#the man becoming a tree

[pmpknsoup]

i find the horror of "whats the threshold between human and no-longer-human", and of dehumanization incredibly fascinating, and it really feels like thats the direction the magnus protocol is headed. very excited

[clownsuu]

Is Ulent (Plant dude) still alive my guy?

I miss the tired tree (´°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥ω°̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥｀)

YOU REMEMBER MY OLD ASS SON ULENT?????

GEEEEEZ he’s such an old fard character I am shocked anyone remembers him! Let alone ask for anything about him-

He’s completely fine btw! Still being the ye ol tree man himself Enjoying tea and talking to the trees-

[icewindandboringhorror]

Some fantasy traveler inventory details (like what they would carry in their bags), based on two of the recent costumes I did.. love finding random little scraps and items and putting them together lol

[kakmem]

Forgot to post the blorbos whoops

[seriousturd]

Shhh they’re sleeping

[pareidolla]

massive plot twist that btg aren't the biggest advocates for stp selfshipping like... the two leads were literally the same person. this entire game is just one big complicated selfship. what happened here

[hollowwhisperings]

Jojen is Fine, Actually: "Weirwood Paste" is Weirwood Paste.

CW: humanitarian diets, body horror, general blasphemy, mention of grooming (in the context of creepy tree wizards).

Okay so my being a HUGE Jojen (& House Reed in general) fan gives me an Obvious Bias against the idea of Jojen Dying Offscreen.

My being a huge literary nerd & lore geek, however, informs my Metaphor Senses that Jojen is Fine*, Actually.

The "Weirwood Paste" is Weirwood Paste: made of weirwood seeds, locally sourced. Said "Local Weirwood Tree" being. Y'know. Brynden Rivers.

It's Brynden Paste.

(*Fine: chronically ill, majorly depressed, freezing cold, surrounded by creepy tree people, stuck in a zombie wasteland, if he ever goes home he Dies, repeatedly dreaming of his own death... but, at least, Not Dead nor Being Eaten by the Prince of his Dreams? He's "Fine".)

First and foremost: storytelling conventions, even in a series as "deliberately unconventional" as ASOIAF, tend to tell audiences that NO ONE is genuinely "dead" until you see a body. And personally check its pulse. And test for rigor mortis. And maybe stab them in a lethal place, jusr to be Sure. And then burn the body, scatter its ashes, send couriers off in different directions to hide what remains in Remote Places never to be known of by the other couriers. Maybe Silence the couriers if they come back.

Er, you get the picture.

Most subscribers to "Jojenpaste" are in it for the lolz or assume The Worst due to Jojen's non-presence in the latest Bran chapters (aaand Jojen's being Very Permanently Dead in That Dragon Show). It's also an "easy" assumption that Since GRRM Is GRRM, any & all opportunities for Humanitarianism will be fully utilized.

Except... the weirwood paste is ALREADY "made of people" just because it's Weirwood (specifically, weirwood seeds) and the series has consistently described weirwood trees as "[human]".

Weirwood have "bone white" bark; they have Faces carved into them; they "Watch" and "Listen" and "Witness": this is consistent across POV characters, even before Jojen casually brings up "oh they're what Greenseers Become" or any meetings with a Literal Tree Man.

Weirwoods are described in human terms, doing human things, and at least 1 major character has been directly equivicated with Weirwoods for Plot Purposes: Ghost the Direwolf (and wolves, of course, are consistently used to mean "someone of House Stark" and the Starklings especially).

Then there is The Creepy Tree Man in the room: Brynden Rivers, called "Three-Eyed Raven" by Bran and Jojen (for that was how their Dreams interpreted him) or "The Last Greenseer" by the Singers (...despite BRAN very pointedly Being There To Prove Otherwise).

Brynden is also, as mentioned, a Tree Now.

A Weirwood Tree.

Y'know. Like the ones whose seeds make the Paste Bran's been eating.

So, unless the Singers have been sneaking about in Others' Territory to collect seeds from a different weirwood tree... that Paste is made of BRYNDEN.

Bran being fed "Brynden Paste' while Brynden Indoctrinates Teaches Bran to be a Tree Wizard makes far more sense, logistically & thematically, than Jojen getting shanked offscreen to belatedly be revealed to be "part of Bran all along".

