#Poetry during COVID

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Thoughts on writing and poetry from one of my favourite contemporary poets Jaclyn Desforges

I won’t speak for other lit scenes but in Canada the chronic fear of being blunt and therefore incredibly vulnerable is a bane on our poetry. Everyone feels they must be coy or emotionally removed or hyper intellectual and it, to my mind, results in bad poetry.

Fear of being direct, of being blunt and, perhaps, ugly, of saying what we mean—all of that makes for bad writers.

And gods know I suffer from the same knee jerk reaction of wanting To Be Poetic and To Be Intellectual and Smart in my writing and in doing so forget what I’m writing about

I remember talking to a poet, brilliant brilliant woman, Robin Richardson, and she asked me “tell me exactly what this poem is about in plain language” and I did—step mom stuff, childhood trauma stuff—and I was having that Voice Cracking Looking At Ceiling So I Don’t Cry moment

And the poet said, “your poem needs that in-your-face pain. It needs to be a hurt seven year old. Are hurt seven year olds coy and overly poetic? No, they’re blunt. Try that and see how you go”

And of course this doesn’t mean you don’t use imagery or metaphor or things like that—but at the core you can’t be afraid of ugliness and bluntness

Best advice I ever got as a writer.

Anyway, some random Saturday morning musings brought to you by Jaclyn Desforges and Robin Richardson.

(Also, Robin’s thoughts on the unsympathetic voice are great too—can’t grab the link but the essay is titled “the unsympathetic voice in poetry” and it’s in the North American Review from like 2015)

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

“...enough of the high / water, enough sorrow, enough of the air and its ease, / I am asking you to touch me.”

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

[elipsi]

De Lorca a Lorca (2023)

[oh-cramity-its-amity]

its so weird to read some of my old fics (do NOT do it but i'm just being hypothetical rn) and reading it. like who even was this person?? i completely was in a haze back in 2020. i literally was posting 3 chapters a day. A DAY. what in the WORLD was that shit.

anyway i remembered some STUPID sappy shit and i didnt remember if i'd put it into a fic or not BUT I FOUND IT.

She and Hope had been dating in secret for months anyway, and any attempt to go talk to Ryan only filed her disposition of displeasure upon knowing that she couldn’t tell anyone, Molly especially, it destroyed herself mentally. They couldn’t really go anywhere near the school, always having to lie to everyone about having projects together when Molly wasn’t around them. It’d consisted with 9 PM - 2 AM intervals of being able to actually see each other. Hope would sneak through her small bedroom window with a portable record player and whatever she had gotten from the vintage record store downtown, and Amy would always fall asleep around eleven because of her internal clock. She would always wake up to find a single sticky note stuck on the edge of her desk whenever she woke up to her alarm the next morning. One of them, Amy still had tucked inside of her phone case, a heavily detailed human heart, with blue and red ink sketched onto a neon pink sticky note, there was a caption that headed the small paper reading the phrase over every now and again makes her almost melt every time. “You have my heart.”

yeah idk why the fuck but i thought of this fucking idea again today and i was like "omg did i ever put that heart note thing in a fic???" yeah you fucking did.

all that to say ME AND WHO???? imagine. thats so fucking.... RAHHHH.

[kaleuh]

Day 218: A letter to someone you judged by first impression

dawg i genuinely dont know i dont think about people that hard

[nameless-poet]

Us

Not much left now: Ashes and Smoke. Coughing and dying, We're left to choke.

Today is the day, As good as any, to start to plant trees. There ought to be many. Beautiful and green, they'll filter the air, make it clean and alive, turn the sky blue and fair.

We will be better We will tear off our masks We will see true faces We won't be afraid to bask

In the beauty of Us

[theetherealbloom]

NORMAL THING

Summary: It's a normal thing to fall in love with movie stars.  

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x Fem!Reader  

Warnings: Age-Gap(ish), Huge Crush, kind of Power Imbalance (cause you’re a fan but nothing absolutely weird), Hurt-to-Comfort, Infatuation, Fluff, ANGST, Dog, Older Sister, COVID-19, Pandemic Era, Cheesy, Awkward, Hallmark-ish Vibes, Whirlwind, Work, 

Word Count: 3k

A/N: That mf voice note-turned-song has me sobbing and dying every time I listen to it. Then I was also listening to "Normal Thing" and was like, “ohhhh this song is for me… help.” I wrote this fic in a place of just… feeling sorry…? Like apologetic that Pedro had to go through that kind of feeling all alone for a while. Anyways, there's a few sentimental moments here inspired by poetry and things I've read and learned, hope you enjoy!

Side note: I’m dyslexic and English isn’t my first language! So I apologize in advance for the spelling and/or grammatical errors. As always, reblogs, comments, and likes are always appreciated. Thank you and happy reading!

Songs: "Normal Thing" by Gracie Abrams, "Pedro" by Omar Apollo

dividers by: @/saradika-graphics

| Main Masterlist |

You had gone to visit your sister during your last summer break before graduating. Then, the second wave of COVID struck Europe, making it uncertain when you could return home. However, since all classes had shifted to online learning, the timing wasn't as critical.

Your older sister calls your name, snapping you out of the book you were absorbed in. "Hey, I’ll be out later getting groceries… do you mind taking Hershey for a walk after dinner?”

Her chocolate brown Labrador retriever, Hershey, a retired service dog, perks up at the mention of his name. You can't help but smile at his eager expression. “Yup, I can take him out later.”

She reminds you, “Don’t forget your mask!”

You playfully roll your eyes at her. “I won’t.”

Your sister thanks you and leaves for the store, leaving you alone with Hershey. You decide to take a short break from studying and take the dog for a walk around the neighborhood.

As you make your way down the quiet streets, Hershey happily sniffing at everything in sight, your thoughts drift to Pedro Pascal. Ever since watching him in The Mandalorian, you couldn't help but develop a bit of a crush on him. His charm and charisma on screen had captured your heart, making it hard for you to focus on anything else.

But it was just a normal thing, right? To have a celebrity crush? You reassure yourself as you continue walking.

You've always been drawn to movie stars and actors. Growing up, you had posters of your favorite celebrities plastered all over your bedroom walls. It was just harmless admiration, nothing more.

But with Pedro, it felt different. You found yourself constantly daydreaming about meeting him or even just catching a glimpse of him in person. You even shamefully admit that you've watched his interviews multiple times just to hear his voice.

It's ridiculous, really. You were fully aware that it was just a fantasy and that nothing would ever come out of it. And even if by some miracle you did meet him, what then? He would never be interested in someone like you - an ordinary college student from a small town.

You sigh and shake your head, trying to push away these silly thoughts as Hershey tugs at his leash to sniff at yet another tree.

But then something catches your eye - a poster for an upcoming film starring none other than Pedro Pascal himself. Your heart flutters at the sight before reality comes crashing down on you once again.

You shake your head and continue walking with Hershey, wondering when this infatuation will finally fade away.

Your older sister had always been supportive, albeit a bit concerned about your celebrity crush. "It's sweet, really," she would say with a soft smile, "but just don't lose yourself in the fantasy, okay?"

Your friends, on the other hand, found your crush hilarious. During your video calls, they would tease you mercilessly. "Come on, you'll never meet him!" one friend would laugh. "It's just a harmless crush, right?" another would add, their tone light but the message clear.

In the privacy of your room, you sometimes found yourself talking to the mirror, practicing speeches you would never give. "Hi, I'm a huge fan… and I just wanted to say..." you'd trail off, feeling foolish. You even practiced smiling and having conversations with yourself, hoping to perfect that effortless charm you admired so much in Pedro.

Yet, your self-awareness kept you grounded. You knew it was just a fantasy, a way to escape the stress of your real life. With a sigh, you would push those daydreams aside and focus on finishing your papers and remaining projects.

You wished one day to work in production, to be a part of the magic that created the worlds you loved to escape into. As you typed away on your laptop, you allowed yourself a small smile. Maybe one day, you would be behind the scenes of a film or a series. But for now, you had work to do, and dreams to turn into reality.

The sun sets late in Switzerland, casting a warm, golden glow over the tranquil residential area. You enjoy these walks, the peacefulness a stark contrast to the bustling city life you're used to.

Right after dinner, you take a stroll with Hershey, you notice a man sitting on a park bench, his shoulders slightly shaking.

Frowning, you glance down at Hershey, who looks up at you with curious eyes. Adjusting your mask, you make your way down the sidewalk, intending to walk past the stranger. But Hershey has other ideas, pulling you towards the bench with a wagging tail.

Instinctively, the man begins to pat Hershey, his touch gentle yet shaky. “Oh, Hershey, wait—” you start to say, but then you notice the tears streaming down the man's face.

You pause, feeling a pang of sympathy. “Do you mind if I sit down?” you ask, gesturing to the far end of the bench.

He looks up, eyes red and puffy, and nods. “It’s fine.”

You sit down, giving him space but staying close enough to offer comfort. You give him your name then look over to your adorably friend-shaped labrador, “And this is Hershey.”

“Pedro,” he replies, his voice barely above a whisper.

There’s a moment of silence, broken only by the soft sounds of Hershey sniffing around. Then, gently, you ask, “So… what’s on your mind?”

Pedro hesitates, struggling to find the words. “I… I don’t even know where to start.”

“I know it might seem a bit strange, but sometimes it's easier to talk to someone you don't know. No judgment, just listening,” you say, offering a reassuring smile.

He chuckles softly, a small spark of warmth in his eyes. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Besides,” you add with a playful grin, “I promise I’m a great listener. I even have a certificate in listening from my sister's dog.”

He laughs – a genuine, heartfelt laugh that seems to lift a weight off his shoulders. Your laugh follows, a sound so infectious and bright that it makes people around you feel lighter, happier.

“Your laugh,” he says, a hint of wonder in his voice. “It’s... special.”

You smile, feeling a warmth spread throughout your face and chest. “Thanks. So, Pedro, what’s been going on? Are you visiting family or…?”

“Oh, no, no. I just… I finished a job.”

“That’s nice. What do you do if you don’t mind me asking?”

He looks a little uncomfortable admitting it but he settles, “I’m um… an actor.”

You smile, your eyes crinkling as you do, “Do you like it?”

“Like what?” He asks in confusion.

“Y’know, acting?”

He takes a deep breath and begins to talk, the words spilling out in a rush. He speaks of the pressures of fame, the loneliness that comes with it, and the crushing weight of expectations. You listen intently, offering empathy and understanding.

“You know…?” he asks, surprised. “You know who I am?”

You nod and shrug. “I… I figured it out after you mentioned some of your projects.”

“You didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t think I had to.”

Pedro looks confused for a minute, and you offer a simple smile. “I’m not famous or anything extraordinary like you. But I can only imagine how exhausting it must be, constantly looking over your shoulder. Not wanting to mess up or upset people must make you feel like you’re always on the edge, always holding your breath.”

He nods, his expression softening. “That’s exactly it.”

“I've done my fair share of pacing and reeling,” you say with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I even thought it looked cute at times. But I know there's more to life than just this feeling of uncertainty. Even though right now, it feels like there isn't any moment past this one.”

