#you can easily ignore if you want

[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.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[vickyvicarious]

The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used; the furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere.

Jonathan finds Dracula's room largely empty and clearly unused. This is naturally very disturbing, but he still makes a thorough search for the key that will free him.

The room is covered in dust.

Vampires don't disturb the dust when they walk; we saw as much on May 16. But people do, and Jonathan is searching the room. He's walking across the floor at the very least, to get a close look at the treasure pile and to go through the door leading down to the chapel. But since he's looking for a key, he's also probably checking in what little furniture there is.

Is he leaving a trail of footprints in the dust? The sentence structure might just be implying that only the furniture is dusty here, not the floor, so maybe not. But then, he's possibly looking in the furniture, and no matter how he tries he'd likely disturb some of the dust in doing so. Even beyond just this room, Jonathan goes barefoot down into the chapel and crypts, where the ground has been dug. Even if his footprints weren't noticeable in the freshly-overturned earth, he might have picked up some dirt on his feet. When he fled back upstairs, did he carry some? Did he leave a trace of his presence?

(Of course, the fact that Dracula stared right at him later would surely be the most obvious way to know he had been there. But Jonathan seemed to believe the Count was fully asleep and unaware despite his open eyes and angry expression. And even if he had seen Jonathan... Dracula could be a lawyer, he's able to think like one. And what's the one thing Jonathan himself always, always looks for? Evidence to confirm what he's seen. If Dracula saw him but there's no proof so he dismisses it as a dream, that's one thing; if he saw him and then found proof that it was true, that's another.)

[seakayants]

they’re on a date

[quietwingsinthesky]

the last unicorn post from earlier has me thinking about the master. that yana is still in there, you know? is still someone he was, if even for a brief flash across the life of a time lord. there’s no way to unlive that life. there are ways to twist it later, sure, to make utopia into hell on earth. but the life was lived. in much the same way that the doctor can remember, can feel, the love he held onto as john smith even as that life is ripped out of his hands. the doctor choose denial and then grief and then to shutter it all away. and so john smith died, and so professor yana died, and the doctor and the master live on. the doctor has done this before, and he lives in orbit around humanity, trying to keep the best parts of them and hold them deep enough to take root (which he can pretend he gets to choose, as a time lord. as a human, it all floods in and can’t be dug back out.) but what about the master, right?

to borrow a turn of phrase: i think there are two time lords left in the universe, and they both learned how to regret.

[thevioletcaptain]

if you as a fic reader ever become possessed by the urge to do a popularity bracket with the fics other people wrote and shared for fun and for free, consider:

don't ❤️ 

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

ghost!toji x reader ….. hmmmm hm hm hm

[imminent-danger-came]

YOU think MK is a selfless forgiving good boi mc. I think he's self-centered, but that doesn't devalue the good deeds that happen as a result. We are not the same

[a-gay-bloodmage]

One of my favorite hobbies to engage in is ignoring the canon course of video game romances

[wordfather]

saw a tiktok today that started with "i brought my baby to the most dangerous beach in iceland!" and then they just talked about how cool the beach was. excuse me. are we just gonna gloss over that. why did you do that

[skeletalheartattack]

i haven't played minecraft in years, but with the armadillo winning the vote, i think about how wolves don't really have much going on in terms of their utility. like anytime i tame a wolf, i end up just kinda keeping them sitting at home.

i think if mojang really does feel like wolves are deserving of armour, with the addition of armadillos, they really need to update wolves to be more useful as companion mobs, because personally... i never feel the urge to bring a wolf with me when im going out to do things, especially if it involves combat.

like, what do dogs do best? fetching stuff and digging, right? like i wish that i could just mill about with a wolf and they track a scent or something and start digging into the dirt and then proceed to bring you that item. like it could range from rarely digging up iron nuggets to digging up vegetables or whatever, yknow. combine the fetching stuff with combat and you wouldn't have to manually pick up stray arrows or items from mobs your wolf kills.

the only other thing i wish you could do with wolves is automate their health in some way, like give more utility to the bowl item so you can place it down for them to eat from so you don't have to constantly manage their health by looking at their tail. just minor quality of life stuff i guess.

idk, that's just my thoughts. i do like wolves in minecraft, they just feel rather lacking with the way some new mobs have so much going on, like the sniffer and allay and so on.

