Ellie’s memory of the golfing scene and what it tells us about her.
🚨spoilers for tlou2🚨
I think Ellie’s flashback to Joel’s death is very telling of how she internalized the event and the meaning she applied to his death. It’s also a good demonstration of her relationship to autonomy. Let’s break down the elements that were inconsistent with the actual event:
The stairs/hallway are much longer than they were. This suggests a sense of helplessness, an inability to get there fast enough. Joel is constantly out of reach.
There is blood on the floor outside of the door. Not entirely certain on this one but my hunch is that she blames herself for not seeing more obvious signs of violence/not knowing something was wrong sooner.
The door is locked, another roadblock in her path to Joel. She can’t access him, she can’t help, he needs her and she isn’t there.
Most importantly. Joel yells “Ellie, help me” (which he didn’t in the actual scene, he just screams. He doesn’t say a word in the actual scene)
Ellie hearing Joel scream for her help, calling for her while being horribly beaten, and her being repeatedly impeded on her way to him suggests that what she took away from his death is that she wasn’t enough. They always helped each other, always had each others backs, always got up. Ellie views his death as a failure. She was too slow, too weak, not smart enough to save him. She failed him when he needed her most. She is absolutely helpless to save him, just like she was helpless to save Riley, Tess, Sam, and Jessie (and Marlene, and humanity, and and and-).
Once again, Ellie makes a decision (staying with Riley, going to the fireflies, staying with Joel, being the cure, trying to forgive Joel) and once again her autonomy and ability to find closure is ripped from her.
This is the inciting incident of tlou pt2, this is the moment where Ellie’s whole world shatters the same way Joel’s did at the start of pt1. Ellie enters into the same cycle (which I like to call the “Joel cycle” because… yeah.) that he did, and throughout pt2 she stays in the “20 years later” phase of the cycle. She is changed, she has lost her light, lost what she fought for. She lost her chance to genuinely forgive Joel and rebuild their relationship. She is stuck in a gruelling and violent world that she has no anchor in, at least not anymore. His death is so sudden and so incredibly violent that it practically gave her (and me as well, tbh) whiplash. She’s in a state of total shock.
On another devastating note, this is one of the three times in tlou that we see Ellie beg (that I remember). The first is begging Joel to get up at the university of Eastern Colorado, the second is begging him to get up and for Abby to stop, and the third is begging Abby to not kill Dina because she’s pregnant. (Two times she begs Joel to get up, one time he doesn’t. Two times she begs Abby to spare her family and one time she does. What a beautifully haunting contrast)
To wrap up, every person creates an internal narrative, a story of their life that is crafted from their context and lived experiences. The meaning we derive from those experiences doesn’t always reflect the truth, and that can sometimes bite us in the ass majorly when we experience a traumatic event. We tend to want to find someone or something to assign blame to, some reason or rationale to why it happened. We tell stories. We write them in our minds about ourselves and what happens to us and what that says about us.
But Ellie is wrong. Joel’s death happened in response to a conscious and willing choice he made. It is in no way her fault, and there was absolutely no way for her to know or to stop what was happening. I think Ellie knows that much on an intellectual level, It just doesn’t change how devastated she is over the whole event. It can’t change the fact that she FEELS as though this was all her fault, that Joel did what he did to save her, that she could have saved him. That she should have.
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imo it's not so hard to accept that SWM takes place after the prank. I mean it is canon so too bad but it makes complete sense to me. there's no evidence the prank was some big life-altering character development moment for any of the characters involved and that they all learnt their various lessons. in fact we see that they don't. in SWM the marauders are clearly still tormenting Sev. In Sev's conversation with Lily post-prank he's still just as obsessed with the marauders and exposing their secrets as ever, if not more. he doesn't consider what lily's saying at all because he's too focused on his hatred towards them.