You sigh as your eyes get misty. “In the end, if any of us are going to make it, we simply have to believe. We have to believe that we aren’t alone, that people see us for who we are and what we can be. You have to visualize it; cling to whatever fills you with courage, because the world needs you here. It needs you.”

As the night wears on, you both share stories and laughter, the conversation flowing naturally. By the time you part ways, Pedro looks visibly lighter, as if a burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

Beauty no longer has an effect on Pedro. It takes more than physical appearance to impress him. Instead, it's the ability to intrigue his mind and provoke his thoughts that truly captivates him. That is what he considers someone as magic.

“Thank you,” he says sincerely. “I didn’t realize how much I needed this.”

“Anytime,” you reply. “Had a good time, but I guess I'll see ya. Take care, Pedro.”

Years later, when the world isn’t as plagued by the pandemic, you’re working in New York, living your own life but occasionally checking in on Pedro’s career through social media. He’s become a prominent figure, his face everywhere. Yet, you can’t forget the vulnerable man you met on that bench.

One night, you’re at a bar in the Bowery Hotel with friends. The atmosphere is lively, filled with laughter and chatter. As you share a joke, your laugh rings out, catching the attention of someone across the room.

Pedro looks up, his heart skipping a beat. That laugh – he knows that laugh. His eyes scan the room until they land on you, and for a moment, everything else fades away. He feels an uncanny sense of familiarity, a powerful pull towards you that he can’t quite place.

Your friends laugh at a joke you made, but your mind is already miles away. Tomorrow, you’re heading to Glendale, California, to work as a sound engineer on an upcoming project at DreamWorks Animation. The excitement and nerves flutter in your chest as you excuse yourself to start packing.

Pedro starts to make his way towards you, determined to find out if his instincts are right. Just as he’s halfway across the room, a fan stops him, asking for a picture. He smiles warmly, grateful for the support, and agrees. 

“Thank you so much, Pedro! This means the world to me!” the fan gushes, snapping a quick selfie.

“No problem at all,” he replies, his gaze drifting back to where you were sitting. He quickly wraps up the conversation, eager to see you again. But when he looks back, you’re gone, as if you vanished into thin air.

Pedro’s heart sinks. He scans the room, hoping to catch another glimpse of you, but you’re nowhere to be seen. 

Meanwhile, you’re outside, heading towards the subway station and waving goodbye to your friends. “I have to pack and get some sleep. My flight is early tomorrow morning,” you explain, your excitement barely contained.

Your friends hug you, wishing you luck on your new endeavor. As you descend down the stairs and board the subway train, your thoughts drift back to all those years ago, on the little bench, and now the bar, to the man whose presence had stirred something deep within you. You shake your head, putting on your headphones, distracting yourself with your favorite songs on your playlist.

Inside the bar, Pedro stands in the exact spot where he last caught a glimpse of you. A strange mix of disappointment and determination fills him, knowing he must find you again. The connection he felt was too strong to ignore – he needs to see if it was genuine or just a fleeting moment between two strangers on a park bench all those years ago.

The next day, you arrive at the DreamWorks Animation campus in Glendale, California. The excitement and nervousness intertwine as you step into the studio, ready to start your new role as a sound engineer. 

Your supervisor gives you a brief overview of the project, "The Wild Robot," an animated film in production. "We need you to record and mix the voice actors' takes for each character," he explains. "Attention to detail is crucial – the right sound can bring the characters to life."

You nod, absorbing the requirements of your new role. "Got it. I'll make sure every line is perfect."

As you glance at the cast sheet for the voice actors, you notice that a few roles are still being finalized. Your mind drifts back to the previous night, to the man in the bar who looked so familiar. Shaking off the distraction, you focus on the task at hand. 

Your days are filled with recording sessions and mixing tracks, immersing yourself in the world of "The Wild Robot." The work is demanding but rewarding, and you throw yourself into it with everything you have. 

Despite your busy schedule, thoughts of the bench in Lucerne and the glimpse of him at the bar keep creeping back into your mind. The way Pedro had looked at you, the sense of connection you felt—it all seems so surreal now. You can’t help but wonder if you’ll ever see him again. The story you want is the story you get. Are you special, or was this all scripted in his head?

Back in his home in LA, Pedro can't shake the feeling that he needs to find you. He starts making discreet inquiries, hoping to track you down without drawing too much attention. The memory of your laughter and the warmth in your eyes keeps him going. He knows he needs to see you again, to see if what he felt was real.

As you finish another recording session, you glance at the cast sheet again. A new name catches your eye—Pedro Pascal as Fink the fox. Your heart skips a beat. Could it be him? The thought is both thrilling and terrifying.

Taking a deep breath, you try to focus on your work, but your mind keeps drifting back to the possibility. What if it really is him? What if fate has brought you together again? The anticipation builds as you wait for the next recording session, hoping that your paths will cross once more.

When the day finally arrives, you’re setting up the recording equipment, your hands trembling slightly with nervous energy. The door opens, and you hear footsteps approaching. You look up, and there he is—Pedro Pascal, standing in the doorway, looking just as surprised to see you.

“Hi,” he says, his voice soft yet filled with emotion. “It’s you.”

You smile, trying to steady your racing heart. “Yeah, it’s me. I didn’t expect to see you here. Well, I mean,” you start to fidget with your fingers, stumbling over your words, “I read the call sheet and I—”

“I didn’t expect to find you either,” he admits, taking a step closer. “But I’m glad I did.”

There’s a moment of silence, both of you taking in the significance of this unexpected reunion. Then, with a gentle smile, Pedro says, “Do you have time to catch up after this?”

You nod, feeling a rush of warmth and excitement. “I’d like that.”

As the recording session progresses, you can’t help but steal glances at Pedro, who seems equally distracted. When it’s finally over, you pack up your equipment, your heart pounding with anticipation.

Outside the studio, the two of you find a quiet corner to talk. Pedro takes your hand, his touch warm and reassuring. “I’ve thought about you a lot,” he admits. “Ever since that night in Lucerne, and then seeing you again at the bar… I knew I had to find you.”

“I’ve thought about you too,” you confess, your voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know if it was real or I just made it all up in my head.”

“It’s real,” Pedro says, his gaze intense and sincere. “And I want to see where this goes, if you do too.”

You smile, feeling a sense of hope and possibility. “I’d like that very much.”

The air between you and Pedro is charged with electric energy as you talk and laugh, baring your souls to each other like old friends. Time seems to stand still as you swap stories and reveal your deepest desires, the connection between you growing stronger with each passing moment. This is more than just a chance encounter; and the both of you can feel the spark of something new and thrilling forming between you.

[ninesbakery]

what was I yapping about this never happened LMAO

Kinda lonely lately, thinking about going on a first date with a trans guy. We’re both kinda nervous but we click so well, he’s so charming and he makes me eel so comfortable. We have a lot of fun, we stay out way longer than we mean too, we talked for hours. We have our first kiss and I realize I never wanna stop kissing this man.

[writingonleaves]

were you sent by someone who wanted me dead? (did you sleep with a gun underneath our bed?) - jeremy swayman

pairing: jeremy swayman x original female character

warnings: swearing, pretty angsty. hopeful ish ending because i can't do sad endings, very personal but i think many can relate in their own way, cliche ish, barely proofread

inspired by + title: "the smallest man who ever lived" by taylor swift

word count: 5.6k

author's note: i'd argue almost every piece any author writes is personal, because it has their life interspersed through the words. but this one really is, because a majority of this is the exact same words i wrote years ago after a break-up. heard the bridge to this song and immediately knew i had to write something inspired by it. also trying a new format of sorts (maybe a bit meta??), so i hope you enjoy and lmk what you think!!

~*~*~

When Noelle Betsko walked away from Jeremy Swayman, holding back tears until the call dropped, she knew it was going to be a tough time for the foreseeable future. 

It didn’t matter that the pandemic had forced them apart. She knew she would still feel him for months to come.

She did the only thing she knows how to do when trying to deal with things. The one thing she always resorts to as an aspiring novelist. Sometimes on her laptop when the words were spilling out too quickly for her brain to catch up, tears littering the keyboard. Usually in her old beat-up journal, scribbling in the cursive that Jeremy claimed he always loved (“It makes your handwriting unique”) with the pens he had gifted her just a few months prior. 

At the age of 21, Noelle got her heart broken for the first time. At the age of 26, she’s about to publish her first poetry collection of sorts, all of the poems modeled after journal entries written throughout her life. So not really poetry, though her mother would say otherwise. 

She swallows as she thumbs through the middle part of the first known and binded copy of “miscellaneous.” There are only eight entries in the whole collection that are taken verbatim from her past writing. These are the eight.

May 13, 2020 (three days post-breakup, crying in my childhood bedroom)

I don’t even recognize who I was and who you were in those writings before these pages filled with love and hope and happiness. I can’t even summon up those feelings anymore that I knew existed at one point. Those feelings of complete bliss and love for someone so deep you can’t explain it. 

I’m mad at myself for not being able to conjure those feelings, because at one point, I did love you. How could something that was part of my daily life for over two years just disappear so quickly? 

But now, I’m not mad at myself. I’m mad, but I don’t know where to direct that anger to. I feel a bit empty sometimes, but then frustrated the next. Sometimes I get sad, but not so much compared to the other feelings. I spent enough time being sad during our relationship.

When we broke up, on an annoyingly beautiful Tuesday in May — over the damn phone, mind you, which whatever, it’s COVID. Fine — You told me you felt like you had been putting more effort into us. 

At the time, I didn’t react, but I’ve been thinking about how angry that statement made me. Makes me, actually. I was always very open with how much I gave to that relationship. How much it meant to me. How much it affected me. But I understand that with some people, sharing everything too much equates to things not meaning anything anymore. But you out of all people should’ve known that I mean everything I say.

I felt like I gave so much. I know I gave so much. When I told you I loved you, I always meant it. Every single time. When I told you I missed you, I always meant it. I wished you were right next to me at that moment. I mentally gave so much, because to me, I wanted to. You were always on my mind, always high up on my list of priorities. I never took us for granted.

I’ve been questioning if that was the same for you. Did you start becoming complacent?

The second thing you said that day that hasn’t left my head is that you knew me pretty well. And initially, I remember not thinking much of it. So I don’t doubt that; you always knew right when I was about to cry, even over the phone. You often knew when I was mad or upset, but when I look back now, you never pushed. Which is a good thing, to an extent. But it was a bad thing sometimes too. I knew you often wanted to give me space, but sometimes I didn’t want space. I wanted you to push. To try to understand. Maybe that’s unfair of me; it probably is. I should just say I want to talk about it more, right? 

But if you genuinely knew me, you would’ve known.

After two years, seven months and 12 days,  I still feel like I didn’t know you. Did I ever know you at all?

When people talked shit about you, I always defended you. And I still would defend you now. But lately, I've questioned what I’m even defending. All those good qualities that I thought you had, were they even real? Of course, I know some of them were, to a certain extent. But as I look back on us, there’s a lot of doubt about whether I even knew the person I called my boyfriend for so long. I know there was a point where you cared about me, but I can’t remember when. 

