heygaymayday

[heygaymayday]

[heygaymayday]

It’s been five years and Abby should be over this by now. That’s what Owen really wanted to say just now, standing here in the frigid cold—she knows it, deep down. He’s been holding it between his teeth like a rock he just can’t spit out—at any time, he could have emptied it into his palm and thrown it at her. Could have shattered her and gone on with his life.

Instead, he held onto it, let it grind away in his jaw, until everything between them tasted of stone. Until it had all gone cold and smooth and empty. Reduced to wasteland.

She knows that she’s drowning, and that she’s dragging everyone under with her. She can feel the descent, the slow and inevitable drift into dark, barren places. She doesn’t want it. She wants the best for them—she wants Owen to spit the stone out, wants to see him grow and change and be different—better—even if she’s not sure she could ever change with him.

And there will be time for all that, on the other side of this. She just has to see this through. She has to finish this—and then they’re all free. Free of the guilt, the rage, the pain—all the stones grinding between their teeth.

If she wants anything good—she has to see this through.

No matter the cost.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #tlou spoilers #tlou 2 #tlou abby #abby anderson #tlou2 photomode #tlou fanfic #tlou fandom #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfic #the last of us fandom

[heygaymayday]

Love this take—queerness is absolutely a central theme to this story. I think, in particular, it’s about the way that queerness is absolutely, unquestionably organic—Ellie is Ellie, and her queerness is not a product of “exposure” to anyone else’s queerness—she just is who she is. She couldn’t be any other way. Take away her queerness and she’s a different character entirely. And that truly resonated with me as a queer person the first time I played—her queerness is just there, and in most ways it’s an asset in this world, not a liability. And I think many queer people in the real world experience that moment of walking in their truth gently, hesitantly, because it does feel like a liability—a vulnerability. We walk in our truth with shame and guilt and smallness, build unsaid apologies into everything we do. Like, talking with a co-worker you don’t know very well and thinking, yes, I got this coat from the men’s section, please don’t get weird about it, Paul.

But, like—fuck Paul. Because you have a right to feel at home in your body just as much as he does. Paul doesn’t apologize for being Paul, because he can’t imagine being expected to perform as anyone or anything else—and neither should you.

And I think that’s a huge, unspoken element in Ellie’s character. Her identity is completely, utterly unperformative in any way.

But I think she had trouble coming out to Joel for a few reasons. For one, he betrayed a deep, vulnerable value of hers—she gave him a feeling, tried to externalize something she didn’t fully understand to him. Tried to tell him how important the cure was to her, on a spiritual level. And he was not a good steward of that piece of her. So when it’s time to give him something else—she can’t. She doesn’t trust him. I don’t think even she fully understands this part of her yet—isn’t prepared to answer questions about why or when or who’s the man— and so she just doesn’t say anything at all. I think she feels some conflicting thing—like she owes it to Joel to answer questions and explain herself—and also like she doesn’t owe him shit.

And that final scene between them really does solidify Joel’s inherent goodness—he doesn’t have any superfluous questions, no probes or demands for more than he’s entitled to—he’s not asking her to explain herself. He’s just asking to be let in on a little bit of her joy.

TLDR; love this story.

it's pretty implied that ellie never came out to joel in the proper sense. she lets him assume that she's into men, gives him the false satisfaction of "seeing" her "crush" on jesse, does not correct him. she's fairly confident in being gay in public for others to see and having others close to her know; so why not correct him? why dodge the topic?

was it out of fear? could it be that she never broached the topic despite being close to him in the early years because of the possibility of his reaction being negative? that she was afraid that out of all things that could force them apart (further apart after they split), him reacting badly to her being gay would be the worst?

what about at the dance? would she have been as wound up as she was if the moment hadn't been an encounter with a vicious homophobe? maybe she would've still snapped without this context, but why is she immediately on the defensive against joel after he sticks up for her?

what about the porch scene? why did she refute his question of dina being her girlfriend so insecurely, looking away, nervously and quietly stumbling over words? why isn't she mean about it? why doesn't she get defensive at the question? why did she lash out again when he expressed acceptance?

i think these scenes revolving around her queerness indicate it as such; that ellie never told joel for fear of a response, that she lets him think what he wants because that's the easiest way for it to be. then, when she's ready to face off against a homophobe, because that's the way things are, that's what she can expect, and joel defends her, she lashes out.

it's such a clear juxtaposition of support and hatred between joel and seth, and being faced with joel's acceptance is too much, makes her turn to the anger she'd been holding onto and reinforce what she thinks is true -- that she doesn't need him. and in the fallout, as her regret dawns on her, so too does the realization; he was protecting her, like always, without hesitation, over this thing she was always afraid he wouldn't accept her for.