For one thing, Meera would gladly set the Cave & everyone in it on fire if anyone so much as looks at her baby brother suspiciously. For another, Brynden is Right There for the eating & is filled with all sorts of Prophecy Juice: he's a Blackwood, he's a Targaryen, he's a Royal Bastard, he was an Infamous Spymaster with "A thousand eyes and one", he's done weird sacrifice BS before, he's a Greenseer (Jojen "only" has Greensight), he's a Living God (as per Singer & First Men Lore), the Cave Cult is trying to turn Bran INTO him...

There is a lot more "logic" to Bran's Magic Lessons featuring his knowingly (subconsciously, at least) eating Brynden than his secretly eating his friend. Human sacrifice tends to require Knowledge of the cost being paid & being Willing to do it anyway: Bran might be too tripped up on Paste to consciously connect the "Weirwood Paste" he eats with "that Human Weirwood Tree i'm sitting next to" but the Singers explicitly tell Bran the Paste is made from Weirwood Seeds. Bran "knows".

Godeating (metaphoric & literal) is a trope that is most commonly found in JRPGs, nowadays, but it has Precedent throughout western mythology: the Titan Kronus ate each of his children as they were born, Zeus alone escaping, in an effort to Dodge Prophecy; Zeus inherited Said Prophecy and, being his Father's Son, ate his first wife. The details of the Titanomachy (the War against the Titans by their reasonably upset kids) are Lost but Zeus, at least, gained all his Wife's Wisdom (& her pregnancy too) after eating her: Athena may or may not have Taken It Back upon breaking out from her Eaten Mother & Dear Old Dad.

Consuming something in order to "become" what is eaten is Fairly Common, if not with that specific phrasing: vampires seldom explain their reproduction as "eat me to become me", whilst the adorable Nintendo character Kirby & his method of Powering Up via Playing Vacuum, is Rephrased out of Sheer Self-Preservation (no one, not even I, likes to admit that The Cute Pink Blob is an Eldritch Abomination). Many JRPGs & works in eastern media use similar themes of "monster eats monster" and "let's eat god" for the purposes of High Stakes Action. Japan & East Asia has a lot less "baggage" when it comes to utilizing themes from Abrahamic verse, meaning that western works using themes of [consuming the divine] and [apotheosis] use Vampire Methodology. Such is the case in the Dragon Age series & its Order of Grey Wardens (who are, From A Certain POV, dragon god vampires).

Within the ASOIAF series itself, Dany's eating a horse heart (raw) has Humanitarian Themes in service of Prophecy and [Divinity]: the horse heart to the Dothraki, a society of horselords, could be what weirwood seeds are to First Men (especially given Jojen's whole "btw, the trees are gods are former greenseers").

Brynden & the Cave's Singers (whom I dearly hope are some long-exiled Cult & not reflective of Singers as a whole) are not particularly subtle in their Intentions for Bran: he is to be their New "Last" Greenseer. Bran is to Become Brynden or Brynden is to Become Bran: either and possibly both are plausible, though how compliant with the Singers' goals Brynden may be has yet to be revealed.

(the Brynden of F&B and D&E strikes me as someone who would gladly bodysnatch some poor kid for his own Agenda: the Singers seem unlikely to support fire-breathing foreigners, not without a Contingency Plan; somewhat likely to want Bran for the purposes of installing a Tree Hivemind Police State; and maybe, possibly... "just" wanting a Second God for their Cult in Bran, who probably Smells Better).

SUMMARY

Weirwoods are Personified in almost every appearance. Weirwood Trees are considered Gods. Jojen (& some Singers) have stated that the Next Evolutionary Phase of a Greenseer is "Weirwood Tree". Brynden "the Last Greenseer" is part of a Weirwood Tree.

Brynden & the Singers are Turning Bran Into A Weirwood Tree.

Bran's current diet is Tree Paste. His magic teacher, Brynden, is Part-Tree. The Nearest Tree to make Paste from is Brynden. The Paste is made of Brynden.

(Let's NOT think too hard on which parts of Brynden: I've only gotten this far in this Meta by using "Hunanitarian" as a pun.)

Eating Gods to Become A God is an existing Trope. Brynden is a God, by Singer & First Men definitions. Bran is being Groomed to Become Brynden, a God. To Become Brynden, Bran must Eat Brynden.

TL;DR

The Weirwood Paste is Weirwood Paste and Brynden is the Weirwood: the Paste is not "Jojen", it's BRYNDEN.

Jojen is Not Paste: Jojen is Alive but Not Well & Very Depressed.

