#the narratives around this team are being planted | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

respectthepetty · 1 year

Text

Plant Daddies - Episode 3

This isn't about colors. This is about the Triangular Theory of Love in Hidden Agenda, but it's like lasagna; it has layers. Tee, is this about Step by Step?!

I wrote about plant symbolism in Hidden Agenda in Plant Daddies at Tea Time:

Yellow Chrysanthemum, the tea Zo drinks, represents slighted or neglected love and the taste of its tea is sweet.

And Red Roselle, the juice Joke drinks, represents romantic love or passion and the taste of its juice is sour.

The boys stick to those drinks.

But this week they switched without any comment.

Also, Zo told two stories this week from his Legends of Love book:

Red Roses get their color from the blood of Adonis mixing with the tears of Aphrodite seeping into the ground which caused the roses to change from white to red.

Yellow Sunflowers exist because Clytie fell in love with the sun god, Apollo, so when he left her, she looked at the sun so long that she grew roots and turned into a sunflower.

Both stories deal with a person losing the person she loves. However, the roses story is about love being taken away, and the sunflower story is about love leaving. Also, Zo stated he would cry if he lost his love, while Joke stated he wouldn't leave that person in the first place.

Yet Nita's take on the story is to move on from the past and find someone else.

Once again, this isn't about colors, but we now have two separate occasions where plants/flowers are included in the narrative, and those items are color-coded yellow and red, which only adds to the way we are seeing those colors pop up in the show with a third color.

I mentioned in the Plant Daddies at Tea Time post that primary colors seem to be intentional in the show because this episode, the only colored clothing Joke handed Zo when they were shopping was yellow.

Yet by the end, Zo was in blue with his yellow backpack.

So what does this have to do with the Triangular Theory of Love?

Well, all things come in threes:

The Primary Colors:

Red

Yellow

Blue

These are the basic colors needed to make all other colors; therefore, all colors start from these three, and all colors stem from these three colors.

The Love Triangle:

Joke likes Zo.

Zo likes Nita.

Nita likes Joke?

Issue - We don't know if Nita does still have feelings for Joke because her response to the story seemed as if she would get over Joke.

The Dating Rules:

Rule #1 - Do not gawk at your love interest.

Rule #2 - Ease into it. Don't rush. Oh, AND CONSENT!

Rule #3 - Do whatever Joke says.

Rule #3 - Stay true to yourself starting with the first date.

Issue - Joke seems to have problems sticking to his own rules.

The Triangular Theory of Love:

"It breaks down love into three components."

Passion - Zo is passionate about pursuing Nita.

Intimacy - Joke tells Zo he must ask Nita out to build this.

Commitment - And once they begin to date, this will evolve.

Issue - Zo already notices his heart isn't fluttering around Nita the way he thought it would, yet his heart seems to be doing something around Joke, which is maybe why Joke continues to advise Zo to do some self-reflection and try new things.

Because just like Khai and Third in the correctly titled Theory of Love, this process isn't just for Zo, but Joke:

Passion - Joke is passionate about getting Zo by any means necessary.

Commitment - Joke is committed to this bit, he made Zo give him explicit promises (to work together, to help him get in the debate team), and he already stated he would be committed in a relationship during their story time.

Intimacy - This is what Joke is lacking, which is why he developed this huge scheme to get Zo to spend more time with him.

The Balance:

Is this a story about finding the middle ground between two extremes?

So far, we have a story about Joke, a passionate guy who drinks sour red roselle juice and openly admits to being aggressive about love like the thorns of a rose, trying to develop intimacy with a boy who drinks sweet yellow chrysanthemum tea and says he would just stare at what he can't have than go after it like a sunflower in order to show his commitment . . .

Then both of these boys need each other to find that balance between their two ways of loving.

Joke has launched in elaborate plan to get Zo while Zo was willing to admire Nita from a distance for the rest of his life. Zo can't just stare at his crush (Rule #1), and Joke can't rush into things (Rule #2), yet neither has been truly themself from the start to get the other person (Rule #3).

In order to make this work:

Joke needs to learn sweet intimacy.

And Zo needs to understand burning passion.

So they can find a balance and be able to commit to each other when the time comes.

And maybe that will help their friends find a good balance between the secrets they hide in the dark and the looks they give in the light.

And maybe even rethink how they see things so they can find new meaning in what has been in front of them the entire time.

Because that look was more than what Kot said. Right?

#hidden agenda #hidden agenda the series #joke x zo #the colors mean things #but this isn't about the colors #plant daddies

186 notes · View notes

mixelation · 1 year

Text

reborn au notes 2 self, chunin exam edition

on kushina: i want to write her as a badass, but in light of the recent minato oneshot, i've decided that while she is a badass, she was actively kept from the frontlines of the third shinobi war because oooh ahhh our precious jinchuriki!! so she's not actually like... very well known internationally. so what this means

both itachi and deidara are like "well if she was any good i would have heard of her" and then ideally both of them would have separate "oh god what the fuck what the fuck WHAT THE FUCK" moments because actually she has an OP bloodline limit, is a fuinjutsu master, and has insane chakra/stamina. and this is BEFORE you factor in the fox

iwa denies minato entrance for the chunin exam tournament despite it being traditional to host foreign kage because they're terrified of him planting a hiraishin seal. they're then iffy about letting his wife in with fuinjutsu supplies. but they too are like "well if she were worth knowing about, we'd have heard of her"

on kisame/mangetsu: i forgot i pitched the idea of kisame being there to babysit bby mangestu entering??? i think i'll keep this element. nothing i post on tumblr is "set in stone" but this change probably wouldn't affect the written pieces very much. so the tourament is

First round:

Tori vs Some Chump (opening match -- expected to be underwhelming and supposed to give people time to find their seats -- Tori finishes it in less than 30 seconds)

Itachi vs Kurotsuchi (Itachi wins)

Deidara vs Some Chump (Deidara wins)

Mangetsu vs Some Chump (Mangetsu wins)

Second round:

Tori vs Itachi (Itachi wins but in a complete reversal of her previous match, Tori draws it out)

Mangetsu vs Deidara (Deidara wins but the bloodline limit is ANNOYING)

Final: Itachi vs Deidara (Itachi wins)

i'm not 100% what mangetsu at 13's personality would be, but i like the cracky idea of of him having a weird little crush on tori. mostly because i think it would make both her and kisame like (INTERNAL ALARM BELLS GOING OFF) but also for plot reasons*

tori: idk what to do i've only ever had weirdos be attracted to me???

deidara: only weird-- tori he sneezed too hard and turned into a puddle. he IS a weirdo

*basically i'm toying with the idea of tori going SOBBING to mangetsu that iwa kidnapped her mentor, because kisame will report to kiri that they did this, but mangetsu's more emotional testimony will sell it to kiri. i decided with the piece i just posted that it makes more narrative sense for tori to pull herself together and make moves on a plan rather than waiting for deidara and itachi to solve it for her. so she's like: okay, im confident we can get to her, but how do we prevent a fourth war in the event iwa decides to claim WE attacked first? witness from another village. okay here i go~~

kisame has no personal stakes in doing anything about kushina or their mission so he's not going to physically help with that, but he does consider itachi his ally so he'll happily go and tell the mizukage that he was presented with strong evidence that iwa tried to hold the hokage's wife ransom after she and her team diligently obeyed all their stupid rules....?

on the hiraishin seal that the utano** clan picked up at the very beginning when tori was 4: originally i had the idea she'd use it to take down oto somehow. like she gets her hands on it and chucks it around until minato comes to check it out or something. but instead i decided it's better if she just figures that out on her own. although NOW i'm debating if she leaves the hiraishin seal out in the open in the hopes konoha comes ot check it out and take care of any degs for her. <3 the consequence of this is that she's on minato's radar before they ever meet, but i'm noooot sure i like this

either way i think i'm going to use it to very slowly foreshadow hiraishin!tori. but also maybe. out of spite, and because she spent a lot of time studying one when she was a kid.... she paints a couple hiraishin seals in iwa as payment. as a little treat <3

(this is NOT the most politically savvy move so even if minato privately thought it was funny, i think he's reprimand her. even when she's like "no i ARRANGED for kiri to back us up, they're not going to do anything because they CAN'T." but alternatively maybe she writes a note that she hid one.... can you find it? <3 <3 <3)

**i know i originally wrote it as "uta" but "utano" looks more like a name so i'm changing it lmao

#reborn au

84 notes · View notes

pyreo · 11 months

Text

I know there's people who like their fantasy storytelling to take a few steps away from reality, you know. Nothing that verges on allegorical to the stuff we worry about in real life. And I think I'm on the opposite team to that and y'know, the further away we get from gw2's original core story the more I see The World Summit instance as more pivotal than it appeared.

It's the part in the middle of Season 2 where you bring the world leaders together to try and insist that they need to aid you fighting Mordremoth, a primal force who's only just now awakened and started causing disruption and deaths. Mechanically, it serves to show the various cultures being made aware of the upcoming antagonist for mostly the first time.

