#from one crow to another

[genevawrenn]

Phil 💕

My heart!

Thank you for giving us a safe place to thrive and be silly, don't apologize for the emotions today was an emotional day for all.

I shed tears throughout the stream.

I am a very proud crow tonight <3

What an incredible achievement!

I'm actually emotional again now that he is, these moments are rare I treasure them <3

[crowliphale]

Have you always been that height? Have you always leaned a little when you stand? Have you always smiled a little lopsided when you see me again?

[rsenak]

something something 'your coworker keeps mentioning there arent enough onions so you offer to get some the next time youre in a city. he tells you to get good ones but you realize too late that you have no idea whats the difference between a good and a bad onion'

this was a lot funnier in my mind before i spent 3 days working on it ._.

[clumsypuppy]

MK learns about silverfish from real life

[rin-rin-kururin]

do you know what all these people have in common?

[ladyofchroyane]

Some of the most compelling narrative choices in the series gain new depth when seen through the lens of Snow White. Not only are the fairytale’s motifs and themes explored, but its traditional roles—especially those tied to gender, beauty, purity, and familial dynamics—are reshaped and subverted. George goes so far as to complicate the fairytale’s naming logic. Both Snow White and Jon Snow are named in ways that reflect how society perceives them, based on conditions of birth they could not control. In reworking such a familiar symbol, the narrative seems to pose a deeper question: what does it mean for birth to define you?

The opening of the Brothers Grimm’s Little Snow White features a queen seated at a window, sewing as snow falls. She pricks her finger on her needle, and then three drops of blood fall onto the snow, prompting her to wish: ‘If only I had a child as white as snow, as red as blood, and as black as the wood in this frame.’ Soon after, Snow White is born with those exact physical traits, and the queen dies. Snow White’s life is later shaped by these traits she was born with. This introduction finds an echo in Arya’s first chapter. Though the scene is not a direct recreation, the resonance is clear. For one, two central figures of the chapter—Jon Snow and Ghost—recreate Snow White’s symbolic triad of black, white, and red. And Arya, a known Lyanna lookalike, interacts with Jon at a setting defined by its window—mirroring the queen’s position in the fairytale. The set up is too similar to brush off as coincidence. Even the needle is present through Jon and Arya’s conversation, but where the original tale links the needle to traditional gender roles, here that is a bit inverted. It is needlework/swordplay that prompts the wish, and Jon Snow who grants it, gifting Arya the sword she names Needle. This connection deepens when Arya is read as a stand-in for Lyanna—Snow White’s mother in this reimagining, and is underscored by the knowledge that Lyanna, too, would have wished to wield a sword like Needle. In this light, Jon—the ‘Snow White’—has fulfilled his mother’s wish by empowering a girl like her. This moment is deeply rooted in the fairytale’s framework, but even outside that lens, one can see how this moment rejects predetermined identity at birth. Instead, it affirms the power of choice and personal agency, even in the face of stigma.

That said, at its heart, Snow White is a tale obsessed with beauty—so I must factor this into my analysis. This should be clear, but George does not play the trope straight. Instead, he reframes the idea of who is ‘fairest’ and why that matters. Early on, Jon Snow is described as ‘dark where Robb was fair.’ This juxtaposition flips the original script, and the word fair, which traditionally connotes beauty, is stripped of that weight and is posed as a simple descriptor of Robb’s lighter coloring in comparison to Jon’s darker one. So Jon is not the fairest, and yet that is a crucial factor of Catelyn’s discontent with Jon’s presence because Jon closely resembles Ned Stark, her husband. Her rejection of Jon mirrors the Queen’s rejection of Snow White, but here the source of tension isn’t beauty—it’s resemblance that only worsens underlying fears and insecurity. These insecurities are rooted in Catelyn’s constrained role as a woman in a society that limits her agency—even within her own home. So her push to have Jon sent away (despite her husbands protests) can be read as an act of defiance against the role assigned to her at birth.

