Joel really is the most character ever and I popped off when making it.
Was once a normal human, is not a vinetooth who can also sometimes puppet its own reanimated human body, having severe dysphoria. Things feel muted and hazy in the form it's more comfortable in, things feel clear and real in the body that feels wrong.
As time goes on connections grow even hazier, traumas make it harder to hold on, tethers become strained. Later groups confirm horrifyingly the ways it's seen as less human now.
There's friends supporting it of course, but how do you accept that help when you don't really know what's going on yourself? You can't ask that of them, and if they give it willingly where would you even start to direct their help?
It finally got the life it wanted but it came with such a steep price for an early mistake. Maybe it would've been better to not have tried to cling to life in the first place.
But the good moments it still clings to. The moments curled up with the team, long talks with Braham and Rox, going shopping with Kasmeer, hanging with Marjory at the Dead End, poking at shit in Taimis lab even as her jargon all goes right over its head... there's good here even among the hurt, with family.
Joel doesn't really have anything figured out fully, odds are it never will with the hand it's been dealt. But it has figured out that the good moments still feel good, even if that's in spite of other factors. Just stay with it a while longer.
