whoever this beloved anon was I am so touched by your kindness! You definitely didn’t have to do this but I am so happy you enjoy this idea and I will happily expand upon it for you!
this is just a collection of word vomit bullet points for the time being but I will happily answer any and all questions about this pair!!
warnings: violence, angst, child death (Sarah Miller), foul language, the same warnings that apply to tlou, reader is Sarah's mom and described as having similar features to her.
So the general Idea is that you and Joel are happily married before the outbreak.
You had been Sarah's mother, his high school sweetheart he got pregnant when neither of you were old enough to have any reaction to the pregnancy test other than a fucking panic attack in one another’s arms. but you made it work
you both worked but made time for one another and your sweet girl, going to museums every other weekend and joel insisting on swooping you off for a date every now and then
nothing special. He knows you’re more of a diner gal than anything too fancy that makes you both feel out of place.
On his birthday in 2003, you had planned to tell him that you were pregnant again. But the memories of your own fears of motherhood from all those years ago begin to swirl through your head again and you get cold feel. deciding to tell him the morning after
it is his birthday afterall, you want to focus on him.
but when you’re woken up in the middle of the night because tommy needs to get bailed out, Joel kisses you sweetly one last time before promising he’ll be back and you can’t shake the feeling that something bad is happening.
its you that shakes sarah awake that night. shouting at her to put on her shoes when she’s still rubbing the sleep from her eyes because you’ve been listening to the radio for the past two hours, calling joel again and again and again praying for him to fucking pick up but to no avail.
Sarah, bless your little girl’s bleeding heart is the one who insists you check on the adler’s against your better suspicions and when you find the eldest looming over her daughter, blood and sinew dripping from her mouth, you grab your daughter hand and burst into a full sprint until something slams into your back and sends you tumbling onto their front lawn
its how joel finds you, struggling to keep the once sweet old woman, whose now nothing more than dead eyes and gnashing teeth straining to snap at your pulse point as you push against her while sarah shrieks before your husband runs forward and cracks her skull with a wrench.
there’s hardly a moment of pause, just enough for him to pull you up and into his arms before he’s ushering you both into the car with an urgency.
when the truck crashes, you get separated from them. Perhaps at Tommy’s side when the flames rise and create a wall, separating you from your husband, or maybe pulled into the mob of chaos when trying to escape from those already infected-
all joel knows is that you promise you’ll find him: just get sarah to safety and you’ll meet him at the river
Poor thing is already so frightened, held in her father’s arms with tears streaming down her face insisting they can’t leave you they just can’t but her father kisses her forehead and reassures her its going to be okay
“we just need to be brave, okay babygirl? Your mama’s real tough, she’s gonna be alright.”
he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to his daughter or himself.
but when he comes to the river you aren’t there. Only a soldier who points a gun at the scared little girl in his arms and then he loses everything
its when the light is gone from his daughter’s eyes that he realizes. His voice cracked and raw from sobbing that he looks around to see his brother with drawn in shoulders and tears in his eyes but his wife is nowhere to be found.
Tommy says you got lost in the chaos. Everything was so loud, so sudden that he turned around and suddenly you weren’t there.
Joel wants to go back but its Tommy that stops him, that dulls the red in his vision to a sad faded pink because his brother points at the orange horizon not too far from them, so much of the city is already in flames.
“We’re gonna find her, but not there.”
So Joel searches. for the first year spent in the world post-outbreak its all he did.
He became a smuggler because of it.
Information came at a price and he needed to be able to fucking pay it, whether it be in blood or ration cards. He was willing to do anything to find you or any thin thread that lead your way.
But it’s Tommy that asks him to give up. Not in those words of course.
The youngest Miller knows better than to say something so cruel that would make his brother, the only person he has in this world turn on him.
But his voice is worried when he asks him one night in Boston when he hasn’t even had the chance to wash the blood from his knuckles
“You think she would have wanted this for you?”
the fight that followed his words was brutal. Vicious insults and scarred fists slamming against each brother until they're both too tired and bloody to continue. Each leaning against a wall for support and Tommy’s wavering voice breaking the silence.
“I don’t know where she is, Joel. But I do know you're gonna get yourself killed if you keep lookin’ for her.”
All he can do is nod.
It’s a few days later when he meets Tess. Who has heard plenty of stories about the elder miller’s brutality and wants him to put that muscle to good use for some extra profit.
It begins his new life. One that empty and cold but one he can live.
Until of course, Ellie comes along. The sweet and incredibly opinionated girl that makes him become something akin to the man he thought died twenty years ago.
its when he’s traveling with Ellie, that it happens. When a warm familiarity has settled between the two because so much blood and pain has been shared he can’t help but see her as something close, something bright even though all he can force himself to utter in her reference is “cargo”
when theyre traveling through the woods as Ellie chatters away, probing his memory about a movie that may or may not have existed thirty years ago because her descriptions of the plot are incredibly odd he hears a voice shout for them to stop and finds himself staring at a man- no, a boy- pointing a gun at them.
Ellie stills, but Joel can see enough to know that from the lanky figure and dimpled face that he’s young. Maybe twenty, twenty-two at the oldest, but his eyes dart from Joel to Ellie with a pinprick of fear that allows Joel the time to charge forward and slam him to the ground before wrestling the gun from his hands.
He has enough to time to tuck it under the stranger’s chin before he hears the sound of the safety being turned off and finds himself looking up and seeing a gun just inches from his face.
Joel’s head whips around when Ellie’s voice calls out his name in fear, he turns to see another stranger holding her a gun point, shoulders drawn back and a shadow cast over their face by the had obstructing their identity.
“You hurt one of mine, I hurt one of yours. That a fair deal?”
