Word Spinning

so glad you’re here 💕

fandoms: the last of us 🍄, rdr2 🦌

wip: the stars incline us (ellie & joel & tommy & maria found-family/coming-of-age gen longfic)

🌿 i go by Mera, late-twenties, unironically Christian, painfully nerdy. this is primarily a personal blog. 🌿

favorite pastimes: writing, drawing, coding, 3d printing, cuddling my cat

🏷️ tags: onwriting, tsiu, personal, faith, meradrawsstuff

🔗 links:

Keep the Wolves Away by Uncle Lucius is The Tommy & Joel childhood backstory song of all time and I will die on that hill

thank you friend!! <3

27. your favorite part of the writing process oooh probably re-reading honestly. getting it out onto paper is hard for me (as it is for everyone I think), but the satisfaction of going back and rereading and getting pulled into the chapter and realizing it's actually good and engaging and well-written?? unbeatable

of course, thank you for asking!!

20. in what year did you publish your first fic? I first published when I was in middle school, so probably like 2012ish! in my little baby quotev era 🥺 that fic has mercifully long-since been scrubbed from the internet lol. 30. share a fic you're especially proud of I already linked TSIU above - that's my baby. But I also really enjoyed writing Nascence, which is a early Tommy/Maria fic in Jackson <3

thank you so much!! <3 <3 <3

PAIGEE <3 <3 thank you!!

4. a story idea you haven't written yet Young ranch-hand Tommy 🥹. Here's the summary from my Notes app:

Tommy’s not yet twenty-two and just back from Kuwait. Joel and Tommy’s mom drank herself to death while he was gone, and they lost their dad when Tommy was eight, and he’s still not sure what all that means to him, but he does know he’s got this inconsolable rage tied up inside, and slinging bullets out over the desert only made it burn hotter.

He’s home and things are supposed to be easier, but Joel’s all caught up with Sarah, who hardly remembers Tommy, cuz he’s left before she turned three. Before long, him and Joel are at each other’s throats, and Tommy ends up heading west into the backcountry of the Texas prairie, to hang with an old buddy who’s out there busting broncs and training cowponies. It’s the only thing that’s made Tommy’s head go quiet in a long, long time. One of the old cowboys, Wayne, sees right through him and tries to take him under his wing but Tommy ain’t havin it.

He’s getting drunk and making stupid choices, and he gets up against a colt with a mean streak, both of them too stubborn to quit, and the horse kicks him in the shoulder while he’s on lunge, and Tommy loses it, starts running him down and screaming at him, whipping him hard enough that Wayne comes over the fence and knocks some sense into him.

“He’s got a mean streak and so do you. Ain’t nothing can’t be fixed, but you both gotta put in the work.”

Wayne takes him off payroll and gives him two choices: leave, or come with him up to the Panhandle to keep a promise to an old friend, who recently passed away. Wayne’s gonna bring the man’s herd down to join his. Tommy takes him up on the offer and they ride three weeks out, three weeks back, long days and warm nights sleeping out under the wide-open Texas sky with the herd.

Little by little, Wayne manages to get through to him, and Tommy has his come-to-Jesus moment sitting across the fire from the old cowboy, who sees him in a way Tommy’s never been seen before.

All said, he spends a few more years out there under Wayne, stolen in bits and pieces between helping Joel with the contracting business, and it changes the course of his life. The man teaches him how to walk the old roads, to pray, to sit quietly with his own thoughts, and to forgive.

Eight years later, just before the outbreak, he’s driving back out into the prairie to say goodbye, cause Wayne’s got cancer and he doesn’t have a lotta time left. Sarah and Joel come with him, and they all go out riding with Wayne up into the hills. Tommy stops on the ridgeline with him, and they pull out a couple of cigars like they used to, and Tommy thanks him, in tears, and tells him how grateful he is that Wayne saw him, didn’t give up on him.

Wayne admits that he saw a lot of himself in Tommy, and he tells him he’s proud of him. He asks Tommy to keep walking the road, taking care of his family, being the man he’s learned to be. Tommy promises Wayne that he will.

8. if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you'd write one for...

Although I haven't even finished TSIU yet, it would probably be for TSIU 😭🥺 I'd love to write an adult Ellie in Jackson fic with grandpa Joel and Tommy, continued in the world of TSIU <3

23. grounded, vivid, and tender <3

thank you friend, hope you're having a great day!! <3