all “Ya saved me ONE time, Lee! What have ya done fer me lately?? >:(” In fact, I’d argue that even if things went down differently, Doug would still be a good bro to Lee.

So Doug wins the bro award.

The two of them care about each other, from Lee worrying about Doug’s mental health, to Doug going out of his way to save Lee’s life at the dairy, to them having genuine feeling conversations.

Again, want more details then go read the previous T5F. Just know that they’re best bros and I’ll die on this hill.

2. Michonne and Pete

The Michonne mini-series gets a bad rap and that’s not okay. If you're one of many who skip this one when going through the series then shame because you’re missing out on one of the best pair of bros in this series-- Michonne and Pete.

Listen, Michonne and Pete are great. They’re a couple of bros who have each others backs at all times, Pete cares so deeply about Michonne’s mental health and making she she has what she needs, Michonne feeling comfortable enough with Pete in confide in him about her daughters and the visions she has of them, and they’re more than willing to fight and sacrifice themselves for the other if necessary.

Sure, they disagree on things, but their friendship isn’t built on “you have to agree with me” so they can actually work things out and be better for it.

I just love them, okay? Pete wants her to feel like part of the crew and give her a safe space, and Michonne wants to help him in anyway she can, I just.... no one talks about them and it’s not okay.

Go play Michonne, even if just for these two. They’re worth it.

1. Clementine and AJ

Surprise.... but not really.

C’mon, I think we all know that Clementine and AJ are the ultimate bros. Do I even need to explain? Probably not, but I will anyway.

Clementine has know AJ since he was born, she has cared for him and did everything she could to get him back-- good and bad things. She could’ve said, “A baby? Fuck that.” but she didn’t, she took little baby AJ and protected and raised him. And we already know that AJ would do whatever he had to in order to protect Clementine back.

True, the relationship isn’t perfect and miscommunication is, uh... a thing sometimes, but together they grow and become better. Even AJ makes terrible mistakes [y’know... like murder] she promises to help him atone... unless you’re one of the ones who tells him he’s justified which like no judgement or anything but..... y’know. Maybe a little side eye.

Anyway, more than that, they play off each other well and feel like two people who have know each other for years, they feel like a pair of siblings trying to survive in this shitty world and find a home together.

And can’t forget to mention the cave scene. Not the one with James, but the one where AJ gets upset and the two of them talk some shit out. Don’t get me wrong, I love the James cave scene for how wild it is, but there’s something about the cave scene where it’s just Clementine and AJ, and the choice to trust him or not.

Oh, and the barn scene? I mean.... c’mon.

Over all, as far as platonic relationships and brotps go, Clementine and AJ are my favorite. Could write an essay on them and why their dynamic is one of the best parts of TFS but that’s not what we’re here to do.

Clementine and AJ.... bros for life.

---

Honorable Mentions

- AJ and Louis.... bros even after everything that went down with Marlon and Tenn. -Clementine and Rosie. Rosie is best girl. -Lee and Omid. Two history nerds who should’ve have more bro-time. -Kenny and his mustache. -Lee and Ben. Yeah, I stand by it. I won’t shut up until someone gives me my Lee and Ben buddy cop dramedy. -Mitch and Willy until the dumb thing happened. -Clementine and Lee would count, too, but only really the second half of s1. -Nick and Luke but only for two episodes. -Louis and Violet’s friendship routes are pretty good, too.

---

What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with my picks? What are some of your favorite brotps? Lemme know!

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

—

Next week’s T5F Top 5 Best Executed Deaths

#twdg t5f #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg louis #twdg violet #twdg mitch #twdg willy #twdg lee #twdg kenny #twdg doug #twdg javi #twdg tripp #twdg eleanor #twdg kate #twdg tenn #twdg michonne #twdg pete

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 4 years

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I Need to Talk About “Problematic Faves” within TWDG [1/?]

You know what I love about TWDG and its characters...?

How flawed they all are.

I’m not talking that they’re flawed in the stupid “My biggest problem is that I love too gosh darn much!” or “My defining character flaw is that I’m super clumsy lolz!” I mean that practically every single character we’ve met across these games has done at least one terribly awful thing.

That includes all of our favorite characters.

It doesn’t matter who your favorite character is. They have done at least one terrible thing within these games, if not many.

This can include theft, murder, assault, using racist slurs/being racist in general, different acts of violence using weapons, verbal abuse, lying, sacrificing others for themselves, property damage, assisting in suicide, abandonment, and many other things that potentially result in the harm of others or themselves.

We don’t like to think that our favorite character could ever do any of these things, or if they did, they have an excuse for why they did it.

Take Clementine for example. We all love Clementine. We’ve all been with her since the beginning, we’ve all watched her grow, and we’ve all morphed her into the person she is by the time s4 ends.

But when you look at Clementine, as well as some of her actions and behaviors across the series, through a completely unbiased lens, it’s not hard to throw a certain overused word at her.

“Problematic”

Clementine has killed several people. Most of them were in defense, but there are certain kills that are hard to defend or justify.

My favorite example to use is when she shot the asshole who traded her bad bullets then asked Javi to lie for her. It’s easy to say, “Well, she didn’t mean to do it! She thought the bullets wouldn’t fire! Besides, that guy WAS the asshole who sold her the bad batteries and attacked her!”

