Final season episode one
I want to hear people’s fan fictions so how would you do episode one
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I want to hear people’s fan fictions so how would you do episode one
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I kinda' just pulled this out of my ass. I more or less came up with the first bit months ago during a discussion about if TFS could do a time jump or not since it looks like it's picking up right after TNF ends. I came up with the rough structure of the following as a way to explain how they could pick up right after TNF and still do the traditional time jump, similarly to how Season 2 handled it's time jump.
Episode 1 opens with Clementine reaching the ranch. It's dusk. There are no lights. It seems like no one is here. Outside, there are thousands of footprints, so many that it's hard to tell where one footprint ends and another begins. Clem deduces that a walker herd passed through recently. Inside the house, there are a few walkers wandering around aimlessly or siting or standing idle. Clem kills the walkers one by one to secure the house and then begins looking around for any sign of AJ. She doesn't see any fresh bodies so it seems like the family left before the herd got there. Clem starts searching for clues to learn where the people may have gone but she doesn't find anything. They must have left in a hurry, probably because the herd was coming. They left a lot of useful supplies. Clem follows tire tracks in the mud but finds a truck crashed into a tree not far from the house. Looks like the driver was going too fast in the mud and lost control. The truck slid sideways and the driver's side slammed into a big pine tree at high speed. The driver is dead, died in the last couple of days (AJ might be close, Clem thinks to herself), bashed his head against the tree, but the passenger door is open and no one else is around. Clem searches for footprints or anything else that might tell which way the survivor(s) went. She sees one set of foot prints, an adult, judging by the size, leading deeper into the forest. She tries to follow but it's getting too dark and she can't see well She tries to search by flashlight but the light is dim, the batteries are dying. She goes back to the house to sleep for the night and will come back the next morning to look for a trail. In the night, Clem wakes to the sounds of a massive thunderstorm, torrential rains pour from the sky, trees are blown over, and all Clem can do is wait inside the house until it stops. Once the storm passes and the sun is shining again, Clem heads back toward the crash site to follow the footprints. As she steps outside the house she notices that there's almost no sign of the herd that had passed through only a few days prior. The footprints have been nearly washed away entirely. If she didn't know they had been there, she wouldn't even know that was looking at what was left of them. Panicked, afraid the footprints will be gone, she runs to the crash site and when she gets there she's horrified to see that the tree the trucked crashed into has blown over, the crash must have weakened it, and the ground is so saturated with rainwater that if there were footprints, they're no longer discernible. Clem searches all day, trying to find a trail to pick up, some footprints to follow, something, but despite searching every inch within a quarter mile, she finds nothing. She has no idea which way they went or where they might have gone. She doesn't even know for certain that the people in the truck are the people that had AJ. For all she knows the people who had AJ might have left the ranch weeks ago and these people in the truck were just random survivors who had taken residence in the house. Clem cries, but reluctantly gives up the search and goes back to Richmond, to Javi. She stayed with Javi (and whoever survived) for a couple of months but she couldn't bear being in Richmond, constantly being reminded of how she lost AJ, so she left out on her own.
2 YEARS LATER
Clem is older, 16 now, sitting in a seedy bar having a beer, minding her own business. She looks solemn, hardened, as if she's all alone in the world and only surviving, not living. She overhears a couple of guys in the bar talking about a group they had ran into on the road, how they had robbed the group and left them to fend for themselves. Clem doesn't care. It's none of her business and they didn't rob her so it's not her problem. Then one of the men mentions "the kid." Still, Clem doesn't pay any attention. It's a shitty world and kids get hurt or killed all the time. But the man continues and talks about how the kid seemed strange, barely spoke. Clem tilts her head a bit so she can hear better. The other man replies "yeah, that little dude was weird. And who names a kid AJ, anyway?" Clem quickly gets up and goes over to the men, "How old?" "Huh?" one of them replies. "How old was the kid," she asks. "What's it matter," the other man replies, "Get out of here before you find some trouble," he finishes. Clem kicks the man that just spoke in the nuts as hard as she can then smashes his beer mug over the head of the other man, knocking him out cold. She pulls her pistol and puts it to the man she kicked's head and says "I'll ask you again. How old was the kid?" The man, in immense pain and scared, answers "how the hell should I know? I didn't ask." "Then guess!" Clem yells. "3, maybe 4. I don't know," he cries in pain and fear. A glimmer of hope fills Clem's face before she hardens it again. "Tell me everything about these people. Where are they? Which direction were they going? How many of them are there?" The man tells Clem all he knows, that they were about 50 miles west, heading farther west. She asks him what's out there, he says he's only been as far as Lynchburg but that's as good as place as any to go if she's looking for the kid. There are people there and if the kid's group kept going west, they'd end up in Lynchburg. About that time, the man that Clem knocked out with the beer mug comes to and starts to grab her. She turns around, shoves her pistol in his face, and shoots. He drops dead. She looks at the other man, says "This is for AJ," and shoots him in the face, killing him." She apologizes to the bar owner, leaves some batteries and ammo as payment for the trouble, and leaves the bar, resolved to go to Lynchburg and look for AJ.
