#talia on the one day maria decide to ignore her: 😟😖☹️😭🤮😷🥴

[mariatesstruther]

OK! So asking here because I can't on the other and I am too old to wonder why.

BUT. I would love to hear your thoughts about Maria on the anniversaries of Kevin's birthday and passing? <3

no worries broski, i think i have asks turned off on my main blog! i prefer getting any tlou related stuff over here anyway. you’ve come to the perfect place please step into my maria-themed office ✏️👩🏾‍💼☕️

okay so i made a post about this recently asking this question to myself—how would maria react to reminders of kevin, especially heavy days like his birthday or the date of his passing? would she still be able to work??? would the rest of jackson be aware of it? would she let tommy mourn with her, or prefer to go at it alone??? many things to consider. so lets consider them all

i appreciate u asking about both those days because i feel like she’d have extremely different reactions to them. first i feel like i need to delve into maria’s relationship with kevin/motherhood before all this shit went down because it has a lot to do with how she now operates, being childless but still a mother at heart

first off, i imagine that maria definitely loved kevin and was a good mother to him. it’s just very obvious to me from the way she speaks about the town she’s raised and the way she immediately provides for ellie that she has strong parental instincts. i bet she had a relatively easy time adjusting to motherhood—i say easy not trying to imply that any formmotherhood is easy, but that her transition to it wasnt difficult. i also like to think she had her dad and kevin’s father around to support, so she wasn’t doing everything herself, and that helped immensely

on the other hand, i do think she wouldve had a hard time letting go of work, especially because we see and know how important progress and duty and productivity are to her. i imagine she would’ve hated having to miss out on meetings and case details and court dates because she’s dealing with being pregnant, then because she’s busy being a mother. she also probably a young parent, like joel (luckily @two-birds-alone-together has arlready done this maria math for me. tysm friend ily) if she’s around 27-28 when the outbreak happens, then she was quite a young mother, too, which i think has a lot to do with her still wanting her independence and career. maria definitely would’ve taken the shortest maternity leave possible, with her dad taking care of kevin a majority of the time. she maybe would’ve felt some guilt because of this, but she also knew at that time that going to work was keeping her sane. she told herself she probably wouldve been a worse mother to kevin had she always been home, thinking about being at work

in terms of kevin’s birthdays, it’s always been a personal headcanon of mine that maria would’ve missed at least one of kev’s three birthdays because she had opted to be at work instead. maybe something super important was happening, or maybe nothing especially important was happening at all: work in general is just important to maria. so i don’t know exactly which one (i’ll probably make a concrete choice in an upcoming kev-centric fic i got planned wink wink nudge nudge), but she definitely would’ve been okay with letting kevin celebrate with her father and his father without her. maybe she would’ve missed his first birthday, because she knows babies don’t remember it and it would’ve been important for her to show up for work as much as possible the first year after her maternity leave to prove she was still just as valuable of an employee as anyone else. or maybe she misses his third birthday, his last, because by that time she’s an assistant to the DA and can’t really take off work for personal stuff—as guilty as it makes her feel, she convinces herself it’ll be worth it, because she’s building a life for herself and her son to thrive in

but then september 2003 hits. and maria learns all that working wasn’t worth it at all.

i think about kevin’s death a lot. it’s interesting to me that it’s the 29th, three days after outbreak day, because that means there were three days where maria or someone close to maria must’ve been with him, trying to keep him safe. before, it was my personal hc that maria wasn’t actually there to actually witness kev’s death or know what happened for sure, because she was at work—but it wouldn’t make much sense, considering she knows he died exactly three days after the outbreak, a detail that she could’ve only known had either her or maybe her dad been there the day of. outbreak day was a normal day where everyone started off going to school and work like normal, so i imagine maria would’ve been working while kevin was maybe at daycare or with his father (who im now thinking maybe couldve chosen to separate from maria at this time???? maybe he doesnt love that she’s working so much and is thinking about divorce by the time outbreak day hits, so it’s on a day when kevin is with him) or her father. either way, three days in, he’s gone and she’s not

i do think, considering how differently maria and joel handle the death’s of their respective children, that the nature of them dying probably was extremely different circumstantially. one, we know that sarah died suddenly and brutally, in joel’s arms, not because of the cordyceps but because of some dumbfuck fucking soldier too cowardly to make a different choice. these circumstances provide a lot for joel to be mad at, are just a lot for joel to handle, and sarah was his entire life. so i understand how it consumes him the way it does

