reference sheets for Will & mikes faces from (almost) every angle! i got lazy at some point but if anyone has more references u can send them to meeee #byler
scouring the comments on ttmd;ttms and found this!!! the fact that they saw us dooming about the angst is so wild but for anyone that might be worried! :D
[author note] the water to mud to paint progression was a signal to track where feelings were.
water first - the pool, the sprinklers, the lake, the broken glass spilling across the floor. water is transparent. you can see straight through it. that's Will & mike in the early chapters, all this feeling moving between them that neither of them can quite make out.
then the mud. the hill, the rain, the fight. messier. harder to get clean. something that gets into everything and doesn't come off easily. the feelings are still unnamed but they're leaving marks now, which can be washed out with some effort.
then the paint. or wine stains. thick and opaque and deeply, unmistakably coloured. you can't see through it and you can't pretend it isn't there. by chapter 19 it's all over both of them and there's no explaining it away. the feeling finally has a colour. it's visible. it exists in the room and on their skin.