singedsun

Chocolate Box is live and I got the absolute best gift. It's a wonderful coda to The Last of Us 2 and I'm so so in love with it. There's a lot of TLOU2 spoilers and knowledge and please watch the warnings, I think there should probably also be a warning for suicidal ideation as well.

Afterlife (10288 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Last of Us (Video Games)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abby/Ellie (The Last of Us)
Characters: Lev (The Last of Us), Abby (The Last of Us), Ellie (The Last of Us)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Canon Divergence, Past Dina/Ellie - Freeform, internalized ableism, Trauma, Recovery, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Past Relationship(s), Canon Lesbian Character, They're all messes, honestly most of this is pre-relationship, they have so far to go to find okay, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers
Summary:

“What—” Ellie clears her throat. “What do you do when you’re the shittiest person alive?”

Abby, to Ellie’s surprise, laughs. Really laughs.

“Do you want to fight me for that title?" Abby asks. "Because you literally did, and I gotta say, you lost.”

Things what I have finished recently that are not horror movies (caveat: some are horror games). For the basis of I don't have a lot to say about some of them and too much to say about other which would be spoilery, I'll do my best to keep these short.

Books:

I've been reading slowly this year because many of the books I usually read are audio books on my commute. Since I'm not doing that and I prefer to work to music than talking, I'm just not getting through them as quickly. But while the boys were here I did find it easier to pick up physical books while I was supervising their movie-watching or play time. [Books link to GoodReads]

Tyler Johnson Was Here :: a quick, engaging but rough read about a black teenage boy who loses his twin brother to police violence. This is an #ownvoices book and based on the author's life. This reads like a YA but honestly I think it only made the pace of the story move quickly and kept you well into the main character's head. If you're up for the subject matter, I'd definitely recommend it.

The Adventure Zone: Petals to the Metal :: I love the way they've transformed this show into a comic. It's got all the same beats, funny and bittersweet and the art from Carey Pietsch is lovely as always. Honestly I felt like this format worked pretty good for Petals to the Metal -- I found it hard to listen to and understand what was happening at some points during the podcast and this format definitely helps with that.

Faith: Taking Flight :: This is an original novel for Faith Herbert before she becomes Zephyr. If you're not familiar with her character, Faith/Zephyr is a fat, queer superhero who appears in her own comic from Valiant Comics written by Jody Houser. You can find that here The book is written by Julie Murphy who also wrote the novel that spawned the Netflix movie, "Dumplin'" last year. I LOVED this. It's amazing to read about a positive superhero, who's not just a big pop culture nerd but fat and queer. This also reads a little like a YA novel, both given the modern language, the character engagement and the ages of the characters in the story. I LOVED THIS and I really hope there's more.

TV:

The Umbrella Academy :: I blew flew the whole second season this past weekend. I loved it a lot and appreciated the nuanced approach to the growth of these characters. It's easy to see how their childhood formed them, and it's touching how their interactions as adults. I also really appreciated how they changed Vanya's character in this arc. I have not gone back and read the comics again yet, but I plan to break those out soon to do that.

Video Games:

The Last of Us 2 :: I cried more at this game than I have during any other piece of media I've consumed this year. That's not a bad thing I don't think, just for me a way to see the powerful impact of the story this game was telling. I cannot state how much I love this game and it's predecessor. Few games get to me the way this one does. Boy was it LONG though. I kept finishing story arcs and finding a new one just around the end of it. The way these games do soft and quiet moments are exquisite and contrast the violence just so well. There's a quote Troy Baker repeats from a fan during the Retro Replay series for TLOU 1 that's basically that the game is worth it for "the giraffe moment". And I think TLOU 2 (for me) has a moment like that too. I'm looking forward to replaying this sometime in the future.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season :: Because I guess I'm not enough of a glutton for punishment, I decided to finally pull this out to play. I love Clementine so much. I will always wish for more time with her. I loved how the decisions you make in this game are forming AJ's personality. I don't know if I'll go back to replay this to see the other outcomes. The route I chose was difficult, but I liked the end result. Also this game giving me the opportunity for a sweet f/f relationship, yes please and thank you. Back to back games with zombies and loving girlfriends.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune :: I got the remastered first three Uncharted games from my brother-in-law and needing a different vibe, I broke this out. This is a 2007 game that I never played and I almost wish I would have now. It's a quick game by today's AAA standards (about 7 hours) but the story is tight and controlled and you can set your own pace to explore (but not too much). It's more fun than I expected it to be. I've already broken into Uncharted 2. I don't know much about it other than people love it even more, so I'm looking forward to it.