in the porch scene, joel chooses his words wisely, and asks if dina is her girlfriend -- not "so you're gay?" or "why did you never tell me?" or "how long has this been a thing?" -- with such a casuality that it seems to throw her off. it's like ellie can hardly get the words out. she refutes the idea, fumbles for each following part of her response, is tense. she wasn't prepared for the question.

and when he finally asserts his support for her, in as explicit terms as he can, you can see ellie become emotional, touched for a moment but overcome, before she launches into the defensive again, exactly like at the dance scene -- meeting his kindness with hostility as a way to cope with her emotions.

and then, in response to her basically saying her life doesn't matter, he affirms that it does.

so he's now affirmed two things that ellie has doubted: that he accepts her being a lesbian, and that her life matters. a conflation of the two, in ellie's mind, may have come after; and after that, her olive branch.

and yeah, him affirming these things for her is fully in the context of his overwhelming parental love for her and her complex feelings about being the cure, but within a queer subtext, it means more. it's such a familiar thing to slink around loved ones and hide being gay/queer for fear of any type of response, and lying by omission in conversation just to keep that state of peace, of normalcy. ellie, with all her brutishness and bravery, falls into it like anyone else, because even while mad at him, she valued that response from him.

a lot of people seem to think that the approach to ellie's queerness is nonchalant, that it's just some unrelated thing about her, but i think that it holds more weight in the narrative that what is explicitly spelled out. it's subtle but it was a deliberate choice to place her queerness at the center of the confrontation. i think that's why ellie's relationship with dina took center stage in the story, and why so much time is devoted to just them -- because her being queer matters to her character, but in a way that perhaps only a queer person can see, analyze, and appreciate (without being blatant enough to anger certain other fans).

#ho boy that got long #tlou joel #tlou spoilers #tlou 2 #tlou fandom #tlou ellie #the last of us #the last of us 2

[heygaymayday]

Hey, all. The short version: I’m starting a slow and careful attempt toward someday supporting myself as a writer—which begins with generating any amount of income at all with my writing.

I’ve started with re-working an existing fanfiction, because as I stepped back to look at it, I felt like I’d accidentally written the first draft of an original story. There are portions that are markedly similar, but the plot departs from the original. It’s fluffy, and largely uncomplicated, but I don’t think it’s without value.

Of course Amazon is not my favorite platform—but Kindle Vella felt like a good first step into something new. If you feel at all inclined to follow along on this journey with me, please feel free to check it out.

The longer version:

Wanted to drop in and thank everyone who has ever given any of my work a like, a follow, a comment, or even just a read. I have always loved writing, but I’ve also always struggled to feel secure in the quality of my work—there are times when writing anything at all feels like an act of arrogance, because it assumes that I have something of value to say, something that matters, something worth someone else’s time. It’s really easy to get bogged down under that pressure.

All of that to say—the response to my fanfiction work has given me so much room to grow as a writer, and has solidified the fact that writing is that thing that brings me joy and helps me make sense and structure of the world.

And I just want to thank the community here for providing the affirmation and feedback I needed to make a leap like this. Every comment, every like, every share, every question, every message—it was seen, and loved, and appreciated, and generated so much seratonin.

I’m not done with TLOU, but I hope a few of you will find some joy/interest/entertainment in my original stuff, too.

Thank you.

[heygaymayday]

1902, Kentucky.

The fire’s gone out.

Turn a little deeper into the cotton quilt your mama made in some other lifetime. Blink slow against the dimness, steep deep in the stillness as the night stretches, yawns, gives way to a blessed new morning. You are alive again.

Cold and hungry. Feel the stiffness in your bones. Feel the heavy in your flesh. The tired, the lonely, the longing. But there’s a heart thumping under your ribs—feel it sing, slow and steady, at the sight of sunbeams. Sunbeams, again, like every morning that’s ever been. Sunbeams—new every day to a heart like yours, a heart that says: sunbeams, they’re a goddamn wonder.

Lead with it—that steady little drum of joy. Grab hold and let it pull your feet to the old floorboards. Little heart, pattering out a plea to see the sky—what shade of blue today? The question is as good a reason as any to commit to another day.

Dress in the gray light. Pull on the flannels and linen and denim that will keep the cold at bay. Keep your body safe. You know what’s at stake, kid. You know what it takes—to keep your body safe.

Breathe deep, cough against the rush of the cold—your breath hangs in the air. Little ghosts. Water from the bucket by the window, splashed against your face—close to frozen, stings against your skin. You’re awake. You’re alive.

