#Roots to Branches

[watchhisjawdrop]

[vardapilled]

Haint Blue and Indigo: The Colors of Annie and Smoke

This is by no means an extensive history of haint blue and indigo*, but I just wanted to dip a bit into how much is said just by looking at one layer of costuming for Sinners. In this case color—how it's able to convey just how deeply rooted Annie is to her heritage/history, and to me, how this case of colors shows so beautifully Smoke's connection to Annie and his love for her.

"There's that haint blue that Annie lives around as part of a spiritual color. So I took the haint blue and used it in her clothes. I wanted her to have these layers. You first meet her [...] She's a community person. She's a healer, a spiritual leader." - Ruth E. Carter, Costume Design for Sinners (emphasis mine)

Haint blue is a color seen painted on porches, doorways and windows in the American South. As the name suggests, it was believed (though the oral histories are difficult to come by beyond the 30s), to ward off evil spirits. Using haint blue, according to the Gullah-Geechee, tricked evil spirts into thinking they had come across water or sky, bodies they were unable to cross, therefore deterring them from crossing over the blue.

Annie's costume was infused with this color; the blue on her cotton blouse and her skirt belted with feathers and beads. When we're introduced to Annie, her home has a collection of blues: from the wooden panelling, scraps of fabric hanging in the background, and blue bottles strewn about. This infusion of haint blue in her home is also a deliberate choice as talked about by production designer Hannah Beachler.

*Corrections, whether through comments or reblogs, for this post are definitely welcome! I cite my sources at the end of this long post.

This type of blue is not a specific color but rather, it becomes Haint Blue when it is used for the purpose of warding off haints, a belief rooted in Gullah-Geechee beliefs. (Though for technicalites' sake, it is a range of blues -> blue greens). After the 1800s, this way of using blue trickled down from the Gullah-Geechees in South Carolina to places such Louisina where Annie is suggested to be from.

The Old Plantation (Slaves Dancing on a South Carolina Plantation), ca. 1785-1795. watercolor on paper, attributed to John Rose, Beaufort County, South Carolina

Blue has always had a fraught history with enslaved Native Americans and Africans. The production of indigo was a profitable commodity demanded by the British empire as early as the 18th century. This production of indigo however, while it oppressed, was also a way for Black and Native Americans to express their individuality, and for people such as the Gullah-Geechee, their spirituality. Annie continues to draw strength from her roots and it's incredible to see it so profusely in so many aspects of her character, including her clothes.

So here is where I deviate a bit from "canon" per se, or give some interpretation of Ruth E.'s and Coogler's "Smoke is blue." We talk a lot about how the movie does a great job of showing how, though Smoke wasn't completely "sold" on hoodoo, but that he did very much believe in Annie. And that trust between them goes beyond what Smoke's willing to communicate through words (he wears the mojo bag through the war, through Chicago, and removes it only when he's ready to die. How he let's her take the reigns when talking to Cornbread. How he follows through with his promise as painful as it was).

"Smoke is blue. Stack is red." - Ruth E. Carter explaining how Ryan Coogler first posed the characters to her as a jumping off point for costuming.

Whether or not it's a conscious knowledge, I like to think that he dresses in blue as an extension of that trust. That bond between Annie and Smoke and the protection that comes with it bleeds into something as "ordinary" as Smoke's choice of color. One can say that maybe the color reminds him of Annie, and I also think there's some argument to be made about the universe answering Annie's prayers of protection, wrapping Smoke in an extra layer, another ward against evil.

----

Sources:

Blue Roots by Robert Pickney

Red, White and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life by Andrea Freeser

Haint Blue, the Ghost-Tricking Color of Southern Homes and Gullah Folktales

What the Color ‘Haint Blue’ Means to the Descendants of Enslaved Africans

Interviews of Ruth E. Carter and Hannah Beachler linked in the pull quotes above.

[nemfrog]

The root system of a fruit tree. Practical and scientific fruit culture. 1866.

Internet Archive

[sunbegotten]

[src: sunbegotten]

[loupy-mongoose]

Me: I have so many things I want to draw! Panel and art redraws, the next comic, silly doodles, the possibilities are endless! :D

My brain: Okay but you know all those little factoid things you’ve been picking at relentlessly? Are they perfect yet?

Me: D:

…So I’ve been working on updating some of the general reference material of Linden Roots.

Namely: Timeline, Height chart, Family trees, and New MegaRef! :D That's... not Mega evolution... X3

With the now long-established inclusion of the Shadegrove crew, things have been expanded as well. Got some more tidbits to add to stuff! ^^ I keep thinking of things I want to add or change about them, but I now feel that they’re in a place where I can share what if have. :>

At least it’s still something I want to do, and I’m not forcing myself, lol

~ ~ ~

The timeline is the least changed. Just added a couple years to put it up to current time, although in-story it's not there yet. Also slotted Akoya and Randy's transformations in. ^^

As with all previous height charts, it's mostly just so I have a rough visual of how they all compare. I tend to be lenient with their heights when I draw them casually, lol.

