fix(core): render italic text correctly in Safari

[monospaced]

Problem

<em> and other italics rendered upright in Safari (Chrome and Firefox were fine). The element was present — just not slanted.

Root cause: italic in Set is the variable font's slant axis, triggered by font-style: italic. WebKit drops the font-style: italic → slant-axis mapping once font-variation-settings is set (which .set does), and font-synthesis: none blocks the faux fallback — so the slant never applies.

Fix

A new fontVariationSettings.italic token declares the slnt axis explicitly so WebKit can't drop it:

• mnsp / Berkeley Mono: slnt -16
• wrfr / Recursive: CRSV 1, CASL 1, MONO 1, slnt -15

Applied to:

• :where(address, cite, dfn, em, i, var) in root.css
• prose code italics (.hljs-comment, .hljs-emphasis)

font-weight→wght is unaffected by the WebKit bug, so bold-italic still gets its weight.

Docs

• Font variation settings section is now per-token: default → "No change" (inert on mnsp), italic → a live <em> specimen.
• Reworded the inert-token marker from "Not used" → "No change" (these tokens are applied — their mnsp values are just a no-op — and do real work on wrfr). Renamed the helper/class accordingly (renderInertPreview / .value-text-inert); the effect filter marker uses the same.

Release

Changeset: minor across the fixed group — it's a fix, but it adds the public --set-typography-font-variation-settings-italic token.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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