I often felt like I was letting you know so much about my life, but you didn’t do the same. I get that sometimes a person just wants to forget about the bad and focus on the good with a person you like for awhile. I get that. But once that was happening every damn time? That should’ve been a red flag. 

June 7, 2020 (twenty eight days post break-up, outside my childhood room on the deck) 

I don’t understand how you can give so much to something or someone and have it not be recognized or appreciated or enough. If I wasn’t enough for you, how will I be enough for anyone?

I hope one day you’ll truly understand how much this hurt. Not just the breakup, but feeling like I was always being pulled in a direction I didn’t always want to be pulled in. Feeling I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and never ever being able to win. I hate that I settled so much in the last year. Because I should’ve demanded more, even though deep down I knew you were never going to be able to give it to me.

I think back to our past daily texts, and I just don’t get it. At one point, we both meant the things we said to each other. 

Yet we still hurt each other. 

This fucking hurts.

You’ve hurt me so much, but most of it wasn’t intentional, which I think is somewhat even worse. Because I’m not totally mad at you for causing the pain. You never did anything outright to cause me pain, but I still feel like you did. 

Unintentional pain almost stings more than intentional. 

When I asked you out that night after we were both on an emotional high, I took a chance. For once in my life, I took the leap, knowing that I could get humiliated or hurt or just straight up shot down. 

Where did it all go wrong? Or, more realistically, how did we think that we could go through the wrong when it was there at the start?

I’m trying not to blame myself too much. Trying not to tell myself that I should’ve known better. 

All those times, especially at the start, when I would ask you if you genuinely liked me, you always thought I was just trying to be annoying. But you never understood that I genuinely thought that way. My self confidence from the start was lacking, and you didn’t try to understand that, because I come across to everyone as confident and self-assured. 

It hurt, when you would brush things off like that. I felt like you didn’t care.

And then, it got to the point where I stopped asking that question. Part of that is because I did become more confident and you did show that you cared, and part of that was because I knew it would piss you off.

The amount of things I was scared to talk about with you because I knew it would piss you off? I don’t wish that feeling on anybody.

I shouldn’t have been scared. I shouldn’t have been uncomfortable. But I was. And if you did notice like sometimes you claimed to, why didn’t you make it more comfortable for me? Was that too much to ask for? 

So larger than life that at the end, you faded into just the smallest man who ever lived. Fuck you.

Was it too much to ask for when I just wanted to know why you were upset? You didn’t have to ever tell me the full story (lord knows there were times I didn’t), but was it too much to ask for something? You told me once that I’m the person you’ve told the most to. How? You barely told me anything. And when I wanted to talk to you, whether it was about growing up in Alaska or why you were in a bad mood last night, you always brushed it off. Always. 

So I don’t feel so bad about feeling like I gave more effort. I gave so much of myself to you. If you really cared about me like you claimed you did, why couldn’t you show even just 1% of that care back? Or just meet me in the middle?

I could’ve tried harder to meet you in the middle, I’ll admit that. But you didn’t even give me a map or a clue how to. 

I felt so fucking left in the dark. I felt left in the dark about my own fucking relationship, something that I should be completely sure about. If you really love someone and care about them, how can you leave them in the dark? How could you not even see that I was struggling to find a flashlight?

You did care about me. I know that. To some extent and at some point in time, you did care about me. But caring about someone and their well-being isn’t always enough.

Why couldn’t you have worked with me? When I was extending my hand out, why didn’t you reach for it? How can someone just be so blind? I mean, I’m practically always spelling it out for you. 

Maybe I am being selfish. But fuck, I just wanted to be happy. At some point, you made me happy. When did I start making you feel like I wasn’t enough? Why wasn’t I enough for you?

It’s useless, in a way, to keep going about this. Because I know I deserve better. And we’ll both find people who are better for us. We just couldn’t be that person to each other.

I fucking loved you.

I wish it ended differently.

July 8, 2020 (fifty nine days post-breakup, in front of the lake)

I really really fucking miss you. 

I do. 

I miss being able to text you that i love you and not necessarily expecting a response until the next morning. I miss knowing that as soon as you wake up, you’ll text me back and assure me that yeah, you love me too. 

I’m left feeling bittersweet as I look back on memories that are just splashes and not definite strokes on the canvas that used to be us.

I miss having you as a friend. 

I’ve been having more urges lately to want to text you. And it isn’t even anything important. Just moments I experience throughout the day.

Do you get the urge to do the same?

July 19, 2020 (seventy days post-breakup, still in the same damn house)

It’s hard. It really is. And it kinda just hits you at random parts of the day. Sometimes I wake up from a dream that you were in and have to remind myself that it didn’t happen. 

Sometimes it physically aches when I realize that you won’t ever help me put on my jacket again, or complain that my hair is in your face when we’re lying on the couch watching Brooklyn Nine Nine, or groan when I drag you up to dance with me (which you never improved on, no matter how many times I tried to teach you basic rhythm). I can’t view our song the same way anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to. 

The other day, I read some simple thing on Twitter. I don’t even remember what it was, but I do remember that for a split second, I could see your smile in my mind. But it wasn’t just any smile. It was the smile you gave me when you took me ice skating that first time. I remember asking you what you were smiling at, and you said that you just were taking in this moment. I don’t know if you took a mental picture that day, but I know I did. That day seems so long ago now. 

In almost anything I do, you somehow pop into my mind or into the conversation. And it’s not even in a harmful way either. It’s because you were part of my life for so long. I see a dog on the street, and it reminds me of how you always stopped to pet every single one we’s see I write something in my messy handwriting, and I remember how you always used to complain that you couldn’t read the notes I’d occasionally leave around your place when you went away. I went to the doctor’s the other day, and they said I was 5 feet and 3 inches, which is just definitely not true, and I almost reached for my phone to text you, because you would’ve cackled and insisted that no, I’m 5 feet 2 inches and it wouldn’t even matter because I’ll always be shorter than you. It’s simple and minute things that make me miss you that much more.

I still can’t listen to some songs the same way anymore, but I can at least listen to them now, which is a feat in itself. I was unpacking from college and found the teddy bear you sent me the first extended time we had to be apart and had to immediately put that out of my sight. From those boxes also came photos that I had decorated my dorm room with, and to be honest, I’m glad now that I let you keep our best one. I deal with all my emotions, besides writing, by making Spotify playlists, and I made a new one earlier this week. I think it’s helping. It’s a slow process, this whole moving on thing, but it’s one that I’m trying to be grateful for, because like most things in life, you just don’t truly know until you go through it.

Sometimes, I find myself wondering how you are and how you’re healing. But, even though we’ve both changed since the day we met, if there’s one thing I know, it’s that you’re incredibly strong and stubborn. I hope that you’re finding some growth in this process too. 

October 17, 2020 (one hundred fifty seven days post-break up, apartment in orono)

It’s been almost 5 months, and you still cross my mind everyday. 

Why wasn’t I enough for you? Why didn’t you fucking tell me what you were thinking? Why was I the one who had to approach you just because I was just so done with the silent treatment?

But I’m not mad at you. Not anymore. The mad phase passed ages ago. 

Closure is a fake word. Even a breakup as mutual and smooth as ours was still left me with so many questions that will probably never be answered. 

Any breakup fucks you up to some extent. I knew it was going to mess me up even back when we were together. But not like this. Never like this. 

But like anything in life, I guess you can never really prepare for what you think you might feel, because most of the time, you discover a whole new side of you that you never thought existed. 

I don’t miss you. I don’t. I don’t feel that love in any way anymore. 

But I did once.

You did too, right?

November 15, 2020 (one hundred eighty six days post break-up, fogler library)

I hate Halloween. 

Though, it did bring me to you three years ago. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you right then and there. 

Three years later, you texted me on Halloween, five months after our breakup. The universe really, really wanted to fuck with me. 

It was a tough night for you. I knew that. Because I know how you are after losing a game you should’ve won. But that didn’t mean that I owed you anything and had to respond. 

We agreed on no contact if we ever wanted to stay friends. Clearly, friends is out of the picture now, but come on. A vulnerable text after a bad night because you know I would feel bad for you?

Fuck, you know how much I would hate that. You had to have known. 

Just because we’re not dating anymore doesn’t mean that everything about you just disappears. I still know your tendencies. I still know exactly how my head burrows into your chest during a hug. I still know the actions I used to do that would be followed by you attacking me with a hug. I still could point you out in a crowd. 

I looked for you in every crowd for years. 

That stuff doesn’t just go away, no matter how much I want it to. But fuck. Fuck. Why did you text me? 

I don’t regret how I handled it. I probably would’ve responded months ago. But just like you, I’ve grown these last couple of months. 

It was comforting, for a split second, to know that maybe, just maybe, these past couple of months have been hard for you too. It makes me feel human. It makes me feel like I’m not crazy.

I’m glad you texted me. You gave me another level of closure I hadn’t known that I needed until then. 

But fuck, dude. You know me better than that. You should know me better than that. 

I hate Halloween.

November 26, 2020 (one hundred ninety seven days, at the coffee shop i brought you to when you came home with me two years ago)

I don’t regret loving you, but I hate you for what you did to me. 

Or maybe not. 

I hate knowing that even though we haven’t been in a relationship in a bit, it feels like sometimes, you’re on my mind the exact same amount when we were dating. I hate knowing that I gave so much of myself and my love to you, and it always felt unrecognized. 

Fuck, will it ever stop hurting? Will I ever be able to have to stop myself from thinking about you? Will it ever stop?

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

Happy birthday. I hope you enjoy it.

June 12, 2021 (three hundred ninety five days post-break up, in boston, visiting a friend)

Tonight, when a friend asked me about you and how I felt about how we ended, I was able to articulate my thoughts clearly. I’m really proud of myself for getting to a point where I can take the lessons I learned the few months after we broke up and acknowledge them in a succinct way without breaking down into tears. Just watery eyes and the occasional voice crack 

I’m also proud that I can say that when we were dating, I lost a bit of myself. For months, it was really hard to admit out loud.

I’m proud of how far I’ve come. Sometimes, I wish I could call or text you about it, because I think you’d be proud too. And I know I’d be proud of you. I am, to be honest. I do break resolve once in awhile and check on you through various avenues.

I still haven’t seen you in person since the last time COVID made us say goodbye. Maybe I never will again. But day by day, I’m starting to accept that and be okay with it. I’m accepting that memories that used to be so painted in my mind are blurry or almost completely erased now. But that’s okay. Honestly, it’s probably for the best. 

I wonder, when you think about it, if you think about different moments that I do. That’s the thing when something ends. You have to be okay with letting go of those moments and realizing that just because you forget them, doesn’t mean they weren’t important. 

I don’t think I miss you. I hesitate in saying that. Because I’ve moved on and handled the aftermath of it better than I think both of us ever thought I could. When you hung up the phone for the last time, I proved to myself again that I’m stronger than I give myself credit for. I think we all are. But we don’t realize it until we’re thrown into a situation that we think we’ll never be able to overcome. 

