#long post also. really long

[transflynnscifo]

Words left unspoken-- Flynn and the XBOX 360 ending

Today, I finally wanted to make a post about something that might be a little obscure. Whether it truly is would depend on whether

a) you’ve watched/seen the original version of Vesperia,

or

b) you enjoyed the game through PS3 or Definitive Edition and have looked into the significant differences done between the same game.

To preface, I think it is no secret to anyone that the original 360 version did not have Flynn as a playable character, whereas Patty was just not present (though there was a hint in the original version, if my memory serves me right, that there were plans to implement her even before the ps3 version)

This is my warning to avoid reading further, as this entire post contains spoilers for the ending of the game, regardless of the version.

To make sure all readers are up to speed, it’s important to mention that Flynn is not brought along for Tarqaron in the 360 version. If the player wants to talk to him as an NPC, he would be present in Aurnion (and the Colosseum as an enemy if you’re doing the 100-man melee). Regardless, this significantly changes the progression of the ending cutscene, once you are able to defeat the end-game boss. I would suggest to take a few minutes to watch and compare the original vs updated ending, which I am providing now, below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e91L4AIKcyg The version used in PS3 and Definitive Edition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgeMz8Vyocw The version used for the XBOX 360 version, in English.

[I want to mention that I think the part where the rest of the party runs up to Yuri is cute in both versions. In the older one, Yuri kneels to greet Repede! Um, they forgot Patty in the new version somehow, but I imagine she’s doing her Dream Star arte and is about to explode the others.]

Let’s put our focus on Flynn, though!

In the Definitive edition, you know that he approaches Yuri happily, and they both do their little handshake/high-five thing before running up to the others.

In the XBOX 360 version, we get something entirely different! We have Flynn looking up softly at the sky in order to declare his pride for Yuri, without Yuri ever being able to hear that, let alone know it was even said.

Why does he not say it in the newer versions of Vesperia? Your guess is as good as mine, but I will still propose an idea: The moment was different.

Time and time again Flynn witnesses Yuri and the gang do so many good deeds without taking the proper credit for it. In the case of the original, Flynn is not playable, so he witnesses even less of what the party is doing. I think this cut away from the party perspective in the original to show Flynn is meant to assure the player (who usually may be controlling Yuri) that yes, he genuinely considers Yuri in that high of a regard. He doesn’t personally witness the defeat of the Adephagos in the original, so his only line of thought is to assume Yuri was able to defeat it himself. In fact, the original helps the viewer know that Flynn is perfectly certain this was Yuri’s doing.

Though Flynn goes through the same issue of Yuri refusing to take credit in all versions of the game, he is able to travel with the others and establish more of a bond (albeit awkwardly) with them in PS3 and onward. I think part of him not saying the pride line in those endings was also because he was generally relieved to see the Adephagos defeated with his own eyes. I assure you he probably still is proud of Yuri for it.

Let’s move on to a more interesting observation. Since the English XBOX 360 was very big for the west and there was no dual audio at the time, many players have missed out on how the line is spoken in the Japanese version of the original. So I wanted to compare them too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5h6QoedZ9o&t=322s The 360 ending, in Japanese.

INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:

This part of my post isn’t meant to say which version is superior, but to discuss the choices done that make the lines both similar and different. Please keep this in mind I am saying this as a(n English) Language major thank you and godspeed.

Anyway, let’s put the lines together:

……君こそ僕の誇りだよ。親友 ...I am so proud to call you my friend, Yuri Lowell.

The website I’ve referred to for years by now does not offer a fan translation for the 360 version, but only for PS3 and on. In my experience playing the game in Japanese audio, watching my sibling play it in the dub, studying Japanese, I have found that the only significant times the fan-TL and the localization differ are when translating arte names. (Here is the website https://hyouta.com/vesperia/index.php?version=ps3p&locale=jp&compare=c2)

Some notes: こそ is used to put emphasis after pronouns. だよ is also used to put emphasis too, but in a very informal manner. Flynn typically ends many of his sentences with だ in Japanese, especially when he is speaking casually with Yuri and other party members. He even switches his first person pronoun depending if he’s on duty or not.

(for だよ: https://www.alexrockinjapanese.com/meaning-of-dayo-in-japanese-and-english-how-to-use/, for こそ: https://selftaughtjapanese.com/2015/10/22/japanese-word-koso-%E3%81%93%E3%81%9D-explained-in-detail/)

With my beginner-level Japanese, I will try to offer a translation of the former line, with the help of dictionaries such as https://jisho.org and the above resources to help me parse out a meaning.