And the trees get to be way more detailed than last time! :D

And, finally, the new and improved MegaRef! Every Mew on one canvas, quick and easy reference access! :3

Hope you enjoy/get something out of this! It's nice to have it all done and now on-hand for future use! ^^

Anyway, brain, can I PLEASE work on those other things I want to do now? XD

[yes-no-maybe-soo]

Don't mind me I'm just uploading some of the Midnight Stealth screenshots I took for ... ahem... scientific... purposes.

(Sylus walking out of the shower making sure he looks like the sexiest mofo alive and wearing a teeny tiny towel for added effect because he knows MC is watching will never not send me.)

[tommyssupercoolblog]

"Sorry but if you're nerodivergent and weird and grow on people like moss you're too clingy for anyone to like you" WRONG!!!! Dan and Phil literally reshaped each other's brain chemistry and have fused into one concept. try again

[iwasbored777]

Their dynamic was literally

[achaotichuman]

I like to think that if Tamlin fully harnessed his power, and trained it to it's fullest potential he could turn the entirety of the Spring Court forests into writhing pulsating flesh that could literally eat any attacker that treads foot into it.

[sandflakedraws]

You made the unexpected turn into Trolls and i decided it looked interested and followed you! Still haven’t actually watched anything, just kinda immersed myself in the fandom.

the trolls world is just ripe for nonsensical world building, amvs (we callin them fancams now? i'm not sure), and lore mechanics... and then shockingly, trauma dives.

like! because of the kind of media it's in, there are some horrific and tragic implications that are only glanced at, simply left untethered. there's not enough time to cover 2 decades of trauma in an hour thirty minutes for little timmy. But I Have The Time. I will sit with those implications.

and then!!

they get to have their cake and eat it too because of that very same media.

of course they're going to be dancing and singing with the people who only seconds ago tried to eat them! that's just what you do!

of course they're going to tell the people torturing them to death that they deserve to be treated with kindness! everybody does!

the picture it paints for me is of these like. incredibly anxious little trolls, with a whole culture around an almost toxic kind of positivity with very big troubles, and even bigger hearts. and that's like. joey kryptonite. they almost got me back in the first film, but i was mostly satisfied with the character arcs. so i didn't feel the need to break out the fandom playdough.

and then the third one came in with a steel chair like 'hey what if branch was just one part of an entire tragic family. what if they ALL had decades of trauma because of a bad decision they made as teenagers, which permanently skewed the trajectory of their lives. what if they needed some space to define themselves outside of their Band Titles (and by proxy their role in the family) and were then punished for that decision by the narrative, denying them the chance to reunite again. what if a promise sat forcefully broken for just as long and yet the bond didn't disintegrate. what if the love was still there.'

and i never stood a chance

[call-me-copycat]

Forgive me but I am going to reblog a post every single hour on Aizawa's birthday (;´∀`)･･ｧﾊﾊﾊ･･

(In case anyone doesn't like spam)

Also trying to finish an artwork for him too!

[lanternfields]

more Aster content!! and oh boy she is both amused and worried if branch is ever going to realize his crush on a certain princess... and she may or may not be getting flashbacks to her younger years when she first met her husband

[loupy-mongoose]

Last year I was a bit sad that I couldn't celebrate this day.

This year...

I have a boi to celebrate the (near) universal day of Mewtwo's birth! :3

My boy doesn't mind cake, but dandelion salad (with some raisins thrown in) is his favorite! So that's what his special treat shall be~

I did a painting, too. :>

And for a little extra fun, I made a time-lapse!

Well, I made two, but this is the 30-second one. I can share the full length, 7-and-a-half minute one in a separate post, if you all wanna see it. ^^

Happy Birthday, Nico~!

[witheredarchives]

[psalmsofpsychosis]

not gonna lie homos and homies, there's something incredibly, incredibly depressing about Batmanverse and the concept of Batjokes in particular, and it's not the murder murder stab stab death plots.

It's the collective unmentioned canon agreement around these characters never being able to escape the confinements of their narrative.

they get pushed to the very edges of their predefined thresholds, they toe the lines of their stories, they poke it and probe it and sometimes even flirt with the possibility of crossing the bounds of their narratives, but they never break throught the structure. they never go over the line, always sorta of wiggling in place; batjokes in particular is the most enticing and intriguing stagnant 85+ years story i have ever seen.

There are unspoken rules around who Batman is, what he will and will not do, and those rules are rarely questioned, if ever. No matter what he does, he cannot be in love with a man, and he cannot ever love Joker in particular. He cannot experience mental and emotional peace. he cannot kill and he cannot show sincere emotional vulnurability, he cannot experience his love in an open and unashamed way. His narrative thresholds confine him to a socially sanctioned image that is meant to be familiar and tangible to the average straight dude, and it's quite frankly exhausting to witness. Whatever happens to Batman's story, he never arrives at physical emotional or mental peace and on a foundational level his tale never changes, not really. You can almost feel it when he constantly bumps into this unspoken narrative rules and stops in his tracks, each and every goddamn time, for 85+ years. It's like a keyed up nutcracker toy soldier bumping into a wall, stumble back two steps, bump into the walls, stumble back two steps, bumpt into the wall,

As someone who loves stories that love to question their own narrative points and break through them and do something different, staring at Batmanverse comics for too long at a time lowkey feels heartbreaking, nothing ever truly changes in this bitch.

[sunbegotten]

riverside altar