#rillie

Riley pretends to be this cool gal who’s unflappable and isn’t fazed by anything until it comes to Ellie.

She’s nonchalant about disappearing until she sees Ellie’s black eye, then she’s pissed and protective and only after Ellie says she dealt with Bethany, she goes back to cool mysterious girl mode.

She’s all blasé about the carousel until she sees Ellie’s little smile and all of a sudden SHE’S shy and staring at her like she can’t believe she’s real.

She is all about impressing Ellie when they arrive at the arcade then they start playing MK 2 and Ellie allows her to be a kid so she’s loud and jokes with Ellie and even celebrates Ellie kicking her ass then snaps back when Ellie realizes she missed her shot to kiss Riley and retreats so Riley tries to salvage the night by saying she has a gift for Ellie.

Then they read the pun book and you see Riley revert to a teenager because yeah, this is something she and Ellie share. Something they both love and she’s giggling unabashedly…until Ellie finds the bombs and now she’s having to start being real about her leaving and disappointing Ellie.

She goes to the Halloween store and sits there because she’s sad she hurt Ellie. She’s sitting with the fourth wonder at the fifth wonder and we see an expansion on her sadness. She’s leaving and her last conversation with the only person who matters to her (Storm’s words) ended harshly, with venomous words and tears.

Then Ellie comes back and finally Riley let’s all her walls down because holy fuck she nearly lost Ellie more than physically. So, she decides to tell Ellie that while she’s not sure about the FireFly mission, she is sure she needs something or someone who needs her. Then Ellie confesses that Riley mattered to Ellie, the first we truly see outside of playful moments (“I’ll be your best friend again” “again? You’re already my best friend Ellie.”) and Riley is no longer showing this +1 wonder because she wants to be cool, it’s because she wants to make Ellie happy. Whether she looks like a dork dancing on a glass counter with a creepy clown mask on…as long as it makes Ellie laugh, she doesn’t care anymore.

And then the moment when Ellie does the one thing Riley wanted happens: she asks her to stay. And you just see the instant release of tension by Storm when she realizes she truly does matter to someone so of course she’s staying. Of course she’s not gonna want Ellie to apologize for kissing her and of course she reacts to kissing her best friend and first love by giggling uncontrollably and averting her eyes for a second.

They get bit and finally she shows that she’s just a scared kid. She’s doomed herself, she’s doomed ELLIE and she’s just cost them the potential relationship and life they could’ve had. Storm plays Riley as a child who is truly broken. Then she puts herself together again to try and raise Ellie’s spirits because at least they’re in this together and without even saying it, she loves Ellie.

Storm played Riley with such nuance. She’s different from the constantly playful and unserious Riley from the dlc and issue 1-3 of the comic and takes on the same energy as the last page of issue four Riley: she’s hardened. She’s closed off. She has trauma. She keeps a secret until Ellie puts the pieces together herself (why she got Winston to take Ellie on a ride on Princess in the comics)

But she also loves puns and games and music and giggling with her best friend and teasing her and being quippy with her. She wants to show Ellie the beauty of the fucked up world they live in. She’s a quiet optimist to Ellie’s loud pessimist.

Bella played 1x07 Ellie as openly hopelessly and thinks it’s never gonna happen in love with Riley. Storm played her as as in love but holding back because what if Ellie does like her back…she might lose her. And she almost does. Then Ellie loses her.

TL:DR, I need Storm and Bella in a romcom asap because I give 10s where 10s are due and they ate best friends to lovers THE FUCK UP!

In Left Behind, the side story to The Last Of Us, Riley dies after being bitten on the hand by a clicker (im assuming it was the clicker and not the runner but who knows). However earlier in the level, Ellie can, if you look for them, find notes and recordings by two soldiers detailing a situation in which one guy, Ellis got bit and they cut his arm off in an attempt to save him.

You first find a note from the woman who’s name i forget because they only said it once, mentioning how she has to kill him because she suspects he was beginning to turn, thus implying that cutting off the limb didn’t work. But later on you find a recording from Ellis himself, having survived and saying he was dying because he was bleeding out, and had hypothermia.

He survived the bite. He didn’t turn. And if you, as Ellie, find those collectibles, then that means that Ellie knows you can survive a bite by severing the limb. And let’s be honest cutting off a hand would be a lot easier to do, and wrap up, than cutting of an entire arm.

My point being. RILEY DIDN’T HAVE TO FUCKING DIE AND THAT MAKES ME SO ANGRY AND DEPRESSED.

We get the parallel in 4K! 😁 In f-ing 4K b*tches!