But we do. Whether it’s because we’re forced to because there’s no other option, it doesn’t matter. Because we get through. We move on. 

I hope you're moving on. 

And then it goes into other topics, graduating during a pandemic specifically and losing what’s supposed to be your last year of no responsibilities before adulthood. There are other poems in here that reference a past relationship, but not as much as these eight. 

If there’s one thing that Noelle did change, it was taking out the details. Jeremy may have hurt her, but he doesn’t deserve someone possibly making a connection between these poems and their shared background. She’s not a famous author by any means, but she wanted to be careful.

Not that she makes that part of her life publicly known. People don’t need to know that her brother was Jeremy’s captain for two years at Maine and that’s how they met. 

Noelle grew up going to rinks. She hasn’t gone to one since they broke up. 

But also, what the fuck? It’s been five years since she’s dated the guy. She really is over it by now, even if his rise to stardom in the Bruins flittering on her social media feeds still sometimes has her swallowing a bit before she can continue with her day. 

Brooklyn is far enough from Boston. But sometimes it feels like it’s right outside her door. 

She’s proud of her first published work. She really is. People believed in her and after numerous notes swapped back and forth with her editor, she did it. She always knew she wanted to work in publishing. She never knew she herself would publish anything.

And here she is now, two weeks after the book release, in Boston, about to do a q&a and a signing. Apparently, “miscellaneous” has been on top of numerous lists and it’s flying off the shelves. Noelle can’t really believe it and tries not to think about it too much, trusting her agent with all of that. 

She’s happy to talk about her work and process though. That she can handle. And she’s grateful for all the love.

After a signing at a local bookstore, she decides to walk the 20 minutes home in the Boston fall. It’s a bit brisk, but she doesn’t mind and she just wanders, belly filled with delicious sushi she inhaled for dinner with an old friend.

Of course it happens the one time during her walk when she doesn’t avoid eye contact with someone. The song playing in her earbuds fade out of her focus and she almost stumbles. 

Jeremy’s eyes were always Noelle’s favorite thing about him. She thought she would’ve forgotten what they looked like by now. But clearly she hasn’t. 

Her eyes quickly cast to the person next to him. It’s definitely a girl. They’re a bit too far away for Noelle to pick out details. But it’s enough. He’s walking on the side closest to the street. It’s a Friday Night in a bustling part of the city. 

It hurts. She wishes it didn’t.

Even from far away, she sees his eyes blink in recognition. Noelle puts her head back down and walks faster. 

(She cries in the shower when she gets back to the hotel. She had debated feeling super sorry for herself and going to the hotel bar but refrained)

She has a few free days in Boston before flying back to New York. When she wakes up the next morning, she debates on going home early. But no, she won’t let a three second glance at someone ruin her time here. She used to occasionally come here during her college days. She loves this city. 

The city may be Jeremy’s, but she can make space for herself here too. 

She takes her time at a cafe, people watching and eating some breakfast. As she takes her coffee to-go, she looks out the window at the bookstore she was in the night before for the signing. She almost drops her coffee. 

Jeremy walks into the book store. 

Now, Noelle is debating her options. What she should do is continue with her day and walk in the opposite direction. But she’s always been too nosy for her own good. And maybe a bit self destructive. She decides to leave the cafe and cross the street immediately, so impatient to where she’s almost tapping her foot as the pedestrian signal stays red. 

As a writer, she’s no stranger to movie moments. The scenes written in books or movies where the timing is too accurate to be real. The situation too good to be true. But after a car speeds through an orange and she can finally walk, she stops in her tracks instead, feet glued down to the sidewalk.

Because Jeremy is right in front of her on the other side of the street. Her book in his hand. And he’s looking right at her. 

The first feeling she can recognize in herself is anger. Anger at the way their relationship panned out. Anger at the way they ended. Anger at the radio silence the years following. Anger at him for everything. Angry at herself for everything. 

The second feeling is, weirdly, shame, which she’s embarrassed by. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. But she feels it anyways. 

The third, and perhaps the most prominent, is emptiness. Five fucking years later, and she’s brought back to the emptiness she felt immediately after they broke up. The emptiness that the person you loved isn’t yours anymore — who maybe wasn’t ever yours to begin with. 

Before she can run, he’s already crossed the street to her. He looks naturally different as someone who you haven’t seen in five years would. But he also heartbreakingly looks the same. 

“We should get out of people’s way,” Noelle manages to chokes out. 

Jeremy laughs a bit. Her heart lurches. “Yeah.” He starts walking and she follows him wordlessly. This is his city after all. 

He leads them to a bench under a tree with beautiful fall foliage. She puts at least a foot between them as they both sit down, staring out at the people passing. She can’t take the silence. 

“I see you bought my book.”

“I did,” he replies evenly. “Congratulations. I always knew you would do it.”

She squeezes her eyes shut. Maybe if she squeezes hard enough she’ll forget when she originally pitched Jeremy the bare bones idea of the exact same book that’s currently in his hand. “Thank you. Congratulations to you too. On everything.”

“You’ve been watching?”

She shakes her head. “No. But, you know Seth and…yeah. It comes up during family calls sometimes.”

“Why didn’t you say hi last night?”

She looks pointedly at a couple walking their dog. “You seemed busy.”

“She wasn’t-that-it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Oh. Because that makes me feel so much better,” she spits out, before taking a deep breath. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. We broke up ages ago.”

“I’m sorry,” she gives him a look and is slightly proud of how he seems to shrink into himself a bit. “I-I know it’s five years too late. I know I didn’t handle it as well as I should’ve. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

The thing is, Noelle always thought that maybe hearing an apology someday would make her feel better. But now that’s heard it, she’s not sure she does. 

She swallows. “I appreciate that.”

“I’ve already read it, you know.”

“Read what?”

Jeremy runs a hand through his hair. “Your book. One of my teammate’s girlfriend recommended it and I asked to borrow it. It’s fantastic,” He looks down at the book in his hand. It’s like the cover is taunting her. “I wanted my own copy.”

“Oh.” 

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For letting me off the hook with the poems I know were about me,” he scoffs, shaking his head at himself. “You could’ve written way worse.”

She can’t help but let out a chuckle. “I thought I was pretty mean.”

“Your definition of ‘pretty mean’ is tame compared to a lot of people,” he says, mindlessly flipping through the pages of the book. “You were always the kindest person, even when you shouldn’t have been..” 

He puts his hand out in her direction, the hand with the book in it. She furrows her eyebrows. “What-”

“Could I get a signed copy?”

“Jeremy. What do you want from me?”

He sighs, taking his hand back. “A chance to apologize?”

“You’ve already done that.”

“Not in the way I want to and what you deserve.”

She lets out a sigh, turning to face him fully. “I don’t know if that would be worth my time or yours. I know the book just came out, but that was five years ago. I’m over it. Forgive and forget, right?”

“But do you?” Jeremy counters back. “Clearly, you don’t forget, which I deserve. But forgive?” 

“We’re just going in circles now.”

“No we’re not,” he says firmly. “You’re just shutting me down because you don’t want to talk about it. I’ve had five years to prepare what I would say to you if I saw you again. You’re telling me you haven’t?”

“Of course I have,” Noelle tips her head back. “But also, what’s the point?”

“The point, is that I still love you.”

“Fuck you,” she says in a strained voice. “You can’t just-you can’t just throw that shit out there. Fuck you.”

He bites his lip, and to her annoyance, he laughs. But she listens more carefully, and it sounds very self deprecating. “I deserved that.”

“Yeah,” Noelle looks down at her feet. “So…what? You still love me?”

“I do.”

“And what are you going to do about that?”

“What are you going to let me do?”

“I live in Brooklyn.”

“I know,” she whips her head up. Jeremy looks sheepish, which she didn’t even think was something he knew how to do. “Seth mentioned it when we caught up a bit ago. I also still follow you on Instagram.”

She tries again. “It’s been five years.”

“And I’m here sitting with you and still feel the exact same way I did back then. Even more, to be honest.” He eyes her pointedly. “Any more excuses?”

Her voice softens. “You really hurt me.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry, Noelle.”

“I hurt you too.”

He shrugs. “We were young and stupid.”

“And we’re still not?” Noelle says with a snort before swallowing. “I’m not the same person you fell in love with.”

“I’m sure I’m not either. But I don’t know if there’s a world where I don’t love every version of you.”

“Even after reading the book?”

“Especially after reading the book,” he sighs. “Noelle, I know this is unfair of me. All of this. And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to reach out. But I always intended to. And then you’re here? And I see you twice in two days? I’d be an idiot to not try. More of an idiot than I am, anyways.”

“Try for what?”

“A second chance? To be friends? Whatever you want.” He suddenly deflates. “Even if you don’t want anything to do with me. At least I’ll know.”

“Why did you never text me?”

“I thought about it a lot,” he admits. “I tried once, actually, after the high of a really good win. But it didn’t go through. I got the message.”

“The message?”

“You blocked me, right?”

Oh. “Yeah,” she lies. “I did.” She reaches into her bag for a pen and gestures for the book, which he gives to her, a curious gleam in his eyes. “I’m in Boston for two more days, including today.”

He takes the hint immediately. Eagerly. “I have a game tonight, but I’m free tomorrow.”

“Who are you guys playing?”

“Toronto. And I’m starting. Should be a good one.”

She hums non-committedly, scribbling on the inside of the front cover. She hands it back to him with a small, close-lipped smile. She nods at him to read the message.

to my first fan, 

i still love you too. 

xxx-xxx-xxxx

yours, 

noelle

He looks up, eyes shining but a bit confused. 

“I never blocked you. I just changed my number.”

“Oh.”

“And even if I still love you, I’m still mad at you.”

“I know. I’d be more surprised if you weren’t.”

She stands up, adjusting the bag on her shoulder and putting her sunglasses on. “Text me?”

His mouth splits wide into a grin. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

She backs away with one last attempt at a smile before turning down the street.

[sylvan-librarian]

Nissa Revane, William Wordsworth, and Me

Introduction:

We are not isolated individuals but an interconnected web. Part of embracing green's philosophy is understanding the importance of how each of us figures into the lives of the others. Grasping the role this larger group plays is a vital piece in understanding how the world works. - Mark Rosewater: “It’s Not Easy Being Green Revisited” … Therefore am I still A lover of the meadows and the woods And mountains; and of all that we behold From this green earth; of all the mighty world Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create, And what perceive; well pleased to recognise In nature and the language of the sense The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul Of all my moral being. - William Wordsworth: “Tintern Abbey” How wonderful there should be a thing we don't yet know. - Magic Creative Team: “Renewal” 

What do Nissa Revane, elf animist who had a good run in the 2010's as Magic’s iconic green planeswalker, William Wordsworth, nineteenth century British poet and the godfather of English Romanticism, and I, a mentally ill librarian who spends all his free time playing a children’s card game, all have in common? Not much, really. I’m neither a lesbian that wields earth-shaking magic nor am I the founder of a poetic movement that English majors still fawn over. However, thankfully for me, the human experience transcends time, gender, sexual preference, and even reality. There’s a lot to learn from both fiction and poetry, and I’m nothing if not a curious student. In particular, though, I’d like to talk about transitions. 