Okay, fine. But that doesn’t mean diddly squat.

Clementine knows better than to point a gun at someone she doesn’t have any intention of shooting. That was one of the first lessons Lee taught her, and it’s even a lesson she taught Sarah in s2. Clementine pointed the gun at him and fired anyway, which is WHY he got up and ended up attacking Javi. Then, Clementine shot the gun again, but this time it actually fired and killed him. She knew she fucked up, but the deed was done and she murdered that man.

Clementine is just one of many characters who we could throw that phrase “Problematic Fave” at. At the end of the day, I could argue that every single favorite character within TWDG would fall into this category at some level, whether it be low or high.

Even characters who we baby like “Oh precious child who has never done anything wrong in their life!” have an argument that can be made against them.

Well, okay, except Rosie.

Rosie is the one exception I’ll allow. Even though she’s not a person, she’s a dog, but I still consider her a character.

But, Clementine’s different. She’s our protagonist, therefore, it’s much easier to explain her actions or make excuses for what she does. Hell, a good chunk of her actions are made by us, so if she does something “wrong,” then we’re to blame for making that choice as her, further developing her character with the use of that choice.

What about the characters who aren’t our playable protagonists?

What about the major and side characters who have made poor decisions? The characters that we’ve thrown this label of “Problematic Fave” at more than others? The characters we’d consider “villains,” or in the very least “antagonistic.”

What about the characters under those labels that we end up loving, and even defending, despite the terrible things they’ve done or said? Despite groups of others in the community saying that it’s wrong to like these characters?

Today I want to talk about those characters who are higher on the “Problematic Fave” tier list, and get to the bottom of WHY we love them.

It’s not wrong for us to like these characters.

Let’s get that out of the way right off the bat.

It’s not wrong to enjoy or love an antagonist, or a morally complex/gray character. I argue that everyone has an antagonist that they love, whether it be within the twdg universe or otherwise.

I’m not here to shame anyone for liking a character who happened to be labeled under this “Problematic Fave” term by others who like to throw it around to start fights.

If anything, I’m letting know that it’s totally okay to love these characters as long as you’re being safe about it. As in, you’re not excusing these bad behaviors while acting like these unhealthy things are okay when they’re clearly not.

Now... maybe you’re wondering WHY this is something that I feel I NEED to talk about. What brought this up and whatnot.

I need to talk about this because I have a problematic fave and it’s bothered me for a long time.

Before I get started, we should all be on the same page of what defines a “Problematic Fave,” since it’s a phrase that I’ll use throughout this whole thing.

If you go to Google and search this term, this is the definition it’ll bring up:

Very vague. And when I asked you guys:

It’s an easy enough term to understand. We all get the general idea.

The problem is, like I mentioned before, every single character within this TWDG universe is problematic at some point. They’ve all said hurtful things, they’ve done hurtful things.... it’s the apocalypse!

But there are a handful of characters who end up getting this thrown at them WAY more than any other characters. Not just “villain” characters either, like the St. Johns or Lilly, but characters who seem to have more gray coloring to them, those who are more antagonistic, who make more poor decisions, who get others killed or hurt, who display unhealthy behaviors. Those who we can’t quite put our fingers on if they are “good” or “bad.”

I’m sure that at least one character has popped in your brain as you’ve read thus far.

Let’s talk about the popular ones:

Kenny

In my opinion, Kenny is... well, he's problematic. Whether you love or hate him, you have to admit that a lot of his actions over the course of seasons 1 and 2, though mostly 2, are harmful.

I’m one of those people who don’t love or hate him. I’m more on the dislike side when it comes to s2 Kenny, but I can see why someone would love or hate him overall.

On one hand, he IS an interesting character to take the time to study. His character tells us a lot about what happens to a normal, nice family man thrown into the apocalypse who loses everyone he’s ever loved, including his only child, his wife, and what happens when that family man has to keep going with the world trying to beat him down.

He has his kind moments. He clearly cares about Clementine and AJ, but his behavior and actions, if not kept under control, could lead to disaster. They DO lead to disaster, since no one can stand to be around him, leading to everyone abandoning him, and in turn, abandoning Clementine and AJ.

All of the weight of what’s happened to him has left him angry and violent. He lashes out at Clementine after Sarita’s death, going as far as to BLAME Clementine for it regardless of her choices. He isolates her from the group, becomes possessive the moment they meet back up again, and picks fights when he shouldn’t, which result in harm to her and others. He beats the shit out of Arvo in front of everyone as if he’s right in physically harming this disabled kid because of the situation they all find themselves in.

In the end, if you actually have Clementine shoot him, he tells her and the player that “you made the right choice,” as if he knows he’s been such an antagonistic character that it’s only right that he die.

The end to every good story has the so-called “bad guy” die... right?

Kenny is an obvious example of a favorite character being problematic, if not THE most obvious. He has so many people who love him, and just as many who hate him.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard or witnessed arguments about Kenny and this phrase was thrown around with other words like “toxic” and “abusive” yada yada.

It makes sense to me that someone would question why Kenny would be another’s favorite character just as it makes sense that someone would love him.