“...You are my pride, close friend.” ← where arguably, switching close for the word dear might convey the message better. Frankly speaking, this ended up being the same translation as the one provided by a fluri quote bot that was used on twitter (pay respects for it no longer working).

Now, you might have noticed that I put an emphasis on ‘you’. Well, it’s because Flynn’s wording would be impossible to convey in the translation otherwise.

Let’s compare this and the official English localization! Several elements here are the same. They are marked:

...I am so proud to call you my friend, Yuri Lowell. ← Subject: I, Predicate: am, Complement: to call you. I’m not making the rest of the sentence now as it’s not that important. ...You are my pride, close friend. ← Subject: You, Predicate: are, Direct Object: my pride

So why is the English one so different? I can’t be truly sure, but even with a glance I can say that the syntactic construction is more complex, for one. I am interested in the switch between ‘pride’ and ‘proud’, with the former being a noun, the latter, an adjective.

What I also want to highlight here is that they ARE saying nearly the same thing. With the words ‘pride’ and ‘proud’ being able to be formed from one another, the meaning behind the words are not lost. In fact, when looking up the kanji for pride in the script of Vesperia, it is always translated interchangeably, depending on context.

If I must further simplify Flynn’s words, we get the following:

ENGLISH: I’m proud of my friend JAPANESE: (close) friend is my pride

depending on whether the difference is significant may be subjective.

Let’s determine the reasons /why/ the two versions wind up ultimately different while saying the same thing.

1. This is something my friend Choc pointed out. The possessive adjective. MY FRIEND vs MY PRIDE. When pulled from all context, the Japanese version comes out more intimate. But putting them back in it makes the scale more equal

I am proud + you are my friend = you are my pride + close friend

2. Troubles in translation: 親友 (しんゆう)

This kanji is not easy to translate. I’ve seen posts talking about it used in Naruto, where even there, it is difficult to emphasize the meaning in a translation. Even directly translating it like I did may come off awkward when in English. Translation and localization are one of the hardest parts of offering a Japanese text to non-Japanese speakers. And what can one do when the direct translation fails to impart the word?

You find other words that attempt to impart a similar connotation/meaning. This lies at the core of translation studies. It’s why a translator is REQUIRED to be a good speaker of the source and target language. The capability of having a wide range of vocabulary AS WELL AS being able to use it in the best placements are at the core of what one could consider a good translation. And even then, such a term is very subjective depending on which language speakers you ask. Especially when this comes to languages as different as English and Japanese.

But is 親友 truly lost in translation? I think the average English speaker is still able to infer that Flynn genuinely means his words in regards to Yuri. If not through one word, I think everything else that is said in done in the game is proof enough.

“I am so proud to call you…”

3. Cultural translations and implications

This point arose in further discussion between me and my friend Choc on the topic. Though I have operated with both lines saying they convey the same thing, I have not considered the semantics and cultural aspects of such phrases.

Firstly, Japanese is taught in a way where there is a large emphasis on formality. Most of what is seen in anime/manga/games can be considered at best informal and rude at worst. So it is important to keep such a thing in mind when looking at a Japanese texts. While we can translate something, we also need to understand how intimate it can be read, and subsequently, how would such a sentence come across in English.

“X is my pride” as a phrase is much less common than “I am proud of X”. And, subsequently, a speaker comes to alert if the former would be uttered. Why call someone the noun when you can describe them with the adjective?

This is speculative on my end but, in the case of Flynn’s line, I think it’s perfectly fine to say it’s intimate. That’s the intention! He and Yuri have known each other all their lives, and have been through the roughest parts in their relationship. They already speak informally with each other in Japanese, so such a line should not be too surprising, right?

Well, the perceived issue with using “You are my pride” in the localization could be that its meaning alters when it enters English. Semantically speaking, most English speakers would perceive this as romantically charged in most contexts. Part of it could be due to how direct it is when dissected syntactically, whereas the official localization lengthens the sentence and makes it more complex. In personal experience, many sentence structures I’ve already learned in Japanese are short and direct. Though Flynn’s line breaches intimacy, the structure is not why, but because of “こそ” and “だよ” that I mentioned earlier. Once more, the direct translation would in theory create a miscommunication of intention in the translation.