The past couple of years for me have been packed full of constant transitions: I had an emergency move away from the city I had built a life in, I finished a master’s degree in library science, and I began the long, arduous process of changing careers. Not every transition has been so traumatic, though, as I am also now in a joyful, peaceful relationship and have finally achieved a modicum of financial stability on my own terms.

Needless to say, these transitions have had me feeling introspective (even more so than usual), and I have found myself seriously wondering about my place in the world. That probably sounds dramatic (well, if the shoe fits), but as an elder millennial who was around to witness when the first acorn fell from the first tree and the first scene boy put on girl jeans to pair with his trucker’s hat, I honestly just kind of gave up on that brand of stability at some point; after all, I was fifteen on 9/11, nineteen and living in Louisiana when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and washed away whatever trust I had left in our institutions, and twenty-one when the Bush-era recession nailed my post-undergrad job prospects into a coffin. Of course, at the risk of sounding like I’m trying to appeal to your sense of pity, I’ll admit that today’s generation coming of age during Trump and and Covid have probably had it worse than I did and have also proven themselves much stronger and more resilient than I ever was, but nevertheless, a swirling concoction of circumstances and terrible mental health habits left me feeling for decades that I’d never have a place in the world to call many own.

All that said, in my attempt to carve out a life for myself and discover my role within my larger community, I started rereading Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Keats (the poets of English Romanticism were my favorite discovery as a literature student and some of the only writers I have carried with me beyond academia), since their poetry also dealt in themes of self-discovery, memory, and transition (also, their poetry is broody and navel-gazing - something I definitely relate with). However, as a Magic: The Gathering Vorthos with basic forest brainrot, I was also struck on this reread just how close my own experiences and the themes of the Romantic Poets mirrored how my favorite green characters from Magic fiction navigate their world. At first, I felt that this is fairly low-hanging fruit, since on the surface, themes like “finding yourself in nature,” “the rejection of social norms,” “celebrating your connections,” etc. are common enough to be found in all sorts of literature. However, the more I thought about it and connected the dots in my head, the more I realized just how much green’s themes in modern Magic fiction, particularly as expressed through Nissa Revane, helped me understand my own place in the world.

Indeed, while this essay grew out of the concept of tracing the similarities between Green Magic and Romantic Poetry (not the most riveting read for most of you, I’m sure), this particular tale kind of grew in the telling (to loot a phrase from Tolkien) until it became my own personal journal of self-discovery. If the entire m.o. of my online presence didn’t already give it away, my love of Nissa Revane - planeswalker, animist, green mage, icon - colors most of my thoughts about Magic: The Gathering, and this is no different. Compiling Nissa’s arc throughout Magic’s Story, synthesizing it with the things I love the most about the Romantic poets, and letting it stew around in my brain for the last year highlighted something of vital importance to me: the message, one that weaves its way throughout Nissa’s entire narrative, that personal growth means learning that the definitions I have held onto for my whole life - of myself, of other people, of even nature and the universe itself - are but a narrow, small part of a greater whole; that embracing healthy connection with the world around me and seeking to understand my place within it helped change parts of me that I thought were intrinsic to my very nature and helped me bloom into the best version of myself.

Part I: 

(me, trying to juggle graduate school and work)

Last year around this time, I found myself struggling. I was wrapping up my last full semester of my graduate program, failing miserably at balancing school and work, isolating myself from my friends because of how busy I was, and unhappy about living in Central Texas again after I swore I was done with the region. Throughout all of this, following Magic Story was a boon to my shocked nerves, though I rarely found time to follow it completely. It wasn’t pure joy, however, because as a result of stress mixed with the, at the time, untreated depression and anxiety, Nissa getting compleated - with “no way” of getting healed - during the “All Will Be One” story (not to mention that her tragic loss happened OFF SCREEN - the disrespect) severely bummed me out, so I tuned most the “March of the Machine” stories out to focus on wrapping up my semester. That is, I tuned it out until the final story, K. Arsenault Rivera’s “Rhythms of Life” was released in late March. Letting Chandra and a healed Nissa kiss at the end was a nice touch, but it was not for another month until we found out what happened to them after the climax of the Phyrexian stories.

When that month passed, however, on May 1, Grace P. Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World,” was released in tandem with previews for “March of the Machine: The Aftermath” products. Of course, I was going to like this story because I like Nissa and Chandra, and I have been a proponent of them being romantically involved since “Zendikar Resurgent,” but this story struck a deeper chord in me than I expected. I felt an immediate kinship with Fong’s representation of Nissa, a character who is also in a state of transition: in a place she doesn’t want to be, isolated from her friends and loved ones, and trying to redefine who she was after traumatic events left her floating listlessly throughout her world. 

The events of “All Will be One” and “March of the Machine,” after all, were Nissa’s darkest hours in a life full of dark hours. Her mind enslaved and her bodily autonomy stolen from her, Nissa was forced to do things in service to the Phyrexian matriarch Elesh Norn that horrified her. However, due to the nature of Phyrexian compleation — having her mind and body altered on a genetic level — she performed these actions in the moment with fanatical zeal, even pleasure. We are told in the first episode of the March of the Machine arc, “Triumph of the Fleshless” that Nissa “is the finest gift the Planeswalkers have given Phyrexia. Even standing at Norn's side, she can steer Realmbreaker's attention. To say nothing of her combat capabilities. If things continued at this rate she might overtake Tamiyo as Norn's favorite new servant.” Later on in “She Who Breaks the World,” while Nissa is reflecting on this, she notes that the alterations the Phyrexians made to her “granted her the ability to unleash a call through the branches of the Invasion Tree and speak the glory of Phyrexia to every plane in the Multiverse. And right now, Nissa is disgusted with herself because—despite her friends' sacrifices, despite Chandra's sacrifices—part of her misses hearing those planes.”

On the other side of these events, Nissa is mostly healed from what the Phyrexians did to her (outside of a metal cage imprisoning her chest and some scarring on her limbs where metal was grafted on), her mind is returned to her own control, and she and Chandra are finally sharing mutual love and affection instead of being mired in “will they/won’t they” hell like they had been for nearly a decade of Magic Story. However, the trauma of knowing, remembering, and feeling intimately all of the terrible things she did understandably leaves her feeling like an outcast among loved ones, and to make matters worse, she is now with a planeswalker spark, meaning she got depowered significantly and can no longer go back to her beloved Zendikar, her homeworld that she has a close intimate connection with. All this is to point out that Nissa finds herself in a spot where she has to completely redefine who she is. Nissa took great pride in being animist; now, she cannot hear the voice of the planes and her magic is basically useless. Nissa had previously discovered meaning for herself being a member of the Gatewatch: traveling the planes doing good where can and making connections with new worlds and interesting people; now, she is trapped on a plane that does not listen to her among people she very directly harmed when her mind and body were not her own. 

After a failed attempt to connect with the world of Zhalfir, Nissa begins to despair, believing that the planes have rejected her because all of the social connections she has made over the years. Nissa believes that “[s]he has spent so long connected to others that she has smothered her own connection to the Multiverse. Whether or not those bonds were made of her own volition, the planes have rejected her.” While she recognizes deep down, even if she can’t forgive herself for it just yet, that what happened while she was a Phyrexian wasn’t her fault, Nissa comes to believe that her original sin that led to this was in getting involved with the wider universe in the first place. She (and everybody who suffered from her actions as a Phyrexian) would be better off, she believes, if she had remained in her primordial, untarnished state of a champion of nature.

At this point in the narrative, Nissa’s experience reflects the way poets and writers of the Romantic Period mythologize their own world. Canadian literary critic and theorist Northrop Frye (a theorist who, truth be told, I disagree with in many respects, though his work on the Romantic Period is exhaustive and insightful) called this the “Romantic Myth.” In “A Study of English Romanticism,” Frye describes how the Romantic Myth delineates from traditional mythology:

In the older mythology the myth of creation is followed by a gigantic cyclical myth, outlined in the Bible, which begins with the fall of man, is followed by a symbolic vision of human history, under the names of Adam and Israel, and ends with the redemption of Adam and Israel by Christ. The two poles are the alienation myth of fall, the separation of man from God by sin, and the reconciling, identifying, or atoning myth of redemption which restores to man his forfeited inheritance. Translated into Romantic terms, this myth assumes a quite different shape. What corresponds to the older myth of an unfallen state, or lost paradise of Eden, is now a sense of an original identity between the individual man and nature which has been lost.

Ignoring, for a moment, the gender essentialism Frye uses, note how the lost Eden of the Romantic period was connection to nature itself. Joining society, spending precious hours having “dialogues of business, love, or strife” - all of these things are the sins that tear us away from our original, perfect self. William Wordsworth begins his “Ode: Intimations of Immortality” this way: 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,     The earth, and every common sight,                        To me did seem                    Apparelled in celestial light,          The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;—                    Turn wheresoe'er I may,                        By night or day. The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

To the persona of Wordsworth’s poem, this sense of identity was lost in childhood; in Nissa’s head, she “smothered her own connection to the Multiverse” when she started to value her connections to other people — Chandra, the rest of the Gatewatch, Yahenni, and many others she let into her life — at the expense, apparently, of the natural world. What’s left for her except to turn back to nature and attempt to find herself again?

Part II:

(Nissa's oath to protect the life of "every plane" plays a huge role in her identity)

What does “finding herself” look like for Nissa, though? To answer that, let’s look at a few different things. Here, we’ll examine Nissa’s place as a green character in Magic’s color pie and pick apart the ludonarrative elements in Nissa’s card designs that informs how she approaches her idea of self.

Nissa is the only planeswalker of the original five Gatewatch to have cards that branch out to other colors. At heart, though, she is a green character. Even though she has some blue elements in her personality (curiosity) and black (the ambition to make her ideals reality, whatever the cost), Nissa’s heart is “green to the very door.” 

In his near ten year old article, Mark Rosewater writes this about the philosophy of Green: 

The natural order is a thing of beauty and has all the answers to life's problems. The key is learning to sit back and recognize what is right in front of you. Each individual is born with all the potential they need. The secret to a happy life is to recognize the role you were born into and then embrace it. Do what you were destined to do. The world is this elaborate system, and each one of us gets to play a part. And it's not something we have to guess about; it's imprinted on us, it's in our genes. Just look within.

It’s very easy to see Nissa in the first paragraph: even though she is a warrior out of necessity, she too craves peace and acceptance and this is revealed in one of her favorite hobbies: meditating. Nissa’s animist powers (more on that here) let her reach her consciousness into nature itself so that she can just exist among the wonders of life. Take note of this gorgeous passage near the end of “Renewal,” the last story of the Kaladesh block:

There were rivers in the air; they carried her like a mote of pollen. Great hearts were pounding in the deeps of the sky, singing slow symphonies of joy. Wordless, they expressed the sun breaking over the edge of clouds; the sharpness of stars over frosted peaks; the awareness of a new life growing within, nestled and patient, waiting for its first breath of radiance. She drifted bodiless among the singers, listening. Back and forth they called, echoing across cloud and current, composing shared dreams of weightlessness, rain, and memory. An eye the size of a house blinked. Radiant curiosity washed over her, like the return of sunlight from beyond the edge of all things. There is something new in our sky, it sang in language of sensation and vibrance; quickened heartbeats and quivering muscle; caught breath and a hundred shades of blue. How wonderful there should be a thing we don't yet know.