It all depends on how you see him and if you’re mature enough to accept and understand his trauma, unhealthy behaviors, and overall character [the good and the bad] for what it is. He’s a broken man, but it doesn’t give him an excuse to lash out at those he’s supposed to love and protect.

What really gets me is that Kenny is loved by so many people and they’re vocal about it, probably even more vocal than those who hate him. And I’m not shaming you.

The kind, mature Kenny stans of our community aren’t afraid to express their love for this character. They know who he is, and they’re willing to discuss him with others who love him, as well as with those who don’t in a calm manner. This is something I highly respect and thought deserved acknowledgment.

I have a point to mentioning this, because with my problematic fave, I have never openly admitted to how much I like this character because I was always scared of the potential hate that could be thrown my way. I mean, whenever I search this character, there’s a lot of shade being thrown around.

Then times changed, my blog grew bigger and I became more confident in sharing my opinions and views, as well as discussing several positive and negative aspects of TWDG with all of you.

Now, this isn’t just applicable to Kenny, either.

Of the characters who fall higher on this “Problematic Fave” tier list we’ve somehow acquired, there are a lot of people who absolutely adore Minerva.

Marlon-

Even Lilly has people who love her-

Hell, there are people who SWEAR by 400 Days’ Nate.

^THIS crazy bastard!

I was even shocked to see there are a handful of people who really like Arvo, too!

Before we continue, I do want to reiterate that I’m not coming for anyone who likes Kenny, Minerva, or any of the other characters mentioned above. I want to make that clear in case I say something pertaining to these characters that you take offense to. Well all know how easy it is to be offended on here. Besides, I’m not one to judge given that I have my own problem character that I love and y’all are gonna judge me anyway, so let’s just chill.

This whole idea of why we love these characters is fascinating.

If we ever met these people in real life, we wouldn’t be so quick to love them and we know it. But, because they’re fictional and put out there for us to analyze and talk about with one another, we find ourselves attached to them.

I simply want to understand why.

Now that we have a list of the more popular characters who fall into this tier, I’ll be using them as examples throughout the rest of these posts.

However... before we get into that, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I haven’t told you who MY problematic fave is and why.

Well, allow me to enlighten you because, even though I’m using Kenny, Minerva, ect. as examples, this character will be my MAIN example.

Time to come out and admit it.

...

It’s David.

I really like David.

I even dare admit that I.... kind of love him?

Why, you ask....?

David is a character I’ve rarely talked about.

The only time he ever seems to come up is when we’re talking about Livid, and we all know how that one goes.

Even when we talk about ANF as a whole, it’s usually a discussion about Emo Clementine or how Gabe should’ve had a better character arc or just how gosh darn gorgeous Javi is or how Conrad is actually the best character and totally should’ve been a romance option because Javrad is the true OTP of ANF.

But that’s a topic y’all aren’t ready for.

Anyway.

I know that there are those out there who, like me, like David for what he is and his character development throughout ANF. I’m not going to act like I’m the one person in the world who likes him because I can’t be.

However, it seems like every time I get an ask that involves David [and isn’t Livid] is hateful or otherwise negative a good 95% of the time.

That, on top of being a predominantly s4 blog, is why I haven’t talked much about David or admitted that I like him as much as I do.

But now the cat’s out of the bag.

CJ has a hidden love for David Garcia.

It’s true. This jerk is my big problematic fave.

And I can already hear it now:

“CJ, how can you actually like David after he treated everyone so poorly and took AJ away from Clem?”

Oh, I don’t know... how can anyone love Kenny after the way he treated everyone so poorly and was a real prick to Clementine after Sarita’s death?

Why does anyone love Minerva after she got Tenn/Louis/Violet KILLED and Clementine bit?

Why does anyone like Nate, who literally murders an old, wounded couple and is overall an insane son of a bitch?

That’s why we’re here, ya dingus.

To figure this out.

In preparation for this, I actually went and did some digging on what people think of David. I thought, “Maybe I’ll find some character analysis’ or posts that share my thoughts.”

After reading a bunch of threads about him on various websites, I concluded that 99% of them look the same:

[ Also, where are these people who support David against Clementine? Because I did not find them, random person on wikipedia. I must not be looking in the right places. All I found were Kenny defense posts on your David thread. Riddle me that, random person on wikipedia whose name I scribbled out but just realized I missed the “edited by” rendering the scribble pointless!]

This did nothing but increase my anxiety about making this whole post because I’d rather not have paragraphs like this sent to my inbox for the next twenty years.

But, I’m doing it anyway. Obviously.

I have a real love-hate relationship with David, in case you couldn’t tell.

I should hate David. I really should.

I mean, I don’t like Kenny, and I fucking loathe Lilly. They’re two characters that have a lot in common with David, so logically, you’d think that I’d group him in with them and hate his dumb face.

But I don’t.

Even though David is an asshole.

He likes to do things that really piss me off, then turn around like “I can’t change because I’m a soldier” as if changing and not doing bad things is completely impossible for him!

David breaks a grieving woman’s arm after her husband dies, takes AJ away from Clementine after kicking her [a 13-year-old] out of their group by herself, gets more upset over how his glass got broken than over his wife’s cut hand, constantly fights with and puts Javi down, barely mourns Mari’s death, and a number of other things.

