#other people's repaints

[haarute]

something i realized in the recent years is that while my mom is a very nice person and i can understand why she is the way that she is sometimes, she had a history of always dismissing and throwing away things that were important to me, and in hindsight that certainly had an effect on both my trust in her and how much i was willing to ever share, and also just turned me into a dumpster goblin because i just gave up on ever having nice things so why bother ever caring about my personal space at all ✌️ i'll just live in the filth because we'll never have anything better after all !!

[anothermonikan]

okay yeah I like the G5 toys now sorry

[a-zif]

hi just a reminder / heads up azif is NOT!!! a bg3 character, she's a dnd player character so she exists within the same universe and timeline, but is not related to the bg3 plot!

at the time of the events of bg3 azif is no longer adventuring. she's living in archenbridge (the complete opposite side of the continent!) doing her priestess work and raising her children.

if you wish to interact strictly within the bg3 storyline feel free to hit me up on azif's daughter blog. zuriel is not a tav either, but she is a companion option!

[secondwhisper]

I'm currently attending a training on accommodating pedestrians in road work zones. It's really interesting to see how (ADA-compliant) accessible pedestrian infrastructure implementation is discussed in professional engineering spaces (as opposed to general disability spaces).

We have three groups of disabled road (+sidewalk) users that we must focus on design for: visually impaired & blind pedestrians, mobility impaired pedestrians, and cognitively impaired pedestrians. In this context, mobility impairments also include walking unsteadily, slowly, or with low endurance/stamina.

Generally, we must aim to provide the following accommodations for disabled pedestrians. For the visually impaired: high-contrast signage & markings, ground-level channelization as a "shoreline", a smooth and level walking surface, no protruding objects, smooth and stable hand guides / railings, and auditory and tactile guides at crossings or other complex maneuvers. For the mobility impaired: no protruding objects, no side barriers that could interfere with manual wheelchair or crutch use, a smooth level and grippy walking surface, smooth and stable hand guides / railings, and "refuges" on particularly long routes. For the cognitively impaired: high-contrast signage & markings that are clean and concise, arrows that point in exactly the correct direction, and channelization that reduces opportunities for someone to accidentally end up in a traffic lane.

We see some similarities across access needs: clear signage / guidance, barriers or other channelization to make wayfinding easier, no protruding objects, smooth and stable surfaces.

There's also one very glaring conflict in access needs: channelization. Barriers that reach the ground, and barriers with railings, help blind & visually impaired pedestrians move in the correct direction with confidence. Barriers to channelize the pedestrian detour path help cognitively impaired pedestrians keep within pedestrian zones and move confidently to the end of the detour. Barriers with railings can provide support for unsteady and fatigued pedestrians. But barriers at the edge of the pedestrian route give cane, crutch, and wheelchair users just one more thing to whack their knuckles, elbows, and devices on, and can reduce their ability to turn or recenter themselves, along with removing the ability of able-bodied pedestrians to get out of their way in narrow places.

I don't have some kind of big conclusion here, I just thought it was interesting to see that cognitively disabled pedestrians are included among those whom sidewalk closures can affect uniquely negatively, and to see a frank discussion of how not everyone with vision & mobility disabilities are helped by each other's accommodations. Within the broader context of "work zones are super inaccessible we have to start doing it right."

[nukenai]

Did the stupid fucking bird from the little mermaid, a character no one has ever given a fuck about, really need a song

Did you really need to pad the runtime that much

How can a loving god cause so much pain

[dykesbat]

saw someone do repaints/art tips on other peoples work and they retain the artists style adjusting things the artist asked for critique of im soooo <333333333

[wiisagi-maiingan]

1) The reason why Christianity and languages like English, Spanish, and French are so spread out in the world (primarily in the West but not entirely) is because of colonialism and violence. People rarely mass convert and give up all their own languages, beliefs, and traditions by choice.

