#insane that this happened to him twice

[cyndaquillt]

Who the hell looks at a homicidal 21 yo and thinks "Yeah, you are fit to adopt a 14 yo"

[essektheylyss]

One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.

(Buckle in. This is a long one.)

In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.

As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.

Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.

This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.

I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.

But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.

So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.

But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.

But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.

It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.

He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)

So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.

But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.

(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)

[cogcltrcorn]

godric true blood is such an insane character because it's like well what if a teenage gaul in first century ad was abducted by roman vampires and made puer delicatus and then he was turned into a vampire and then he killed his sire and then ran away into the fucking woods and spent the next millennium as a violent and wild thing that follows only the whims of its own hunger and curiosity. and what if next time we see him in the 21st century he's bored to the point of suicidality. and what if he also definitely fucked alexander skarsgard

[petite-phthora]

Oh, he’s stupid.

[DP x DC fic]

[Love at first... murder? - part 4]

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Part 1

Ao3

---

“THAT CLOWN I PUNCHED WAS THE JOKER?!”

The frenzied question stuns Jason for a moment.

Oh. He realizes. He’s stupid.

...

Fuck, he wants to kiss him so bad.

Slightly incredulous, he manages to get out a question of his own in response.

“Just how many insane clowns do you think we have wandering around Gotham?”

“I don’t know, man! I’ve only been here for less than a week. And it’s Gotham, there’s a new rogue like every other week!”

Jason considers his point for a moment before conceding.

“… You know what? That’s fair.”

Danny slumps in his chair with a groan, his cheeks slightly dusted pink due to embarrassment. He puts his forehead on the table. Slightly worried, Jason speaks up.

“Are you alright?”

“Just peachy. Not even a week in a new city and I already managed to dispose of one of the city’s most infamous rogues, and I wasn’t even aware of it. Ugh, my sister’s gonna kill me. Fully this time.”

Right. Jason’s not gonna touch upon that last statement with a ten-foot pole.

Instead, he suggests “Well, you could try to keep it from her but, knowing how siblings can be, she’ll probably find out anyway. Better rip off the metaphorical band-aid and tell her yourself first so she’ll be less mad about you keeping it from her.”

Danny seems to think it over for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah, if I tell her beforehand she might be merciful enough to make it painless.”

Jason lets out a snort. He then considers something before speaking up.

“I could… show you around sometime if you’d like? Explain some standard protocols, show you which places to avoid, which places to visit… So something like this doesn’t happen again…?”

“I’d… like that” Danny days, looking up at him with a small smile.

“So…” Jason decides to switch topics “Tell me some more about yourself, you’re studying aerospace engineering, right?”

Danny decides it’s better not to ask how Red Hood found out all this information about him. If he were in any danger from the other, he probably wouldn’t have gotten flowers or been taken out to dinner anyway.

“Oh, yeah! When I was little I actually wanted to be an astronaut, but due to health reasons, that’s unfortunately not possible anymore. So instead, I decided to combine my mechanical engineering knowledge with my love for space. This way, I might still be able to land a job at NASA.”

Jason ponders over the possibility of sneaking Danny onto the watchtower.

They get interrupted by a waiter approaching their table, nervously asking if they’d like to order dessert.

“Oh, I’ll have some cannoli please!” Danny says.

Ah, a man after his own heart.

---

When they get to the observatory, Jason already notices Danny’s excitement growing the closer they get.

He managed to rent the place out for tonight, not having been in the mood for a tour or something. Besides, if he really wanted to know more about the stars, he’s pretty sure his date Danny’s got that covered for him.

“Over there you can see Ursa Major and Ursa Minor! They’re also known as The Big and Little Dipper, and are some of the easiest constellations to spot, mainly due to their pan shape. Though, the Big Dipper isn't the entire constellation, but actually only a part of Ursa Major, just the tail.”

Danny had started to tell him about the different constellations they should be able to see at this time of the year, using the telescope to navigate towards them and then letting Jason take a look while he tells him all about what they’re looking at.

“Oh! And there’s Hydra! While some parts of the constellation are visible for about half of the year, around this time of year the full constellation should be visible! It is both the largest and longest constellation.”

Danny seems to be practically glowing.

Wait, scratch that. Danny is glowing.

Jason takes a good look at Danny while he’s rambling. Not only does he seem to be emitting a soft glow, but his hair is also slowly starting to float as if he’s underwater. It looks like his meta powers are probably acting up.

Moreover, his freckles, which were very faint before, are now glowing a bright and familiar Lazarus green, which Jason finds mildly concerning. But also… kinda cute…

He tenses a little, keeping a wary eye on Danny, before slowly relaxing as he notices Danny is still excitedly going on about the Hydra constellation.