This would actually be an interesting way to start out the game. I'm not a big fan of Clementine drinking a beer but I guess it's the apocalypse so whatever. It would be hilarious if it shows everyone in the bar drinking beer and whiskey and crap and then there's Clementine sipping a soda.
I don't think Telltale is going to but if they did age Clem up to 16 they could use something along the lines of the original ANF Clementine model that was seen in the ANF teaser.
I'm not sure how to quote, if it's automatic or not, but this is the specific bit I'm replying to.
-I'm not a big fan of Clementine drinking a beer but I guess it's the apocalypse so whatever.-
That's my thinking. It's the apocalypse. No one cares how old she is. Besides, there are several major countries in the world right now that let kids younger than 16 drink and it's not a huge deal.
Now that's a Clementine that could be a match for Ellie and her butterfly knife!
Somehow, I can imagine her walking out of the bar, taking a car and drives down the road with a song like this playing.
Well, I just make a pesudo-narrative about if Joan where to be at the Ranch with AJ with her. Might as well share it.
When they first meet, Joan is sitting on the porch of the main house of the ranch with AJ in her lap. All sorts of feelings flood her mind as she approaches them, but she does her best to act like she doesn't know him so Joan doesn't get tipped off about their connection. Despite her efforts, Joan see's how Clem is looking at the child. She figures it out, but she pretends like she didn't notice. Clem and Joan make an agreement that she can stay as long as Clem sticks by her and does as she asks. The suddenly, Joan says, "Oh, it's time to put the little munchkin back in his room. I'll be right back." Clem has time to stand there and think about the situation. She just has a surprised look on her face, still trying to hold back her true emotions of extreme fear and anger. Joan comes back out a few seconds later and tells her to follow her around to the back of the house. Behind it is a cellar door and Joan opens it and gestures for Clem to go in. Clem is still trying to look neutral on the whole situation, but you can see her face is starting to tense up due to the amount of distrust rising in her. But once they get down to the cellar, things take a different tone.
It's a dark room lit by a single light. (Lantern/dim light bulb, whichever you choose fit's the situation) And on a counter near the wall are a bunch of maps, laying across it with writing on it but you don't really see it. And also shelves across from the counter with a bunch of miscellaneous materials on it. Pre-apocalyptic and newer materials alike. Joan leads her in front of the counter and they begin talking. Joan tells her that she knows the true reason why she's here, kinda like this;
"It doesn't seem right of you to abandon your friends like this, after everything you've been through with them. And the way you were looking at him..." Clem tried to deny it by saying, "It's not that at all... He just reminded me of someone I knew." "I know that type of look. I used to be a mother myself, you know... There's nothing like it." Clem didn't know what to say next, the stress from the fear of her knowing started to rise. It made her feel as if an invisible hand was put around her throat and was starting to squeeze, and it began to show as anger on her face. "I promise, as long as you do as your told, nothing will happen to him."
Joan has Clem start off just delivering food to outposts in the forests surrounding the Ranch, and is only given a knife for self defense between her trips. It's a way for Joan to gain trust in Clem to fulfill her later missions. When she meets some of the people out the outpost, they're just a bunch of guys with guns that're itching for some action. Some of them are showing hints that they're getting interested in how she looks, but she just ignores it and returns back to the ranch.
