#IM SORRY IF THIS IS IBCOHERENT BABBLING I JUST LOVE TALKING ABOUT IT

[heartpascal]

i screamed and cried you got exactly what i was i was thinking but also so much better in my ask about if the door wasn't shut, it's like you're inside my brain. but i have more thoughts since you said you liked them :)

also this is my second time typing this out bc my phone died when i went to send it the first time, so if you get this twice that's my bad😭

but you're so right, i just feel like after everything along with all it took for her to truly feel settled, she wouldn't be able to leave like that. especially not without someone else influencing her to, whether that be actively or passively. but imo, in addition to joel, a big part of why she wouldn't leave is because tommy left, and she wouldn't be able to bring herself to leave maria too

and tommy leaving is so stuck in my head because you're so right(this whole thing is just me agreeing with you😭) that would be so crazy for her. because tommy was there and he knows what that was like for r and joel on both ends. so for him to leave after all that? i actually think in a way it'd be worse than when joel left. because obviously r was hurt and angry with joel, but she gets to a point where she can start to understand why he did what he did and bridge that with the fact that it was okay to feel how she did, and work on reconciling that with joel. but for tommy, that base hurt/anger mixed with grief? and on top of him leaving maria and his kid, and r's own guilt, and everything else like. it would just all be too much. because how can you move past that even when he does come back? their relationship would be forever changed more so than it obviously already is. it's devastating and tragic i'm literally foaming at the mouth i need to write essays about this

obviously she goes with jesse and saves him and everyone comes home safe and okay🥲😭

no but fr i know i'm stuck on the idea of her staying behind, but it's breaking my heart so bad. bc part of her probably did feel like she should go, so she's already going to feel some type of way after she doesn't. but it would just ruin her when jesse doesn't come back. i feel like she'd be stuck for a while on how could she have let him go, and how could she have stayed behind, and how could the rest of them let this happen, when really it wasn't in any of their control. i could sob about it.

dina and her raising jj together means everything to me your mind is so powerful. i need several full length novels about it full of feelings😭

anon i cannot TELL YOU how much i love this and you. YOU MAKE MY DAY!!! i love love LOVE hearing your thoughts it feeds my own fr :’) and omg 😭i’ve only gotten it the once but i feel for you </3 having to type all this out a second time omg

you are so incredibly correct like i cannot even explain. please excuse me if my thoughts are incoherent i am going to do my best 🫡

tlou part two spoilers under the cut

reader and tommy’s relationship would NEVER be the same. honestly i don’t think there would even be a chance for forgiveness like there was with joel. especially because joel did have to go, he didn’t have to leave her, but he did have to go. whereas tommy??? no!!! he could have stayed. he could have done what his brother has been trying to do for YEARS and he could have let it go, for the sake of his wife and his child and R!!!!!!! tommy had so many things in jackson that he should’ve stayed for, and he didn’t. and i don’t think r would’ve been able to forgive that.

not to mention the effects on tommy’s appearance after seattle! i have always always thought that he was reasonable (to himself) for being fucking furious with ellie. because he lost everything, going after abby. he lost his wife, his friends, his functionality???, and ellie seemingly didn’t lose a thing. all the while abby got away just fine! so yeah i think his reaction, considering his state of mind, was reasonable. right? no. but reasonable? yes. BUT!!! imagine the effects of losing reader too???? not to mention how much more damage this would do to his marriage as well like ???? :( maria might have been able to forgive him, one day, but seeing what he did to r, who she sees as her own child???? NO!!!!

so yeah. tommy and reader would never be the same. i’m not sure r would even be able to speak to him again. honestly she’s going through it 😭 loses joel and then tommy and possibly jesse along with him? guys. please. she doesn’t deserve this.

i jsut cant get over it :( she just wouldn’t be able to understand what would possess tommy to leave after everything he’s seen her go through :( after everything he’s HELPED her through :( i think she would really struggle for a long time. she’s lost the only thing she had left of the childhood she never really got, and alongside it, the parent she had always thought she would never have :(

I CAN BARELT TALK ABOUT JESSE WITHOUT AOBBING AND SCREAMING AND CRYING. god. why did they do that to him.

she DID feel like she should go 😭 i think it would’ve been maria’s reassurance and support that would’ve been the only reason she didn’t go when ellie did. BJT JESSE???? he would’ve told her to stay. and she would’ve because she trusted him and she loved him and she KNEW he would come back. he wasn’t leaving her like everybody else because he would never. he had seen her through the good, the bad and the REALLY bad and he had never once even considered stepping out the door. he’s the man. he’s the myth. he’s the legend. she never gets to keep good things.

and then he doesn’t come back? ellie and dina come back to jackson, dragging a half-dead tommy behind them, and they didn’t even bring back jesse’s body. (in my mind anwyay. they were already injured as it was and just trying to keep tommy alive.) i don’t think she would know what to do with that. i don’t think she would know how to live with that. how do you carry on as if everything is fine when it’s so clearly not? jesse was the one person she knew would always come back to her, and in her mind, because of ellie and dina, he hadn’t.

so yeah. the only good relationship she would have left following joel’s death would be with maria. maria who becomes her rock. maria who leans on her and allows herself to be leaned on in return. maria who is the love of my life.

i just cant get over it. i just cant. like imagine. the devastation of jesse’s death would be unmatched. it truly would. how does one person handle so much loss? and the guilt? what does she do with that?

just thinking about maria holding r’s shoulder as she hands her the chalkboard and lets her write jesse’s name. maria hugging r when she cries over not even know when he died. maria figuring it out from the botched recounts that ellie and dina give. maria writing it on the board and holding r’s hand as she shows her.