But there's something that grips me to this day about the realism in that segment. You know full well that this thing is beginning its warpath and will kill those around you. You and your guild know that you need to take action immediately before it gathers itself together to a point you cannot fight it any more. I don't think the scene serves much more than obligatory scaffolding in a narrative sense but it echoes the way I feel in real life all the time. It's the focal point where I've never felt more aligned with my Commander.

Smodur: They're plant creatures! How hard can they be to fight. One good flamethrower and…

Knut: Mordremoth is not yet as close as the Sons of Svanir. They press in around our homesteads. That is more important.

Phlunt: Are you saying we should put ourselves on the line to protect all of you? We are safe in Rata Sum.

Jennah: I'm not ashamed to admit that I don't see how this will work. What are you asking of us?

It's not easy to ask the Main Five Peoples to get anything done together - they do come from legitimately incompatible cultures and there's bad history between humans and charr, and sylvari and asura. But you have to present an argument to each one to convince them this is the most important thing to devote resources to.

It's been about ten years since this was written and it still feels exactly like every conversation that deflects from the reality of climate change. The 'we have bigger things to worry about', the 'it's not that bad', the denials, the giving up, the ones who have enough to feel secure individually and don't really care.

That and the way the narrative turns from 'you're the hero, slay the dragon' to a domino effect that cannot be stopped, wrenching the planet off its hinges and it was all down to you. There's a big difference in changing the threat from ancient dragons awakening to devour all life... and it being the Commander's fault that the stabilising effect those dragons had is unplugged. The allegory becomes undeniable - you doomed the world. You have to chase down that tether and pull the weave back from unravelling even if it'll tear you apart. And even if nobody realises how close their lives are to ending, even if nobody respects you for it.

You have to look the most powerful people alive in the eye and plead with them to fucking help you for god's sake knowing it's a crisis and if you don't take action right now instead of waiting for it to get worse... being able to tell them 'I told you so' will be no solace at all.

And fuckin.... if fantasy stories are there to give us hope for ourselves, nothing hits as directly as the journey from "It's not that bad, why should we put anything on the line for you?" to

That hope means something very real to me.

#guild wars 2 #gw2

59 notes · View notes

spade-riddles · 9 months

Note

Anyone else think this CNN article was planted by Taylor's team?

I know the popular consensus is that it's Travis protecting the stunt, but I'm just not feeling it. CNN is a huge media outlet. There's no way they're not connected enough to know Travis is a beard. And let's be real here - who is the bigger star? Who would they want to keep sweet more? Taylor, or this guy who was a nobody five minutes ago and will go right back to being one the second she dumps him?

If someone can demonstrate a connection between CNN and someone like 🛴, then I'd consider that. But right now, this feels to me like a story unfolding. "Associates" has business connotations. They could have said friends or family if this was Team Taylor trying to shut this down. But "associates" suggests "business interests are uncomfortable with people talking about even the possibility of Taylor being gay". That's a very different narrative to Taylor being uncomfortable.

Scott Borchetta tried to keep her in her country conservative box and later betrayed her. Scooter, well, the whole world knows how much he upset her on a personal level. It was "anyone but him", even before the masters sale. The recent email leak makes Scott Swift look like he was pushy and controlling over Taylor's career, from childhood. It's building a picture, isn't it?

The public will want a reason Taylor found it so hard to come out. "Because the business interests around her didn't want her to" is easy for everyone to understand, and this new article is something a lot of people can look back on later and say "look, they IMMEDIATELY tried to silence this!", as proof that even now, Taylor is struggling against these interests.

"It's all part of the fucking story", maybe?

Very interesting ask, anon ...

40 notes · View notes

inshelliesworld · 2 years

Text

Buckle up. This is long.

Last night after dinner w/my fam I watched the SAG awards so I am a little behind on the conversation around the Chris Evans Clown Show Comedy Hour. However I read a couple of asks received by @nancydrewwouldnever about how he’s been looking like the Raggedy Andy version of his normal self these past few months and I couldn’t agree more.

I thought so watching the SMA videos People put out.

Back during my more naïve days, I just thought he was possibly exhausted and that could very well still be true. But after the rabbit hole I’ve been down for the past couple of months, I am of the opinion he's exhausted for a different reason than work requirements. Which is just that – my opinion: observation mixed with speculation.

I don’t think this RS – if it is rooted in PR like I think it is – was ever intended to last this long. From what I have gathered, the Netflix show and movie for which AB would have benefited the most having a lot of attention were originally supposed to both release in the first half of 2022. One or both were delayed, the show being very delayed -from first/second quarter all the way to the last quarter of the year. So not only did she lose out on a bump for the movie, but by the time her show finally launched it pretty much had already been axed by NF. So when Mr. SMA 2022 does the CP Marathon (horribly) with her, the only project she has going on at the time is hanging by a thread.

That's her fault for being lazy and entitled. A million golden opportunities were missed by her/her team, but I feel like Chris wasn’t going to sell anything very well anyway, as he likely was being pissy about this situationshit lasting so long. Which led me to thinking that “laser focus” press question was a plant to tie back to the earlier article BUT made me think it could possibly have been contrived as a way to signify the end of their "RS" had it gone to plan. The question would allow room for him to insinuate he was single again and “focused on finding the right partner” to “pour himself into” bc “awe, shucks, I’m just so unlucky in love…” 💀

BUT THAT CAN’T HAPPEN… he can’t signal the end of something that hasn’t yet been announced. So it looked to the viewer, and especially his fandom, that he was signaling his singlehood – and for his fans, to debunk the rumors flying around about his Lolita. NOW he has to stutter around and trap himself in word prisons and go take a quick pap sprint the same time as SMA announcement bc that’s when the show drops and do more photos and BS to sell the OVER year-long narrative when they were really prepped to do a 9ish-mos storyline. All the OG pics and scares (IMO) that were preemptively shot not only look slightly better but they also would have fit in with starting the RS storyline Fall 2021 and, if nothing would have been delayed, the end falling somewhere Summer 2022.

I think this is why he does such a shit job selling it. He struggles to sell intimacy anyway, but he’s not even giving it the ole college try bc he’s pissed off that it’s taken more time than he expected and dragging his feet. I mean…. All these rumors about the same chick for months HAS to have a negative impact on his harem, right?? 😂 Now she’s pissed that he’s dragging his feet – or maybe she wanted it to turn into more than what it is and he’s noped the fuck out – so she throws a hissy fit with the yoga cert mess, her mom’s pic, and her OF shower pictorial.

It's possible had this not dragged along for this long, all the dirt that has surfaced RE: her and her sOuLMaTes being racist, antisemetic, fat phobic, basically all around horrendous ppl that has TANKED his image and lost him a good portion of his fandom would have maybe not surfaced. The mess would have been announced, been annoying, and been over before anyone cared enough to dig that much - or at least make that big of a deal about it, bc he would have been rid of her. I know that this dumpster fire mimics SS a lot but I think that Chris agreeing to a much shorter version in the beginning is why there are SO MANY pictures all at once. He probs didn't want to do this for the 2 years or whatever that SS committed to.

I think he has thrown his own tantrum of “I ain’t doin this shit anymore” and has left it to someone else to handle which is why he is AWOL from everywhere, including going out to dinner with his friend/castmates, and not doing his own SM anymore (I personally don’t think he’s posting anything at all right now himself). Seems he’s also made sure that he/his team control the mass narrative to the GP.

I think they’re riding this shit show out until the end, letting their teams do whatever they need to do. Even if she has the DESIRE to show up for anything like the Twitter reading (was she even invited? Was she wanted by her castmates/showrunners? Hollywood is show BUSINESS afterall so even if she wasn’t wanted she would be expected to show up to make good on production companies’ investments & save face?) the situations aren’t really going to be great for her. There would be – and SHOULD BE – backlash involving the discriminatory posts, which she obvs has no intentions of denouncing. IMO she should have done it anyway for her fans, but her not doing it goes a long way to prove her entitlement, lazy ass attitude, and ungratefulness. But from the looks of those Star Power reports from IMDB that someone shared, it’s not her that’s hurting… it’s HIM. 🤡

He’s suffering greatly, which is also deserved, and he very likely knows it. It has taken a noticeable toll on his looks, his presence, his gait, and his energy. He looks like a shell of his former self bc he is. And he’s seemingly off licking his wounds until he can start his Chris Evans Redemption Tour.

I would like to put it out into the universe that my birthday is next month and it falls within their usual “drop” timeframe so it would be a fantastic birthday gift if March’s bomb was the BUA.

#Chris Evans #PR #shit show #birthday wish #Pisces season #please end the misery

129 notes · View notes

majaloveschris · 10 months

Note

they kinda were! Even in 2021 like october-december they were the first ones putting articles out saying there was rumors of them dating // This is another reason why I believe it’s PR, back in November some Portuguese sites started to post about the rumours BEFORE there was even evidence that they met in person (before NYE 1.0) so I think her side did that. When the first rumours started it was because we got a glimpse of Chris shoulder tattoo that looked like Saturn and Alba had that emoji on her IG, that was enough for people to start the rumour BUT we didn’t even know if they ever met. I would even think that their teams contributed to start the rumour around that time to start their plan

I wouldn't be surprised if the whole "they are together" narrative was started by their teams. However, we also need to note that starting and spreading this rumor wasn't necessary since, according to a ton of people, if he starts following someone who happens to be a woman, he is certainly sleeping with them. So, from his part, it was enough to start following her.

