#there are Reasons for Milo's shirt choices lol

[void-botanist]

Happy STS! What kind of clothes do your characters wear? Do any of them not conform to the style of their society? Do we see any character's style change over the course of the story?

Happy ST…Friday from ~ the future ~ and thank you for the ask!

The styles my characters wear is definitely skewed by me growing up in the United States, and that's something I want to work on. But more generally, every character has a vibe or a specific thing they like/do and my sense of their wardrobe is built around that. Anni wearing mostly blue because it's her favorite color is an easy example, but Dez wears only jumpsuits and rompers because he doesn't really see the point of clothes and wants them to be as easy as possible. (He also likes looking cute but it definitely proceeded from "ugh clothes" to "eh actually this looks kind of nice".) Zel is inseparable from the beanie Anni got her, at least for the winter months. In the summer it's crop tops all the way, and whatever goes with those. For almost as long as he's been a character Zalen has worn high heeled boots, and as time has gone on his wardrobe design has gotten more flowy because that fits his personality better. Brandon's wardrobe is full of Ermotlift City Works shirts, and he wears them sometimes when he's not at work because they're comfy. And so on.

I keep societal expectations pretty open because I want my characters to wear whatever I feel like, lol. That and I don't want to write stories where part of the conflict is "you're dressing wrong for your gender". But there are people who commit to the bit so hard that they stand out a little - Anni again, but also Keearo because he wears makeup as an everyday thing, Zalen because he doesn't stop wearing some kind of heeled boot unless it's absolutely necessary, Milo because although he lives on a tropical island where his fellow tree people also don't wear much in the way of clothes, his top of choice is basically just a rope net made into a t-shirt. There are also species cultural differences that may seem weird at first glance. For example, tree and mushroom people tend to have much smaller wardrobes than members of nonrooted species, because they don't sweat or have many bodily fluids to contend with in general, and they usually don't consider something with literal dirt on it as dirty. The result is that Elbas Island is full of people who are cartoonishly almost always wearing the same thing and Dez fits right in. In some cases these cultural differences blend together because of social expectations. I'm thinking of Sal and Ozen and how they both wear mid-horn rings to signify that they're married. If they had been married in Sal's home country, they would probably wear decorated extended horn caps instead, as is more common in sha-nawwen culture. But because of the social and legal complexity/impossibility of marriages between species there, they both moved away and chose to wear mid-horn rings, which are more in line with orea-nawwen style and common among sha-nawwenn in any dual-species marriage, not just between the two species of nawwen.

I can only think of one person who really changes their style in the story itself: Syndy. Previously she was in her postal uniform 24/8 because she never left the post office, and even if she had other clothes, it would have been bad if anyone caught her in them. She also had (arguably oversaturated) red hair to fit the Navaren ideal the palace was going for. But after getting turned back on and finding herself in a world where the rules have completely changed (and where she's getting advice from a blue guy with purple hair), she gets a grey wig and starts cultivating what I think of as a 1950s-flavored silhouette, among other things. I feel like regardless of whether it happens in the story, style changes mostly happen because someone gets out of a shitty situation and wants a refresh to something more comfortable/honest.

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

no-sleep 1x09rewatch ramble-essay (all content warnings for the episode apply here)

i was just like. oh i’ll watch a feel-good episode of gossip girl! s1 thanksgiving ep is great isn’t it! blairenate family feels!!! ruflyson love triangle drama!!! vdw siblings AND humphrey siblings hanging out!!! dan’s “see you later waldorf” *salutes & closes the cab door* !!!

& like. yes i DID remember serena’s whole not being sober on thanksgiving thing, and yes i DID remember blair’s ED relapse - which is heavy, but eating disorder content isn’t particularly triggering for me personally (i find it kind of cathartic, if we’re being honest) BUT . i somehow forgot. that THIS was the episode which has howard’s suicide attempt?? and now i have some of the most painful nate feels in the world. 

blah blah blah, leight’s acting brought me to tears, which probably doesn’t sound like a very big deal but sort of is, for a variety of reasons (watching things doesn’t usually make me cry, it’s happened maybe a single-digit number of times before + also just my blair feels in general --> she’s a really interesting character but i don’t find her AS relatable as i do dan, or nate, or vanessa, or maybe even serena at times --> so i usually do have a bit of a disconnect re: watching her, which i really do not have for like. dan, for instance.) 