2) If you can understand the above statement, then you also need to learn to apply that to other religions and languages that have spread massively in parts of the world and give space to people who need to talk about the kinds of colonialist violence in their cultures and communities that you aren't personally familiar with, like the Islamic conquests throughout Asia, Africa, and parts of Europe.

3) This also applies to massive countries. We can understand how Canada and the US grew so large through colonialist expansion and by displacing, absorbing, and killing the original inhabitants of the lands, but we also need to apply that to countries like Russia and China that have also become so large through expansionism and violence.

4) These things do not make any religion/language/nationiality/etc inherently bad or violent, because anything and everything can be used to justify atrocities, but we need to recognize and acknowledge these realities to avoid repeating and contributing to them. We also need to boost the voices of the religious and ethnic minorities under these colonial and imperialist powers, especially as those powers work harder to silence those monorities and repaint their violent histories as just peaceful and respectful expansion.

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[grayve-mistake]

actually fuck it im not leaving this in the tags I said what I said

(I need to stop hiding entire second posts in my tags already)

Not all stuff is clutter....

I hate the pressure this minimalism and declutter your life culture puts on some peole. Like of course it is good to get rid of items that just fill up space that could be better used, that clutter up your room and make you uncomfortable. Helping people to get rid of that is great! However, then as ultimate goal to achieve they too often show these absolute minimalist empty spaces, and honestly, this is not for everyone either.

So my friend felt that she needed to declutter, and at first got rid of stuff like unused flower pots, a table she got for free once but always hated, some art supplies for a hobby she really doesn't feel like doing anymore and such like, so that was great. Then however she started saiying how bad it was that her, now perfectly organised, space still didn't look like the influencer's, and she kept going, throwing out more and more stuff. At one point I noticed her huge disney funko pop collection in a trash bag. I know how much she loves those, and that she had bought new ones very recently. That's why I suggested I buy them from her, instead of her throwing them out.

She agreed, and I paid her a small sum, intending to store them in my cellar for at least a year. If she still did not regret getting rid of them, I would give them back to her, to sell on ebay and ask for my money back.

She got really upset about losing them within a week. Once she had achieved the decluttered look she was going for, she realised, that much of the stuff she had thrown out was not actually clutter, but things she liked, things that made her home nicer, more comfortable and many even with sentimental value attached. Her flat was decluttered, but it wasn't really her flat anymore.

The Funko Pops have long since returned home, a few other items she was able to retrive, but others, like the children's books she loved growing up, are gone. She replaced some of them, but of course it is not the same. Some of her things are just lost, and it took her ages to get comfortable in her flat again.

Not everything is clutter, some things you own just because it makes you smile to look at them.

[genderqueerdykes]

finally got around to applying a sorely needed new coat of paint to the back of my vest! i hit it with some glossy acrylic sealer to help it last longer so i don't have to repaint it every handful of months lol. it's wonderful to see it vibrant again! this vest brings other people joy and safety, I could not be more grateful for the impact it's had on folks!

[lillybean730]

the worst part is that a lot of the people are grown ass adults getting mad that she has an opinion hobby-less behavior

[all-purpose-dish-soap]

TF141 reactions to "want me to paint your nails?"

PRICE has never been asked that question before

knee-jerk reaction is no. because he is a man.

but he knows better than that, too; it's just an assumption he was raised with and he's lived too long and seen too much to care about other people's judgement.

he leans over and watches you paint yours. seems harmless enough.

he allows you to paint one (1) pinky nail.

you do as neat a job as you can. very deliberate strokes. sliding one of your unpainted nails around the edge of his cuticle to catch a smudge.

you say "there you go :)"

he nods, seems pretty unaffected by the whole thing. just indulging you, it's a good captain thing to do. fun is allowed sometimes as a little treat.

if you catch him looking down at that one painted pinky nail in thought, in meetings, running his thumb over it in thought, no you didn't.

