Eclipsed By Crows

Guess who started trc again!!

I named this clerical piece "The Birth of a Toothed Cutting Tool".

PART 4 IS OUT NOW!!!

He left bloody fingerprints on the rock, but there was something satisfying about that.

I was here. I exist. I’m alive, because I bleed.

Below: all canon physical descriptors of the characters. That I remember. And likely some that are made up bc my brain doesn’t have a working file system.

If any of them are incorrect please do let me know! And if there is anything significant I missed out, let me know that too! It will be very helpful as I finalize their designs 🙏

To be clear, my intention is NOT to be canon patrol. I love love love seeing all the different interpretations of characters. They are all so wonderful and distinctive and personal.

My own design development has been based on given details + incorporation of my own ideas, imaginings, etc. (Oft they are self-indulgent too. Always fighting the urge to put freckles and diastemas and prominent noses on every single person I ever draw)

Without further ado. A masterpost of sorts.

Blue

Race/ethnicity unspecified (personally imagine her with Desi roots, through Maura ofc. Artemus is her Welsh half. Presumably. His DNA may just be chloroplasts…)

Short (5’?)

Brown eyes

Short dark uneven hair, often held in place with clips

Doesn’t shave

Weirdo clothes (affectionate). Lots of self-made or secondhand items and layering.

Gansey

Anglo-Saxon poster boy

Average height I think

Brown hair

Hazel eyes

Contacts mostly, gold wire-rims otherwise

Straight nose

Straight teeth

High cheekbones. I think he’s even described as having a “regal” face structure but I could’ve pulled that outta my ass

Tanned and fit

Good hair (usually styled)

Not very hairy, Ronan makes fun of him for not being able to grow a beard and Blue remarks as much at toga party

Golf club clothes fr🪦 boat shoes🪦🪦 fancy watch

Adam

“White trash.” Really he is just some Creature

Tall and slim

He’s beautiful but it’s unconventional enough that he refuses to believe it

Dirt/sand colored hair that he cuts on his own. Perhaps he is the Sandman (google just told me the Sandman controls dreams. Idk what fucked up esotericism I just unearthed. Haha ‘earth’ like Adam’s hair. I am sleep deprived)

Blue eyes

Tanned

“Barely there” eyebrows

Prominent cheekbones

Long delicate hands (thnx Ronan)

Straight teeth (thnx Ronan?)

I genuinely cannot recall any instance of him being described with freckles. Did we all just collectively decide this

Secondhand uniform. Washed out/frayed. Always wears a cheap watch until he gives it to Opal in TRK. In TDT he has a dreamt watch that shows the time of wherever Ronan is

Casual: basic tees (infamous coca cola,, I think he looks so good in red tho) and jeans and maybe cargos? Unsure on the last one. Has been described wearing boots. Probably sneakers too but I don’t remember a specific instance

Work: mechanic overalls for the most part. He’s often streaked and greasy from fixing cars

(These three descriptors highly influence how I draw him: elegant, gaunt, sepia)

Ronan

Irish ancestry (again, presumably. He wasn’t exactly bred)

Tallest of the bunch

Dark brown hair. Buzzed. Naturally curly

Icy/shark blue eyes

Pale skin

Thick brows

Misses one shave and looks like he crawled out of the backrooms (also affectionate)

Back tattoo (later: left arm)

Scars on forearms

Niall clone. They look the same

I believe Declan has been described with a Roman nose, and the Gray Man notes some of the brothers’ facial similarities, including their noses. In conclusion Ronan’s nose is arched in some sense

Mostly black clothes. Tanks and jeans and boots and leather jackets. Leather bracelets that used to be Niall’s.

Incapable of wearing uniform properly. Loose tie, untucked shirt, just imagining him in the suit jacket is an atrocity

Noah

Czerny is a Slavic surname

Short

Pale. Light hair, eyes, and skin

Small eyes

“Smudge” over his left cheekbone

Timid disposition, often slouching/making himself smaller

Perpetually disheveled Aglionby uniform

My guy wears Topsiders… (this makes sense but it also makes me uneasy. He’s a Vans kid in spirit. Is it even possible for him to change clothes, I have no idea. Weekends wearing Aglionby uniform would raise questions, but then again many other things should’ve raised questions too)

When he’s feeling particularly ghosty he becomes transparent/blurred/difficult to focus on

Close to the end he starts lookin dead dead without Blue’s amplifying. I think bones n rotting flesh n stuff? Though I think what Blue perceives to be a terribly dead Noah is mainly metaphysical

Henry

Korean

No idea about height. I imagine him somewhere between Gansey and Adam

Spiked hair. But in a very deliberate Aglionby way idk

Wears showy clothing/accessories

Has been caught in HD in a Madonna tshirt

I know it’s been a while since I posted this. I finished the story a couple of days after that day, but I hadn’t taken the time to share my thoughts on this book because I wasn’t entirely sure what to think about it. However, after taking some time to analyze and better understand the story, here is my final review:

Objectively, this is a story with brilliant narrative craftsmanship. It’s filled with complexity and representative characters. What undoubtedly stands out the most about the novel is its setting. The author achieves such a vivid level of detail that I have rarely felt so immersed in a story. It perfectly captures university life, and the fact that it delves into the subjects the characters study adds a sense of authenticity, something I rarely find in other novels set in this type of academic environment.

In this novel, we follow a main group of six characters, including the narrator. However, I feel that only three of them received solid development. I’m not entirely sure what didn’t work in this aspect: perhaps the fact that the first-person narration limits our perspective to a biased and subjective point of view; maybe the other characters were there merely as filler to add some drama to the plot; or it could be that the author simply showed favoritism toward certain characters, which I find unfortunate.

From my perspective, characters like Camilla, Francis, and Charles end up feeling underdeveloped, trapped only in their physical descriptions, falling far behind more profound characters like Henry or Bunny. The same goes for Julian, who seemed to promise much more relevance at the beginning of the story. And I think that’s the biggest issue with this novel.