I know change is hard, David, and you have a lot of trauma from being a soldier, but that’s not an excuse to do bad things! I firmly believe that with enough effort, love, and support, you can slowly get better! I really hate you, you infuriating man!

But I also love him.

....But I also really hate him.

Do you see my dilemma?

And y’know what? I got plenty to say about all the things he’s done.

David is a fascinating character.

Even now, going back up and rereading what I wrote, I have to urge to jump in and be like “Well, okay, I actually have a theory on why he did that...” as if I’m ready to defend him from myself. How does that work?!

Well, okay, not necessary defend him in the way of justifying why he’d break that woman’s arm or anything, but instead show that he’s a gray character who is much more complex than people give him credit for. I have the urge to explain David’s character as a matter of character analysis and discussion, not pretend he didn’t do anything wrong or make excuses for his unhealthy and problematic behaviors.

Does that sound familiar?

David Garcia is to me what Kenny is to a lot of people.

I have a theory on why he married Kate in the first place when they clearly weren’t compatible as a couple! I have theories on why he was quick to boot Clementine out but look the other way when Lingard got high on their meds! Explanations of why having him and Gabe alive in the end is the better ending!

oh god everyone is going to hate me haha-

I have it all, and maybe one day I’ll sit down and write an entire in-depth character analysis of David if anyone is actually interested, but right now I just want to understand why I like to him in the first place because it makes no sense.

Since day one, it’s boggled my mind as to WHY I’ve always found myself leaning in favor of David.

With every episode that came out after e2, David was the character who always piqued my interest and I found myself wanting to side with him just to see what would happen. Why did I still like him even though he kept doing things that I knew were wrong? Or that pissed me off?

Why was I furious when I reached my ending only to have David end up dead?

Why was I so pissed that this character, who drove me INSANE for most of the game, died?

Is it because I see a part of myself in him? Is it because of his character design, the performance of his voice acting, and his overall writing? Does it have anything to do with his backstory and relationship with Javi? Is it because I’m actually one of those people who see someone like this and think “hey I can fix you!” but don’t know it? What is it?

Why is David Garcia my “Problematic Fave” of TWDG?

Continued in [2/?]

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 4 years

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I Need to Talk About “Problematic Faves” within TWDG [2/?]

Backstories, the introduction of these characters and the importance of first impressions.

"Nice to meet’cha, I’ll be your disappointment for the evening.”

When I first started questioning why I like David as much as I do, I thought back to when we were first introduced to him in ep1.

He didn’t leave the best first impression since the first words out of his mouth are along the lines of “You’re a real piece of shit.” Plus he, y’know, punches the shit out of Javi for not being there when their dad died.

On one hand, fair enough to be distraught that your father just died and your brother was no where in sight... but, on the other hand, do you gotta get violent?

Maybe it’s just because I’m an only child so I don’t understand how the whole sibling thing works, but punching your brother and then tossing him a beer before saying “I love you” seems.... not good?

But, it’s also very telling in what David and Javier’s relationship is right from the start, and sets an idea for what’s to come throughout the rest of the season.

Say what you will about ANF: it’s a mess, it’s the worst season, whatever. But, when I tell you that it has one of the best openings to a game, I mean it.

Everything about it is damn near perfect. Not only does it start right at the beginning of the apocalypse, but it tells us so much about our main protagonist and his backstory, it establishes the strained relationship he has with his brother and the rest of his family, and it introduces us to the walkers in a different light.

I can’t watch the opening and NOT get chills every time little baby Mariana holds that cup in her hand and says, “Papi’s awake.”

When they go see that Javi and David’s father is up and about after dying, it’s just chaos from there and I love it.

Fight me all you want, but it’s an excellent start to the season.

Unfortunately, ANF couldn’t keep that momentum going, but that’s a whole other discussion for another day.

Back to David, something about the way he was initially presented stuck with me until we finally reunited with him at the end of ep2.

So I thought back to other character introductions, how their backstories came into place, and how it affected their endgame.

A character’s introduction is crucial when it comes to storytelling, whether its subtle or in your face. You don’t want to give too much away, but you want to give the viewer a taste of who this person is and what their importance is in this story in a more subtle but clever manner.

When introducing a character, you have the think about what their endgame is. How is this character going to change over the course of the story? How are the choices of this character going to affect our protagonist, the world around them, and the overall plot.

Knowing these things can help you to sprinkle in little details within their introduction that tie into their endgame.

When we first met Kenny back in s1, he was just this dude who wanted to get his wife and kid back to Florida, hop on a boat, and live the rest of the apocalypse with his family on the water.

He was nice and showed concern over how Lee was doing with Clementine. He has a character design that gives away parts of his past as a fisherman before he tells us anything about it, and his accent [+overall voice acting and dialogue] tell us a lot about his upbringing prior to the events of s1.

We only got that glimpse of what was to come of his character after the walkers attacked Hershel’s farm.

Shaun is stuck under the tractor with walkers pushing against the fence and Duck is grabbed. We as Lee are faced with the choice of who to help first: Shaun or Duck?

