im on some disastrously poignant bullshit right now
i just downloaded 1100+ pages of my fave haikyuu boys and am printing them in two phat ass volumes
it comprises (nearly) every single page that feature kuroo, kenma, bokuto, and akaashi. The panels that weren’t relevant enough to keep made it on the back covers lol. The spines are nearly an inch and a half thick
all for less than $40. kachow
ill upload the pdfs, pngs, and a little tutorial soon for anyone interested 💗
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I know you said you need to stop screaming first but I am EAGERLY awaiting your thoughts on Essek in the teaser
OKAY OKAY HERE GOES.
The thing is, there's no real reason to include him.
Yes, he's very popular, but he has never historically been included as a default, validly! He occupies a very interesting space mechanically and narratively, but he is still not a PC. Yes, he's part of the Mighty Nein as a group, per canon, but not until the end, which in theory would be well beyond the first season, and so is Cad, who is not present in this teaser—presumably to preserve the mystery around [INSERT MAJOR SPOILER WARNING HERE].
I would imagine that Cad is not present because having Taliesin's voice twice is too much of a tipoff for anyone watching LoVM but not the campaigns, whereas simply having Matt voice someone is not.
HOWEVER.
There are a decent number of lines that you could choose for Essek that are about the Nein—personally, my favorite, that I've thought previously would make a really stellar trailer line, is from 124: "You certainly carve a unique destiny, don't you?" Everything down to the way Matt delivers it (which you can see here) would make it a really viable option.
But the line they went with isn't about the Nein—it's very much a line about Essek himself. "I want to unlock these mysteries. I want to dive as deep as I can into that ocean of the unknown and see what is possible." It's a line that is very specific to Essek and his actions and goals, even beyond his involvement with the Nein.
And it's placed in the middle of the pack, which frames him on the same level as the rest of the Nein! Someone who is not familiar with the campaign would hear that as simply another protagonist. But of course, he's not—unless there is some serious restructuring (more even than the restructuring present in LoVM, which, aside from introducing a few of the initial less plot-bearing aspects later, like the Slayer's Take, it's thus far structured in order), he won't come into the show for quite some time, and almost certainly not in the first season.
But we don't really have any idea how this show will be structured. There are different comments on the beginning from different sources; notably, Gizmodo mentions Calianna being present in some way initially, while no one else does. The logline most outlets are reporting revolves the Nein "prevent[ing] the kingdom from plunging into chaos when an arcane artifact capable of reshaping reality falls into the wrong hands," presumably the beacon (my beloved).
So it makes sense to mention Essek, for, you know, the obvious reasons, as comment on the beacon itself. (I'm going to guess they're simplifying it to one beacon, per the press release, for ease lol.) But this line, while about dunamancy as a whole and the powers of the beacon, is not about it directly. It's still about Essek's interest in it. It is an excellent line, and on its face, it has nothing to do with the Nein or the plot of the first fifty episodes of the campaign.
There's plenty of speculation to be done about how this might be structured, and I'm sure I'll do plenty of it because, let's be honest, I do not shut up about adaptation and translating stories between formats, it is one of my absolute favorite subjects, and this is the Nein, babey!!!
So my point here being: I think there is a lot of room with the nature of Wildemount politics to get a little wild with structure in the translation from D&D game to TV show that, while not impossible in LoVM, wouldn't really have added anything to the story, and honestly, might've taken away from it. Because the point is to watch Vox Machina become the big damn heroes! We do see tidbits of Brimscythe and the Briarwoods beyond the purview of the heroes, but mostly in ways that feel very '80s cartoon villain cameo' which fits the feel of the show perfectly.
But there are a lot of political players and forces in Wildemount that the Nein navigate whether they're aware of them or not, one of whom of course becomes a member of their party, and that's part of what makes their story so interesting. The Nein are the heroes that no one knows, who are always playing within and against the system and are hyper aware of that, and I think expanding how much of that we get to see now that the format allows for it (not necessarily a lot, not to the point of adding whole plotlines, but at least some of it) would only add to the tension and stakes, and Essek's presence in the trailer makes me wonder if they will.
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