#sarah born

[celluloidrainbow]

ERIK & ERIKA (2018) dir. Reinhold Bilgeri The true story of Erik Schinegger, women’s world champion skier. Declared female at birth and raised as a girl, until a newly-introduced gene test reveals his intersex status to both the world and himself and leaves the skier with a life-changing decision to make. (link in title)

[dandelionandkrindle]

THE LAST OF US 1x01 - "When You're Lost in the Darkness"

sarah reacting to joel's violence vs. ellie reacting to it (based on this post)

[loverofgingersblog]

The very first scene of the

Holy Osemanverse!

@chronicintrovert @aliceoseman

[actual-changeling]

ellie learns how to draw, and, if she might say so herself, gets pretty damn good at it, especially faces. it helps her ground herself to see happy memories physically stare back at her from her sketch book, her walls, the fridge, and wherever else joel puts up her drawings. he loves all of them, even the very first ones that aren't much more than vaguely human scribbles.

the first year in jackson is a pain, and she spends most of it holed up in their house, drawing, painting (she has no idea where joel gets all the paint from and he refuses to tell her), and once they make it through their first winter together, she feels comfortable enough to show them to other people, too. mostly tommy and maria, and in a weak moment she even gifts them a drawing she made of them and their baby.

she's over at their house a lot, it's a lot more lived in and settled than theirs but they're working on it, and notices some actual pictures, the kind you take with a camera, decorating the living room. it's obvious that they're prized possessions, framed and front and center on the walls. a handful of them show maria and what must have been her family before the outbreak, others are newer. jackson does have some cameras saved for special events, and there are two pictures of them on their wedding day, and even one from a few days after the baby was born.

she doesn't think much of it until their second summer in jackson when she notices the way joel stares at the baby pictures and realizes that all he has to remember sarah by is the broken watch on his wrist. the only tangible memory and it's one of pain and death.

ellie mulls over it a lot, it keeps her up at night and while joel picks up on it, he doesn't press the issue when she refuses to talk about it, though she assures him she's fine.

it takes her another two weeks after her realization to catch tommy alone one afternoon with joel safely away on patrol, oddly nervous and unsure how to phrase what she wants to ask. eventually she manages to explain her idea and the positively soft, distantly heartbroken look he gives her makes her breath catch in her throat.

do you think he would be okay with it?

i think he would love it, sweetheart.

they sit together for hours in his kitchen, ellie is determined to make it look exactly right and urges tommy to not hold back his criticism if something isn't accurate, and by the end, they have missed dinner and her wrist hurts like hell, fingers stained with pencil lead and color, but her chest is brimming with a warm sense of accomplishment.

tommy gives her a frame and she wraps it as well as she knows how to. he insists that she gives it to him alone, but ellie draws him into an uncharacteristically tight hug before she leaves and hides her smile in his chest when he presses a hesitant kiss to her hair. family, she realizes, is pretty damn great.

the waiting is the hardest part. she puts her gift on the coffee table and paces the living room for at least half an hour while she waits for joel to return from his patrol, switching between chewing her lips and biting her nails. by the time he finally walks through the door, she has almost convinced herself to abandon the whole thing and just pretend it never happened, but then joel's there, gaze immediately softening when he sees her, and suddenly she can't wait to give it to him. it's a pretty big frame and the best paper she owns, rivaling some of her larger paintings on actual canvas, and joel has to sit down to open it without running the risk of accidentally dropping it.

i hope you like it.

the quiet tremor in her voice makes him stop halfway through unwrapping it, but she just gestures for him to continue, rocking on her feet.

tommy helped.

when the last of the paper falls away and joel sees her work for the very first time, they both hold their breath at once, even the summer breeze stilling, air brimming with something neither of them have the words for.

joel is looking at a vibrant water color painting of sarah, face at a soft angle as she wonders at a small purple butterfly resting on her finger, hand raised in front of her, eyes and smile shining brighter than the sun, hair a shimmering cloud of brown and gold. a frozen moment in time, sarah forever fourteen, capturing the love ellie feels pouring out of joel whenever he talks about her, a wave of affection and distilled joy that makes her miss a person she has never known.