i just cannot divorce that very cute outfit blair wears with her ED relapse - which brings me to the next point, which is that blair is maybe THE only character ever for whom her clothing choices and her plotlines are so interwoven in my head (lemon yellow shirt and funky little hat is her mean bridesmaids competitive game day, yellow-&-orange dress is her choose chuck over dan moment, genderqueer plaid skirt and grey shirt is her “dan loves me for me” moment, white shirt with the pink flowers is her get owned by nelly yuki moment, etc etc)... the only other time i noticed outfits is derena cotillion, but that’s just because i LOVE derena cotillion, and date matching shirts, but that’s because i am tuned into all things date and couldn’t possibly tell you what those outfits actually symbolise, with the exception of dan’s pink flannel shirt from when he’s holding milo. or any of the outfits from 2x06 because that is my episode hands down. oh hey would you look at that, i do actually form associations. but you gotta believe me on this, blair’s the one it happens most naturally for, which is very strange. i think it’s because her outfits are always Statements in a way that the other characters never do, except for jenny, who is a fashion designer, so it’s Different for her. what am i trying to say. 

oh yeah another iconic outfit is serena’s golden jacket and bright blue pants to the morgue to identify what might be chuck’s corpse. she literally dressed like she was going clubbing and i respect her so much for that. 

anyway. gosh. nate just - getting gaslit by his mom, getting reprimanded by his dad for telling his mom to stop being rude/petty... howard was like “don’t fight my fights for me” but nate wasn’t even doing that?? he was just asking his mom Not to be rude, and the fact that nate got told off at the end of that interaction... uh. it shows a lot about the archibald family unit in general and just. how nate is sort of treated as ... i don’t have the right word, but my brain is like “second class citizen”... which is absolutely NOT the right concept for nate but like. he is treated like he is Less a part of the family than his parents are....... RIGHT until one of them (or both of them!) fuck up in a big way and it’s down to nate to fix their mess. i haven’t read “adult children of emotionally immature parents” but from whatever i’ve heard about it, i think nate could do with reading it. or not. maybe it’d just make him sadder.

and fuck - nate’s whole talk with his dad and his dad telling nate that he doesn’t know how he can go on, etc etc... idk what to say or where to draw the line but i have really complicated howard & nate feelings. i really truly think anne was the worse parent (not like it’s a competition of course) and i sometimes seriously wonder if maybe howard archibald had a more supportive life partner, maybe he wouldn’t have ended up being ~like that~ to nate (doesn’t justify anything of course). anyway nate’s sitting by the hospital bed and his dad is denying his suicide attempt at first and nate’s just like, no, stop. this is also making me think now of nate sitting by serena’s hospital bed after tripp, and nate possibly sitting by blair’s hospital bed some point pre-series (eating disorders are serious and i really do think, esp with eleanor being eleanor, that it must’ve gotten pretty bad for blair before she got help - which. sorry. i know, it’s sad but i’m just putting together pre-existing implications.) all i’m saying is some point in the future i wouldn’t be surprised if nate’s just. uncomfortable in hospitals and unable to piece together why. oh yikes i just remembered blair’s miscarriage. at which point do hospitals become overly suffocating for natie, remind him of his own helplessness, etc... because i really think they would. anyway. 

anne archibald chills me because she is such an accurate representation of a very specific kind of mother and. i hate it for nate obviously but i struggle to remember a time i’ve seen a tv mom who i can 100% relate to so hard. as in. fuck. worded that wrong. whose SON i can relate to so hard. ouch. this may be a moot point because i don’t watch much tv, but honestly anne & nate is just. a Lot. in a way that is significant to Me, specifically. this is part of my pet peeve (not enough to fight with anybody don’t worry) when people make edits about mothers & daughters, as if what was happening between nate & anne, somehow didn’t have the same complications - i honestly think there’s some solid eleanor & blair/ anne & nate parallels to be drawn. and we’ve been over this somewhere else, but lily & serena / rufus & dan / rufus & jenny definitely have a lot of the same specific issues (parent projecting on child, etc.) again - everyone engages w the show differently, im ready to admit that like... maybe 65% of my problems with the ‘mothers & daughters’ reading probably stem from gender dysphoria, lol. but whatever.

i have feelings about dan & alison, too... i really do think dan was closer to his mom than to his dad for majority of his childhood, and this ep really cements it. anyway. i don’t have any more words and i’m tired. and i might just watch derena cotillion episode because . derena cotillion episode my beloved... 

wait wait before i forget. venn diagram of humphrey family & van der bilt family & playing american football. i know this has come up before but like. here we go i;m thinking about it again. both dan and nate have been competitively thrown in the grass by a family member in the name of sports. no wonder nate chose dan over chuck in 2x06 (i would put a tone indicator but even i can’t tell if this is /gen or /j)