Pull on leather boots, hope the laces got another day in them. Walk out into the wide world—see the slope of the clearing you made, the way the high grass meets a wall of trees—trees bigger than god, and maybe older, too. They hug in tight around your slice of paradise, your hard-hewn home. They form a cathedral of green—and brown and gold and flashes of deep, dark red. Like old blood, dried in a smear under your heavy, swollen lip after your Pa had finally had enough of you.

There’s a quiet here so deep you can feel it in your bones. Quiet like the moment after the preacher asks for bowed heads, but before he starts praying for hell to swallow all the sinners like you. Quiet like the first girl you ever loved, in that moment after you spilled that soft, silly confession to her—but before that foreign hardness took her face, before the slow panic and repulsion made her a stranger you’d never met. Quiet like that moment when you learned your first lesson in self-preservation: love is for other people. Better people.

It’s a real shame, kid—the way the world kicks around beautiful things.

But you’re alright here, ain’t you? You’re alright. You feed the bleating sheep in their little pasture, and the chickens, too, and you love that there’s life in every inch of this place. The sheep, the sun, the seeds in the ground—they don’t give a shit who you are or what you’ve done. What you look like, what you own. You give to them, they give back. You’re alright here.

You go down to the crick for water, just as the sun starts pouring proper down into your little dip between the hills. You can feel it, warm and easy against the back of your neck. The cold can’t hold you forever. Nothing can hold you forever.

The afternoon brings a visitor—a boy, a horse, an empty cart, trundling up the holler path. You split one more log, let the pieces fall, lean the ax against the same post where you’ve hung your shed coat. The boy hops down from his saddle, raises a hand in greeting.

Brought your saw back.

He lifts the tool in question for you to see.

Pa sends his thanks.

You take the saw, and he dives into his bag to bring out a small parcel wrapped in a bit of an old flour sack.

Cornbread from Mama.

You thank him for returning the saw, and for the cornbread. He’s tall and lean—maybe a little underfed. His shoes are two sizes too small. His coat’s missing a few buttons. A boy still, pushing at the seams of what will come next. His parents can’t keep up.

You ask if they need any firewood. He refuses, says his Pa won’t accept charity. You eye the empty cart his Pa sent along with him.

You tell him he can take whatever he can split—ain’t charity if you’ve sweat for it. By the evening, he has a full cart, and you split the cornbread with him on the porch.

And maybe it’ll all count for something someday. Maybe it’ll all count when hell finally swallows you up.

Before he leaves, he stops there on the creaky old steps, looks back up at you.

Pa says you’re a good, Christian man, sir. He thinks mighty high of ye. Just thought you oughta know.

Maybe it’ll all count, when his Pa has to help put you in the ground someday.

When the evening comes, you retreat inside. Feed the fire, warm the place up. Cold dinner, ‘cause your body’s awful tired, kid. Your mind, too. You dig up a box of tobacco, take a pinch and pack it into a pipe you won in a game of cards—maybe one of the finest items you own. You sit on the porch and watch the last of the burnt bronze evening melt back into the trees. You’re alright here.

Just as the darkness of the night swells up, you see the flicker of a lantern up yonder on the hill—a soft, yellow star moving through the trees.

Could be anyone. Could be the boy, come back for more wood. Or this could be the moment everything unravels. Could be the night they drag you behind a horse, put you in a tree, bury you as someone you’re not.

You aren’t scared, but you’re ready—you fold your fingers around the rifle leaned next to the door and wait for hell to open up and swallow the sinners like you.

A quiet knock.

You open the door.

It’s her. The widow from over the next holler. She stands silent in the doorway, and her dark, tired eyes meet yours. She’s dry as a bone, but in the empty pools of shadow cast by her lantern, you could swear she was a drowning woman.

You let her step inside and you exchange pleasantries, as you always do on these visits. She asks after the book she loaned you—have you been enjoying it? You confess you haven’t had much time for reading. She offers to read a chapter or two aloud for you.

That’d be real nice, ma’am.

But neither of you moves to retrieve the book. Her hands cling to the black linen skirts of her dress, knuckles gone white with it. You can feel the empty, howling grief that came in with her, followed her like a roving spirit. You wish you knew how to help.

She cuts the space between you in half a step and touches her lips to yours. She tastes like tears and uncertainty and so many sleepless, heartsick nights.

It’s not proper. It’s not the way things ought to be. It’s not what either of you imagined, back when you were small and the world told you what your hearts should want. But no one prepares you, do they? For the weight of it all. For the sadness that creeps in between the boards, settles into your chest like a cough you can’t shake. For the way the haints and hurts hollow you out, slow and steady, until you wake up one day feeling like maybe you ain’t even a real person anymore.