[conartisthaiji]

i am a niclays roos apologist btw like free my man!!! he did do all of that but he was sad :(

[kiawren]

Anyway guys I got to this part and WUEUEUEUEU😭😭😭 HE SAID MY NAMEE.... I ALREADY GOT SPOILERS ON THE DIALOGUE BUT I STILL FELT SO!!! 😭😭 "Thank you for being there." Boy I purposely didnt save this part so I could replay this battle and dialogue with you 💀💀💀 and it's like a side quest thing so I can keep progressing the main story and save it then do this part again and again without saving it 💀💀 I actually forgot to do this right after Olivia's trial so when I went back my team was overlevelled and I purposely swapped some lower level pkmn from the boxes so the battle would last longer yeah all for you kia/we😭😭👍👍

[normalenjoyer-png]

like dream blinded by positivity, pretty soon after the incident, gets really close to killing nightmare, and nightmare grabbing him by the cloak. pulling him close as he's losing form. "YOU KILL ME YOU BECOME ME, DREAM. YOU HAVE TO TAKE UP THE ROLE OF THE GUARDIAN OF NEGATIVITY. SURELY YOU DONT WANT TO BE AS ABSENT AS OUR MOTHER." he coughs and spits in his face and dream pulls himself away in disgust.

[fisheito]

kuya is such a particular peepaw princess. my golie. he wears SPF 800, carries a lacey purple parasol, and dons massive UV-blocking sunglasses every time he steps into the sun adn huey is just like

uh. ok. message received. i'll take u to the sunless grimdark automaton country next time

[bokujou-monogatari]

yo...

"オネェ言葉がチャームポイント!？" "His Onee accent is his charm point!?"

ain't no way

[tragedykery]

the thing about niclays roos is that he is both a little bitch and a massive cunt. and I love him for it

[fortunaestalta]

[tokruta]

I’m starting to hc Miguel as Miguel Rivera (from Coco)’s great grandson.

It’s mostly because I’ve been doing my family tree for a good while now, so most of my free time is occupied with tracking down Mexican ancestors, looking for resources to better understand the different settings they lived in, reading old Spanish handwritten records, etc. So, with genealogy on the brain, and seeing some names repeated down family lines…I think having Miguel O’Hara be descended from Miguel Rivera would be a neat lil idea.

Like, imagine little Conchata growing up in Mexico with a famous musician grandfather who loves her and dotes on her and her cousins. Yes, he’s a famous musician, but he’s a family man first and is always ready to pass down stories from his life and his loved ones, dead and living. She loves her grandfather so much she decided to name her firstborn son after him.

She wasn’t always the best mom, especially to Miguel, but she passed down those stories and traditions, including singing and a love for music. And Miguel grows up loving to sing, and being good at it but keeping it to himself and Gabriel because George hated to hear it.

Gabriel, on top of being a good artist, is a pretty damn good guitar player and also has a great voice. He mostly keeps it on the down low, though, even in adulthood.

Miguel didn’t pick up any instruments, but he sometimes wishes he picked up the violin before he became Spider-Man. Instead, he let Gabriela pick out an instrument she wanted to play, and if she happened to pick the violin, the onions that manifested were a complete coincidence.

Plus, it’s literally canon that Miguel goes to Mexico to celebrate Día de Los Muertos and that his suit in the comics was one he wore to the festivals. I think it’s better for that to be a thing he does bc the holiday is a big deal in his family rather than bc it’s an excuse to party or whatever.

His mother had an ofrenda and so does he.

Miguel Rivera is still alive (he was born in like 2005, he could totally still be alive in the 2090s and 2100s, so he is in my hc ☺️) so Miguel visits him in Mexico, too. Miguel is shy about singing in front of anybody, but his bisabuelo is able to bring him out of his shell, especially by singing his old songs that Miguel grew up listening to.

The more I think about it, the more attached I become to this hc.

Now I want to write a fic where Miguel is visiting a dimension in the 2020s (616B, 1610B, etc) and he happens to see that a young Mexican musician is starting to trend, and it’s his bisabuelo Miguel as a young man 🥹 so he buys tickets and flies to Mexico 🥹 to watch him live 🥹 and yes he knows this isn’t his bisabuelo but he is as close as he can get to a young Miguel Rivera at the start of his long and successful career and it just hits him in the soul 🥹

And if Miguel Rivera happens to notice a 6’9” giant at his show, who looks strangely familiar, watching him perform like it’s the best thing he’s ever seen… who’s to say.

[fooltofancy]

u can always tell when an actor is about to leave a bbc drama because they begin to suffer the most drastic character assassination for no apparent reason