Joel’s desperation in wanting to keep Ellie engaged and talking in episode 9 as compared to the earlier episodes. How he was annoyed with her questions and here mere presence and, really, all he wanted was silence between them. She was just some dumb little kid he was forced to protect and he was not happy about it
But by episode 9, he does anything to get her to talk. Shows her beefaroni, tells her about Boggle, asks if she’d like to learn guitar (also that being him saying they’re obviously sticking together and settling down and I am throwing up over it), and even cracks the joke about finding dynamite hoping it’ll get a little smile out of her. Even him giving the branches to feed the giraffe because she would not have fed it herself
But his expressions when he’s watching her be silent or dissociated around him?? He’s concerned, a little upset that she is so silent and how it’s not like her at all, and he looks damn near heartbroken to see her like this and knowing that he can’t magically fix it. He would’ve tried, I’m sure, those few months we don’t see. There were probably moments where she’d snap at him to just stop. How he’d do anything, absolutely anything, to try and bring that light that he knows is in her back out
He just loves her so incredibly much and I know it kills him that he can’t fix it. That he can’t just say or do something to fix it. That there’s a part of her that’s irreparably different and hurt now and he, despite his best efforts with what he’s given, cannot wipe it from her life. And that’s hard. Because his job is to protect her. To care for and to love her as a father should. But everything that happened he couldn’t stop. Another failure under his belt, if you will
gilear deciding to get his life together because fig says she thinks he regrets her existence and she is the embodiment of him being betrayed and then “stepping in as a parent” when riz and her are freaking out is just such a wonderful heartwarming moment
I read through my WIP and made myself emotional because after Nomasaki gives birth to their son Gaara gives her a blanket of desert pelts he made even though he's not that great at sewing but he did it anyways because he loves her and giving pelts to new mothers was a tradition in Yama where she's from and
listen there really was just something about how in the book, snow’s 3-page descent from hesitant lover boy to deluded psychopath happens entirely in his mind. lucy gray gives him no indication whatsoever that she suspects him, that she’s going to leave or betray him. he’s just sitting quietly in the cabin waiting for her to return when that seed of calculated suspicion, which he has needed to survive the capitol, takes a hold of him and chokes the life out of any goodness left inside him. it really drives home your terror as a reader that “oh my god did he kill her? did she escape? what happened to her? why would he even think that?” in a way that when the movie had to adjust for visualization it lost some of that holy shit this guy has lost it emphasis.