MAY OR MAY NOT BE UNDER PROGRESS IDK

Ellie deserved more than a reduction to cliched revenge story antihero. She deserved more than to be supplanted by some random new muscle woman. She deserved her own story and her own game without any distractions. She deserved an interpretation of her character as a young adult that stayed true to the traits established for her: funny, witty, intelligent, charismatic, laden with survivor's guilt, lost, confused, traumatized, and, entering adulthood, depressive. She deserved more than having all her personality stripped away, and she deserved more than to be used and discarded along with two of her fingers in the telling of a trite, poorly paced, utterly pointless parable about the 'cycle of violence,' which doesn't actually have anything to do with The Last of Us at all.

Ellie deserved more than The Last of Us: Part II.

This is an attempt to rectify that fact. Written in an epistolary style from Ellie's PoV, this is my own take on a sequel to the original The Last of Us. Consider everything about Part II discarded. This is the actual The Last of Us 2. No one else will write it, so I guess I have to. You'll find the characters presented as faithfully as possible to the first game, but of course I have my own interpretation of the world and the story of The Last of Us, and without the performance of Ashley Johnson in particular I've been forced to interpolate somewhat on behalf of Ellie. This is her journey as she struggles with survivor's guilt, learns how to write (and spell!), and comes to grips with her life with Joel in the town of Jackson.

This is also a re-interpretation of the world of the cordyceps apocalypse, because Part II completely fails to capture the aesthetic and tone of the first game. In this story there are no last names. Infected do not move in WWZ-like hordes; they are living creatures, not just zombie monsters. Not every other character has a backstory as badass as Joel and Ellie's. Fast travel teleportation between Washington and Wyoming has been disabled.

The characters herein belong to Sony and NaughtyDog and were (mostly) created by Neil Druckmann and Bruce Straley. I claim no copyright over this novel and present it without any intention or desire for profit. But if you do want to fix your franchise, Neil, I am available for hire.