The same goes with the tattoo thing. I'm sure Alba had already had the Saturn emoji in her bio for a while and that Chris didn't get that tattoo, so they can start a rumor with that or because of her. I can imagine their teams seeing an opportunity there, and there were certainly a lot of people who believed it might be true, which was surely a huge reach.

This whole rumor started with a follow and the tattoo/emoji thing. As I said before, I wouldn't be surprised, and I'm sure, on some level, their teams' hands were in these articles and rumors floating around.

But we also have to admit that they didn't have a hard time planting this since, as I mentioned before, people believe he has to do something with someone for the most ridiculous reasons. The same thing happened with Shakira and Selena. However, I also think that with these mind games, they've achieved that if he comes back to Instagram, now even more people will start spreading even bigger rumors of him being connected to the woman he started following. Because before Alba, those rumors didn't really happen to be true, or at least we didn't know about them, but with her, it happened, right? They made a lot of people really eager for new information and more details, which won't be beneficial for them after this whole thing ends.

#majaloveschris #chris and alba relationship #cevans-love

25 notes · View notes

justenjoythegossip · 6 months

Text

MEAN GIRLS, CONTROLLED OPPOSITION, “USEFUL FOOLS” & THE STREISAND EFFECT

There has been some controversy regarding my post about the Middle Voice and some misunderstandings that I feel I should clear. I never intended to cause any harm to anyone, that is why I never use mods’ name (not when I talk about Team Real or Team PR or the Middle Voice either) as my goal is never to attack an individual or a group of people. I just try to share my observations, to look past the picture that is being sold, question narratives, try to show the dynamics at hand and the responses that could result from it.

Mean girls recognizing themselves…

Certain mods felt attacked by this article when I never had them in mind in the first place when I actually wrote it (which, I guess, is quite telling). But also, some rightfully recognized themselves, managed to gather around with their friends for a senseless blocking spree to boot me off the island. They have twisted my words, tried to discredit and ridicule them, which is a classic manipulation technique by the way.

It has been fascinating to see that all that I wrote (and I wrote plenty) has been reduced to the very silly notion of… plants. And yet, the picture is so much more complex than that. And I have been very careful anytime I have written about Team Real/PR Blogs or the Middle voice to define those groups very specifically and with as much accuracy as I could. And as you probably noticed, I always use the expression “plants/trolls”. Why? Because, those groups encompass a wide range of different profiles. Plants are actually the small minority of the bunch while trolls represent the largest majority. But since trolls consist of so much more than trolling, I guess it is rather important to define who they are and what they do.

Controlled opposition: a powerful strategy & a psychological weapon…

* “Controlled opposition is any person or organization which appears to be on one side, but is secretly working against the interests of that movement… With controlled opposition, one organization can play both sides. Controlled opposition can also act as spies, feeding information back to opposition organizations, feeding disinformation to those they pretend to ally with, and deliberately instigating infighting to ensure activist work does not get done”. https://www.hegemonmedia.com/p/what-is-controlled-opposition

PR strategies tend to mirror the games we find in Politics, so we can often use the same concepts to explain what is going on. Lenin once famously said that: “The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves”. Middle Voice mods, Team PR mods and even Team Real mods work according to those very same basic principles. Some might find it strange that I include Team Real blogs to the controlled opposition. And yet it makes a lot of sense because some key players from that faction of the fandom used to debunk the stunts Chris, Abba and their teams were “trying” to pull, and they also used to criticize Chris very vehemently, even calling him disgusting names such as groomer or pedophile. And yet, some of those mods made a very “(non)sensical” U-turn and started to ship the very controversial couple. Obviously it only appeared to be nonsensical, but the reality is very different. Those mods were meant to pave the way for the fandom to embrace them as a Hollywood power couple after initially rejecting them vigorously. If such extreme voices could come to “accept” them, then the casual fan might just do the same. A classic manipulation technique in PR games that include so many of it.

Such tactics include plants (as discussed previously), who work directly for their teams and are meant to drive/sell certain narratives to the fandom. But what is particularly interesting is that you don’t need a whole bunch of them. You might only need one or a couple in each groups. That’s the beauty of it. The rest of those groups will consist of “useful fools”…

By the way, important sidenote, some people (or groups of people) likely use different accounts to add more weight and credibility to what they are selling. Certain Team (Real/PR/Middle Voice) mods share such similar tones, voices and rhetoric that it seems quite suspicious. It might be coincidental of course. But again probably not.

The “useful idiots” are very useful tools…

Plants are the original agitators and lead the way while trolls follow in their path. If we use the same concepts as earlier, they are the equivalent of the “useful idiots” in a controlled opposition.

“A useful idiot or useful fool is a person perceived as propagandizing for a cause without fully comprehending the cause's goals, and who is cynically being used by the cause's leaders.”

So obviously you don’t need to be a paid plant to play the exact same role in those PR strategies. All you need is to be susceptible and respond to a certain narrative, not question it and then amplify it yourself. So anyone can be an unwilling “useful” idiot” without even being aware of it, that is what it so pernicious about it.

And when it comes to trolls, they will respond to very specific narratives that involve any kinds of controversy or that will trigger heated discussion because they tend to crave the attention and the drama.

The “Streisand effect�� or how not to draw attention to an issue…

*”The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information, where the effort instead backfires by increasing public awareness of the information. The effect is named for American singer and actress Barbra Streisand, whose attempt in 2003 to suppress a photographer's publication of a photograph drew far greater attention to the obscure photograph”.

From a PR perspective, it’s very often smart not to respond to a rumor (true or false) or to a controversy so that you don’t draw more attention to it. Especially since it can be quite dangerous, if your response to a PR crisis is deemed inadequate, it can have even more lasting damage. Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher’s recent apology is a good example of that. They didn’t grasp the severity of their situation and their frivolous response got them cancelled. Pure and simple.

It's true for Chris’ shitshow with this very problematic woman as well. No acknowledgement, no problem! But it’s also true for all these mods who made such a ridiculous (and stupid?) fuzz about being called out plants/trolls when they were never even mentioned by names. Good job on planting this seed inside the minds of their followers. Although I am sure some of them are very much aware of their tactics at this point.

16 notes · View notes

ficretus · 7 months

Text

Theory: Speculating about Summer Maiden

So far Summer Maiden is the only Maiden we have no whereabouts of. Not even Vacuo novels provide anything about her or her Relic. I wanted to throw some thoughts around who I think will be Summer Maiden by the end of the Vacuo arc.

CURRENT SUMMER MAIDEN:

As I said, no idea. But let me get one thing out the way, I don't think Summer Rose is Summer Maiden or that she'll be at any point in the story. This might seem relatively weird considering so far characters with season in their name did eventually become Maiden of their respective season, but I don't think this is the case with Summer.

First of all, it would be bit random considering that power is tied to Vacuo and Summer herself doesn't have any Vacuo connections we know of. Second, it is somewhat implied that Summer is still alive, likely being Salem's Grimm experiment. If Summer was Summer Maiden and is under Salem's control, why would Salem bother with Cinder? Summer would be loyal subordinate that is second to none in combat. Why would you need to groom new subordinate of questionable loyalty and lesser combat ability? Third, in case she isn't Summer Maiden and is just one of Salem's thralls, I don't think she can inherit the power. Chronologically she'd be in late 30s or even 40s, making her too old to inherit the power.

For Summer to be Summer Maiden, it would mean she became one ages ago and isn't currently under Salem's control (because that kind of creates plot holes in Salem's plan). But I feel that both kind of damages her character (she becomes another Raven, abandoning her family for her own goals) and wastes implications Hound creates. I think her fate will be revealed during Vacuo arc, during summer portion of the story, if that makes sense.

I suspect we'll have another Amber or Fria situation with current Summer Maiden. As in, minimally established character that will give away their power to more important character narrative wise down the line.

GATHERING CLUES:

First place I looked into is The Four Maidens, in universe fairy tale about Maidens. For those uninitiated, it's a fairy tale about recluse Old Wizard being visited by girls representing Maidens. They visit him in sequence of Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall, each teaching him valuable lesson.

Maiden lessons are key part to focus on here. While in the story, they are something Old Wizard has to learn, in RWBY it's something Maidens themselves have to learn.

For example, Winter appears in front of Old Wizard's house, sitting in state of absolute tranquility. Wizard sits down and copies her example thinking about his own strange predicament. This somewhat matches Winter, who in her own moment of clarity realizes Ironwood is lost cause and turns against him.

Other two examples are much clearer parallels. Spring shows up and plants flowers all over Old Wizard's yard, turning a pile of dirt into beautiful garden. This implies Spring Maiden is all about fostering life. This matches well as a lesson Raven needs to learn as a Spring Maiden, someone who both abandoned her family and used her protege as a decoy.

Fall Maiden urges Old Wizard to be thankful for what he has. This matches Cinder who needs to learn to be grateful for what she already has, instead of seeking out all other Maiden powers.