Ultimately, the most devastating part of Flynn’s line is the fact that Yuri will never be around to witness it. Yes, Flynn is still pretty direct with his feelings, we have that one line before the Aurnion fight, and it seems he can still convey his feelings non-verbally in a fight. But for someone who begins the story as demotivated and depressed, continues on to a point where his self-esteem plunders further, and manages to find what he wants to do while holding certain unhealthy ideas about Flynn (such as putting him on a pedestal, check the conversation with Sodia in Nor), Yuri probably really should hear those words, even if he is allergic to praise or positive affirmations aimed at him.

Ultimately, what can be done as a result is to ponder ideas after the end of the story and hope that Flynn eventually actually uses his words. But who’s to say! What did I do for this? I made edits. This is your reward for making it through my post. Maybe someday I’ll post them separately too.

Thanks for reading. Flynn Scifo is gay

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[abandoned-quiche]

I LOVE ALL OF THESE CHARACTERS BTW. I DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOUR HATE FOR THEM ON MY POST

[renewashere]

like my first time making a proper comic! (btw, yes they are at the twins' house, only half way through did i realize that doesn't make sense)

also if you cant read my attempt at cursive the alt/ image description has the transcript :]

Also also kinda a continuation of this ?

[chalkrub]

new guy alert!! she's a lindwyrm who pilots an old suit of armour and has caused many legends of evil ghost knights staggering down the road at night. in reality she's not a ghost, she's a nasty little man who wants to sell you illicit substances and talk about her insane and sordid past

[hotdogmchiggin]

Company Mandated Fancy Fits on the Tulpar 😏

Also had to include the REAL star of the show (and a bonus)

Based off of this and this. Thank you very much joetastic for being inspirational 👍

The REAL reason this is late

[gotchibam]

Shiny Mimikyu, Shiny Sylveon, and Shiny Whimsicott ko-fi doodle for wanderbanana! ✨

[keylimeart]

could i interest you in my space regency au

[emberglowfox]

Keeper -- a short comic about an angel meeting a robotic lighthouse keeper that doesn't know the world has already ended. Made in about 18 hours for a 24-hour 24-page* black and white comic challenge (that I arrived late to, ha.)

*the actual submission does not include the cover, which was created after the fact for this post.

This was a really great learning experience as someone who's... never really made a completed comic. I ended up really attached to the story by the end of the project (possibly due to all-nighter deliriousness lol) and ultimately am very proud of what I made.There are some things I'd still like to change, particularly text placement, but in keeping with the spirit of the challenge I've elected to leave it as is.

[l4tchk3y]

Silver has managed to capture the Espio.💕

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Learning to celebrate the little wins!

[arcade-confetti]

Being someone who read Under The Red Hood and came out with the firm belief that, for Jason, it's not about killing Joker, it's about Jason wanting proof Batman would choose him over the Joker (bc shelia chose the joker). Makes seeing any other media where it's all about just wanting the Joker dead is a teeny bit frustrating. to be honest

Jason could've killed the Joker himself, really, really easily. Jason kidnaps the Joker before the confrontation. I can't open my comic for a reference right now, but it felt like he had the Joker for quite a bit before the confrontation. He had him. He beat him up with a crowbar. He had every single opportunity to kill the Joker himself, but he didn't because that wasn't his goal. Make no mistake, he did plan for the Joker to be dead by the end of it, but do you see what im trying to say here

Edit: If I knew this post was gonna get 1000+ notes I would've tried to word it better or something, this was a rant I made on the way to the grocery store 😭

It's not about making Batman kill either. When Batman says he won't kill, Jason adjusts and goes, 'Let ME kill the Joker or kill me to stop me' instead. The test is all about Batman choosing him. The whole final confrontation is Jason's first death again. The parent, The Joker, and the explosives. It even ends with Jason unable to move as a bomb goes off right next to him again because the parent didn't choose Jason. And instead tried finding an option that'd benefit them and (consequencely) letting the Joker walk, again, lol, lmao <-in agony

[ginpotts]

DOCTOR WHO series one ✧ 2005 — inspiration

christopher eccleston as the ninth doctor 🌌

[stump-not-found]

he's being normal about hands

[enderscribbles]

Dunmeshi request, Chilchuck and Marcille interacting? 🥺 Or standing next to each other that works too. Could be hugging, or sharing a meal/food, or…

Got a bit out of hand with the prompt XD I ended up doing a scene inspired by this fic! Based on that time Marcille Izutsumi and Chilchuck were sharing a bed in chapter 47. It felt very memorable so I tried to recreate it but I kind of went offscript because I was basing it on my recollection of the fic lmao

^Obsessed with this guy and how he lets Izutsumi use him like a hot water bottle bc it's comfier.