Regardless of our choice, Kenny obviously runs to save his son. He gets Duck out of harms way, but when Shaun begs for help, Kenny runs away, leaving him to be eaten by the walkers.

This portrays the possibility of Kenny being cowardly, selfish, or someone who freezes up in moments of danger and runs. It also sets up the guilt that lingers in his [and Duck’s] mind all the way through to ep3 and onward.

When you think about Kenny, without knowing what happens to him in ep3, and you have to take a guess about what tragedy could take place to further his development, as well as bring that guilt full circle, what would you say?

Easy. He loses his family. Of course he does. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like it, but it makes sense that this would happen based on our first meeting with him at Hershel’s farm in conjunction with the themes of the game.

So what does this have to do with him being a “Problematic Fave?”

Uh, everything?

Ever heard of a “tragic backstory?” You don’t think such thing plays into why we loves characters like this?

Kenny the family man has a lovely wife and son. He does everything in his power to protect them, and it’s not enough. He was not enough to save his son, nor was he enough to save his wife.

He lost them both within seconds of each other, being a witness to Katjaa’s suicide and the agonizingly slow death of his son, and he had to keep going in order to survive, even though he had nothing left.

In the beginning, Kenny was a regular John Doe like the rest of us.

He had a job that kept him at sea a lot, he fell in love with a pretty vet and had a child with her. He thought this all would blow over and he could go back to Florida with his family and live peacefully.

Season 1 is Kenny’s tragic backstory.

We got to live this tragedy with him, so when s2 comes around and we’re given his second first introduction in the series, we already have all this knowledge of what has happened to him, what his relationship was to Lee and Clementine, and the assumption that he was already dead.

Season 2 was what cemented a lot of people’s love and hate for him.

I have a theory that those who hate Kenny tend forget that 1st episode back in s1, choosing to solely focus on the Kenny from the meat locker in ep2 and all the negative repercussions that stemmed for our choice there, while those who love Kenny tend to look further back and take everything into account when analyzing his character.

They sympathize with the man Kenny used to be, and are struck by this tragedy of who he became by the time s2 ended.

Kenny from ep1 of s1 is not the same person as the Kenny from s2 ep5, and his journey is not only compelling from a character development standpoint, but a huge factor in why he is the favorite character of so many. Few characters are built up and developed that way he is.

But can we say a lot of the same things about Kenny’s introduction in s2 that we can say about s1? Does it drop hints about what Kenny’s potential endgame could be?

Yes, but it’s not quite as effective as it could’ve been.

One of the first choices you make after meeting back with Kenny is whether or not you’ll sit with him at dinner.

It’s a non-assuming choice, one that shouldn’t warrant any big repercussions, right?

Except it’s the games way of presenting us with the choice of siding with Kenny under a more innocent pretense. It’s a taste of what’s to come.

Based on our previous knowledge of him, as well as his seemingly good nature [one that reminds us of the beginnings of s1], we watch the way he presents himself to Clementine and decide if we want to sit with this old, nostalgic connection, or the new connections.

Will you sit with Kenny, or will you sit with Luke and the cabin group?

Will you side Kenny, or not?

This is what led everyone to believe that the final showdown would be between Kenny and Luke, and they really dropped the ball on what they built up here when they decided to replace Luke with Jane.

Kenny’s part still holds fairly strong, but everything about it isn’t as well done as S1.

And because I know I’ll be asked: as for his introduction in S3..... I don’t consider Kenny or Jane characters as much as I’d say they’re obstacles the writers had to throw in to give the illusion that our choices actually affected Clementine significantly when they really didn’t.

He immediately dies in a car accident after being paralyzed and left to the walkers while Clementine runs away with a crying AJ. This does very little for the story of ANF other than to add fuel to Clementine’s own “tragic backstory.”

So I don’t count it here.

I want to talk about another great character introduction: Minerva.

Minerva is a special case compared to Kenny and other character introductions. We’re not plopped down in front of her like “Hi, I’m Clementine, nice to meet you, Minnie.”

We actually spend two whole episodes only hearing about her, building her character up slow and steady, until we finally meet face to face in ep3.

This complicates our first impressions of her, but only a bit.

The game pretty much tells us Minerva’s backstory:

From what we’re told, Minerva was a sweet, musical girl who didn’t even like killing walkers. She loved her brother and twin sister. She and Violet were in a romantic relationship, and Violet gives us plenty to chew on about how lovely her voice was and how she was such a good friend. Her and Sophie’s “deaths” left everyone at the school devastated to the point where they actually started using their graveyard again.

She almost seems too good to be true, don’t you think?

Then we find out she’s not dead.

It turns out, Marlon and Brody lied about the death of the twins to cover up the fact that Marlon traded them away to the delta in order to save themselves and the rest of Ericson. The truth only comes out after Brody confesses everything to Clementine before her death dealt by Marlon’s hand.

So not only are we told that Minerva was this wonderful person, but that she was traded away with her twin sister to a group of people who, based on our first impression of Abel, are a dangerous threat that’s back for more of them.

Your mind swarms with the worst possibilities of what those people could have done to them, and you even question whether or not they’re still alive.

Until we meet Lilly again and find out the truth: they turned them into soldiers, forcing them to fight in their war.