That said, Catelyn is not a reimagined evil queen—she sort of exists as a foil. This distinction is essential to understanding not only her relationship with Jon, but also how the fairytale’s landscape is reconstructed. Crucially, Jon and Catelyn barely interacted in the text. This deliberate absence severed the emotional intensity of the “stepmother”/“stepchild” dynamic and reoriented asoiaf’s moral center. Their separation reinforces the idea that their conflict is not merely personal, but symptomatic of broader structural inequality. To emphasize her role as a foil to the evil queen, consider the moment when a young girl—Sansa—will seemingly surpass Catelyn in beauty. The trope is immediately subverted. Cat was not envious of Sansa’s looks—she was proud and happy for her daughter. By invoking the Snow White framework only to immediately deconstruct it, George really highlighted how simplistic the original fairytale’s dynamic was.

This framework is further utilized through Jon’s journey to Castle Black, which shares a few similarities with Snow White’s own escape through the unnamed forest. Jon’s journey through the wolfswood sparked personal growth, just as hers did, and he ultimately found shelter (emotional shelter) with a dwarf. Tyrion very clearly fills the dwarf role and his Lannister identity furthers this connection (Lannister wealth comes from gold mining similar to the Seven Dwarfs in the tale). Interestingly, in some Snow White variants the dwarfs are replaced by bandits or robbers, which is exactly who Jon ended up surrounded by at the Night’s Watch.

In the fairytale, after Snow White fled into the unnamed forest, the Huntsman killed a young boar in her place. The Queen later ate the boars lungs and liver under the false belief that they belonged to the girl. In Disney’s version, the Queen wanted Snow White’s heart, but the Huntsman tricked her by giving her a pigs. She kept the pigs heart in a box that when latched closed resembled a sword through a heart. Disney’s version seems to have been the inspiration behind the motifs in Randyll Tarly’s threatening monologue: ‘Three men-at-arms had escorted him into a wood near Horn Hill, where his father was skinning a deer. “You are almost a man grown now, and my heir,” Lord Randyll Tarly had told his eldest son, his long knife laying bare the carcass as he spoke. “You have given me no cause to disown you, but neither will I allow you to inherit the land and title that should be Dickon’s. Heartsbane must go to a man strong enough to wield her, and you are not worthy to touch her hilt. So I have decided that you shall this day announce that you wish to take the black. You will forsake all claim to your brother’s inheritance and start north before evenfall. “If you do not, then on the morrow we shall have a hunt, and somewhere in these woods your horse will stumble, and you will be thrown from the saddle to die . . . or so I will tell your mother. … Nothing would please me more than to hunt you down like the pig you are.” His arms were red to the elbow as he laid the skinning knife aside. “So. There is your choice. The Night’s Watch”—he reached inside the deer, ripped out its heart, and held it in his fist, red and dripping—“or this.”’ House Tarly’s sigil—the striding huntsman—marks Randyll for the Huntsman he is, and the ancestral sword Heartsbane provides a physical manifestation of the image present in Disney’s version, and Sam himself is the metaphorical pig. In my eyes, Randyll Tarly is a gender swapped Evil Queen who is unhappy with a son whom he considered too feminine. So Sam’s punishment for ‘failing’ to perform masculinity is dehumanization; because he couldn’t become the hunter, he became the hunted—which carried over to the Night’s Watch where he was mockingly called Lady Piggy by Alliser Thorne. This shows how pervasive and normalized this sort of toxic masculinity is, and that not conforming is life threatening. Contrasting Sam, Jon is depicted as a good hunter (someone who can perform masculinity) who could’ve ignored Sam’s struggles and fall in line, but he instead openly rejected the rigid, violent masculinity embodied by Thorne and Randyll. Jon used his advantages he gained due to his birth to protect.