Its takes him a moment to recognize you. It’s been so long since he’s heard your voice, the sweet tease when you would poke at him each time he woke up late despite the fact that you reminded him to set his alarm the night before, the times you’d chide him with a harsh “Joel Miller!” whispered in public anytime he was able to grab you a bit too passionately to be appropriate in public but the laughter in your voice let him know you were never truly mad at him. You didn’t know how to be.
But that sweetness is buried under a cold rasp that cuts through the air as you point a rifle at the scared little girl in front of you.
“You think I won’t?” You’re older now, skin covered in scars from a life he didn’t know you got the chance to live and your eyes are cold as they regard your husband. “Put the gun down and get the fuck off of him, I won’t repeat myself.”
Joel mumbles your name in awe. The woman he loved, the woman he mourned the one he fought so hard to find stands before him like some sort of hallucination and suddenly the world feels like its spinning until you bark orders at him again.
“You’ve got five seconds Joel, make a fucking choice before I make it for you.”
He looks down and realizes the boy under him, the one with the bleeding nose and snarling face has your eyes and his dimples.
“One.”
The one above him has Sarah’s hair. Soft brown curls that shine under the sun.
“Two”
Wait. No, they both do.
“Three.”
Twins. Jesus fucking Christ you had twins.
“Four.”
Joel holds the rifle up above his head and the one boy standing snatches it from his grasp, tossing it to the ground and kicking it far from his reach. He slowly stands, allowing your son- dear god your son- to scramble to his feet.
Your voice softens just for a moment. “You okay, Duke?”
Blood stains the bottom half of his face from where Joel slammed his fist into the boy’s nose just moments before, but he nods nonetheless.
Now, they both stand on one side of you and he can see the resemblance clear as day the same way he would whenever Sarah was by your side.
When you order him to hand over his bag, he does so without question before telling Ellie to do the same.
She watches him with wide eyes, her hands still up in the air but gaping at her companion as if he had grown a second head.
“Joel!” “Just do it, alright?”
He doesn’t miss the way you watch their interaction with narrowed eyes until she tosses her bag to you and you slowly lower your gun.
“Now, you want to tell me what the fuck you think you’re doin’ at my home?”
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I think what bugs me the most about the type of analysis that is common in this fandom is that sometimes people are obsessed with not actually looking at choices being made by characters and instead try to project extra-textual symbolism/parallels they pulled out of thin air or use essentialist arguments to predict a certain character’s trajectory. There is already a weird tendency to blame bloodlines instead of institutions, oppressive/destructive social constructs/systems, and abusive cycles. This series repeatedly deconstructs bio essentialist ideas in a multitude of ways. Characters being viewed as monsters for the way they are born is a concept that is repeatedly torn down. There is a combination of nature & nurture at play with these characters, I admit, but it is nuanced. Your environment and your nature are in constant conversation with each other. Certain environmental factors will worsen certain attributes, while repress others etc. Your blood is not evil, nor is it pure, it just is, and your nature will be affected by your rearing, tragedies you face, and the environment you live in. Monsters are created and developed, not born. This whole concept is apparent with all the siblings in the series. Dany & Viserys are drastically different people, and make different choices despite having similar experiences and the same blood. Same can be said for Joff, Myrcella, and Tommen. Another very good example are the Lannister siblings. The twins’ idea of “one soul in two bodies” is deconstructed, and they are faced with how dissimilar they actually are. All three siblings have differences in nature, as revealed by their behavior as young children & their current values and motivations, and they are all shaped very differently by their environment. Cersei is affected by the oppressive system of the patriarchy, Jaime by the trauma due to the violent construct of knighthood, and Tyrion by the rampant ableism of the world around him. Tywin also shapes them by giving each of them their own flavor of parental abuse based on the role he wants them to play in his legacy. It is so apparent just how these characters became what they are, and how they navigate their world as a result of a nuanced combination of nature and nurturer. But in the end, it comes down to choices that they keep making. Characters on the right path can also falter sometimes, weigh their values wrong, and make bad decisions at certain points. Not to mention how thoughts and words do not speak as much as actions and actual choices that are made do. You all take bio essentialist arguments that some characters in the text make at face value, even when it is obviously bullshit. Any analysis that hinges entirely on “this character is the son/daughter of this character”, or “this thing on the surface parallels this other thing from something I read/watched”, “this character is a dragon. Dragons plant no trees”, “this character is a monster”, “this character is from this house”, “this character is related to this character” etc instead of actually looking at what said characters do or try to do is gonna lead to unconvincing arguments that are antithetical to one of the main ideas that this series is built on. To me it feels like these books are communicating that in spite of your birth, your origin, your trauma, your prophecies, etc it is primarily your choices that lead you to where you are and the legacy that you create. Cersei’s prophecy will come true as a result of the choices she makes. Dany’s many prophecies are also as a result of choices she makes, she was not just gifted with everything that she has achieved, she is an active agent who makes choices that push her a certain direction. This is also why it is weird when everybody wants to make characters have a predetermined trajectory solely based on “what” they are, or who they are related to.
Not only does George say this in interviews, it is an explicit thesis statement in the text itself:
This is the concluding statement of Jaime’s ASoS arc. Like “The things I do for love”, “So many vows...”, and “The heroes […] the best and the worst, and those who were a bit of both”, as extremely relevant it is to him in specific, it is a major thesis statement for the series as whole, and overlaps with many characters, just like how other characters also have a bunch of these overlapping arc theses. So can we please primarily look at the choices characters make and what ultimately motivated them to make these choices rather than thinking their ending and what they “are” as characters is set in stone because of the reasons mentioned. I feel like how you all engage with some of these characters contradicts the deconstruction of this kind of essentialism that is so apparent in these books.
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