Something about how physically small Ellie looks in this episode just makes it all so much more intense. How little she is curled next to Joel, how big the rifle looks when she holds it, the way David is able to pick her up so easily. The contrast in the size of their hands when he's telling her that she, a 14-year-old, is his only equal, and how tiny hers look when she wraps her arms around Joel; the way his coat reaches her knees when he drapes it over her. Every second the camera spends on her is forcing you to look at how young she is and it just makes it all so much more awful.
it's SO funny that when asked what he had to do to prepare for his role in IWTV Sam Reid says he had to learn how to play the piano, learn to speak French, Italian, and English with a French accent. Bailey read IWTV religiously and added her own comments, and kept an actual fucking journal she wrote entirely as Claudia. meanwhile Jacob Anderson, when asked the same question, just responds with “oh nothing, i was already emo”. icons and legends only