Nissa is an expert at recognizing “what is right in front of you,” though due to her connection to nature, “right in front of you” could mean just about anywhere on the plane itself. 

To cycle back to Rosewater’s statement, however, it’s important to take consideration of the fact that a green character does not just treat the wonders of the natural world as a conduit for inner peace, they also believe that the “secret to a happy life is to recognize the role you were born into and then embrace it. Do what you were destined to do.” What does Nissa believe the role she was born into is? What drives her throughout much of Magic’s narrative?

To put it simply, Nissa believes that she is the champion of nature itself, the chosen one of Zendikar’s worldsoul. Whenever she planeswalks to a new world, she adopts the worldsoul of the plane as her own; the first thing she usually does when touching down on new earth is to attempt to connect with the soul of the plane. Throughout whichever story arc she takes part in, she usually comes to see herself as the voice of that particular world and acts as its champion as well.

Let’s take a look at the second Innistrad block, for example. Even though her role in this story is quite small, this template still applies. Jace, after unraveling the mystery of what was happening on Innistrad, goes back to Zendikar to fetch the rest of the Gatewatch to help stop the rise of Emrakul. As she planeswalks to the battlefield, the “hill rumbled slightly, the only herald of Nissa's arrival. She frowned as she knelt down, placing her palm against the ground. ‘The mana here is dark. Twisted. It's in the soil, the trees...Emrakul did some of this, but’…‘This is your first time to Innistrad, right? “Dark and twisted” is kind of a regular feature,’ Jace continued.” 

Presumably at some point later on in the story, on the flavor text on the card Splendid Reclamation, Nissa says “No matter how much a plane has suffered, there is a way to restore it." Of course, this line appears nowhere in the story, but there has always been a conflict between what has been written in Magic fiction versus what is printed on the cards. Furthermore, it’s possible that this card was a bottom-up design with the mechanics designed first and Nissa pasted on later since there wasn’t another “green character who cares about lands” present during the battle against Emrakul. Either way, Nissa comes across as a character who sees herself as the champion of nature.

Nearly all other stories Nissa takes part in give her a similar arc. In "Amonkhet," she is the first to identify just how sick and distorted the world had become under Bolas’s influence, and after a trial with the ibis god Kefnet, she ends up believing that she set herself up as a rival to Bolas, able to manipulate the leylines and the gods attached to them just as efficiently as the dragon. During :War of the Spark," in a move that would earn her the disgust of the Selesnya guild, she animates Vito-Ghazi, the home of Ravnica’s worldsoul Mat'Selesnya, in order to fight against Bolas and the zombified gods. In "Zendikar Rising," Nissa’s journey takes front and center, with her conflict with Nahiri ending with Nissa as the one true savior and liberator of Zendikar. Her brief stint during the "Brothers' War" side stories end with Nissa swearing an oath to Gaea, the worldsoul of Dominaria, to personally destroy the Phyrexians herself, no matter the cost. 

Even while she was a Phyrexian during “All Will Be One” and “March of the Machine” and her mind not her own, Nissa follows a similar arc, though a twisted variation: after her capture and transformation, Nissa becomes the voice of Phyrexia, as the card All Will Be One showcases, proclaiming the plane’s glory and, through manipulating Realmbreaker (likely the single largest and most powerful living thing in existence at the time), sending “Phyrexian perfection coursing across the Multiverse.”

You can certainly see Nissa’s confidence in her station as the champion of worldsouls multiverse-wide in her cards: “Nissa, Voice of Zendikar,” “Nissa, Who Shakes the World,” “Nissa, Ascended Animist,” etc. All of these designs showcase Nissa’s might as a master of land magic. Loyalty abilities on these cards almost always animate a land into a creature that can then fight alongside her. The most powerful variation of this ability was on “Nissa, Who Shakes the World”:

On a narrative level, however, what these abilities showcase is that Nissa during this era saw herself as less a friend to nature than a master of it.

Fast forward to the aftermath of the Phyrexian invasion and Nissa is in a much different place mentally, emotionally, and even physically. As Nissa struggles to (literally) bury the physical remnants of what the Phyrexians did to her body, she feels an immense sense of loss that stems from more than just guilt. Fong describes it this way:

[Nissa] felt cut off, lost in the Multiverse with no voice calling her home. Maybe no plane would hear her ever again. They'd all lost their sparks, but only Nissa still wanted to planeswalk. Even if her friends seemed to be moving on without her, she still cared about their happiness. So not wanting to bring down the spirits of their celebration, she excused herself.

I recall seeing a few half-hearted takes on social media after this story was released expressing frustration that Nissa spent so much time in this narrative grappling with the harm that was done to her rather than acknowledging guilt for the harm she inadvertently did to others. First of all, she clearly does feel guilt for the harm Norn wrought through her:

[Her] copper skeleton is covered in mangled spikes, and those spikes are covered in the dried blood of her friends. She rubs one, and dark residue flakes off on her fingertips. She wonders whose blood it was. Maybe Koth? Maybe Wrenn? Maybe Chandra? Chandra. She had hurt Chandra, almost killed her.

Secondly, exploring Nissa as a green character shows us that Nissa has lived her life believing firmly that she was alive for a purpose: to be the voice of nature and act as its most ardent champion. However, now worldsouls won’t speak to her and her magic barely works at all. Her spirituality that drives her and her magical might that allows her to act in service of that spirituality have been unceremoniously ripped away from her. Everything Nissa has ever believed about herself has come dramatically (and traumatically) crashing down.

Nissa is a character whose entire system of beliefs has now been obliterated by her experiences, and as mentioned in the previous sections, she believes it was because her original mistake was in seeking her identity in her relationships with people rather than with her relationship with nature.

I asked at the end of part one, what’s left for Nissa except to turn back to nature and attempt to find herself again? Perhaps, however, a more apt question to ask is what’s left for Nissa at all? Yes, she and Chandra are (mostly) on the same page about their feelings for one another and yes, she is alive and physically healthy (though weakened and scarred), but notice that even if Nissa despairs about what she has lost, she shows little desire to go “back” to nature. Even though she believes with absolute certainty that “the planes have rejected her,” she stays true to her duty as one of the stronger warriors left among the surviving Mirrans; when faced with decision to either explore the brand new omenpath or to help the survivors, Fong writes, “as much as Nissa loathes to abandon the portal, she knows Koth is right. As much as the war took from her, others have lost even more. They need to help first.”

Though separated by over two-hundred years and in different genres altogether, what Nissa is going through reminds me of what Wordsworth writes in “Tintern Abbey”:

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams, Wherever nature led: more like a man Flying from something that he dreads, than one Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then (The coarser pleasures of my boyish days And their glad animal movements all gone by) To me was all in all.—I cannot paint What then I was. The sounding cataract Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock, The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, Their colours and their forms, were then to me An appetite; a feeling and a love, That had no need of a remoter charm, By thought supplied, nor any interest Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past, And all its aching joys are now no more.

You see, Wordsworth — like Nissa, like me, and probably like you at some point in your life — found himself in the late 1700’s grieving a deep sense of loss as everything he believed in came crashing down around him. Spellbound by the fervor of Revolution-era France, he lived on the continent for years and had a child with a woman he fell in love with there, but France’s tense political relations with his home country and the Revolution descending into the Reign of Terror forced him to return to Britain. Witnessing what he saw as his utopian beliefs plummet to irredeemable violence utterly broke him (on a personal note, I likely have a different view than Wordsworth on the merits of putting aristocrats to the guillotine, but that’s another essay entirely), and — like Nissa, like most of us — had to rebuild himself from the ground up.

What a relatable human story, right? As someone who is closer to forty than he is thirty, I have stumbled upon this crossroads multiple times in my life. Years ago, it involved disentangling myself from my evangelical upbringing and accepting the fact that, though my parents and (just to give them the benefit of the doubt) many of the religious adults who helped raise me had my best intentions in mind, instructing an impressionable, vulnerable, and anxious child that deep down in the center of his being he is evil and deserves eternal torment for the crime of being born was pretty fucked up. It took years of therapy, medication, and daily affirmations to finally feel good about myself. More recently, as alluded to, going through a tough breakup, wrapping up a master’s degree, and beginning the process of changing careers all within the span of roughly two years left me scrambling in my pursuit to create a new self to be a better fit for my new circumstances.

What choices did I make at this crossroads? What about Nissa or Wordsworth?

Part III:

The answer to that question is that the three of us (Nissa, Wordsworth, and I) all came to similar conclusions. This answer is two-fold, and I hope you’re not expecting some life-altering nugget of wisdom here, because — true to the heart of a green mage — the first lesson we learned is, quite simply, the art of acceptance: acceptance of the world that is, not the world that was or the future world our anxiety creates in our mind. Rosewater writes,

Green wants acceptance.

The other colors are all focused on how they'd change the world to make it better. Green is the one color that doesn't want to change the world, because green is convinced that the world already got everything right. 

There is, of course, something to be said for improving your circumstances — especially if the environment around you is toxic — and the relentless ambition to mold your life into one you are happy with, but in Nissa’s case, what she needed most was to accept that she was living in a different world than was previously. Bereft of the planeswalker spark that gave her a sense of purpose and traumatized by remembering what she did when her body and mind were being puppeted by the Phyrexians, Nissa finally comes to understand and acknowledge her new place in her new world. 

Early on in Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World,” Nissa attempts to connect her soul to the leylines of Zhalfir, but instead of basking in the orchestra of the planes, the music is drowned in all of the other songs that have influenced her, her tune “muffled by dozens of new, alien voices she recognizes and despises: the Eldrazi, Bolas, and finally, loudest, Phyrexia.” This leads to her belief that was discussed previously that her original sin was embracing human connection instead of remaining the voice of Zendikar’s worldsoul. 

However, at the climax of the story, Nissa shares this struggle with Chandra when the two of them are trying to fight their way out of an impossible situation. A wild, out-of-control storm elemental was threatening the Mirran survivors of the Phyrexian invasion, and Nissa and Chandra were defending the populace against it. However, the two of them are not working well together, and the elemental manages to capitalize on their poor tactics and absorbs copious amounts of steam arising from a burnt baobab tree to become a colossal being whose head caresses the sky. After they get trapped in a hole with no way out, Chandra suggests a plan of attack reminiscent of the channel-fireball combo the two of them used to destroy Ulamog and Kozilek all the way back in “Oath of the Gatewatch,” and Nissa finally admits to Chandra that her magic no longer works and expresses her deep anxieties about why: “‘it's like my voice isn't my own,’” she admits. “‘Like it belongs to Phyrexia instead, like everything I've ever connected to is drowning me out.’”