Keep in mind that this is all apart of Minerva’s “tragic backstory” and we haven’t even truly been introduced to her yet. This is everything that the first two episodes have built up.

We finally get our first glimpse of her in the trailer for ep3.

Everyone goes nuts.

Minerva was so hyped up. Everyone was talking about how good she looked and how they couldn’t wait to meet her and learn what happened from her perspective. Everyone theorized about her role in the next two episodes and how maybe we can enlist her help in getting our friends back and reuniting her with Tenn and-

Then we get actually meet her.

Turns out, she is none of the things the game told us she was.

Not anymore, at least.

She is not our friend or our ally and she is not going to help us get our friends back. She is fully brainwashed into the delta, and that’s the tragedy of Minerva’s first real introduction.

She is a betrayal of everything we’ve been told due to the crime Marlon made of trading her away. We will never get to meet this Minnie we heard so much about.

Instead, we get the husk that remains.

This husk is one of our antagonists for the rest of the game.

Knowing all of this, why do people still love her? Why are there fix-it fics and AUs where Minerva is “saved?”

Because we all wanted to meet the Minnie we heard so much about, but instead, we got Minerva, the brainwashed soldier from the Delta who, under Lilly’s fucked up rule, killed her own twin sister in order to prove her loyalty to the group.

We wanted Minerva to be on our side, to betray the delta for the school she once called home. But she didn’t.

Instead, she became our final antagonist of the whole series.

Minerva, like Kenny, is a tragedy and we like that.

I don’t mean that we like it as in “I’m so glad those horrible, traumatizing things happened to you!” but we like it in a way that it colors these characters gray.

Suddenly, their behaviors are not portrayed the way they are just because they’re the “antagonist,” but because they’re a complex, three dimensional character. The game didn’t hand them to us and say “They’re evil, that’s all you need to know.”

They took the time to flesh these two out in a clever way that got to us, either in a positive or negative light.

We are drawn to gray characters with interesting, albeit tragic, backstories that we can sympathize with.

But, when you consider that this IS the apocalypse, doesn’t everyone have one of these “tragic backstories” in this series? Just like how everyone is actually a “Problematic Fave?” Does this really play into why we like them when it’s not even something unique to their character?

That’s a good point, so in order for us to like a character like this, do they have to have an even more intense, tear-jerking past than the rest in order to stand out?

Well... no.

Nate’s the easy example for this one.

I honestly don’t know what this dude’s about, and I don’t know if I even care, but somehow Nate tends to end up on everyone’s “Favorite Characters from 400 Days” list.

Granted, he is a bit of a refreshing character to run into in this environment, what with him being so laid back, sarcastic, gross, and even sadistic in a way that’s mean to be comedic.

But what do we even know about him or where he came from?

Well, we know that he’s apart of the group that fan-favorite Eddie accidentally shot at, leading Nate to chase after him and Wyatt as a form of revenge. After that, he picked up Russell and headed back to a gas station where that old couple shot at them.

The old man reveals that Nate’s been there before and attacked, stating that he’s here to finish them off. Nate denies this, but asks if Russell and him should finish them off and take all their stuff.

From there, who the hell knows where this dude went.

But that’s all we got.

No “tragic backstory” from Nate, no implications of one, unless we missed the nonexistent detail that his previous group was his family or something. Even then, he doesn’t seem so concerned about the state of the world. He doesn’t have an issue picking up a random kid who could be dangerous. He was bored, after all.

Nate is a character whose backstory has nothing to do with why people love him. He’s an oddball out, in this case.

It’s a different story when talking about how he’s introduced, though. This is where he has most in common with Kenny, Minerva, and all the rest of these “Problematic Faves”: He has a great impression.

Well, assuming that you played Russell’s story before Wyatt’s, I suppose.

Nate’s likable, albeit insane, character isn’t dependent on who he was before or how he suffered. He’s a character who represents those in the world who thrive in times of disaster, choosing to take it as it comes, do whatever it takes to survive, and even get a sick thrill out of doing these problematic things. Odds are, life was boring before and now he truly gets to live. That’s all made clear in how he presents himself to Russell and the player.

And.... I guess it worked? He is the “Problematic Fave” of a handful of people int he community, after all.

Now that we’ve discussed three separate characters and their backstories, how they’re introduced, and how these two things affect their role within the story as well as our feelings towards them, I want to touch on one more thing before I go back to David.

What does all of this say about the people who throw this annoying phrase of “Your fave is problematic” at those of us who find these characters with great backstories compelling?

Do they not care or understand these backstories or what the introductions meant? Do they ignore them so that their perspective seems to be the correct answer? Are they so quick to judge based on the surface level that they don’t bother thinking twice about anything?

Do they feel that this character has wronged them, therefore they find they can’t bring themselves to tolerate them anymore?

Or are they just being a bag of dicks who don’t care about anything other than berating anyone who dares oppose them and their opinions?

Well, yes and no to all of these possibilities.

I’m sure there are people out there who don’t have a full grasp of what made Kenny the way he is in s2 because, well.... they’ve never lost a loved one. It’s easy to say “Get over it” to just about any troubling situation we’ve never found ourselves in. Even if we do feel for this character, sometimes it’s really only surface level because we don’t have a full comprehension of what they went through.