Summer Maiden convinces Old Wizard to step outside. Upon doing so, Old Wizard starts laughing at himself for even staying indoors all this time. So whoever becomes Summer Maiden needs to have a flaw that makes them distrustful of the world. Their character arc needs to be about opening themselves to the world.

______________________________________________________________

All three current Maidens also have personal connection to the members of Team RWBY. This is either set up for eventual transfer of power to respective members of Team RWBY or they simply exist as dark reflections of respective team members.

Raven is Yang's mother, Winter is Weiss' sister and Cinder is Ruby's nemesis. This mean, whoever will be Summer Maiden needs to have some kind of connection to Blake.

______________________________________________________________

Lastly, all three current Maidens were at some point of the story antagonists. Winter was an antagonist during the portion of Atlas arc as Ironwood's most loyal subordinate, Raven was antagonist throughout most of Mistral arc and Cinder is still major antagonist. So whoever becomes Summer Maiden had to have been antagonist at some point of the story.

CANDIDATES:

First candidate I have is Gillian Asturias, one of the main villains of Vacuo novels. She is leader of villainous Crown faction, who seek to restore Vacuoan monarchy with Gillian in charge. She believes she is descendant of legendary Vacuoan kings, albeit this claim is based on delusion her father convinced her of.

Why do I think she might become Summer Maiden? First of all, she is an antagonist. While at the end of the novel, she gets imprisoned... it's RWBY prison, nobody stays there. Her Semblance allows her to siphon Aura which theoretically means she could take the power all by herself (since all transfer methods we've seen so far were Aura based). She also has a motive to become a Maiden, what better way to show you are true heir to the throne then seizing divine power that allows you to control the elements.

She also fits with Summer Maiden lesson. She is extremely traditionalist, avoiding the use of both Dust and Scroll. Crown members are also xenophobic to some degree. Both of these traits make her good candidate for a lesson about opening yourself to the world.

Issue with her is that she has no connections to any member of Team RWBY. While it's not out the question they might eventually interact, I am doubtful writers will have her establish some really personal relationship with Blake. I think she might become Summer Maiden, but more of a interim Maiden like Penny was.

______________________________________________________________

My preferred choice so far is Ilia. She matches all the criteria I've set up earlier. First of all, she is a former antagonist. Second, she matches well with lesson of Summer Maiden. As an antagonist, she was member of more radical version of White Fang that was no longer about Faunus equality and more about their supremacy. This "us versus them" mentality symbolically parallels Old Wizard refusing to leave his house, closed off from everybody else.

Summer Maiden lesson can also be manifested in another way. If you think about it, it's almost inevitable White Fang will appear in Vacuo to assist the good guys. And who else will be there? Ace Ops. Ilia will be forced to work side by side with people who represent abuse she suffered as a child. This could create interesting dynamic of Ilia and White Fang refusing to cooperate with them, creating an issue for good guys cause (in fact you can have entire Volume 10 be about previously opposed sides coming to terms with each other for the greater good considering you'll have Ace Ops, Happy Huntresses, White Fang and potentially even Branwen tribe all working together). Her character arc would be about letting go of her hatred and trauma and opening herself to the world, fulfilling the Summer Maiden lesson.

Of course, Ilia is also personally connected to Blake. Yeah, she is "just" her friend, but when you think about it, that's the most personal relationship Blake has outside of her team. Unlike her other team members, she doesn't have a sister, her mother is too old to inherit the power and her nemesis was not only male... he is busy being dead. Ilia becoming a Maiden would also diversify the roster by giving us Faunus Maiden. After all, if all kingdoms are coming together why not also have that symbolically reflected in Maiden roster.

_____________________________________________________________

What are your thoughts? Do you have any other Maiden candidate you think is more likely? If you do, feel free to comment it.

#rwby theory #rwby volume 10 #rwby vacuo #greenlight volume 10 #rwby ilia #ilia amitola #gillian asturias #rwby

11 notes · View notes

chibivesicle · 2 years

Text

Trigun Stampede - Episode 8 - Our Home; time for a flashback since Vash passed out.

With all of the paradoxical pacing of the series, we were due for a flashback to give us more Vash information since we got Wolfwood with a side of Livio, last week. This is sort of taking various elements and hits of flashbacks from the original anime and manga and with our breakneck pace, compressing them down.

We get the birthday celebration with Vash and Nai. It seems this version is in line with the manga where only Rem is awake at the time on their ship as opposed to the anime with several crew members manning the vessel.

We are not surprised that Vash is elated at the party and Nai is being grumpy. It also points out early on that despite being twins, Vash does not appear to have any plant abilities; thus, he needs to eat, sleep etc while apparently Nai does not. Thus, the brothers aren’t parallel in their abilities at this moment in the Stampede narrative.

In the artificial park, Rem is being a doting mother on the two of them, happy that they have come into her world. We haven’t learned yet that her long term significant other had passed away yet, spurring her to take the current job as a Seeds team member. There is also the subtextual fact that it is clear she’d been thinking of having a family with that man.

Of course things take a turn for the worse and it jumps to the point where their escape pod has crashed it Nai’s monologue is more complete including the line that Vash gave him a passcode that allowed him to hack into the system and change things. Thus, this makes his previous statement of being an accomplice to the events makes more sense now. However, instead of being forced to travel with Nai after the catastrophe and sticking with his brother out of guilt and not understanding Rem’s last message to him, in Stampede Vash flees from the start. There is a horror scene of dying people reaching out to him and Vash runs off screaming and apologizing before collapsing in the desert near a group of survivors.

He wakes up on a ship with a woman confirming that he’s an independent plant. The apparently are on ship three which did not crash and are trying to survive what happened. Wow, love how simple it is for Luida to confirm that Vash is a plant with a simple flashlight! It was better in the original that it was not all that obvious that he was a plant.

We also learn that the woman with dark hair is Luida from the original uncrashed ship and the man is a much more mature version of Brad. The Doctor with the hat appears to not exist in this story line at all - or at least is not a senior member of the leadership team at this point. The ship is surrounded in a sandstorm that conceals it from the outside with bursts of lighting soooo . . .

yeah, the sandstorm at the end of episode seven is clearly and indication that they caught up to Vash. And Vash is currently passed out having the flashback like he did on the Sandsteamer in the original anime and manga dreaming about Rem.

It is also cannon that the uncrashed ship is protected by the harsh winds around it. The difference is in the anime, Wolfwood is the one who points out that they can’t avoid reality of the surface while in the manga, they are working much more covertly to assist on the surface. As they can still send out a distress call to humans elsewhere which becomes important later on in the manga with the return of humanity and more independent plants.

Anyhoo, as the flashback continues Luida tries to be compassionate to Vash while Brad is a dick. The writing for this entire flashback is meh at best. We get it, they don’t trust him because he’s a plant and Vash at the moment isn’t very interested in living.

We learn that they tried to recover the black box from ship five and any of Rem’s possessions which appear to be a journal and some photos.

Brad is trying to recover the data from the black box and the flashback follows a tried and true plot point. They don’t trust Vash, keep him locked up and he’s not too motivated to eat. This is much more subtle than the manga where Vash actively did try to commit suicide and was saved by Rem upon learning about Tessla’s fate.

Finally, to give Vash a plant ability, he learn that he can talk to the plants. So, when a plant starts to malfunction he comes in to save the day.

Of course for dramatic plot purposes, this happens right when Brad was able to recover Rem’s last message to Vash and we get to hear her line that the ticket to one’s future is blank.

With Vash saving the day and helping the group survive, he gets upgraded from questionable plant independent to normal person with a room! Luida also notes that Brad helped convince the rest of the crew and things progress as we would expect. He slowly integrates into ‘normal’ life and starts to interact with people like a human.

Time passes and he continues to grow and we see a change in him. He’s lost the weird plant markings on his body which marked him as youth and no longer appear on his teenage body as he travels around with Brad assisting in plant mental health counseling. What does he do? Chat with them, make them feel better and it fixes the problem? If only it were that easy and additionally, it is skirting around the manga issues of plants having lifespans and the horrible abuse and suffering that dying plants are subjected to. Maybe we will learn this later?

His hair has become messier and the darker undercut is now visible. Honestly, having Vash be a plant whisperer is cute and all buuuut . . . if you look at his personality in the original manga and anime, him being friendly with the plants is expected of his personality, since he was. Of course he’ll talk to all the plants and help them calm down or assist. We get this early on in the anime as he consoles a tired and exhausted plant with a bottle of Wild Turkey as a tribute.

This also is the key plot point that ultimately is how Vash is able to defeat Knives. Knives could also communicate with the plants but convinced them to work with him out of any anger or resentment towards humans or consumed them by sheer force and willpower. Which he then mentally cut them off from him to keep his independence and force them to his will. It was the fact that Vash knew each individual plant from his 150 years of wandering that he was able to convince them to turn on Knives - no group of individuals are a monolith or united in a single goal.

I yawned as the episode progressed since it went as expected. Vash gets a thank you from the rest of the group for being a plant whisperer and saving people etc etc.

I do think the scene was exceptionally well animated. Though the backgrounds are rather lacking and sterile despite Vash’s photo wall, which looks just like White’s various photo walls in her UK childhood home or in the HL hospital where she’s trapped.