You know she’s just lonely. You know she misses her husband and that you ain’t him. Don’t wanna be him. But when she pulls off your clothes, all those layers of the day—when she sinks in against you, meets your skin to hers—you remember, for a moment, that you’re wonderfully, terribly, brilliantly human. And that’s enough.

Later, in the deepest part of the night, she does read to you. Her voice dips and lulls through the bare little room, until you can’t really distinguish the words themselves—all you can hear is low, lush birdsong, and the content thumping of your own heart.

You sleep the sleep of the safe and relieved—heavy, deep sleep—and by the morning—

—the fire’s gone out.

You watch as she dresses silently in the first sunbeams of the day. As she leans in toward your dusty little mirror and pins her hair back into place. Hasty, but careful. She gathers her things, prepares to leave.

She hesitates, turns back to you in your bed. Maybe you could pretend to be asleep, but—you’ve been seen now. There’s no going back.

There’s a long, soundless moment that stretches out in the space between you. She says:

You aren’t a man.

Statement or question or accusation—you can’t be sure what she means. Can’t be sure that it matters. You give no response.

But underneath your mother’s quilt, your hands begin to tremble with fear.

She leans down, kisses your forehead with reverence, the way folks kiss the statues of saints. Or maybe it’s with pity, the way folks woulda kissed the corpses of those saints before they put them in the ground.

She leaves you there with your trembling hands.

And the fire’s gone out.

#writing #short story #queer #lgbtqia #queer fiction #appalachia #queer Appalachia

[heygaymayday]

There was a terrible storm.

It raged through their slice of paradise with all the wrath and cold contempt of God himself. It rattled the old windows in their casings, sent the wind keening between every board and brick. The low wailing of rain against the roof woke her, and her first thought was about the fences. Let the fences hold.

A clap of thunder came, so sharp and hard she could swear she felt it in her teeth—it woke the baby and his high, frightened cries cut her to the quick. I’ve got him, offered into the dark.

Soft little arms reached for her amid a tumble of scared, lonely sniffling. It’s just rain, buddy.

The house is still and gray and quiet in a way that might have been unsettling anywhere else—but here, inside this tandem dream of theirs, it only felt all the more safe. For the first time in her life, she could be alone and not feel lonely, for there wasn’t an inch of this place unoccupied by profound love.

She holds him, talks to him in a soothing whisper as they move through the safe gray dimness of their home. Tells him how storms can’t hurt us in here. We’re gonna be fine. Reminds him that he’s not alone. He’ll never be alone. I’ve got you.

They settle on the couch and he nods off against her shoulder. Safe. Trusting. Everything is fine.

She thinks about the fences.

When the morning comes, she walks the line. The world is wet and full and green, washed new by the coarse chaos of the night before. She follows the trail of latticed steel, searching.

The smell of damp soil and clean pine breaks, gets interrupted by something more acrid. Something like wet, fetid rot.

Up ahead, she can see it. There’s a tree, keeled in the storm and fallen onto the fence, causing it to bow dangerously inward, straight into the vulnerable belly of their Eden. Something’s caught under the weight of the fallen trunk, pressed between the damp bark and the metallic mesh beneath. A misshapen heap of something writhing soundlessly.

She moved through the sodden grass and saw more of it—

A jacket. A length of salt-dashed stubble on the jaw. Some fold of the dark, moldering hair. She couldn’t know what it was that betrayed her. Brains are built to recognize patterns, and for a moment her brain locked into enough details that seemed familiar and thought—

Him.

Almost relief, for a second. Rushing up from the bottoms of her feet. Unbound, child-like relief—you’re not lost. You’re not alone. I’ve got you.

And then the thing twisted its face, pulled thin lips away from gnashing, fetid teeth in a warped snarl—and the magic was gone. Not him. Never him. Never again.

A deep, labored breath rushed from her lungs, turned into a sound of sharp-edged grief that she hardly recognized. Her knees quivered and then failed altogether. The thing continued to squirm and reach for her, wearing its jacket that was almost his. Not quite. Close.

White knuckles clenched her knife, but she couldn’t move an inch.

No stopping the bleed of her grief now.

She sits alone with the open wound.

Loses track of the tandem dream.

Gets a little further from Eden.

Gets a little further from home.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #ellie williams #tlou ellie #tlou2 photomode #joel miller #tlou spoilers #tlou 2 #tlou fandom #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #the last of us two spoilers #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us fanfic #the last of us fandom #tlou hbo

[heygaymayday]

Ellie’s one hundred percent a squishy dumb-dumb and I will die on this hill.