When I took acting back in high school, I had a teacher who could cry on the spot. We all assumed that he was just a good actor who could turn the tears on and off at any given moment, but then he explained how he did it.

He lost his father in a drunk driving accident the same day he gave his last performance on stage as a high school senior. Whenever he needed to cry for a scene, this 58-year-old man would think back to the last conversation he had with his father that morning, and then about the moment he learned his father had died.

Even in moments that didn’t require him to cry, but to develop a character and portray that convincingly, he pulled from that life experience. He also could sympathize with certain characters that we’d consider problematic while the rest of us were barely scratching the surface.

He told us we need to come to terms with any tragedy in our lives and use it not only to create characters of our own, but to understand the ones most wouldn’t give a second glance to, and help relate ourselves to the real people around us.

Since my high school days, I’ve experienced the loss of a longtime dog companion, and the alarming health decrease of two close family members. While I’ve never lost a child, a spouse, a parent, or a sibling, I find that a part of me can’t completely hate Kenny or even Minerva because I get it to an extent.

So it makes me wonder if those who look at these backstories and still brush them off do.

But, there’s another argument to be made here.

Maybe they do understand and that’s why they hate someone like Kenny.

They have lost a loved one before or experienced some sort of trauma. They know about the grief, guilt, and anger that it can lead to. But, they also know it’s not an excuse to be mean, cold, or abusive to loved one.

They know that such trauma can lead to lashing out, but the difference is between someone who knows what they’re doing is wrong, they need help, and they try to get it... and someone who using it to explain away why they’re broken and unfixable.

Some see Kenny as someone who can’t change, or won’t change. That’s how they’ve interpreted him based on their experiences as someone who’s lived through these things, or been around someone who has.

In their eyes, Kenny isn’t redeemable, “tragic backstory” or not.

What about those who felt wronged by a character?

I’ve come to the realization that this why I don’t like Minerva.

She wronged me in the way that I had to watch either Louis or Tenn die because she showed up on the bridge with the illusion that she would take her brother to a better place.

Louis, my favorite character across the entire series, and one that I’ve taken so much comfort in during the more recent darker moments of my life. Tenn, a character that I wanted to watch grow and become what characters like Ben or Sarah weren’t allowed to be come.

Because of Minerva, the only way for both Louis and Tenn to survive is if I let Louis get kidnapped, resulting in him becoming mute due to the delta cutting out his tongue, I have to break AJ’s heart by telling him that I don’t trust him, and I have to watch Violet be devoured alive by a horde of walkers.

I’m not willing to let Louis die, but I also don’t want him to lose his tongue, so in my route, I trust AJ to shoot Tenn and give Minerva what she wants.

And no matter what? Clementine gets bit because Minerva sliced her leg apart, leaving her slow and weaker when trying to get away. I firmly believe that if Minerva hadn’t done that, Clementine wouldn’t have been bitten for the sake of “parallel.”

It’s a situation that could’ve been avoided if Minerva hadn’t showed up, but her will to see and kill Tenn was strong enough for her

People who love Minerva might not see it that way, or if they do, they’re a lot more forgiving than I am.

Believe me when I tell you that I can see this being a reason for the hate towards any character like this.

Like Kenny. Lot’s of Kenny talk.

I know there are those out there who loved Kenny in s1, but by the time s2 ended, they couldn’t stand him because s2 wronged them in their portrayal of Kenny and what he had become. This wasn’t their Kenny.

To finish this segment off, allow me to answer that last question I posed: Are they just being a bag of dicks who don’t care about anything other than berating anyone who dares oppose them and their opinions?

Of course, then there are the children who like to fight. The answer for why these people hate such characters is because they think of themselves as... let’s say, Batman.

This community needs a hero to vanquish anyone who likes or enjoys these problematic characters and it’s a job only they can do! They’re the hero for sending that anon hate to your inbox!

This is an excuse to be a dick and we all know it.

So, what does all of this Kenny, Minerva, and Nate talk amount to?

It helped me in understanding a reason in why I like David so much.

I already knew that I enjoyed learning more about who he was prior to the outbreak, as well as having light shed on his and Javi’s relationship, but not in the way I initially thought.

You see, ANF is different in the way that it feeds backstory to the player- through flashbacks. At the beginning of each episode, we play as Javi in the past before the apocalypse happened.

From there, we get to see what David was like compared to what he is now, but they tell it to us through Javi’s point of view and we have to pick apart his character through that forced perspective.

From the flashbacks alone, as well as ep1′s beginning, I put together that:

David was a single father trying to raise two incredibly young children. We’re never told what happened to his first wife. I used to assume that they ended up divorced, but now I’m more on board with the idea that she’s actually dead and that’s why David has full custody of Gabe and Mariana.

Putting the pieces together now, it makes sense of why he married Kate when they’re clearly not compatible, and why he has these high expectations of her. David’s mother and father are still together, and with family being a big theme in ANF, it leads me to believe that David felt his children needed a mother figure in their lives in order for the family to be complete. He needed a wife.

While I think he did love Kate, and she obviously loved him enough to marry him in the first place, David didn’t love her the way he should have.

Kate tells us that their marriage was fucked up. We clearly see that given how she reacts when she sees David again, as well as when David himself confesses that things aren’t working out between them and that’s why he wants to go away.