[dandyshucks]

hey okay everyone pump the brakes for a second please. i wrote up a proper post with a few different questions to consider but honestly I don't want to touch this whole situation considering I am not involved in any way (I don't know anyone involved and I only took a cursory glance at the situation after seeing a post about it). but i am concerned that this is the second time i've seen a fairly hasty callout post within the selfship community being made about a Black blogger (not the same person twice, two entirely different people and different situations).

I would just like to invite you to please take a second to look into a situation yourself and think about if it is really worth a callout post being made before reblogging/creating it yourself. especially if the blogger in question is a person of colour.

oftentimes it feels like things get blown out of proportion and people are very quick to sound the alarms for a fairly mild situation that would be easily resolved by hitting the block button. is this person really a genuine threat to a wide group of people (are they exhibiting behaviour that is ongoing and consistent in seeking out people to harm), or did they simply make a one-off post that was a bit mean and then got annoyed when people shouted at them in their inbox and DMs?

[iniquity-fr]

fuck a baldwin queue i want an arlo queue so bad i hate having to click all that shit again every 10-15 minutes please god let me just queue up like 5 magnifying glasses at a time and forget about it for like an hour please god

[hannibal-confessions-nbc]

I hate when people say Hannibal "ruined" Will's perfect life with Molly shuuut up Will made his own choices. Will conveniently walked his dogs when Jack was there and left Molly alone with him knowing he would show her crime scene photos and she'd try to make Will go. He said he knew what he was doing going back after Molly got hurt. Hannibal told him not to come back even and Will ingored it! We need to acknowledge Will is a manipulative person and makes his own choices

.

[yupuffin]

The following are statements about fandom competitions that all can, and should, coexist:

Cosplay competitions, dance competitions, etc. are not "rigged" AND

Competitions naturally benefit the participant with the greatest advantage and hence, by definition, will never be completely "fair"

The degree to which some participants structure their lives around their artistic pursuits surpasses the typical definition of a "hobby" AND

Competitions are not a complete or accurate representation of any hobby or artistic pursuit; considering them such tends to lead to perpetual dissatisfaction

Judges' opinions are often informed by significant relevant experience AND

Judgments are ultimately opinions with which you are allowed to agree or disagree at your leisure

It can be immensely frustrating when judges make judgments that you disagree with AND

Allowing yourself to experience that frustration, and then moving on from it, rather than trying to "correct" the judges or make a "callout," is generally the most productive reaction

It's healthy and natural to want to win/place/receive positive feedback AND

If any form of judgment is going to "make or break" your competition experience, it's wise to seriously reconsider whether competing in your current state is healthy and sustainable

Placements/wins/positive feedback are achievements worthy of celebration AND

Competition statistics are not an objective reflection of the quality or value of an artistic presentation

My 10+ years of experience (depending on the discipline) informs my opinion that the competition format hinges on subjectivity and serves primarily to draw an audience (utilizing the anticipation of "who will win???"), not to make objective judgments about any participants or their entries.

Please be cautious not to fall into the mindset that winning is the paramount aspect of competing. The amount of grief I've seen people experience over judges' opinions, and the number of people I've spoken to who say they've quit a competition scene entirely because of how elitist and cutthroat the environment was, is just heartbreaking.

I think a lot of work can be done to make fandom competitions more welcoming, inclusive, and accessible environments -- I've been in precious few communities like this both outside and within fandom, and I know we can do better.

I don't believe that centering that work on how judging is done is entirely wasted effort, due to the subjectivity of judging as a practice, I don't think that there's a single rubric, formula, or procedure that will make everyone happy. Instead, I think it's more worthwhile to highlight the community aspect of fandom competitions and focus on supporting one another and valuing each participant for their unique individual contributions to the artistic scene, not for their statistics.

Finally, I can ramble all day about what I think about the competition scene, but I really do believe that everything here, while informed by my experience, is still just opinion, and you're free to disagree.

[thecindercrow]

"can't believe they rolled this out unannounced" They did announce it. And explain how to opt out of it. On the staff blog. Where they announce things.