tlou + tlou2 loves of my life (ramble)

i know that many people actually really vehemently hate tlou 2 but im not one of those people so i love and live for tlou 2 every day just like i love and live for tlou 1 and i just . HAD to talk about them i cannot contain myself. first post ever and its about the game series i am the most mentally ill over LETS GOOOOOO

be so nice kindness to me PLease

first things first i have to talk about tlou 1 because we are going in sequential order. i have played this game. 10+ times. over the years. i got this game the year it came out when i was just a wee little guy in middle school like i was 10 years old when this came out. and i fell in LOVE with it i watched my dad play it and then i was like Oohhhh boy get me in on THIS SHIT and i have played it every year since. ellie is like. the highlight of my life. ellie and joel are the duo that inspired my love for father-daughter duos really like these two MADE ME love their dynamic. jokey little girl who still has the capacity to take things seriously and still approach things with innocence in such a violent world hanging out with a man who is grumpy and hardened and stoic and also really volatile with his own problems because he has embraced this violent world. is it stable? no not really but the whole point is that ellie isn't fixing joel she is just. There. there's no getting rid of her. and joel knows that he has to fix himself. if he wants to keep ellie alive and safe and happy like he likes seeing her, he has to be better. and in some ways, he does get better. he becomes more open and he embraces the jokes more openly and hes more willing to give ellie agency with things like guns and trusting her more and they love each other oh my goddd they love each other they are a fucking familyyyyyjdljkfjkljkgj

one of the things that have always gotten me in tlou. its the final exchange but that is like a duh moment that would get someone like the music flaring up SWEAR TO ME. SWEAR TO ME THAT EVERYTHING YOU SAID ABOUT THE FIREFLIES IS TRUE. and joel stares at her. and he goes I swear. and she stares at him and the music keeps building until it goes DEATHLY SILENT. and she just goes Okay. AND THAT WAS ALL WE GOT FOR A DECADE but that is not the main thing that gets me that is a major duh moment that got everyone but like my MOMENT. in this game. is when joel falls on that spike and he is so seriously injured he can barely walk straight or shoot or keep ellie safe like he wants to because he is losing so much blood. and ellie is walking through this little 14-year-old girl and she is obviously scared but she is keeping joel safe and you feel so fucking useless and hopeless and there is so much fear running through your body every time someone bursts through a door or runs down the stairs or you hear a noise and joel is not ready to take them on YOU are not ready to take them on YOU are bleeding out YOU are unable to protect your little girl and that is a horrible feeling. and joel stumbles and nearly falls on the ground and ellie goes "here, lean on me" and joel goes "NO..." and she goes "well can you walk?" and he goes "Yes." and she yells back at him, "THEN FUCKING WALK!" and you can hear how desperate and scared she is that she is about to lose her dad and they JUST went through that moment where ellie thought he was going to dump her on tommy and she was like "everyone i have ever loved has either died or left me. everyone- fucking except for you! so don't tell me i would be better off with someone else, because the truth is i would just be more scared." they JUST WENT OVER THIS!!! you KNOWWWW that her biggest fear is ending up alone and joel, in a way, knows this as well he was not TOLD IT like sam was earlier but he knows because of that speech and even when joel is about to fucking fall over from blood loss, ellie is carrying him out on her shoulder and they STILL have the capacity to joke and shes just like "when i get you out of this...you are SO fucking singing for me." and he laughs and goes "you wish" and just auuuUAUUGUGUGHHTUHUUTHGUUHTHT TYHHEHEE EPAIINNN THE HUURUTT THE HORRORORSSS

now before we move onto tlou 2. i have to talk about the ending of 1. because this is what frames my whole view of tlou 2. even BEFORE i played the second game i had this whole thought process in my mind: what would happen if you gave up so much time and effort to put into a cause you really truly believed in, and someone you loved snatched that out from under you? because thats what happens to ellie and the worst part is that all her agency was stripped from her on BOTH sides. the fireflies didn't wait for ellie to wake up and joel didn't ask ellie what exactly she wanted. no one gave her the time to decide for herself what she wanted to do with her life. when you are going through the hospital and systematically killing everyone there, you feel fired up. you are saving your daughter. you are saving your little girl. you are going in there, you are showing the people there what for, and you are telling them all, "you don't get to take her from me." but this is, inherently, a way of thinking that reduces ellie to an object. and we all fell into it i mean i feel like there is no other way to do it you go through all of this and the game isn't exactly MAKING you (though let's be so real here it IS making you) because you WANT to do it. you WANT to tear these people apart for even thinking of killing ellie because THIS IS ELLIE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. this amazing little girl who is a huge nerd who, when she isn't trying to keep herself from being murdered, reads all the time. this little girl who stopped still when she saw fireflies flying around her who never took a walk through the woods before she met joel who saw how dark the area beyond the walls of the boston qz was and said to a man who knew much better than her what was out there, "can't be any worse out there...can it?" this little girl who took care of herself and joel on her own and fought her captor and WON and deserves so much more than to be a cure

but is that really for us to decide? and you can choose to disagree and i understand the counterargument that she's a little girl who, if we don't stop these people, will be killed anyway, but at the same time...we are both to blame for ellie's state in the second game. the fireflies gave joel no choice, but that also means that joel and the fireflies give her no choice. and it just sucks. it sucks because it feels right and then you see ellie's face when joel tells her that her immunity meant nothing. none of this meant anything. the people before her that died because of this infection that she is completely immune to, that she could've given the world a vaccine for, meant nothing. and her immunity is so deeply tied to her personality, they say this pretty explicitly in the game, ellie takes this as i mean nothing. i don't think she takes it like this at first but maybe later on like. that sinks in.