for maria, things are clearly different. she had a life outside of parenthood in a way that joel clearly didn’t, spent less years of her life devoted to parents than joel did, and i’d judge from the way she can still hold her composure when ellie mentions kevin that his death wasn’t as nearly as traumatic. maybe it wasn’t even anything violent—maybe he just got sick or got lost or what have you. or maybe it was violent, but she was able to get revenge and make peace with it??? (loveeee this idea and her “the only people that can betray us are the ones we trust” line having to do with kevin. like imagine he died because of someone she had decided to trust, and so she kills that person to finally make peace with herself and her guilt. imagine murder mommy maria 🤩). either way, to me it’s clear that maria was able to process and make peace with kev’s passing in a way that joel never could with sarah

so now onto actually answering your question 😭😭😭😭😭 finally omg

for kevin’s birthday, i imagine that maria would try to completely ignore it tbh. maybe she’d take an extra second to pause and breathe in front of their memorial the morning, or she’d maybe light a candle and blow it out for kevin late at night after tommy is too deep asleep to hear her do it. but that’s the absolute most she could bring herself to do. what’s the point of celebrating a birthday kevin doesn’t get to have? what good would it do her, to think about him turning older and living a life that doesn’t exist? maria chooses to work instead, because working is something she knows she can do without stopping to think or reflect. for jackson and it’s people, she is a machine. grief cannot consume a machine. april is prime time to start planting time for most crops in wyoming, anyway, so april 3rd is always busy, every single year. she is greatful for it. she refuses to think of the one birthday of kevin’s she’d missed working, because she knows that would break her. even without letting herself think about why, maria always feels guilty on april 3rd.

tommy and talia know kevin’s birthday too, and are maybe the only two people in jackson that have the day memorized. they know maria is usually okay to talk about kevin casually on most days, but both are especially careful to mention him around and on his birthday. one year, when maria is especially quiet on the days leaving up to april 3rd, talia brings them all breakfast and they try to subtly talk her out of going to work—after this conversation, in which maria is mostly silent besides saying “no, i’d like to work,” maria doesn’t speak to talia nor tommy for the rest of the day, dead set on avoiding even making eye contact with them. it is the last time they try anything like that

september 29th is different. first off, the entirety of jackson spends outbreak week mostly in a state of collectively mourning, everyone consumed by the memories of the people they’ve lost and how they’ve lost them. maria spends september 25th to the 28th doing everything she can for her community: comforting friends who need it, bringing plates to those who can’t manage to leave their homes, distracting naive children from the grief of their parents’. she spends the 26th, every year, taking care of tommy, who usually is stuck bedridden, crying and talking with her about sarah and joel, trying to hold him back from drinking himself sick

the day of the 29th, she shuts down. usually she spends the few days before barely eating and ignoring her body’s chronic pain signals, so by kev’s death date, her body is extremely fatigued and basically ready to give out. she always sleeps poorly the night before, tossing and turning and anxious that she’ll have nightmares—some years, she wakes up and nothing seems real. she’ll go through her whole morning routine like a zombie, vision blurry and thoughts foggy as she lifelessly space out. tommy has days like those, too, sometimes, so he knows how to deal with them. he brings out their good candles for her to smell, guides her through breathing and sings to her while she keeps a hand on the body of his guitar, letting the vibrations ground her back to what’s real. emotions wise, when she’s not derealized, she’s commonly overcome with extreme guilt over not being with him and forgetting small details of his life (“how can i do this, tommy? how can i keep living, keep working for jackson when he’s never gonna see it? i’m not even sure i remember his favorite cartoon, anymore, tommy. i know he loved cartoons, but i can’t remember which ones. how could i forget that? how could i do that to him?”) that tommy or talia have to talk her away from

outside of the sadness and the guilt, i think she’d mostly just be numb. she wouldn’t be able to take comfort in the fact that kevin was at least free from seeing all the gore and violence, because she herself has built up a place where kids can grow and thrive. i think kevin’s death date would just be an extremely overwhelming reminder that she failed to get him here, and that guilt would crush her. she would want to stay inside and away from seeing anyone, too, especially children. seeing any kid, especially a younger one, happy and thriving in jackson on september 29th would probably make her want to scream and cry and punch that kid’s parents in the face, so. she stays to herself. tommy and talia bring her food that she doesn’t eat. she sleeps fitfully sometimes, but always wakes up to the sound of kevin crying distantly in her dreams. if she can manage it, so goes out to the back patio tommy built and pets the stray cats

the next day, like always, she goes back to work. she’s got a town to run