oneeyedcritter

[oneeyedcritter]

In light of some of the many things happening across the world this year, I thought this Pride Month needed a special illustration.

Happy Pride Month, may we all stay safe, look after each other, and keep painting our rainbows, no matter what. 🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

[oneeyedcritter]

little changeling

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Silly drawing of Charlie and The Fool! :D

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date in the snow~

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girl with oranges

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The Colors in The Great Trickster

My own interpretation of the colors in Noire's anecdote. Not as exhaustive, but I just wanted to get my thoughts down.

Red

The color of the lights in Noire's studio in the beginning. In this chapter, Noire reminisces on the time she, Teresa, and Qi Xing had begun filming C07.

Possible meanings: Passion, Creation

Blue

In this chapter, we see Noire hospitalized after the accident that inevitably cripples her. We also witness her poor relationship with her subordinates, which she coldly dismisses, her work always taking first priority.

Possible meanings: Sadness, Isolation

Green

Before the accident, the effect of Teresa's loss becomes palpable as Noire struggles at work. The script for Shadow Spy, her current project at the time, feels incomplete without Teresa's corrections. Noire begins to realize she might not have been as self-reliant as she'd thought. After a moment of contemplation, she makes the sudden decision to visit Teresa's grave — a visit that she herself knows is long-overdue after her glaring absence at her own colleague's funeral — and she hits the road in no time. Only for a red traffic light she mistook for a green one to cut her trip short.

Possible meanings: Stagnation, Sickness (Both of the Body and the Mind)

Purple

Noire flops three movies in a row. Investors have now become few and far between, and people are leaving her in search of greener pastures. She weighs her options: risk making one more movie or sell everything she owns to keep food on the table. She chooses the former as her one last shot in the dark, ordering Lin to begin work with In Spring Bloom, but ultimately prepares herself for the worst to come. Before, she probably would have stayed on this sinking ship, but she has come to a few epiphanies ever since the accident. One of them is that she never could have reached these heights of fame and success on her own.

In the next chapter, it's revealed that Noire's assistant, Lin, sold some of her own belongings for Noire's benefit. One of them is a purple shirt (or dress?) she used to wear to work.

Possible meanings: Mindfulness, Courage, Defeat

Aqua

After refusing treatment for months since the accident, Noire finally goes to the doctor for a checkup. During the visit, she tells the doctor how she's come to terms with her injury. She tells him how her crippled legs were a reminder of how she was not a pillar of her own craft and that she still needed and relied on a lot of people. This was precisely what Teresa's loss had taught her.

Possible meanings: New Horizons, Humility and Grace

Yellow / Gold

The dark period in Noire's career passes, and her films begin to take the spotlight once more. On that year, the Best Director Award goes to her, and she makes a trip to the stage on her wheelchair for the first time in years. Showered in praises and accolades, she makes a speech of gratitude toward the people who stuck with her up until now. Shortly after the ceremony, she and Lin head to their flight to Los Angeles. On the plane, Noire talks about how they're heading to the unknown, asking Lin if she's still willing to take the risk of going with her despite it. Lin, loyal as ever, agrees.

Possible Meanings: Success, Wealth, Wisdom

White

We see a glimpse of Noire's relationship with her mother. It's heavily implied that Noire has been suffering from child neglect, having a mother who prioritizes work over her own child. Noire only ever received the attention she was starved for when she began to relay to her mother something she overheard her aunts were talking about, but in the end only makes up a story to keep her mother's attention. This is probably how she began making her own stories, inevitably leading to the career she has now. The memory then cuts to Noire in her studio making the exact story from her own anecdote. She then poses a question about the truthfulness of the story that was just told, leaving the audience with the message that stories... are just stories. The poem in the cover of her anecdote kind of enforces this message:

The lights are dim, and the chairs are soft. Please, take a seat. Forget the spilled popcorn in the corner and forget yourself in this retreat. Stories are but well-told lies. This is a truth bittersweet.

Possible Meanings: Purity and Innocence, Impartiality or Neutrality

[oneeyedcritter]

Forgot about this one

Silly Liang Yue

[oneeyedcritter]

Liang Yue's anecdote really touched my heart.

Not just because Qiangliang can now tag along with her without the pain or anxiety of summoning him successfully through the phone, but also because her making the effort to reach out him was her subconscious way of healing her inner child.

As someone who had been shunned by people outside of her family, consequently eliminating any hope of her forming any meaningful connections with strangers, it was no surprise that Liang Yue had turned to the only thing that she was duty-bound to communicate with — Qiangliang. Add to that the fact that her father abused her as a child in the name of their family legacy and was literally the reason she was so closed off from the rest of the world. Which was what made her connection with Qiangliang all the more special.

Qiangliang sacrificing himself is the most unexpected plot twist, but in the context of his and Liang Yue's relationship, it makes a lot of sense. There is something profound in a legendary, supernatural entity befriending a human, and the other way around.

But perhaps the most tragic part of their friendship is that at one point Liang Yue had somehow forgotten her interactions with Qiangliang as a child. This is probably her trauma response. Repressing one's memories is one way the brain copes with traumatic events, usually for the reason that the person can't process them at that moment in time. Which is honestly why I don't entirely believe that shit her father said to her at the end of her anecdote (lol).

At one point in the Nightpiercer case, Poitier saved her life and unintentionally unraveled everything in the past that Liang Yue had been hiding from. The abuse she received from her father, the social ostracism she suffered, but somehow nothing about her past interactions with the legendary beast. And then, when Qiangliang sacrificed himself, she began to have more questions.

Why would it look at her like that? Why would it go so far for her?

And the answer, of course, was one she knew all along.

Despite her horrible circumstances back then, the burden her father placed on her shoulders, the shame for pursuing her own desires — despite, even, the fact that the beast itself was her obligation — Qiangliang was the unexpected refuge she'd needed.

Qiangliang was, essentially, the only friend she had.

[oneeyedcritter]

Poitier spitting out facts

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Silly Liang Yue

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Like the dawn

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broke my art block during exam season, rip

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Just wanted to appreciate the women in this update (they're all hot)

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One of my favorite events will finally have a rerun, hell yeah! Been waiting for this!

[oneeyedcritter]

The new suitcase lobby from the Miracle Mart, Old Relics Fresh Ideas.