okayokayokay tlou 2 i really love tlou 2 there are so many people out there who hate it but there are also people finally coming around to it and i loved it from the second i got my hands on it like DONT GET ME WRONG. IT IS A MISERABLE GAME. but that's the goal! you are meant to be miserable throughout ellie's portion of the game i mean she's fucking grieving and she's so upset and you are also so upset i don't think there was a single dry eye when joel died and it's just. god. the world feels so empty. i remember the first time i played tlou 2 i wondered in the middle of the game "when are we gonna see joel again?" and was hit with another wave of grief when i remembered Oh yeah. He's dead. he didn't come with ellie to seattle- maybe not the traditional way, i mean.

ellie just is constantly carrying him with her. the guitars (god i have to talk about the guitars the way the first thing she plays on all of them is future days because it's such a meaningful song for her and joel and yet she almost never finishes the line. the full line is "if i ever were to lose you, i'd surely lose myself," but she only ever plays that last bit when it's just Her. and the Guitar. she never plays it in front of anyone else. i just need to say that.) and the memories of past events and the way she takes on joel's presence with how she is with dina.  and it's. Odd. everything feels so out of place that you kind of don't notice on the first run how ellie is going down the wrong path because you want her to take this path you want to kill abby already you want ellie to get her revenge because you are getting revenge. but i did realise on my second playthrough like. everyone around ellie who has a good head on their shoulders from the very beginning are like "i would never let you do this alone. but you are absolutely making some of THE WORST choices here."

like dina tells ellie that she's pregnant and they have this whole argument where ellie is like "why didn't you say this earlier we could've taken you BACK already! now we're too far" and dina is like "i didn't want to be a burden" and ellie goes "well you're a burden now, aren't you." and it is the worst shit that you have ever heard ellie say EVER. during my first playthrough that kind of struck me and i was kind of shocked like Why did you. say that ??? why the fuck would you say that???? but it's all just. IT'S ALL POINTING BACK TO ELLIE MAKING THE WORST FUCKING CHOICES. she doesn't think things through at the hospital when she runs into whitney playing hotline miami and naively thinks that she can just let her go or that she won't fight back if she doesn't keep up the pressure and accurately goes "that was dumb. that was dumb" after she kills her like Yeah Ellie. Yeah it was

and these are moments that people complain about up and down all around like ellie spent. ONE YEAR. out with joel. the rest of that time was in military school or in jackson. I don't think either of those places trained her for how to deal with hostages and joel was sure as shit not going to do that are you kidding me of COURSE ellie is out of her element but this just highlights what stupid rash decisions she's making she's not even EXPERIENCED she doesn't know what she's DOING she's BARELY an adult and yet when jesse and ellie find out that tommy is probably nearby and they could get to them, ellie says No. I'm going to go to the boat so I can go to the aquarium so I can kill abby business as usual KNOWING how the wlf are KNOWING that tommy has been chased by the wlf all this time and her stupid decisions pile up until she's killed owen and mel in yet another stupid STUPID plan that she did not think through AT ALL. and of course the reflection like mel is pregnant. dina is pregnant. this is like killing dina. this is awful. and abby showing up to shoot jesse and tommy and ellie to be made helpless all over again, losing her agency all over again. i could not save jesse and i could not save tommy and i could not save dina and i could not avenge joel and i could not save the world. ellie is at the mercy of the world. and it sucks. it sucks that she really is at the mercy of the people around her, but this time, this is a series of choices SHE MADE. she is experiencing the consequences for her actions. killing abby's friends and hunting her down through seattle and leaving her with nothing like abby did to her. and it's not right

and abby's section...god i love it because it ties back with everything else and i don't know if people have realised that really? people call tlou 2 the "revenge bad" game but i don't necessarily think it's that. abby's whole beginning section of the game is spent solidifying two things about her: 1) she is loyal and 2) she hates the seraphites. abby is INCREDIBLYYY loyal like she is loyal to the wlf to the point of adopting their ways of viewing the world despite previously being loyal to her father, who was very kind and forgiving and generally tried to do the right thing. this is what we get from him from what little time we have with him. but we know that abby loved him and that she understood him and his struggle and she just. that little bit where she was like "if it were me, i would want you to do it." on some level, ellie and abby already understand each other. and i really truly believe that in another life, they could've been friends. they could've met and been such great friends. i really believe this in my heart.

