tuesday de

[inlovewithwords]

From sunbaked_baker in the Suggestion Box:

Let's talk colors.

How is color used in your pups' canons? Are colors used symbolically, or used to indicate something about themes in the story? Do certain characters have certain colors associated with them? Are colors represented in the canon typically subdued or subtle, or are they usually bright and bold?

Alternatively, what colors do your characters tend to wear, and why?

Comments

[death_gone_mad]

Colors are sorta thematic in the game content developed in the early years, so it is kind of significant in the early game. It used to be that the game had a lawful good god, a chaotic evil god, and a natural nuetral god and that was it when it came to morality. The gods and their followers were associated with the color schemes white and blue, black and red, or green and brown, respectively. Other gods were introduced while the whole good/evil thing slowly went away. There was a sorta purple and yellow thing going on with stuff associated with the god Zaros, but the yellow disappeared; the Desert Gods, Amascut included, never had a strongly associated group or individual color schemes; Seren was white and light blue and had nothing to do with the lawful aligned god. Then there was a monkey god eventually aligned with PARTY ALL THE TIME who wasn't Amascut's half-sister, a bird god who had the alignment PEACE AND JUSTICE, and a rhinoshark god of WAR AND BRÜTAL HÖNESTY, none of which ever picked up a color scheme. Then a god of cabbages appeared. Green is the color scheme of cabbages, obviously. The whole color scheme concept had flown out the window by then but colors do tend to be bright and bold.

The only iconic color associated with Amascut is her red hair, but even the particular shade and hue of it varies. Canon has been dressing her up in purple and gold lately, but she will wear anything that fits the occasion, even sackcloth.

[death_gone_mad]

Eep forgot that there is a color scheme now for minor npcs corrupted by Amascut. Really bright green, sometimes coming up as clouds, sometimes as cracks in a black or dark green surface like so

And then there's her devourers that are black with electric bluish white accents. They remind me of the aliens from Attack the Block

[angry_friendship_wolf]

Digimon Adventure is a canon with incredibly heavy and unsubtle colour theming. Each Crest and their Chosen has their own colour: Taichi and the Crest of Courage are orange, Yamato and the Crest of Friendship are blue, Sora and Love are red, Koushiro and Knowledge are purple, Mimi and Sincerity are green, Jyou and Reliability are grey, Takeru and Hope are yellow, and Hikari and Light are pink (and then 02 rolls around, and Ken and Kindness are a more pastel shade of pink).

Those colours show up a lot: Coloured light is the telltale sign of a Crest activating, their digivices turn their Crest colours when active, it'll usually be the predominant colour on their evolved partners, and other Digimon associated with that Crest will usually display that colour prominently.

But they're not really symbolic. They sort of tie into the elements and symbolism associated with those Crests -- the two with sun-themed Crests have orange and yellow, the dude with the ice and moon themed Crest has blue, the girl whose symbol is the Star of Venus gets pink, the one whose Crest symbol is literally a heart has red and the girl with earth as her element has green, etc. But it's not exactly deep symbolism so much as it is a way to give each character their own colour signature.

A little vexingly, they also have recurring colours for their clothes, but it's not the same colours. Taichi gets blue, Yamato and Takeru both get green, Sora gets yellows, Koushiro gets orange, Mimi gets red, Hikari gets pink (making her the only person whose clothes match her Crest), and Jyou gets dark blue.

[configuration_birdwatcher]

The characters of Overwatch have colour schemes that show up in their default skins and their sprays, but alternate skins usually don't stick to those palettes. In the actual game, color is used pretty extensively as a mechanical cue: the enemy team is always red. They have red outlines and the visual effects for most abilities are shifted to red (or orange, in the case of healing). Storywise, Bastion's optics turn red when their combat protocols are in control, so that's pretty significant even though it only shows up in gameplay as a brief emote.

Homestuck characters are color-coded both individually and by Sburb aspect, and that's used symbolically a lot. Aradia is mostly represented by red because that's both her blood and her Aspect color, although there's some blue when she's Aradiabot and pale grey for her psionic powers too. Cirava wears a token amount of mustard-yellow but mostly bright turquoise and magenta; psionic yellowbloods often incorporate the colours of their psi powers (which are also the colours of their eyes) into their wardrobe, and their remaining eye matches that colour scheme.

Don't Starve sticks to a muted colour palette with saturated red accents in the cinematics, although the game itself is fairly colorful. There's a different color filter for every season plus the special event maps and the underground levels, which is a useful cue that a season just started or ended.

Fallen London is mostly text-based but they also have seven fictional colours that can't be seen under natural conditions and have various fantastical properties. Irrigo is the most notable; it's purple/pink-ish and causes forgetfulness, as well as eventual blindness by body-horror mutation after prolonged exposure.

[have_no_mercy]

Smallville is all about colours. Tess' are Luthor purple and black, though in the beginning she wore a bit of red.

Rose's colour is green. Green, green, green. Moreso when she's Thorn.