I think he'd hardly ever act this soft + tolerant of physical affection unless it's situations like this: When the others are too sleepy to remember it LOL

[vardapilled]

Haint Blue and Indigo: The Colors of Annie and Smoke

This is by no means an extensive history of haint blue and indigo*, but I just wanted to dip a bit into how much is said just by looking at one layer of costuming for Sinners. In this case color—how it's able to convey just how deeply rooted Annie is to her heritage/history, and to me, how this case of colors shows so beautifully Smoke's connection to Annie and his love for her.

"There's that haint blue that Annie lives around as part of a spiritual color. So I took the haint blue and used it in her clothes. I wanted her to have these layers. You first meet her [...] She's a community person. She's a healer, a spiritual leader." - Ruth E. Carter, Costume Design for Sinners (emphasis mine)

Haint blue is a color seen painted on porches, doorways and windows in the American South. As the name suggests, it was believed (though the oral histories are difficult to come by beyond the 30s), to ward off evil spirits. Using haint blue, according to the Gullah-Geechee, tricked evil spirts into thinking they had come across water or sky, bodies they were unable to cross, therefore deterring them from crossing over the blue.

Annie's costume was infused with this color; the blue on her cotton blouse and her skirt belted with feathers and beads. When we're introduced to Annie, her home has a collection of blues: from the wooden panelling, scraps of fabric hanging in the background, and blue bottles strewn about. This infusion of haint blue in her home is also a deliberate choice as talked about by production designer Hannah Beachler.

*Corrections, whether through comments or reblogs, for this post are definitely welcome! I cite my sources at the end of this long post.

This type of blue is not a specific color but rather, it becomes Haint Blue when it is used for the purpose of warding off haints, a belief rooted in Gullah-Geechee beliefs. (Though for technicalites' sake, it is a range of blues -> blue greens). After the 1800s, this way of using blue trickled down from the Gullah-Geechees in South Carolina to places such Louisina where Annie is suggested to be from.

The Old Plantation (Slaves Dancing on a South Carolina Plantation), ca. 1785-1795. watercolor on paper, attributed to John Rose, Beaufort County, South Carolina

Blue has always had a fraught history with enslaved Native Americans and Africans. The production of indigo was a profitable commodity demanded by the British empire as early as the 18th century. This production of indigo however, while it oppressed, was also a way for Black and Native Americans to express their individuality, and for people such as the Gullah-Geechee, their spirituality. Annie continues to draw strength from her roots and it's incredible to see it so profusely in so many aspects of her character, including her clothes.

So here is where I deviate a bit from "canon" per se, or give some interpretation of Ruth E.'s and Coogler's "Smoke is blue." We talk a lot about how the movie does a great job of showing how, though Smoke wasn't completely "sold" on hoodoo, but that he did very much believe in Annie. And that trust between them goes beyond what Smoke's willing to communicate through words (he wears the mojo bag through the war, through Chicago, and removes it only when he's ready to die. How he let's her take the reigns when talking to Cornbread. How he follows through with his promise as painful as it was).

"Smoke is blue. Stack is red." - Ruth E. Carter explaining how Ryan Coogler first posed the characters to her as a jumping off point for costuming.

Whether or not it's a conscious knowledge, I like to think that he dresses in blue as an extension of that trust. That bond between Annie and Smoke and the protection that comes with it bleeds into something as "ordinary" as Smoke's choice of color. One can say that maybe the color reminds him of Annie, and I also think there's some argument to be made about the universe answering Annie's prayers of protection, wrapping Smoke in an extra layer, another ward against evil.

----

Sources:

Blue Roots by Robert Pickney

Red, White and Black Make Blue: Indigo in the Fabric of Colonial South Carolina Life by Andrea Freeser

Haint Blue, the Ghost-Tricking Color of Southern Homes and Gullah Folktales

What the Color ‘Haint Blue’ Means to the Descendants of Enslaved Africans

Interviews of Ruth E. Carter and Hannah Beachler linked in the pull quotes above.