My main takeaway from episode one of the Last of Us Series:

BABY SPOON JOEL BABY SPOON JOEL BABY SPOON JOEL BABY SPOON JOEL BABY SPOON JOEL BABY SPOON JOEL

BABY SPOON JOEL

Given the fact that Joel never went back to his apartment in the QZ, he had NOTHING to remember Tess by. No picture like the one with Sarah, no bandana, no item of hers. NOTHING.

Ellie : So, are you two dating now?

Tess & Joel, proudly : Yes

Ellie : Why?

Joel : Well, I happen to find Tess very appealing

Ellie : Yeah, I can understand that. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with Tess

Joel: Tess and I are having a baby

Ellie: that’s grea—

Joel, slamming down adoption papers: it’s you, sign here

I'm holdin' out hope for you to say "don't go"

Seeing the way that Tess delivered the news to Joel about losing their battery, I really feel like she did a lot for him. Just.... the way she verbally keeps him on earth, keeps him from floating away from himself and snapping into action. She really helped him.

Currently my favorite TV show of all time, I finally have a reason to look forward to Sunday nights! (Featuring some The Last of Us cover art I did for a drawing game lol)

Tess managed to survive and travelled all the way across post-apocalyptic America to find Joel and Ellie in Jackson. But how will they react to seeing her alive?

Hey y'all, this is my first ever fanfic about how Joel and Ellie would react seeing Tess alive again. I'd appreciate it if you guys could give it a read 😁 any likes/comments are also appreciated of course 🙏

I wanna talk about this scene cus it's really interesting to me how both Tess and Joel are a parent who lost their child young are instantly "okay parent mode on" when Ellie is with them even if they don't really realise it or want it their brain just knows (also the way these two communicate and have silent conversations blows me away).

Okay so context Ellie, Tess and Joel trying to get to the fireflies and they discover that their "long way" or their "safe way" is not safe anymore and that's where the scene begins.

Also needed info a few scenes before Joel and Tess where discussing which way to take long way or short way and then Tess said something along the lines of "it's either long way or we are fucking dead way" referring to the short way and then Ellie says something off "well based off that I say short way".

So in right before the first pic is when Ellie asks what they are gonna do now cus obviously they can't go through with the plan before anymore and she is still putting on a though face (I didn't screenshot idk why) and then when she realises she asks in a scared voice "short way ?" meaning the dangerous way and that's the first pic and you can see there that she's scared and worried because from what she knows that's the "we are dead way" and like she's literally a kid who just got told she could save the world 3 WEEKS!!!!! 3WEEKS AFTER SHE JUST LOST HER EVERYTHING quite literally so in a way she's scared of death not death itself but the things that bring death, the infected who she lost her only person she loved and cared for to and after she asks that in a scared kid voice which is when in pic 2 Joel looks at Tess and then we have pic 3 where Tess looks back at Joel then pic 4 where she looks at Ellie and then pic 5 where she looks at Joel again and after that pic 6 Joel says "Museum".

And in those few pics where they look at each other they have that silent conversation of "this is obviously a very scared kid how the fuck do we fix this" because they both have that parental instinct because they had a kid before and even tho they both haven't realised it yet that they both care about said kid especially Joel (and maybe they don't even know they were both parents once but I feel like they do in a way). That's when Joel says "Museum" in a way of trying to comfort Ellie because he introduces a new path a possibility safer path to Ellie.

Yeah idk I just wanted to talk about this scene

SPOILER FOR THE LAST OF US PART ONE.

I was like 8 when I first played the last of us💀

Tess : I’m afraid of clowns. There, I said it

Ellie : Tess, if you don't like clowns, why are you hanging with Joel?

TESS SURVIVES AU WHERE THEY SETTLE DOWN IN JACKSON WITH ELLIE AND EVENTUALLY TESS & JOEL GET MARRIED??? AND THEY HAVE A LITTLE WEDDING WITH FAMILY AND ELLIE GETS A LIL SUIT HELP SHE’S THE FLOWER GIRL BUT SHE JUST CHUCKS CHUNKS OF FLOWERS AT PEOPLE CACKLING BC SHE’S A MENACE BUT WHEN THEY OFFICIALLY GET MARRIED SHE CRIES A LITTLE BIT BC HER FOUND PARENTS ARE FINALLY GETTING MARRIED <33333

stop :((( joel & tess don’t want anything too big so it’s mostly just sitting and talking, but there’s a cake and ellie is only allowed to have one piece because sugar gets her way too energetic. however the cake is Very Good and she wants more, but she keeps getting caught sneaking it off of her parents’ plates, so tommy (who is the best man, just so you know) sneaks her extra pieces and they sit in the corner laughing together when joel and tess have No Clue that ellie is getting extra sugar and it’s all Uncle Tommy’s fault

they sit around after eating and they all decide the best way to congratulate the newly weds is to share embarrassing stories about the groom, and joel just has to sit there and suffer through it as they all humiliate him. even tess contributes to the stories, to his betrayal, and ellie laughs so hard she cries at the story of him falling through a roof on his first contracting job. he can’t be angry, though, bc it’s his wedding day and he could never be more happy

even though it’s a small wedding, there’s still some music and tess, joel and ellie all dance together and joel and tess try and teach ellie how to do the waltz and stuff and they all suck at it but they’re laughing and they’re happy and they’re all family so it doesn’t matter that ellie is stepping on their feet or that joel has no coordination at all or that tess doesn’t remember how to do it, because they’re all okay and they’re going to live long lives with each other

at the end of it joel and tess tell ellie they’ve got a surprise for her, too. she 100% full on cries when the surprise is adoption papers that maria managed to get for them, and when they’re all signed she cries even harder because the three of them are all now officially family <3

they eventually all go home and crash onto the couch, still in their wedding attire, ellie snuggled up in between the two of them as they put on some dumb movie to mindlessly criticize. all three of them pass out on the couch that night, and all three of them could never be happier <3333333333

mildly frustrated by the number of fics that are about tess getting pregnant. i do not judge or care what anyone writes/enjoys, so this is not any kind of hatred or whatever.

i just feel like the relationship between tess and joel is so much more complex and interesting if you focus on them instead of putting tess into a mother role that she canonically doesn't even really fit into. joel would never actively decide to have another child either, and i'm an enthusiastic member of the "joel doesn't fuck" club, too.

you can explore intimacy, past trauma, all of it without any sexual aspects. the focus on shipping does so much damage to people's treatment of non-normative relationships. the whole point is that joel and tess love each other the best they can from behind their walls, that joel falls in love with ellie and takes her in as his daughter without being biologically related to her.

My impression from what were shown on the previous 3 episodes is that Joel and Tess is not like Bill and Frank, am i wrong?

Bill regarded Joel in his letter as ‘ men like you and i’ and mentioned ‘ to keep Tess safe’, he takes Joel as his similar but somehow i think Tess to Joel is not the same as Frank to Bill?

If you’re wondering how my weekend is going…

I just wrote a SIX PAGE outline for my prospective Joel and Tess fan mix. And that’s not even song choices. Just the vibe and flow of the story.

I used to make fan mixes all the time on Livejournal—showing my age again!—and I forgot how cathartic it can be. And, god knows, I still have WAY. TOO. MANY. feelings about them.