i thought you might want a happy memory of her to look at, too.

ellie points at his watch, broken glass fracturing the light falling in, hand shaking.

i hope it's okay that i- if you don't want it-

joel's arms are around her before she can finish, cutting off her stuttered attempts, frame safe on the table as he hugs her so tightly her feet lift off the floor and she clings to his neck, relief bringing air back to her lungs. he holds her with his face buried in her hair, and ellie only notices he is crying when she can feel a few stray tears run down her neck. when he sets her down again, eyes glassy even after he dries his cheeks, her knees buckle under his gaze. they're both bad with feelings, bad with words, love shown through touch and gestures, through don't forget to eat, i'll stay with you until you fall asleep, fresh cups of coffee left on his nightstand before she leaves for school, hands searching for each other in the crowd again and again and again, never letting go.

love brought to life by a painting of the daughter that taught him how to be a father, made by the one that helped him find his way back to the light.

thank you, ellie.

they both know it means i love you, too, sarah immortalized on their living room wall where the morning sun illuminates her face with every sunrise.

more rambles in the tags

[be-an-echo]

Happy birthday Vane! @seethesunny

To the one of the most talented people out there! I'm so thankful these two brought us together. You're the best and you deserve all the happiness in this world 🥳 ILY 💕

[notsohehehahanow]

"history accurate lesbian cleradin au" if those two were in history accurate times theyd both be accused of witchcraft which has given me a new fic idea

[mdemn]

yes, i love mde. yes, its my favorite of the mafia trilogy. yes, i can say with 100% conviction that objectively… tommy is not an interesting character. for him to be the protagonist, he sure does have no depth to his character written in the game

[aalghul]

I think about babs wishing she had called sarah “mom” while she had the chance to very often

[shalom-iamcominghome]

"Most of us are Avraham v'Sarah, which is very easy until someone new comes in"

-One of the shul members when he accidentally misnamed someone

[djsherriff-responses]

Dolph’s babies, he’s a good dad they’re just in a difficult situation

[dongslinger--420]

rip sarah lynn you would've loved ivy tran food court detective

[cokiemace]

sebastian's journal

[the-satellite]

Arthur Maxson as we know him is a victim of the Brotherhood of Steel and I will get into ugly fights about it.

[sugadolly]

— this is young joel the first night they brought baby sarah back home. this is him lovingly staring down at the beautiful baby girl sleeping in her crib. he still couldn't wrap his head around that she's his. he'd stay up late that night (and more nights after that) just looking at her, taking care of her, lulling her back to sleep when she wakes and cries. even if his body and mind are screaming at him to go get some sleep he couldn't bring himself to even if he tried because his whole being is just buzzing with happiness he's so so proud to call himself a father 🩵

[doctorwhoisadhd]

bill and the bannerman road gang would have been so cute together

[lovecatsys]

oughggh something that makes me insane about the dynamic between Akihiro and Laura is that they're both outcasts who see themselves as Different than everyone else but the contrast is that Laura in the early days doesn't understand a lot of social skills and societal rules even if she has some idea she has a hard time following by them. but she Wants So Badly to be like other people, to be Human, she wants to fit in and she tries so hard to because she wants to be good, she wants to be better than her upbringing.

Meanwhile Akihiro has always understood societal rules and expectations, social skills, etc and is able to use them to fit in perfectly into whatever role he is playing at the moment, but he doesn't actually Care about following them at all. He's an outcast who has always viewed himself as being different than everyone else and he doesn't care at all about fitting in or trying to live in human rules. Because he doesn't care about anyone else, he doesn't want to do good, he likes hurting people because he has lost sight of their relevance.

It sets up such an interesting contrast between the two of them, Akihiro can fit in but he doesn't want to, Laura can't fit in but she wants to. Akihiro was groomed to be a killer and it's all he wants to be, Laura was created to be a killer but she wants to be good. Akihiro doesn't understand why Laura wants to do good and wants to fit in when she has such power, Laura doesn't understand why Akihiro limits himself by separating himself from society. They intrigue each other because they come from such similar places but have such different values and goals. But Akihiro is especially intrigued by why she is like this, and seeing this in her is what helped him change to be more like her.