That's it for now I guess. I've started reading Brooke Bolander's "the only harmless great thing" novella. It's strange already, so we'll see how it goes. I've still been watching a BUNCH or horror movies (both good and bad) so expect another post about those soon.

I know I talked about The Last of Us in a previous post, because the music in it is so good. But I want to talk about it a little bit more now that I've played through the game again in anticipation of the upcoming The Last of Us 2. I also finished the Retro Replay series The Last of Us: the Definitive Playthrough, where Troy Baker and Nolan North play through the game, every episode with a guest voice actor from the game, including Ashley Johnson who plays Ellie.

A tangent: if you like video games and voice actors and you haven't watched Retro Replay, I highly recommend it. These guys are a joy to watch, especially as Nolan descends into complete focus on certain games. Their stories are fun to listen to and watching them slip in and out of voices for little scenes is pretty great. They've also done an Uncharted play through, with Nolan trying to figure out how to play his own character.

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Replaying The Last of Us has not felt at all like returning to a game that's seven years old. It feels just as new and interesting as it did when it first came out. I think it's a little less scary, a little less jarring just by virtue of having played it before, but it definitely still packs a punch.

The story in The Last of Us came at a time when there was a glut of these very specific "dad" kind of stories in movies and video games. Another game I love: The Walking Dead by Telltale Games has a very similar not-the-dad/not-the-daughter character vibe, it does it very differently. And specifically in TLOU we get so much more time with these two characters when they're just alone together, trying to make it to the next location. It allows for a lot more subtle interactions, not too mention the imagery it undertakes which tells us so much more about them than just the dialogue.

It's been such a long wait for the second game, I knew I had to play TLOU again in advance of it coming out, just so I could have all those feelings back and close to the surface before the next game. There are just these visceral moments toward the end of the game that I don't really know what to do with and questions I don't know that the next game will really answer for us (but I hope it does).

In two of the last episodes of the Retro Replay series for this game, they have Merle Dandridge on as a guest. She plays Marlene in the game, the leader of the Fireflies. She gets to see them play through the end of the game, from Joel and Ellie's last descent as they close in on the hospital (and Troy's very very very awful attempts at getting through the tunnel), their capture by the Fireflies as Joel tries to revive Ellie, and what happens between Joel and Marlene as he finally learns what the Fireflies plans with Ellie really are. And we get to listen to these three voice actors talk about how these characters make them feel in those really tense and emotional moments in the game. Merle also brings up one of those really lasting questions about the creatures in the game, about how much of them is left, and whether or not they could ever be saved.

And they end that second to last episode with one of these pivotal questions about the final moments of the game, where we're left to wonder as players and observers in this story, what happens next? What does it mean for these characters to keep going knowing now what they know (or don't). Whether or not Ellie actually knows the truth and what that means for what happens next.

This older Ellie we see in the trailers for the next game gives us a small glimpse of what's transpired. That Joel kept his promise to teach her to play guitar, that they went back to Tommy's place, that they haven't lost their knack for survival, and that there might be some chances for happiness. I'm so excited to see where it goes.

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i am rusty when i talk, it is the storm in me

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Afterlife

Finished Things that aren't horror movies

The Last of Us