She’s perpetually anxious about dealing with people because she can’t trust her own perception of social interactions (“What did they mean by that? What was that look for? Did she say something stupid? She probably said something stupid. Again.”) . She’s got a never-ending monologue somewhere in there that runs a continuous stream of information—she can’t sleep because her brain is always alternating between an infinite refrain of that laundry detergent jingle she heard once—and all of the worst shit she’s ever seen or felt. “Remember that day when you were like five and you saw that mom kneel down on the sidewalk and hug her kid and it was the first time you were really, deeply aware that you were totally alone in the world? Remember how you felt kind of embarrassed, for some reason? Probably because you realized how much you wanted to be hugged. Wow, what a sad, fucked up little kid you were, damn.”

And that’s why she lives in her own head and the idea of talking about her feelings is nothing short of nauseating—because as long as no one else knows those soft, sad little details, then she can pretend they aren’t there, too.

But the softness jumps out in little ways. In the little joys. The collection of comics that she shows Dina one day, her voice lush with enthusiasm and delight. It’s in the way she touches her forehead to Shimmer’s in an attempt to say, “I see you.” It’s in the way she’s never failed to stop and pet a cat, even if it means spending too long trying to prove that she means no harm.

Could Ellie be a fuckboi? I guess so. She’s masc and aloof and emotionally withdrawn. But I think that characterization misses the absolute lynchpin that holds Ellie together as a character: she desperately wants to be loved. She wants to matter. She wants her life to have meant something, and she recognizes that our lives most often have meaning in the context of those around us. She doesn’t want to end up alone.

So if you wanna characterize her as a fuckboi, remember that these are actions that are at odds with her deepest motivations—because that’s when things get interesting. When a character is going against their own best interest and finds themselves neck deep in self-destruction with no idea how to get out? Yeah, that could be interesting.

I will still maintain that Ellie is not suave or smooth. If she achieves charisma, it’s on accident. It’s without intention. And I fully believe that Dina may have initially been drawn in by the challenge of all that gruff, aloof defensiveness—but she stayed for the way Ellie has never missed a chance to say, “Hey, Hungry, I’m Ellie.”

I just wanted to hear your opinion on the way the tlou fandom portrays Ellie, I have a feeling like everyone mischaracterises her (especially on tumbrl and tik tok) and makes her some kind of a fuckboy (literally Dina and Cat had to make first moves cuz she was nervous)

oh yeah they do, and i think it's kinda of a projection of how they find her hot because of her being aggressive and kill-hungry in tlou2. aggression/female rage + masc lesbian = hawt, is the logic, and i kinda get it. i can't lie, i've written her with the same motivation sometimes because it's a power fantasy.

but still it feels disingenuous to her character to just portray her as an emotionless fuckboi because it's purely based on that character arc. she's attractive, masculine, and can exhibit "alpha" behavior (weed den), sure, but she's also shy, introverted, and soft-spoken. she writes poetry and songs and frets over her crushes! i like when ellie's soft side is shown alongside her more survivalist side because it's what makes her character interesting; that she can be the type to averting her eyes from her gf shyly and moments later, focus in on bodying infected and stealthing around. that balance is where the intrigue lies.

like that one e3 teaser exemplifies this so well! ellie doubting that dina could ever like her and stating that she's not a threat to anyone else who wants her, she gets kissed, and it transitions into how dangerous of a person she is, then back again to her smiling over dina's feelings being mutual.

not only this but the games are 100% deadset on showing you how vulnerable she can be despite her rough side. like she's not an impenetrable force, she's a 19 y/o girl who just lost her dad-figure and spirals because of the mistakes she made.

to me, THAT'S ellie and THAT'S what makes her cool and interesting, not one side of her or the other.

#tlou 2 #tlou ellie #ellie williams #the last of us part two #the last of us #tlou rant #tlou #tlou part 2

[heygaymayday]

Now there’s this gaping hole in her chest—leaves her feeling both too hollow and too heavy. An anchor sitting on grief-brittled ribs. Can’t push it off, can’t get a full breath around it—can only wait for it to collapse her, crush her, cleave through her clean.

Now there’s this weight, like hot lead in her veins, gained in an exchange she couldn’t control or anticipate—can’t guess the worth of a presence until you’re pinned to the floor by the weight of an absence.

Now there are these questions climbing the walls of her brain—chopped free of answers, chasing their own empty tails in feral patterns behind her eyes. Nothing meaner than a question that can’t be answered.

Like—had he really seen her for who she was—

—or had she always been just a replacement?

And was it fair to have ever expected anything more?

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #ellie williams #tlou ellie #tlou2 photomode #joel miller #tlou spoilers #tlou joel #joel tlou #joel the last of us #tlou fanfic #tlou 2 #the last of us two spoilers #the last of us fic #tlou fanfiction #tlou fandom #tlou hbo #tlou show #the last of us hbo

[heygaymayday]

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #joel miller #tlou fanfic #tlou joel #tlou spoilers #the last of us spoilers #sarah miller #the last of us sarah

[heygaymayday]

He set the bowl of stew down onto the table in front of her.