Kylo wears black. Constantly.

Creed doesn't really have specific colours associated with him and the movie doesn't use colour all that much as symbolism, but he does tend toward a darker, more subtle palette.

[cottoncandypink]

Colour was important to the canon before the conscious decision to make it important happened. Wilford's had a huge variety of costumes, ranging from whatever the hell Fischbach rolled out of bed wearing to the more recent projects, where a bunch of different options were purchased and some serious thought went into the presentation. Beyond the obvious pink, yellow and red have become his colours over time. It started with the striped jacket, and then he started wearing a few different yellow shirts. Whether that costume was chosen deliberately or because it was fugly, I don't know. But his Colonel costume was deliciously deliberate. They managed to find an eagle pin that looked a lot like the American Eagle logo, put a lot of red accents and stripes on him, and at the end, he's got the yellow shirt with white cuffs and collar. That was where the murder mystery was revealed as being part of the greater storyarc, rather than the standalone thing it seemed like it was. Red and blue are important for another character who was revealed at the very end to be secretly there as well, and just before his reveal, there's a really weird scene where half the screen is in red, and the other half is in blue to signal that.

Then there's another character who isn't an existing character, but kind of a riff on one. His motif is a lack of colour. Scenes either get super desaturated, or straight up greyscale when he's the focus, compared to the overblown colours when Wilford's the focus. It had the potential to get a bit Sixth Sense, had they not started doing this before that character died. And then there's Celine, whose motif seems to be dark colours and overblown contrast, but the series is on indefinite hiatus again so I'm not sure if that's really a thing, or just a choice for a few scenes in the murder mystery.

[holdingacat]

Color does turn out to be fairly symbolic, though I'm not sure the characters ever fully catch on except in specific instances. Night Vale is that particular shade of purple.

Cecil, however, will learn to positively loathe a particular shade of yellow.

[run_barry]

The biggest thing with color in The Flash is its use in speedsters, especially Barry and his arch-rival the Reverse Flash.

Thawne (aka; Evil Wells, the Man in Yellow) is indeed the reverse of Barry. When Barry runs he's a red blur with yellow lightning, Reverse Flash is a yellow blur with red lightning.

Theories abound, but the one that seems to work in the Arrowverse is related to their connection to the Speed Force. Barry's is a pure connection to the Speed Force, he was destined to be a speedster (actually, he was destined to be THE speedster). Thawne's is corrupt, an unnatural connection he forced in trying to become the Flash. The lightning they emit reflects this for each of them.

[arkadia]

Ducking in with another pup: Colour tends not to play a huge role in Kingdom Hearts as a whole (although the different kind of monsters are all colour-coded: Black for Heartless, white for Nobodies, blue for Unversed, and pink for Dream Eaters) but KHX does have each Union have a pair of colours assigned to it.

Leopardos, which Eden is a part of, has yellow and grey. After that, Ursus has green and brown, Unicornis has white and red, Anguis has light blue and dark blue, and Vulpes has pink and yellow. Just going off colour schemes, we can assume that if Luxu had a Union (which I guess would be Capricornis), it would be black and violet.

The colours aren't really meaningful in any way, though (bar possibly giving Ava and Vulpes a visual link to Dream Eaters), they're just there to distinguish each Foreteller and their Unions from each other.

[childofrebellion]

Star Wars loves color coding everything. Empire is black and white with some greys and browns. The Rebellion is earthy colors-lots of browns and neutrals. Darker blues, greens and reds are associated with various groups but according to some behind the scenes Rogue One info, red denotes a connection to the Force. Chirrut and Baze's robes, Lyra had a red sash and the inside of Jyn's vest is red in a connection to her mother.

Also according to behind the scenes info, Rogue One begins in darker settings and ends on a bright planet to reflect especially Jyn's journey from fear and isolation to being part of something greater.

I know there's more, the specifics shift depending on which bit of canon you're looking at but the Alliance Starbird is usually a lovely warm orange.

[inlovewithwords]

Eriond: All the Gods have colors, and many of the characters; blue tends to be the Good Guy Color (TM) in any number of ways. It's definitely associated with Eriond. Red is Evil. Apparently Eddings subscribed to the Lucas newsletter (Pawn of Prophecy came out in 82 so I would not be surprised if there's influence there). He wears a lot of brown and homespun and also a lot of light blue.

Lois: Heh, characters in DC worlds definitely have Their Color Schemes and affiliated things. Lois tends a lot towards red when she's dipping into the SuperFam colors, but also, for some reason lavender is very much a color of hers. Different artists/shows/settings use color differently--hello, Man of Steel and de-saturation--but it's definitely interesting that Lois has her own color scheme, especially given that purple-and-green are Lex's colors but purple is also mixed red-and-blue, so... yeah, it's curious goings-on.

Evelyn: ... seriously everyone subs to the Blue V Red Newsletter, okay. Infected lyrium is red, pure lyrium is blue, and okay pure lyrium is also sketchtastic but it's not explicitly immediately evil the same way. I think Evelyn is going to be heavy on the black and gold for formal things.