GHOST balks. acts like that's a stupid question. this is a lie.

even if you shrug and say okay, your loss, he feels kinda tingly about it in the stomach for a minute.

but if you were to just... maybe reach over and pull his hand in anyway, he wouldn't stop you.

he just lets you paint his nails. all of them. just sits there like it's not happening.

activates the monkey grooming part of his brain. not only are you doing a nice thing for him for no reason, you're touching him.

like, you're holding his hand almost. that shit is intimate.

his touch-starved ass starts having pavlovian reactions to the smell of nail polish after that.

GAZ says yeah. asks you to show him.

you lean in and show him the hand you're working on.

when you pull his hand over to do his, he pulls an uno reverse. flips your hand over in his.

plucks the nail polish brush out of your hand and starts painting the thumbnail of your non-dominant hand.

he's just doing it as an excuse to have your hand in his. he does not deny it when you point this out. no, he's not letting go.

his grip is secure. you protest and he counters by asking you how long it takes to dry. how many layers. if this is your favorite color. how to clean up that dot he just made on your fingertip.

he is so coolheaded about it that he flusters you the more you try to argue. you eventually have to just shut up and let him work. and answer his questions.

he is smirking.

after that, he makes a point to grab your hand whenever you're not wearing gloves and check your nails. if they're chipped, he quips it's time for him to fill you in.

SOAP says sure >:)

do not trust him. this is a mistake.

the minute you scoot over to pick his hand up, he yanks you over and wrestles you to the floor.

pot of nail polish? spilled. your freshly painted nails? ruined. done for.

you should've known. like this is seriously your fault. you know him.

he gets your nail polish on his fingers by accident. then happily smudges it wherever he can reach. 

he loves wrestling :) and playing too rough on purpose

eventually he will apologize for ruining your manicure.

helps you repaint them. you're awed when he does a better job than you could.

he has steady hands. part of his demo skillset. and he likes sketching, so

you don't have to clean up any of the nails he paints.

he even uses your detail brush to draw a little something on your accent nail to remind you of him. you think it's just something to make up for his bullshit, but now whenever he sees it (and that thumbprint of nail polish he left on the back of your shoulder and didn't tell you) he feels like he signed you <3

...

more multi-141 and poly 141 / masterlist tag

[loveyouprongs]

are you awake?

prompt: "are you awake yet?" "no." "oh, okay sorry." remus lupin x reader

upcoming content: fluff! pls lmk if u think i missed anything. 1.8k words

authors note: despite any photos used in the header, it’s important that people of all races can identify with my work so please let me know if any of the descriptive language i use is exclusionary, i’m trying my best!

masterlist

you had no idea what time it was, your phone abandoned on the night stand atop remus' book. he had come over in a huff, one hand holding his cellphone, keys, and book all at once, the other holding a warm cup of hot chocolate he had picked up along the way.

"rem, is that you?" you called, fumbling with wrapping a towel around your just washed hair while keeping the other towel tucked under your arms. you weren't expecting to see him today at all, he had, in his own words, a fucking shitload of reading to catch up on and planned on spending the entire weekend holed up in his room.

you understood, having just finished your own finals, so you planned on spending the evening watching movies and finally removing the old nail polish that decorated your toes and repainting them. an easy, uneventful night.

“yeah, it’s me dove,” remus said, bending down to untie his laces, “sorry for just barging in on you like thi- did you just take a shower?”

he snapped his head up and drank you in, your body still damp from the hot water and the ends of the towel wrapped around your chest fell apart against your thigh revealing more of your smooth skin. your face was free of makeup or the tendrils of hair that constantly fell between your eyes that remus always brushed away.

“y’don’t have to do that every time, remus,” you said on your fourth date when his fingertips danced against your forehead once more that evening.

“you have to be able to see, darling, i don’t mind,” he replied as if this was something he was doing as a favor to you and not because he was so desperate to touch you in any way.

you looked beautiful, he thought.

“thank you, baby,” you let out, giggling at the sigh of your boyfriend still bent half over himself, looking up at you as if you would disappear if he wasn’t.

“did i say that out loud?”