“World famous,” he assured her. “Even scooped the carrots out for you.”

He dropped down into his own chair, picked up a spoon. Laughter drifted into the room from the street outside—neighborhood punks were probably fucking around with their jack o’lanterns again. Damn kids.

“Why?” She asked, even as she dipped into the contents of her bowl.

“‘Cause you don’t like ‘em,” he answered around a generous bite of food. “Duh.”

“No way, man,” she half-laughed. “I love carrots.”

He looked up from his bowl, and the world tilted a little on its axis. Felt like missing a step on the stairs. Like the sudden gut-punch of fear that happens when you realize you don’t know where you are or what’s going on. She loved carrots.

“Oh,” he said slowly, lowering his eyes back to the bits of vegetable bobbing in his stew. Something in his chest swelled with embarrassment and guilt and that old, howling, bottomless grief. “Right. Don’t know where I got that from.”

But he knew exactly where he’d gotten that from.

Sarah hated carrots.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #ellie williams #tlou ellie #tlou2 photomode #joel miller #tlou 2 #tlou fanfic #the last of us ii #the last of us two #joel tlou #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fanfiction #the last of us spoilers #the last of us two spoilers #tlou spoilers

[heygaymayday]

We all grow up being fed a lot of bullshit about what it means, falling in love. That love is magic, that it possesses powers bordering on the divine. It can deliver the lost and heal the wounded and it will always rise above the dark, above the fear, above the evils of the world. And, most of all- it will look pretty while it does it; it will be easy, it will do all the work for you, it will bring you home-all you have to do is close your eyes and trust it.

And maybe some of that is true.

What Dina knows, right now, is that this hurts.

Because there's a heaviness, a gravity, in witnessing this kind of pain in someone she cares about so much.

There's no secret words to make it all better, no easy fix to this. All Dina can do is watch as Ellie wades through a grief so deep that her feet can't possibly touch the bottom.

Maybe love is magic and divinity, healing and deliverance-but there's also pain. Because if Ellie's joy is her joy, then Ellie's wounds are also her wounds.

And yet it's not a burden she shoulders with dread.

And maybe that's the part that really matters. Maybe that's the real magic. Because she's spent so long being afraid of her own pain, doing everything possible to avoid a single ounce of hurt--but now she's here, feeling Ellie's pain, and it's a privilege, a gift; she would throw herself in front of the speeding train of Ellie's grief without a second thought. She would take all of Ellie's pain and feel it for her, if she could.

But all she can do now is share it.

All she can do now is be present, and bear witness, and not turn away when things get ugly.

Even if part of her is terrified that she might be watching Ellie drown.

#tlou fanfic #the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #ellie williams #tlou ellie #tlou dina #elliexdina #ellie x dina #dinellie #the last of us fanfiction

[heygaymayday]

There’s a sun here that gives nothing but gold. Evenings turn everything the color of warm, burnt brass. Gives a soft stillness that reaches down into the bones. A solitude that feels so, so safe.

The days are simple. One task leads into the next. There’s earth in her hands and living things counting on her. Counting on her to keep her days simple. Counting on her to keep the course.

The sheep bleat in the pasture and there’s the sound of the breeze in the tall grass—could almost be the ocean, if you close your eyes. It really could be. She heard the ocean once, in an old movie, and it sounded just like that.

Dina hums in the garden and JJ chatters to himself in noises that are increasingly close to being words. He’s close. He gets better every day at shaping the sounds, at mimicking their cadences, at telling them things.

And her? She’s just a wild animal that’s been brought inside the house for a little while. Paws still sticky with violence, still fueled by fear and instinct and nightmares. She wants to pretend otherwise, but it’s a truth she’s been carrying around between her teeth like a stone she just can’t spit out—

None of this belongs to her.

She’s just lucky to be here.

For now.

For however long it lasts.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #ellie williams #tlou ellie #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #the last of us fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou2 fanfic #tlou show #the last of us two spoilers #the last of us spoilers #the last of us show #tlou hbo

[heygaymayday]

It’s been years, but in that deep, dense place between dreams, that place where time is petty and pliable—in that place, she drinks from a blackened sea again and again and again. Her salt-soaked tongue sinks against the inside of her teeth and the grief bleeds out in wordless tangles of sound.

It’s been years, but she’s learning that years mean nothing. They mean everything. They’re too much, and they’re too little. Too close and too far. Her life breathes, expands and contracts, changing shape but never changing name. She is who she’s always been—she’s a little more herself every day.