“Did you know Hydra is also often referred to as The Water Snake? The naming is based on the myth where a crow served Apollo a cup of water with a hydra snake in it. Apollo then caught the crow and was so enraged that he threw the cup and the snake into the sky.”

Yeah, no matter the connection Danny might have to the Lazarus Pits. There’s no need to worry about this fucking nerd, Jason notes with a small hint of fondness.

At the end of their little observatory tour, the glow around Danny starts to dim and his hair stops floating. The glowing of his freckles has also started to disappear, though he is still beaming.

Well, he’d call that a successful first date.

---

After their date, Jason brings Danny back to his apartment on his motorcycle. Once they’ve arrived and Danny is about to leave, Jason blurts something out.

“Oh wait! Before you go…”

Danny looks at him questioningly.

“Can I have your number?” he quickly asks, glad that his helmet is obscuring his reddened face.

He watches the way Danny lights up, his cheeks dusted light pink.

“Ah, uh. Sure!” the space nerd stammers.

Jason takes out a pen that he totally hadn’t taken with him just for this occasion and hands it over. Danny takes the pen and pauses, looking Jason in his Red Hood outfit over, before taking a gentle hold of Jason’s hand.

He glances up at Jason with a questioning glance, asking if he’s okay with this. Jason gives him a nod, that he really hopes doesn’t come over as too eager, in return.

Either way, it seems to be enough for Danny, who then proceeds to move down Jason’s glove a bit and write down his number on Jason’s hand.

Once he’s done, he puts the glove back in place and hands the pen back. Danny’s face is red and he’s grinning. Cute… Jason stays silent, not trusting his voice, and nods in thanks.

“So, I’ll uh see you… next time?” He asks, hope lacing his voice.

Again, Jason just nods in response.

“Great! Cool cool cool. Uh, yeah, uh Toodaloo Kangaroo?” He ends his statement with an awkward grin and finger guns, stumbling when he tries to walk backward.

Fuck me.

He watches as Danny rubs the back of his neck sheepishly before waving him goodbye and turning around, making his way into the apartment complex.

Jason keeps his eyes on Danny as he watches him disappear into the building before tugging off his glove and lowering his gaze to the phone number scrawled on his hand.

He swallows as he realizes that oh, he’s in deep.

[mamawasatesttube]

do you ever think about how kon got drugged to the point of inability to think clearly and then enslaved for Two Fucking Months and then we just never mentioned that again? that is, except for when he went back to visit and help out the guys who enslaved and drugged him because he was lonely enough to befriend them after they said oh sowwy we didn't know you were a person uwu. i think about this a normal amount

[rosiesriiveters]

okay but do u ever think about rosie’s crew hearing about him re-upping? do you think he tells them before he asks his CO? do you think they saw it coming? even if they did, did it still scare them? that their dear friend could still die? did they beg him to just go home? to come with them? when they were back home, i wonder how often they thought about him… did they read the newspaper hoping that they wouldn’t find out their fearless leader had died when they should have just dragged him home with them? did their hearts sink when they learned that rosie was shot down in east berlin? they must have truly thought it was over. i hope rosie tracked them down after the war to visit them

[k1ranishf4]

Every time I go through Con O’Neill’s insta story, I lose half of my life like in Minecraft

[andyling]

WAIT GUYS HOLY FUCK I JUST REALIZED SOMETHING

BOTH MARTYN AND BDUBS BOOGEY KILLED TANGO IN LAST LIFE AND NOW IN LIMITED LIFE TANGO’S BOOGEY KILLED BOTH OF THEM 

BRUH I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD THIS SHIT IS SCRIPTED 

[nerosdayinanime]

sabito = dirtbike redneck. you cant convince me otherwise

[martyrbat]

batman and superman vs vampires and werewolves #2

[amelikos]

"Maybe they actually liked their pseudonyms, after all?"

[weezerlvr228]

why he so mysterious…

demur

[anachronistic-falsehood]

literally no hate 2 troy lougferd/lintroller fans but i am absolutely flabbergasted by like 90% of u. like yeah cool idc if ur shipping troy with lint but so many ppl r making incredibly deep posts about lint and troy being in love and helplessly longing for each other and it's like. lint was there for like five minutes where did this come from!!! granted i have not watched eps 4 and 5 yet so if he shows up again thats cool i get it but i saw a post about lint and troy cannibalism and i think you guys are just making your own ocs at this point

[smile-files]

chanukkah night 3: sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts)

(click image for better quality!)

[breadharmskoi]

at this point david tennant pt. 2 electric boogaloo is the fourteenth doctor and ncuti gatwa is the fifteenth doctor to me. some bullshit i know which better have a good canon explanation but that means fifteen will debut on the 15th series of new who. also 15 is a cooler number than 14 anyway so we stay winning <3

[pompadorbz]

I should make a hc!phil playlist i could cook so fucking hard