“you did.”

“well, it’s true,” he had since walked over to you, setting his phone, keys, book and cup on the table and grasped at your shoulders, stamping a kiss to your forehead. in this moment, he felt all his tension wash away and reveled in the feeling of your warm skin under his and the vanilla scent of your shampoo wafting around him. he didn’t even remember why he was in such an annoyed mood earlier until you asked him how come he came over.

“ugh, i have to move out!” he exclaimed. this is something remus said maybe four times a week, seven if it was really bad. when james left his dishes piled up in the sink for too long, “i have to move out!” remus would say while ranting to you over breakfast the next day. when they went on a trip for a few days and sirius forgot to pack any underwear so he took it upon himself to borrow remus’, you woke up to a text from your boyfriend that simply read “i have to move out.” sent at 2:18 a.m. then “good morning” at 2:19 a.m. and “you better not be awake right now, dovey” at 2:20 a.m.

“what happened this time?”

“was trying to study ‘til those idiots had the bright idea of rolling bottles down the stairs, i mean who even thinks of that?”

you had to bite your lip to keep in your laughter. you had seen that trend all down your social media so you knew exactly where they got the idea from. but your sweet remus who had no profiles whatsoever, -unless you count the facebook page he made when james told him he had to have one at least-

“what do you mean it doesn’t count? you can share photos and talk to people.”

“it’s facebook! only mums use it. i’m making you a BeReal.”

“you’re making me be real?”

“oh, nevermind.”

had no idea and believed this was just another stupid activity his roommates shared brain cell came up with.

“i don’t know, remmy, people are weird,”

“right? anyway, i sat through listening to ‘clunk, clunk, clunk, smash! again, again, again!’ for about fifteen minutes before i had to get out of there so i thought to come here.”

a warmth started growing within your chest and spreading throughout your entire body. he thought to come here, to your place. your lanky, fluffy haired, nerdy boyfriend who you loved so so much thought to come to you. the smile that had spread across your face was so wide you knew remus knew exactly how you were feeling.

“don’t go all moony eyed on me now, sweetness,” he began, “i’m here because i still have a lot of work to do.”

“of course”

“with no distractions, at least for the next few hours,” he was looking down at you with a familiar look in his eye and you couldn’t even bother to feign cluelessness. the image of remus bent over a book, concentrated look on his face and glasses slowly slipping down his nose was irresistible to you and when you two studied together, it caused a lot of assignments to go untouched.

“alright, i’ll leave you be. but i expect some form of compensation for my good behavior.”

“hence the hot chocolate, for you dove,” he handed you the tall paper cup he had brought in with him and you smiled as it was still warm enough to drink.

“oh wow, my boyfriend and a hot chocolate? it’s like my birthday!” you laughed as remus rolled his eyes and started setting himself up at your kitchen table.

“you can’t say that whenever i get you something, you need to have higher expectations for your birthday silly girl, or i really will just get you a drink and that’ll be it.” he said and the last thing he heard was you laughing down the hallway.

hours had passed and your hair was dry, toe nails now a light peachy color, and one and a half movies had been watched. you mainly kept to your room, only coming out to get a drink and set some biscuits out for remus who hadn’t even looked up. you were sure a bomb could off in the building across the street and he wouldn’t notice. he was so concentrated that all you wanted to do was press your fingers to his temples and relieve his pretty face of the wrinkles, surely his eyes were sore as well, but you knew better than to bother him.

it wasn’t until it was dark out that remus had finally slumped against your bedroom door and trudged like a zombie to your bed, face planting right into your lap. his calves were hanging over the edge so you grabbed his face and shuffled yourselves closer to the headboard. remus was laughing, the feel of his lips tickling your stomach, and with that information he only began to blow raspberries on your belly button.

“remus stop i’m serious!” you let out and lifted his head up, your hands pushing his cheeks up causing his lips to reach up into a smile. he looked so soft, and happy, but obviously tired.