Chandra, however, does not see it that way. Choosing, for once, to think before she talks (a skill she no doubt learned from her years around Nissa), eventually concludes “‘you know … you have good connections, too.’” She continues:

‘It's true—you did bad things while they had you. But everyone you've connected with over the years with the Gatewatch, we're just happy you're still here. With us.’ Chandra sets fire to a chunk of moist dirt that was about to fall on Nissa, turning it into a soft rain of ash. ‘With me.’ For the first time since she awoke in Zhalfir, Nissa smiles. Chandra, sweet Chandra, even if she doesn't realize it, has always understood and explained emotions better than Nissa ever could. Chandra continues, ‘Your connections aren't drowning your voice, Nissa. They're changing it into something new, maybe something even more powerful. Infinite voices, infinite possibilities, right?’

What Nissa needed was not to perform some kind dramatic penance or to reject society for asceticism once again but to simply accept that the world around her had changed, that she had changed. This fact is hammered home by the next section: agreeing to try connecting to Zhalfir’s worldsoul again, 

Nissa closes her eyes. She retreats inward and listens for her inner voice. It's hard, much harder than before, but Chandra is dutifully helping her concentrate, blasting the falling rock away before it can reach her. Nissa is greeted by ringing deep in her ears, but she refuses to be deterred. With her connections in mind, she picks the static apart into unique melodies, the individual songs she picked up from all around the Multiverse. She arranges them, harmonizes them, and this time, when she calls to Zhalfir, her voice is amplified in chorus. She offers an apology. The plane answers. It too was cut off from everything it knew, from the connections it had made. It, too, was scarred by Phyrexia and is growing into something new. It forgives her, and Nissa can finally forgive herself. Magic floods her flesh, her blood, her bone. She hears Chandra laugh, delighted by their success.

It’s only through accepting that her life now is different from what is used to be, through confessing that her priorities had changed, through acknowledging that presence of others in her life had made her stronger, and most importantly, through forgiving herself for what’s she did when her mind wasn’t her own that Nissa is able to reconnect to the source of her magic and her joy. 

Nissa learns to reinterpret her world in a new way. This can be seen in mechanical elements as well. Most of Nissa’s planeswalker cards have her manipulating lands, either by animating them into creatures to be controlled or by fetching them from the library. Nissa, Resurgent Animist, however - the first time she has been printed as a creature since the flip-walkers of 2015 - does not do any of those things. The text on this card reads:

Landfall — Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, add one mana of any color. Then if this is the second time this ability has resolved this turn, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an Elf or Elemental card. Put that card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.

The act of playing a land during the narrative of a game of Magic is the act of a planeswalker establishing a mana bond with a certain place in the multiverse. ‘Mana bond’ is a term almost never used in Magic fiction anymore, but as far as I know, it has not been retconned either. Even if not explicitly stated, there are nods to the act of creating mana bonds throughout the tie-in fiction. Look at this section from “Nissa’s Origin: Home,” for example:

As they picked their way deeper into the marshland, Nissa formed a connection with it. She saw the beauty in the moss-laden trees, felt the magic in the mists that rose up from the brackish waters, and swayed to the song of the swarms of lion flies that circled them. She never would have believed a bog had so much to offer.

In the narrative of a game, this paragraph would simply read “Nissa plays a swamp.” Explicit or not, establishing a mana bond with a particular piece of geography means that the planeswalker can, among other things, draw mana from that place no matter where in the multiverse they are. This is why, flavorfully, a player can play Ravnica shock lands alongside Tarkir fetch lands: in the narrative of a game, your planeswalker avatar has gone to these places and forged a bond with those pieces of land.

To cycle back to the card, however, instead of manipulating the land itself, having Nissa, Resurgent Animist alongside the player allows them to, firstly, hypercharge their link to the lands they play, giving the player extra mana for the act of forming connections with lands. Secondly, the player forming connections with as many lands as possible in a single turn (two in this case) allows Nissa to discover other creatures to fight alongside them. Instead of being the champion of all nature, Nissa now fights alongside nature as an ally rather than a general. This makes it all the more fitting that according to the “Aftermath Set Design” article published last year, the original name for this card during the design process was “Nissa, Friend to Nature.”

The journey Nissa goes on lets her reinterpret herself from champion to friend, but celebrating things others consider dark and reinterpreting the world in a way to showcase its beauty was close to the heart of many Romantic Poets as well. In “To Autumn,” John Keats celebrates the season of change, a season so often characterized as a time of preparation and vigilance for the coming winter. Keats writes,

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn    Among the river sallows, borne aloft       Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies

Keats argues that we should not characterize an entire season through the lens of humanity. Instead of pining for spring, we should live in the moment and appreciate what fall offers us. Similarly, Nissa learns to appreciate the current, sparkless season of her life with Chandra instead pining for the life that was.

Keats again argues this in “Ode to a Nightingale”; a creature poets often infuse with sadness is only that way, he argues, because of how it is interpreted:

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!          No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard          In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path          Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,                 She stood in tears amid the alien corn

 “Thou wast not born for death,” Keats writes, meaning that the nightingale is not infused with sadness by nature, but only because that’s the emotion humans have assigned to it. Nissa too learns to stop infusing her world with despair by labeling herself as powerless, damaged, and guilty, instead choosing to enjoy the moment she is in.

It is through accepting that age and experience has changed how he views the world that Wordsworth also is able to move forward. Instead of treating nature as his “all in all,” he writes,

For I have learned To look on nature, not as in the hour Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes The still sad music of humanity, Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man

Instead of nature being the only thing in his life, nature is now simply one of the important things in his life, a feeling too that Nissa wrestles with. Instead of hearing only the song of the leylines, the worldsoul’s tune is now just one of many melodies she sings.

Acceptance is a song I too have been singing. As a staunch leftist, living in Central Texas is not particularly suited to me, and I have left here once before. Swearing never to move back, I moved away in the 2010’s for a relationship with a woman that ended up failing some years later. Financially desperate, broken emotionally, in the middle of a graduate degree, and not having anywhere else to go, I moved back to Waco to live cheaply, wrap up my online library science degree, and re-constitute my support network. It was not easy reacclimating to life here. Though I love the people I know in the area, I felt then and still feel now haunted by the ghosts of old memories, all of which had become flavored by loss. After I finished my degree in mid-2023, it did not get much better; even though I’d become ambitious and committed to looking for work elsewhere, the job market for librarians kept me here (entry-salary positions asking for five years of experience and all that). Note that for as much as change scares me, I had dared to face those fears and dared to dream only for it to come to nothing - not an uncommon story these days, I’m afraid.

Now, however, I’m working at the public library in Temple, Texas (close enough to Waco to commute) and settled myself down for the time being. Composing a new rhythm for my life has drastically helped heal the damage that almost three years of rejection, chaos, instability, depression, and anxiety wreaked on me, but that journey began, I think, with acceptance. I’m not currently where I want to end up, but despite what my anxiety and self-doubt tell me, that’s okay. I had to accept that this is where I am at in my life right now, confess that my ambitious priorities were probably going to be achieved at a much slower rate than I had hoped, acknowledge that people in my life made me stronger, and most importantly, forgive myself for the many mistakes I made over the past three years. Only then was I able to truly move forward. 

The second lesson we all learned was to embrace connection with people in our lives rather than reject it. In Nissa’s case, as previously alluded to, part of the process of accepting where she is at in life involved understanding that becoming part of the Gatewatch pursuing romance with Chandra had made her better and happier than she had been before. Once that hurdle was crossed, Nissa was able to come to terms with just how different Chandra is from Nissa in how she thinks, feels, and loves. Chandra tells Nissa:

I realized I can't just burn through any relationship I care about. Love leaves room for the other person to be who they are. I have to make room for you, too. I want to." "Like fire needs oxygen . . ." Nissa asks her final question. "You have room for someone who can't planeswalk?" "Yes. I'll make it. I will falter, I will be tempted, but I will make it. Fire's going to burn, no matter what you do, but you can shape it if you try. And I want to try. For you." Nissa thinks for a moment. Finally, she nods. "I can handle that."

Later on, Nissa describes the omenpath she ran into earlier:

“I think I can still hear Zendikar out there, strange and distorted, but possibly still out there. I could just be imagining it completely, but I think I would risk that unknown to see home again." Chandra nods firmly. "And I'll be walking right alongside you." Every Planeswalker can go anywhere they want, but Nissa recognizes Chandra's need to roam runs deeper than that. It's part of who she is, and part of what Nissa loves. So Nissa offers, "Maybe, after that, I wouldn't mind seeing more. As long as it's with you." Chandra breaks into a wide smile. "Let me be your torch, then.”

Compromise is an important part of any relationship, and through embracing change in her life rather than running from it, Nissa is finally able to compromise with Chandra in a way that should fulfill both them - something Nissa has clearly wanted since at least the Kaladesh arc (though I would argue these feelings began long before that). Pursuing connection and intimacy with Chandra at this crossroads allows Nissa to blossom into a much happier and more self-actualized character than she has been in Magic fiction so far. Once, back in “Renewal,” the last story of the “Aether Revolt” arc, Nissa - deep in meditation and basking in her connection with the worldsoul of Kaladesh - watches the birth of a new aetherborn and ponders:

How could she tell this new life to laugh and weep without reservation or regret; to sing to the stars and waters, or to nothing at all; to love unreserved and unguarded; to treasure every moment with those beloved; to forgive any regretted trespass; to dance when moved to; to savor long silences in warm company; to greet each dawn, each face with the thought, this will be an adventure; to be brave, and kind, and trusting, and... ...like Chandra.

Years later, Nissa has finally learned to be more like Chandra, and she is better for it.

For his part, Wordsworth famously had a great relationship with his sister Dorothy, and part of the change he embraces throughout “Tintern Abbey” involves reclaiming himself through her:

…in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister! 

Earlier in the poem, Wordsworth lamented that he could not “paint / What then I was.” In this passage, Wordsworth finally finds himself again through communion with his oldest and dearest friend.

As for me, I’m in a happy romantic relationship again after years of trying to rebuild myself. Additionally I've made friends with people I wanted to meet, and I’ve managed to carve out a small niche for myself in my own small corner of the world: I realized last summer that I thought about Magic: The Gathering in a much different way than many of my local friends do. As a game that occupies much of my social life and possibly more of my internal life, I searched for an outlet for these thoughts, and that led me here, where I’ve made good friends and joined an online community that I once looked at from afar. If you’re reading this, thanks! I’m happy to be here and to know you.

Conclusion

Relearning ourselves, redefining ourselves, and finding a place for ourselves is a journey most of us must embark, whether of our own volition or not. I’m certainly not a master of this process, so I’d like to leave you with the following thoughts:

One of the more, well, magical things about Magic The Gathering’s tie-in fiction is the fact that you could put just about any character from across the entire history of the game into a random number (character?) generator and the character that gets selected will be near and dear to some Magic player’s heart. In a game as wide and varied as Magic, there is a massive range of experiences portrayed throughout the stories that someone will personally identify with. I’ve seen communities big and small form around fans’ shared love of popular characters like Liliana, Vraska, Oko, and the entire concept of Phyrexians, but also less commonly known characters like Kallist Rhoka (who doesn’t even have a card) and less commonly liked characters (if we’re using loud people on the internet as a gauge) like Jace, Nahiri, and yes, even Nissa.