Clem isn't able to be by AJ while she is under Joan's control. Joan keeps him in the house, and when her and Clem meet to go over her tasks they always use the cellar hatch on the side of the house to go down and "talk business". When Clem does her job for the day, Joan dismisses her to do as she pleases, but Clem doesn't enter the house. Because she's a newcomer, she has the sleep in the shed off to the side of the house. (They could lock her in, they could not. I don't give a damn) But, every night her mind gets flooded with worry for AJ and she doesn't sleep well.
There are a few more times that Clem has to deliver some food to the outposts, but each time she goes there, the men get more and more curious about her. (Oh god that's unsettling...) It gets to the point where Clem has to get her knife out to get them to back off.
Clem goes to try to tell Joan about the situation, but Joan interrupts her and tells her to eat something she prepared for her. She notices that there's something off about the taste (a hint of alcohol in it), but she knows her bounds to Joan and reluctantly continues eating. Clem asks what was in it. And Joan says something like, "Oh it's just something to help calm your nerves. You always seem so tense every time I see you."
After she was done eating, Joan had her follow her to a place where they could talk privately. During the walk, Clem started to feel slightly light headed, and the deep seeded anger she had in her mind throughout the day started to dissipate. As if her mind was buried underneath pounds of dirt and a stream of water had come to wash it away, piece by piece. By the time they made it to a room and Joan closed the door, the world began to look different. Everything somehow looked brighter than usual, and a numbness bagan to run through her legs as she stood. Almost all of her thoughts of anger had dissipated, but she kept trying to hold onto the feeling. Without them she didn't feel safe, but those thoughts began to fade from her mind, too.
Joan first spoke. "Of someone his age, you couldn't possibly be his biological mother. How did you come across him? With the small bit of anger left in her, Clem wanted to reject the question. But after a momentary pause, she began to tell her.
"I knew his parents. They were in a cabin along with other survivors. Rebecca was due to have her baby soon, and Alvin was there for her. They were all on the run from this man that wanted to get them back. We tried to get as far as we could from him, but he eventually found us. We escaped from him, but he killed Alvin before we had the chance. Rebecca gave birth to him a day later." Clem paused. The memories were starting to get to her. Without her anger to suppress her emotions, she was only left with the sadness of it all. Joan prodded her on, "What happened to Rebecca?" Clem continued. "We tried to get her to move after his birth, but something was wrong. She began to get weaker by the day, and there was nothing there we could've used to help her. She died on the road with AJ in her arms. She turned, and we had to shoot her before she killed him." "AJ?", Joan asked. Clem forgot to leave his name out, but with her mind so different from how she usually is it was hard for her to hide anything. Even if you don't further explain, she figures it out anyways. "... He was named after his father... I see." At this point, the memories of everything that happened since then began to replay in her mind. The faces of everyone else she had lost along the way flashed through her subconscious, and her emotions began to amplify with nothing to hold them back. With these thoughts still fresh in her mind, and unable to hold it back, she began to speak, "With everyone else gone, he is the only one left." The strain of her emotions began to show on her face. "If I lose him, too..."
Normally, this type of thought would've put her into a blinding rage, but since her mind has been altered, it could only be distributed to her other emotions, and the damn had burst. All sense of her stone-heartedness and independence had disappeared, all you could see of her is of a sobbing child. Joan saw her that way and knew she wasn't going to get much more out of her. She had been wanting to get some information about Javier and tried to loosen her up by talking about her connection to AJ and of her past, but she didn't realize how much Clem had been hurting on the inside and how much she needed to get off her shoulders. Out of true pity for her, she wanted to comfort her. She walked over to her and gave her a hug. Clem, still in a child-like state and blinded by her emotions gave her one back, her head quietly sobbing into her shoulder. "It's alright... it's alright", Joan said in a soft tone. Joan had a sort of conflicted emotion to her face, as if this brought up some memories of her own.
I feel like the episode could have a little more happen before it's end, but this is what I felt it could have with If you kept Joan alive. I might make one for if Clint shows up... If I do, it'll be here.
You know, if this for ANF, I'd likely have something to add. At least 3 somethings, in fact.
But since this is "The Final Season," I honestly can't be assed to do that right now. Especially since I'm assuming this will five episodes.
Well in my mind, she killed the first one because he was trying to attack her and she killed the second one because they robbed the people AJ was with and left them for dead. They may have killed AJ.
Hood Javier
Oh. I see. Her own vehicle it is, then.
Props for me missing the important details.