Teres

Okay, I just checked and while I can sort of touch the chin and both temples it's not with my fingertips and I have to push on my hand to get the position right.

I just tried it too and couldn't really do it, or at least not in a way that felt natural or comfortable.

Mini spitefic

*applause* See, that's SO much better (it's "aught", by the way). It gives Timozel his agency back, for one thing.

Like I said in my own comment, characters shouldn't do things because they're being forced or manipulated into it... unless it's depicted as a bad thing which they at least try to resist

I even had a scenario just like it in one of my own books. The protagonist is manipulated into becoming an inspirational figure of rebellion without his knowledge or consent, and when he finds out what's going on he's pissed. He isn't even a naturally rebellious person; in fact he's a people pleaser by nature. But he tells the manipulator to fuck off all the same. When he ultimately does join the guy's cause, it's only when he's ready and after the latter has apologised and accepted that what he did was wrong, and the protagonist has forgiven him. A hero is something you grow to become, not a role chosen for you, or something you're just born as.

By the end of that conversation Timozel is a), fully on board with screwing over the Sentinels and b), mulling over the question of why the Forbidden are forbidden.

And we also get someone actually examining their prejudices instead of instantly "snapping out of it" because of mind control or whatever. Huzzah! It's so cheap how later on in this trilogy we get bullshit lines like "the Icarii were discovering that many of their prejudices against humans were as mistaken as the humans' prejudices and beliefs about them", none of which is ever explored. What prejudices? No idea, because the author couldn't be bothered to tell us.
It's like she always just wants the easy way out and doesn't stop to consider how that makes her characters look (ie BAD) or her worldbuilding and plotting (ie really really lazy).