Vash is thankful for his gift of new clothing and the scene where he hugs it while thinking of Rem is touching. We get the link to red geraniums and Rem’s love of them as well as how that determination will manifest through Vash’s own actions as he gets older.

But we gotta stick with the writing on easy mode and generate an unnecessary conflict between Vash and the ship three crew which is only there to force him to run away. Brad eventually is able to discover that Vash lied about what happened. Knives is alive and we can be certain, tricked Vash into giving him the access codes to cause the disaster. Brad spouts of xenophobic nonsense making a very snap judgement as Vash flees out into the desert night.

The two of them search his room and Luida finds his hand written note that he needs to atone for the sins of his brother. Ah, yes, here we get a glimpse of the massive amount of guilt that Vash is always carrying in the originals masked by his silly behaviors.

Of course, Brad feels bad and Luida declares that they need to rescue him. The flashback then briefly returns to the present timeline. Vash wakes up in a room, similar to the one he had on ship three. For the first time we see him without his sunglasses! Took you long enough Studio Orange.

He bolts up from his dream/flashback and orients himself in the moment and we see a picture is on display on the table facing him.

The picture reveals the team from his wall when he was a teen as a plant whisperer.

And we know Studio Orange isn’t subtle, so Vash asks aloud if ‘they’ saved him.

Of course they did Vash! I said last week that was what the sandstorm was that approached and picked up our four person team. He then looks forlorn and glances down at his robotic arm.

The episode then shifts back to end on the flashback where Vash met up with Knives five years after he’d been rescued by ship three. The man in the white coat has to be Conrad along with two generic copy paste goons with a mirror tool applied.

They are on an abandoned ship with red and implied to be dead plants. With that they then zip to the ending credits!

Overall, this episode was a bland back fill. The only positive was that, for once, they took a few seconds to breathe and slow down the all action all the time pace. However, this would have served the narrative a lot better around episode four or five. The pacing not the actual story reveal.

It sounds weird, but getting the motivation to watch episode eight was real as the series is losing my interest an attention. Part of it is just a ‘me’ thing. Reflecting on my initial reaction to the series, I realized that I came into Trigun Stampede with unrealistic expectations for this new version of it. And now that the artistic directions are super clear, it doesn’t have much overlap with the original anime and manga.

And as I’ve stated many times previously, even with the vast differences with the ‘98 anime and Trigun Maximum both stories get at the same moral questions and dilemmas. Is Stampede going to get there? Right now, no. It isn’t going in that direction.

One element of Vash’s flashbacks that I have missed is the song he associated with Rem. In the manga, it is simply sung indicated by musical notes and makes him reflect on her and the ‘98 anime was storytelling gold with a creation song being implied on humans re-creating civilization out of the ‘wild’.

Rem’s song - Sound Life was brilliant in the original anime.

youtube

It is things like this which really added to the vibe of the series and set a theme. But, I am biased to the original OST and really think it was totally on point for the anime.

Overall points from this episode:

1.) Characters that again, have changed - Luida and Brad. In the original manga, neither of them are older than Vash. This already implies a compressed timeline. The entire point is that they are younger humans who grew up always knowing Vash from being children to adults. We have lost their unique perspective which was crucial to understanding how others viewed Vash. Brad is even more simple minded than in the originals which is a disappointment but we know the writing is threadbare. Luida again is stripped of her strong female leadership qualities and becomes Rem 2.0 for Vash. They are shadows of their former characterizations. Boo.

2.) Female characters continue to be stripped of their character and qualities from the originals. We’ve already lost Milly Thompson. Meryl Stryfe was uwu-ized and made junior to Roberto. Now, Luida has become Mom 2.0 to replace Rem. Can there be a single female character who has the original independence and not being pigeon-holed into an extremely outdated gender norms/behavior? It is 2023 in a sci fi anime. If the ‘98 version was less obsessed with gender roles and the manga wasn’t obsessed with gender roles - why does Stampede want to go down this path?

3.) Reactions to the series in general. I wish there was an easier way to get data about the reactions to the series. I want a Gallup Poll for all the data on the viewers of this show! However, I can’t help wonder if there is a clear divide in the reaction to Stampede based on viewer demographics. My gut is that likely women and the strong LGBTQ fanbase of the originals are not as impressed by this lackluster effort at Trigun. The Golden Kamuy fandom had a lot of women and queer readers and I can see how the same group would like the original Trigun and Trigun Maximum. It seems counter-intuitive at first, but the more you think about it, they easily would have a similar type of readership besides the typical seinen demographics.

Most of the youtubers who have made comments appear to be men, and they are like - oh its fine, sure, I miss Milly but its alright that I have found. I wonder if they don’t realize that by removing a key female character from the cast is a disappointment. Yet, I’m not going out of my way to determine who has the loudest voices on the internet either singing praises of Stampede or hating on it hardcore.

I partially disagree and agree with a recent review that dropped today. I agree with that review that it is an entirely different series, that there is nothing wrong with the CGI and that the loss of Milly was a bad idea. However, I disagree with that review feeling that it is still Trigun and the review is overly optimistic about Stampede thinking the Gung-ho Guns will be better (? some are already dead or likely eliminated due to not fitting the vibe) and Wolfwood will get the chara development which he deserves. And mainly that the review says that Stampede is more in line with the manga and I’m guessing this follows with the assumption that the manga is always better than the anime with the terms of ‘filler’ and ‘too slapstick’. I’ll have to wait until that reviewer speaks more about the manga, but I am not of the mindset that manga = better than anime but reading the manga helped me to understand aspects of the anime and also appreciate the differences between both forms of media. I don’t want to fall into the diversity/representation rabbit hole, but those were things that the original content got. If you stop and look at Kekkai Sensen/Blood Blockade Battlefront, Yasuhiro Nightow continued on to create another diverse cast of characters. He cleverly shifted human racism to be xenophobia towards Beyondians in the world of Hellsalem’s Lot. Leonardo Watch is accepting of all species and friends with them as well as the entire rest of the Libra main cast. The fact that a part of Manhattan excludes Beyondians with armed guards speaks volumes to the author’s critiques of modern day society.

The homogenization of Stampede makes it seem sterile, unrealistic, and out of sync with the sci fi element. Thank back to the original Macross and you have a more diverse cast than in Stampede. Macross has a lot of other issues like the horrible sexism that is of the 80s, but hey, at least a future society is global and represents the visual diversity of humanity. I’m a bit scatter-brained today, but what I’ve gotten from Yasuhiro Nightow’s works whether it be Trigun or Blood Blockade Battlefront is that he has comments on diversity and acceptance along with morality of a society and of individuals. Coming from a much more homogeneous society that still struggles to deal with its own indigenous peoples that have been relegated to second class status for over four hundred years and all dressing that come along with that form of governmental and cultural oppression. Golden Kamuy did a good job of this up until the final arc which fell flat (see my previous metas on the topic) and even a series like Samurai Champloo brings in those groups focusing on Christians, Ryukyuans and Ainu characters either as main charas like Mugen or having an impact on others. Fuu’s father being a Christian who had to abandon her and her mother and the Ainu character they cross paths with, on the run from the Edo government in its early days of the ‘civilization’ of the north which gets the spotlight in Golden Kamuy’s late Meiji era focus.

Nightow’s stories thrive on having a larger society in which his main casts exist in and work to protect. This was highlighted by the comment I got about the loss of all the normal people on the planet - which existed in the ‘98 anime and manga. This also explains why B3 works so well in NYC turned into HL. People are working to allow others to have normal lives and protect what is important to them. It brings a realistic humanity to the stories which is what Stampede is missing. These series never shy away from all the terrible things humanity may do, but that it is always balanced out by those who strive to follow a higher calling/moral code etc.

Anyways, I’ve blathered on far enough with this week’s episode which didn’t really give me all that much to chew on. It was necessary Vash backstory. We have a different timeline of events. We have all the characters who are both older and younger at the same time. It was predictable and boring.

Clearly, the next episode will continue the flashback and Knives is gonna cut of Vash’s arm like in the manga, Luida and Brad will help him and we should see Wolfwood, Meryl and Roberto as well.

#Trigun #trigun maximum #trigun manga #trigun stampede #trigun anime #Vash #Vash the Stampede #luida #brad #millions knives #nai #conrad #yasuhiro nightow #trigun stampede episode review

101 notes · View notes

wanderlustmagician · 8 months

Text

So Cataclysmic is the name of what I call in my notes the Witches AU. Yes this is LU, it’s all I wanna write right now. :D

Some General World Building things;

> Your average witch will only live the same amount of time as the average Hylian/Human. Roughly 80-90 years.

> Familiars usually appear around the time a young Witch’s magic has begun to out grow them. They live longer than most animals, usually the same lifespan as their Witch. Some witches will have more than one at one time and rarely, a witch will lose their familiar and have a new one appear.

> Magic usage isn’t very flashy. It’s more mundane, like “here’s a tea blend to make you feel better” or a blessing given by a princess or priestess or ceremonial witch is something you can feel

> Every living thing holds magic, but not everyone can use it. Witches are those who can use it, be it their own or others.