Because there’s structure in the pain, she’s found. Give up the pieces, pay the prices, find what the flesh was hiding—someone kinder, softer, easier to love. What did it cost—a belly of seawater, a few bones, a long sleepwalk home. Nothing she wouldn’t pay a hundred times now.

If only she could say it, in those deep, dense dreams. If only she could tell herself then—reach through those pliable years as they breathe and change and stay the same.

There’s sun ahead. Days of stillness and peace and slow, easy joy.

You’re gonna be fine.

You’re gonna laugh one day.

And none of this—

—all of this—

—will be a bad dream.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #heygaymayday #the last of us part 2 #naughty dog #tlou ellie #tlou spoilers #the last of us spoilers #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #the last of us show #tlou fic #tlou hbo #ellie williams #ellie tlou #the last of us part ii spoilers #the last of us ii

[heygaymayday]

TOMMY.

He's never been a perfect man. Hell, he's never even been a particularly good man. He knows it, would tell it to anyone. Even back before the world burned down, he never seemed to find his footing, never seemed to know how to make things work the way they ought to work.

Not like Joel. Joel, who put his head down, did the work, raised a family. Cleaned up the pieces when that family fell apart. Kept going, doing the same thing day in and day out because he had Sarah there, counting on him.

No, Tommy had approached life differently. Even after leaving the military, Tommy went on slipping from one crowd, one con or scam or grift, straight into the next. Maybe there were some drugs involved intermittently over the years, but it was more than that. He tried to do things the Joel way, the steady, sturdy way, but one bar fight, one bounced check, one bad luck bet and an unpaid debt would always send him spiraling back down the drain. Normal was like an itch that would get under his skin, a buzz in his ears that he couldn't fix. If he was honest, sitting still meant thinking, meant listening to his own thoughts, and when he looked too far inward, all he saw was blood baking in the desert sand.

So normal was a prison, an empty room, a ball and chain. It tied him down. And if there was one thing Tommy was really bad at, it was being tied down.

The trouble was Tommy didn't know how to find a middle ground. If he wasn't tied down, he was free falling, and there was never anything in between. And that free fall always, always ended in a hard, cold, painful landing.

But Joel was always there. Always handing over bail money, or showing up to turn the tide of a losing bar fight, or giving him a couch to sleep on, or reluctantly passing him another loan to finance another great idea that was always, in reality, a fucking terrible idea.

It was kinda funny, if you thought about it, how they switched philosophies after the world went to shit.

Joel was still Joel, still a steady and predictable workhorse, but he wasn't quite the same after Sarah died. Wasn't the same after the Outbreak changed all the rules. There was no such thing as honest work in the new world. Tommy should've thrived in that sea of ambiguous morality, but it was Joel that found his footing, and Tommy who floundered.

It only made sense that Tommy couldn't even be good at being Tommy.

It was too much for him, the way Joel operated in those years. Maybe it was because the consequences had become too high, too much, too real. A failed con or scheme had once meant a stint in county jail, at the most. Six months of free meals and card games and cable TV. Now it meant having your fucking head blown off, or being ripped apart by a goddamn fungus monster, or starving to death in the fucking wilderness somewhere.

So the apocalypse made Joel a ruthlessly efficacious conman, swindler, smuggler—an engine of flash-bang violence. And it forced Tommy to realize he didn't want to be any of those things anymore. He just didn't know what else there was to be in a world like this. A world on fire.

He joined the fireflies for the same reason he’d joined the military back in the old days—because he wanted to help. Wanted to be one of the good guys. And even that imploded on him.

And then he found Maria.

It all made sense then, clicked together in a way it never had before. He'd never been able to see it before--the future. He saw a day at a time, at the most, but Maria expanded his vision and made anything possible. He could see it--a whole, long life, growing into an old man, sitting on a porch, looking out over a yard. He could see now why someone would be okay with doing the same things every day, in the same place. Why someone would be okay with being tied down.

It was all about who you were tied down with.

So for the first time in his life, he built something.

They came together and they worked and something grew. It was a surreal feeling, watching buildings coming up outta the ground. Watching new people come in and flourish and be happy. He was doing good things—without hurting anyone. Who woulda thought?

But, truthfully, it was Maria who made things happen. Made people feel safe. She was firm and calculating and fucking smart. Smarter than Tommy had ever been. And somehow they just fit together in a way that never should've been possible. He believed in her and relied on her unfailing strength. And at the end of the day, behind closed doors, he was a safe space for her, a place where she could let that strength fail, could confess her uncertainties and fall apart.

And he just knew, on some instinct, how to put her back together. What she needed to hear, needed to know, to be able to get back up the next day and lead them a little farther into the future.

