#and some intriguing characters

[egophiliac]

YOU MANIFESTED THE TWEEL CARDS CONGRATS

YOU'RE WELCOME EVERYBODY!

seriously though I was probably like. 60-80% thinking we'd get at least one tweel for chapter 10. but I was NOT expecting it so soon! both of 'em! in August! a shame we're not getting a Coral Sea event after all...but I guess I can be resigned to that and ALSO excited for getting shiny sparkly glowing(!!!!) mertwins along with Azul fighting his inner demons and going right for the eyes! AHHHH I CAN'T WAIT

(also heeeey I recognize that rowboat... 👀)

[thatneoncrisis]

i wrote a big long essay talking about tlt and how it engages with describing the skintones of brown characters its under a read more bc it is so long.

I already left a long comment about this on someone else post but I wish I could study tazmuirs odd little habit of dancing around the fact that Gideon and Harrow are women of color when she describes them, and how this kind of extends to other brown characters

We get a million descriptions for how sickly pale ianthe Silas and cytherea are, what a lovely golden tan corona has, the odd tannish yellow hue of colum, all imagined by her, in her own words, to be white. Then when it comes to Marta and Judith they're called dark like Once in the text. I don't think it's even mentioned for Jeannemary and magnus in the entirety of gtn though I will gladly stand corrected if I missed something. It's such a non factor for them, which normally I would overlook if it wasn't for the aforementioned specificity of how white characters are described on Top of one of the major themes of the book being how John, a Maori man, resurrected a largely Polynesian population and then proceed to rule them using the exact same methods that actively colonized new zealand. Like I just think it's really interesting that in many ways, the story is about two young Maori women completely stripped of cultural heritage, they can't even speak te reo maori they cannot even conceptualize the scale of that kind of loss. Theyve been to earth once and during her brief time there Gideon literally died on it's soil it feels so poignant

Back to them specifically being Not Pale, this is not me saying they would be "less" maori if they were light-skinned that's total bullshit and the entire paradigm exists as a product of European bullshit. My fascination is more with the fact that tamsyn has clearly thought of them as midtoned to dark skinned. I'm going to be really generous and disregard the Tommy Arnold covers- he is a talented artist but he's not the author and Taz stated in an interview that she didn't envision Gideon with an undercut either so he clearly has little liberties he can take and I'm fine with that get your coin dude. For these two I'm going to have to focus on Nona the Ninth, bc for the entirety of gtn, harrow is described as grey, and while I understand that's bc she's constantly under a mountain of white and black facepaint, we basically never get an objective description for either of them. Gideon stand out features are her build, hair and eyes, like a lot of characters, but it could have been pretty easy to throw in a line about how she seems less desaturated than what one might expect from a ninth cavalier, like a rich warm brown, possibly hinting to other characters that she isn't a ninth native

Htn also gives very little to work with, again harrows primary colors are the blacks whites and greys of facepaint and her hair and the reds of constantly sweating blood. The character who's darker skintone is Most remarked upon (also one of the few ever constantly headcanoned) as black, is g1deon. I've actually spoken to a few people about this and there seems to be some actual Mandela effect shit going on where people remember Taz saying he's black despite me never once finding evidence for this. However, this is not a case where I'd be overjoyed to be proven wrong, because g1deon being the one black guy in this entire cast, the one who's dark skintone is commented on the most, being the guy who barely speaks, tries killing harrow with a spear 14 times and then dies offscreen. Not good. Bad, actually

Finally onto ntn, in the beginning chapters Nona remarks her (harrows) skintone is the color of an egg carton. I assume she means the light tan, desaturated brown of the cardboard used in certain cartons, which is fitting for harrow, girls lived in an ice cave for 17 years. This is basically the only word we get on it. I believe a few times the text will say something about pyrrha's (g1deon's) brown Everything; brown skin, russet brown hair, rich brown eyes. that character gets to be viewed and constantly affirmed as a brown character in teh way gideon and harrow arent, it kind of others pyrrha. to contrast camillas hands are called tanned way at the beginning while recording nona's dream, then at the way end it says, "Her face still looked grey beneath its nice normal olive," olive being used to describe her once before in gtn as far as i can see. pyrrha's (g1deon's) skintone is one of her most notable features, its brought up to a noticeable agree the text wants you to keep it in your mind when you think of the saint of duty; "Most of Pyrrha was the colours of the building site: deep dried-out browns, dusty hunks of clay, rusted metal." "Pyrrha wouldn’t burn any colour other than her deep cool brown." "Nona took the water from Pyrrha’s brown, work-chapped hand and even sipped it" "Pyrrha had carried Camilla to bed in her big brown arms like Cam weighed nothing" "Pyrrha said, “Thanks, Nums,” and drained the whole thing. Nona,fascinated, watched the brown column of her throat move as she swallowed." its just notable to me when alternatively with nona you'll get a line like "Camilla didn’t say anything to that either, only rubbed her wrists where the tape had been. Nona’s skin was already back to its nice normal colour." like just the vagueness in nice normal color, we get one line about what shes supposed to look like in the beginning and thats it

towards the end during the broadcast, nona gets her first clear look at kiriona, described as: "warm-coloured skin that should have been a similar brown hue to Nona’s, except that there was something wrong with it." break out the champagne its official