Now onto the Boys! In the beginning I’m going to focus on Sky, Twi, Wild, Legend, and Hyrule. Though in the true beginning it will be just Sky, Twi, and Wild. As the timeline progresses, the others will eventually emerge. This means I’ve gotten some more developed than others, mostly by necessity.

Sky

> older than he looks, will not explain (believed to be 2,000+ years old)

> Air Elemental Witch, can do Earth, Fire, and Storm magic if pressed or emotional enough

> Had a Loftwing familiar

Twi

> chronic middle child, but tallest (somewhere around 500+ yrs old)

> Green Witch, very focused on the plants and animals (he can talk to the animals, sense the energy of the plants around him)

> can turn into a wolf due to his adventure, the shadow magic has no affect on his actual magic

> does not appear to have a familiar, will not explain

Wild

> actually 117

> formerly a Ceremonial Witch, but if he doesn’t remember being that… then it doesn’t count

> eventual Kitchen Witch, when he stops denying himself, and teams up with Twi and Legend to help make things for the shop

> familiar was lost, once he accepts his magic again… a new one appears

Legend

> older than Twi and that’s all that matters (somewhere around 750+ years old)

> Crystal Witch (objects have power, especially crystals, and he’s going to hoard them all)

> bullies Twi into letting him have an Orchard

> familiar is not often seen by the others and became changed after one of his adventures

Hyrule

> older than Wild (what like that’s hard?) (somewhere around 400+ years old)

> Cosmic Witch (very in tune with what the stars and cosmic bodies are saying, somehow can hear the goddesses the best, denies it)

> claims that he never had a familiar

This is very bare bones. For a lot of reasons. Mostly because I’m still figuring out somethings while writing. This is the AU I’m doing for Febuwhump, so as things shake out I’m taking notes on it. As always, I play fast and loose with what I write. If it looks good, sounds good, I’ll break my own rules to leave it. So if the concept of the magic in this sounds a funky, that’s because it intentionally funky.

That said… Time, Wind, Warriors, and Four will be in this eventually. This is going to be, intentionally, very Sky focused due to his own specific struggles and sometimes very Wild focused until I hit a certain spot narratively.

Though for fun; Time is a Hedge Witch, Warriors is a Ceremonial Witch, Four is a Secular Witch, and Wind is a Sea Witch.

#wandering thoughts #cataclysmic #lu witches au #this weekend is being devoted wholly to writing #I’ve gotten all of Febuwhump plotted #all of modern au plotted #and now all of cataclysmic plotted

10 notes · View notes

sylvan-librarian · 1 year

Text

Nissa's Pilgrimage Part 3: Growing Pains and Gatewatching

She unfolded the topmost layer of the silk pouch, revealing the four small seeds. One by one she planted them in the holes she had dug. As she did, she whispered to them of her dreams for the forest they would one day become. She told them of the world they had come from, what Zendikar had been like, and what it had been through. And then she told them of the pyromancer, the telepath, and the fearless leader who had come to save them, who had made this world a safe place for them to grow. With a final breath, Nissa pressed her palm to the ground and reached into the land; there was one more thing to do. She brushed against the soul of Zendikar. She told it to take care of the seeds. But before it could respond, before it could pull her in, encircle her and hold her close, she lifted her hand, and with it her soul. "I will see you again," she said. "I promise." Then she stood up, moving away from the world she had known and toward the one that was waiting. — "Zendikar Resurgent"

Introduction

Hi! During part one of this essay series, I introduced Magic the Gathering’s Nissa Revane, iconic green (and blue ... and black) planeswalker and cinnamon roll with a tragic backstory (is Nissa actually a One Piece character?). I talked about my own connection to this character, why she means what she does to me, and where she comes from. During part two, I analyzed Nissa’s dual origins, why her original backstory was retconned into the aether, and how that has been interpreted over the years. For part three, I am going to explore how Nissa was characterized throughout the genesis of the Gatewatch story arc: Battle For Zendikar and Oath of the Gatewatch.

Despite being roughly half a year in real time, this covers a lot of narrative ground, and as you’ll see, Nissa goes through a lot of growth during this single set; that Nissa herself goes through a metamorphosis in how she interacts with the world is a direct mirror how she is characterized by the Magic Story Team as they hone the craft of Magic storytelling. A lot Vorthoses at the time argued that Nissa’s characterization was weak and that the Nissa presented in the Battle for Zendikar block is single-minded to a fault, the only thing occupying her mind is the survival of Zendikar, the destruction of the Eldrazi, and:

It’s easy to find the Nissa of this era a little boring and one-note, and the prose itself of the Battle for Zendikar block — famously a little lacking — does little to turn this around.

However, underneath the veneer of sometimes poor writing, there is more than meets the eye with Nissa’s characterization. In fact, even though the Battle for Zendikar and Oath of Gatewatch stories function primarily as an Avengers-type origin myth, I would argue that Nissa is more-or-less the main character of the saga. The Eldrazi are free primarily because of Nissa’s mistake, and the action of the plot follows her attempt to rectify this. Many turning points in the story are due to her appearance: the liberation of Sea Gate, the entrapment of Ulamog, and most importantly, the destruction of the Eldrazi Titans themselves were only due to her influence on the situation. Nissa is also the character who goes through the most change: Gideon steps into his role as the charismatic, fearless leader he always wanted to be, Jace and Chandra both learn to shed their checkered past and become determined heroes heroes, despite whatever commentary any outside forces have on them, but Nissa …

Nissa comes to terms with the grief that most of the violence and tragedy on Zendikar is due to her own error; she learns to shed the xenophobia that was ingrained in her by her Joraga upbringing; she learns that no matter how much of a ‘chosen one’ she is, she can’t win every battle on her own; and most importantly to the plot of future Magic stories, she learns to trust other people and embrace intimacy with other people rather than only with the spirits of the natural world. We are presented with a character on the brink of metamorphosis, and unlike the Nissa of old, she embraces the bonds she creates with others and blossoms into something new instead of rejecting them for the sake of austerity and wilting into stagnation.

Chapter 1: —Ashaya—

Before jumping into an analysis of Nissa’s characterization, let’s address the elephant in the room that was brought up earlier: the prose of the Battle for Zendikar block. In many places… it’s just not that great, and this had a significant impact on how Nissa was viewed in the Gatewatch’s early years. A lot of her stories suffer from endless repetition. One of the more infamous examples of this is in “The Silent Cry,” which is were the —Ashaya— memes were born:

When Nissa's breath came back it was in great gasps; she couldn't get enough air. The silence around her was heavy and oppressive. And her vision was dull. Ashaya. All she could think was Ashaya. Nissa reached out into the land to summon the elemental. But there was nothing there to grasp. Ashaya. She reached deeper, plunging her feeling into the land. But that was where the silence was coming from. Nissa's ears rang and the world spun. Ashaya. She dragged herself over to the pile of branches and mounds of dirt. Her trembling fingers flitted over the broken pieces. Which splinter of wood had been Ashaya's finger? Which leaf had grown from the top of her head? Where were the roots that had held her soul? Ashaya. The silence was overwhelming. Nissa staggered to her feet, but the sensation of vertigo sent her back down. She hit the ground with a hard smack. A sharp rock cut her cheek and a mound of dirt dug into her side. The land did not cradle her, it didn't protect her—it hurt. No. This made no sense. Ashaya.

What the author is clearly trying to do here is depict Nissa’s sense of loss at the disappearance of —Ashaya— an elemental being she (rightly) believes is the incarnation of Zendikar’s soul. One one hand, this goes a long way to show the reader how holistic Nissa’s approach to life is: in her world, the world itself has a literal soul and a life of its own that everyone living on it relies on, and this soul’s survival is tied to the survival of the planet itself. It also goes a long way to showing Nissa’s social mindset at the time; the Nissa of this era has spent decades by herself with only the ephemeral spirits of the plane to talk to, and its loss is paramount to losing the only friend she’s made in her last forty-or-so years on her own. On the other hand, however, this melodramatic sense of despair can feel a little trite because we, as readers, have seen what is going on in the broader world. Entire civilizations have been ground to dust in the last three years, and in just the previous story in the arc — “Slaughter at the Refuge” — Gideon and Jace return to Zendikar to a scene straight out of a war movie:

And bodies—bodies were everywhere. Some looked like the casualties of any other war, blood soaking their chests and streaking their faces, limbs torn free, gore spilling from gaping gut wounds. But more—so many more—had partially crumbled away, leaving heaps of dust where heads or legs or arms had been. The smell of blood and entrails mixed with the carrion odor of the Eldrazi and turned Gideon's stomach.

The audience can logically parse exactly why Nissa is so upset at the loss of Ashaya: Ashaya has been her only real friend for a very long time, her way of life ties her to the spirit of the land itself, her magic is tied to the spirit of land itself, and she sees her partnership with Ashaya as her one real chance to free Zendikar of the horrors she is at least somewhat responsible for. However, the mawkishness that Nissa is written with in scenes like the one above from “The Silent Cry” can come off as trite when the audience is intimately aware of the broader ramifications of this worldwide conflict.

Chapter 2: Sentimental or Stagy?

