It is an absolute pain in the arse that Bill and Frank don’t have canonical last names, but that does lead me to a Very Funny interpretation of their episode:
Their last names are never said because they actually don’t know the other’s last name. By the time they got to their wedding it was just too awkward to ask.
I know I have a few TLOU mutuals at the moment so I’d like to link you to the Bill/Frank fanfic I posted yesterday, How to Transform Something. It contains one headcanon that I really like, the idea that Frank was a teacher pre-apocalypse. I may ramble on about that headcanon later on because I love it so dang much.
Title: How To Transform Something
Fandom: The Last of Us
Summary: Bill writes a note. Frank was never supposed to see it.
Notes: An attempt to combine the TV show with a certain aspect of the game.
Read it on AO3, or click below:
(more…)if you loved episode 3 of tlou you really should listen to the official podcast with troy baker, craig mazin and neil druckmann because there’s SO much! here’s some of my favorite things said on the podcast:
– joel stacking rocks was to show that he missed and mourned tess. in that moment he was saying “i’m sorry, i blew it, i lost you.”
– in the beginning of the episode ellie told joel tess’ death wasn’t her fault but deep down she does feel like it was her fault.
– ellie admires joel because he protected her multiple times and as a child she has a desire for a parental figure to protect her.
– frank realized bill was gay pretty much as soon as he got out of the hole and saw how bill was looking at him. bill’s taking in how handsome frank is and “frank’s brain is incredibly attuned to that.” that’s why frank was smiling.
– frank realized bill was gay fast, but he realized he wanted bill when bill was playing the piano and singing linda ronstadt.
– it took them a while to find long long time by linda ronstadt but they always intended the song for bill to sing to be about a long love that was forever unrequited. “it was very important that the lyrics were someone saying ‘everyone tells me that it’s okay, that love will find me […],’ no it doesn’t, no it’s not, and the person that i long for from afar – i’m gonna love them basically forever in the most unrequited manner.”
– it was important that frank immediately knew bill’s sexuality because frank SAW bill, because bill had completely buried his sexuality but frank saw through him.
– frank originally was trying to see what he could get out of bill (like a free lunch) but the more time they spent together, the more he went “oh, this is a beautiful person.”
– “there is two ways of loving things. frank wants to love outwards – he is sun, he is light. he wants to make things beautiful around him, he wants to care for bill, he wants to revitalize the streets so it’s not just this mausoleum bill lives in, and he wants to have friends. he wants to share what they have. and bill wants to put an electrified fence around them that is guarded by an additional layer of flame-throwing gas pipes and no one can show up ever because he must protect frank from the world… and as it turns out, both of those loved are required but one of those loves is likely to give you in trouble more than the other.”
– when frank put his finger on the furniture piece and saw how dusty it was, he realized what his purpose could be in bill’s life. bill can protect them, but frank can nurture their home.
– when bill apologizes to frank for growing old fast, it’s because he’s afraid of frank being left alone. “look at this beautiful man and the beautiful things that he does, and what is bill’s contribution? bill doesn’t grow strawberries. bill’s contribution is to keep frank alive. but bill is already afraid that he’s going to fail and that is a fear that joel has because he has that fear through experience [of losing his daughter.]“
– bill and joel understand each other and that they’re purpose is to protect others. they don’t care about their own lives.
– on their last day together, bill decided very early that he was going to die as well.
– the gun that ellie takes belonged to frank.
– that letter bill wrote reminded joel that he failed to protect both sarah and tess. the letter underscores for him that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t protect the people that he cares about. but now he has ellie to protect.
It has been almost 2 weeks since The Last of Us “Long Long Time” aired and I AM STILL NOT OKAY. God, it absolutely shattered me (in a good way) so I’ve been liking every damn piece of Bill/Frank fanart that’s crossed any of my dashboards, my gosh it’s all so well done and I’m so glad that episode has become so beloved in the space of less than a month!
Here’s my favourites, get ready to cry or perhaps happy-cry:
Oh my gosh, this one makes me think of Animal Crossing, what an AU that would be:
This one absolutely ruined me:
I think this one might be my favourite of all the favourites. God, it’s beautiful:
i’ve seen two articles about how the last of us episode 3 is a conservative power fantasy masked in a queer love story and it just rubs me the wrong way a little because i feel like it ignores the fact that being away from heteronormative society is an actual queer fantasy and trope (like in maurice for example, where the two lovers run away from england to be together.)
i’m trying to be fair to those articles tho and examining my own predisposition to defending this episode – it moved me a lot so i’m a bit protective of me. i also think we can enjoy media while also being critical of it.
both articles seem to really harp on about bill hoarding resources and refusing to help communities around him but seem to ignore that in universe there’s no one really around him to help. joel pretty much states in a scene that they’re so far away from the rest of civilization that the only people who will come their way are the occasional raiders. surrounding communities around them have devolved into fascism and by making themselves known, bill and frank risk the threat of being exposed and potentially executed or forced to lose their home by FEDRA.
the articles talk about how societal isolation is bad (which i agree) without taking into consideration that there isn’t much of a society left in the world anymore. and the fact that bill was already isolated before the pandemic and was only free to be himself and love freely when that society collapsed says something of how damaging that society was.
i think there’s something to be said about how zombie/post apocalyptic media tends to lend itself to more conservative/ individualistic values of “my people over others” but i guess i just don’t understand why this particular episode and this particular couple is the one being nitpicked. that bill and frank somehow owed society a share of their resources when doing so could have exposed them to fascism and hostility.
and on the subject of bill being a doomsday prepper. if anything i feel like that was more of a means to getting him to where he needed to be in the episode – it explains why he was the sole survivor of his town. maybe the episode could have done more to deconstruct his worldview but it was an 80 minute story where the moral was “life can be good in the post-apocalypse if you find someone to love” so idk. /shrug
I remember seeing one of those articles on Twitter, and I clicked on it to read what it had to say and it was behind a paywall. Go figure.
But I think one of the things I actually liked the most about Long Long Time is that Bill really isn’t a nice person… at the beginning. If the apocalypse hadn’t happened and he hadn’t met Frank he’d almost certainly be a nightmare, but he did meet Frank. “You can love a person so much you can make them a better human being and change the entire story” is probably also a power fantasy but I don’t think it’s a conservative one.