Obviously, dying takes some color from you. If anything, gideons desaturation should make them More comparable given the egg carton comment and harrows general state of constant anemia. Has Nona gotten darker during her time on new rho? Was Gideon lighter than the cover led us to believe? We don't know. We well never know, which is odd, bc these books fucking love purple prose about people's appearances. We have like seven different synonyms for the shade of ianthes hair. New words for black have to be invented in order to convey harrows eyes which are Black, not the dark muddy brown of someone like ortus. It's less that I'm bothered by the text not hyperfocusing on their skin and more it picking and choosing when it will laser focus on a detail like that, and how often it's skipped over to the point that I like, constantly see people draw harrow as incredibly pale, which is very different from being light-skinned

Finally, I know people can dismiss this as like an audience interpretation thing. I know I actively draw harrow darker than Gideon which I know isn't canon. But this is less about Fandom response to the text and more the text itself and how it's like. Afraid to say brown. near the end of ntn i found One instance of it referring to gideons "slim brown hand" on nonas cheek and that is direct as it gets. even her other like, strongly non european traits are sort of danced around. her nose is "a nose that was the complete opposite of Nona’s nose, one that put her in mind of those big poison desert cats Born in the Morning was crazy about." a very fanciful description, you have to infer that nona means that its probably flat and wide, also giving us the information that harrows is most likely narrow and straight, possibly downturned. im not opposed to this, especially given the character talking about her is nona, but then you get the following paragraph:

"Her skin was very much dead-person skin, ashen and tinted the wrong colour around the nostrils and the mouth. But even if she hadn’t been dead, Nona was critical. Her eyelashes were very dark, but short and curly, whereas Nona thought all eyelashes should be long and straight (her own eyelashes were long and straight). The corpse had too much mouth and a dimple (nobody in her home had a dimple). You could not, at least, see the veins in her eyelids, which were heavy and cold and deep-set. But Nona thought it was going to be a shame to go from being so lovely as she was to being so—redheaded."

its a very frank description. dimple, curly lashes, red head, dead skin, probably a wide mouth. her nose is contrasted against nonas nose, which is also never directly described, and then compared to a fantasy animal we have never heard of until right now

kicks rocks. there isnt a point to this. the series is almost over, there is zero reason to like, knock on taz's door and ask why she did this or that. it doesnt stop me from loving the series, and the insinuation that noticing this means i must dislike the series is frankly insane (real thing that happened). if someone got the impression that harrow was white given how shes described i wouldnt blame them honestly, its most apparent she isnt in the third book (with the cover art being incredibly ambiguous) and a single blog post from taz mentioning shes maori, immediately followed by an "oh i dont care how you see the characters" addendum, which i think is like. an odd thing to tack on bc them descended from kiwis is like, very integral to the story, and gideon being the daughter of the maori man who took everything from her she didnt even know she could have and the (presumably, given her name and a very brief description) maori woman fighting to get that world back its like. damn. it feels a little important. that the audience knows theyre maori. like a little. it feels intertwined with the whole thing about john using european standards of imperialism and general aesthetics to hurt his own kid. actually.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Welcome to the Dungeons of Fear and Hunger.

[dannymans66]

Crybaby

Made with watercolours and coloured pencils 🎨🥕

(also Sanji centred post, what a rarity!!)

[turtledotjpeg]

my piece for the @yorknewauction reverse bb! @hurtinghabits wrote a fic based on this which I am very excited to buckle down and read very shortly 👀

[shutupineedtothink]

Lilia is so real for grabbing Rio’s arm before she left the campfire sharing circle to go after Agatha and being like, don’t think for a second I forgot what you said in the sound booth. And then Rio literally snarls at her and she doesn’t even flinch. Like ma’am. That is stone cold and I respect you for it.

[copdog1234]

Spy x Family is constantly edging me with the idea that Something Big is going happen, and I love every second of it. The slow-burn be slow-burning!!!

[coquelicoq]

I KEEP FORGETTING TO SAY THIS but my ideal au is always, ALWAYS a three men and a baby au. doesn't have to be men just yknow three adults and a baby. i know i have said this before but it was only the one time and it bears repeating, it bears so much repeating because i need it so bad for everything forever.

[perfectharmonyloveschaos]

I've been fascinated with Barb's character since I finished Fallout and I'm glad that she hasn't been completely vilified by the fandom. Because I cannot help but sympathise and see her reasoning, even if it is horrific, because in the end she parallels Cooper.

Something people don't take into account is that they were both pawns of Vault-Tec, only Barb went along with it because she got something out of it. She got to protect her family, something that seems to be the most important thing to both her and Cooper.

Because neither of them could've stopped Vault-Tec. Neither of them could've stopped the bombs from falling.

