✶nini✶

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a/n: hello i couldn't find a cliffhanger lol but i do promise that this is soooo far from ending here lol. i hope you're enjoying this. also, i'm working on my canon au and im so excited, it's gonna be just fluff, no angst, nothing but pure joy so expect it soon hehe

i completely agree that reader has some sort of attachment issue, she's definitely anxious and i feel like anxiously attached people tend to be attracted to avoidant ones, like ellie is in dear ellie. at the same time, though, i actually do not think reader realizes the extent of ellie's trauma or even images the weight she carries on her shoulders: the guilt for not being there for joel, the anger she feels towards him for lying and how those clash together making everything even more unbearable for one person to carry alone. sure, she's read the one letter ellie actually put some effort into writing, but at the same time—heartbreaking at is was—she can only imagine without having nothing concrete to base her assumptions on. in fact, she just wants to show her that people care, that she's not alone, similarly to what dina's trying to do, but the problem dina has is that she's too familiar with everything that happened, so on one hand it hurts to have the reminder of "home", on the other, what ellie only hears is "you only want me to get over this so you can go back to things being normal, but you don't actually get and know what happened".

i'd say that reader, more than wanting to fix her, her problem is this sorta wendy syndrome for which she feels responsible for other's wellbeing and their needs, placing them before her own, which is similar to what you described but in my way of interpreting things it's not out of wanting to be the only one who can understand that someone—in this case, ellie—to get love or feeling special in return, but only because she genuinely wants to be there for other people like her mother and her father never were for her. she certainly inherited the need of this idolized, fantasized love from her mother who basically instilled in her the kind of anxious attachment she has towards people, but her need to find 'the kind of love that stays' actually matured more from the fact that her mother was so caught up in her own "failures" that she forgot how to be there for her daughter and act as a mother. she wants to be nurtured and nurture back, i think, to feel safe, at peace, have something special that won't be fleeting or live in the constant fear that the other person will leave. that's why she tries to understand ellie so much, because she can see some of that same need in her, only that they express it in completely different ways: reader by clinging, ellie by fleeing before things get too serious in order to not be disappointed. reader wants to know more not because she's attracted to ellie being depressed or because she believes she can fix that, but because she wants to just... offer love. i view her as very pure, kinda naive in certain circumstances, despite her mistakes and despite her clear struggles with setting boundaries for herself.

the latter is definitely what makes it the dynamic between them unbalanced imo, and that's a thing she will definitely learn how to do throughout the course of the story that ties to her character development. let's also say, though, that reader—as of now—is not completely innocent despite being of pure heart: she is lying to ellie, she is hiding who she is from her through the letters, something that was supposed to stay anonymous, which is a the same time the only condition and aspect that made ellie feel safe enough to open up, even if just a little bit. let's also add to that the fact that reader deliberately chose not to show up at the bar at the end of chapter five, knowing full well how hard it is for ellie to open up. so yeah. i believe that if she wanted to be "the hero" in ellie's story and take credit for being the one who managed to make ellie open up to the point of asking to see "letter girl", she would've showed up, told her "see? i understand better than anyone, let me in so i can fix it." but she doesn't, because more than anything, she's scared of not being enough for people to stay, even when she puts in her best effort to show them the contrary.

as for ellie not being ready for feelings, yeah, but she also was honest about it, she hasn't deceived reader by saying it was something more, she hasn't lied and led her on by making her believe they could be a couple when the only thing she wanted was sex. that's why i think she hasn't really taken advantage of reader's kindness: she set terms and reader agreed to them fully knowing that she wouldn't have been able to respect them, or more accurately, making herself believe that she could. the only time ellie hurts her knowing reader is going to be hurt, is during chapter five when she kicks her out, before that she just... sticked to what she had told her. no strings attached. but the thing is, throughout the weeks she spends with reader she gets attached and does catch feelings. was that something she was ready for and considered that could have happen? hell no. and that's what scared her shitless. but love, infatuation, feelings in general are unpredictable, and i think that the end of chapter five she does realize that reader has been the one person who could actually make her feel good, at ease, at peace after a long time of being at war with herself, that maybe she doesn't need to hide behind being faceless in order to get the same kind of feeling she had by reading the letters when it's standing right in front of her. (little did she know.....)

is fighting and caring so much for a stranger worth it? it all depends on what you value and your interpretation of things.

i'm actually so happy about this message because it really shows how different people view things. i would've never thought of viewing ellie as taking advantage of reader and honestly? love that interpretation as well, genuinely.

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a/n: idk what's about smaus but i find it so hard to write synopsis for each chapter lmao. also yeah, im sorry for making reader kinda an ass in this but after debating for a while i decided to cut ellie some slack lol. also thanks to @elleloquently for always putting up with me and hearing me out whenever i share my doubts and ideas. i love you so so much.

𝑻𝑨𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 — ⌞comment to be added <3⌝