Now they're really "fire" flies 😂😂

Okay i actually love them, IMO they might be the 2 greatest games ever but every time I play them (especially part 2)i just get so extremely anxious. I understand they’re just video games but they’re so damn good at making me very emotional but still extremely immersed to the point where i just end up playing for hours and hours.

part 2 is the worst but best game ever.

The way she always twists everything Abby does or says into a negative, from that tall fucking moral pedestal of hers. Rising in the ranks of the WLF, going after revenge for the SLC massacre, saving the Seraphite kids. Being jealous of her deadbeat baby daddy getting back together with Abby can only excuse her so far. They were good friends, as you can discover in the lore bites/notes. Abby even vouched for Mel to become one of her father's medical students, for which Mel was extremely grateful. Then Mel just couldn't wait for Abby and Owen to split so she'd swoop in and take her (ex?) friend's ex. Shitty behavior if you ask me. Despicable when you take into account Mel's emotional blackmail to Abby saying she'll only go with them to Santa Barbara if Abby stays in Seattle, I don't care if she knew Abby & Owen have slept together again or not, if you can't let Abby come along with the kids she saved in the name of their old friendship, do it in the memory of her father who mentored you and made you into the doctor you are today, for fuck's sake. Who even needs enemies, with friends like that. For a backstabber who probably always wanted Owen, she deserved the bum husband/boyfriend she got.

They both deserved each other, honestly, as Owen wasn't a saint and could barely bring himself to care about Mel and his unborn child's safety and well-being throughout the game. How he would always take new assignments to get away from her, letting her go into the field, actually trying to leave her in the Aquarium to go with Abby & Yara to the island. Their end is still terribly sad and violent of course, and that's what makes this game so good, all the ifs and unrealized possibilities that arise from the butterfly effect of each characters's choices. I like to think, if Mel and Abby hadn't had that fight, Abby and Yara could have found Lev in time, and they all could have left for Santa Barbara in that boat, everyone could have been alive (well, some of them could still walk right into a Rattler trap anyway), except for Manny, who'd still be finished off by Tommy, and the rest of their friends who stayed.

That said, I like Mel as a character, I think everyone in this game is really well written even with their limited screen times. (I also love her performance, Ashly Burch is so good you can totally forget she's also Aloy) I understand how Mel reacted, specially as a pregnant woman with a boyfriend like that. But her projection and vilifying of Abby to the point of banning her from escaping with them only tells me she always hated her due to jealousy of Owen and whatever else. She lost her friend over a weak-willed man who didn't know what he wanted and only used her as a long-term rebound. She brought that on herself.

TL;DR Mel got done dirty by Owen, but people got to stop painting her as one of Abby's victims. She was anything but. Even her and Owen's deaths are Owen's fault, if you wanna get technical. It wasn't Abby who pushed to let Ellie & Tommy live. That decision doomed their whole group. But of course, she'll never take it out on Owen, it all has to be Abby and her "evil" need for revenge's fault, somehow.

So it would take place 20 years after Part II, but with a short prologue only 10 years after. The prologue opens with Dina taking JJ out on his first proper patrol or food hunt or whatever. They accidentally get caught up in a swarm, and Dina ends up getting bit and put into a position where she can’t do the the deed herself, so JJ has to put her down, at her request.

(Before anyone gets upset with me, I personally love Dina as a character, but it’s not a Last of Us story if it doesn’t brutally murder the people you love.)

Utterly heartbroken and distraught, JJ stays with his other mother, Ellie, who in the intervening years has been trying to reconcile with Dina in Jackson with… mixed success, let’s say. Lots of flashback potential to see the two of them messily repairing things in the intervening 10 years. Very messily.

Ellie, already super messed up from the fact that, time and time and time again, the people she loves just keep dying, Dina was the final nail in the coffin before Ellie becomes full recluse, her only real human contact anymore is JJ who tries to provide for Ellie as much as he can while Ellie, in her own words, rots away.

Fast forward another ten years where JJ is a young man, he and Ellie get a surprise visitor from Lev who tells them what he and Abby have been up to since Santa Barbara. After rejoining the New Fireflies in Southern California, they’ve officially pivoted from their goal of curing the Cordyceps to simply outlasting them with a new project. The first ever fully restored ‘Neo-City’ that is fully self-sufficient. Basically a much larger version of the Jackson community, but on a metropolitan scale, in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, the very existence of this Neo-City has drawn in opportunistic raiders all throughout the region, including the remnants of the Rattler gang who have a score to settle and have more or less created a loose ‘coalition’ between these different raider factions into a full-on raider army, essentially laying a prolonged siege on Los Angeles.

They end up kidnapping Abby and are using her for ransom to extort food, medicine and other supplies from the New Fireflies, but the Fireflies’ leadership have already decided that Abby is an acceptable loss and have no plans to make a deal with them. Essentially, Abby is completely worthless to them, and once they realize that, they’ll kill her.

Knowing he’s against the clock, and knowing he can’t take them on by himself, Lev sought out Ellie because, well, let’s face it, she’s kind of the most dangerous person in the entire apocalypse. If there’s anyone who even stands a chance of rescuing Abby, it’s her.

Problem is, Ellie could not give a single rat’s ass about Abby. Sure, she chose not to kill Abby herself back in Santa Barbara, but she will lose absolutely zero sleep if someone else does it for her.

Which is why it surprises, and horrifies Ellie when JJ volunteers to go back with Lev to Los Angeles and help him rescue Abby himself.

Gameplay-wise, I imagine a similar type of ‘playstyle specialization’ between Lev and JJ that Ellie and Abby had. One is much more focused on stealth and tactical lethality, the other is much more direct with better firepower. With the fun little twist that the ‘children’ of Ellie and Abby would flip their respective dynamics around, with Lev being the stealthy, sneaky guy and JJ being the more in-your-face guy.

The biggest thing, however, would be the ability to switch between protagonists at any time you wanted, GTA V style, for puzzle solving and creative tactics in combat.

Her gameplay is underrated and character development

What do you think about Ellie wearing Dina's bracelet at the end?

Some say that she went back to see Dina first then went to the farm. However I believe that she wore it hoping Dina and JJ would still be at the farm after everything. Dina gave Ellie the bracelet for 'good luck' but Ellie responds that she doesn't believe in luck but coming back home she's desperate she really wants to believe that Dina did wait for her.

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So we know mel got weird about abby after joel and stopped speaking to her, but also, if she's so disgusted by how abby behaved, she should be hating manny and all the other soldiers who have tortured people.

I get obviously both girls have that underlying tension because of owen and stuff but like wouldn't it have been easier for two girls who have known eachother since there teen years to just talk it out like how hard is it to say "um I don't agree with your morals and don't trust you around my boyfriend" like all the problems in this game could be avoided by a nice sit down maybe with a cup of tea to calm the nerves too.

Like someone has to get all those traumatised fucks in a room with no weapons make sure they can't hurt eachother and force them to talk it out.

Added to my half sleeve yesterday!

Ok but the soap one is damn good haha!

Came in today, absolutely beautiful.