Despite occasional missteps with the prose itself, however, Nissa’s character arc throughout the Battle for Zendikar stories is much stronger than many argued back in 2015 and 2016. I said earlier that many found Nissa in the Battle for Zendikar stories to be a little one-note and boring, and I would argue this is intentional. First of all, Nissa’s singularly-focused priorities are a realistic response to the situation she has found herself in.

When we pick back up with Nissa in Battle for Zendikar, she has experienced her first victory after three years of utter defeat and hopeless despair, but she is far from feeling like she is able to save Zendikar from its destruction. As we see in “For Zendikar,” she is still on the verge of giving up hope. A vampire who knows her identity as a planeswalker approaches her with seeds from Zendikar’s native flora and petitions her to take these to another world so that at least some of Zendikar survives, and she heavily considers the prospect:

[S]he stood there in the empty, corrupted camp in the shadow of the elemental, the silk turning sweaty in her palm. She could feel the lives of the seeds within, the trees they might someday become—each of them a small part of Zendikar. So why should she feel guilty for wanting to save them? "Why shouldn't I at least try?" She looked to Ashaya. "I've been telling you all this time that I can't do what you want me to do." She paused, but of course Ashaya had no response. "But this, this is something I can do. At least this way you'll know," she tucked the silk into her pocket, "you'll know that Zendikar goes on. That will have to be enough."

Of course, not much later in the text, Nissa runs these thoughts back after she becomes able to commune with Ashaya, and by extension the soul of Zendikar itself. Her despair blossoming into hope, Nissa comes to understand the holistic nature of the world and all who live in it as she becomes one with nature:

Zendikar had not asked her to do this alone. It had not chosen her; there had been no choice to make. She was part of the world, connected to it like every other living thing. A tree does not choose a branch, the branch is merely part of the tree; it is one with the tree. When the tree grows, when the tree bends, or when the tree falls . . . so too does the branch. And when the branch rustles, when it sprouts leaves or bears fruit, so too does the tree. Nissa could not be chosen by Zendikar and she could not choose Zendikar, for she was one with Zendikar.

Seen in this light, the schmaltz in Nissa’s endless obsession with —Ashaya— comes off as intentional. Here is a woman utterly alone, on the verge of giving up, wracked with unbelievable guilt at the apocalypse her single act of mistrust wrought upon her world, but who has also now found a friend, a living soul to commune with in a way that does not require words (extremely comforting for a character like Nissa who struggles with communicating verbally), and hope: a means to protect her home and atone for her mistakes.

In short, Nissa’s single-minded fixation with her ideals, with —Ashaya— during the Battle for Zendikar is better characterization than many Vorthoses have given Magic’s creative team credit for. Ahsaya is Nissa’s only true friend in her last forty years, the soul of the world she loves but unintentionally injured, and the mechanism of her redemption. It’s much easier to read Nissa’s outbursts as pathos rather than melodrama when you take time to get to know her and where she has come from.

(Wait, was Kiora always in the Call the Gatewatch art?! Am I going crazy here?)

Chapter 3: Love or Loneliness?

That Nissa’s characterization as single-minded, obsessed, and off-putting was at least in some ways intentional is hammered home by the underlying message of her arc: Nissa’s worldview is flawed. The audience was never meant to take at face value the belief system of a character who rejects relationships with others for the sake of wordless communion an ephemeral worldsoul, who distrusts outsiders to a fault, and who has trouble acknowledging the human cost of this conflict when the greater good is at stake. This message is clear when you look at how Nissa gradually changes as she meets, befriends, and then commits to her friends and allies in the Gatewatch.

For example, throughout the Battle for Zendikar stories, Nissa sets herself apart from everyone else. In “Nissa’s Quest,” for example, we are told that she

almost spun on the kor, she almost snapped, almost told him that Zendikar wasn't something you could "take back." Zendikar wasn't something that belonged to anyone. Not to the people, not to the Eldrazi, not even to the great Commander-General Jura. Zendikar, the real Zendikar, was simultaneously bigger than anything they could imagine and so much more intimate than they could ever understand. She almost told him that when they cried out—"For Zendikar!"—they didn't know what they were saying.

Elsewhere, she is belligerent when trying to create plans with her allies; when faced with Jace’s plant to trap the Eldrazi Titans, she responds like this:

"Trap?" Nissa, who had been hanging back, stood up straight. Her ears tilted and her glowing green eyes pierced Jace. "You said trap." "I did." Jace nodded. "One hedron alone isn't enough, but a complex network of hedrons can be aligned to bind the titan so it can't cause any more destruction. Once we trap it—" "No." Nissa pounded her staff into the ground. Oh, good. More antagonism. Jace was on a roll. "We do not trap it," Nissa's voice resonated with power. "The titans have been trapped here for too long. The world has been in pain for too long."

Of course, Nissa is highly principled and always sticks to her guns even in less apocalyptic situations, but this sort of antagonism belies her absolute certainty that only she knows the correct path forward.

Compare this to the latter half of the Oath of the Gatewatch stories. In “Brink of Extinction,” instead of “almost snapping” at Jace when he rallies the troops with a “For Zendikar” rallying cry, she encourages it. In this same story, instead of “more antagonism,” Nissa enthusiastically trusts Jace’s plan and also becomes one of the only people in Jace’s life to ever invite him into her mind; after listening to Jace’s scheme, she responds like this: ‘“I can do it’ said Nissa, staring off toward some distant horizon. ‘How?’ She turned, as though she hadn't noticed Jace standing there. ‘It's complicated,’ she said. ‘Let me show you.’” This particular scene is important to the growth of both of these characters. Jace is used to people being terrified of his powers, and Nissa is used to communicating nonverbally, in spirit. For both of them, this is an intimate, vulnerable moment that hinges on an extreme amount of trust. It’s one of the highlights of the entire Battle for Zendikar saga.

In Nissa’s case, showing vulnerability with another sentient mortal rather than with an ageless immortal worldsoul goes a long way to changing her outlook on the world, and this is only the first time this happens this story arc! The next time Nissa bares this much of herself to another person is in the climax of the entire saga. The ending of Oath of the Gatewatch is well-known at this point, but just to summarize: Jace’s and Nissa’s plan is to entrap the two Eldrazi Titans in a leyline pattern drawn and controlled by Nissa. Once that happens, Nissa can use the leyline prison to drain the Eldrazi’s essence back into Zendikar so that the plane can do to the Eldrazi what the Eldrazi have been doing to it for the past three years: consume them.

As expected, however, the plan goes awry. Zendikar doesn’t quite have enough mana left to accomplish this task, and the trauma of this threatens to destroy everything. Fellow planeswalker ally Kiora attempts to take things into her own hands and stop the process by hurling a tidal wave on the Gatewatch to stop them from keeping Titans chained to Zendikar. Jace counters this spell, but the plan is still on the verge of falling apart when Chandra asks the group if she can attempt to destroy the Titans with her pyromancy. Not having another recourse, the rest of the Gatewatch agrees to let her try, but this also doesn’t work… at first:

The torrent of fire touched the contorted Eldrazi mass, but it wasn't nearly enough. Her fire could barely scratch the titans even when they were finite, discrete beings. She couldn't burn their epic entirety now, any more than she could burn an entire plane. In the corner of her eye she saw one of the floating islands tumbling out of the sky, and she realized with a tiny part of her mind that it would barrel right into her. Simultaneously, she could see the glyph glow bright, down in the basin, as the fire streamed across the titans' bodies. It was all falling apart. The glyph would expire soon. Her fury would expire soon. They would all die soon. She was barely conscious of Gideon leaping from the outcropping, blocking the landmass with his own body, of a shower of pebbles raining down as it broke against him. She just concentrated on hurling as much fire out as she could, even though it wouldn't be close to enough— Chandra felt a hand resting softly on her shoulder. And then she felt the mana of an entire world streaming into her. The leylines. Nissa had been the focus for all of Zendikar's fury, and now, with Nissa's touch, that fury poured into Chandra instead. Chandra was the focus now, the nexus that connected Zendikar to the titans. She knew she couldn't hold their reins as Nissa had done. So she tried something else. She screamed. And in her scream, she willed all of Zendikar's fury through herself, into her spell, into her fire. The leylines themselves caught fire, igniting like a spark hitting streams of fuel. Flames spiraled from Chandra into the streams of mana and branched out across the sky, following the paths of the leylines, enveloping the titans. Either Chandra was still screaming, or everything else was. The world flashed with a roar of apocalyptic orange, then went blinding white. Chandra's legs buckled, and she collapsed.

In the final moment, Nissa relinquishes control of the situation to someone else, an ally she just met literally a day ago. By combining their abilities, Nissa and Chandra are able to incinerate two entire Cthulhus in a singular blast. Without stepping out of the person she was before — mistrustful of outsiders, unwilling to attempt communication and vulnerability with other people — Nissa never would have done this. We are told that in this moment, the two women “connected in a way Nissa had never connected to another being, not even to the soul of Zendikar.” Even more so than the vulnerability Nissa shared with Jace, this moment changed Nissa’s life dramatically (tangentially, this moment was also extremely important in Chandra’s life, but we won’t learn about that until almost an entire year later).