my hc is that sirius (rather masterfully) used reverse psychology on sev to get him to go down the willow. Sev isn't stupid, he wouldn't have let himself willingly be led into a trap by his worst enemies. I think Sirius probably "let it slip" and then "backtracked" and acted like Snape wouldn't be brave enough to go down there anyway and that he should just forget it. I doubt Sirius directly told him to go down the willow, I think cleverly he told him not to, knowing that Sev would do so anyway (not that this makes a difference ethically bc his intent is still clear, but anyway. this isn't about who is morally better because idgaf honestly lol, I'm just trying to work through their mindsets)
the marauders received no real consequences for the prank, so why would they learn their lesson? Objectively you can't really punish someone for telling someone not to do something if they do it anyway. Not particularly fair, but still. Which brings me to Sev's responsibility in the matter (which yes, does exist imo) we're shown that he was obsessed with finding out what the marauders were up to and particularly obsessed with Remus's secret. Yes, this is understandable given how they treated him, but absolutely not healthy and he still chose to go down there, whether out of pride, greed, curiousity, vindictiveness. He obv was manipulated but there's a reason he was so easily manipulated. As I said previously, his obsession with revenge is what causes him to be blind to lily's feelings.
James rescuing him wasn't some moment of epiphany about how bullying is bad actually. It was just a fundamental part of James's character already. He would never have let him die regardless of how he felt about him.
All of this makes SWM the PEAK moment of hatred between Sev and the Marauders, which explains a lot of their responses. Sirius and James hate Sev more than ever for trying to expose Remus. Sev, justifiably, hates them more than ever for trying to kill him (and he ropes James into this, which is incorrect but understandable in his position)
James "deflating his head" probably wasn't just based on one event in particular. He just grew up and learned what was more important- being a good person, fighting against voldemort. But Sev also had growing up to do of his own during this time. As I talked about in in this post yesterday I think post-swm Sev was beginning to realise that his lack of control over his emotional responses (calling lily a mudblood out of humiliation, for example) was dangerous both to lily and to himself.
Yeah they still hated each other and attacked each other in seventh year. There's too much bad blood there to do anything else. I've talked about the dynamic between Sev and James here and how that might have developed as they grew older. I honestly find it extremely interesting, I could go on about these two for hours rip. My point is that the development of these characters into adults wasn't instant or linear, it was messy and rough. people don't usually change overnight, it happens slowly over time because they have to.
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okay i need to know if anyone else has been devastated by a creature having different defining features in dungeon meshi than like childhood stories
bc i adore this series (i am showing So Much restraint not reading the manga and watching it with my family as it comes out) but the kelpie my beloved
her hooves were not backwards and its killing me (kelpies were the closest i got to being a horse girl as a kid)
the seaweed is very nice and accurate (i say this as if ive seen a kelpie (not the dog) in real life) relating to the stories where the kelpie is made of seaweed or the shifter stories where it becomes a handsome young man with an unsettling amount of seaweed or sand in his hair
and the tail is a very cool nod towards it being a sea (limnistic? is that a word? relating to rivers and lakes) creature but the defining traits are that shes got backwards hooves and shes probably sticky when you pat her
like ik itd probably be hard to animate backwards hooves but aaaaa (expression of misapplied and disproportionate injustice and disappointment)
look at how fancy they are (((right picture from ben-the-hyena here on tumblr they did a whole series of drawings of mythological horses as carousels and its so pretty))) (image on the left is described as a nykur which to my knowledge is a similar icelandic water spirit )
((also vaguely disappointed she didnt try to get the others on her back to show off her cool elongation abilities for maximum snack collection but thats not the point i was trying to focus on here))
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scum villain makes me SO INSANE like it's the funniest book I've ever read and also if I think too hard about one character in particular my brain shorts out shies away from the thoughts like a slug might shy away from salt I will POSITIVELY DIE if I think too long about tlj JUST trying to understand people being betrayed by someone who he thought loved him losing everyone who was ever close to him BECAUSE of him I think too hard about yqy and how he will never get closure there will be no happiness for him zzl my little boy my big cheese my funtime guy who JUST wanted to be liked he was trying so hard to do good he's like that poem from the point of view of a cat that can't figure out what he did wrong why do his family keep leaving the house why can he never grow big like his brothers sqq never seeing his family again never acknowledging he had a family except in passing never being able to tell his husband about his first life having to keep that secret for the rest of his life to always have this weird terrible pain between them forever the sacrifices he made for luo binghe how he'll never be able to truly know og sqq's motivations how he just woke up and immediately took up the mantel of sqq despite knowing his fate WHAT was his life as shen yuan like to make him so quick to alter his whole identity WHY is he so good at acting and lying to everyone including himself just refers to himself as a listless pretty boy like he doesn't have the cleverest mind in the whole book!!!!! og sqq in the cave what must he have felt when he realized he wasn't strong enough to save lqg and knowing what people were going to say and being too proud and miserable to clear his own name binghe's "I hate! I hate myself!" scene I am SCREAMING binghe being unhealthily manipulative from DAY ONE up to the point where sqq realizes what he's done with xin mo the CAVE SEX SCENE??????????? don't get me STARTED on shang qinghua!!!!!!!! liu qingge!!!!!! BINGGE?????? it's like a wormhole in my head if I think too hard past sqq being the funniest mother fucker in two different universes and the premise of haha big demon hot for teacher mommy kink :))) I will DIE I will PERISH i am rabid I am biting and tearing and rending and howling!!!!!!