“‘m finished with all m’reading, dove,” his speech was slurred, surely from exhaustion.

“i’m very proud of you baby, you’re so hard working.”

he wrapped the comforter around both of you, and flipped onto his side, pressing his back to your front. he must have been really out of it because he never let you be the big spoon.

“but don’t you like being held?”

“i like holding you. besides it just makes more sense that way, i’m much taller.”

“there’s no sense to cuddling!”

“there’s sense to everything!”

“i am hard working! and they don’t care, all they care about is smashing things and making lots of noise. i have to move out.” he grumbled.

you ran your fingers through his hair, letting him mumble on, knowing he’ll soon fall asleep.

“well, you’re always welcome here, my love.”

he sighed and pressed a kiss to your wrist, “i know,” he spoke softly, the two words so full of content he could hardly stand it. he thought every day how lucky he was to have you in his life. a love full of soft kisses and hot chocolates and intertwining under moonlight. “i love you so much.”

“i love you too, now get some sleep.”

the night had come and gone, remus sleeping away in your arms and the sun was shining through your curtains. you slowly lifted your arm off him and felt around for your phone, careful not to disturb him. the screen flashed 10:15 a.m., meaning remus had been sleeping for close to twelve hours now.

it made sense due to how tired he was yesterday, but you had done nothing but relax, so your body was ready to get up and start the day. you answered a few messages telling marlene you’d had to get back to her about if you and remus could make it to brunch in a few hours and sending a rolling eyes emoji to james who sent you a number of videos of bottles rolling down the stairs.

remus shifted, unconsciously flexing his back, and you froze. it wasn’t until he began cracking his knuckles individually that you knew he was awake, you still asked though.

“are you awake yet.”

“no.”

“oh, okay, sorry.”

“mmm.”

two minutes passed, “are you awake now.”

“are my eyes open?”

“no, but you are speaking to me, and this isn’t what you usually say when you sleep talk.”

“i don’t sleep talk!” he let out, craning his neck to look at you perplexedly.

“got you to open your eyes, didn’t i?” you said with a wry smile. his look of confusion morphed into annoyance that you both knew was fake and he fully turned so you were both facing each other now.

“i haven’t slept that good in a long time,” he said lowly, his voice still rough from sleep.

“finals are over now, rem, you can sleep for as long as you want.”

he smiled and tangled your fingers together, opening his mouth to say something back when his stomach rumbled loudly.

“that wasn’t very sexy, was it?”

you giggled and shook your head, finally throwing the covers off yourself.

“nope, but that’s okay, marlene wants us to meet her for brunch in thirty minutes, so we better get a move on, sleepy head.”

remus groaned and reached for his designated dresser from the bed and pulled out whatever shirt and bottoms were on the top of the piles. the two of you got ready in comfortable silence and while you were sitting on the floor, pulling up the zipper on your boots, remus realized that he really could see himself moving in here. always doing his course work at your kitchen table, picking up a hot drink for you at the coffee shop two streets away, not because it was on his way to you, but because it was on his way home.

“ready, baby?” you asked, now standing at full height, holding your hand out to him.

i’m ready to wake up here every morning. “ready,” he said, wrapping his hand around yours.

[jadenvargen]

If I want to study someone's art or style, how do I do that? Like where do you even start when looking at an illustration that they made 😭thank you!!!

Here’s stuff i think about. i don’t do that many style studies, so idunno how helpful it is! pls sound in tha comments if anyone has tips:) 

Pinpoint what stuff you like, and focus on that. Focus on technique rather than exact replication, for example ( just first thing comes to mind) if you like rostov’s disco elysium cover art and want to study it, don’t just repaint the image, find what’s key in the style. looseness, maybe? then, instead of copying the image with your technique, try to apply the same looseness. (feat. shitty 5 min sketch plz dont judge example of how i normally approax paintings, versus a study. ALSO not to say u CANT do this it's just how i would study, myself. )

That being said, don’t force yourself to make art decisions that feel unnatural to you. a lot of the time artists make decisions based on their weaknesses as well as strengths. I do very shaky, hatchy lineart because my hands are very shaky. I focus on painting what I* feel is important and fun. 