Pretty much immediately, Nissa softens from the person she was throughout the rest of this block. In “Zendikar Resurgent,” Chandra notices (💚and❤️likes💚) “the way [Nissa's] movements were gentle, her hands kind.” Nissa comes to recognize her aching need for companionship beyond that of the ephemeral spirits of wild and to embrace that even over the embrace of —Ashaya— :

With a final breath, Nissa pressed her palm to the ground and reached into the land; there was one more thing to do. She brushed against the soul of Zendikar. She told it to take care of the seeds. But before it could respond, before it could pull her in, encircle her and hold her close, she lifted her hand, and with it her soul. "I will see you again," she said. "I promise." Then she stood up, moving away from the world she had known and toward the one that was waiting.

In choosing to leave her friend Zendikar behind, we see a reversal from the person she was at the beginning of this arc. The kindness, gentleness, and ride-or-die loyalty Nissa becomes known for in later stories like Kaladesh is not due to the Magic Story Team altering her characterization; Nissa grows into this kindness, gentleness, and ride-or-die loyalty as a result of what she experiences in the Battle for Zendikar.

Epilogue

If you made it this far, thanks! I started this little project to pass the time while job hunting and didn’t think anyone would be super interested in it, so if you’re getting anything out of this, it means a lot to me!

Next time, I’m probably going to skip Nissa in the Shadows over Innistrad stories (but I’ll reread them throughout the week to see if there’s anything in them worth talking about) and move straight into Kaladesh. There’s even more to say about Nissa in Kaladesh than there is here, so this one will almost certainly take longer than the two weeks I’ve been giving myself between posts. Between the myriad Gruulfriends moments and Nissa’s achingly beautiful friendship with Yahenni, there’s just so much to talk about here…

But thanks again!

References

Beyer, D. (2016). Zendikar’s Last Stand

Digges, K. (2016). Brink of Extinction

Kreines, K. J. (2015). For Zendikar

Kreines, K. J. (2015). Hedron Alignment

Kreines, K. J. (2015). Nissa’s Quest

Kreines, K. J. (2015). The Silent Cry

Magic Story Team (2016). Zendikar Resurgent

Wyatt, J. (2015). Slaughter at the Refuge

#magic the gathering #nissa revane #gatewatch #battle for zendikar #oath of the gatewatch #vorthos #ashaya!!!#media analysis

19 notes · View notes

kdsburneraccount · 7 months

Note

Matt/Julio for the ask game. Thy romantic tragedy of 28-3 shall live on forever.

(Ascends)

Yay i get to talk abt my parents!! Honestly it all started in… oh gosh… November of 2020. I mostly remember finding this Falcoholic article that described their partnership as a “bicycle built for two” and being like “hey that’s kinda gay.” Though now that I think about it I already kind of shipped them a little before that bc they were on the same team and around the same age, I just needed to find actual evidence they had a somewhat deeper than usual relationship outside of being teammates. But that was one of the seeds that kind of planted the ship in my head. I think learning more about their relationship and how it started and evolved made me go “wait this could theoretically work.” And ofc there is the added element of being part of something so tragic (28-3) and still sticking together for a few years despite that. I am unfortunately a sucker for relationships that are doomed by the narrative. Wouldn’t be hard to imagine they’d try to find respite with each other when the rest of the world is so cruel.

Anyways, I really love how chill they both are, like there’s really no drama in their relationship, just a lot of mutual respect from playing together for about a decade of their lives. Opposites attract is cool and all but sometimes two people in sync just hits. They play cards together in the back of the plane on road trips! (Idk how to play cards but good for them) Both are capable of being endearing and silly, outside of being serious vets for the team. It’s just a pleasant dynamic where you can trust the person next to you to help you through thick and thin. And I think that’s amazing.

Unpopular opinion… man I dunno, considering that it is literally me and a few other ppl shipping this 😭 but I saw this one omegaverse fic where Matt was an alpha and Julio was an omega and like… in my opinion Julio would be an alpha and Matt would be a beta. If you want me to elaborate I can 😭 but yeah. 🧍.

#basically in general i don’t see their relationship as having a power imbalance #like they’re very much on the same level for a lot of things #my asks #ship ask game #realizing i should make tags for ships on this blog #i shall get to it #nfl rpf #matt/julio

5 notes · View notes

danpuff-ao3 · 1 year

Text

Slash Podfic Recs

The world needs more podfics! And lucky for you, if you were on the hunt for some, I've found a few you might enjoy!

Narration is an artform all its own (and audio editing?? I don't even wanna think about that, not gonna lie.) Curl up in bed and close your eyes and let someone tell you a story. Or hit that "play" button and have someone keep you company, and entertained, while performing house chores! Listen to a story while on your morning commute.

A variety of ships for you, a variety of lengths. All excellent stories! All I ask is that you please leave some love for these creators if you stop by; podfics get so little traction compared to the written word. And even if all you can manage is a kudo, I'm sure it would be so very appreciated!

See also: podfics of my fics, Snarry podfics, and Femslash podfics.

Danse Macabre

written by doshu, narrated by Aspen_Gray. Harry/Tom. Rated M. 2 hours, 45 minutes. Angst. Non-linear narrative. Sad ending.

A last dance. A cold comfort against the inevitability of death.

Harry’s danse macabre began with Tom Riddle in the Chamber of Secrets. It only took him six years to notice.

Theft of Assets, Destruction of Property

written by Helenish, narrated by EosRose. Draco/Neville. Rated E. 3 hours.

Surely it is a mistake to allow a single youthful indiscretion to cloud an already promising career.

An Ode to the Loose and Wrinkly

written by RoozetteR, narrated by fire_juggler. Charlie/Severus. Rated E. 13 minutes.

Before Harry is brought to Grimmauld Place the summer before fifth year, Charlie sneaks away to the Burrow and blows Severus. That is all.

Of Comets and Counter-curses

written by Woldy, narrated by fire_juggler. Remus/Sirius. Rated T. 44 minutes. Traveling. Motorbike.

If the past is a foreign country, can travel help to resolve a troubled history? Dumbledore assigns Remus and Sirius a mission to explore three European cities, or perhaps to find each other. Written for the 2008 RS Games as part of Team Post-Hogwarts using the prompt 'Brothers on a Hotel Bed (Death Cab for Cutie)'.

Sympathy for the Devil

written by Writcraft, narrated by fire_juggler. Harry/Scorpius. Rated M. 40 minutes.

Scorpius has wanted Harry for years. So far, Harry has managed to resist. This Halloween Scorpius hopes to change his mind.

Never Unseen

written by HogwartsToAlexandria, narrated by JocundaSykes. Kingsley/Severus. Rated T. 12 minutes.

Saying he'd hoped the day Severus let him help would come would be overstating the facts, but Kingsley certainly was glad he'd been around the night the other man needed his help more than he needed his pride.

The Once and Future Headmaster

written by allthingsmagical, narrated by JocundaSykes. Albus/Harry. Rated T. 2 hours.

Never has there been a more hopeless crush.

Colourblind

written by Someone_aka_me, narrated by Lady Ravenclaw. Charlie/Draco. Rated T. 14 minutes.

"She says the colours will come when he is finally touching the person he is destined to fall in love with. She says that everything will change in the matter of a single moment." He is fourteen when the world goes sideways.

Slithering

written by astolat, narrated by Lazulus. Draco/Harry. Rated E. 2 hours, 30 minutes. Courtship. Snakes.

Draco found the nest down in the Manor’s cellars, while he was clearing them out.

Paranoia and Puns

written by You_Light_the_Sky, narrated by RuneLore. Cedric/Harry. Rated T. 1 hour, 20 minutes.

Harry makes three rules in order to survive his fourth year: 1) Watch the new DADA professor like a hawk, 2) Suspect all animals of being animagi, and 3) Avoid Cedric Diggory at all costs.

It's a shame Diggory didn't get the memo.

The Secret Language of Plants

written by Endrina, narrated by sephonered. Series. Remus/Severus; Draco/Harry. Rated E. Part 1: 3+ hours; Part 2: 7+ hours; Part 3: WIP.

“Just… tell me. Tell me what is going on, Snape.” What was going on was that Severus Snape had no trouble tracking down one Petunia Evans, now Dursley, to a little town in Surrey where he saw how exactly she was treating her nephew. Which somehow led to last night and Severus knocking on Lupin’s door with a toddler half-asleep in his arms.

Divination

written by smilebackwards, narrated by sisi_rambles. James/Regulus; James/Lily. Rated T. 8 minutes. Second POV. Sad ending.

Mars is bright.

Only One Word

written by EntreNous, narrated by smirkingcat. Draco/Remus. Rated E. 1 hour. Daddy kink.

Remus worries far too much what Draco thinks of the differences between them, until he discovers what Draco truly thinks.

Shall we descend once more, my Hades

written by megyal, narrated by smirkingcat. Draco/Severus. Rated E. 1 hour, 30 minutes.

[From the request: Later schoolyears, possibly seventh year | In return for killing Voldemort, Draco is given to Snape, to become his concubine. (Prompt: The Myth of Persephone)

#danpuff recs #podfics #tomarry #drarry #dreville #wolfstar #cedarry #snupin #dremus #scarry #rare pairs

27 notes · View notes