The biggest lesson I learned from my time as an English major (whether my professors meant for me to learn that is another thing entirely) was that there is no such thing as good and bad literature; there is just literature. Magic story has varied in quality drastically over the years, but one of my main reasons for writing this piece is to emphasize that Magic fiction has a place in the world of literature. It’s not likely to be studied by English students decades from now, but that says nothing about its ability to delight, upset, soothe, and even instruct those of us who enjoy it.

As for myself, I’m eternally grateful to writers who have picked up the task of writing Nissa over the years, because even when she is written poorly (ignoring that one instance where her characterization was butchered beyond recognition), I see much of myself reflected in her deep sense of conviction, in her struggle to express true feelings to people she loves, in her obsessive loyalty to those she lets into her life, in her adoration of the natural world, and even in her love of music. More specifically, I’m especially grateful to Fong and the story team behind “March of the Machine: The Aftermath” for giving me exactly the right Nissa story for exactly the right time in my life.

Whichever omenpath you personally are crossing through, I hope that you find what you need to come out of the other side of it happy, healthy, and ready for the next adventure.

References

Davidson, Nik. (2016). Battle of Thraben. 

Fong, Grace P. (2023). She Who Breaks the World. 

Frye, Northrop. (1968). A Study of English Romanticism.

Humphreys, Dave. (2023). Leading March of the Machine: The Aftermath Set Design 

Keats, John. (1819). Ode to a Nightingale.

Keats, John. (1820). To Autumn.

Kreines, Kimberly J. (2015). Nissa's Origin: Home.

Magic Creative Team. (2017). Renewal. 

Rivera, K. Arsenault. (2023). March of the Machine | Episode 1: Triumph of the Fleshless. 

Rosewater, Mark. (2015). It's Not Easy Being Green Revisited. 

Wordsworth, William. (1798). Lines Written (or Composed) a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798. 

Wordsworth, William. (1807). Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. 

[jazmine-here]

Vanilla Girl

Stay vanilla. Stay sweet. There's nothing wrong with being a daisy.

Don’t ever try to “flex” for others by forcing your feet into a pair of glass slippers that aren't made for you. If you are uncomfortable with crafting a piece of work for a fandom, popularity, friends, or your audience, then stay true to yourself. Don’t put on the “cool girl” mask or attempt to maintain it if you have. Popularity may not always be guaranteed, but your relationship with your audience will have longevity, purity, and beauty. Be yourself. Trust yourself.

Hello! My name is Jazmine!

I am a reemerging writer who tinkers with art. I was dubbed "Jazzy-B-Real" in my youth and "Otherwise_Uncolonized" in my young adulthood.

Jazzy-B-Real:

Otherwise_Uncolonized:

My experimental youtube page was "Constellations of Neverland" at one point. I've been offline since 2020. In 2024, I saw people online celebrating my middle school and high school art while wishing me well due to my disappearance. I'm happy to say that I am well after a rough post-Covid era and a lot of growing up. During Covid's reign, I had purged the internet of what I viewed to be carbon footprints, yet people have kept the light alive in some dust clouds.

I am eternally grateful to you all for retaining such light. As the blooming adult I am now, I've learned to view everything with balance—including the broken person I was—and there are lovely works that I dearly miss as a result. Those works are the "darlings" from my young life.

All in all, I'm in the heat of writing original work.

Writing, Poetry & Artwork

I'll be posting my original stories, prose poetry, and standard poetry on my FictionPress.com with the occasional preview slapped on Tumblr. The account already has a small library. Much of what I write will also grace a website I'm building, so please stay tuned for it and the original novels I have in store. New artwork and fandom tributes will hit Tumblr, Twitter/X, and my personal website. Doing commissions for writing prompts and art pieces will also become a part of my activities with my audience.

My AO3 account for old 2014-2017 fandom storyboards like "My Dearest Cousin," "Indentured (Union of the Crowns)," "Carry Me Anew," and "The King" is back up as well.

༺Please read and review with your pretty thoughts! Thank you so much to those who have saved some of my fandom pieces:

[avonne-writes]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Thank you so much for this lovely ask! ❤️ I've been sitting on this for a while because my self-esteem has been horrible lately, but I'm trying to be kinder to myself tonight, so I thought I could finally answer this.

1. Reverie (Clegan) - 55.7k

Summary: In a universe where soulmates share dreams, Bucky finds the way to Gale's soul.

Reverie is the kind of fic I always wanted to write. I enjoy exploring elements of surrealism, recurring themes and the connection between the past and the future. Writing this story sometimes felt like writing poetry, and I poured a lot of emotion into it. I'm glad that I finished it and that I'm satisfied with it.

2. Broken Things (Clegan) - 5.8k

Summary: When his alcoholic father relapses again, Gale wants to end the pain forever.

A pivotal moment in my High School AU. It’s a very angsty story of Gale going through a crisis, and I was hesitant to post it at first and change the tone of the AU, but I'm so glad I did because it led me to expand this universe and to make it a serious series. This fic is also personally special to me, so it will stay among my favourites for a long time.

3. Cascade (Drarry fic!) - 18.7k

Summary: Harry wants to touch, and Draco wants to be touched. If only they could figure it out.

This was intended as a comfort fic, a story of healing and gently growing love. To me, its memory is like warm sunshine on an early autumn day. The response this fic keeps receiving to this day fills me with joy. It has one of my favourite first kiss scenes out of the ones I've written.

4. The Art of Letting Go (Clegan) - 5.8k

Summary: When Gale has a bad day, Bucky is there to help him let go.

My Gale in subspace fic. This is one of my favourites because this wasn’t a dynamic that I had explored before but I'm pleased with the final fic. I liked writing Gale's thoughts as they get fuzzier the deeper he goes into that mindspace. I feel like it’s ultimately a comforting fic too.

5. Scorpion Grass (Lokius fic!) - 36.4k

Summary: When Loki is dragged along on a family vacation to Santa Cruz, he expects to be bored out of his mind, but a close call in the water turns everything on its head, and he's swept into the whirlwind of a summer romance.

I was on the fence about picking this one because it's 3.5 years old and I'm sure I'd cringe if I read my own old writing, but this is such a special fic to me. I wrote it during Covid lockdowns, when it was difficult to travel, and I put a lot of research into it to make the settings as realistic as possible. I wanted it to feel like a California vacation, with real locations and everything. Since some locals actually asked if I was from there, I felt like I succeeded.

+ Honorable mentions:

Symmetry (Clegan) - 5.2k

Summary: Not all of Gale's scars are from shrapnel wounds.

Aubade (Clegan) - 7.1k

Summary: A few weeks after Buck and Bucky became lovers, they have an opportunity to spend another leave together and take the next step in their relationship. Desire is only one thing though - the matters of the heart are much harder to express.

[cherries-in-wine]

I was around 12 when I first read lolita (online during COVID lol) and even I was able to pick up on the fact that you're NOT supposed to like Humbert Humbert how are some people finding him so charming that they're being groomed by him as well 😭

He's not even that charming honestly, bro's a pretentious asshole whose poetry is absolutely terrible and all he does is bitch and moan about everything. He's not nearly as sly as he thinks he is, his head is way too far up his ass for him to manipulate people through charm. How are you cringe, a terrible poet, shit at manipulating people, a horrible person, a raging misogynist and a pedophile like pick a struggle

[vague-humanoid]

The Campaign to Free Khaliifah with ML Smith from Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty

In this episode ML Smith from Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty will join us to talk about the campaign to Free Khaliifah.

Set to be executed on September 24th unless we can stop it. This thread contains the four actions you can take to help stop the execution of Khaliifah before its too late: https://x.com/MADPMO/status/183641940...

Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams is an innocent man who has been on Missouri’s death row for over 24 years. A devout Muslim, Khaliifah adopted the Islamic name Khaliifah Ibn Rayford Daniels upon his Shahada and currently serves as the Imam at the Potosi Correctional Center (PCC). He is a loving father, mentor, and respected leader within the incarcerated community. Additionally, Khaliifah is an accomplished poet who has dedicated much of his time in prison to studying Islam and writing poetry. He has an exemplary prison record and is widely respected both within PCC and beyond.

For more information visit: https://www.freekhaliifah.org.

Michelle "ML" Smith, Co-Director of Missourians to Abolish the Death Penalty (MADPMO) Michelle is a criminal punishment system-impacted advocate, abolitionist, and activist who experienced incarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic; which made her more intimately aware of the dire reality faced by our imprisoned populations as well as the egregious actions and apathetic behavior by the vast majority of institution staff and administrators. Her existence within the intersections of being Black, a woman, disabled, systems impacted, and experiencing generational poverty are the foundations of her ideological framework, which is rooted in advocating for those suffering & struggling within a society created, built, and carried out to oppress, marginalize, and dehumanize targeted vulnerable communities. She is dedicated to using her experiences, knowledge, determination, and voice in the struggle for equity, justice and recognition of humanity.

For more visit https://www.madpmo.org/

[mercurial-thrills]

Being Too *blegh* To Write - All About Writing and Energy

In our current society, productivity is prized. It is seen as an accomplishment to get as little sleep as possible to finish our projects. People look, in awe, at the achievements people do when they sacrifice sleep and other basic forms of self care. 

While combining this with competition and the desire to be seen, this creates a society with the desire to produce as much as possible. Produce, produce, produce. People continuously create like they will lose their spot in society if they do not continue creating. At least, that is how I perceive it.

I see people producing fresh pieces of artwork or poetry, displaying it proudly to the world. As well, they juggle school work and part time jobs. For the amount of prose I write, I hardly post it on social media like Wattpad or on this blog. This leads to comparisons and the desire to compete with them. I continued this pattern from early June to late September, when I decided I could not continue at this rate; I worked too hard without taking my own needs into consideration.

This creates a big question about writing and energy: how do these two aspects of my life interact with one another? Does writing improve energy, or does it deplete it? Is writing impacted by my energy levels? 

To answer those questions, it depends on the person. Some people may find writing an amazing source of recovering from the day. One example of this is through diary writing, where people will journal about their day. Others use writing to release their emotions, writing through their problems with fictional characters and setting. I do both of these in different circumstances, and they have provided an outlet for me to vent my frustration.

Other people may find writing draining. They may consider story writing difficult, particularly if they struggle with outlining or plotting the story. Others may be frustrated at the difficulty of finding the perfect word to describe your emotions. 

When it comes to energy levels, writing can be impacted by my energy levels. During the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself with more energy after the sudden inertia I faced during the extended March Break Ontario schools implemented. My energy would have been used to navigate the school hallways, struggles with friends, and understand group work. 

On the same line, I am less likely to write if I lack the energy. Seeing as writing gave me a positive view on life, I used to write on the weekends to recover from my weekdays. However, I spent more weekends resting my energy for the week ahead, as there are more demands in my life.