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bad boy mike fics are always good fun yeah but have you all ever considered writing something where will is the mischievous little rascal from the wrong side of the tracks that listens to loud music and always has little rogue paint splatters on his hand-me-downs or charcoal smudges on his cheek n says the most out of pocket shit under his breath that no one ever hears except for eleven and mike and yet no one believes him when he repeats what will said bc will jus looks so sweet tht obviously he would never say tht mike and mike is the more strait-laced kid that lives in a three story house at the end of the cul-de-sac with his purposely and perfectly disheveled and brand new get-up that gets flustered whenever will suggests they do something they maybe shouldn't but ultimately agrees without question because hello in what world could he ever look into those big hazel eyes of will's and somehow say no? it's literally impossible and he never regrets it even if they do get home late which of course makes hop chew him out when he catches them even though it was will's idea to begin with but again no one ever believes him n it's not like he'd rat him out anyway and coming from such different backgrounds they really shouldn't fit but they do and they're inseparable and even if it's messy cozy and all too lived-in mike feels more at home at the byers-hopper house than he ever does in his castle filled with ghosts and honestly probably for the first time ever actually and obviously they'd make their own adventures for when life gets to be too much bc will feels like he's drowning and mike feels like he's invisible and it's just will with his sketchbook and mike with his leather journal and they talk about anything and everything and share things they've never ever said to anyone else before and ofc when they talk about the future it's always about where they'll go to college together and how they're obviously going to dorm together and get an apartment afterward bc they're undoubtedly going to escape this shitty little town one day and they're clearly Something but also maybe too scared to Be something and . and. is anyone gonna write this or am i gonna have to be a big boy and do it myself 🙄
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What do you think of the Observer from Dead by Daylight? I like the idea of being able to destroy the Entity, but that honor should belong to the Survivors. They deserve to find some power to fight back against their enemy.
I think he’s written really poorly, because he’s so removed from the experience of constant suffering, and the way he sifts through even traumatic memories with casual interest, he comes off as extremely callous and frivolous in comparison with the survivors, and careless and unfeeling towards them. Also super privileged, and not doing much shit, even just feeling pity, about him being a human who can lounge in a library drinking wine, sifting through their personal trauma for entertainment, while they’re repeatedly are tortured and killed. I don’t think that’s how he’s /meant/ to be read, but 400% it’s how he comes off. I’m not a fan of him or their execution of the idea. I wouldn’t like the idea regardless, because I think how they do multiverse and their like, cult entity stuff very very goofy most of the time and immersion breaking for the genre, but it could certainly have been done better. Originally, they had Benedict Baker, and to a lesser degree, Vigo, fulfilling that role, and it worked phenomenally. Benedict recording the survivors with his very intuitive outsiders’ perspective was amazing, and I am so upset they’ve mostly removed his original stuff now. It was a much more immersive and compelling and interesting storytelling idea to have lore from other survivors taking notes, or records left by them, and it made a built story that felt complete because even if they got out largely based on information collected from other survivors, that’s still a win from all the tortured victims if they killed the Entity or escaped, just, including the dead ones, not some dumb outsider observer. I do not care for him even a little. I greatly miss Benedict. You have no idea.
But yeah circling back, if anyone deserves to win it’s the survivors. Having some weirdly privileged in ability and knowledge outsider do it would be the boringest deus ex machina way possible to end it, but I wouldn’t put that past their very bad writers.
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