Instead of copying a style from a picture, look at a variety of pictures and find technique. For example a lot of people redrawing a screenshot in “sailor moon style” or “ghibli style” will draw… let’s say, an old man, looking like a usagi because that’s the screenshot they looked at, instead of watching what stylistic choices for example takeuchi made when stylizing an old man. So the “studies” end up homogenous. I personally find it unproductive to replicate a painting for purposes of study, but like focusing on individual elements. say you like egon schiele, replicating whole paintings at a time IMO isn't gonna do much, but maybe you can set out on a series where you sketch copy his hands or feet from different paintings, and then try stylizing your own hands the same way? Or maybe your fave artist draws moonlight like a blue stream, or a red one? Try applying only that light to your paintings.

You could also color pick or look at the colors they make and paint whatever you want with those same colors, to understand how they work together and what can be done with them.

Also, if you can, look at their influences! Everyone learns art by seeing others art. Chances are they saw art they liked and picked from there what elements they enjoyed. Looking at the inspiration can help make some of the techniques more obvious.

Basically focus less on copying(not that copying is bad- but not always helpful for studying), and more on what you like. If you find what you like, you can work from there and try to think about your own art from the same perspective.

IDK if this helps as i said, feel free to add onto^_^

[anendtopursuit]

all those emotions aside - something i liked about episode 3 was the emphasis on surviving vs living.

you have people like bill who are survivalists. he's resourceful, stubborn, and self-sufficient - bill knows how to survive, he spent his whole life pre-outbreak preparing to survive. he's not a people person, he doesn't like relying on other people, and he can survive just fine by himself.

then he meets frank - and frank is the kind of person who knows how to live. frank eats meals like he's at a fancy restaurant, and spends just five more minutes in the shower, and sings songs out of key on bill's dusty old piano. he repaints the walls, and waters the flowers, and grows strawberries in the garden just so he can watch bill hide his giggle behind his hands when he tastes them. he uses bill's radio to make friends, and throw little garden parties, and he makes a code out of nostalgic old songs.

the reason bill and frank lived as long and as happily as they did, despite the outbreak and the solitude and frank's health - it's because they had that balance. yes, survival is important - you can't survive an apocalypse without bill's resourcefulness, or joel's construction knowledge, or tess and frank's networking - but surviving isn't living. bill lived and died happy because he let frank in past his (incredibly literal) defenses, because he let him paint portraits and grow flowers and hold him at night.

i saw a youtube comment earlier that i think got it right; in the game, bill was an example of who joel would become if he kept shutting people out, if he didn't allow himself to live. in the show, bill is an example of what joel could have, if he just let himself live and love, if he realised that all his walls and defenses mean nothing if he never has anybody to share it with.

for bill, that person was a husband. for joel, it just might be a daughter.

[smokinghorse]

SAVIOR COMPLEX You can't save everyone. Especially not people who don't WANT to be saved. You can't fix the leg of a horse who continues to stubbornly run on it despite your best efforts. And no matter how many lives you save or fix, it will never fix or save you. The symbolism here is extremely important to me and very close to my heart and soul. My VERY first painting of Jean was him with a life buoy around his neck. I even repainted it, and it's the pfp I use everywhere. I repaint it every year. My VERY FIRST impression of him was that he's a human life buoy, trying to constantly save and fix everyone around him. Harry, the people in the collapsed tenement, his coworkers, his failing task force. But there's no one there to save HIM. Part of it may be an attempt to fix/save himself vicariously through fixing and saving others, and he may not even realize it. And part of it comes from genuine empathy. I really do believe Jean has a big heart buried beneath it all. He cares. More than he should. He's just constantly pulling dogs out of the water and they keep running back to the river to drown themselves. He sees himself in those dogs. And it terrifies him. It hurts.