the gradual shift in joel from being the guy who’s so desensitized that he can carry a dead kid the same way he carried sarah to the site of her death and toss the corpse into a fire without blinking to being the guy who has a massive breakdown and almost nukes his whole life from the fear of ellie being irreparably harmed while under his care......and the way the last few episodes the show go out of their way to specifically test him on that fear.....like hey joel you’re mortally wounded and can’t protect or take care of her, what do you do. hey joel while you were bedridden she went through the worst experience of her life, what do you do. hey joel [insert spoilers for last ep here, you get the idea]. and he rises to the occasion, he pushes through the fear for her, because she asked him to. she wanted him to be the one to deliver her. she didn’t want anyone else. and he’s decided he’s going to give her whatever she wants
it takes time for the realization that he’s gonna have to confront his worst nightmare to really sink in. he’s built up a mental fortress against what happened to him 20 years ago. and you see that when he really starts to care is when all of that comes back up. the time skip between ep 5 and 6 was probably the Joel Quietly Freaks Out with Increasing Frequency and Intensity variety hour
and him telling her she’s not his daughter. aside from being that thing where you say the worst thing you can think of to someone when you’re trying to end your relationship with them so you can’t go back and change your mind later. but also, when you peel back all the layers of pain and fear, that’s him saying “you are not going to die.” up until that moment it’s the most honest and open expression of his feelings that he’s shared with her. his daughter died in his arms. that’s what happens to “joel’s daughter.” so ellie cannot be his daughter
that probably should’ve been 3 separate posts but it’s season finale day and i’m unmedicated, fuck it
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seeing several pained, injured and even dead cheng xiaoshis in the xetroverthink music video really does make me think lu guang's original timeline was one where cheng xiaoshi died. or a scarier possibility, the timeline we're seeing is the only one lu guang discovers where cheng xiaoshi didn't die. maybe it's the only timeline where cheng xiaoshi gets his powers, and why lu guang knows so much about them.
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the thing about javier. at some point I think he really just couldn't live with himself. at some point he had to get rid of everything that reminded him of the past and maybe he stopped caring about his appearance as much because it seemed to have no point anymore maybe he was simply too tired maybe he felt he didn't deserve to be like that anymore ... maybe he felt he didn't deserve to pretend to be the man he thought he was.
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