Taking this further, just as the pig is a stand in for Snow White in the fairytale, Sam serves as a stand in for Jon so the huntsman encounter can be present in Jon’s narrative. Notably, Jon is the only person Sam confides in about this traumatic encounter, which signifies how they share the role of Snow White. On that note, Jon’s protection of Sam could be seen as an inversion of the fairytale dynamic—Jon, the ‘Snow,’ protected the pig here, not the other way around. More importantly, Jon’s acceptance of Sam was also a form of self-acceptance. Jon only began to want the brotherhood he began to feel over his family at Winterfell after he decided that it would encompass Sam and the traits Sam embodies. If there was no place for Sam at the table, Jon no longer wished to sit there either. It’s important to note that Sam’s trauma reminded Jon of his own, which was why Catelyn came up in his memories. Sam sitting alone away from the other new recruits is no doubtfully meant to call back to Jon’s own displacement during the feast at Winterfell. But by looking at this through the lens of Snow White, this serves to link the Huntsman and “Stepmother” together to tighten the intertextuality even though Cat and Randyll had been no where near each other.

The Snow White framework is further employed when Jon found himself not only doing chores, but becoming a steward. Jon was placed in a role of (somewhat) domestic, undervalued labor—a traditionally female coded job. Jon was not happy about it. He wished to be a ranger—a male coded heroic role—but found himself doing chores for the Lord Commander, which is reminiscent of Snow White working as a maid in most variants of the fairytale. It’s important that Jon didn’t get what he wished for, and doubly so that a place of devalued labor was his pipeline to Lord Commander—it’s a clear reframing on gender roles and their importance in society. And crucially, it was because he helped Sam that it snowballed into this. The pig, a disposable figure in the fairytale, has become a symbol of overlooked value in asoiaf.

Though it’s important to admit that Jon and Sam’s experiences are clearly meant to be read as situational. Their setting and the decline of the Night’s Watch is one of the clear keys to their success. This type of malleability is not possible much elsewhere, and it’s certainly not easily achieved in King’s Landing where gender performance rules social and political interactions. Only very few exceptions seem to have been allowed, and Cersei was no exception here. Yes, Cersei—the archetypal Evil Queen. She even has the color scheme down, as the evil queen of the Grimm’s fairytale is only connected to two colors: yellow and green. And amusingly, though Cersei and Jon are separated by a great distance, she still found a way to engage with his story as his would be killers client. Very Evil Queen of her to call Catelyn a mouse for not killing Jon sooner, and while this line isn’t very important, I believe that it’s meant to once again strengthen the intertextuality as Cersei explores what she would have done in Cat’s place, which links the Evil Queen and “Stepmother” figures.

Through Cersei George does some of his best work. The Evil Queen of the fairytale can be read as simplistically vain, but some interpret her actions in the tale as an attempt to maintain her position and control within a patriarchal society that values women by how much they can be objectified. On that note, her role in Robert’s death therefore acts as a layered form of retribution. It’s justice for the socially sanctioned abuse he inflicted on her, it helps shine a feminist lens on the Evil Queen from the fairytale, and it gave the boar a fighting chance—which marks it as a sort of narrative revenge for Sam as the huntsman and pig roles are being utilized. ‘“Serve the boar at my funeral feast," Robert rasped. "Apple in its mouth, skin seared crisp. Eat the bastard. Don't care if you choke on him. Promise me, Ned." "I promise." Promise me, Ned, Lyanna's voice echoed.’ This is an obvious allusion to Snow White’s death—the apple is present along with the ‘choking’ line—but also includes motifs important to Jon. This just further solidifies my idea that the pig is sharing portions of Snow White’s roles.