They’re always arguing, he has those expectations of her as his wife and she’s fed up with it, and things are just.... not working. Of course they’re not.

He wanted a wife to make him feel more complete, as well as give his children that mother figure. He wasn’t out there trying to find the love of his life. For all we know, he already had that with his possibly dead first wife [note: shoot, add “possible dead wife” to the list of shit David’s got going in his backstory for future reference]. He thought that he could try and change Kate from who she is because he was desperate for this to work.

David and Kate should NOT have gotten married, but I can understand the stress David was under with having to raise two children as a single father while dealing with untreated trauma from being a soldier, his confidence in himself as a normal human-being deteriorating due to his “I’m a soldier and I can’t function here” mentality, working a shitty job while going back and forth on whether or not he should go sign up again, having a strained relationship with an irresponsible brother who lost his baseball career due to a gambling addiction yet still never being around when David needed him.

David marries Kate and things don’t fix themselves.

And then Javi does come around, and David doesn’t know how to act or what to say.

Then his father keeps from them that he has cancer and he’s not planning on getting treatments for it.

When his father loses his battle with cancer, everyone is there except Javier. David’s there holding his hand while his dying father asks for Javi.

I get why David’s upset that his father isn’t seeing him because he’s looking for Javi. Is it selfish to feel jealous or heartbroken when it’s your father that’s dying? Yeah, but it’s a realistic feeling. Most of us have felt some level of this but don’t want to admit it because we don’t want to see ourselves in a negative light. It’s easy to look at David and be like “What a selfish prick.”

But... why wasn’t Javi there? Everyone makes it clear that he should have been there, no excuse. Everyone was there for hours, for days but Javi was no where to be found. This plays beautifully into Javier’s character growth throughout the season, but what about David?

Compared to the “tragic backstories” of Kenny and Minerva, David’s seems... a little mundane, huh?

He has problems focused more in the real world rather than the apocalypse world.

Every bad thing we’ve ever learned about Kenny and Minerva happened after the walkers.

Plenty of people have served in the military and dealt with trauma rooted in their service.

Plenty have either been divorced or lost their spouse, were left as a single parent to raise the kids they love but are afraid they’ll fuck up if they do it alone. How about those who are apart of an unhappy marriage?

Nearly everyone has worked a job they hate and know the toll it can take on your mental health.

Left in the shadow of a more successful sibling, no matter how hard they try to be on that same level and earn that love, too.

A parent with cancer, or another life-threatening illness.

Feeling as though they can’t function because they’re not built to live in such a humanly “normal” world, eager to find where they belong and have a fulfilling purpose.

Everything David has going on prior to the apocalypse is real and relatable, and I like that this is the route they took with him. Rather than having him be like Kenny, who seemed to live happily with very little issue and only began to suffer when the apocalypse came, they took a route similar to Lee and Javier.

“Things weren’t great before.”

That being said, do any of these things justify David’s bad behavior towards Javi, Kate, Clementine, and everyone else? Does it justify the bad things he ends up doing during the events of ANF.

Hell no!

David can be a real prick and amazing backstory/introduction or not, I am not okay with that!

But look.

Listen.

ANF is such a mess. It’s a disaster.

It’s ‘s2 mess,’ but on crack.

I firmly believe that David is one of the better things to come out of it, except he got severely fucked over by just how terrible ANF’s writing could be.

They started off so good. David is established and he has some of the better character moments in the entire game, but it’s all buried underneath the bullshit.

They actually gave us David, who dealt with a lot of “normal” shit to try and find his place and be happy, made him have problems that we can see ourselves having and relate to, making us question ourselves, and then they gave him what he wanted.

David met up with Ava, he found Clint and Joan, and they created a community together where David got to be this leader with a purpose. He got what he wanted at the sacrifice of his children, wife, brother, and parents, something he didn’t even have a choice in.

They had all the right ideas...

I love the different take to David’s backstory. I love the way he was introduced in ANF. I love the way these things managed to weave themselves throughout ANF despite it being...... ugh.

People who hate David, like the one who listed all of those lovely attributes of his in the previous part, think he is nothing but a whiny, selfish, asshole because of the way he’s introduced and portrayed in flashbacks and... I disagree to a point.

He is an asshole a lot of the time, especially when you don’t side with him [heh, sound familiar] but that doesn’t mean he’s not a compelling, relatable character to study and infer about. And y’know what? I like that he’s not Mr. Nice Guy. Someone like him wouldn’t be. He is a person who can nice moments, and he has bad moments. It doesn’t excuse the shit he does, but it at least adds a depth to it that I appreciate.

I’m mature enough to recognize these his bad behaviors, acknowledge them, and infer more about his character without makes excuses and pretending that him having a tough time means it’s okay for him be that way.

I can see what they were going for as far as his endgame, but I’ll talk more about that later.

As for the conclusion of this long winded segment:

A character’s backstory, first impression, execution of developing these small seedling details into an overarching story plays an important role in the growing love of a character, problematic or not. Both love and hate can be stemmed from the maturity and knowledge of the viewer based on how relatable and sympathetic they find these ideas.

[Continued in 3/?]

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