"The Undergrad Cohort"

I finished Babel in about 2 weeks and it's left a gaping hole in my heart I need to patch with fanart.

Uncleaned scanned sketch below.

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The Fallen Angel of Babel 📜✒️🪽

LOVE BABEL BY RF KUANG!! I drew Robin Swift as the fallen angel painting!!

i will forever cry over how robin lost ramy and griffin after both of them saved him. only for him not to be able to continue life. because the grief was greater than he could bear. the pain was too much for him to think of the life after the strike. after all he did in the spirit of his late brother and dearest friend.

i will forever cry over robin letting victoire go. i simply couldn't find the words to describe the bond that they had. it was meant to be. victoire was the voice of reason between the two and robin just couldn't get through all of it, not without griffin and ramy. she made up her mind and so did he and it was hurtful to witness this two souls make peace with their choices. im going insane over this.

[babel] spent way too long inking ice-skates for this. i miss them

Babel Spoilers!!!

Been thinking a lot about Letty Price and her inability to comprehend how the act of Robin, Victoire and Ramy standing up and joining a resistance against Babel was so integral to their identities and experiences as POC and scholars in Britain.

How could they hate and do this to a nation that gave them so much? That gave them literature and translation, education and funding and the ability to expand their minds. How could they turn their backs on that?

She could not conceive that they had been given these opportunities, but at every turn they were disrespected and mistreated for who they were. Given rewards and treats and opportunities with the consolation that yes “you are lesser than” but don’t worry we can beat the ethnic out of you. And to hang that over you, it is only natural to form a twisted sense of self-worth contingent on the whily and abusive whims of their oppressor. The constant need to prove that they were worthy of acknowledgment, of this position. The anger and twisted gratuity for the opportunity, but injustice in being used for their minds and their abilities by an empire refusing to acknowledge them as humans, let alone equals. Stolen bodies and stolen lands.

And Letty, her only framework of suffering was the coddling of a girl in an upperclass white family and the restrictions of conservative social constructs. That while hindering and discouraging, were not a question of life and death or of humanity, but of simple opportunity and intelligence. And looking through these eyes, how could she comprehend such a thing?

Many layers of Birdie

I finished Babel last week and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head. So, here’s an animatic about Griffin. MAJOR SPOILERS HERE!!

wondering if rf kuang intentionally wrote four main characters for both tpw and babel because the number four is associated with death in chinese and she likes hurting me

letty couldn't handle the fact a brown man rejected her, but also couldn't handle knowing that ramy would pick robin over and over again, that he would rather have a (chinese) MAN over a (white) woman

she tried to connect with him the ways robin could, by talking abt his foreign land, by "appreciating" him ("but your skin is lovely—"), mimicking his banter with robin (constantly going against every mundane opinion he had in an effort to tease him) but she could never see how she was constantly hurting him by never listening to him, by putting down his feelings of britain's settlement in india, by her utter ignorance to the group's collective experiences

but no, it's ramy's fault, obviously. he wouldn't even look at her and she couldn't stand it

one detail in babel i noticed and loved was during that scene where professor lovell is teaching his first class to robin and co. and he asks robin to give him the word for “great storm” (táifēng) and THEN when victoire says it (taifeng) - when robin speaks we see the tones in the word because that’s HIS language, he’s the one who breathes it and lives it and dreams in it and he’s got it all down pat, but when victoire says it we don’t get tones at all because she’s saying it like any other person speaking it as english would like hello???? i FELT that oh my god

Thinking of Ramy's family. Their sweet boy. Their smart boy. The one who would have done anything for his family. He never forgot them.

He wanted to bring his friends and boyfriend to meet them. He told Robin all about Calcutta. Wanted to give him mangos and spend time in the warm sun. A place of peace away from Oxford.

Ramy's mom would have cooked for Robin. Robin, who lost his mother so long ago, would feel so at home. Finally. A family he could call his.

And Ramy's sisters. Their squeals seeing him as he walked through the door. They would have loved Victoire. Shown her the clothes, the language. Take her in as a sister. And Victoire would embrace it. Finally have the friendship she always wanted.

What did his family think when they stopped receiving letters from Ramy? Surely not that he had forgotten to write. First, his father said the post must be delayed. Then, his letter must have gotten lost but he'd write again soon. His mom would have tried to convince herself that Ramy was just having too much fun in England to write. Still, each passing day without word from him would be agony.

And then one day, a letter would arrive. Handwriting they had never seen to Mr. and Mrs. Mirza. They would not get past the first sentence without letting out a scream. The one only a mother could let out when she lost her child. His sisters would run into the room, one would pick up the letter and see, through blurring vision, "It is with deep sadness..."

They would never get over that moment.

Then, years, decades later, a beautiful woman named Victoire would show up looking lost but at home all at the same time. She would sit at their table with a cup of tea. Mr. Mirza long passed. Mrs. Mirza would be frail but still insist on feeding her. And Victoire would tell her how much she loved their boy. And it would still hurt, but it would feel good to pour all this love out. To remember him and Robin and everything they had done. And all they never got to do.

I'm once again thinking about how alone Victoire must have felt living with Letty, outside the bubble of best friendship that Robin and Ramy shared, conveniently paired with the other girl in their cohort.

Robin and Ramy got each other and Letty was always unwilling and unable to get Victoires experience. It breaks my heart that Letty could rely on Victoire for emotional support but not the other way around. No doubt she delved into all her childhood issues and the loss of her brother and Victoire did nothing but listen and be understanding while knowing she'd never be able to count on Letty for the same.

babel: an arcane history - r. f. kuang

I'm loving this book so far!! Quick sketches of the cohort as I try to process my thoughts halfway through this novel lmao

completely diverting from my usual asoiaf content here, but i‘m reading babel by r.f. kuang atm and all i wanna say is that miss girlfailure letty price should be thanking god every single day for the fact that ramy, robin and victoire have more restraint than richard papen and company. if literally any of the three of them was even a little bit less fundamentally nice and normal, letty would have been bunny corcoran‘d like three times over.