Doomed By The Narrative ✍️

Personal stuff below

I remember feeling so lonely even though I often dm'd people, supported art/fics, etc. It took me opening myself up to lots rejection to make friends here.

So thanks to those who were so welcoming all last year:

@ketchupchipsaregross @seethesunny @bearrycool @wyked-rebellion @ellstronaut @wordspinning @rowenasamuel @paigegonerogue @consultingzoologist @roselees @justplainsalty @hypnotisedfireflies @bumblepony @freetobeyouandmichi-me @blessedcrow @22thumbs @mildredellie @be-an-echo @pettson

Biggest hugs!! ❤️🫂

As someone who has far more unfinished pieces than finished pieces (sorry to anyone who reads my stuff on AO3), here are a few good things about doing this:

First, all writing is practice. Just like there are reasons to sketch and do practice drawings, writing even unfinished pieces builds your skills in drafting sentences, characterization, voice, tone, and even working in a variety of styles. If you start a story in a new style, even if you never finish it, you have some experience in that style now.

It can also tell you what you love or hate about something. Sometimes you don't finish something because you realize you don't like it. That knowledge is also valuable.

Second, you can always go back to unfinished work. The main novel that I'm querying right now is one where I wrote the first couple thousand words and then didn't touch it again for probably at least a year and a half. It's now a finished novel.

Sometimes you need space away from a story to make it work. Sometimes you need to improve your writing skills to be able to accomplish whatever you were trying to accomplish then. Sometimes you need a mental or physical health break or you just need more time in the day before you can finish something.

I'm sorry anon what lmao

So you come to my house, tessjoel Central, disguised as a stranger, and you tell me this. Why come to the tessjoel headquarters blog and even bother?????

I normally wouldn't even entertain asks like this but I must carry their legacy and clear the searches.

Here, from that conference in Toronto in the year 2013!!! and despite me not really vibing with Neil and his retcons, Tess and Joel's relationship isn't one of those.

It isn't a retcon because even if it wasn't planned from the get go (as we all know the tlou we got is way different from the original idea), it's something that was brought up and discussed while the game was being made and it is imbued in the subtext of the game, and sure you can argue that it makes Tess and Joel's being a "couple" semi-canon at best, but if you're trying to look at it with the lenses of how a regular couple should act and behave then you'll miss the clues and what it's being implied.

From the director's commentary released in 2022, both Troy and Neil discuss again the nature of their relationship (something that they have done before in the past, too) and you can have your own interpretation, but this is a topic that has been discussed and breached openly from people that were involved in the process of creating the game.

And lastly, the most recent interview about these two from 2023 before the show dropped, again it's not a retcon if even in the OG Tess and Joel had their own sort of romantic relationship. I think for you to truly accept it and embrace it you must remember how these characters behave and the world that shapes them, they won't go around kissing and holding hands but that doesn't make them less true.

A slice-of-life story from Tommy's POV.

“And I didn’t steal Shimmer. I just thought she’d wanna see the rest of town,” Ellie added.

“If you say so,” Tommy said in a tone full of mock suspicion.

show me maria’s day in the life. what type of duties she has running jackson, how she deals with conflict mediation, her relationship with tommy and their kid whose name i can’t remember, etc.. we could see a teacher in jackson helping some traumatized kid who just moved to jackson! we could even spend an entire episode dedicated to following someone who got bit and is slowly turning,,,how could would that be??

how much blood is she covered in

are her eyes filled with madness

"'fandom' is a vehicle of marginalized subcultural groups (women, the young, gays, etc.) to pry open space for their cultural concerns within dominant representations; it is a way of appropriating media texts and rereading them in a way that serves different interests, a way of transforming mass culture into a popular culture"

Jenkins, Henry. “Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten: Fan Writing as Textual Poaching.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 5, no. 2 (1988): 85–107. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295038809366691.  

Summary:

“Solana, are you hurt?” Ellie's hands are on Solana’s biceps as she stands in front of her, blocking the view of the dead infected in the snow. “I-I don’t think so. It-it came out of nowhere.” Solana says, her voice shaky. She remembers leaning against the wall of the cabin, just trying to get some fresh air after the stifling heat of the inside, when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. That was all she got before the infected was on her, teeth snapping, hands scratching. She’d managed to get her arms up to try and push it away, but that’s as far as she got before it knocked her to the ground. Shit, her shoulder fucking hurt did she hit it when she hit the ground? She turns her head, and her blood runs cold when she sees where her too-big coat has slipped down to show the clear bite of an infected on her shoulder, oozing blood. “No, no, no, no.” She intones desperately as her eyes come up to meet Ellie’s. IE: Solana gets bit.