despite this loyalty to the wlf, she is also loyal to her friends. she completely abandons her duties with the wlf to go hunt down owen and after that, she saves two seraphite kids because owen's own story convinces her like maybe they shouldn't be given up on, maybe they aren't who i've made them out to be, they SAVED me, i should save them, and she does and she goes through this whole long journey with lev and becomes his big sister and she learns a little bit from him that what the seraphites are doing aren't right and this isn't even part of what they've been taught and she lightens up and respects lev and yara whenever they say a prayer or tell her, "may she guide you." and god abby grows so much and i love her i love her so much and the person she becomes and the road she gets put on. despite everything, despite all her friends that die, yara dying, abby losing her place in the wlf, when lev tells her to stop before she kills dina, she listens. and all she says to ellie is, "don't ever let me see you again." and she walks away.

and ellie walks away too. and for some time, it's great, with it's ups and downs. the trauma. the way tommy fucking talks down to her I CANNOT GET OVER THAT i fucking hate how tommy talks to ellie in this game telling her she's stupid, she's fake, she's this, she's that, if she REALLY cared about joel, she would go out and follow this lead he's found for her when she has a WIFE and a BABY at home that NEED HELP!!! you got DIVORCED for a REASON tommy LET IT GO!!!!! but no he gets in her head and dina catches ellie preparing to go after abby once again and just. god. i feel so bad for dina. she says, "we can be happy. we are allowed to be happy." and ellie doesnt take it.

and so we go through the final part of the game. and ellie finds abby and lev, both emaciated and sunburnt and hurt. and you think she's gonna let them go. they're standing out on the beach, abby holding lev in her arms, the slave house behind them burning. abby puts lev in the boat and she's about to leave and you think that ellie's going to take the other boat, she's going to get somewhere safe, maybe she'll come to santa barbara with them and see what's going on with the fireflies, but she doesn't. she makes abby fight her. they fight until they're covered in cuts and bruises and ellie has lost two of her fingers and just when she's about to kill abby, she stops herself because she sees joel. she sees joel the night before he died. she sees joel look up at her right before his death. she lets abby go. tells her, "go. take him." abby gets in the boat and goes away. dina is gone when ellie returns home. all of dina's things have been removed and ellie's things have been put in only one room. the sheep are gone from the farm. the tree is dead. the garden is dead. the windchimes are gone. dina has taken the mezuzzahs out. ellie goes upstairs, finds the guitar, and tries to play future days, the first song joel played on her guitar. she can't. she doesn't have the fingers to.

and this is where. EVERYTHING. about this game. finally collides together. the final conversation with joel is all about how ellie WANTED to die in that hospital she WANTED her life to mean something she literally says, "i should've died in that hospital. my life would've FUCKING MATTERED."

and all joel says back is, "if god gave me a second chance at that moment...i would've done it ALL over again."

and you as the player know that's true. and for some people, they HAVE done it all over again. knowing what is coming, knowing the hardships, knowing the pain, doing it all over again, giving ellie her little life.

ellie says back and this line always makes me cry. "i don't know if i could ever forgive you for that. but...i would like to try."

THIS HAS BECOME. MY EVERYTHING. THIS IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT. tlou 2 is NOT a "revenge bad" game it is a story about two sides of the same coin and i know that ellie will end up somewhere better i know that ellie can remember that at multiple points in her life, she has forgiven the unforgiveable. abby got a happy ending, even after going after revenge. she learned better. and she made mistakes- she made so many big fucking mistakes- but she made it. no one is ever too late. she made it to santa barbara after likely losing hope that she would ever make it. lev is safe. and i know ellie will end up right in a good place all over again. i don't need to see it to know that it will happen. ellie may walk off into the distance, she may leave her guitar behind, she may leave jackson all behind her, but i know that no matter the hardship, ellie will make it somewhere she is loved and cared for like she deserves. she will heal. things get better. it hurts to see her walk away, but you know that if abby can get her happy ending, something like that, for some time, will be there for ellie. there is so much love and forgiveness in this world for the worst things and there is peace and there are families and even if you don't want to forgive you know that for some people, you want to try, you want to try so hard, you want to cling to the very fabric that makes forgiveness so sow together a relationship that has been so badly damaged screaming through each attempt I DON'T KNOW IF I COULD FORGIVE YOU FOR THAT, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO TRY fighting through every fiber of your being that wants to fight or burn bridges or give up I DON'T KNOW IF I COULD FORGIVE YOU FOR THAT, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO TRY!!! IT WAS ALWAYS ABOUT FORGIVENESS!!!!!!!

god. can anyone hear me. god. i don't know if i could ever forgive you for that, but i would like to try. and that is all we need. that is all i needed. joel and ellie, back together again, one last time. forgiven for everything. joel was just happy to see her again. one last time. what a wonderful little life joel and ellie lived. it had its ups and downs. can't deny that view, though.

i get so sappy about this game series i love this series so much like no one understands people thought i was LYING when i wrote at the beginning that i get so mentally ill over this game NO i was being REAL it has been like 1 hour or so its 4 in the morning im like in tears god. i don't know if i could ever forgive you for that, but i would like to try. lord. i love them all so much im so proud of them