If Barb had spoken out, had disagreed, all it would've done would guarantee that her family would die. We saw how Cooper's career/life was ruined after he assumingly spoke out against them. If you speak out against Vault-Tec, you lose your job, your friends, you are labelled a communist or communist sympathiser, and (in Barb's case) you lose access to a Vault which can guarantee that you and your family survive the nuclear war that everyone knows is inevitable. The war was always going to happen. Someone was always going to drop the bombs. Barb was just another cog in the machine, and she would've simply been replaced.

Barb had no power. Either she played along and her family lived, or they died. I don't think Barb wanted the war, and we can tell that her love for Cooper and Janey is genuine. She wanted to protect her family and keep them alive.

It was an awful thing, and Cooper had every right to feel betrayed. But I don't blame Barb either. Because I think a lot of people would've done the same thing in her position. It still makes her a villain, and it doesn't negate the awful things she did, but like Cooper it makes us understand why she did what she did.

She traded the many for the few, for Janey and Cooper. The exact same way we see Cooper, two hundred years later, trading life after life for his own survival, so he can keep going and find his family. They would both tear down the world and ruin countless lives so they could survive, for Janey.

[rhaenyratargayen]

“She’s EVIL. She’s the villain. She’s manipulative.” and it’s her

[risetherivermoon]

personally, i think Timmy knows thats not his Mom

anyways, i gave him a dog becuz i thought it would look cool- idk i mostly did this for shading experiments, wanted to go for a new vibe..might write and draw an angsty trout family comic...who knows

[katabay]

ANDREY STAMATIN

Keep a close eye on Peter. You'd become desperate and turn into a villain without him.

I spend a lot of time thinking about daniil and peter, but something just clicked into place for me with andrey. so!

I am. currently untangling this thread of thoughts about the stamatin twins and daniil and this kind of. triangle that's happening. a three fold bullet for sure, the kind of recognition-awareness-understanding where three people become one, but to step back from that. when daniil and andrey talk, there's a specific shape of peter that stands in his conversational absence. so: triangle formation. it's opposite-adjacent-complementary to daniil and peter's conversations. it all goes back to that first conversation you have with andrey. it's giving knife. love it!

bsky ⭐ pixiv ⭐ pillowfort ⭐ cohost

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Reasons to play In Stars and Time: Canon Pronoun Warfare.

[werewolfsister]

Character Reference: Comu

Can't read my handwriting? neither can I?!?

god this is long

Comu (from "calm" and "calmer") is Prince Ocossu's confidant, advisor, errand-man... you name it, he does it. Originally from the Domain of the Sunken Garden, Comu was offered up to stay with the royal family (@kenneduck ) in a gesture of goodwill. He hasn't been home in so long, he's basically a citizen now.

Comu's role as a sort of attaché is to reassure and advise Ocossu through all difficulties, though he tries to act as Ocossu's conscience in addition to his official duties. It's debatable how effective his efforts are.

Comu is levelheaded, calm, and quiet. Too quiet, actually, as he's prone to staying silent when words would be most useful. It's a little difficult when all your advice and admonishments go right over everyone's head! He's not treated poorly, but he's not taken very seriously.

He's odd looking for a non-depths Zora, and odd-sounding as well. His first language is Old Zoran, though he speaks Hylian, just with an odd accent. It doesn't help that he's got all kinds of teeth poking out of his mouth!

He is familiar with all Ocossu's siblings including Kenne, Viri, Servi and his wife Elisse (@cassielsunstone ); and their mother/mother in law the Queen. He also knows Oley and her husband Tajin, though they only have time to speak during official visits; the same goes for other visiting diplomats.

He's very isolated, as babysitting Ocossu is a full time job with overtime and no extra pay... in spite of everything, he carries it all in stride, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

[aroanthy]

i love how fraught and complicated discourse around various utena characters ‘dying’ is when anthy is literally stabbed to death eternally by a million swords imbued with human hatred. and then utena gets stabbed to death by them also. like. ‘death’ is incredibly interesting in rgu because most of the time it’s this ambiguous figurative thing that has interesting implications re: ohtori as a closed-off world one can escape. we are all trapped in our coffins. mamiya is the only named character with a grave. nemuro memorial hall functions as one all the same. ruka is implied to have died in the hospital— was he dead all along? who was the boy we saw for these two episodes? is this dead boy the same boy, or is this just another coincidence from the shadow girls, cutting like a knife? it’s heavily implied that akio and anthy murder kanae by poisoning her, adding to the previous implication that they were poisoning mr ohtori too, but there are no perceptible consequences of this. kanae’s absence is not felt. she’s fed an apple slice. what happens to the bodies? we know what happened to the 100 boys, but what about everyone else? and so on and so forth. ‘death’ is a tricky thing in utena, i think it’s constantly functioning on figurative and literal levels in very different ways for very different purposes. dios died. dios was dying. dios didn’t die. he grew up. etc etc

[erabu-san]

I just start a new account, doing the archon quest again, And I FINALLY See it.

Xiao x Traveler?

Yes.

I SAW THE WAY XIAO LOOK AT THE TRAVELER.

I'M ON THE BOAT NOW, I'M ON THE TRAVELER X XIAO SHIP!

YES !!!! 😭😭😭 there are so wholesome i love them sm