Now, it wouldn’t be right to explore Cersei without mentioning her prophecy or the younger girls she’s harmed. I morbidly love that the younger and more beautiful queen from Maggy’s prophecy is a horrifying figure dressed up in superficial language. All Cersei has, all Cersei loves, is tied to her beauty—tied to the impermanence of beauty. It’s chilling. It’s also an obvious feminist reframing of the Evil Queen’s dynamic with the magic mirror. On that note, I want to discuss one of the younger girls Cersei has harmed, Sansa, and how Sansa fits into this. Fairytales often exist in many variants, but in this case there are actually two unrelated Grimm tales with characters translated into English as Snow White. The more well-known tale is Schneewittchen, which we typically associate with the poisoned apple and the Evil Queen. But there’s also Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot, or Snow-White and Rose-Red, a different fairytale entirely. In that story, the two girls are opposites: one associated with a white rose, the other a red one. The symbolism of the white and red rose plays a striking role in Sansa’s narrative (this somewhat reminds me of the sun and moon line from Ned), and I interpret this as a subtle merger of the two separate tales that share the name Snow White, deepening Sansa’s connection to both while positioning her as a Rose-Red figure—equal to but not Snow White. It’s a clever and beautiful bit of wordplay. That said, two other characters that appear in Snow-White and Rose-Red are a bear who is actually a prince and a dwarf. The nature of these two characters seems to be reversed in the series, as Sansa’s prince is more so a terrible bear who she mistook for a knight—making it fitting that The Bear and the Maiden Fair was sung to cover her telling Margaery and Lady Olenna of Joffrey’s true nature. And the role of the dwarf is obviously filled by Tyrion, though this time it’s the ugly dwarf who turned out to be better than the pretty prince.

However, I think Sansa’s most important connections to Snow White actually stem from Angela Carter’s ‘The Snow Child,’ which is a gothic retelling of the fairytale and part of The Bloody Chamber collection. The horror of the tale finds a mirror in Baelish’s predatory fixation, Lysa’s jealousy, and the snowy setting of the kiss. Like the Snow Child, Sansa is a replacement for an older woman, and she eventually ends up wearing Lysa’s clothing and inheriting her role. I’d even go so far to say that ‘The Roadside Rose’ was inspired by ‘The Snow Child.’ In the story, the Snow Child died picking a rose by the roadside for the Countess—she pricked her finger, bled, and died, and then the Count assaulted her corpse. Afterwards, the Snow Child melted and all that was left of her was a feather, a bloodstain, and the rose. All components of Angela Carter’s ‘The Snow Child’ are present, so I’m fairly certain that I’m looking at this correctly. That said, Sansa even took on a bastard identity and connected Alayne Stone to Jon Snow: ‘She had not thought of Jon in ages. He was only her half brother, but still . . . with Robb and Bran and Rickon dead, Jon Snow was the only brother that remained to her. I am a bastard too now, just like him. Oh, it would be so sweet, to see him once again.’

I may have missed some connections, but what I’ve noticed is that what emerges from all of this isn’t a simple inversion of the old story—it’s a messy patchwork of reimagined roles drawn from not just the original fairytale, but from a myriad of connected works. And I find that to be cool lol :)

[beheamothscreamoth]

Quick question for the Touchstarved fandom!! As much as we love Ais calling us 'Sparrow,' I have to ask - if you had to decide, what other bird nickname do you think he would call you/your MC? :O

For example, Ais would my Unnamed MC Daniella 'bluebird,' while he'd call my Alchemist MC Edgar 'crow' (and another OC I'm planning, Shinju, 'woodpecker!')

[emmavakarian-theirin]

the way the music died at just the right moment made this so perfect

[emahinatas]

 various vn characters / bustafellows edits.

      ↳  ♡ Crow Miller Scarecrow / BUSTAFELLOWS. ↳ A 22 years-old cyber-geek and computer hacker famous on the internet for hacking, money laundering and stealing. Thanks to his abilities and connections, he is a self-proclaimed underground boss.

[algrenion]

i stayed up too late and caught a blackbird land on my windowsill to eat the walnuts i left out last night !!!!

we live on a 3rd floor flat and they NEVER fly this high up !!! that is SPECIAL !!!!!!!!!!

[zevrans]

URL CHANGE: zevrans > lucanls

my predictable url change 🙈 i'm still tracking #userzevrans !

also i tag all datv spoilers as #datv spoilers

[seekers-who-are-lovers]

Something tells me that if ever they decide to animate “The Crow of Paradise/The Paradise of a Crow”, this could be made into a film.

Or a live action?

I am on the first pages and I am seeing à la Wong Kar Wai scenes on my head with a young-ish Takuya Kimura as Hajime Yasuhara. (Okay, probably i am still holding on to his Howl voice, but he’s not only that.)

When it comes to manga adaptation, however, Natsumi Matsuzaki admitted that adapting it to manga is a challenge.