R2-D2: Well, being blue colored, R2 fits in with the "standard" color patterning of his world, including with the white in his color scheme as for some reason really evil folks are super into black. The canon is definitely on the BvR Newsletter if not the originator of it.

Anakin: ... Yeah so Anakin and his friggin' lightsabers. And also, like, Force color associations. Anakin wears a lot of black or other dark colors even when a Jedi that are, ah, definitely Indicative. As are differences in eye color (blue v. yellow).

Tavi: Hilariously, Tavi's family colors are blue and red, and it's most of what he wears now that he's First Lord. There's a lot of Family Colors scattered throughout the books--one of the mostly-villains has black and red, f'r'ex'--and in particular there's a thing where metalcrafting throws sparks and those sparks are often colored by family or service association. So, for example, when Tavi finally starts metalcrafting, his sparks blue and red (and probably should have been a clue to him about his family, but he might have thought it was just because of his Crown loyalties). The other really major color indicator is that, for once, evil is actually green--waxy, sickly green, but green, and I guess black with it a little? Vord colors are definitely that waxy green and probably a bit of black.

Which is... hella interesting, when you consider that while Tavi's family colors are blue and red (and gold to some degree)? His own personal colors are definitely black and green. His personal squad in his Legion wears a black crow instead of the red-and-blue eagle originally on the standard, the name the Canim give him is of a fairly dark-furred critter, he has black hair himself, and it's A Thing that he has Extremely Green Eyes (and anyone with eye color of note that's green is a Gaius--I'm including Kitai). So... interesting that the black-and-green theme is both the Vord and Tavi.

[archmagetrust]

On Azeroth you can tell a lot about a caster by the color of their magic. If it's a sickly green they're probably a warlock. Vibrant green, on the other hand, signifies a druid. Warm yellow light (or blinding, searing light) is the color of priests and paladins. Arcane magic (mage) ranges in shade from cerulean blue to iridescent violet. If it's elemental in any way, earthen, wet, etc, you're probably dealing with a shaman. Deep purple black is the color of Shadow magic and necromancy is sort of a pale, bluish grey.

Mechanics and game UI wise, each class in WoW is associated with a very specific color. It's mostly used in chat boxes and party frames so you know the makeup of your group, and thereby what abilities are available for your party to use. Warlocks are light purple, paladins are pink, druids are orange, mages are light blue, and so on. Obviously the UI color rarely matches the actual aesthetic of the class and I can only blame lack of foresight in the original game for why that is.

Khadgar's personal color palette seems to be silver, blue, and brown, with his magic taking on the classic lavender and blue hues of arcane magic.

[splash_of_blue]

Sam's personal colour palette is black: black hair, black eyes, black clothes. Partly it's that it's an unobtrusive colour scheme, and Sam is more than happy not to be noticed, but it's also an inverted reference to Sam's role as the Bearer of Light (essentially a magical superweapon that kills the user as well as its target). Black, after all, absorbs light...

Molly's signature colour is, of course, pink. It's the colour of her powers - her parents, even though they had totally different powers (they were both psychics) also had glowing pink eyes when their powers were on. It's unusual for mutant children to have powers anything like their parents, and entirely unheard-of to have entirely identical powersets and manifestations the way her parents do (that's more of a sibling thing...), which raises some interesting questions about genetic relationships that Molly has decided she never, ever needs to look into, thank you very much.

Magic-users in Raoul's universe each have individually-specific colours of magic (although iirc the twins Thom and Alanna and the father/son Baird and Neal both had the same colour, so it can run in families). This manifests as clouds of glowing light when they use their Gift. Raoul, though, is not a magic-user, so this doesn't affect him personally. However, each noble house does have its own colour scheme - in Raoul's case, green and gold. 'Goldenlake green' appears to be a specific shade, although as far as I know Tamora Pierce never actually describes it. The colours are prominent on his coat of arms and flag, and his squire wears them when serving at formal events - they're a symbol of allegiance to his House. Raoul himself will sometimes choose to wear them for the same type of formal events, but it's not mandatory.

Victoria's colour appears to be white - it's certainly the colour she's most often seen wearing. I'm not sure what the symbolism is there, but it's definitely not the traditional one. Except possibly that of the angel of death.

War says hi. In red. Very red. I take a great deal of enjoyment in finding appropriate similes/metaphors when describing her. Even the names she chooses to use are synonyms for red. This, of course, is part of the traditional symbolic colours for the Four Bikers Horsemen: white for Pestilence/Pollution, er...depends sickly yellow for Famine, red for War, black for Death.

Coulson is grey. Smart, unobtrusive, forgettable grey, for when one needs to Expressionless Secret Agent as Expressionless Secret Agently as possible (yes, he knows, sticking the logo on everything is kind of counterproductive, shush). It's also a SHIELD uniform colour, a nice reminder of his alliance.