But things had changed after Joel was gone.

Everything had changed after Joel was gone.

Some pain just gets so big, it fills you up and you can't see much else. You get so full with grief you don't have room for even an ounce of anything more. Not love or joy or hope or even fear, because fear would mean you still believed there was something left to lose.

This grief was like a cancer that had wrapped itself around Tommy’s bones and refused to let him go.

He hadn't even been able to beg her, the night she said she was leaving. Maybe he was too drunk, or maybe he just didn't know how. Or maybe he just knew she wasn't wrong, that she deserved more than he could give her, with his grief-wrapped bones.

"I love you, Maria,” was all he'd been able to say. "I do. I love you."

"I believe it," Maria had said quietly; he'd watched her through bleary, heavy eyes as she paused by the door. "I believe you love me, Tommy. I just think you love your hurt a little more."

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #heygaymayday #the last of us part 2 #naughty dog #tommy miller #tlou hbo #tlou tommy #tlou fanfic #tlou maria #tlou 2 #tlou fanfiction #the last of us ii #the last of us fic #the last of us two spoilers #tlou spoilers #joel tlou #joel miller #the last of us show #the last of us spoilers

[heygaymayday]

What did he want for her?

What was it all for?

There’d been a purpose to all of this.

He’d had a reason, once.

Seems far away now.

Like a good idea he’d had in his sleep.

Lost somewhere between his last dream and the knocking of the morning light.

He shoulda wrote it down.

Less blood. That’d be a good start.

Less pain.

Less rage.

Less being alone.

Lord, just let her keep away from the folks that’d hurt her.

Keep her away from having to hurt others.

Let her hands stay some kinda clean.

Let her sleep through the night.

No bottomless, cold-sweat, gut-wound dreams.

Give her more awe. More wonder.

More of those moments that swell with the sweetness of being beautifully, terribly, wonderfully alive.

Give her a way to know the truth:

it’s her, in all her ways.

She is the awe and wonder in the world.

Always has been.

Let her find someone else who sees it, too.

Sees her for all she is.

Let her build something.

He knows she can do it.

She just needs a chance.

Just let her know a little goodness before it’s all done.

That’s all he’s really asking.

Everybody deserves a little goodness before it’s all done.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #heygaymayday #the last of us part 2 #naughty dog #tlou ellie #joel the last of us #joel miller #joel and ellie #tlou fanfiction #the last of us spoilers #tlou spoilers #tlou2 photomode #tlou hbo #tlou fanfic #tlou fandom #ellie miller

[heygaymayday]

hi I just wanted to say that your fic writing is godly. the characterization and the tone is just spot on. you capture their voice. you bring parts of the characters straight out of the tlou universe and weave them together. it makes me jealous. there’s things that you write that make me think “this is 100% canon”. (every journal entry in white noise) (those are my favorite of your so far btw — this is definitely not me subtly begging you to write more stuff like that). sometimes I am hit with “everybody deserves a little goodness before it’s all done” or “Joel kept them. The joke books.” and it feels like a punch in the stomach. you have such a precious and spectacular talent. anyway I just wanted to say something nice because you’ve made lots of really cool stuff!

Wow! Thank you so much. I cannot stress how much it means to get this kind of feedback from folks. I don’t think I’m the only creator engaged in a nonstop battle with imposter syndrome—I’m always 99.99% convinced that I’m actually making nothing but smoldering garbage. And, truthfully, that feeling has gotten the better of me for the last two years or so, and has absolutely killed my motivation to write any words at all.

I’ve always felt that there’s a certain narcissism in writing anything, because to do so you have to assume that you have something worthwhile to say. But it’s feedback like this, and the assurance that the words are resonating with someone, anyone, that makes it possible to keep writing through that feeling.

Thank you again, and thanks for reading!

[heygaymayday]

I’ve been pretty absent for a multitude of reasons, but let me say that I appreciate every person who has checked up on me in my asks—it means a shit ton to me. I have a lot of stuff going on right now—the kinda stuff that’s good, but takes up a lot of energy and brain space. But my fanfic writing break has also been because it felt like it was time to turn my writing inward and figure out if there was anything worthwhile knocking around in here. And I’m still not sure there’s anything that qualifies as worthwhile, but if you’re interested in reading more words, you can check it out: @mc-writing-empty

Just a warning that the tenor is a little different and more personal and may not be for everyone.

I don’t intend to stop writing TLOU fanfiction for good—these characters still have tremendous value for me—it just feels like it’s time to do my own thing for a minute. In the meantime, here are some Ellie doodles to try to make up for the open storylines I haven’t quite gotten around to finishing just yet.

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us part two #tlou part 2 #tlou2 #the last of us part 2