Matsuzaki : "The Crow of Paradise" came out right after we started the comic version of "Master"... I didn't know anything about the content of (Paradise), so after reading it, I thought, "I've gotten myself into something serious."

[Note: "The Crow of Paradise" is the first book in the second part of the Yatagarasu series, released in September 2020.]

… I was reading it at a café in Ikebukuro, and as soon as I finished reading it, I called (Abe-san) over... Abe was like, "Oh no, I've been called out!" (laughs). So, when I went to meet her, she looked at me with sparkling eyes as if to complain, and I thought, "Oh, good. It seems like 'The Crow of Paradise' will be okay..." (laughs).

Matsuzaki: But after that came out, and then the next one, 'The Crows of Remembrance,' I started to think, "This is getting difficult to adapt into a comic..." Is that so...?

…

Abe: From the perspective of the original author, this work is part of a series, so there is an overarching theme for the entire series. However, if you focus solely on that, each individual work might end up being incomplete.

Matsuzaki : That's right. It becomes blurred... The theme is too large.

Abe: That's why I create "major themes," "medium themes," and "minor themes." For a standalone piece, I focus only within that piece. For a main work, I focus only within that main work, and I resolve the "minor themes." But when you connect them all, a larger theme emerges... It's like creating a "mosaic picture."

Matsuzaki: But I haven't been told what the picture will look like. I try not to ask about the theme of a standalone piece, the theme of a main work, or the themes going forward. Instead, I interpret the words and events written in the current original work myself and try to create a coherent narrative.

(This q&a talk is included on the fourth volume of the manga.)

[tcustodisart]

Here are some of my more subtle MoonBird art. I'm a huge sucker for associating characters with animals, and even bigger sucker for the relationship between wolves and corvids.

[kyokosayuki]

The dog motif with Henry is so incredibly interesting to me because, as Tunes already correctly pointed out: it is something that is prescribed to him by others.

I do have to argue, though, that it doesn't solely seem to be about his loyalty. He gets the dog comparison from so many strangers—people who sometimes don't even know Hans, nor Henry's connection to him, know of no loyalty he could have, not even to Radzig—that for the longest time I struggled to pinpoint what exactly makes them think of Henry in that way. Now, I think that I was too preoccupied searching for one truth when I should have been looking for many.

I think not everyone who sees Henry as a dog sees him as the same dog. Some see the loyal hound, one of the dogs you would take out for hunting: the tool, too stupid to understand himself to be one. Others see the mangy street cur, fletching his teeth, scared and angry, looking to fill his starving stomach. And others see the guardian shepard, submissive to the sheep he kills wolves for.

These views of him are either only one side of Henry or downright mischaraterizing him, which makes sense since most of these people don't actually know Henry. Now, if I remember correctly: Hans only compares Henry to a dog during their first hunt together, where he makes him walk behind his horse. A power play, of course, not yet defanged, and an indicator that at this point, Hans doesn't know Henry either.

I will have to rely on my memory for this, which is not the greatest, so I hope I haven't forgotten anything that directly contradicts this read BUT I do think that the dog comparison is a way to push Henry into a limited role, to put him into place, which is why—as the story progresses and he and Hans grow closer, Hans starts to understands Henry as a full person, more of an equal than a dog who heels or bites.

And that is something other's have no chance to understand, ESPECIALLY because Hans clings to every shred of structural control. It seem unthinkable to them that he would let go of the dog he can use in favor of the human behind it. They don't know that Henry is just as much a dog to Hans as Hans is a bird to Henry. Which means: only in name, only to jest, to parody, to make fun of their roles.

'you are a dog to many, loyal, hungry, barking and hollering, but to me, you are more.' and 'you are a bird to many, loud and pompous, colorful and prideful, trapped in a cage when all you want is freedom, but to me, you are more.'

This shared more is hidden behind sarcastic "My Lord"'s and playful "I'll throw you in the stocks"', in the way they know what can hurt the other, in the way they say I care witout those words leaving their lips..

[soppymilkgin]

[officialzevran]